Icarus leaped through the Tower's ceiling, soaring through the sky however momentarily, gleefully staring down at Katie following him--holding the drawn Blade with Death hovering behind her. Unhinging his jaw following a disturbing giggle, multiple cursed insects came flying from his throat, exploding upon touching her sword's darkened steel.
The Grim Reaper manifested in front of its master, manifesting a scythe in both hands and slicing at the Jester's center. Instantly, he vanished, reappearing against the Tower's rooftop while Katie decided to take the high ground, using the Reaper's back as leverage to perch atop one of the pillars overlooking the Jester.
Glaring down at him through black hair and angered blue eyes, her weighty breathing slowly calmed, the Reaper levitating behind her without the scythe in hand.
"I'm surprised you still care about your father! After all, aren't you the one who abandoned your friends during the invasion so you could end the world? What does it matter to you if he dies or lives? I mean, if you were trying to slaughter everyone... he would've died either way, y'know?" He called out to her, diabolically smirking while mocking her father's death.
Despite his pocketed hands, Icarus managed to telepathically summon multiple doorways through space. Flying out with torn wings, red skin, elfen ears, and bloody fangs, the multiple demons curved their trajectory upward, striving to slaughter Death's Source with one slice. Without saying but one word, she extended her hand, allowing the Reaper to cast a darkened megaphone into her fingers that expressed a shadowy mist. Putting it to her lips, she opened her left eye and commanded but one word--channeling the remnants of her dormant demonic blood to invoke this banished technique.
"Disassemble."
Their monstrous bodies were unnaturally separated, leaving nothing but hissing blood and steaming bones once their skin finished burning away. Katie witnessed the Jester vanish from where he stood, jumping away from the pillar she was atop and twisting around amid the air. Icarus had immediately appeared behind her on the pillar, bounding right after her with newly-sharpened demonic claws.
The slash Chrollo threw her way was easily blocked by her raised katana, throwing sparks into the air around them. Katie landed against the same platform he stood on just seconds prior, dashing ahead before he could even land himself. Slashing at his head immediately upon landing, Icarus caught the blade and spun around, kicking her right across the face; watching as she fell onto the ground. However, his victory was short-lived, for the Reaper's fist emerged from behind its master and instantly connected with his face. His body tumbled across the platform, Death spiraling around his flying shape to hover behind him--readying its right fist for a follow-up.
Instead of punching Icarus back to where he tumbled from, his fist smashed into its skull, launching the Deathly Spirit into one of the many intact pillars surrounding them. Wiping away the blood dripping from his nose with a giggle, he turned around, spotting Katie dashing right toward him. Spreading apart his feet, the Jester raised both arms, preparing for a head-on collision.
She slashed right at him rapidly, inching just close enough for the tip to rapidly graze the skin of his cheeks. Blood splattering from his cuts and then instantly regenerating, Katie flipped back into the air, swiping at the air with her sword.
'Purge of Demons!'
A blackened projectile capable of obliterating any demon slipped from her sword's jet-black steel--to which Icarus simply extended his hand and flicked it away without sustaining any damage. Katie fell back toward the ground, watching the Jester raise his right arm to block the accompanying overhead slash.
Throwing her leg ahead, her knee connected with his face, sending him onto his rear. Icarus immediately recovered, flipping back with his palms momentarily flat on the ground throwing him away from her stomping foot. Stumbling away while the Source gave chase, Chrollo checked his surroundings but briefly, focusing his darkened lenses on her sprinting form.
Flicking a hair from his head, he threw it into the air, just watching as space's darkness overtook the follicle at his command and gave it life.
'Using hair as an intermediary for more demonic spirits,' Kate observed while running.
"Tch."
The miniature demons came flying at her, to which she easily dispelled with a single horizontal slice; the one thing she didn't expect was immediate detonation upon their demise. Blinded by the explosions only shortly, she stepped back once, still tightly gripping the Blade with both hands. Emerging from the prohibiting smoke, Icarus's fist slammed onto the steel, the duo's ears bleeding upon hearing the boom that erupted from the impact.
Katie flew back following the blow, but she wouldn't tumble onto her side like last time, no--instead, she threw her feet back and attached her soles to the pillar she was flying toward. Bouncing from the structure after his punch, he watched as more plasma projectiles came flying her way; soaring past her face and singing her well-kept black hair.
Once she got close enough, she prepared to cut his chest--but, unfortunately for her, she wasn't the only one to have slashes. Summoning the deceased Naraku's innate technique, he aimed his palm forward, angling his fingers directly over her flying form.
'Separate.'
Instants before her assured mutilation, she vanished! His eyes widened. A fist came smashing against the crown of his skull, throwing his head down while she exited the heavens and landed right before her merciless foe.
