[YGG] Yggdrasil Crew Adventures: Episode 9928C-The Lost

[ I. i am > i was ]

Kaneda grimaced in anger as the world of flame and metal bent itself through his flesh. Hardly able to concentrate while the pain tore through him, he lapsed in and out of consciousness, ripped apart and simultaneously rejoined anew. The sheer density of ether made it impossible living things to exist there, yet across the desolate wasteland of rolling flames and obsidian trudged a man with a will unlike most. An empty chalice with only a desire of survival and virtue. The hazy conflagrations of essence burned itself through and into him. Across thousands of miles for an untold time he trudged onward, immortal and willful, searching for something.

This wasteland was the The Abyss, the world of demons and sin, and one of the many planes of chaos. Many who came to die never left, some referred to it as hell, the inferno, or many other associations with material legend: but most had the idea of the endless dark realm misunderstood. Outside of the tower of segmented landmasses floating mystically above on another, planetary sized continents containing only the most vile, there existed absolutely nothingness. Anything caught within the absolute black was devoured, eroded by the astral leylines between individual planes where nothing could exist.

The immortal swordsman could feel the distortion of space where the metaphysical gateway between this layer and the next could be found. The exotic ether found in The Abyss had begun to warp his flesh, giving him the composition of a pasty demon under constant metamorphosis. Obsidian wings of metal ripped through the flesh atop his shoulder blades, forcing skin, muscle, and blood onto the fiery plain beneath him. With only a single arm on his right side, the nails became like ferocious claws of a feral beast, elongated and strong enough to tear through the material. This accompanied by the single red eye that glimmered ominously upon his forehead, only slightly obscured by his cascading ivory locks.

With a bloody grasp his hand reached out to the vortex of distortion within the center of the continent, pulling simultaneously at the very reality that surrounded him. Before he could comprehend what had occurred, like all times before, he was already displaced— and in the most convenient location no less.

For what felt to Kaneda like hundreds of years he had lived in this world where he felt he truly belonged. He had repeatedly slain The Great Mother, bargained with Graz’zt, and slain the Demon Queen of the Abyss, Lolth. Each had given Kaneda new perspective on his rage and disdain of Faustus his presumable nemesis since the death of Relius which felt like a lifetime ago. The woman he loved was gone and sentenced to eternal suffering, his daughter was dead, and the malevolence that had beckoned him since before he had even been born had come to the forefront. The only thing the wild-eyed demon lived for anymore was vengeance.

“It’s you…” the darkness spoke to him. When he emerged from the distortion he could faintly make out a cavern, colossal, with ruins of a giant civilization that once lived there. “Graz’zt said you would come. To think you’d actually be human…”

The layer of The Abyss itself seemed to speak to him.

“Then you know why I’m here,” Kaneda spoke softly, almost in a whisper. His voice was raspy, with little a voice left.

“Are you sure?”

“Do it or I will kill you,” Kaneda smiled wickedly, the curl of his lips and the widening of his eyes twisting what was a beautiful face of blood into one of deranged horror. Revenge. There was nothing he wanted, or needed more. Until he had it, he could never rest.

[ II. Yakusa no Ikazuchi no Kami ]

For a time The Yggdrasil Pirates’ greatest musician had disappeared. To some it wouldn’t register that he vanished in the great battle against Malphisto, a material being that superseded anything the Kaneda has ever faced. Crim was optimistic, believing that the white-haired swordsman would return someday, but others like Uzuki weren’t so sure. It wasn’t terribly uncommon for him to disappear at any given time for matters of relative importance, and perhaps it was for the better that he not remain when the pirates departed and the U-TIC came back to claim what was there’s.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood tall and sudden.

“I must be late…” Kaneda whispered to himself, “I underestimated how large Tizon is…and here I thought my time in hell was enough…”

A flash of chaotic white arcs consumed him, connecting itself to the heavens in what could be called a literal instant. The boom of thunder resounded through the desert, white superheated ether and air creating a slipstream that Kaneda effortlessly navigated. The Raikazuchi blessed him with preternatural manipulation of the two gods abilities by way of a then forlorn synergy. In the very next second?

