A river of incomprehensible gibberish streamed past Asher's lips as he flung himself into the maze of alleyways.
His ears only heard frantic, skittering footsteps.
His eyes saw nothing but the path forward.
Some time passed, and he had desynchronized with Little Red in favor of his familiar fairy armor.
The wings on his suit beat mindlessly, leaving behind a trail of crimson dust.
'Sophie! Sophie, answer me!'
The girl did not respond. Her shared vision was black.
He flickered onto the rooftop.
There she was.
A dozen buildings away, Asher saw his partner slumped on the gravel, soaked in a pool of her own blood.
Even from where he stood, he could discern a huge gash on the side of her ribs, from which an ebbing tide of blood streamed.
Standing by her body were the two Dons who made the scene.
Asher took in a deep breath of air, preparing for a scream.
Just when he was about to draw the Dons' attention to himself-
[The Scorched Girl (TETH) has died.]
"W-What...?"
The System did not pause.
[Host gains 'Cracked Soul' status. While this status is in effect, the perished abnormality becomes inaccessible. The Host will also rapidly lose sanity until the status is removed.]
[Days until ???: 5]
"...do you mean..?"
Asher whispered, uncomprehending.
No, he understood perfectly.
Sophie died.
That body in his eyes, slumped on the bed of gravel, was a corpse of someone woven into his soul.
Something inside Asher broke.
His hand drifted to his shoulder.
With a single twist, the boy tore off his left arm.
...
The Crescent Moon glanced at the bloodied corpse beside him. His polearm was tied to his sleeve, once again in the form of a silken sash.
"My bad. I didn't think she would die from that."
The masked Don shrugged. The girl got what she deserved. By attacking the Dons, she had insured her death.
However, they had one problem.
"The location of our target is still unknown. I foresee little success today. Let us return."
The Crescent Moon nodded.
Although the Patriarch might give them some flak for it, there was no reason to continue for now.
"They're still going at it down there?"
The fight between Sayako and the third Don had not yet finished.
Both of them could hear distant clashes below.
"I suppose so. Although Sayako was the strongest of us, he should win soon. Shadows are his specialty, after all."
However, just as the masked Don finished her words, a chilling melody burst from the streets below. A series of unintelligible whispers caused the gravel on the rooftop to quiver violently.
The two Dons shot a look at each other. They had missed one crucial detail: Sayako's new, inhuman limb.
But before they could act on their concerns-
The rooftop melted into a shallow pool of blood.
The two Dons flinched as they sank down to their knees in the sticky, corrosive substance.
A squeezing pressure surrounded them, filled by sheer, insatiable killing intent.
The masked Don crouched instinctively as a heavy blanket of air smothered her body. Her words were squeezed from her mechanical lung as breaths of ragged air.
Suddenly, she felt a slicing sensation on her shins. Through the murky pool of blood, she could see over a dozen creatures gliding amid the liquid, like piranhas.
Every second, another creature surfaced from the bed of gravel.
"Damn, what are these?!" The Crescent Moon winced as bits of flesh were torn from his feet, past the fabric of his shoes.
As if to respond, the creatures simultaneously burst out of the pool of blood, shaking off the liquid drenched on their bodies to create a shower of sticky rust.
Fairies.
Dozens of dark crimson scleras glowed in the night sky, swirling around the two Dons.
The fairies' mouths churned with thousands of teeth, extending from the tips of their lips to pads of their tongues to the very back of their mouths.
Every part of the creatures' open mouths was a sea of razor sharp bone needles.
"Swarming Haze..." the masked Don whispered. It was her first time seeing the 'swarm' that was so feared in these streets.
The scene was far more frightening than the videos made it out to be. An unconscious shiver seized the woman's mechanical body.
The Crescent Moon swept his polearm through the air, but the blade only phased through the supernatural creatures.
They chittered at him, mocking his pitiful attempts as they hovered in place, allowing the stream of attacks to pass through their flesh.
"You mean these are his fairies? Our chances aren't looking too hot..." the Crescent Moon grit his teeth as he lowered his weapon, conserving his energy.
"Focus. Here is our target." The masked Don readied her stance as the pool of blood began to quiver.
The air thickened with even more malice.
Focus.
A second passed.
"-!" The Crescent Moon grit his teeth as a flash of movement tore past his forearm, snapping his bones.
Hearing the impact, the masked Don whipped around.
Their target stood in front of their eyes.
The Capo Killer tilted his head toward the masked Don.
Asher's eyes glinted with a hollow, deranged frenzy.
A remnant of the boy's arm dangled from his shoulder, pouring copious amounts of blood into the brackish pool below.
The two Dons stood still, frozen.
Asher opened his mouth. His gaze locked on the masked Don.
His voice was calm, yet lined with an unmistakable insanity.
"You weren't the one who killed her."
The emptiness in his eyes already decided that she was dead.
A primal instinct seized the masked Don's limbs as she dashed away from the target she was ordered to kill-
"Your body sure is interesting." Asher appeared in front of her, digging his hand into the mesh of gears and wires inside the woman's open chest. The sparks of electricity that filled her body, fatal to a normal human, were nothing to him.
The boy rambled to himself.
"When she hit you, you were supposed to die."
The masked Don let out a crackle of static as Asher's hand dug deeper into her body. The tips of the boy's fingers pierced the woman's skin from the inside, pushing through her alloy-infused ribs.
"So why didn't you die?"
Asher muttered. He pulled the masked Don's body closer.
"You can't feel pain?"
The masked Don didn't speak, yet the answer was clear. She wasn't programmed to feel such a sensation.
