Drawing Dead (CVnU Underworld Event [Open] - IC)

"So how's it feel to be beautiful, Lee-ol' boy?"

"Shut up, Diaz. With all the shit you've pulled tonight alone you should be grateful I haven't crushed you into paste."

"Better men'n you have tried, Lee-ho. Really though, you oughta be thankin' me. Ugly mug like yours'd never have got in here if it weren't for a little ceramic surgery. And, on top o' that, I got our 'secret weapon' all snug up inside-a me."

"You're disgusting, Diaz."

"Bah. Y'know ya love me."

"So what're we hitting, anyway?"

"Moneyboys, way in back. You know, counters n' junk. They'll be in hard to reach places, 'hind reinforced doors, walls, the whole shebang."

"Well how do you plan on getting in, then?"

"I 'unno. Vents. Go through walls. Front flipping door. We're mutants, pal. We'll get in."

"Unbelievable."

"Jus' relax, Lee, I gotcha covered. Coupla car batteries and the baby I got in my gut'll get through anythin' they can put up, I guar-an-teee it. 7:15 rolls 'round, you hold 'em off, I'll get through the door to tha moneyboys. Deal?"

"Fine."

It was decided. At 7:15, the two would make for the money-counting room, moving through the hallways and labyrinthine passages, their disguises discarded once the security blackout was set to be established at that exact hour. It was then that they would attack the reinforced doors, relying on Leo Herric's herculean strength and relatively high durability to hold off any attacks while Grant focused on the money counters, adamantium tipped auger still in tow.

Outside the Khan the crowds gathered, milling about as though it were any other day. Tourists admiring the splendor of the massive structure, the culture inherent in its construction, the majesty conjured up by the mere sight of such a magnificent edifice...

Young girls laughed and enjoyed frozen desserts recently bought, now tasted. Men held their women tight as they walked by, aware of the Yakuza, but absorbed in the eyes of their beloveds. Teenagers gathered in clumps, huddled over the newest viral video or discussing the news out of America, mocking the exploits and failures of inferior Western heroes. A few individuals, men and women both, seemed to slump against the wall, uncomfortably drunk, battling the unseen opponents of nausea and dizziness. Countless more still were simple passersby, busying themselves with texts or calls or any number of distractions to be found at whim, dumb to the environment and occupied by their smart phones.

7:00pm

The buzzing and chiming of cellphones began to fill the air: a single message relayed to all in attendance:

七時 - 開始

[7:00 - Start] 

It was time.

The innumerable souls milling about suddenly stopped. Laughter ended abruptly. Conversations were cut mid sentence. As though with a single mind they turned toward the Khan.

The crowd, the girls the men the women the adolescents, all took form of the first wave, rushing through the gateway to the Khan and inflicting their hellish fury upon all who stood between them and the San'Vun syndicate. Joining them came the men of the former Inagawa Kai, those loyal to the dead daimyo they had sworn their allegiance to. Together they were set in their resolve. They would break the Khan, they would seize the head of the two-faced San'Vun, and they would wring his blood from his body for daring to deceive them.

From the crowd of mutants and former Inagawa Kai exiles came orders, barked loudly and clearly over those in attendance:

"Hit them on the right! Push through there! They're weak!"

The voice seemed to simply come into existence above them, where it boomed like the voice of God and washed over attacker and defender alike, rattling their bones and crashing in the air all around them. What the defenders of the Khan did not hear were the barely audible targeted whispers of the Italian mercenary, broadcast to all ahead of him, directing them to clear a gap on the left side of the building, freeing the yakuza to use the doors there with minimal resistance.

They did as they were told, surging against the entrance on the right, clearing a space on the left for the Yakuza to fill.

Then came the next direction, privately broadcast to those under his command once again.

Pale orange lights filled the hands of the mutant rioters. Fire.

Molotovs were thrown into the intentionally cleared space, an attempt to deny the San'Vun's enforcers purchase outside their own walls, to set ablaze those foolish enough to emerge from the entrance when first it cleared, but more than anything, it was a cue.

Seijuro Shin stepped forth, no orders necessary. He knew it had to be him. The majority of the orphans that had joined him to form the Shirohebi Ichigan were more mere aberration than mutant, freaks who were disturbing to look upon, or readily identified as something other than human, but who held few useful traits. They were the weak who could not earn a living for themselves in the underworld or the legitimate one, and so had to rely on the kindness of the old man they had known as a father.

Not him. He had stayed for his sister, but with her gone he finally struck out on his own, and in her name. He was Fudo Myo-o, his blade cleansing the world of the impure and unworthy. Already the White Serpent of the mutant underground had earned the respect of his cohorts, and their fear.

Adamant in his resolve, fists shaking with both effort and anger, he pulled back against the burning air, seizing the scattered flames as his own before tossing them out into the gathering mob of mafia men, having them swirl to engulf all who rose to meet him, allowing them even to lick at the walls of the Nihonto Khan.

It would not be enough to simply kill the mute mafioso. Seijuro wanted him, everyone he had ever known, everything he had ever touched, to burn. He would leave only ashes, San'Vun's scattered in the gutters of Tokyo in retribution for the mockery he had put on display in his own family plot, and he would be but one in hundreds. What they had taken from him he would take from them a thousandfold. In Seijuro Shin's mind, tonight marked only the beginning of his revenge.

"Are. We. Clear?"

"I heard you the first time, Red-Eye, and like I said before: I. Don't. Know."

"You mock. Repeat this. I kill."

"Yeah? Well if I'm partnered with you one more time, I, might just kill myself."

"There. Smoke."

"I see it. Let's get a move on."

Smokescreen established by the molotovs and below, mutant horde drawing the enemy's attention to the right, the mercenaries known as Red Eye and Snake Charmer began their portion of the plan.

Utilizing the latest in grapnel tech, Petros sent an arrow sailing into the window nearest their objective, shattering the glass. The primary security room was on one of the highest floors, reporting on potential problems while remaining far from personal risk. At least, that was the idea.

The fullerene point deployed its blades within a load-bearing wall, the security room only a short run down the hallway from the planned deployment point. Red-Eye, the armored mutant mercenary, soared along the line, utilizing the back of an armored arm to ride the steel/vibranium wire weave, landing with an efficient, energy-damping roll. It was the perfect transition.

The augmented mercenary-mutant-ninja withdrew the rapidly oscillating blade, the suit's one glowing eye admiring its gleaming edge when, with a single motion, he slashed the line and split the cable, sending his ally crashing to the ground just inside the window, shards of glass crunching underneath the heavy metal armor.

"Pósa kilá malákas íse?!? Huh?! What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"You inside. No?"

"I hope you roast in a fire, malákas."

"You keep talk, we both burn."

The glowing red light turned to the fires blazing below before quickly snapping up once more. Already they could hear footsteps hurriedly rushing by outside the door. Petros shifted to position himself in front of his armored shinobi counterpart.

"Step aside, wanna-be ninja."

Petros grasped in either hand daggers laced with his patented petrifying venom, ready to seal the opposition's fate in stone.

"I'll get us there."

Together, they crashed through the door and out into the hall, the security room only seven doors down. Resistance would be dealt with in short measure, each who emerged to meet them would scarcely feel the high frequency oscillating blade slicing through their throats, a strike aimed at decapitation, or, if less fortunate, would find themselves pierced by throwing blades tossed with uncanny precision, the areas struck slowly turning to stone.

No matter their differences, no matter the obstacles, they would get to the security room. Too much depended on them for failure to even be entertained as a possibility.

Shiro Yamada gathered the assigned men, 20 of his Kumicho's finest, and set off for the Kawasaki Industries warehouses, an area controlled by the Inagawa-Kai primarily through influence rather than presence. It made for an odd meeting place.

Already the warehouse doors were open, cars scattered here and there, though by appearances there could be no more than seven, perhaps ten conspirators inside, based on the vehicles present and their passenger capacities.

They outnumbered them at least two to one, making for easy pickings, or so went the rationale.

When they entered, however, all seemed quiet. Not a soul was in sight. The men eyed him warily, but on Yamada's order's they began to search the area.

As soon as they opened the first shipping container, it began.

The Yoshi-Gumi streamed from every container, rose from behind makeshift barricades and from behind corrugated iron walls, opening fire as soon as they saw their adversaries, blood gushing from the colors they themselves once wore. Motorcycles roared to life in the far corners, rocketing about and raining hell on those that had foolishly entered the warehouse expecting an easy fight.

It did not take long. The ambush had been set in place expecting the full force the false Kumicho could bring to bear. This farce was a disappointment to all involved.

"Yoshi-dono. I have failed you."

"It is of no concern, Shiro. Boss La would have been a fool to attend personally. Did I not tell you your plan was too simplistic? You assume he is like I, that he would share the fate of those he sends against his enemies. Sii-La is not such a man. He is too cunning for honor, too ruthless for risk."

"I am sorry."

"Do not be. It only means that there is more to be done. Collect the heads. We will display them as banners to root out the traitors, embolden the loyal. No more games, Jiro. Tomorrow night, we strike in earnest."

"It will be done, Yoshi-dono."

It did not take long. They sliced the heads from the bodies, both sides, tossing the remnants of each man into the Tokyo Bay before finally displaying each before the Ronin Royale Casino, tongues hanging. In the mouths of each was a message: "Stop this senseless violence. Your blood is our blood. If there is to be peace, meet us at the Nihonto Khan -- 6:55pm, tomorrow."

The plan was to synchronize the assault of the Inagawa exiles to the timing of the murderous mutant riot proposed by their true kumicho, to catch the traitorous Caesar in the cross fire. He would see the Khan as a place of safety, a place where he held the advantage. They would prove him wrong.

They coax the supposed conqueror to them, and slay him where he stood. They expected no easy battle, but war was in their blood, and it was a blood they were willing to shed.

There, among the hordes engaging them in battle. A ghost. Seijuro's sister, hideous and grotesque, the form of a thing, an unholy creature, stepped slowly toward him, a creation of his own mental mutations interacting with the masquerade the manipulator had placed before him. It froze him before he could send his flame splashing against the walls of the Khan. It held out its arms, a gesture of requested comfort, or an indication that she wished to drag him down into the same hellscape she now inhabited? Had her soul truly come back to haunt him for his failure?

Tears welled in his eyes as his knees shook, one hand gesturing out toward hers, reaching in response. But the flames?

The flames did not waver at her approach. She passed into them without disturbing them, her presence entirely unfelt.

Nothing passed through his fires unknown.

So that is what he focused upon. The feeling of the flames. He shut his eyes, tears rolling down his cheeks as he ignored her sudden appearance, and when he opened them, his mind was quiet. The old man's mandated meditation finally payed off with promised enlightenment. Of a sort, at least.

In that same moment in which he dispelled the illusion of his kin, some other dispelled the means of its unraveling. The fires he had held began to sputter into nothingness. He was being disarmed. He could not see the culprit behind the snuffing of his flame, but even as they died they provided one final vision, one final, fleeting feeling. The sensation of something, or someone (@warsman), piercing their raging heat.

He ducked on instinct alone, narrowly avoiding the crack of the bat. Sputtering, the flames tried to rekindle, the radius of a blaze that should have threatened all of the San'Vun stronghold somehow reduced to embers floating haphazard through the air as the oxygen drained around them. Yet here was a man, a giant of a man at that, entirely undeterred by the thinning air, literally flying at him. But still there were those sputtering embers, and in those embers, there was the soul of his fire. He could sense the coming blows in the disruption to those small, sparking bits of flame.

They were all that kept him alive. Each dip, each ducking of his head, each dodge, they all came from a lifetime of scavenging on the streets using this unique advantage. He could scarcely see the man's blows, but he could feel them through instinct, through the breath of the flame still lingering on the wind.

He ducked a vicious blow at his shoulder, the air displaced whistling loudly even in the chaos of the raid. He moved straight back, his hips flying backward in a form more akin to a dance than any meaningful dodge, but he did so with such a desperation that it gave his movements preternatural speed. But speed and instinct were not enough, not when his opponent held all the same cards, and more.

The blow caught him. It was only the very tip of the bat, but it caught him. At first it felt as though it had just managed to brush up against a rib, and indeed, had the blow come from the arms of a normal man, even a simple metahuman whose strength were not so complete, it would have merely slid along on the curve of the rib itself, glancing near harmlessly away.

But this was no mere metahuman. It was a monster. The man's eyes burned with a rage inconsolable, with a thirst for more than mere blood. They were the eyes of a man who saw in every simple skirmish a battle, and in each battle a war. It was this creature who had come before him, this creature who had struck him with that solid black bat.

It met the angled bone, crushing it into the powdered shrapnel that would plague his insides, launching him clear across the battlefield and well into the Khan, the wall crumbling beneath his back.

He was dazed, but only for a second, unable to understand, even with his knowledge of the mutant underworld and its many powerful foes and allies, how so large a man could be so quick, so sharp.

Then he was upon him again, the bat coming down hard, ready to crush skull, bone and flesh all into a singular paste. He rolled, withdrawing his knife and slicing into the space between his fingers and running it down his forearm. The dagger bit hard and deep, and his pulverized ribs ached horribly, but it would all be worth it if only his plan could bear fruit. As he rode the roll to his feet and dove, narrowly avoiding yet another almost supernatural swing from the tyrant before him, he lashed out with the arm, setting the blood ablaze as it broke into its chemical components. Hydrogen and oxygen split and formed the fuel and sustenance for the fire that came blazing from his very veins.

The colorless gasses reacted with the heat of the violent division, exploding instantly into another inferno, the remaining components of his body born as mere fuel for the fire of his soul. He was going to coat his assailant with the yet unbroken blood, allowing it to deteriorate and react in a constant birthing of flame upon his skin, the burning upon him further drawing from the firestorm still leaking through his veins, adding their heat to the blaze to cook the demon alive.

The air manipulator (@yazhun_sanvun), wherever she was, found that she could not drain this oxygen so easily. It seeped from his very body, and so it was that the gas was a part of him, and he was one with the flame. It held and stuck, not air manipulating fire but fire drawing in air, holding it, until finally it surged outward all at once, not snuffed, but following the oxygen she sought to deny it, snaking into even the most impossible of places. Seijuro's mind was meeting hers from across the field of battle, for while he did not see, did not comprehend, he felt. Felt the focal point of disturbance, felt her drawing away the all-important air that allowed his fires life, and so he decided not to pull against her, but to push out with her.

It was still true that she was the more experienced, the more deadly, the more disciplined.

But she had not lost a sister.

She had not lost her friends.

She did not suffer as he did.

She did not burn with the rage he felt.