Laira Banderas dared to snap her head backward. When she did, there was nothing.

“You’re joking.” Kaneda sighed, standing a few inches from her right. His voice caught the entire band off guard, an unexpected turn in their capture of Uzuki.

“W-wha—!” Laira yelled, turning back as fast as she could to defend herself. Unfortunately it was too late. Muddy brown bandaged left arm covered in onmyöji seals held the scabbard in place while the white haired swordman’s right hand commanded the power of thunder and lightning. A single stroke? No, twelve, and to the naked eye he didn’t move after grasping the black corded, golden handle. The ether-infused lightning strikes collided with a enormous shield, but the resounding N-Wave invoked by his sheer movement tore at everyone in the immediate vicinity. Kaneda smiled in elation, impressed that the armored knight’s shield had managed to mitigate his attack.

It was just a warm up, but it was impressive.

“So you aren’t all talk…” he yelled, his body becoming a series of ephemeral afterimages that overlapped one another before dissipating.

Above the armored knight they’d all finally see him, but by then it was too late. Just as he became visible he released his first newfound technique in his time away.

“Ikazuchi Kata: Shōmei-shin no katachi!”

Thousands of ethereal blades made of lightning and mythic metal descended from above, guided by Kaneda’s right hand, raining on the knight and Laira Banderas with little remorse. The ancient technology that protected the knight acted to repair itself, the shield unable to protect it and Laira altogether. Laira on the other hand suffered deep cuts through flesh, slicing through her back, shoulders, and even a cut across her face.

When the final slash landed against the shield, Kaneda could be seen fifteen meters away from the troupe of five and Uzuki, the blood of Raikazuchi dripping onto the dry desert beneath his bare feet.

The Omniblade smiled at Uzuki.

“I don’t think you need me for this one Uzuki, I overestimated this squad. Wrap it up already!” He barked. She likely wasn’t familiar with him much, but he was familiar with her. And so was it.

[ III. The Omniblade ]

The white-haired swordsman scrutinized the troupe and their laughable target with casual indifference. Both were unimpressive, and it didn’t take long to distinguish their strengths and weaknesses from their actions and reactions in the brief time since his arrival. This was child’s play. The sheer lack of skill in those who carelessly wielded great power was disappointing— somehow Kaneda expected a real challenge in his return to the material, let alone in a place of mystery where he had come across one of his own...or something like that. The lines between who was a Yggdrasil Pirate, who was truly worth their measure of value, and who didn’t deserve to die was becoming blurred by the day. With a great sigh the straight-haired vagabond folded his arms along his chest and stared as the squad recalculated their strategies and focused on the apparent, more frightening threat: the wild-eyed demon sword himself.

Uzuki spout line after line of nonsense that Kaneda apathetically dismissed. It wasn’t that she wasn’t funny, atleast to laugh at, but the prospect of revealing a fraction of his power to the world in his first testament of battle crept down his spine; an unrelenting bloodlust that would not be denied.

Suddenly a colossal unicorn of lightning was born, and the arcs of superheated electricity discharged into the sands of the desert and the world about Vaness. Nothing that Kaneda couldn’t deal with, but an interesting reaction to a man who showed an almost uncanny affinity to the element itself.

Battle Theme: Counterattack

Liara took this time to focus her power into her fists and leap at Kaneda, who stood about ten meters away. She reached him in the blink of an eye, descending on him with reckless fury. His arms slowly unfolded themselves and in the next instant, the two met in a collision of will and skill. The world around them crept to a literal halt behind the sheer velocity and precision of their attacks that created pressurized shockwaves frozen as was reality. Laira sought to push herself to her limits to enact her revenge, and Kaneda drew the Kikuichimonji to test the sharpness of his own swordsmanship. Then when her fist poised to strike his face directly center to his nose, the fist passed through the ethereal afterimage. The shockwaves suddenly exploded from the point between where the two had been battling, and six deep cuts tore through her flesh, the shockwaves only exacerbating the damage. While she was sent flying through the sky in ragged tatters and blood, Kaneda could be seen walking forward a few meters ahead, the Kikuichimonji drawn.

