Yuriko ran down the tunnel, somewhat grateful that she hadn’t encountered any forks in the road so far. She wouldn't really know where to go to chase after the catkin.

A core of annoyance had started to grow in her mind. Masa was a far cry from her friends. They would never leave her mid-battle.

Hmm, though maybe that wasn’t really called for. It wasn’t as if she and Masa were lifelong friends. No, she’d met the catkin just yesterday and had actually been a foe at the time. Well, it wasn’t as if anything the other woman did would have hurt Yuriko.

Still, she was annoyed that Masa kept running away. Though maybe it was a conditioned reflex on the other woman’s part. Something she couldn’t help but do?

Masa had been completely skittish even while they were in relative safety. Oh well.

However, Yuriko had promised to keep the cat girl safe, and she’d rather not break her word. So she ran down the tunnel. A few minutes later, she wound up in a cavern. One side of it was strangely even while the rest of it had the natural look. She followed along the strange wall. The rest of the cave was narrow enough that it wasn’t an issue determining that Masa wasn’t there and that there weren’t any other exit tunnels.

The next cavern she wound up in was triangular in shape. There was another tunnel straight ahead of her, but there was a third on the last point. ‘Now where did Masa go?’ Yuriko thought. The ground was covered in loose dirt, but she couldn’t see any distinct footprints. The dirt was rather smudged though, towards the tunnel ahead.

She opted to go straight, reasoning that the other woman would have gone for the easiest path.

How far was Masa’s lead? It couldn’t have taken Yuriko more than a few minutes to fight the Seven-headed Serpent King, right? Oh yeah, she searched for the redbone, too. Er, so half an hour? She had taken the time to use Recovery to close her wounds and that had taken a few extra minutes as well.

Masa could have gone quite far in that time. Yup.

The next cavern wasn’t empty: a pack of snake-wolves were there. As soon as she stepped inside, their ears perked and their heads turned in Yuriko's direction. Then as one, they took a step back. Then another. Then, they turned tail and ran straight into the tunnel Yuriko had planned to take.

Of course, when she followed them, the pack ran harder. Actually, they weren’t that fast but every time she came closer than a dozen paces, they started whimpering so pathetically that Yuriko backed off.

In the next cavern, they scooted into a corner and huddled while trembling. She just shook her head and continued on her way. In the middle of the next tunnel, she ran into a lone bony bear. It huffed and growled warningly. Its bulk was enough to block passage.

“Get out of my way,” Yuriko said coldly. “You aren’t my bony bear.”

Its face clearly lacked the scar she gave her bony bear when they first fought. And well, this one was even larger. The bone plate pattern on the face and back was different too. And most importantly, this one didn’t act cuddly and cute. Nope. It had the gall to bare its teeth at her.

Yuriko advanced. She formed her Animus blades and held her arms spread out, making herself look bigger and more threatening. It seemed to work. The bony bear shied away from her gaze. With every step she took, it retreated.

However, Yuriko didn’t want an unnecessary fight. She angled her movement towards one side of the tunnel, letting the beast squeeze against the other wall to let her through. But, the space must have been too tight for its comfort. Even before she came parallel to it, the beast reared up and slashed with its claws.

Yuriko merely leaned back, dodging the long cruel bone spurs by a hair’s breadth. As soon as the claws passed, she took a step and slashed. The tip of the blade caught it by the chest, burned the fur and left a wide gash.

Graaah!

It staggered back, and while it did, Yuriko walked past. It didn’t try to pursue. She broke into a run a few moments later. Her long legs ate up the paces and soon, she was in another cavern. Still no sign of Masa.

Scratching the back of her head, Yuriko wondered if the cat girl had gone down the other tunnel after all. Half an hour’s lead wasn’t easy to catch up to. This cavern didn’t look like it had other entrances but better to be sure. Yuriko traced the wall and found out that there was, in fact, another tunnel. It had been behind a set of stalagmites, hidden by their shadow.

