180 Love you to your Blood and Guts

He drives his fangs into the green tail slipping before him. Mindlessly tears it apart.

Purple fluids splatter everywhere and vivid blood showers his face, but he doesn't care. His left eye has already been bathed in venomous fluid and blocked shut for ages.

He roars to obfuscate the burning pain before slamming his arm into the two-headed snake, killing it. He kicks its corpse, keeps everything in front of him in check as he retreats, and when the chill races up his spine—he instantly recoils back.

And the grisly blade screams past, grazing his chin.

The witchbeast in the blade's path becomes prey to the fanglike knife. Flesh is shredded, blood spatters in sheets, a scramble of organs forms a curtain before him—which he charges through, aiming for the perpetrator woman before ramming his arms into her torso.

Elsa: "—!"

His right shield at her chest, his left shield at her flank, her flesh squelching and bones cracking at each point.

At his ears, before his eyes, from all directions come the cacophonous cries of beasts, their shrieks, his roars, crashing conflict, the pounding of metal on metal, too many noises mashed together for him to properly register the world.

He doesn't care. This stuff in front of him, in his right-eyed vision, is what's real.

Her voluptuous breasts crater in, the force of the gut-wrenching blow making her vomit blood. Even with her scarlet lips turning a deeper shade of sanguine, and faced with pain enough to threaten her life, her expression remains one of rapture.

It might not even be her combat strength, or her stamina, but that mentality of hers that's the real nuisance.

Elsa: "—Hah!"

Garfiel: "Ghrrrrr!!"

Her short exhale. His responding roar.

She swings her left arm from behind to in front, shrill noise pealing out from behind him. The slash reflects off the wall, rebounds off the ceiling, hits the floor as it comes pressing for the back of his head.

Garfiel: "—"

He directs his attention behind him, extinguishing the idea of evading it from his mind.

The woman before him draws her right arm firmly back, preparing to piston her serrated black knife into him. If this is to catch him between the two knives, then this blow will likely slice open his head, or maybe his throat.

He tilts aside, forcing himself out of the blade's path as it rushes to stab the back of his head.

A thunk resounds out from around his left shoulderbone. Feeling the tip of the rebounding blade bite into a gap between his bones, he clicks his tongue—when the knife slices into his joints, rendering his right arm momentarily motionless.

Elsa: "Huaaah!"

Garfiel: "Shah!"

So violent as to mute all sound, she looses the readied blade.

This unremitting attack makes for less of a 'slash' and more of a 'pointy bludgeon'.

The strike will blast his head off should it hit, mutilating it utterly. Garfiel immediately raises his left arm to intercept the strike, but with his poor posture, he cannot avoid all the damage to his right shoulder.

Animal teeth shriek against metal for only a microsecond before Garfiel's arm is easily shunted away.

With only a meagre drop in its speed, the back blade resumes its charge for Garfiel's head. More than enough strength to cleave apart his skull presses in, a second from hitting.

Hitting—

Elsa: "—!?"

—what Garfiel kicks up, forcing it into the path between his head and the knife, the witchbeast's corpse.

An uncomfortable feeling like a hard-skinned vegetable against his cheek, and blistering venom that burns the skin it touches. Risking being bathed in both these things, he salvages the benefit of avoiding fatal damages.

The knife slices into the witchbeast's corpse, the battering force of the blow proceeding through the cadaver to strike Garfiel across the face.

The impact pummels him, sending him whirling left to right, spinning in circles—and with two wilful steps into the ground, he soars backwards.

His EARTHSOUL BLESSING activates, obeying his will to make the ground he stepped on explode. The detonation sends him soaring backwards, the woman now to his back as he proceeds to zoom straight for her. —With the woman's white blade still sticking out of his shoulder.

The instant the blade touches her, the woman flinches.

Though she knows that the side contacting her is the pommel, it still makes her falter from making any instantaneous decisions.

With his right shoulder still against the woman, Garfiel spreads his stance to drop his centre of gravity.

The instant this makes the woman think to step backwards and open range, Garfiel's arm shoots up and grabs her face in a vicegrip.

Garfiel: "—Partial Transformation!"

Immediately following his scream, a change occurs in the arm clutching her face.

The arm swells explosively—growing a coat of golden fur in an instant, transforming into the log- thick arm of a beast.

And naturally, it ends in a beast's paw, what with saber-like claws,

Elsa: "Kyhaaaaah!"