For every shot fired in his direction, it was redirected by effortless control of his Uwa Chikara (Outer Strength: Ether), Kaneda subscribed to letting Uzuki deal with Grant, perhaps the most troublesome for his impenetrable defense— and instead focuses on singling each of the members our one by one. Each of the bolts of ether fired assimilated into his boundary of galvanized ether, growing rapidly by the second.

The wild-eyed swordsman wouldn’t have to borrow from his own private reserves or that of Massacre, instead he’d manipulate the ether around him to heighten his own parameters and the feats capable of being performed.

“I’m going to kill Vaness.” Kaneda announced to everyone aloud, grabbing everyone’s attention, including hers. “Deal with Grant so we can finish this.”

Unsheating the Kikuichimonji once more, he absorbed the ether bolts slamming into his sphere of translucent ether while approaching Vaness. While most of Kaneda’s true Sakki (Killer Intent) was sealed within Massacre, what little he possessed by way of his malevolent power peeled away at Vaness and her hopes of living. The desperation made the growing unicorn of growing electricity stronger, and the gyrating box of Vaness accelerated.

“That’s the spirit…” Kaneda snarled devilishly.

Suddenly ribbons of translucent ether began to form around Kaneda’s position, practically imperceptible, but dangerously powerful. The thin lines of razor-sharp ether suddenly took on life and danced through the currents of wind, jolting forward at Vaness with the veracity of highly-adaptable blades of malleable chi seeking to rip through her and the ether surrounding her like butter. In the same breath Kaneda’s ether within himself appeared to destabilize and altogether vanish, and his snarl only increased. What did this mean?

[ IV. Emerging from Chaos ]

The legend of the wild-eyed demon and his dogmatic will was one less known than his predecessors or others he accompanied among The Yggdrasil Pirates. Many faux swordsman had come forth duping both the mercenaries and assassins who weren’t close enough to the belligerent sword for hire to recognize that they were imposters. This was not hyperbole. Dozens of worshippers were drawn to the misunderstood assassin’s plot— but none of them could compare to the legend himself. His rage and suffering had become tangible, the raw power of emotion he possessed unrivaled. Every sacrifice he’s made has led him to the moment where battles became trivial and only the most powerful could force him to his true potential.

The lucid world around him broken down into almost still images gave him a glimpse into the control of himself that he had never experienced before. Still particles of lightning appeared as sand-sized shard particles connected by their own luminosity, and the ether as motes of color varying by where and who was responsible. From the moment his ether destabilized Kaneda was already “gone” in most senses of the word, all that remained where he stood was the manifestation of ether enough so to create a physical projection that served as a more perfect afterimage than what most would ordinarily produce. Anachronism would possess them all who dared to think otherwise of where he seemed to prepare for the worst—but then where was the maverick?

Ninety-six missiles of arcane collided into him, ripping his clothes and body into pieces on impact. There was no reaction from him, and the sheer generation of energy was enough to shatter charred bone and filet flesh from bone: but neither happened. Instead the pain of her offensive action traveled from the afterimage and into Kaneda, who was no stranger to his own nerve impulses and mortality. Many would see this as a fatal drawback to an otherwise almost perfected movement technique, but the wild-eyed swordsman had a trick up his sleeve. The Rune of Condemnation flashed across his neck, a phosphorous violet and crimson shimmering in blinking wavelengths across the battlefield. Not only had the transference of pain awakened the retribution that was the galvanized rune of balance, but it already possessed the means to counterbalance the pain and damage inflicted by her power to begin with.

Which set into motion the phase of the battle that would be his most offensive yet. Of them all, only Liara had the perceptual abilities to locate Kaneda when his afterimage was left, and she actually found him in an unlikely location.

“Vaness you idiot come back down!” Liara yelled.

The sky suddenly bled red, the circle of madness spreading across as far as their eyes could see. Just above Vaness, Kaneda could be seen descending from beyond the clouds, clenching his right hand. When she took to the skies, Liara’s frightening yell came too late. The feeling of having her body vaporized by incandescent arcane much as she had forced upon Kaneda’s afterimage suddenly burned her from within. This however was multiplied, the damage that Kaneda would have received was multiplied by four, while Kaneda himself only experienced the pain and the inability to access his right arm temporarily thereafter. The white and black waves of judgement tore her apart from within, being meticulously destroyed by the Rune’s third most powerful ability in the blink of an eye. When all that remained of her was sundered flesh, white flames would dance upon her corpse, the sign that Condemnation had brought her to an impossible to debate death.

