Rangers Endgame

“...you,” Fuyumi muttered under her breath, and there was something in the word that didn’t belong to the present.

“You’ve seen it before?” Yakeru inquired, eyes still on the beast.

She didn’t answer.

The bloodhound’s lips peeled back further, exposing its back teeth. Its chest expanded in a slow, deliberate breath as its eyes shifted to Fuyumi, head tilted slightly, as if searching for something just on the edge of recollection.

Something flashed behind her eyes—anguish, burning resentment.

The wind picked up, carrying a thin, metallic scent. Fuyumi’s hands went to her daggers, not consciously—automatic. Her grip tightened, knuckles blanched.

Yakeru moved closer without thinking. “Hey.”

Again, no response.

She stepped forward, the motion heated. A sharp, cutting edge that had lain buried for far too long.

He caught her wrist. Not forcefully. Just enough for her to still.

The fury visibly clawing up her throat faltered against his touch. For a moment, there was only the sound of razor-thin air firing from her nose.

“Look at me,” he said.

A beat.

Then her mouth moved. “I won’t let this thing—”

“Look at me.” His tone—gentle but unyielding—cut through the silence to reach her.

She turned, just slightly, to meet his eyes.

“Whatever it did, you won’t get it back by getting yourself killed,” he reminded her.

Her jaw tightened. “You don’t understand.”

“You’re right,” he agreed easily. “I don’t. But your family is still waiting back home. Don’t make them bury someone else.”

Her breath hitched as his honest words landed. She glanced back at the bloodhound, then back at him.

“Right now,” he continued, “I need you present. It does neither of us any good if you lose yourself in your past.” His thumb brushed over her quickened pulse—anchoring her. “We get out of this alive.”

She stared for several seconds, ancient anger warring with reason. Her eyes closed and stayed that way for a moment. Then they opened. The storm in her gaze didn't vanish; it sharpened into a blade instead of bursting into a wildfire.

“...I know,” she breathed.

The bloodhound merely huffed in mild amusement. Blood burst to life from its composure into a furnace of flaming scarlet, not operating in the same sloshing manner that an A-tier bloodhound should.

Yakeru and Fuyumi slipped into their respective battle stances, eyeing the monster. Its aura flared, consuming the rubble beneath it as it sauntered—an intimidation tactic. But Yakeru was familiar with its kind, and Fuyumi more so.

The blockade groaned.

Snow swirled out of the crossfire.

Both parties stood there, anticipation thickening.

Then, the hound lifted its palm. The aura surged, condensing brightly before unleashing into a line of death that excavated a trench toward them. A wall of snow rocketed in its wake, and the rangers darted in opposite directions as the beam traveled past, reducing a distant cliff face to crumbling debris in their place.

Radiance coursed through Yakeru’s legs, flashing him towards the creature.

Blood whirled into shape—a towering mass of scarlet that roared forward like a summoned sea. His eyes widened at the sheer tsunami of red, engulfing him in shadow. He pivoted, and Blitz Step yanked him from its path as it crashed into the ground, simply replacing white with red. Even with his legs reinforced, the very fibers binding his muscles together trembled from the force.

Fuyumi moved in from its side, daggers raised. It didn't look at her. It didn't need to. The blood splotched across the snow began to writhe. Then, a field of javelins exploded skyward, shredding her coat and catching flesh.

She kept going, eyes never leaving the hound, as she weaved through the wild jungle of jagged red. With Armor Killer, she cleaved through a spike in her path and followed up with a kick that sent it flying towards the beast.

A wipe of its hand, and the severed construct burst with a splash, and smeared it away. It was almost enough.

She appeared in front of it, blade thrusting at its neck, only for blood to wrap around the vulnerability. The blade let out a squelching screech as it glanced off its hardened surface.

She landed in a roll across from the hound and moved again.

Because stationary meant injury or worse.

The world stretched as Blitz Step carried Yakeru towards its flank, sword whistling. The bloodhound flexed its fingers, and the field of javelins burned and twisted. Conjurations clashed with one another, birthing columns of wrathful twisters to seek him out. He corrected his course, zigzagging through the screaming vortexes tearing across the field and uprooting boulders.

As he closed in, the bloodhound stepped forward, blood unraveling beneath its foot. Flames howled into shape, molding into colossal wolven features. Yakeru dug his heels into the snow as the manifestation unlocked its jaws and drove downward to swallow him whole. Pain speared up his legs when he awkwardly catapulted himself out of its path, the creation drilling into the ground in a storm of flashing scarlet and lancing white.

