As we tried to approach Kotetsu, he stepped back until he almost fell from the edge. His eyes slowly turned purple, while the veins in his arms started to pulsate. "I'm sorry..." he started to change, "I should've told you earlier..."
A huge blister then starts bulging out from his back, then it bursts painfully with blood splattering everywhere. The blister then started to change into a pair of wings, his nails turned into sharp claws, while his lower back spawned a tail.
"What the--" we backed it up to keep our distance from Kotetsu, because we didn't bring our swords. Kotetsu was changed, into something we've never seen before.
"Kotetsu!!" I kept shouting his name in the hope that he would return back to normal, but he kept changing, until the point where some of his hair turned white.
After yelling his name repeatedly, Kotetsu stopped his transformation. He lost control over himself and his new form, he flew a few meters to circle us, while we dodged his claws by jumping back and forth, then he flew away along with the storm.
Confused and panicked, we rushed through the woods and contacted Yuukai immediately. After scrolling through some old tomes in his bookshelf, Yuukai then explains the situation. "He turned into a demon-type possessed, they are formed because of a specific desperation or sadness in one person. Typically, this type of the possessed are stronger than any we have dealt with."
"Then we have to purify his soul and take him back," Yato was about to walk out of Yuukai's office, but an extra detail came out of the grandmaster's mouth and stopped him.
"This type of the possessed is in fact semi-controlled by the host... and killing them... in large cases meaning killing the host," Yuukai uttered with a low voice, "we can't just simply slash him, or he'll going to die,"
Sadness and confusion rose, as I tried to think of how to bring back Kotetsu alive. He was one of the first Jaegers that I know, but now he's gone. Thinking about his desperation, I couldn't find a specific reason for him to go berserk, and thus transformed.
----
The next mission soon commenced, we were tasked to conquer the previously dangerous area, sector 16. Ishigaki was still unconscious, we had to do it without him. This mission was directed towards destroying the cellular towers that appeared in said sector, it attracts the possessed and focuses their moves into destroying one of the barricades from the beacons.
"Is your leg okay?" Kentaro asked Yato who was in the middle of preparing his gears.
"Yeah, I think so. I don't want to wait longer for action," he answered with a smile. He then looked at me and the others, "I've lost my previous team from that bastard Yamato, I want to find him and make him responsible,"
"He's very strong, if you find him, you should be careful," Kentaro warned him.
After all preparation was completed, we went to sector 16. I secretly hoped that I would find Kotetsu and maybe free him from his curse, even though I didn't know how to do it yet.
When we finally arrived, there's about five to eight towers to be destroyed, with the first ever seen suddenly gone without a trace, we didn't actually know how to destroy them. Yuukai didn't give any meaningful advice either, he suggested that we should blow it with large impact weapons or elements.
Not only did we see a lot of towers to destroy, Ishimaru spotted something strange, the area we already sealed was recovering, it's like the reverse of time... the objects inside the seal began to heal, as if the darkness touched them disappeared slowly. What is going on here? Did the beacons really reverse the time in that specific zone?
The possessed finally approached shortly after. Ishimaru came closer to me and whispered, "Have you ever thought about what our real purpose is? Became warriors and fighting these monsters.. but after that? Who knows what's gonna happen,"
That thought came to me as a surprise. It seems like he found an interesting insight as to what we were actually doing. For me, it was straightforward. I want revenge on Yamisuke, and free this world from the hell that came with the curse...
But is that all? What about my family? Can I revive them? I don't know...