The Last Avenger and the World of Omni: Homecoming

[Kuzuru]

Kuzuru grinned. This was Nirvana. Blood was in the air and it was just ripe for spilling. Kuzuru stepped ahead of his companion raising his arms as if he was bathing in the sun. Towering before him was the Baron’s pyramid, his casa de carnicería, and it was magnificent. Around him chaos whirled like a tempest. Deathchew’s ultimatum whipped these unwilling neophytes into a vicious fervor. Kill or be killed. Kuzuru’s smile grew wider. A good fight was ahead. These people were nothing extraordinary, but with one’s life on the line one was pushed to feats of greatness. A right and proper crucible, one that Kuzuru was more than happy to stoke the fires of.

“Alright Sasuke,” Kuzuru said, taking another step forward, “I’ll go carve up the big bad men, and you and Buffalo Bill over there can be on babysitting duty.”

“Wait!” Sasuke snapped, “we’re going together, I can’t have you jeopardizing our mission just because you want to go off and get yourself killed!”

Kuzuru frowned and let his arms drop, he turned around and took a few steps towards the shinobi.

“That’s funny,” the demon muttered, his voice just barely above a growl, “I’m pretty sure I don’t answer to you, so you and Doc Holliday go have fun being heros, I’m gonna go get myself killed.”

Sasuke’s eyes narrowed and he spat back, “weren’t you the one begging me to join your band of thugs? I don’t think I’m interested in joining anything lead by you.”

Kuzuru paused for a moment. His heart sank. All of this excitement had made him forget the whole reason he came to this place to begin with. He should’ve brought Mathaziel, the elder demon was so much better at this kind of thing. The demon huffed.

“Look, all I’m saying is, just let me do what I’m good at,” Kuzuru said, “and in case you haven’t noticed I ain’t good at working with oth--”

A spike of electricity shot up the demon’s spine. For a few moments he had dropped his guard and a few moments meant life or death in a warzone. His ears twitched at the *thwoomp* sound of a spring-loaded grenade launcher being fired. Time crawled to a stop as his brain tried to process the best course of action. It had came from behind him, in his blindspot, and without any sort of visual confirmation of its location he was left defenseless. A flash of steel sliced through the air as Sasuke stepped forward and drew his blade. Those telltale Uchiha eyes tracked the projectile and with an effortless swipe he bisected the explosive. Kuzuru shuddered as the now-inert payload tumbled into the sand beyond them.

“Plus,” Sasuke said, scanning the horizon, “you owe me one now.”

Kuzuru chuckled and spun around. Nearby the scuzzy grenadier was frantically trying to reload his makeshift weapon. Kuzuru’s eyes locked onto the poor soul and he began to stalk forwards.

“Alright, alright, you win,” Kuzuru muttered, “we’ll all hold hands and play nice with one another.”

To punctuate this the demon pounced forward, skewering the grenade-launching bandit. A spray of blood was launched overhead, covering Kuzuru with red specks. He chuckled and turned back to the trio behind him.

“Well,” he said, “we’re running out of daylight shinobi, let’s get crackin’”

“Right,” Sasuke responded.

--

By the time the quartet of liberators reached the entrance to Deathchew’s pyramid most of his underlings had responded ready for war. Along the way Kuzuru managed to have his fun cutting down a few stragglers, but it seemed the bulk of the bandit lord’s forces chose to entrench themselves within the ziggurat. Kuzuru groaned, he had been hoping for a battlefield not a bunker assault. At the mouth of this fortress stood a contingent of guards, or what loosely passed for guards. Where most kings carried a stoic force of elite guardians, Baron Deathchew seemed to instead surround himself with ravenous locusts. These savage protectors wore armor made of scrap metal and weapons cobbled together from random junk. Their demeanor was a frenzied bloodlust that brought them closer to rabid beasts than men.

Kuzuru’s eyes focused on the one man that seemed to lack this animalistic fervor. Their apparent leader stood head and shoulders above the rest with a long mop of greasy black hair. A battle scar bisected his right eye, turning it into a milky cloud-filled orb. In his hands he gripped a well-made longsword and the breastplate was far from the clishmaclaver rubbish worn by his peers. Kuzuru smiled and pointed at him.

“That one, you have to let me have that one,” Kuzuru said, “you guys can have everyone else, but I want that one.”

