OFFENSE UP
Ryuuji’s beanie fell off his head as he lost his balance and staggered to the ground. One eye shut, he spat blood and grunted at the agony from his blood-soaked cheek. Before him was his hunting partner, Hajime the neophyte, standing on one leg.
His jaw clenched, the younger hunter flicked Ryuuji’s blood on his fist. The bullet lodged in his knee made any movement he made a gargantuan discomfort. Breathing through his teeth, he could only half-ignore the excruciating pain tearing at his very bones. Yet he managed to force himself to use his injured limb to balance him.
‘I might never be able to walk right again,’ Hajime told himself as he noticed Luther, the wolf cub, run to his trembling mother’s side. ‘But there’s no way I’m letting anything happen to them.’ His eyes now fixated on Ryuuji, he shouted internally upon putting some weight on his injured leg to stand.
“I FUCKING RESPECTED YOU…” His anger consuming him, he yelled at the veteran hunter who was pulling up his pants, “…AS A FELLOW AGENT!”
Ears down, Luther hurriedly climbed up to lick his mother’s chin, easing her trembling. Miss Wolf hugged him tightly, easing her little son’s panicked yelping in return. She watched the hunters in both anxiety and confusion. On one hand, she was grateful of the Kind Hunter for his valiant act. On the other, she was fearing for his life that she wanted him to flee instead.
‘I have to do something!’ she thought.
‘Invoke me,’ the beastly feminine voice within her responded.
She shook her head willfully, ‘I… I can manage without you!’
Remembering that he dropped his Webley somewhere, Hajime drew out his hunting knife. His chest beating aloud, fearing his own humanity at stake, he wished he didn’t have the need to brandish a weapon against a fellow mortal – his own hunting partner. Yet, he steeled himself, ‘I don’t need to kill him. I just need to incapacitate him.’
Hajime instructed. “Miss Wolf, leave this to me! GO!”
“You’ve done enough! YOU leave!” she bravely yelled back.
“Oh, nobody’s leaving.”
Alerted, they both turned to Ryuuji who just calmly snickered, who had become without a trace of blood nor of claw swipes on his cheek. He flashed his signature wolfish smirk and stood straight, putting his beanie back on. Without a hint of pain painted on his expression, he announced. “Ah! I don’t know why but… I feel good!”
Luther audibly growled at the sight of magick sigils that were clearly visible to creatures of the night. Two see-through, fiery pentagrams on his mother’s molester. One hovered above the scruffy man while the other was on the ground, centered at where he stood. The pup puffed the fur on his back as the transparent sigils reeked of ill intent.
Hajime was bewildered at the veteran’s supernaturally swift recovery, “What the hell?!”
“Sorcery at work.” Miss Wolf took her turn to instruct him, “Even the odds. Call upon your lover! Your own sorceress to heal you!”
The redhead shot her a confused glance, “What?! I don’t have–”
His hunter reflexes, albeit green, kicked in and allowed him to dodge a sudden swing of Ryuuji’s fist. Though another one came which successfully landed on his temple. “AGH!”
His ear rang and he almost blacked out. He certainly would have, if not for the pain on his knee shattering his insides upon having pressure put on it. He was able to keep standing, at the expense of more blood gushing out of his wound and the cracking of his cartilage. He gritted his teeth in an attempt to suppress the agony but the sting on his head and the ringing in his ear caused him to fail, rendering him to scream.
“Marvel at him,” Laughing triumphantly at Hajime’s feeble state, Ryuuji confidently turned around to face Miss Wolf who had just regained the ability to stand, “That weakling who calls himself a hunter but has the balls to side with his prey. Disgusting. Pathetic.”
Jolts of discomfort still haunted her wounds but upon the display of valiance from the Kind Hunter, she forced herself to get back on her feet. With a beastly grunt, she commanded Luther to sit behind. A command that the cub heeded. She echoed to herself, ‘I have to do something!’
Ryuuji continued, “He will die tonight. And I want you to remember this for the rest of your life, you monster: You’re the cause of it. You’re basically the one who kills him.” He began walking to her, “I want you to think that every time my cock squirms inside of you.” He laughed maniacally once again but was soon silenced when he saw the shiny, pointy end of a dagger right through his shoulder. Hajime, with all his weight into it, had plunged into Ryuuji his hunting knife.
To both the hunters’ surprise, Ryuuji felt no pain. No blood came from his stabbing. No blood came out when he pulled the dagger out of his body. His stab wound immediately repaired itself.
“Some witch likes me.” He slowly turned around to face the neophyte with an arrogant smile on his lips, “You know what this means, don’t you?” Just as slowly, he raised his gun and pointed it at the redhead’s chest.
Miss Wolf panicked. She wanted to dispel the pentagrams on her molester. She wanted to take his attention away from the Kind Hunter. She now wanted to fight. Her wounds already gone and her skin unblemished, she attempted to summon her werewolf strength and form…
…to no avail. Her pupils stayed emerald and mortal-like.
‘Let me out.’ The cold voice within Miss Wolf spoke to her. ‘This once.’
‘Never!’ Again, she tried to morph into her werewolf form. And again, she failed. Silver poisoning rendered her unable to invoke her bipedal beast. She could feel the owner of the voice staring down at her, waiting for her to unleash her. Patiently. Ominously. ‘Never,’ she repeated.
“It means,” Ryuuji answered his own question. He grabbed Hajime by the jaw, then pressed his Ruger onto the neophyte’s torso, “you’re fucked.”
Doom possessed her. Despair next. She hated it. Her birthright. How betrayal, fighting and bloodshed went anywhere she went. Most of all, she hated it when the Kind Hunter’s chest became tattered with holes.
Ryuuji bellowed upon emptying a whole magazine of bullets on Hajime. Bullets that all went clean through, none of his shots missed.
Hajime coughed blood but stood still, his multiple gunshots paralyzed him. The pain on his knee and the ringing in his ear bothered him no longer, “This means nothing!.. I’m not… done… y…et.” Soon enough, his body hit the ground. From his chest full of holes came a pool of his own blood.
“BAHAHAHAHA! Not done yet?!” The veteran bellowed even louder this time, “Look at yourself again then tell me you’re not fucking done, Hajime! HAHAHAHAHA!”
She looked at him in his dying breaths, watched him in open-mouthed shock. Her mind went blank. Her heart empty. Her body frozen.
“Run…” his vision fading, his voice cracking, he weakly gasped for dear air, “…go…” In his final moments, he pleaded to her, “…live.”
Her body started thawing from the cold clutches of despair. A regal gait on her pace, she walked toward Ryuuji. With a beastly grunt, she commanded her son to run to him. Luther heeded without question.
“W…where are you… going..?”
Thick clouds again blocked the full moon. Darkness invaded. Ryuuji, armed with an unknown witch’s aid and his years of experience in killing, was not the least bit concerned.
Her eyes turned red and animalistic, they glowed menacingly in the dark. The red tinge on the ends of her golden locks dissipated, making her silhouette look like she was aflame. Her stare was notably monstrous, her voice no longer angelic… but cold as ice, “Rest, mortal one. Leave this to me.”
…
Back at the tavern, a pair of silver eyes watched the scruffy hunter through the waters of a well. With a gesture of her hand, two more pentagrams appeared on the hunter. One on each gloved hand.
“Offense up.”
The real fight starts now!
In-freaking-deed~