The cool winds around them gave the three of them a sense of tranquillity. The green blades of grass danced back and forth with every brief gust. 

Clop clop clop clop, both Seshi’s galloped at top speed through the plains, their destination getting closer with each hoove. It’d take awhile to get to Indra, but soon enough the road leading there would appear. 

“Hey Mia! Holdin’ on back there? Don’t you dare fall asleep!” Captain Yakusuke yelled back as he whipped the reins. It would usually be an obvious fact to not sleep on a horse, especially at the speed they were going. 

“Captain Yakusuke!” A yell came from behind. The Captain turned his head and looked back at Hikaru who was waving. “How far away is the road!” He yelled. 

As of right now it's been about forty-five minutes since they left the forest and have yet to reach the road. It’s odd, usually it’d take only thirty minutes to arrive there but for some reason the road was knowhere to be found… It’s as if it vanished completely. 

Captain Yakusuke's eyes widened as he looked around. Now that he thought about it, the large forest couldn’t be seen, nor any other distinct features. Everywhere was plains, even forty-five minutes in you’d be able to see mountains. He focused back forwards, “five more minutes”, he thought. “Five more minutes and then I’ll view it as a problem”. He took it initially as just a random happening. There could be a number of reasons why they’d only be able to see plains.. Right? The thought didn’t satiate the uneasy feeling he had. He repeated, “five minutes”.

A few feet behind Captain Yakusuke and Mia

Hikaru also felt uneasy. Just like his Captain this odd feeling crept over him. Zero things around them. He looked up, no birds in the sky? Hikaru looked around, you’d assume there’d be herbivores grazing, but there were none. In fact, the only thing around them was grass. 

Foooooooooooooo, the wind howled. 

“Se-ems so-me pr-ey has fall-en in-to my tr-ap… “Heshesheshesheshe!”

Wsssssshhhhhhbooooooooo! An explosion suddenly bursted in front of them. The uneasiness they felt was justified, and because of that uneasiness, they were prepared.

With Mia under Captain Yakusuke’s arm, he jumped off Seshi and landed safely on the ground, Hikaru doing the same. Both Seshi’s drifted off to the sides and eventually came to a stop about fifty feet away from the commotion. 

“What’s going on??” Mia exclaimed, her lack of paying attention caused her great surprise. She looked around and up, Captain Yakusuke was holding her by his waist. Directly in front of her, a cloud of grey smoke was slowly dissipating. Mia’s eyes widened, visibly showing a sense of trauma from the past hours.

The cloud grew thinner. Its size seemed humanoid, you could only tell by its faint shadow. Moments past, the dust had nearly settled and the creature's form was perfectly visible, but not a creature…. A beast. 

It looked humanoid, a torso with stitches holding its skin together. Two legs with not odd features, except for an extra toe on each foot. It looked to have crippled arms, they were thin and twig-like. Its arms looked as if they couldn’t be used for anything. What was most noticeable was its head, or rather, what was around its head. As normal the neck protruded upwards from the shoulders just as a normal human would have, but instead of a head, the top of the neck cut off, leaving a small row of teeth sticking out. Floating around its neck were seven hands with unnaturally long fingers. Each hand held something, one held a single eyeball, another held a needle and thread that was connected to the middle of its chest. Elsewhere two hands held a mouth, they held it by each cheek. The other hands held an ear, a tongue, and another needle and thread. The second needle and thread looked to be attached to the beast's back.

The beast’s body twitched, its single eye looked at them one by one, jolting in a stiff movement. It kept its gaze primarily focused on Captain Yakusuke. 

“Wel-come visi-tors”, its neck twitched as it spoke. The beast took a single step forward, each hand moved in conjunction steadily floating around it. “Wel-come to my do-main!” “Heshesheshesheshe!” It chuckled to itself, amused by its own words.

