Corpse Party FanFiction, Corpse Party: Blood Drive Aftermath

#1
The beep of a message being received reverberates in the dark room.

When the person in front of the keyboard opens up the mailbox to check it a long list of messages all titled with the same topic, "Paranormal Investigator ********'s Spiritual Contact: Consultance forum"

A man with short, black hair releases a sigh, and turns back to corner of the room.

"There's quite a lot of these ya know, what should we do with them…?"

He says with a troubled but gentle tone.

In the corner of the room, lit by the light from a near bye window, a woman sits, unmoving. She's wearing a white cardigan, and her unfocussed eyes shows no sign of consciousness. In the light of the sun she was like a plant.

"….let's close the window, shall we. You'll catch a cold, Shinozaki"

5 Years Ago - Kisaragi Academy Senior high, Commemoration event for the victims of "The day of darkness"

The gymnasium was packed with grieving students, teachers and parents. The principal appeared before the podium and began to speak.

"Today, we are here in commemoration of our friends and colleagues who we have lost during "The day of darkness".

"We will remember them both as friends and instructors who worked both in and out of the school in order to assist the development of future generations, and the benefit of our community. Our thoughts are with the families who have lost children, and siblings during that event.

This academy has lost many wonderful people.

Ms Yui Shishido was a bright and cheerful instructor who treasured her students greatly and was treasured by them in return. Although she was young and experienced her love for her pupils was beyond measure. She truly was an example to us all. Her loss is a great blow to our school.

Seiko Shinohara, was a lively individual, always providing cheer and merriment for her friends and teachers. Her spirit and liveliness were a source of happiness for all who knew her. Our hearts also go out to her family and siblings. We have lost a great friend and person.

Mayu Suzumoto was a welcoming girl fair in her treatment of others and loved by both her classmates and teachers. Her talents within the Drama society were great often single handedly managing multiple aspects of a production from costume design to script writing as well as acting. She will be sorely missed.

Sakutaro Morishige was an outstanding pupil doing well both academically and in the arts. His efforts and performance both in and out of the classroom were an inspiration to those around him and were the actions of a dedicated student, pursuing an objective in life. His example will not be forgotten.

Although they may have been taken from us, far before their time, we will continue to uphold their memory and existence."

I gripped Satoshi's hand harder, as tears welled up from beneath my eyes. I felt his hand tighten around mine as well.

I looked up at him, he smiled sadly, without tears but with anguish. Around us I could hear sniffles and sobs.

Mayu's parents had broken down and were weeping openly.

Seiko's father stood behind his sons. Seiko's brother Yuu had a hand on each of his little sibling's shoulders, both crying loudly. He was struggling not to cry as well, but the tears streamed silently down his cheeks.

Morishige's father stood silently, with his head bowed. His mother was crying into a handkerchief hiding her tears.

"Seiko…" I whispered, and wept.

As we were leaving the gymnasium amidst the rain I noticed an odd pair standing by the door.

A high school boy in a black jacket and red T-shirt with blond hair holding an umbrella above a girl in a wheel chair with an eye patch, her hair was in two twin tails that lay above her shoulders covered in a tan shawl over an olive green shirt. She had what looked like an encyclopaedia wrapped in a small light green blanket on her lap. Her open eye was dull and unfocussed, her face lifeless.

As we passed them the boy said, "Ok, let's go, Shinozaki."

When I looked back, the only thing that greeted my gaze was the rain.
[hr]
RECAP

Heavenly Host Elementary School, a place full of the curses and despair of the dead.

It was thought to be a construct of Sachiko's hatred of the living and the curses of all she had murdered. Either to send to her departed mother or entertainment. In reality it was a far more sinister existence. Yoshie Shinozaki, Sachiko's mother, in attempt to reunite with her departed husband had used a spell from a forbidden tome. The Book of Shadows, a grimoire created to store the combined wisdom of the witches who had been hunted to extinction during their time.

The spell called "Land of Corpse" was meant to bring forth a dimension where the dead could be brought back. In reality it was nothing but a theory within the book with no successful casting in the past. Yoshie, in her desperation, cast the spell.

