IdeasGuy
patreon
The Good Life: Monsters Within (ch. 72)
🕑 Added 2024-12-13 15:59:58 +0000 UTC“Very mysterious, mystery man,” the girl uttered, idly spinning a pistol around a finger as she shifted her position in the rafters, allowing a long braid of blue hair to fall down. “What gave me away? Most people don't know I'm there until… ‘Poow!’” She said, miming taking a shot at me. Her lips twitched when I didn't react, unbothered by the gun.
I didn't need my Room to tell that she was a little off kilter. But it did let me know that she was even more off kilter than she let on - and I didn't think it was because of surprise over getting caught.
Or not solely because of that. I think. The way blue haired girl's emotions spiked seemingly randomly was… interesting, to say the least.
“I wouldn't exactly be a good mystery man if I went around spilling my secrets,” I said, interlocking my fingers, watching as the girl tipped back until she fell from the rafter. With a quick flip, she landed perfectly in the chair in front of me, exactly where Rumi sat seconds before. “Let's just say I keep a close eye on my surroundings. As for you… you're Jinx, right?”
“That's me!” Jinx confirmed, tilting her head back and forth. “And you're the savior of the Lanes! The Topsider with a heart of gold that just weeps for every unfortunate soul in the Undercity! Allegedly.” She tacked on, trying to appear equally unbothered by my lack of a reaction to her presence.
Trying to. Did I hurt her pride?
“Allegedly,” I agreed with a smile. I had never met her before, but Yoruichi had put her on my radar. The heir apparent of the criminal empire in the Undercity. Honestly, hearing about all of what went on down there made me wish that I could play gangster again. This Silco character sounded way more impressive than the last kingpin I deposed.
“Couldn't help but overhear that you and the missus are on the outs,” Jinx noted, spinning slowly in my chair. I was pretty sure she was doing that to buy time to get her shit together. Since I wanted to hear what she had to say I decided to help her out.
Fighting the urge to make her worse and see what happened all the while.
“Weren't ever really on the ins,” I admitted, playing around with a few ideas on how to handle this. “It’s an alliance of convenience that was always going to end one way.”
“You don't sound too bothered by that, huh? That why you were creepin’ on bunny girl?”
“Nah -- it's going to sound bad, but Rumi is in denial. She's a hedonist at heart that thinks what she enjoys is smashing in the faces of bad guys. Truth is, she just likes smashing faces.” I said, and Jinx nodded along as the chair slowed to a stop, her emotions… not quite stabilizing, but better than they were.
She pursed her lips, “Yup. That does sound bad,” she agreed, earning an unbothered shrug. “So, the reason she's not smashing your pelvis, by your estimation, is because you fall into the bad guy category?”
“More or less,” I agreed, my smile growing a fraction as I sensed her interest grow a little. Getting a good look at her, I saw her emotions were still a jumbled up mess. She felt fast and harshly, capable of swinging from the highest of highs to the lowest of lows with but a thought and a word. “And, I'm guessing the reason why you're here is because Silco guessed that I might.”
“Huh. You are smart,” Jinx remarked with a tilt of her head, realizing that the newspapers weren’t wrong on that account. “And, yeah, more or less. Silco noticed a bit of tension between you and Asami, and he wanted to talk to ya’ about changing dance partners. Gotta warn ya though, Silco isn't as easy on the eyes.”
I was getting felt for mob connections? That was a first. “Sounds amusing.”
“Oh? Here I thought I was gonna have ta’ kidnap ya’!” Jinx admitted with a grin, hopping out of my chair. “Still could, if you want? You've been putting a lot of effort into that squeaky clean image of yours and associating with the likes of us could stain it.”
“You're vastly overestimating the intelligence of the Enforcers and the Council. They fully buy the whole industrialist act Silco puts on,” I remarked. Asami would know better, though. Rumi was making her own moves, so maybe I could prod Asami into actually doing something. Give her an opportunity to smear me. To prove to the city that I rubbed shoulders with criminals.
