DxD: Fusion

"What a weak looking human! But with that magical aura, I can already tell! You're gonna be delicious!"

I turned toward the sound—and froze.

It stood at the edge of the clearing like something vomited from the deepest corner of a nightmare. I think it was about twelve feet tall. It was shaped like praying mantis, with large front arms with gruesome serrated spikes. But it wasn't chitin or armored plates on the outside, no, its body was a patchwork assembly of stretched and stapled flesh. Raw and unnatural muscle that was seamed together twitched under loose, uneven stitches. It moved like a marionette sewn together from the corpses of a hundred things that should never have been combined.

Where a mantis's head should have been, there was the torso of a human woman—but distorted, grotesquely sexualized. A large chest, bare and stained, jiggled with each twitch of movement. Black eyes with red irises, a mouth that was wide and lipless, stretching ear to ear with layers of serrated teeth glistening beneath skin too pale to be alive. A sharp tongue flicked out briefly, dragging across the corner of its cheek like it was savoring something that hadn't happened yet.

Its expression was ecstasy. A look of obsessive, trembling anticipation, like the moment before the first bite of your favorite meal—but twisted into something raw and unholy.

I drew my sword out of my inventory with a slow breath. "Guess this'll be my first real fight using this."

A blade of polished steel and potential shimmered faintly in the low light. Even sealed, even dormant, it felt ready. Waiting.

I narrowed my eyes.

"Observe."

The screen flickered.

{Name: Yomi

Condition: Healthy, Eager, Edging

Threat Level: A

Level: 28

Insight:

A stray devil that's evaded recapture for over ten years. Formerly a devil knight turned rogue after devouring her king. Yomi has increased in strength through the routine consumption of humans, consuming spiritual and physical energy from every victim. Her grotesque mutation is a result of prolonged exposure to corrupted energy and forbidden gluttony-based rituals. Highly unstable and psychologically unhinged. Extremely dangerous.}

A stray devil. I clenched my jaw. That explained the mangled aura.

"You've got guts showing up here," I said, leveling my blade. "This is Gremory and Sitri territory. You're either suicidal or stupid."

The thing giggled—high-pitched and rattling, like bones in a jar, like it knew something I didn't.

"The forest isn't part of their precious little playground. It's neutral. No seal. No patrols. Just shadows, trees, and me."

Its human torso leaned forward, tongue flicking again, salivating.

"And I'm not even the only one here, boy. We strays like to nest. Deep roots. Delicious meals. The smart ones survive, like me!"

I kept my expression flat. "Meals."

"Children. The ones that wander off the path, the ones who play just a little too close to the forest's edge, who get curious and quiet and venture a little too far from mommy, daddy, the safe and warm enclosure of human stupidity. The best are the ones who are scared, who know they've made a mistake but aren't quite sure if the world is supposed to hurt them yet." She flexed those claws, sickle-long fingers of meat and bone, and the tips scraped slow furrows into the bark of a nearby tree. The bark groaned, the trunk wept sap, the wounds were wet and open. "You wouldn't believe how the little ones taste. The smaller, the more helpless, the purer the flavor. Their feelings are all so… essential. Bright. Not like the older ones with their shame and mildew, their years of rot and bad thoughts soaking the marrow. No, the ones still soft, barely out of their diapers—oh, that's where all the flavor lives. It's all just juice and terror and fresh bone."

The monster's torso arched forward, impossibly flexible. Her head lolled, and the tongue flicked out again, methodical, obscene, circling the rim of her blunt nose. "They scream for their parents, you know. Every time. They always think someone is coming to save them. Even when the air is full of me, even when I have them by the ankles, they still hope. Most of them scream 'mama' or 'papa,' but some of the braver ones try to kick and bite. That's always funny, when they pretend they're not food. I like to let them wriggle a bit, let them feel the futility. Tenderizes the meat, brings out these wild, desperate flavors." Her serrated smile widened as her voice trilled upward, like she was recalling a favorite joke. "I love how they all taste a little different. Some are full of sugar, others a little salt. Sometimes you get one that's just vinegar and fire, and then you savor it slowly. Like wine."

