58. Two-a-Side


    The urn shattered, instantly filling the whole room with dust.


    The Bone Maidens transformed, empowered as they were within their Lord’s roiling shroud. Kindly Sundara and fierce Meetra made way for two Bone-riven abominations, with nary a distinguishing feature save for the weapons in their spike-gnarled hands.


    [Designation: SUNDARA Avatar of the Bone Lord]


    [Designation: MEETRA Avatar of the Bone Lord]


    Whether because she’d seen it once before—or perhaps because she was now focused on a concrete plan—the sight of the Maidens’ deformations no longer alarmed Serac. The Maidens could grow as many onyx projections from as many wrong places as they wished; all they were, in the end, were a couple of HP bars to be whittled down to zero.


    “So, we’ve got on our hands a classic 2v2.” Long before the fight, Zacko had once again lent his veteran wisdom to the Wayfarers’ strategy session. “I’ll let you take a stab at it first. What do you think will be the key to us winning?”


    “Hmm,” Serac had given it some thought before taking her stab. At the time, the memory of her dismal, ‘build’-limited performance against Hanuman had still been fresh on her mind. “I guess to make sure that the match-ups play to our individual strengths? I don’t know how we’d do that, though, considering the Maidens are so similar to each other.”


    “Wrong,” had been the quick and overly gleeful reply. “No, you see, the key to winning a 2v2 is to turn it into a 2v1. We gang up and focus down one of them as soon as the fight begins, then we’ll be at a massive advantage the rest of the way.”


    “Wow, that’s”—brilliant? Only logical?—“kind of scummy, isn’t it? I mean, the Maidens themselves didn’t do that to us. They just split up and took out both of us at the same time.”


    “Pfft. Come on, princess, do you want to play fair or do you want to win? But you know what, you’ve just given me an idea.”


    “An idea? But I haven’t even—”


    “This ‘match-up’ thing you were going on about…” Zacko had elaborated, eyes glinting with mischief. “It wasn’t by design, but we’ve already established a sort of natural pairing. You were getting into it with the old hag, whereas the young pissy one seemed to have it out for me. We can use that to our advantage. Here’s the plan…”


    Serac had lent a humble ear to this so-called plan, despite her misgivings about Zacko’s choice of vocabulary. And wouldn’t she know it? The build-up to the rematch had played out almost exactly as the Wayfarers drew it up.


    Serac had taken first watch while Zacko reconstituted, and she’d made sure to focus her attention on Sundara, drawing the older woman into a healthy debate on the future of Naraka. Zacko had then timed his baton touch to perfection, waiting until the air between the Rakshasas was nice and heated. Afterwards, while Serac was conked out in meditation, Zacko had goaded the younger Meetra into a war of words (probably quite easily at that).


    However, one thing the Wayfarers had failed to account for was the Maidens’ reaction to seeing [His Sister’s Keeper]. Fortunately for them, the miscalculation had worked out in their favor, as the Trinket just happened to be on Zacko’s person—and the hot-tempered Meetra just happened to be the [Sister] in question.


    What was more, neither could’ve predicted just how strongly this [Sister] would react.


    Meetra—a former Wayfarer now sundered and engorged by the Bone Lord’s magic—squared up to Zacko as soon as the fight began, and let out a bone-rattling battle cry.


    It was a truly horrific sound—more animal than Rakshasa, and more pure energy of torment than animal. It was a roar of release, hatred, and bloodlust.


    The Maidens were the first to attack. They did so simultaneously and with different targets in their sights.


    Meetra swung her sword in a powerful diagonal slash, which then shuddered towards Zacko as a wave of black energy. Sundara unleashed her six-hit combo, a flurry of twin daggers aimed to cut up her fellow Rakshasa across the room.


    Serac had eaten the same attack twice before, and quite painfully at that. She was ready for it this time, angling her whole Huskbound left arm just so to block much of the combo. At the same time, she held REVOLVER up and over PULVERIZER’s shield, with its barrel pointed at—


    [25!], [26!], [28!]…


    [Chamber One: CATHARSIS]


    [192!]