The ground looked undisturbed, so it was unlikely Masa had gone down there. As she turned her back on the tunnel, a chill ran down her spine.

Squeash!

Something punched into her Anima, but was ultimately stopped by it. Other than that slight warning tingle, she hadn’t noticed anything!

She leapt away from her assailant, twisting her body around in midair to face the tunnel. A stalactite had fallen from the ceiling and narrowly missed her.

Huh?

No, it wasn’t a stalactite! She was pretty sure that rocks didn’t have soft fleshy parts. Whatever it was, it had been deflected off by her light and had buried its head in the ground. It wriggled furiously, trying to get out of the hole, but it was well and truly stuck.

Yuriko glared at it and slashed its fleshy bits in two. Blackish blood spurted from the bisected half, but it didn’t stop struggling. A high pitched squeal came from it instead.

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Bam!

Ropy limbs struck out from one of the stalagmites. They bounced off her Anima, but the blows had enough force to push her aside. She gaped as the stalagmite stood up, seemingly growing legs under the base. A baneful eye opened near the top, and four tentacles had sprouted from its sides. She should have known. How could there be stalagmites without a matching stalactite?

The other stalagmite was beneath a stalactite so that probably wasn’t a camouflaged…monster.

The faux stalagmite lashed at her with its limbs, but without the advantage of surprise, it was laughably easy to avoid the blows. She ducked and weaved, then stepped in to deliver a couple of slashes into its torso. Black blood seeped out of the wounds and the creature shuddered. She delivered a couple more stabs. One of them must have hit something vital because it started to run away. She finished it off with a decapitating cut, then turned around to dice the stalactite that was still rooted on the floor.

“Strange things,” she muttered. “I don’t think these are part of the Beast Tide.”

She continued to the other tunnel and entered it when she saw some of the dirt had been scuffed. The tunnel was wider than the ones before, nearly four paces at times. Yuriko kept her speed to something she could sustain for hours. The next cavern was empty, and so was the one after it. But on the third…

“Kyaa!”

Masa’s voice.

Yuriko sprinted, holding nothing back. She saw the catkin with her back against the wall, longsword swinging crazily at fiery dogs. There were five of the beasts and they took turns lunging at the woman. The bandage on Masa’s leg was completely soaked and there was another wound on her side.

“Hold on!’ Yuriko yelled as she smashed into one of the hounds. The beast flew into the air, courtesy of a kick to its side. It tumbled into another member of its pack and they both fell into a crumpled heap.

“Just go!” Masa sobbed. “Leave me here. I can’t run anymore!”

Yuriko clicked her tongue as she laid about with her Animus blades. She managed to kill one of the hounds but that only served to whip the rest into a frenzy. Oh, and there were apparently more of their pack.

Out of another tunnel, a dozen fiery hounds charged in. Yuriko fended them off with her blades. Masa gasped for breath as she collapsed on her knees. She shook her head and then gaped when she saw the golden blades extruded from Yuriko’s fingers.

“What? How?” she gasped.

“Maybe you should focus on catching your breath,” Yuriko chuckled as she intercepted a lunging hound by setting the blade right where it was headed. It managed to skewer itself, then she kicked its carcass off her weapon.

“Ah!” Masa gasped, eyes widening even further. “Watch out!”

She pointed in another direction. Flickering lights, flames, lit the darkness and soon, more of the hounds came.

They stood shoulder to shoulder, growling and howling. Then, one of them took a deep breath and spat out a gobbet of fire. Yuriko swatted the fireball out of the air. Her Animus disrupted whatever Animus structure it had and dissipated the attack.

More of the hounds started to spit fireballs at them, but Yuriko swatted them away. The second dance aided by the fourth dance made her parries so fast that they left afterimages in the air. Of course, the density of the projectiles meant that she couldn’t parry all of them, but whatever she didn’t strike, her Anima blocked. She could feel the heat build up though, and if she took too many of the attacks, she was likely to boil alive.

“Let’s run!” Masa gasped as she struggled to her feet.

