Snot and tears streamed down Kat’s cheeks and chin. The Shrine’s vortex swept her and Whiskers away. Kat thought she caught Felix in the corner of her remaining eye, but she couldn’t find up or down as they swirled through the Void.
[Shrine Hunting — Quest Objective COMPLETED: Capture the Shrine in Marina Veridia.]
[Shrine Hunting — QUEST COMPLETED]
[Shrine Hunting — REWARD GRANTED: A Vessel for each Party member.]
[Shrine Hunting — REWARD GRANTED: Admittance to The Painter's next batch of lessons.]
The pain was unreal. Raw and exposed nerve endings in her eye socket further inflamed with her tears, which initiated cycle of even more tears, and more pain. Desperately they Regenerated.
[?35,578 // ?1256,078]
Thank Salvos I can at least heal this wound. But things felt…different as her optic nerve encapsulated her glass eye, and her body identified it as a foreign object.
Will it take?
The vortex spat them outside the Shrine’s gate, and the two of them rolled into a heap, Kat on top of a mumbling Whiskers. She looked at her Familiar and saw him through both old eyes and new. He seemed somehow odd to her, in a varied perspective. His own Regeneration had begun on a nubby fourth leg.
Whiskers hissed, though not at her.
“Katarina, we are surrounded.” Kat scooped him up and hopped to her feet. Military, Pirates, and Iron Maidens surrounded her. An ambush? No, no one is paying any attention to us…
She followed their collective gaze. “Whiskers. Is that a samurai fighting a demon?”
“Yes, Katarina. It is."
“...Did we come back to the right world?”
“Look closer, child,” Whiskers said.
Behind the battle, Thorn held back Maddie. After a closer inspection, Kat saw a ghostly orb glowing inside the samurai, and strings attached to the demon he fought.
So that’s Jules? And…Zeke?
Darkness absorbed light behind her, but only Kat’s glass eye registered it. Someone stumbled behind her and groaned. She spun around to face Felix. The Shrine had spat him out the opposite direction. As clear as day, Kat saw sets of strings extend from all over Felix’s body into the sky. Dozens, if not a hundred.
“I’ve got this one, Whiskers. Alone.” He hobbled off to the side.
Felix threw tracking knives at her, but, after Regenerating enough on her journey back from the Shrine, Kat dodged them all this time. The knives hit a group of Soldiers nearby. No one paid them any mind as they writhed on the ground, attempting to remove them.
The scythe head whipped and arced around her. She ducked down below, but the scythe changed trajectory midair and zigzagged itself into her back. The impact thrust Kat face-first onto the ground before Felix. The puppet recalled his Holy weapon back to his hand. Kat glared at the weapon. Strings on that, too.
“Dammit. I wish I had something like that right now—”
An ethereal replica of the scythe-and-chain materialized in Kat’s hand, purple and translucent. Its Holy affinity burned her hand instantly, and she dropped it. It clattered on the ground then evaporated. Kat’s palm was black and stiff.
The hell was that? A chain wrapped around her left arm and brought her to her knees.
[?11,578 // ?156,078]
“Aaggh!” She was desperate. She slammed her eyes shut with all her might. “Give me a sword! I want a sword!” Nothing happened. Shit, what did I say before? “I wish I had a sword!” Nothing still.
Pain and Holy damage immobilized Kat from the chain. Felix ratcheted his chain in and drew closer. A green recruit holding a sword cowered nearby.
“Envy!” Whiskers shouted.
Envy? He never calls me that…
She focused on the man’s sword. “I wish I had a sword like his.”
A translucent purple sword materialized in her right hand. She rolled into the chain and sliced clean through it. The Holy damage effects of the chain dampened until they faded away. The Holy damage remained branded all about her, but Kat’s Regeneration resumed around her eye socket.
I think I get it now. Focus on the scythe…
“I wish my sword could affect him like his scythe hurts me.” A void-less black aura danced along the blade's edge. Dark Magic?
