Web of light. Part 1.2

The creature's tail convulsively moves towards me, wanting to slap me to the side next to the wound, jump straight at him and up. Unaccustomed, I push off harder and realize that I will rise five meters. A ramp floats through the thick air to his left, his glasses darkening as he releases a zipper from under his mouth plates. Hopefully not at the Rinko. I take the stunner out of my pocket. I'm checking it out. I hold down the button. The flash! A ramp with a burnt "wing"-fin begins to roll on its side. I twist in the air, my trajectory begins to tilt towards the ground. And there's a spider about four meters in its belly, with a red cross pattern, grappling with a hefty toothy beast, I can't find an analogue. With my hands and feet, I push against the spider's abdomen, my inertia throws it at the opponent. Again, the feeling is that the whole here is more perfect, rounded... The ferry!.. and there were fragments. With a convulsive movement of his body, the spider throws me almost parallel to the ground, and I crash into a pile of torn, chopped monstrous bodies. The air is knocked out, but the clothes restrain and distribute the impact. About two meters to the left, it crashes into the ground, raising dust... Spit? a piece?.. cobwebs, I feel a concussion from the impact. I push off, sliding in the blood-and as soon as I don't smash my head, I straighten up in one motion to see Kuzaki cutting through the mantis's cephalothorax with a white, black, and red sword, and out of the corner of my eye I see a deceptively slow black ramp falling and crashing into the ground. Shizuka shows up on the back of a slashed baboon, bigger than mine, which doesn't twitch. All?

Suddenly, clarity disappears, and sounds "catch up" with my head: squelching, growling, and whining... the soft rustle of the wind in the trees. A dead spider is thrown onto a slope by a man in his mid-twenties in a dazzling white shirt and tie. Shizuka falls to his knees in front of a pile of corpses and almost corpses of smaller yokai, blood is flowing, and in some places a familiar black smoke is smoking. Mizuchi's hands are covered in blood up to the elbows, his face is wet, his dress is split on the side and slightly charred — that's who the scat hit. Water falls from her hands in streams, covering the nearest mutilated yokai, covering it with a film, penetrating into the wounds. Judging by the contorted soundless scream (or am I not hearing it?) I don't think there's much hope of saving anyone from this pile of semi-finished meat products. My head is "leading" me more and more — apparently, I still applied it on impact. At the edge of my field of vision, I see another man with a funny crooked nose bowing to Kuzaki's waist, leaning on a sword. I've finally reached it, and I'm kneeling next to the Goddess of Rivers. It's funny! I know what you're missing. It's simple: water is an excellent mediator, it's understandable. But water doesn't take energy well. You can be a water spirit twenty times, but you can't feed it with your power even more. It's funny! But I can help you, since these pieces of meat have upset you so much.

"Cover everyone with water." Such a hoarse voice, wow, I didn't recognize myself. "All "ours", I specify."

The water is coming in, and I'm in a puddle again, now almost to the middle of my thigh. The hands sink into the water. It's so cool! For the first time, I see how the lines "feel like" filling the volume of water. Some bodies shudder in the depths, others don't care, they slowly spread out like black clouds in the water, as in the sky. Anyway.

That's the problem, I can't reach it. But you should. What's in the way? Is it bothering you? Well, let him get in the way. My field of vision narrows and floats away to the left, but I can still see how my hands begin to glow with a warm yellow light, and the slightly rolled-up sleeves of my shirt begin to literally fall apart right on top of me. It's funny! Darkness.

Part 21

Interlude 12. A former clearing near a mountain river, the former Ayakasi camp. Rinko Kuzaki, Shizuka Mizuchi, Corpse Eater (Kashi), Hawk-nose and other yokai, dead and not so.

[Rinko Kuzaki]

"Thank you, young lady Swordswoman," A young man with a nose slightly larger than it would be proportional bowed.

Rinko looked around dumbfounded: is that all of them? The frenzied steeplechase turned into a fight so suddenly that Rinko acted on full automatic: she singled out the target, a huge grotesque praying mantis, and, as in training, slashed at the supporting leg, and with the second movement she cut the second. When Shizuka created the sword, she clearly copied the shinto-gui, which was too heavy for 11-year-old Kuzaki, she had to hold and strike with both hands, inertia carried the blade away each time. But the opponent was still slower. The mantis settled on its belly, and one of the long blade limbs jerked back, and the girl hacked at the joint. Now the pseudo-insect-like ayakashi switched to a new target, and immediately received a paw on the leg from a clawed bare-skinned humanoid. Well, then it's a matter of technique.