She let the words hang in the air, then inhaled deeply, ribs expanding, flesh stretching to translucency. "But my favorite—" Her voice dropped, thick and dark, every syllable savored. "—are the toddler boys. Fresh, soft, so much energy in so little body. My experiments have shown the fear is sharpest when the pain is new, when they don't understand what's happening. I like to start with the lower half, tear the little pants away and taste the flesh right where it's most tender. Sometimes I use the front arms. Sometimes the tongue. It's all about variety, about savoring the reaction."

She leaned forward now, drawing her claws together in a slow, deliberate clap. "When I violate them before I eat, when I stick my front spiky arms up their little asses, they make the best screams. The air turns to crystal. Pure, undiluted agony, channeled through such beautiful, piercing music. It's art. An art form the humans will never appreciate, but I do. I do, so very much." The tongue lashed out, quivering, and a dribble of something thick and dark ran down her chin to spatter on the forest floor. She shuddered, the entire stitched-together body convulsing, and for a moment she seemed paralyzed, eyes rolled back, teeth bared, as if the mere memory of the act was enough to bring her to the edge of a kind of repulsive ecstasy.

She held the pose, savoring the aftertaste, then slurred out a single word: "Delicious."

My breath caught.

That first word. Children.

It landed like a knife that slid straight through the bone of my composure. The simple, casual way she said it was worse than any threat, any direct violence. Children. I kept seeing the word spelled out in the air, fluorescent and strobing, scrawled across the world in a child's hand, as if she was writing it on the inside of my skull.

The way her mouth stretched around the word, the way she tasted every syllable and let it drip—each repetition drove it deeper. Like hammering a nail that had already gone through the board, flattening it until it split the wood, then kept hammering, just to see what would splinter next. Children. Children. Children.

Something in me broke. It was not the thin, brittle snap of panic, nor the muddled, slow slosh of despair. This was a clean, precise fracture—an unfamiliar sensation that started behind my eyes and radiated outward, unfamiliar and cold as a surgical knife.

For a moment, I absorbed her words in total silence, not breathing, not thinking, letting the horror of them sharpen and clarify. I was aware of the monster's every motion—her mandibles flexing, tongue flicking, the way her front claws toyed with the living tree as if she was drawing out the pain for its own sake. I could even smell the tang, the coppery metronome of anticipation as she arched her back and shuddered in private delight.

There was a flicker of heat in my chest. A microscopic ember at first, almost gentle compared to the raw mechanics of fear. A faint, pulsing ember of something entirely new—anger. Not the low-grade frustration or irritation I often experience. This was something deeper, primal, more honest than any emotion I'd ever felt. It was like finding an ancient weapon buried under your own ribs, wrapped in silk and fire, waiting generations for someone to pull it free.

Not frustration. Not irritation. Not even the slow, coiling snake of resentment that sometimes moved inside me on the worst days. This was pure, unfiltered rage. Rage with no hesitation, no aftertaste of shame, no inward aim. All of it pointed outward, channeled through every muscle and tendon, seeking a target.

I felt my jaw set so hard my teeth ground together. My fingers—the ones holding the sword at my side—tightened, bones shifting beneath the skin, joints flaring white with pressure. Every syllable from her mouth stoked the ember until it was a coal, then a whole bed of coals, glowing inside my chest, radiating through the arteries and veins. The heat didn't stop there. It spread up to my scalp, behind my ears, tunneling down my spine in a shockwave of something animal. My vision tunneled, and the whole world shrank down to just me, my sword, and the blighted thing in the clearing.

Still, some small, stubborn part of me tried to push it down. Tried to remind myself that this was a devil—this was what they did. But the logic sounded hollow, like a rubber mallet against steel. All I could see was the way she described the children, their screams, the ritual, the art of it. She wasn't just a predator; she was an artist, a connoisseur of human misery, and she had practiced her craft long enough to savor every note and aftertaste.

The monster's body moved with a slow, deliberate roll, like she was feeling out the boundaries of my patience. Her hands (claws? hands? the line was too blurred to tell anymore) traced lazy, spiraling patterns in the air, as if she was conducting a symphony only she could hear. I could see the anticipation in her eyes, the hunger, and the way she watched me—taunting, baiting, waiting for me to break the way her victims did.

