A blink of the eye and she was gone, small sparks sat where she was like a downed powerline. I felt the cut of the blade against my flesh; sharp, clean, purposeful. It did not carry the weight of a wavering heart; a lovely cut dealt with a loving heart.

  “You’ve gotten even faster,” I complimented as my eyes lagged behind her. “How many of your enemies die before they even know you were there?”

  “Most,” she answered.

  My eyes flicked to where I heard the voice, but she had already moved from that position. I felt another slice, this time across my knee. Blood dripped from the wounded joint, but that was it. I didn’t lose the limb, it wasn’t even badly damaged.

  “You lack power,” I commented. “You’ll need to slash me hundreds of times if you hope to ever bring me down.

  “Then, I will do just that.”

  Hundreds of red eyes opened around me. In the air, on the ground, in the rubble; anywhere that one of her portals could be, it was there.

  I had never been on the receiving end of this attack. My tongue slid across my lips in anticipation for the moves that followed. I needed to know just how badly she needed to kill me, just how badly she was in love with me.

  Would she weep if she slew me?

  It wasn’t worth thinking about. I heard static as Yoshitsune burst out of an eye at tremendous speeds. I pulled my body backwards, the tip of the blade barely scraping across my armored scales before she disappeared into the next one.

  A split second went by before she popped out of another one. A vertical cut was aimed directly at my forehead with intent to bisect me like an anatomical figure. I swept my hand, pushing the blade with my knuckles. Yoshitsune was forced off course, she allowed herself to be moved to the side and used the new momentum to enter a different portal before immediately appearing to slice across my elbow.

  It was never-ending. A slice that traced the entire body without rest. I could feel her targeting my joints in an attempt to accumulate enough damage to render me immobile. It was the correct decision given her understanding of her strengths and weaknesses compared to my own.

  Still, I felt disappointment that she didn’t throw a slash towards my neck. I wanted to know if she had the ability to cleave it off my shoulders.

  Slowly, I began increasing my speed. I gradually went from receiving minor damage from every cut to the ability to track every strike perfectly. My body felt like it moved before the sword even struck, allowing me to step out of the way with relative ease. Yoshitsune’s eyes turned to shock as I sidestepped casually out of another low slash to my legs.

  She disappeared through another portal before unleashing a volley of lightning out of several portals. They zapped my body and arced into other portals before shooting out again.

  I summoned [Obsidian Spikes] in front of multiple portals, slowly choking out the available routes that she had.

  Preemptively, I swung a fist at one of the red eyes. Yoshitsune’s form began to emerge through the ability. Her speed was direct and she was committed to her path. I opened my hand at the last second and her neck slammed into my palm. Her eyes all blinked out of existence and saliva covered my hand.

  “Too predictable,” I admonished.

  Her body coursed with electricity as she clamped down on my finger with her teeth. Her bite didn’t accomplish much, but the magic lightning that sparked off of her made my muscles tense up.

  A shield smashed down on my wrist and a whip that looked like a human’s spine wrapped around my elbow and pulled my arm away. My gripped loosened and Yoshitsune slipped from my grasp. I felt a slash of the blade along my stomach as punishment for harming her.

  “Are you alright, Yoshitsune?” One of them asked, the snake-looking bitch.

  “I’m fine,” Yoshitsune choked out.

  I felt myself fuming. This wasn’t the type of date that you bring your friends along to. I wanted to feel Yoshitsune’s sincerity. I wanted to feel her desperation and her love as she tried to extinguish my life. I craved to see how she would escape me, how she would try to overcome me only for it to be ruined by uninvited guests.

  I would not allow Yoshitsune's friends to interfere like Miranda's had.

  “How dare you interrupt?” I demanded Yoshitsune’s companions. “Can’t you see what this is? Why are you trying to deny her of a true victory?”

  “Yoshitsune is our companion,” the Medusa-headed woman hissed.

  “Her enemy is our enemy,” the headless demon added.

  “Die,” I commanded.

  [ICBM] exploded where they were standing. Dirt and fire erupted to obscure my vision. A flash of light flew out of the explosion. I turned my body to avoid it as it sailed off into the distance. A spear?

  The cloud disappeared and only the snake chick was standing there. A shield depicting a bearding man with a blacksmith’s hammer absorbed much of the fire. She dropped to one knee; blood trickling down her arm.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  I rushed her, my fist fully pulled back to unleash a [Bomber] directly on her position. My knuckles careened into her shield. But, she slipped into a red eye. I saw a hand pulling on the back of her armor as she disappeared. My explosion rocked the area, but there was nobody standing there that could truly appreciate it.

  Yoshitsune appeared through a different eye. I moved out of her way and attacked with a [Stunning Stab]. The tip of the black spear duck into Yoshitsune’s shoulder and her body went rigid. The spine whip emerged from a portal and wrapped around Yoshitsune’s waist, pulling her into safety.

  A snake popped out of an eye and bit into my scales. I grabbed the creature and ripped it in half. A broken spear appeared in each of my hands and I threw it to the side.

  “Do you need my help?” I heard Vendetta ask from the sidelines.

  “No, focus on Armaros,” I replied. “You don’t want that mother fucker to get away from you again, do you?”

  “Then I will be taking my leave,” she said, her hands burning with black flames. “I will inflict everything that he deserves when he opens his eyes.”

  Vendetta and Armaros’ nearly revived corpse disappeared in a cloud of smoke and a chorus of screams. I stood alone. Numerous red eyes watched me as they likely formulated their plan from the safety of Yoshitsune’s ability.

