6.19
CONTENT WARNING: This update contains descriptions of violence and self-harm.
Landis hops the low wall around the arena, careful not to stick himself with the dagger. He can hear a low murmur from the crowd that doesn’t sound exactly friendly - and he bets he knows why. They were expecting Austin. Don’t see why it makes a difference which humans fight to the death, as long as the fight still happens, but apparently it matters to them.
“Let’s go find somewhere to sit,” he hears Abyss say behind him, presumably to the rest of the group. There’s a collective mumble of agreement. Landis turns to see the group moving away, and bites the inside of his cheek, drawing blood, as Austin turns to look back at him.
You knew what you were signing up for, he tells himself, forcing his face forward. Gen is daintily entering the arena, one hand in Kesi’s as she steps down off the top of the wall. She seems to float for a moment, her skirt suspended around her in a perfect, midair bell shape, and Landis can’t tell if it’s magic or if he’s finally cracked under stress. He searches her for any sign of a weapon, and finds no such thing.
“You really brought magic to a sword fight?” he calls across the vast, flat expanse of sand. Even from far away, he can see Gen’s smile falter for a moment, a stammer in her otherwise confident body language. She’s scared. She was expecting an easier fight against someone who hasn’t killed before. Against someone she never personally injured.
“You really brought a sword to a magic fight?” she calls back, propping a hand on her hip.
“Well, now,” a third voice booms across the arena. There’s no obvious source to it at first, but it sounds like Samael, and Landis has very little trouble picking the immensely tall demon out from the crowd. He’s seated on a raised platform in the stands, leaning awkwardly in a throne-like chair amidst a throng of - advisors? Servants? Something or other.
“It looks like we’re about ready to start,” Samael says. His voice is louder than it should be, as though coming through an intercom system. Probably magic. “Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”
The sound of a gigantic bell reverberates through the arena, presumably to signal the start of the duel. Landis’s muscles tense, as though urging him to move, but there’s no sense in running just yet. He plants his feet in the sand and keeps his eyes on Gen.
If I make the first move, without knowing what she can do, that leaves me wide open. He adjusts his grip on the dagger, still holding it down at his side. Let her show off a little first, maybe tire herself out. Hopefully she’ll start out big and flashy, to try and impress the crowd.
“Come on,” he says, projecting his voice towards Gen, trying to goad her into attacking. Maybe it’s a stupid idea, but it’s the only one he’s got. He can’t use the dagger unless he can get close to her. “You got the jump on me once, didn’t you? I’ll bet you wish you would’ve killed me then.”
“You’re all bark and no bite, Landis Holliday,” she replies.
Gen reaches inside the folds of her dress (a pocket?) and pulls out a knife of her own. It’s much smaller than the dagger in Landis’s hands, more of a kitchen knife than anything. Gen considers it for a moment before clenching one hand around the blade and using her other hand to yank it out of her fist. Blood flows out from between her fingers, droplets splashing against the sand with the steady pitter-patter of rain.
Landis’s stomach turns. He can see Gen’s lips moving, and forces himself to keep watching, though he wishes he could look somewhere, anywhere else. It’s a good thing he doesn’t. As Gen speaks, she opens her wounded hand, and the blood slides off it, repelled, barely leaving a stain behind on her skin. The blood already in the process of falling towards the sand stays suspended in the air, then reverses its flow, climbing upwards to join the rest of the collected blood in a bubble the size of a fist.
What the fuck? Landis stares at the bubble, bobbing in midair. The way the surface of it shimmers in waves of red and blackish-brown is almost hypnotic. Gen catches him watching, and grins widely, a predatory expression, baring her teeth. Her lips have stopped moving. She lifts her injured hand, curling the fingers inwards, and abruptly opens them again.
The blood bubble ruptures. It’s hard to tell what that means, but judging by the enthralled gasp from the audience, Landis is willing to bet that it can’t be anything good. The sight of the broken pieces of bubble solidifying themselves into sharp, pointed fragments only drives the point home. They hang in the air around Gen, delicate-looking and slightly translucent, like shards of glass.
Gen flicks her fingers in Landis’s direction, and one of the blood shards rotates, pointing its tip at him. With another flick of her fingers, it zips forward. Landis barely has time to react before his side explodes with pain. He looks down to find the fragment buried halfway into him, melting back into liquid blood before his eyes, leaving his own wound with nothing to plug it up. The side of his shirt is soaked through in a matter of seconds, dark fabric turning even darker. Landis bites the inside of his cheek and forces himself to stay standing, though the pain makes him want to drop to his knees.
You have to move, a voice inside of him says matter-of-factly. You can’t take another direct hit like that one, and as long as you stand here, you’re a sitting duck. If you’re a moving target, you’re harder to kill.
Landis’s legs feel made of lead, but he moves them anyway, barely even picking a direction before he starts to run. The sound of his own heartbeat pumping in his ears drowns out the hoots and jeers from the crowd. His side throbs with pain, and he barely notices the blood shard heading towards him until it’s close enough for him to hear it whizzing through the air. He can feel the wind ruffle his hair as it goes by - if he hadn’t kept running, it would have stuck right in his head.
Landis watches the shard smash into the stands, demons jumping out of its way as it explodes back into liquid blood. Huh. Maybe she can’t control them very well.
He glances back at Gen, only to find another shard flying towards him. Changing direction, he breaks from the lap he’s been running around the arena and runs straight towards Gen. Her eyes widen, and she thrusts both hands, palm-out, towards him. The last four shards orbiting her rotate in unison, and begin closing the distance between her and Landis at an exceptionally rapid pace.
I wonder, Landis thinks. It’s all he has time to think before his body decides to put the idea into practice. It’s something he hasn’t done since high school, but the muscle memory is still there - one leg folds under him, his knee dragging against the ground as his other leg stays relatively straight in the air. His hand holding the dagger stays in the air, elbow bent, and the other props his body up, the sand scratching against his skin as he slides. One of the blood shards just barely grazes the top of his head as he goes down, exploding over him, showering his face and hair.
Gen barely has time to move out of the way before Landis slams into her, knocking her to the ground. He can hear the wind leave her in a gasp as she goes down, and scrambles to pin her, kneeling over her.
“Where’d you learn to do that?” she asks hoarsely. Her face is scratched and dirty, but she still looks amused, somehow.
Landis spits out a mouthful of sand, just barely missing Gen’s face. “My moms made me sign up for baseball in high school.”
He grasps the handle of his dagger in both hands, his heartbeat deafening in his ears as he points it at Gen’s throat.