Chapter 259: Getting Smaller
NineLivesLeft remained still beneath the rain.
Alexandra had expected anger, but his expression showed concentration instead. He looked at her the same way he studied Kumoe’s abilities, breaking the performance down into pieces he could label and counter.
"Acting," he said at last.
Alexandra’s smile sharpened. "You finally noticed."
"Controlled posture. Timed breathing. Rehearsed fear. That explains the bait."
"No. Being good at it explains the bait."
NineLivesLeft pushed off the ground before the conversation could continue. One boot struck the nearest trunk, and he disappeared into the branches.
Alexandra tracked the beginning of his movement.
Kumoe’s right head followed what came next.
Neither of them chased.
NineLivesLeft had controlled the forest from the start. Every trunk, branch, root, and stone gave Prowler’s Rebound another surface. As long as those routes remained available, he could choose where each exchange began and how quickly he escaped from it.
Alexandra could not become faster than his class before the fight ended.
She could make the battlefield less useful to him.
"Take the ground," she told Kumoe.
The curious head looked down at the exposed roots, uncertain what Alexandra wanted.
The right understood first.
Kumoe drove her claws beneath a rain-softened root and pulled. Her injured rear leg trembled beneath the strain, but the middle head immediately sent restoration through it while the other two tore the root from the mud.
Alexandra went after the lower branches.
Her first sword cut halfway through a thick limb. The second finished the job, sending wet wood crashing onto the road.
NineLivesLeft rebounded above them and laughed. "You think cutting down a few branches will stop me?"
"No."
Alexandra struck another trunk, aiming for a strip of loose bark rather than the wood beneath it. The blade peeled it away and exposed the slick surface underneath.
"I think you’ve had the stage to yourself for too long."
He dropped toward her.
Both hooks crossed in front of his chest, guarding the damaged seam in his armor. Alexandra’s first sword scraped across the reinforced leather without reaching him.
No Pride Mark appeared.
NineLivesLeft caught her second blade and tried to pull her forward. Kumoe’s curious head snapped toward his hip, forcing him to turn and lower one hook toward her jaws.
Alexandra shifted the angle of her trapped sword and cut beneath his raised arm.
Blood spilled through the torn armor.
[Pride Mark: 1]
[Shared Opening created.]
[Shared Openings: 2/5]
NineLivesLeft kicked Alexandra away and reached for the nearest trunk.
Kumoe struck him before he could escape. Her shoulder slammed into his ribs, refreshing the Pride Mark’s timer without adding another stack.
He stumbled, caught himself with one hand against the road, and used the ground to rebound into the canopy.
Alexandra let him go.
She cut another branch while Kumoe tore up the next root.
Whenever NineLivesLeft approached one of his familiar routes, the right head barked a warning. Alexandra used those calls to damage the surface before he reached it, forcing him to adjust in the middle of his approach.
One branch fell across the road.
Another split and hung uselessly from the trunk.
A wide strip of bark slid into the mud.
NineLivesLeft kept moving, but each redirection carried him farther from the road and into rougher ground where wet brush crowded his landings.
"You can’t remove the entire forest," he called.
Alexandra carved a long wound into another trunk. Sticky sap welled from the cut and mixed with the rain.
"I don’t need to."
NineLivesLeft came down from her right. Alexandra raised both swords, and he changed direction before reaching her, just as she expected.
His boot struck the wounded trunk.
The exposed sap gave him nothing to grip.
His foot slid across the wet surface instead of producing a clean rebound. The skill still pulled at his movement, but the bad contact ruined the angle and sent him much lower than intended.
Kumoe was waiting.
The right head barked as the curious one slammed into his chest. NineLivesLeft crossed both hooks to keep her teeth away from his throat, leaving his lower side open.
Alexandra’s sword entered beneath the damaged armor.
[Pride Mark: 2]
[Shared Opening created.]
[Shared Openings: 3/5]
NineLivesLeft struck the road hard enough to splash mud across his face. He rolled before Alexandra could reach him again and drove one hook into the ground to drag himself upright.
Two Pride Marks burned above him.
Alexandra advanced beside Kumoe, neither of them moving ahead of the other.
NineLivesLeft looked toward the stripped trunk behind him. "You prepared that surface."
"You kept checking it."
"I used it once."
"You looked at it three times."
His eyes narrowed.
Alexandra had seen the same habit in actors who depended too heavily on their marks during action scenes. They could make a movement appear spontaneous, but their eyes often betrayed where the next step needed to land.
NineLivesLeft moved faster than any actor she had worked with, and a missed read here could get Kumoe killed, yet the habit itself was no different.
His attention always reached the route before his body did.
"You were watching my feet," he said.
"Your shoulders too."
Kumoe’s right head huffed.
Alexandra smiled. "She watched everything else."
NineLivesLeft retreated two steps, keeping Alexandra outside the reach of his hooks. The Pride Marks flickered while their timer continued running.
Kumoe’s curious head lunged.
He raised his guard, expecting her teeth, but she stopped short and sank them into another exposed root. With a violent pull, she tore it out from beneath his rear foot.
His balance shifted.
Alexandra rushed the opening.
He blocked both swords, but the impact forced him onto the loose ground where the root had been. His boot sank into wet mud, leaving him unable to retreat in the direction he wanted.
She pressed harder.
One sword occupied his left hook. The other threatened the split in his armor and forced his right weapon low.
Kumoe circled to the opposite side.
NineLivesLeft twisted free before either of them landed another hit, then threw himself toward the remaining trees. His boot found a high branch beyond Alexandra’s reach, and Prowler’s Rebound carried him out of their immediate pressure.
The two Pride Marks remained active for another moment.
Kumoe snapped at his passing leg and missed by inches, too far away to refresh the timer.
NineLivesLeft landed on a distant branch.
Alexandra did not waste Lunge trying to follow him. She lifted one sword and cut through the limb beneath his feet instead.
The branch cracked.
He sprang away before it fell, landing much farther from the road than he had intended.
Behind Alexandra, Kumoe pulled another root from the ground and tossed it aside.
NineLivesLeft looked around.
Most of the useful lower branches had been removed. Several roots lay torn from the mud, and long wounds in the trunks now ran with rain-slick sap. Rocks he had previously used as footholds were buried beneath fallen limbs and ruined vegetation.
The forest still surrounded them, but the clean chain of surfaces he had relied on was disappearing.
Alexandra rolled one shoulder and settled beside Kumoe.
"You’re destroying your own escape route too," NineLivesLeft said.
"I’m not the one who needs twenty different directions."
"You still haven’t solved Bloodscent Lock."
"No."
"Torn Tendon is still active."
"I know."
"And if you run out of surfaces before I do, you’ll be trapped here with me."
Alexandra smiled.
"That’s the idea."
The Pride Marks above him began to dim, but she made no desperate attempt to preserve them. Two marks were worth far less than the battlefield she and Kumoe had taken away from him.
NineLivesLeft’s gaze moved over the fallen branches, uprooted ground, and wounded trunks.
Alexandra followed his eyes.
Every path he considered now had something wrong with it.
"Your stage is getting smaller," she said.