A part of me wanted to lunge right then, to give her the violence she was coaxing out of me. But I held it in, letting the rage simmer, compress, distill into something sharper. I could almost hear the blood rushing in my ears, pounding out a war drum rhythm. The sword in my hand felt heavier, denser, as if it, too, had absorbed my anger and was itching to be put to use.

And beneath all of that, a cold awareness: she was strong. Not just in body, but in mind. Every word, every gesture, was designed to unnerve, to destabilize, to make the fight over before it even began. She was a predator who enjoyed the kill most when her prey thought they had a chance. I would not give her the pleasure. I would not become the next flavor in her collection.

I steadied my breath. Let the anger find its shape. I narrowed my gaze, and the world snapped back into focus—her, the clearing, the chill dampness of the earth, the scent of mold and blood and ozone.

I met her eyes, unblinking, and let her see it. Not just the anger, but the promise of what I would do with it. A slow, deliberate smile worked its way onto my lips. The monster's own mouth twitched in response—surprised, maybe, or pleased at the new scent I'd given off.

She tilted her head. "You're a little old for my taste, borderline really. I don't like eating humans once they get to high school age. But that aura of yours?" Her eyes gleamed. "Too tasty to pass up." A string of drool leaked out of her mouth.

I didn't need to think. The world reduced itself, as if it too had surrendered or was caught in the undertow of what I'd become. I slid into a low, steady stance, the most basic of sword forms—something my kendo classes and my swordsmanship skill had drilled into me until it haunted my muscles in sleep. Weight forward, hips low, back foot braced. The tip of the blade quivered in the air, as if eager to taste what waited ahead. My elbow was loose, my breath stopped up in my chest like the air before a storm. There was only the monster, the clearing, and the unknowable force of my will.

The blade began to hum. Not a sound, exactly, but a resonance—like the spiritual energy inside me was trembling through the steel, vibrating the edge until it blurred, almost like it was trying to radiate its approval. The monster's attention snapped to it, eyes dilating, nostrils flaring with the same greasy hunger as before, but now wary, a little uncertain.

She cackled, the sound a flaring car alarm in the night. "Oh, how adorable. Gonna fight me with a little toothpick? I'll slice that smug face in half and slurp out whatever magic's making you so chewy. I want to hear your screams as I crush your limbs! As I rip open that asshole with my spikes!"

In that instant, I let go of whatever constraint was keeping the power inside me. I wasn't sure if it was a conscious command, or if the pressure had simply reached a breaking point and found its own way out. Either way: my Reiatsu exploded.

There was no warning. No signal. It just happened. A detonation without a fuse, a spiritual Big Bang. The pressure hit the clearing like an earthquake. The ground buckled and spat up clods of earth. Branches snapped, a shockwave rippling outward through the forest canopy, leaves detonating off their stems and swirling in a hurricane spiral. The air itself seemed to shatter, refracting and bending, warping the monster's outline until she looked like a mirage seen through a furnace vent.

Yomi's entire body seized, as if every muscle in her composite body had tried to contract at once. Her laughter died in her throat, replaced by a strangled, animal grunt. She dropped—or rather, collapsed—to one knee (or multiple, the legs were odd and jointed in too many places). The claws that had been poised to strike now dug furrows in the dirt as she fought the gravitational pull of my spiritual weight.

"Wha… what the hell… is this…?" Her voice sounded different now. Smaller. A little girl's whisper trembling on the edge of a nightmare.

I didn't answer. Instead, I forced myself to look at her—really look. Not at the mask or the eyes or the smile or the grotesque feminine affectations of her upper half, but at the center of her human looking torso, the broken geometry of her being. I focused on where the heart would be, if there was one, behind the parody of a chest that bulged with outrageous, stitched together breasts. I locked my eyes on that target, not for any tactical reason, but because it seemed important that she see the intent there—see that I was coming for her.

Then I moved.

