Chapter 81. Transformation

Chapter 81: 81. Transformation

The red Oni tightened the living metal around Eira’s waist until a small gasp left her lips.

He looked down at Kael with open contempt.

"Hands behind your back. Now. And take off that chainmail. I want to hear the metal kiss your skin properly."

Kael’s jaw worked once.

He reached up, unbuckled the chainmail, and let it fall to the dirt with a heavy clatter.

Then he placed both hands behind his back and waited.

The first chain came without warning.

The heavy metal links slammed across his ribs with a dull, heavy thud.

Air left his lungs in a sharp rush.

A low, strained groan escaped through his clenched teeth before he locked them tighter and refused to give the Oni anything more.

The second strike landed across his shoulder.

A wet slap of metal against flesh.

Blood welled instantly, seeping through the torn cloth in thin, bright trails.

Another muffled groan vibrated in his throat as he forced the sound down.

The third wrapped around his thigh hard enough to bruise bone.

Each impact left a rising welt and a thin trail of blood where the metal had bitten through cloth and skin. Kael’s knees trembled once.

A short, painful grunt slipped out before he swallowed it. He stayed upright, breath controlled and ragged.

The Oni laughed, a low, wet sound that rolled from his throat like grinding stones.

"Look at you. The great father, painted red already. Does it sting, little man? Does the metal feel like a lover’s kiss?"

He swung again.

The chain licked across Kael’s chest, splitting skin with a sharp hiss of torn cloth.

Fresh blood ran in rivulets down his stomach, dripping onto the dirt.

A hoarse groan tore from Kael’s chest despite his effort to hold it back.

He bit down hard enough that the taste of blood filled his mouth.

The Oni’s grin widened.

"Pathetic. You bleed like a stuck pig and still stand there pretending you’re worth something. I should peel the rest of your skin off and hang it as a banner."

Seraphine stood a short distance away, dagger still in hand, every muscle tight with fury.

The same red bastard who had nearly killed them all in the dungeon was now using her sister as a shield and beating her stepfather in front of her.

She searched for any opening that would not put Eira at risk and found none.

’He’s going to break him,’ Seraphine’s thoughts burned.

’He’s going to cripple dad right here while I watch. If I move, Eira dies. If I don’t move, dad dies. Damn it. Damn it all!’

Another strike, this one across Kael’s back. The links bit deep. Blood sprayed in a fine mist.

Kael’s body jerked.

A raw, suppressed groan escaped between his teeth, low and guttural, before he forced it into silence again.

The Oni cackled, the sound high and delighted.

"Beautiful! Look how red you are now. A walking wound. Maybe I should take the girl next and make you watch while I break her little bones one by one. Would you still stand there like a loyal dog?"

Kael’s thoughts turned dark and muddy under the pain.

’Why am I letting myself get hurt for a girl I’ve known for less than a month? No one would blame me if I walked away. I’m too weak to protect her anyway. I could just leave. Survive and find another way.’

The thought slid in like a knife.

For a single, shameful heartbeat he almost believed it. Walk away and let Eira fight her battle.

Then the next chain strike broke the thought in half.

Blood ran hotter down his side.

A sharp, involuntary groan burst from him this time, louder than the others, before he clamped his jaw shut and under his breath, annoyed at his own weakness.

He forced his eyes up.

Eira was looking at him.

Tears kept sliding down her cheeks.

Her small body shook inside the bindings, yet her eyes still held a fragile, stubborn hope that he would somehow save her.

That single look cut deeper than the chains.

Kael’s mouth tightened.

A sudden, fierce hatred rose in him, hatred for the thought he had just entertained.

’Leave her? Leave Eira?’

The idea tasted like poison.

He hated himself for even letting it form. He was not going to walk away. Not now, not ever.

Not from her. Not while he still had breath and blood to spill.

’System. If you have anything that can help me right now, I need it.’

No answer came from the system.

Eira’s vision blurred.

The pain in her waist and the sight of her stepfather’s blood mixed with older memories that she had never managed to bury.

---

She was ten again, hiding in a narrow alley behind the old market stalls.

The dual-colored hair had always made her a target.

The other children found her the way they always did.

They called her freak.

They pulled the white side and the black side of her hair in opposite directions until her scalp burned.

One of the girls slapped her across the face and laughed when she cried.

Their parents had warned them to stay away from the queen’s strange daughter, but the warning only made the bullying sharper.

The insults and the hands and the laughter piled on top of each other until something inside her simply stopped.

But the memory stretched longer this time, clearer, heavier.

She remembered the older boys cornering her near the well on a gray afternoon.

Their faces twisted with the kind of cruelty only children can invent.

One of them held her arms while another yanked harder on the white strands until she felt hair tear free.

A third girl spat in her face and called her half-breed abomination.

They pushed her down into the mud. Someone kicked her ribs.

