Chapter 191: Tag. You’re in

"It? Did you just say ’it’?" Fin asked. "Why, that is rude!"

The first to die was the woman with the bow.

She had turned to run, and the chains took her before she had gone three steps. Two links looped around her waist and one around her throat, and they pulled in opposite directions. Fin watched it happen with his head tilted, the way a child watches a bug cross a windowsill. There was a wet, tearing sound, and the two halves of her fell apart in the ferns.

"Oh no," he said. "I didn’t mean that."

The rest moved back.

"It’s...a monster..."

"Did you superiors ask you to decapitate me?" He mussed. "That’s odd. Only my twin and father knows—"

A man charged him with an axe raised high. A chain snapped out and caught the man’s wrist mid-swing.

"It’s rude to interrupt someone when they are talking."

The chain went through the axe, the links bursting out the other side in a spray of red. The axe dropped. The man stared at the ruined stump, mouth open in a silent scream and Fin stepped close and put a hand on his chest.

"It’s okay," he whispered.

Three chains drove through the man’s torso at once and lifted him into the air.

The others broke. Some of them ran and some of them screamed, and the grey-haired man, who a minute ago had been so calm, was shouting orders that nobody was listening to.

A woman threw a sack of powder that burst against Fin’s chest in a cloud of pale smoke. He breathed it in, coughed once, and kept walking. A spear took him in the stomach and he looked down at it, sighed, and pulled it out himself, hand over hand, leaving the wound to knit shut behind it.

"That was rude," he said.

He threw it back. It went through the man who had thrown it and into the tree behind him, pinning him there at the height of a hanging lantern. The man kicked and gurgled, and Fin turned away as if he had lost interest.

The chains hunted for him. They moved with a patience Fin had never taught them

A man who had hidden behind a boulder felt the iron close around his ankles and was dragged out kicking, clawing at the dirt, begging. Fin crouched beside him and watched his face.

"Tag. You’re in." He said softly.

"Please, please, I have children..."

"I’m someone’s child." Fin drove the chain into his head.

He didn’t linger. Instead, he hunted all the rest. Anyone who attacked him got sliced. Until one was left.

The grey-haired man.

He hadn’t run. He stood in the clearing among the scattered bodies with his sword in his hand, breathing hard, and when Fin turned to him, he did not beg. He only watched the chains rise and fall around the boy.

"What are you?" he said hoarsely.

"I don’t know." Fin tilted his head. A line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth.

The man lifted his sword, hoping to strike, but Fin just walked into it.

"What?!"

The blade slid in under his ribs and out through his back, and he didn’t flinch. He just kept walking, step by step, until he was pressed against the man’s chest and the hilt was against his stomach. He looked up into the man’s face from a hand’s breadth away, black eyes huge and childlike.

"You said it was nothing personal," Fin whispered. "Mine is personal. Your reasons have nothing to do with me."

The chains closed from every direction, cutting through the man’s muscles and tendons, and diced him up.

---

The forest was silent when it ended.

The birds had not come back. Fin stood in the middle of the clearing with his arms hanging at his sides. Bodies lay around him, or what was left of them.

The chains swayed gently, and returned into his body. Turned out these weren’t chains, but bones made from himself.

His hands were wet. He lifted them and looked at them with mild surprise.

Something stirred in his stomach, a deep, hollow, aching want. He looked around and swirled for a moment. Then, he began to gather them.

He would grab one, or what was left and pull them deep into the forest, then return to pull another.

He spent hours transporting them to a cave. This was his personal space. Somewhere, where a time ability had been used to keep everything still.

It was littered with bodies, still oozing blood despite how long they had been in that particular cave.

He added them to the bunch, then got on the longest pile and sat down.

"..."

He looked around.

The hunger grew.

The place was cold and empty. Only Richard has ever been here. In fact, ninety percent of the people here were brought by Richard. He doesn’t know them. He doesn’t need to, either.

Fin reached for a detached arm laying on the pile beside him. He didn’t know who it belonged to. He didn’t care.

He brought it to his mouth and his fangs that were slapped out earlier popped out. He ripped off a chunk of flesh and chewed on it, blood staining his mouth and clothes.

"..."

Rory had never been here too. His twin who took after their father, not their mother. Although she knew his identity, he had never allowed her to venture deep into his personal life, and that had somehow created a bridge between certain parts of them.

Chew. Chew. Chew.

He took another bite.

His eyes moved. His ear picked up the sounds of footsteps.

"One. Two. Three. Three people."

He continued to chew.

The people had already gotten in and began to murmur words.

"Is he eating...someone?"

"That’s a humanoid monster.’

"It’s a ghoul."

’Spot on.’ he thought.

"A ghoul? Another species of monster?"

"You think he’s a monster?"

"He’s eating a human Quil."

"Just like we eat animals?"

"No. That’s... that’s Fin."

"Fin?"

"Elias’s younger brother. The chain user with the mark."

"What?!"

He stopped chewing, then lifted his head and turned his dark eyes on them.

"You do know I can hear you guys right? All the way from outside."