In exchange for opening up a method to commune with her dead husband it erased his existence within the world and began to consume Yoshie's existence as well. Sachiko, who had inherited immense spiritual power, consumed the spell itself sealing it within her to save her mother and recovered her father's existence. The spell "Land of Corpse" created a dimension known as the Nirvana. A place sealed off from the world where the dead were not allowed reincarnation, trapped inside forever.

Yoshie, understanding the severity of her mistake, began to research a way to undo the spell in order to prevent it from ever being released. For if it was, the trapped souls would grow restless becoming malevolent and in the end would begin to feast on the souls of the living as well. Although Sachiko had consumed it, Yoshie feared what would happened should Sachiko ever die.

However, before she could achieve any of this the events that killed both her and her daughter occurred and the Nirvana consumed by Sachiko was released. With her immense spiritual power and hatred Sachiko brought the very dimension to its knees creating the Heavenly Host Elementary School out of it in order to sooth her Mother's lonely soul and to avenge their deaths.

Sachiko was released due to the efforts of five mortal souls. Her soul was allowed to ascend and Heavenly Host was thought to have ceased to exist.

But, Heavenly Host was never the true form of the Nirvana. Masterless and left to its own designs, the Nirvana began to revert from Heavenly Host to its original state and the souls trapped inside were still there.

Shinozaki Ayumi, an heir to the Shinozaki bloodline which was once tasked to be the custodians of both the Book of Shadows and the Nirvana, was tempted by a mysterious boy in a hoodie called Mist with the promise to resurrect her friends. She re-entered the Nirvana to find the Book of Shadows. Using a charm called the Ever After stones, found in the home of the late Shinozaki Makina, Ayumi returned to Heavenly Host alone to revive her friends.

But this was a trap.

Mist merely used Ayumi to gather up the power of the Book of Shadows in order to create his own grimoire. He planned to use its power to take control of the Nirvana itself. Flooding the world with death and despair so only those he deemed worthy could live.

His plan failed when Ayumi managed to recover the true Book of Shadows and reclaimed its power from him.

But it was too late.

This was not enough to prevent death from spilling into the real world. The Nirvana itself possessed a consciousness that wished to awake and spread itself into the real world.

To prevent this Ayumi traveled to the core of the Nirvana and confronted and consoled it. Thus sealing both the Nirvana and its consciousness within the Book of Shadows.

Of course her friends followed her into the Nirvana braving many perils

Sachiko's unborn "vanishing twin" Sachi had also found her way to the Nirvana. In her little sister's previous domain she both helped and harmed the children who entered. Having been turned into a spirit before she was born, she had no understanding of others or morality. Merely an existence of pure, innocent, evil.

In the end, Ayumi remained in Heavenly Host in order to consume the Nirvana. Sealing it within herself much like Sachiko had in the past. However, without Sachiko's immense spiritual power she would be unable to return after consuming it. On top of that as she consumed the Nirvana it in turn would consume her existence, removing her from the memories of everyone.

Even the other survivors of Heavenly Host.
 
#2
Heavenly Host Elementary School – Nirvana

"Kyaaaaaaaa!"

Yuka screamed as she fell, only a few meters from the main entrance. Her brother Satoshi immediatel turned back to her.

"I'm scared, Oniiii-chan"

"We're almost there, just a little more!"

Satoshi was carrying Naomi, her bleeding eye still covered by the eye patch from Kuon-sensei.

"We must hurry!" Aiko said, helping Yuka up.

As they stood up to continue their escape Yoshiki stopped.

"What's wrong?... Kishinuma?" Naomi called noticing this from Satoshi's back.

"Will she… only disappear from our memories?"

"Huh?" Naomi's uncovered eye blinks.

"After she's consumed Nirvana what's going to happen? Can she come back to our world?" he seems to be asking himself.

"Yoshiki!" Satoshi yells at him. "If we don't hurry we'll…"

"What she needs now, is right inside this Nirvana!"

"Wha?! Wait, Yoshiki!"

