The Red Hand

Chapter 88 – The Oni’s Struggle.

"YOU BASTARDS!" Superbia screamed as she dove towards the two goblins, her blade at the ready.

"Whoopsie!" Gim jumped back narrowly avoiding her katana. "Come now, your sister's swings were much faster!"

Grim threw another dagger at her from the side, which she deflected. The two goblins were tricky bastards and she wasn't about to let them hit her again.

"Don't you even talk about her, you son of a bitch!" Superbia charged at Gim once again. But the goblin kept moving out of the way and avoiding her strikes. They were surprisingly deft on their feet and as rogues they could be hard to deal with in close combat, even if their overall power level was low.

"Why not?" Gim smirked as he threw several daggers toward her. "She's already dead, can't exactly hurt her feelings, now can we?"

"Yeah!" Grim moved to stab Superbia in the back with his short sword but was kicked away. "Who cares what the dead think?"

"It was you bastards that killed her!" Superbia screamed as she slammed her blade against the ground causing another explosion with her Oni power. Grim and Gim were unharmed as they managed to jump back to a safe distance, but both realized just how serious the Oni was. Superbia fully intended to kill them, no matter what.

"Hey, what can we say? She had it coming interfering with our fun like that. Stupid girl just had to stick her nose in other people's business." Gim smiled. "She screamed and cried in the end, did you know that? It was one hell of a sight to watch that Oni bitch-" He was cut off mid-sentence as Superbia appeared right in front of him. Her sudden movement caught him off guard.

{When did she?!?} Gim was startled and barely managed to back up just enough to where her blade scraped his cheek, drawing blood.

"I am going to rip the tongue out of your mouth so you can't scream while I tear you apart!" Superbia's eyes glowed with a hate-fueled fire. "You'll pay dearly for killing her, so I hope you're prepared to face a fate worse than death!"

Gim and Grim started sweating a little bit. It seemed they underestimated Superbia's strength and her resolve.

"Seems we touched a nerve. Gim." Grim commented.

"Yeah, but that's fine. It's the truth." Gim laughed. "And I'd just love to she her follow through on that threat."

{Need to be a bit more careful, though. That actually surprised me. A second later and my head would be on the ground.I guess Alice was right.} Superbia was no joke, and he knew they couldn't continue to underestimate her. {She's definitely on a whole other level than her sister, but we can handle this. After all, we just need to buy time.} (Gim)

He nodded toward Grim, and the two began to throw a barrage of daggers at her. "Let's see how you handle this many!" (Gim)

Superbia easily deflected them. But the sheer volume of daggers made it impossible to move while defending againt them. Using this to their advantage, Grim and Gim mixed in a few explosive bombs which detonated when Superbia hit them. They wouldn't do much damage, but would temporarily blind her due to the smoke. This was their bread and butter, misdirection subterfuge and traps and they'd created a golden oppertunity.

{Perfect!} Gim smirked as the two goblins moved in closer and started laying traps along the ground around her. These were not designed to harm, only by time and delay. They two had a plan and all they needed was to wait until things fell into place. The two figured Superbia would try to explode them away with blade like she did earlier, and that would leave her open for their secondary surprise.

Superbia was not one to just sit and wait and with a flick of her sword the dust was dismissed, revealing the two goblins. But around her lay a hastily assembled network of wires, explosives, and other assorted hazards. It was an extraordinary number of traps and made one wonder just how they could work so quickly.

{Tricky bastards. Just how fast do these two work?} Superbia complained. The two goblins and their network of traps would be a problem, and she knew better than to just walk into the traps since she'd seen other players get hurt by similar things. Her initial thought was to blow them away, but she figured that's what they wanted.

"What's wrong?" Gim asked. "We're right here? Why don't you come and get us?"

"Yeah!" Grim smirked. "There ain't nothing to be afraid of! It's only a few toys!"

{Yeah sure, these idiots want me to leave an opening so they can do whatever it is they have planned.} Superbia thought to herself. {But I'm not going to give them what they want!}

Superbia put away her blade and began to mutter an incantation. Her entire body became engulfed in pink Oni-fire, and she began to move her hands similarly to how an Onmioji would cast a spell.

