Chapter 63 - Mizuko ShirogetsuHollow NightThe battlefield is chaos.

  I dart to the left, narrowly avoiding the shockwave as Daisuke sms a massive, mutated hand into the ground. The impact craters the earth, sending jagged cracks spiderwebbing outward, and I can feel the air quake with the sheer weight of his strength. He isn’t even looking at me—his attention is locked onto Nakamura, who’s now sending a blindingly fast haymaker into one of Daisuke’s legs. The gantlet bounces harmlessly against the thick, sinewy armor that now coats Daisuke’s body like a grotesque carapace.

  “Keep him busy!” Cunningham’s voice snaps through the noise, his accent sharp as a whip. He surges forward from the opposite fnk on all fours, his coat of fme branding scorch marks into the asphalt below.

  I clench my teeth, watching as Daisuke turns toward him with the eerie, fluid movement of a predator. His glowing eyes flicker with something unholy, something entirely inhuman. For a moment, I hesitate; a single beat too long.

  “Move, Yurei!!” Miharu’s voice jerks me back into motion. The distinct whoosh of her cymore cutting through the air follows as she unches herself into the fray, her weapon trailing shimmering arcs of blue and red light alike. She’s fast. Faster than me, nearly as fast as Nakamura even.

  But even still, it wasn’t enough.

  Daisuke catches her strike mid-air. His grotesque, oversized arm moves with unnatural precision, and the sound of her sword grinding against his monstrous cws is deafening. Kozuki doesn’t flinch, twisting her grip and spinning into a follow-up strike with her other white bde, but it doesn’t matter. With a single swipe of his free arm, he sends her flying across the battlefield. She crashes into the side of a building, creating a spray of shattered stone on impact.

  I barely register her pained cry as Cunningham closes in. His cws spark like bzing knives and ssh at Daisuke’s exposed midsection. For a moment, I think he’s nded a hit, but the mutated flesh ripples unnaturally, absorbing the blow like water. Daisuke turns with terrifying speed, his cwed hand sweeping low. Cunningham tries to leap back, but the strike clips his leg, sending him tumbling.

  “That’s enough!” Nakamura’s voice cracks with desperation as he raises both gauntleted hands. His figure then starts to jitter and pulse as if struggling to contain all the energy he’s trying to summon. Then, he’s gone. I snap my gaze to Daisuke to find a dark orange blur rapidly circling him as he unsuccessfully swipes and cws at it.

  I didn’t know the specifics of Nakamura’s ability, and I only had myself to bme for that, thanks to my actions at the start of the night. That said, even I can tell that Daisuke’s attacks were only growing more and more accurate. Nakamura couldn’t keep this up much longer.

  “Fall back!” I shout, my voice sharper than I intend. Nakamura looks at me for a split-second, sweat slicking his face, but nods and scrambles backward. Cunningham is already moving, his teeth gritted. Miharu, to my relief, is pulling herself out of the rubble, though her swords tremble slightly in her grip.

  The small moment of respite shatters.

  Daisuke steps forward, the glow in his eyes burning brighter. His body has changed even more since the fight began. Spines and jagged protrusions jut out now from his shoulders, his arms elongated and twisted into weapons of pure destruction. The ground trembles beneath his feet as he advances, his gaze scanning each of us with cold, calcuting precision.

  “Together!” Cunningham growls, raising his cws again. “We hit him together—keep him off bance!”

  I want to tell him that all of this is pointless. I want to tell him that no amount of coordination will change the fact that Daisuke, as he is now, is just impossibly strong. But doubt was a luxury that had long been a distant aroma at best. Miharu and Nakamura were already moving, fnking Daisuke on either side, forcing me to act.

  I dart forward, freezing moisture swirling at my feet. My EXS responds to my will, the liquid coalescing into twin bdes in my hands. My movements are as fluid, controlled, and deliberate as can be in a situation as turbulent as this.

  As we converge, Daisuke is ready.

  Nakamura zooms, aiming for Daisuke’s exposed legs. It’s a feint, meant to draw his attention low, but Daisuke doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he sidesteps with inhuman grace, his cws sweeping upward in a deadly arc. Miharu barely manages to deflect the strike with her bde, and even then, the force of the blow sends her skidding backward.

  I seize the opening, closing the distance and sshing at his fnk. My ice bdes carve through the air, aimed for the gaps in his armor, but the moment they connect, his grotesque flesh hardens, repelling the strike. Before I can react, his tail—when did he grow a tail?—shes out, striking me across the stomach. I’m thrown backward, the impact knocking the air from my lungs.