Satoshi voices echoes after his friend as Yoshiki suddenly turned around and began running back into the Nirvanified elementary school.

Retracing the route they'd just ran back from.

"You guys get out!" Yoshiki's voice echoed from around a corner, then….

*CRASH

The entire main lobby of the elementary school collapsed blocking the main entrance, the only exit to this world was now blocked from the rest of the building.

"…! You've got to be kidding!?" Satoshi's voice trembled.

Another explosion rumbles from deep within the school. Then the only sound was the quiet groans of its echo...

Heavenly Host Elementary School – Nirvana – Yoshiki

*Rumble, Crack, Snap

If the end of the world had a sound, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the screaming building roared it. It was as if every event in Yoshikazu's dissection room was being replayed through a megaphone; every blow, every thump, every crack.

Yoshiki didn't have time to think about that though, he didn't think much most of the time.

Only a single thought ran through his mind.

His promise.

His vow.

All other thoughts were unneeded and ignored. The only thing his brain was required to was predict the path of the falling debris and guide his body around it.

The wooden floor of the hallway had long since disappeared underneath the meaty, organ like innards of the Nirvana. The slick surface provided little traction and he slipped and slid on the blood and fluids that ran in small rivers along the folds of flesh. Every time he lost his balance his arms and legs flailed to right him before working again to propel him through the crumbling building.

The wooden beams and pillars that supported the school occasionally punched out of the flesh. One of them snagged the elbow of his jacket as he turned a corner. A rough tug and the black material tore cutting open the sleeve, releasing him.

"Hah, huff, ugh, huff, hah"

The air itself was thick with blood. This flesh like 'Nirvana' which coated the skeleton of Heavenly Host, like a rotting skin, was breaking down. With each quake the crumbling world trembled and blood spurted out in a variety of states.

Liquid spurts from torn flesh as the broken splinters of beams and pillars erupted from the fresh like broken bones. Trails dripped down from the wounds and along the shards. Even the massive eyes that occasionally dotted the hallway and floor cried tears of blood as if in pain from the tearing meat of this world.

Vaporised fumes were jetted out when the building's weight compressed the flesh. Wrinkling the meat as the weight increased before finally rupturing like a squeezed boil. The skinless flesh folded and crumpled until, like paper folded beyond its limit, tore open. Red mist saturated the air as torrents of blood exploded forth like a broken fire hydrant.

A section of hallway collapses behind him, enveloping him in a red fog. He gagged once from the thick air filled with blood, fat, and miniscule scraps of meat before clamping his mouth shut and stuffing his nose into his elbow. Shutting out the unbreathable atmosphere he held his breath as he ran blindly through the mist.

His eyes, nose, and throat stung, as if he had been kicked into a chlorinated pool with no goggles on. His lungs heaved trying to cough up the air he had sucked in. He could feel something sticky coating them from the inside like phlegm, but the taste in his mouth told him it was something else.

Unable to breath, unable to see he continued to run. Stumbling out of the mist he released his sealed moth and wretched. A glob of blood, spit, and mucus flew from his mouth and merged with the other fluids on the floor. With a shake of his head he continued running. His shoes slipped on the ground, barely carrying him over one of the many holes in the floor.

The malicious meat had covered the ground he could run on but left the lethal pitfalls uncovered specially for him.

"Huff, cough, cough, huff,….?!"

Suddenly he slipped. His hands managed to catch him, receiving the punishment his face would have taken instead. The skin on his palms stung from the impact and the feeling of small, rough stones drilled into him.

He'd fallen not on the blood flooded floors of Heavenly Host but the on the hard tiles of the Covered Walkway. The soles of his shoes had so much gore stuck in between them that they had lost all traction. It looked like he'd skinned his feet bare with a belt grinder.

"Dammit!" Kicking off his shoes and socks he stuck his head from under the roof into the pelting rain. The cold drops washed away the blood and gore that had coated him, clearing and blurring his vision at the same time.

"…! There it is!" The sleeve of Mist's shirt clung to the limp arm hanging from the second floor window of the Annex of Heavenly Host.

