Chapter 75 – A bath… long overdue

Elyra waited with the scythe resting lightly against her shoulder and her eyebrows raised, smiling again.

She waited for Matt to shoot, but he didn't shoot.

Matt did something else. He shrugged his shoulders slightly. He raised them. He lowered them. He moved them like he was adjusting a backpack. And on his back, behind the shirt he'd been wearing for five days, the fabric stretched until it tore.

A long tear from top to bottom on the back of the shirt, and through the tear came out two black wings with thick membranes and marked veins, with the tips folded forward, wide enough to take up almost the entire hallway if Matt had opened them all the way, which he didn't. He kept them barely folded against his back.

Elyra looked at them and smiled wider.

"…Ah."

Then she rolled her shoulders slightly herself.

The dress, with more years of use than Matt's shirt, didn't tear. It was designed for this.

The fabric parted at invisible seams around the shoulder blades, and through them came Elyra's wings, almost twice the size of Matt's, the same reddish black but with a darker membrane, almost fully black, with the veins barely drawn, with the tips ending in tiny claws.

Elyra opened them a bit, then folded them back.

Matt didn't look at her. He lowered the red pistol and looked at it for a second.

'Sun.'

Matt brought the thumb of his left hand to his mouth. He bit down hard. He felt the crack under his teeth. He felt the pain climb up his arm to his shoulder.

CRACK!

The thumb broke. Blood welled up in his mouth all at once. Matt spat to the side. The blood fell onto Sun's grip. It ran down the handle. It slipped into the cracks of the orange details.

And Sun glowed.

A red that hadn't been there until now. A deep red. A red that lit up Matt's entire hand, that slipped between his fingers, that lit Elyra's face from across the room as if someone had started a bonfire inside the chamber.

Elyra opened her mouth slightly.

"…Ah. There. There it is, Matt," she let out quietly, almost hungry.

Matt raised the pistol, aimed and fired.

BOOOOOM!

The recoil threw him backward.

It wasn't a little push like Moon's. It was a full-on hit to the shoulder.

Matt felt his arm being thrown back with a violence he himself hadn't expected, felt his elbow creak, felt his whole body bounce. His right foot slipped back slightly, planted, held.

And the bullet.

The bullet came out like a red bar the size of an arm, crossing the entire room in a blink, with a low screech, with the air on both sides bending slightly from the heat.

Elyra had already moved. She stepped aside. Fast. Back against the wall, scythe low, without trying to intercept it.

'…If I cut that, the whole room breaks.'

The bullet passed a centimeter from Elyra's dress.

And kept going.

It went through the back wall of the room as if the wall weren't there. It didn't split it. It didn't blow it up. It went through. It left a round hole, clean, the width of the bullet, with the edges scorched a muted red.

Then it went out into the forest.

And it kept going until, deep in the forest, very far, the bullet started at last to fade, to break apart in the air, to release a faint red smoke, and to disappear.

WHOOSH!

The scythe's blade cut through the air where Matt's head had been. Matt dodged on instinct, leaning back, throwing himself against the door frame. The blade kept going, cut a piece of the frame.

CRACK!

Elyra was already coming with the second move.

A lateral cut.

Matt raised Moon with his right hand and fired a quick shot, without aiming.

BANG!

Elyra cut the bullet.

CLINK!

Without slowing. Without changing her stride. Without stopping.

Third move. A cut from top to bottom. Matt slid to the side. The blade struck the floor, cut the stone, left a long gash.

CRAAAAACK!

Matt realized.

'She's not letting me charge.'

'If I charge Sun again, she cuts me first.'

Matt fired another shot with Moon.

BANG!

Then another.

BANG!

Then another, to buy space, to make Elyra have to cut in the air even for a second.

BANG!

CLINK!

CLINK!

CLINK!

Elyra cut the three shots, one after another, without effort, but each cut was half a second of pause, and with those three half-seconds Matt managed to move to the window.

'…Outside. I need the air.'

Matt threw his wings open all at once and hurled himself backward against the glass.

CRASH!

The glass shattered and Matt burst out into the air. Into the sky above the castle, with the afternoon sun going down between the clouds and the smoke from the earlier explosions still rising from the forest.

Matt beat his wings twice, gained height fast, put three, four, five meters between himself and the window.

He raised his left hand. He bit down on his finger again, the other one this time, the index of his left hand, since his right thumb was already loose from before. He felt the blood. He spat it onto Sun until he felt something on his ankle.

Cold.

Metallic.

Tight.

Matt lowered his eyes.

Around his right ankle was a chain. A red chain, the same red as the scythe, come from nowhere. The chain went down from his foot to the broken window, and at the broken window, Elyra was holding the other end with her left hand.

Elyra was smiling and she pulled hard.

Very hard.

Matt had no time to react.

He felt his ankle yank him, felt his entire body go backward, felt the air whistle in his face, in his ears, in the wings he didn't have time to fold. He crossed the five meters of air back in a fraction of a second.

He crossed the window.

CRASH!

Pieces of glass flew.

He crossed the entire room.

He crossed the door wall.

BAAAAM!

The whole wall broke. The door went flying in three pieces. The frame gave. Stone dust rose. Matt fell into the hallway back-first, sliding, without stopping.

On the other side of the hallway, Matt hit the back wall.

THUUUUUM!

The wall didn't break, it cracked.

A long gash from top to bottom, with those smaller cracks that spread out from a big one, with pieces of stone falling from the ceiling from the impact.

