Rebellion Against Heaven - Part 7

Chapter 7: Help!

The void was broken.

A scream pierced the blackness of his mind.

"Ryuusei, help!"

It was the voice of a child.

Small. Trembling. Full of terror.

Ryuusei slammed his eyes open.

His surroundings were a desert of ashes and shadows. Everything was gray. The ruins of what was once reality stretched out on the horizon. A dead world. A reflection of who he was.

He tried to move, but an indescribable pain ran through his body.

Something was wrong.

His hands touched his face...

He had no skin.

An inhuman shiver ran through his body as he felt the texture of his flesh exposed, wet, throbbing. He looked down and saw what he was: a being of living flesh, without a single layer of skin to protect him from the icy and cutting air.

Every movement was agony. Every breath, a hell.

The muscles in his torso throbbed as if his own body were an open wound. Each red fiber vibrated with a dull ache, as if its very existence was being punished.

I couldn't scream. I didn't have the lips to do it.

Tears trickled down from eyelidless eyes, evaporating before they hit the ground.

But then...

Something appeared in his hand.

A familiar object. A symbol of what it once was.

His mask.

Black and white. Yin and Yang.

As if the universe itself wanted to remind him that there was still a balance between his lost humanity and the monstrosity he had become.

With trembling hands, he lifted the mask and placed it over his raw face.

The cold of the material against his exposed skin made him shiver. But for the first time, he felt something like comfort.

The mask covered his deformity. It separated him from the world.

He gave her back her identity.

He was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not a man.

It was Ryuusei Kisaragi

And someone needed it.

The rain began to fall.

Icy. Cutting. Relentless.

Each drop hit his exposed flesh like blades of ice, wresting sensations that oscillated between pain and fury. But he could no longer allow himself to feel.

Time seemed to freeze.

Aurion, with his glowing spear, was about to split Aiko's black stone. A blow. A single movement.

But before he could do so, a spectral hand emerged from nowhere and closed like a steel trap on his wrist.

A shudder ran through the hero's body.

Not out of fear. Not for sure. But because that hand should not exist.

Aurion turned his head and saw him.

Ryuusei.

Or rather, what was left of him.

A walking corpse. A grotesque entity. A being that should not be standing.

A demon covered in blood and raw flesh, without a single trace of skin except for its legs, which seemed disturbingly intact.

—… You should be dead. Aurion murmured quietly, keeping his composure, but deep down feeling something he rarely experienced: uneasiness.

Ryuusei did not answer. He only pressed harder.

The sound of bones crunching under his grip echoed across the battlefield.

Aurion frowned and jerked off, leaping backwards. Not because I was in danger... but because for the first time, he felt something like a chill.

Ryuusei stood there, standing in the rain, his Yin-Yang mask hiding what little was left of his face. Under the storm, the blood that flowed from his body mixed with the water, forming crimson puddles around him.

"Ryususei," murmured Archangel, who had remained impassive until that moment. His tone was not one of surprise, but of fascination.

As if he were seeing something beyond the human.

Aiko, lying on the ground, could barely focus her eyes. Between pain and defeat, the image of Ryuusei returning from the abyss left her speechless.

Aurion swung his spear elegantly and aimed at him.

"It doesn't matter what state you come back in. It just means I'll have to destroy you again.

But Ryuusei did not speak.

He only raised one of his daggers.

And it disappeared.

Thunder roared in the sky at the same time as the sound of teleportation ripped through the air.

In the blink of an eye, Aurion felt an inhuman pressure in his chest.

Ryuusei was there, right in front of him.

His eyes, hidden behind the mask, reflected something... something that not even death could take away from him.

Absolute determination.

"You're right. His voice sounded like a harsh whisper, devoid of humanity. As if he were pronouncing his last words.

"This time, I won't let myself be killed.

The time was reduced to a single instant.

The sound of rain hitting the earth. Aiko's trembling gasp.The divine radiance of Archangel's spear.The edge of Ryuusei's daggers cutting through the air.

A blink. A flash of steel.

Before Aurion or Archangel could react, Ryuusei's teleportation daggers stabbed into Aiko's chest.

His arm pierced the flesh without resistance, sinking to the bottom.

and appeared in front of Aiko's body, in Ryuuusei's hands was the girl's heart and he put it in its place, by the way he carried her and put her on his shoulders.

- Let's go home Aiko, we already had a lot for today.

A heartbeat. A wet and grotesque sound. His fingers closed around Aiko's beating heart.

The black stone, sealed deep within his being, pulsed along with his vital organ. It was warm... hurrah...

And now, it was his.

One more flash, and before Archangel could react, Ryuusei used another of his daggers to teleport farther away.

The daggers, as if responding to his will, came back to him in an instant, whizzing like sharp projectiles.

Aurion saw everything.

And he wouldn't allow it, he flew quickly to where he was and caught up with him.

His hand closed over Ryuusei's head.

A firm grip. Unswerving. Impossible to avoid.

"It disappears."

And he pressed.

Ryuusei's skull exploded.

The rain turned red, the remains of his head flew in all directions, fragments of bone and brain mass scattered across the battlefield.

But it did not fall.

Even without a head, his body was still standing.

Even without a face, his legs moved.

But before I could react...

A spear pierced the sky.

He went through the downpour, unstoppable. A flash of lightning in the dark.

Archangel had thrown his weapon.

The impact was absolute.

The spear pierced Ryuusei's torso.

From his back to his chest. Piercing the heart.

The sound of the flesh tearing was grotesque, inhuman.

For an instant, everything seemed to stop.

Ryususei's body trembled. His muscles contracted in an instinctive survival reflex.

But this time...

There was no escape.

The holy spear sizzled with divine energy. Its light consumed the dead flesh. Reducing everything to ashes.

And then...

Ryuusei's skinless body finally fell to his knees.

But all Japan was silent when they saw a body without a head, without a heart, rise again and run aimlessly to the point of disappearing in the mist of the rain

As the news shook all of Japan, Ryuusei crawled into a dark alley. His body slowly regenerated tissues, each nerve coming back to life in excruciating pain. Every absent beat of his heart reminded him that he shouldn't be alive.

The echo of the rain hit the asphalt, mixing with the sound of blood dripping from his incomplete body. Leaning against the wall, he dropped the black stone still covered with the last vestiges of Aiko. "Why am I still alive?" he thought, feeling his face begin to reconstruct.

As the crowd screamed in horror at the sight of a body without a head or heart running as if it still had a will of its own, Aurion reacted instantly. He could not allow that grotesque scene to eclipse his image.

Blood was still soaking the ground when a scream tore through the air.

"Help!" Please! An old woman, trapped in the rubble of a collapsed building, held out her trembling hand.

Aurion saw his chance. Without hesitation, he rushed towards her, his heroic movements captured by every camera and phone in the area. With only one arm, he lifted the concrete beam that imprisoned her, and with a confident smile, he carried her in his arms like a true savior.

The reporters went crazy. The headlines were already writing themselves:

❝Aurion, the Protector of Japan, saves an old woman in the midst of chaos❞

Images of his heroism were broadcast live, obscuring for a moment the grisly sight of the fleeing corpse. But in everyone's mind, terror was still latent.