The monkey man formerly known as Delinquent lunges forward and swings his arms wildly at me, a look of bestial fury on his face. I easily weave aside from the clumsy and clearly telegraphed blow, readying the sword for a decapitating strike. Above us squatting on the rafters of the warehouse are the retard guard, hooting and cheering for Delinquent.

"No time to waste on you, small fry." I snarl, "The main event is about to start."

The sword slices through the air, seeking Delinquent's neck. But Delinquent abruptly breaks into a roll, dodging my attack by a wide margin. As I curse to myself and pull my arms back to regain my stance, Delinquent darts forward again, this time is right arm bulking up and splitting the sleeve of his Academy blazer wide apart. The muscles on Delinquent's arm thicken to the size of a tree trunk and black hair begins sprouting all over it.

The man had been acting like a monkey, and now his body is literally transforming into one. A new power granted by Fate? Whatever, I have thrashed literal divine champions before this. Monkey man has got nothing on the Incarnates. I bring the sword down in a double handed chop, seeking to amputate Delinquent's enlarged limb.

Delinquent shifts his body ever so slightly, and the blade misses his arm ever so slightly, hitting the ground with a shower of sparks. Impossible. Delinquent is nowhere fast or skilled enough to dodge my attacks this easily. What's going on?

As I try to get my balance back from the fudged strike, Delinquent slips under my guard and his monkey arm swings upwards in a vicious uppercut. Before I can react, the fist makes contact with my chin, snapping my head upwards as my feet lift off from the ground. My limbs flail about in panic as my eyes lose focus for a second and I feel the impact of multiple sledgehammers slamming into my torso as Delinquent unloads into me. A powerful hook from the monkey arm plows into my gut, sending me flying away from Delinquent and sprawling across the ground.

"Ook. Ook." Delinquent grunts as he beats his puffed up chest, "REEEE!"

"Yeah." I mutter while getting back up to my feet, "Not my finest showing."

"Yeah. Kick the bad man's ass!" Peter Pan hoots from the rafters.

"Time to get serious." I snarl, kicking off the ground at full tilt, charging straight at Delinquent, the sword at the ready.

Delinquent's body spasms as I close in on him, ugly swellings forming on his head, distorting his already strained features. As my sword slashes towards his waist, the monkey man dives to the side, but this time, I'm moving too fast for him to retaliate. The monkey arm comes back around for another hit but I casually flip over it and land facing Delinquent's back.

"Gotcha." I smirk moving my arms up to perform the finishing blow.

And Delinquent dodges away once again. But this time, I notice how he manages it. Delinquent is not actually dodging when I attack. He actually begins moving just before my attack begins, like a control input reading bot you sometimes see on arcade games. Monkey man even manages this with his back turned to me, almost as if he possesses a kind of sixth sense. Putting this theory to the test, I pump more power into my arms, and lash out with the sword again, striking far faster than Delinquent has the ability to dodge.

And Delinquent throws himself to the ground several seconds before I even begin swinging my sword, managing another close dodge. This proves it, the monkey man somehow knows the moves I'm going to make and can predict them with near hundred percent accuracy. Delinquent can hit nowhere hard enough to actually hurt me, but he's been sent here by Fate not to kill me but to act as a speed bump. Fighting Delinquent normally would just result in the pair of us fruitlessly trading blows, costing me time that is already running out. Raising my speed to simply overwhelm him with brute force would cause the build up of stress, weakening me for the main event that's scheduled later.

I need a way to prevent Delinquent from playing keep away. And if I can't hit him, then I'll just wait until he comes at me.

I being backing up towards the shutters as monkey man bounds towards me on all fours, my reflexes raised to just beyond his level. Relaxing and calming my mind, I put all thoughts of attacking Delinquent away and focus solely on defense. Delinquent's eyes light up with a malicious gleam as the monkey arm pulses out in a blur, making a clanging sound as I bring the flat of the blade up to block. My feet shuffle backwards from the impacts of monkey man's fist.

Delinquent's mutant arm tenses as the muscles harden, jack hammering straight towards me. The blade is brought up once again to block, but this time the strength of the blow smashes aside the sword.

Now!

My hand blurs into action, reflexes already primed for action. Delinquent's eyes widen in alarm as he tries to draw away, but my hand is faster, closing around the incoming fist. A shock wave travels up my arm as my fingers close in on the fist and I tighten my grip on Delinquent. Monkey man roars in defiance as he vainly pulls to free himself. But I send more power from the artificial core into my hand and like a vice, it begins to crush the bones of Delinquent's fist.

The bulges on Delinquent's head begin to glow ominously and tiny red threads begin to sprout from them. As I watch in morbid fascination, the red threads begin to travel down Delinquent's other arm, weaving themselves into the bone and muscle. And just like before, Delinquent's second arm repeats the process of bulking up, mutating into something far more animal.

