CHAPTER#87

This was never meant to be a fair fight. Yuki whirled about, striking as quick as she could. Sofia casually knocked most of her attacks to the side and moved away from the rest while keeping her presence near the front door.

"Did the Society send you?" Sofia blocked a slash that would have sliced open her forearm, then brought her sword down hard enough that Yukie almost dropped her own blade.

"No. My name is Yuki. I lived here with you and the others." She tried to stab Sofia in the foot, but she stepped aside. Yuki's sword got stuck in the wood, and the cyclops brought down her foot on the flat, causing the metal to snap.

"And you think this is the way to move back in?" Sofia slapped aside Yuki's next assault. The kitsune could see the flash of light from beneath her eyelid.

"I'm not just moving in." Yuki took a step back and summoned a sphere of frost. She hit Sofia in the chest with it, the force of the impact knocking the breath out of her. Ice crystals formed along her arms and legs, and Sofia dropped her sword. "I'm the new owner."

"How did you..." Sofia shivered, her words trailing off. Yuki dropped her sword and grabbed Sofia by the forehead.

Using her thumb, she pried open Sofia's eye. Shock registered on her face, her pupil dilating as the Gorgon's Eye turned her to stone.

"You'll understand someday. Everybody will." Once she had everything under control, she could unfreeze them one at a time and explain everything she knew. Once they heard, they would see things her way.

Stepping around Sofia, Yuki pushed her way into the house. Upstairs, she heard a door slam. Her head was pounding now, so she put her eyepatch back on. She could handle the goblin without it. The tarot cards slid into her hands and she fanned them out, walking up the stairs slowly.

"Everything's going to be okay," she whispered to herself. At least, she hoped it would.

--

A pair of centaurs pushed aside the flaps of a yurt and hurled Mike inside, his arms and legs splaying out along the hard ground when he landed. He had curled up at the last second to avoid crushing Ratu, and she had squirmed around at the last second to get out of the way. Landing hard, he had the breath knocked from him.

Lying on the floor, he listened to the sound of his own pathetic wheezing and struggled to stand.

Orion stormed in shortly after, only to be grabbed and dragged back out by a pair of guards. Mike lay perfectly still, hoping to avoid further scrutiny of any sort, and the expletives he heard from the hunter outside told him he was lucky they had pulled him out.

Zel's transformation had triggered a storm of shouting that had deafened him. Based on what he could make out, Zel's return to the tribe was proof of some betrayal or a challenge against the Grand Stallion. Even worse, it was also somehow an affront to the gods for whatever reason. Zel's father had eventually joined in, shouting in her face.

Mike had gotten between the two of them, only to be knocked aside by a roan-colored centaur with a spear. Several of them had taken kicks at him, and that was when the guards had grabbed him and dragged him to this place.

The shouting outside was loud, and he occasionally heard Zel's voice amongst the din.

She's got a lot of explaining to do, he thought to himself. Wincing, he rolled onto his belly and waited for his breath to return.

He finally sat up, a sharp pain in his left shoulder keeping him from putting any weight on that arm. Watching the entry flap, he let out a sigh of relief when nobody came through it to beat on him some more.

Looking around, he saw that the yurt was scarcely decorated, with only a large bed of leaves and grass in one corner. It smelled faintly like a barn, and he noticed a pair of buckets along the back wall behind a hanging curtain. Moving toward them, he caught the faint odor of piss and then saw that one of the buckets had a dry, lonely horse turd in the bottom.

"Gross." Further surveillance of the room told him nothing else. Either the centaurs lived boring lives in their yurts, or he was in some sort of holding cell.

Ratu squirmed, her body wrapping around his waist and squeezing. He put a reassuring hand on her through the thin fabric.

"It'll be okay," he said, keeping his voice low. "We're safe for now."

She squeezed again, then her head popped free of the bottom, surveying the room.

"Stay inside or else they'll see you." He turned away from the entry flap and walked until he was toward the back of the yurt. Serpentine coils circling his body, Ratu changed positions until she was wrapped around his torso.

She shifted inside of his shirt, her coils elongating. Small hands wrapped around his waist and a pair of legs sprouted from beneath his shirt, dangling over the ground. Her weight increased, and he tightened his abs to keep from tipping forward. Ratu's transformation suddenly stopped when her feet hit the floor, and he lifted his shirt off her head to reveal that she had transformed into a child.

"What—" he said, but she stood on her tiptoes and covered his mouth with her hand.

Satisfied that he would be quiet, she began intricate movements with her fingers. She looked younger than she had when they were in Baba Yaga's trap, her long hair hanging to her waist. The dragon on her kimono looked younger as well, flying in circles across her torso as a golden bubble expanded outward from the two of them and molded itself to the interior wall of the yurt.

"That will keep them from hearing us," she said. Despite her youth, she had her adult voice still. "Turn around and face the door."