Chương 41: Root Instinct

Past the safety of the estate walls, Kurisu crept through the bamboo grove, his eyes scanning the shadows in the waning light for a prized stag beetle. On the trunk of a rotting tree, he spotted the horned insect. A wide grin broke across his face before snatching it from the bark to lock it inside his wooden cage. Hearing a hiss from the canopy, he triggered his Zanshin, allowing him to dive sideways just as a barbed spine struck the dirt where he'd stood not even a moment prior.

His breath hitched, the spider descending the bamboo stalks with a gliding stillness, its eight legs churning in a blur as the heavy body appeared to float through the gloom toward him. Dropping the cage, Kurisu sprinted through the thicket, his hands thrusting backward as he tried a spark of Raiki. Lacking the focus to refine his Fūki into Raiki, he fired erratic blades of wind that howled through the air to splinter a row of bamboo trunks.

A cold bite flooded through his veins as his legs collapsed beneath him, sending him tumbling end over end into the dirt. Tangled in the roots, his left leg twisted at an odd angle, a piercing spike of agony tearing through the broken bone as a thin barb remained visible, sticking out from the meat of his calf.

When he reached forward to pull the barb out, he realized he couldn't move, struggling to breathe while a cold sweat broke out across his skin, making his face slick yet sticky as dead leaves clung to his cheek. He felt a leaf rustle against his cheek as the spider's bristly pedipalps probed his face, the thick appendages dragging across his parted lips, stiff hairs shoving past his teeth and scraping the back of his throat while he gagged, the stench of rotting meat flooding his nostrils.

Staring upward, he watched the thick chelicerae slowly spread apart, unsheathing two black fangs slick with acid not even a handspan over his eyes. He heard the squelch of the sucking slit opening, a drop of digestive fluid splashing onto his skin, the acid burning his cheek as the dark hole grew closer. The fangs snapped shut, the arachnid recoiling at the sound of a stridulation grating from the surrounding stalks. A second tarantula emerged from the gloom, orienting its body toward the first.

Ignoring the paralyzed prey between them, the two beasts reared back, rubbing their front legs against their fangs to produce the hiss. The first spider lunged upward to attack the challenger." Raishō!" A blinding, blue light, followed by a deafening crash of thunder as searing heat washed over the grove, blowing both arachnids apart in a shower of acidic blood, the severed pieces falling to the dead leaves with wet smacks.

He felt calloused hands snatch him from the dirt, the smell of burnt flesh filling the air as Takeshi hauled him up to wrap him in a hug against his chest.

"I have you, little one," Takeshi rumbled, his voice steady in the quiet forest.

"Weeping is for the dead, and you yet live." Kenji froze, acid backing up his throat as his friend's legs dangled from the spider's mouth. A flicker of gold glinted across his skin, his breathing shallow and rapid while his stomach began to roil, his Tanden shuddering, his pulse pounding in his ears. Next to him, Ace grunted and growled, struggling against the webbing that bound them to the stone.

"Hey!" Kellevra shoutted from the gutted lobby. Kenji turned to see the younger boy drive his foot into the asphalt, causing a pillar of concrete to thrust upward into the side of the Tsuchigumo's cephalothorax, the impact snapping the creature sideways and stalling the chelicerae in their contraction. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Kenji found himself falling after a burst of gold flame ignited from his skin, incinerating his bindings.

Rebounding off the ground in a surge of Seiki, he rocketed at the flank of the spider's head.

"Get off him!" Energy erupted from his knee into the base of one of the beast's fangs, his momentum shearing through a third of the chelicera in a spray of pale blood and chitin, throwing Kurisu free of his prison.

"I gotcha!" Ace, igniting the air behind his calves, blasted across the street on cones of orange flame before sliding beneath the falling boy, catching him mid-air and skidding behind the cover of a wrecked bus.

"Kenji, kill that thing!" he yelled, checking to see if Kurisu was still breathing; he was. With a kick off the rubble-mound remains of a corner shop, Kenji vaulted skyward. His Keiraku overflowing with Seiki, he manifested a dozen spears of concentrated light above the beast. Dragging its lopsided weight backward on its four remaining legs, the spider rubbed the bristles of its abdomen together, producing a noise like grinding steel.

Kenji thrust both hands downward with a scream, grimacing at the sound before he lost his focus, and tumbled into a divot in the asphalt near Ace as his constructs rained down to punch through the monster's armor and sink into its abdomen.

"Oh, Jesus, that's loud!" Kellevra shouted, covering his ears as he abandoned another stone pillar attack, diving behind the bus with Kurisu and Ace, the latter also having his ears covered. Under the barrage, the Tsuchigumo listed to one side, stumbling to the ground. Trembling on its remaining limbs, it stood back up, the abdomen vibrating with a metallic clatter that accompanied the hiss before a volley of urticating bristles shot from its body.

Teeth grit through the noise, Kenji got to his feet on the pavement ahead of the bus, wobbling a bit before he expanded his aura to form a solid dome. The bristles tore through the air, shredding what was left of the street, perforating abandoned cars and reducing any nearby storefronts to a cloud of powdered chalk and glass. With a groan, Kenji struggled to keep the shield whole as the needles hammered his barrier, sending cracks throughout the golden light under the sustained pressure.

Finally, the barrage faded, leaving the street looking like a porcupine's nest. Dropping his shield, panting, Kenji glared at the maimed beast hauling its lopsided bulk forward, then looked down at his hands. Where had all this power come from? As this Holy energy coursed through his Keiraku, to his own Zanshin, he looked like a freaking lighthouse beacon, far beyond anything from before. Kurisu definitely had some explaining to do later. Damn it! Stop getting distracted!

There's kind of a giant spider trying to kill you right now! Shaking his head, he drew from the bottom of his Ki reserves, everything he had. Nothing would kill this damn thing, so he needed this to be as big as it could get. Forcing as much energy as he could through his body, he whispered, "Time to burn, you eight-legged freak." His body shook under the strain as he pushed the energy into his hands, every last bit of it.

When the Seiki took the shape of a towering crucifix that bleached the color from the street, Kenji snorted with a roll of his eyes, and forced the energy into a bow. He collapsed it inward before pulling his hand back, catching the faintest glimmer of a golden string in his peripheral vision before a radiant arrow, tall as he was, shimmered into being, ready to fire.

"Hama no Ya!" He released the string. Striking the center of the beast, the construct ignited in a wash of blinding light, Immolating the creature from the inside, golden flames erupting from the numerous holes on its body as it spasmed and thrashed before finally collapsing into a smoking, finally motionless husk. A cramp formed in the pit of his stomach and a migraine spiked through his skull. Vision tilting, the broken ground rushed to his face. Oh, I'm out of Ki?

With Kurisu clutched against his chest, Ace watched the other boy hit the pavement.

"Kenji!" Bolting forward from beside Ace, Kellevra hauled the unconscious Kenji over his shoulder. Ace sat there, scanning the smoking husk of the spider, gripping Kurisu tighter.

"Move," Kellevra called out, snapping Ace back to reality, as he backed away from the wreckage.

"We have to get them out of here."