Mirror

Kiyomi back flipped, her dress flaring as she landed. Dario’s fire javelin puffed into black smoke against the Sentinel’s back, a second one forming in-hand before he even touched the ground.

Her eyes darted to the left as Daichi leapt for her, snarling with claws outstretched. She somersaulted over him, catching herself on a red pillar of smoke mid-air. Her tome rose into her hand, the pages flipping open.

Snare.

Daichi turned around, just as a web of crackling red light closed around him. They tightened, locking his arms against his body. He let out a howl, trying to bite them as he struggled.

“Aw, leave the puppy alone, Kiyomi,” Dario said, leaping into the air with legs crossed and arms flared. “You’ve got me to keep you busy.”

Her tome flipped through its pages, but she was too slow. He tossed another two fire javelins, one nailing her on the shoulder, the other knocking the tome out of her hand. Like he knew where she was going to be next, how she was going to move.

She floated backwards, clutching her burning shoulder.

Dario opened his arms walking towards her. “Oh, come on Kiyomi, we haven’t even started the foreplay yet and you’re running away?”

An ear shattering roar broke out over the plane, and everyone turned to it. Even the Sentinel paused in its stride.

Kiyomi’s eyes widened.

“Holy blonde hairballs, what in the Igs is that?” Dario said.

A Titan lumbered towards them in the distance, its body black and volcanic orange. Even at that distance, it radiated such heat that it distorted the horizon above it.

“That is Ignacio, right?” Dario asked, placing his hand over his eyes. “Goodness me, that’s Ignacio!”

Kiyomi snarled, flinging a ball of red mana at him. But he simply cartwheeled out the way, without even looking at her.

“Kiyomi, are you seeing this?” he asked, turning to her with a grin. “That’s our new boy, Ignacio. I call him Igs, but you don’t get to call him that.”

What the hell happened?

Did he kill the Hallowed Titan… and the Magma Drake?

“Now you know what it’s like, Kiyomi,” Daichi said, his wolf-form’s voice deep with a slight growl. “To see something unstoppable coming for you, and knowing there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s what it’s like every time we hear the name Cypher Corp. Every time we see their logo. Every time we lose someone else to your disgusting company. This is what it’s like.”

An entity that consumed all and became it all, until it was unstoppable.

“Yeah,” she said, blade forming in her hand as she turned to him. “I know.”

She zipped forward, blade slicing through his chest and dropping him with a thud.

He gasped, dark blood trickling from the wound in his chest as he whimpered like a dog. The red binds faded, and his arms fell limply to the ground.

“No, Daichi,” Dario said, holding out his hands. He sighed. “Screw you, Kiyomi.”

She raised her blade, the buzz close to her ear. “Catch me first, Dario.”

He leapt forward, and she ducked, swinging her blade up and slicing him on the leg. He spun around midair, flinging three fire daggers at her. She swiped one, two aside, yelping as the third sliced through her corset and burned her rib.

Dario lunged, twirling his hands. A carpet of flame unfurled, rolling towards her like a giant tongue. She leapt into the air and hovered above him, blade out to the side.

“You’re agile, Dario,” she said. “But not invincible.”

She produced her tome, the pages flipping open. He flung a pair of fire javelins at her, and she smiled.

Mirror.

A transparent polygon formed around her, the fire javelins bouncing off it straight back the way they came. Dario caught them again, jumping and kicking the ball with a fire-coated foot. The glass shattered, sending her hair billowing back.

Aha, she thought, so that does work.

She swung the blade down, cutting his leg off with a spray of blood. He screamed, falling and rolling across Sentinel’s back with a groan.

He clutched his leg, smoke rising as he quarterised himself.

He pounded a fist against the stone. “You bitch!”

She smiled, landing beside him and levelling her blade with his neck.

He panted, staring up at her. “You made me see what I wanted to see with that mirror.”

“Yeah. I know.”

He snorted, leaning his head to the side as a new leg made of fire gushed from the stump. “Would it be too late to say you have the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen?”

She slashed the blade in a flash of red light, and his head rolled off his shoulders.

