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“Better hope this works,” I muttered, turning Vanitas in one hand, cutting the smallest nick I could manage in the palm of the other.
The Dark Room wanted its price, so I had to make it count. I knew it would take my blood, but instinct and experience told me that the shadows were stronger, more vicious and volatile each time I willingly gave more of myself. I opened the door, just the fraction of an inch, and a blade of pure darkness erupted from the shadow at Susanoo’s feet –
And struck at thin air. He’d disappeared in a flash of electricity, leaving nothing behind but sparks and the smell of ozone. He reappeared again, looking over his shoulder just long enough to grin at me.
“Try again,” he said, winking.
“Give up, shadow beast,” Amaterasu said, swinging her sword back to prepared another salvo of fire-birds. “We know of your foul tricks.”
Not all of them, I thought to myself.
The last of the ice clinked to the ground as Susanoo smashed away all that was left of Herald’s shield. Violet light flickered and faded from around Herald’s hands. He was out of arcane energy, and with a busted ankle, it wasn’t like he had anywhere to go.
“The coup de grace,” Susanoo said, his chest puffing out as he gloated. “I want to end this in a most spectacular way.”
He threw his sword into the sky, and I watched as it vanished into the clouds, joining a burbling, newly-risen storm that swirled threateningly far above us.
I had to time it right. “Susanoo,” I called out. “I’m trying again.”
He turned to me, his eyes now as dark as the gathering storm, his laughter as booming and deep as a hurricane. “Go on,” he said.
My palm bled freely as I summoned another spear of darkness from the ground, and Susanoo’s laughter rang around the crystal chamber as he blinked out of existence once more. There it was – my window of opportunity. I raised Vanitas and hurled him into my own shadow, and he vanished into the Dark Room. Susanoo reappeared, shrugging and grinning smugly, and as he came into existence, so did his shadow.
“Time for your friend to die,” Susanoo said. “Sayonara, little sorcerers.” A bolt of lightning came crackling down to meet us.
Vanitas zoomed from out of the god’s shadow, driven with the same velocity I’d used to throw him. The sword speared the god at an angle, skewering him from spine to sternum.
“Oh,” he said, glancing down at the point of the sword sticking out of his chest. The lightning he’d called from the sky no longer seemed interested in Herald,
and went rocketing in search of the closest source of metal.
I wasn’t expecting that part. How the god screamed.
I’d assumed that Susanoo would have some kind of resistance to lightning, given his portfolio, but maybe electricity really, really hurts when it’s conducted by a sword that’s stuck through your entire body. I looked away as the smell of burnt flesh filled my nostrils. Between the burbles of pain and the agonized howling, I swore I could hear Susanoo laughing.
“Well played,” he gurgled. He hit the ground with a wet thump.
“Brother!” Amaterasu’s sword fell from her hand as she rushed to his side, clanging to the floor. I wasn’t going to take any chances. If this was our ticket out, then we needed to take our shot.
“Herald. Now.”
He slammed his palm into the ground, sharpened pillars of ice rising from around Amaterasu’s body, slicing into her robes, pinning her in place. I groaned as I opened slits and slivers of the Dark Room, throwing out a dozen black blades of shadow, sharp enough to stop her in her tracks, to threaten her throat and her heart, but not quite long enough to pierce her skin. Not just yet. We’d trapped her in a cocoon, an iron maiden made out of frost and shadow.
Amaterasu held perfectly still. Her eyes burned through my skull as she glared at me. “You win, shadow beast. Leave now, and let me tend to my brother.”
“Show us the exit,” I said, “and we’re out of here, like, yesterday.”
Her lips pursed tight, but a panel slid open in one of the crystal walls around us.
“Go,” she commanded coldly.
Focusing on the Dark Room, I closed each of the gaps I’d opened in reality. The shadow blades ensnaring Amaterasu’s body vanished. I walked over to Susanoo’s twitching form, retrieving Vanitas from his scorched body. He yowled as I yanked the sword out of him. He coughed, then laughed again.
“Defeated by mortals. What a day. I look forward to fighting you again, shadow beast.”
“Not any time soon I hope,” I said, still averting my eyes. “No hard feelings, okay? Cool. Bye.”
Susanoo said nothing more, only gurgling and chuckling wetly into the ground.
