Chapter 64: Pariston Island
{I'm fine. How are you? Kai?}
Shizuku's thought-voice was calm, but Kai could feel her hand tightening over the Star Marker on her neck, shielding it.
{I'm okay, too...}
Kai looked around. His vision was filled with Pariston Hills.
Hundreds of them. Mangled, crushed, shredded Paristons. Their dead eyes stared at him from every angle, their blond hair matted with blood. It was a gruesome, surreal nightmare.
{The ship is still falling,} Shizuku's voice echoed in his mind, her tone as matter-of-fact as if she were reading a grocery list. {If we hit the ocean like this, we'll die, won't we?}
{First off, as long as our Markers aren't destroyed, even if we're ripped apart, we won't technically die... probably,} Kai replied, trying to keep the panic out of his mental voice. {Second, we're not dead yet. I grabbed a volunteer, and I'm going to work him until he drops. —KEEP COPYING!}
A few feet away, buried under a pile of Pariston corpses, Kortopi moved.
The rose-gold Star Marker on his forehead flared with light. His arms, shaking with exhaustion, reached out again. He activated Gallery Fake (Divine Left Hand, Demonic Right Hand).
But this time, he wasn't copying Pariston.
He slammed his hand onto the deck of the airship.
...
CRACK!
The burning, smoking wreckage of the airship, plummeting from thousands of meters, had descended to less than a kilometer above the waves when a massive section of the hull finally gave way.
It burst open, and a flood of Pariston corpses spilled out like a grotesque waterfall.
WHOOSH!
Suddenly, a mass of Aura materialized below the breach, forming into... another airship.
It plugged the hole like a cork.
From there, it was a cascade.
Using the new ship as a base, another ship materialized below it. And another. And another. Like wild weeds sprouting from the air, a chain of identical, burning, smoking airships began to grow downwards toward the ocean.
Inside the topmost ship, Kortopi was pouring every ounce of his Aura into the task. He held nothing back.
In the manga, Kortopi had casually conjured fifty skyscrapers in an afternoon. Kai didn't know if his Hatsu was just incredibly efficient or if the tiny man had an ocean of Aura, and right now, he didn't care. As long as the Star Marker could force him to move, he wouldn't stop.
Under the command of the Marker, Kortopi's Aura vented like a punctured balloon.
Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop...
Ship after ship appeared, stacking like giant, burning LEGO bricks, extending toward the water at breakneck speed.
SPLASH!
The bottommost ship in the chain slammed into the ocean surface.
The impact force shot upward through the stack like a shockwave, racing toward the topmost ship where the "passengers" were trapped.
But at that exact moment, the junction between the ships exploded with a fresh deluge of Paristons.
Just as the stack hit the water, Kai forced Kortopi to conjure a literal ocean of bodies to act as a final cushion. Thousands of fake Paristons were crushed between the ships, their bodies exploding into a gruesome spray of red mist that dampened the impact.
The stack of dozens of ships wobbled and groaned. A massive whirlpool formed at the base as the lower ships began to sink.
As the tower collapsed, the top of the stack continued to spew Paristons.
Like champagne overflowing from a tower of glasses, the bodies cascaded down the sides of the sinking ships, tumbling into the sea.
The "glass tower" collapsed. The "LEGO chain" broke apart.
As the ships groaned, twisted, and sank, the waterfall of Paristons continued.
When the whirlpool finally subsided, the ocean surface was covered.
A thick, dense layer of Pariston corpses bobbed in the water, forming a gruesome, fleshy raft that cradled the battered remains of the topmost airship.
From a distance, it looked like a floating island made of sunken ships and dead blond men.
It was utterly absurd.
Only when Kortopi finally passed out from exhaustion did Kai stop.
{Are we stopped?} Shizuku asked.
{Seems like it... no more motion,} Kai replied. {I've done all I can. Now it's Blinky's turn.}
{Mm.}
Kai pushed himself up, shoving aside a heavy pile of Pariston limbs.
Shizuku raised her hand. " Blinky," she said. "Inhale all the Pariston copies inside this ship."
Since they were copies of a living person, but were technically non-living Nen constructs (and dead ones at that), Shizuku's vacuum treated them as garbage.
Click.
WHIIIIRRR!
Blinky roared to life. Its tongue lashed out, its mouth opened wide, and the mountain of "dead" Paristons surrounding them began to twist and distort. Like the smoke being sucked into the evil containment wave, the bodies were pulled in a stream into the vacuum's bottomless gullet.
The interior of the wrecked ship was suddenly empty.
The fire outside still crackled, but the cabin was clear. It revealed the survivors—many unconscious, some groaning in pain—and several bodies that were all too real.
I felt about a dozen Death Auras, Kai thought. Right. Some people died in the crash. Some probably never made it out of their rooms and got turned into paste when we hit.
Kortopi was slumped against a wall, unconscious. His long hair, usually a silver-white, had turned a dull, withered grey. The Star Marker on his forehead glowed dimly, keeping him alive, but just barely.
And then there was the only other person standing.
Pariston Hill.
He stood up on the slanted deck, brushing dust off his suit as if he'd just tripped on a sidewalk. He looked at Kai and Shizuku, his eyes gleaming.
"A Manipulator... and a spatial user?" He clapped his hands slowly. "You two are truly—"
"Yeah, yeah, you're smart, we get it. Shut up," Kai snapped, cutting him off. "Make yourself scarce. We've got work to do."
Pariston blinked, then smiled. So they have a healing ability, too?
He gave Kai a meaningful look, then shrugged and walked casually toward a massive tear in the hull, stepping out into the open air as if going for a stroll.
"Hurry!" Kai pulled Shizuku to her feet. "No one else dies today. Ugh, this is gonna suck..."
The survivors were starting to wake up. Some were crying hysterically. Others were staring blankly, in shock. When Kai and Shizuku approached, they flinched in terror.
But they were weak, injured, and confused. They couldn't resist.
For the sake of speed, Kai took control of Shizuku's body using his Hatsu, allowing him to use her hands to apply Star Markers alongside his own.
Screams of fear turned into gasps of relief as the markers took hold. One by one, passengers who were on the brink of death felt a warm surge of energy. Wounds stopped bleeding. Broken bones knit together. The Star Marker's healing drew on their own latent life force to pull them back from the brink.
Kai's heart felt stable, but he wasn't taking any chances. He refused to let another wisp of Death Aura enter him. He refused to transform again.
I'm saving you, he thought grimly as he slapped a marker on a bleeding woman, but it's not for you. It's for me. I am NOT becoming a teenager today!
It took the better part of an hour.
Finally, Kai and Shizuku stepped out of the jagged hole in the fuselage, needing fresh air.
The salty sea breeze hit their faces.
Pariston was sitting on a floating pile of his own corpses, dangling his legs over the water. He was tossing a silver business card case from hand to hand, looking out at the horizon.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" he said, smiling at the sunset.
...You sick freak.
Kai stared at him, expressionless.
Shizuku walked to the edge of the "Pariston Island," testing the footing on the bodies. "How deep is the water here?" she asked, looking down. "Do you think these copies fill it all the way to the bottom?"
(End of Chapter)