    There was no point holding back. The Wayfarers needed to win this fight within its opening moments, before the Maidens could grow wise to their plan. For theirs was a gambit that could work once and only once.


    [Catharsis] erupted from REVOLVER’s barrel and gouged out a path amidst the dust cloud, headed straight for Meetra.


    The fire, empowered as it was by Serac’s [Enlistment] into the Bone Lord’s shroud, engulfed Meetra’s energy blade before it could reach its intended target. It also forced the younger Maiden to check her aggression and put her shield up, only for that onyx plate too to be consumed by surging black flames.


    [239!]


    The third tick of [Catharsis] went through and connected with Meetra. The damage, however, was much smaller than a gunslinger might’ve hoped for, given the target’s mitigation profile and the fact Serac was nearly at full health when she’d cast the spell.


    All this occurred simultaneously with Sundara’s attack. And while Serac had managed to block the first half of that combo, she completely whiffed on the second, allowing three of the flying daggers to hit her unmitigated.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    … [81!], [85!], [89!] -> [334!]


    [Wayfarer Status Effect: BLEED]


    [TRIBULATION active (x4): current buff at 20%]


    Along with that final hit, Serac fell to her knees, having lost her Poise sooner than she’d expected. Whiffing on the blocks had hurt a lot, and the Poise penalty from [Heavy] certainly didn’t help matters. It wasn’t yet time to lose all hope, however, as she wasn’t in this alone.


    For while the Rakshasas exchanged a triangle of blows, a Manusya kept his sole focus on a single target. By the time Serac fell, Zacko had already moved in on Meetra, occupying a large space that had momentarily been cleared of all dust. Here, both combatants lost their access to the Bone Lord’s magic, but one of them was a little less dust-reliant than the other.


    [THE SECOND DAO—FAN]


    [THE SEVENTH DAO—STAFF]


    [THE SIXTH DAO—CUDGEL]


    Three-part combo: a palm to dislodge an opponent’s balance, a kick to send her up into the air, finished off by a headbutt to spike her back down to earth and—


    Poise-break! Meetra keeled over, with her Bone-riven frame hitting the floor with a heavy clatter. Her HP bar, surprisingly modest compared to some of the behemoths the Wayfarers had come up against previously, was already down to its last half. One more combo from a NINEFOLD master, along with the critical multiplier, should be enough to finish her off.


    The fight hadn’t gone completely according to plan. The 2v2 still remained very much a 2v2, though with a Poise-broken member on each side. And both Serac and Meetra were now at their direct opponent’s mercy, about to receive their smiting blow. It was, in many ways, a fair trade, one Serac would gladly take.


    Come on, Zacko! She tried to will her partner into decisive action. Forget about me and focus on your smite! I might be down for the count, but I know you can finish the rest of this fight on your own…


    Across from her, it was evident that Sundara was of the same mentality, ignoring her partner’s plight to instead bear down on Serac with daggers raised. This was only to be expected: death to the enemy, above all else.


    A double-daggered six-hit combo. With every stroke flying with deadly precision towards a defenseless—


    [THE FOURTH DAO—SHIELD]


    Serac’s vision of her own death was suddenly interrupted—obscured by Zacko’s muscular frame. The Manusya took the entirety of Sundara’s combo upon his right forearm, with every mitigated hit chipping away at his glass-cannon HP bar.


    Serac couldn’t believe it. Surely, Zacko wouldn’t go back on a plan he himself had proposed? But as she glanced across the arena, she saw the kneeling but still intact figure of Meetra, now digging her sword into the floor in order to raise herself up. What was more, the cloud of bone dust had refilled its original shape, thereby regaining its supply line to the Maiden.


    With a flash of anger, Serac too pulled herself out of her Poise-break. She and Zacko would need to have a good talk after all this was over, but for now, winning the fight took priority over airing out grievances.


