Caged Frenzy

  Dozai had?lied. He didn’t need more time to watch, he’d?already seen the pattern.

  He charged.

  “Alrighty then. Who should I play with ne—” Sero’s voice cut off as he turned, emerald eyes widening at Dozai's sudden presence at his back.

  “Too late. BOXED!” Dozai roared.

  In an instant the others closed in. Kenny came from the left, Roi from the right, Nobu from dead front, and Rei just behind. The moment Dozai moved, they?reacted as one, the box closing tight.

  Sero’s grin split wide.

  “So you WERE ready! YOU THINK I CAN’T HANDLE A LITTLE CROWD? TRY ME!”

  Dozai’s fist?jabbed?for his temple, Sero’s head?tilted a micro-degree.?The punch?warped?off its line,?hurtling?straight for Rei’s face. Dozai?wrenched his arm back,?muscles screaming to halt the momentum?a hair's breadth from her nose.

  In the?same fractured second,?Kenny and Roi lunged. Sero’s elbows?pistoned?backward, one, two, catching them both in the face. They?staggered back,?blood?already sheeting?from their noses.

  Nobu?slammed?into him with a tackle. They?locked,?strength against strength for a?heartbeat, then Sero’s knee?cracked?into Nobu’s jaw.?As Nobu's head snapped back,?Sero’s head?tilted,?using the momentum to?redirect Nobu face-first into the gravel.

  The?wet crunch of teeth on stone?was sickening.

  Dozai was already there. He seized Sero’s neck from behind, arms clamping tight in a rear choke. “AIM FOR GRAPPLES!” he barked. “IT’S HARDER FOR HIM TO REDIRECT!”

  Sero only laughed. “Good instincts! BUT TOO SLOW!”

  He rammed Dozai backward, spine-first into a steel beam.?The?impact blasted the air from Dozai's lungs and sent white-hot fire through his ribs.?His grip?instinctively broke.

  Rei?darted in, a flurry of small, furious fists.?Sero?backhanded her?like a child. The blow?should have shattered her, but Rei?staggered using the beam to brace herself, and lunged back in with a left hook that snapped Sero's head to the side.

  Sero’s grin flickered. Just slightly.

  "LUCKY SHOT!" He yelled.

  Then his boot?cannoned?into her side.

  A liver shot.

  The?thud was hollow, brutal.?Rei’s body?lifted clean off the ground,?hurled?through the air to?smash?against a gravel. She?folded around the impact with a choked, airless gasp.

  Sero let out a?short, irritated grunt.

  That split second imbalance was all Roi needed. She had laid a trap earlier, a mine wedged into the gravel. Sero’s foot landed against it, and for a split second his eyes widened.

  “Lucky bastards,” he muttered.

  BOOM!

  Fire and shrapnel erupted, swallowing him whole, smoke curling from his bandages, a fresh scorch mark on his chest.

  Kenny?exploded from the smoke,?arms?vise-locking?around Sero’s torso from behind. He?dug his heels in, dragging the stumbling hunter?toward another charge.

  Sero chuckled, teeth gleaming through ash. “Persistent! I like that!” His forehead slammed back.

  TWHACK!

  The headbutt snapped Kenny’s head back. His vision swam with red static, but his arms, locked by pure stubbornness, held firm.

  “Hope you dance as good as you talk,” Kenny?gurgled?through a mouthful of blood. “…’CAUSE I AIN’T… LETTING GO!”

  Sero laughed, wild and high, like glass breaking.

  Dozai and Roi closed in together, fists hammering, feet lashing. Sero used Kenny’s body as a pivot, twisting and swinging him like a shield, redirecting strikes into each other.

  Every blow they threw?was twisted,?its force?stolen and weaponized against them.

  Roi?overextended,?her fist flying, Sero’s head tilted.?Her?hand smashed into the pillar behind him.

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  The sound was a dry, sickening

  CRACK!

  “MY HAND!” Roi?shrieked,?clutching the mangled, useless thing to her chest.

  The punch made the unstable beam above groaned. Dust rained.

  Then the whole rusted frame of it began to topple.

  Dozai dove, yanking Roi clear just as steel crashed down, the echo like thunder through The Spine.

  In that moment of chaos, Sero?tore himself free from Kenny.?He?heaved?Kenny, lifting, flipping, and pile-driving his spine across a jagged ground.?Kenny’s breath?left him in a single, agonized WHUFF.

  Sero loomed over him,?fists clasped together into a single hammer.?“NIGHT-NIGHT!” He?slammed them down toward Kenny's skull.

  At the last instant, a blade?hissed out of the smoke?for his face.

  Nobu.

  Sero’s head?twitched, the blade?veered wildly.

  But Nobu had?already released it,?his real attack?already in motion.?His fist?followed the blade's path,?hammering?flush into Sero’s jaw.

  The impact?jerked?Sero’s head sideways.?His manic grin finally shattered.

  He?staggered,?off-balance for the first time.

  Nobu yanked Kenny up by the arm, steadying him. Dozai slipped Rei’s weight over his shoulder and dragged her toward them, blood running from his nose, ribs screaming.

  “Roi? Where’s Roi?” Kenny coughed, spit and iron mixing on his tongue.

  “She’s?alive,” Dozai corrected, voice?low and urgent.?“Her hand is broken, but her brain's still working. She's rigging the main support beam. We lead him there on her signal.”