“Now it is,” she said, turning to watch Ignacio sprint towards her.

She frowned. Why aren’t his powers fading?

She’d assumed that by killing the Hallowed Titan, he would lose the Titan form, and so on. But everything was still… there. And he wasn’t slowing down.

“Well done, Kiyomi,” the Drakin’s voice rumbled from behind.

She turned to him, her fists balling. “Great Drakin, the Ronin is still alive, and its powers aren’t-.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder as he walked past her. “I know, dear girl. I know.”

He stopped at the edge of the Sentinel’s back, raising his hands to the sky.

“Ronin aren’t supposed to exist,” he said. Green flames burst from his hands, shooting a beam to the sky as he placed them together. “But I suppose nothing is impossible in the Ethergeist.”

Kiyomi raised a hand to block the glare as the light grew brighter.

“I want you to keep the Weaver alive,” the Drakin said, his cloak flapping behind him as the beam of fire roared. “I’ll take the Ronin.”

Koharu raised her hand, another portal opening above the Manticore. She kept one knee bent, the other straight down as she hovered in place. Her tongue stuck out as she weaved another ray of blue-light between the portals surrounding the monster. Shun had it by its scorpion-like tail, stopping it from flying away.

“Koharu!” he grunted, voice strained. “You need to take this thing out, now.”

The Manticore roared, its wings beating slow and steady. Each gust whisked Koharu’s hair back as she weaved the beam through portal after portal. Each portal it flashed through made it brighter, faster. More likely to sever what it touched.

She flicked her wrist up, the beam shooting towards her. She looped it through the portal above the Manticore, and aimed it at the beast’s wing.

Come on, she thought.

It struck the beast’s wing, and sliced through it with a sizzling hiss. The Manticore threw its head back in pain, one wing flapping as it fell, shattering the portals as it crashed to the ground.

She pumped her fist. “Yes, Shun!”

“Well done,” Shun bellowed, his voice so loud it shuddered in her chest.

She descended, her smile faltering as she thought of Ezequiel. What he would’ve said. How he would’ve reacted. Probably something so stupidly funny she was incapable of thinking it in his stead.

She chuckled, a tear forming in her eye.

Thank you for being the daughter these monsters took from me.

Tree roots shoot into the air around the Manticore, wrapping over its body and tightening it to the ground with the creak and groan of wood.

Now it’s time to take out the monsters.

She turned as a roar tore through the air, lips parting as she spotted the Titan charging towards the Sentinel. It was more wolf than human, more crystal than flesh with lava cracks running down its head and hands, its feet twining with tree roots.

Ignacio?

A ray of brilliant green light shot into the sky from the Sentinel’s back, making her raise a hand. She narrowed her eyes, peering between her fingers and spotting a red streak of light zip towards… Ignacio.

Kiyomi.

She was still alive. Koharu gritted her teeth.

“Shun,” she said, tears burning her eyes. “I think Kiyomi killed Dario and Daichi.”

Shun turned around, his lower jaw gaping. “No. No, she couldn’t have beaten Dario in hand to hand. That’s not possible!”

He charged towards the red streak, and Koharu followed after him. But both of them stopped as that beam of green light flared brighter, roaring like a monster of its own.

Ignacio slid to a halt, rearing his gigantic crystal head back. The crystal glowed, then pulsed with an orange flicker that grew faster. And faster. Until it swelled like the rumbling of an active volcano. He cast his head forward, a vortex of pale orange and black flames twisting towards the Sentinel.

It struck the giant creature’s hind leg, turning the stone orange and blasting through it. The Sentinel stumbled to the side, holding out an arm to steady itself.

“Come on,” Shun said, gesturing with a wooden hand for her to follow.

She zipped after him, her blue-light flaring as she flew ahead. She headed for Ignacio as that green beam of light kept pulsing into the sky from the Sentinel’s back.

What is it for? She thought. Some kind of request for back up?

Either way, they never had as much time as they had-

Her eyes widened as Kiyomi circled around Ignacio, and shot towards the back of his head.

Behind you…