As he came back to his feet from another dive and roll, Dario wished the bear would at least growl. But it didn’t growl, nor did it roar or grunt or even breathe. Fighting this silent, obviously dead beast was a bit like dancing without a tune.

  There were only the sounds of its long claws scraping against the stone as it charged again, making the hammering of his heart all the more loud in his ears. He gripped his dagger tighter as he watched the shifting violet Ki underneath its skin. This time, he decided to try a memory of shame. Bravery hadn’t worked at all.

  A bit of burgundy smoke rose from his chest, just enough to wrap around his dagger’s blade. His eyes glowed gold as he watched the Ki surging in its hind legs, until… Now.

  Running his plant Ki through his legs for a boost in speed, Dario sprang to his right, dagger slicing along the bear’s side as it narrowly passed him by. It cut through a bit of the tough skin and scraped along a bone without doing any real damage, just as before.

  The bear turned and swiped, reacting quicker than before. Was it learning?

  He danced back, gathering a ball of light and blasting it in the face. When the bear didn’t flinch for even a second, he turned and ran. It charged after him, picking up speed. When he glanced over his shoulder to try another flash of light, his eyes widened.

  The deep violet Ki surged and seemed to suck up all the light Ki. In just a moment, it was gone, and a golden hue burned under the bear’s skin. What kind of fresh trickery was that?

  The massive beast was slow to start but its speed built quickly, forcing him to dive into an open window of a ruined building to the side before it could catch him. He grunted with pain as pieces of stone dug into his side, then hurried to push himself up and dive back out the other window, because the beast would-

  The wall to his left exploded inward just as he leapt out again. A part of the roof came down just as he landed back on the street, but it wasn’t enough to damage the huge thing, only to slow it down. Dario used the opportunity to pack a few seeds into the dirt, quickly forming a crude circle. He then dashed for the collapsed wall, gathering pink Ki with thoughts of love. While the bear struggled to push through the debris he landed a few good cuts around its neck. This Ki seemed to work a bit better at neutralizing the violet Ki than shame or bravery, but it was still off the mark.

  He fought down a wave of despair as he searched for ideas on how to bring the beast down, clenching his teeth as he stubbornly sawed at its neck.

  As another cut laid open its thick skin, he again spotted the purple-colored tentacles, wrapped around the bones in its shoulder. His eyes widened. The parasite was working it like a damn puppet. He would have to-

  One of the whip-like tentacles sprang from its body and wrapped around his leg.

  “Shit,” he cursed, jerking back and cutting at it with his dagger. A paw flashed-

  His world turned into a mess of spinning ruins. He rolled to a stop, dazed and disoriented but knowing he needed to get back up. The bear was already charging down the narrow street as he stumbled to his feet. His arm was numb but he could still faintly feel the trickle of blood running down it.

  He ducked into a collapsed archway to his left, but the dizziness left him stumbling against the wall and tripping over rocks. There was a loud crash behind, but he didn’t look back, eyes locked onto a small opening leading back out. Green Ki pumped through his legs as he pushed through, rough stone tearing his clothes and scraping his skin raw.

  He squeezed through the narrow gap and flopped out onto the street again, stabs of pain beginning to shoot along his arm. For a moment he stood there, wincing with each breath and wishing he had Nika’s defenses. Another strike like that and he might be crippled, or worse. The beast was already beating at the barrier, stones clattering to the floor as it began to bend outwards. He had to move. Where had he left those seeds?

  Blinking to try and clear his vision, he moved back, then spotted the collapsed wall from before. They had to be there somewhere. He ran, swaying left and right. Behind him, the beast knocked down yet another house. He threw a few poisonous grapes at it but cursed as they splattered uselessly against a wall.

  “Come on, where are you,” he muttered, pushing more Ki into his eyes, looking for bits of green aura.

  “There!”

  The beast was coming in fast as he focused, splitting a wave of green Ki into five thin bands that reached for the seeds. Some of it went rushing down the seams in his legs as he bent his knees, mentally counting down…

  He pushed out a wave of Ki right as he leapt to the side, narrowly dodging a swiping claw. A flash of agony as he came down on his bad arm had him crying out, but still he kept his focus on the streams of Ki, pushing a good chunk of his reserves into the five vines. They thickened and grew thorns as they rushed up, surrounding the bear as it struggled, digging into its dead skin. While the beast fought to move, Dario pushed through the pain, grabbing his staff as he went for a two-handed strike at its leg. Shattering its bones should cripple it, parasite or not.