That was his strength. That all-consuming fire. The radius of the blaze began expanding, taking with it everything in the path she pursued, threatening to scorch ever inch of the Khan as it moved anywhere but toward his own back. The manipulation of fire and its direction implied a control over currents, for without it he would be but a pyromaniac, no control over the content or form of his flame.

He would not harm his own brethren, and should she try to push his inferno to his friends, it would be there that they would battle in a test of wills.

And his will was that of Fudo Myo-o incarnate: Immutable, all-consuming wrath personified.

He watched from the outside as the mutant horde began their journey into the gates, confused by their sudden impediment. He could see the illusory soldiers, trace their movements and attacks, their strikes against his allies, but none of it felt real. The sound that reached him should not have been. His suit impeded all vibrations from the outside, allowing him to inflict sonic pain upon his enemies without threat to himself, and yet he could hear the yells of the yakuza clear as day. It could mean only one thing.

The sound was in his mind.

The mercenary known in black market circles as "Silent Thunder", a ridiculous name that summarized his ability all the same, had come to the sudden realization that he and his troupe were being played for fools. He was not unfamiliar with the concept of mental manipulation, but it was still difficult to accept that they had been plagued by illusory adversaries on such a scale, and to such effectiveness.

The mutants he had only just commanded now battled with their false foes, writhing in agony with each strike against them, their mutant abilities running amok within. They did not listen to his calls, they did not respond to his orders.

One drove his hands through the floorboards, summoning spires from the earth, calling concrete foundation through the floor, a dozen spikes striking seemingly at random, catching even his brethren in their fatal embrace. Another began to tear at the walls, hurling chunks of upheaved wood and marble with the intent to strike at empty air, the first of such attacks ripping the torso from a fellow rioter as the chunk of dense polished marble cleaved through all obstacles, smashing into the coat check and demolishing the wall there.

He took closer note, hiding among the number of his soldiers still fighting to get in. He ordered them to a halt with a whisper to hold until he could formulate a solution, analyze the enemies tactics.

The struggle of the mutants within implied a manipulator, and if she were puppeting these illusions to suit the circumstance, turning each limb to guard a blow or dodging out of each strike, she must be quite focused indeed to manipulate the false enemy in such a way as to appear lifelike in their battle.

Such a thing took focus. Focus and laser-like precision.

Seizing on this line of thought, the Italian mercenary snatched up a shattered bottle, the remnants of a molotov snuffed out early, and tossed the glass base into the Khan, where it shattered with little aplomb on the reflective marble floors, but unleashed hellish thunder into the room.

160 decibels of sound screamed out of the impact, surging through the air. Each shattered piece of glass mimicked the original impact, scattering and forming the same booming din with every meeting of glass and floor. Counterwaves of auditory force nullified much of the sound for the mutants on his side of the line, but those within the Khan would have to deal with the ruptured eardrums and waves of force that accompanied the event. As for the illusionist, it was time to see if she would be able to maintain her incredible focus while under an auditory assault of such magnitude.

Before the Mozart of Mercs could confirm its effectiveness and order the charge, he found the entrance sealed, white webbing barring the vast majority of the mercenary's force from entering, even catching many of them in adhesive nets all around him. He glanced about, the perpetrator behind the impediment soon announcing himself alongside his action, sparing the audio manipulator the need to search for him.

"You've made a bold move, amico, but you messed up. You should've kept quiet, made things interesting. Now I get to--"

His thought was interrupted by the screams of his allies. All around him they began to panic.

No. It was more than panic. They screamed as though the hand of death gripped their very souls, pulling them into the abyss. Giovanni could see them now. All around him: demons of the nine hells. His allies were swallowed by their very shadows, and rising in their place came Mephistopheles, Beezlebub, Abbadon, and Satan himself at the forefront. Di'Fiori's breaths grew shallow and rapid, his pupils constricted to pinpoints as he stared into the wide eyes of the Devil himself, burning red skin already adorned in his executioner's hood (@aranea). The roars of devils and demons sounded all about him. He panicked, rational mind falling, cannibalized by his lizard brain.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHH!"

It was a cry of terror, raw and uncontrolled, which under sonic manipulator spelled devastation for all around him. The "demons" surrounding him were blown away by sheer sonic force, thunder rupturing from his sound-proof suit, clawing its way from his throat. Those tossed splattered against the wall of the Khan, smashed into parked cars, were crushed into the ground, snapping bone and cracking flesh. The ones nearest to the manipulator, the ones netted by the arachnid based superhero, had their facial features crushed in and rearranged, their organs ruptured beneath sonic pressure. Blood welled around their eyes and streamed from their ears as his wail lengthened, reverberating in on itself at such a pitch as to build on the force of its waves, the spider-demon at ground zero.

Then came a second volley. Contributing to the chaos already sown, explosions began to ring out all around them, the near silent projectiles delivering their explosive payloads and taking with them the limbs and lives of those caught in the blast. The strikes would be difficult to trace alone, but fired en masse, they easily drew the attention of the mutant outlaws. Those that remained sane, those exposed lightly or not caught in the clouds of fear given form, traced their origin to the rooftops across from the Khan, the yakuza among them opening fire in an attempt to reduce the accuracy of the barrage, take as many of the masked shinobi with them into the pits of hell.

The nameless mutant, meanwhile, watched with pure disdain. Flying high above the action, he was originally tasked with establishing a route out of the Khan should they require it, but seeing the actions of the archers against his mutant kin, he could restrain himself no longer. The Red-Scale Reaper swooped down, diving with excessive speed as he hurled explosives of his own. Semtex, gray and formless, hurtled down onto the rooftop the sanguine colored shinobi occupied, detonated but moments later.

He would rain his own fire and explosions upon them, instill a new fear into the opposing force, which grew stranger and stranger with every new foe that materialized. But it was not his place to judge the appearance of his enemies. It was his job only to make sure none remained when he was finished. Whoever survived, some, all, or none, he would make sure they were put down for good, raining not dragon's breath but man-made lead upon them, pulling the carbine from his shoulder and opening fire on any scurrying survivors that might remain.

"How many are you up to, malakas?"

"Seven."

"Seven? Liar! I only counted eleven when we got out here!"

"Left room. Two more."

"Γαμώτο."

The two had just cleared the small horde of guards streaming into the hallway, but something felt off. The sensors in his grafted armored skin gave no feedback as he cut through the bodies, sliced heads from their necks. It was an oddity that made itself more and more unnerving as he sliced. The usual dopamine rush was triggered, but he was deprived of his technological high, the satisfying chime confirming that his sword had cleared whatever human debris he had chosen to slice through, the icon at the edge of his HUD remained grey and mute.

But why?

Sensors only began to show the cause as Red-Eye approached the door, his blade about to pierce its outer hull.

"Malakas, why do you hesitate?"

"It's--"

"We got a job to do, c'mon."

Pushing past the metal-melded mercenary, the younger, more impatient Petros pushing past his more experienced counterpart, hand pushing into the door.

"<Stop you fool! It's a-->"

But it was too late. The explosive force of the flame and electrical charge blew the boy's body into the mechanical shinobi's chest, his armor shedding as the body itself flew into several parts, scattering throughout the hallway. Luckily for the cyborg mutant, the plied apart body parts absorbed most of the explosion's force, but unluckily his foe had suffered none of the damage created by the psychic maelstrom. Before the dust had even settled, the remaining mercenary rose and immediately charged his foe, sword in hand.

"<You damned son of a bitch! I'll slice you into bits so small the slightest breeze will carry your corpse along on the wind! There will not be enough of you left to fill the palm of my hand!>"

Red-Eye immediately began his attack, attempting to close the distance before his opponent could even take in the effectiveness of his own assault. There would be no time to tarry about, admiring his handiwork. No. It would be kill or be killed.

The blade shot from its sheathe with a magnetically charged explosion of force, coming up in an explosive draw, several times faster than anything the already supersonic mercenary could manage. He would kill this interloper where he stood, or he would push him out and into a corner, to be disposed of soon after. Whatever he did, he would make sure to clear him from the room, where he could still direct the efforts of his allies, where he could coordinate an assault on those below.

Following the draw, he would attempt to press the advantage, weaving through whatever tricks this explosive foe had up his sleeve. But he was confident in his speed, in his power. He would slice in every direction, each attack flowing in a natural progression of strikes meant to maximize on the fact this his opponent was, in his eyes, essentially unarmed.

"死ね! 死ね!"

"死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!死ね!"

"死ね!"

Whatever came, he would not back away, no matter the hindrance, he would press on. He would not let this foe evade him. He would not let him interfere. He would slice him to ribbons, exactly as promised.

Regardless of the efficacy of his own blows, the cyborg mercenary had another objective. The command to die, repeated ad nauseum, and ever growing in force and volume, would distract his opponent from any other sound. The strikes, each one aimed to kill, were meant primarily to occupy the visual senses. The movement, each step carefully choreographed and planned in advance, would guide his foe into a corner. The mechanized mutant's every action was executed with a singular goal: to leave his opponent dumb to the world around him, buying his ally the time he needed to slither into the control room. The boy's body, having been reduced to a tangled mass of black, venomous snakes (and not the charred flesh that most would be expecting) began their journey into the security room as his ally corralled his aged opponent into a corner, out of the way of the amateur assassin.

If he could only get there safely and reform, he would begin the process of looping the footage for key security cameras, making it appear as though the vault and count room were perpetually secure, while also allowing the chaos enveloping the rest of the Khan to be broadcast accurately. Should he manage this despite the efforts of the room's defender, he would finally send the all clear to the rest of his allies, at which point they would begin to jam all communications.

At which point the raid of the Khan could truly begin.

@yazhun_sanvun@humansfirst

Giovanni Di'Fiori had begun his day leading the men and women of the mutant underworld in a battle against their purported oppressors, but now, as the shadows began to truly lengthen?

He was in Hell.

The explosions around him materialized as wailing bursts of flesh, cries of the damned as they ruptured forth from their earthen shell holding them below, the pressure bursting their immaterial bodies like bleeding zits. He struck out at random, pushing back the demons at his every side. But there was one he could not evade, one demon in particular he could not ignore. The horned master of Hell had leapt away, safe from any of his attempts at self defense, seemingly undaunted by the vocal devastation he had inflicted on those around him. Worse, he had spared his demons the damage he had meant to inflict upon them, gathering them in chains that issued forth in bloody spurts from his wrists. Even as he caught them, he used the bloodied chains to sweep across the cityscape, pulling himself along and flying through the air on these spiked instruments of torture.

So it was that the Devil flew to find him, carried on unholy bindings. The creature loomed before him, huge eyes appearing white and blind, but whose gaze cut to his soul, sullying it by mere sight.

The Devil's voice came out a garbled roar, perhaps a message in the tongue of those that dwell below, perhaps the language of the divine father. The chain itself, which he could see now was no chain at all, but the rotting, severed skin of countless men, writhing with nerves and maggots both, stuck over his mouth, sealing it shut. He began to gag and choke as his body reflexively sought to purge the disgusting concoction from his palate. He tugged at the web of skin, writhing beneath the unholy adhesive. The bile built in his throat and mouth without a means to purge it, even as his chest was seized by the same Godless concoction. The devil began to transform as he flipped forward, his body contorting into a giant maw set to eat him whole.

It was the last thing Giovanni saw clearly. In the next moments he found himself rushing into the ground, slamming headfirst into the pavement, blacking out. It was then that the conversation played in his mind, the inky black of unconsciousness seizing him.

...

"Who is that, nonna?"

"That, little one, is Lucifer."

"He's so handsome, grandmama."

"Yes my boy, but that is only because it helps him be the Devil."

"He's the Devil? I thought the Devil had horns and goat legs and big red claws?"

"He does, little one. When he wishes to. But more fearsome than any capacity for carnage is this. His beauty."

"What? Why nonna? Aren't beautiful things supposed to be good?"

"Sometimes, little Gigi, but most times that beauty is only a lure. It corrupts good men and women both. You see, Giovanni, the Devil has not just a beautiful face, but words like honey and wit like razors. When he speaks, he can convince even the angels that good is evil, that evil is righteousness."

"Is that why there are so many bad men in the world?"

"Yes, little Gigi, and it is also why so many of them think they are good."

"But how do you know who's actually good and who just thinks they're good?"

"That is the problem, little one. You cannot. The Devil has spoken through us all at one point or another, even me. Only God knows who is righteous and who is flawed. That is why He is judge, and we are but his flock."

"But the Devil, he is a monster then? He's not really a handsome man?"

"Oh yes, dear Gigi. He is and always will be a monster, but the form he takes depends on the man you are."

...

He awoke with a start, the toxin suddenly transporting him to the hellscape he had always feared. He was not in Tokyo, fighting demons, he was in Hell, writhing on the ground with the others who had been eternally damned. He would not remain here. He could not.

The hero Aranea could feel the coming danger. His hair stood on end, his blood ran cold, and his abnormal senses broadcast a severe warning, the worst he'd felt in some time. Madness. Madness had seized the man he'd attempted to put to rest.

Such madness in a man is dangerous, in a mutant? Fatal, as many would shortly see. The gates of Hell were open for Giovanni Di'Fiori, and with his reawakening, they would open for the others as well.

His voice was muted by the web still covering his mouth, but his voice was not his only weapon. With the push of a button, his suit closed itself off from the rest of the world. The cries of the damned continued, but only in his head. Splaying his hands apart, he sought to bring them together with a murderous clap, amplifying the sound nearly instantly, drawing it up from 140 decibels to over 190 over a matter of moments. It would kill those nearby. Painfully.

They would be unable to breathe or see, the sheering sound pressure collapsing all that was nearby. A thick fog would be generated as water in the air dropped out of suspension in the pressure waves, people's internal organs would burst outright from the pure sonic force vibrating through their bodies, and the sound itself would rebound through the atmosphere, deafening everyone within a hundred miles. The sound would loop the earth five, perhaps six times, the shockwave shattering windows as far as Hokkaido, devastating the local area.

But for now? For now it was but a feeling tingling in the tip of the spider's spine, a sign of impending doom.

"<Shinobi. Everywhere I look, it's all fracking shinobi.">

Shiro Yamada ,the street hustler turned right-hand to the Yoshi-Gumi sub-sect of the Inagawa-Kai, muttered curses under his breath. He missed the days when the Yakuza settled matters in a good old-fashioned street brawl, before all the super-suits, power-rings and ninja nonsense. With a flick of his wrist he sent another empty magazine scattering to the sidewalk, his free hand jamming a full one into the machine pistol's eternally hungry maw.

<"Get down! Here comes another round!">

Crouching behind parked cars and behind corners, the still-sane exiles of the Inagawa-Kai prepared themselves for another chemical attack, stuffing shirts and scarves around their mouths and noses in an attempt to spare themselves from the noxious nightmare clouds.