I don't remember the transition, only the result. The world flicked forward, a jump cut, and I was inside her reach, the monster's claws whistling through the space where my head had been a heartbeat before. My blade stabbed straight through her humanoid torso, entering just below the ribcage and driving upward, the point erupting out her back in a shower of black and red ichor.

Yomi shrieked, all the voices in her layered together—a chorus of children, women, men, animals, each one howling in surprise and outrage, likely all of those she had consumed. She slashed at me, wild and spastic, but I was already gone, flipping backwards, feet churning up divots in the dirt as I retreated out of range. The world came back into focus, slower, brighter, and I found myself standing, sword in hand, watching as the monster reeled and staggered on her many legs.

She clutched at her own chest, claws raking over her meat and bone in confused, infantile pain. Then her head snapped up, eyes wide and seething. "You—YOU BASTARD!" The words cracked the air. Her body shook, but she forced herself onto her feet, the wound in her human chest pulsing blood with every syllable.

Her voice was a storm now, all fury and spit, but her body still trembled under the press of my spiritual force. "You surprised me with that energy! But I've beaten and eaten stronger! Don't think you're special!" She grinned, an ever-widening crescent of enamel and gore. "You even thought that's where my heart is? How cute!"

Then she charged.

Faster than before. Much, much faster. There was a blur—an afterimage, like the memory of a shape passing through the world before the light could catch up—and then the claws were already there, intercepting me mid-step. I barely managed to twist aside, bringing my sword up in a frantic parry, but her limb caught me in the ribs, the force of it enough to make my vision go white around the edges. The impact launched me sideways, and I remember only fragments: the sensation of flying, the trunk of a thick tree, the splintering, wet crack as I hit it, and then another as I passed through, landing in a heap yards away.

I lay for a second, stunned. The world wobbled in and out of focus. A flavor lingered in my mouth—metallic and oily, both sharp and clinging.

I gasped, tried to push myself up, but the pain in my side was so immediate, so total, that I almost blacked out again. I could feel the bones knitting and unknitting with every breath, the muscles spasming where the claws had scraped them raw.

[Health: 23/100]

"GOT… TO GET… UP!" I grit out with gnashed teeth.

I willed myself upright, legs wobbling, sword dragging through the soil as I used it for balance. I could feel blood soaking my shirt, warm and slick.

Too weak. Too slow. Too soft. The words repeated in my head, each one a hammer stroke on the anvil of my will. But beneath that, deeper, the heat was still there—the rage, now fanned into a bonfire by the humiliation and pain.

Something snapped inside me, but not the way it had before. Instead of shattering, it crystallized, pure and sharp and perfect. I screamed—not in fear or agony, but in fury, a bellow that ripped up my throat and shook the leaves from the trees.

"AHHHHH I'LL KILL YOU!" The words left my mouth before my mind could shape them. They weren't a tactic, or a tease, or a bluff. They were a statement of fact—a promise.

Yomi's laughter, much closer now, slowed and stuttered. "Yes! YES! I love it when they scream like that!" Her glee rang through the clearing. She wanted me angry. She wanted me wild.

I focused on that anger. Instead of smothering it, I funneled it—forced it through the channels of my Reiryoku, the way I'd felt in cultivation but never truly understood until now. I could feel it gathering in my legs, coiling in the muscles, electrifying every nerve. I didn't think.

I moved, and the world blurred.

There was no planning, no calculation. Just speed, pure and uncut. I flickered across the space, reappearing behind her before the echo of my scream had faded. She was still facing where I'd been, claws outstretched, when the blade found her again.

For a few moments, nothing happened, as if the body was slow to register the intrusion.

Yomi pivoted to face me and stared at the sword in my hand—the blood that ran down the edge, the way I held it steady. Her voice, when it came, was thin and fluttering: "HAH! I don't know what you did but you couldn't even leave a scratch! You weak little boy!" But the words were hollow, a puppet mouthing its last lines as the strings were cut.

Then a line of brilliant red opened, spraying the clearing with a fan of blood so vivid it looked painted. It cut through her sentence, her smile, her taunt, and left behind only a gurgling, disbelieving gasp.

