Isher Notra

"Traitorous scum!"

The Icy Sorceress's eyes darted rapidly, following the swirling movements of the new pieces of meat on her chopping block. Three Weasels, soaring with the speed of a typhoon, lunged at her in tricky angles and patterns, trying their best to hit her once, the potency of their unsuccessful strikes enough to put any one of her species out of commission.

Still, they'd need more than numbers and brute strength to reach victory.

Yuki never bothered remembering the names of the assassins. Why would she bother with such short-lived creatures who lasted less than 50 years, a mere blimp in her eyes? Hari always had a mellow heart to bother with these unnecessary attachments...

...

"Focus." Yuki steeled herself, analyzing the three devils before her, reducing their identities to mere aesthetic elements: Bandana, Scythe, and Hat.

Bandana and Hat left their positions for one more ambush. In response, the sorceress ascended as high as her body allowed without the thinner air affecting her brain. She glimpsed the two Weasels following suit, crossing paths and swapping their positions in a single arch each before they entered in dangerous proximity of her.

While gracefully soaring, the assassins had their blades pointed forward, acting as twin fuzzy white missiles with wisps of white Saniya coating them. Nonetheless, the Yūrei prepared a powerful ice mist around her bony hands, ready to blast both to kingdom come.

That was... until a sensation ran up her spine. A Saniya signature, rising behind her back, settling on an altitude beyond what she could reach, lest the thinner air caught up to her brain.

Now, she knew for sure who was the most talented of the trio.

A change of plans was devised as the microscopic water molecules within the mist expanded and coalesced into a trusty katana, the model not too dissimilar from Hat's weapon. Yuki-onna looked upward, watching Scythe descending upon her with a furious, clean arch.

The sorceress' straighter edge parried the assassin's weapon's halved hilt, then slid towards the curved blade, pushing it far away from her alongside its wielder. A rush of adrenaline enfolded her senses when his brothers' energy signatures were mere inches from her, ordering her body to avoid them in any way necessary.

The Yūrei's waist bent to an angle physically impossible to most species, Monoke or otherwise. Bandana's kunai narrowly missed their target. Hat's katana, on the other hand...

A sharp, burning ache struck her side. A frigid gust blew between her teeth. Her turquoise Saniya flared, prepared for her next spell as her mind ran wild with possibilities.

Hat and Bandana redirected themselves, scarcely crossing paths again before turning in her direction.

Between her fingers, ice shurikens were hastily carved. The sorceress wasted no time flinging wave after wave of the projectiles until it became an undeniable storm.

An audible yelp was uttered not too far from her. Whoever it came from, it mattered little. Yuki's confidence did not increase; her vision of them was blocked by the glimmering mist from her ice being shattered by the Kamaitachi's wide-area air spells.

Her worries proved accurate once the katana-wielder broke free from the cloud, cleaving it in half with an invisible slash that Yuki could barely perceive and evade in time. Unfortunately, her hair couldn't tell the same. Her straight bangs, crudely severed after centuries of pinpoint grooming and haircare...

Her hand, fuming with cold vapor, hovered above the wound at her side, her Saniya closing it while the chill dulled the pain.

Fantastic, her dress was ruined. If only she didn't rely on a particular fellow Yūrei to sew her clothing...

Why couldn't that traitor stay deep down inside Yuki's subconscious? Here she was, holding her blade high to match the Weasel's near-identical sword for a fight for her LIFE. Yet, Hari haunted every breath she took, taunting her memories with her frighteningly calm expression, seconds away from entering an icy chrysalis.

"Why was she so calm? It was like she expected this!" The thought repeated in her mind, undisclosed to anyone else, as ice and steel clashed and violently danced, the shockwaves making her arms shake to the bone. "That is impossible! Why would she expect such a thing from ME?!"

Anger rushed through her veins, fueling the power behind her swings in trade for the gracefulness of her fighting style, reduced to a primal beast's flailing, a low, white noise of shame ringing through her psyche if it wasn't drowned and swept by the drive to finish these cursed mustelids once and for all!

The trade-off was surprisingly paying off; her primal barrage of slashes, parries, and thrusts brought a concerned expression to the assassin's usually calm features. Eventually, an opening was formed when she yanked the opposing katana out of Hat's hand, leaving his white belly open for a devastating push-kick, a sickeningly satisfying crack popping from his ribs when her foot impacted bone!

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The sword-wielder was sent farther than her eyes could witness, a gratified grin twisting her lips. Unfortunately, this sensation was short-lived, as her Saniya radar detected more invisible projectiles to worry about.

Bandana's high-pressure air bullets rained upon her, their whooshing filling the constantly displaced atmosphere. Yuki-onna could see through the predictable patterns and wide intervals between spells, a signal of his fatigue. While swerving the barrage graciously, the Yūrei summoned a subtle amount of wintery energy around her scarred palm, enough to silence this tiny devil.

That was it. A few inches left, so Yuki-onna would-

When her fingers grazed the tip of Bandana's fur, the sorceress' body... ceased. An invisible force compelled her in the opposite direction, the currents blowing on her face with a growing potency, slowly winning the stalemate. In this forced interval, Yuki could glimpse a faint blueish glow on Bandana's leg, where a faint scar lay exposed on his unprotected skin.