Sasuke nodded and motioned for the gunslinger and boy to follow his lead.

As they approached the howling madmen of Deathchew howled and screamed and scraped their cleavers together. Their efforts of intimidation seemed to only affect the boy, who lagged behind the shinobi and the gunslinger. Sasuke was trained better than that and the cowboy had grown desensitized to the lunatics in the Baron’s fold. Kuzuru threw his head back and let loose a howl himself, adding to the chorus of maniacs.

“You!” Kuzuru shouted and pointed at the apparent leader, “what’s your name!?”
The fallen knight spit on the ground and responded, “Tegan.”

“You know how to use that sword, Tegan?”

Tegan nodded.

Kuzuru smiled, brandished his blades, and said, “good, as much as I’d love to slice through your lackeys, it’s been a while since I’ve had a good duel, how about it?”

A faint smile teased the knight’s lips and he turned to the cannibals behind him, “this one is mine boys, you can have the rest, but if you lay a finger on this one I’ll rip your teeth out.”

Whether or not they understood him was not apparent, but with a snap of his fingers they charged forward. In response the cowboy raised his pistol and began firing into the approaching tide of bodies, while Sasuke readied his blade for the incoming onslaught. Kuzuru merely walked forward, allowing the tide of ravenous berserkers to wash over him. Perhaps it was a miracle or perhaps Tegan’s cruelty was known to be second only to the Baron’s, but whatever it was Kuzuru remained unmolested. Tegan raised his sword and widened his stance. Kuzuru scratched the back of his neck and yawned. Small cuts still covered his body and blood from at least twenty different people coated his clothing.

“Who are you?” Tegan asked.

“Name’s Kuzuru, lead guitarist for the Ashen Blades,” Kuzuru answered, “and before you ask, I don’t do birthday parties.”

“Cute.”

Kuzuru shrugged and replied, “yeah, I thought it was, so are we just going to keep talking or can we get this date started? I’ve kinda got a curfew.”

“You talk confidently, but you’re trembling,” Tegan noted, “are you scared?”

“No,” Kuzuru’s grin faded, “I’m trembling in anticipation.”

In response Tegan lurched forward, slicing downwards. Kuzuru raised his arms in response, catching the blade between the criss-cross of his own two blades. Were it not for the din of battle raging behind them the clash of their weapons would’ve been heard for miles. Tegan snarled and shoulder forward, slamming his weight into Kuzuru, forcing the demon to stumble backwards. Keeping his momentum Tegan lunged forward and thrusted his sword towards the demon’s gut. A glint of crimson caught Tegan’s attention and his eyes locked with Kuzuru’s. Something wasn’t right. It was a bait, this man was a prime and he had some unbelievable trump card that Tegan was blundering headfirst into. The knight willingly broke his attack and adopted a defensive posture. Kuzuru regained his balance and snickered.

“Something spook you?” the demon jeered.

Tegan grunted, but did not respond. Kuzuru retracted his blades and held out his hand, palm down. A length of black iron chain began to unspool from a slit in the demon’s palm. At the end of this chain was a cylindrical weight, that dropped to the ground with a thud. Once the chain was several feet long Kuzuru began to twirl it above his head. After a few moments the black chain became a blurry disc. Tegan rushed forward, dropping low and looking to skewer his opponent. Kuzuru grinned and threw his hand forward. The chain careened around in a wide out, connecting with the side of Tegan’s face. The weighted end spun around the knight, wrapping his head with several feet of iron. This all happened in a mere moment, but to the dumbstruck knight it seemed to take an eternity. As the weight whirled around the final time it found a temporary home inside the knight’s mouth. The horrible cracking noise of shattered teeth filled the air like popcorn popping. All of the knight’s momentum was forfeited as he stumbled forward, clawing at the blood-soaked chain.

A single curved blade erupted from Kuzuru’s free arm. Taking a few moments to stop and smell the proverbial flowers Kuzuru sauntered forward, reeling in his chain as he did. Tegan managed to free himself from the demon’s snare, but it was too late. Kuzuru was upon him, slipping his blade through a gap in Tegan’s armor present at the armpit. Tegan’s body cringed as the cold iron pierced his flesh and buried itself deep. The demon twisted his arm, making sure to mangle as many internal organ as possible. As the life slipped out of the knight’s body Kuzuru withdrew his blade and whispered into Tegan’s ear.

“You disappointed me.”