Chapter 3 - Terminal Ferocity

I've never considered myself a naturally cold person.

I think anyone who really knows me would agree that I'm- that I can be pretty caring. I go out of my way to look out for people who are good to me. When friends that're even somewhat close get hurt, I often empathise pretty hard. I've even cried a few times on others' behalf. I'm used to… feeling for people.

Which is the reason a part of me wondered idly why, in the face of someone getting stabbed to death, someone who had - whatever his reasons - risked everything to get me out of a tough spot, all I saw was a chance.

Fair enough, a chance that I'd been looking for; I'd been searching frantically for a way out of this mess ever since I entered this room. I don't know what Hikio was hoping to accomplish by coming in here, but as I watched the light from my would-be savior's eyes begin to fade, I wasn't thinking about how horrible his imminent demise was.

I was thinking that, for a precious few seconds, nobody was looking at me.

I was thinking that the glint I'd seen on the blonde one's hip was a knife, loosely sheathed so that a bit of the blade was visible.

I was thinking that I would help him… resheath it.

He didn't even notice me slipping the knife out, nor me repositioning myself. I took two seconds decide exactly where I wanted to go for and another second to aim properly.

I'm not a naturally cold person.

That said, over the years, I had learned firsthand that there are no limits to what others could do to you, how badly they would screw you over if given the chance and motivation. Hikio had completely broken down a few minutes ago, apparently in shock that people would actually do this, but this wasn't even the first time I'd been in this situation.

I knew intimately the concept of dissociation, that it was possible to completely divorce yourself from another person's experience, no matter how horrible that experience happened to be, if you stood to gain from it.

I knew because I'd learned to do the same.

So, without an ounce of hesitation, I lunged at him, directing the weapon right at his adam's apple, lidding my eyes in preparation for the eventual blood spray and even getting ready to go after the big one before he could get his bearings and recognize what was going on.

All well and good, if I didn't miss.

I crashed into him and we both fell off the mattress, my body landing squarely on top of his in the small space between the side of the bed and the wall. The tip of the knife had slightly embedded itself in the floor, subsequently tipping over in the struggle. And struggle he did.

Thankfully, given our position I had a lot of leverage and he had basically no freedom of movement. His left arm was stuck under him and I'd braced my body weight over his right, pushing my right forearm against his chin, which simultaneously exposed his neck and muffled his protests. My left hand scrambled for the knife (out of my field of view by this point) as he futilely kicked his leg out. Found it.

I grabbed the handle, pushed against his jaw even harder to gain height and plunged the blade into his jugular.

I didn't feel anyth- actually no. It felt good to do that. It felt great.

Immediately a jet of pressurised blood blasted into my face, blinding me. My entire body recoiled, my arms swiftly pushing myself off of him and leaning against the wall behind me. I couldn't see but could almost sense the man's desperation as he clutched at his throat, unsuccessfully trying to stem the flow. I listened to the gurgling and the splashing. I wondering faintly about how fast events had unfolded.

It hadn't even been 10 seconds since Hikio entered the room.

Eventually, with slightly trembling hands I managed to clear a bit of the blood from my face and turned just in time to find the bearded one looking in our direction. We both leveled our gazes at our respective companions' dying bodies, then back to each other. I switched the knife to my dominant hand. His face contorted in fury and he began yelling at me in English. It wasn't long before he started to charge.

Uh oh.

He barreled towards me, weapon in hand and I dodged to my right, trampling over the blonde man's writhing soon-to-be corpse. He slammed into the wall and instantly changed direction, chasing me as I clambered onto and to the other side of the bed. I tossed a pillow at his face, which he swatted away. I followed up with a swipe of my knife, hoping to utilise the pillow's momentary distraction. He reacted surprisingly quickly and caught my wrist in a vice grip, trying to drag me towards him. He had to dodge backwards though, as I dropped the knife into my left hand and slashed again, upwards this time.

The man snarled viciously and regained his footing on the bed, proceeding to use his greater reach to slash at me. I ducked under it, grabbed the bedsheets and yanked as hard as I could.

He fell hard on his back, the bedframe making a loud crash as the whole thing collapsed under his weight. I saw his knife fly out of his hand and to an unknown part of the room. Knowing I wouldn't have enough time to safely capitalize, I contented myself by stabbing his legs twice, eliciting a howl of pain and spurts of blood. He rolled to the side and away from me, getting back on his unsteady feet and looking to go at me again, but by then I'd already made my escape out the door and back into the main room of the ship. I barely spared a glance at the third man in the driver's seat, keeping my gaze laser-focused on the door.