  Pain blossoms in my ribs, but I force myself to stand, to keep moving. Kozuki is spinning in a blur of motion as she tries to outmaneuver Daisuke. Cunningham joins her, cwing in tandem, their movements synchronized. For a moment, it looks like they’re gaining ground, their combined assault forcing Daisuke to backpedal.

  And then he roars.

  The sound is deafening, primal, shaking me to my core. A shockwave of raw energy bursts from his body, sending all of us sprawling. I hit the ground hard, my vision swimming as I struggle to orient myself.

  When I manage to push myself up, I see Daisuke standing tall, unscathed, his monstrous form silhouetted against the ruined ndscape. Miharu is on her knees, coughing, both bdes lying useless beside her. Cunningham is slumped against a toppled car, his breathing ragged. Nakamura is the only one still standing, his hands trembling as he gathers energy for another attack.

  Daisuke growls something deep and unintelligible then, his voice distorted, guttural. Next, his glowing eyes fix on Nakamura, and he moves—faster than I can track. In an instant, he’s on him, one massive cw raised to strike.

  “Nakamura!” I scream, forcing my body to move, summoning every ounce of strength I have left. To my own surprise, my ice surges forward, forming a barrier between them, but it’s too slow, too weak.

  Daisuke’s cw tears through it like paper.

  Time seems to slow as I watch Nakamura brace for the impact, his expression a mix of defiance and fear.

  And then, at the st moment, a new shadow falls across the battlefield.

  A figure steps into the fray, cloaked in a familiar blue lightning, and intercepts Daisuke’s strike with a mighty swing of motion.

  The fight wasn’t over yet, and for the first time since it began, I felt the faintest flicker of hope.

  “Hands off!” Junko shouts as she shes Daisuke’s palm with her ōdachi.

  Junko’s blue lightning arcs wildly, a smooth curve of power that causes Daisuke to recoil and step back. As she withdraws it, her ōdachi hums in her hand, lightning reflecting off the bde’s pristine surface as she effortlessly deflects Daisuke’s sudden next strike. The sheer force of the blow carves a trench into the ground beneath her feet, but she doesn’t waver.

  Nakamura’s eyes widen and he sidles up beside her. Eiji then blinks in next to the two of them, analysing eyes locked on to Daisuke’s monstrous form. There’s an odd stillness about her, a stark contrast to the chaos around us. She is like a chess pyer calcuting every possible move on the board. Even so, she’s in motion before Junko’s voice even begins to ring out.

  “Is this… Daisuke?!” Her voice crackles, disbelieving yet sharp.

  “A-Aye,” Miharu croaks, dragging herself upright. Her swords tremble slightly in her grip, but her voice doesn’t falter. "But not wholly. Something is amiss—his EXS doth run rampant!"

  Junko’s eyes narrow, glowing faintly with an intensity that matches the energy sparking around her.

  “Rampant or not, we’re putting him down.” She then gnces my way. A look of concern as ephemeral as a fsh of light appears on her visage. She turns back to the others.

  “Hoshino, Ryota, you with me?”

  Ryota responds by crashing his fists together while Eiji nods wordlessly. Curiously, she grips the hilt of her hammer with her non-dominant left hand, and there’s hesitation in her stance.

  “We don’t have to kill him,” she says evenly, though her tone leaves little room for debate. “If he can be stopped—restrained—we do that first.”

  “Fine by me,” Junko mutters, already moving.

  I force myself to stand, clutching my side where Daisuke’s tail had struck me earlier. My body screams in protest, but I push the pain aside. Nakamura notices and backs up toward me, clearly worried but determined, his eyes never leaving Daisuke. Meanwhile, Cunningham pulls himself out of the wreckage of the toppled car with a grimace. Miharu stands unsteadily at my side, her swords glowing faintly.

  For as much lip service as I gave about being held back by the others, this is the one moment I don’t feel completely out of my depth. I think back to the events that had transpired just tonight alone, and the folly in my thinking is already clear as day.

  As we all come together to engage our common foe, I feel more powerful than ever before.

  Not that Daisuke seems fazed in the slightest. If anything, the new presences of Junko and Eiji seems to fuel his bloodlust. He roars again, the sound a guttural mix of rage and distorted static, before surging forward with horrifying speed.

