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Riphal Edea


The pines lining the hilltop cracked and bent wildly from the force of wind blowing across the precipice. The entire hilltop, once a lush forest, was now bare from the forces clashing far from civilization. "Hurry it up, I don't have all day." Bon wanted to hide at the sound of the voice, but when Tawara turned and red eyes fell upon the lazy Messiah he felt the dreadful aura of the man who'd leveled this area and turned it into a battlefield in the first place. A couple hours earlier, he'd received a message asking him to come to this out of the way place, and although he'd expected trouble he thought that he would be able to handle himself, and make the person who'd called him out regret their mistake. He was wrong.

"HEY!" Tawara grit his teeth, and Bon snapped out of his trance, a fear for his very life sinking in. "uh, yes sir! Sorry sir, I was just too distracted by your awesomeness!" Bon dashed across the clearing, pulling a needle Tawara had handed him earlier out of his pocket as he grabbed the large man's pants, and pulled the back of them down. Sure this was humiliating, but it wouldn't be happening if not for the damn assassin who'd also appeared. Bon had ended up arriving late, and although he thought it would allow him to get the drop on whoever sent him the letter in the first place, when he approached the hilltop there was someone arriving just ahead of him. It was a tall, bronze-skinned figure, the one he was fighting behind now, and just when he'd thought that perhaps that was his man an incredibly unsuual thing happened; a storm of papers began wrapping around the red-eyed monster, and a silver haired swordsman dashed out of the trees to deliver a killing blow with his katana. But right when both Bon and the assassin were sure that Tawara was dead, the forest had exploded with power and Bon had been thrown against what he thought was a tree, knocking him unconscious for a few minutes. By the time he regained consciousness, all there was to see was the white-haired monster with red eyes standing in the middle of a clearing that had taken the place of the woods. There was plenty to talk about after that, like the fact that he'd looked down and realized he was sitting on some high schooler looking kid with brown hair, or the fact that he'd only barely seen the silver haired assassin ducking back into the edge of the forest, but he hadn't really had time for that when the bronze giant had spotted him again.

Bon was pretty sure he was going to die when that happened, and even more so when Tawara shot towards him with his fist at the ready. It was just then a piece of paper had entered his field of vision, and a sonic boom shooting out from Tawara's fist was all that kept him from a sudden death smothered in a sea of bandages as the silver haired assassin tried to finish him. It was at that point he'd figured out that the silver haired assassin must have been the one to call him there, and it seemed the big brute realized the same when he handed him the horse-level steroid needle and introduced himself as Tawara. And now, even though Bon didn't like this b*****d, he was doing what he said to survive and jamming the needle where the sun didn't shine on another man. Needless to say it wasn't one of the best days in the Messiah's memory, and he could only hope that when he told Shadow Soji about these monsters he came up with a capable plan to deal with it.

"How...dare...you! Get your...foot...off of me! Ugah!" Bon looked down when he felt hands gripping at his foot, and took a step away as the brown haired guy tried to throw him off. What a bad temper!...is what he'd like to say, but he was sort of standing with his foot on the guy's face until a minute ago. "Woah, sorry about that. Hmm...getting a good look at that face...Kira? Aha! Mhm, you totally look like that guy from that anime." Bon slapped a fist into his palm, finally figuring out why the guy seemed so sort of familiar to him. Of course, the other guy didn't seem as amused. "Do you know who I am? I am Ryce, and I control powerful creatures. I command you to-" "He's coming again."

Both of the yammering two were shut up as a bandage suddenly snaked through the grass, shooting up like a blade and stabbing at Tawara, wrapping around his arm when he moved it out of the way. "I've finally got you! I, Korin of Papers, don't normally have to work this hard to finish a job. Consider that a compliment...and this repayment for being so foolish as to call me out in the first place!" The silver haired assassin came darting out of the forest behind Tawara, whose arms were both now bound with powerful bandages, but Bon was able to turn and see the black longcoat trailing in the wind as two hands wrapped around an enormous nodachi and swung the blade at the neck of the roid monkey. Bon attempted to summon the powers given to him by Shadow Soji, but he was too slow, leading him to think that this was the end for the lot of them...