  “Your friends don’t have to die here,” I said. “I’m only interested in you.”

  Lightning, whip, shield; three different eyes revealed three different attacks. My patience was at its limit. I did not want to humor this group date any longer. I summoned a black spike to intercept the whip. I allowed the lightning to course through my body as I focused everything on the shield. I grabbed the rim with both hands and pulled it and the person holding on through the portal.

  I didn’t hesitate. I could see hands reached out already to try to save their friend. But, it was time for me to reveal my true speed.

  One [Bomber] directly to the head. The shield couldn’t block the devastating force delivered behind that attack. The snake woman’s head was crushed in an instant; I felt the skull give way and brains splatter the ruined ground. The snakes that grew off her head like hair burned and hissed and they became detached and writhed on the ground.

  The rescuing hands failed to recover their friend as a more powerful force, [The Devouring], wrapped its maw around the corpse and dragged it deep into my stomach. Her stats would go into my ever burning furnace.

  “Tisiphone!” Yoshitsune screeched, her voice bouncing from eye to eye to create a tortured echo.

  “I told you I wanted you and you alone, Yoshitsune,” I called back. “Your other friend can still survive if they leave and don’t look back.”

  A pair of attacks were her response. She popped out of a low portal and slashed across my ankles with the spine whip dangled out of an eye like a fishing hook that was desperate for a bite. I took a halfhearted swing at it and the whip immediately disappeared into the red abyss.

  “You don’t have to do this with me, Seift,” I heard Yoshitsune say. “We could have run away when we say what he had done, but I had to stay and stop him.”

  “If this beast is able to leave here, it may be over for all of us,” Seift replied. “I’d rather die now than die when it’s too late to stop him.”

  What a bittersweet feeling. I was happy that Yoshitsune found a place where she believed she belonged with people that were willing to face me to help her. However, how dare they think that they can hold the same place in her heart that I did? Did they not see that this was supposed to be a battle of love?

  Did Yoshitsune not even see it, the intent behind this violence?

  They put out a valiant effort. Whips and swords and lightning and ice erupted all over the battlefield. They wove around each other perfectly. They covered for each other perfectly. They shared a bond that I did not comprehend.

  I had to destroy it. I had to destroy it no matter the cost.

  They emerged again and I stepped directly into where the headless demon was. I activated [The Box] and the pitch black room surrounded us, shutting out all of the red eyes and leaving me unopposed. I heard Yoshitsune’s sword slash against the exterior, but she was hopeless in her attempts to breach my ability.

  “Stop tormenting Yoshitsune, you monster,” the demon demanded. “Don’t you see how much you make her suffer? How much your cold-bloodedness makes her cry?”

  “Nobody seems to understand me,” I replied as I spit some blood onto the floor. “I just want to be who I truly am. I believe that everyone has the right to be who they truly are. I am willing to accept her as she is, body and soul. It is her who is unwilling to accept me for the violence that I crave and for the standards in which I live my life.”

  “What if who you truly are is incompatible with who she truly is?”

  “Then there is no further purpose to this world.”

  In [The Box] I was king. The headless demon tried to strike out at me, but I lowered the ceiling to have her whip snag on the top. Her body flinched as I delivered [Bomber] after [Bomber] until she was nothing but a sizzling corpse for [The Devouring] to consume and assimilate.

  I dropped the four walls of [The Box] to be greeted by Yoshitsune’s primal wailing. Both of her friends were swallowed up.

  “Why?” She demanded. “What are you trying to accomplish? I thought Heaven was what you believed in, why do you want to stop it so badly?”

  I scowled. Maybe things were irreparable. These years apart allowed her to come to her own conclusion: she was incapable of being with me anymore. Her will had solidified, she would no longer tolerate senseless violence. She wanted to live in a world devoid of it so that we could be together in perpetual harmony.

  Could I do that? Could I sacrifice something that made me feel alive for something like love? Did she even love me if she rejected this core piece of myself?

  The world was losing its flavor. I thought that, maybe, this place would make me feel belonging, but I was learning that there were far more people that didn’t understand why someone could feel joy here than those that felt that joy. It was the power to shape the world that attracted so many, the fighting was secondary, tertiary even. I wasn’t even sure if I could carve a lasting future in this burning bedrock. If we couldn’t be happy together, there was only one other recourse.

  “I will free you of this suffering, if it is what you wish,” I said into the still battlefield. “I will make it so that you will never hurt again. This place can be destroyed, all of it. You don’t need a sinner to craft a utopia for you. You will not be happy there.”

  “My future is the only way we’ll be happy together,” she responded. “I know that there is a caring person inside of you, someone that does not need violence to feel satisfaction in life.”

  “Then show it to me, defeat me and I will do whatever you want. Love me so badly that I die.”

  Yoshitsune charged me without hesitation. Tears poured from beneath the hands that covered her eyes. All of her belief, all of her willpower coalesced on the edge of her blade.

  I let her feeling tear into my body. I allowed the blade to carve her feelings into my flesh and my blood and my bones. This was how badly she wanted us to be together in that false Heaven. This was how willing she was to hurt me to achieve it.

  It was exquisite. It was everything that I looked for in someone else. There was no pain, only euphoria. Ah, Yoshitsune, you really love me, don't you?

  If only it was good enough to kill me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said as my fist pressed directly into her stomach. “I will try to make the rest of our time as lovely as possible.”

  [Bomber].