I crouched, readying my weapon...

He burst through the door and I threw myself at him, blade first. Again, his quick reflexes surprised me as he savagely batted my arm away. I hissed; he had literally struck a nerve, prompting me to drop the knife.

He let out another bellow and grasped both my right wrist and my neck, pushing then slamming me against the manavi's far wall. Then the choking started.

I set about trying to free myself, but he was far too strong. Spittle flew in my face as his yelling continued, as loud as it was (probably) incoherent. I kicked my legs out, but I couldn't find any purchase.

Seconds passed, and my vision slowly began to darken. My eyes flitted around desperately. Wasn't there anything I could use? I wasn't just going to die here, was I? Sounds started to grow faint, my assailant's incessant screaming almost mercifully fading into the background. I continued my search even as I felt my struggling go weaker. There had to be something. Anything! His hand, face, the wall, the floor- wait, wasn't that-?

My thoughts halted and my eyes widened as a single word from his frenzied tirade stuck out to me - a word that bit just as hard in English as it did Japanese - and I was instantly enveloped by an overwhelming sense of deja-vu.

Scenes of my previous life streaked back and forth in my shadowy eyesight, and brought with them a wave of sadness. Of fear.

And most of all, rage.

With what might well be my last breath, I managed to utter a feeble "Fuck you, asshole..." and chose the nuclear option.

I slammed my free hand on a very particular section of the wall I'd made sure to memorise earlier.

With cruel satisfaction, I saw the man's eyes widen and sensed his intention to pull back, but it was already too late.

The wall behind me unfurled, and we began to fall.

My mouth flew open, air entering my lungs as our bodies exited the ship. My full faculties instantaneously returned and, as if in slow motion, I beheld physics at work:

The man, shaggy beard flailing, flew over me at a much greater velocity than I moved, owing to the fact that he was the one pushing me against the wall. He didn't have a hope of recovery, and didn't even have enough time to reach out before he would leave the manavi's vicinity, and be left to his plummeting fate. A terror filled way to go more than likely, with plenty of time to panic. It's a good thing I wouldn't be joining him.

Bi-weekly yoga don't fail me now!

From the moment the wall began to open, I had already begun bending over backwards, transferring the momentum that my upper body had from being choked into a turning motion. For a horrifying moment I was suspended freely in the air, but quickly completed my sort of mid-air backflip, barely managing to grab the bottom right corner of the manavi's opening.

I took a moment to catch my breath whilst hanging on for dear life, struggling not to be left behind my the fast moving aircraft, before painstakingly dragging myself back into the ships interior. I pressed the wall-switch, resealing the door and shutting out the howling winds. I proceeded to place my hands on my knees and just… breathe raggedly.

"Who's-" I coughed, "the bitch now..?"

Holy shit, I cannot believe I just did that. What the hell was-

My body jolted as I heard shouting in English and I looked up. The third one was, as expected, yelling in my direction. Still seated. My blood pressure spiked.

Alright, one more.

Spying my previously dropped knife, I raced towards and snatched it off the floor, immediately moving towards the third man, was still seated for some reason, and once again, I did not hesitate. Only as I raised my hand to strike did he begin actually trying to react, but it was far too late. I jammed the blade into the area around his collarbone, retracted it, and slit his throat for good measure.

The dying man fell like a sack off his seat. More blood, more gurgling. My laboured breathing resumed.

I leaned tiredly on his chair, absentmindedly watching his death-throes, wondering how I'd already gotten used to the sight in under a minute. I also wondered what the hell this particular guy was doing.

His squirming slowed.

He must have heard the commotion in the other room, and of course he saw the fight in this one.

His body began to slip off the chair.

The adrenaline in my body began to taper off. Obviously I'd go after him as soon as I got rid of the others, but he just sat there still. You'd think that protecting your own damn life would take priority over flying… the…

...ship.

"Oh fuck me!"

I felt the tilting before I saw it. The view through the transparent sections of the wall began to skew slowly downwards, and I didn't need to be an aeronautical engineer to know what that meant; the manavi was losing altitude…

...really fucking quickly what the hell I'm already fallin-!

