Chaos Center, Part Ten.

Hana clapped her hands together, cherry blossoms passing by her face, pink aura like smoke as it whisked by her face, raising her arm, they ran right at her. Some of them she recognized, others she didn't, either way, it didn't matter, for the fact remained they were going to perish, by her hand or Naraku's, their deaths were assured. The least she could do was provide these lost souls to an honorable demise in a lovely land where the sun always shined and the clouds didn't blot it away. The least she could do- was try her best, until the very end.

A dagger's tip aimed at her face, she moved to the side, feeling it just barely scrape her skin, a straight cut leaking blood forming on her features, she threw her body ahead, aiming her hand forward as the fingers gripped the stabber's face. What she hadn't realized was the assailant's gender, for their flowing hair, their fluttering eyelashes, those lips, they all gave off the impression of a female. This aura, one she'd witnessed before, atop the mountain she set up her Temple for those Samurais, those Shinobis she named her children, her pupils, signature to none other than the Vampiric Hunter who wielded the blood-red blade named Ketsueki.

'Blaire... Rivera?'

She couldn't even stop before the back of her head smashed against the concrete ground, blood splattering in a stream-like discharge out her skull. She didn't think twice about what she'd done, although this face was familiar, she couldn't falter, she couldn't mourn, she just had to keep moving until Naraku was gone. But despite that knowledge she'd embedded into her brain so heavily it was almost like intellectual instinct, she blinked, and a fist connected to her cheek.

Hana switched places with the foot aiming at her spine, grabbing their hair, tearing the head right off the shoulders so bubbling blood would reach her ears, the Master raised her right hand to cut through the attacker's stomach. Disconnecting the top from the bottom so the torso would enter the air, Saiai turned her head, and at her sides, there were the raised palms of two ice users, baby blue eyes reflecting in her pink-colored orbs.

'These are the Matts... the old friends of the Reaper and the Emperor.'

While she had her defense up for close-range physical attacks, the ranged ones, no matter how far, were always an issue. So, she'd take that split-second chance she got, and turn her head, staring at a lamppost, marking its location, then, returning to her direction ahead. The same person who punched her face was coming in for more, this time, not at regular speeds, for every skip they made and every spark that bounced off her clothing, in maybe two more seconds, they'd reach her. Blonde hair moving through the air, apathetic face unmoving without a sense of vulnerability or effort visible, her glistening blue eyes held no life in them, like a puppetmaster dangling her body on strings, the speedster obeyed.

'Azazel's mother... Ms. Ella Garcia...'

"I apologize about this, you three."

Ella arrived at her face in two more frames, her face diving forward, Master's hand against her back, raising herself higher so her two feet could snap the necks of the two shooters as she split her legs to kick a duo at once. A bolt of Vita stabbed through the corpse-like El's back to emerge out her chest, forming a hole in her body, Hana finally landed onto her feet, wiping the blood from her nose with a sniffle.

"Is that everything you have within your pathetic arsenal, DEMON?! I've already WIPED THE FLOOR WITH HALF OF THEM!!" Hana cried to the hovering Naraku with veins protruding out her neck, flared nostrils, and burning eyes peering into his heart, the Blessed Emperor shrugged his shoulders, revealing his bottom lip.

"Well, I WAS saving this for later, but, since you insist so heavily, I'll show you!"

Naraku snapped his fingers, and with just the tiniest thought, it came into fruition, for only a devil would come up with such a horrendous plan. What poured from the makeshift sky that manifested so abruptly wasn't the falling of the moon or sun, for it was hundreds of flailing bodies crashing to the Earth where. The target was none other than the Master, for as their multitude of backs snapped against the asphalt, their eyes were shocked awake, with blood pooling beneath them, originating from the backs of their ears as they stood with their heads facing elsewhere.

The rain was neither clear nor blue like the sky's assumed shade, for as she realized what occurred in the next few seconds, she brought her hand into view, and stared at the intricate lines patterning her palm. Maybe she'd expect the moisture to stain her skin, however, the liquid would be transparent, but even that was too much of a luxury to ask for. The realization that this was blood came later, after she blinked not only once, but twice, to see... that she wasn't dreaming. That the blood that dirtied her milky white palm did not originate from a fantasy conjured from the mind's creativity, but rather, that this unfortunate incident she was powerless to halt when the time came- was reality.

The droplets of blood did not only litter the floor or join their brethren in already-formed puddles beneath motionless corpses, but they painted her clean, white robe in an unfitting crimson palette. Literally and figuratively, there remained one truth about what she'd endured there, as these innocents fell from the skies, their cries inaudible to her in this frozen time she veiled around her person: their blood was on her hands. And she could never escape that, no matter how hard she tried to fight, she was destined to face the crux of her wrongdoings wholeheartedly. For atonement, she would not have to search within the machinations of her soul for some semblance of compassion or inner peace, no, rather, she reverted to the only thing humans knew how to do.

The Heavenly Superior put one finger to his lip, curious at the sight that laid before him, the tiniest chuckle splurting from his mouth to temporarily pollute the air. The Master and the Emperor took steps in unison, not without purpose, continuing to move their legs, motioning themselves to their destination with each passing second. Each new distance they closed dwindled the time before their meeting, before their fight that would roar throughout the heavens as far as the eye could see. The fate of the remaining men who stood idle in their apartments, cowering in fear, frightened of what the future held with Naraku on the battlefield.

More seconds flew by, the distance was like that of two bodies pressing up against one another, they could practically see into their chests; feel each other's hearts. There was one thing he hadn't considered, for all the boasting he did about his power, about his place in the center of the cosmos, he couldn't control this body, not fully, at least. But, even if he were puppeteering this vessel with strings as powerful as life's flame, he would've agreed with the suppressed Founder's bodily reaction. They stood at odds, the two of them, and even so, if Callum could make a face from his prison within the Emperor's heart, it would be identical to the god's. Or, in layman's terms, the two opposing partners would've agreed at the collective face they made at the sight of her own... null.

There was nothing they could say that could describe what she looked like, for it was almost as though a perpetual shadow of darkness blackened her face to the part you couldn't even see her pink eyes illuminating the twilight. This aura was not unlike his own, one he couldn't feel as much as he tried, for it sent chills down his very spine. What had he done- what had he awakened just by summoning those bodies for their scripted deaths? Maybe to stun her with the way she reacted when the Spirits died, when she realized who Blaire was, in the middle of the killing blow?

Unbeknownst to the world, and to the opponent she was destined to fight, she hadn't moved at all from that posture, one hand stretched out, staring right at it, defiled with the innards of those she couldn't save. The world turned white, for there only remained darkness at the bottom of her heart.

To Be Continued.