“Two.”
The woman’s eyes behind the mask slid over to her partner. “Are you sure? They look tough.”
Both masks were painted red with gold accents, with curved horns and sharp teeth bared in a grimace of a smile. There were even ripples carved in at the brow, emulating facial muscles pulled together. The partner’s mask had no eye holes, instead two painted yellow eyes stared at me as if she could see me anyway.
“Have faith.”
“Two minutes then. The usual bet?”
The Blind Oni nodded and started down the hill towards us. The Seeing Oni procured a large cleaver from a sheath at her hip and tossed it towards her partner. She caught it without any indication of knowing it had been thrown.
“Organ’s dogs, drawn in by the promise of power?” Ark asked, baring his own teeth. “Come join the fray.”
“Regenerator,” the Seeing Oni said plainly. “You think you can push back death but it is not so. You can live comfortably closer to the threshold than most, but once you pass through it, you are just like everyone else. You won’t get the chance to save yourself.”
Gunfire staccato and thunder rumbled together across the clouded sky. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the shadows that hung in the air dart down and disappear behind the hills to the east, before rising back up again.
Fir kept her distance and watched, riding atop one of her elks. There were bits of meat in its antlers that were getting absorbed, confirming to me that they were Wolves. She wouldn’t put herself in danger where she could help it. I doubt she had gotten close enough to Host to see if she would live.
Selfish, but it was justified and I should keep it in mind for myself. The main force was on the way, we didn’t have to fight disadvantaged if we could disengage safely.
Antlers formed at my calves and I started to build up tension for Locust Legs. The Blind Oni turned her head towards me. Ark sprouted a monkey’s head from his shoulder, eyes bulging in its skull. The monkey watched the approaching Oni so Ark could turn to me.
“In the effort of fairness… Ah haven’t see ‘em before, so my guess is they’re heavy hitters. Don’t go underestimatin’ them.”
“Yeah. Good luck with that,” I said and then launched myself away.
The Seeing Oni reacted with inhuman speed, pulling a gun from behind her back and training it on me as I sailed. The Blind Oni sprinted past Ark, covering vast distances with each stride.
“Oi!” Ark shouted.
Lightning flashed all around the hills, striking at once and at the same time a fiery pain lit up my arm. I spun and in the blindness after the lightning, I couldn’t tell what was ground and what was sky. The fire at the front gate came into view giving me a touchstone and I twisted, flaring out branches to catch myself as I landed. Even with the correction, branches snapped and I bounced painfully on the slope before rolling to a crouch.
I touched the throbbing point in my upper arm. A bullet wound. At least I hadn’t been hit by the lightning but I could feel that the bullet was still in my arm and it burned fiercely, making it hard to concentrate on my surroundings.
I was right next to the main road. Up ahead, the burning vehicle lit up the manor’s pale gray and white exterior in dancing light and shadow. The roof was steep but then flat on the top. Someone was standing on the rooftop. There were lights visible in some of the manor’s windows but no one was visible within. Thick curtains hid the interior from view.
A flurry of white in the distance indicated where Capiz and the rest of the group was. They were watching the front entrance. The waxy white substance leaking from the burning car had begun to form small mounds.
Two figures stood right outside the front doors, one tall and one short. Beyond that I couldn’t see much.
Glancing to my right, the hills on the east side were lower and I could see a tree that I hadn’t noticed before, jutting out from behind the hills, its sharp leafless branches piercing bodies and leaving them to hang. Before long, another tree explosively erupted from the ground to join the first, tossing dirt and people into the air.
Nell was making moves.
That brief sweep of the land was all it took for the Blind Oni to catch up.
She crested the hill and sprinted down at me recklessly, cleaver held low to the ground. Raising my good arm, I projected branches to block her path.
She ducked the first branch and stepped on another as it shot towards her knee, using it to twirl in the air, slicing another branch with a dancer’s grace. She moved as if she had been in this situation a hundred times before and had used every second to optimize her motions. The antlers barely slowed her down. I broke away from my armour, leaving it as a decoy to buy me room to breathe.
She threw herself sideways and her arm whipped up. I barely had time to react before the cleaver sunk into my arm. My barely reformed armour made it a shallower cut, but it still stung coldly.
No time.
I was being hunted. She was harrying me like a coyote, tiring me out, waiting for me to slip and then she would be ready to capitalize.
The cleaver vibrated in my arm, making my vision go all fuzzy.
A Shaped tool? Like the Heartseeker?
She had already rolled and closed the distance to me. Despite the seemingly reckless nature of her approach, when I swung out a fist, she sidestepped it easily and kicked her heel into my chest. I staggered back but managed to grab hold of her ankle. She jumped and bent that knee, coming close enough to seize the cleaver and use it as leverage to twist out of my grip before her other leg lashed out across my head.
The cleaver wrenched free and I spun from the blow. My armoured feet skidded on the road’s gravel as I struggled to regain my balance. To my surprise, the Blind Oni leapt backwards instead of pressing the attack.
The answer to that came crashing down a second later, a massive hawk snapping its beak at her. Ark spun and the eagle sprouting from his back stretched out its wings, knocking me onto my butt.
Ark’s face was red with anger. “Buncha fearties! Scurryin’ about like mice!” he raged as the bird of prey flapped its wings, stirring dust into the air.
I ducked a wing as he spun again, snakes erupting from his sides to snap at the both of us.
The Blind Oni took it in stride, dodging and attacking at once, slicing into the snake’s side with her cleaver. I tried absorbing the snake but Ark pulled back just as hard, mixing our flesh together. The wolf head appeared once more, with too many teeth in its maw. It took a bite out of the hill that the Blind Oni danced around. Her cleaver got stuck in its hide.