“Where? We’re surrounded.” Yuriko said simply.

If she didn’t have to protect the other woman, she would have waded in the midst of the hounds and cut them apart. As it were, if she did that, then the catkin would burn.

Masa noticed their predicament and she gritted her teeth.

“Don’t hold back, kill them!”

Then she lunged into their midst without a by your leave, leaving Yuriko flabbergasted.

“Swarm fodder! At least wait for me to agree!” Yuriko yelled as she propelled herself after Masa.

She overtook the other woman and cut into a hound, cleanly decapitating it in a single blow. She let the fireballs burst against her Anima in favour of attacking, and soon enough, a dozen hounds lay dead at her feet.

“Ahh! My fur’s on fire!” Masa yelped as she dropped to the dirt and rolled. Smoke rose from her stricken tail.

Yuriko covered the girl while she was down, opting to kick the doggies into each other to disrupt their firing. They must have run out of Animus after shooting the fireballs for so long, since not long afterwards, they retreated just out of easy reach. Smoke rose from the corner of their mouths even as their tongues lolled out.

“Now’s our…chance…” Masa gasped.

“No. Look,” Yuriko shook her head. She could see more of the flickering flames and they were coming from all three directions. “We’ll have to fight.”

“It’s a Beast Tide!” Masa cried. “There’s no end to them.”

“Oh.” Yuriko frowned. “Then we’ll have to cut our way through.”

“I…” Masa was so tuckered out that she was leaning on her longsword with its point stuck to the ground. That would ruin the tip!

‘Chaos, take care of your weapon, woman! Your life depends on it!’

Clicking her tongue, she refrained from snapping at Masa and dissipated her Animus blades in preparation for drawing Fri’Avgi from her Anima. The greatsword was honestly better for fighting multiple opponents but she was reluctant to show it off.

Masa had straightened up and held her longsword ready. As she suspected, a clump of dirt clung to the tip that looked ever so slightly bent.

Masa had tears running down her cheeks and her face was contorted with fear and despair.

“It was a pleasure to have met you,” she said fatalistically.

“What are you talking about?” Yuriko snorted, “We’ll make it through here.”

“Your Animus blades are gone.” Masa shook her head, “No need to pretend. Thank you for trying.”

“Ah…” Yuriko blinked and was somewhat at a loss. She wasn’t out of Animus and the blades dissipating wasn’t a sign of exhaustion. Tsk. Well, it didn’t matter.

The fiery doggies looked like they’d caught their breaths and were about to attack. The absence of her Animus blades seemed to have emboldened them. Silly hounds.

Just as she was about to draw Fri’Avgi…

Hssst! Twack! Twack!

Shadows darted from above, sinking into the dogs’ sides. Bolts! Yuriko looked above and behind her.

There was light above them. On the walls. The shadows had shrouded the ceiling, but the lights revealed the hidden truth. The even walls had battlements above, and crossbowmen shot at the beasts, coming to their rescue.

Long, knotted ropes dropped from the top. “Hurry! Climb!”

“Ah!” Masa gasped. But she hesitated.

“Go!” Yuriko yelled, boosting the other girl up. Masa caught the rope and started climbing. As for her, she didn’t need the thing. She crouched slightly and activated Boost, then leapt.

She wasn’t able to reach the battlements with a single jump, it was more than ten paces high after all. But her bare feet slapped against the wall and that was enough to allow her to boost herself up. Once she reached the battlements, she grabbed Masa’s rope and pulled, hand over hand, to get her up as fast as she could.

Masa staggered over the battlements and collapsed in a heap. She staggered to her feet just as their rescuers were revealed in the torchlight, and whatever words she would have said came out as a choked gasp. Her face paled even further.

Yuriko, frowning, turned around. “Huh.”

There were about a dozen men and women, and nearly half of them sported snake or lizard-like heads. The others were human, but they could only be the Reviled that Masa had told her about.

Well, they also had their weapons drawn and pointed at them.