"Just wait for me Shinozaki, I'm coming!" Ducking back under the roof and Yoshiki continued running. The slapping of bare skin on concrete melding into the wet slaps of meat against skin.
 
#3
Heavenly Host Elementary School Annex – Nirvana

The slap of bare skin against exposed flesh was drowned by the rumbling of the world. Yoshiki ran through the annex. Turning right from the entrance, his bare feet sank into the dissolving floor. A cry like a wounded animal echoed from the bowels of the building.

The hallway was no longer rectangular. The wrinkled pink and red flesh of the Nirvana coated everything. Instead of a man made structure, the path he was running felt more like the intestines of some colossal monster.

"*Huff! Hah! Just a little more, hold on Shinozaki!"

The school groaned in reply. A cracking sound accompanied the deforming of a doorframe in his path, twisting from a rectangle into a deformed ellipse. Leaping through it he started running up the stairs which, by some miracle of engineering or fate, remained relatively intact.

He barely got up three steps before falling forwards and slamming into the wooden railing. Head spinning, he slid down the stairs he had just climbed. With a splash Yoshiki slid into a pool of blood at the bottom before pushing himself out of it.

"...! Cough, hack, cough, cough, dammit"

Although intact the stairs were covered with a single massive river of blood flowing from the second floor, it seemed that gravity still worked in this twisted dimension.

Grabbing onto the meaty railing, he grit his teeth in disgust as he dug his fingernails into the squishy mess that coated the wood. The flow of blood caught at his ankles, dragging him backwards. Each step caused him to grunt as he dragged himself up with his hands and feet.

Finally reaching the top, he paused. Refilling his lungs with sickening air that caused him to wretch, he sank to his knees in exhaustion.

Recovering for a moment he looked up and his eyes widened in surprise.

"Wha... what, the fuck, is going on here!?"

The second floor hallway no longer looked as if it was in 3D.

Like a painting by M.C. Escher, it had been warped and stretched as if someone had grabbed both ends of it and twisted it like a butcher would an uncooked sausage. The source of the stream flowed in a spiral following the twisted floor, even when the floor became the ceiling. Droplets fell downwards, upwards, and sideways depending on where the directions up and down had been shifted. Yoshiki's exhausted mind overlapped the twisted image with a waterslide for a moment, replacing it with a waterpark he had once gone to with his family. Sprays of clear liquid had been jetted into the middle of the plastic tube that formed the slide.

Some new twisted form of the laws of physics had been applied to this section, truly showing how far this world had collapsed.

"Dammit, it doesn't matter, where the hell is Mist?"

Pushing off from the railing he splashed through the flow. Another quake accompanied a thundering roar from the depths of the building, causing him to brace against the wall.

"Shit, I've got to hurry, not much time left!" Pushing off of it he began running forward. He walked on the walls and ceilings which sprayed him from below and the sides with sticky liquid. When his path intersected with the floor he jumped over it to dodge the ever growing stream that ran along it.

"...! Found it"

Mist's sneakers peeked out from a fold in the meaty hallway. Grabbing on to it Yoshiki pulled out Mist's corpse.

"...?! ugh."

It was missing its head. The hood of his clothing was missing as well. The neck and collar was ragged as if something had violently torn at them. He couldn't figure out whether his head had been smashed apart, merging with the background of the school, or it had been removed by one of the many horrors that existed within it.

"Where did you hide them?"

Rifling through the pockets on the hoodie Yoshiki pulled out a few coins, and a piece of chalk from the right pocket. Sticking his hand into the left pocket he felt two cold smooth objects.

"This is it!"

Pulling out his hand he looked at the two blue stones that fit together forming a blue square with a black rectangle inside. "Now all I have to do is find Shino... Whoa!"

Another quake pulsed through the building this one releasing the twisting with the hallway. Like an over coiled spring the hall way snapped back into its previous form flinging Yoshiki face first into floor.

"...?! PFFFFT, COUGH, HACK, RETCH, DAMMIT I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS."

