Black Bone Tower Part 36

Previous: Black Bone Tower Part 35

Nightmares. Rinji had such vivid nightmares and dreamscapes as a child. Not much changed as time went on. Somehow, ever since he ate that devil fruit, it's been getting worse. Horrible images that filled his head with some of the most gruesome ways of dying, watching people die of a sickness that had no cure, but no one seemed to care. These dreams never seemed to go away, as much as he had hoped they would. Ever since he was a little boy, he was afraid of any of them coming true, or worse, never being able to escape them. Rinji seldom questioned these dreams, as some of them were not really all that bad, but sometimes he became convinced that at least one or more of them came true. Sometimes his horrible spells of Deja vu smacked him across the face so hard he thought that there could be no other explanation for such a phenomenon. Having dreams that came true, what a horrific/terrific notion for him.

Still, none of that was the case at this moment. The nightmare didn't come true, but it was a new nightmare that spilled out before his eyes. Such a horrific image that reached deep into his psyche and grabbed hold of his subconscious, and there it came. His reflexion: A pink and purple catman with the exact same grin, and green eyes gazing back at him. This reflexion chuckled, and pointed behind him where the nightmare was taking place. Rinji could only shake his head in horror, with every last breath of him, he wanted it to end! He had to make it end! It needed to end here and now! The reflexion chortled then, and then reached out, grasping Rinji's face and pulling him into the mirror while the reflexion stepped out into the world. Rinji looked back at Reflexion, and put both of his hands on the mirror glass. He could only watch as the cold, sadistic grin stretched across his own face, and his eyes gazed off in no direction in particular.

Only a moment was left for Dala, she had already lost consciousness, now it was only a matter of time before she started losing brain cells at an alarming rate, and thus died after a minute of continuous asphyxiation. Marcus looked at her dying eyes with little joy in what he was doing, but he knew that it was necessary. That was when a very large, purple-white striped hand came in around Marcus Loster, and engulfed his lower body. The giant hand grasped onto him before he knew what was going on, and tripped him up to the point where he dropped Dala to the ground, her body breathing automatically in an instant. Marcus looked around him, a giant hand carried him with a gigantic arm over to Rinji, who gazed at him with the most blank expression of wild happiness he had ever seen in his life.

Marcus: What... [Looked to see Rinji's arm had grown to that of a giant's size, as if his arm were a gigantic snake that was able to coil around the large room in the top of the Black Bone Tower. Rinji tilted his head to the side, his grin growing wider, and his plastic-looking eyes still remained unfocused and stupid.]

Rinji: Daisies for you, sir? [Guffaw!]

That was when he started slamming Marcus's head into the ground, picking him up, and slamming him once again. Over and over he did this. Marcus's tough skin was something to behold, but even he could not take such harsh punishment, as much as he could dish it out, his endurence for damage had its limitations. Just as Marcus was able to almost struggle his way out of Rinji's grasp, the Cheshire Catman threw him with that gargantuan paw into that black-metal wall. Before Marcus could even plop down onto the floor, the hand followed him and smashed him. His stomach wedged itself into a dent made into the rusted steel-like alloy. After a harsh moment of being smashed, Loster finally kicked off of the wall with the hand behind him. With another spinning round house kick, he sent the enormous hand into the other side of the wall, kicking up a huge cloud of rust.

Marcus: What... [Panting for breath, and looking to see Rinji bring his arm and paw back to normal size.] What happened to you?



Rinji: [Mindless, shrieking laughter.] Tea time! [Shot both of his own arms out of their sockets as they reached out and grabbed Marcus by both of his wrists and stretched him both ways.]

Marcus: GAAAHH!!! [Felt the bones inside of his shoulders creek and pop as the arms nearly pulled him apart.]

At length, and hearing Rinji's new, high pitched, uncharacterized laughter, Marcus had had enough. He shot his leg straight up at the Catman, and found himself kicking through a cloud of purple vapor. He heard the shrieking laughter behind him, and felt a horrible slicing pain at his back that caused him to shout in agonizing pain! Marcus's leg insantly shot back and heel-kicked Rinji straight in the forehead, sending him back into a wall. His head hit a solid metal, black portion that had very little rust at all. A trickle of blood ran down the center of his face and collected on the cusp of his mouth, and his grin grew even wider, as did his eyes.

Rinji guffawed at a very high pitch, blood spitting from his maw, and causing Marcus to cringe at the horrible sound. This time, Rinji grew his head to a gigantic size, with those razor-sharp teeth, and that dead-set psychopathic look, he gazed off into space as Marcus looked, dumbfounded at this horrific show of power. The Cheshire Cat let out a small chortle, and then slammed his head into Marcus's general direction, no matter how far he jumped, he couldn't get around such a huge head. It slammed into him and completely bent the ground beneath him. Blood spattered the ground as his head hit it hard, and Marcus could feel at least three of his ribs cracking under such an impact. Rinji's head went back to normal, but his head still bled, this time almost covering his entire face. Still, he laughed, then started to shout in that same shrieking tone of voice.

Rinji: Tea time tea time tea time tea time tea time!

Marcus: SHUT YOUR MOUTH!!!! [His eye lit up and made a very high pitched charging noise, growing brighter and brighter until it finally ignited and shot a straight, pink beam of light straight for the Catman.]

The beam simply passed through Rinji, who kept the over-whelmingly huge grin on his mouth as his arms returned to him, and released Marcus from his grasp. Slowly, the Nekojin-turned-Cheshire made his purple vapor dissipate, and the beam created a huge explosion right behind him which did little more than ruffle Rinji's short coat of fur and set fire to his sleeve. His grin never changed, not until he got a whiff of the dust the rose from the room. He crinkled his nose hard and tried to stifle a sneeze, but it came hard! After sniffling some, his head started to swirl, as did his fur. Everything hurt as he came to his senses, and he noticed that something was drizzling down his face. He put his paw against his facial fur and pulled it back to see that it was covered in blood.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">That was when he saw Dala lying on the floor of that room, he was about to run over to her aide, but he noticed that she was breathing. The last thing he remembered that she was getting strangled, and then everything went cloudy in his head. What happened?

