The Red Hand

Chapter 69 – The Chain Loosens.

Akagi was alerted when the protection she'd placed on the girls was broken and immediately went to check what had happened. One barrier being broken was alarming, but three simultaneously was not good. After stepping through her portal and seeing a burnt and unconscious Kana, she could literally feel something break in her mind.

"KANA!" Akagi screamed, and her voice distorted. In a flash, she moved to her sister's side and checked on her condition, breathing a sigh of relief that she was still alive. She was hurt, burned and unconscious but alive. Though, that was little comfort for Akagi.

"Huh?" Sumeralia wasn't expecting to see Akagi. "Where did she come from?" She basically appeared out of thin air, so the harpy was a bit confused.

Hijax took a better look at the three girls and stroked his chin, thinking "Hey, if I'm not mistaken, that girl is her younger sister, isn't she?" Hijax pointed to Kana. "Too bad you didn't kill her."

The harpy looked at the girls and again and recognized them from the news. "Ha!" Sumeralia yelled. "Serves you right Akagi! I guess we got lucky that your sister and her little friends were hanging out here today!" She looked at Hijax. "How about this, we beat Akagi until she's within an inch of her life, then tear that precious sister and her two friends from limb to limb right in front of her!" She laughed imagining the horror such a thing would bring to the assassin.

Hijax let out a roar. "Sounds great! It's about time someone showed that bitch she's not the top dog around here!" His face contorted into a nasty smile, he thought Sumeralia's idea sounded nice.

"Yumi," Akagi said as she picked Kana up in her arms. A moment later, the priestess appeared next to her.

"How may I.... help... you..." Her eyes widened as she saw the injured Kana in Akagi's arms as well as the absolutely horrifying aura Akagi was leaking. "Ah...."

"Take these three back to the estate." Akagi's left eye had turned orange and her voice was filled with anger. It distorted to the point that she no longer sounded like herself, she sounded evil. Yumi could tell she was on the brink of losing it and tried to say something to calm her down.

"My Lord, please-" Yumi was cut of before she said could say much.

"NOW! BEFORE I LOSE WHAT LITTLE SENSE OF REASON I HAVE LEFT!" Akagi screamed as she shoved Kana into Yumi's arms. Seeing that her master was in no mood to talk, Yumi nodded and carried the unconscious Kana over to where Naomi and Mika were sitting on the floor. The two were similarly burnt but hadn't been knocked out by the blast, though they were visibly injured.

"Stand next to me. Mimi will treat your burns when we get back." Yumi smiled to make them feel better before looking back at Akagi. "Please, don't lose yourself, My Lord." After she said that, a teleportation circle formed around her and the girls, and, in a flash, they disappeared.

Akagi, for her part, was in no mood to play nice with these two and ignored Yumi's words. These two were going to regret their actions and she was going to make them suffer for daring to harm Kana. Her anger was at the point of boiling, and it felt like she was mere moments away from snapping. Akagi was not a good person, so she had rules that she imposed on herself to, at least, restrain her worst impulses, and these two were about to find out what happened when those chains were allowed to slacken, even just a bit.

Seeing that the girls left, Hijax chuckled.

"That's fine. Let them run. We'll just kill them later anyway." He pointed his giant club at Akagi. "If we take you out, then no one will be able to stand against us anyway, so you being here works out." He figured he and Sumeralia would be more than enough to take down Akagi, something many other fools had thought before she crushed that false notion.

Akagi's mind raced as Hijax gave his little speech. Flashes of anger, rage and every similar emotion burst forward and she was inundated with images of cities burning, people dying and the world ending. It felt like she might completely fall apart as the darkness within welled up and screamed to be let loose. 

*CRACK*

She heard the sound of glass cracking in her mind and it seemed that she would be unable to hold back this tidalwave of anger and hatred which lay within her. Until, just as she was about to be consumed by the power within her, a single image of Yumi on the day she met her all those years ago flashed through her mind. This pulled her back from the brink, as she realized that if she didn't temper her anger, she'd completely lose herself and everything that mattered to her. Akagi backed off the throttle and the darkness began to recede, just a bit. Right now was not the time to confront her inner demons.

Akagi calmed herself, not much, but enough to pull back from the brink. She'd retained control of herself, but something had leaked out, her brief moment of near madness had caused whatever restraints that held her back to weaken. She already felt different, and the power that stirred inside her felt like a great ocean that would burst forward at any moment and swallow her whole. For now, she put these feelings aside and decided to use her new found strength to make Hijax and Sumeralia regret being born.

"Didn't I warn you?" Akagi started to walk towards him as she summoned her blade. "That you are to leave my family out of this little game." Akagi's voice grew louder as black energy leaked from her body. “That I'd stop holding back if you didn't listen?” Her voice grew louder again. "That you don't want to see what lies within the darkness!"