Jinx almost tripped on her way out the door, “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” I confirmed with an idle smirk, following along. As I left my office, I felt myself step out of the Room. There was a vague popping sensation as I did so, but the Room remained even as I left it. I still had the awareness of what was within even as I left it behind -- it was the next step in my training that I had been making some headway with.
I was too busy for dedicated training outside of a couple hours here or there. So, now that I could wordlessly create a Room, I trained while I was doing other stuff.
“Can't say I'm too surprised -- bunch of suckers, the lot of them. Too busy smelling roses to smell the shit they're planted in,” Jinx said. “I suppose that's how they missed that connection between you and four eyes, huh? What's the story there?”
“Sukuna? We're friends,” I said, waving bye to Tanya, who was watching Jinx with a look of utmost suspicion. She really was a cutie pie.
Jinx glanced at me with a cocked eyebrow as we meandered across the bridge, “Cannibalism isn't a deal breaker for you?”
“Why would it be? Everyone needs a hobby. And Sukuna doesn't consider it cannibalism -- something something, all are inferior to him, something something, people are just cattle to him, something something.” I explained, trying to recall what he had said, but I had been a little sidetracked by the idea of the Culling Game and had been in a bikers high from the fight.
Jinx blinked before she smiled, “That's one way to look at it, I guess. Be careful, though -- if you get any more open minded, your head is going to pop right open.” She noted, punching me in the shoulder before walking to the edge overlooking one of the fissures the Undercity was built in. “Try following me!”
With that, Jinx threw herself over the edge and I watched as she gracefully flipped and leaped between buildings as she steadily descended into the Undercity. She knew how to move, I'd give her that much.
Seemed fun. I didn't exactly have any experience with parkour, but there was always a first time for everything. With little hesitation, I followed her down, ignoring her tried and tested path and instead found my own. With a grin, I cheated, creating a small Room around my body to push me in the direction I wanted to go. When I sailed through the air, falling a good thirty feet, I created another Room to catch myself as I landed, absorbing the impact.
Jinx seemed impressed and decided to pick up the pace, leaving me to follow her down into the depths of the Undercity. I spent more time in Piltover, but the Undercity really did have its own unique charm. A ruggedness that spoke to me.
We landed on a building -- a club called the Last Drop, my Room informed me as Jinx brought me inside. I knew who we were heading towards as she dropped down from a skylight directly into a chair across from a desk and the man behind it. “I got ‘em! Didn't even have to play rough!” Jinx informed as I dropped down into the office, giving it a look over for a moment before my gaze sliding to the man behind the desk.
Silco. Publically an industrialist. But, behind the curtain, he was an infamous criminal kingpin.
“Well, I’ll give you this -- you at least look the part,” I noted, cocking my head to the side as I looked at the guy. He was on the kean side, wine red dress shirt under a black vest. His dark hair was pushed back, clean shaven, and he made no effort at all to hide the gnarly scar on one side of his face. A glowing orange eye with a shattered iris sat in a pool of black, the scarred flesh around the eye an unhealthy pale gray.
Wilson Fist, the last kingpin I dealt with, looked so damn mundane. So, this was already a vast improvement.
“I suppose I can say the same, the boy savior of Zaun,” Silco said, sitting up straighter as he cast Jinx a look that told me he would have preferred a little more heads up. His tone wasn't exactly mocking, but it sure was dismissive. “You've been rather busy these past few months. Enough so to earn my… undivided attention.”
My lips twitched. “Oh. That so? Suppose I should be honored, then,” I said, crossing the room and taking a seat next to Jinx. She was watching me, her pupils bouncing with a nervous excited energy. I didn't even need the Room to tell me that she was… excited that I wasn't afraid.
I imagine most people were afraid of Silco. The eye was a good start, but it was how he carried himself. How he spoke with a low smooth voice that carried a callous disinterest.