"Bleh! I 'vont let you do 'zat! Bleh bleh!" It was in that moment that a creature, with long silver hair of it's own, moved in the way of the nodachi and placed it's weapon in the way of the attack to save Tawara's life. Of course, the Atma User proved far too weak for Korin's attack, and with one blow the nodachi shattered the defender's weapon and sliced through the foe like a knife through butter, sending him into the back of Tawara who watched over his shoulder. To Bon's amusement the intruder snickered, standing up (barely) and licking the blood from his lips. "Iz' that all? I vouldn't be Dracula-Eri if I couldn't regenerate from such a pitiful wou-" Another slash across the chest of the Atma User horizontally was enough to make him shut up, but Korin 'tch'ed as Bon severed the last thread on Tawara's arm just in time for him to swing and clear the space between the two fighters."Tch, not this time? Then I'll just-"

"Not so fast!" Korin dashed backwards in an attempt to reach the forest, but suddenly Tawara was upon him, much faster than before (hence the roids), a fist smashing downwards into the assassin's face as he created a crater through the body of the immortal. "I'm not finished with you. Not yet. Double Impac-"

"Enough! He didn't call you out here to fight; I did." Tawara, Bon and the others all blinked, turning their eyes to look upon a large dark skinned man sitting on a boulder nearby that had managed to weather the storm. He was wearing shining gold armor, and his pink hair was tied back in a ponytail, a cocky smirk resting on his face and a large sword resting across his shoulders. ".I asked you here, all of you, so that we could have a peaceful resolution to these frantic struggles. I can already tell that many of you aren't as rotten as you'd have others believe. Like you, with the brown hair, who caught that young man when he was blown back by the fighting unconscious, even though you'd never met. Or you with the silver hair, who protected the others even though you swore to your master to create a world where the strong prey on the weak." Each of them found something interesting and alluring about his words, though at the same time his knowledge of their powers and how they should have reacted was unsettling all the same. "Hmph, a Rider of the Apocalypse putting himself in harm's way for a Messiah, a teenager he's never met before? Sounds like a soldier with a bleeding heart."

"Was I suppose to let my best lead on who sent me this letter die? And I wouldn't be a very good Rider if I didn't take in valuable underlings." Tawara had released his previous prey, glancing over at Bon who nodded as he spoke, and then over at Ryce.

"You're trying to keep me talking so you can look for an opening, and dish out a little pain of your own, aren't you? You've even let the assassin duck back into the forest. You've placed trust in a group of people you've just met, and are willing to put your life on the line with them. Like I said, a soldier with a bleeding heart." Riphal glared across the barren plain, matching eyes with the hulking Red Rider who now knew that he couldn't simply distract the pink haired interloper while the others circled and waited for an opening. A moment of pause followed, and Riphal chuckled, a smile brandishing across his face again. "Lucky for you, I find that sort of thing endearing."

"I'm not interested in your fetishes. I walk a path towards ultimate destruction, bent on finding a fight that is capable of truly testing my metal. I've chosen a darker road, but my goal will always be the same. Any hope of stopping me...of stopping any of us from seeking our dreams through true power, vanished long ago." Tawara clenched his fist, eyes glowing red as he bared grit teeth as Riphal and allowed new energy to flow into his fists, the earth beneath them shaking as his power showed how truly dreadful the Red Rider of the Apocalypse could be. Bon nodded as Tawara voiced their words, and Ryce offered another nod that echoed the sentiments of the first.

"I recognize you now, that symbol is one of the Crow's. You can save your breath; we strayed from your path long ago, and all we've received for our betrayal is the wealth and power we wanted. Maybe we could have been allies once, and created your little perfect world, but this world is too tainted now for your little idealisms. I enjoy my work...and I'm not going to stop killing just because you thought you could talk away your sins. I've lost friends to your kind, and I'll never forget them." The voice emanated from the forest around them, and from nowhere in particular, reminding Riphal of just how different the world really was from the world he wanted it to be. Maybe he thought that he could get through to these people, but they'd all chosen to give up on humanity, to take for themselves what they wanted and seek a new world where those who got in their way were eradicated. Friends today, enemies tomorrow...they could all accept that, and none of them believed, perhaps because their hearts were already too scarred, that it could end any other way but in battle.

"You're not being honest with yourself. My heart is akin to yours, it hungers for peace. Bloodshed, tears, and misery I abhor. I abhor the death of a fellow soldier. I abhor the death of a child. And if a kindred soul such as yours were to die, abhorrence would be all that remained of me. But as long as humans exist, wars will be waged. I suffer great pains to diminish the casualties, and soften the edges of the world. Not just for we Yatagarasu, but for you too. Indeed, for every soul that calls Japan it's home. To save them all, and eliminate war; that is my dream. Won't you give up your corrupt paths, join me, and make this world a better one to call home?" Riphal extended a hand to the group, who stood at a distance, a symbolic olive branch stretching across the boundaries of the supernatural in an attempt to unify the Messiahs, the App Users, the Yatagarasu.

