Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter 24: And the World Goes Mad

Journey of the Three Failures

Twenty-Four: And the World Goes Mad

Hinata ヒナタ

The moon was rust red.

Overwhelming hatred and indescribable shock, smoke, ash, and blood thick on the air, and a rust red haze of mad fury hanging over it all – it was under these circumstances, under the round moon's bloody red eye, that eight beings armed with fang and claw had crossed paths. It alone would bear witness to the horrors to come.

Part One: Monster Fight

The solid coils of leg muscle poised beneath me bunched and sprang. The earth there buckled – and shattered stone sang as a ring of thick, powerfully clawed hands crashed down upon it. I was safe, high above the ground and their strikes.

Air hissed into my chest as a presence phased up into existence at my back with a hum of swiftness. Twisting in the air – my arm flung around in front of my face to bear the slam of raking claws. For a moment he and I were locked, wicked claw to sputtering flesh, eyes ecstatic to eyes outraged, and then I was shooting backwards, hurled by the sheer wild power loaded in Haritsu's blow.

Ground met my side hard, and I was tumbling, breaking earth at each bounce, limbs splaying as my body flopped along. Barely did my eyes detect the blur of speed that preceded Brother Harumaru's open hand smashing against my cheek. I was not thrown far before another caught my arm in a grasp reinforced by digging claws, and with a groaning of tendons the path of my body was pulled into an arc, momentum redirected to plow my back down into crunching earth.

The sadistic sneer cast down at me by this subduer was swept from his face as my breath ablaze surged upward, and he jumped away with an angry hiss, a patch of snowy fur singed. I sprang to my feet, energy rolling into my mouth even as I sprang in pursuit. A bolt of crimson lanced from my maw – and another figure, screeching to a halt at his side, spat a jet of water, glowing with power and whitened with intensity, without so much as a single seal.

My eyes grew.

The compacted bursts of elemental fury collided explosively, shrouding the lot of us in whipping steam and wind, but I only braced my feet and raised an arm against this battery as my unblinking eyes sprang to life. No sooner had my sight penetrated the swirling mist than my hand snapped outward – her claws lodged heavily into my side – and, my grasp on her wrist the only barrier to her shuddering intent to split my stomach wide, we came eye to eye. My grip tightened.

"HIYUKI–?"

For my complacency, I paid dearly. The blow of her free hand was blinding across my skull, claws tearing out great clumps of short hair, savaging my ear. I yowled in outrage, head whirring, and this kind Onee-san delivered a stunning foot to my breast and swung herself aside so that, as another's two feet drove into my back, she was not in my path. Thrown, I finally lost hold of her arm.

Sh-shimatta...! Pain – real, screaming pain, breaking through to me. Their blows weren't just landing: they were hurting. Rarely in this form was the threshold so much as approached.

Horo-chan, blitzing in on all fours. My strong body, buckling under force and folding up around the steely shoulder in my gut.

Suddenly it was clear. In this fight, I was far from invulnerable.

I stumbled – stumbled! – rolled back, dug the claws of spread toes into the earth, and caught a forearm on my own, arresting a slash even as my free arm was drawn back, claws splayed to rake. I swung.

As I did so, my hand curled smoothly into a fist.

That was it, then. I was thinking, and they were not. They could not; they were wholly wild. I had control that they didn't. And because of this control, no matter how barely, I was thinking, and recognizing, and remembering.