Spitting out the bloody stream he'd been dumped in, he began charging forward to what had been the entrance to the Girls' Toilet. It connected this hellish building to the insane world Satoshi and the others, himself included, had left. A world made only of blackness and illuminated by a dull red glow. The place where he had left Shinozaki behind, where she had ordered them to leave her.

"Urk!, What the hell?!"

He barely took the first step before being brought to a sudden halt. Landing on his rear, he felt something holding him by the back of his jacket. His head whipped around.

"Wha?!"

Mist's corpse had grabbed the back of his jacket as he has turned around. The lower half was already gone, sucked into the floor like a noodle and his other hand was whipping forward to grab Yoshiki's head.

"Whoa, shit!"

Ducking out of the way Yoshiki twisted out of his jacket like a lizard cutting off its tail.

"I don't have time for you, ya bastard!"

Leaving behind the thrashing corpse as it continued sinking into the meat. Yoshiki ran down the hall. Slipping as he tried to stop he fell in a heap in front of the last door he had to open.

"Almost there! Come on! Wait for me Shinozaki! Just wait!"

Scrambling up, grabbing the door frame for support, he clawed himself upright and slammed the door open with one hand.

"SHINOZAKI!"

He was back, back in this impossibly massive space.

Bits of floorboard stuck out from the doorway into the void, forming a net of planks splintering outwards from the flesh like some sort of horribly deformed nail. The sky glowed red, its light pulsed at regular intervals. Unlike before, part of the platform Shinozaki had been on had crumbled forming a wooden mesh. The broken boards leaned on the wood from the doorway like a mix of a slope and a ladder.

"Shinozaki, where are you!"

Yoshiki called, running onto the planks.

'She was up there last time, next to that lump of flesh. I can't see either of them now. Did they go further in? Don't tell me she fell!'

"Shinozaki! Shinozaki?!"

Still yelling he reached the collapsed part of the platform and began to climb it.

"Almost there. Come on. Don't go doing something stupid while I'm not there you idiot."

Clambering up onto the platform, the Nirvana or what remained of it entered his vision. The huge clump of flesh was gone. Instead two piles of red were lying over the planks. One was a lot smaller than the other, about the size of a human. The other was about the size of a small car.

'Did Shinozaki eat this much already?'

Gritting his teeth he clambered up onto the upper platform.

Shinozaki Ayumi had tried to seal the malicious dimension, the Nirvana, into herself by physically consuming it. Before they had left, the meat that represented the dimension was so massive it expanded as far as they could see. Now only these two scraps remained. The space that had been filled by flesh was replaced by the endless darkness that made up the rest of this world.

'Where's Shinozaki?!'

The person he had run through the very embodiment of hell for was not here. Unlike the darkness the floorboards did not expand endlessly but he could not see the familiar twin tails or blue eyes of the class-rep.

'Where is she, goddammit?! Huh? Isn't that... the book?'

A brown tomb entered his vision, thick and heavy as an encyclopedia. Its front cover was decorated with a bony face.

Now the empty sockets glowed red with malicious light and a long crimson tongue stretched from its toothy mouth. Tasting the air lazily, it lay next to the smaller pile of meat.

"Hey, where the hell is she! Where is Shinozaki?!" Grabbing the book he yelled at its grinning face, shaking it at the same time.

"MWA HA HA HA HA"

Laughing in his face gleefully the book doesn't answer him.

"STOP SCREWING AROUND, WHERE IS SHINOZAKI?!" Yelling at the book the knuckles gripping it turn white.

"Can you not see with your own eyes, boy?" The dead voice of the book echoes amidst the rumbling of the world, which has now dimmed to a constant murmur in the background.

"WHERE IS SHE! WHAT DID YOU DO TO HER?!"

Yoshiki did not notice the tears that had begun to run down his face washing the blood stains from his cheeks. Neither did he realize how childish his screams had become.

"She is right in front of you. Do you not see my dear master?"

"Wha..."

His eyes look over the book.

A red hair tie, a few strands of black hair still stuck to it either trapped in the elastic or glued to it by the blood, sits there on the ground.

Right next to the smaller clump of meat.

"...!?"

