Chapter III.XVII (3.17) - Ghoul Infection

  The explosion’s shockwave knocked Kizu backwards. His grafted leg reflexively flexed, tearing through his shoe’s sole to grip the wood of the float. That alone kept him from toppling over.

  Sophia screamed as she flipped over the float’s side down to the street below. Basil instinctually shifted his body to keep balance without issue then he lunged forward and caught Aoi’s kimono as she pinwheeled.

  The fire from the exploded float shaded the streets in reds and oranges at first, but then it darkened. Kizu gripped the edge of the float and steadied himself. He watched in horror as the flames shifted color, cooling until they flickered black and gray. Ashen smog emitted from the magical flames. Instead of floating skyward, it clung to the ground and soon coated the entirety of the street, engulfing people.

  Pedestrians struggled against the smoke, clutching at their throats. They dropped to the ground within seconds of the smog’s embrace. It continued to spread, rolling forward faster than people could run.

  It layered, higher and higher, creeping closer as it ascended up the float’s side. Kizu dashed to his friends’ sides and grabbed their arms.

  “We need to go!” Kizu shouted over the screams. He quickly scanned the area, looking for a safe place to jump to. The buildings were barely higher than the float they rode, but if he jumped from roof to roof he should be able to outpace the smog.

  Aoi yanked her hand from Kizu’s grasp.

  “Sophia!” Aoi shouted down at the street below. “Don’t breathe it in! Your soul-”

  But whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a howl two floats ahead of them.

  Kizu watched in horror as three figures exited the gray flames. The Emperor. Zenchi. And Shiroi.

  At first, Kizu was relieved to see them unharmed. But it only took a second to realize that just because they stood, didn’t mean they were unscathed. Their skin barely clung to their bones. Instead of the blackened charred damage of normal flames, their skin looked decayed. As if it was rapidly rotting off their bodies.

  Aoi’s eyes widened in horror.

  “Shiroi,” she whispered. Her brother’s condition temporarily wiped her mind of her friend’s plight.

  The smog crawled over the float’s edge and covered Kizu’s feet.

  “Fear not,” a familiar soft voice said to Kizu. “Your soul is under my protection.” It offered no more words of support or explanation, instead fading back to the back of Kizu’s soul. Kizu shivered. He didn’t love the fact some other entity was latched onto his soul, always watching him. But he couldn’t complain at the moment.

  Thankfully, both Basil and Aoi appeared unaffected by the smog. Kizu suspected it was a result of Aoi’s soul defenses being higher than a normal person and Basil not having a human soul to begin with.

  The three of them were uniquely placed in a situation where they alone could help the people around them. Could he really run?

  His mind flickered over to Mort. If Basil was safe due to being a Harbinger, Anata and the Kitsune should likewise be safe, but he was still relieved to see them running in a stampede of terrified people. Mae and Kumiho were still in their human forms, which meant they were still putting in effort to fit in with the humans around them and weren’t fully aware of the danger. That was fine though. They were still far away.

  “Okay,” he said. He took in a deep breath of fresh air before it got swallowed by the smog. “I’m going in.”

  Then he jumped down to the ground below.

  He wanted to help the Emperor and Shiroi, but without knowing what exactly had happened to them, he decided to first grab some less affected members of the parade. Getting other civilians to safety would let Aoi examine the smog’s effects.

  The moment he turned, one of the flutists launched herself at him, the gorgeous purple kimono contrasting with the sickly green skin stretched across her face. Already her bottom lip had slopped off, revealing an underbite, black gums, and the bone of her jaw. She attempted to stab him with her flute.

  Kizu ducked under the blow, but it was followed up by her lunging at him and biting into his forearm. He felt the teeth pressing down, scraping against his bone. His eyes watered with the pain. Without thinking, he threw up a barrier of force to shove her back. Unwilling to release him, she ripped her head back, taking a chunk of his flesh.

  Kizu gripped his wounded arm, shaking, but quickly boxed himself in with walls of force. Two more flutists lunged at him, but were deflected by his shield. He reached into his spatial ring and pulled out a healing potion. Downing it, he felt a warm sensation across his arm numbing the pain. He’d learned long ago to spike healing potions with ingredients to help with the pain while it healed. The trade off would be a worse scar, but he didn’t care at the moment. He flexed the wounded arm, and let out a shaky breath.

  Then he spotted Sophia on the ground nearby. She wasn’t quite as bad off as the flutists. Instead of ramaging like the others, she shook on the ground as if her body was attempting desperately to fight off the curse. Maybe as a result of her being a mage or maybe because she was Tainted. He dropped his force barriers and jumped to her side. Then rapidly jumped with her back up on top of the float.

  “What happened to her?” Basil asked as Kizu dumped the Tainted girl at his feet.

