Star-Destroyer Grey Fox San-D barked as a sign of understanding Shiina, and with a dash, disappeared into the twisting corridors of the Yokai facility. Any guards unfortunate enough to have been caught in her path around the insides of the building had their throats ripped out before their weapons even had time to hit the floor, and their dead eyes saw but a trail of light that soon faded away.
The situation was as Yamato feared: Orihime's thoughts were clouded by her hate, and he couldn't get to her with words alone. It was going to be a battle between two Overlords, just as the prophecy foretold. Yamato was sure that was the case from a sign that marked the beginning of the fated confrontation: the very world would dim into darkness, casting out all light and push the world into an abyss, for it was foretold that the cosmos itself would attempt to deter the opposing wielders of such terrorizing tools. But it would be for naught; neither of them was going to back down at this point, or at any other. Yamato resolved himself, and decided not to hold back against her, for she would not hold back against him, even if they were once in love. Yamato would have to defeat Orihime in combat for him to save her from herself. It was the War of Thousand Fangs, and Yamato would give his all to the battle, not because of the prophecy, but because he loved her opponent with more ferocity than a thousand fangs could deliver.
Red Steel Elephant Maga-Z reared up on its hind legs and shielded Yamato from the debris that was launched at him. The beast shrugged off the rubble with ease, and held its ground with firm-standing feet when the earthquake reached the two. Yamato saw Orihime's doll Strength through the dust cloud, and his pupils widened at the realization: Orihime made a grave mistake. Yamato then commanded Maga-Z to charge towards the dust cloud.
"It was my duty as Beastmaster! I could not forsake my vows to the clan. The elders may have been harsh about your exile, but they knew the extent of depravity and evil the Marionetteers took part in: necromancy, newborn sacrifice, and more! They had to be cleansed from the world!"At the moment Maga-Z reached the border of the dust cloud, Yamato shouted:
"Jan-P, I choose you! Use defog, and blow the cloud of concealment away with a gust of your wings!" Jan-P then appeared, and with a flap of its large wings, created a wave of wind that scattered the dust.
"Now, grab!" Yamato then followed up from the previous command, and the massive elephant constricted the big-armed doll with his trunk. The attack would have been easily avoided if Maga-Z would have attempted the move in the open, ponderous as the beast was in its movements, but the cover given by the dust cloud made the tactic possible.
Even if Strength had any bones to break, the doll was simply too powerful for Maga-Z to crush on his own, and in fact would soon break free. But it didn't matter; he only had to keep her bound for just a moment.
"You are not the only one who can lay traps, Ori-chan. Come, Cham-P! Lay the final blow to this brutish toy!"Out of one of the holes Maga-Z previously created flew Cham-P, who freed himself from the wire trap, and now dived to the street, straight towards Strength. The dragon roared as if it was out for revenge, and with a mighty snap of its razor-like teeth bit the doll's head clean off her shoulders.
Yamato knew the battle wasn't over from a single doll's destruction, and in fact expected a far more powerful soldier or two to take the previous one's place. But the few seconds of peace between the battle gave him the chance to further break the ice-cold barriers Orihime had set around her heart, in the hopes of getting his words through to her.
"Tell me, Ori-chan, why do you defend the Marionetteers and their legacy so fervently? Even if you are of their blood, it doesn't mean you should be loyal to them and their despicable ways any more. What have they ever given you but suffering and grief? Even when I learned of your heritage, I never stopped loving you, Ori-chan. I didn't care if your blood was shared with a thousand-year-old clan then, and I wouldn't have afterwards until you killed our kin in your exile. There's no need for blood to be shed, Ori-chan. Not any more.""You know nothing of the truth, Yamato Ikusaba! The so called elders lied to you, to everyone! The Beastmasters aren't any better than my kin!" Orihime yelled furiously. With a move of her hand she revealed another trap she had laid for Yamato, as another of her dolls, this time the Chariot, jumped from a nearby building and fell on Maga-Z, slammingn Maga-Z, slamming the side of the great beast with her shield, causing it to stumble.
