Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
We sprinted forward. The five of us—me, Hiro, Reo, and the twins—crossed the field in a line with my guards flanking wide on both sides.
My chest burned with Nyomi's rage and grief through the bond, and right there in the middle of a dead sprint and watching Goryū blast Akiro, I understood what she had truly given me tonight.
Control.
Without her blood in that bowl, without her mouth on my palm, without the ritual she had somehow found the strength to complete, Akiro would be inside that plane. The hatch would be sealed. The engines would carry him and my father into the dark sky, and I would be standing on an island full of corpses watching them disappear.
The war would continue again.
But not tonight. Thank you, Tora.
So close to the stairs now, those thoughts were all I allowed myself. One beat of gratitude for my Tiger. Then I shoved it into the same place where I kept her face and her laugh and the life I wanted, and I aimed myself at the stairs.
Totoro's fuel shifted in the tank against my chest. The hybrid butane and gel mix sloshed heavy. The barrel pointed forward.
“Watch out!” I pulled the trigger guard back and the ignition caught.
Twenty-five feet of flame erupted from Totoro's mouth.
Hiro roared. “Fuck yeah!!!”
The Dragon's breath hit the first cluster of Akiro's soldiers ahead of me and turned them into ragged screaming torches. Their weapons clattered to the grass. Bright flames ate their jackets, their vests, their pants. It clung to their skin, dancing and twirling. Bright at the edges and dark at the core.
Smoke rose.
And they ran in every direction trailing columns of orange, black, and grey. Their shapes still human for three terrible seconds before the fire made them into red-hot horror.
Each one burned differently—some dropping to their knees, many spinning, others still running as though speed could leave it behind until they were limping and melting to the ground. Scorched fabric fell from their crumbling bodies.
Everywhere stank of roasted ham mixed with singed nylon and hot death.
As I pushed the flame forward clearing the path to the stairs, I could taste the ash on my tongue in each breath and the greasy residue of it all and even the heat on my face, hands, and forearms.
Sweat dripped from my forehead.
All of them shed light they hadn't asked to carry, and lit up the fucking battlefield. They were twisted torches of agony. Their screams blended into the roar of the flames that engulfed them. Their bodies writhed in the burning inferno until they were nothing but charred, screeching husks.
And Akiro’s other soldiers—the most cowardly ones—they saw the Dragon’s Breath and ran off into the forest.
And several Silent Ones raced after them.
I swept Totoro left.
Another line of soldiers caught the stream across their chests and collapsed in a writhing pile. The heat distortion made the air above them ripple and the moonlight warped.
I swept right.
Three men dropped their rifles and ran before the flame reached them. A fourth stood his ground and raised his weapon. I held the stream on him until his gun glowed, and he threw it away.
Claws and Fangs saw the flames clearing a corridor and peeled off to the sides. Kaede threw himself right. Kaoru rolled left. Rin, who no longer wore his mask, stepped back four feet and took that moment to yawn.
The field opened.
The burning men created a wide lane of fire-lit grass between us and the plane's stairs.
Bodies rolled on both sides. Smoke rose thick and white where the flames met the wet ground. Intense heat pushed against my mask and dried the sweat across my forehead in two seconds.
I kept the flame forward and advanced.
Hiro matched me stride for stride on my right. His Hannya mask caught the firelight and the horns threw long shadows behind him. He took out his blade with his left hand and his right hand pulled out his gun.
There was no lollipop in his mouth.
Hiro was ready to kill.
Behind us, the Scales surged through the gap I had burned and slammed into Akiro's remaining soldiers on both flanks.
The Silent Ones moved through the smoke in their red hoods, and they were faster than the fire.
A Scale drove his rifle butt into an enemy's spine, and before the man hit the grass, a Silent One landed on his shoulders from above and opened his throat with a short blade. Neither the Scale nor the Silent One looked at each other. They moved on in opposite directions.
The path was clear.
Hiro's head snapped left. He stared through the smoke and the chaos for two full seconds, and then his body loosened in a way I had seen only once before—the moment right before relief collapsed him.
"I see Satoshi!" His voice boomed behind the Hannya. "And Toma! There's Daisuke!"
A breath tore out of him. "Oh shit! They're alive!"