The Bounty Hunter

May 21th, 2089

“Rin, time for the failsafe.” At my words, Rin materialized and immediately turned into an ominous dark cloud that enveloped me and was quickly absorbed.  As far as spirits go, demons are not the strongest subcategory.  But they are among the most intelligent and they have a special ability unique to them:  possession.  With Rin possessing me, our strengths were merging and my body changed.  If this was an anime, I would get a cute pair of fox ears and tail and that would be it.  But this isn’t an anime. 

My hands elongated into talons and black tentacles grew out of my right forearm.  My teeth sharpened into fangs and a large eye with a bloody maw where the pupil should be appeared on my swollen left bicep.  My eyes turned pitch black from iris to sclera and eerie, jarring red tattoos appeared all across my skin.

Possession by a demon means the demon gives up its form to inhabit the new body.  The excess negative emotions that make up the demon can cause random changes depending on how much control the demon gives up, since the host has no way to suppress the negative emotions.  Rin possessed me yet gave me total control of my body, leading to this abominable form.  If I am careless and lose control of this power, the possession could cause irreparable damage to my mind and body, which is why it is a failsafe.

Jupon had finished stabilizing the ritual and spoke again “So you allowed a demonic possession to strengthen yourself.  What a desperate maneuver.  You’ve evaded death thus far, but no longer!”  He brandished Liberator and charged towards me.  I took advantage of my rhomphaia’s longer reach to strike first with a vertical slash.  Jupon blocked and then sent a horizontal swipe to my side, which I parried. 

We had a furious back and forth with no spells cast.  Jupon couldn’t use magic anymore because the ritual had progressed to a point where he needed all of his mana to control it and I was focusing all my remaining mana onto body reinforcement magic.  Soon however, I lost our exchange and was sent flying again. 

I became a bloody mess, but not as bad as before, with only 2 ruptured organs and a dozen broken bones.  I tossed out faerie dust at Jupon, which bought me a few seconds as I frantically drank another Elixir.  My armor and apparel had by this point turned into tattered scraps, exposing more of my hideously altered body.  *Sigh* Based on appearances alone, anyone would think that I am the monstrous villain trying to destroy the world rather than Jupon. 

I recovered and charged Jupon.  I twirled my rhomphaia around, leaving trails of cutting light in the air that tried to wrap around Jupon.  He dispersed it with Liberator and swung at my knees.  I didn’t jump, choosing to keep my footing instead and evade with quick steps backwards.  I kicked up sand at Jupon’s eyes as I did so.  I then did a vertical chop while he was blinded.  But of course that level of trickery would not phase a Hero.  He sensed my oncoming blow and stopped it with Liberator.  It turned into a contest of strength, which I lost.

 I managed to recover my balance in time to dodge a killing blow from Jupon.  My right arm was sacrificed instead and the rhomphaia it was holding went soaring along with it.  I transformed my left forearm into the front half of a lion to hold Jupon off while a tentacle grew from my back to grab my amputated arm and the rhomphaia.  My hand became the lion’s mouth and it roared as I tried to bite Jupon’s throat with it while the claws struck at his torso. 

Such a strange attack took Jupon completely off-guard and he was forced to block.  While his sword was occupied, I kicked at him from below to separate us.  I augmented the kick with a magic concussive blast.  Distance opened up between us, giving me a brief respite.  My arm was re-attached during that pause and I had my rhomphaia in my grasp again.

Jupon lunged forward at full strength, giving me little time to react.  Liberator sang as it cut through the air towards me.  I had no time to evade and I wasn’t going to risk destroying my last weapon by trying to block.  I did my best to minimize the damage as my left side was obliterated and my blood sprayed into the air.  Before Jupon could get another strike in I used a blood magic to ignite and detonate my own blood.  The explosion knocked Jupon back and launched me away.  I rolled to a stop and rapidly drained my last Elixir to heal. 

I stood up again after surviving yet another nearly fatal exchange.  I am trembling from the excessive exertion and can barely hold onto my rhomphaia right now.  I am channeling the little mana I have left into body reinforcement magic.  I am also barely maintaining control of my demonic possession.  I looked at Jupon’s condition and it was unchanged from the moment I first saw him.  He was neither breathing heavily nor was there a sign of any injury.  Hell, there wasn’t even a smudge on his armor!  Heroes are too cheat!

Jupon was staring at my battered figure and spoke “You are annoyingly persistent.  But your heroism is completely misplaced.  I am trying to save these two worlds, but to truly do that requires one to remake them.  Why can’t you understand I am trying to do what’s best?  Your attempts to stop me are not protecting these worlds but dooming them.”

 I spat out some clotted blood from my throat as I responded “I am not a hero.  I don’t care that much about this world and I despise the other world.  But the people important to me live in this world, so I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them.  Everyone else can go die for all I care.” 

