The Demon Sword: Sorataki

Chapter 8: Insight

Natalie descends through the caved-in floors of the building. Following the carnage to its origin, her wings of night land her elegantly onto the makeshift tunnels end. The cracking and toppling of rubble fell from the ends of the freshly broken hole like heavy water droplets. Walking down the bottom floors end she locked eyes with the one shimmer of life left radiant within her purples eyes sight. A lone armed man crushed under a cluster of stone and plaster.  

Coming down the hall and the last corner that was keeping his eyes from seeing her she was met with the sounds of pained and irregular bereaving. The man seeing Natalie come around the corner gritted his teeth at the sight of her. Natalie returned a cold and featureless glare back. There piercing death stairs where broken by the man violently coughing out blood declaring Natalie the victor. Chuckling in-between coughs the man sighed a surrendering breath to life itself.

"So, are you here to save my soul?" he asked.

With her wings of black ink and otherworldly eyes of purple overshadowing him it was hard to debunk the analogy. With her head slightly tilted and eyes narrowed Natalie kneeled down towards him studiedly.

"That depends on how you answer this question," She said carefully. "This tunnel, where does it lead?"

The man chuckled again but this time under chattering teeth. More than half his body was under the rubble. Legs, waist, most of his gut and right arm all crushed. A stream of crimson oozed through the cracks of his rubble mattress.

"Then I will say nothing," The man spat defiantly. "Would rather die at the hands of treachery than be shown mercy by a rogue lab rat."

"You will tell me what you know," Natalie said under tried lips.

"Or what? Will you kill me? Rather greedy thinking there if you ask me."

Natalie eyes fuming charged her hand up with a great electric pulse and hovered it over the man's head.

"If you're going to kill me then get on with it. You're not going to hear me beg from the likes of you," He pushed out of frail lips.

Natalie's hand remains frozen over the man's neck, conflict rages within her core. A part of her wanted to end his life for his tenacity to taunt her in his feeble position but not before he shared what info he might have first.

"This is who the big wigs have been all flappy about? Some little girl?"

"You are about to be killed by the hands of this 'little girl.' I would be more compliant if I were you."

"What was it that they called you again? 'B67' correct?"

Natalie's chest tightened from hearing this label. A thick bottle of emotions began to crack. The room rumbled by the thunderous sound of a storm outside the base. Her killing hand was poised to do its job but again she was held back by her want for information. The man seeing that she was close from snapping chuckled in short pained breaths.

"Go on, Do it! Smite me!"

Her mind stuck between  fighting for answers and passing judgement she spaced out into the raging battle blazing in the core of her skull. Wracking her brains out for a way to make him talk but getting angrier with each passing second that came with nothing to show for. Her hair began to stand up from the static and steady climbing range of her powers, looking like a true angel of death hovering the hand of ultimatum by her victims faces she climbs higher and delves deeper. Swirling deeper into anger she hears the two sides of her mind screaming at her in contradiction to the other.

Deeper and deeper she swirled reaching closer and closer to the breaking point until she heard it. A third voice whispering within her mind. So unlike the ones she calls her own, saying things that were not even at the for the front of her own mind, kind of like a dream it felt like its own entity but not as random or as vague. It felt too unfamiliar to pass as her own thoughts. Taking a mental step back she zoned in on this 'thought' to try and make sense of what it said.