The cloud lingered, more than enough time for Fuyumi to take advantage of the opening. She burst through the snow, but the bloodhound was fast.

It conjured a wall, but she didn’t stop. She brought her daggers up and cleaved through it before it could completely solidify. The twisters from earlier bent as it yanked on them. She dodged one, and it crashed into a boulder. Swerved around another. But the last one caught her just as she put steel between herself and the attack, the force of it hitting like a hammer.

It lifted her clean off her feet, flinging her sideways across the snow.

Yakeru sprinted towards her, lungs burning in the thin air. “Focus!” he shouted. “Left!”

She moved accordingly, launching herself to the side, and he went opposite. Blitz Step continued ravaging his reserves, the stress searing through his body. He slowed. But Fuyumi kept up with its attacks.

She was faster now, but sloppier—her hold on her rage was slipping each passing second.

Steel screeched against condensed liquid. Snow hissed in agony when meeting the beast’s casual might.

Fuyumi leapt over a burning ravine, aiming for the bloodhound's throat. She fired amber crescents that slammed against a shield. Her blades plunged into its surface, and she pumped radiance into them, a jet stream of gold burrowing through.

The hound shifted its hold, and the shield flared brighter. She reflexively wrenched her daggers out and launched herself away, coat and hair singed. As its shape coiled again, Yakeru rushed in to at least land some kind of hit. To at least make this a fight instead of… whatever this was.

Its half-lidded eye darted, tracking him. His reduced speed allowed it the time to shoot him a lazy grin. Almost bored. It stepped back, letting him close more distance. Yakeru slowed further. Not from fatigue. To make something out of nothing.

Fuyumi raced back into the fray as he expected. The hound startled—actually startled—as it twisted its palm upward, summoning a geyser to block her advance.

She glanced his way.

He nodded.

With that confirmation, she charged her Bloodhound’s Fang and lobbed it. Gold streaked across the crimson-splotched field, tunnelling through the geyser and driving deep into the monster’s abdomen.

Yakeru’s legs quaked, pleading as he infused them and burst forward. He rounded the crater left by the dispersing geyser, the bloodhound’s form rushing up to meet him. Before it could process what had happened, his hand latched onto the dagger’s handle, and he let his sheer momentum drag the blade across its body.

It unleashed a sickening, pained howl—the first real feedback of their effort—the dagger’s siphon effect pulling more blood from the creature.

Yakeru dropped to a knee, body numbing, lungs on fire. The hound, however, recovered with an infuriated snarl, teeth grinding.

The cost of that maneuver hadn’t rewarded Yakeru at all. It merely tossed him into a more dire situation.

The monster clawed its fingers towards him. The blood trailing into the dagger ignited, bursting into wild thorns that raced towards him. He snapped his hand back as the thorns slashed into each other where his hand used to be.

They mangled, tearing into one another to birth a screeching abomination, head lopsided, teeth twisted. Yakeru threw himself, but the red-tinged shockwave of the manifestation slamming down still launched him.

A trail of clouded white followed him when he tumbled, fresh pain firing through his body. His channels ached, begging him to stop.

He managed to put a forearm under his chest and lifted just enough to see Fuyumi slide under a scything wave of blood, bisecting the boulders behind her as she retrieved her discarded dagger.

She leapt back in, leveraging her athleticism and fueling it with boundless rage to become a storm of slashes, protecting his recovery. Yet, even with her speed and precision, lacerations and bruises glimpsed through her shredded coat.

A web of thorns that doubled as serpents glanced her arm.

She kept going.

Another serpent clamped down on her armored leg. She severed the head, but another had already taken its place.

They were getting nowhere. They couldn't defeat this thing. Not by themselves. But it wouldn't just let them leave either.

“Fuyu—!” he groaned the moment he put weight on his leg.

It was no use. His own body grounded him.

It was only a matter of time.

His eyes darted from one corner of the ruined field to the next, searching for something—anything—that they could aid in their retreat.

Nothing. Just the corroded white against scarlet, mocking him everywhere he looked.

His mind whirled with possible escape routes, but every one of them required an able body.

His gaze went back to the battle. A thorned serpent snapped forward at Fuyumi, and his heart dropped. Not for his teammate. But because it kept going when she deflected it.

And it came straight for him.

Even with every ounce of will he could muster, it only brought him halfway upright.

Fuyumi’s gaze snagged on Yakeru after momentarily tracking the serpent’s passing. Her eyes flickered with terror.

Then, his vision filled with red.