  Long claws and yellow teeth dug into the vines but the beast was wrapped up tight in bark as hard as stone. Yet right as he landed his second strike on its leg with a satisfying crunch, its violet Ki surged. It burned where it touched his skin and he jerked back with a hiss of pain.

  The purple energy rushed out in a cloud and wrapped around his vines which began to wither and shrink.

  “No! Stop that!”

  But the violet Ki kept devouring his beloved vines, their bark turning black and crumbling as they dried up. Their Ki flowed into the beast, tiny green buds sprouting from its dark and dead skin.

  Instead of watching while the beast finished draining the vines, Dario ran.

  His balance was slowly coming back as he rushed around a corner and crawled up and over a collapsed house. It wouldn’t take long for that cursed bear to free itself, but he was going to need every minute he could get. His arm needed to be bandaged and if he was going to take that lumbering giant down, he’d need some time to lay another trap.

  He looked back at the city as he ran through ever widening streets, coming up on the outskirts where less buildings stood.

  Sorry, Nika, he thought, but you’ll have to keep Uso busy a little bit longer.

  A burning sensation on his wrist brought his eyes down for a moment, seeing the blisters from where that strange Ki had touched him. At least he’d gotten something from that wound; he knew what the beast was using, now. All that was left was to figure out how to fight it.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  That intense feeling of hatred mixed with greed and toxic desire had been unmistakable when it burnt his skin.

  The bear was wielding envy.

  ***

  Nika had a brief moment to consider that it was likely for the best that no people lived here anymore, before she crashed through yet another wall. The old stone had thankfully weakened over time, so that a layer of Ki to reinforce her skin was enough to avoid any serious damage.

  In fact, she was beginning to cherish those brief moments of relative quiet where she picked herself up from the rubble, before she had to dive back into the intensity of battle. It was during those moments that she had a chance to reflect on the latest exchanges and consider a change of tactics.

  And a change of tactics was sorely needed. Her initial plan of fighting a battle of attrition was backfiring due to two factors. First, the green Ki generated by deep personal truths was proving to be a dwindling resource. Each time she called on that same, uncomfortable revelation, it seemed to lose some of its luster, generating less and less of the green Ki. Second, the parasite’s own Ki of lies was more versatile and could be used to heal its wounds. Also, it had been feeding on their dreams for days, so until she saw a sign that it was dwindling, she would have to go on the assumption that she would run out of Ki before it did.

  She rolled her shoulders and cycled her Ki, gathering more bits of heft from the masses of stone around her. They were collecting into a white force that was beginning to weigh her down as it lingered in her seams, but it was not yet enough.

  The monster could move faster than her, so escaping without crippling it or slowing it down would not be an option. Continuing to trade blows would leave her wounded and exhausted while Uso would simply heal. So the question was: how did one cripple a foe that could simply keep healing itself?

  Any crippling might be temporary, but slowing it down enough to at least reach the outskirts would be enough. The trouble was that even if she managed to destroy as many as four claws in quick succession, it could still move after her while pausing to heal. But what if all of its limbs failed at once? Or even better, if she could make it so that it was a staggered reaction…

  “Why do you still get up and fight, young Houjo? There will be less pain and blood if you stop resisting. Your ancestors understood that well.”

  Nika forced down a spike of anger as Uso’s taunting laugh thundered through the square. It may be a black mark on her clan, but the parasite had enough weapons as it was; she need not give it any more.

  The Ki around her hands formed into spikes as she dove forward, ducking under two predictable claw swipes to cut into a tentacle. Then she sank into a deep focus, letting her battle instinct take over. Step back, block a claw with the elbow, take another on the shoulder, watch out for the sweep, step in, cycle Ki to the back, duck, pivot, punch. The flurry of blows culminated in her punching another hole through a tentacle, hoping that the parasite would suspect a change in tactics.

  In truth, the piercing blows to its tentacles were only a distraction. The real attack was more subtle and took place whenever she touched a claw, however brief. With every scrape, strike and deflection of the black claws, her Ki would sweep in and out, drawing a bit of hardness with it as it returned.

  Each of its ten claws was numbered in her mind, starting with the bottom left and moving clockwise from there. The trouble was that the parasite favoured numbers four through six for its constant assault, while numbers one and ten were used almost exclusively for balance, rarely leaving the ground.

  She moved her left side back for a better angle to deflect two sharp blows, then stepped in sharply, striking at a tentacle before snapping out a low kick. It cost her another line of blood along the arm before she could draw back, but claw number one had lost a good bit of hardness there.