  Junko meets him head-on. Her bde cshes against his cws, sparks and lightning erupting in an explosion of light and sound. The impact sends shockwaves rippling through the air, and I can barely keep my footing as I watch them trade blows. Junko moves like a storm given form—every strike of her odachi accompanied by arcs of electricity that scorch the ground and sear into Daisuke’s twisted flesh. But for every strike she nds, Daisuke counters with twice the ferocity. His cws ssh through the air with surgical precision, forcing Junko to twist and parry with an almost inhuman level of agility.

  Eiji isn’t far behind. Thanks to her light form, she moves with deceptive speed, smashing her bludgeon into Daisuke’s grotesque armor. Where Junko’s attacks are sharp, wild and electrified, Eiji’s are blunt, precise and yet devastating. Together, they manage to push Daisuke back—but only slightly.

  “Let’s get in there, Shirogetsu-san!” Nakamura’s voice snaps me out of my trance. He’s already charging back into the fight, his gauntlets crackling with stored energy. Cunningham follows, his cws sparking with fire as he moves to fnk Daisuke once more. Miharu and I exchange a gnce, and I nod. There’s no room for hesitation.

  The five of us converge on Daisuke like a pack of wolves.

  Nakamura sms into him first, his gauntlets releasing in a massive bst that staggers even Daisuke. Cunningham follows, his fming cws sshing at the exposed joints of Daisuke’s monstrous body. Miharu flips over Cunningham and leaps off of his shoulders like a trained acrobat, her bdes singing through the air as she aims for Daisuke’s head. I close in from the side, my ice-bdes forming mid-strike.

  For a brief, exhirating moment, we overwhelm him. Blow after blow nds, crumbling his stance and forcing him to backpedal. My bdes bite into the softer gaps in his armor, Miharu’s swords carve glowing arcs across his chest, and Cunningham’s cws burn deep gashes into his side. Nakamura unleashes a devastating punch to his midsection, the force of the impact creating a shockwave that sends Daisuke skidding backwards, cracks splintering through the ground.

  Just as quickly, however, the tide turns.

  Daisuke roars again, the sound splitting the air like thunder. His mutated form surges with petrifying energy, and he swings both cws in an arc in the space in front. The result is a series of deep red crescents that look like red gashes in the air, sailing in a barrage and throwing all of us back—Junko and Eiji included. I hit the ground hard as the projects whoosh and whizz overhead, carving into and decapitating any object foolish enough to stand in its way. By the time I scramble to my feet, Daisuke is already back on the offensive.

  “Fall back!” Junko shouts, electricity crackling wildly around her. “We need to regroup!”

  “Nay.” Miharu’s voice is steady, determined. She pushes herself upright, her eyes glowing faintly. “This battle endeth now – by our hand.”

  She doesn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she rises to her feet and lowers her stance. The glow in her eyes intensifies, and I realize what she’s doing.

  She’s predicting.

  “Hold on, wait—!” Nakamura starts, but she cuts him off with a sharp gesture.

  “Faith,” she says simply.

  Her movements become impossibly fast, her swords a blur as she charges Daisuke head-on. It’s reckless, suicidal even—but it’s also deliberate. Every movement she makes is calcuted, designed to draw Daisuke’s attention away from the rest of us. He takes the bait, focusing entirely on Miharu as she ducks and weaves around his attacks with uncanny precision.

  “Now!” Miharu shouts, her voice cutting through the chaos.

  Nakamura is the first to act. He sms his gauntlets together, sending a low hum of kinetic energy rippling outward.

  "On me!" he calls, his voice sharp with determination. Junko darts to his side, her body shimmering with arcs of electricity that grow brighter with each step. She tightens her grip on her ōdachi.

  Cunningham and I exchange a gnce, and without a word, we fall into sync. He drops to all fours, fire licking at his cws as I channel a gcial chill into my ice-bdes, the temperature around me plummeting sharply. Together, we move into position.

  “We’ll hit him at the same time,” Nakamura says, bracing for the strike. Junko nods, the energy coiling around her bde nearly blinding now. Cunningham lets out a low growl, fire roaring to life around him, and I ready the frost that crystallizes in the air before me.

  The timing must be perfect.

  But before we can execute the attack, Daisuke moves faster than I can track—one moment standing at the center of our formation, the next, sending the back of a cwed hand smming into Nakamura with the force of a cannonball. The kinetic energy building in his gauntlets disperses in an uncontrolble bst, throwing him across the battlefield like a ragdoll.

  Junko raises her ōdachi in defense, but Daisuke is already there, catching the bde with his bare hand. The lightning surging through it crackles around his frame but does little to slow him down. With a violent yank, he hurls Junko aside. She tumbles across the ground, sparks flickering out as her weapon skitters away.