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">That was when he looked over toward Marcus, and he did not look so good anymore. There was a very large black spot around his pink eye, and he looked as if he was about to topple over. The beam he emitted from his eye absorbed a great deal of his energy to produce. His motor skills were done in, and he felt like a ton of bricks weighed down his shoulders. The two of them glared one another down from across the room. Both of them looked through eyes that were surrounded by bloody faces, and both of them could feel bruising on just about every limb and surface of their torsos. Rinji was even sure that he had lost a great deal of fur from his tail.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">Marcus: What happened to all of that power you had?

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">Rinji: [Panting.] What are you talking about?

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">They paused for a moment, both of them still trying to catch their breath, but even breathing hurt. That was when Rinji grinned once again, his teeth spotted with blood, and his feline pupils narrowing to needle-points.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">Rinji: I have plenty to take you down.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">Marcus sneered, the mere look of that cat bastard and his grin was enough to make his stomach churn now. He would rather drive nails through his ears than have to listen to that horrible laughter and high pitched squeaking voice again. He had to stop that from ever happening again. Just to make sure, he was going to tear that damn cat's throat out!

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;">Marcus: RAH! [Kicked off from his position and charged the cat with all of his might!]

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Rinji merely looked off to the side, gazing at Dala on the floor, and he felt the same exact way that he did when he saw what this maniac did to her. That was enough. He heard his dear friend Jiro's words. "Limits are good, but when you are about to die, these limits need to be overcome, no matter the cost." That was when Rinji drew a huge circle in the air in front of him, and outlined the energy he projected into that perfect round shield. He pressed both of his hands forward and a huge light began to shine, and Marcus ran directly into the shield of energy, stopped in his tracks, breaking his nose and smashing his elbow into it. He backed up a few paces, blood dribbling down past his mouth.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">The Catman pressed his hands three more times around in the circle, his hands leaving eight hand prints around the energy, which began to brighten even more. Soon a pressure began to push against Marcus, causing him to slide back and shield his eyes.

<p style="margin-bottom:0in;border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Rinji: Riiiiinnnjiiiii [Never taking his eyes off of Marcus Loster for a moment.] Naibunjutsu! Hachihira BETTO!

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">An enormous wave of energy blaired forward, and Marcus was in the very brunt of the force that swallowed him in a huge ray of light. His skin was stronger than steel, and his healing factor out did even the healthiest human-beings, but soon he felt his torso start to implode into itself. He smashed against the wall and then he did not stop there. Twenty inches of black steel between them and the outside world, and he was going through it as if it were a bedsheet. The wave of energy continued to push him harder until he finally broke straight through. His pink eye shattered, his body wrecking on every single part, bones breaking, and becoming absolutely useless as he was lanched far away out into the sea.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">--

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Sion: Did you see that? [He and his crew looking up at the tower to see a bright light burst out of the roof of the tower, and what looked like a shooting start fly away.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">The lady in the shadows grinned.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">--

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Alice: Did you feel that, Nikky?

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Nikk: Yeah, sounds like a good time up there.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Alice: How many more of these ruddy buttons must we find? I'm getting hungry.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Nikk: This [Pressing number 7] is the last of them.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">---

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">That was when the room became so quiet, the silence was louder than the noise. Rinji stood there, his motorskills no longer in existence, and there was so much that hurt, he started to wonder what feeling normal was like. Then he heard a beeping noise that his feline ear turned toward, because he didn't want to move the rest of his body if he didn't have to. It was the screen on the wall, and the keyboard. Somehow, it had survived the chaos that ensued in that room, and was now active. He turned very slowly toward it, and started to walk, limping every step of the way.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Where do you want to go? It asked, and all of the buttons lit up on the keyboard below it. He walked up to it, leaving a long trail of blood in his wake, looking at the keyboard and then back up to the screen to read it again. He stopped to think for a moment, although it was a no-brainer. He pressed in the buttons, starting with the "N", then slowly to the "E", and on its way to the "K".

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Slowly he typed, leaving a smear of blood on each button he pressed, even more on the "A" as he pressed it last. Nekoshima, then he pressed enter, as it seemed like the only other button to press other than another letter. He heard more grinding, and more thinking on the computer's century-old processor. Then he heard something in the middle of the room, gears, bolts, pistons, actuators going off, as well as what sounded like band-saws cutting wood.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Jiro: Rinji! [He looked over to Jiro, who's look of surprise was a little bit worrying. This was an indication that he may have looked worse than he felt.]

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Kimi: DALA! [Ran over to Dala, planting her axe into the ground.]

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">That was when a very small pillar lifted up from the middle of the room, moving all of the rubble out of its way, and then opened up the very top. Rinji looked at it, and saw what looked like a round glass ball in the middle of an hourglass.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Rinji: What... He limped slowly over to it.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Jiro: Rinji, are you alright? You look like you've been through hell.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Rinji: Scraped my knee [Never took his eyes off of the object in the middle of the room.] Get Dala to the ship, get her some help.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Jiro: You need to- what is that?! [Looked at the object through his green sunglasses, and his eyes widened to their full extent.] That's... impossible.

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">Rinji: Is it? [He picked up the one thing that he never thought he would ever find. An Eternal Pose, one that had a single arrow, and it was pointing toward him.]

<p style="border-style:none;padding:0in;line-height:0.23in;">The Eternal Pose to Nekoshima.