Taking Care Of Family
Laying down on the ground on my back, I aimed for Rosten's head, as he was scurrying around to gather rocks. It was hard to do, since the rifle was not the lightest thing to hold with one hand. I heard a grunt come from out of sight, so I immediately kicked, hoping to hit Rosin, but I missed, so I then lifted my head to look for him, and moved my own arm to aim at him when I could see him.
Immediately, the rifle was knocked from my hand, kicked away by Rosin, who was standing fully, this time, ready to fight using only his fists. This time, I looked at him really quick to realize something. I threw a kick while still laying down, right at his knees. It happened, and he fell right down next to me, allowing me to search for the rifle he had, hoping it would do something.
But another idea came to mind. My sword on my hip was on me, so I pulled it out quickly, then swinging it down with one hand, right to where Rosin was for a second, as he rolled out of the way before I could chop him up.
'He did say that he did not have an enhanced body, unlike the other three, so, as the one I can assume was the one orchestrating all of these acts of all of them, he needs to go before I can even try to take down the others!'
I was still bleeding from my neck, so I stood up by stabbing my blade into the ground, and pulling myself up with one hand. I didn't stand up correctly, but I was able to stand withoutuch trouble, aside from losing the ability to move from blood loss.
Looking and finding a trail of blood from where I had moved, I remembered that Rosten was still around, and I needed to try something to take him out.
Immediately changing my glare from Rosten, who was farther away and grabbing random rocks off the ground like a child, I switched to looking at the rifle, and changed to watching as Rosin was getting up to attack me again, but I couldn't let Rosin bother me while taking out Rosten.
Letting go of my ability to stay balanced, I took the blade out of the ground, instantly trying to stab it into Rosin for as much time as I could. It was his turn to roll on the ground, as I kept stabbing my blade into spots where he just was, and I finally just jumped towards him, and pointed the tip of my blade down towards him to take him out if I could.
He watched as he rolled his body over and saw me, nearly peircing him, like a shish kabob. I didn't hit where I wanted, as I was aiming for his heart to try and make sure he was gone before switching to taking down Rosten, but my plan did not go how I thought. Rosin, while peirced, had my blade through his chest, not through his heart, but through a lung.
I wanted to say something, as I looked down upon him with a sword through his chest, but when I tried, some blood came out of my mouth.
'I need to hurry this up! I only have one chance to get this, and I cannot, under any circumstances, leave these two alive, and let anything else happen to Taki!'
Turning, not paying any more attention to a pinned down Rosin, I walked towards the rifle, mostly because I could feel the energy in my body draining, so when I got to the rifle, I looked for Rosten, putting a hand on the rifle to pick it up, and found him far away, staring right at me, rocks at the ready.
'Using Interconnection as a way to tell Rosten to take care of me? I thought the same amount of time as myself would have developed more complex tactics, but it seems as though they truly never learned.'
Instantly, I aimed the rifle at his head, and fired it.
He did move out of the way, but that movement cost him. It hit his his shoulder, blowing a hole where the joint connected, causing his arm to fall off. I saw him wince at the pain of losing an arm, and then realize that he couldn't throw as fast as he could. The issue was that he did not bleed. I did not know how he felt the pain if his body was not normal, but I decided to reload the rifle as fast as possible, holding it in my armpit, and using only one hand to open the chamber, grab a bullet, bringing the number down to three remaining, and closing it all in one smooth action.
During my reload, Rosten had already started to send another wave of high speed rocks towards me, which was a much slower wave than before, because of his now missing arm.
'How does it feel to have an arm missing? Buggy had his blown off too, so this shouldn't be much!'
I dropped to the ground so that I would not be hit, and put the rifle on the ground to aim it again. I took a quick look at Rosin, who was trying to pull the sword out of himself, but thanks to his body, while being different, still had bodily fluids, so when he tried to grab onto the blade stuck in his chest, his palms got sliced open, and blood came from both hands. Some blood was also coming from around my blade as well, where he was desperately trying to drag the blade out to move and attack me again.
'Tenacious, do not worry, I will take care of you once I am done with this one.'
Looking down the barrel once again, I was aimed directly for Rosten's head this time, but from moving around to throw, I just watched as his head and body bobbed around in a repeating figure 8 movement, and just aimed for the one spot his head was twice.
He was too into throwing his rocks like a machine gun at half speed to realize that I was doing such a thing, aiming for the center point. His head was bobbing around quickly enough that I had to just pull the trigger before even thinking about the spot he was.
And I fired the rifle.
A rock intercepted the bullet, but it passed right through, desintegrating it along it's trajectory, following a path right towards where his head would be. I watched in anticipation as the bullet was directly in front of his face, seeing that he had made a mistake, and the bullet going into and through his own head, causing his face to cave in, and his head to blow up.
'That was more powerful that I thought. I am surprised that my neck was not blown up like that, was it because of the range? Do these bullets speed up using air resistance to move faster?'
I watched as his body fell to the floor, and silver flowed from his now blown up head, and formed his ethereal form. The only thing left for him was me commanding his soul.
"S-s-s-s-s-oo-ow-ul..."
I could feel my throat burning, but I had to get it done before he gained another body.
"C-coma-ma... Comma-and!"
'I can't take any more time on this! Just say it body!'
"S-sou-l Comma-and: Re-e-etur-n T-t-to Ma-ain!"
Finally getting out those words, I felt blood gushing from my throat, which I needed to fix immediately, otherwise I couldn't do what I planned. I watched as his soul got pulled towards the castle, to make sure that was what happened, and then turned to Rosin, who was still struggling to pull the blade out of his chest.
Without any regret, I reloaded the rifle, stood up, walked over to him, and using 'Soul Command: Interconnection', I spoke to him.
"Seems your plan was a flop, Rosin."
"Hmm?" Struggling to get a grasp of my blade, he turned, and smirked at me. "At least I can still speak. AND! My plan WILL NOT FAIL! GRIM IS STILL ALIVE, AND AS LONG AS THE OTHERS CAN BE BROUGHT BACK, WHICH I HAVE NO DOUBT YOU FORGOT, THE PLAN HAS YET TO FAIL!"
I stared at him, hoping I could kill him with a glare at this point.
"You seriously think that your plan will come to fruition? There are multiple bodies, and if I am able to swap to another body, I can take care of all of you, and keep everyone I care for safe."
And I pointed the barrel down at his head this time.
"Hmph. We'll come back, don't doubt that!" And he smirked again, accepting his current fate.
"I always hated that smirk. Now I can get rid of it."
His face changed to wanting to ask, but I pulled the trigger, blowing up his head this time.
Sighing, I pulled my blade out of Rosin's body, and barely squeaked out "So-owl Ka-man-nd: Retu-urn Tha-ta Man-man-ma-in!"