All at once the whole ship just dropped out of the sky in a hard nosedive. My body rocketed to the back of the room, pressed spread eagle against the wall beside the bedroom door. I attempted to reach out, but the g-forces acting on the ship pulled me back. Gravity really did not want to let me leave. I knew there was an island right below us, and at this rate I, along with the whole vehicle, would become the giant equivalent of a mangled soda can.

Screw that.

I slowly, laboriously, maneuvered my arms behind me and eventually managed to get myself into a crouching position. Alright, here comes the hardest part.

"Hrrmrmmghgh~!" I grunted, pushing against the wall behind (or I guess on top of) me, reaching for the pilot's seat.. got it! Now for the second hardest part.

"HNNNNGGGHHRRAAAH!" I squeezed my eyes shut as I pulled. How fast was this thing falling?!

That was not the second hardest part. At all.

I let out a large exhale as wriggled into the chair and stared at the console. Two dark cylindrical holes. How hard could flying a magic spaceship be?

Well, I didn't exactly have the luxury of sucking at it right now.

I jammed my forearms in and grabbed… some things. Handles? I instinctively looked up (down) from the console to the alarming sight of the ground, while still far below, steadily closing the distance.

Well, nothing for it then. I pulled the handles as much as I could…

...and it worked! I could see the thrusters in front of the manavi exuding some kind of translucent backward (upward) force to slow its decent. Down and down we went, though thankfully I could feel the pressure letting up. I could even see that, at this pace, the ship would level out before we hit the ground below.

It was actually going pretty well.

As the ship approaches the surface of the island, velocity thankfully less than terminal, it occurs to me that I probably need to turn this thing so it lands upright. By now, I'd been bracing my legs against the console since the manavi's fall speed wasn't enough to keep me locked to the chair anymore. In getting to where I was now, and due to the handles' intuitive design and minute adjustments I'd made during the fall, I more or less knew how to properly direct the manavi's movements. By now I could easily make out the snow covered trees and bushes underneath me; I didn't have much time left. My current position made it a lot more difficult than it needed to be but I nevertheless started to slowly turn the ship's nose upwards.

I managed 2 seconds before my blood covered feet slipped and fell off the whole console.

And in doing so, in that moment, I felt my hands pull sharply on the ship's controls.

I slowly regained consciousness to the unwelcome sensation of everything hurting.

It took me 5 seconds to pry my eyes open, 10 to remember what the hell had just happened and another 30 to realize where I was; namely on my back on the manavi's tilted front windows.

Nothing in the vicinity moved but me. So I'd crashed then. From the angle in which the ship's floor rose up in front of me, it looked like the it's nose had wedged itself to the ground.

More Interesting though, was that I was even still alive-

I wiggled my extremities.

-and mobile. Lucky. Though I guess I was in for a bit of luck, after that whole shitshow. As I started to try and actually move, something stood out in the corner of my vision. Something that halted, if just briefly, my actions.

It was a severed head.

Hikio's severed head.

…

My transfixed gaze slowly followed a haphazard trail of blood leading up to the ship's exit.

...How did...?

In the chaos of the crash it… it must have somehow… the door closed on his…

Compartmentalise.

I dragged my eyes away. Don't think about- okay. Don't. Focus.

I felt my body rise to its feet.

I'm alone in the middle of God knows where, exposed to God knows what. I had to get my bearings. I had to survive.

Okay, first, some acknowledgments: Because of the reasonably messed up nature of our arrival in this world, I'd handled myself pretty shittily at first. Depended too much on… him. Whined and complained. Trusted random strangers, and look where it had gotten us- me.

The hands in front of me climbed the tilted ship's floor, with marginal success. They struggled to find purchase on the smooth surface, though the trembling was their main issue.

You need to calm down. Take control of myself. I'd been through worse. Keep climbing.

The door, now open to the cold night air after the crash, loomed large several meters ahead of my vision. A weird choking noise found its way to my consciousness. Where was it coming from? Was that me?

Suppress it Yumiko. Compartmentalise. All that matters is getting out of this thing, forming a concrete plan of action and then...

As the distance to the door shrunk, the shaking seemed to have extended to my vision, accompanied by a coppery taste on my tongue. Something was happening. That was alright though, I just needed to reach out for the door.

Yumiko!

The fingers gripped the edge of the doorway. Something wasn't quite right. I can feel it.

I can? Can I?

Her left eye closed.

Right. Her eye. The taste - that weird blood like taste - entered my mouth once again.