At the same time, Orihime jumped backwards and threw another set of wires on a gasoline truck that was parked nearby, turning it on and aiming the speeding veihicle at Champ-P, the frontal collision send flammes flying everywhere as the street became an inferno.
"Can't you see, Yamato Ikusaba? Everything was part of their plan. Once they discovered that I had the Marionoteers blood in my veins they began to fear me, because they knew that only I could unlock the seal they place over the fordidden lore of the Doll Makers." Even though Orihime's eyes reflect the sea of flames that had engulfed the street, the fire in them seemed to come from within her soul. A flame that Yamato knew all too well.
Maga-Z took steps to the side, reeling from the blow that was incurred to its iron hide. The slow beast could not easily react to fast attacks to the side, and was only able to swing its trunk around as an attempt to deter the far faster doll from launching further attacks. He was not the only one under attack, either: Cham-P turned to see a truck charging at full speed to wards him, and Yamato flinched. He shouted for the dragon to defend itself, and the black-scaled beast braced with claws forward. The impact caused an explosion that engulfed Cham-P, and Yamato didn't see what happened to the dragon in the flames. Yamato expected Orihime to have more tricks up her sleeve: she was always the type to use her head more, likely due to being weaker than most of the other Beastmasters. Yamato barely kept up with the piled gambits, and had to play the game she set.
However, there was something to her moves that didn't fit with her apparent hate towards him: none of the attacks were aimed to specifically kill him. The fact she wasn't as willing to use lethal force on him meant that there were stil remains of the Orihime he remembers, deep inside, who still cared for him, even if it was under an exterior forged hard by years of neglect and scorn. There was still hope to redeem her, even if slight. However, it wasn't possible until he beat her.
"Wait, what did you say? The elders never lied to us, what would they have to gain from such..." Yamato trailed off, lost in thought. For much of his youth he never questioned the elders of the clan, and always heeded to their word. Any doubts he had were always beaten out of him, as "punishment for impure thoughts", they always said. But now he had reason to suspect them, given this revelation. He did spend time researching what little Orihime told him before her exile, but the clan's archives had all mentions of the Puppetmasters erased and any people knowledgeable about them silent as stone. He was told in those days that Orihime turned mad from the corruption they caused in her, and Yamato, in his foolishness, swallowed it up. He grit his teeth, frustrated at the confusion. He didn't know what to believe.
"So all they said about the Puppetmasters...was a lie? How do I know it's not you who speaks with the lying tongue, and not them? Whose word can I trust?" As Yamato finished, he saw that from the blaze in the streets rose a fire of a different color, and Yamato turned resolute again. Cham-P, though bruised by the impact of high-velocity metal he was caught in, was unharmed by the raging inferno that surrounded the black dragon. Cham-P then ran to Maga-Z's side, and swung it's tail at Chariot.
"Have you just forgotten the sins the Marionetteers committed, like you forgot the dragons' affinity to fire? Please, Ori-chan, no more lies, and no more secrets; tell me the unclouded, harsh truth.""No, I see that you still haven't understood the simplest of the truths, Yamato Ikusaba. History is always written by the hands of the winners, after all, dead men tell no tales. But, I'll show you." Right at that moment, Jan-P, who was still flying about them was hit by a blast of energy that took it out of the skies and made it crash on a electronics store a few blocks away from them. Above a distant building, the Insane Shooter doll charged her cannon for another shot, this time aimed at Maga-Z, at the same time, Chariot wheeled herself not out of the way of Champ-P's tail, but instead placed her shiled on it's path, using the force of the impact to propel herself fast to Orihime's side and stood there shielding her mistress.
"There's no such thing as good or evil in this world, don't know something so simple? The only thing that there's is human beings, fighting between themselves for what they believe is right. No man has the right to judge others actions based only on his own. See for yourself if you don't believe." Orihime then threw her wires at a big screen that was mounted on the side of one of the nearby buildings, and at that same time a great darkness hit them, turning the whole street into a big cinema.
