Shattering Humanity

Esau begins to laugh loudly and shouts to the sky with the scared Princess Rebekah, muffle crying into his clutching bicep.

Esau: "You hear that Edom!? Laban fell for it, she never knew Isfet was within her inner circle!"

Laban: "The fuck are you talking about, psycho!?Where’s Hathor?"

Esau pulls out his gun from his satchel and the *click* of the safety being set to OFF rings through everyone’s ears as the man holds the barrel of the Glock to the back of the terrified princess’s head.

Dom finally jumps back up to his feet.

Dom: "Woah dude, what the hell are you doing!? Stop pointing that at a little girl! It’s dangerous!"

Drakaina: "You just don’t learn..."

Esau, with an irritated expression, once again points the gun at Dom and fires a single round.

Dom’s IceEye makes him dodge the incoming bullet and the Izanami Gunner falls back to the ground on his ass.

Jormy: "Big Bro Dom, at this point, he’s now fired more shots at you than any that were meant to hit Laban, maybe you should take the hint."

Saku(thinking): *Dammit! I can’t use any of my position switching abilities on him, Rebekah, or his gun while he’s covering them with his SeiõrShield. I can’t use that Particle Eye ability to create lightning, it will hit Rebekah too.

FUCK! WHAT DO I DO?! WHAT DO I DO?! FUCKIN KATSU, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!*

Time seems to stop for a moment, leaves pause mid air and nobody but Saku is moving. Katsu’s voice can only be heard in the Yin Vessel’s head, from the passive ability of the Yang’s Anjell Eye of Communication. The tone in his voice is of clear uninterest and confidence.

Katsu’s Voice: *I’ve already told you Saku, trying to keep everyone alive will only cause more overall suffering in the end. Cut your losses here and accept Laban has had this karma coming for some time now.*

Saku: "Shut up Katsu, and get your ass back here to help!"

Time resumes, leaves continue their decent and everyone looks at Saku after his random outburst.

Itsuka: "Saku, what are you talking about? Katsu isn’t here, he got sent flying into the city."

Saku: "He’s using his passive ability to insist I let this guy kill Princess Rebekah."

Laban: "Yea, I don’t doubt it, cuz he’s a fake fuck!"

From the voice inside an angry Saku’s head, Katsu continues talking.

Katsu’s Voice: *Whatever, I knew it was a long shot anyway. Just remember, because of you, most of everyone within Roronora City has had their fate sealed already. So make sure you keep Itsuka and the rest of the group safe for now, they still have important roles to play later on in protecting Shelly. You all have 30 minutes before you’re caught in the crossfire.*

Katsu then switches to communicate with every eye user around Saku, other than Rebekah and Esau. His voice now sounds panicked and with clear urgency.

Katsu’s Voice: *Guys! I can’t control them all! Get out of there! I’m heading for Shelly’s location to tell her and help her! Get back to Sanpaku, hurry! I tried telling Saku, don’t do anything that puts the rest of you at risk. I’ll try to get Shelly back as soon as possible.

Stay safe.

Katsu. Out.*

Saku: "That’s NOT what he ’tried to tell me’ and does nobody else find it oddly disturbing that there is no way to reject or at the very least, an indication to know whenever Katsu has walked freely into our minds?"

Esau gets annoyed and fires a round into the sky.

Princess Rebekah: "Please... I’m scah-ared!"

Ignoring the child’s plea, the deranged man returns the gun to the back of the little girl’s head.

Esau: "Hey! Are you bastards really treating this like a gahddamn joke?

Eell, you wanna hear a good joke Laban? That day, when you used my wife as an example, you also killed my unborn child she was carrying. So you didn’t take only one life from me. You should consider this as getting off easy. Isn’t that funny?"

Rebekah, out the corner of her eye, can see Princess Kawaii peeking while hiding safely behind a tree with Friend.

Just from the emotion shown in her eyes alone, the sense of fear had eased, and Rebekah’s tense body relaxes while dangling.

Rebekah DaeMon(thinking): *Good, Kawaii is safe and protected.

.....Wait, this guy is threatening to hurt me, but knowing my best friend is safe, makes me less scared for some reason.*

Esau: "Such a tragic price to pay for the ’gangster life’, huh Laban?"

Saku: "Listen, you don’t have to do this man, just-"

Esau: "I don’t want to hear anything you have to say, Mr. ’Chosen One’! Write down whatever you’re thinking of saying to me and shove it up your dick hole."

Saku sucks his teeth at the man holding Princess Rebekah hostage.