Moving quickly before Delinquent can use his newly enhanced arm to fight out of my grapple, I spin around and in one smooth motion throw the monkey man as hard as I can into the Inclinator's shutter. Delinquent flies through empty space and collides into the shutter, smashing it apart and crashing on to the Inclinator itself. I pick up my sword and before the retard guard are able to react, pounce into the Inclinator myself, stabbing the control button with my finger to begin the elevator's descent. Delinquent thrashes about on the floor, shaking off the cobwebs in his head as the Inclinator's engines roar to life, drowning out the protests of the retard guard.

As the elevator sinks into the depths of the shaft, I see Peter Pan make a flying leap towards us, the rest of the retard guard following close behind. A dismissive swing from my sword is all it takes to behead him and with a shower of blood, his decapitated corpse collapses on to the surface of the Inclinator. The rest of the retard guard hesitate for the barest second, unsure whether or not to try their luck. I drive home my point by picking up Peter Pan's head and pitching it at his buddies like a fast ball. The head takes Spikes squarely in the stomach and bowls him backwards into the rest of the retard guard, knocking them all over like ninepins. A perfect strike.

With a low groan, a pair of blast doors seal the shaft above us, preventing the retard guard from following. With that problem settled by The Voice, I turn my attention back to Delinquent who by now had begun to get his bearings. But something is wrong. His eyes are focused and alert, but the monkey man is not paying attention to me. Instead, Delinquent scrabbles desperately at his body, howling at the top of his lungs while rolling around on the floor.

Foam begins to form at Delinquent's mouth as the bulges on his head tremble with pent up energy. The once smooth red thread that extends from the growths throughout Delinquent's body suddenly becomes ragged and bristles angrily, as if an invisible force is tugging at them. Delinquent begins banging his head on the ground in a frenzy, shrieking non-stop.

"Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain" Delinquent drones stupidly, a meaningless babble coming from his mouth choked with blood flecked foam. The red threads in Delinquent's body draw and contract, draw and contract, fraying little by little.

Before they finally snap.

Delinquent gives a final shriek of agony and throws up a massive glut of blood. His pants become wet as piss and shit explode from his unmentionables. The pair of monkey arms grasp weakly at the air for any form of relief or salvation, but nothing comes. Delinquent collapses face first on the floor, ending his life by drowning in his own puke.

"You are welcome by the way." The Voice rasps from the earpiece, "It took you long enough to handle Fate's minions."

"What in the world happened to Delinquent?" I ask while dusting myself off, "And how did you take him out just like that?"

The Voice rumbles, "I did nothing to Mr Matsui. He merely committed suicide via massive organ failure once his body realized the abomination it had become."

"Organ failure?" I frown, furrowing my brow, "Are you talking about the kill switch that you installed on everyone born in this world?"

"Indeed." The Voice answers, "Mr Matsui had survived for so long due to the surface being cut off from my influence. Once the Inclinator took him underground though, the kill switch came back online and terminated him."

"Huh. So Delinquent was turning into an Incarnate then?" I ask while investigating the corpse.

"Yes and no." The Voice muses, "Mr Matsui clearly lacked the power of an Incarnate, but if the kill switch was triggered, then the spiritual changes he was undergoing must have been extremely similar."

"Don't see anything similar between monkey man here and the Incarnates." I grunt while lifting Delinquent's head up, cautiously prodding the bulges on it, "Damn, something was growing in here. Caused Delinquent's skull to expand outwards."

I take up the sword and carefully make a slice down Delinquent's head before using my fingers to pry his skull open. Need better tools for this kind of precision work, but I'll make do. I finish by peeling the crown of the skull off, revealing Delinquent's fried brain to the world. And what a brain it is. Nestled among the greyish mass are huge growths pulsating with spiritual energy. Tumors. Broken strands of red thread swim within the growths and I pluck one out of Delinquent's brain, leaving a trail of slime behind it.

"Gross. You know what this is?" I ask The Voice.

"Examining it now." The Voice replies, "A preliminary guess would be these tumors are meant to be replacement parts for Mr Matsui's damaged mind. I have also determined what the tumors are made out of."

"Do tell." I say dropping the tumor back into Delinquent's brain and cleaning my fingers on his school uniform.

"Raw genetic matter." The Voice pronounces, "A combination of all the three races. A primordial soup of you will."

"And where did Fate get its hands on that?" I quip, having finished cleaning myself up.

"You tell me Transmigrator." The Voice hums, "You were the one who brought me a sample in the first place."

"No way." I breathe.

"Oh yes." The Voice confirms, "The sludge from Matsui's club. I think we can ascertain the nature of the ritual taking place there. Drinking the blood. Taking in the flesh."

So in other words ...

Communion.