Chapter 36: Warm Front II
Ash’s hunger flared to life when the Gate began to distort.
"Vivian, stay back. Please." Azure already called out.
"Huh. You said this one was mine," she responded.
"I said you would have your fair share. But this one is not for you."
The Hollow emerging was already three-fourths of the way outside the gate.
"What rank is this Hollow?" Ash asked.
"This one feels like a high B-rank," Azure said assertively.
"Yeah, which is why you can’t keep me on the sidelines for this one."
The Hollow emerged, but not how they usually came out. Slow, methodically, taking their time.
This was an immediate jerk. Something forcefully kicked it out so it could breach through itself.
"A low A-rank," Vivian yelled.
"Yours." Azure said calmly, "But do not cause it any sustain suffering."
"Sustain... Yeah, I think that’s doable." Vivian said with a wide-open grin on her mouth.
"Ash, we will keep you safe by any means necessary." Azure said.
Her Shade engulfed him like a fuzzy blanket; despite the two Hollows now outside the Gate, Ash didn’t feel the need to reposition himself. He felt warm, that whatever was about to happen would be a release of pain and not torture.
The two Hollows split. The high B-rank dashed off towards Azure.
Vivian didn’t let the A-rank run up to her. She clashed with it with her fists first.
The impact cracked through the alleyway like a mortar shell detonating in a confined space. The A-rank Hollow of hulking, asymmetrical mass of calcified bone armor and violently whipping sinew shuddered as Vivian’s bare knuckles connected directly with its chest plate. The air pressure inverted for a fraction of a second, sucking the loose trash and dust toward the point of impact before violently exploding outward.
The shockwave blew Vivian’s hair back, but she didn’t yield a single inch. She laughed, a bright, manic sound that cut through the Gate’s ambient static.
"Oh, you’re dense!" Vivian yelled, slipping under a sweeping, scythe-like appendage that sheared off the brickwork behind her.
On the opposite side of the alley, the High B-rank was a fundamentally different nightmare. It was a shifting, weeping silhouette of elongated, multi-jointed limbs. Black, viscous fluid dripped heavily from its frame, and beneath the stretched, translucent membrane of its chest, the vague impressions of human faces pressed outward, silently screaming. It dashed toward Azure, its movements erratic and spasmodic, tearing deep gouges into the pavement with its elongated claws.
Azure did not raise her fists. She stood perfectly still, the night wind catching the sheer, translucent blue sleeves of her dress and the heavy hem of her black cropped jacket.
"Ash, watch closely," Azure breathed, her voice carrying effortlessly over the roaring destruction of Vivian’s fight.
Ash didn’t need to be told. Safely anchored inside the coziness of Azure’s Shade, he felt entirely isolated from the killing intent flooding the industrial sector. The aura around him felt like a heavy, weighted blanket. He overclocked his cognitive senses, splitting his attention to run a dual read on the two wildly divergent theaters of combat.
Vivian was moving faster than the eye could comfortably track. She was a blur, barely visible to Ash’s overclocked senses, treating the A-rank not as an opponent but as a heavily armored piece of meat waiting to be processed.
The A-rank roared, extruding massive, jagged bone spikes from its forearms. It lunged, executing a cross-slash meant to bisect her.
Vivian didn’t dodge away; she stepped into the guard. She deflected the right spike with her forearm, ignoring the shallow gash it tore across her skin. The blood barely had time to well up before she drove her palm upward into the creature’s jaw joint, shattering the calcified bone with a sickening crunch.
Her right hand dropped to the hilt of her katana. She gripped the scabbard with her left hand, angling it, and thumbed the handle. The blade let out a satisfying shing as it was finally let free.
The katana bit deeply into the A-rank’s left knee, slicing through the heavy bone armor and severing the thick cords of black sinew holding the joint together. The massive creature pitched sideways, its balance entirely compromised.
Before it could even hit the ground, Vivian was already airborne. She rebounded off the rusted corrugated metal of the loading bay door, launching herself directly above the falling monstrosity.
She descended like a guillotine. The blade flashed three times in a fraction of a second. The first strike severed the right arm at the shoulder. The second strike cleanly amputated the remaining leg. The third was a devastating, two-handed downward thrust that drove the katana directly through the center of its spinal column, pinning the screaming A-rank to the cracked concrete.
