49. Rescue (2)
The wind wolf lunges, a blur of muscle and air, its claws slicing the wind with terrifying precision.
Konasi sidesteps, barely avoiding the strike, and flares her aura—the three-tailed wind spirit fox behind her howls, its illusionary form rippling into the sky.
Wind twists unnaturally around her, spiralling out as her figure begins to blur, then split.
One becomes three.
Three becomes seven.
Phantoms of her body flicker across the battlefield, darting in and out of the swirling gale, each mirage dancing like leaves in a storm.
The wind wolf snarls, confused for the first time, and strikes at one illusion, only to pass through it and receive a slash to its side from the real Konasi.
It turns, faster now, tracking her scent—but she's already gone, another illusion slashing from the rear.
Again and again, she weaves through wind and illusion, using her spirit fox's gift to distort the battlefield, to mirror her intent across dozens of phantom selves.
Each time the wolf grows closer to the truth, she shifts again—striking, vanishing, reshaping.
Despite its superior strength, it cannot land a decisive blow.
Konasi exhales slowly, sweat shimmering on her brow, and leaps into the air—her fox spirit's three luminous tails trailing behind her like ribbons of wind and light.
Below, Merin's brother and sister watch, wide-eyed, their breaths caught in their throats.
A spark ignites within them—a dream, new and powerful.
They once believed samurai were merely warriors, just as healers were masters of medicine.
But now, watching this woman bend the wind, summon illusions, and stand against a beast of overwhelming strength, their understanding shatters.
Power isn't just strength—it's control, will, and the ability to shape the world around you.
Merin's father, long aware of the strength of samurai, finds his own horizons breaking.
He thought he understood, but this—this-this is something else.
A tug at his sleeve breaks his thoughts.
He turns and sees Merin's mother, her voice low and urgent, "Let's escape."
He hesitates.
He too had considered fleeing when the fight began, but they're deep in a forest of ridged hills and prowling beasts.
With no weapons, no supplies, and no idea where to go, escape feels like walking into another kind of death.
Even if they survived the wilds, what then?
Why was Kanoru targeted?
Why had the Sky Sword Sect gone this far?
Merin's father shakes his head. "It's not safe. Not yet."
A howl cuts through the night air, followed by another, and another.
Wolves.
From the direction they came.
Moments later, figures appear over the distant hills—some limping, others gripping bleeding wounds—pursued closely by wolves and Sky Sword disciples.
One of the fleeing cultivators hurls a trail of fire behind him, the flames roaring to delay their pursuers.
Merin's family watches as the group draws nearer, vanishing and reappearing between dips in the terrain—sometimes swallowed by the valley, then cresting the next hill like ghosts in the moonlight.
At last, the fugitives reach their hilltop—but instead of running past, they stop a few paces ahead, forming a ragged line.
The Sky Sword disciples arrive moments later, halting at the base of the hill with snarling wolves by their side.
The clash above pauses.
The woman who had been battling the wind wolf breaks away from the fight and joins the newly arrived group.
The wind wolf pads back toward the disciples, fur bristling.
Both sides face each other in silence, the forest holding its breath.
Sato and the other Sky Sword disciples glance at Konasi with narrowed eyes, confusion etched across their faces.
Sato steps forward, gaze fixed on her. "Why did you betray the sect?" he demands.
Merin's family stiffens, eyes widening as they stare at the woman.
When she'd said she never met Kanoru, Merin's father had assumed she acted alone—an outsider seeking to disrupt the Sky Sword Sect. Not even in his wildest thoughts had he imagined she was one of them.
Konasi meets Sato's gaze calmly. "I don't want to die," she says.
The words hit like a quiet hammer, drawing silence from both sides.
Sato frowns, thrown off. Her answer makes no sense—yet something about it unsettles him.
Then, the wolves howl.
The sound is sudden and sharp. In the next breath, they charge up the hill, snarling.
The Sky Sword disciples stiffen, uncertain—should they join the wolves? But why did Elder Konasi betray the sect and protect enemies of the sect?
Konasi's final words still echo in their minds, muddying their instinct.
All eyes turn to Elder Sato.
Even he hesitates, uncertain why the wolves didn't let him and Konasi finish their conversation.
