Burns

Sakuya took in a deep breath. Exhaled. Then she began rapidly spinning her staff out in front of her. The spirit ink took effect, and her weapon instantly began to heat up, glow, and became a swirling vortex of flames as it gradually caught on fire around the tips. Through the motion blur of her weapon, she kept her eyes glued on her opponent on the other side of the arena. Anansi. The spirit god of webs and trickery, as the announcer had put it. A spider-like deity from West African mythology, whose eight giant legs were slowly lining up its body to lunge at her. But she wasn’t planning on letting it make the first move.

“Hai!”

Voop voop.

Sakuya quickly swung her staff left and right, launching two blazing hot fireballs toward the creature. All she had to do was wound or incapacitate the spirit. Then she would be one step closer to saving Jumo. But it was easier said than done.

The spirit darted to the side at the last second, dodging her attacks. Then a retaliation. A spray of something from its mouth.

Acid.

Sakuya rolled to the side while sweeping another fireball with her staff. The creature dodged and followed with another acid spray. This one nearly touched her.

She performed a quick backflip to avoid the attack, but then lost her balance and fell when some of the acid splashed onto her hands mid-flip. She crashed onto her face and knees a second later, with the burning sensation from the acid eating into her skin.

She hissed in pain. She could hear her family shouting her name. The fight was not even up to a minute and she had already started taking damage. She couldn’t afford to—

Sakuya suddenly remembered she was still in the middle of a fight, and she rolled on the ground instinctively, expecting danger. She was right.

Eight massive spider legs suddenly stabbed into the ground where she was just a second ago, only missing her by a few inches. They were too close. She needed to make some distance.

She got to her feet and immediately jet to the other side of the arena. Then she noticed, Anansi still had his back to her. She absolutely could not waste the opportunity.

She reached for a vial of salt from her belt, took it out, and flung it in the direction of the distracted spirit. She followed it with a fireball swing from her staff. Before Anansi could understand what was happening, the fireball exploded the bottle just above the creature, and a shower of salt rained down on it. Even some African spirits were not completely invincible to salt-based attacks. Anansi began reacting violently to the salt, and Sakuya seized her moment.

It was fireball after fireball. A barrage of non-stop pounding from Sakuya. Anansi could no longer break free from her assault, so she decided to get closer. And closer. And closer. She needed him to bleed or yield before she could be considered the victor. Finally, she stopped.

She drew back, and took a moment to conjure up a bigger fireball by twirling her staff faster and allowing the heat to build up. She lingered on the motion while she kept her eyes focused on the spirit. Although his body was starting to smoke from her relentless attacks, there was still the looming possibility he could recover faster. So as soon as her vortex of fire became large enough, and her staff too hot to touch, she swung the blast in the direction of the spirit, just as he recovered and sprayed acid in her direction.

She was too close.

Her fireball found her target, but so did his acid.

Sakuya screamed out in pain just as her entire body was covered in the burning slime. She began to fall. According to the announcer, Anansi had been successfully incapacitated and could no longer continue fighting. But what was the point? Neither could she.

She fell, and her now blackened and burnt staff rolled out of her hands. She couldn’t even use the weapon anymore. It was too damaged from the constant fire magic.

She had won her first match with the gods, but she had also failed in the process.

Now she was going to die.

Jumo was going to die.