The fire ring looked wrong.
Snow had melted in a perfect circle around it, but not melted in the usual way. It was pushed back, like the heat had told the cold to retreat and hold its ground. There were no sparks flying up from the flames, no smell of burning wood. Just a quiet fire that burned low and steady, making soft sounds like secrets being whispered.
In the middle of the ring stood a figure.
It hadn't moved since they first spotted it from the ridge above. It didn't seem to breathe. It just stood there, perfectly still, a statue carved from nightmares.
Chi and Hinata walked down the snowy slope toward it, their boots crunching loudly in the frost with each step. The frigid air nipped at their exposed skin, but their gazes remained locked on the chilling tableau ahead.
"Is that what I think it is?" Hinata asked, her voice dropping to a near whisper as they got closer.
She already knew the answer. They both did.
The creature wore a white mask, long and thin, with deep, etched grooves under the eyeholes that mimicked tears. Its mouth was sewn shut with thick black thread, yet the mask itself was cracked at the corners, like something inside was desperately trying to scream its way out. The sheer stillness of the thing was more unsettling than any movement could have been. It radiated a cold, oppressive aura that seeped into the very bones.
Chi's red eyes narrowed as she stared, her breath coming out in a sharp cloud. She took a deliberate step, crossing the invisible boundary into the fire ring.
The moment her boot touched the snow inside the circle, everything changed.
The world became darker and eerily quiet. The distant chirping of birds vanished. The sigh of the wind through the pines ceased. Even the crunch of her boots on snow disappeared, swallowed by an unnatural void. All she could hear was her own ragged breathing and the soft, dry crackling of the strange, silent fire. The air grew heavy, pressing in on her, and the fire itself seemed to lean inward, watching.
Chi moved forward, slowly and carefully. There was no fear in her, but neither was there carelessness. The sword on her hip, Red Crescent, seemed to grow warmer against her leg, a comforting, familiar weight that resonated with the burgeoning power deep within her.
It wasn't fear or excitement. It was something else entirely. A profound sense of recognition, as if her very being remembered this creature from somewhere deep in her primordial past, a memory buried beneath layers of forgotten time.
The power under her skin—the Netherpulse—began to hum. It felt deeper than her heartbeat, older than any pain she had ever known, a low thrumming resonance that seemed to respond to the entity before her.
The masked creature tilted its head to one side, like a curious, yet profoundly alien, dog. But when it moved toward her, it didn't walk. It seemed to glide, floating just above the ground. Its arms hung loosely at its sides for a moment, then began to stretch, elongating beyond any natural human proportion. The bones within them looked black and bent at impossible angles, joints twisting like a shattered marionette.
Chi, without hesitation, pulled out her sword.
Red Crescent didn't just slide from its sheath; it seemed to breathe itself free, a silent hiss of release, as if it had been patiently waiting for this precise moment. A vibrant, pulsing red light flickered along the sharp edge, cutting through the eerie gloom of the fire ring.
The creature attacked first.
There was no sound of footsteps, no warning. One second it was across the ring, a spectral blur, and the next it was directly in front of her. Chi reacted on pure instinct, lifting her sword just in time to block its gnarled, shadowy claws. The impact sent a jarring shockwave up her arm. She ducked under its wildly swinging arm and spun around behind it, a practiced, lethal maneuver. Her first cut sliced across its middle. No blood welled forth, only thick, black smoke that instantly dissipated into the silent air.
The creature made a hissing sound, but it wasn't from its sewn mouth. The eerie, guttural noise came from the mask itself, a raw, tormented sound that was somehow amplified within the strange, sound-deadened ring.
Then it did something impossible. It bent its back the wrong way, its spine cracking audibly yet unnaturally, and launched itself at her again, a grotesque, broken figure.
Chi tried to block, but she was almost too slow. The creature's claws scraped across her shoulder, tearing through her durable armor with disturbing ease. Yet, miraculously, they didn't cut her skin, leaving only shallow, burning scrapes.
She didn't stop to process the pain. Instead, she spun her sword low, then swept it up in a wide, powerful arc.
Something strange happened. The blade curved in the air, a sentient entity, as if it were alive and determined to follow the creature no matter how it tried to evade. Red Crescent seemed to hum with a dark, insatiable hunger for the kill.
The sword hit the creature's mask dead center.
The white mask split down the middle with a loud, sickening crack that shattered the silence of the ring.
The creature let out a horrifying scream, but it wasn't with its voice. The scream went straight into Chi's head, a piercing mental assault that resonated with the Netherpulse power inside her. It felt like a psychic spear, jamming into her mind.
Chi stumbled backward, clutching her head. Her chest felt tight, constricted, and her fingers began to tingle with a strange, unpleasant sensation. For just a moment, the vast, ancient power inside her, the very core of her being, stopped working properly. It flickered, sputtered, threatening to go out.
That was all the time the creature needed.
It lunged at her again, but this time its arms opened up like flower petals made of bone. All the skeletal fingers reached for her face, aiming to claw, to consume, to snuff out her light.
That's when Hinata came running into the ring, a blur of motion.
"Get out of the way!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the oppressive silence, a welcome rupture.
Her two swords crossed as she hit the creature from behind, a whirlwind of steel. Sparks flew everywhere when her metal blades connected with its bone arms.