Rinko suddenly felt tired. Leaning on the ice blade, she calmly surveyed the battlefield once more... just as Yuto braced his hands against the rapidly rising water... and the light hurt her eyes, despite the chameleon glasses. A second later, she saw her friend slumped against Mizuchi's shoulder. With her other hand, she continued to hold the water.

"What are you looking at, help me quickly!"

Rinko let go of the blade, ran up to Ayakashi, grabbed the guy by the arms. Heavy! She pulled him a step away from Shizuka, wrapping her arms around his chest. His friend's shirt was falling apart in threads, and they crumbled into dust. Only the amulet dangled in a ridiculous red spot on his chest, not affected at all. Thank kami, the guy was breathing. Shizuka returned to manipulating the water. Only now did the young swordswoman notice that the water was almost opaque from the radiance of power that filled it. The faint auras of the other ayakashi made their way through the water.

"Eleven. You have saved eleven lives, Blessed One." A Yokai in a white shirt appeared next to him unnoticed. "We are grateful to you and your companion, lady."

"Kashi, stop talking, you know. Take the kids and take cover, I wouldn't be surprised if the hunters are already running here. Such a doomsday has been arranged, kso! kso!"

"Come on, beautiful lady!" Named Kashi picked Yuto up in his arms and carried him, nodding to Rinko. They were walking at a normal speed now. Soon Kuzaki felt some discomfort and almost immediately realized that something was obviously wrong with the shoes. High, heavy lace-up boots "for going out into nature" were thoroughly worn out, and dangled on their feet as if worn out. Fine dust flew from the trousers every now and then, the colors faded. The crazy race and the short fight cost the clothes dearly. What if Yuto hadn't worked on things? Brr, she would have stayed naked!

[Shizuka Mizuchi under the protection of the Hawk-nosed]

Mizuchi tightened the wounds and stitched the insides, dissected, torn, with missing fragments, stopped and poured back the blood caught in the water. Yokai blood is not the best component for a solution controlled by a water snake, drains energy, interferes with control... but... Like so many times in recent weeks, Amakawa had only to put his literally golden hands to solving the problem, and instead of one patient, Shizuka was able to capture all fourteen. Unfortunately, she couldn't help the three anymore... The Goddess of Rivers was in a hurry, it was impossible not to notice the flashes of power, the same enchanting mess happened in these mountains about twenty years ago. The defense played a bad joke on Mizuchi: without it, she would have joined the battle much earlier... But in the end, Yuto turned the balance of the victims in their favor!

All. Mizuchi finished her treatment, quickly absorbing the unspent magic, and released the water cover. The water fell to her feet, and suddenly, without any transition, in the blink of an eye, it evaporated into a mist that quickly dispersed into the air. "Mystique, damn it!" — Ayakashi almost spat and grinned: this is what it means to communicate with today's "reactive" children: they have arranged such a "complete immersion in the environment" that you sometimes forget about your own nature.

Some of those who had undergone treatment, groaning in all sorts of ways, began to rise unsteadily, the rest coughed, removing the last water from their lungs, who simply breathed softly and with difficulty. The hawk-nosed man approached Mizuchi, who was sitting on the rocks and catching her breath, and looked back at the forest.

"Come out, Snappy."

"Gorbo, where is it?.."

"Kashi went into hiding and took our rescuers away." And suddenly, extinguishing his eternal grin, he asked harshly: "Where are the other two?"

"KHa!" A small yokai, with an eye in his whole head, already shrank back to the border of the surviving trees. "I'm not with them, they are... They're on their own..."

"Escaped, then. Why did you come back, brother?"

"Ah-Ah! I wanted to help from afar."

"And I didn't have time, that's a pity." It was clear from the Hawk-Nosed man's voice that he wasn't feeling any pity, but rather a desire for someone to brush his magnificent second-person teeth.

Shizuka forced herself to stand up:

"We have to go, you know. We're too close, and... oh, not anymore." And she plopped back onto a boulder, knocked out of the ground by the blows of paws in the last battle. The hawk-nosed man "listened" and realized that he did not feel the Kashi and the strange girl at all.

"What's up again?"

"It's just that Amakawa finally woke up and blocked the walls of the cave with the tunnel from magic." And Shizuka noted with malicious pleasure how the color drained from the cheeks of one of the leaders of the three. And the little cowardly schmuck, the remote, damn, shooter, actually fell on his back. Is he pretending to be dead?