Thick, black ichor erupted from the wounds, spraying across Vivian’s legs and the hem of her clothes. The creature convulsed, but Vivian brutally twisted the blade, expanding the wound channel until the monstrous anatomy finally ceased its automated functions and began the rapid dissolution into ash.
The High B-rank lunged at Azure, its massive, elongated claws sweeping in a wide arc meant to decapitate her. Azure stepped forward, sliding inside the creature’s reach with the effortless grace of a dancer. The claws swung harmlessly past her head, the wind of the strike fluttering her warm brown hair.
She raised her right hand, her palm open and facing the center of the creature’s chest where the trapped faces wept.
"Are you looking for someone?" Azure asked the Hollow softly. Her voice didn’t just echo in the alley; it echoed inside the psychic architecture of the Hollow.
The creature froze mid-strike, its body trembling violently. The black fluid weeping from its limbs began to boil, grinding like metal and desperate grief.
No one waited; the psychic feedback bled into the air, raw and unfiltered. The platform was empty. I waited until the lights turned off. No one came.
"I know," Azure said, her voice dripping with sorrow. The ambient light from the Gate caught her face. Several tears began to roll from her eyes.
"You stood at the station," Azure continued softly, reaching out. Her bare fingertips gently made contact with the hardened, monstrous membrane of the Hollow’s chest. "You waited for a train that had already stopped running. You held onto the ticket until your hands bled."
It was my fault; the Hollow wept into the psychic space, its massive claws clutching at the sides of its head. I was late. I was too late.
"It wasn’t your fault," Azure whispered. She took another step, closing the distance entirely. She wrapped her arms around the creature’s monstrous, weeping head, pulling it against the pristine white fabric of her dress. The black ichor stained her clothing, but she didn’t flinch. "The schedule changed. You couldn’t have known. You don’t have to wait on the platform alone anymore. The cold cannot reach you here."
Ash stood against the brick wall, completely paralyzed by the sheer dichotomy of the scene playing out in front of him.
Ash watched the High B-rank sobbing against Azure’s chest. The grotesque, elongated limbs were slowly sloughing off, melting away like wax left too close to a fire. The screaming faces trapped in its chest began to close their eyes, their expressions softening into relief as the suffocating pressure of Azure’s Shade washed over them.
"She’s treating it like a patient." Ash said to Vivian, who had taken a spot next to him.
"Yeah. Isn’t she something else?" Vivian responded.
"You think that’s the way to beat a Vein?"
Vivian picked up Ash by the collar of his shirt, bringing her amber eyes face to face with him. "Veins can’t be exorcized through the way she’s dealing with that one over there. You think I haven’t tried bringing her to my fights?"
"What happened when you two... fought one."
Vivian let him go and stared down at herself. "I changed in ways I’m still learning about."
Ash turned his attention back to Azure when his hunger had changed. It didn’t treat the high B-rank as a snack but as an entity now back in control of itself.
Azure’s hand was locked with the Hollow’s own. "Ash, Vivian. This is Como Thirteen."
"You didn’t kill it," Vivian said, her voice caught between outrage and deep confusion. "You promised you wouldn’t do that thing where you make it boring!"
"I told you I wouldn’t stop you from having your fair share," Azure corrected smoothly, her eyes tracking over Vivian’s blood-soaked form. "I made no promises about how I would handle mine."
"It’s a Hollow!" Vivian yelled, gesturing wildly at what was in front of her. "You can’t just... hold its hand! What are you going to do with it? It needs to be executed so the Gate can fully close!"
Azure looked to the entity. It pressed closer to her leg, seeking the warmth radiating from her.
"The Gate is closed," Azure said softly. Ash glanced up, confirming it. The jagged tear in the sky had sealed itself the moment the A-rank died and the B-rank surrendered its hostility. The ambient pressure had vanished.
Vivian threw her hands up in the air, groaning loudly.
Azure began to walk out of the alleyway, pacified Hollow trailing quietly behind her, perfectly tethered to her hand.
Ash took a breath, feeling the lingering warmth of Azure’s Shade still humming in his chest, and quietly followed them back into the city.