The thick claws gouge into the woman's face, splaying blood everywhere and making her recoil. His five fingers as they drive into her head prompt the same pain and injury as knives. Evens she has to put her hands to her face, backpedalling, shrieking while looking to the ceiling.

Garfiel: "Rhm!!"

He plunges a kick into a torso, shunting her back.

The force battering her chest carries more than enough strength to further destroy her shattered bones and ruptured innards, churning them into a greater mess.

The fallen woman drops her weapon, spitting up pure scarlet as she gives a faltering laugh.

It's horrible to listen to, and he's more than ready to swoop in and make it stop, but,

Garfiel: "Fuckin'! Just one after another!"

Just as Garfiel moves to pursue her, witchbeasts flood into the gap in his assault.

Rats with black wings, possums bloated in proportion to their anger, Spotted Rex assembled here from throughout the mansion, and a restored giant—the Boulderswine all rush in.

His claws rip apart the swarm of rats, one stomp of his foot eliminates the swollen possums, his kicks snap the necks of the Rex snapping at him, all as Garfiel faces the charging Boulderswine head-on.

Mei: "Get squished!"

Garfiel: "Y'think I'm gonna be toleratin' that, y'dumbass!"

Tons of weight come charging with explosive force.

Rather than a blow from an animal, this cannonball is equivalent to a building dropping on him.

Not even Garfiel could take a direct blow from this and get out safely. He'd be unable to offer even a second of resistance, get blasted away and trampled flat.

However,

Garfiel: "'S what makes it fun—!"

Bracing his legs, Garfiel unleashes his Earthsoul Blessing to its utmost limit.

He feels the blessings of the earth pulsing up from underfoot, rippling through his flesh.

A warfaring glint lights Garfiel's golden eye, fangs bared as he smiles wickedly, detonating the blood lying dormant inside him.

Garfiel: "—σσσσσ?!!"

This strangled bellow is not addressed to the outside, but a call to his own interior.

Flowing through his body, difficult to accept as it is, definitely not something he acquired by choice: his bloodline. He calls to his usually-hidden pedigree, feeling goosebumps as his soul trembles.

Just like his left arm that tore the woman's face apart, Garfiel's right arm swells explosively. Starting at his arms, his shoulders, his torso, his neck, his head all crunch as his skeleton changes shape, his face morphing from that of a human to that of a ferocious feline—a massive tiger.

Following the enlargement of his torso, his hips, his legs, his clothing fails to endure the pressure and bursts apart. Scraps of cloth hang off his frame, the two shields on his arms barely managing to stay equipped as small bucklers—here is a beast that, by physique alone, can compare with the oncoming Boulderswine.

Garfiel: "——?!"

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The floor creaks, caving in beneath him.

Even this solidly-constructed mansion cannot endure the confrontation of these two massive beasts. So giant that the hallway cannot contain him, Garfiel shatters the walls, ornaments crashing to the ground as his back scrapes across the ceiling.

Mei: "—Wugpig!!"

The girl atop the witchbeast shrieks in response to Garfiel's transformation.

She must be screaming the name of the witchbeast. Answering to its master's call, the Boulderswine gives a roar so strong as to disintegrate boulders and opens wide its maw with all its flat teeth, racing for Garfiel.

The witchbeast rears up on its back legs, raising its forelegs to stomp Garfiel flat.

The massive tiger, its golden eyes flaring, lets its own legs propel it into the opening before the behemoth's crushing blow hits and stabs its claws into the Swine's thick, stony hide.

Blades screech against bedrock as the tiger's claws are peeled out of their sockets. Knifes fail to puncture the thick hide, and the Swine's plummeting forelegs proceed to slam straight into the tiger. The stomp presses down on the tiger, a crushing pressure on its shoulders. The force pins Garfiel's upper body to the ground, the merciless impact prompting the tiger to shriek.

Mei: "Don't stop, Wugpig!!"

Bones shatter and flesh squelches, but the noises do not deter the witchbeast's master.

Hearing her wailing voice, the Swine roars and raises its forelegs up, ready to stomp once again and crush the tiger's head.

However,

Garfiel: "——?!"

If his claws won't work, the tiger has only one weapon left.

Twisting its neck, the tiger with its crushed shoulders uses its spine to upright itself. The Swine's forelegs are raised and its belly is exposed—the tiger bares fangs.