Saku: "So you hate me too, for reasons unknown or uncontrollable by me. Wonderful."

Laban now realizing the severity of the situation, finally shows a slight sign of despair. Her voice quivering in fear, staring at the consequences of her immoral past actions. Those consequences that could be inflicted on the innocent child.

Laban: "Hey- I’m- I’m sorry, all right? I was a terrible person and I still am. I get that, but Rebekah hasn’t done ah-anything-."

Esau: "...’She hasn’t done anything wrong’? So she wasn’t the one who ratted out my comrades in the resistance along with Edom? And all of those who had successfully killed you in a foreseeable future?

If it wasn’t for her using her foresight powers, gained from these alien eyes, you’d have been burned a long time ago, you witch. Without this girl, you would have been assassinated hundreds of times by now!"

His head tilts while looking at Laban and his smile isn’t of any sane person’s. There’s a look of regret in his sad eyes, above his fake contorted smile.

Laban EyeEngages with a now tearless Rebekah from opposite ends of the highway entrance to the city.

Laban: "Rebekah! It’ll be okay hun! Mama loves you! Everything is going to be fine. I’m- I’m..."

Saku is trying to think of everything he can do to stop the man, but it’s too late, Laban can’t fight these true emotions anymore. Her still bandage wrapped hand and her healthy left hand scratches her own face, mixing her blood with tears and a blizzard pouring out of her eyes, snot is running from her nose.

Laban: "PLEASE DON’T HURT HER! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY! PLEASE, I PROMISE I’LL LET YOU KILL ME, JUST DON’T DO ANYTHING TO HER! PLEEHEHEEHESSS! SHE DOESN’T DESERVE THIS!"

Esau lets out a half-cackle and pulls the hammer back to the gun.

Esau: "Funny, when my wife and child were still in this world, at her trial while I was being dragged out, I said that same plea to you because you considered yourself the judge, jury, and the executioner. But what did you say to me back then, Laban?Do you remember what you told me, as you acted cool in front of your hoodlum friends?

’It must suck, to suck’."

After being fully content with Princess Kawaii’s safety a tear and snow flake drop to the ground between Esau’s boots. Rebekah wiggles her mouth free, and looks at her mother through tear blurs over the man’s arm.

Rebekah DaeMon: "Thank you...for everything, Mama! Please tell Momma Zoram, I love her too."

Saku(thinking): *THERE’S GOTTA BE SOMETHING!*

Saku’s 2nd Stage Anjell Eye appears to realize something but suddenly he puts a hand over his Anjell Eye and falls to both knees in pain.

Saku: "Arghhh!"

Itsuka: "Saku!"

While Saku is wincing and groaning in pain, there’s a quick but slight tremor that vibrates the ground and is only strong enough to be felt by Esau and Dom who is still sitting on the ground.

Dom: "Wait, was that-?"

Jormungand: "What?"

Dom: "I’m not sure, but I-I think..."

Esau is grinding his teeth, his hand now shaking. He starts to pull the barrel away from Rebekah’s head but then his thoughts get to him.

Another voice is heard in his head, it’s Katsu’s, but to Esau, it’s his own inner monologue, the exact replica as the ’voice in his head’.

Katsu(in Esau’s head): *Don’t forget what the DaeMon proposed to your wife, just for her ’slave freedom ’ back. Show her what it means to suffer, Esau. Make her wish for someone, a hero, to end all her mental anguish in this world.*

Esau(thinking): *Yea, right now, Isfet is holding back that Valkyrie monster, just so I can accomplish what we’ve worked so hard to achieve! Our revenge, is for YOU, Edom!

...But this little girl...

...Doesn’t...

Doesn’t this make me just as bad as Laban in the end, Edom?*

Laban takes a step forward but is pushed back due to Esau’s ability. Laban crawls forward on hands and knees but is shoved back again by an invisible force.

Laban: "Pleehz...stop. I-I’m sorry... don’t...Just kill me instead."

Esau: "Nah, that’s not enough Laban, now know what it means to suffer, you DaeMon..."

As he goes to squeeze the trigger another, stronger quake isn’t the only thing that catches the vengeful man by surprise. From the trees behind him, a woman’s beautiful, soft, and comforting voice calls out to him.

Woman’s Voice: "Esau, always be the man you want our son to be. I’ll always have your back. I love you, my rock."

Esau out of heartbroken disbelief drops Rebekah making the SharedSeiõrShield fade from the princess and Esau’s body turns so quickly around it cuts the wind.

Esau: "Edom!? W-was that really you?! I-I-I can pick your voice out in any crowd, r-remember? I haven’t heard your angelic voice in so long! Wh-where are you?!"

