Chapter 59: TWO IN ONE

Karkas let Sio’s collar slip from his fist, and Sio hit the amber petal on one shoulder with barely enough awareness left to feel it. His pulse had gone thin beneath the dark square, every breath scraping against his ribs while the bounty placard above him still carried DEAD.

Karkas turned toward the lower petals where Arch and Angle had disappeared into the fighting. His first step had barely landed when a wet crack sounded behind him, followed by a sudden pull through his wounded arm.

A single violet-black tail had punched clean through his forearm. Faint translucent lines moved beneath its surface as it stretched from behind Sio, narrowing near the tip before withdrawing with a slick pull that scattered blood across the petal. The tail curled once behind Sio as if testing the air, and the strange movement tugged at muscles along his lower back that he had never known existed.

Sio’s eyes opened into that movement and found Karkas already turning toward him. It took another second for him to understand that his own body was standing, even though he had never told his legs to move.

Cold crept along his spine as the tail hovered behind him with a weight he could somehow feel. His hand rose and wiped blood from his mouth before he chose to move it, and that wrongness dragged an older memory up with it.

Vise’s room returned in fragments: restraints biting into his wrists, his consciousness slipping away, then his portals becoming cleaner and faster while his own thoughts drowned somewhere behind them. Someone had moved him then too, and the same presence was inside him now.

It’s happening again.

Karkas pressed two fingers around the puncture in his arm and watched him closely. "You changed." Sio tried to answer, but his mouth stayed shut while the tail struck the petal behind him and bent beneath his weight.

His body launched forward before he could brace. Pain dragged across his ribs, yet whoever controlled him used the tail to carry part of his weight around Karkas’s wounded side before his damaged legs had to do the rest. The amber surface rasped under his boots, and the pull through the tail gave Sio a sickening awareness of exactly where its tip rested behind him.

A portal opened beside Sio’s shoulder, and Karkas shifted to guard the punch he had already seen several times. No fist came through; instead, the tail vanished into the entrance and emerged behind Karkas’s ankle.

It hooked around him and pulled just as Sio stepped inside his balance. His fist drove beneath Karkas’s sternum, and Sio felt the physical impact stop against flesh while a second pressure continued farther inward.

Karkas’s breath caught as the borders of Dead or Alive flickered beneath their feet. Sio felt that deeper impact travel through his knuckles and knew immediately that it was another thing he had never learned to do. For an instant the sensation returned through his arm as a cold vibration rather than pain, as though his fist had struck something hidden behind Karkas’s body.

That wasn’t mine either.

Karkas swung an elbow, but Sio’s body ducked before Sio himself had fully registered the attack. The tail planted behind him and turned his frame around the strike, letting his heel catch Karkas’s knee and force him back.

The fear had not disappeared, though it had begun sharing space with something far more practical. Whatever had taken him during Vise’s torture had returned, and for the moment it seemed much more interested in keeping him alive than explaining itself.

Fine. Creepy body thief. We can argue later.

Karkas slowed on the next approach, his gaze moving between the tail, the open portal and Sio’s damaged side. Sio’s body opened another portal beside his hand, shifted the exit twice without using it, then let the tail coil around a silk strand overhead.

The sudden pull lifted Sio’s feet from the petal and carried him sideways. The portal moved with him, and the tail released the silk before shooting through the entrance and bursting from the exit near Karkas’s shoulder.

Karkas caught it with his wounded arm, but Sio’s body had already changed direction. He came in low with a punch toward the ribs, and although Karkas blocked, the deeper impact still travelled through his guard.

The portrait floating above Sio shivered for half a second. Karkas looked at him differently after that, his attention sharpening as Sio’s body used the tail to brace against the petal and unload some weight from his failing leg. Blood from Karkas’s forearm ran over the dark surface of the tail before dripping from its curve, making Sio’s stomach turn when he realized he could feel the warmth.

A portal opened beneath Karkas’s next punch and swallowed his fist. The exit released the strike toward empty air behind him, and Sio felt a small spark of disbelief beneath all the pain.