Clenching her teeth, she threw her sword ahead while he was puzzled; darkened steel generating incomprehensible afterimages that blurred along with both of her arms. After enacting numerous slashes infused with her maximum Vita output, she stepped back... and kicked him right in the chest, sending him flying back; blood flying into the air.
Her foot on her chest prevented him from rising. As he stared through the blackened strands dangling over his eyes, blood leaked from the plentiful wounds spread across his person. Removing her boot from his chest, she sighed, preparing to sheathe her trusty Blackened Blade.
The second Icarus dared to shoot up, his face was crushed under the might of the Grim Reaper's superior strength in the form of its knuckle bashing into his skull. It didn't stop even after the back of Chrollo's head crashed back into the hardened platform. In fact, under the omnipotent command of its master, Death's fists continued pounding the Jester's face into the ground... without showing any signs of stopping anytime soon.
'I guess that takes care of that,' she thought, sheathing her sword with closed eyes and sighing, feeling the atmosphere's cool breeze slide over her face.
But while Death was pounding Icarus's face under her command, she felt something abnormal. The ground below her began rumbling--almost as if it were about to fall should she stay idle any longer. So, she relied on her instincts and jumped back; just as expected, the ground caved in on itself, thus revealing the battling perpetrators. None other than her redheaded cousin had emerged from the hole in the ground, grabbing his enemy's face by the cheeks and carrying him around the air.
A red lightning streak darted around the surrounding pillars, Icarus's identical face losing blood as he continuously crashed through the tall structures before his body finally collapsed. Relinquishing his grip over the Jester's face, Ace gritted his teeth, vanishing from beside his foe and turning his head... to spot her. Both of their eyes widened in unison.
"Kate..."
"Ace!" she called out to him from below. "Y-you're okay!! I thought--"
Before she got the chance to finish, her cousin's arms were already around her, holding her tight as he buried his face into her shoulder. Tears coursed down his cheeks from his eyes' corners, silently sobbing against her while carefully embracing her. Katie's widened eyes slowly shrunk, adjusting and unfortunately relaxing to the sound of his sorrowful cries.
"Kima is... KIMA IS..."
She removed his face from her shoulder and stared deep into his scarlet eyes, cursed with the mark of Eternal Sight.
"We'll avenge them. Won't we?"
The smile she threw his way, for some reason, made his heart skip a beat. Despite the situation they were thrust into, one question resurfaced at his mind's forefront: why did that smile look so familiar? But, he wouldn't have to torment himself for the answer long, no--the more he stared at the grin, the clearer he remembered. Five years ago, he sent her that same smile amid that silent tomb she called her home, and while she was drowning amid despair that seemed almost endless, he gave her hope. Hope to keep moving forward into the future, to keep living despite the hardships life would throw her way.
He stifled a chuckle and looked away from his relative, hiding the smile on his lips. "Yeah... Course we will!" he affirmed.
"NahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!"
The Jester's crazed cackling increased in volume with every passing second, the two cousins turning their heads to the source of the laughter. Despite being repeatedly crushed under the weight of Death's fist, Chrollo's life managed to persist. Ace gasped—watching as the Jester he was fighting fell over, now a hollow shell without bones or blood. The face warped itself inside out, revealing the true features to be none other than the Founder's drained body, dead against the Tower's roof.
"YOU INCESSANT HUMAN MONKEYS! SENTIMENTS LIKE FAMILY, AND DREAMING OF A BETTER LIFE, IT'S ALL MEANINGLESS! DISREGARD EVERYTHING, EVEN YOURSELVES… AND GO DOWN WITH ME!!!"
The clouds above them split apart—allowing twin thunderbolts, one colored red, the other shaded black, to crash upon him. Katie's blackened hair moved past her face, swaying in tandem with the wind above ground.
"That's Dad's ability. Reasoning Abandonment…" she whispered.
But while she lamented the defilement of her father's soul, Ace's scarlet eyes reflected the horrendous scenery of Icarus's psychotic break. Scratching at his face with claws that broke his skin, manically giggling from within the lightning—all fragments of memory the ginger lost upon being torn apart by this demon all those years ago. The agony he felt for a week straight was unbearable; out of the torment's continual blurriness, he remembered but one feeling kept him going.
The feeling that he… would soon die.
Giggles slipping from the Ginger's lips caused Kate's head to worriedly turn, azure pupils spotting the expression spread across her relative's features and immediately gasping at such a face! It was almost as if the darkness of the world had been specially cast to reign over him, allowing the redness of his eyes to be more prominent than ever-shining like a demon's gaze shooting through the darkness of night.
'I hate everything. I won't abandon anyone. I'll abandon everything. It doesn't matter anymore. Where I am… who's beside me… there is no future. Ace. Ace. Me. Slaughter. Monster.'
Disturbingly grinning at his long-haired foe, Ace's right eye bled—Katie watching the gore slide down her cousin's cheek.
"I won't turn back. I'll keep slithering forward. Even after everyone dies."