(11) Insanity

Yuna sat with her legs tucked to her chest as she rocked back and forth, mumbling unintelligible words as she blankly stared into space.

"Tamashi… Tamashi… Tamashi.. Tamashi…" she mumbled again and again, followed by strands of other words that made no sense.

"Yuna!" Came a hiss. But she didn't acknowledge it.

"Yuna!!" The hiss came louder this time and she snapped.

"WHAT?! WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" She roared. And then she saw that it was Tanner.

She blinked in surprise, immediately feeling bad for yelling.

"Calm down. It's me." He said, looking around him before moving towards the bars and looking in. "How long are you going to be kept here?"

"I don't know. But you shouldn't be here." Yuna said. "Tamashi won't hesitate to kill you if he catches you." Yuna hissed.

"I'll be fine, he is in a meeting with the other demons, he won't catch us here." Tanner said, then he began to observe the bars. "I'm gonna get you out. Now that he is in a meeting and not paying attention to us, it's our best chance to escape!"

"Tanner, stop. It isn't possible, not yet. There is no possible way for us to climb the Dark Wall. There's just no way." Yuna echoed, "not yet.. no way.."

"Listen to me! I know you are upset, but Edric wouldn't have wanted us to just give up." Tanner said, pulling at the bars as the torch behind him sent his shadow dancing across the ground.

"I'm not giving up! I'm waiting until I'm certain we can make it! Wr are too weak as it is now. We need to get stronger." Yuna said.

Tanner ignored her, continuing to rattle the bars.

"Tanner, just stop. You can't do it… you aren't strong enough. Just get out of here."

Tanner stopped, looking down at his feet as shadows covered his expression. "I'm not weak… I'm not! And I'll do anything to get out of here! I can't just sit and wait for some day that may never come! We have to leave!"

That's when Yuna realized what this was. Tanner was scared. He had seen Edric die, and he realized that he too could die when the time came that he became sixteen.

Yuna smiled sadly. "It's gonna be okay. We've still got two years before you are sixteen. Just be patient, I'll get us out of here, I promise."

"No." Tanner said. "We need to leave now or never.."

"Why are you so persistent on this?"

"Because today is my birthday. I just turned fifteen. We only have a year left.. I don't want to die…"

"Aww, how touching. The boy fears for his life, yet he still comes to save the woman he loves in a foolish attempt to escape with her at his side. How inspiring, I am honestly moved." Came a cold voice of false kindness.

Yuna froze, and she could see a shiver run through Tanner's body as his eyes shot wide.

Then Tamashi came slowly walking out from the shadows, an amused grin upon his lips as he exposed his fangs. His eyes flashed red with animosity.

"Tanner, run!" Yuna cried, her heart thrumming against her ribcage.

"Ah, ah, aaaah. I do not suggest that. I mean, what good will running do? You'd be turning your back to me, and I am much faster than you. You'd have a better chance trying to fight me, but-"

Tanner turned with a roar, blue markings glowing across his skin as chains burst from the air around him, but they simply shattered soon as they reached Tamashi, who then pressed his hand against the back of Tanner's head, grabbing his hair and pulling it, holding the boy still.

"Let me finish." Tamashi hissed. "I was going to say, either choice is certain death. I was gonna let you get away with losing a limb so long as you bowed to me… but now.."

"No… please!" Yuna cried.

Then Tamashi thrust Tanner's head forward, brutally slamming into a metal bar with a loud bang, breaking his nose.

"Please! Stop!"

*BANG*

*BANG*

*BANG*

With each slam, Tanner's skull broke more and more. His nose was completely deformed now and his face was unrecognizable.

"MAYBE YOU SHOULD THINK TWICE BEFORE UOU CROSS ME BOY!!" Tamashi roared with a wild look on his face as he laughed maniacally.

As he slammed Tanner's head into the bar harder and faster, his skull began to crush inwards as his teeth, bone fragments and blood splattered through the bars and onto the ground at Yuna's feet.

*BANG*

Came a final slam, which indented the bar into the cell room and completely crushed Tanner's skull to mesh, his blood spraying across Yuna's face.

Tamashi lifted Tanner up off his feet as dark red blood and bone flowed from his mutilated skull. He wasn't even recognizable anymore.

"You dead?" Tamashi asked, shaking Tanner's body back and forth. "Ah. He's dead."

He dropped Tanner's body, which crumpled to the ground in a splatter of blood.

"Hmm." Tamashi waved his hand back and forth in the air, flicking blood off from his hand. "Maybe that was a bit unnecessary. But, I had to prove a point."

Yuna's expression contorted into one of absolute rage and hatred for Tamashi. Dark aura. Egan to grow from her body as the hydra heads coiled around her. Her horns became longer and her fangs larger, talons growing from her hands. Scales spread across her arm to her chest as a single wing began to form from her shoulder plate.

"Oh, interesting. Maybe I should take things from you more often. It would seem your power derives from your rage." Tamashi grinned.

"I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!!!" Yuna screamed, jumping up from the ground and slamming into the bars which bent out from the impact.

"Now, now. I don't suggest that, Yuna. I would hate to have to kill you.." Tamashi placed a hand to his face dramatically as if he were to about to die. "The guilt.. it would tear me apart.. I wouldn't be able to look myself in the mirror.."

Yuna growled wildly, pulling at the bars, but they were unmoving.

Tamashi grinned, looking up from beneath his hand. "Just kidding. I'm too handsome."