I can do that?

Karkas answered by kicking the base of the tail. Pain exploded through a part of Sio’s body that had not existed minutes ago, flashing white across his vision before the tail recoiled.

Oh. I can feel that. Fantastic.

Karkas followed immediately and drove a fist into Sio’s injured ribs. Bone shifted under the impact, his breath vanished, and whoever controlled him twisted through the pain anyway.

Those are still my ribs, you bastard.

The tail caught a silk support and dragged them clear of another dark section as the board shifted beneath their feet. Sio’s body kept one portal open beside Karkas, opened another behind him and let the tail move between both while Karkas watched the exits.

The attack came from neither portal. Sio stepped in physically and punched Karkas straight in the chest, sending that strange second impact inward again and forcing him back one full step. Karkas’s heel crossed the edge of a dark square, and the board rippled around him before settling again.

For several exchanges, Sio could almost believe they were equal. The presence inside him wasted almost nothing, using the tail as support, weapon and anchor while shifting existing portal exits instead of constantly rebuilding them. Even breathing seemed timed around the attacks, short inhales between movements so Sio’s damaged ribs never had to expand more than necessary.

Karkas adjusted.

He stopped reacting to the portals themselves and started reading Sio’s hips, shoulders and damaged leg. One exit remained open and useless while Karkas circled away from the tail’s reach, forcing Sio’s body to spend more concentration repositioning.

Every portal took something. Every sharp turn pulled against injured ribs, and although the tail could support Sio’s weight, it could not repair what Karkas had already damaged. The dark and pale sections around them narrowed with each exchange, leaving less room for the borrowed skill inside Sio to turn clever movement into distance.

Karkas feinted toward Sio’s good side, then changed direction the moment the tail planted for support. His boot stamped down beside it instead of striking, forcing Sio’s body to retract the tail before Karkas could trap it against the petal, and that fraction of hesitation was enough for him to close the gap.

Karkas caught the tail under one arm and stepped inside Sio’s reach before the next exit could shift. His knee buried itself in Sio’s stomach, folding the body around the blow while his grip trapped the tail against his side.

Wait.

Karkas twisted the tail away and drove his forehead into Sio’s face. Warm blood flooded over his lip, copper filling his mouth while his vision doubled.

You’re not strong enough either?

The disappointment was absurd enough that Sio almost laughed. Whoever controlled him was far better than he was, using his portals and the new tail with an efficiency that made Sio’s own fighting feel embarrassingly crude, yet Karkas was still keeping up.

The presence inside him did not panic. The tail went slack inside Karkas’s grip while a portal opened beside Sio’s boot, its exit forming above Karkas’s shoulder.

The tail slipped through first and emerged behind Sio, wrapping around his waist before yanking him sideways out of Karkas’s grasp. They separated by several metres, with the tail planting behind Sio to hold part of his weight while Karkas’s wounded arm hung lower and blood tapped steadily against the amber petal.

Karkas studied him in silence for a moment, first watching the tail and then Sio’s face. "Same body. Different fighter." Sio heard the words from somewhere behind his own eyes and found himself agreeing despite everything.

Yeah. I noticed.

A metallic crash rolled across the bloom before either of them moved again, drawing their attention toward the central petal below. Rovan had lost most of the steel covering one side of his body, Selyn stood behind a torn silk support with her shorter weapon lowered, and Gant remained upright between them with blood running down one side of his face. The air between them carried the sharp smell of torn plant flesh and hot metal, while broken strands of silk swayed beneath the damaged structures.

The glove case lay shattered at his feet, with one glove already held in his hand. Angle stood several petals away as Gant looked toward him, then slid the first glove over his fingers.

He picked up the second and pulled it on just as slowly. When both were in place, Gant closed his hands and tested the fit while Rovan and Selyn watched from opposite sides of the ruined petal.

For the first time since entering the Grand Exchange, Gant had exactly what he came for.