Rangers Endgame

YAKERU:

“Fuyumi, wait!” he shouted.

No response.

She exploded into battle, evading and hacking through muscle as she went.

The remaining bloodhounds converged, crimson seeping through fur, grins deepening. A visible shiver crawled down Risa's spine, but she steeled herself before fear could overtake her.

Her wand ignited with a gold hue that smoothed over the snowy floor. Flowers of different varieties bloomed to form a defensive perimeter. Yuto raised his shield in front of her, Takahiro drew an imbued rapier with a flourish to her right flank, and Yakeru unsheathed his gleaming katana to her left.

The bloodhounds’ grins only deepened. They didn’t care.

Raw crimson leaked from their fur, squirming with hungry intent as they took shape. Blades, hammers, claws. They didn’t charge. They kept their intimidating pace, their forms growing more imposing with each step.

The rangers held firm, waiting. The first bloodhound approached the perimeter, correcting its footing, making certain the rangers saw it crush the closest flower in a mocking display. However, the moment the plant disappeared underfoot with a crystalline whine, the bloodhound vanished with an explosion of vicious amber.

Its brethren stalled, grins faltering for a beat, as one of their own was engulfed before their beady eyes. Neighboring flowers detonated in a violent chain reaction, consuming two more beasts. When the smoke and snow cleared, the bloodhounds were charred and bloodied, painfully twisting in the snow to numb raw flesh.

Risa flicked her wand, more flowers rising to seal the gaps in their defenses. The healthy bloodhounds snarled and advanced, navigating around the explosive flora. Risa swept her conduit across her, and the spell responded. An unseen force dragged the flowers through the snow, forcing them into contact with the converging bloodhounds.

Roaring gold devoured the creatures. One of them was fast enough to conjure a shield, absorbing the brunt. A screen of powdered white and misty red settled over the field as Risa worked to mend the perimeter again.

Behind the seemingly impenetrable protection of Risa’s spell, Yakeru almost lowered his guard. But experience in a cruel profession taught him otherwise. He knew bloodhounds.

“Get ready,” he warned, raising his sword.

A blurred shadow came first. Then the violent jar of his shoulder as a red streak rammed into his infused blade. Another punched a hole through the smoke to his side, and he deflected. The air cleared just enough for him to see the beasts’ revised strategy. The survivors abandoned trying to push through the flora, opting for a barrage of long-range attacks.

Yuto let a tendril glance off the shield, scarring the alloy, never taking anything head-on. Takahiro danced around the attacks and snapped his wrist outward, severing reaching appendages.

A tendril whipped around their blind spot, targeting Risa. Radiance surged through Yakeru's lower half, and he launched himself towards it, sword flashing as he sliced through it.

Two more appeared right. He flickered to close the distance and protected Takahiro from a stray tendril in his flank.

Three more to the left, and he flashed to dismember them. His blade carved and cleaved with red-tinged arcs, the constructs bursting to vandalise the snow.

Something rocketed in his periphery, and he swerved, allowing the javelins to skewer the earth in his place. They tunnelled through the snow, leaping toward Yuto, but the young man was faster. Shield angled, the javelin glanced off its surface. The shield extended into a greatsword with a pivot, and he drove it downward on top of the appendage.

Snow jumped from the never-ending barrage. Yakeru rushed to compensate for the gaps in their formation left by Fuyumi, but throbbing heat built in his legs.

“Fuyumi, get back here!” He shouted again, but the battlefield swallowed his command.

Risa was the only one who could reduce their numbers with projectiles, but they couldn't risk opening the perimeter to do so.

The air reeked of iron. Fuyumi moved like a storm given shape, each movement a whirlwind of fury. Every step took her further from the group. But she was already bleeding from a torn-up hand and multiple lacerations across her body. But the icy rage in her eyes was narrowed on the monsters.

“It's only a matter of time before she—”

As if spoken into existence, the ground trembled. Not like before. Like the very earth had tolerated enough of this madness. Fuyumi stumbled as the snow around her caved from unseen fissures.

His body moved before conscious thought could stop him. “Retreat,” Yakeru ordered, radiance already rushing into his lower half.

Risa turned. “Wait, are you really going to—”

“Now!” He flashed forward, a screen of snow erupting at his feet to cover their escape.

His form streaked through the field of explosive flora, weaving around attacks his acclimated perception slowed down for him.

A surprised hound shot up to him, red currents cycling through its forearm, but Yakeru's blade had met both its calves. It dropped behind him, but he didn't have time to finish it.

The next bloodhound had seen what Yakeru had done and conjured a wide shield to encompass its body.

A whistle from his flank, and he ducked just as a colossal crimson blade parted the air where his neck used to be. It crashed into the shield with a splurging thud, fracturing the shield.

“Thank you kindly.” Yakeru burst through, using the small opening to arrive on the opposite side before the bloodhound could mend it.