Nevertheless, there was a more pressing matter right behind her, pushing her to turn around with purpose, knowing full well who was behind this clever scheme.

Scythe, the older brother, was barely visible inside a dome of agitating air, spiraling with the intensity of a twister, pulling her hair so fiercely that the prospect of her scalp losing grip on them was terrifying in its plausibility.

"Enough games!" The sorceress stretched both hands at the assassin, conjuring two powerful orbs of freezing gas. Desperately-made spells would definitely harm her Saniya consumption. Still, she wasn't privy to the luxury of a cool head any longer. "Wither and decay!"

Two furry nuisances latched onto her like bloodsuckers, each taking one arm. Their presence must have been concealed by the concerning air spell of their older sibling, saturated with enough Saniya to fool her rudimentary sixth sense.

Before any word could be spoken or a shred of a plan produced, her arms convulsed wildly as electric currents passed through her paper-thin muscles, less painful and more fear-inducing from the loss of self-control.

Her spell had since faded away, a devastating loss of precious Saniya. How in the world would she know these Weasels had electric magic?! That was NEVER disclosed in their profiles!

Right. Of course, a clan like the White Steel would keep a particular trump card hidden. She would have commended them if she weren't a direct target of this strategy.

And then... The last member of the trio escaped the vortex, launching himself at terminal velocity. Yuki-onna hastily produced a barrier, which was shattered alongside her ribs in direct contact with the Weasel's head!

The sorceress' world imploded, agony darkening her vision as the rest of her body wobbled and dulled without the need for electricity.

...

......

This... was her end. The Kamaitachi had no qualms about claiming the lives of those who wronged them.

The sensitive plane was but a fuzzy awareness, perceiving only her body being moved farther up and then back down. The rough breeze enveloped her, threatening to tear her clothes, hair, and skin apart as her meeting with the earth would be catastrophic for everyone else outside but painless and brief for her, as far as she was cognizant.

"TYPHOON!!!" One of her assailants' voices broke through the thick wall of unconsciousness, ringing the bell of urgency within her psyche. Yet, a wave of defeat washed all over her, dragging her down like a wet, unwanted hair strand being pulled down the drain.

What was left for Yuki-onna to fight for? The only Monoke she could call family severed their bond in the most painful of ways. There was no blood connection worth pursuing. Beginning anew was a terrifying notion...

All that was left of her...

"TERMINAL!!!"

...was her thirst for revenge.

.........

Indeed. This turbulent turn of events ripped from Yuki-onna's mind what mattered most. Justice for her departed family, for the countless families still persisting through these trying times, threatened by the Human menace.

Two Humans still persisted in Sayama like cockroaches. The older, stronger one slipped from her grasp far too many times her pride allowed. The warm, red blood of Tae-fuyu spread and entered her veins, mixing and coursing with renewed vigor and resolve in her pumping heart, resonating and contrasting with the intense, freezing energy forming from the depths of her gut.

Her Saniya broke their course, filling her entire body like a tempestuous ocean, drowning the electricity binding her arms!

Her cognition heightened. She breathed in the raging air, crackling with the promise of a better fate.

And she would grasp it with both hands, no matter what.

"DROP!!!"

The last Weasel cried, a final toll of the bell.

"NO!" Yuki-onna's jaw unhinged, emitting another piercing cry as her Saniya erupted like a cold supernova! Her eyelids opened, glimpsing the scythe-wielder, who desperately clung to her chest, fighting his way through a storm of ice and dirt, quickly clouding her vision!

Once the catharsis lost its luster, the Yūrei halted her rampage, becoming tipsy once she became aware of her upside-down perspective. Carefully rotating herself back to normal, her heart palpitated faster when her toes grazed the dirt, a massive crater lying under her. A brush with death, indeed.

Inside the hole, the frozen, recognizable bodies of the three Weasels were toppled, half-buried in muddy snow. Yuki had half a mind to snuff their lives out.

Her bulging eyes recognized the towering coops of Chikukei planted atop the hills surrounding her at a distance. The ruined plaza, now completely devoid of its lovely tiles and decorations, was a cruel but necessary reminder of the consequences of her crusade.

Her Saniya was running dangerously low - less than half her natural reserves. She could fly back to the core, but that'd be giving the cursed Human ample time to recover as w-

A swarm of steps overlapped, claiming her attention immediately. The brave remnants of the Gunka Army and Pantsti's Dragon's Guard slowly approached her, their situation unsurprisingly more critical than hers. The combination of their Saniya reserves was still dwarfed by her own energy.

The brutish Oni, the Basan loudmouth, and his followers, the armored devil himself, and-

...

Her eyes focused on Captain Tash, carried in the arms of the tallest one in the obedient pack of canine buffoons. Ah, how Yuki grew to loathe her almost as much as The Silver Knight.

A mother who willingly allowed her daughter to roam close to an agent of ruin was no mother at all. If that bitch wouldn't lift a finger to save her offspring, then Yuki-onna would have to do it in her stead...

To think the sorceress once thought of her as a kindred spirit...

The army stopped before her, everyone already adopting their fighting stance.

A cold steam soared free from her open mouth. Her mind ran with fantasies about Tash's painful wails as the Knight's head was mounted on an icy pike.

Sweet, sweet catharsis...