Her head slid sideways. Slowly, as though she was processing it in real time, the entire mass of her shoulders tilted, then toppled, and her gaze dropped to the ground, vision darkening.

"Wha…happen..."

There was a soft thunk as it hit the earth, followed by a louder, wetter thud when her body followed. For a second, the clearing was utterly silent. Even the birds had stopped.

Silence.

I stood, panting, sword lowered, trembling from exertion and adrenaline.

The rage still burned behind my eyes.

"AHHHHH!!" I screamed to release my lingering rage. 

Now out of breath, I collapsed. Then the pain of not only my ribs, but my legs slammed into me like a freight train. I strained to look at my legs. My calf muscles, I think they were torn in half. I grunted loudly in pain, tears coming to the edge of my eyes. 

Then the system pinged.

{New Skill Unlocked: Shunpo (Flash Step) Rank 1

Shunpo is a high-speed movement technique that allows the user to instantly accelerate by compressing and releasing Reiryoku through the legs. With a single burst, the user vanishes from sight and reappears up to a short distance away, effectively teleporting to the untrained eye. The technique is ideal for repositioning in close combat, evading attacks, or delivering surprise strikes. At its base level, Shunpo is a short-range burst with a brief cooldown, but as the skill improves, it becomes faster, more fluid, and capable of being chained in rapid succession for sustained high-speed combat. Mastery of Shunpo turns movement itself into a weapon.}

{Due to unlocking Shunpo: Agility has increased 1 rank! Hoho has increased by 1 letter grade!}

{Enemy defeated. XP reward 1— }

"NOT NOW!" I writhed in agony. Never in either life had I experienced this level of pain. It transcended what I even understood to be pain. 

Another Ding.

{New Skill Unlocked: Pain Resistance Rank 1

The user's ability to resist any form of physical pain from any source. Higher levels can nullify pain.}

I immediately let out a sigh, as the pain subsided somewhat, to a level that was still more pain than I'd ever experienced before, but it was at least a minor reprieve. 

I quickly checked my health bar. 3/100. 

"Fuck, I'm a sitting duck right now." I haphazardly threw my sword into my inventory, and flipped over. I began dragging myself to a tree to get out of the open. I sat up against the tree, tears of pain occasionally streaming down my face. 

{Skill Pain Resistance increased to Rank 2!}

I sighed in relief. That one helped quite a bit more than rank 1. Still excruciating, but I could at least form thoughts. Realizing I was technically in enemy territory, I pulled out my Zanpakuto again. It was at least comforting to hold it while I was immobile. Thinking that I could burn my bleeding wound closed, I put the flat of my blade on my wound, cringing in pain. No heat came. Only cool metal. I had no time to be confused. I have to heal. 

"Sleep, I have to sleep. But I can't do it here." I grit out. "Gamer's body, I have to heal."

If any of the strays Yomi mentioned showed up, I was dead. If not them, maybe a fallen angel, or a bored familiar, or whatever else prowled these woods after dark. I was shivering and sweating at the same time, fingers white around the grip of my sword. There was no way I could make it out of here on foot like this, but if I didn't move at all, I'd just starve or bleed out.

I couldn't think of a solution. I was too far in the forest to crawl back. No one knew I was out here. I scoured my system interfaces to try to see if there was something I was missing, a solution, an answer. My vision grew blurry while I frantically searched.

"No…I've got to stay awake." I looked at my impacted side. So much blood had already started to come out, the wound was much worse than I initially thought. I was no longer sure if sleep would be the answer. I wasn't sure if I passed out, if it was to sleep, or death. 

Before, I would have just been frustrated at the circumstances, but now I felt a distant fury. Like my soul wanted to pour everything it could into rage, but my body was too weak to fuel it.

My vision was fading. I gripped my Zanpakuto with my remaining strength. I never even got to learn its name. With what little strength I had left, I held the blade up to my face. An unfamiliar, deep emotion—sorrow—welled up inside of me, completely replacing the rage. Several tears streamed down my face.

"I'm sorry…if only…you could give me…another chance…"

Toshio's arm went limp as he succumbed to unconsciousness, though his grip on his Zanpakuto never faltered.