Page 57 of Cherry Moon

“Call to it, Akira. Call to it while you still can.”

“Promise me he’ll be safe!” I yelled.

No answer.

Then so be it. I’d lose this arm to keep him alive.

Bony Hag pulled and pulled, any moment the sinew would tear, the bones break, all the violent yucky stuff.

I closed my eyes, bracing for the rip.

Thwick!

Crunch!

The fuck?

I opened my eyes.

The katana skewered Bony Hag’s head, going in through one temple, bursting out of the other. A proper clean kebab move.

“Whoa.”

She dropped me like a sack of flour. My arse wasn’t happy, but my arm threw a party. Still intact, not going anywhere.

The bone woman’s jaw hung open, a series of grunts spewing from her throat.

“Surprise,” I tossed out.

Running, trainers pounding on the ground, Zach whizzed past me, launching himself at the mazoku. He scrambled up her with great athletic skill, getting up to his weapon. He grabbed the tsuka, the blade shining red.

Wow. He’d been training these past years to boost his fighting and fitness skills, but blimey. I never knew my brother could move like that.

“No… No…” Bony Hag grunted.

The light in her eyes snuffed out.

“No…”

I couldn’t get up, the trowel having seriously fucked me up. But I gave her both middle fingers.

“How do you like that, you bony bastard?”

Zach pulled the katana free before jumping off her, landing in a crouch. Those new tattoos of his flared, filling me with pride.

Look at him. Just look at him.

“This cannot… This cannot…”

“Be?” I finished for Bony. “Oh, it defo be.”

“I…” She threw her head back, releasing a guttural roar filled with agony.

“I hope you fucking burn!” I roared, triggering a harder pain-fest inside me.

Her body exploded into a cloud of Sakura. They mushroomed into the sky like an atomic cloud, turning brown and crispy as they went before becoming dust and falling back to the earth as nothing more than a weak cloud of nothingness, echoes of her screams tickling my eardrums.

“Good riddance,” I growled through gritted teeth.