Saku immediately stops faking his pain and removes his hand from his eye, exposing a small dark portal in his palm. He looks at the SeiõrShield-less princess and she *POPS* out of thin air and immediately into the arms of Laban.

Itsuka is blushing and completely confused by the last second trick play that saved a little girl from being shot and killed at point blank.

Saku on the other hand, is clearly exhausted from using so many abilities within a short time period.

He says one last thing before he collapses unconscious with a smile of relief.

Saku(heavy breathing): "Free...Injury...Timeouts..."

He falls but his vice captain catches him in her tone arms with a smile.

Behind them, Drakaina looks on, worried.

Drakaina: "Ever since he acquired Rebekah’s ability, his Anjell Eye has been working almost nonstop. I was going to mention it but I figured it’s really not my business. I’m sorry, I should have spoken up."

Itsuka: "He’s fine, don’t worry. I’m pretty sure, even if you did say something in concern, he wouldn’t have used it any less anyway."

While the Izanami Captain is unconscious, Itsuka takes a SeiõrBean from the plastic bag, puts it between her lips and kisses Saku while Laban is preoccupied hugging Rebekah. Itsuka moves away without a bean and Saku is seen chewing.

Itsuka(softly): "I love you, Saku. You really are the hero to me, no matter what anyone says."T

To ruin the heartwarming mood, another familiar tremor, which everyone definitely feels, makes the foliage around them shake in the early night.

Suddenly, there’s the sounds of barking from Friend, followed by a high pitched squeak, then the sound of blunt force collision, and finally the heartbreaking whimper of pain coming from Friend in the close distance.

Itsuka’s happiness turns to concerned fear.

Itsuka: "Kawaii!

Friend!"

From either the SeiõrBean or Itsuka’s worrisome call out, only Saku’s left eye opens and his Anjell Eye activates but in an unprecedented sight, the Yin aura *BURSTS* over the entire left side of his head, covering the changed eye completely.

From within the black aura Saku’s eye glows all white while his right side stays unconscious.

From the force of the Seiõr aura being released by his Anjell Eye alone, the wind begins whipping around Saku as he calmly gets up from the ground.

The entire group doesn’t know what to do and they all protect their face from the dirt being blown up by the force of Saku’s eye.

Suddenly, something makes Itsuka worry enough to peek through the fingers of the right hand she’s using as dirt shield.

With her own symbiote, the human and eye alien attached, both witness the newest of phenomenon achieved by Saku and his Anjell Eye’s relationship but to their confusion, Saku is sobbing in a very "over animated" way.

Arching his torso back for deep inhaling breaths, followed by a loud, depressing, low pitched sob coming from the Yin Vessel as he bends forward, hands covering his face. His torso bounces as he exhales. Painful hail is falling from his Eye of Wisdom.

Itsuka: "Sa- ku...?"

While eeriely sobbing, Saku, then vanishes but leaves a wind trail indicating he traveled to the sounds of his purposes in distress. As they all make their way in that direction, they hear a familiar sound of Icemen, but only Dom knows the exact meaning of the collection of distinctive gnashing and gnarling sounds.

Dom: "We have to go, NOW!"

Jormungand releases his sister from her protective case, and deactivates his IceEye.

Drakaina: "Princess Kawaii is in trouble! We have to help!"

Itsuka remembers the last time Saku did something on his own without the rest of the group knowing and him pleading her to trust him.

The Vice-Captain of Izanami realizes she is the one in charge of the group’s decision with Katsu and Saku gone, as well as the Vice-Captain of Izanagi. Another tremor is felt and the horrific sounds of smaller Icemen get closer from inside the trees, echoing throughout the evening sky.

Itsuka turns to her division’s Gunner.

Itsuka: "Dom, is this what happened that time you all were in Son Goku City?"

With a serious look Dom nods his head.

Dom: "I think what Katsu was trying to tell us was he couldn’t use his eye ability to stop the entire horde. In a few minutes, there will be hundreds of smaller Icemen mobbing Roronora City and not too much longer afterwards there will be over a hundred giant Iceman with the sole intent to destroy everything, even the buildings."

Jormungand: "But I thought we had killed them all? How could they-?"

Laban has Rebekah piggybacked and the Princess of Roronora is holding on as tight as she can to her mother. The Don has her Eyelien at 2nd Stage with a blue aura.

Laban: "It pains me to agree with the living shit stain over there, but he’s right. We got over 1,000 of those smaller monsters on their way and not too far away...H-Holy fuck..."