Just as I was getting the measure of him, he was sizing me up just as much. Noting my confidence and my complete absence of fear. How I wore an easy smile effortlessly when, technically, I was surrounded and while I had chosen to accept the invitation, there was a clear implication that the ‘invite’ was a formality. “So. What are we going to talk about?” I prodded, crossing my legs and leaning into the chair.
Silco held my gaze for a moment, glancing at Jinx when she let out a quiet giggle at the tension that he was trying to foster. “The Hexgate,” Silco began, his tone decidedly even.
No surprise there. “The Hexgate,” I agreed, already knowing what he wanted. And he knew that I knew.
All the same, he continued, “You came too late to get on the ground floor of its creation. However, you have been leveraging your innovations to take advantage of the surge in trade, making up for lost ground.”
“I have,” I agreed easily. If I wanted to get in on the ground floor of the Hexgate, then I would have needed to arrive in this world years earlier. The winners were already picked out before the Hexgate had begun construction. But, a rising tide lifts all ships and I used that wave to climb high. “And you're hoping my sympathies for the plight of the Undercity will help put you in the race, hm?”
Silco held my gaze for a moment before he reached into a cigar case and went through the motions of cutting it, lighting it, then breathing in a cloud of smoke to drag out the silence. “Zaun,” He uttered and I cocked an eyebrow. “There is no Undercity. There is the nation of Zaun.”
… Huh.
“And here we go…” Jinx muttered under her breath, giving me an exaggerated roll of her eyes. Silco ignored her, pinning me with a cold look.
“I brought you here to see if you would use your influence and position to help all of Zaun,” Silco continued as if she hadn't said anything. “Our people deserve more than the scraps that Piltover decides to toss our way.”
Looks like Silco had taken the bait and the false background I gave myself -- that I was from the Undercity- Zaun, as he called it. Being a local would make sure that I wasn't treated as an outsider, but it also gave the people looking into my past a secret that they thought I cared to keep hidden. People always revealed their hand when they thought they were in a winning position, after all. I would know that better than most.
“And you need me for that?” I questioned, giving nothing away.
“No one likes a rising star. None more so than the stars already in the night’s sky,” Silco replied. “Doubly so for those that come out of Zaun. The Council, Merchant Guild, and various associations have a… vested interest in keeping Zaun in its place. They ensure that doors remain closed in our faces.”
Huh. Huh. I didn't expect this.
I figured Silco would be some blowhard kingpin making sure that he was king of the hill. That wasn't the case, I think. There was more to him than meets the eye.
“We are in a position to help one another,” Silco continued, rolling the cigar between his fingers. “I’m aware that the Council has blocked your attempts to build a fusion reactor. Out of fear that it would disrupt the fissure mining sector, a business that has poisoned our air.” He said, making a gesture to Jinx, and she offered me a vaguely apologetic look for a moment before she flipped out of her chair. I spared her a glance, noting that she was approaching an air canister and a stack of masks. “The Gray. A problem that Piltover created, then patted themselves on the back for solving.”
There was a hiss that filled the room as Jinx unscrewed the canister, filling the air with what amounted to poison.
A slow smile spread across my lips as I made a show of taking in a deep breath, carefully keeping that poison away from me with my Room. A flicker of emotion showed in Silco’s eyes at that, seemingly impressed as he thought the air didn’t bother me. Oh, it absolutely would. I could feel it coiling in the room, less like a gas and more like vicious smoke -- A single whiff of that would have me doubled over and coughing up a lung.
Which made it a little intimidating that Silco was breathing it in without a care in the world. Jinx wore a mask, toying with another in her hands.
“Damn,” I started, breathing normally. “I’m in danger of liking you, Silco. You got style. Sorry for messing up the whole carrot and stick approach,” I said, offering a shrug. I wasn’t sorry enough to breathe that crap in, though. The whole display was to put me on the back foot, scare me, and make the negotiations a lot more complicated when I was in pain. Objectively a dick move, but a gangster one.