She wasn't holding on to anything.

Both visions went dark.

I woke up with my eyes already open.

Which was very weird.

Also weird was the fact that I was standing up.

Outside the crashed manavi.

Surrounded by people.

Surrounded.

The hell?

"Uhh." I raised my hands placatingly.

Various men and women of different sizes stared apprehensively at me. No, that was the wrong word; they looked almost panicked, eyes wide with agitation. Or anger.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Were they going to hurt me? It didn't look like any of them had weapons, but-

I caught myself. No. I wasn't going to do this again.

I took a deep breath.

You can do this Yumiko. Take control of your situation.

I'd learned years back that fear, anxiety… you could control most negative emotions if you psych yourself up enough. Once you let them grab a hold of you, it was all over.

Breathe...

Alright, think. Who are they? What are they doing? What do they want?

I'd guess that they're the natives of this island or whatever. My audience was about 30 or so odd people. All adults from what I could tell. Dressed in furs similar to those asshats on the manavi. Who the hell were they actually? For that matter, how did I even get out of the ship?

I blinked slowly. Nevermind, not important. Looking at their clothes though made me suddenly aware of how ridiculously cold I was. I glanced down at my state of dress, or lack thereof: I was still just in my underwear.

The natives were giving me a pretty wide berth, standing about 10 or so meters away from me in a semicircle in front of me. Again, I could tell they were on edge. Why? Well, obviously, I've just crash landed in their… land, who wouldn't be wary about that, but what were they feeling specifically?

All of a sudden one of them, an older man directly across from me, took careful, deliberate steps towards me, like I was some sort of wild animal. I made no outward acknowledgement, but readied myself to act all the same. I scanned my surroundings for some sort of escape route. I didn't want to look behind me in case they caught on to what I was thinking. I would have to settle for running behind me, whatever was there.

The muscles in my legs tensed. If this guy tried anything, I'd have to be quick...

When he was a bit further than conversation distance, he stopped short. From here I could see the features on his face. He looked a bit younger than I originally thought, wrinkles on his face brought on more by stress than age. He looked at me with caution bordering on anxiety for a second, then his mouth to speak…

...English. Shit. Not sure what I was expecting to be honest.

I put up a hand, cutting him off. He actually stopped short and waited for me to talk.

"I don't understand you." I said, drawing out my speech, trying to convey the fact that we spoke different languages, "My english was never much good, sorry." I took a few seconds to gesture that as much.

It took almost a minute of him unsuccessfully trying to communicate, but eventually he seemed to get the picture. He turned around and started conversing with the rest of his people (mostly the woman he had been standing next to), a bit of the timidity having left his voice. A few more minutes of me freezing my ass off later, said woman walked towards me, taking off her fur mantle… coat… thing and offering it to me.

I stared at the garment. It was almost laughable. Here I was, forced again to accept help from unknown and potentially dangerous strangers or else straight up freeze to death. Much good it had done me before. Me and…

I took the chance to look behind me. Trees and snow. So I wasn't near the ship?

...Huh. Well, nothing for it now.

Fuck it. Again, it wasn't like I had a choice. I turned back to the woman and as I grabbed the furs, I was distracted by movement in my vision's periphery. I looked to my right and found what I instinctively thought was a large dog, but was actually a little kid, bundled in so many clothes that I almost couldn't tell its gender. Almost.

The girl was about 8-12 years old give or take, with wide, determined eyes gazing deep into my own from the shadow of her red bangs.

Seems like she wasn't supposed to be here though, as right as the man and woman followed my gaze to her, their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets and the man put himself between the kid and me and the woman started yelling.

Rude. What, did they think I went around murdering children for fun or something? What the hell did they see me as?

…

Oh, right. I was still caked head to toe in human blood.

Ah, suddenly their reactions up to this point made a lot more sense. Though, I could understand the wariness, not so much the... fear. I'm still just a single unarmed woman after all.

Hurriedly wrapping myself in the fur cloak, I stood there for a moment, watching the kid argue with what were probably her parents, and considered how I was going to play this...

Alright.

I let out a loud, obnoxious sneeze, which served the dual purpose of letting them know I was still here and that my nipples were about to complete their slow metamorphosis into icicles. I subtly hugged the cloak tighter around me to enhance the effect.

The father(?) hesitated before saying something to the kid, then the woman, then the other people, then finally he turned to me and gestured to follow him. Some of the crowd seemed to voice their concerns, after which a brief back and forth ensued, and then we finally got moving.