Only none came. Instead, night black smoke emanated from the arrow tips, surrounding the few remaining in darkness. A few yakuza took blind pot shots at the last known positions of the archers, giving themselves away for the next, far more lethal volley. Those men died in that darkness.

Explosions ripped through the inky dark, clearing the black mist for a fraction of a second before the black swirled in again. The brief window of clarity mattered little. The men who stood near it had been torn to their component parts. Legs were severed where the arrows had struck ground, worse still, one arrow had lodged itself into a man's torso, the explosion sending his body parts streaming through the dark like clumsy shrapnel, dealing no damage save the psychological terror of having a man's liver fall into your lap.

The screams of the wounded rang about in the dark, a maddening unheard horror show, but with no muzzle flash or roar of gunpowder, the yakuza were powerless to determine their exact position. But one of those flashes, one of the brief clearings of smoke, revealed the most significant of moments to the young Yamada.

"<Kaicho!>" There, kneeling alongside the body of a Yakuza member who had thrown himself upon a faulty explosive arrow moments before its detonation, was boss Haruto Yoshi, sharing in the fate of his men as he had for the past forty years. Jiro rushed over, dropping the machine pistol to let it hang at his side and dragging boss Yoshi away, both arms looped under his boss's own.

"<For fracks sake, get out of the smoke and into the alleys! And get Yoshi-dono out of here!>"

Yamada tossed his boss into the arms of his most trusted lieutenant, grabbing his leader's ancient Type 99 Arisaka rifle and sprinting alongside them. Together they ducked into a narrow alleyway as some of his forces followed suit, moving out of the smoke without sprinting straight backward into the open streets, where they would only expose themselves as easier targets. Others were not so lucky. They ran out of the smoke in random directions, their newly exposed forms making for easy pickings.

Shiro, meanwhile, leapt onto a nearby garbage bin and grasped the ladder to an emergency fire escape, scurrying up and directing his men to follow. Together, they raided the buildings (despite the frightened protests of their occupants) and began to open fire from windows and rooftops, well above the black smoke they were supposed to be trapped in.

"<Fracking motherfrackers! THIS IS WHAT YOU GET FOR STEPPING IN WHERE YOU DON'T BELONG!!>"

Jiro took aim, firing from one window and then the next, never from the same space twice, each cycling of the rifle setting up another shot with near unerring accuracy. It was the rifle his adopted father had first taught him to shoot with, and he had taught him well indeed.

Red wings beat against an equally red sky as the sun set on the Khan, the wingbeats of death hovering over the scattering shinobi. A dry, scratchy cackle sounded from above as the gunfire continued to rain upon them. Its taunts rang out in an almost alien voice, but its words were undoubtedly human. "Y ahora deben de estar pensando, 'que va pasar?' Well, since you all have clearly lost the plot, let me tell you how this is going to end!" Another explosion, a few less red shadows scurrying about. "You are going to keep running..." A stream of gunfire. One more dead. "I will not relent in my pursuit..." Brains and bits of skull met pavement as a body was blown away, falling four stories and landing headfirst. "...y morirán cansados! HA HA HA HA HA!" The creature that was the Red-Scale Reaper spread its leathery wings, suspending its form against the dying sun, an ominous black silhouette forming against the glowing sphere.

And all for nothing. He could not have known, but should have suspected, that these denizens of the shadow world would be immune to mere mortal concerns such as fear and legend. Their hearts beat no quicker, their adrenaline pumped no harder, and when their pupils did dilate it was not in fear, but in focus, their aim made all the easier as the beast outlined itself against the heavy red orb.

As the grenades were taken in hand the nameless mutant only watched with subdued amusement. It was these closest ninja he had chosen to follow, and focus upon, so their actions came with little suspense or surprise.

Seizing a minute amount of the plastic explosive, it tossed the fragment down and detonated it, the mild explosion, experienced at a relatively safe distance (for the scaled mutant at least), propelled it further away as the shockwave pushed at its wings. Still, the stun grenades were not a complete failure, for even at its new distance the creature's eyes were dazed by the flashing light, its ears damaged by the deafening sound.

The creature plummeted, not in free fall, but as a defensive maneuver. It had been blind before, been deaf, and it knew from those experiences that nothing good ever came from an enemy attack on the senses. The expert archers, of course, easily calculated the speed of its descent, its angle. They fired their fatal arrows, their toxins sure to slay the scaly mutant, but in that very moment it spread its wings, suddenly slowing its descent and pivoting to the side, avoiding the volley, some arrows missing their target by a mere hair's width.

It descended low and behind buildings, plummeting almost in a desperate attempt to evade its attackers, but they had already timed its movements to their own, firing volley after volley of explosive arrows, their shrapnel acting as flak, invading its once clear skies. Metal shard after metal shard met its skin, pocking its body with streaming red blood, shredding its wings and rendering them far less effective. It began to cut through the air less and less efficiently, the holes and flaps of wing dragging along the air and tearing the wounds further still.

In a desperate bid to avoid further damage, the creature flew into a window, landing a floor below the Orochi positioned on the rooftop above. It had to work fast, for they would soon react to its invasion of their space.

After slamming a large clump of the explosive clay into the portion of ceiling it had last seen the Orochi positioned above, the mutant leapt from a window, sliding its claws along the wall to slow its descent as it set off the charge, hoping to catch the Orochi within its deadly blast radius.

Succeed or fail, however, they had already shredded its wings, leaving it unwilling to attempt another flight for fear of further damage. Instead, the creature hatched a plot. If they truly wished for its head, they would have to earn it.

It went into an abandoned building nearby, tossing the charges behind obstructions and in the holes of walls and ceilings. They were haphazardly tossed, yes, but time was not a luxury the mutant had. Positioning itself in the corner of a room, it dragged the remains of a marble counter over to itself and hid behind the improvised cover, confident that the blood it trailed entice them along its explosive laced path, where it would set off its bombs wait, its eyes always on the cracked window across from it. The creature's use of semtex may have seemed excessive to some, as already half the explosive charges it had were gone, but conservation of resources was only something one had to worry on if they were alive. A status it hoped to preserve.

Seijuro was fortunate that the blast at the orphanage had already stolen his hearing, otherwise the two sonic booms would have hurt far more than they already did. Blood streamed from his ears, but he paid it little mind. More concerning than that was the fact that the man before him, the charred, black, inhuman figure that stood before him rolled its neck, the deformed face, devoid of any markings that might denote it as a man, snapped and twisted alongside it.

"<What the hell are you supposed to be?>"

But the question was answered only by violence. The flaps of burned away skin, lips, and eyes, already reforming, were answer enough regardless. The man was a monster.

His fists came blazing in faster than his bat, and worse, now there were two of them. The limited precognition, the instinct that accompanied the air slicing though the fire's heat, was not be enough to evade the thickly muscled mafioso. The first blow missed by a sixteenth of an inch, but the air grazing his cheek sliced it open, forced his right eye shut. The second he could not evade, not entirely.

Instead he brought up an arm, wincing in pain from his shattered rib while he dodged to the right. His left arm shattered, the impact so sudden and so powerful that the broken bone tore open the skin, allowing the impact to sheer the limb clear off.

Seijuro Shin screamed, at first simply in pain, and then in anger. He could not be stopped here, not before he had even lain eyes on the Silent San'Vun, not before he had repaid him for all the pain, all the suffering they had all gone through.

He rolled again, evading a flying charge from the cursed crusader before him, and grasped the severed limb, the unclean tear still bleeding him profusely.

"<I'm NOT going to die here!>"

The puddled blood at his feet erupted into hellfire, burning even the concrete spires that had risen inside the Khan. Shin ducked another blow, but rather than attempt to evade the next he crushed the severed arm in his right hand, the resulting blast set to toss the two away from one another like ragdolls.

The arm's explosion showered the area in blinding light and fiery flesh, decaying for a brief instant into invisible, superheated ultraviolet fire before suddenly bursting into existence once more. The whites, blues, and violets suddenly appeared all around the room, subsisting on the oxygen the decaying flesh itself provided, a stubborn substance that threatened to reduce the Khan itself to ash.

The fire manipulator had purposefully blown himself deeper into the Khan and into a nearby hall. Ducking into another door while simultaneously searing shut his bloody stump, he made his way to the hotel area, hoping, praying that he would find the one behind all this, that he might reduce him to glowing, negative-image char. But to do that, he would have to evade the seemingly immortal mafioso at his back, a task that seemed more and more impossible as time progressed. Already his ears were deafened, his arm severed, his heart beat with little blood to carry it forward. It was only on will that he survived, only on will that he pushed forward, ever forward, into the home of his enemy.

The men and women they were battling against suddenly and ingloriously vanished from their minds, the spell seemingly broken, but another quickly took hold. Though their delusions varied, the mutant mob breathing in the noxious toxins now battled against demons of their own making. Some struck out against allies, others simply broke, curling in on themselves while the mob pushed forward in absolute terror, trampling all who refused to stand and fight their fear.

It was these mutants that came across the true demon of the Nihonto Khan. Utilizing a forbidden and corrupt form of martial skill, one whose existence was almost unknown to the rest of the world, the horde froze as those before them seized and convulsed, their faces burning a bright red as blood burst through the vessels and pores, eventually pouring from their eyes and mouths, their lungs collapsing and crushing in on themselves, hearts sped and suddenly stopped as treacherous blood froze in spires that tore aorta to shreds. So it was that twenty, perhaps even thirty fell, their bodies piling high and creating an improvised barrier before the Khan.

But such results were to be expected from the mutant menace that dwelled within the Khan. Slowly, he stepped forth. In no particular rush, he raised a cold, dead hand, and the newly piled bodies began to rise as well. Devoid of whatever gifts they may have possessed in life, they merely cleared the path for the coming terror. A giant of mindless metal strode forth, grasping at the bodies that did not clear the way fast enough and tossing them at the blood bender before it. Both the Golem and the foul manipulator of magics hidden somewhere within the chaos of the crowd proved functionally immune to this particular sanguine assault. The golem, for its lack of blood, and the necromancer for his lack of life. His blood, thick and rotted as it was with age and decay, could scarcely be called blood at all. He did not smirk at the slight tugs he felt through his corpse, nor did he speak to the tattooed mutant before him. He had long since promised himself that he would never speak to the dead.

The silver beast strode forward, smashing through the entranceway and crushing those it stepped upon into paste. It grasped at anything within the Khan and flung it at the bender, the reanimated dead making for projectiles with a shared goal: wherever they found themselves after the bone shattering toss, they would attempt to crawl to the bender, to seize him in their grasp and hold him, tear at him with clumsy hands and fingers, beat him to death with undead arms as cudgels.

For if the living could not force their way into the Khan, the dead would.

The first strike he had launched hit home, the explosive draw smashed [smashed?] into the mental manipulator's chest and sent him staggering [what?]. The mutant, or meta, or whatever this mercenary might call himself (for he was obviously no native to Nippon) seemed to deny the mechanized merc his due blood. Each slash was blocked, not dodged, but blocked by the mental manipulator of force. It was frustrating, infuriating even. So it was with great satisfaction that the Red-Eyed Reaver finally felt his blade slice into his opponent's chest.

But it seemed the cut was only skin deep, as rather than cleave the man in two his foe merely flew backward, his spine smashing into the security suite and crushing a few keyboards and screens.

If it were not immediately obvious what skill the immortal before them were deploying, it was now.

Pieces of their objective, the computers and screens that made up the primary security room, the walls, cabinets, a small mass of black snakes, a chunks of the ornate floors, all came flying at the Red-Eyed Ronin with blinding speed. But he was not one to be outdone in speed. Glimpsing what he could through the bright haze, his blade cleaved through everything, every shred of metal, every brick of marble, every wooden beam, every silicon screen was cleaved in two as Red-Eye pushed through the telekinetic typhoon.

His partner fared more poorly. The writhing snakes had already formed into the assassin, who, stark naked, was steadily at work attempting to pierce the security system's intricate digital protection matrix when he noticed with a dull whoosh that bits of drywall and shrapnel had pierced into his form once more, reducing several parts of him to the writhing components he had only recovered from. Several parts of his chest and stomach displayed functioning organs for a moment before he decided to fully collapse into the slithering reptiles and reconfigure himself by his ally.

The bubbles of force crushed in on themselves, and both the mercenaries knew that their time was up. They had failed. The cyborg grabbed his ally, leaping back before the explosion could catch them in its fatal radius.

He had seen the trick once. He would not fall victim to it a second time. His ally, on the other hand, was still smarting from their failure.

"Why didn't you distract him, you idiot? Do I have to do everything?"

"I did distract. You not sneaky. Too slow."

"Pueh. Whatever. Now what?"

"All in plan. We kill, let others worry."

"Fine by me, malakas. It's what I do best anyway."

Both switched on their jammers, the time had come for the plan to move forward, with or without them. As they braced themselves for the coming battle, the cyborg mutant ready to prove his blade superior to the tricks of the master mentalist, the indication of further breaches on this floor began to sound all around them.

"Well shit."

Petros rallied further back, collapsing and reforming behind the cover of his metal ally as he took form in his armor once more, retrieving the knives he'd abandoned in favor of stealth just as the NeoSin Ninja surged into the area.

"You take nōmin. I kill master."

"Γαμήσου"

"Give one knife."

"Yeah, yeah. When you start dying, just let me know and I'll bail you out, malakas."

The two traded a nod as the Greek assassin passed over one of the knives and then scattered his serpents to all corners of the room, setting an ambush for the soldiers already on their way.

Grasping his High Frequency Blade in one hand and the petrifying venom knife in the other, the mechanical mercenary flew forward. He knew now that slashes were more or less ineffective. They served only to batter his for to and from, which meant a change in tactics was in order.

With a turning of his hips, he thrust all his force behind a stab with his main blade, attempting to skewer the mental magician, but rather than stay for whatever retaliation his foe had planned, he pivoted to stab downward with the petrifying blade, the strike aimed at the meat between neck and shoulder, the place where he could gain the most purchase, direct the most force without the risk of pesky bone deflecting the blow.

It would continue on as such, a medley of thrusts meant to wear down defenses and eventually pierce the force-deflecting shield the old man had erected.

Petros' part was much simpler in nature, requiring far less thought for execution. He scattered his serpentine pieces all about, lying in ambush around corners and behind furniture, among the debris of the control room and in the corners where the battle had left the rooms scattered and broken. Here he would strike, sink his fangs into any and all vulnerable areas on the body, at joints and flesh that traditionally went unguarded in armor.

After this initial strike, he would retreat back into his armor as best he was able, reconfiguring himself into the approximation of a man once more and seizing his throwing knives, beginning an onslaught of knife tosses which, when they struck, would begin to petrify any and all flesh they met. He had no fear of their return. He was well accustomed to the taste of his own venom. He relished it, even.

