The darkness was not silent. Within it, I heard the sound of flesh sewing itself back together. My nerves were forcibly yanked, merging with a suffocating demonic soul. It felt as if thousands of fire caterpillars were crawling beneath my skin, clawing for an exit through my torn pores.
Then, I felt it. A dark energy in the center of my chest, the new heart gifted by Charon, bulged as if it were about to detonate. With the remnants of my shattered consciousness, I pressed down on that heart.
SRAAAAAAAKKKKKK!
The world exploded in a deafening roar of blades. My body didn't just change; it split open. I felt a gruesome sensation as both my arms fractured to make way for massive blades protruding outward.
My forearms burst. The skin peeled away, replaced by long blades thirsty for blood. I was no longer Aqua. I was a slaughtering machine hungry for life.
The Centipede Demon roared, but the sound felt like sweet music to my ears. I didn't need a wooden axe anymore. I was the weapon.
I lunged. My speed tore the asphalt beneath my feet. When my blade-arms struck its flesh, the sensation was incredibly disgusting, and I loved it.
CRAAAAASSHHH!
The demon's flesh exploded like a water balloon filled with pus. Thick purple fluid and intestines as long as telephone cables sprayed onto my face, seeping into the gaps of my mouth. I didn't spit. I swallowed. The fishy, bitter, slimy taste was like gasoline fueling my furnace of rage.
I leaped onto its back, plunging both my arms deep inside. I wasn't just cutting; I was grinding. I heard the demon's spine crunch and shatter between my arms, which were now serrated blades. It shrieked, the frequency shattering my eardrums, but I only laughed. My laughter drowned out by the roar of its hoarse despair.
"MORE! GIVE ME MORE BLOOD!"
I lost control. In the corner of my eye, I saw a civilian. An old woman pinned under rubble, screaming hysterically at the sight of me. In this "drunken" state, she wasn't human. She was just a mound of fat obstructing my view. I swung my blade, nearly splitting her head in two if the Centipede Demon hadn't lashed me with its tail.
I turned with jerky, snapping movements like a horror movie monster. I caught its tail, bit into it, and pulled until the entire length of its spinal column was ripped out through its hindquarters. Acidic digestive fluids sprayed everywhere, melting the asphalt, but I continued to mince the body until it was a pile of vibrating ground meat.
My movements slowed. Chug... chug... chug... Smoke billowed from the metal gaps in my arms, which were still venting hot steam. Amidst the puddles of scattered internal organs, a hollow applause rang out.
"Well, well. Look at this monster. So you're still alive, huh?"
The Boss stood there. He covered his nose, his face showing utter revulsion as he saw the demon's intestines wrapped around my neck like a scarf.
"You destroyed half this district just for one little demon? Do you know how much loss I have to cover because of the mess you made?" The Boss spat toward the pool of blood. "You should have just died. Now you've turned into some freakish monster. You're just mutated trash."
He walked closer, stepping on a piece of a demon limb with his expensive shoes. He didn't know that behind this hideous form, my memories were returning. I remembered Charon lying there like garbage. I remembered Mother's terrified face every time his goons came to collect.
"Why so quiet, dog? Take off that stupid costume and—"
SRAAAKKK!
I didn't let him finish. In a blink, I was before him. My arm-blades sliced through both his legs just above the knees.
SPLAAAAT!
"AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH! MY LEGS! MY LEGGSSS!" He collapsed, his leg stumps spraying fresh red blood over the already filthy asphalt.
"You called me... a dog, right?" My voice came not from my mouth, but from the vibration of Charon's energy in my chest. Heavy, distorted, and ravenously hungry. "A hungry dog... usually starts eating his master from the softest parts."
I began to dissect him. Slowly. I pressed the slowly spinning blade to his abdomen. The skin tore bit by bit, his fat melting from the heat of my blade, and the smell of burning flesh began to rise. I wanted him to feel every inch of his nerves being pulled out and twisted by this steel edge.
His henchmen tried to shoot, but their bullets only caused small sparks against my iron skin. I spun my body, cleaving them horizontally until their bodies separated into two parts that hit the ground simultaneously. Their entrails spilled onto the asphalt, mixing with oil and the acidic fluids of the centipede demon.
I returned to the Boss. He was merely a scrap of a human, crying and pissing himself in the middle of his own bloodbath.
"Wait... Aqua... please..."
I didn't hear him. I only heard the beat of Charon's heart inside my chest screaming: FINISH HIM.
As I was savoring the sound of my blades crushing his ribs, I felt something. A different kind of chill. At the end of the street shrouded in smog and dust, I sensed someone, or something, watching me with a gaze far more dangerous than any demon I had ever encountered.
I turned my head.
At the end of the road stood a woman. Her hair was long and black, the ends neatly braided. She wore an elegant long black winter coat over a white shirt. Behind her stood two men in formal attire with stoic faces.
The woman was not afraid. She did not run. Instead, she stared at me with a very strange expression. Those purple eyes of hers seemed to be skinning my soul. There was a faint smile on her lips, a smile full of affection, yet one that made me feel like prey being studied by its predator.
"A truly beautiful sight," her voice was soft, piercing through the roar of hatred in my head.
I growled, preparing to pounce. I was still in bloodlust mode. I didn't care who she was.
But as she stepped forward, her presence felt overwhelmingly oppressive. The air around me grew heavy, as if the world itself were forcing me to kneel before her.
"Enough, Aqua-kun," she said.
How did she know my name?
The woman walked closer, passing the corpses I had slaughtered without a hint of disgust. She stopped right in front of the sharp blades protruding from my arms. She reached out her delicate hand and gently touched both sides of my cheeks.
"You've worked hard. You've had your revenge," she whispered, her face now only centimeters from mine. "Now, give your life to me. I will take care of you. I will feed you. I will love you more than anyone else in this world."
My blades slowly stopped dripping the remnants of the battle. The smoke ceased. My power vanished the moment I caught the scent of jasmine emanating from her body.
"Wh... who..." I whispered, before my body collapsed.
She caught me. She hugged my blood-soaked body against her expensive clothes. She stroked my hair as if I were the most precious treasure in the universe.
"My name is Sumeragi," she whispered in my ear. "And from today on, you are mine. Only mine."
The voice was warm, but the air around me felt frozen.
I remembered the pain as the two blades split my flesh. I remembered Charon's voice, the gentle voice that gave me everything so I could see his dream. But what I remember most is waking up in a pile of corpses, and she was there.
This woman of incomprehensible beauty didn't look at me as a hero, nor as a monster. She looked at me as if I were the most precious jewel in the world that she had just found in the mud.
"There are two choices," her voice was soft, like silk strangling my neck. "You die here as a demon, or you become my pet... and I will feed you."
I didn't know if this was a rescue or a darker curse. But in her arms, for the first time since Charon left, I felt I no longer needed to struggle to live. I surrendered everything to this purple-eyed woman.