  “Soul damage,” Aoi said, dropping to her side. “I’ve read about this. It’s a ghoul infestation. They’re like zombies, but created from the living instead of the dead. They spread like a disease on contact. Especially from their saliva. Are you okay?”

  Kizu nodded. The oval bite wound on his arm already had a thin pink layer of skin.

  “I have soul protection.”

  Thankfully, unlike those actively attempting to kill him down below, Sophia was now catatonic. Her body had stopped shaking once out of the smog. But her skin was gray and her brassy scales now white.

  “Kizu, my brother too,” Aoi pleaded. “Get him to safety. I can’t…just please.”

  He looked over his shoulder. Backlit by the burning float, the Emperor’s entourage was very visibly tearing apart others affected by the smog. Though Kizu wasn’t certain if they were doing it in self-defense, or out of pure instinct. The other ghouls were fodder compared to those three beasts.

  “I’ll go with you,” Basil volunteered. “I’ve got your back. Let’s go.”

  “Fine. You try to restrain the Emperor, I’ll go for Shiroi.”

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  Then he set a hand on his friend’s shoulder and jumped down next to the burning float.

  The nearby ghouls turned to them. Kizu and Basil’s sudden presence distracted them. They had been spectating as the royal ghouls tore limbs off of others of their kind. A man whimpered on the ground, clearly not completely taken in by the smog's effects. The Emperor stepped on him, smashing his chest in.

  Kizu drew another potion from his ring. He wished he still had the stasis potion he’d used on Kateshi, it would have been perfect in this scenario. Instead, he had to fall back on a potion Allik had taught him.

  Basil stepped up, cutting off the Emperor’s line of sight to Kizu. The shapeshifter changed forms, enhancing his body and increasing his muscle mass. When the Emperor rushed him, Basil raised an arm to stop him. The ghoul’s teeth found purchase and tore Basil’s hand in half. But Basil stepped back, grimacing but not overly concerned.

  And Kizu had his own goals, he faced down Shiori.

  Several of the other ghouls stared in their direction. Now that the Emperor wasn’t tearing off their fellows’ limbs, they were eyeing Kizu and Basil with a hunger in their milky white eyes. Kizu needed them to stay out of the way. After a moment of consideration, he waved his hand and created a score of normal looking humanoid illusions. He couldn’t dedicate enough time to heavily detail them or create movement beyond just having them cower on the street floor, but that was enough of a distraction to keep the ghouls from his mission. Thankfully, Zenchi was nowhere to be found at the moment. The warlord had rampaged off in a different direction. Kizu focused on the prince.

  He might not have the elemental control of a master elementalist mage like Roku, but Kizu still had other tricks to produce similar results. Fingering the vial in hand, Kizu waited for his chance.

  Shiroi lunged forward. Despite his now monstrous appearance, the prince still retained a measure of intelligence, it seemed to expect Kizu to attempt to strike at it with the potion. Unfortunately for it, Kizu planned a less direct approach.

  The ghoul threw himself forward and raised a hand to catch Kizu’s arm while it aimed to disembowel him with its teeth. Instead, its face met Kizu’s raised foot. With the boosted strength of Kizu’s new leg, he kicked back, slamming the ghoul with so much power that it burst into the side of the second float. Shattered wood scattered across the street.

  Before the ghoul had time to find its bearings, Kizu jumped to its side and hurled his potion at its prone form. The vial shattered, instantly spreading a thick layer of ice across the prince’s chest and locking it in place. It howled and tried to break free, but Kizu predicted its attempt and suspected it might actually have enough power to do so. He had already drawn out another two potions from his ring and smashed them down, reinforcing the icy prison.

  But Kizu had been too focused on the single ghoul. One of the spectator-turned-ghouls managed to get in close. Kizu stepped back just in time to avoid it digging its teeth into his chest, but it still wrapped itself around his leg, hugging it close like a child as it gnawed on him. It had grabbed onto his grafted leg though, which proved far more resilient than normal human skin. When Kizu punched the monster with enhanced strength, it stumbled back but left behind its teeth embedded in the scales of his leg. Thankfully, the painkiller from the healing potion made the wound only itch in irritation.

  Now he needed to figure out how to safely transport the ghoul prince. He had sleep potions but doubted these monsters could be knocked unconscious, not with their bodies being puppeteered by a corrupted soul. He debated trying to use one of his soul fusing potions he’d developed for Professor Knoff, but the likelihood of them accelerating the illness even further was too high to risk.

  Basil was still engaged with the Emperor. He had sacrificed his entire arm, allowing the ghoul to consume it. Then the changeling expanded the oozy flesh from within the Emperor’s body. Basil transformed his dislodged body into a spiral of metal wire that pierced through the Emperor’s chest and wrapped around its torso. The ghoul still had a single arm free though and was attempting to grab at Basil who was dexterously dodging.

