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In the air, a lingering scent: the smell of death.
Ichi inhales, catching the taste of it on his tongue. Moribund in the aftermath of the World-Hater Majik’s touch, the forest reeks of rot and decay. There’s a stillness here, at the boundary of life and death, the liminal edge of a blade. A cruelty perfectly taxidermied and put on display.
A skilled hunter recognizes the handiwork of another; knife cuts imprint upon flesh and bone like the flourish of a signature, each slice of a butcher’s blade more intimate than a kiss. A hunter’s pride is found deep within the flesh of his kill. His conviction, buried in those final, pulsing heartbeats: take only what is needed, and respect the life that has been given. Ego and greed are burdens which must be cast away, else the hunt risks crossing the line into sport.
What he sees around him now wasn’t a hunt. It was complete, ruthless domination. This was cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Death for the sake of death.
Ichi steps light through the dense underbrush. Where forest begins to encroach the edge of the warped zone, all signs of life disappear. No movement in his periphery, not even the wind fluttering through the trees. Rather than insects scurrying underfoot, each step instead stirs up a stale puff of spores, remnants of a bet long-forgotten. The waning moon wastes away its last breaths above, too sickly thin for its pale light to shine through the canopy, but Ichi doesn’t need to rely on moonlight to guide him through the darkness; he needs only follow the scent of death.
“Hey, kid,” hisses Uroro’s voice from his shoulder, into his ear. Ichi can feel the way it seems to almost tremble, wringing its shapeless form into knots. “It’s not too late to turn around, you know. I’m telling you for your sake, okay? Do you want to die for real?”
Ichi responds with a finger to his lips. Quiet. The night is oppressive in its silence, stagnant and soulless, not a single rustle of leaves or cricket chirp. The only sound in the air is his own breathing, slow and deliberate. In the same way he holds his breath to steady the nock of his arrows, he controls every inhale, exhale, to the tune of his steps as he crouches between the trees.
Deep in his eardrums, Ichi’s pulse rattles.
Uroro lets out a disgruntled noise seemingly just to have the last word, but declines to make any of its usual jabs. Every little sound, every little whisper seems to echo in this noiseless space; speaking any further would lead to their certain death. It flattens itself against Ichi’s shoulder, as if that might keep its presence hidden. The smell of its fear curdles between them. It’s a strange smell, coming from the prideful majik. Sour and acrid, pungent in its discomfort. Thankfully, there’s no wind to carry the scent away, and Ichi wouldn’t stand upwind, anyhow.
Through the trees, Ichi sees it: white hair, white cloak. The majik seems to almost glow in the darkness like a second, pallid moon. It’s sitting cross-legged, back to Ichi, in the center of a desiccated clearing, bone-dry grass and ferns curling fearfully away from it. The silent ease of its posture reminds Ichi of the eerie stillness of the world after a lush snowfall: quiet, untouched, begging to be trampled through. The steady rise and fall of its form suggests it’s sleeping. Like this, it seems almost peaceful.
It looks almost like prey.
Ichi feels his heartbeat jump in his chest. There's something inviting about its dreamy peacefulness, silently beckoning him forward. His fingers play along the hilt of his knife. He’s never tried to hunt anything so… human before, even if the thing in front of him passes as human only in form. His usual tactics won’t work here, but a hunter is nothing if not adaptable.
Know your prey. Just as Ichi knows the direction a fox pounces, or which mushrooms are safe to eat and which bring a painful death, he must first understand the nature of the World-Hater Majik before he can properly hunt it. Its strengths and weaknesses, the limits of its power. Its likes, its dislikes. How it reacts to threats, what makes it tick—everything.
“Little mouse,” the majik says, its voice leaving a frosty chill in the night. There’s a disdainful amusement to the way its tongue curls over the words, as if observing a particularly interesting ant.
No use in hiding. Ichi steps forward, into the clearing. On his shoulder, he feels Uroro shudder.
There’s no further acknowledgment of his presence from the majik. Ichi considers, briefly, what it would take to close the distance between them. If he might be able to plunge his blade into that neck and feel familiar flesh and artery give way once more. His fingers twitch at the thought, but he stays his hand. He stalks closer, circling around its motionless form until they’re face to face.