The snakes lay in wait, patient and unmoving, but had he been possessed of his human form, his grin would stretch across his features.

It was time at last, yes, finally time. Finally time to kill.

The jammers were switched on, and all conventional communications began to fail. Grant Diaz grinned, his partner remained somber. All others saw was an exchange between a security officer and a janitor, employees in the casino area, an area yet to be breached, nodding as they passed each other.

A short series of beeps through the advanced communications system and they signalled to the others that their own assault should begin. The interior distraction team would mimic the actions of the rioters just now piercing the entrance of the Khan. They would stream forth from the numbers of the patrons, wreaking havoc and stealing all the petty cash they could while Grant and Leo made their way to the counting room.

That was the plan, at least. Instead, the beeps went out to deaf ears, the wearers long removed by the NeoSin soldiers. In a conjoining room, the remnants of the interior team laid on their sides, their bodies already gathering flies.

All save for one. The beeps made themselves heard in Lily Freid's ear, where she hid behind a wig and a dealer's vest, the only one who thought to disguise herself as an employee rather than a mere patron. She shuffled the cards in her hands, her appearance hidden by ample make-up and surgical modifications. She appeared to all eyes as a normal woman, but as her fingertips touched the focus hidden beneath her jacket, a cold hell broke loose regardless.

An invisible cloud of magical energy swirled into existence. As it centered itself on a group of the newly revealed NeoSin Solidiers, it began to slow the molecular speed of all matter all caught in the ten foot radius to a standstill near immediately. Unfortunately, that same act centered the drain of thermal energy from her own position, but she was prepared for this event as well.

She collapsed in a heap, the cosmetics cracking and falling from her face and body. Her body went cold and blue, and to any observers her still body would appear a corpse, an unfortunate victim caught in the same effect as those technological soldiers above her. The cold sapped movement and life from all caught in its embrace, but as the wielder of her artifact, she was well used to such freezing temperatures. She would take shallow breaths and hope that the resulting chaos would allow her to escape attention. It was a much lesser distraction than they had hoped, but it would have to do.

Grant Diaz and Leo Herric moved off in their security personnel disguises, the dropped illusion revealing the NeoSin soldiers and complete lack of patrons. And allies.

It was a huge hitch in the plan, but no plan survives contact with the enemy, regardless. If they had to get aggressive, they would. But for now, Grant Diaz and Leo Herric made their separate beelines for the vault. Grant, disguised as the security officer, took a cart along the same route that the security personnel always took to deposit money at the count room. His pace was rushed, on account of the distraction behind them granting the excuse of panic. Nothing really stood out. He even had the fast walk down, the slight shuffling gait the overweight failed Sumo used to use before he was "replaced".

Herric simply strode along, cleaning as he went, his path to eventually take him to the same place Grant was going. He was not as meticulous as his ally, he did no such research, and he did not feign panic. The false face made of malleable clay, a gift from Grant, provided him with a close approximation of the usual staff member, but he strode with the proud disdain of a man who carried himself with the same proud air no matter the path his life took him down. If they were lucky, they would make it to the count room undetected. At the very least, Grant would make it in. In Leo's eyes, it didn't matter if he escorted Diaz in or not. Grant could carry everything out on his own.

The plan, the real plan, was to put on full display the power mutants could generate. If he had to do that himself, he would.

His hands were caught in an open position, the souls of the dead, wispy and deformed, white as bone but with the iron grasp so commonly attributed to the damned, grasped at his arms. Panic seized him as he flew into the air. He writhed as the apparitions flew forth from the Devil's hands and wrapped themselves around him, their wails closer now. In his ears, in his head, scraping against his soul.

His pupil reduced itself to a pinprick, the pounding in his heart became the beating of a hummingbirds wings as he struggled against the embrace of the damned. Then the devil leaned over him, clutching his head between two great clawed fists and drawing the Italian's face toward its own, fire and brimstone reflected in the great white eyes.

Aranea's hands closed around a loosening crack in the soundproof suit, a result of his earlier assault that had sent the mercenary headfirst into the pavement. His finger slid along a barely discernible button, and with the slightest pressure it depressed, releasing the Italian mercenary's head into the superhero's hands, the helmet retracting and peeling away easily enough.

The first thing he noticed was the pooling blood from the broken blood vessel in his left eye, next the thick matted hair, dripping with the blood that streamed from the top of his head. One pupil was also larger than the other, and considerably so.

The man was babbling through the webbing still over his lips, the names of demons whispered in the same breath as prayers for salvation. The mercenary struggled against his webbing, desperate pleas to the saints and to the Lord muttered again and again as the Spider drew closer. And then the spider/man spoke.

"Hey! Please listen to me... you're not thinking straight, you've been exposed to a fear toxin. You're going to hurt alot of people if you don't calm. Down."

The man's head shook, the toxins in his head mixing with the physical trauma to birth a state of consciousness barely attached to the waking world. He could see the Spider's head, the light of the burning buildings around them ringing the hero in a halo of light. Giovanni brought his head forward, eyes gazing into the welcoming, almost pitying gaze of Lucifer once more, not the devil, but the fallen angel. It was alarming still, to face this form, but with this comely visage the mercenary's panic subsided slightly, aided by the tone of the Devil's words, as honeyed and sweet as Nonna said they'd be, even if he could not glean their meaning. But the demon's other face brought its own terrors. There was another fear now, a far deeper fear, one beyond the kind that draws forth fearful cries and physical struggle.

He was delirious, mumbling, weaving in and out of consciousness as the spider stood above. His head bobbed with the effort of maintaining consciousness, but he was contained. No longer under direct threat, he now addressed this, the greatest of his fears. The mercenary's words were muffled by the webbing at his mouth, the chaos of the crowds, but Aranea could still vaguely hear it, just over the din of all around him.

He was pleading in whispers, begging for his creator to save his soul.

And sure enough, as the blood began to spill from his ears and nose, the words did not seem out of place.

The nameless mutant grew restless, but such a luxury did not last long. It could hear them: the incessant buzzing of unnatural wings cutting air. Too steady to be the wingbeats of a creature, too loud to be the whine of an insect. It finished loading up its weapon of choice, lead reinjected into the throat of its American carbine, a few final touches, and it was finished setting up its final stand.

Scratching from above. Faint. Near indiscernible from leaves scraping along the roof, but distinct enough. Then came the not so subtle sounds. Explosions rocked the rooftop, then the next floor, and the next. Fast, but not so fast the creature could not ready itself. Its claws gripped around the rifle, and as soon as it caught sight of the shower of ceiling debris, it opened fire with a snarl.

But even with its preparedness, with its cunning, the creature was no match for the technological might the NeoSin Shinobi brought to bear. It swiped a clawed hand at them, attempted to tear through their bodies and impale them along the razor sharp structures dangling from its fingers, but to no great effect. The Aetherium cables impaled its limbs, its claws still balled into rough fists despite its empty hands, the carbine dropped long ago in favor of clawed combat. They pulled, their combined strength more than a match for its own. Its joint popped free of the socket, the left shoulder wrenched free, exposing straining muscle and ripping at previously torn skin, the wounds from the explosive arrows expanding further as the technologically blessed ninja pried the beast apart.

They had shackled the creature, tied it down like a beast to be slaughtered, and sure enough, those in the lead withdrew their blades, ready to stick the animal, sever its head or leave it to bleed to death.

A low growl escaped the creature as it bore witness to its executioners. It had known that its involvement here could mean its death, though such a possibility had seemed so remote, so unlikely, before. Now, here it was, devoid of wings, tied down with metal wire, a breath away from death.

"Me consideran un animal, pero no soy. I am not a beast I--"

They were not interested. The flying creature was a prize, not a prisoner. Aetherium katanas sliced through the air with a deadly hum, their aim to behead the beast, to sever his head and take it as a trophy.

But it was not done talking.

They had taken its limbs, controlled its arms, its legs, its wings, but they had not pierced its neck or its head, and they had certainly not stolen the creature's spirit or its heart.

Mighty jaws clamped down hard on the incoming katana, the initial strike, the one most suited to decapitating him, was caught between the creature's teeth, the impact the NeoSin's super strength and exceedingly sharp metal allowed the blade to cleave through the animal's reinforced teeth, slicing through almost all its molars before finally stopping more than halfway through its cheeks.

The other blades cleaved into its skull, blinded its eyes, stole its hearing and sheared skin from bone, but before they could kill the beast they met that first blade, their strikes stopping at the end of its jaw, broken teeth littering the floor around them.

His voice came through in a gurgle now, blood welling all about the creatures face and pooling deep within its throat. "I am not an animal. I will not die an animal."

The clawed fist unraveled as the nameless mutant's thumb pressed down firmly on the detonator, the arrows of the Orochi only now making their way in through the windows. "Moriré un hombre, un mutante..."

The Red-Winged Reaper's chest, still heavily burdened by the remaining half of his explosive semtex, erupted into a shower of force and debris. All the past explosions, every act of criminal demolition he had committed, paled in comparison to the final eruption. Three whole floors of the building were jostled from their position, collapsing the mostly abandoned building in on itself in a calamitous collapse, shrapnel flew from its position in every direction, concrete and steel rebar shooting out at blinding speeds as the unnamed mercenary's payload sheered the flesh and bone from his body, what little remained of his disintegrated corpse flying to every cardinal corner of the city.

As for its effects on the NeoSin Ninja, who could say? The only possible witness to their fates was gone, taken in a final act of defiance against the perceived wrongs of the San'Vun syndicate.

That night the Red Scale Reaper's exploits ended. The stories of a dragon stalking the night, snatching up treasures to add to its horde would become just that once more, stories and tall tales. That night the mutant, the man trapped in the guise of a beast, finally found peace, finally found solidarity with his kind.

For in death, all are equal.

Leo went on unimpeded, tossing his mop aside as he approached the count room. The cart Diaz had been pushing was abandoned well before the actual door. It meant something went wrong. Something was off.

Then he saw it. The open gates to the count room, a straight shot at the vault. That's what had spooked him. Herric made the turn, peering into the wide-open room. It was clear. Entirely empty of enemy forces, all except for the most striking sight he had ever seen. There, in contrasting hues against the brightly lit vault, was Yazhun San'Vun himself, clad in the armor most often crouched beneath his own skin.

"So you're the famous Yazhun, huh? The 'Black Hand', the 'Shadow Shogun', 'Shadoking', all that crap, right?" Leo prowled into the room, tossing the cart aside as easily as one might discard unwanted change, flinging it across the room without a care, without a thought. He paced back and forth, a caged animal, hungry, yearning to make a kill at last.

"Don't bother answering. I know you do all that hand shit. I'm not interested in waving my dick around to try and talk to some fracked in the head scum like you."

He flexed, clothes straining against iron muscle. He stood at the edge of the count room, dusting his clothing off. He knew that San'Vun had been simmering in his hate for some time, that he was eager to put a face to the pain that had been floating around the Khan. Well, he was all too happy to provide it.

"So, why don't we go ahead and take this outside? I don't want you messing up my money."

With that, Leo Herric stalked off, keeping the corner of his eye on his more than formidable foe, ensure that he wouldn't get the jump on him. Of course, should he try, he'd simply lure him outside, where he wouldn't have to worry about collateral damage, where he could toss him back and forth without having to worry about ruining his own share of the score.

He breathed deep, nostrils taking in ample air, preparing for the coming fight. He was excited. His heart raced. His adrenaline spiked.

Spiked too soon. And his heart did not simply race, it pounded, a furious drumbeat conducted by some mad maestro. His muscles tensed, and as soon as he turned the corner, broke sight between he and his for, mad paranoia took hold. In his mind his opponent was already behind him, the NeoSin Shinobi had already marked him for death, amd in a quarter second more his intestines would be splattered against the walls of the Khan.

The quarter second passed, and then another, and another. His arms were steel wire, spooled tense and ready to snap, his mind under equal strain. His breathing became ragged as the world distorted, warped and shifted in ways his mind could not comprehend. Everywhere he looked, the world's hues shifted into the negative, only his own remained same. Only his own remained sane.

"Come out SAN'VUN! Show yourself you son of a BITCH!"

Out in the hall, the Militia enforcer swung his fists at nothing, his clay mask still intact, but his psyche slowly crumbling. The fear toxin, the waves put forth by the unseen mentalist above, both combined to make him agitated, angry, uncertain. He struck out at the world around him, showering himself in the debris of glowing black walls and driving his arms through illusions he thought cast by the Shadow Shogun. He was a man mad with rage, and if San'Vun did emerge into that hallway, if he did catch him skulking about this negative space, he would grasp him by the shoulders, by the neck, the collar, whatever he could get his hands on, and he would slam him into anything he could find. Wall, ceiling, floor, it did not matter.

All that mattered was that he didn't let go, did not give him the opportunity to escape, to blend into a world where all was what he was, where all was twisted, misshapen, an inhuman parody of the world as it was supposed to be.

-

Clay and Cash (Money Room)

*CRASH* CRASH* *BANG*

The cart flipped and tumbled, eventually settling on its side as the iron screeched across the room. Leo did what Leo did best, displaying his disdain for mutant and extra-human kind with a caustic sneer and anger-inducing insults. He was the kind of man to provoke others into throwing the first punch, who relished in taking an opponent off his emotional center so he could pummel him from his proudest and most indignant back into simpering submission, a position in which he felt all mutants (save himself) belonged.

But he was losing his edge. His words grew agitated, panicked. He began to swing his fists with wild abandon, surrendering his strategy, no longer luring his target with barbed words but attempting to bludgeon him with balled fists.

In short, he was a disappointment, which was just what Grant Diaz didn't need. The manipulator of mud and sundry earthen material listened patiently from within his metal prison, impatient with the pace of his ally's manipulation, but more than anything he was simply annoyed. The plan would have gone so much more smoothly had the muscle-bound moron not given in to whatever idiotic instinct he had indulged himself in this time and just walked away, forcing San'Vun to pursue.

After all, he had no need to fear discovery. There was no heartbeat to betray his position, no need for air save to project a voice he had no interest in utilizing in that moment, no thermal presence beyond what he willed. He was, for all intents and purposes, a clump of mud and clay hidden within a metal shell, safe from prying eyes.

So he continued to bide his time in the container, waiting until he was relatively sure that San'Vun had engaged his ally, moved away from the money. Only then would he surge forth from the container, grabbing up whatever valuables he could absorb into his mud-based body. The cash he would simply surge over, incorporating the paper money into his form, hiding it away with the stashed adamantium auger. If undiscovered, he would simply move on to the vault. Leo could handle himself, after all.

And if it turned out he couldn't?

