Flames arrived first. They rose around the nun and children, sealing them in a dome of fire that could hold for a second, maybe two.
Air sheared in two. Olivas' swinging leg met resistance, and a shriek tore outward as his shin blasted into the dome. Buildings on either side of that dome shook, roofs peeling upward and flinging away.
Cracks widened across that dome, fire pushing against the shin but losing ground. A single shard of flame couldn't hold and fell like shattered glass, revealing two wide, wet pupils from within. The same child from earlier.
Olivas looked inside and his ruined face twitched, lips trying to widen into a triumphant smile, but those wet pupils went wide.
He couldn't watch that reaction because his body was already folding, a knee buried in his waist, still going, sinking into one side, force traveling and bursting through the opposite side.
The creature's teeth rattled so hard they ignited from friction, his mouth catching fire, while two arms locked around his body.
"AHHH—" Olivas screamed.
It cut off. A forehead slammed into his throat, forcing him to gulp in air.
And those flames went in with the air, straight down his mouth, into his body. The creature felt pain explode from inside his stomach, choking coughs erupting from him.
The child blinked, and they were gone, two buildings past. Ahead, Mahoraga tilted toward Four and clenched its fingers around the Xenos' ankle.
"W-what?"
Four only had an instant to feel the earth beneath his heels vanish before sky bled into earth and earth tore into sky. Sky. Ground. Sky. Ground.
"I'm f-flying!"
The Fomiore hurled straight toward that crumbling dome, club wrenching free from his hold, limbs spread wide as his head spun.
Another shadow plunged from above, launching off Gros' back, using her tail as a spring. Laura's laughs left her as she reached the nun and children an instant before Four, wrapping her tail around all of them securely.
The shockwave chasing Bell's trail was meters away, three adjacent streets on either side uprooting in parallel lines, launching skyward, buckling apart in countless cracks end to end.
Four reached Laura and twisted his body on instinct, arms wrapping around her and everyone else, rolling away with his leftover momentum.
That shockwave hit where they'd been an instant prior. The whole orphanage exploded into debris, spraying meters outward, disintegrating into dust mid-fall.
It didn't stop there. It smashed into Four's back, hurling him a whole district away, a trench trailing behind.
Bell was carving trenches too, arms wrapped around Olivas' sides, crown pressing into his chest, heels hammering against the ground for every ounce of velocity, punching past buildings and alleys, beyond districts.
A widening V split around them like the wings of a bird stretching open. Tiles, soil, lampposts, houses, all thrown backward into the vacuum they left behind.
Seven hundred meters behind Olivas, the same maw Bell had carved from the eighteenth floor to surface lay waiting, its depth vanishing into unending dark below.
But between that distance, fifteen other Viscums had aligned their bodies into multiple fortress walls of flesh.
Bell hit the first one without slowing.
Olivas' back met green flesh first, the Viscum's coiled body compressed around the creature's spine, surface rippling outward in concentric rings, bark-skin sinking inward. Bell's momentum died by half.
His heels dug in. Stone beneath him cratered, legs burning, arms still locked around Olivas' ribs. Momentum compressed in his legs, spine, and locked jaw.
Still there. Just needing—
A building exploded sideways to his left.
The corner of a rooftop vanished in a shower of brick and mortar. Lyd burst through it, one palm colliding with Olivas' shoulder, other driving into the Viscum.
Ruby and slit eyes met.
They surged forward. That Viscum's skin tore, all three of them breaking free on the other side, rootlike organs and warm liquid arcing green behind them.
Olivas' back rammed into the second Viscum, hands crushing into Bell's shoulders, trying to shove him off.
Air hissed out of Bell's mouth, heels leaving a foot-deep print in earth, force plunging from his shoulders to spine to ankle, diverting deeper into ground.
The second Viscum's skin groaned, curling around all of them, layers of flesh stacking on layers, fissures ripping wide across it, oozing corrosive blood.
Yet it still held.
Then a giant of stone fell.
A shadow dropped from above, and displaced air hit Bell's back before any body did. Waves of pressure flattened the flesh layers, green blood jetting upward in a geyser.
Gros cratered beside them. His palm settled on Bell's free shoulder and shoved, other fist driving into Olivas' free shoulder.
The creature's arms released him.
Olivas' spine bent beyond limit, ribcage rising into his own collarbone, and the ground beneath all of them surrendered. Stone split in four directions, a cross-shaped fracture radiating outward. That Viscum bore the brunt of it and disintegrated into dust.
Momentum returned.
Gros redirected his leftover dive velocity, and it became forward force. His wings tensed, then snapped, a gust cracking behind them.
Bell and Lyd's feet left the ground.
Lyd's tail whipped, coiling around Gros' forearm, and all three of them shot forward with Olivas.
Three became four. Four bodies in a line, Olivas at the tip, Bell in the centre, Lyd at left, Gros at right.
Viscums flashed past so fast that it became a repeat of two similar frames: pierce, push, pierce, push.
Three. Four. Five.
Green-skin met the line of bodies and split. Green viscera fountained sideways, coils of flesh peeling off their flanks mid-flight, too slow to hold them, too thick to fully avoid. Strips of roots clung to Gros' wings, Lyd's tail, and Bell's forearms.