His blade slipped through its fur coat, skin, then tissue, leaving it to choke on its own fluids.

As he closed in on Fuyumi, there was a pause in the air.

His eyes caught on something beyond the chaos—an approaching figure, billowing white concealing its features. Taller. More burly. Urgency absent in its gait.

A chill raced up Yakeru's skin, not from the altitude, but from its smothering pressure.

Without lifting so much as a finger, gleaming scarlet coiled around its broad frame. They lashed like wrathful flames in contrast to its composure, leaving ruin in its wake.

Yakeru looked back to see if Risa and the others had fled. They were gone, the remaining bloodhounds converging, the closest one firing a tendril to intercept him.

He turned his attention back to Fuyumi, the mountain now swallowing her whole. Radiance charged his muscles, fresh agony clawing through his legs, and launched himself into the chasm with nothing but protective instincts.

He felt a wet nick between the shoulder blades as the tendril snapped taut at the end of its length. Above him, the shrinking hounds howled in frustration. They turned and flinched, making themselves small as the form covered in white fur eclipsed the light. Its glinting red gaze watched the two rangers descend before it turned its back and left.

Light continued to flicker as collapsing sheets tumbled into the cavernous hole after him. He angled his body, following the glimpses of Fuyumi’s form. Wind slashed at his face until he collided with her in an embrace.

“Yakeru?!” Fuyumi gasped, the air exploding from them both. “Idiot! Why would you—”

“Shut up and hang on!”

She didn't argue. She threw her arms around his neck as they careened towards a gargantuan wall. Yakeru unleashed his radiance without restraint, body flaring with a protective layer of ethereal power, dark hair igniting into golden flames. With Fuyumi angled away from the impact, he crashed into the wall with a dull eruption of white shards.

Gravity dragged him, carving a golden trench through its surface. He zig-zagged, trying to control their descent, but it did little to slow them. His body screamed, reserves plummeting, jagged debris already eating into his radiant armor.

Yakeru pushed off as a slope rushed to meet them. He braced Fuyumi's head as the two tumbled downward, back slamming into raw stone.

Fresh light yawned into existence as velocity shot them through the cavern’s mouth.

Sky. Clouds. And a cliff that plunged into nothingness.

Yakeru rerouted every ounce of radiance to his legs, drilling his boots through the snow. Teeth gnashed against the furnace ravaging his legs, his mind a chaotic whirlwind of prayers. He held her closer to ensure she didn't look.

Though stone ripped away his protective layer of radiance as the edge approached, they slowed. His joints locked to compensate further.

The drop off crept closer, eagerly waiting.

Yakeru’s features steeled with fierce grit. He pulled his chin away as if it would help.

The edge inched ever closer. He pressed his back harder against the ground for more friction.

His feet dangled. Then his calves. Until their momentum finally died off.

The sounds of labored breathing filled the silence that followed. He loosened his hold, and she slowly lifted her head. Her eyes went to his, his to hers, heaving breaths mingling with one another. Grime smeared across her face and clung to her wild hair.

No words exchanged. Only another shared near-death experience they quietly acknowledged.

Then a tremor ran through the ground, something rumbling from where they came. Fuyumi snapped her gaze back to the cavern, powder dislodging from its mouth.

She wordlessly leapt off Yakeru, and he tried to move, but agony grounded him. Tucking her arms under his, she dragged him. The rumbling swelled. The very darkness filling the cavern seemed to tremble.

Then, a wave of white came barreling out after them. Fuyumi hauled, throat straining.

The roaring snow grazed Yakeru’s soles, the force whipping his body toward the edge again, his heart leaping. She caught his collar and yanked him back, the two falling onto each other as they watched the avalanche thunder past them, hurtling into the abyssal gorge.

Several minutes dragged until the last of the crashing snow mellowed out into a fizzling trickle over the edge. They remained there afterwards, finally catching their breath.

“Are you okay?” Yakeru asked at last, head resting on her bouncing stomach.

“I should be asking you that,” she responded.

Another beat.

Realizing she was still holding onto him, she let her hand fall, then winced. He turned to see her ruined hand lying within the snow, crimson fanning out. Chest aching seeing her hurt, he ignored his body’s complaints when shifting and produced a health elixir from his satchel, holding it back to her.

“I have my own,” she reminded him.

He gave it a shake, uncaring.

A few seconds of pause, then she took it. The cork popped, and her injuries knit themselves together. With another elixir, he drank its contents as warmth caressed his body.

The two disentangled themselves, but his legs screamed the moment weight was placed on them. Fuyumi caught him and slung his arm over her shoulder.

They didn’t walk yet. Just surveyed.

The mountain provided one path, left of the cliff, as the collapsed snow walled off the route to their right. Fuyumi glanced over his form, the scarred armor glimpsing through his now tattered coat. Her eyes trailed, a distant look in them.

“Let’s find a place to set up camp,” Yakeru said.

The words pulled her out of whatever thought she had, and she nodded.