Kat flung the sword through the air like a spinning disk at his neck. Felix ducked low, and the black blade chopped the threads that connected him to his puppet master above. Felix collapsed to the ground, lifeless, finally laid to rest as just a corpse.
The Sight Rune faded away from his forehead.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
She dropped to her knees. Kat breathed heavily and deeply as she let the pain flow through her left arm. Like her resolve, it was unwavering. Gotta ignore it for now, best I can.
Kat rose up and retrieved her temporal sword, then she and Whiskers returned to the battlefield.
“Maddie,” Kat called out. “The Hell is this!?” Thorn held Maddie back in a seated chokehold. Maddie thrashed about to escape and fight. Who, Kat wasn’t sure.
“Took you long enough,” Thorn barked. He studied Kat's eyes. Must not be able to tell it’s fake.
“I survived. Maddie, are you OK?” Because you look like shit. Maddie’s eyes were bloodshot. Her flushed face was as red as her eyes. Kat addressed Thorn. “What crawled up her ass? And is that…?”
“Zeke auctioned his soul to the devil, though he claims he's now an angel. It’s driven Maddie… Well, mad.”
“And Jules?”
“He lost. Miserably. But somehow he came back…different.”
“Katarina,” Whiskers said. “Perhaps it’s best if we go elsewhere—”
“Hey, Maddie.” Kat snapped her fingers in the feral Captain’s face. “I’m talking to you!” Maddie turned from Zeke to face Kat slowly. Her breath quickened and eyes narrowed as she turned, focused on a new target. “Uh oh.”
“Attack her!” Maddie ordered. She lunged forward at Kat. Still restraining her, Thorn moved with her, but he would soon lose that battle. August and John looked at each other.
“Why?” August asked.
Maddie lifted Thorn off his feet and flipped him over her shoulder. “Because she’s a fucking Sin,” Maddie spat. Thorn groaned from his back.
Kat’s glass eye twitched and revealed gold dust floating around Maddie’s left ankle.
“Let’s settle the score.” Kat rolled up her sleeves.
Kat and Maddie collided. The cutlass banged and clanged away, and Kat’s ethereal sword made dull echoes with each strike.
Maddie’s eyes lit up blood red. She frothed at the mouth through her invocation.
? ? Unblockable Strike ? ?
Kat leapt back through instinct. “I wish I could use that Script—”
Their blades collided once more and shattered against each other. A gust of wind surrounded them from the impact. Kat fell back, and so did Maddie. Blood trailed away from a gash near Maddie’s breast, and her tricorn hat fell off her head in two pieces. Kat landed on her ass and noticed she wasn’t holding her sword anymore.
My arm!?
It fell on its own to the side.
“I wish I had an arm again.” Nothing. “I wish I had my right arm like hers.” Still, nothing. Maddie picked up one-half of her hat. A dark aura resonated around her.
“Maddie,” Thorn ordered. “Come back to us!”
Kat charged Maddie. Kat’s arm was useless now, but she feigned a left hook, so Maddie raised her fists to her head. Kat took the opening and head butt Maddie in her fresh chest wound.
Kat landed face-first into Maddie's chest. The Captain punched Kat, clapped her ears, and clawed at her face. Bitch’s even grabbing my hair.
“Wake up, you idiot! Jules needs our help—”
Maddie shrieked in Kat's face and added kicks to her assault, still on her back with Kat on top.
“Is your mind so weak and easily swayed? Ow—watch the hair! Your crew will die, your friends will die.” Maddie clawed Kat’s eyes. “Zeke knows about you now—He won’t stop at me and Jules, surely you’ve realized—Hey!”
Maddie scratched Kat’s left ear, at Kat's Seal.
Kat grabbed Maddie's hair, twisted her head and head-butted her nose. She heard the loud crunch and felt it cave in. Her Seal.
“Thorn,” Kat called out. “Where is it!?”
Maddie gripped Kat and flipped her around.
“Where's what?”
Maddie took Kat’s back, and she slipped in a rear-naked chokehold.
“Her fucking Seal you fucking idiot!”
