It was far quicker than a quick draw. A supersonic draw seemed to be a more apt label for what Aida had just done.

She unsheathed her cursed blade, attacking at such a mind-numbing speed it looked as if she hadn’t moved an inch or changed her stance as an afterimage of her stretching her sword to the side appeared in front of Violet.

A large, deep cut crisscrossed through her snow pants and left a bloody mark on her thigh.

Aida smirked as the Neurologist hissed and squinted at the nasty gash on her thigh. That was the warning shot. Aida had realized now that if she was to put the witch out of her misery, it had to be in a way she would be proud of; otherwise, she would be no better than her.

“Cool party trick,” Violet said and then healed her wound.

Keeping her quick draw stance, Aida growled loudly and then raised one hand, holding her index and middle finger up, summoning her Healer’s Garb, “Sukunabikona!”

A corolla of black flower petals showered onto Aida and formed her Healer’s Garb—it was a short black kimono detailed with white kanji and beautiful colorful ukiyo-e art. It depicted the light red faces of various Japanese demons—onis—with blue sashes, flames, and clouds flowing across. The medical cross stood on the right side of the back of the Garb.

Her mouth was covered with a red oni mask with daunting long white teeth.

Aida strengthened her stance, applying more pressure to her legs as she squatted down and pulled her sheathed katana further back. A smokey, burnt orange animus laced with black swirled around her as her angry, orange eyes were glowing.

She did it again.

The move didn’t allow her opponent to see her shift from her spot, just an afterimage in the air like it was a separate entity. From the afterimage, shot out a large slash of orange energy. Like a projectile, it carried the sharpness of the blade and went on to cut multiple heads of the forest of trees behind Violet.

Another warning shot.

Aida’s Healer’s Garb did not aid her in speed but in sheer, destructive power. The heads of the spruce tree dropped onto the snow, still hissing out the intense aura of the Tsukikaze’s attack.

“Bring out your Healer’s Garb already,” Aida demanded.

Violet shrugged. “I’m not that cold. No thanks.”

“Fine then, I’ll make you.”

Aida dashed at Violet and leaped incredibly high into the air. As she fell towards her enemy, she produced a flurry of afterimages that swung their blades at Violet from every direction.

There was no chance that she could see her blade. No opponent of Aida had ever seen her cursed sword, in fact, due to her quickdraws, and she preferred to keep it that way.

By the time Aida hit the snow-covered ground, she was staring at a mutilated Violet, pieces of clothing and meat falling from her frame, sprinkling the snow with her blood.

Aida stood up straight and growled, not at Violet but at herself for falling for the illusion momentarily. She should’ve suspected such cowardly tricks while fighting the Neurologist. Her Healer’s Garb agreed. Aida sniffed the air and caught the witch’s floral perfume and malicious scent. Wheeling over to the other side of the forest where her slash didn’t reach, she moved towards one of the spruce trees, and Violet was standing at the very top, perfectly balanced on her feet, probably using a spell of some kind.

All so she can look down on her opponent, Sukunabikona communicated with Aida.

“Are you going to start barking up this tree now?” Violet said.

Aida answered by running vertically up the tree while slicing through the branches with her magic quick draw technique until finally reaching Violet. She hit her up the chin with the bottom of her sheathe, taking her into the air with her. During their freefall, Aida polluted the air with afterimages, butchering Violet into many pieces.

But there was no blood.

Aida stopped her attack and scanned the severed body parts falling through the cold air with her, and then Violet’s severed head turned its uniquely colored eyes to her and grinned. “The olfactory bulb is in your brain. I can control your scent, you dumb bitch.”

Letting out a rage-induced scream, Aida sliced the head in half and the entire illusion dissipated. With the top of her head pointing downward, Aida looked down and saw Violet, directly below her, looking up at her.

A spinning afterimage cleaved Violet’s head clean off.

There was blood this time but a comical amount, spraying upwards like a geyser. Aida spun out of the way. It was another goddamn illusion.

Aida flipped and landed on her feet, snarling at the headless figure before it vanished.

“Was using the word ‘bitch’ a bit too far?” Violet said, appearing behind Aida.

Aida leaped back and maintained her distance as she growled and inadvertently let out a couple of yaps.

“I know that word must be especially offensive for you,” Violet continued. “I’m sorry.”

“Apologize for killing angels!” Aida barked. “The angels already hate us, and you purposefully make the situation worse than it has to be!”

Aida made her quick draw stance once again. Right before she blasted off, a rogue blue thread zipped from behind and looped around her arm. It felt elastic but robust and muscly. She tried to shrug off its tightening, although it seemed like she provoked it as it extended down her katana and wrapped itself over the sheathe.

She looked back, following the trail of the blue vein, and found the Diagnostician standing erect with the thread extending from within the right sleeve of his Healer’s Garb. It was a long dark green coat that resembled a military general’s with epaulets on the shoulders.

“Are you serious?” Aida asked Zeke angrily.

His face was hostile, but with further inspection, Aida could see the compassion in his eyes. It was clear to her that he saw Violet as more than just a friend. He started pulling the thread back. “There’s no need for you two to fight,” Zeke said.

“Do you have any idea how many she’s killed?” Aida asked, screaming with tears welling in her eyes.

“Angels aren't people, you know,” Violet added.

“They’re still living beings!” Aida barked at Violet. “You’re a Healer! You’re supposed to value all life!”

“Don’t give me that crap. You don’t feel bad when you squash a bug or when you eat the fleas off you, now do you?”