“Hm,” Silco hummed, tilting his head to me. “Then you have my apologies for the attempt. It seems to be entirely unnecessary,” he returned. “Most of our people have forgotten the worst of it. They forget the years- the decades, of suffering as Piltover rejected any evidence of their creation. How they sabotaged our attempts to grant ourselves clean air. Every right that Zaun has is because we took it from Piltover and its Council, fighting tooth and nail for what they saw fit to deny us. And this business with the Hexgate is no different.”
And we looped around to the topic at hand with a much better understanding of each other.
“I’d be happy to help,” I admitted, knowing that I was locking myself into a path. I didn’t mind. I had rapidly warmed up to Silco and I was interested to see what he would do with my helping hand. “On both accounts -- a fusion reactor in Zaun would meet its energy demands ten times over, making it completely independent from Piltover, at least on that account. So, don’t go acting like you were doing me a favor helping me build it.”
Silco offered a thin smile, “I wouldn’t dream of it.” He lied like a lying liar. “You seem to have an idea of what you would like to receive as… compensation,” he said, releasing a cloud of smoke.
This was good for me. Silco would enable me to build my fusion reactor on the down low, which in turn would radically increase our power production. Meaning that we could make more Dias trips at the very least. It’d also give me a native ally that I could use against Asami within the city with connections that she didn’t. Likewise, Silco would use his long-entrenched influence to open a few windows for me to help increase my profit margins.
But, above all else, I was mostly interested to see how far he could take this.
“Shimmer,” I answered without a moment of hesitation. “Or, rather, the man behind its creation. Shimmer has some really interesting properties that I intend to explore, and rather than starting from scratch, it’d go a long way if I had the creator helping things along.” Shaun and the Institute were working on combining Compound V, FEV, and Shimmer but I was admittedly hoping to speed things up a bit.
Shaun was confident that Shimmer had the key to our goal of combining the three. Yet, at the same time, they were three reagents that radically altered the body and it was an uphill fight to get them to play together. They’d get there eventually, but fact of the matter what they were learning from scratch when it came to Shimmer and how it worked. An expert would move things along.
Silco didn’t react to my request, simply buying himself a moment to think by puffing his cigar. “And what exactly are your plans for Shimmer?”
“Bit rude to ask that on the first date,” I remarked. I might have warmed up to Silco a bit, but that didn't mean I was going to show my hand.
He inclined his head to me, accepting the answer for what it was. He wouldn't exactly open up about his grand plans if I asked either. “I can arrange a meeting,” he uttered, making no promises. Not that I expected any. He set the cigar down and stood up, offering a hand and when I clasped it, I noticed his hand was cold. “I look forward to working with you, Mr. Trafalgar.”
“Right back at ya’. Feels like the start of some fun times,” I acknowledged, giving his hand a firm shake with a small inclination of my head. I meant it too.
It would have been so damn boring if Silco was just another kingpin. But he was more than that. He was something I had encountered so very rarely in my time as a villain.
Silco was a genuine patriot. I didn't doubt for a second that if Zaun had a pledge of allegiance, he'd say it every morning upon waking up and every night before bed. I would need to see how deep that patriotism ran, but at the very least, he had convinced me that he wasn't the type to yap about the ‘greater good’ and mean his bottom line.
“He liked you,” Jinx noted, sounding surprised as we left the office through the front door. Our departure was noted, but everyone in the bar seemed to be in Silco's pocket. “That's a first.”
“I'd say him liking me is a bit of a stretch. When I put Zaun on its own independent power grid, while simultaneously putting it in position to turn off Piltover's lights -- then he'll like me,” I pointed out. Piltover had its own independent power generation, but the bulk of it was tied to fissure mining. Zaun goes on strike and it won't be them that has to scramble to keep the lights on.
“When we build the fusion reactor,” Jinx corrected as we walked. She drew eyes everywhere we went. A known quality.
I shrugged, “We then. Sure,” I agreed easily, glancing at Jinx from the corner of my eye. She caught my glance and smirked.
“You aren't the only one with a brain down here, chum. Give me some blueprints, and I can figure it out while you're off playing with the Pilties,” she said, absolute confidence in her voice. It was enough to convince me she was being serious, and that was another factor to consider.