That just meant there'd be one less share to dole out come pay day.

But then came the metaphysical psychic waves, tearing at his mind and body. He had no blood to bleed, no body to tear as one normally might, but his mind was still ever present, sharp and well attuned to the world around him. It screamed in pain, but Diaz's will was surprisingly robust. He was a man whose body rose and fell, reformed and shaped on will alone. He would not give himself away because of a little pain. His components squeezed and crushed together, the equivalent of "gritting his teeth", but he bore the pain, the aches that would outright kill a lesser man.

But he was no lesser man. He was the goddamn man, and he wasn't about to let a little pain keep him from his big score.

-

The Bloodless and the Bound (Interior Entrance)

The golem strode forth, an unstoppable mass of Karachian Silver. It did not react to the mutant's efforts, and when he disappeared in a mass of freezing smoke, it only tread further forward, oblivious to the fact that its opponent had fled. The necromancer too, when his fluids were set ablaze, his body's flesh reduced to ash, merely continued his stroll, skeletal form following in the massive footsteps of his magi-mechanical slave, the flesh puppets he commanded following in lock-step. Many froze to their positions, the smoke having enveloped the bodies long enough to freeze them in place. There would always be more dead. The necromancer cared not for a few lost marionettes.

His one hand, a bony claw devoid of flesh and blood, pointed further into the Khan. His other hand wrapped around the focus hanging from the shreds of a chain, skeletal knuckles keeping it close. Keeping it safe. No lungs. No lungs needed for the dead. The toxin, in all its potency, with all its potential to draw forth the worst imaginings possible, was entirely powerless over those with no pulse, with no creativity or concerns left in their empty heads.

But what the necromancer did have, and what he had in spades, was intelligence, sentience, thought. The burnt out skeleton, black with only the hints of muscle and tendon hanging off of it, began to writhe and seize. If it had had a throat left with which to scream, it would have. The skeleton grasped its skull, tearing at it with exposed bone fingers. If it had blood left to bleed, or flesh left to rend, it would have shed them in an effort to alleviate the pain, but as things were it simply writhed.

With his focus broken the necromancers puppets collapsed, but his golem persisted in its last command. It plowed through walls and tables, ornate chairs and couches as it followed the one, simple order: move forward.

-

Cold Snap (Casino Gaming Floor)

Lily Freid played dead, the magical effect sapping thermal energy from all around her. It seemed to work, more or less, as the NeoSin shinobi scattered and avoided it or stayed and froze. She couldn't much be sure, as her disguise relied upon her remaining motionless, eyes dead to the world.

And then the gas began to filter in.

It invaded her lungs and took to her brain, even in its cold, suspended state it worked its horrific wonders on her mind. Her breath quickened, and the illusion broke. She saw them, their dim shapes in the corner of her eye. They were skittering closer and closer, crawling at her from beneath the casino's tables, crawling up through cracks only now forming in the floorboards and walls.

Potato bugs. Millions of them. Crawling in through any and every gap that she could see, through the slatting in the ceiling, in the gaps in the floors, the mouths of those around her. She rose in panic, leaping to her feet. She backed up, running away from the hideous creatures ripping up bits of unexplained flesh from the walls and carpeting, chewing on them and puking acid up through the their deformed mandibles, the streams producing rising steam and the hiss of dissolving flesh and blood, the smell of filth and mud seeping in from every angle.

In her head, she knew none of it made sense. Potato bugs, with their oddly human faces, their incredibly durable exo-skeletons that took a surprising amount of force to crush and kill for good, did not invade indoor establishments. They did not eat people. They did not spit up acid. Walls were not made up of flesh and muscle.

But the logical mind mattered little now, perhaps not at all. She ran. Her focus gone, her powers faded into nothingness, the blood pumping in her ears drowning out any and all objections from the higher functions of her brain. Disgusting bugs, silver-wielding shinobi, hyper-sapien assassins: it didn't matter who or what pursued. She just ran.

Until the telekinetic torture began. The wave slammed into her like a solid wall, stopping her flight. Blood erupted from her facial features as she collapsed to a knee, then to the ground, convulsing all the while. She was defenseless, her only option to scream as the freakish bugs began to swarm, her mind abuzz with invisible enemies and mental assault, the last sight before her mind began to blank a haunting image, one of the bugs, set to scoop out her eye, it freakish, almost human gaze staring into her fearful heart.

The pair took to their separate roles with relish. With every swing the high-tech warrior was one step further to piercing the shielded psychic's defenses. His own sword, the soul of any samurai (himself included) was frustratingly unable to pierce the barrier put forth by his foe, but the simple toxin-laded dagger managed just fine.

He knew Petros would never let him hear the end of it.

The man's palm intercepted the blow before it made its home in his shoulder, before the cyborg samurai could pierce into his neck and finish the fight. It was a disappointment, but the sight of blood, the sensation of cleaved flesh, the still made his adrenaline soar.

"Prepare your death, the Iron Storm com--"

But the remaining words were drowned out by the rapid and expertly executed toss. The mechanized mutant tumbled with the toss, grabbed not by any clothing (for he bore none) but by the nape of his neck, he was tossed like an amateur,caught completely off guard.

The ninja then bore witness to the shattering of the mental magician's arm, a sight that Petros would have relished in, but that the Red-Eye Ronin felt he did not deserve. The most grievous wound to his enemy had been inflicted by his own hand, rather than by the mercenary himself. It was a cause of great shame. One he would rectify by stealing his head.

"No mistake, ojiisan. Just beginning."

That was the end of their encounter. The rest was simply a nightmarish hell brought to the real world, a power neither mercenary had, or could have, prepared for.

The mentalist's voice rattled in the brains of all involved, all within the Khan, the form it took a chilling, humorless laugh.

A wave of pure, unfiltered force, broadcast by a swipe of the telekinetic tyrant's hand, came ripping through the room, the floorboards disintegrating at its touch.

"<Out of the way, Petros! Move it!>"

The snake charmer, having felt the effects of the fear toxin begin to cloud his mind, had only recently regained his form when the wave threatened to unmake him. He dodged to the left, a fraction of a second too late. The entire right side of his body was cleaved from him, the snakes that usually formed from such damage taking their leave of his flesh and summarily melting into ash in the pressure wave.

The remaining, still whole portion of his body, a one-armed torso standing on half destroyed legs, slumped to the ground, a look of utter confusion crossing the face of the Greek assassin as he found his body cut out from under him, he sudden change in height shocking him greatly.

Red-Eye moved to close distance to his ally, dodging wave after wave of force that emanated effortlessly off the psychotic psychic. Then came a cloying hand, scraping across the inside of his mind, wracking its fingers through the mutant's brain, transmitting pain directly into its physical structure. Blood began to stream through cracks in the cyborgs armor, his fight or flight instinct subdued by the mental massacre that affected not only him, but all around him. The allies of the mental manipulator fared far worse, their bodies contorting and distorting until they exploded into bits of sinew and blood.

But when his brain was locked, the body responded. The armored graft, no simple exoskeleton, sensed the brain's intense exposure to pain, the outside influence making its presence known to the armor by its interference with neural tracking and scans. It was in these moments that the graft took control of its owner's movements, directing the mutant in an ignominious retreat. Before it could taint him with cowardice completely, however, the near robotic mutant grabbed his ally, dragging the still-human half of Petros out as the gas began to take true hold of the Greek mercenary's mind.

"Hey, don't leave me here, alright man? I'm serious. don't fracking leave me here man. I don't... I don't wanna be alone. C'mon man, please."

The mechanical mutant's brain was still being crushed by the pain of psychic force, his focus almost nonexistant, but the plea of his ally could not be ignored, not when it was put so sincerely, so full of fear and vulnerability. The mind of the mechanized mercenary stirred, seizing control of the body once more, despite the pain running its course through his brain and body.

"I not-- UNgh! RRRghhh-- LEave, Peter. Do not worr--rrRGh--yy..."

"Please, please, don't abandon me... Please for the love of God, man I don't... just..."

"I will, Peter."

Petros screamed, the same pain inflicted on Red-Eye making itself felt on his own mind, an entirely new sensation for the amateur assassin, just as the two leapt through the window. His body was already partially collapsed when the fear and panic forced another unintended shedding of serpentine flesh, the components of the man splattering against the concrete at the Khan's base before Red-Eye grasped the balcony's edge.

The pair shattered the glass on the lower floor as they forced their way in through the sliding glass door, and by then, mercifully, the psychic pain had stopped.

The fear did not. Seizing Petros by the collar and dragging him to an abandoned room in the Khan, the steel skinned mutant turned to climb back up the way he'd come.

"You, stay here. I go kill psychic. Stop him killing all us."

"What? No way man! You promised you would stay! C'mon malakas! You can't do me like this!"

The boy's one working arm grasped the metal skin of his ally, clinging desperately to the iron flesh.

The high-tech samurai paused. The impediments to his revenge, the psychic pain, the waves of flesh ripping force, the threats to his ally, all were gone, save for one final obstacle. His own word to a friend that he would not abandon him. With a begrudging sigh, he retrieved the muttering and still panicking torso of the Snake Charmer and began to retreat further into the Khan, weaving through the hotel's rooms almost at random as they fled, an attempt at evading the pursuit of their telepathic torturer.

Seijuro turned, ice already crawling up his back. Sure enough the barbaric immortal had found him once again. The boy's knees buckled, his arm clutched the burnt stump where his arm had been but moments earlier.

"<You want to know what the hell I am?>"

Seijuro turned the question in his mind, examining it out of habit. Was that really what he wanted?

No. His thoughts came in a flood, the reality of his situation bringing stinging tears to his eyes.

No. I just want to go home. To my real home. Where Saki is still alive and everyone's still smiling.

To a home where everyone might be poor, but they're happy. Richer in each other's company than men with mountains of jewels and gold, richer in the love we hold for one another.

That's what I want.

What I really want.

Seijuro Shin wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. He was worn, battle-scarred and weary. His shoulders slumped, the effort of directing his gaze into the eyes of his executioner felt overwhelming, but the eyes that did meet those of the Blooddrinker were no hazier, no more weary than those he walked in with. They were sharp, the lines and features pulled together with sharp lines of burning hatred, of eternal disdain.

I want exactly what I can't have.

I want exactly what was stolen from me.

I WANT EXACTLY WHAT I MOURN!

AND IF SAKI IS NEVER GOING TO GET ANOTHER DAY, NEITHER WILL YOU!

NEITHER WILL ANY OF YOU!

An introduction and a threat came next. He hardly listened.

Flame crawled up his arm, no longer relying on exposed or open wounds, on shorn free flesh. Seijuro Shin was a dead man. He knew it better than anyone, and he felt nothing at the thought. No fear. No regret. He lived for his revenge, and all else, even his life, was meaningless.

He did not manipulate the flames to spare his body now. No. He felt their burn, felt his flesh bubble up, and, where that of others would melt away leaving only a charred husk, his burned hotter, lent itself to the gathering of the flame.

This was it. His last bout with an invincible opponent.

He was going to make it good.

"<No, San'Vun scum. You're not going to kill me.>"

The monster was closer now, his slow, deliberate gait drawing him dangerously near, but Seijuro did not retreat. Did not falter.

The first punch came, signaled by its passage through the transcendental flame, tore the air, positioned to crush the boy's heart. He shifted, an inch, maybe two. The arm of the bloody butcher careened forward, the forty tons of force behind the blow cleaving more than striking. It pierced the boy's sternum, collapsed his left lung, but instead of backing away, he pushed forward, his words emerging in gasps at the mobster's cheek.

"<I'm already dead. I died when you took my sister from me.>"

The core of his body erupted in invisible flames, the fires bursting into white and violet-blue plumes as they met air.

"<Just like you died the minute we met.>"

The fires surged forth toward Yazhun's sanctuary, their path taking them straight through Heiji San'Vun. This was the moment. The pinnacle of his revenge. An inferno burning nearly 3000 degrees centigrade, the oxyhydrogen chemical mixture of his blood, of his flesh, plummeting toward the oyabun's room, sure to consume all in their path as they fed on the walls of the yakuza stronghold.

He could not know that the Silent San'Vun was not in his room, but in the vault below. Could not know that this, his great sacrifice, the act so magnified in his mind, would be so meaningless.

Heiji's arm, if still caught in Seijuro's chest, would guarantee his envelopment in the flames. If they were still near each other, they would burn together, the swirling plumes of fire making their way to the Shadow Shogun's room, expending the last of his strength, the last of his will. His body was still burning, catching his clothes and singeing his skin, and he had neither the presence of mind nor the inclination to stop it.

He wheezed, holding his one arm to the gaping wound in his chest, then shifting it to his side. He glanced at the arm of the San'Vun who had confronted him, face-to-face, man-to-man. Burnt out husk or killer ready to slice his throat, the state of his foe mattered little to Seijuro Shin. With some effort, he lifted his eyes to the San'Vun who had chased him across the Khan in a dogged pursuit, the man who'd killed him.

There should have been animosity there. Should have been nothing but hatred. But as his blood drained from his body, his consciousness following close behind, he instead collapsed into the pain his will and anger had held at bay.

She was gone, and all the raging of his soul had not changed that. The people he'd killed, the pounds of flesh he'd paid to get this far, they were all meaningless. They had not soothed his soul, and they had certainly not brought them back.

He collapsed to the ground, crumpling to his knees, his back resting against a wall and smearing it in his blood. His hand rested at his abdomen, body limp. Each wheezing breath was agony, his eyesight shifting between the burning blues and violets and the dark of his own fading light. But still he wheezed. Still he breathed. The gas, the chemical attack designed to bring about his greatest fears, only increased his heart-rate, sped his death. He had lived his greatest fears, survived them, much to his despair. Death brought no fear from him, and the afterlife was inconsequential.

The chemical only carried his mind back to that fateful day, the last day he felt her weakening arms grip his waist. It was a memory he'd been reliving everyday since its creation. The nightmare toxin only sharpening the memory further, making him relive every detail even more vividly than it occurred, adding embellishment, pain, and suffering to the story, but also dredging forth older memories. Pleasant memories. Memories that now only twisted the knife more cruelly in his chest. Of her innocence, of her love for the mundane and the peaceful.

The thoughts brought shame to his last moments.

"<I have been... so... stupid...>"

His wheezing continued, growing more ragged, less whole with every passing moment. His mind wandered, meandering helplessly among the labyrinth of his memory.

Shibuya Plaza, miles away. It should have been inconsequential. Nothing there should have mattered to the men attacking the San'Vun stronghold, but fate has a way of twisting the oddest things into significance.

A truck flipped and crashed, smearing the remains of more men and mutants into the concrete. Their numbers were running thin. The next announcement would only thin them further.