  Cunningham and I barely have time to react before Daisuke turns to us. The fire around Cunningham fres, and I leap back to avoid the scorching heat, but it’s too te. A pulse of Daisuke’s EXS energy shatters the fragile synchronization we had built, scattering us like leaves in a storm.

  So much for the perfect strike.

  He roars again, his body twisting and mutating even further as he unleashes another shockwave of raw energy – but this is different. Now, I can physically see the red dome of malice expanding from him like an explosion, and we are all swept within it.

  The visions that follow are just like the first time Daisuke had done this to me, only worse in every fathomable way. Images of Junko’s lifeless dangling corpse, our own bodies trampled and mutited, horrible mentations in my mother’s voice of how much of a failed existence I’ve lead since her passing.

  The pain was more than I thought possible.

  So much so that when I come to and notice Daisuke’s enrged hand reaching for me, I can’t find the strength to fight back.

  Perhaps I should preface this by mentioning how little I truly understood about my partner, Reaper. At that point in time, their presence in my life was more akin to an unanswered question. A shadow looming just beyond the edge of my comprehension.

  I knew what they were:

  An ally.

  And I knew what they were capable of:

  Violence.

  But who they were? I wished then, as they seemingly materialized out of thin air and held up Daisuke’s monstrous hand with only one of their own, that I’d paid more attention.

  Oh, how much suffering could have been avoided if I had just paid more attention.

  Wordlessly their hood’s darkness shifted to me slowly, expectantly. After having found myself dumbstruck for several precious seconds, I eventually got the hint and scrambled backwards. A premonition of what was to come flooded my senses and immediately I knew I had to get everyone out of the vicinity – quickly, at that.

  Calm as can be, Reaper cocked back their free arm and sent a fist bulleting into Daisuke’s open palm, causing a loud smack to echo across the street. The beast staggered back. There was a surprisingly startled quality about his movement then, as if he hadn’t expected any of us to be able to hit so hard.

  Then came a standstill, and it felt as though time itself was holding its breath as the two of them stood, silent as stone gargoyles. Their eyes met, perhaps exchanging information unable to be conveyed through speech. The only audible sound would have been the rapid tapping of my feet on asphalt. I eventually spotted Kozuki, Hoshino, and Junko crouched behind an unnatural, jagged concrete outcropping – likely one colteral effect of our futile attempts to stop Daisuke.

  “Stay low,” I whispered, lowering into a slide next to Junko. I almost winced at the mixture of emotion spyed across her face, detecting portions of exhaustion, fear, hope, and confusion all concocted into one. The faces of the other two were no different, and I imagine I wore a simir expression in that moment.

  “What are they doing?” Hoshino exasperated. “If all our combined efforts didn’t stand a chance against him, what hope do they –“

  Hoshino, and the Hollow Night in its entirety, gasped in response to the sudden pressure of the csh. In a fsh, Daisuke’s mutated form was moving with an unnerving blend of monstrous force and deliberate cunning, his cws carving rapid, jagged furrows into the earth and sending chunks of debris hurtling in every direction.

  Reaper, by contrast, was a living shadow in motion—a streak of grey energy that twisted and danced through the destruction, their now summoned scythe fshing like a serpent’s fang.

  Each collision between them erupted with the force of an earthquake, shockwaves rippling outward and tearing apart what little remained of the battlefield. What had once been an urban main road was now practically a concrete clearing of demolished buildings, jagged craters, and shattered gss. The sheer scale of the destruction was mind-numbing, making the scene of my fight with Katoru look like child’s py.

  Hoshino leaned heavily on her glowing hammer as blocks of destruction headed our way, her radiant light flickering faintly, but bright enough to illuminate the thin rivers of blood that had ran down her arm.

  “What the hell…? Reaper’s actually holding their own,” she muttered, her voice tinged with disbelief. “They… they can really go toe-to-toe with Daisuke like this?”

  “It appeareth so,” Kozuki commented, her eyes wide and breathing heavy, flinching as another spray of dirt rained over us. “But, how in the bzes would one arouse such might?”

  We turned our attention back to the fight just in time to witness one of Daisuke’s cws swipe through the air, carving another massive crescent of crackling red energy that hurtled toward Reaper like a tidal wave. Without missing a beat, Reaper spun their scythe in a wide arc, the bde somehow catching the energy and dissipating it in a spray of sparks. They countered immediately, thrusting forward with their weapon as the dark energy surrounding it exploded outward in a concussive bst.

  The impact sent Daisuke skidding backward, his massive feet carving trenches into the earth as he dug in to stabilize himself. He snarled, his grotesque maw curling into something that, at least to me, resembled a terrible grin.

