Ragnarök, Eternal Tragedy.
Chapter 114: Between Blades

Chapter 114: Between Blades

The forest barely resembled one anymore.

Flares of Unco ripped through canopies that once whispered secrets, now screaming with each blast. Roots churned beneath detonations. Bark melted. Soil cracked under directed tremorfields and aerial blasts that ricocheted off shattered stone. The reinforcements had arrived like a siege—half a dozen men, some still armored from the village’s inner hold, others stripped to light gear but running high on reserves. Fire. Sound. Kinetic bursts. Bladed wind. The ground throbbed like it remembered war.

And yet—Amari stood in the center. No Unco. No flair.

Just a man with twin daggers and a trail to catch.

His Pulse Daggers slid through the air like scalpels turned to ritual. They sang—not loud, but tuned. Vibrating gently against his palms, responding to tension, the slight hum of intent around him. One fighter lunged from the right, shoulder down, trying to crash through his guard. Amari slipped the shoulder clean—barely a breath between movement—and flicked the edge of his right blade along the inside of the elbow. The man screamed as the joint failed him.

A second fighter leapt overhead, pushing Unco into his legs—fire coiled in his boots to boost the kick. Amari caught the foot with a sidestep, allowed the momentum to carry past him, and elbowed the man mid-air, flipping him down hard enough for the bark to break around him.

They kept coming.

A gauntlet cracked against Amari’s jaw—the blow staggered him briefly. Another grazed his side, drawing blood. One Unco user used a sonic burst that shattered the tree beside Amari, bark splitting like drumskin. He rolled under the shockwave, teeth gritted, and emerged behind the sonic user—dagger first. The blade went low, swept behind the knee, and before the man could fall, Amari’s foot drove into his spine, hurling him into the trunk with a crunch.

But even as they landed blows, even as blood peppered Amari’s face and dust coated his shoulders, none of them could break the rhythm beneath his breath.

He wasn’t fighting to win.

He was fighting through.

His head turned once mid-fight—toward the girl’s trail. Still faint. Still fresh. Not yet gone. That brief glance told more than a shout.

And somehow... that brief look stunned them.

One of the men, bloodied but upright, panting through cracked lips, muttered, "He doesn’t even have an Unco. How the hell is he—?"

And then his words cut.

Literally.

His head tilted unnaturally—then slipped clean off his shoulders before any of them saw the motion. Amari’s blade had passed through him like a breeze before rain. The stump let loose a hot spray, and the body slumped awkwardly, fingers twitching in a muscle’s final memory.

For one terrible moment—there was silence.

Then rage cracked it open.

Screams. Fury. Lust for revenge, not just justice. They surged again—not with discipline, but animal anger. Their Uncos began to burn too hot—fire users igniting in fits, kinetic fields overextending and collapsing terrain as they charged. One screamed his brother’s name. Another just screamed.

But Amari lowered his center of gravity. Slid one Pulse Dagger into a reverse grip.

And breathed in.

It was supposed to be overwhelming.

Seven men. Fully charged. Each one trained. Each one Unco-backed. And they weren’t charging with fear—they came at Amari like a punishment. Like vengeance sharpened into bodies.

But fury never beat rhythm.

And rhythm? Amari had it etched into his bones.

They surrounded him in waves. One came in tight, spinning with a gauntlet flaring kinetic bursts from the wrist. Amari ducked under it, drove a knee up into the man’s gut, and twisted the arm mid-spin to redirect him into another fighter’s path. A blade came down from above. Amari sidestepped, turned his wrist at the last instant, and dragged the curved edge of a Pulse Dagger across the inside of the elbow—clean, controlled, irreversible. The man screamed, dropped the sword, and staggered out of frame.

Another closed in with a broadshield Unco—glimmering panels flaring from wrist to shoulder. Amari didn’t even go for the kill. He struck low, both daggers cutting at the ankle joints, then rolled behind him and shoved upward, knocking the man off balance. A foot to the ribs sent him tumbling. No wasted strikes. No screams. Just precision. Just presence.

As they kept coming, something strange began to happen.

Amari got faster.

Not by power. Not by Unco.

He just stopped accommodating their tempo.

He started writing his own.

A soldier lunged. Amari kicked out his legs, caught him on the fall, elbowed his throat, and let the body collapse into another fighter’s knees. One grabbed his arm—successfully, for a full second—and Amari responded with a subtle twist and a jab through the bicep that didn’t even bleed much. The man screamed anyway. Then crumpled.

Their numbers shrank.

Their formation broke.

And just three remained upright—ash-faced and sweat-drenched, chests heaving with disbelief more than fatigue.

Amari looked at them, then at the path the girl had taken. Time wasn’t on his side.

He took one breath. Then said:

"Go home. You don’t need to die here."

He meant it.

But they didn’t hear mercy. They heard disrespect.

One of them snarled, "You think we need permission from you, ghost?"

The others grunted—rage mounting again, Uncos flickering desperately.

They charged.

And Amari didn’t move to meet them.

He just breathed.

The first swung. Amari didn’t block. He leaned aside, let the blade pass, and touched the man’s ribs with the flat of his knife—just enough to make the breath stutter. The second tried a hook. Amari ducked it. The third hesitated. That was the end.

Because now—they were slowing.

Not from injury. From waste.

They’d spent energy chasing him. Fuel bleeding from every missed strike, every over-pushed step. Amari was no longer in the fight.

He was through it.

Then—without warning—he moved.

He passed through the first man like wind through a curtain, carving two lines across the collar and behind the knee. The man fell forward, strength gone.

He turned on the second—kicked the inner shin, slashed a tendon, shoulder-checked him into a tree, and stabbed downward into the man’s thigh—not lethal. Crippling.

The third tried to flee.

Amari caught him before the second step. Slashed low, wrist to ankle, and dropped him mid-run with a soft grunt.

All seven were on the ground.