"Hmpf," Hijax scoffed at Akagi's words. "I'm not afraid of you, not like that stupid girl Hishya." Akagi continued to walk closer to him. "Dumb girl was jumping at shadows with you for all those years. Saying how we should leave you alone and not provoke you! Ha! And what was that nonsense about you not being human anyway?" Hijax laughed. "Stupid girl confused reality with the game so hard that you've got her believing your some kind of actual Demon!" Akagi ignored his rambling and stopped in front of him, her face darkened. "But, you're no Demon! You're just a stupid girl who hides in the shadows and thinks she's a badass!" He swung his club down, intending to crush Akagi. “Hiyahh!”

“Hmpf.” Akagi let out a smirk and a small laugh as she swung her blade and sliced Hijax's arm into ribbons. His blood sprayed everywhere, and he let out a scream as his club flew across the room and slammed into the floor. Akagi's face was coated in blood, which she proceeded to lick from her lips before saying. "You know, Hijax." Akagi laughed. "Perhaps I should show you just WHY Hishya is so afraid of me. Muhahahahha." He laughter morphed from normal to demonic, chilling everyone who heard it to the bone.

Hijax looked up at Akagi, holding his arm in pain, and was horrified by what he saw. Behind her was a black shadow with two glowing orange eyes and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth arranged in a twisted smile. It seemed to mimic Akagi's words and movements as it danced behind her. Though it might be better asked, which was mimicking which? Seeing this horrifying sight that came straight out of a nightmare and feeling the sheer weight of Akagi's presence, he screamed at the top of his lungs in horror.

"What the hell is that!" Hijax had never seen this side of Akagi before. Most players hadn't, and the few that had, assumed it was some kind of illusion. Hishya was one of few who understood the truth; that Akagi was a being that shouldn't exist in this world. Ordinarily, she wouldn't unleash her presence as it was too much for people to deal with, and even players wouldn't react well. But, seeing Kana's injured form had caused her to loosen all restraints she'd placed on her abilities, and she wasn't holding back anymore as she allowed her massive presence to crash down on the entire mall. For the first time since the battle of Hassan, Akagi let it all out, and Hijax and Sumeralia were hit with a wave of nausea and were terrified to their cores.

"Ah, there it is. That delicious look of sheer terror that I love." Akagi chuckled at the sheer terror on Hijax's face. Her lips curved into a perverted smile as she took in their terror. "Mortals cowing in fear will never get old."

"Wha-what the hell are you!" Hijax blurted out his question.

"Me?" Akagi wrapped her arms around her body and started giggling. "I'm a Demon!" As she said this, she threw her arms forward, dissolving her body and allowing the darkness to scatter around the room and cover everything. In a few seconds the entire pavilion was black as night and the only things visible were Hijax and Sumeralia, Akagi had disappeared completely.

"What is this?" Sumeralia panicked and launched a fireball into the darkness but it simply traveled forward with no effect until it the darkness engulfed it and snuffed out it's light. "What's going on? Where are we?" She couldn't see anything but the swirling black/purple mist around her and Hijax in the distance.

{Whatever this is has my hair standing on end.} Sumeralia didn't like whatever Akagi was doing. {Since when could Akagi use some crazy ability like this? She can't use illusion magic of this level!}

"Muahahahaha." Akagi's terrible laughter echoed around her. "Where are you? That's easy my little chicken. You're inside of me." More laughter erupted around them, it was deafening as if a cacophony of evil was watching them from the shadows. 

"Inside of you? What are you talking about?" Sumeralia flew over to Hijax, who had regenerated his missing arm. "That makes no sense!"

"Didn't Hishya tell you?" Akagi appeared behind them. "My real body is a shadow. A void of pure darkness." Another Akagi appeared and continued talking. "That form you normally see is a vessel, an illusion, one that I use to interact with the rest of the world since it's much more convenient." Suddenly, more and more Akagis began to appear from the darkness. Soon there were several hundred.

"What the fuck is all this?" Hijax looked around in awe at the army of Akagis standing around them. 

"This? This, is how you die." The Akagi's said in unison, their voice deafening to the two of them. "You had the gall to lay your hands on my sister, to burn her, to cause her harm." All the Akagi's except one disappeared. "And I will accept nothing less than your lives as recompense. So before you die, prepare to experience the worst hell you can imagine. Because there's no escape from in here." Her left eye shone brightly in the darkness.

The two knew they had no hope of winning, they could tell in their very soul that they'd awakened a sleeping monster. A monster that wouldn't stop until they begged for death.

"You, wa-wait, please don't kill me!" Sumeralia unexpectedly tried to bargain for her life. "We had no idea that she was your sister. We... we would never have attacked her if we knew!" She put on a fake smile. "So please forgive me!"