Not even a witchbeast with skin as solid as rock can have its entire body at the exact same toughness. Compared to its legs or back, its vital regions are going to be less heavily guarded. And so, the tiger drives its sharp fangs into the Swine's bared stomach.

Mei: "Boulderpork!?"

Garfiel: "—?????!!"

The tiger's jaws, so immense that they could swallow a man whole, close around almost half of the Swine's extensive belly.

For a moment, the Swine's hide does attempt to resist the piercing fangs. But like the points of knives stabbing into a fruit, the sharp fangs instantaneously and effortlessly tear through the thin skin.

The Swine's shriek comes as the tiger kicks at the floor, using the momentum to roll sideways. With his fangs still sunken into his prey, attempting to shred the creature apart—it's the hunting behaviour of riverside-dwelling water dragons.

Were Natsuki Subaru here to witness it, he would deem it as being something close to the death roll of an alligator, a creature that does not exist in this world.

His hindlegs strike the floor, buying rotational and forward force as he mangles the Swine's torso. Inside the thick hide rest a vast store of blood and guts, which spill relentlessly out from the bitewounds and onto the mansion hallway floor.

Pork: "—ζ"

Eyes wide, the Boulderswine gives a weak death wail as it collapses.

The tiger spits out chunks of the Swine's flesh before slamming its rear leg into the massive creature, toppling it onto its side. The girl, having dismounted the witchbeast at the moment of the crash, is utterly lost for words as she watches her witchbeast's gruesome death.

Mei: "No, way... I don't believe it..."

Stepping back, the girl glances behind her to see what troops she has left.

Many witchbeasts have heeded her call are steadily assembling here. But they are only a mob of small- and medium-sized creatures, none of them large like the Boulderswine.

Mei: "Ugh! What is this!? Elsa! Elsa! Dooo somethinnngg!"

Elsa: "...That is a rather, unsparing demand."

Realising that she is at a disadvantage, the girl slings senseless insults while calling her partner's name. Reply does come, from a shadowy woman who crawls out of the darkness.

Her mangled face has regenerated. She fiddles tirelessly with her bloodied braid.

Elsa: "Gouging a woman's face open without hesitation, you are indeed fantastic, you are."

Garfiel: "—σσ?! σσ?! σσ?!"

The woman laughs with a bloodsoaked grimace. The tiger, shoulders broken, growls in agitation. Its massive form quakes, before it butts its massive head against the fallen Swine, and pukes. The tiger moans in pain before its great body begins losing mass, bit by bit, and its enlarged form starts returning to human shape. After a few seconds there now stands a half-naked boy, batting away shredded strands of golden fur.

Garfiel: "Auh... fuck, m'back. Head hurts..."

Elsa: "I see... so you are half-beast. I did think your eyes looked rather nasty for a human."

Garfiel: "'F we're gonna be followin' yer logic, that means our Captain ain't human either."

Garfiel shakes his head, getting a grip on the sensation of his own human body.

Over the course of returning to human form, his broken shoulders have mended enough that they can both move. But in saying that, they still do flare with pain every time he moves them, and make his thoughts burn a soldering white.

He can't stay in top performance for much longer.

But the same should be going for his opponent.

Garfiel: "Went n' busted open yer witchbeast's guts fer ya. Yer allowed t'go happily swimmin' n' that ocean 'v blood there, I ain't gonna mind."

Elsa: "I'll have to decline. Animal guts serve as no substitute unless I'm extraordinarily starving. The beauty of guts is that they are disembowelled from people."

Garfiel: "Yer aesthetics make no sense t'me."

Garfiel sticks his pinky into his ear and picks rigorously while giving an astonished sigh. Elsa is overwhelmingly disadvantaged, but her attitude isn't budging.

—Garfiel estimates that it will take five more tries at most until Elsa's immortality ends.

And Garfiel has already showered four lethal blows on her. Five if you include the mauling of her face. This should be about time that she starts hitting the limit for her regeneration.

Meaning that Elsa's stock of lives is already exhausted. Garfiel is injured as well, but that isn't going to make him slack in this fight.

Being that no support is possibly coming from Mei Lee's beasts, they effectively have their blades at the other's throat—so why is she being so composed?

Elsa: "It's not that there's any special reason for it. You don't have to be so scared."

Seeing Garfiel's brows furrow in puzzlement, Elsa speaks as if comforting a child. Garfiel scrunches up his face in response, growling like an animal.

To obfuscate the fact that she has clearly seen the slight confusion in his heart.