Said movement though, did next to nothing to alleviate my growing case of hypothermia. The cloak barely helped. 5 minutes into the trek and was a knife's edge away from collapsing. Really, the only thing that kept me going at this point was what Hikio had-

...

Due to my dulled senses, it took me a while to recognize that the furs were being yanked, and looking to my right, I found the girl staring… intensely at me. I liked kids in general, but her wide eyed gaze kind of creeped me the hell out to be honest.

After getting my attention, she reached into a small bag tied to her hip, and brought out a… chestnut. I think. She offered it to me. Taking it, I turned it over in my shivering hand.

Upon closer inspection, the thing was grey, and really, really wet. I wasn't going to be picky though; I needed the distraction and was actually kind of hungry. Raising it to my mouth, I was stopped by the little girl who grabbed my hand harshly.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

She picked the nut out of my hand, held it between both of her own and twisted. After a bit of effort, the shell broke and with a brief spark, to my surprise the whole thing caught fire. She didn't drop it though, instead keeping the burning seed in her small palms, then pointing those palms in my direction.

Okay, not a chestnut.

And definitely not supposed to go in your mouth. Thanks for that.

I stared at the thing; it was pretty strange, after all. I wanted to ask how she could hold such a large flame (it was disproportionately big compared to the chestnut, like the size of a shoe) without, I don't know, screaming bloody murder. But really, it came out of a chestnut, and I was too cold to care. It was probably some magic or whatever. I grabbed the fire, held it near my chest and felt the heat radiate across my frigid form.

Ah, bliss.

But still. Weird.

It certainly felt like I was holding a burning chestnut, albeit far less hot than one would expect. The fire looked normal enough, and I'd imagine it would be pretty hot if we weren't in what felt like minus twenty degrees. Whatever, I was still too cold to care.

I closed my eyes and brought it over close to my chest. Just as I was lamenting my inability to warm my whole body with it… I felt just that occurring. Damn that felt great. Where did these firenuts or whatever they were called come from anyway? If I could get a decent amount of these, I wouldn't be completely helpless if I struck it out on my own. I did have a long term goal after all.

Destroy the Stem. Hikio had said that.

...

Fuck.

I shouldn't be thinking about him. Not yet anyway.

First… first thing would be to find out what the hell that even meant. What was the Stem? A giant plant? Probably not but this world had marble spaceships so what the hell did I know? Maybe it was a metaphor. Or a place? I'm betting metaphor, something that connects 'roots' to 'leaves', something stupid like that. It could also be an organiza-

"Would you guys shut up for one fucking second?! I can't think!" I yelled reflexively, knowing they wouldn't understand. They'd suddenly grown extremely noisy. Looking up at them, they had all apparently stopped and started another round of the 'gawk in terror at Yumiko' game. What the hell was it this time?

I turned down to look at myself.

And froze.

I couldn't exactly appreciate the irony of this as I was too distracted by the fact that my entire body was engulfed in flames.

I fiddled with my hair a bit.

It was a bit of a bad habit of mine, something I did when I was nervous, bored or both, as was the case right now. My left hand fidgeted, tapping out a beat devoid of rhythm on the wooden table, in front of the wooden chair I sat on, in the wooden log cabin that I currently find myself in.

I stole a peek at the still somehow nigh-unblemished skin, poking out from beneath the linen sleeve of dress that had been gifted to me by one of the tribe's women, along with some other clothes and a new cloak.

Apparently, you weren't supposed to let the "ti-n-de-r-nu-t" come into contact with flammable material… like a fur cloak.

Yeah, not my finest hour.

Thankfully, being surrounded by snow as I was, it wasn't hard to extinguish, though I wasn't able to save the integrity of the cloak and it had to be thrown away. I couldn't tell if they were angry about it or not because none of them looked me in the eye after that. At present, they were holding a meeting in the next building over and had been there for quite some time now, no doubt discussing what would become of me.

These people had been, all in all, very nice to me so far.

They also reminded me of vikings, eking out a living from the frozen landscape around them as they were, but that's not really relevant.

The point is, the memory of a few seemingly "nice" people was still fresh in my mind, and while I could sort of appreciate this village's hospitality, I wasn't willing to take the risk of them turning out to… sacrifice me to their god or whatever the fuck they might get up to, which meant I needed to leave. The sooner the better.