    The fight in question had once more tilted to one side, with a pair of Wayfarers aligned with one Maiden. The pair moved by instinctual agreement, deciding then and there on a new twist to their plan.


    Zacko was the first to turn instinct into action, stepping into Sundara with an upward kick—[Staff]. This was soundly rebuffed by a thick shield summoned out of thin dust.


    The NINEFOLD master then transitioned smoothly into a shoulder barge on his ‘useless’ Huskbound side—[Pauldron]. In response, a second shield appeared, stopping Zacko’s advance and keeping Sundara’s HP untouched.


    Crucially, however, the first shield had been dismissed in order to summon the second. Serac saw this phenomenon and immediately understood its significance. Fights in the afterlife were all about resource trade-offs, and even a Bone Maiden empowered by her Lord’s magic was no exception to the rule.


    As Serac rose to her feet, fully Poise-recovered, she shoved REVOLVER’s barrel straight into the center of the second shield, just as Zacko disengaged. Then, as her partner came back in with a hefty punch from the other side—[Cestus]—she merely waited for her own chance to strike.


    A third shield appeared to block [Cestus]. At the same time, the second shield crumbled to dust, clearing the way for REVOLVER, already aimed and locked onto the fleshy underside of Sundara’s rib-bone projections.


    A trusty triple burst, with every bullet auto-imbued by Infernal energy. The first two found their target, sending spurts of dark blood into the dust cloud. [126!], [126!]. But before Serac could fire off the third, her opponent lashed out with a dagger, forcing her aim wide as she sidestepped the counterattack.


    This ‘trade’ between the Rakshasas left them fully exposed to interference from a third party. Zacko moved in again, adopting a neutral stance that gave no indication of where his next attack might come from. Sundara covered her bases by producing her largest shield yet: an onyx scutum that spanned from head to toe.


    In this case, however, coverage proved to be no match for agility—both of body and mind. Zacko never broke stride as he ran vertically up the shield before vaulting over it altogether.


    [THE SIXTH DAO—CUDGEL]


    Head goes up, head comes down. A NINEFOLD master’s Poise-break special found a landing spot right between Sundara’s overgrown horns. The Maiden dropped to the floor, with her whiteless eyes now showing only white.


    The fight had deviated dramatically from the Wayfarers’ original plan. But it’d somehow found its way back to the same result, with one Maiden left defenseless against a smiting blow. Both Serac and Zacko readied this blow at the same time, one from either side—a Huskbound PULVERIZER meeting in the middle with a NINEFOLD fist.


    Yet, at this point, the fight was still a 2v2. And the other Maiden bore down on the Wayfarers now, Poise-recovered and sword raised.


    Another trade, Serac understood. Meetra has her pick of either me or Zacko, and neither of us has the HP left to tank a direct hit. Which makes it all the more important that we both commit to this attack, right now. Because even if one of us falls, the other can still get the smite on Sundara.


    Instinct, thought, action. Everything was locked in within a matter of Ksanas. Both Wayfarers committed to their smiting blow on the same target, knowing full well that only one of them would land.


    [THE THIRD DAO—CESTUS]


    [Auxiliary Technique: THE GRIND]


    Serac braced her shoulder as PULVERIZER connected with and ground against a solid target. But… something was wrong. She’d expected powdered bone and shredded flesh at the end of her rock-vambrace, and yet, all she got was an—


    Onyx shield that spanned from head to toe, covering both Maidens within its stolid protection.


    For as it turned out, Serac’s ‘read’ of the situation had been wrong. She’d expected both Maidens to behave similarly in the heat of the moment—to choose death to the enemy above all else. What she’d failed to account for was that one of the Maidens was a little less ruthless than the other.


    Meetra—the young pissy one—buckled under the Wayfarers’ two-pronged attack. But she’d already done what her instincts had told her to do—declining a certain kill to instead preserve the 2v2.