Garfiel: "Fuck off. Stop talkin' like yer know anythin'."

Elsa: "But it's plain to see. Disembowelling someone means facing someone before they are disembowelled. Your face is a familiar one to me."

Garfiel: "—"

Elsa: "It's the face of being unable to comprehend a deviant."

Garfiel falls speechless, his throat feeling to clench. Elsa puts her hand to her mouth and laughs.

She smiles slightly as she tilts her head.

Elsa: "Don't worry, it's fine. I'm not wishing to be understood by anybody. My happiness is something I acquire by spurning the life of another. To live is to spurn death."

Garfiel: "...'M gettin' that 'f I take this seriously, 'm gonna go nuts."

Garfiel raises his arms, battering his shields together as he rejects any attempt at understanding her. He doesn't have the leeway to be thinking about her circumstances. And her last statement has just eliminated any reason he had to pay attention out of whimsy.

Garfiel: "But I will ask yer this. ...'F yer pledge that you ain't ever gonna do nothin' bad again n' run away, 's not impossible that I'll let you go."

Elsa: "You truly are a precious boy."

She shows her final mercy, then dispels it with a smile—the signal, to charge.

Blasting off, Garfiel soars ahead. Elsa counters him by swinging her white blade up to hit the ceiling, hit the floor, revolving and rebounding as it closes in on Garfiel.

Elsa's wide white blade is a stringing-together of multiple knives. The blade-edge alternates from one side to the other, the knife rippling like a snake's bones as it ricochets through the hallway.

Up? Down? The knife easily outspeeds the eye, soaring about as a white light. Garfiel braces his shields over his head and abandons the option of evading. The knife plunges down into his upper left arm, imparting him with the pain of broken bones as he resumes his advance.

Elsa: "I was born in Gusteco of the north, where it is very, very cold."

Split-second combat is unfolding in this battleground, but for some reason her lilting voice sneaks into Garfiel's ears.

It isn't even audible. His attention is pyroclastic, focused amidst instantaneous trade of deadly attacks. There is no opening for this voice to butt in.

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Is what it should be, but the woman's voice slips smoothly into Garfiel's consciousness.

Elsa: "The divide in wealth was fierce, and it wasn't uncommon at all for lower-class children to be abandoned. I was one of those children, with no parents I ever knew, drinking dirty water to survive."

Garfiel: "—Rghhhh!!"

Elsa: "I spent my days stealing objects, threatening people, doing things in that vein, with the people around me constantly changing. Why am I alive? What is happiness? ...Not questions I had any time to consider back then."

His fist plunges forward, inches from belting Elsa's face.

But she leans aside to dodge the overblown attack, slicing her black blade up to cut shallowly through Garfiel's torso.

The bestial fangs pilfer his flesh. Elsa licks her lips as the bright blood bathes her.

Elsa: "It was frigid that day."

Garfiel: "Shut up! I ain't goddamn listenin'!!"

Elsa: "The wind blustering from the lofty mountains was so strong, so cold, that it froze the town that day. My breath could freeze in that chill, when the shopkeeper I stole from caught me."

With a hot sigh, Elsa speaks on, enraptured.

Her blades of death compound in momentum, slicing cut after cut into Garfiel as he fails to keep up.

Elsa: "No one would complain if he killed me, but seeing as I was a girl... I can still remember his face as he smiled, and moved to strip my clothes."

Garfiel: "Gh, auh..."

Elsa: "The bitter wind howled as he stripped my overwear, snatched my underwear... and when I contemplated that before he could do anything to me, the cold might just kill me first, I happened to pick up a shard of glass."

Her leg sweeps up to try and belt him in the side of the head, but Garfiel counters it with a headbutt. The impact reverberates through his brain and makes him recoil, but surely shattered Elsa's foot too. Elsa draws her leg back, retreats. But her expression remains one of ecstacy.

Elsa: "I wasn't thinking about anything. I just had the shard of glass, then when he leaned forward I pressed it into his stomach, moved it, and sliced him open."

Garfiel: "—"

Elsa: "I felt nothing for his screams, or the fact that I had taken a life. But amidst that icy gale, I did think,"

Garfiel's breathing freezes. Elsa smiles.

Elsa: "How warm, blood and guts are."

Elsa's blade swings up, threatening to split apart Garfiel's skull. He glides aside, kicks off the wall to manoeuvre behind Elsa, slams a kick into her back—but she instantly twists around and strikes his shin with her pommel, diverting the kick.