  Reaper didn’t respond to that. They rarely did. Instead, they shifted their stance, their scythe glowing faintly as the dark energy now surrounding it began to intensify. The air around them seemed to distort, as though the fabric of reality itself was bending to their will.

  “They’re using his power against him,” I realized. “Of course. If we can’t beat him with our own strength…”

  “Then we have to leverage his.” Junko finished right as said energy inhabited in Reaper’s scythe began to expand and coalesce, causing it to glow a dangerous crimson. “…That can’t be good.”

  “DUCK!” Kozuki shouted, and then I felt Junko’s body push mine to the ground as another shockwave ripped through the clearing. Chunks of rock and splinters of gss and concrete rained down around us now, forcing Eiji to raise her hammer and create a protective dome of light.

  Despite the chaos, we could never tear our eyes away from the fight.

  Daisuke roared and lunged forward, bringing his cws down in a devastating double swipe. Reaper met him head-on, their scythe spinning in a blur of motion as they parried and deflected each strike with pinpoint precision. Each collision sent sparks and energy veering outward, carving even deeper scars into the already devastated ndscape.

  “This is insane,” Eiji said, her voice barely audible over the cacophony. “They’re going to tear each other apart – and the whole damn city while they’re at it!”

  “And us too if we don’t move it,” Junko reminded, pulling Hoshino to her feet. “We need to regroup somewhere safer—”

  Before she could finish, another explosion tore through the battlefield, ripping the world out from under me. The ground tilted, and my back smmed into the earth with a force that stole the breath from my lungs. My ribs screamed in protest, the pain radiating outward in sharp, searing waves. I gasped, cwing at the dirt as I scrambled to my hands and knees, my ears ringing with the echo of the bst.

  That’s when I saw it: a jagged shard of metal, small but wickedly sharp, spinning toward me like a spear.

  Time seemed to slow. Every fiber of my being screamed at me to move. My mind roared, Get up! Get out of the way! But something was wrong. My legs… they would not respond.

  I gnced down and froze. Twisted vines, dark as shadows and pulsing faintly, had coiled themselves tightly around my ankles. Their thorned tendrils dug into my skin, drawing blood as they tightened their grip. They felt alive—malevolent and cold, like they had been waiting for me all along.

  “What the hell is this—?!” I choked out, panic surging through my chest as I thrashed against the vines.

  “LOOK OUT!!” Junko’s voice sliced through the chaos, raw and desperate, but it was already too te.

  The shard struck.

  A white-hot pain tore through my stomach, sharp and all-consuming. My body jerked backward as the impact sent me flying. The world became a spinning blur of light and shadow, the fractured battlefield stretching and distorting as though reality itself were colpsing around me. I crashed hard on my side, the force of the nding knocking what little air was left from my lungs.

  For a moment, I felt nothing—only a terrible, cold stillness. Then the pain surged back, sharp and insistent, radiating from my stomach like fire spreading through my veins. I clutched at the wound instinctively, my fingers slick with blood that was already pooling beneath me. Warm. Wet. The crimson stain blossomed across my shirt, growing wider with every passing second.

  The world around me began to fade. The roar of the battle, the shouts of my companions, even the distant sound of Daisuke’s monstrous growls—all of it dissolved into an eerie, deafening silence.

  I tried to lift my head, to look for the others, but my vision blurred and swam. The edges of the battlefield grew darker, closing in like a curtain falling over a stage. Somewhere far away, I could hear someone screaming my name—high-pitched, frantic, like it was being dragged through water.

  I couldn’t tell who it was anymore.

  The vines retreating now, slithering back into the darkness as I y bleeding. I could feel them watching, admiring, as if feeding off my pain. A faint, guttural ugh echoed behind me, low and sickly, curling around my ears like smoke.

  Reaper was moving—no, growing rger in my hazy field of vision. Were they coming closer? I couldn’t tell anymore. My mind felt heavy, sluggish, as if it were sinking into the earth beneath me.

  The pain was unbearable now, but even that began to ebb, repced by a cold, creeping numbness. It was harder and harder to hold on, to make sense of what was happening.

  I let my head fall back against the ground, staring up at the fractured night sky above. I closed my eyes to the world, to the chaos, to the sound of that quiet, haunting, malevolent ughter that faded like a twisted lulby into the distance. Something green was standing over me.

  I didn’t want it to end here. Not like this. But I was so tired.

  ｓｏ，　ｓｏ　ｔｉｒｅｄ．