Or, rather, it made me reflect on something I had already considered but didn't have an answer to.
When all was said and done, me and Asami were going to go our separate ways. What form that would take was anyone's guess at this point, but the How or When didn't really matter. I had the Institute, a team of hundreds of geniuses, and they still couldn't match Asami. If I told them to build a Dias, it'd be a century before they gave me a proof of concept.
So maybe I should start shopping around for someone with a bit more… tech savvy?
“I'll take your word for it, then. I have the blueprints in my office-” I started, planning to feel her out a bit, only to cut myself off as a… feeling washed through me. It made every hair stand on end, a jolt of lightning racing down my spine…
My gaze snapped in the direction of the source, only to find my view blocked by buildings and bridges. I could only sense the source with my Haki, and despite being miles away, they stood proudly as a lighthouse. Blinding almost.
“Before we pick up the blueprints… how about a show?” I asked suddenly, offering an arm to Jinx. She looked down at it, then to me -- there was an emotion in her eyes that I couldn't read, not without a Room, and I was too distracted by the presence to make one. However, that look gave way to amusement as she threw on a smirk and draped her arm around mine.
“Seems like you do know what a lady wants!”
…
“MY NAME!” Sukuna heard a woman roar into the Pit, unleashing a wave of intensity that swept over the inhabitants, and most of them collapsed where they stood. The woman immediately had his full attention, his current experimentation with the ‘soul noodles’ Law had gifted him were utterly forgotten in an instant and he darted to a window to see who exactly had arrived.
She stood at the entrance, a veritable giant even compared to himself. She wore something resembling a shrine maiden’s outfit -- with a large obi around her waist with the sleeves of her outfit missing. Blood red horns jutted out of her mane of white hair, and counting them she broke the nine foot barrier. In one hand, she gripped a kanabo that was longer than most men were tall that she had planted into the ground.
“-IS KOZUKI ODEN!” She continued to yell, hefting up the kanabo and pointing it directly at Sukuna within the Pit. “Bring forth the criminal Sukuna Ryomen to face me!”
Another wave of that… presence swept over the Pit, and the few that had managed to remain standing fell over unconscious like the others. The flesh rose on Sukuna’s body, every hair standing on end. It had been centuries since he felt like this, Sukuna realized, walking forward as the window was diced apart. This was the feeling of standing in the presence of a predator that decided that he was prey.
In an instant, Sukuna landed before the woman and it was a rare thing for him to be forced to look up at someone. Sukuna couldn't have stopped the smile tugging at his lips even if he wanted to, “What a surprise. The city managed to find someone worth my time,” Sukuna noted, that feeling of being considered prey itching at his pride.
This person was strong. Of that, Sukuna had no doubt in his mind.
“Do you intend to resist?” Kozuki Oden questioned, looking down at him with an animosity that almost seemed personal. Had he killed a friend of hers or something?
“Was there ever a doubt about that?” Sukuna asked, his smile growing a fraction as the sharp oppressive feeling grew around him until the air was buzzing with it. It was a physical force, not something he just imagined as the half rotted wood around them began to buckle under the invisible pressure. “Who sent you?”
“That,” Oden uttered with a sense of finality, “isn't your concern!”
“Heh,” Sukuna chuckled before both of them launched into action. There wasn't a point in wasting any more words.
Sukuna leaned out of the way of the kanabo that nearly took his head off, gesturing with two of his hands on one side, aiming a Dismantle at her abdomen, only to find that Oden was in the process of dodging before he could make the attack, causing the Dismantle to fly by her harmlessly. His eyes narrowed ever so slightly, the sensation familiar as he closed in, the hands on his other side clenching into fists.
Oden responded by jerking the kanabo back, pivoting it so it threw off the aim to both of his punches before she lashed out with a fist of her own.