Yes, Yuto was able to set himself up. Perhaps it will be much easier to come to an agreement now. They need allies and subordinates, and now the future head of Amakawa has something to show for payment. Then Shizuka caught herself thinking: she thought "them." Doesn't he consider himself a member of the Kashi gang anymore? Yes, he really doesn't. How many years have they been sitting on the branches and talking smart thoughts? About forty. And if one little boy has done more than a crowd of not-so-weak yokai, then it's probably not worth choosing who to follow. Especially if the leader is able to put his life on the line for the sake of subordinates.

"Amakawa?" The Hawk-nosed man spoke up. "They were all killed!"

"Not all of them," Mizuchi smiled even more gloatingly. "As you can see, one was enough to save your asses. And make a shelter. Pick up the most injured, and they dragged you away. Hey, one-eyed carrion! Help me, since you're back."

[Corpse Eater]

Kashi considered himself a being intelligent enough to draw conclusions from events, whatever they were, these events and these conclusions. This lesson, learned more than fifty years ago, has helped him a lot over the years. But there were no events — at least take a spoonful. The unexpected attack was not so unexpected: he already knew about the group of "cool" scumbags. But I did not expect that they would have enough "brains" to hide their auras and attack. They occupied too problematic a place, and it was a good calculation. Who wants to prove every year to the crazy little guys and bigger creatures who is in charge in this particular sandbox? And Tsuchimikado could have sent a hunting party. Actually, they sent him until he occupied the slopes of these hills, once every three or four years for sure. And they are constantly in battle, they have experience of joint actions... It turns out that this experience is not worth much. Five, assessing the attackers, fled immediately. Maybe someone else would have escaped, but the rest had enemies in their way. Seven of them. With one blow, together with Hawk-Nose, they took out the strongest and dumbest — Leviathan, and there was a commotion. Which would have ended in no one knows what, if not... And after the "not", the main oddities began.

The strangest one was Mizuchi, and it would be nice to just wear unfamiliar clothes. Before her strike, no one noticed the Goddess of Rivers at all. And these two. Okay, swordswoman, a small girl of 10-12 years old by human standards. Like her... Rinko! She fought well, but nothing more... but very, very fast for a human. Impossible fast for a man who reeks of magic so little. And her boyfriend? Generally zero, emptiness... If it wasn't for the light during the treatment, Mizuchi's technique would have become ten times more powerful. And if not... He could have sworn that when he bit off the spider's head, there wasn't a drop of intelligence left in her eyes... and she reacted more "by inertia" of the body. And this is an enhancement of the water technique, after which the guy passed out... He passed out, but, kso, Mizuchi pulled out eleven instead of two or three.

Unfortunately, the main conclusion was different. Mizuchi wasn't there. They don't count against Hawk-Nose. Minus the five who escaped at once — twenty-seven. And all these twenty-seven managed to stupidly lose. Just die in a frontal attack. It's time to question which of them is smarter — those who escaped, or those who stayed and died heroically? Kashi sighed. You can't even do a facepalm — your hands are full of the kid. How many times he informed his colleagues, how many times he tried to teach them to think before doing it. And generally think ahead. To the tired yokai, it was clear what had actually gone wrong. He didn't force anyone. His association was voluntary. Let Mizuchi call them a "gang." Let the Hawk-nosed one grin every time Kashi started another "lesson." He might have despaired of seeing rapid progress, but there was hope... and hope collapsed. Together with the students who never realized WHAT the teacher wanted from them all these years. Probably just a lousy teacher...

A procession of a girl and a man approached the camouflaged entrance to the cave. The shelter. From here, a long and winding underground path began along drifts, pelters and two siphons to the other side of the hills. The thickness of the stone could play the role of a screen, and he had no doubt that a whole crowd of people who wanted to profit from the remains of the Yokai before they completely disintegrated would soon arrive at this celebration of life. And behind them — and the hunting group of the police.

After a short narrow entrance, the cave horizon first expanded to its full width, forming a large hall. Here, close to the surface, the long-term storage supplies collected by him and The hawk-nosed were laid out. Canned food. Non-magical kerosene lamps. Clothes. Footwear. Some documents of the human world. Books that clearly cannot be stored outdoors. As soon as Kashi put the guy down and lit a couple of kerosene lamps, the boy groaned and opened his eyes.