Chapter Text
Spider convulsed and a jet of blood erupted from its neck as the seam of its body further loosened and split. Blood-slick fingers splayed out to hook against shattered jaw and orbit and ear, they clutched around Spider's dark hair and the devil's head bobbed and twisted.
I have maybe a minute. Maybe two. Need a plan, need blood.
On her left, Himeno stood a couple of meters away with the hilt of her glaive planted in the gravel. Samurai drew closer on her right.
Hers'll do. One good dash and I'm in biting range. As long as I get my teeth in her, I can put up a fight.
Iō shifted her weight to the side and braced her hand against the ground. She dug in deep for her last dregs of strength and - thud. The steel toe of Samurai's boot slammed into her side and she doubled over in pain with a stifled cry.
"Don't even think about it," growled Samurai.
The icy edge of a sword laid against the back of her neck and Iō froze in place, metal forehead pressed to the ground. Crack, pop, squeak, she listened to the gory sound of time running out as her thoughts raced.
Odds aren't great for us, huh?
Reze?
…
Figures. All that stupid drone's fault, anyway. Would've made a snack out of Spider if he hadn't shown up to run his idiot mouth at me. Should've just killed him when I had the chance.
Iō heaved out a frustrated growl through gritted teeth and raked her fingers into a fist.
"I hate you so much," she hissed. It didn't matter if Miri heard it, or Samurai, or Makima, or even Reze, it was truth no matter what.
Himeno's shoes fidgeted in the corner of Iō's vision and she offered a dull, "Sorry." Then a second of blank guilty nothing, then, "It's easier this way."
"Keep telling yourself that," said Iō.
The shoes shuffled around as Himeno turned away and sighed.
Spider's ribs squeal-cracked as its ribcage snapped open wide and a full arm dragged itself out and started to wrench. Iō grabbed a fistful of gravel and tried to push herself up, hissing as Samurai's blade bit into the metal armor at the back of her neck.
"You never even tried to resist, did you?" she spat. "You-" the dull thud of Samurai's boot silenced her voice when it rammed into her stomach again. Her side was still raw, only mostly-healed from where the glaive had split her open. As she tumbled onto her back she clutched her arm over her gut and writhed. There was no combat high to mute the pain, just adrenaline dregs that didn't do nearly enough.
"Shut it!" Samurai barked.
Iō's vision swam and a dizzy rush twisted its way through her head. Nausea came and went and came again, and when the blur in her vision cleared Himeno was standing over her. Her posture was weak, shoulders slumped, glaive held loose in one hand with her eyes pointedly downcast away from where Iō lay.
"Look. It's simpler than you think," she said. "I have a good deal. I don't ruffle her feathers too much, she doesn't ruffle mine. And I don't have to get the hell beat out of me trying to run-"
"Hah!" Iō's laugh seethed with rakish bitterness. "Oh, I'm sorry, Princess.¹ You weren't joking?"
Samurai stomped forward and Himeno lifted her weapon to cut off his path. "Don't," she said. "Just-" There it was again, that guilty look. Iō took satisfaction in it. If Makima was going to lash a chain around her neck in a minute here, she at least wanted to make Himeno feel bad about it. So she kept going.
"You want me to believe that? Like you didn't just double-team me with the guy who killed Aki?"
Himeno's grip tightened on her glaive and she fidgeted. She shot a glare at Samurai, then Iō. "How did you-"
"Denji told me. Said he gutshot you and sliced your buddy to ribbons-" Himeno stepped in as guilt became dismay and anger. She clutched her weapon in both trembling hands and Iō kept going still, shoving herself up with an elbow, "Everybody in the division knew you were trying to screw him! So how'd it feel? How'd it feel, huh!? Knowing Makima turned him into just another fucking lover-boy for her and you didn't have the spine to stop him from sucking her-" THWAK. Himeno's pommel lashed out and struck Iō in the side of the head. She hit the ground again, head filled with a dull ringing and the muffled sound of Samurai's guffaws. Iō laughed, too.
"Oh, Reze. Reze, Reze, I hit a nerve!" She cackled herself ragged and rolled to shove herself to one knee. "You hear me, Maya!? Aki was - ghah-!" The chilled invisible hand of Himeno's ghost-contract clasped Iō's neck and slammed her onto her side. Samurai laughed even harder.
