Olivas's face twisted with a deep scowl, his temple throbbing, veins rising along his neck. He wrenched his chest forward, the metallic rods in his abdomen tearing against his root-like muscles and black bones.
"You! You don't know anything!" Green blood gurgled down his nearly healed jaw, hissing where it met the shattered stone beneath.
He thrashed his legs in opposite directions, pulverizing a pile of broken bricks beside them into fine dust. Bell's heels pressed deeper into his chest, forcing his spine to dig into ground.
Olivas didn't care. He clutched the rods piercing his stomach and bent his neck in a wave. That wave climbed down through his spine, through his waist, and his legs curved in an arc, slamming into Bell's back from a direction that shouldn't have existed.
A fraction of a second before impact, Bell tensed his shoulder blades. Oliva's soles exploded on them, launching him forward and outside the debris into another building.
Through that same building, a flaming sword sailed, tip-first, rising in an arc and dipping toward Olivas' head. He moved without thought, gouging those rods out and taking them with him, rolling sideways, that blade carving a molten arc across the space his skull had occupied.
"All she ever talks about is you or Sword Princess! Why! Why can't it be me!?"
Olivas flipped over and came up surging, knees detonating beneath him in a blur of green.
Bell was already moving. A flaming line sheared across earth behind him, extinguished at ignition from his sheer speed, a wound opening and closing in the same breath, chasing his heels.
An afterimage separated from Olivas at the debris' edge, same stride and same posture. It hung in the air for a single frame, frozen mid-stride, then a second one split from it. Then a third. A fourth.
By the time Olivas closed in, ten of him existed at his sides, all dissolving into lines of green that cut across the street, so fast that the air was still deciding to part around them when they were already past.
Nine golden lines rose alongside Bell's flaming trail, each leading toward a different future.
For a moment, the world split in two. Ten green paths on the left, cutting through soil like grasping roots. Nine golden trails flanked a crimson tear on the right.
Olivas cocked his fist back. All of the Olivas did.
Bell extended both arms forward, spine parallel to the ground.
Both of them met.
Olivas planted his lead foot forward before the blurs of him arrived to plant it too, trailing half-second mirages that caught up and folded into his shoulders in flickers.
Bell's knuckles were burning crimson, the strings beneath him merging into a single, continuous road of gold.
Their fists clashed.
Line on line.
...
..
.
Hostess of Fertility.
"Ryuu, what's on your mind? You've been out of it for some time now. Everything alright?" Luniore asked while passing by Ryuu, both hands full with tankards of ale.
"Oh, nothing. I'll get back to work." Ryuu snapped out of it with a firm shake of her head, a wooden tray tucked under her arm.
Chloe peeked out from the kitchen, ears twitching upward at the small furrow between Ryuu's brow.
"Hey, Ryuu! Get me two tankards of ale and a plate of roasted meat." A burly adventurer with an eyepatch slurred while slumping against a nearby table, finger tracing circles on its wood, giggles slipping between his words.
"Bors, haven't you had too much? You always get handsy when drunk, you'll get your head bashed in by Ryuu again if this keeps up." An adventurer sitting opposite Bors grumbled between sips of his own ale, both eyes twinkling with mischief.
"Bah! Don't worry, Dom. It's just another two days on a bed, might even catch a break from looking over Riveria." Bors slurped on empty air, palms sliding closer to rub against each other.
"I won't put flowers on your grave if you get done in by a slap later." Dom shook his head from side to side, ale spilling down his lips.
"Who wants flowers on their grave? Forget flowers, better pour ale over my grave if I'm gone, and I'll lap it all up like this! Slurp! Slurp!" Bors dragged his tongue out and wagged it around, the sound of his slurps nearly making half the tavern stare daggers in their direction.
"Hahaha... You're a real item, Bors!" Dom laughed while slamming his tankard on the table.
"Tell me something I don't know already, Dommy." Bors pushed his chin up, eyes shifting over. Ryuu was moving toward them, a new tankard of ale on her tray.
That was the moment the tavern's doors swung open, and someone stepped in. Every eye inside snapped in that direction and stilled. Ryuu turned her head to glance that way and froze, shoulders going rigid.
A woman wearing a long white gown walked inside. She had indigo eyes and long, walnut-colored hair.
Astraea.
"Ryuu, my ale!"
Ryuu ignored Bors's words and strode toward Goddess Astraea, while Anya looked over from nearby and shook her head at Bors with pity.
Bors was too drunk to understand the pitying gazes that adventurers at nearby tables were sending his way alongside Anya.