First order of business would be getting a good amount of those tindernuts. That wouldn't be too hard; I'd already found a decent handful in this cabin (among other useful things) and had spotted a small grove of the shrub-like plant in a garden on my way into the village. Next would be food and supplies, I guess. Then more short term goals...

I sighed deeply. Not knowing where I was, where I was going or even how to communicate was… daunting, to say the least. I wouldn't give up though. I'd make it. Just had to take it one day at a time for now.

I wouldn't waste the life Hikio paid so much for.

Deep into my musings, the door barged open and in the doorway was the girl, holding two wooden bowls. Without ceremony, she marched over to the table, set one in front of me and sat down herself.

I looked down at the bowl which, along with a wooden spoon, contained what looked like oats. I hate oats. But I hate starvation even more. Glancing at her to find her digging in to her own bowl, I followed suit. We ate in silence.

Or relative silence anyway, as midway into our meal, the girl started, well, crying.

I paused eating the (actually pretty decent) oats and stared at her. She'd stopped too and just sat there, spoon in hand, tears mixing into her food.

I didn't know why, and I couldn't even ask, but what was at the forefront of my mind for some reason wasn't actually the reason. It was that she still had that facial expression. Her eyes were still wide open, seeming to gaze down through the table without so much as a blink.

Then I heard a small clatter. Took me a second to register that it was my spoon dropping on my table. Took me another second to realise that that was involuntary. I felt the rest of my arm slacken. I couldn't even turn my head.

Poison.

The girl, slowly, turned toward me, the bizarre expression still frozen on her tearstained face, and said one of the few words that I could finally understand.

"Sorry."

This world really fucking sucks.

First cannibals, then rapists, now… whatever these asswipes were doing. The moment, the moment you let your guard down, they pounce like rats on garbage. Everybody here was really the fucking worst.

They had carried me - the whole lot of them - to a large clearing right next to their village, sat me down in a chair for whatever fucking reason, and tied me up. How did I know all this? Well, because apparently, they were as evil as they were incompetent. The poison barely lasted 2 minutes, and I had woken up mid-carry. As it stands, I'm pretending to still be out cold, biding my time.

As soon as they thought I was adequately secure, they… all turned tail and bolted? I think? I couldn't exactly tell for sure with my eyes still closed. I could hear retreating voices and footsteps, back towards the direction of the village proper. What the hell was going on?

I gave it a minute or so, stewing in my anger all the while, before 'waking up' as it were. Right, time to escape. Bastards liked to live in wooden houses did they? We'll see how much they like it when I burn the whole goddamn place to the ground. Speaking of which…

Wriggling a bit, I managed to pop the tindernut I'd tied to my arm, below the wrist (with some sewing thread I'd found in the house) into my palm. I had made that little arrangement as soon as I'd found the sewing kit in the cabin, because fuck being unprepared for random bullshit at this point. Without hesitation, I twisted the nut along, heard the shell break and felt the hot flame in my hands. Hopefully it could ignite the flammable hemp rope without turning me into the world's most attractive s'more but honestly, I'm too angry to care.

As I waited for my escape to progress, I scanned the environment and in doing so, saw… a manavi. Flying, or rather descending from above.

I have a bad feeling about this...

I instinctively began to will the ropes to light, as every second seemed to stretch out to disproportionate lengths. I began to hear my heartbeat reverberate within my skull. There was something or someone in that manavi that I needed to stay away from. I could feel it. The ropes still intact.

Far quicker than I realised, the ship began to land, and barely a 100 meters away from me too. I guess that's why they plopped me in this clearing, so whoever was flying that thing wouldn't have to walk very far to get to me. The feeling of dread was rising, but again, I smothered it with resolve.

Come on, come on… Burn you stupid- yes!

The low whoosh of the rope catching fire was drowned out by the sound of the manavi's "door" space sliding open. A second or two later, a person began to walk out.

My heart simultaneously sank and went into overdrive.

It was one of the cannibal women.

She began to walk towards me, her gait languid and face indifferent, like she couldn't give two shits to give about where she was going. About what was going to become of me.

Images of being cut apart and eaten alive forced themselves uninvited into my consciousness.

Something bent a little inside me.

FUCK. THAT.

I'm going to kill this bitch, jack her oversized children's toy of a ship, and plow it nose first into this shitty village. Screw whatever she came here to do with me. I'm not going to give her even the ghost of a chance.

