In the Wake of Weakness

Shards of ice rained down like shattered glass, their jagged edges glinting under the violet moonlight. They struck the stone floor in bursts, exploding into a mist of cold vapour as dozens of writhing black limbs surged towards Kazami. 

He didn't move much. He barely needed to.

A subtle shift of his feet. A minimal tilt of his wrist. Each motion guided his glass-like blade with unnatural precision, deflecting every strike before the limbs could so much as graze him. 

Esmeray moved. No, he hunted.

His form blurred, dashing from side to side, erratic and unpredictable.

With limbs contorted, his movements were no longer human—his hands scraped against the ground, his posture hunched, a beast prowling through the bloodstained ground of ice and shadow. With every step, the ground beneath him blackened, stained with the poison seeping from his form.

Yet Kazami's blade never faltered. His counters were exact, almost mechanical. It wasn't just technique—it was something else entirely. Something unnatural.

Esmeray narrowed his eyes. He slashed at Kazami's throat—only for him to step precisely one inch back, leaving the attack to slice empty air. The next instant, Esmeray pounced from above.

Kazami tilted his blade just slightly upward, catching the descending claws from the three-headed dog and redirecting them without a single wasted movement.

"You're different," Esmeray snarled, dashing low, twisting mid-air to slash at Kazami's side with elongated flesh. His words came between strikes, each syllable punctuated by a violent movement. "What—" A swipe from below. "—happened—" A lunge from above. "—to you?"

Kazami sidestepped, blade flashing as he deflected each attack. He remained silent.

Esmeray's movements became more erratic, his speed increasing as he completely dropped onto all fours, his body a blur as he circled Kazami, striking from impossible angles.

Overhead, the three-headed beast—its grotesque form composed entirely of dark, charred bread—rushed forward, its gaping maws snapping with razor-like crusted fangs. Claws slashed, teeth lunged, yet Kazami merely sidestepped, raising his blade with a calm flick of his wrist. The creature's claws scraped against the glass edge, but it did not shatter.

Instead, Kazami guided the beast's own momentum away, letting its charge collapse into empty space. A sidestep. A slight pivot. A downward cut that split the air like a seam unravelling. Each movement was just enough, nothing more.

"Dam pest, I'll kill you all!"

The behemoth growled before unleashing a tidal wave of writhing limbs that exploded outward, crushing the cavern walls with a monstrous force.

The blackened meat slammed into stone, fracturing it, sending shockwaves rippling across the earth chamber. The impact was cataclysmic—jagged rock and dust filled the air, the very earth trembling under the assault.

The deadly tendrils didn't stop with Kazami; they extended further, spiralling behind him, behind where everyone was still in a daze. Kazami's eyes flared as he whirled his head back to see the unstoppable tide of destruction was about to sallow his friends.

But before they could reach—

The fabric of space split apart.

A gash in reality itself swallowed the oncoming projectiles whole, the limbs vanishing into the void as though they had never existed. Tang-Ji stood firm, her hands raised, manipulating the unseen threads of existence.

The gravity around her distorted, warping and pulling against the force of Esmeray's attack. The debris that had been hurled toward them froze, then collapsed inward, compressed into a singularity before dispersing into nothingness.

"Just keep fighting, I'll take care of everyone else." Tang-Ji said.

Kazami nodded at her without saying a word as he turned back to his foe. 

At the cavern's edge, Junyo's glasses glowed as data flooded his vision. His voice broke through the tense silence. "He's getting faster." His fingers moved swiftly, channelling his ability to mend Ji-Soon's wounds. The hole in Ji-Soon's stomach slowly closed, flesh knitting itself back together. "That monster is getting stronger."

"Stronger?" Decker's eyes bulged with astonishment. "How the fuck is that possible?"

Ji-Soon, still lying on his back, stared past them at the sky above, his gaze locked onto the violet moon. The flames reflected in his eyes as he pointed towards it. 

"It must be that."

Junyo followed his gaze. "Yeah. That makes sense." His voice turned grim. "Esmeray isn't just getting stronger—he's drawing power from the Husk. The monsters that rained down during Dusk Protocol. The moon's giving him a buff."