“It’s time to end this…” something whispered to him.

Kaneda’s left arm, still covered in sealing scripts from the world beyond, flickered over to Raijinto and drew the golden hilt from its scabbard once more. “I don’t need you.”

“This can be over right now if you stop being stubborn.”

Kaneda ignored his words even as the as the demonic ether, or nether, began to leak from the seals he had carefully placed. This distorted the world around him on a material, astral, and spiritual level, and it showed. Miniature horns began to protrude from his forehead, three in total, and his muscle mass seemed to grow to any with keen perceptual abilities capable of recognizing such. A missile covered in lightning he aerial dove directly towards Liara, and in the next moment a battle of mutual power happened. Liara’s molten fist punched through earth and air alike seeking to strike Kaneda’s whose moves had become more unorthodox and less conventional. In-between avoiding her series of attacks he responded with his own, usually to mitigate her throwing chunks of land at him, effortlessly vaporizing these miniature islands with deft sweeps of his blade, and to bait her into what he had already ascertained was her fatal flaw. Battling was instinct, but instinct sometimes betrayed survival.

Sliding back several meters Kaneda smirked, resheathing Raijinto.

Liara was stronger than he expected, they all were, but fighting was more than strength. Vestusio has taught him that valuable lesson. Power was more than strength. While the nether leaked into his immediate area toxically, an explosion of conventional ether from his stalwart soul suddenly washed over the battlefield. The sheer pressure alone caused the once lucid world to tremble minutely. Giving Liara a taste of what he truly was, it seemed time to bring their battle to a close. Liara’s weapon’s and system seemed to grow stronger in retort, feeding off of Kaneda’s sudden expulsion with a colossal release of her own. Leylines scorched by her raging energy shook the foundation of the desert.

Beneath her the sands had melted into glass seemingly to usher the rage that she felt. Was it vengeance? Seeing her comrade die before her eyes? Had she any idea of the evil she faced?

“You sure you don’t want me to—“

“Watch closely Dagda. I’ll show you true power,” Kaneda announced to his demonic left hand, which grasped the handle of Raijinto tightly. His legs bent themselves at angles in preparation for movement, and he remained aware of Madelyne who was shot a glare from Liara as if to stay back. Now that she had involved her pride…

She sprang forward and swept her left hand, which shot a large chunk of earth at Kaneda on approach, completing the action she intended to follow through with earlier— but the landmass was larger and the power output much higher.

This, however, wouldn’t matter.

No amount of power could make up for the lapse of skill between the two. When she sought to punch through the earth she’d find the landmass already cleaved in two, in the blink of an eye, and parting island of rock was Kaneda who stepped through it, the sheer ether alone burning away at it. While she was protected under her own blanket of ether, she wasn’t protected from his blade that suddenly flashed heavenward in a powerful vertical stroke upward. Her gauntlets slammed into one another and defended just in time, but that’s when the culmination of his plan occurred. The technique he’d then suddenly used was something he had learned on Vestusio during his encounter with Akuma, just before the battle against Malphisto.

“Infinity Demon Edge: Alpha,” he whispered.

The world flashed black. To any who sought to view his subsequent actions the raw output of ether distorted them enough so that not even Uzuki had the perceptual ability to comprehend what happened. Liara would understand though. Sixteen thousand three-hundred and eighty four stabs performed in a split second, he released the Specter Edge, Maddening Edge, and Dilapidation Edge at once. What would remain of Liara would be particles finer than dust, leaving all but the relic she brought in tow. While the sheer volume and technique used surprised Liara enough to shatter her rage temporarily, the last image she’d see was that of an insurmountable demon evolved from myth. Was it Kaneda? She knew the answer but she wouldn’t live to speak it. In the next instant after their collision, she dissolved into dust finer then the sand beneath them.