Ayumu felt a strong and intense pressure concentrated abruptly on his left shoulder. It was followed by a rough shove downwards. He was forced down onto the floor, his knees slamming against the dirt. All the agony that he had braced to rain down upon him didn't arrive.
His eyes flickered open hesitantly, surprised he wasn't enveloped in death's dark grasp; instead, a bright blue glow illuminated his face. His throat choked with failed speech. His mouth hung open in shock, disbelief and increasing shame. Ali heard Ayumu's blade shatter and immediately abandoned his position of evasion. He stood above Ayumu like a shield, his back exploding with a painful sensation as Eira's gruelling barrage of vicious slashes poured down on him. With every slam of another slash, the gruesome sound of flesh being torn followed. Ali clenched his jaw tighter to try to cope.
Just as the early battle wounds had begun to close, they were now replaced tenfold in number. It felt like large hail pelting down, leaving an unpleasant cold mark on his skin, but it quickly subsided into worse agony.
A grotesque image conjured in Ali's mind as he tried to gauge the damage done to him. He could feel the tenderness and sensitivity of revealed flesh as cold wind raked icy chills across his back.
It had only been a few seconds, but upwards of twenty slashes had torn into Ali's back, each digging deeper. Eira had observed Ali's noble yet foolish act of sacrifice, and adjusted her attack diameter to concentrate more slashes at him.
Ali's eyes grew heavy, and a strange buzz began to fill his head. His body was still failing to adapt itself to the injected poison, unable to break it down, in unison with the heavy blood loss, and increasingly intense strain on him, Ali could feel consciousness wisp out of him. Slashes on his back lost their agonising identity and transitioned into feeling like heavy vibrations.
"No…" Ayumu's pained and quiet voice was the last thing Ali heard before his hearing was overrun by a ringing that ascended in volume until it was painful.
Ali's feet grew unsteady, the force of Eira's attack got the better of his balance, his eyes fought to stay open. Ayumu's hands acted quickly, and pushed against Ali's torso, catching him and supporting him. He knew using Ali as a human shield was the only way to survive, but he felt terrible, shame ate at his insides.
Ali's eyes closed for good. Ayumu felt the weight upon his hands increase as Ali completely passed out. The blood from Ali's wounds rolled across his back and coated Ayumu's hands red.
The fight seemed like a back-and-forth of renewed motivation, neither side backing down. Both Ali and Eira had emerged from moments that seemed impossible to conquer, however, the fight's impending conclusion grew closer and closer as the sky grew brighter. The sun was going to rise in ten minutes.
Ali's usually busy mind was immensely dark and lifeless. Quiet. His consciousness had fallen deep within his own brain. He stood there in the centre of the subliminal void. Ali didn't take on a human or demon form, rather, a humanoid-shaped mosaic, each piece built up of all the emotions, memories and motivations. He could feel the poison pound in his veins, invading and destroying his body.
Ali knew he had to wake up, yet, amongst the destruction of his body and faint noise from outside, he felt an unsettling peace. Almost like this was where he was meant to be. Everything melted away, his worries and thoughts. Except, they weren't melting. They were disappearing as Ali's desire to fight on did.
His thoughts pushed him closer to the point of no return, the point where the willpower that fought the poison's destruction of his body would fade, and he would crumble into dust.
"Surely Ayumu can handle Eira when eventually she drops down?"
These thoughts quickly perished as a bright blue glow manifested into existence in front of Ali. He stared forward, everything was quiet. The familiar colour gleamed and dimmed as if it were a lighthouse, with every pulse, it grew till it took the form of a silhouette that Ali knew by eyes, heart and soul. Brightness and radiance coated her. There was no need for names, Ali knew her, she knew him.
The figure slowly extended her hand. As the hand grew closer, agony resurfaced in Ali's back, her gesture bringing him closer to consciousness and the inescapable reality.
Ali tightly shut his eyes in agony, yet, he could still see her. Her hand, stagnant and unwavering, awaiting him. No matter how hard he tried to redirect his thoughts elsewhere, his mind unapologetically flashed with the hand's soft and delicate skin.
Ali swung his arm forward as fast as possible. As soon as the smallest piece of contact was made between him and this figure, his vision flashed with a bright reawakening.
Ali's eyes burst open, accompanied by a sharp and long gasp for air, as if he had to breathe in the soul that tried to leave his body. Brought back to reality, Ali could feel Ayumu's trembling hands holding him upright, his brain immediately reignited with memory of the situation. He must've only been unconscious for a second worth of real time. He immediately began to think of a way out of this predicament.
The Ice Hashira didn't slow at all. She had found the perfect force to apply to the slashes that released enough recoil to keep herself stably boosted in the air. Her brain buzzed unusually; she couldn't feel any fatigue in her body, but her muscles were torn and overworked. In her crazed state, all she cared about was her attacks ripping Ali into multiple pieces, and if perhaps the Mountain gods were generous, Ayumu would die alongside him.
