Splatoon Manga: NightRoad

Chapter 63: Dark

⭐️Chapter 63: Dark

Crow.

Turtle.

Wildcat.

Wolf.

Barracuda.

Horse.

Fallen Angel.

The shadow creatures and shadowling raced through the forest, squidbeak on their backs. They were all determined, and that kept them from losing speed. They knew how important this was, and had never seen Noir push his actions this far. The squidbeak were still planning things while they were on their respective shadow creature. Except Ebony was carrying Prince.

"You sure this is okay?" Prince asked for The who-knows-how-many-th time.

"Yup. In fallen angel form, I have super strength, I could lift way heavier than you if I had to" Ebony replied.

"Good, I just wanted to make sure this wasn't hard for you."

"It's not."

"You don't wanna use shadow form?"

"Well, I know that all shadowlings have shapeshifting abilities, but...I just...don't use it. I never really found a need. It's like...everyone at a job gets a pencil holder, but some people just like keeping their pencils on their desk or in a drawer or something. It's all about preferences" Ebony explained.

"Ah, I see."

"Heh, seems like just yesterday we were fighting here, eh?" Gloves joked.

"Yeah, life is funny that way..." Pitch mumbled, making sure Goggles didn't do something stupid on his back.

"Anyway, what will we do when we get to Black Forest?" Rider asked.

"Nothing, right? We had no plan, remember?" Goggles said. That was what he remembered though.

"Uh. We're gonna still need a plan" Flip said, now thinking about this.

"We said we had no plan because we didn't know what Noir was going to do!" Goggles exclaimed.

"Well. It would be nice to at least have SOME idea" Flip grumbled. Going in blind for this would be a bad idea. It wasn't like the all out fight, where there were more things to consider. Then again, they didn't know what Black Forest was like.

"He's a sword person...I don't know how shooters and rollers compare to that..." Nana said.

"They're pretty ranged...not to mention they can be thrown and retrieved as well. They have a different ruleset, and much more. I think our best bet might be to have Prince battle him, even though he has shortswords" Ebony explained.

"Why?" Hachi asked, genuinely curious.

"Because Prince is the only other one with swords, and that would make it easier on us, duh" Gloves said.

"But...are you sure only swords would work?" Hachi asked as he turned to face him.

"Well, I know for sure that a dynamo will do absolutely no good, it's too slow. A roller has wide range, but the swords give the user more agility" Ebony said.

"So what about the shooters?" Nana asked.

"Well, dual guns might have a small chance to match the agility, but the range at which the blade can be swung would make it hard for the gun user not to get hit. A regular shot could try as well, but they'd need good physical agility. I'm not sure how many of you have that..." Ebony mumbled the last part.

The regular shot users were Nana and Goggles. Nana wasn't that fast, but Goggles was. Then again, Goggles might not have the proper focus needed. You see, his randomness was really only useful when there were other people around. He would use people to distract the enemy. Or, the chaos caused by the other people would let his randomness go through.

In this case however, the others wouldn't be able to help him as well, so his randomness might actually cause him to lose. The squidbeak couldn't  risk a loss to anyone, in case Noir wound up having a backup plan that required all of them to work together. It turned out that they actually would need Prince.  He might not have the agility, but he was small, and blades could parry other blades. Guess that was the plan, then.

"You're right. Prince might as well be the only answer" Rider said.

"Wait, why can't you fight him? Same ink?" Gloves asked.

"Yeah...also, Yknow. I kinda can't bring myself to" Ebony replied.

"Well. If you're absolutely sure..." Flip mumbled. She wasn't going to force Ebony to fight his brother but she was just making sure.

"I am."

The team remembered their times as they went through the forest. They passed many bridges and paths they had seen before, and everyone sighed when they came to the four paths. All of them went down the second one, and together, they joked about the things they did. Prince looked at everyone, happy they were all getting along. It should have been like this from the start. They could've just been happy with a peace treaty and help, but...they just had to drag it out. And now they had to save his brother.

He sighed to himself. Ebony noticed he was looking down, but decided not to ask, just in case it wound up being something long. He wouldn't be able to converse for TOO long without losing focus and probably flying into a tree. The last thing they needed was more injury, without potions to help. He didn't want to tell anyone, but the actual reason he didn't want to fight his brother was because...bad things had happened in the past when he did. No, he didn't lose, quite the opposite actually. He just didn't want to inflict so much damage to him over a problem that could be so easily solved.

The squidbeak began talking to their own shadowlings as they continued on. They were learning quite a lot from them that they hadn't known before. Some found similarities they didn't even know they had, and to be honest? The squidbeak wished they had just made a truce with the shadowlings from the spot. They realized how Prince was right all along. They could've just made a truce and gotten it done with.

The more hey thought about it, the more they realized this was Noir's fault. He had kept the shadow six from taking that path solely because he believed his plan was better. Without him here, the others were free to talk about what they liked. It was strange, and yet it made sense. The squidbeak were at least glad they were working together again instead of fighting.

"Hey Ebony? How far from Black Forest are we?" Goggles asked.

"Don't worry! We should be there in no tiiiiii-"

He stopped flying, and the rest of the shadowlings froze as well. The squidbeak heard Ebony trail off and peeked around their respective shadow creature to see what it was.

The part of the path in front of them had been absolutely destroyed, and there was no way they could clear all that rubble.