“It talked… They can talk?!” Mia screamed in frustration and confusion. Out of the beasts she’s encountered before none spoke a single word understandable by the human brain. Until now she was under the impression that beasts made animalistic sounds and maybe the odd one out could make a sound resembling a laugh. This beast seemed to be completely different, Mia was baffled by it. 

“That’s right Mia, some beasts can talk, but only a minority of them”. He glanced over, “Just like everything else beasts can evolve as well, but only under certain conditions… they must be old enough, and they have to eat thousands of humans”. He sighed and sarcastically said, “what luck is this huh”.

“Yes you-’re ri-ght… I’ve con-sumed so ma-ny hu-mans. Men, wo-men, chil-dren, all sorts. Heshesheshesheshe!” The beast laughed as it thought about its murderous conquests. “So-on eno-ugh I’ll get to eat thr-e- no, two mo-re”. It stopped, One of the hands moved forwards and pointed. The elongated finger directed straight at Mia.

“No-t you… You sti-nk, you’d ru-in my me-al”. The beast retracted its finger and the hand moved back to its original placement. 

The three stood silent for a second… “Hikaru… You’ve been rather silent”. Captain Yakusuke looked back, “are you ready?” 

“Of course sir”, he replied. 

Mia tossed her head back towards Hikaru. Without her or the beast noticing, Hikaru had already prepared. His off putting blutklinge awakened and its head was moving hovering in front of him. 

Hikaru smiled, “Say hello beast… No that's not right… Say goodbye”. He thrusted his blutklinge forwards and it stretched with its mouth wide open. 

“He-h, I’ve se-en plen-ty of your type-s in the pa-st six-ty years”. The beast giggled after it spoke. “I’ve con-sumed six of you”. Suddenly, the hands that held up the needles and thread jolted to the sides, ripping open its stitches. The other four hands began shifting around putting the eye, ear, and tongue into its now visible insides.the one hand began sewing its back closed but the other remained hovering. The two hands holding the mouth began stretching it out, enough so that it covered the entire open cavity, the other hand with a needle. sewn it in place. 

The beast proceeded to jump back, dodging Hikaru’s attack by just a hair. 

Its tone of voice changed, “YOU SHOULD BE MORE POLITE HUMAN!” The beast now yelled every single word. 

“Damn it”, Hikaru muttered. 

The beast's hands began to move again, one gripped the top of its neck, the other six grabbed onto its right arm. Now, the beast’s transformation looked complete, its torso was now a large mouth with large flat teeth, and it's right arm looked somewhat like a flower, each hand had grabbed onto each other making a circular shape. 

“COME HUMANS! COME BE MY FOOD!” The beast mocked them multiple times before Hikaru spoke up.

“What the- How is it supposed to attack with-”, a pause. 

SHJUUUUCK!

A cut came from Hikaru’s side, a splash of blood spurted out. 

“What the hell… How did it get cut.. The bastard hasn’t moved an inch”, He thought as he grasped his side with one hand. “Damn, good thing it didn’t cut me too deeply”.

“YOU LITTLE HUMANS REALLY DOUBTED ME HUH? HAVEN’T YOU NOTICED THE LACK OF ANYTHING AROUND YOU? IT’S ALL GONE! BECAUSE OF MEEE!  HESHEHEHEHEHEHE!” The beast laughed deeply. “YOU SEE THESE HANDS? THEY AREN’T FOR STRANGLING. THEY’RE FOR HYPNOSIS”. 

Hikaru and the other two looked around, still nothing to note was around them. 

“What do you mean beast? There hasn’t been anything around us for awhile, and you only just did a transformation..” Hikaru then thought to himself, “unless… You’ve been with us the whole time, and we’ve already seen all of this”. 

