Beastars: A Symphony of Life

Chapter 124: Duel of Demons

"Took you long enough!" Masumi snapped.

Adler didn't even pay her any attention as he stormed to the crime scene. The wreckage was still smoking and the blood hadn't yet congealed fully. He scanned the wreckage. He was so done with this killer it wasn't even funny. Apparently he had been right. Only death could get the job done properly. He looked over the half-eaten bodies, glanced at all blood trails to see where he might have gone, anything. But it was all a ruse. Every trail ended and ran cold within a few feet. He was again playing with them.

"What are you thinking?" Masumi asked. "He ate mostly the livers and hearts. Any other piece of flesh that got in his way too."

Adler put up a hand to silence her and continued his search.

"Excuse me!?" she exasperated. "Last I checked you are still a vigilante and I'm the police chief-"

"Can you shut up for two seconds!" Adler growled, standing to his full height and stepping up to the police chief with such force that she tripped over herself and fell to the ground.

"If your men had been competent we wouldn't be in this mess," he said down to her. "Again."

"You do not want to get on my bad side," she warned, looking up to him with equal defiance.

Adler turned back to the crime scene and wrestled his way over cops that tried to keep him from the scene. He wasn't paying attention to them; he had found something in the wreckage and moved in.

"It's a crime scene," the horse reminded, standing back to her feet. "You can't just go in there and contaminate-"

Adler turned down an alley and was off, lost to the shadows before she saw his silhouette over the rooftops. She looked to the space and saw a small address written in blood. She motioned for men to take pictures and find out what that address was. By the book.

~~~~~

Adler threw the cathedral doors open with a bang and stepped into the large atrium. His prosthetic clacked on the ground as he drew his gun and sword. The archdeacon was dead upon the altar, his heart ripped out and eaten as blood seeped down to pool like rivers from a lake on the floor. Across the wall behind the murder, scrawled with massive letters in blood, were the words: "I'm last immortal".

"Oh good," Razor called, his voice echoing through the chamber, making it hard to tell where he was.

Adler spun, trying to pinpoint him.

"You got my note," he continued jesting. "I'm thrilled. Truly I am. I always pictured it ending this way. A big climactic battle in an overused setting. Just the two of us. Battling it out. Good versus evil. Yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. At this point, I'm fairly certain my axolotl healing genes make me invincible. Not even Yoshida's disease can kill me. My entire plan was pointless."

He snapped to the sound of a blade being sharpened. Razor sat on the sill of the large stained glass window. He had one leg dangling down and he sharpened a decorative sword he had pulled from a statue. His mask and clothes were splattered in blood and his fangs were permanently locked down out of his mouth. He looked absolutely monstrous now. A pair of curved horns sprouted from his head, coated in blood from the sudden and quick growing/errupture of them from his skull. One of his arms was now completely coated in feathers, also bloodied like the porcupine quills that were growing from their back, neck and head. Long and sharp rather than short and maintained to a safe bluntness like they had been a few hours ago.

Razor inspected the display blade and, seemingly satisfied with the sharpness, broke off one side of the crossguard and tossed aside the stone he was using. The hybrid stood, pulled on the mask, ripping through the leather with his new growths and faced Adler, framed by the glass which depicted a crucifixion.