Sukuna had the edge in speed, just as he did against Law, but that edge was blunted by the fact that she already seemed to know his next move before it arrived. It made her counters perfect. It made her dodges perfect, and if she couldn't dodge, then it allowed her to reduce the damage as best as she could. It was an irritating ability, Sukuna decided -- vastly more so than with Law because, physically speaking, Law was firmly within human limitations.
However, he has already seen that ability and knew exactly how to deal with it.
Sukuna took a step forward, dodging the fist by first countering with an upper arm while the lower went to deliver a Cleave to her liver. Oden reacted as Sukuna anticipated, taking a half step back as she grabbed hold of the kanabo with both hands to deliver a devastating swing.
With a lower hand on his left side, he placed a hand on the hilt of the kanabo as she brought it up for a swing, stalling it's momentum as he lashed out with his other three arms -- He threw a Dismantle at her head, punched a Cleave into her heart, then delivered a regular punch into her kidney.
Of the attacks, only the kidney shot landed before Oden overpowered his delaying tactic, lifting the kanabo high before swinging down. Sukuna threw himself back out of instinct and the moment the kanabo struck the ground, it was as if an earthquake had struck. The ground buckled, sending up a huge wave of dust and rubble with a shockwave bouncing around the Pit that made every cobbled together building tremble.
If that hit him in the wrong place, Sukuna would die. He felt it in his bones without a shadow of a doubt in his mind.
Amidst the dust, Sukuna caught a flash of light and the scent of ozone a split second before Oden launched herself forth. She was fast. Very fast. Just not faster than him, Sukuna noted as they clashed again in a blur of attacks and counters. But he couldn't hope to match her in a contest of strength. What's more…
Sukuna delivered a Cleave to Oden's abdomen, seizing on an opening that Oden gave him to complete a swing with the kanabo cackling with an aura of lightning. The blow landed solidly, a swath of her kimono vest was cut away, yet her side hardly exploded into bloody chunks like he expected. A grid pattern formed on her pale flesh, blood seeping from the wounds, but it was little more than a scratch.
It wasn't just that she was doing that weird thing where his attacks didn't do the damage that they should. He noticed the same effect against Law, and he saw enough to know that it wasn't just that. Oden's body was denser. Harder. Even at half of his true power, he had never encountered anyone or anything that treated his Cleave as nothing more than a mild irritation.
Oden accepted the blow to deliver one of her own, taking a swing at Sukuna that he had been prepared to block, attempting to cut up the kanabo to deprive her of a weapon. Only a split second later, he found himself smashing through the houses that his cult had so diligently built, reducing months of effort to rubble.
Every bone in his arms had been shattered, as were his ribs and sternum. Organs were ruptured and his flesh had been scorched where the lightning had struck. It was nothing that RCT couldn't fix, but it confirmed his theory that he couldn't afford a blow to the head.
“I know you're still in there! Come out and fight!” Oden demanded as Sukuna frowned, shifting the rubble off of him.
He didn't feel like he was losing this fight, but it didn't really feel like he was winning either. As it stood, he could win by a thousand cuts -- tricking that precognitive ability into accepting less damaging attacks that would slowly build up over time while he avoided the worst of her blows.
“I'm disappointed,” Sukuna decided, emerging from the rubble. “Your talent doesn't match your strength.”
“What's that supposed to mean?” Oden demanded hotly, the remark getting under her skin.
How should he put it? “Your skills betray your inexperience. You're used to either completely overwhelming your opponent, or fighting someone vastly superior,” Sukuna noted, crossing his arms. It was a common flaw in those that were born with superior strength. A hole in their abilities that wasn't entirely their fault -- there just weren't enough people that could fight at a similar level to give the experience needed to even recognize the lack of experience.
And, based on her expression, he was right on the mark there. Oden’s expression pinched and her grip on her weapon tightened. That Haki stuff really was a pain in the ass -- his Dismantle did about as much damage to the weapon as his Cleave did to her. How irritating. He simply lacked the raw power necessary for his attacks to be any more than an annoyance.
Though, that didn't mean he couldn't win.