Once she finished, she called out her attacks name. "Oni Fire Sea of Flames!" as she placed her hands on the ground, and a wave of pink flame pushed out, covering all the traps and incarnating them instantly.

Taken off guard, Grim and Gim tried to jump back to safety, but Superbia was waiting for them and rocketed forward toward Grim, who was just a little too slow. His small delay left him wide open and Superbia wasn't about to let that mistake slide.

"I got you now you son of a bitch!" She grabbed him by the scuff of his jacket and headbutted him, before slamming him into the asphalt with a loud thud. Stunned, Grim struggled to fight back as the Oni began to pummel him relentlessly.

*BOOM**BOOM**BOOM*

She wailed on him, causing his hat to fly off, and blood to leak from his ears and mouth.

“I'm going to make you regret killing Moonie!” She screamed as she grabbed him by his jacket and chucked him through a nearby building, giving chase.

In this moment, Libra, the attack on Nagoya none of it mattered. All she cared about was avenging her sister's death and killing the two men who took her. Superbia chased after Grim, who was staggering to his feat in the living room of some unfortunate renter. Drawing her blade she swung downwards, putting a massive gash across his chest causing blood to spill onto the floor. Her eyes seemed to glow brightly in the low light of the building.

“Ack!” Grim screamed in pain. He tried to slip away, but was met with a right hook to the side of his head. Superbia had no intention of letting him get away, she placed her blade back in its sheath and grabbed him by his throat throwing him through the building and out the other side into a street.

She followed, once again, but this time she jumped on top of him, pinning the goblin with her right foot leaving him unable to stand up.

Gim finally caught up, after frantically giving chase, and saw his partner in such a bad state.

{Shit, how much longer will it take.} Gim cursed in his head. With Grim in a compromising position, he began to fire a flurry of daggers at Superbia. Her blade was still sheathed, but she stuck out a hand and cast more Oni-fire to melt the incoming daggers. There was nothing he could do at the moment and he was afraid that Grim might die before the timer ran out on their plan.

"Now!" She looked down at the dazed goblin beneath her. "Your turn to burn!" She channeled power into her hand, ready to burn him, but just as she did.

*THUNK THUNK*

Her body tensed, and she began to have trouble breathing as her vision blurred.

{Wa-what is going on?!?} She stepped backward, her body feeling sluggish. Seeing this opportunity Grim quickly got up and kicked her in the stomach sending her flying into the road.

"About damn time. A few more seconds and I'd be a crispy goblin Karaage." He sighed in relief. "But damn, she's a toughy. Even just a drop of Moon-Night poison is enough to drop a Walhel Mammoth, and she was going fine there for a good while." He limped over to Gim, who healed his wounds with some magic.

Superbia struggled to get to her feet. "Poi-son, but when?" Superbia thought back. She'd only been hit once, by that initial dagger. "Th-a-t da-gger... it..was." She collapsed on the ground, unable to move.

"Yup, everything else was just a ruse, little princess." Gim laughed as he walked over and kicked her in the face. "Did you really think we'd fight you head-on?" He smirked. "Funny, this is the same trick we used to kill that idiot of a sister of yours. Now ain't that interesting?" He picked her up by the throat. "You won't die right away, so get ready for some real fun. That poison will slowly kill you as it eats away at your nerves and it'll slowly dissolve your insides into a nice liquidly paste. I've heard the pain is quite excruciating."

"Yeah, the people we tested it on were quite something. You should have heard their screams." Grim laughed.

"Ba-st-ards." Superbia spit on Gim's face.

"Oh?" Gim frowned. "Still got some fight in you? Well, let's see just how long that lasts!" He yelled as he began to wail on Superbia. He punched her in the face causing her to bleed and bruise. "You like that? You Oni bitch! Not so nice when plebeians like us give you a black eye and draw your blood now isn't it?!?" He said as he continued to pummel her.