Taking a closer look at it he sees that one part of it isn't red. On a small lump pointing away from him, there is a small circle of white.

Swallowing he drops the book with a thump as it continues guffawing at him. But its laughter no longer enters his ears. Only the pounding of blood rings there. Slowly but surely he crawls over to the circle of white.

It's an eye.

A single eye with a blue iris stares vacantly back at him.

His heart stops, and only barely starts pumping again. But he can already feel his body shutting down. The feeling of ice water being dumped over his head runs through his body. Clenched fists slacken and he slumps in front of the unrecognizable remains of what he had come here for.

"...ulp...ugh...ahhHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
[hr]
? ? ? – Nirvana

The rumbling of the world is the only sound that echoes in this space.

Deep and echoing, it was as if someone had covered your ears with their palms. Yet, although the cries of snapping wood and breaking stone reached this place, the vibrations that shook Heavenly Host did not. The floor boards did not shake or quiver but remained there, floating in the black red void.

However, Yoshiki was dead to all of it. He only stared at Ayumi's eye, everything else was unrecognizable.

The Book of Shadows lay beside him, perched precariously between two planks. Its long fleshy tongue once again swayed; back and forth, side to side, lazily. The red lights in its eye sockets, however, were still. Instead they were firmly locked onto Yoshiki's face.

"It was to be expected." The deep voice of the book commented casually.

Yoshiki continues to stare at Ayumi's eye.

"The power of my master was not sufficient to seal the Nirvana. To devour and force it to relinquish the existences it consumed... To achieve the same result as Sachiko, even though she was just a human, would have resulted in this conclusion."

The rumbling continues and the door way Yoshiki used to enter here collapses. Its frame has changed from a rectangle to a horizontal line, drooling blood into the abyss silently.

"This fate was chosen, as opposed to passing it on to the next generation."

Shinozaki's lightly smiling face appeared in Yoshiki's head "Thank you, everyone. But somebody has to do it. ... I'll do it."

"However, my master's task is not yet complete."

At this Yoshiki's empty face twisted.

"...Stop screwing around... What do you mean it's not complete?! Hasn't she been hurt enough? Didn't she sacrifice enough? What more do you want from her?! She didn't do anything wrong! She just wanted to get everybody back! She just wanted to say she was sorry to everyone! Why does this have to happen to her?! Why! WHY!" standing up his fists curl into fists as he yells at the book. Trembling with his brow furrowed he stands in front of it.

"The consumption of the Nirvana is not yet complete. Nor the restoration of the existences lost. Thus, her task is not complete." The tone of the book is unmoved and unaffected. It continues its explanation, as if he had never interrupted, staring into his face. The slick tongue continues tasting the air, slowly.

"My master still has not given enough. Swallowing the Nirvana will in turn consume the master's existence. When dealing with the Nirvana damage to one's existence is to be expected."

"You will not remain in the memories of anybody, you will not be thought of by anybody. All signs of the life you lived will all be erased. Think deeply about it." The Book of Shadows had said that to Ayumi in front of all of them. But Yoshiki had disregarded that warning. Everything he had was focussed on trying to reach Ayumi; to get her home; to get her out.

"You've got to be shitting me..." Yoshiki exhaled weakly. "Then what, is everything she did useless. Didn't we get back everyone? That's just too..." His knees give out and he slumps in front of her again.

*Scritch, scratch

"Huh?" Yoshiki turns back to the lump of meat that was Ayumi Shinozaki.

She was moving.

The remains of her right arm stretching out.

Nails digging into the wood.

Fingers spearing themselves on the splinters in order to provide additional traction.

Her vacant eye remained dim and unfocussed, but her face was pointed towards the larger clump of meat. The remainder of the Nirvana.

"Oi! Shinozaki, stop!" Scrabbling over towards her he reaches towards her left shoulder. "We've got to get you out of here, we need to... UWAAA" As his hand curled around Ayumi's left shoulder it came off. With a wet pop the bone came out of its socket and her entire arm came off in Yoshiki's hand. Strings of meat trailed between the separated limb and the remains of the joint. Yoshiki, dropping it in surprise it, could only stare shakily at it. The flesh and bone began to evaporate into nothingness as if the air itself were some powerful acid, dissolving it.