"We need to figure out how to stop him," Kompto interjected, his mind racing. "No matter what we do, he keeps healing."

Junyo exhaled sharply. "That's the problem. His regeneration is off the charts. We can't just whittle him down. We can't keep this up; he will burry us alive here."

Kompto's eyes narrowed. "Burry us alive? Then why has he been trying to widen the gap in the ceiling?"

Everyone exchanged glances.

Kompto continued, "When those rocks hit him from earlier, I noticed that his body was ripped apart from just mere rocks despite being invincible to our attacks. There has to be a weakness in his Leere."

"He's trying to expose more of the cave to the moonlight," Junyo muttered, piecing it together. "But why—"

Tang-Ji stared up at the violet moon. The cave was flooded with its light... except here.

Her gaze drifted forward. Kazami is fighting in the moonlight. But we're not.

Her breath hitched.

"I get it now..."

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Kazami, once on the defensive, now moved differently. His parries became sharper, his counters more precise. Esmeray noticed. His own attack was becoming wilder, yet Kazami adjusted seamlessly as if matching his tempo step for step.

Esmeray felt it.

It infuriated him.

"No," the beast growled, his voice laced with disbelief. He struck out furiously, but Kazami met him with silent defiance. "Impossible!"

He bared his teeth, snarling like a beast.

"You… You're nothing but a bland imitation! A dish made with no love. A pre-packaged meal without any depth—" His attacks came in a furious flurry.

"You think you can serve me this uninspired slop? You're just throwing together bland, borrowed flavours, hoping they'll somehow taste refined!"

Kazami remained silent as Esmeray closed in.

Their clash sent waves of embers spiralling through the air, but it was not steel that struck against Kazami's blade—it was Esmeray's grotesque appendages, charred-black, sinewy limbs writhing like the grasping hands of the damned. They lashed and coiled, seeking to smother him, to strangle and crush, yet Kazami's movements remained unfaltering. 

Slowly, but surely, Kazami was pushing back against him.

Esmeray grits his teeth, his body shifting, his breath misting in the frigid air. The poison coating the ground hissed beneath his feet, the three-headed beast lunging once more, its ashen maws snapping toward Kazami's throat. Ice crystals formed along the cavern walls, jagged and razor-sharp, amplifying the bone-deep chill.

In a burst of strength, Kazami pushed himself away from Esmeray, narrowly ducking under the bread creature's open jaw. Esmeray grunted, his frustration reaching its tipping point. "You're just a pale imitation of my skill, my speed, my strength!" Esmeray growled. "And a mockery of power like you can never outshine the original!" 

Esmeray raised his free hand above his head, muttering in an incomprehensible language. "Rush Technique, deployment level 9: The Heart of Ash, act 2, Ashen Fury." He pointed at Kazami.

The walls around him pulsed, slick and grotesque as if he had been swallowed whole. Esmeray's tendrils had formed a dome of putrid flesh, its surface twitching like overcooked meat clinging to bone.

Then came the black rods—spiked and rigid—piercing down from above and wedging themselves deep into the rock like obsidian stakes. They locked him in, surrounding him like an iron cage.

A thin, acrid mist crept up from the cracks in the ground, biting into his throat. Vinegar? No—poison. His skin prickled from the cold, his breath visible in the sudden chill. Shards of ice took form in the air, spearing toward him from all sides, their edges glinting, hungry.

Then there was the beast.

The three-headed dog that almost looked too cartoonish to even exist. Its fur matted with black crust, its many eyes glistening with something neither animal nor human. It slavered, its three mouths frothing with toxin, the muscles in its hind legs coiling like steel cables. Waiting. Waiting for the command to rip him apart.

Kazami stood at the centre of it all.

A prison of seared flesh. A deathtrap of ice. A beast waiting to pounce.

And yet, he smiled.

'This reminds me of that game.'

He used to watch from the sidelines as the other kids played—bounding between chalk-drawn circles, dodging, feinting, predicting their opponent's movements in a frantic game of "Stone and Shadow."

