“Usagi looks really frightening again, actually… this time, she is horrific. It looks like she’s actually losing it…” Keiko remarks.

  “I am unsure if this is the reasoning, but perhaps it is the taste of blood,” Angel says. “Like a shark getting the faintest scent of it, she is seeking her victim.”

  “Not only that. That personality of hers, she doesn’t want him to hold back either. Like she did with you all. Damn it. I hope she shakes that off.” Kubo scoffs, seeing how she handled this.

  “Do it. Do it… do…” her voice simmers to a whisper. In a flash, she returns to his side, gripping his neck and choking him. She lifts him. Before she can do more damage, he returns to his watery form seeping through her fingers. “I hate you…” She spins herself around, kicking a large amount of liquid a distance away. He panics, rushing back into the water.

  “Well. At least she learned something useful. He is weakened, meaning he can’t keep his watery form for long.”

  “Of course. That makes sense. I take it if he returns back to his normal form without all the water needed, he’ll be wounded even further?” Ishimoto asks.

  “Exactly. Wouldn’t be that hard for him if she did take off a piece of his flesh. Lucky for us, she seemed rather hungry,” Shoji says.

  “Why are you saying that like he’s a buffet spread or something!?” Keiko says, waving her arms around.

  There is a caged animal inside her. It hits the side of its jail cell, wishing to escape her. It makes her skull pound, her heart quake, everything is becoming overwhelming, and all she can do is drown it out. The girl plunged down as she held her head, biting her lip. “Damn it. This feeling is too much… The taste of his blood is making my body react so oddly…” Finish this quickly.

  He makes his way out of the water, back in his human form. The sky is overcast, and it has started to cause rainfall, water pattering, and an evil smile on his face.

  “Look at that. Fate smiles down on me. Now I’m in my element!” He knows now he can release more power, the one that rides with the very rain itself. His body shifts; it is a vibrating mess of droplets, and he seemingly disappears, catching everyone off guard. Usagi can’t spot him or hear him, and the rainfall drowns out any echo or call to his location.

  A hard hit to the jaw, he appears and instantly disappears again. “Idiot. You should have gotten rid of me when you had the chance! Now I am the rain!” His putrid laugh shouts from every direction. Overwhelming her senses, she turns frantic, searching for any sign.

  “Ishimoto! Keiko! Takei! Does anyone see him!?” she yells out.

  “No! Nothing at all!” Keiko keeps spinning. “I think we should jump in now!” she says.

  “How!? We don’t even know where he is!?” Okazaki blends his words as he pushes forward to Usagi.

  “Not so fast!” His legs are taken from underneath him, and he thuds to the ground, his face landing in a puddle. He tries to get up, but he finds himself unable to do so. Something is dragging him deeper into it, and he gargles it in.

  “Okazaki!” Usagi tries to help, but another paralyzing punch knocks her. “Why is he stronger now!? It’s like he’s in two places at once!”

  “That’s because he is!” Kubo shouts. “He’s using the rain to have different parts of his body everywhere!” He attempts to aid them despite knowing he is outgunned, and immediately, he realizes it’s the wrong move. From his waist, the gun he has at the diner is drawn. He has scrapped out the bone residue from the night before, and it is now aimed at him. “No…” The gun goes off, the bullet heading for his head. The silence of the world stuns around him; everything is gone.

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  “Kubo!” Takei shouts, lunging her arm in front of the bullet. Her speed is faster, and her reaction is quicker due to her Remnant. It digs into her flesh, a spitfire of heat and shrapnel. It makes her body fall to the ground like a steel beam from a height. The bullet itself is meant to kill Remnants. It is nothing short of the excruciating pain a normal person would feel if they were shot in the neck.

  “Only one bullet? What’s the point in that?” Mr. Pond questions.

  Usagi saw her get shot. The bullet ricochets in her body, hitting multiple bones and muscles, and she can hear every snap and tear.

  “You better fight me now, you pathetic wifeless waste of a man,” she says, slow and clear.

  “What the hell did you just call me!?” he responds. His ego hurt, he turns all his attention to her, releasing Okazaki. Ishimoto retrieves him, taking him away from the battlefield as everyone else checks on Takei, Kubo’s eyes dreading the sight. He doesn’t know what the bullets were truly capable of. They are still in their testing stage.

  My mind won’t stop. Why can’t I stop thinking about it? Stop it. Takei. Takei. Takei. His hand emerges from the rain, launching an attack at her chin. She catches it and rips it off, his entire hand leaking from the arm. Angel catches a glimpse, baffled. Mr. Pond himself regroups, launching another, another, and another, all aimed at different parts of her body. She catches everyone ripping them over and over. It is a battle of attrition, one that she can’t win on her own, not now, not like this. Angel rises up, and everyone tends to Takei and Okazaki.

  The battle rages on, and Usagi starts to grow weary as he keeps coming, not stopping the flow of his offensive flurry.

  “Usagi. Against the trees. Go into the trees. It’ll slow down his regeneration.” Usagi peers back at her. She snarls at her but does as she asks, running into the heavier foliage.

  “Where are you going!?” he says, blindsided by his ego.

  Retreating into the army of timber, the onslaught keeps on. The way he fights isn’t anything special. She can predict his next move, reading it with proficiency and blocking with ease. It is his replicate illusion, using the rain to make himself appear at will, and now the rain has died down with the thick greenery above. It’s unusually shaded here, keeping almost every droplet to a minimum.

  She keeps his attacks at bay, digging her pivoted shoes, he reassembles, running out of water to draw from. Her body circles around like a tornado. Her leg sinks into his body. The way it squishes and bends until his ribs snap into dusted particles almost disgusts her. Yet, at the same time, part of her feels a sympathetic tendency while his body piles itself into the mud… Why?

  With the discomfort arranged in his body, he is unable to move. He crawls away like a slug. The pathetic sight narrowly makes her stop stepping forward. It feels like there is a rock stopping her.

  The man on the ground has a moment of levity, the flashing of what he’s done. The men, women, and children his old boss ordered to their deaths, people who didn’t pay, worship fully, give their time, things requested. Mr. Pond knows what it is like to feel someone die, how they ravage and claw for their breaths, and the fire of their lungs to be set free by the water rushing in like an aqueduct, pinching the backs of their throats. He hasn’t felt anything for them; it is only a job that needs to be done, like a construction worker building a skyscraper.

  The nails dig into his back, Usagi scrapping him to where he faces upward at her. The fear in his eyes is like she’s a jaguar seeking prey. In truth, both of them know this is over. The wind and rain are all that remain.

  “I hate you… but… I don’t think I can do this…” Usagi says, her voice drifting off in a disappointed mood. She has never taken a life before, even if that life belongs to someone as scummy as him. Seeing his eyes turn gray, his body stiffening and shutting out from her own hand. It is too unbelievable for her to see herself doing.

  As she watches his fearful expression, a leaf falls onto his choker, and a whisper only he can hear sounds. The sweet, gentle voice of a girl.

  “Mr. Pond. You know what you have to do now. You’re on the edge of death. She is going to kill you, and it’ll all be for nothing. Don’t let all of it be for nothing.” It speaks in whispers, and the leaf seems to tug on his charm. There is clarity at this moment. He knows this is over.

  Tying his finger around his charm, he yanks it with all his strength, and it shoots itself off with a cling. There is a blinding light and a tightening around his throat as his charm disintegrates into the air.