Page 173 of A Soul to Touch

Mayumi spun and clashed their swords together, glaring when he righted himself with his eyes wide.

“What the fuck, Mayumi!?” Yoshida yelled, his brown eyes flicking to Faunus behind her.

She saw the confused fear in his eyes.

“He’s my friend, Yoshida.” She shoved her head forward to punctuate her statement. “The Duskwalker is on my side.”

There was a hesitancy in his expression. He stared at Faunus again, and she could see he wanted to sprint past her to take on the Duskwalker.

Despite the situation, she was proud that her friend’s survival instinct was to fight what frightened him rather than piss his pants and flee from it. He would have made a great Demonslayer had he walked that path alongside her.

His brown eyes found hers again.

“Oh, fuck it,” Yoshida bit as he gave her his back and pointed his sword at a human enemy. “If you say he’s your friend, then whatever.”

When she placed her back against his so they could fight together, she couldn’t help the way her heart warmed at the quick trust he just handed to her.

“Thank you,” she said quietly.

“You’re a freak, you know that?” he murmured right before they both broke contact to deflect a blow each. Their backs returned to be a comforting warm press. “Figures you’d get yourself in shit and befriend a monster. You just could never do things the easy way, could you?”

She noted that Klaus and Henry had taken a similar stance with Faunus between all four of them.

“Shut up and concentrate,” she commanded.

Then she kicked her legs back and hooked the front of her boot against his shin. She tripped him so they could avoid both an arrow and the whip headed for them. She rotated above him, grabbed his arm when he raised it, and pulled him to his feet as she spun.

“What are you guys even doing here?” she huffed when they were taking a stance once more.

Her heart raced like a sprinting predator chasing its prey, and her breaths were already sawing in and out of her to the point it burned.

They weren’t fighting stupid, careless Demons. They weren’t even fighting half-brained bandits.

These were trained warriors, and it was currently eight against five. The odds weren’t in their favour, not in number, not in skill, and with their Duskwalker mascot in the state he was in, not in strength either.

“They visited Colt’s Outpost before coming here. They asked for directions to your house, and we knew something was wrong.” His voice quietened when he said, “We couldn’t just leave you to deal with them by yourself.”

She wanted her eyes to stray to the sky so she could thank the heavens that these three brave men were her friends. But rule three of the Demonslayer code was never be distracted, so she kept her eyes on her current enemy, the humans fighting for the guild she’d once been a part of.

If we survive this, drinks are on me.

Faunus kept himself steady as best as he could. Occasionally one of his arms suddenly bent as though he was about to collapse, but he straightened and stepped forward to fight the shake in it.

I’m so dizzy.

Having run out of the house in a jumping, swiping launch had set his fury-filled heart into overdrive, and the adrenalinesweeping through his body ensured the pressure in his vascular system stayed high.

It was causing his vision to turn murky. His own blood was pooling in his nose hole and eye socket, soaking through the bandages that covered most of his face.

He hadn’t opened his jaws in days because of the intricate web of cloth tied over his face. He clawed the bandages away when he tried to part his fangs and felt that the web pulled on his horn – like it was trying to break his skull further apart.

A fountain of blood that had been held back poured from his nose hole to the crispy white frozen ground, but the scent of it was blocking the smell of the humans, their fear, their red blood.

It was aiding him. The dizziness was pushing back those invisible, invading hands that were trying to cause him to lose his mind over to the madness of a frenzy. There was prey everywhere, things for him to sink his fangs into and munch away at.

Why?he thought, the desire to cover the sides of his skull overwhelming since the constant chime of metal upon metal was obliterating his sense of hearing.Why is everything so loud?

Ching. Clack.There was a bellow from a man here, and then the warble of metal vibrating from a heavy impact.Skerrrrp.

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