Six. Seven. Eight.
Olivas' fingers moved.
Index, middle and ring, they pressed against Bell's wrist.
Nothing happened.
Space didn't fold. Only the air around his fingertips shimmered once, a ripple that died before forming, and Olivas' three fingers trembled.
His leg-armour was gone. So was his power.
The creature's mouth opened, and he howled. "One last time! One! Just one more! I can still win!"
Green blood leaked from the corners of his mouth, trailing along his cheek. His left eye was wide open, the right nearly closed. His remaining hand closed around the ninth Viscum as they tore through it, fingers sinking into slick skin, groping for something.
Space pulsed once, and root-flesh closed around his finger.
A ring formed, barely, flickering like a weak candle. It was already burning, dissolving in ash.
Olivas' eyes landed on Bell's through the chaos.
His fingers curled.
Every Viscum's body behind Olivas leaned inward, connecting tail to throat in overlapping arches.
Space began to fold.
One last time.
Clunk
Like a fist releasing a crumpled sheet, every crease smoothed, the arches snapping back.
The creature's mouth moved. No words came.
His open eye stared at his own finger like it belonged to someone else.
Then a white spectre of muscle loomed into being.
From above. As though it had always been there, charging beside all three of them, and had simply chosen this instant to become visible.
Mahoraga.
It fell, leaning. Body tilted at an angle that should have sent it tumbling, heels finding two points of contact, one foot pressing into Lyd's spine, the other finding space between Gros' wings.
Neither Xenos buckled. Their bodies sank an inch under the weight, claws and feet biting deeper into stone, but they held.
The Divine General's posture was lazy, almost bored, knees bent, both hands clasped behind its back.
Its grin found Olivas.
Then a weight settled on the wheel.
Its spokes dipped a fraction, and white hair spilled down from above Mahoraga's skull, catching wind, streaming behind like a curtain.
Alfia stood on top of the wheel, feet together, arms crossed beneath her chest. Body leaning backward at the same lazy angle as the Divine General below her, spine curved, chin tilted up, as though their entire formation existed for her to recline against the sky.
Her eyes were closed.
She opened them.
Heterochromia found the back of Bell's head, and her lips moved. A low whisper.
"[Ittou Rasestsu]."
The pressure that rolled off her body bore down through the wheel, through Mahoraga, past Lyd, Gros, and Bell, into the ground beneath them all.
Orario quaked.
Their formation locked.
Bell at the front. Forehead against Olivas' sternum. Arms around ribs. The tip of a nail, already buried in wood.
Lyd at the left flank. Shoulder in the creature's side, claws digging deeper. Gros at the right. Fist in the opposite shoulder, wings braced. Two bodies forming a shaft, rigid and aligned, carrying force forward without deviation.
Mahoraga behind. Both feet on Xenos spines, knees bent, mass suspended. A hammer. Already cocked. About to fall. The wheel above its skull humming with force that had nowhere to go but down.
And Alfia on top. Standing on the wheel. Leaning back. One toe rising, two inches above Mahoraga's wheel.
Nail. Shaft. Hammer. Force.
At the other end of Orario, a fracture line surfaced across a wine glass.
She pressed down.
The wheel rang, force pouring down its spokes, into the Divine General's skull, then spine.
Mahoraga's grin remained as tiny explosions detonated across its body, muscles and bones rupturing as force travelled through it into the Xenos.
Lyd's scales stood on end. Every ridge and plate rising. His claws cracked from overflow, tail grinding into Gros' forearm.
Stone wings crumbled from within. Gros' fist raced with fractures, dust flaking out in a spray.
Both their hands shifted on Bell's back. Lyd's palm between shoulder blades. Gros' hand at the base of his spine.
Force arrived at its last stop.
Bell launched.
The world lost its depth.
Silence.
White.
The tenth Viscum split before they reached it. Air pressure alone cleaved it in two, halves peeling apart, viscera hanging for a half-second before their shockwave ground it to mist.
Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.
Each died from mere proximity. Green-skin tried to grip, to swallow, and failed the instant it began.
Fourteen. Thicker. Three times the mass.
Bell's shoulder met slight resistance and punched clean through. A perfect hole, shoulder-width, exiting the back.
Fifteen. Just a sound now.
The maw opened ahead. Ground ending and dark beginning, stretching down into nothing.
They plunged in.
The maw's edges shuddered once. Then again. And again. Tremors raced outward through stone, climbing the maw's boundary, spreading into Daedalus Street above. Districts rattled. Lampposts bent at their bases and toppled. Tiles lifted from the ground and hopped, dancing in place.
That maw widened.
Its edges peeled outward. Ten meters. Twenty. Thirty. A mouth becoming a throat, and the tremors only intensified, reaching deeper, climbing higher, until every street in Daedalus was shaking, dust sifting from every seam in every wall, rooftops sliding, chimneys collapsing.
Then silence.
Complete this time.
Every person in Daedalus Street held their breath.
From deep inside the darkness within that maw—
Space folded.
And kept folding.
Toward the maw's far edge.
...
..
.
[Author's Thoughts]
Bro sometimes I feel like where did I actually come? Should I have gone in choreography instead? Damn! Wrong lane taken?
Anyway... Have a fantastic weekend everyone!