  Dozai glanced at Roi in the distance, her tying a lever or trigger mechanism with her good hand and teeth, tears of pain in her eyes.

  They all nodded. The unspoken truth hung in the air.

  Across the pit, Sero rubbed his jaw with his thumb where Nobu's attack landed. His grin widened, teeth bloody.

  “You hit pretty hard for a rat,” he drawled, voice rasping with glee. His eyes gleamed, wild crescents. “Let’s keep playing.”

  The very air in The Spine seemed to recoil?as he stepped forward.

  Nobu and Kenny split wide, boots scattering rust and broken rails. Rei melted into shadow, breathing heavy and still trying to recover from that hit before, rolling behind a collapsed carriage. Dozai stayed dead center, planted, ribs burning but gaze unblinking.

  Sero didn’t chase.

  He stood in the heart of the pit, grin twitching in rhythm with the tremor in his cheek.

  Then it hit.

  The air around him?shimmered,?a?suffocating, staticky pressure?that?crawled over their skin.?Every hair stood on end, every nerve?screamed?against a?jagged, unnatural current.

  Kenny’s breath stuttered, heart hammering. Rei clenched her teeth until her jaw ached. Even Nobu’s steady composure cracked for half a beat.

  But Dozai saw?the truth.?Beneath the static, beneath the?performance of chaos,?the pressure was?not wild.

  It was layered.

  Calculated.

  Every jagged spike of energy, every dissonant rhythm, was deliberate.

  This wasn't madness.

  It was a cage of pure intent, disguised as frenzy.

  His theory was right.

  Kenny’s voice wavered. “A-Are all Abyssal Pressures supposed to feel this scary...?” Sweat dripped from his brow as he clenched his fists.

  “Honestly, I’m glad he did that.” Dozai’s teeth clenched, his legs shaking with effort. “I feel more confident that I'm reading him right.”

  Kenny smile broke through, defiant and nervous, pounding on his legs to stay standing. "Guess I'm glad too. All this immediate pain is distracting me from the mental exhaustion."

  They pushed forward without another word. Kenny stormed in left, Nobu right, Dozai straight ahead.

  Kenny’s shoulder dropped low, angling for a tackle.

  Sero shifted faster, too fast. A fist rocketed toward Kenny’s temple. Kenny jerked aside, breath tearing out as he barely scraped past the attack, rolling to gain his footing.

  Dozai came next, steel shard gripped tight. He slashed in a wide arc, mimicking Nobu’s strike from earlier, baiting the redirection.

  But Sero didn’t tilt. He ducked, fluid, and drove his foot into Dozai’s ribs. The attack echoed, fire shooting across his side. Dozai tasted bile in his throat.

  Ribs again?!

  Sero's head tilted, tracking Nobu's leftward feint, but he was too slow to catch the real attack from above.

  Nobu dropped from above after climbing up a beam, wire noose flashing silver. It snapped tight around Sero’s throat. He thrashed, but Nobu anchored, teeth grit, arms coiled with everything he had.

  Kenny barreled in from the flank, shoulder slamming Sero right side into one of Roi’s traps.

  The bomb burst. White fog consumed everything, screams and coughs, gravel skittering, lungs filling with acrid smoke.

  Shapes clashed in the cloud. Rei reappeared from the shadows, grabbing Sero's left leg, her small frame anchoring him still. Dozai slammed his elbow into Sero’s spine from behind. Kenny grappled for his right arm, straining, veins bursting against his skin.

  Sero staggered, bent forward from everyone's weight. His voice hissed before turning into a wider smile. “Uh-uh-uh… Did you think… I couldn't redirect my own force too!”

  Suddenly, his?forward slump reversed with whiplash speed, redirecting into a viscous backward momentum.?The back of his skull?smashed?backwards, Dozai's eyes widen seeing it coming just slow enough to slip his hand to his cheek to absorbed some of the impact. Still his body went skidding backwards.

  Sero twitched his head, sending Dozai's backward momentum redirected upward.?Dozai?was hurled bodily into Nobu.?They?tangled and crashed to the ground,?the wire noose?whipping free?from Nobu’s grasp.

  Rei’s grip tightened on his leg about to slam down one of Roi's wired traps on Sero's ankle, but Sero’s knee snapped upwards, breaking her off. In the same instant, he elbowed Kenny in the sternum, loosening Kenny's grip then his hands hooked into Kenny and Rei’s collars, yanking them into the air like children.

  Kenny’s eyes bulged, trying to struggle off of Sero's grip. “God Dammit!”

  Rei’s teeth bared through the blood, vision swimming and breathing ragged. “W-We Have to keep...!”

  Her hand clawed for Sero's face, desperate.

  Too slow.

  Sero smashed their foreheads together.

  Once. The impact shattered through their skulls. Twice, but the second hit carried the force of the first, doubled, tripled, each collision feeding into the next like dominoes made of bone.

  Their?screams merged into one distorted cry, on the verge of unconsciousness.

  Then he kicked them both away, Rei spinning into a pit of gravel, Kenny skidding across dirt, only barely catching footing before colliding with a half-collapsed beam. Both momentarily out cold.

  Dozai wiped blood from his eyes. Nobu spat a?tooth?into the dirt.

  They both glanced at eachother, heaving and leaking blood from their mouths. A silent acknowledgment what they both have to keep doing.

  And as one, they roared—a raw, ragged sound of pure defiance—as they charged back in.