The screen flashed on and the images of a cold, distant country appeared on it. In such a country there were people who lived and played along with their prized Dolls, the flesh constructs were revered and adored by it's inhabitants, much like how the Beastmasters treat their animals. The creation of the dolls once was a sinister, in fact, but the Marioneteers found a way to simplify it long ago, since flesh dolls had a nasty tendency of running amok. Now they were made from magic clay that was given life by mixing with the blood of their masters, still a perversion of the natural cycle in the eyes of the old Beastmaster clan. To avoid a war, the daughter of the Marioneteers leader was given as bride to the oldest son of the Beastmasters leader, though even that moment of peace would not last.
One night, a group of assassins, from an unknown faction that sought to instill the war for their own gain came and killed the son of the Beastmasters leader and planted evidence against the Marioneteer princess. She was promtly executed as a spy, beginning the dispute that would seal the fate of the Marioneteer clan.
Once the screen went black again, the lights had already returned to the world, and Orihime stared at Yamato sternly, though her gaze was calm and composed, not the mask of rage from a few moments ago. Steely resolve was visible in her posture as she said
"Do you understand now, Yamato Ikusaba? Humans are always like this, far too eager to place the blame on someone and sacrify them without a second thought. It's not different between you and I, you chose to betray me on cold blood, instead of believing in my words. How do you expect me to trust you."With a wave of her hand, Orihime dismissed all the present dolls, and on their place, picked a single
one that looked like a demonic girl, holding a big golden sword.
"The game is over, Ymato Ikusaba. Now that yu've seen the truth, you can make the choice for your own, and thus I don't have to hold back any longer." The Puppetmaster then pointed to Maga-Z and ordered her doll
"Take him down first, without his shield all the other Devas should go down like flies."As Gold Saw lowered her stance and readied her self to attack, Yamato would be able to feel that this tme he would be fighting the real Orihime, not a fool blinded by rage. With his life on the line, the Beastmaster's next actions would be critical.
"JAN-P!" Yamato yelled when he saw the falcon fall into the earth, crashing into electronics that sparked and shizzled. He made the mistake of assuming Orihime didn't have any ranged attackers in her arsenal, and left Jan-P visible. It was a mistake that cost one of his Devas: though not transformed back into a hamster, Jan-P's wing was injured, as he saw with his Evil Eye. The situation was turning grimmer by the minute, but he was successful in repelling the wheel-footed doll back to her mistress.
But then the situation changed: Orihime now explained the truth tha he sought after, and it was horrible. Yamato didn't question the image set before him or its origins, completely transfixed by the dreadful events that unfolded before his eyes: how the Marionetteers weren't such a foul people as he was led to believe all those years, and was actually in alliance with the Beastmasters through marriage. And then it showed the beginning of the clan feud that would result in the most tragic event of his life, done by a third party whose motives are now lost to time, as so many things are.
Once the presentation was over, Yamato went down to his knees, unable to stand after such an emotionally moving event. It was like the very floor under his feet was crumbling away, and he fell into an abyss of regret. Yamato closed his eyes, and cursed the things she said to her beloved the day she was banished. He wanted to redeem himself of the crimes he committed in his ignorance, but he knew it was too late: Orihime had already suffered for years, and no matter what he did he couldn't undo the damage.
"I have been a fool. To think that after all these years I still doubted what you said that day. I could have stopped them, I could have prevented all this from happening. But I didn't. I am beyond forgiveness." Yamato stood up to meet the eyes of Orihime. She replaced the dolls she was fighting it with a single one, and the moment he saw it he knew she was being serious: even if it was a remote-controlled tool, it seemed to be alive, with enough power to match all her other dolls. And with that kind of power at her disposal Yamato doubted if he could actually win; he only had two Devas remaining when he needed all four just to stand in equal footing. However, just as he was about to fall in despair he saw a glimpse of something with his Evil Eye.
The animal breeder still kept his remorseful appearance, but whistled once he took a more brazen demanour, ready to fight.