The majik’s eyes blink open then, regarding him quietly. Ichi remembers the first time their eyes met, the electric thrill that ran down his spine, the strange excitement of an unknown danger. His instincts screaming for a proper hunt. He feels it again now, as he stares at the majik’s eyes. Blue-ringed white, bleeding into pale eyelashes, oddly entrancing in their unnatural hue. It traps Ichi within its stare, keeping him balanced precariously along the edge of death, daring him to make a move.
The majik is beautiful, he thinks. Its head would look lovely hanging off Ichi’s wall.
“You’re not going to try to kill me?”
Ichi tilts his head. “Can you die?”
It snorts, disturbing the unnatural hush in the air. “You were so insistent before. Shouting about hunting me, never mind whether it was possible. What happened to all that misguided bravado?”
“You’re weak right now,” Ichi says. “It’s not much of a hunt.”
That manages to catch it off guard enough for a flicker of irritation to spark through its blue-ice eyes. “Weak?” the majik sneers. “I carve out the world to my whim. I’ve killed countless little humans like you. I could destroy you.”
“You’re powerful, sure, but there’s a limit to it, isn’t there? Otherwise you’d just rampage around, swallow the whole world up in one big gulp and be done with it. You’d take out the witches association, at the source. Instead, you show up in the middle of nowhere, warp a bunch of defenseless villagers, and hide out in the woods. What’s so scary about that? The witches called you a god majik, but looking at you now, you don’t seem so mighty to me.”
The majik’s eyes narrow into slits. “Is that so.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Uroro interjects. “He’s just a feral, ignorant child who says anything he pleases. Don’t take too much offense.”
“I bet you can’t use your power indefinitely, can you?” Ichi says. He doesn’t know if he’s hit any point other than its ego, but from what few majiks he’s interacted with thus far, ego has been the one thing they all seem to have in common. “You’ve got one blast, then you’ve gotta retreat and build it back up again. Hibernate for a bit, like a bear.”
“You…” Its expression alternates between indignation and incredulity. “You truly know no fear. Is it your foolishness or your hubris, I wonder?”
The metal rings hanging from the majik’s staff jingle against each other as it pushes itself up to standing in a single, fluid movement, straightening out a half-head taller than Ichi. If it’s expecting to intimidate him, it’s going to be disappointed. He doesn’t flinch as it steps forward, grass and ferns crumpling under its feet, advancing steadily until they’re standing hardly a forearm’s length apart.
It lifts an arm, reaching out, fingers curling around Ichi’s jaw like a claw, tilting Ichi’s head left, right, up, down. Its fingers are cold. Its grip is rough. The majik stares imperiously down its nose at Ichi, weighing him under its gaze. For a flash, Ichi thinks he sees a sparkle of curiosity reflected back at him.
What is it looking for? he wonders, feeling his pulse pick up again. Does he interest it the same way he finds it interesting? He holds its gaze steadily, unwavering, until the majik narrows its eyes and squeezes even more harshly around Ichi’s jaw.
“I’ll tell you this but once: you’re still standing right now not because I’m weak,” it says, “but because I don’t care enough to kill you.”
Ichi feels himself grin, cheeks clamped uncomfortably by the majik’s grip. “I don’t think that’s true. What does it matter to you if I die? I think you care enough not to kill me.”
A twitch. Any trace of expression drops from its face quickly, glazing over once more into something unreadable and cold. Its fingernails dig into the flesh of Ichi’s cheek. Even so, Ichi doesn’t sense malice. If the majik wanted Ichi dead, he would be dead. He’s certain of that. It's not the kind of predator that plays with its prey. Its actions aren’t rooted in any particular desire nor cruelty. It simply is, the same way a fire burns death through its path simply because it exists to. Not a hunter, not a killer, but something wilder, untamable—a force of nature.
“Your attempt at provocation is charming but obvious,” it says, sniffing disdainfully. “Perhaps you might goad a lesser majik, but it won’t work on me.”
“Oh,” Ichi says, “well that’s too bad, then.”
He bites down, hard, on the majik’s hand, until he feels the crunch of knuckle giving way under his teeth, and then sinks down harder. The metallic taste of blood blooms across his tongue, warm and familiar. This majik bleeds like a human. These little bones web across its hands like a human’s and fracture like any other. But it doesn’t flinch or cry out in pain like a human; it recoils in surprise, lips curling in disgust as it tries to pull its hand free only to find Ichi stubbornly hanging on.