The wolves rush like a tidal wave, wild eyes glowing, teeth bared, their howls echoing with unrelenting hunger.
They don't hesitate, don't flinch—driven not by instinct, but by a madness that ignores pain, injury, or death.
They're not hunting to feed.
They're trying to break through, desperate to reach Kanoru's family.
Yumora steps in front, spear twirling, his stance firm. Konasi stands beside him, hands raised, wind swirling around her like a storm ready to break.
Behind them, Merin's family is ushered behind a loose formation of fighters—Misai, the guards from Ryoukozen, and two battered survivors who still have enough strength to lift a blade.
The wolves charge.
Konasi exhales. "Now."
Both she and Yumora draw on their blood power at once.
Behind Konasi, the three-tailed wind spirit fox appears again, but this time it doesn't remain faint and phantom-like.
Her blood ignites, glowing bright in her veins as she calls out a secret technique—True Echo Illusion.
The spirit fox shimmers, then pulses, condensing into near-solid form, its body rippling with the same wind energy she controls.
The air thickens, her control over it expanding. Every gust now moves like her limb.
Yumora snarls, green flames licking his spear as a massive roaring ape bursts into view behind him.
His technique—Manifested Avatar: Verdant Wrath—causes the ape to step forward, nearly solid, wind and fire swirling in its wake.
The heat burns sharper, and the very ground under his feet rumbles with force.
Then the wolves slam into them.
Konasi flicks her hand, and dozens of her afterimages bloom into the wind—phantoms with weight and sound—confusing the wolves, misdirecting their charge.
But they don't care. They plough through illusions, claws swinging, snapping at anything in reach.
Yumora meets them head-on. His spear thrusts with terrifying precision, each strike bolstered by the verdant ape behind him.
One wolf leaps for Kanoru's brother, only to be knocked out of the air by a whiplash of Konasi's wind.
Her fox lashes out as well, tail sweeping to form barriers of dense air that hurl wolves back like ragdolls.
Still, more come.
Blood splashes.
Teeth scrape steel.
One of the guards screams as a wolf sinks its jaws into his shoulder, dragging him down.
Yumora growls, charges, and skewers the beast before it can bite again.
Konasi lifts into the air, wind circling her body like a cyclone, eyes glowing faint blue.
"Whisper Gale: Thousand Cuts!" she calls—and the wind turns into blades.
They tear through the pack, not enough to kill, but enough to slow. Enough to force space between the attackers and the family.
Even then, the wolves don't falter.
They pile over their fallen, madness unbroken, clawing toward the terrified figures behind the defenders.
Yumora steps forward again, rage boiling in his chest. "Ape King's Wrath: Earthfire Spear!" he roars, and the verdant ape behind him mimics the thrust.
A massive eruption of fire and wind explodes forward, blasting through the centre of the wolf charge.
The air stinks of burnt fur and blood.
Bodies scatter.
Still, the wolves come.
But now their number thins—and for the first time, they hesitate.
Just a little.
Enough for Konasi to land beside Merin's father and say, "Stay close. If the line breaks, we'll move to the next ridge."
Merin's father nods, his arms tightening around his daughter.
The battle isn't over—but for the moment, the line holds.
Konasi flicks her hand, and wind answers like a living beast—violent and sharp.
A spiralling gale explodes outward, flinging the front row of wolves into the air. Some slam into trees with sickening cracks, but others twist midair and land unharmed, still coming.
She dashes forward, illusions trailing behind her—dozens of shifting mirages that confuse the wolves, drawing them toward false targets.
But they adapt.
One lunges through her phantom and nearly reaches Merin's mother before Yumora intercepts, his spear sweeping in a brutal arc.
His virtual ape mirrors him, and a flaming limb crashes down with thunderous weight, crushing the wolf.
The wind shrieks.
The scent of blood thickens.
Another pack circles from the left, breaking into the defensive line.
Misai cuts one down with her twin blades, but the others rush past, fangs flashing.
Konasi's fox howls.
The air around the family twists violently—an illusion barrier, layered with true wind. One wolf plunges into it and instantly vanishes, thrown high by an invisible force.
Yumora grits his teeth. "They're not wolves anymore. Something's driving them—something deeper than instinct."
"They're not meant to stop," Konasi says through clenched teeth. "They're meant to kill."