His leg crashes into the wall, which crumbles alongside plumes of dust. Garfiel clicks his tongue as he leaps back and away.

Elsa: "If there is happiness in the world, then it is in the warmth and beauty of forgetting the cold.

From birth I had nothing, and now I had this: the first definite happiness I ever found. —You can't understand, can you?"

Garfiel: "Ain't wantin' to, either."

Elsa: "That's fine. I don't want sympathy."

Garfiel: "Then why'd y'tell me th'damn story, 's fuckin' gross."

Elsa: "Why, I wonder?"

Garfiel's eyes house hostility as Elsa tilts her head, mystified.

And she narrows her eyes saucily, licks her lips salaciously,

Elsa: "Because I find you truly darling."

Garfiel: "...Sorry, but I already got a girl I like. Ain't got time t'be datin' a crazy bitch."

Elsa: "So cold. But it's fine. I'm only concerned about your innards."

It feels like a conversation is happening, but fundamentally no conversation is. Over all his exchanges with her thus far, Garfiel has finally come to understand this.

He has no interest or sympathy or anything for Elsa's life story.

That was her foundation, she had those experiences, and she became this monster. That's all.

Garfiel's shields already know who they ought to protect.

Garfiel: "—You're dead, Elsa Granhiert."

Elsa: "Once I kill you, I will adore you, Garfiel Tinzel."

Each calling the name of the other, the half-beast and the murderer wage violence.

The beaming light of the white knife slices through the corridor's darkness, and the black knife pistons forward cleave Garfiel in two.

A knife ricochets everywhere in the corner of his vision. He cannot defend against the attack, nor does he have the option of evading it. But if he fails to take the blow and dampens his charge, he'll merely be repeating the same foolish mistake.

Garfiel: "—"

The knife slices through sound, dancing throughout the hallway.

If he cannot perceive the blade's point, he can only aim for the point it was thrown from.

Garfiel thrusts out his left arm, the fasteners on his shield loosened—and lets the thing fly.

He had loosened the bindings when he battered the shields together. Now he is tossing it, and Elsa's eyes shoot wide open as it smashes directly into her left hand—something crunches, and her broken fingers drop her white knife.

Having lost the hand manipulating it, the knife stabs into the ceiling, where it falls still.

A deep, dark smile, and a surging roar. A deathly blade murders the air as it swings down—Garfiel charging straight into it—and strikes him.

He sets his right arm upon his head to receive the direct hit from the black blade.

The shockwave pierces through his shield, rocks his skull. His eyes spin and he comes close to stumbling forward, but just manages to stomp firm and catch himself.

He did it—when the woman's knee shoots up and smashes Garfiel's nose.

Elsa: "You mustn't be careless and think you're safe."

She says with a laugh, sweeping her leg up at Garfiel as he recoils.

Her leg hangs poised high, and from her shoe comes the glint of a blade in the heel—with his point aimed to stab Garfiel through the neck—

Garfiel: "Yer the one who better not be overlookin' my amazin' weapon."

His open jaws swallow her heel and the blade whole, gnashing at her slender foot. With her bones and the knife chewed up to the heel, Elsa's eyes shoot open wide.

Elsa: "Goodness."

Yelping in surprise, Elsa staggers away but loses her balance and tumbles to sit on the spot. Her right leg is mangled from the ankle down, inoperable, and the force of her own attacks has broken her arms as well. With her left leg as her support, Elsa gazes at Garfiel—

Elsa: "—Ahh,"

Taking in a breath, Elsa blushes like a girl in love.

Her exhale carries enough heat to be chromatic. Her wet eyes abound in hot passion.

—Before Elsa, Garfiel shoulders the immense Boulderswine, and throws it.

Although aware that she will be crushed beneath its incredible mass, it is not until the silhouette swallows her that Elsa's gaze strays from Garfiel.

With her breathing ragged, gazing at the grimacing blond boy with love—

Elsa: "I feel thrills."

The overwhelming weight crushes the murderer, the vampire, the Guthunter, until nothing remains untouched.

Her flesh squelches. Fresh blood mingles with fluids from the witchbeast.

Scenting the stench of death, Garfiel howls.

Roaring, bellowing, booming like thunder through the burning mansion.

—The Shield of Sanctuary Garfiel Tinzel, and the Guthunter Elsa Granhiert, have concluded their battle.