[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/h5xf31C.png[/img][/center][hr][i][b]//Night 0 | Location:[/b] Nameless Forest - Clearing[/i]

[sub][@OwO][@AThousandCurses][@baraquiel][@Vertigo][@Cu Chulainn][@Nakushita][/sub]

Light gathered in her fingers, but not as swiftly as light gathered before the Ten-Eyes’s mien. If it was quickdraw, Rin was already losing, no matter how slowly time moved for her.

It wasn’t quickdraw, though. Not when both of them were slower than the [i]real[/i] bullet here.

Shun’s legs burned. She could hardly feel them through the caustic agony that seared into her muscles and her mind. The extra mass she carried was just that impactful, and her mind roared out from the sheer effort of carrying an entire other body with her. Her knees cracked. Her tendons snapped. Her muscle fibers tore. And just as quickly, her flesh mended itself, overcharged within that moment. The image was crystallizing within her mind now, the image of an engine switching from gasoline to NOS. It burned bright. It burned out.

With a weapon now, she turned the remaining Ten-Eyed into bloody mist, before her foot slipped upon gore and she tumbled and tripped a second time, limbs tangling with the corpses of two monsters.

Without a beam heading towards her, Rin held all the cards now.

What was an inventory without tools, after all? When a box cutter couldn’t do the job, when the hammered nail proved too slim, then a circular saw was what was needed. Light split the darkness, a disc like a full moon dropping down upon the Long-Tailed. The sinuous beast challenged Rin’s assertation with its trusted weapon, five-meters of muscle and bone whipping out to catch the blade. For a moment, the two forces were equal. In the next, the inequality between the organic and the inorganic was clarified.

The disc, fading into nothingness, scored the earth.

The tail, dismembered violently, struck the ground.

And the Long-Tailed, outnumbered and disarmed, bared its teeth for the first time since the fight began and let out a wrathful, ear-ringing howl.

…

Kogen charged forth, his delusions finally synchronized with reality. He could endure. He was invincible! His armor, demonic and yet divinely-illuminated, was only a half-step removed from the Power Rangers of every boy’s dreams, and his body, a perfect union of supernatural elements, allowed him to launch into a classic dynamic, nay, Demonic Entry!

But a kick was not enough to dislodge a hulk-phant whose center of gravity had dropped so low to the ground. It wasn’t just trampling Ayana, after all. It had simply dropped upon her, and Kogen, whose defensive capabilities rendered him almost immune to the hurt that the hulk-phants could deal out, still lacked the strength to overcome this situation. His kick was not enough to save Ayana.

His kick was enough to reach Ayana.

Her consciousness was slipping. Her mind was buzzing. In this suffocating space, bereft of oxygen and movement, left only with the hazy thoughts in her starved brain, Ayana was falling. Her superhuman strength, her superhuman reflexes, her superhuman regeneration, all lacked the ability to allow her to go without breathing. And yet, even if her ears could not hear anything beyond the drumbeat of the hulk-phant’s heart, she could feel it. An impact transmitted through the fat of the massive monstrosity. A force that told her that someone [i]outside[/i] was fighting for her still.

She was not forgotten. She just had to hold on.

Asahi was forgotten. But he held on too.

His arm creaked from the strain as he held on with a vicious desperation, legs swinging wildly in the air as the hulk-phant reared up upon its hindlegs to shake him off. His mind burned, confused desires and memories sticking together as his emotions focused upon a singular rage, driving the fang-tooth dagger into the monster’s neck. Against a normal human, the first stab would have done it. Against a deer or a wolf, two stabs could do it. But the hulk-phant was a true hulk, a monster the size of an elephant. The dagger’s length, caught up between fur and fat, failed to score a fatal blow with a singular strike, and Asahi’s own body, though it surpassed the bounds of humanity, could not make up the difference in quality.

He made it up with the difference in quantity then.