The head of their previous kumicho blared before them, the grisly display of his unmistakable face, the scarred tattoo behind his ear, the wispy white strands floating in the jar, eerie indications of what happens to the deceased. It was him, that was certainly true, but on the screen it looked so unreal, so ghastly, that it gave the impression that maybe, just maybe...

*ka-chk*

"<Yamada. Did you know?>"

Jiro turned around slowly, bringing his eyes up to the man across from him. Maruko "Mad Dog" Rio, the Yoshi-Gumi's most prolific hitman, had just drawn back the slide on his M1911 and now had it aimed square at his lieutenant's chest.

"<What the hell are you talking about, Rio?>"

"<Cut the shit, Jiro. Did you know that boss Tatsuno was dead? Yes or no?>"

The pistol did not waver in his grasp. Steady as a the setting sun, he kept it aimed at Yamada's chest.

"<Rio, how long have we known each other? Don't do this.>"

They were face to face now, but Maruko maintained the advantage of a trained weapon. Jiro dropped the Arisaka rifle, letting its battle worn stock slide to the ground.

"<Don't frack with me Jiro. Did you, or didn't you know?>"

There were no more threats to be made, no pulling of the hammer. That was movie shit. Maruko Rio had long been ready to fire, and Jiro knew that well. He knew Maruko would not hesitate to pull the trigger if he did not answer now.

"<I suspected, but, I was following the will of my oyabun, of Yoshi-dono. An idiot could see that Sii-La is a traitorous dog, that he will lead the Inagama-Kai to ruin. Boss Yoshi sees it, don't you, Maruko?>"

...

"<Yeah. I do.>"

He pulled the trigger twice, sending two .45 caliber bullets screaming into Jiro Yamada's chest, the pain spreading rapidly from the point of impact.

But Jiro was not one to simply give in to death. He fell backward, grasping the machine pistol at his side and opening fire as he collapsed, his own bullets ripping up the Mad Dog's leg in a jagged line, bursts of blood escaping the opposite end.

Maruko Rio rolled onto his good leg and leveraged the force for a dive, leaping out the window and onto the fire escape they had entered from just as Jiro opened up with another burst from the fully automatic hand weapon. Ripping the cracked ceramic plate from his vest, he ducked behind a couch just as the M1911 appeared above the windowsill, firing blind into the room.

Yamada tossed himself prone just as the rounds ripped through the thin furniture and fabric, nearly catching him in the shoulder.

"<Frack, Rio!>"

But his counterpart was already gone, sliding down the rail of the fire escape on his one good leg, a rough tourniquet already tied around the other.

There was scattered gunfire throughout the apartment building, wailing from children in other rooms who had not evacuated, but Jiro Yamada could not worry about that now. He slipped a fresh ceramic plate into the kevlar vest, securing it in place as best he could. The gunfire had died down, and the familiar faces he saw were those belonging to the Yoshi-Gumi's most loyal men, only six left in total, including himself. It was a blood bath in the apartment building, defectors and loyalists to the Yoshi-Gumi lay strewn about the halls and hanging out of windows, some bearing the wounds where traitors had shot them in the back, but the majority of the bloodshed was still below them.

"<Tanaka, Fuudo, Aoi, you stay up here and provide overwatch. Me, Shino, and Futaba will go down there and grab Yoshi-dono, make sure he survives this mess.>" The answers came in nods and muttered agreement. None expected the man beside him to live through whatever came next, but all were fully willing to die to give their brothers that chance. No words were spoken. None were needed. These were men who had remained loyal not to the organization itself, but to the man that led it, to their effective father. They were brothers. They were family.

Down they went, into a hellfire that raged with the efforts of their enemies, now made all the worse by those defectors that would betray their oyabun for the tongueless tyrant Sii-La. Down came another group of shinobi, these clad in garb dark as night, assassins of the Inagawa Kai. Once their allies, now the ninja brought only death to their former comrades, callously cutting through man after man.

"<Down, NOW!>" came the rough, raspy voice of Ren Tanaka as he opened fire on the group of assassins, the automatic spray sailing just over the crouched heads of his allies. Several were cut down, but more streamed in from the shadows, tossing their cold, steel knives into the senior yakuza shoulders and chest, each blow cementing his resolve but carrying him closer to death all the same, until, at last, with a pained grimace, the fire stopped. Tanaka's final sight? A toxin-laden arrow fired from unseen vantage, a red Orochi peeling away into the night.

With the distraction well underway the core team sprinted to their oyabun, to the small bubble of Yoshi-gumi yakuza that had taken up formation at the far end an alleyway, their minds and hearts dead set on getting him safely to the armored car at the entranceway to the alley.

"<I'll get the car, Jiro!>" came the call from Nagato Shino, the youngest and most daring of the group. He sprinted to the other end, taking cover behind garbage bins and burnt out vehicles, spraying his bullets at sporadic intervals, slaying any and all those in his way. Yes, he was fast, and he was brave, but he was also reckless.

As the traitors to their cause charged with empty clips, blades calling for blood, he emptied the last of his rounds into their trunks, the *click* click* click* sounding out only moments before he turned, smiling to give the all-clear, his head rolling off his shoulders as he shifted. His eyes, in their last hazy moments, could not make out the color of the shinobi's cloth as it dashed by. But what did it matter? He had failed his brrrothe

The body fell over, but his work too was mostly done. Tears twinkled in their eyes as they pushed, the remaining two downstairs beginning their run of a gauntlet that their kin had helped them clear. Haruto Yoshi, still dazed, stumbled along, his mind still lost amongst the chaos.

Goro Aoi and Kosuke Fuudo did what they could, the deafening roar of their gunfire continuing for a full minute as the two took turns reloading, the tactic testing the patience of the Orochi, and their luck, until finally they ran out of both.

*click*

"<Cover me, Goro, I have to--!>"

His last words went unheard as the arrows exploded just inside the windows, both men virtually vaporized in the explosion. The Orochi had waited long, but their patience had been well spent. They took nearly no losses as the yakuza fought among themselves, the Inagawa Kai's Yoshi-gumi fighting against their former comrades, their secret sects.

Finally, they made it to the armored car, and in those fateful moments Haruto Yoshi, former captain of the Dai-gojūichi Shidan in World War Two, finally snapped back to his senses. "<Jiro, no! I will not leave my men!I will not surrender to this fiend, no matter who he says he killed, no matter who he says he is!>"

"<We don't have time, Yoshi-do-->"

"<I know that! Futaba, get him out of here.>"

"<What?>"

With a forceful shove belying his age, Haruto Yoshi crammed his adopted son-- no, his one true son-- into the back seat of the reinforced car. "<I am an old man, Jiro, but you have shown me today that you are every bit my son, every bit the man I had hoped you would become. If I am to die for my actions, so be it, but you will not join me today. The Inagawa need men like you. Nippon, no, the worldneeds men like you. Men who will die for those they love and fight for what they believe.>"

The bullets and arrows pinged closer and closer, but the heavy night black smoke deployed by the Orochi continued to obscure the night black car, buying just enough time for Haruto Yoshi's final embrace, his arms, once so powerful and strong, felt frail at Jiro's back. It was then that he knew his oyabun was right.

As both men blinked tears out of their eyes, Haruto Yoshi squeezed his son's shoulder, and closed the door. Reiji Futaba turned the engine, waiting for the word from his kumicho.

"<Go.>" It was a command barked out through a choked sob. Jiro sat in the seat, face cupped in his hands, tears streaming freely from his eyes. He would not forget his father. He would not forget his brothers. He would live as they wished him to, and he would right the wrongs that had led to their deaths. He would become the kumicho of the Inagawa-Kai, and he would lead it back along the right path, but first he needed time.

Time his father, time his brothers, would buy with blood.

The tears turned into sobs, and the oyabun of a dead clan rode off into obscurity, vowing not revenge, but return. A return to honor. A return to righteousness. A return to the principles of the ninkyō dantai.

But that was far in the future. For the moment, he only mourned.

-

Haruto Yoshi, victim of his own abandonment, held out his arms for the remaining yakuza to see. He knew Sii-La would be upon them soon. He counted on it. The fighting stopped as the men, the limited number of his own, the infinite ninja, and the greater horde of the Inagawa loyalists led by the Mad Dog Maruko Rio, set down their battle for the time being. "<ENOUGH! Sii-La, you said that you would settle this yourself, that you would come forth when the time came! It is come!>" He walked steadily forward, hands still raised above his head. "<It is I who led these men against you, I who saw the face of my kumicho and bud them rise against the tyranny you stand for. So here I am, ready for your punishment.>"

The oyabun of the Yoshi-gumi knelt, pulling up his shirt and revealing a short sword, a well ancient wakizashi, and withdrew it.

"<I have fought you in your own shadows, come with you into the depths of dishonor to bathe in the blood of my sons. I will shed no further blood. I will enact no further conflict. You have won. I only ask that you forgive my men, for they bear only the sins of fealty and fidelity, of honor and tradition.>"

Unbuttoning his suit, the father of the sect laid bare his midsection, the makings of a paunch peeking over his belt. Aged, wrinkled hands grasped the sword and pointed its tip at his belly.

"<I ask that you forgive them, and allow me to die in their stead. I would gladly lay down my life for theirs, to right their wrongs in your eyes. I await only your word, Sii-La.>"

He shut his eyes, the image of a man burdened with the world's weight, taking it up without complaint. He shrugged the cloth from his shoulders, the suit from his back, and revealed the twin koi swimming upon his frame. He was a man ready to die for his children, and should he be allowed to, he would do so without regret.

The passing seconds felt like hours. Hours alone with just him and his thoughts. His mind played torturer to his soul, shame and regret flooding his mind with every fresh memory of her innocent smile, her cheerful laughter.

And then came the splash of sake, cold on his charred lips. For his first taste, it was agreeable, made more so by the breeze extinguishing the last of the already dying flames on his body.

Seijuro's mind returned to reality, his memories receding into the distance as the stranger spoke, always there, but at an arms length.

"<Beautiful night, huh?>"

"<Sure."> He could scarcely hear him through the twice ruptured eardrums, through the near total deafness of his hearing, but what he had heard was a joke. It must have been. The night had caused each man untold pain, left his own body pocked and scarred by blood loss, burns and bruises, had left the other man near disintegrated.

But it just as easily might have been sincere. Even in all the destruction, the light of the exotic flames was bewitching to behold, even as they died.

"<You... mentioned a sister,>"

Through raspy breaths, Shin gave a nod, his arm stirring, the fingers tightening ever so slightly as the pain of the memory reasserted itself once more.

"<S-Saki...>"

The name, said aloud, sent tears rolling down the boy's cheeks in silent streams. The man pressed on, and he provided the answers he sought.

"<She was seven. Only seven...>"

The pain in his chest, an alcohol soaked hand pressed to it, registered and drew a slight gasp, but nothing more. He was already lost in his world of memory once again, mind only returning to reality as the giant apologized for both him and his sister, offering him more of the sake as seeming recompense. He took another sip as the hand moved from the gaping hole in his chest.

"<Can you... tell me your name?>"

Seijuro leaned back, shutting his eyes as he spoke. He had felt the fist rise once again, fully aware of what it could do, of what was coming next.

"<I am Shin. Seijuro, Shin. Brother to Seijuro, Saki.>"

He took his last breath, deep, and steady, but before the blow came down he gasped. With a faint whisper, the sound barely audible over the crackling of the dying embers, he revealed his latest recollection, offered his last request.

"<Heiji-san... Orchids. She loved... white and purple orchids...>"

And with that, the wheezing ceased, and the young mutant's head fell back against the wall, limp.

The last flame sputtered out, lines of whispy smoke peeling from the dead flame, climbing upward, riding on the wind to join the heavens above.

The battle between the immortal Heiji San'Vun, a man who had lived longer than any should, and the young Seijuro Shin, a boy whose life had not yet truly begun, had finally ended.

Ended without a victor.

The world was black and white, a place consisting of beleaguering drops and false floors, colors inverted and perverted assumedly by a militant mutant who sought his head. When the smoke began to billow Leo Herric knew something was wrong. He could feel it in the pit of his stomach, but fear impeded clear processing of thought, of strategy. He only backed away from the shimmering cloud of incandescent smoke, blinded by it, but more so by the artificial terror surging through his veins.

The NeoSin shogun's daring assault came, flashes of black light reflecting from the blades in an ominous omen, a warning of impeding death. Leo's eyes could barely make out the flash of the dual blades as they cut through the air, but his body reacted with the same instinctual understanding of battle the Black Hand no doubt employed. Bringing up an arm, the palm of his hand caught the katana while his elbow's tip smashed into the wakizashi. The long sword cut deep, slicing past his proffered palm and severing everything above the thumb. Mercifully, the loss of his fingers had absorbed much of the slice's momentum, allowing him the time to duck his head, the sword's swing scraping against his crown and further scarring the terrain with crimson, leaving his fingers still twitching against marble floor, but his head remained on his neck. The wakizashi, on the other hand, met solid bone as the tip of his elbow absorbed the smaller blade's slash, the cut and pull action of the less weighty sword ill suited to hacking through his hyper dense bone structure, but cutting through resilient flesh as easily as it had the air before it. More flesh opened. More blood was lost.

But before his other arm could snatch the slippery hyper-sapien from the air, he was gone, the rush having carried him out of harm's way and to the elder Herric's other side, but not for long. He turned, charging forward, intent on closing to zero-space as soon as possible. There, at dead close range, the San'Vun blades would be more of a hindrance than a boon, their edges and barbs useless in a range where he could deny him the space needed to gather momentum to pierce his flesh.

As he burst forward in a singular, powerful bound, he attempted to lead with a hook, to smash his unwhole fist into Yazhun's jaw, to stun him as best as possible without forcing him away, but his assault would not end there, it could not, if he hoped to live. His whole hand, the one unmarred by the Shadow Shogun's blade, attempted a grasp at San'Vun's shoulder, attempting to force him into the wall where this range might be maintained, to corner his foe and keep him at a distance where the blades he held would be unable to gather the force needed to pierce his resilient skin, to cleave his reinforced bone.

It was a desperate fight, one made all the more difficult by gas' altered perception, by the illusions it cast, by the sudden seeping of inverse color beginning to crawl its way up his damaged hand, turning him into the very being he was butting heads with, soon to cement the man Leo Herric into the creature he long denied himself as, to reveal him as a mutant, not only to the world, but to the man himself.

-

The sounds of battle came bursting from the hall. Walls were scarred as wood and iron twisted and broke, then came the hiss of gas being released. Thick smoke filled the area, enveloping even the cart in the perfect cover for covert activity.

Grant surged out from the it's inner hold, pieces of earthen flesh still sticking within the metal corners and tracks of the temporary iron prison.