"Shinozaki. Hey! Stop moving... Stop it... You've already tried enough. You've already done enough. Stop being such an IDIOT!" Begging was the only thing he could do, but she was deaf to his pleas. Her ears were long since gone.

Yoshiki collapses.

"Please... just stop, stop it... please." Ayumi right arm has stuck itself into the wood far enough and begins to contract. Her body slides across the planks. Loose bits of blood and gore smear the planks she drags herself over, like a bloody slime trail left behind by some hellish gastropod. Her right big toe gets caught in a hole in one of the planks and comes off, silently.

"My master still continues the task, I am assisting where I can." The Book explains.

"Your presence here is a distraction and a nuisance. You are neither of the Shinozaki blood line nor do you have any spiritual ability." Yoshiki clenches his teeth. He is useless again. Once again no matter how much he wants to he cannot protect the one thing he wants. He holds his head in his hands and curses himself silently through his tears.

Is this the limit of 'No matter what'?

Can he really do nothing else?

Does he have nothing else left to give?

"Heed my advice, leave. You have the means to exit this world. My master's existence is already greatly weakened without your interference."

No... He still has something.

The book called Shinozaki Ayumi 'just a human'. If that's the case then what Shinozaki is doing is something done by 'just a human' like him.

If that's the case...

Yoshiki gets up.

Wiping his face on his bloody sleeve a calm expression replaces his crying one.

Letting his hands dangle to either side of him he glares forward at the object Shinozaki Ayumi is dragging herself towards.

"All you have to do is swallow this right?" He asks the book nodding towards the remaining part of the Nirvana in front of them

"Indeed. However, without a form of spiritual protection or ability your existence will suffer greatly."

Is it a trick of the light or did those orbs in the book grow brighter? Its tongue flicks out quickly like a snakes spearing something invisible before dragging it back into its mouth.

Yoshiki walks over to Ayumi. Kneeling down beside her he stretches an arm to pat her on the head. Any more contact and he'd risk breaking her already broken body even more. He came here to reduce her pain, not add to it.

Her right arm that was stretching forward again stops.

"It's okay, it's going to be okay, Shinozaki" Continuing to pat her lightly he can hear her breath whispering out from her. "Even if it's just me, I think I can at least save you." No reply comes from her but the fact that she stopped moving is enough for him.

Sniffing once Yoshiki stands back up and turns around.

Glaring at the remaining mountain of meat that was the Nirvana he walks towards it. His bare feet pad across the wooden boards and he winces once as a splinter stabs him briefly causing him to apply more weight on the other foot. The board creaks in response and he continues forwards till he reaches the Nirvana's remainder. It looks as if someone had set up a very badly made tent. Lumpy and misshapen, unsymmetrical from every angle, it squatted there. Not a quiver or a twitch came from its mass.

'Last time I was here it was as bigger than this... Way bigger. It stretched so far up and down we couldn't even see where it ended, it wasn't this far in either. Did she eat the rest of it?'

Swallowing nervously he continues to glare at the red, yellow, and purple mass in front of him. The smell of blood, urea, and butyric acid assault his nose. The smell of a mixing pot full of all the bodily fluids and excretions producible by the human body waft from it.

In this world time and space are disjointed, what happened 5 minutes ago could have happened 5 days or 5 years ago.

Ayumi Shinozaki had swallowed the Nirvana non-stop. Even as it ate her; her skin, her hair, her muscles, her intestines, even her mind. The only thing holding her body together at this point was the magic of the Book of Shadows. Even with that, merely touching an existence other than her own, fragmented her body.

As he continued to glare at the soft mass of meat and gristle an eye popped open in the flesh. A brown iris widened before narrowing and darting from side to side taking in its surroundings. Finished with looking at its environment the eye focussed on Yoshiki. The wet surface reflected him as a cocky smirk crossed his face and he cracked his knuckles.

"Alright you expired meatball, let's get this over with."
 
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