Someone else poured dirty water over her head so the dual colors ran together in streaks of gray.

"Freak!"

"Monster!!"

"Your mother should have drowned you."

She had curled into a ball, sobbing, while they laughed.

The laughter went on and on, high and sharp.

One boy took a stick and poked at the soft place under her chin until she bled.

Another pulled her dress up just enough to humiliate her, then shoved her face into the dirt when she screamed.

The world had narrowed to pain and the sound of their voices.

Her small body shook. Tears mixed with mud. She could hear her own ragged breathing.

Then the something inside her had cracked open.

When the red haze cleared, three of them were on the ground, not moving.

One girl’s arm bent the wrong way.

The boy who had yanked her hair lay with eyes open and empty.

Blood soaked the ground, and Eira’s small hands were red to the elbows.

She could still feel the warmth of it between her fingers when she tried to wipe them clean.

Seraphine had found her like that, sitting in the middle of the carnage, rocking slightly, whispering ’I’m sorry, I’m sorry’ to no one.

Eira had never recovered from that day.

A single hard stare from anyone was enough to make her freeze. She knew she was weak. She knew she was pathetic.

’Why am I so useless? Dad is getting hurt because of me. I’m still shaking like a child. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,dad... I can’t do anything to help.’

A voice slid into her mind, smooth and rich and laced with something hungry.

Do you really want to help him, little Eira?

If you truly want to buy him time, I can lend you my strength for a moment but you have to give me your body.

The voice was bold, almost teasing, and carried a dark, masochistic edge that made Eira forget how to breathe.

On the Titan’s back the Oni decided he had played enough.

"Enough warm-up. I think I’ll take both of your hands next. That should keep you from swinging a sword at me again."

He raised the living metal, ready to shear through wrists.

Lust, still riding the aftershocks of her own climax, wiped her glistening fingers on the inside of her robe.

She had already decided the show had gone on long enough.

She shifted her weight, ready to step out of the ranks and erase the Oni before he could cripple the queen’s husband.

Then she felt it in the air.

Eira’s mana was changing.

The shift was sudden and deep, a dual current of holy light and demonic hunger rising from the girl’s small frame.

Lust stopped mid-step, pink eyes narrowing as she watched the transformation begin.

A low, wet sound left Lust’s lips as another wave of residual pleasure rolled through her.

"Nn... ahh..." She pressed her thighs together, the soft, slick sound of her own arousal audible even over the distant clash of metal.

Her fingers twitched against her robe. "Mmm... look at that... she’s waking up..."

Tina, further back among the trees, already had an arrow nocked. The tip glowed with condensed wind mana.

Her eyes locked on the Oni’s exposed neck. One clean shot and the red bastard would drop.

But Eira was too close.

’If I miss... if the arrow curves even a little...’ Tina’s finger trembled on the string.

’She’s right there. One wrong angle and I hit the girl instead.’

She held the draw, muscles burning, waiting for a clearer line.

Eira’s transformation accelerated.

The black hair began to blur at the roots.

The sharp dividing line between white and black melted like wax under sudden heat.

Strands of pure ashen-violet and midnight-purple rose and twisted together.

Silver threads threaded through the new color, catching the last light and turning it into a living cascade that spilled down her back, longer and heavier than before.

Her eyes opened.

The left iris flared into a radiant golden sun, pure and burning.

The right sank into a deep crimson void, endless and hungry.

Heterochromia locked into place in a single heartbeat.

Six invisible wings of pure mana unfurled behind her, three holy and three demonic, layered and overlapping.

They did not move the air.

They simply existed, a pressure that pressed against every soul nearby.

Divine purity and corrupt desire braided together in her blood.

The living metal shackles around her waist and arms cracked with a soft metallic snap.

Then they shattered, the heavy links falling away in a quiet rain of broken steel.

Eira rose slowly.

Her small frame no longer looked fragile. Power rolled off her in waves, seductive and absolute.

The voice that had spoken inside her mind was no longer a guest. It had taken full control.

The red Oni still stood directly behind her, one hand half-raised, living metal still connected to his remaining arm.

She turned her head just enough to look at him over her shoulder.

The golden eye and the crimson void fixed on his face with the calm contempt of a queen regarding an insect that had crawled onto her throne.

"You touched what is mine," she said. The voice carried two tones at once, one pure and one corrupted. "That was a grave mistake."

The six invisible wings flexed once.

A low, resonant hum filled the air.

She moved.

One clean, almost lazy twist of her body sent a concentrated wave of dual mana slamming into the Oni’s chest.

The impact lifted him clean off the Titan’s back and hurled him across the field like a broken doll.

He crashed through the corrupted mist and disappeared into the trees with a distant, heavy impact.

Eira stood alone on the Titan’s shoulders, the shattered chains still falling around her feet, the six invisible wings spread wide.