He set to work immediately, surging against the machines, the piles of cash yet to be counted, the trucks abandoned rather than stashed in hasty retreat, absorbing the currency as best he could into his sizable muddy frame. It was easy, but it also added considerable mass to his person. Bills hung out in every direction like improvised armor, his body taking on all the visual flair of wadded gum left to roll along on dusty steps.

Then came the transmission, a hasty compromise between The Black Hopper and his men.

"Diaz, Herric, status report."

" 'm jus' gettin' finished with the count room. Ol' Leo's out front gettin' his rocks off fightin' with a ninja or somethin' er other."

"Any sign of our vault hunter?"

"Vault hunt... Ah, her? Nah, haven't seen our girl since the schemin' phase. Why?"

"She's late," a chorus of murmured agreement and accusation from the rest of the group "and me and the guys are getting testy."

"Bah, keep it in yer pants ya mooks. Where'd she say she was goin' last?"

"Said she was going to find the vault, snap me a picture. That's all we know."

"Vault, huh?"

Grant Diaz looked behind him, deeper in the count room, beyond another armored door, was the hallway to the vault itself. The great steel door seemed clear of all personnel, San'Vun or scumbag. Its riches called to him in seductive whispers, but the brash cacophony of battle, of desperate struggle, also rang out from the hall.

Fracking hell, girly. Gotta do everythin' myself...

The sounds of battle in the hall intensified, but as always, Grant Diaz took the path of profit. Surging against the armored door, he erected a low-profile mud bubble, not quite two feet high, on the ground between him and the count room. He retrieved the Adamantium Auger from within his clay carapace and immediately set to drilling his way into the hall, the sparks and din caused by the shearing of metals hidden for the most part by the sound dampening mud and clay, the smoke of San'Vun's making still hanging low enough to provide visual cover for even the bubble barrier. He surged through the hole he created, drawing the auger through it and planning to repeat the process with the vault door on other side. It would not take long with secondary adamantium at his disposal and his own monstrous strength pushing it forward, but still something tugged at him. The old familiar feeling of responsibility, of duty to another (something he hadn't felt in years), began to birth doubts in his mind.

Opening one organic visual optic within his clay shell, he glanced down at the phone within the bubble of his own earthen flesh, opening a secret menu through some toil in its rear panel. He tapped through the keys with mechanical precision until he found it, the crude positioning program he had installed in his and Leo Herric's phones, the one tied to the advanced microchips that allowed their unjammable communications to function. He went through the list until he round her, "50R4B3114". He tapped on the keys, closing in on her rough position. One of the upper floors.

With the next motion he tapped through the functions, sending a photo of the inner hall leading to the vault to an impatient Nils Hagen with the caption "Close's I can getcha. Auger's inside the hallway". As he fled from the opening in the armored door, he shed his take, the count room's bounty to be teleported away by Hagen when he made his way there.

It was less than satisfactory, but he didn't care. He had promised himself that he'd watch over her, a final favor to an old friend. This job was supposed to do that, to set things straight between him and Sorabella, set her for life so he wouldn't have to keep an eye on her and her stupid spending habits.

But this was a bad sign. The program reported that she hadn't moved in a good five minutes, and in the business of jacking expensive shit the only reason you stop moving is cuz you've been caught.

The mud Golem of a man liked the girl. Her spunk and swagger were reminiscent of her old man, and if he could get her out of a hairy situation like this it would go that much further in settling his debt to her father. At least, that was what Grant Diaz told himself as he forced his way into one of the nearby water pipes. He traveled to the floor Sorabella's runt was supposed to be on, an improvised clay structure keeping him relatively safe from mass loss until he popped out of the pipe at the correct juncture, water flooding the floor in a torrential cascade. His sopping wet form dripped in watery brown rivulets, his hand closed around his waterproof phone as he dialed.

The blaring cacophony (of course it'd be fracking kid music) issued forth from somewhere down the hall, the ringing of the phone guiding his sopping footfalls. Trails of mud intermingled with the pooling lifeblood of the many corpses all around him. San'Vun's men. Bullets in their heads, necks, everywhere. Shot grouping was pretty shit though, considering the girl's reputation.

Sorabella's girl in a shootout? Laying still five, no seven minutes now? So that means that around this corner she's probably...

Gone?

He rounded the hallway's bend, fully prepared to see her mutilated corpse torn through with bullets of all varieties, judging by the dead in the surrounding hall, but instead he found only a flickering light tossing the world into occasional bouts of endless shadow, and there, on the floor, one of the augmented cellphones they had used for this mission.

Various paranoid paths crossed his mind as he flicked his way through an override, the menus on her piece of abandoned kit opening up before him.

She coulda turned traitor, but then why kill the San'Vun boys?

She coulda been taken prisoner, but then why wouldn't they keep the frickin' phone for intel?

She coulda chickened out, tossed the phone to throw us off the...

He flicked into the gallery, its latest capture revealing her fate, the true nature of her final ordeal. He quickly surged back into the light, bounding away from the flickering fluorescent bulb. In the tinny sound of the smart phone, her screams seemed all the more unsettling. The playing video revealed that someone, no, some thing had come leaping out of her shadow and dragged her down into it, the two melding back into the inky dark, the screams dying with her disappearance.

Fracking-A girly, and I thought I was the worse company you'd ever keep...

He replayed the video, keying in another set of commands to patch in the younger of the Herric brothers.

I can't help ya now... not without some way to find out where ya went...

He sent the files on her phone to his own, dumping the device where it lay before, directing Mitchell to do what he did best. The event ended with the two leaving a relatively simple worm virus within the code of the video itself, allowing backdoor access to whatever device it was transferred to, and of course to the device itself. It was all he could do. He would search for her after his job was done, and if the San'Vuns transferred the file and tried to do the same, he'd know.

Sorry Sora buddy, looks like I got her into an even bigger mess'n she started off in...

Surging down into the space of the elevator, he returned to the same floor he had left Herric on, ready to finally make his appearance before Yazhun San'Vun himself. As the elevator doors opened, he walked pulled himself up from the cavernous drop, steam rising from hidden holes in his back, a reflection of the secretive actions he had taken as he navigated the shaft. With open arms, he walked toward the Silent San'Vun, goading him forward.

"Yazzy! Ol' pal! How are ya? Tell me, is everything workin' out alright down at that shithole you call an orphanage? Or did ya finally find the money to remodel the place?" Reaching behind his back, Grant Diaz pulled forth a piece of cloth, the tattered remains of a San'Vun syndicate suit, the same pattern as the one reported on the day of the attack, and tossed it at the Mute Mafioso's feet. "Cuz I already took the liberty of helpin' with the demolition." A wet, suckling cackle escaped the muddy creature's throat as he bellowed in laughter, the watery brown flesh running down his face in waves of melting skin.

He would let the San'Vun's "Shogun" come, and when he did, he would reveal the weapons he had crafted in the dark of the elevator shaft, opening his body to reveal the crude diamond shards, the needles and shivs, blades and spines all pointed inward as the creature attempted to envelop him in a clay prison, an iron maiden of earthen spires, and Leo would help to force him in, given the chance.

The plan was in place. All he needed to do now was buy time. That, or simply kill the upstart that had already slain so many of his black market associates.

They came as quickly, as silently, as apparitions in the night. They moved in disturbing concert, too human faces sporting inhuman symmetry in their expressions, in their movements.

But he knew a fair amount about inhuman beings sporting the semblances of humanity. The machines marched across the fallen corpses of the many who had fought, who had died, in the conquest of the Khan, and as they did the raiser of the dead cast out a skeletal hand and drew it into a fist, attempting to nudge the souls of those interlopers, cause them some degree of pain or suffering to slow their ascent to the Khan, but as its bone fingers met, the machines marched on. Soulless as they were, they felt no tugging at their metaphysical core.

Bony nothingness manifested a ghastly voice, waves intoning in ominous vibration. "механический..."

They continued their advance in disconcerting concert, their movements almost human, but without the subtleties or grace instilled in all things that truly live. Not once had it crossed the mind of the ancient Fyodor Ivanov that technology might progress to such a point that it would replace man, but here before him was one such instance. If he were more than mere skull on bone he might have shuddered.

But now was not the time for fear, if it could be said he felt such sensations, now was the time for action.

With a grand sweeping of his arm, the invisible cores inherent in the fallen friends and foes re-surged into their broken bodies, the already dead flesh allowing only the minutest of links between soul and body. They rose, disconcerted, open to the necromancer's manipulation. Those armed reformed into more manipulable bodies, the blood becoming less congealed as the skeletal figure forced the blood to pump through their veins, furthering metaphysical links between body and soul as some semblance of life retook their forms.

From the Vengeful One of Volgograd came a dry, inhuman cackling, the undead voice sounding through the air once more as the marionettes of flesh and blood danced and swayed. He knew enough about the advancement of technology to be wary, but not enough to fear. The broken Flesh Puppets moved with an unnatural gait, their movements hampered by decaying flesh and spirit both. The Blood Puppets moved with much more aplomb, their movements manipulated to the finest degree. He would orchestrate the demise of these dead-eyes androids, and he would use these puppets as his tools to combat the artificial figures' own coordinator.

The clumsy marionettes of muscle would batter against the mechanical forms of the opposing force, attempting to hold them in place and prevent escape. The Blood Puppets, though few in number at only five, were blessed (or cursed) with a firmer metaphysical ties to their former mortal shells, allowing them the boon of greater control, and the weapons they happened to have carried in life.

These made their presence known with roaring submachine guns, opening fire on the androids and the bumbling puppets trying to hold them in an attempt to shred the machines before they could interfere with the internal operations taking place within the Nihonto Khan.

The Golem too, made its way back to the manipulator of flesh and soul, the great metal girth of its body contrasting almost humorously with the skeletal form of its master, marking the "man" as both under its protection, and as a potentially important target. The Metaphysical Manipulator paid it no mind. He simply cradled the soul cage, invisible eyes scanning the horizon for notable spirits to steal as his own, fingers guarding the ornate bars from those that might steal the very essence of his being.

The crack of the bullet, the assumed response by the leader of the Inagawa-Kai, surprised all in attendance. It did not splatter the brains of Haruto Yoshi against the pavement, reduced him not in stature or ability, but rather was simple denial. He would not live this day.

But that was a foregone conclusion. No, this was not a denial of life, but of method. He would not die in sacrifice for his men, but as a warning against them. The remaining soldiers of the true Yoshi-gumi were few, the Inagawa loyalists numbering many more, and with nervous eyes scanning those around them they circled in behind their respective Oyabuns, forming asymmetrical semi-circles as the elder kumicho of the Yoshi clan rose to meet his superior in the Inawaga.

"Very well, Sii-La. "

An answer to the unspoken challenge. As the head of the Inagawa shinobi force strode forward, Haruto Yoshi held his arm out to his side and opened his hand. It was Maruko Rio who came forth now, placing within it any samurai's final weapon, the one he should die with, his soul. The two exchanged a final look. There was no shame in Maruko's eyes, and there was no hate in Haruto's own. The two men understood each other.

The Mad dog would always follow the leader of the pack, the Alpha, the one who proved strongest, most courageous, most cunning. The ancient of Imperial Japan would always hold honor first and foremost. Theirs were beliefs only compatible in the narrowest of senses, and the time of overlap had passed. They nodded to one another, and left it at that.

Haruto Yoshi, once called the greatest swordsman in the Imperial Army, readied the blade. He was in his nineties now, but such facts were mitigated by his keen mind, his sharp eye for combat. His body, wirier now than it was before, not as intimidating as in his prime, was kept in working order by the elixirs he had kept since the war. His bones creaked, but did not rebel, his muscles had worn away to a form not fitting his former glory, but their spooled power was by no means gone. He had the body of a man several decades his junior, thanks to the potions provided by his former Kumicho, Ken Tatsuno.

The collector of secrets had long coveted the waters of the Lazarus Pits, but had no taste for the weakening of the mind, and so it was that Boss Tatsuno had made a gift of the poultices to the man he knew with the strongest will, for fear that such a brew would corrupt all who took it in. That man was Haruto Yoshi.

And Haruto Yoshi would now repay that kindness, that small extension of his life, with the surrender of it. He would follow his true Kumicho into hell and beyond, or he would send his foe to meet their former master, to bow and scrape at his feet, to kiss his toes and beg for forgiveness in the fiery pits of the damned.

The sword sang as it was drawn, its blindingly bright blade glimmering in kind with the white rays of the moon. He breathed deep, one steady breath, and Haruto Yoshi was ready.

"BANZAI!!"

It would have been almost a laughable line, a joke in modern times, but in the heartfelt issuing of the word it became a fearsome cry, set forth from the core of his being. It was the same cry he had issued seventy years ago in reverence of his emperor, repurposed in reverence to his Kumicho half a decade after the war's end, and then again now, to his undying memory.

The sword swing was clean, sharp, and unerringly accurate. It screaming down at his shoulder, surprising all in attendance with the sheer speed of the blow, the speed at which he recovered from it. The sword pulled back once more, a defensive posture meant to parry coming retaliation, and should it be done, or should none come in the split second beat between strikes, to thrust forward and pierce the Inagawa Alpha's liver, after which he would withdraw the sword with a twist and a heavy pull, slicing outward and cleaving free of the man's trunk by splitting him near in two, all in one fluid motion.

His age should have slowed him, but it did not. His loyalties should have stopped him once the head of his former Kumicho was revealed, but they did not. He was a man of a particular honor, the same kind his own men knew. He was loyal not to the clan but to the man, to his friends and to the familial bonds of the Inagawa Kai, and this man, this Oedipus, was no man to follow, no man to revere.

Their conversation, one of odd camaraderie amongst even the piling corpses and furthering damage to the Khan. The two spoke shortly, the silent body of Seijuro Shin watching them with blind eyes until it was removed by the pensive soul of Heiji San'Vun.

They could hear voices in the distance, some remnant of the Yoshi-Gumi directing injured survivors through the labyrinthine structure of the Khan. Then came a clap, the rumbling of an earthquake traveling through the air. They fell to their knees as the building collapsed before them, crushing some of their number and separating them from the duo, Crimson puddles forming beneath rock and rebar as the pair left to find San'Vun.

They could hear the rumblings of conflict nearby, the tearing of post and beam, of metal and mineral, as the battle between San'Vun and the Militia's muscle raged. The vault lay somewhere in that cacophony, and Yazhun himself was not far from it.

Outside, they could see the clash of a new force, concerted in their efforts and inhuman in their efficiency, battling what appeared to be a larger horde of incoherent and clumsy bodies, their mass and number utilized to maximum effect as another group opened fire with scavenged weaponry.