The doll would first attack Maga-Z, so Yamato commanded Maga-Z to first slam his trunk on her position, and then stomp. A desperate move considering the difference in speed the two had, but Yamato didn't care. He also had Cham-P aid by charging towards the doll, claws and teeth at the ready; it was too early for a fire blast, and the doll could simply move through it and hit Maga-Z in a blind spot, so it had to be saved for a more curcial moment. All the while, Yamato kept one eye focused on what could be his winning move, if he succeeded in his gamble.
As the two Devas moved to attack her, Gold Saw remained calm and composed, completely different from the berzerk ways of the other dolls. She used the shockwaves sent by Maga-Z's stomp to jump on Cham-P's back, and slammed the dull side of her blade on the dragon's rib cage, shattering several of them with a single strike. As the Black Destroyer roared in pain, she swung her blade in a wide arc, tearing apart the skin of its wings, making sure that the beast wouldn't fly again for quite some time.
She jumped from the dragon just as he hit the ground and landed between the legs of the great steel titan
"Do you remember what's the weakest point of a tall and heavy creature, Yamato?" Orihime asked coldly as Gold Saw sliced away Maga-Z's tendons, causing the beast's wiegth to be his own undoing. As Maga-Z cried on the ground, unable to move Gold Saw stomped his neck and lifted her blade high, a second later one of the great mammoth's tusk was cut clean off his head.
Her target defeated, she aimed the final strike with the pommel of her sword on Maga-Z's temple, knocking him out cold with single blow, before turning to face Yamato.
As his beloved companions fell one by one, Yamato couldn't help but cringe. He knowingly had his pets sacrificed, but it was the only way if he wanted to have any hope at this hopeless turn of events. Once Maga-Z fell, Yamato jumped to the street, facing Orihime. He stood defiantly, even as the doll walked closer with her blade drawn, ready to kill her without any remorse, pity, or any feeling, really. The beasts turned back to tiny hamsters bleeding tiny puddles of blood, barely alive. Orihime went all out when she dealt with them, and he couldn't blame her; she had every reason to hate Yamato, and he himself had disdain for his past actions. The doll came closer and closer, every inch edging closer to death.
The moment the sword-wielding doll revved up a swing aimed to behead Yamato, however, he responded with a whistle. Before Orihime could realize what was happening, she was pinned to the ground, felt a hot breath on her neck, and saw something glowing: fangs of starlight. San-D snuck upon Orihime while she was busy taking care of the other Devas, and pounced on her when given the signal. Unable to control her doll from her position unless she wanted her throat ripped out, the battle's climax turned into a barely won victory for Yamato.
Yamato however didn't smile or enjoy his victory at all. He calmly walked to where Orihime was, and helped her stand up. Then he slowly put his arms around her, and gently embraced her.
"Ori-chan, my love, I have wronged you. If there is even the smallest bit of your heart that could forgive me after all I've done, I would be eternally grateful." Then, with his eyes firmly locked to Orihime's before he closed them, he pulled her closer, and gave her the most gentle yet passionate kiss imaginable, full of all the bottled longing and regret he had for losing her.
"If you still want my blood to be shed as compensation, then I am willing to part with all of it. As long as it makes you happy, I'm willing to do anything for you. A thousand times over.""What!?" Orihme gasped as San-D pinned her down and when Yamato embraced her she said
"You never had the chance to have me before, so now you want me by force, that's it? If that's what you wish why don't you go on?" However, when the Beastmaster Overlord kissed her, instead of trying to resist, or even retribute, Orihime just stood still and listened as Yamato declared that he was willing to die for her if that's what she wished, causing her to scowl at him before saying
"Then you haven't learned nothing... blood can't be washed with more blood. Don't you see it only causes more grief? When you hurt someone you're unavoidably hurt at the same time."However she crossed her arms behind his back and rested her head on his shoulder before continuing
"It's already time for your Evil Eye to see what lies within my heart. Don't you think, Yamato?""Only now does it show me the truth I desired the most", Yamato whispered to her ear as he softly held her, slightly rocking back and forth. He embraced her like he would never let go of her again, as he did that fateful day, so long ago. The reality of the two of them finally meeting eye to eye was so moving to him that he actually started shedding tears, something he only did once before, when he saw Orihime banished. However, these were not tears of sorrow, but tears of joy.