Grim and Gim were not brothers but were as close as such. Growing up in the streets, they'd come to despise people who had nice comfy lives at home and they resented those who had it made. With their backgrounds and histories, they found it hard to gain employment and were forced to work jobs of manual labor, and even then their bosses and other people always found them disgusting. They were dregs of society, with no family, no friends, nothing. They'd cursed this world for casting them aside and for its people for abandoning them to lives of poverty. Through no fault of their own, they'd been forced to live a miserable existence. All because of who their parents were and what they looked like.

Superbia was the complete opposite, her family owned a successful business, and she was expected to take over as the heir to her father in the future. She'd grown up with a silver spoon in her mouth, but she and her sister were anything but spoiled rich girls. Her parents lived in a modest home, they lived comfortably but not lavishly, and they went to public school. Her father wanted Superbia and her sister never to forget just how lucky they were and wanted to ensure they understood the plight of less fortunate people in the world. She'd taken her father's lessons to heart and always had compassion for the less fortunate, since she knew her happy life was little more than luck of the draw.

"Bitches like you disgust me!" Gim kept punching her. "You look at Gim, and I like we're trash, like were human waste!" He punched her in her face causing blood to splatter. "Where do you get off acting like that, huh?!? Just because we're ugly, just because our parents were criminals, we don't get to live?!?" He threw the barely conscious Superbia into the middle of the street. "You never had to worry about your next meal, you never had to worry about a place to sleep, you never had to worry about anything!" He kicked Superbia in the stomach. "You got everything you ever wanted, you got loving parents and a warm home. And what did we get? Nothing! And for what? Because you were born to the right people?!? Fuck that!"

The two had taken to VR gaming to satisfy their needs and let them vent their frustrations. By the end, it was more of a coping mechanism than anything else. However, as a result of their time in VR the two goblin's hatred only grew and grew because in-game the same unfairness applied. People with more money could afford to buy overpowered items and boosts at a cash shop. While he and Grim had to work backbreaking jobs to just keep afloat. This hatred festered for years until FWO where the two took a position as charlatans and tricksters, swindling Players and NPCs out of money and items. It was a happy life, one they considered much better than the real world and if they stole from a few fools, oh well. They figured this was them getting what they were owed by the world.

Superbia's younger sister, Munechika, had tried to stop them and even went so far as to negotiate with them and she even invited them onto the Assault Team, but they repaid her kindness with death. They'd grown tired of Munechika's meddling and so choose to kill her. An act that neither thought they were capable of. Upon finding out about her sister's death, Superbia placed a massive bounty on their heads and even contemplated going to Akagi for her help. However, she was persuaded by Hishya not to do so, mostly because Hishya herself already regretted using the assassin's services and didn't want Superbia to fall as she had.

Gim and Grim were henceforth outcasts in FWO, hunted by bounty hunters constantly, and were reduced to nomads and wanders. Other players viewed them as murderers and they were once again unwelcome around civilized society. This only caused their hatred to grow, as they felt they were being unfairly punished while others who did similar or worse things ran free. A belief that wasn't exactly untrue, since Akagi was allowed to roam freely even after having killed comparatively more people.

Superbia had only stayed her hand in-game because she was sure they'd be properly punished upon awakening and because of Hishya's constant warning about revenge. However, when it was revealed that no charges could be brought, she once again began to hunt them, even considering going to Akagi once again. The two goblins stayed quiet these past months, with only their Libra affiliation known. Hunting them was a major part of the reason Superbia joined the RRT. Sure she wanted to help people, but the chance to kill these two goblins was the real reason she was here.

Gim lifted Superbia and intended to finish her off with a blow to the head. "Good night, Princess." He smirked. "I hope you have fun with your sister in hell!" His arm flew forward and Superbia thought this was the end.

{Munechika, I guess I'll be seeing you sooner than I thought. I'm sorry I couldn't avenge you. Please forgive me for being such an incompetent fool...} Superbia closed her eyes and prepared for death, but several seconds went by and nothing happened.

"Wh-what are you doing here!" Gim cried out in shock.

Superbia cracked one eye open and saw a metal gauntlet crushing Gim's hand that'd been aiming for her. She'd been saved, but by whom? And Why?