"I want you to scream."
Asher glanced at the stump of his left arm. Useless for now.
Since his other arm was stuck inside the masked Don's body, Asher clamped his teeth over the woman's shoulder.
A metallic screech came from the masked Don's shoulder as the boy twisted out a chunk of her flesh.
Asher spat out a mouthful of metal and plastic.
The masked Don's arm dangled to the floor.
She did not make a sound.
Asher clicked his tongue.
"You're no fun. Tell me your last words."
"N-None," her voice was filled with static, "get t-this over w-with."
Asher shook his head.
"What a terrible answer. I'm afraid I'll have to keep you a bit longer for that."
He left the masked Don's body skewered on his arm, turning to the white-haired Don.
The man was frozen with fear.
"You were the one who killed her."
The Crescent Moon trembled as his eyes inadvertently drifted to his comrade's body hanging on the boy's arm.
If that was the treatment given for not being 'the one who killed her', then what would happen to him?
"You aren't a machine, are you?"
The man gulped. How should he respond?
He didn't need to.
"Great. You see, I don't want to lose my arm."
With that, Asher snapped his fingers.
"Fairies," the fifty-seven fairies all snapped to attention, "leave him alive."
Before Asher finished his sentence, the swarm of fairies condensed onto the white-haired Don.
The man's entire figure was covered by a dense layer of carnivorous, crimson fairies.
Instantly, agonized wails came from within the hazy ball of fairies.
As the creatures began to gnaw at the extremities, moving toward the center of the body, the Crescent Moon began to writhe with desperation.
The man dashed toward the edge of the roof, but he only made two steps before his calf muscles were shredded apart.
Asher took a seat by the side of the roof. He grabbed the masked Don's body, positioning her so that she had a pleasant view of her ally's torment.
The Crescent Moon collapsed to his knees, half howling with unintelligible pain and half sobbing for a hint of mercy.
As the woman trembled, she felt Asher's teeth sink into her remaining shoulder.
"W-What a-are you doing-?"
Finally, her voice dripped with fear. She flinched as the boy's jaw sliced through her.
Asher's face twisted into a grin. He spat the metal scraps to the side.
"You know, maybe a machine body isn't all that bad. Be my conversation buddy."
The boy rested his teeth on the back of the woman's skull. By now, the upper half of his arm had already regenerated.
He bit down, tearing into the back of the masked Don's skull.
"Ju- just ki-kill m-me." By now, the masked Don's words were almost unrecognizable with static-filled stutters.
And terror.
Asher giggled. Then, he devolved into lunatic cackles.
"You didn't say 'please'. Anyway, it seems the show is almost over."
The swarm of fairies abated, revealing the remnants of the white-haired Don.
Aside from the torso and head, the rest of the man's body had been picked to the bone.
Still, he was alive. His figure was twisted in a kneeling, upright position.
A single twitch. A single spasm.
"She wasn't your target, was she?"
Asher rambled to himself as he treaded closer, one step at a time.
No answer. The man couldn't answer, after all.
Asher didn't seem to notice.
He was lost in a world of his own.
"Then why did you kill her?"
Asher tilted his head. He glanced at the unresponsive body below him.
The Don's previously paper-white hair was now stained dark, muddy crimson.
Suddenly, Asher's hand twitched, fitting the man's face in his palm.
"Then why..." The boy slowly pushed his hand forward.
Asher closed his eyes.
He took a shuddering breath, filling his lungs until they nearly burst.
A terrifying pressure built inside his body.
"DID YOU KILL HER?!" Asher snapped forward, howling with rage as he folded the man's spine with a sickening crunch.
The back of the man's skull was twisted back, lying flat between his shoulder blades.
Asher clenched his hand, watching quietly as he wrung the Don's skull into a slurry of bone and brain matter, oozing past the gaps between his fingers.
A moment of silence passed.
Asher's lips formed a lopsided grin.
He flicked the remnants of gore away, heaving an almost rueful sigh.
"That... wasn't nearly as therapeutic as I thought it would be."
"A-AAH-GH!!"
The masked Don finally cracked. Her static filled screams echoed across the rooftops as she squirmed on Asher's arm, hopelessly pinned.
"That's more like it."
Asher turned the woman's body to face him.
His left arm was already healed, but he wanted to end this on a high note.
He brought the woman's head to his mouth.
The boy listened with ecstasy as the Don's screams intensified, resonating against his flesh.
"Oh-" Asher pulled away, an afterthought crossing his mind, "any last words now?"
"P-PLE-PLEASE-! KILL,,- M-ME!!"
"That's the magic word." Asher smiled as he latched onto the woman's skull.
With a twist, he ripped out the final bits of her mechanical brain.
He spat out the last mouthful of metal, letting the corpse slide off his arm into the street below.
And all that was left was him.
...
The pool of blood drained away, and the fairies likewise sank with it.
Asher's adrenaline faded away. The skill had expired.
The boy's shaky breath shot plumes of mist into the sky.
His pallid expression was lit by frigid stars.
All that was left were two dead bodies.
Only one of them he cared about.
Asher trembled forward, collapsing onto Sophie's corpse.
He pressed his lips on her forehead, weeping softly as he wrapped his arms around her skin.
Stiff and freezing.
A bed of gravel stung his arms.
The unfeeling night pierced his eyes, wringing out fresh tears.
"S-Sophie, they're gone now... Why is your skin so cold...?"
[She is dead.]
Asher squeezed the corpse closer to him.
"...why won't you respond...?"
Frost gathered on his cheeks, frozen dreams.
As his limbs turned numb, his consciousness drifted away.