“Marrow!”
Fir had caught up. Her elks moved in unison, leaping deftly down the hill. One charged at the Blind Oni, antlers lowered to skewer her. She jumped in response, twisting and reaching out to grab an antler, hauling herself onto its back. The elk stooped low and a second elk kicked out, forcing the Oni to jump off before she could land a strike.
Fir rode the third elk. It was bleeding from several bullet wounds and had a slight limp. “We need to end this before the other one gets here with that gun,” Fir said fiercely. “Those aren’t normal bullets. They drink blood.”
I backed away from Ark and touched the bullet wound again, realizing how little it was bleeding compared to the cut from the cleaver. No time to heal, plus that might just give it more fuel.
“Can you buy me some time?” I asked.
She nodded and whistled. The swinging fist of a gorilla that had half-emerged from the wolf was avoided by the elks, even as they fought the Blind Oni and Ark.
I crouched down and pressed the talk button on my radio. “Command, relay this to Hunch-”
Hunch was Tom. They’d removed his privilege to speak directly into the radio.
I dug my fingers into the bullet wound as I talked, trying not to ]throw up as the pain tripled in intensity. “I’m engaged with a Shaper who has ninja fast reflexes despite wearing a mask with no eyeholes. To me it’s as if they’ve seen the future. Thoughts?”
The response came quickly, “Enhanced proprioception. Similar to Hunch’s intuition being cranked up to 11. He suspects they can sense other people’s body positions and potential energy as well, possibly even predict movement.”
There was more noise in the background I couldn’t decipher.
“Hunch wants to know when you got engaged.”
“Command, keep the lines clear. Our lives are at stake,” an annoyed voice replied through the radio.
I grinned, fingers closing around the bullet. Nell had bundled it up in roots, making it easier to extract. Good to know you’re still looking out for me.
Once it was in my grasp, I absorbed it. Fir had been right. It was an organic bullet.
Returning my attention to the fight, it was clear that Ark was losing steam. The projections of animal heads and bodies were slowing as he chased the Blind Oni around unsuccessfully. Every time she avoided an attack she would retaliate in the same motion, wounding the animals with the cleaver she had gotten back somehow. She was bleeding him out from a thousand cuts.
What was the limit of his production? He likely could recoup some of the losses by reabsorbing what he made, like I did, but he was digging a hole here. The second he let off the pressure and started to pull himself back together, the Oni would attack him directly. She was like a honey badger, relentless in aggression, impossible to pin down.
Fir’s elks were staying safe while they wove in and out of the skirmish, their efforts were frighteningly calculated.
The Oni lopped off a chunk of an elk’s antler, causing Fir to signal a retreat.
“Ark!” I shouted.
A raven head sprouted from his neck to watch me.
“Team up! Just once! Pull it all back.”
“Ah said Ah would take on all of ye and Ah meant it!” he shouted back, spit flying.
I moved around him, showing that I wasn’t attacking him. He watched me warily but didn’t lash out.
The Oni pulled back from her assault on the elks and I struck out with a spiked limb. She dodged without even looking at me, pivoting to dodge the swing, the cleaver tracing an arc towards my neck.
But I’d expected my attack to miss, so I didn’t try to dodge. Instead I raised an arm to block and reinforced my armour and she pulled back at the last second.
In the background, Ark’s animals began to recede.
Fir’s elks charged her. The Oni leapt again, finding impossible footholds on the elk’s tossing heads, jumping back and forth as they bucked.
“Higher!” I shouted.
The elks seemed to understand. With each attack, they flung their heads back, forcing the Oni higher. She compensated by spinning in the air instead of planting her feet firmly with each dodge. But now I was ready.
I triggered Locust Legs and shot towards her. She knew I was coming, but in midair, she couldn’t contort enough to avoid me. I crashed into her, hurtling us into the sky. Her cleaver slashed painfully across my back and I heard her growl.
Reaching the apex of our height, we began to drop and I saw what was below. A churning morass of animal heads, as if a whirlpool of flesh had sprung into existence.
Ark was going to eat us both. Then the coil of gnashing teeth and wild eyes erupted upwards, becoming a growing tower of hungry animals.
The Blind Oni managed to pry herself free of me, using every bit of possible leverage. I got one last kick in, sending us falling away from each other. The tower shifted in response, moving to catch the Oni instead of me. The maw of a thousand different animal teeth widened impossibly big, like it was trying to swallow the moon.
A shot punctuated the sound of wind in my ears. The bullet whizzed past me and hit the Blind Oni square in the chest.
The Seeing Oni was here and it was as if she was attempting to knock her partner far enough away from the mouth.
Impossible. But if it was her, it could work. The Blind Oni could and would use the slightest bit of kinetic energy to the fullest. Instead, she used the impact of the bullet to spin in place, throwing the cleaver with unerring accuracy past my head.
The blade sank into the hide of the elk that was stealthily approaching the Seeing Oni from behind.
Each was trying to save the other.
The Blind Oni raised her mask and I saw her mouth for a second, opening to say something-
The maw slammed shut. The words eaten along with the rest of her.
I hit the grass on my back, dazed, staring up at the monstrous tower of beasts and birds, fish and reptiles. It chewed, shuddered, and swallowed.
I had landed right next to the Seeing Oni. But the gun was lying in the grass. Her arms were at her sides like her strings had been cut.
“So that’s it,” she said quietly.
She met my eyes and I looked down, unable to hold her gaze. A glimpse of her pain had been enough.
“It is as silent as you imagine,” she said to me.
Then she picked up the gun, raised it to her head and pulled the trigger.