That's right. Keep walking you lunatic. Closer. I'd already dropped the charred remains of the ropes into the grass at this point, so she had no clue I was just pretending to be bound. Closer. Almost there. Just a couple more meters till you're just within reach…!

The bitch took the last step in front of me, arms at her sides defencelessly, she opened her mouth to speak-

Like lightning, I sprung from the chair, arms grasping at her.

And she grabbed me by the throat.

The all too familiar disorientation and suffocating feeling set in before I could even register that I had stopped moving.

What the hell just happened?

My mind and throat alike constricted with disorienting firmness. Reaching out to extricate myself, my efforts were entirely useless; her hand - no, her entire body felt like an industrial machine. Kicking out was a similarly futile endeavor.

She was using only one arm, and as someone who had almost gotten choked out a couple of hours ago, I could instantly tell that this was different. For starters, she wasn't so much squeezing as much as just holding me in place. Far more important - not to mention worrying - was the fact that she wasn't even breaking a ghost of a sweat. This bitch was barely 170cm and was holding me up like a Wii remote.

After about half a minute of impotent struggle, coupled with listening to what I imagine to be a pretty grandiose monologue that I couldn't understand, try as I might, that now-familiar feeling of dread began to well up in my gut.

No, not yet. Not just yet.

Eventually, she brought my face right up to hers and stared directly into my eyes. Her eyes, I noticed, were a bright, almost luminescent red. Actually, I'm pretty sure they were glowing. It was oddly, for some reason, the scariest thing about her. Seeing my facial expression reflected through those blood-like orbs is what first clued me in to just how batshit terrified I was. My righteous anger was very quickly compressing itself into fear.

I almost involuntarily spat in her face.

Far faster than humanly possible, if it even was humanly possible, she craned her neck to the side a full 90 degrees to dodge the point-blank saliva projectile. It was so quick I nearly thought her head disappeared.

As she slowly tilted her head back into place, two things dawned on me.

The first was that that was the most unsettling thing I had ever seen in my entire life, and I'd seen some shit.

She began to whisper only God knew what to me, before licking her lips ominously and flashing a full row of teeth that belonged more in a nature documentary about sharks than a human woman.

The second thing was that I was going to be eaten.

She opened her face so inhumanly far and wide that I was able to see a second row of razor sharp teeth adorning the interior of her gaping mouth. Forget chewing, she was going to chomp off my head whole...

It was at that point that I lost what little composure I had left.

"Ah! No!" Once again, I started fighting like a woman possessed, to no avail. "Please, don't! Oh God! Help! Help me! Someone help me!"

Pure, distilled terror filled me for the second time today. Knowing there was nothing I could do about what was coming was the worst part. The only thing my kicking and screaming served to accomplish was getting her to prolong the experience for her enjoyment. I couldn't help it though. Even my nightmares never got this grotesque.

A long, tentacle-like tongue snaked its way towards my side-turned face and proceeded to start licking. Copious amounts of thick, stinging saliva arced its way across my tear-stained cheeks as she dragged the appendage back and forth.

I could only flounder and whimper as her head gradually moved closer. It was absolutely revolting. All it'd take would be a single bite.

This went on for a few more bone-chilling seconds till, just as quickly as it began, she retracted and closed her maw back into a human shape and subsequently began to laugh.

Relief flooded my veins. I normally hated being laughed at, but at this point I'd take anything over cannibalism, if it even was cannibalism. I was so relieved that my head was still attached to my shoulders. Though, something tells me that feeling isn't going to last.

A few moments later, her laughter stopped, and she used her free hand to bring my right one close to her face. Quicker than I can react, she puts one of my fingers into her mouth. She almost immediately let it back out, staring almost suggestively back at me.

It was only, several seconds later, after the shock wore off and the pain began that I realised that finger wasn't there anymore.

I could barely even hear my own shrill wailing amidst the agony in my hand and thundering realisation that she had started. Blood gushed freely onto her unfazed face, a sight made so much more petrifying now that it was actually mine.

She was eating me. I could hardly even think anymore, it was so horrifying and it hurt so badly.

She said a few more words, then raised an eyebrow at me as though waiting for a response. The dread came back in force as I knew that this was it. No more fake-outs. I'm probably going to die in the next few moments.

"S-s-s" I managed to babble, trying for the life of me to remember any English. "Sorry. I, am, sorry. Please, no, eat."