“Let's see how you do under pressure,” Sukuna decided, his smirk adopting a cruel edge to it as someone else crawled out of the rubble. With a low groan, a chunk of stone was pushed off, revealing Edmundo.
He was of even height with Oden, though about twice as wide. His flesh had darkened into a deep, almost black, purple while the few scrapes bleed pink blood. He was a walking mass of powerful muscle finally unleashed from his restraints.
He had a dull, almost blank look in his eyes. The amount of Shimmer he had been forced to absorb had some side effects on his intellect, it seemed. Hardly an issue. “Mundo,” Sukuna uttered, pointing at Oden. “Attack.”
“Mundo obey!” Edmundo yelled, and with a shocking burst of speed, he launched himself at Oden. The two crashed with explosive force, tearing through the pit as Mundo threw wild punches that devastated nearly everything they touched. With the exception, of course, being Oden herself.
Sukuna let out a low whistle, realizing that Oden wasn't just able to meet Edmundo blow for blow in terms of strength -- she was still vastly his superior. He watched as Oden struck back, hitting Edmundo with her weapon with bone shattering force, pulverizing flesh that tore under the raw power behind the blow. Yet, it hardly mattered.
Edmundo's true strength wasn't his power or speed. It was his regeneration. Faster than even what Sukuna could accomplish with RCT, Edmudo restored his shattered body almost as swiftly as it had been broken. Some wounds were healed so swiftly that the only thing in the way of healing faster was the weapon hadn't yet been pulled back from delivering the injury in the first place.
But, at the same time, it was only his regeneration that kept him in the fight. Oden was stronger and with Haki, Edmundo's wild swings never had a hope to connect. Sukuna didn't need them to. Not when Edmundo was just a distraction.
“Fuga…” Sukuna uttered, flames licking at his fingers as he brought forth the Divine Flame. At half strength, he was going to have to pull out all the stops. With four hands moving in sync, he spoke with both of his mouths. “Cleansing flames. Heat of annihilation. Comforting warmth. Destruction made manifest. Duality. Salvation and devastation offered with the same hand.” He chanted, going through every step to increase the power of his attack.
As he did, he layered on binding vows. The Divine Fire could only burn Oden. He would sacrifice his experience with the Divine Flame for a raw increase in power. He could not move from where he stood in exchange for an increase in speed. The Divine Arrow would seek Oden in exchange for his Domain.
For another, the attack would be ruinous. It would completely destroy the potential the sorcerer had, trading their future for a single attack. Sukuns felt his knowledge of his Domain slip away, as did his experience with how his Divine Flames functioned. It didn't matter. With his understanding of cursed energy, they were but a thought exercise away from being reclaimed.
The ground was scorched, stone becoming magma from the heat and with the shape of the Pit, that heat was trapped with them. Oden noticed swiftly, but her options were limited. Her eyes widened and Sukuna saw something shift with her -- her canines began to grow, her gaze took a blue tint while frost began to form around her shoulders as a mantle.
Sukuna grinned as he let loose the Divine Arrow and it raced for Oden at high speeds. Oden roared in defiance, racing to meet the Arrow, completely unafraid of it.
Which is why both of them were surprised when Oden seemed to sink into the ground like she wasn't tangible, vanishing beneath the stone that proved to be solid as the Divine Flame struck it and ignited. Because of the binding vows, there was no devastation to speak of, not even scorched earth in the spot where Oden vanished.
Frowning, he walked over to the spot and stamped a foot down, finding that it was solid earth. Then he carved it away, going down a dozen feet to find nothing but bedrock.
His fight was cut short, Sukuna realized with no small amount of displeasure. Someone had interfered with his fight right at the climax of it.
He didn't know who they were or where they ran off too… but one way or another, Sukuna vowed that they'd pay for this.
Comments
Jay
The Law and Jinx dynamic is so good so far man… Hoping Law can recruit another one of a kind genius engineer that fits his world view more than Asami
Readm
I don't remember Yamamoto being one of our initial Companion picks and I also can't find the posts where we listed them all could you reshare it