  Nika considered how to bait out a few of the other claws as they circled each other. There was a pattern suited to each one, but every exchange came at a cost. The question was whether she would last long enough to wear all of them down.

  “They were the first to flee, you know? Those so-called defenders ran faster than the rest when their shields broke and their soldiers died.”

  She advanced again. Sweat ran down her neck and her muscles burned as she moved faster than ever through her forms. A short kick into a pivot into an elbow thrust, then ducking and coming right back up into a series of lightning-fast jabs, her mind whirring as she struggled to keep track.

  Too much had been taken from the fourth and fifth. Next was to draw out number seven by striking at the bottom right tentacle, leaving the right shoulder open.

  “Once they were safely up, they were also the ones to close the passages to this floor. They sealed it well, with stone and false truths. Sealed it for centuries. But soon, that will be undone.”

  Just when she thought she would get the desired exchange, Uso suddenly shifted his attack pattern and the entire delicate dance came undone. A claw scraped along her thigh as another pierced the skin on her shoulder while two tentacles whipped out. Time to use her contingency. She caught the first whipping tentacle with a grunt, shifted her center of weight slightly so that the other would-

  Her vision swam as she was sent flying for the fourth time, crashing to a stop in the ruins of a house. But the angle had been right - this was the same ruin she’d landed in before. She was breathing heavily as she hurried to continue her preparations here, weakening the ceiling in just the right places, inverting the matrix on a weight-bearing pillar.

  Any longer and the parasite would grow suspicious, so she ignored her fresh wounds and went dashing out again, running right back into that high-speed dance where she now felt out each claw she struck with her Ki, satisfied with most of them. Two would still hold strong, they were too costly to bait out, so eight out of ten would have to do.

  After a final flurry of blows where she drew more hardness away, she then flared her green Ki and struck with both hands at a tentacle as Uso flinched back. One gripped it tight and pulled as the other cut down with an obsidian chisel formed of Ki. With a wet tear, the slimy black thing came loose and she hurled it down the street with a wet thud.

  Uso shrieked with rage. The predictable counter-strike was swift and fierce, a combination of flashing claws and tentacles she could not have dodged even if she wanted to. All she could do was keep the wounds superficial and pivot to the left so that-

  “Urgh!”

  Another massive impact had her ribs creaking as she flew over the rough ground and went tumbling into the same house. She spat out blood and limped deeper into those ruins, looking as if she was trying to flee.

  Uso gave chase. It did not pause to heal the missing tentacle. Because it would not work? Or did it not consider the injury debilitating enough to pause and heal?

  “Very well,” she said, retreating from Uso’s looming form until she was with her back to the wall, deep inside the ruined house. “I will yield. What would you have me do?”

  The claws folded as Uso lowered his bulk to fit into the ruins, tips scraping across the stone as he moved, coming to a stop next to the pillar holding up the roof.

  “More tricks? It matters not. Kneel, young Houjo. All you must do is kneel.”

  Nika stepped forward and knelt, eyes on Uso’s lower claws, Ki at the ready. Her pulse raced as her thoughts turned to memories of her father, the feeling she got when he smiled and praised her. She was watching those claws draw closer, waiting. Two more steps. Then one.

  She sprang forward as verdant Ki rushed out from her chest. But before that came a rush of obsidian, stretching further beyond her skin than ever before. Uso growled and struck, but in the narrow ruin its claws scraped against the wall and ceiling, slowed down by the stone. Her Ki swept over them as she struck, snapping out a series of lightning-fast kicks and jabs.

  One claw cracked and splintered, then another. As soon as the brown Ki began to surge, she pushed all of her green Ki forward in a wave to smother it. Uso retreated, which is when she snapped out a kick at the pillar, which exploded into shards of stone.

  The projectiles peppered the monster, cracking another two claws and sticking from its tentacles. The roof creaked and began to crumble.

  She easily kicked a hole in an area of the back wall that she’d already weakened. Uso was screeching with fury now, lunging forward to catch her, but the remaining claws cracked and burst under the strain of its weight. Nika dove out as the house collapsed on top of the parasite.

  Even as Uso screamed and shrieked with rage, Nika didn’t look back, running as fast as she could to the outskirts. She knew this would not yet be enough to slay the cursed thing. Her wounds were growing and her strength and Ki were dwindling. Hopefully, Dario had laid their trap well.

  But as Uso’s shriek turned into a distorted roar of rage behind her, she had to suppress a curse as she noticed a thick plume of smoke in the distance.

  He had set the fire already. That was not the plan. What in the name of Tenjin was Dario doing?