"Stop it! Maya, stop!" Miri had finally found enough of his guts to say something. Took him long enough.
"Shut up, kid!" Himeno snarled. She leveled her weapon at Iō's chest with a white-knuckle grip. "Come on, keep talking. Keep goddamn talking!"
"And what, Princess, you'll kill me!?" Iō cried, half-delirious with sadistic glee. "You think it'll stick!? You think your boss won't have me on my feet a minute later, you think she'll give a shit, like she didn't cuckq-"
Miri screamed.
A hulking scorched beast bounded from the wreckage and bowled him onto his back in a tangle of clawed limbs; she pinned him face down and hunched over his body and trapped his head between gnashing serrated jaws and the devil-metal bowed and shrieked as Power squeezed his skull like a vice,
"AAAH!! GET IT OFF GET IT THE FUCK OFF- PLEASE-!!"
Her claws sank into his shoulders and his arm as she shook her head like a wild animal subduing its prey, biting and biting again, teeth sparking and screeching as she fought for better purchase to crush his head. He was still screaming as Power tore his arm free from its socket with a hollow grungy pop and hurled it at Samurai. The bladed arm hurtled end over end and Samurai carved it out of the air with his own sword, threw a glance at Power, threw a glance at Iō again and she made her move.
Iō's hand snapped to one of the grenades on her bandolier and she pulled the pin - a dud, all of them were duds, she was so low on blood she couldn't have ignited a firecracker - but Himeno flinched and that split-second of indecision between murdering Iō and helping Miri was all it took for Iō to shove herself away and scramble to Spider's still-convulsing body.
Makima was a third out, arms clutching at Spider's sides, shoulders heaving as she bowed and twisted, everything above the neck and below the stomach still buried in gore. Iō grabbed her wrist and twisted. Radius and ulna shattered, her elbow bent sixty degrees the wrong way, and Iō lurched down to sink her teeth into Makima's forearm. She hated, hated, hated the way she tasted, too familiar and disgusting and that hatred only made her bite down harder. Hot copper gushed into her mouth, flesh and fabric tore free and slid down her throat, another bite, another, forearm and hand burst forth from her severed stump still steaming and her senses flashed back to razor-sharp an instant too late.
A glaive lanced between her shoulders and burst through her sternum straight through her spine. Blade and hook and hilt twisted and lodged and half of Iō's body went dead on the spot. She slumped forward with a rasp over Spider's gored body and the top of her head hit Makima's side. Thunk.
The barrel of a revolver shoved at the side of Iō's head. Makima held the gun in her uninjured hand, contorting it beneath her body and under her other arm in a borderline comical image of red-soaked twister that stopped being funny as soon as she pulled the trigger.
Thunder sledged Iō's skull and a muzzleflash stamped her vision and the gun kicked like a mule and her eyesight burrowed into dark and red and her teeth felt shattered. The world blurred and dulled and deadened and the gun crashed again. Searing heat carved a glancing trough along the side of Iō's head and a chunk of her field of view on the left went blank. Another bullet went wide as Iō collapsed on her side. Another round, another, another, wildly fired off where Makima thought Iō was, not knowing that she'd already put her target down for the count.
Through the blur and haze and pain, Iō saw Power wrench her head to the side, saw a greyish blob that was probably Miri fling out from beneath her and slam bodily against the underside of an overturned traincar. Another navy blob darted at Power and vanished from sight and snapped back into existence behind her with blades outstretched and gleaming. An instant later Power's front opened up with a vibrant crimson cascade and a gurgling cry.
Iō heaved back as an invisible hand latched down against the glaive buried in her chest and began to drag her away from Makima, from Spider, from the only source of blood she could get her hands on. Her body left the ground and twisted and she caught a glimpse of Himeno's outstretched hand clamping down into a fist and knew as the hilt twisted that the weapon would rend her body apart. Then Himeno's arm exploded at the elbow.
Huh-
Iō dropped like a stone. Himeno staggered back and stared at the ragged remains of her outstretched arm. Her scythe-toothed maw hung open in gormless shock and she didn't even think to turn before the next bullet hit her in the chest. It punched straight through to the other side, less pink-mist more red-splatter. She stumbled back and another bullet obliterated her kneecap and she crumpled face-down.