It was a simple playground game: one child played as the "stone," able to hold their ground and block attacks, while the "shadow" had to weave between them, slipping past their grasp.

Kazami was never allowed to play. Too weak. Too fragile. He could only watch. But watching meant learning. Watching meant understanding.

'If I can't overpower it… I'll outmaneuver it.'

The Cerberus lunged first. He waited. Just a second. Just long enough for the ice shards to hurtle toward him—then he moved.

A step forward. A twist. A pivot.

The moment the ice struck, Kazami shifted his weight and dragged his sword against the rocky ground, carving a deep gouge in the stone. His blade skimmed the surface, lifting a fine layer of loose dust and debris into the air—a veil of obscurity between him and his attackers.

The Cerberus snapped at empty space, its jaws crunching down on shards of ice instead. The beast reeled, momentarily staggered.

Kazami moved again, using the rods piercing the ground as leverage. A foot on one. A push.

He vaulted over the beast just as another rod slammed down where he had been standing. The impact sent a shudder through the prison, shaking loose chunks of rotting flesh from above.

He landed in a crouch. The smell of vinegar and decay burned in his nose.

Not enough. He needed an exit.

Instinctively, his eyes flicked upward—his vision overlay pulsed faintly, displaying his health bar in the corner. It was dropping. Slowly, but steadily, the poison gnawed at his health like invisible fangs. Junyo's healing was keeping it from plummeting, but just barely.

He didn't have time.

Then he saw it. The rods. The way they had embedded themselves into the rock—deep, unmoving. With a bit of luck, they might give him the perfect out.

In that instant, he dashed forward, blade dragging behind him, carving another deep line in the ground. The Cerberus lunged again, but this time, Kazami was already moving, twisting just out of reach. The beast's paws skidded over the carved-out ground, its balance shifting—just enough.

Then Kazami struck.

Not at the beast. Not at the flesh.

At the rods.

His sword slammed into one, hard enough to wedge it deeper into the stone. The force sent a ripple through the rock, causing stress fractures to spread beneath their feet. The ground—previously solid—became a war zone of shifting terrain.

"Lucky me. There' another cavern underneath." Kazami ducked low, watching as the cracks spread and split apart. "When did I become a gambling man? Kang must have rubbed off on me," he winced.

Esmeray's voice, once mocking, now held a sharp edge of confusion. "Such boldness. What the hell are you—?" 

Then it happened.

The Cerberus, mid-lunge, landed on a section of rock weakened by the fractures. The moment its weight pressed down, the stone gave way.

With a sickening lurch, the ground beneath the beast caved in, swallowing it in a cloud of dust and debris.

Kazami didn't wait. He turned to the wall of flesh, already sagging, already rotting from the unstable terrain. With a single, precise slash, he carved through it like cutting through dead sinew.

The cold night air rushed in.

Emerging from the melting dome, Kazami exhaled, turning to see the damage. The crude cut in the wall sagged grossly, its surface peeling, collapsing into itself.

From the shadows behind it, Esmeray's voice trembled—not with fear, but something far worse. Disbelief.

"You… You're supposed to be an imitator. A copycat. A sickly, pathetic child not meant for anything!"

"And yet, you're defying your fate?" Esmeray's voice cracked, bitter. "How are you doing this?"

Kazami didn't answer. Not right away.

He only stared.

The thing before him was no longer a man. The hunter, once precise and calculating, had dissolved into something feral.

Black flesh swelled and coiled around him—a pulsing mass, shifting and twitching as if it breathed on its own. It clung to him, encasing his form like something hatched too soon, something that had forgotten where the host ended and it began.

A parasite of the past, desperate, starving, unwilling to let go.

But Kazami saw past it.

For just a second, the shadows peeled away. Not a beast, not a monster. Just a boy. Small. Trembling. Curled in on himself, hiding from a world that had never been kind.

A skinny little thing, knees drawn to his chest, shaking as if the cold had sunk so deep it had made a home in his bones. Crying, but making no sound.