Every millisecond wasted not acting was another slash released from Eira's stagnant position in the sky. Ali couldn't protect Ayumu and fight Eira simultaneously.
He pushed himself back up into a steady stand, opened his fist, and pointed his palm to the ground in between him and Ayumu. Ayumu looked up at Ali, their eyes meeting as a silent plan formed. Ali's heart clenched as he studied Ayumu's eyes. The boy must not have been much younger than him, if there was any difference at all, yet, there was a certain innocence in his eyes that made him ever so younger. Ali missed having that shine of naivety in his eyes.
"Hey," Ali said, stabilising his voice to be as calm as it could, "Get ready."
He clenched his fingertips, and the atmosphere became abnormally still. Ayumu didn't speak; he just clenched his fists and nodded.
Ali's palm erupted, an impressive blast of wind exploded like a bomb, and both their ears filled with the roaring breeze. The wind propelled Ayumu back into the cover of the trees at a fast enough rate to dodge incoming slashes. He rolled and tumbled into the safety of leaf litter.
Simultaneously, Ali flew backwards, spinning around, he was facing Eira's direction, he put his arms up in an X in front of his face. Slashes pelted down, some lacerating across his forearms, but within a second of travel, he had reached directly under Eira and successfully out of the angled range of her slashes.
For Eira, the whole scene had been a blur. When the blast of wind propelled both Ali and Ayumu in opposite directions, her eyes had foolishly followed Ayumu's trajectory into the forest. The slight reluctance in her movements led to a gap in her slashes. With the halting of her attack, gravity began to engage her. Eira felt herself slightly descend as her worries lingered on Ali's position.
She looked directly down, Ali's bright, glowing crescents gleaming with no shame, blatantly revealing his position. But it didn't matter. Eira's eyes filled with dread, her grip fumbled as she attempted to redirect her attacks. Her grip was non-existent. The muscles in her forearm were so fatigued from the extended Eleventh Form that she couldn't grip properly. Is that why her body was so numb? It didn't matter compared to the pain soon to come. Eira's eyes focused on the demon again and widened in absolute horror.
From a quiet hum to a moderate blow to a ginormous roar. Insane and tumultuous winds blared, pushing every single tree into a lean away from Ali's launch area. Ali's hamstrings filled with the final remnants of his energy, he rocketed upwards. Eira couldn't move, not if she wanted to. Instead, natural forces tugged her downwards as if they were in favour of her being hit by Ali quicker.
Wind continued to blast Ali upwards, increasing his speed steadily, even if Eira wasn't that high up. His heart pounded inside, filling all of his body with a rough and powerful pulse; whatever blood that wasn't dripping out of his wounds boiled with an intense determination.
He promised himself that he wouldn't hold back anymore. His hesitant actions in the past battles had cost him so much energy, stress and time. Mercy had to be out of his mind, his muscles filled with a concentrated burn of anger as he remembered all the absurd things Eira had done. All the harsh things that spilled out of her mouth.
All the rejections of who he was, minimising him to just another demon she had to kill.
All the times she'd sworn she'd kill him.
All the nasty insults.
Unknown to Ali, Eira's constant fluctuations between hatred and guilt were imbued through the endless nightmares, unresolved trauma and deep grief that tormented her heart. She had chosen to cope by rejecting all her complex emotions, using Ali's death as a scapegoat for problems in her own messy life.
All of Ali's energy poured into his fist, and he hoisted it upwards, positioning it just perfectly. Metres turned into centimetres, centimetres to millimetres until…
A gigantic shockwave rippled through the air. Ali's fist hammered into Eira's jaw, the brutal punch forced her entire head to look upwards. Every single nerve in her body felt a shock go through it, almost as if Ali's attack had electricity imbued into it. The culmination of adrenaline-hidden pain and fatigue saturated Eira's every cell. It felt like pouring hot lava searing into her body and flooding every organ. Her jaw was essentially shattered, her face was messed up after Ali's first few punches to her nose, and now this vicious uppercut had made it unrecognisable.
There was a slight hang time from the rough impact before she felt the claws of gravity drag her back into descent.
Eira remained silent. The wind that was rushing along her ears was already deafening; to add her own scream would blow her ears apart. Her senses were an odd mix of numb and hyper-aware. She fell faster and faster, air resistance dragged at her body, almost out of pity of such a gruesome fate. Air caught onto the hilt of her sword, forcefully tugging it out of her weak grip without struggle. Her sword left her hands and seemed to fly upwards, but it only seemed that way due to how fast she was falling downwards.
She was left with no control over anything except her thoughts, and even those were fragmented with battle fog.
Upon hearing the roar of wind, halt of Eira's slashes and blaring boom in the sky, Ayumu peeked out of the bushes, his lungs taking shallow breaths as he cautiously observed the eerily quiet battlefield. Just as he got used to the silence, Eira's body collided with the ground like a meteor, a giant cloud of dust and dirt gracefully covered the gory sight of Eira's state for a few seconds, but soon, it rested back onto the floor.