This time, the creature screamed at Hinata, a high-pitched, furious shriek. A faint purple light—Hinata's own Pulse power—started glowing around her arms like flames dancing on water, a stark contrast to Chi's crimson. She pushed harder, slamming the creature away from Chi with a powerful kick.
"Are you okay?" Hinata asked, her eyes never leaving the twitching form of their opponent.
Chi stood up slowly, swaying slightly. She didn't reply, simply wiping a thin trickle of blood from her nose with her sleeve. The pain was secondary now, a mere distraction from the profound unease settling in her soul.
The creature twitched violently, then slowly, agonizingly, stood up straight again, its broken back seeming to knit itself with sickening clicks and pops.
The cracked mask began to change. It didn't fix itself. Instead, the broken pieces started to peel away like old, diseased paint, curling inward and flaking off, revealing what lay beneath.
Underneath those pieces was another mask. This one wasn't pure white. It looked more like real skin, stretched taut over unsettling features. And it had two vivid red eyes, small and unsettlingly human, and two small black horns protruding from its forehead like nascent devil's nubs.
It looked like Chi's face. Not exactly the same, but close enough to be profoundly, utterly creepy. A distorted, monstrous reflection staring back at her.
Hinata took a step back, her breath catching in her throat. "What the hell is that thing?"
"It's copying me," Chi said quietly, her voice flat, devoid of emotion, yet laced with a deeper horror.
The creature opened its sewn mouth just a little bit, the black threads stretching and groaning. When it spoke, its voice sounded almost human, a low, rasping whisper that pierced the air.
It said only one word: "Daughter."
Chi moved faster than lightning. Her next attack was fueled by pure, unadulterated revulsion and rage. Red Crescent surged, its crimson glow flaring, and she drove it straight through the fake version of her own head.
The creature shook all over, a violent shudder rippling through its tall frame, but it didn't die. With impossible strength, it grabbed the sword blade with its hands and pulled itself off of it, the metal groaning against bone. No blood, no apparent pain—it just moved, like death itself was a concept utterly meaningless to it.
"Why does that thing know you?" Hinata asked, confusion and a dawning suspicion warring in her voice as she moved to attack it from the side.
Chi didn't answer her. Her focus was solely on the creature, on the unsettling truth it represented.
The creature clawed at the air, leaving black streaks behind its fingers like smeared ink. Its attacks were becoming less precise, more frantic, as if Chi's blade had truly wounded something beyond the physical.
One of its hands reached for Hinata. She twisted away with an agile dodge and, with a quick, brutal slash, cut the hand off in the middle of its swing. It withered to smoke. Then she slammed her knee into its chest.
Nothing happened. The creature didn't grunt in pain. It didn't fall down. It didn't even seem to notice the blow, its red eyes fixed on Chi.
Chi stabbed at it again, but this time she didn't aim for its body. She aimed for something deeper, something less tangible—for whatever twisted memories or consciousness were hiding inside it, for the very essence that had called her "daughter."
Her blade went through the creature's spine and seemed to ripple like water, a shimmering distortion in the air.
The creature went crazy. Its fake version of Chi's face twisted up in terrible, agonizing pain—like looking in a mirror that showed only pure, unadulterated agony. It thrashed, a guttural shriek tearing from its un-sewn mouth.
Then it exploded.
Black smoke burst out in all directions, blinding and acrid. Chi threw her arm up to protect her face. Hinata fell backward, coughing and choking on the dark mist, scrambling away from the dissipating darkness.
Then everything got quiet again.
The creature's body fell down and turned to ash. There was nothing left of it but gray powder, dissolving into the snow.
The fire ring started to die out slowly, its strange, silent flames shrinking, then winking out. Chi stood perfectly still, Red Crescent hanging at her side, still out of its holder, its red glow fading.
Hinata walked over to her, carefully, warily.
"What was that thing?" she asked, her voice raspy from the smoke.
Chi said nothing. Her gaze was fixed on the dissipating ash.
"You saw it. That thing made itself look like you."
Still nothing.
Hinata stared at her with sharper eyes now, a new edge to her voice. "That's not normal, Chi. That's not anything normal."
"I know it's not normal." Chi finally said, her voice flat, distant.
"Then tell me the truth. Why did it call you 'daughter?'"
Chi turned her back to Hinata and started walking away, her steps crunching loudly in the snow, breaking the eerie silence.
"It's dead now. That's all that matters."
"That's not a real answer." Hinata followed, her voice hardening.
Chi, without looking back, cleaned the last of the ash off her sword blade with a practiced, almost ritualistic motion. "It's the only answer you're going to get."
They walked through the snow for a long time without talking. Hinata didn't ask any more questions, but she stayed closer to Chi than before. Not because she was being friendly. Not because she trusted her more. Just because she was watching her more carefully now, a silent, unsettling scrutiny.
Chi pretended not to notice, but she did. Every subtle shift in Hinata's posture, every sideways glance.
Her Netherpulse power had gotten quiet again, but her sword still felt strangely warm in her hand, the lingering heat of the battle, of the truth. And somewhere deep in the back of her mind, she could still hear that word echoing like a ghost, a chilling, inescapable whisper:
"Daughter."
It wasn't a real voice anymore. It was just a memory that wouldn't go away.
But memories, Chi knew, could be just as dangerous as monsters.