"Yeah, we didn't really want to involve you in this! We were even told not to bother you by Herlex!" Hijax began to sweat. "So please, there's no need for any of this." He was hoping that he could talk his way out of this, but in the back of his mind, he knew Akagi no longer cared about diplomacy.

"Remind me, Sumeralia." Akagi stared directly at her. "What was that about tearing Kana from limb to limb?" Akagi snapped forward, slicing Sumeralia's wing off with a quick strike of her blade, causing the harpy to scream in pain. "Oh, pardon me. I'm not used to this power yet. I was aiming for your arm. Oh well, my mistake. You have so many other parts, so I can try again." Akagi laughed as she flicked her sword and removed the blood.

"AHHHHH!" Sumeralia screamed as she tried to lash out at Akagi with her claws. But before she even got close, her arm was cleanly removed by Akagi's blade. Falling to the ground, Sumeralia screamed in pain as she bled out. "My-my arm!" Akagi wasn't finished with the Harpy, and the evil look on her face told her that much more pain was coming.

“If your looking for it, it's right here.” Akagi bent over and picked up the harpy's arm. “You really should keep an eye on such important things.” She threw it at Sumeralia whacking her on the head with her own arm.

“Why didn't you catch it?” Akagi walked over and picked it up again. “Come on, take it.” Akagi decided that beating Sumeralia with her own severed arm would be funny.

*WACK**WACK* *WACK* *WACK* *WACK*

“You know, I want to say “why are you hitting yourself?" but that would be too easy.” Akagi laughed as she incinerated the arm in her hand.

Sumerlia was bloody, her face bruised and she was missing some teeth.

“Pl-please I'm sorry.” The harpy begged for mercy.

“Sorry for attacking Kana? Or sorry you fucked with the wrong person.” Akagi kicked her in the stomach. “Either way I don't care. I'm going to start ripping you apart, piece by piece until I feel better. So I suggest you prepare yourself.” Akagi cracked her knuckles as she laughed demonically.

Hijax just stood there, completely dumbfounded, and watched as Akagi one by one remove all of Sumeralia's limbs until she was left as little more than a torso bleeding out on the ground, screaming in agony. "Oh no, no, no, no, my little chicken." Akagi placed her hand on Sumeralia's cheek. "You can't go and die on me just yet. That just won't do." Akagi snapped her fingers, and darkness engulfed Sumeralia and covered her wounds. She wasn't healed, but she wouldn't die as long as the dark blobs remained attached to her. "I can't exactly use healing magic. But inside my body, we can bend a few rules." Akagi gave a terrible smile as she then proceeded to torture Sumeralia in a particularly graphic manner. More parts were chopped off, pain was inflicted, and much, much more. Akagi had long since learned the art of torture, and she was a master of the craft.

Hijax couldn't muster the will to move, he just stood and watched as Akagi descended into a blood frenzy as she tore Sumeralia apart. She laughed like a mad woman and her eyes showed pure insanity and she seemed to be enjoying herself greatly.

Inside of Akagi's body, time flowed strangely, and what seemed like an eternity of torment only took a few real-world minutes. But by the end of it, Sumeralia was left little more than a blithering, bleeding mess. "Awwwww, the chicken's already broken?” Akagi seemed disappointed that Sumeralia had already hit her limit. “It hasn't even been that long, where's the fun in it if you break so quickly? Oh well, I've got another toy to play with." Akagi bent down next to Sumeralia. "I might be a Demon, but I am capable of mercy. So I will put you out of your misery now." Akagi drove her blade through Sumeralia's head, killing her instantly. “I guess this chicken never made it across the road.” Akagi laughed at her stupid joke. "Too bad Hishya isn't here, she always has a comment about my bad jokes."

{W-what the fuck is going on?!?} Hijax screamed in his head. {This can't be Akagi! It can't be!}

"Now then," Akagi turned around to look at the terrified visage of Hijax. She was covered in Sumeralia's blood, but her face displayed a warm smile. "The chicken has expired. I hope you'll stick around with me for a little longer, Hijax." She looked down at his freshly regenerated arm. "Let's see what gives out first, your mind or your body. I'm betting your mind, but I'm hoping your body!" Akagi slowly walked towards Hijax, who tried to flee but found himself restrained by the darkness itself. "Didn't I tell you?" Akagi stood over him. "There is no escape." Akagi reached forward towards him.

"No-No, please! Stay back, please NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!" (Hijax)

His screams and Akagi's laughter echoed throughout the darkness. No one, not even Akagi, knew just how long she spent torturing him. But when she reappeared in the mall, she seemed refreshed and she had a bright happy smile on her face.