Iō forced herself through the confusion and disarray. Her body was slow to fix itself, but it ultimately did fix. The red and blur in her vision thinned out and her skull no longer felt ready to reverberate itself apart. Those few bites had been enough to keep her alive, but only barely.
A dozen meters away Power clutched and wobbled and scampered. Samurai darted after the fleeing devil, ducked low, vanished - then another gunshot cracked and Samurai reappeared in a tumbling bloody heap on Power's other side with neck blasted open and head nearly separated from the body. At Iō's side Makima had nearly fully emerged; a gun, shoulders hunched deep forward, a red braid and a glaring gold side-eye focused down at where she lay. She wasn't the shooter.
From behind Iō a voice dryly called, "[Fire.]"
The doubled-over shape of Makima's body spasmed as a high-caliber round punched through her from shoulder to shoulder and ripped her open into a lopsided blood-eagle.
"[Double tap.]"
The rifle boomed and Makima's head burst apart like a watermelon cored and stuffed with a hand grenade.
"[Hooah. Next target, fire.]"
A rifle swung. Across the wreckage, the pink guts of Power's neck and chest burst into a ribbony pink mess.
Wait-
"[One more.]"
Wait, no, no!!
Power collapsed to her knees and the next bullet hit her in the muzzle. It punched through the shell across the top of her snout and sent a spiderweb of cracks through the rest. She squealed and hissed and cried, crumpling to the ground and covering her head with her hands.
Her. It's her, why is she-
Reze wanted to scream for it to stop but she only managed a violent bloody retch. Slick hands slipped along the hilt of the glaive still lodged in her breast. She pulled. Slipped. Pulled. She curled into a ball and forced the weapon through her even as her vision turned white and her body threatened to go dead-limp from pain. The pommel forced its way in through her back and grated against bone and punctured organs and the gun fired again; Power was sobbing, she was sobbing and-
Idiot! You kicked me out, why couldn't you let me-
Iō grabbed the glaive and ripped it from her chest, she forced herself to her feet, fuses burned and fixed the jagged hole in her breast and Reze twisted to face her and Kaze raised the weapon and froze on the spot-
It's not her. It's not her, it's someone completely different, it's-
Why now, why now of all times?
This can't be happening. This can't be happening, it can't be happening, it-
-twisted dumb fucking luck-
-does she even recognize me? She has to recognize me-
-she's dead, that's not Hana, she just replaced her like she was-
-she's a bitch, she wouldn't give it a second thought-
"[At ease,]" drawled the War Devil. The glaive in Kaze's hands slipped loose and clattered to the ground. Reze took a stumbling step back. Iō forced them to stop.
In the ten years since the three of them had seen the War Devil, she'd changed a great deal. The crisp, dashing dress uniform and cape she'd been fond of had been replaced with a blue denim jacket and black jeans belted with a fat silver buckle engraved with a star. Close-cropped black hair had grown out into flowing blonde that spilled down her shoulders and fluttered free in the fire-warm breeze. Her eyes, once a burning yellow, had since lightened to a steely blue with irises faintly marked by subtle greenish rings, hidden behind a cheap plastic pair of red-white-and-blue shutter shades. Atop her head sat a black felt Stetson which she plucked off to get a better look, tilting her head forward and eyeballing Iō over her glasses. War's eyes caught catlike the smolder-light and all definition in them vanished into liquid-metal pools.
That's-
I don't-
I-I don't get it. I-
That's a joke, right? She looks like she walked straight out of Department Store, USA.
The spurs on War's boots click-clicked as she sidled forward to get a closer look at-
"Mom-" Reze whispered.
-her daughter.
"[Mm. Ain't that somethin'?]" War mused to herself. Eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed, and a pretty face the sort of which was more commonly found an ocean away eased from curiosity, to confusion, to fascination. Her gaze prickled Reze's skin. It seared Kaze's. Iō tucked herself back into a numb little part of her brain and tried to daydream. Ladybirds and ants and aphids and,
"You're different," Iō whispered.
War paused. For a moment, she seemed to be entirely unsure of what Iō was talking about. Then she glanced back at Gun and sadly smiled, drawing herself back with a little shake of her head.