Ayumu's shallow breaths halted, his face growing pale, a weird mixture of triumph and fear pinched at his brain. Ali was able to best Eira even after sustaining a heavy amount of Eleventh Form?
Eira was on her back, staring up at the sky; her spine was completely shattered. She wondered how she would recover from this. Her eyes slowly dragged across the sky to see a small black dot approaching closer and closer. It was Ali. Her face twisted, the faintest change of expression, one adjacent to confusion, and an undertone of subconscious acceptance.
She wasn't going to recover.
Ali's eyes were wide open as he plummeted downwards. The high intensity winds consistently dried his eyes out, the tears that were leaking from his eyes never had time to accumulate enough to display his emotion. The tears weren't for Eira, any form of sympathy was long-lost, they were for himself. The inescapable feeling of grief and guilt of the state he had reduced it to. The very fact that he was willing to and going to kill Eira pained him so much. It was like any growth he had over his time as a demon had escaped him. He could imagine the headlines.
His heart begged his fist to unclench, but he knew better. It was too late for mercy. The envy that ran deep in his veins wouldn't be satisfied until he knew the person who caused the world so much pain and loss was completely gone. He could imagine the headlines.
Upper Moon murders Heroic Hashira.
Another loss for humanity.
An outsider would only see another violent Upper Moon, with no context of the events that had led to this conclusion.
Ali clenched his jaw, but kept his fist tightly wound. He got closer and closer at an exponential rate. If he hit the ground at this speed, his own body would undoubtedly explode into a million different pieces and coat the entire battlefield in his blood.
That was if he hit the ground.
Ali placed his fist behind him, twisting his back so he could unleash one final punch at full power. Traces of the rough breeze that raked at his skin latched onto Ali's fist, lingering in the form of a spiral. He unknowingly was storing the accumulated breeze.
The glow of his markings painted the sky with a bright blue streak, like a shooting star falling directly down to Earth. The only wish being granted was his own.
Eira's eyes still stared up, emotionless, at Ali. Her mind was frantically trying to gather her best memories, for one final remembrance. Her body unwillingly trembled as her subconscious desire to escape death surfaced, but as powerful as it was, she couldn't do anything. Moisture leaked from her eyes.
Blood Demon Art. Turbulence: Kamikaze.
A few metres from the ground, Ali swung his arm.
The very atmosphere cracked under the intense strain. The roughest and most powerful concentration of wind unleashed from Ali's knuckles, the power of a typhoon held in a single beam, large enough to cover Eira's entire body. Perhaps if she were able to move, she could break the wind's power by positioning herself a certain way, but she couldn't.
The sheer vicious downward force of Ali's technique was enough to completely halt Ali's descent due to recoil. For a second, he was steady, but he began to move upwards slowly again as he constantly released the intense gusts.
Wind pounded at Eira's stagnant form at a strength so powerful that she could feel her skin begin to rip off. Her already shattered skeleton compressed downwards, stabbing her mutilated organs and denatured tissue. Extreme anguish, only comparable with the most heinous torture methods, erupted across her numb body. She couldn't imagine how terrible it would feel if she had full sensory consciousness.
Just before Eira's soul retreated from her body, her mind sensed the only comforting thing left in this world for her. Amongst the hidden auras in the forest, a soft pink colour sprouted. Overpowering every other one just because Eira wanted to see it. She sensed Asumi at the very edge of her range of perception.
"Asumi…" Eira thought. She wanted to say it one last time. Her mouth opened under the immense pressure of the breeze. Before she could even speak, wind entered her open mouth, raking across every muscle, into every organ and pore within her. It reached the depths of her body. Her muscles couldn't handle the pressure from more incoming wind. It tore her apart from the inside out. Blood and tissue exploded.
"Asumi…" Eira thought. Her last wish was to hear the name of her closest friend one last time. Under the immense weight of the breeze, she tried to open her mouth. Before she could even speak, wind entered the small entrance of her slightly open lips, raking across every surface in her mouth, into every opening, pore and tear within her. The increasing volume of wind tore her body apart, as pressure heightened and heightened, muscles tore, and wind entered those cuts too. Soon, wind had found itself in every single blood vessel in Eira's body.
It tore her apart from the inside out. Patches of skin began to pop up, blood spurting up like a fountain, and not a second after, all of Eira's tissues succumbed to the wind's internal pressure and exploded.
Whatever remained of Eira was ripped apart by Ali's ravaging breeze. He stopped and fell to the ground, his body slamming against the ground in a brutal thud. He didn't attempt to push himself up; in fact, he didn't have the energy to.
The Ice Hashira was dead, and Ali's limp body lay not too far from whatever remained of her.
The sun rises in nine minutes.