The rest of the Khan was also in conflict, but nowhere as loudly or as prominently as those two areas. It seemed that Sii-La's reclamation of his forces had stabilized the outside, and though the Orochi were still a threat of incredible danger and effect, their goals had been for the most part been met. The flying demon died at the hand of another, but that had spared them further casualties. The Yakuza who had fought them most fiercely had been destroyed or absorbed into the fighting force of enemy shinobi, and unless they wished to engage a new and consolidated foe, their objectives were more or less complete.

The Spider and the sonic manipulator seemed mired in their own conflict, though they seemed at a relatively peaceful impasse.

Finally. Finally he had his hands on the palette swapped freak in front of him. The muscles all over his body tensed as he released blow after blow with his broken hand, attempting to crack ribs and launch bone splinters as shrapnel throughout the mutant's body. He did not feel the fleshy mitt coming to further pieces with every blow, the new cracks opening up from missing fingers and into his wrist, the splashing of his own blood striking his face and body.

And when at last he did take note, the world was already bathed in his bloody red. It came as a welcome sight, a sign that here he was, a man coloring this twisted, inverse world in his human paint.

He heard the swords clatter to the ground. In retrospect, he would wonder why he did not react then, why the world seemed to shudder momentarily with the resounding clatter of steel reverberating through the air. The elbow loosened his grip a hair's breadth, but it was enough. Like gnats, the blows landed, seemingly harmless as they were executed, his rage rendering him blind to the actions of his foe, but not to their results.

All at once his body began to fail. His arms went limp, his throat ceased its swallowing, his lungs began to choke with saliva and bile, his shoulders fell as his kidneys ceased their functions, and the simple act of breathing became an impossibility.

He wheezed, his lungs failing as though by proxy, as the signals so vital to ensuring survival were cut from his body.

And then the other mutant appeared. As corruptly colored as his kin, the creature of clay rose like the undead bursting forth from the grave, his words lost in the blood now pounding in Leo's ears.

San'Vun ran up a wall to break an already weak grip, but Leo's legs, his legs remained strong. The sonic blast that came next did not topple Herric, it only gave him the drive to push forward, even as he felt it. Death's icy fingers came crawling up his back.

Here we go again.

In an instant, he leapt forward on iron legs, an attempt to smash into San'Vun's back and launch him into Diaz's embrace, and, to his surprise, it worked, but only because the NeoSin's Shogun willed it to. His enemy charged into the clay coffin, begging for death, but it did not find him. No. This day it sought another.

The actual words spoken were nearly lost in the blast, the overdue greeting carrying no real meaning for Leo Herric save to launch him to the far end of the hallway, his back smashing into an armored door barred shut, denting it inward as he was impaled by hardened clay and crude diamond projectiles, his body pierced in a thousand places.

He could see it then, the color draining from him and into the negative, the blood he bled becoming a shimmering bluish green. Everywhere the spires pierced, he saw the infection spread, his body enveloped in his mind's symbol for the corruption that came seeping from his own veins. He blinked, and the world was full of mortal reds scattered along the hallway, a picture of the world as it actually was, once more, and his eyes did not open again.

His body slumped, held in place by the blades made from Diaz's offensive clay flesh. Diaz, who was faring only slightly better than his partner.

The initial attack seemed a success, the mud and clay of his body forcing itself upon the arrogant oyabun with relish and frenzy, but those blades only caught along his instantly formed iron skin, and did nothing more. With a single word, Diaz was torn asunder, flying from San'Vun's shoulders. With a second, his material was split further, mud forming splattered marks that dripped down the psychic walls. The third shattered that barrier placed around them by the yet unseen ally to the Shado Shogun, but even broken it mostly held, only an inkling of that final word, the breath beyond the final syllable, allowed to escape.

But that breath? That breath shook the Khan to its very core. The impact, the tremors, the sheer force brought about by the maestro of the immaterial cascaded out in a wave of damning force. The particles of Diaz's body closest to San'Vun, the ones that struck the nearby psychic barrier and walls, were vaporized, reduced to oxygen, silicon, and other trace minerals, losing any semblance of sentience as they rose as gas in the atmosphere. That force not contained by the barrier blew Leo into the armored door, along with a fair portion of Diaz's body. But that was not the end of their attack, for how could it be when one of the mutant interlopers yet lived?

There came sauntering up to the two Mutant Militiamen another, an ally to voiceless marauder, the erector of the psychic barricade that had held the Silent One's voice in check.

Where Herric lay dying, Grant began pooling himself together, the blood of his fellow mutant granting his silicate silt an ominous reddish hue as he pieced himself back together, pieced himself back together just in time to realize what was happening.

Trapped in yet another bubble of psychic energy, the two were imprisoned with the psionic strider just as another wave, this one an explosion of raw, surging psychic power, came rippling out in all directions, forcing the very air itself to snap away from the psychic before collapsing in once more with a roar of thunder.

It was only through the most shameful of ploys that Diaz was allowed to escape, to endure through that psychic maelstrom. His blood-red clay surged into the broken body of his former ally, displacing organs and vital structure, ensuring that if the man were not dead before, he would be now. Within this durable human carapace, the monster of bloodied earth remained until, finally, as the battering waves came to an end and the field around them cracked to reveal the bloodied, almost indistinguishable form of Leo Herric, he exited the remains of his former ally, the shell torn near asunder by the waves and his own intrusion into his former ally's form.

It was here that Grant Diaz played dead, his clay flesh merging with the dark of the Khan to appear as just another bit of shed human flesh, another part lost in the devastating attacks that would have leveled the Khan itself, had it not been for the immediate intervention of the mental manipulator. His mud began to leak from the body, forming puddles as blood would, escaping the rent flesh as would the usual viscera escaping the broken remnants of a man, the devastation inflicted upon the form of the former muscular mutant militiaman. In the dark of the casino's shattered hallway, the creature of clay lurked, simply waiting to eviscerate his foe.

As soon as San'Vun approached, the earthen spires and diamond razors would be reclaimed by untold numbers of slick red earthen tendrils, whipping the projectiles in stabbing thrusts at the syndicate's dark master. Grant Diaz would abandon his humanity, for this fight did not call for it. Both men were in truth inhuman, one beast, the other a being ascendant. But even the greatest man is not immune to the creatures claws, none do not fear the fangs lining the predator's maw. So that is what he would become. The trap would be laid, and should San'Vun come to claim some prize, to ensure the death of his foe, he would find his desire incomplete, his vengeance lacking, and in its place blades and claws to imitate the tools of beasts, closing in as does the hungriest of jaws, a grand maw to snap upon his arm, diamond knives stabbing and clawing at his gut, seeking to split it and spill his intestines to the ground as had Herric's before him.

It was time to silence Yazhun San'Vun for good.

Nils Hagen flashed into the hallway by the vault, his team retrieving the adamantium auger and setting to work immediately. Their footsteps hidden by the roar of the battle raging outside the count room, only two armored doors away, one pierced by the auger, the other left wide open in San'Vun's initial challenge to all comers. Nils Hagen began to sweat beneath his suit, motioning with a tilt of his head for the demon among them to begin the operation.

Shu Doi, formerly known as the Inagawa Yakuza's personal enforcer, now as "Shuten Doji", the demon stalking Tokyo's Underground, strode forward, shedding his leather jacket to reveal red skin covered in a dull sheen of sweat. He took up the auger in his mighty arms and pressed it to the intimidating vault doors, switching on the drill and sending sparks flying and leaving shorn pieces of metal to pile by his feet. Even as he did so, his flesh parted to reveal the eyes beginning to form on his naked chest, blinking into existence across his arms and shoulders, watching for any change in the environment in a disturbingly full 360 degree radius.

With the help of the superpowered mutant's massive strength, as well as the auger's near indestructible, highly effective secondary adamantium edge, they would soon be done. All they needed was a hole large enough to fit the Black Hopper's arm, one which he could use to squirm his fist into, and they would be able to move the massive quantities of cash, as well as anything not nailed down, to his private vault, a 1,000 square foot basement buried in a corn field 200 miles west of Des Moines, Iowa. There they would check for any trackers, any explosives or traps meant to incinerate or otherwise maim those who might take from the San'Vun Syndicate. They could be careful then, in the vault buried beneath two hundred feet of concrete and soil, where radio signals and trackers were unlikely to pierce the many layers of rock and dirt.

But now was not the time to yearn for safety, nor the time to worry over what would lay buried in the bundles of cash to entrap them. It was the time for action. And action was exactly what Shu excelled at, exactly what he was watching for.

From the corner eye of his red tinted skin, the demon of the Tokyo Underworld caught sight of something moving amongst the shadows, some acrobatic gnat bounding toward them but stopping before he made full contact. It didn't matter. The hole was complete, and one cowardly observer would not stop him from securing his riches. He pulled the drill free, turning to signal to the others when the "coward" made his move.

Rhythmic movements, artful dance that might have been entrancing if not for its singular, deadly purpose, began in the bender. The blood in the demon's veins began to rebel, to move from his heart and out into his limbs, the central organ pumping futilely as the vital fluids began to spontaneously freeze and combust all together in differing parts of his body. The eyes, the many eyes he'd grown to observe the area around him were reduced to sizzling scabs of pus as their fluids churned beneath the lids, a thousand sores oozing fire that rendered the demon blind, his limbs controlled by the fluids flowing through them, he knelt in prostrated pain, submitted as the bloodbender had sought.

Nils Hagen, however, was not one to be caught off guard. As soon as he felt the slightest of pressures, the tiniest inkling of an issue within his own body, he flashed back to his starting position in the count room, far from the danger his blood-bent ally had found himself in. Two other gunmen, also part of the vault team, heaved and tumbled to the ground in confusion as they were teleported with the notorious Black Hopper. From Hagen's new position behind the bender, he quickly ascertained the presence of the threat, drew the H&K UMP up from the sling at his side, and opened fire. The two confused gunmen followed suit, training their own weapons upon him. One opened up with a semi-automatic SKS carbine, another with 12 gauge buckshot from his Saiga-12 Automatic, both with relatively impressive accuracy after such a sudden teleportation.

Hagen took the chance to step away from the two, convinced they would draw more attention than he could survive. Abandoning the two, he teleported away once more, to his unseen vantage outside the Khan, his starting position, before pulling the pin on an M67 grenade.

One second, two seconds, three...

And with a sudden jolt he was once again inside the Khan, this time two meters from the Blood Benders last position. He tossed the grenade into the hyper sapien's back, or where it should have been, based on his last sighting only a few seconds past, before flashing away once more in an instant, back to Count Room's hallway to observe his effectiveness. If the threat were dealt with, they would finally be able to get their hands on the loot.

The bladed tendrils, improvised earthen shivs, sank into the flesh of his foe, deflected off the remnants of his armor, or flashed past empty air. His mind did not see, it did not hear, it only felt with cracked and bloody limbs, and the sensation it sought most was that of earthen fangs meeting flesh.

Again and again it was denied, and all movement finally ceased when the cannons sounded once more, an unknowable force driving it into and through the ground, shattering its form, atomizing pieces of it and tossing the remnants into corners and crevices before finally cracking and sinking the room around it, sending everything and everyone plunging through several stories. The fluids leaking down the walls gave the appearance of scattered blood, lifeless and dead, but of course Diaz was anything but.

The attack served, more than anything, to snap him back to his senses, the desire for blood tempered by an instinct for self-preservation deep ingrained. His pieces began to course through the fallen rubble, rebuilding his flesh using the materials of the Khan itself, erecting barricades between him and San'Vun, attempting to shield himself from further molecular discombobulation, but the scream keep coming, kept driving the brutish beast back into the base of the Khan to be crushed beneath added layers of weight with each collapsing floor, until finally they hit the basement, the crumbling guts of the Khan failing to collapse the building only by virtue of its incredible architecture. But the building could not take much further abuse.

Beneath the crumbling base, amongst the water raining down on them from ruptured pipes, Grant Diaz thrived. He brought the force of his crumbling body to bear on the rubble all around them, sanding it down with rough edged rock, creating more pebbles, more silt, more sand to be added to his burgeoning frame. And with more mass came possibilites for further carnage, to make true use of his abilities, to push himself to his limits, to push his foe past his.

His form, still scattered by the fearsome force brought to bear with only a whisper of the Silent One's voice, was scattered but not defenseless. Where it remained the mud ate at the walls, adding to itself almost unknown to Diaz himself, until finally he could feel them, like limbs of his own, but moving with uncanny craftiness, some sort of reflex structure taken to the next level, granting some sensation just short of sentience. He could use this...

He would use this.

Faces took shape in the mud all around the base level of the Khan, a former associate, some colored clown that belonged to the yakuza back when Diaz still worked in Japan. It was a throwaway disguise he'd used only once, but the grisly visage had stuck in his brain for years. Even now, when he wished to terrify, the form of the clown's face would still return to his mind.

The faces, the new bodies, each spoke in unison, in concert. Mocking words and terrifying taunts escaping from every one of their vibrating shale and concrete voiceboxes.

"You're a murderer, Yazzy."
"Yer name's as good 's dirt now, boy."
"Every mutant in Japan knows yer the one who blew up those kids."
"Yer gonna have to build from the ground up, after this giant frack up."
"How's it feel to be the one dangling at the end o' summbudy else's string, for once?"
"Yer as good as dead, might as well end it, San'Vun. Hang up yer hat, 'fore they hang it for ya"

"How's it feel ta be the punchline to my joke, Yazzy boy?"

The lines sounded in a cacophony of taunts and jeers, voices erupting from every corner of the room as the clones took form. The clones clawed and slash, reaching out and attempting to envelop the NeoSin Shogun in a forced embrace, to choke the air from his lungs, to suffocate him in soppy earthen prisons. It didn't matter if he slay them. They would form again from the mud pits, growing in proportion to the rubble forced into their arena. The water, at its current level, helped to rejuvenate the creatures, and so Diaz could maintain many, each with the growing semblance of consciousness, at his leisure.

For Diaz's own part, his one true body sank back into the rubble, probing and prodding about, seeking escape, for the clones, while intimidating and steadfast, were only distractions.

San'Vun could kill them all he wanted, he could attack with his metaphysical sonic weapon, render mud into its atomic parts, but water and rubble provided ample substitutes. And if he did slay them with his once-sealed weapon of choice, each of his vehement vocal explosions would only assist in shredding the Khan's foundation, assist in the efforts of inhuman mud, which, without sentient shape or form (and rendered almost invisible by the copies' taunts), toiled at the essential portions of the foundation, shearing it and looking to bury the San'Vun's favored son in a lavish tomb of his own creation, to collapse the Khan atop him as a final monument to his legacy.

And how Grant Diaz had managed to destroy it single-handedly.