He stood his ground, his gaze sweeping from the dishes in the kitchen cupboard to the general decor of the house. From the look of it, he could be fairly certain the woman didn't live alone.
Tiptoeing to the corner farthest from the door, he concealed himself beside a simple bookshelf, a pistol in one hand and his cane in the other.
The footsteps grew louder, accompanied by the voices of two won in conversation. A dark shadow materialized behind Jenkins, waiting in utter silence.
"Three... two... one."
The instant they opened the door, a deafening blast tore through the air, ripping the entire front half of the house apart.
"Damn it, that was way more powerful than I expected! This house must be condemned!"
He cursed the city's building inspectors under his breath, shielding his head from a shower of falling roof tiles. Then, he raised his pistol and fired toward the spot where he rembered the doorway had been.
He could hear screams and a rising commotion from the surrounding houses. The neighbors had been alerted.
"How does it always end up like this?"
When the last of the tiles had clattered to the ground, he saw that more than half of the squat house's walls had crumbled. The roof was a skeleton of beams, with only a few dozen lucky tiles clinging on. A frigid wind howled into the ruin.
Jenkins pushed himself up from amidst the smoke and dust, dislodging a cascade of rubble that had been pinning him down.
"Chocolate!"
He called out softly. He spotted the cat perched on the branch of a large tree so distance away, owing down at him.
He whipped his head around as a noise ca from beneath the rubble near the doorway. A tall, red-haired woman was pulling herself free. Half her face was slick with blood, and her jacket was caked in dust.
"Hah—"
She let out a sharp hiss, extending a hand and pointing a finger at Jenkins. He sidestepped instinctively, but a strange numbness imdiately swept over the left side of his body, refusing his commands.
"Paralysis? Petrification? Or so kind of vitality drain?"
The thoughts raced through his mind as he pulled the trigger again, but the woman had already staggered behind the cover of a fractured half-wall.
The commotion was swelling. From his position in the ruins, Jenkins could see people running in the distance. He couldn't swim, so his only escape route was to disappear into the slum district behind the house. He had to finish this, and fast.
ow~
Chocolate’s tail twitched to the left. Jenkins took the hint, leveling his pistol at the left side of the broken wall. His Eye of Reality confird the location, showing him a cluster of light. He silently counted to three, and the very instant the woman reappeared, he fired. Jenkins could only guess her rough position, but Chocolate's vision was perfectly clear.
"Who are you?"
The woman's coarse voice sliced through the darkness, reaching Jenkins's ears. The gas lamps had been extinguished in the blast, and now, aside from the white tip of Chocolate's tail, sound was his best tool for pinpointing her location.
He offered no reply. Instead, he bent down, set his cane on the ground, and picked up a small stone, tossing it to one side.
A sharp whizz cut the air as a tal shard flew from behind the low wall, landing right where the stone had clattered. The ground there instantly turned a deep, inky black, and a withered, gray-black hand erupted from the soil, grasping at nothing before sinking back down.
"The Shadow Realm?"
Jenkins was inwardly startled. As the cluster of light in his vision shifted to the right, Chocolate’s tail mirrored the movent. Bent on a quick victory, Jenkins fired again, before the woman even showed herself. The gunshot echoed again and again through the darkened slum.
Startled, she ducked back behind the wall. Jenkins surged forward; he only needed to close the distance by a few more steps to be within range for his Blasphemous Creation and Knowledge Bestowal.
Low whispers slithered into his ears, sounding like waves crashing on a shore. Suddenly, Jenkins's own shadow peeled itself off the ground, rising up to wrap around his waist. At that exact mont, the woman lunged from behind the wall, her right fist flying toward him.
Flas of an unknown origin erupted from Jenkins’s shoulder, streaming downward to silently incinerate the shadow holding him. Jenkins twisted his body, swinging out with his still-partially numb left fist.
Their fists collided. An imnse force slamd into Jenkins, and he quickly spun to bleed off the montum, but still, he stumbled back several steps before falling. The pistol flew from his right hand. A sharp, searing pain lanced up his left arm—it felt broken. The woman, however, had her entire right arm, from fist to shoulder, encased in a thick layer of ice.
They were both too committed now. Neither could afford to retreat.
"Who are you?"
"Isn't it a little late to be asking that?"
He propped himself up with his right hand. His left was useless for now.
"I don't care who you are," she snarled, "you're going to regret this."
The woman leaned against the ruined wall, her eyes burning with hatred as she surveyed the destruction. She raised her left hand, pressing her index and middle fingers together against her bleeding forehead.
As Jenkins pushed himself to his feet to press the attack, the woman's shadow began to warp and twist behind her.
The moonlight seed to flicker once, and then clouds drifted in from nowhere, obscuring both moons. A sound arose, like the cheering and singing of a million voices. Dense, hazy figures rose from the ground in every direction, coalescing into grotesque humanoid shapes. A gale-force wind swept through the ruins, carrying the sll of damp earth as the very air grew heavy with moisture.
Even without any light to cast it, the woman's pitch-black shadow remained. It surged up and enveloped her completely, ignoring the bullets Jenkins fired into it. The writhing mass slowly shifted, its form coalescing into the shape of an inverted woman.
"The hanging... No, that's not right."
This wasn't the "Hanging Mother Goddess's Shadow" worshipped by the Witch's House. This had to be just a shell, an imitation. Even a lesser divinity wouldn't make an appearance for such a paltry price.
"I ask of you: Do you know your sin?"
The magnificent voice washed over Jenkins, carrying with it an imnse psychic pressure. He finally struggled back to his feet, glanced around, and chose to ignore the impertinent question. Instead, he raised both hands high.
The candle imrsed in his spirit began to tremble. A fla, born from its core, suddenly blood in his palms, and he held it aloft, its fire reaching for the sky.
The candle itself possessed a purifying effect. Now, rged with the Inexhaustible Fla, it also carried the raw power of fire, making it the perfect bane for creatures of the shadow.
The pitch-black figure of the inverted woman floated in the air, radiating a terrifying aura. As her form solidified, the shadows surrounding the ruins began to chant an unknown prayer.
"I say you are the one who is guilty!"
Jenkins bellowed, holding the fla high. He found it almost comical that soone would dare to play god in front of him.
The fla broke free from his palms and spread in every direction. A ring of fire expanded outward, instantly scorching the grotesque shadows it touched. This rged fla had broken through its usual range limitations; while it couldn't extend infinitely, it was more than enough to engulf the entire ruin of the house.
In the center of a ring of blazing, shadow-fueled torches, the man with the obscured face and the inverted woman stood, facing one another.
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