A pulsating noise started emanating from the rent sky above us.  It sounded like a beating heart, and it was the signal that the second stage will start soon.  And that signal, along with our brief exchange, has just given me an insidious idea for victory.  When faced with an impossible final boss, I see no reason not to use a cheat code.  I took a defensive posture instead of charging, causing Jupon to curiously question me “What are you doing?”  “Waiting.”  “For what?”  “For the transition between the 1st and 2nd stage.”  At those words Jupon showed an expression of horror as he realized my plan. 

The transition is when the other world will be fully destroyed and when absolute focus is required during the ritual.  Jupon will be crippled during that period and I will be able to kill him.  His only hope to survive would be to kill me before the transition since he would die if he tried to abandon the ritual now.  I had entered into this fight on the mistaken premise that I needed to save both worlds.  I don’t.  Only a hero would have to save everyone.  I am not a hero, so I only need to save my world. 

“You monster, you would willingly sacrifice a world to stop the one hope for the salvation of the two!”  Jupon yelled in outrage.  “You’re the one destroying a world.  I am simply not bothering to try and stop you.”  I replied as I braced myself.  Jupon roared as he desperately went on the offensive.  I made great use of my rhomphaia’s superior reach, forcing him to frantically dance around as he tried to attack.  His turbulent emotions made his swordplay less focused allowing me to hold out despite my exhaustion. 

I was very calculative during this last exchange.  I accumulated a variety of smaller injuries in order to avoid showing large openings where Jupon could try and finish me.  And when I say smaller, I mean relatively.  Chunks of flesh were missing from my body, showing my pearly white bones, and I had multiple fractures.  But by completely abandoning my offense, I was able to weather Jupon’s onslaught.

Finally, the rent in the sky burst even wider open, showing a glowing mass similar to a sun.  Jupon froze as the magic circle on his skin started synergizing with the mana sun.  I did not miss this opportunity and my rhomphaia whistled as it barely decapitated Jupon in one strike.  I finally managed to do damage to Jupon, although my rhomphaia shattered at the stress of doing so.  The corpse of the Hero fell and disappeared in a flash of brilliance as the magic circle on its skin dissipated.  Only the sword Liberator remained behind. 

I had no time to rejoice in my underhanded victory, since without the magic circle to control it the ritual would rampage out of control.  I have to use Liberator to cut off the link between the two worlds before too much damage is done to my world.  The streaks of mana shooting out of that dimensional rift looked like lightning and the ground was starting to shake ominously.  The mana sun above me looked like it was soon going to go supernova and I doubt my world would survive if it did that.  Out of curiosity I tried to sense for the other world like I always have before traveling there, but I didn’t feel a thing.  It was gone.  That mana sun must be all that is left of it.  Surprisingly, I felt neither relief nor regret at its disappearance.  I was completely indifferent.

I walked over to Liberator and picked it up.  And it hurts.  I can feel the sword rejecting me with all its might.  I most certainly do not have a pure and noble heart, and the feedback from the sword is doing major damage to me.  I swung it upwards into the air while resisting the pain.  I forcefully overloaded Liberator with my own mana and stopped it from channeling mana to the other world. 

The rent in the sky started to close, and the mana sun behind it which was all that was left of the other world soon left my vision.  But now the near infinite mana being gathered started to fill the sword instead and even a god artifact like Liberator could not store that much mana.  It exploded, sending one last pillar of white light upwards that enveloped me.  The desert was dark and ordinary once more. 

I was on my back, seeing a clear view of the stars as I was slowly dying.  I am suffering from a mana overdose and my body is shutting down.  It is something way beyond my ability to heal.  Rin has released the possession, thus returning my body to normal.  She was exhausted, but unharmed since it was my body taking all the damage.  *Sigh* My eyes have closed and as the darkness slowly creeped upon my consciousness my thoughts have turned to my girls. 

I hope they can eventually move on, but I fear they will not when they find out I’ve died.  I don’t want to make them sad.  No, I won’t make them sad.  If I die they’ll be sad, so I can’t let myself die.  That line of thought made me maintain a tenuous grasp on life.  The darkness stopped encroaching on my mind, but it wasn’t receding.  So there I laid in the desert, unable to recover but refusing to die, until the first light of dawn started showing on the horizon. 

The warm light fell onto my body and thanks to my augmented cells drinking in the solar energy, I was able to break the stalemate I was in.  Slowly but surely I started to recover to the point where I could stand once more.  Relief, joy, excitement were all emotions I was not feeling right now.  I was simply tired. 

All I want to do right now is to go home and get back into bed with my girls.  I painstakingly drew a teleportation circle and vanished.  I appeared in the apartment living room, where I removed the little ragged clothing that remained and stumbled over to the bed.  There I saw Veronica, Hikari and Kira all sleeping together peacefully.  I inserted myself among them and started to fall asleep.  I can finally become a normal high school kid again.  Well, almost normal.  I’m sure that there will be no major fallout in this world from a botched cataclysmic level magical catastrophe, right?  *Sigh*  Whatever, I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

END OF ARC 1:  THE REDEMPTION PROJECT