CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD

CH.85 'HEARTS BURST INTO FIRE'

What had happened when Andrei hit the ground, back then? It felt like it had been a decade ago, and that time was moving in slow motion now. It wasn't him in control anymore... there was no conflict of voices... just a feral anger. Ra seethed as he peered through the gap in the walls of the Tenryu-ji castle, his sharp fangs gritted tight, rage boiling and keeping his heart pumping. No, it wasn't his heart. He couldn't accept it, not yet.

Andrei had felt his head crack against the cold, wave-worn grounds of the cliffside. Water lapped at his hair, and his headband, as blood was washed away before it could pool around him. Jagged stones tore through and pinned his body where it was, and salty water licked his wounds as the consciousness began to ebb away from him, slipping from his paralyzed fingertips. The pain was... killing him. It was something he had never thought to say before, not for a long while at least.

It was then that he saw the sun. The two were leveled now. Andrei could do nothing but stare up at it, the radiant warmth keeping the fire in his heart stoked, ever so slightly. The light caught in his eyes, and in his tears. That thing the Tenryu called Kannon, they were a monster. He couldn't beat that. The water that had splashed onto him grew hot in the sunlight, to the point that he felt like he was boiling. He couldn't even notice the burning sensation in his chest, the same feeling which made the chain in his chest, his connecting line to Ra, burn red-hot. His flesh twisted, but he could barely feel it.

Then, in the sun, he could've sworn he saw that magnificent bastard of a Chimera. Blood that had welled up in his mouth was suddenly forced up in a choking cough, and through the pain, Andrei dislodged his arm to free it from the stones that tore through him. Grasping at his chest, he could feel the water boiling inside and around him now. He reached to grasp at the chain now instead. "I-..." He couldn't help but hack up more blood, more water as a wave washed over him, drenching him and causing steam to rise from his body, "... I can't, Ra. I can't win... Don't tell me I can. You saw it! We're- I-..."

Andrei had felt for the first time in a long while, fear. "I lost," he said.

His confession fell on the open air, on the sky, on the sun. And the sun called back to him. Andrei's eyes were wide, reflecting both crimson and amber as he stared into the wide gaze of the greatest star in the sky. And it looked back. "Then rest, we're not done," Ra's voice echoed through Andrei's head.

Driven to his most primal instincts, Andrei's hand tensed up around their chain. As though unleashing one of his own spells, he let his body think for him instead of his mind, and for once he ceded full control to the beast that resided within him. Ripping the chain free, Andrei cut his hands on the broken, jagged steel, and molten fire spewed from the segments which had been damaged. In an instant, eyelids of void energy ruptures open on the palms of his hands, spreading the color of Install across his body.

Muscles driven to the extreme, they each tensed, forming new bonds and crushing stones lodged inside Andrei's body to dust as Ra fitted the boy's body to fit him better. Install overtook host as Ra's molten yellow eyes burst from within their skull, and with a strained push, the demon had found himself on his knees, looking up at the sheer cliffside. Two twinned ponytails of fire erupted from behind the true body of Ra, and Andrei's feet took the shape of talons as his fingers turned to claws and teeth turned fangs.

As Ra felt his new fingers, and flexed his new body, he couldn't help but scowl. The smug bravado which he typically exuded had fallen short, and the demon was incredibly serious. Eyes trained on the edge of the cliff before his talons dug into the earth beneath, crushing rocky coastline and shattering it as he lunged upwards with an explosive blast of black flame. "I won't settle for a lesser end to our battle," he said, voice cold against the undying inferno inside him.