A jingle of metal fills the space between them before a sudden blunt pain lances up his side and knocks him back. “So the mouse bites,” he hears before he registers the source of the pain; he’d been hit by the butt of the majik’s staff. Their proximity had made the angle awkward, but that was compensated easily by the majik’s pure strength. He’s going to bruise, and it won’t be pretty.
Ichi doesn’t allow himself a moment to be winded, lashing out in pure instinct. He knocks the staff away, grabs a fistful of the majik’s scarf, and yanks with all his strength. It sinks its claw-like grip into his sleeve in return, and the resulting exchange of blows ends with the two of them knocked to the ground.
It’s not an elegant fight, all kicks and punches and bites. Ichi isn’t a brawler by any means, but this isn’t his first scrap. The majik seems even less comfortable at this range; likely it doesn’t let anyone this close, not when it barely needs to lift a finger to decimate a whole civilization. He has the upper hand here, even if briefly. He wrestles his way on top of the majik, straddling it by the torso. His heartbeat is pounding in his ears and he can feel the blood pulsing through his veins. His chest heaves, frosty air scraping through his lungs as he looks down upon the majik lying under him. It doesn’t look as breathless as he is, but its lips are parted. Busted, just slightly, red blood marring its otherwise colorless features. It really is pretty.
Ichi pulls his knife out from his hip and presses it against the majik’s throat, drawing a beaded line of blood. The majik lies preternaturally still, watching Ichi through thick eyelashes. The white of its irises catch a sliver of weak moonlight. Ichi reaches for the majik’s collar and cuts away the fabric covering its neck. The skin there is smooth, unblemished. He thumbs at the ghost of a scar and feels a shiver pass underneath.
“What are you doing?”
Ichi hums. “There’s this fish I released once; it was too small. The hook got it right here—” His finger moves to trace the line of its throat. “—and cut a big gash down when I removed it. I didn’t know if it would survive, but the next season, I caught it again, bigger, scarred over. Right here. I was thinking maybe you might have a nice scar like that.”
The majik grunts. “I’m not a fish.”
“No,” Ichi agrees, “but I wanted to see it anyways.”
It barks out a laugh. “You’re crazy. Stupid, but crazy. What dirty little hovel did the witches pick you up from?”
Ichi smiles, baring his teeth. “I’m a hunter,” he says. “And I’m going to hunt you.”
“So you’ve been saying.” It rolls its eyes. “You think you can tame me, bring me to heel. Add me to your little collection of majiks like a trophy, use my power to subjugate the rest of my kin and wage your human wars. I understand your kind; I’ve witnessed the arrogance of witches. You're all the same in the end.”
“No,” Ichi says. “I don’t care about that. I just want to hunt.”
The majik stares up at him, wading through the sincerity in Ichi’s eyes before it laughs again. There’s a wild edge to it this time, bordering on a threat. “Fine, then. If you value your life so little, then I welcome you to try.”
Ichi senses it then: a shift in the air, like static before a storm. Danger. He jumps up just before the majik can grab his neck, and takes an extra two hops back. The majik’s fist closes around nothing. It grunts. Picks itself off the ground, dusts itself off, and wipes the blood from its lips with a quiet indifference. Once it picks up its staff, there are no more openings in its stance. Ichi takes another step back towards the line of trees, keeping his knife at ready between himself and the majik.
Bone and sinew begin to unfurl beneath the majik’s feet. “You’ve amused me enough, so I’ll allow you this courtesy, just once: run away, little mouse, and pray we do not meet again.”
The scent of decay intensifies, so putrid it threatens to choke him. A warning; an omen of death. It’s a shame to end things here, but defeating the majik wasn’t Ichi’s goal today, and he takes his cue to slink back into the cover of the forest. Retreat is not defeat; Ichi is satisfied with what he’s seen tonight. He lives to hunt another day, and he will come back to hunt again.
“Between the two of you, I don’t know who’s more insane,” Uroro mutters from atop his shoulder, long after the majik is out of sight, and Ichi smiles.