"[Aww, I'm sorry, kiddo,]" she said. "[I know you two were close.]" She glanced to the Gun standing at her side and paused for a moment, seemingly unsure as to how to continue from there.
The Gun was entirely different from the one Reze had known as a child. For one, she took orders verbally instead of via hand-signal. And she was smaller. Smaller than War, smaller than Reze. From the elbow down, her right arm gave way to a sleek black Barrett M82. The rifle wasn't the same as the metal of Reze's head or Miri's blades - it looked more like a polymer of faintly visible veins and metal and plastic, and it was tremendously oversized in comparison to the rest of her. Reze stared at the slender dark-skinned fingers that supported the handguard.
She's just a kid. Can't be older than fourteen.
What did you expect?
She searched the Gun's face for any hint of familiarity. A panoply of scope-lenses, red-dots, apertures, lasers, fiber-optics, holographics, thermals, and diopters stared back at her, splayed out above and around a spider-like mouth. Small-caliber belts draped and dove-tailed along the sleek olive-drab helmet that was the rest of her head; bullet dreads.
No, this Gun wasn't familiar at all. Kaze bristled. Iō tried not to think about it. Reze turned back to stare at War. Her chest ached, her heart ached.
When it'd been her in that position, growing up as a human weapon, it was something to be dealt with, conquered, endured. To see it like this, years on, was…
Splrk.
Spider's body convulsed again. Makima's trembling hands stilled themselves as bones reordered and nerve endings reconnected and muscle dragged itself together. A hand pawed around on the gravel for a dropped revolver and the half-formed Makima sucked in a rattling breath.
"[Suppress.]"
The Gun sidestepped around Reze and raised her rifle.
"[Hold, Gun. Not you."]
The Gun lowered her rifle and looked at War. A canted sight shifted on her optical panoply, giving the impression of a raised eyebrow. War's gaze was fixed firmly on Reze.
"[Suppress.]"
Run.
"[That's an order.]"
Reze stepped back. By the time her foot hit the ground, Iō had taken her place.
She'd had a bite, caught her breath. Iō was nearly back in peak condition. As she stood over Makima's sagging, half-reformed body, her black-gloved hand glowed emberous. Stinging pain shot down her arm as her blood ignited and she raised a palm. Fuses smoldered and brightened and danced until she held a miniature star in her palm, and,
BOOM!
Earth-shaking light and heat and flame and pressure ripped into Makima's back. Flesh peeled from skin and bone boiled in its own muscle and organs burst and the trainyard was marked by the long shadows of Iō and Gun and War. The nerves in her hands seared and healed and seared again. Pain vanished beneath a devil's catharsis.
BOOM!
Spider's flesh sizzled and popped. Its upper body was a molten, near-unrecognizable mass streaked and pocked with dry desiccated clumps. Whatever was left of Makima had vaporized, or maybe retreated.
But the order to back off hadn't come. That suited her just fine. Iō dropped to one knee and studied the waxen heap of meat. That part looked like the center. Fuses surged and sleeked as she sank the fingers of her left hand into the char and her right forearm twisted into a dark gleaming missile. Hauling Spider 'upright' - if it even had an 'upright' at this point - Iō thrust the tip inside, squeezed, pumped down to the elbow, and kicked the afterburner on.
Iō.
No.
Her arm popped, deadened, Spider's body lurched in place once and fell still. All was silent but the crackle of flame in the wreckage.
Iō dragged her arm from Spider's corpse. It sizzled and smoked at the elbow, and the fuses that coursed through her languidly curled out and began to knit her whole.
"[Cease fire.]"
Iō stood. War faced away from her, hands on her hips as she watched a far-off column of fire and smoke several stories tall billow up from near the bay. The missile's thunder rolled over them seconds later.
"[Hoo, she's gonna be mad.]" War turned on her heel and gave Gun a smack on the shoulder, striding further downtrack toward where the wreckage thickened. "[Alright, ladies, that's enough gagglefuckin'. We got shit to do. Eyes out, find the Saw.]"
"Wait-" Reze forced the sign out, devil-mouth opening in an illegible facsimile of the word. "You have to tell me, you have to, you owe me, did-"
She wouldn't even learn sign for Hana. What the hell makes you think-
"[Wrap it up.]"
Reze lacked Iō's training, Iō's instinct. The bullet punched through her neck an instant later.