"You can't pledge to end war by seeking to wage it. You're a hypocrite!" It seemed like the assassin had already hardened his heart to Riphal's words, and the Yatagarasu felt a pang of guilt as Korin emerged with his sword drawn, a look of unapologetic hatred that could not be so easily washed away. Whatever had corrupted him, whatever had led him down this path, it seemed that the Immortal was already too far gone and yet Riphal felt responsibility, as if his arrival had simply been too late.

"I suppose I am. There's only so much one man can do." The bronze man seemed to have reached full power, and he could sense Tawara's readiness to attack, so Riphal stood from his seat upon the rock and raised the broadsword above his head. "But there's always this!" Energy began to eminate from the sword, and the clouds swirled above Riphal, an eery green light falling upon him and the purple blade that he hoisted high.

"Double Impact-"

"Contractor...I hear thee, and answer thy call. Come, and offer thy compensation, and in doing so receive my strength." A voice replied from the sky.

"I hereby offer up to you...my left eye!" A half dozen shocked faces watched as Riphal let out a loud laugh. "I need your power!"

"The contract is solidified..." The voice responded, the sky turning a fiery red as the light focused upon Riphal, the warrior, and the sword that he held in his hands. The blade turned red, and energy pulsated along the entire length of the weapon as if it had absorbed the sunlight from above, the skies clouding over once again.

"Now, give me your strength! Hear my Glouvil...I unleash you!" Tawara shot forward, his fists unbelievably fast, his body strengthened to ungodly proportions, a terror and a blight upon men. "I will not let this sacrifice be in vain! I bring destruction to all...I bring change!" Riphal lifted the blade above his head, red energy crackling from it, ready to be unleashing, as if the sword were begging to show it's true power to the master who'd fulfilled what seemed an impossible contract. "Come now...and send these bastards to HELL!" The sword swung over his head, and the energy that Glouvil had been holding back was unleashed, blowing away the fists of Tawara in an instant. Behind him followed the Messiah, Bon, the App Abuser, Ryce, the Atma-consumed Eri; but only the silver haired monster didn't flinch, realization sinking in that their fate had been sealed, and while the others shouted and attempted to brace themselves for an attack they would never be able to repel, he looked on with unflinching eyes at someone who had proven worthy of sending him to his ultimate fate.

"What's this~?" Korin's eyes shot wide open as Glouvil's energy tore the hilltop apart and broke the bodies of the men who'd challenged Riphal apart as if they were flies before a hurricane. The assassin had known death before, had suffered mortal blows and recovered, but as he felt the sword's energy burn away his flesh, crush his bones, he began to realize that it wasn't going to stop at something so simple...just before he stopped realizing anything at all. Even from a distance, from the town of Inaba, the light was like that of a bomb, and as the energy of the sword faded so too did the last time anyone would ever see Seul Hill, the once memorable skyline of Inaba changed irrepairably and forever as what was once akin to a mountain...was reduced to dust.

"Aaa...agggh!" Riphal fell to his knees as blood spewed from his eye socket, hands clutching desperately at his face as the sword Glouvil took it's toll. What had granted him a precious place among the Yatagarasu had also cost him dearly over the years, and as his left eye withered to dust in it's socket and blew away, leaving behind only blood and pain as Riphal struggled to keep his sanity in check to avoid fainting from the terrible pain. He'd already endured the pain of Glouvil several times, upon it's activation; his left eye, his right leg, his sense of smell...'It's awful...'

"It's not. I've already ended a staggering number of lives today. To save countless more...to avoid further bloodshed. It's a sacrifice well worth it." Riphal bit back a deep sense of guilt, burying his doubt and foregoing any sense of accomplishment. But he refused to regret it...he had to. "I'd be a monster if I didn't despair of killing. But to give up now would be to throw away all the sacrifices before now. I cannot do that. I am Riphal Edea...Hero King of Gastark." Riphal looked at the ash at his feet, and smirked as it began to move, slowly piling on top of itself once more. "Do you hear that, Korin of Papers? Remember the name of the man who finally sent you to Hell, and prevented you from ever crawling back out again." Riphal scooped up the ashes, stuffing them in a vile, and finally drug himself to his feet. He need medical attention, and time to rest...and the sounds of his comrades, cheering him on as equals and companions, would do more to improve his mood and situation than any doctor for the time being. He yearned to see them again...and know that the path he walked upon, was one he didn't walk alone.