I was headed for his right hand side, and that was where he aimed his swing. I used my teleportation ability at the last moment, and my previous position was hazed in a cloud of smoke while my body appeared on his left side. As soon as my feet hit the ground, I triggered my misdirection spell. His head swiveled from left to right, his bulbous eyes passing over me as though I wasn’t standing at his feet. I saw his eyes widen and his teeth pull back into a snarl.
“Where have you gone, Soul Binder?” Yakuna howled. “Are you really so cowardly as to flee from battle when your companions still fight?”
Not knowing how long it would work for, I changed direction at a sharp angle, dashing toward his left side. I had a kusarigama in my right hand, the ball and chain attachment on the top swinging. I flung the ball toward him, and the long chain snaked around his upper arm. He saw me then—I couldn’t keep the misdirection spell up while I was actually attached to him by a chain—but the spell had served its purpose. He’d missed me, and I was under his guard. I was able to pull myself toward him on the chain.
“You use the art of the shinobi?” he questioned. “I thought such tricks were beneath the Soul Binder.”
“I use whatever I can to rid the world of evil such as you!” I yelled as I grabbed the chain and started to scale Yakuna as if he were a cliff.
I ran up the misshapen armor, using the chain and my twin kusarigamas like ice picks to haul myself up. He was huge, easily five times my height now, and he stank like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Fire billowed around him as Cara’s arrows thudded into his armor.
“Go on, Leo!” she shouted, firing at his legs.
He stamped and roared, tormented by the flames and enraged at how I had tricked him. He was big, but he was slow. As I climbed him, he battered ineffectually at me with his free hand, flailing his sword around in the air with the other.
I reached his shoulder, leaping up there with my kusarigama in my hand. His head was ten paces long, and he turned his face to try to bite me with sword-like teeth, but I dodged him. I slammed my long, cruelly sharp kusarigama blade into his ear, puncturing the drum. He howled in pain, and black blood sprayed out and soaked me. The stench was incredible, but I leaped up and continued climbing.
When I reached the round dome of the top of his head, I transformed into the Ironside Persona and reached for my mace.
In the Ironside persona, I was much bigger and much heavier. My sheer weight anchored me on the slick, rotten skin of his head.
I raised my mace and put every ounce of weight and every glimmer of power into the swing as I smashed it into his head. His skull crumpled, his devilish eyes popped from their sockets, and his brain splattered beneath the force of my blow.
Then the giant Yakuna exploded.
Bits of him went everywhere, soaking the whole hilltop in a foul, steaming mess of rotten flesh and hot metal. I fell through him, the weight of the Ironside Persona bringing me down with a crash into the middle of the mess.
The shockwave of my landing blasted wreckage away from me on either side. All trace of the Festering was washed away in a rush of power. The armor suits fell lifeless to the ground, and even they seemed like noble monuments to ancient bravery rather than the foul relics they had been beforehand.
The clouds parted, and the sunlight came rushing in like a cleansing sea over sand.
“Thank you, Soul Binder,” a voice whispered, as though carried on a breeze. “Thank you for freeing me.”
In the distance of the now green and pleasant hillside, I saw a flash of red, white, and black: Koshu and the rest of the party were approaching.
Cara strode toward me, her arms outstretched.
“We did it, Leo!” she shouted. “We defeated him! We won!”
She clasped my hand in a warrior’s grip, then flung her arms around me.
I understood her elation. It had felt like we might lose for a little while there, especially because Toshiro and Kai did not have the magical abilities we had. The sooner we could bring Kai into the magical circle of power and give her the ability to use Persona powers and spells, the better.
Toshiro and Lady Kai approached, expressions of relief on their faces.
“My dear friend, Yakuna,” Toshiro said as he stared at the spot where I’d obliterated Yakuna. “To think that this was his final end.”
“I’m not sure that’s his end,” I said. “I think, somehow, his spirit lives on.”
“As a Persona?” Lady Kai asked.
“I’m not sure,” I answered. “All I know is that something spoke to me at the end there. It thanked me. I believe it was Yakuna’s true self.”
“I hope so,” Toshiro said. “I truly hope so.”
Chapter Nineteen
With a thought, I switched my Persona to the civilian garb of Ironside, and all the dirt and filth of battle disappeared. Cara did the same. It was a small benefit compared to the total power of our Personas, but avoiding the need to bathe after every battle was certainly a boon.
General Koshu and the others came storming up the hill at full speed, and he seemed disappointed to have missed the battle. Without delay, Kai gathered a group of her soldiers and, with a bit of difficulty, they managed to lower the cage which