Thorn frowned. “I’m not sure what you’re talking—”
“TELL ME RIGHT NOW SALVOSDAMN YOU!”
Maddie’s arm tightened around Kat's carotid arteries. She’d be asleep in seconds. Thorn sighed.
“Always keep moving… It’s on her left ankle.” Ah, the dust.
And Pirate boots, perfect disguise. With both of her own feet, Kat peeled off Maddie’s left boot, then slammed her left heel into Maddie’s ankle. Maddie’s grip loosened just enough for Kat to slip her only arm through the choke. She shot up and flipped Maddie onto her back. She pinned down Maddie’s left leg and placed her palm on the naked Seal that bore the numeral 6.
“Sorry, Maddie.” Kat closed her eyes.
? Ice ? [?1,400 // ?156,078]
Kat drew the water from her own blood and pierced a small spear through Maddie’s Seal. A shockwave blasted Kat off of Maddie, who howled in pain, gripping her ankle and writhing around.
CYRUS
Cy gripped his sword. Unsure of how it’ll help me here, but what other choice do I have?
Jones looked back at Bessie, then at Selene, and then at Cy, but his gaze finally rested on the new moon.
“‘Fraid I’ve seen all I need to see…here,” Jones said. “Our time has come to an end.”
Cy brandished an open palm, where his own Binding Vow was set in flesh and blood. “And I’m afraid I have a few more promises to fulfill.”
“The boy-who-would-be-Alter…” The tentacles of Jones’ beard ceased moving and dangled down.
“Shall we start?” Cy asked.
“Oh ho! Heaven’s no, boy.” Jones pointed to the sky. “Or perhaps I should say Hell no. Not sure which, yet.”
Cy gazed at the sky. It’s just stars and a few clouds? He didn’t see anything particularly noteworthy.
“You don’t feel that, boy?”
Cy noticed the black mist around them, it was faint, but emitted an eerie sensation.
No…
“Wrath!?”
“Something much worse 'n that bastard. Appears I've more to see, though elsewhere. We are not opponents—today.”
“Rivals, then?” Cy bluffed.
Jones laughed at Cy like a toddler pushing their boundaries. His voice and tone shifted entirely. “Rivals, eh? We are more than that—we are partners, Cyrus. Be seeing you.”
The Alter Pirate vanished.
He sighed. Tension released across his shoulders, then his neck, and through his entire body. Cy dropped to his knees.
“Thank fucking Salvos.”
Cy returned to Selene. She panted. Cy touched the back of his hand to her forehead.
“You’re really hot, Selene.”
She slapped his hand away. He looked up toward the terraced cliffs.
“I’m sure Jules is up there, fighting. But what could be worse than Wrath?”
THUD!
CRASH!
CRACK!
Large chunks and small fragments of white stone rained down on them from above. Cy blocked them all with a Ryoku Shield.
[?28,299 // ?311,259]
When the torrential rockslide was over, one lone stone of white marble rolled down the cliff slowly. It stopped just before Cy’s feet. He gazed up the cliff. It was a long way back to the top.
[Shrine Hunting — QUEST COMPLETED]
Cy double-checked the message, to make sure there was no mistaking it, then he braced himself.
Men stampeded past him. They jerked him side to side as they collided with Selene, who he’d slung over his shoulders. Deserters? The stream didn’t stop, and Cy had to wedge his way through the crowd. He ascended the staircase to the Shrine.
It’s deactivated—Kat captured it. Thank Salvos.
He swam his way through more men and climbed the staircase to the Fountain of the Virtues, where the battle raged. Soldiers and Pirates alike fell off the side of the stairs in the desperate chaos.
“Kat!” She didn’t hear him over the shrieks and howls. Bodies littered the ground, and more people collapsed by the second.
Kat lost an arm? And—Shit, is that Zeke!? Is that who Jones meant?
“Whiskers—Kat!” he called again when he was closer. “Where’s Rukia?”
Whiskers pointed to Jules. Kat rushed Cy for a hug, and he nearly dropped Selene.
Cy looked at Jules. Sweet Salvos… That's not Jules anymore.
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