Over and over, the pink-haired youth stabbed and thrust, even as his stomach heaved up and down from the chaotic motions all around. His left hand, the hand that kept him bound to the monster, was wholly numb. He wasn’t holding onto anything, and yet, spider threads, ribbons, wires, whatever that was, kept him tied to his mortal enemy. Each stab caused greater pain. Each stab brought greater joy. Each stab drove one closer to death, the other closer to victory.

And finally…

…his [s]mind[/s] threads snapped.

Asahi crashed into the dirt, unable to roll with the impact in time. The hulk-phant, half-blind and bleeding, loomed before him with a titanic vengeance etched upon its animalistic features. It would destroy him. And there was no Kogen, no Ayana, no Duncan, no Rin, no Shun, no Masato, no Sasuke to prevent otherwise.

Nothing, but an ear-ringing howl through this long and terrible night.

The hulk-phant that was crushing Ayana rose. The hulk-phant had spat Kogen out charged. The hulk-phant that would kill Asahi turned. And with a singular mind, the trio rushed in a straight line towards their pack leader, smashing apart the remains of the bus along the way.

Faced with the thunderous stampede approaching from behind, it was all Rin and Shun could do to scatter, avoiding the trampling. Their bodies were spent, no matter the elation that may have been rushing through their minds, and even if they could have slain the [s]Long[/s] No-Tailed if they pushed themselves, the retaliation that such a thing would have invited may have been too much to bear.

Within moments, the monsters disappeared into the forest, leaving behind the mangled corpses of two dead Ten-Eyes, and the severed, five-meter tail of the Long-Tail.

In the monsters’ wake, they had to pick up what pieces remained. Of their camp, of each other.

[sub][@Yankee][/sub]

Within the forest, drawing further and further away from the camp, Masato could hear it still, the echoes of that wrathful howl, followed by the rumbling of massive footsteps. But what did that mean? What happened to those who were left behind? A couple students looked as if they wanted to go check, but Kunio’s report as the last one who joined them, wasn’t promising.

Ayana, buried beneath one of the monsters. Kogen, swallowed whole. Asahi, on the verge of being trampled beneath pillar-like paws. Rin and Shun, outnumbered and isolated.

How much did he trust in them, really? How much of a risk would it be, to return to camp? What if the monsters were still there, that howl a howl proclaiming victory? There were so many injured present. If he had them all come, and they had to make [i]another[/i] escape, did they have the stamina for it? Yukiko was falling behind, her tiny heart sounding heavily within Masato’s ears. Sasuke’s breathing came shallowly, rasping out from his chest. Daisuke, tough as he was, couldn’t defend the group against multiple monsters, even with the help of the Ito twins. There [i]were[/i] no other athletic types beyond those three, at least none that could stand on their own two feet. Could he have them go then, to scout things out, while he defended the group? Memories of his encounter with a singular hulk-phant reminded him of how foolhardy an idea that was. He could hold back one, but there were three.

And there were certainly even more monsters within this forest.

Their cellphones couldn’t be used for communication. Their voices could alert other creatures of their location. To split up may be to be split up forever. What more could they do? What more could he do? What?!

[i]So fucking annoying.[/i]

[b]“Masato!”[/b]

Akito.

Right. That was the other major injury. A missing arm. Lost to a beam of light. Perhaps his thoughts could be driven down other avenues, but his senses refused to tell a lie. The blood-stench had become thicker. None of them knew how to make a tourniquet properly. She had been bleeding out slowly all the while, each step that she had to be helped with another step towards her grave.

Blood. So much blood.

Tsubaki was going to die. Even if they could stop the bleeding, the blood that had already been lost would finish the job. Sasuke or Yuki, no matter the efforts of their respective caretakers, would follow soon after. He had learned, from Hiroshi’s impromptu trivia breaks, about how fatal internal bleeding could become.

Had they been lucky or unlucky, that this happened at night, where most of them could hardly see what was transpiring right in front of them? If they fell asleep from exhaustion, could they steal a few moments and let themselves believe that it was all a nightmare?

He couldn’t.

He still bore the weight.

But what could he do? What should he do? Was a swift death the only mercy, or should they struggle on, agonizing for even a minute more of life?

The timer was ticking.

Masato did not know when it’d stop.