The human-like monster simply stared disappointingly at me, and I knew that was the wrong answer.

"No- I" I attempted between sobs, switching back to Japanese. "I- please d-don't. No!"

She shrugged and opened her mouth, and I swear I just felt my heart stop.

A voice called out. Time froze.

The image of those rows of countless, impossibly sharp rows of teeth bearing down upon me impressed itself indelibly upon my mind. In truth, a part of me could tell the world was still moving. I could make out voices. I could glimpse the brown furs of the villager's attire in my peripheral vision. My finger throbbed dully. But I couldn't see anything. I couldn't hear anyone.

For what felt like an eternity, all I knew was the rows of teeth. It's drowning me in what must be my ultimate fate. I can't run or hide. It's going to consume me and leave nothing left…

She were going to die. We were going to go to hell.

Like a bomb going off, a sharp pain to my face snapped me out of my catatonia. I blinked.

A villager and the pseudo-human were having what seemed to be a disagreement. My still addled-brain was somewhat thankful for the postponement of my demise, but I still couldn't bring myself to feel any sort of hope.

It was over. As quickly as this… journey or whatever it was had begun, it was over.

I guess, in a way, it sort of served me right, ignoring Hikio's sacrifice and trying to just… use it, use him to make it on my own. Actually, come to think of it, treated him like garbage. He'd practically died twice over for me, a person who he pretty much barely knew and who also kind of treated him like shit even when we were acquainted.

Fuck, I'd done arguably worse in just the last 3 years to be honest. I do, probably, by some measure, deserve this.

Glancing back up, it looked like the 2 had finished their conversation and the villager, his message delivered, actually stood a bit off to the side to watch. The monster turned back to me and once more unhinged her jaw.

This was it. Despite my resignation, I couldn't stop the pangs of fear and regret that came in these moments.

Goddamn it...

"Hey Hikio…" I whispered idly, under my breath. "Sorry… If I see you again, I'll... treat you a little better."

"I'll hold you to that."

As though in slow motion, I watched, taking in every excruciating detail as the woman's impossibly stretched face deformed even further, moving across my field of vision, wherein it was replaced by a hand curled into a fist. She was being punched, I realised, but unlike my feeble and ineffectual attempts at previously doing just that, this was actually, well, having an effect.

With an explosive crunching sound, time went back to normal speed and as I dropped to the ground, I saw the monster's body rocket across the clearing from the force of the impact rolling several times on the snow before coming to a sliding stop in the prone position about a hundred meters away.

I slowly sat back up. It was then that I realised that I hadn't actually looked at the villager's face since he got here. I felt a small lump in my throat grow large.

Reeling from his attack, he shook his hand in apparent pain, "Damn it. That actually hurt my hand a little." He looked back down at me and winced, "Which, fair enough, is nothing compared to that. I'll just go ahead and put my foot in my mouth." He winced even harder, "That... wasn't the correct colloquialism for this moment. Sorry, sometimes I-"

He wasn't actually a villager, just wearing their clothes. I never thought his nervous rambling would fill me with so much solace. As I got to my feet, I felt myself sobbing again.

Standing there, staring in the direction of his inhuman victim, was Hikio. With his head somehow back on his shoulders to boot!

In a swirl of emotions, I ran towards him, tears streaming and arms outstretched. Still looking in the away from me, he opened his mouth to speak:

"Oh shi-!"

Just as I reached him, he was gone. Sounds of a mighty struggle and a trail of disturbed snow directed me to what had happened. She'd ran back here and grabbed him.

I stumbled from the run but stayed upright, before wiping and then slapping my face. This wasn't the time for tearful reunions. That bitch still needed to die.

Hikio seemed to have gained some sort of… super strength or whatever - I don't fucking know - along with coming back from the dead so hopefully, he'd be alright for the time being.

Okay. Alright Yumiko, what can you do to help her die?

Looking around, the huge, differently shaped manavi that was just sitting there caught my eye.

A very unladylike smile formed on my face as a plan began to form.

Oh no no no PepeLaugh. Some of you fell for it, I know you did. Can we get a PogChamp in the chat for AK-103, the only one of you brave enough to admit it.

As you can see, I don't fuck around with April Fools. Watch yourselves.

Anyway, no deadlines anymore for the next chapter. It comes out when it comes out. Hopefully this story will be finished before our grandchildren die of old age.