Interlude – The Monster, unleashed
When the half-blood was hit by the magus’ all-out attack, half of her icy mask had been blasted off, revealing the face beneath and the expression she was wearing.
And that was how the two men were able to know.
Yes.
Without a doubt, Hiyako Tsurara had gone quite mad.
Perhaps such a result was within the one-eyed man’s, who was using the false name of Kawamoto Yukata, calculations. One could say that given the deterministic nature of the result, this was fated. It was her destiny to go insane right here and now. Yeah, perhaps it was just as planned.
What had been it? Had it been the strain of a tense battle in which she had to employ every single instant to the maximum possible extent, even against an opponent much weaker than her, followed by the immediate use of her full power? Had it been the realization that she had been deceived all along, and that she hadn’t had any other option but to follow these lies, even while finding them dubious?
Or had it been the final realization that it had been her all along who had doomed humanity to a bad future, the ultimate responsible for all the death and destruction she had seen before being yanked from her time and thrown into this impossible situation?
Nobody, not even Tsurara herself, could tell what had finally driven her over the edge.
However.
Yes. There was a however.
Her single visible eye shined with a cunning light as she looked at the prone form of Yukata. Her distorted, ogre-like visage deformed further as a crazed smile surged across her face.
“It sure must have been fun for you. Successfully deceiving me like that. I’m sure you must be feeling quite satisfied with yourself right now, aren’t you~?” The tone of these words, although filled with danger and murderous intent, is almost even and rational. Too rational. A hybrid on the throes of madness shouldn’t be speaking like this.
There was probably a small misunderstanding. Something that hadn’t quite entered in the concept others had of Inversion Impulse and the madness that haunted those who had anything to do with demonkind. An error in the calculations, something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place, a factor that only one whose bloodline had somehow, for this moment alone, surpassed the limits of a human being.
Sheer, petty pride in oneself. An arrogance that went beyond all reason. A belief in one’s own way of doing things, a desire to be the image she wished to maintain.
Yes. Even at the precipice of madness.
----------------- Even now, the monster, Hiyako Tsurara, fought with her wits rather than with power alone.
“Idiot.” The words are spoken with almost happy spite. “You fucked up.”
Yukata’s mistake… if his intentions were to completely preserve the timeline, was bringing someone like Tsurara to this battle in the first place.
It has nothing to do with power, by itself, although a certain degree of power would be the minimum requirement.
It has everything to do with personality. Beings like Hiyako Tsurara, or Aya Alayana, are not beings that can be contained. Their sheer pride and the pettiness that came from a deep belief on oneself will push them way beyond the bounds of common sense. They’re not instruments that can be used and manipulated, because they will turn against those who do so in a heartbeat.
Taking people like these to this kind of situation is a big mistake. Manipulating them and predicting that their actions will go a certain way, that can work once. But afterwards, they will endeavor to turn the moment of triumph into the worst kind of nightmare imaginable. Out of offended pride, they would break their wielder into pieces.
It is worse than a zero-sum game. It was the equivalent of scoring a goal once in exchange for scoring ten own goals.
That was what Tsurara’s insane smile and what her words expressed.
The monster’s eyes fell upon the defeated figure of the old Tetsuro, frozen in space as he clutched the door, and then followed the man’s horrified sight to beyond it. The door disintegrated into dust, leaving the former teacher grasping empty space in the air. A gout of cryogenic flame strikes the shade beyond the very moment it was about to strike down a boy, leaving not even ash behind.
Tsurara calmly strolls onwards, the maddened eyes piercing the two men. Her mask falls apart in pieces, revealing the veiny face behind, the monstrous figure of an ogre from ancient Japanese myth. There is much information she can obtain of these men, she has the duty to interrogate them, but she doesn’t have enough time to do so and accomplish her objective at the same time.
She contents herself with walking up to Yukata, ignoring anything the man says. Right now, she’s deaf to words and reason. With a quick movement of her left hand, she dislocates both of the old man’s knees, painfully, before lifting him with utter ease and slinging him over her shoulder. He’d be interrogated. His hell was only starting. If he thought he could bring down the world without suffering none of the consequences, he was mistaken. He’d go through the exact same experience as his victims were about to.
With the same calm steps, she strolls past the frozen figure of the old Tetsuro, stopping briefly in front of him.
“My name is Hiyako Tsurara.” She whispers to him, a stone thrown into the pond of time, whose ripples are bound to expand across the timeline. Insurance for if ‘this her’ fails and perishes, although she believed herself to be already doomed in the first place.
She then proceeds into the room, sword in hand, prisoner over her shoulder, ice clinging to her figure, clad in cold flame, walking into view of the many students and the teacher frozen there, watching as a hole was poked into their world.
They all notice the foreign presence, the deity-like being who walks calmly, but whose presence is as violent as that of a bloodthirsty creature of myth, a deity of the Hindu, a Rakshasa from times immemorial. She stops in front of a certain redhead, and can almost feel her surprise as she recognizes what is happening in front of her very eyes, what the appearance of this intruder signifies, and the distant connection by blood they share.
Ah, yes. Tsurara remembered now. Her clan had made a habit of keeping track of all of the Aki family agents that were in the outside world, for one reason or the other. That is how she had been aware, long ago, of the disappearance of Aki Fumi, and all of her classmates. A report from long ago that clarified nothing because the Clock Tower had covered up the incident. She remembered the long list of names, who had vanished never to be seen again, and that now she knew had perished within the Dark World.
She looked at her distant relative briefly, then her eyes ran over the rest, stopping only at the younger Tetsuro, and the younger Haruka. So many supernatural beings in a single room. How utterly funny.
“You are a gaggle of fucking idiots.” Tsurara spoke, the calmness of her voice adding a brutal edge to her words.
“What you have done today, you’ll regret it. I can assure you. You’ll regret it again and again and again and again and wish you had never done something this incredibly stupid. Gods know I will.”
As the hole in the world expands, as people are being taken slowly into it, she lets her power go and fade, returning to her normal form. And now she’s just Hiyako Tsurara, and she’s dead tired, insane and wounded, carrying a prisoner and standing by force of will alone.
What she’s doing is suicidal. Perhaps that was the point. Perhaps after failing so spectacularly, now she wished for death, like the Aki Fumi of another timeline once did in the Dark World, seeking some sort of redemption in a sacrificial death. Who knows the answer of this question? Perhaps only Tsurara herself would.
All she knew is that it couldn’t be this simple. The words of this man had contained too much false information and deceit, but the opening of this world should have brought on a more gradual apocalypse, not something sudden that happened out of nowhere in a single night. So to understand what is going on, she must go into the Dark World and see for herself what she has to oppose.
The hole in the world expanded, and started absorbing her. Tsurara smiled as her body slowly disintegrated, to be taken to the other side.
Knowing fully well that she had signed her own death sentence. Knowing fully well that her efforts would end up in vain. Her actions couldn’t be called rational anymore. But once time travel had become a factor into this… her range of options had expanded, and she could afford desperate moves.
And so, the cycle of time spun, things repeating themselves once again, the Occult Club thrown into a world of death were the great majority of them would meet their fates at the hands of cruel monsters and psychotic, overly proud humans turned feral beasts.
Except for one change, one different factor that wasn’t there before…
“I wonder, how many of them will I be able to bring alive with me?” She asks idly, before disappearing.”
That now the monster, unleashed, was along the ride with them.
Interlude Out
Originally Posted by Mike1984
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