"Hello? Ryuu, where are you goi—" He was cut off as a tray slammed into his face, cheeks sinking inward, and his back was already crashing through the tavern's wall, onto the street.
Dom blinked once, twice, then he rushed through the hole Bors's body had left in the wall. "Bors! You just had to fuck around and find out!"
Bors lay flopped on the floor, shoulders slack and jaw hanging slightly left of where it should be, blood pouring down his head.
"Just hold on! I'll take you to a healer, don't die on me now." Dom wrapped his arms around Bors, trying to drag him away.
But Bors's hand jerked up, fingers wrapping around Dom's arm, mumbling something under his breath.
"What?" Dom leaned down, aligning his ear near Bors's moving mouth.
"Before taking me anywhere... let me have a sip of my ale... then we can go to a healer."
Dom felt his breath catch at those words, and dragged Bors away even faster. "Bors you sick fuck!"
Before they vanished in the distance, Mama Mia's voice thundered from inside.
"All this damage is going to your tabs, Dom."
Dom nearly slipped on his way. Even Bors's body shivered unconsciously.
Meanwhile, the people inside Hostess had already forgotten about Bors. At a free table, Goddess Astraea sat opposite Ryuu, resting her forearms on the table.
"I don't see Bell anywhere, Goddess. Are you here for a meal alone?" Ryuu asked while sweeping her eyes around once, double-checking if Bell might be lingering nearby.
"I'm not here for a meal, Ryuu. I want something from you instead." Astraea spoke, tapping her finger on the table in even beats.
Ryuu straightened her spine. "What is your command, Goddess?"
"Bell is fighting Evilus right now. I don't know exactly where, but I thought about informing you, since he might need your help even with his strength. It would be better if he doesn't, but I don't like taking chances when it comes to his safety." Astraea's foot continued tapping on the floor, her anxiety palpable.
It took nearly five seconds for Ryuu to comprehend those words, and her eyes narrowed, fingers digging into her apron's cloth.
"Will you help him?" Astraea continued.
Ryuu nodded imperceptibly, but then her brows furrowed deeper.
"But where would he be fighting? It'll waste a lot of time if I search each location where Evilus might still linger."
Astraea brought the finger that had been tapping to her temple and let it rest there. "He mentioned diving into the Dungeon. He could be anywhere from the first to the thirtieth floor."
Ryuu's hands tightened on her apron, knuckles turning white, a thread of her cloth snapping loose in her grip.
Silence fell between them.
Then, the doors of Hostess burst open, and an adventurer staggered inside, hands braced on the doorframe for support.
"There's a huge fight happening at Daedalus Street!"
"..."
Astraea and Ryuu exchanged a glance.
...
..
.
Freya walked through an abandoned street of Orario with a black parasol over her shoulder. She still hummed that tune from before, each footfall of her high heels sharp against the silence around her.
Click. Clack.
Her shadow stretched behind her, twice as long as her own silhouette. She didn't look toward it and stepped forward. By the end of that step, a shadow with cat ears flanked her own.
Another step and a shadow with pointed ears stretched across her other flank.
Her third step was followed by four pallum shadows, two lancing in from each side, cutting diagonally into her own.
At the fourth, a demonic sword's shadow stretched where her next step would land, like a stair of darkness made only for her to climb.
The fifth unfurled from behind her, extending outward and swallowing every other shadow, taking the outline of a boaz with a sword resting on his shoulders.
Freya was about to continue on her way when the voices of people talking resounded from the other end of that street.
"Mama... why is there no one around this area right now? Have they been scared... away?"
Loki walked forward, flanked on right by Finn and on left by Riveria. Though her words died in her throat the moment she looked ahead at Freya.
Her smirk receded by a fraction, then widened even further.
She took a step forward and her arms came up to rest behind her head. Finn followed, and their footsteps struck the ground so close together that they resounded like a single heel touching floor.
Another step and Riveria's Magna Alf struck the ground alongside their heels. Three sounds as one.
Her third step was followed by two identical clangs of Amazonian vambraces on vambraces, merging into their collective melody.
At the fourth, a heavy screech of a war-axe being dragged through marble joined them. A window nearby trembled on its own.
The fifth was a gust of wind, a stray golden hair caught in it, amplifying their sound into a collective boom that spread outward into streets past this one.
Freya and Loki halted.
Face to face.
"Where are you headed, Freya?" Loki leaned back, arms still behind her head.
"I could ask you the same, Loki." Freya hummed, adjusting her parasol by a fraction.
Silence hung between them.
A heavy one.
...
..
.
[Author's Thoughts]
Are they about to throw down? Right here? Its for you all to wonder and me to write. Let's see where it goes from here.
Take care! Everyone!