Matt stayed there against the wall, back pressed against the broken stone and wings spread to the sides, half-folded, with his white hair falling in his face.

The two guards who had been standing in the hallway, one on each side of the door, had dodged him on instinct. The young one had thrown herself to the right. The other to the left. The two of them had seen Matt fly between them like a stone someone had thrown.

They got up, fixed their uniforms, and looked at each other. The young one opened her mouth to say something, but the other put a hand on her shoulder.

"No," she cut in quietly. "Step aside. They have to finish."

Both of them moved. Each one a step back. Each one against the hallway wall. Hands away from weapons. Heads slightly lowered.

Don't get in the way.

That was the implicit order.

Don't get in the way.

Not for or against.

Matt spat to the side.

'…Alright.'

Matt lifted his gaze slightly. From the hole in the wall, from the hallway he had come flying from, Elyra came walking out.

With the scythe resting on her shoulder, wings folded behind her, and the dress torn at the chest and the sides. Her hair slightly disheveled for the first time since Matt had known her.

But Elyra kept smiling and walked slowly. She stopped ten meters from Matt.

And waited.

Matt didn't waste time.

He ran his left hand over his mouth. He wiped the blood. He gathered it in his palm. He charged Sun with it. Sun glowed again, stronger this time, with more blood, with more mana.

And before firing Sun, Matt raised Moon to pull the trigger.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Five shots in a row.

Elyra cut them.

CLINK!

CLINK!

CLINK!

CLINK!

CLINK!

And while Elyra was cutting, while the five blue bullets were reaching her one after the other and she had to keep moving the scythe to split each one, Matt ran with the red pistol in his left hand.

Charged.

Glowing.

He crossed the ten meters of the hallway in two, three steps. The fifth blue bullet exploded cut in half next to Elyra's face, and Matt was already on top of her.

He was one step away.

He was half a step away.

He was there with the red pistol pressed against Elyra's temple.

Elyra's eyes looked at him sideways.

Matt pulled the trigger.

…

Nothing.

The trigger didn't give.

Matt blinked, confused.

He looked at the pistol.

He looked at his hand.

'…What?'

He looked a bit more.

He looked a bit lower.

He looked at the arm.

His left arm.

The one holding the pistol.

It wasn't there.

It had been cut off at the shoulder. A clean gash. Very clean. So clean that the arm was still in the air, suspended for a second, not falling yet, with the red pistol still in the hand, with the finger still on the trigger.

The arm dropped to the floor.

Plop!

Sun bounced on the floor once and stayed there, no longer glowing.

Elyra sighed, tired.

She ran her free hand over her face.

"…Ah, Matt. Thanks for coming close," she murmured.

Matt looked up.

He looked at her and he saw it. He saw the scythe already coming down.

She had been cutting from above. She had started bringing it down while she was talking to him, with the same fluid movement as always, without hurry, without harshness, without breaking a sweat.

Matt had no time to move.

WHOOSH!

The blade cut him from his right shoulder to his left hip. With the same cleanliness she had cut his arm off with.

Matt felt the cut on the inside before he felt it on the outside. He felt something opening from his chest downward, felt something splitting in two that shouldn't split in two, felt his body stop responding from the middle forward.

His eyes went white.

Matt fell to the floor with the two halves of his torso barely separating and his wings hanging dead.

Elyra lowered the scythe and leaned on the shaft with both hands. Then she sighed heavily. Her arms trembled slightly. Her knees failed for a second, but she held herself up with the shaft.

'…Phew. Close.'

Elyra breathed again, hard. Even she has limits. If she doesn't feed or sleep well her strength drops considerably, as it had today, when her rebellious daughter almost beat her.

Elyra felt, leaning on her scythe, out of breath and legs trembling, that her limit was closer than it had been in a very long time.

'…I have to start eating properly.'

Elyra lifted her head slightly and looked at Matt.

Matt was on the floor, cut open, but his wounds were closing fast.

Elyra raised her eyebrows.

"…Well. Well, well."

Matt opened his eyes and coughed as he spat blood to the side. He tried to prop his elbows on the floor and it was hard.

Elyra was already over him before he could sit up all the way. The blade of the scythe rested gently against his neck.

Matt stayed still, elbows on the floor and eyes barely open.

Elyra looked down at him and ran a hand through her hair, tucking it back slightly, and spoke slowly.

"…Matt. Do you want to keep going?"

Matt didn't answer right away. He ran his tongue over his lips and tasted blood.

Matt let out a breath.

"…No."

Elyra looked at him for a second. Then she lowered the scythe and set it aside, not quite to the floor, resting it against her shoulder again, with the shaft swaying slightly.

"I hope you had fun."

Elyra raised her free hand. The whole hallway, the room behind, the broken wall, the shattered door, every corner where there had been blood of hers, blood of Matt's, every drop that was on the stone, on the wood, on the glass, on the dress, on the shirt, every drop, started to move.

It started to rise from the floor in little threads until they began to drift up slowly to gather in the air, to flow toward the center of the hallway, toward Elyra's open hand.

In a few seconds, in Elyra's palm, there was a little ball the size of an orange.

Elyra looked at it and brought it to her mouth to swallow it. Then the shaft disappeared too. The scythe dissolved into the air, into a muted red that ran up Elyra's arm to her left wrist, and vanished inside.

Elyra opened her eyes again and looked at Matt on the floor.

"Get up. Let's go."

"…Where?"

"To eat somewhere else."

Thank you for reading! (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

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