  Deciding the ice would hold for the time being, Kizu jumped to Basil’s side, then jumped both of them back on top of the float.

  Aoi started, immediately raising a glowing hand at them as they suddenly appeared, but dropped it after seeing who they were.

  “We have them both subdued,” Kizu said quickly.

  Aoi dropped her eyes back to her friend sprawled out on the floor.

  “I don’t know if I can reverse it,” Aoi admitted. “The smog cracked through Sophia’s soul and intertwined itself. It’s like it shattered the soul then used itself to glue it all back together. If I remove any of it, it will fall apart. It’s designed for humans though, so it isn’t turning her into a monster.”

  “What should we do?” Kizu asked.

  “I don’t know! How am I supposed to know anything about this?”

  “The smog is fading,” Basil said, helpfully. “Maybe the best thing to do is get the victims out of it. We should get the Emperor and Shiroi to safety before the other ghouls tear them apart while they’re prone.”

  Kizu nodded. That was a clear objective. He quickly started thinking about different methods to transport them. He couldn’t jump with Shiroi and keep him encased in ice at the same time. He didn’t have enough knowledge of force platforms to carry him out either.

  One of the ghouls managed to crawl up the side of the float and reached out toward Aoi.

  Before Kizu or Basil could step in, she slammed a palm into its forehead and it dropped, lifeless.

  “What was that?” Kizu asked.

  “I told you. I can remove the adhesive, but then the soul falls apart.”

  Kizu made the conscious decision not to focus on the casual destruction of a life. He had plenty of practice not thinking about those sorts of things from growing up with the crone. It still startled him to see if from Aoi though.

  Unless she considered them already dead. Kizu’s eyes widened at that understanding. Aoi understood the souls of people far better than he did. But she was in denial about her brother and friend.

  Judging on how quickly the person had dropped at Aoi’s touch, the fusing soul potion Kizu had wouldn’t even have a chance to take effect before the person died.

  Still, there was a chance maybe a stronger soul mage might be able to fix this. Aoi wasn’t all-knowing on the subject. He looked out at the streets, searching for any sort of back-up. If anyone was coming, they’d surely come to the Emperor’s float first. But nobody approached from any of the side streets. He had a straight line of sight down one, leading to the river.

  “I have an idea,” he said. “Basil, how strong can you make yourself?”

  “I can form muscles and enhance them with spells far more efficiently than normal people, but nothing too monstrous. And I lost a lot of mass restraining the Emperor.”

  “When I say push, put everything you’ve got into it, understand?”

  He took a deep breath. He was already starting to feel a bit lightheaded from the barriers and enhancements from earlier. This would be tough to pull off. Still, it was the only plan that came to mind.

  “Let’s go.”

  Kizu jumped down, dropped Basil by the second float, then rapidly jumped over to the Emperor. The ghoul grabbed at Kizu, digging his fingers into Kizu’s arm with enhanced strength. But that was fine. Kizu jumped a third time, bringing the Emperor to Shiroi’s side, then slammed another two ice potions into them, freezing them both to the side of the float. The ice froze him in place as well, but that didn’t matter. In fact, the contact might make the next spell even a little easier.

  Then he closed his eyes and focused. He pictured the entirety of the float in his mind’s eye. He channeled.

  He took the entire massive float with him in a single jump. He didn’t bring it far, just pivoting it 90 degrees to now face down the side street leading to the river.

  “PUSH!” Kizu yelled as he flopped over, letting the ice support his weight as the float shifted and his vision blurred.

  Then they were moving. The wooden wheels of the float wobbled as they picked up speed down the hill. But they held in place. Buildings blurred past Kizu. Until finally, the float launched over the ravine and smashed down into the river below.

  Kizu dimly acknowledged the fresh air as the broken wreckage of the float bobbed in the river, slowly drifting with the current. The ghouls snarled beside him, but they were trapped with him on the makeshift raft. Safely separated from all the other ghouls.

  He looked back up from where he’d come from. They’d smashed through several ghouls on the way down the hill. Their bodies were scattered across the streets. Some still moving, but most motionless. It was up to Basil now to get Aoi to safety. He hoped the changeling could manage without Kizu’s spatial spells to jump him around.

  Fighting unconsciousness, Kizu sought out his bond to Mort. The monkey was safe. The Kitsune had retreated with Mort and Anata to the bamboo forest. Back to the boulder they’d met at before. Kizu could feel the monkey split between staying by Anata’s side and rushing down to help Kizu. Kizu sent a wave of calm through the bond, reassuring the familiar of his safety. Then he let his head droop and let the black of unconsciousness take hold.

  Ten Blood Curse Academia chapters (5 weeks) ahead of Royal Road.