Behind her, the fox's tails burn with pale green light.
The ground trembles under Yumora's ape, whose fists begin pounding with rhythm, each strike pushing waves of pressure into the wolves, staggering their coordination.
A wolf sinks its teeth into Konasi's shoulder.
She gasps, grips its head, and turns into wind.
The beast lands, biting nothing.
She reforms above it, blades of wind flashing down, and cleaves it in half.
Around them, the surviving guards are bloodied but holding. Misai takes a cut to her side but remains standing, protecting the right flank.
Konasi calls again, her voice ringing: "Gale Mirror: Phantom Web!"
The battlefield ripples.
Dozens of Konasi phantoms rise across the forest slope—each one moving in a different direction, creating chaos.
The wolves, mad as they are, falter for the first time, unsure where to strike.
Yumora takes the chance.
"Spinebreaker Thrust!" he bellows.
His spear, glowing with green fire, punches through three wolves in one motion, the verdant ape behind him roaring in perfect sync.
For a heartbeat, silence returns.
Breathing heavily, Konasi glances at the family—alive, scared, wide-eyed.
Then the second wave comes—smaller, fiercer.
Their fur burns with unnatural energy, and their eyes glow too brightly.
Konasi and Yumora step forward again, shoulders touching.
They don't speak.
They just fight.
Two wolves break from the second wave—massive, eyes gleaming with cunning malice, their auras surging with the pressure of the same realm as Konasi and Yumora.
They barrel forward, ignoring the chaos, aiming straight for the centre where Kanoru's family huddles behind the front line.
Konasi clicks her tongue and vanishes.
A gale explodes beside the lead wolf, and Konasi slams into its side with a spiral of wind, pushing it off course.
But it doesn't stumble—it twists mid-air, claws flashing, and counters with sheer brute force.
Yumora intercepts the second. His spear collides with the wolf's fangs, and sparks fly.
The verdant ape behind him mimics the motion, roaring, slamming its phantom fists down to pin the beast.
The wolf grunts and tears free, carving a gouge into the earth as it spins and attacks again.
The low-level wolves swarm around the fight, mad, relentless, but Konasi and Yumora don't let their rhythm break.
Konasi's fox weaves through the battlefield, its three tails flickering. Each flick sends a burst of cutting wind across the slope, cleaving through lesser wolves trying to flank their allies.
Yumora fights like a storm given flesh—his control over fire and wind growing tighter with every breath.
A wolf leaps toward Misai's exposed side, but Yumora's spear lashes across the field, the blade riding a tunnel of air and flame that skewers the beast mid-leap.
One of the great wolves lunges again, and Konasi grits her teeth.
"Forbidden Style—Phantom Descent: Ninefold Split!"
The fox behind her lets out a long, echoing cry as its three glowing tails scatter into fragments of light, dispersing into the wind like ash carried by a storm.
Konasi drops to one knee, breath ragged, her blade trembling in her hand.
Beside her, Yumora's spear sinks into the ground as he leans on it, the ape behind him roaring one last time before it, too, fades into nothing.
Their faces are pale, their auras flickering like dying embers.
They can no longer fight.
The defensive line falters.
And through that moment of weakness, a wolf breaks through—a large, wiry beast with madness in its eyes and saliva foaming at its jaws.
It barrels forward, ignoring everything but the scent of blood and fear, its gaze fixed on the trembling figures behind the frontline.
Kanoru's family.
Konasi sees it but cannot move—her legs refuse to answer, her vision swimming with exhaustion and the aftershocks of expended blood power.
She grits her teeth, a silent scream rising in her throat as the wolf barrels past her, kicking up dirt and wind in its maddened charge.
Yumora's arm lifts weakly, trembling, but his spear slips from his grasp, clattering uselessly to the ground.
The wolf closes in, leaping, fangs glinting under the moonlight, death soaring with it.
Merin's father lunges to shield his family, body tense, ready to be torn apart if it meant giving them one more breath.
But then—
A pulse ripples through the air.
A chill, alien, and suffocating—like all warmth had been sucked from the world.
The sky darkens.
And before the wolf's fangs touch flesh, it vanishes in an instant.
No flash.
No wound.
No trace.
One moment it is there, and the next, it ceases to exist—its presence erased like dust in a storm.
A silence falls.