“THAT’S RIGHT HUMAN! AS SOON AS YOU LEFT THE FOREST I CONFRONTED YOU, I LET YOU DEMONSTRATE YOUR STRANGE POWER AND I LET YOU GET ON THOSE HORSES. HESHEHEHEHEHEHE! IN FACT, RIGHT NOW YOU’RE ON THE ROAD, YOU’VE BEEN ON IT FOR AWHILE. HESHEHEHEHEHEHE!” The beast relished in each word, it thought of each moment and celebrated its own perceived genius. 

“So that’s it huh, hypnosis. I assume that when you turn your hands into a flower it makes whoever is looking at it hypnotised. It’s truly a good trick, but it has a downside”. Hikaru pushed up his glasses and looked towards the beast, his blutklinge had now retracted and was now lying on the ground. “You. You’re the downside. They say that evolved beasts are very prideful, I guess this proves it huh?”. He smirked, “If only you had just killed us instead of appearing and prattling on. Then maybe you wouldn’t have to see this”. 

Hikaru raised his blutklinge, “SESHI!” He yelled. 

Mia looked back and saw one of the Seshi galloping towards Hikaru. At the speed Seshi was going it’d take only moments for him to arrive. 

Trot trot trot tro-, Hikaru whipped his arm to the side, his blutklinge immediately following. The end of his blutklinge’s mouth and Seshi were in a straight line but twenty feet away.

“DEVOUR”, Hikaru yelled. The blutklinge shot forwards, opening its mouth wider than before. AHHHH-CHOMMP! In a single bite it devoured Seshi whole. Mia could only watch in a mixture of awe and horror at what Hikaru just did.

“Just watch Mia, did you really think I’d let him be my Vice-captain if all he could do was carry luggage and make good food? You gotta be strong to be a Vice-captain, and Hikaru is definitely strong”.

Mia stayed silent and watched, while listening to everything the beast had said she was more than just surprised. “They are much more than what I’ve seen, I can’t imagine the horrors I'll see down the line”, she thought.

Hikaru’s blutklinge began growing and morphing; it has now at least tripled in size. It began convulsing aggressively and moving erratically. It used to be a bulbous head with a row of large teeth but now it was much more. Protruding out was much more equine, but still quite monstrous. The main protrusion greatly resembled a horse's head, except that a row of sharp teeth went all the way up near its eyes. Bursting out of various parts of its body were crooked hooves and contorted humanoid arms. 

Hikaru pointed it forwards and it produced a sound most vile; NEEEEIIAAAAYHHHEEEWAAA! It rattled in Mia’s ears, causing a feeling of disquiet.

“Prepare yourself beast, this is my blutklinge. Whatever it devours I can choose two outcomes. It is either stored inside the blades pommel”. He held up the hilt and pointed at the pommel, “or, my blutklinge takes on the attributes of it, albeit in a gruesome fashion”. Hikaru pointed back towards the beast.

“Since I imagine you’ve already shown us all your cards, now, I'll show you mine”.

Shaking in annoyance and aggravation, “YOU DAMNED HUMAN!” The beast opened its mouth wild and started sprinting towards Hikaru. “I DON’T CARE EVEN IF THE FEMALE SMELLS, I’LL CONSUME YOU ALL”. 

Hikaru stood there, “It’s all over once you lose your cool. Even animals know that”. 

FOOOOOOOOSH-SSSSSHHHHCCCCHOMMMP! Hikaru’s blutklinge shot forwards and bit into the upper half of the beast. Blood is spurting everywhere, the ground surrounding the beast was now a pool of red. Each blade of grass was bathed in bright crimson.

The only remnants of the beast were its lower jaw and below, Its legs twitched as it fell over, continuing to pour blood everywhere. 

Hikaru’s blutklinge retracted and took the form of a dagger blade. 

“Damn, I don’t have any more Seshi’s with me”, he said begrudgingly. He then holstered his knife and walked over to the beast's corpse, a gross squishing sound with each step. 

“I must thank you, beast. Because of you I was able to look cool in front of a new member of our division. Hikaru quickly turned around and threw a thumbs up, showing that everything is all good.