Aida yanked off her mask, opened her mouth, and her teeth lengthened and sharpened. She chomped onto the vein that bounded her and tore it into two.

She continued to growl, her hackles raised, feeling the burning sensation on her back and neck spread as the hairs stood up. With her teeth showing and gums as well, she took on the image of a wild beast as she turned to Violet and let out a hoarse scream.

Going in for the kill, she was stopped by a red vein that snared her ankle this time. Aida hit the bed of snow face first and was dragged back to the Diagnostician. She pushed herself off the snow with a flip and bashed her knee into Zeke’s throat. The red vein’s hold was undone, and Zeke pulled back, cupping his neck.

Right after that, the Neurologist decided to get serious.

“Neurpatia!” Violet shouted.

The Healer’s Garb took the form of a white calico hooded cloak.

Violet held her hand up and lowered her middle and ring finger. A pink circle appeared on the snow-bedded ground before her with curved lines and half-circles across it. As it glowed, a long, cushioned chair arose from the magic circle.

“Violet, no!” Zeke shouted in a weak voice.

The Diagnostician’s shrill, pathetic, pleading voice distracted Violet. Aida took advantage of the situation and speed slashed through the chair, splitting it down the middle, disrupting the spell. Once the afterimage vanished, Aida ran up to Violet and feigned another quick draw move.

As Violet prepared to evade, Aida instead blasted a fist into her gut, getting a pained grunt out of her.

The witch recovered quickly and produced a blood-red flintlock. Aida recognized Violet’s motif of using netherworld weaponry she modified herself. Aida cut off the molten rock barrel of the demonic gun before she had the chance to fire a single hellfire bullet—Ignismorra, they were called.

Violet ditched the weapon in a hurry and conjured a pair of flaming pistols—more courtesy of the netherworld. She managed to fire, and Aida dodged the blazing projectiles with a roll.

Then, clones of Violet began to populate Aida’s surroundings, each armed with the otherworldly pistols.

The arsenal unleashed their wrath.

###

Akachi was rendered immobile as the grotesque transformation continued.

A tangle of diseased body parts, from humans to animals to demons, spilled out and dangled off Gill’s mouth. And then came tentacles, scaly tails, and long, dark creatures made of fur with one eye and sideway mouths. Gill had become an absolute freak of nature.

Gill slurped most of the random body parts back into his mouth, leaving just a couple of tails, tentacles, and human arms, although all the dark, long, wooly creatures remained.

One of the creatures with a single yellow eye stared at Akachi and released a pesky laugh, like a menacing younger brother up to no good.

“Look at his face! Look at his face! Look at his face!” It repeated in its child-like voice. “He’s scared!”

“Of course, he is scared. Who wouldn’t be?” one of the other wooly creatures said with a different but just as childish-sounding voice.

“I wouldn’t.”

“If you were a loser human, you would be.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Yes, you would, you liar!”

“What the hell is this?” Akachi said and looked into Gill’s eyes. They were soulless in great contrast to how animated the milling monsters dangling off his mouth were.

“Oh, looks like the ape wants some answers,” the first creature who started speaking said.

Akachi thoughts became a jumbled mess. Static white noise filled his ears as he got back into summoning position, trembling all over, and placed both hands over his magic circle. “You know what? Forget it. I am just going to put an end to this. You think I’m an ape? Fine, then take this!”

A giant skeletal ape broke out of the circle, banging its bony chest, and then erupted its eardrum-bursting roar, sending the spruce trees in the area into a great panic.

Gill and his monsters looked up at the ape, undaunted.

“Oh, he messed up the spell. His mind isn’t intact,” a wooly creature who was silent till now said.

The ape charged at the freak of nature and then veered to its left. Tearing trees of the way as it went on its own adventure.

Gill’s body shook as his monsters giggled at Akachi.

###

There was no time for Aida to sense which was the real one, and she had to dodge and slice through every bullet that came her way, which she succeeded flawlessly.

Violet made things more difficult for her by having the illusions teleport around as they fired, but Aida’s supernatural attributes kept her unscathed.

The illusion fell apart, and so did Aida’s human form.

The color of her hair took on a more rich orange palette as two fuzzy fox-like ears popped out the sides of her head alongside a large, fluffy tail from behind. Her fingernails were now as sharp as her teeth.

Aida decided it was time that she started to demonstrate some of her special skills as the Geneticist. She made her hand sign—one hand up with the index and middle finger facing up—and an orange double helix twisted and stretched from her fingers. She swung the double-stranded molecules like a polearm, and it passed through Violet’s arm.

The witch’s appendage began to bubble and pretzel, mutating into a mighty, colorful python that snapped at her. Violet stomped onto the large snake’s neck, pinning it down in the snow. She made a quick hand sign with her normal hand and summoned a giant hawk that zoomed at Aida.

Now she’s really just toying with me, Aida thought to herself. She shot the helix at the soaring bird, and its DNA structure was pulled apart and restructured, transforming it into a snowshoe hare. She caught the fluffy rabbit in her arms and kissed it on the head before gently setting it down. It hopped away.

Zeke came charging at Aida, and she sent him flying with the use of a slash from an afterimage. She didn’t even need to turn around.

“Tell your boyfriend to back off,” Aida said. “This is between you and me.”

“Unfortunately, Ezequias doesn’t always listen to me. But don’t you dare hurt him like that again!”

A red and blue vein flung towards a spruce tree to the side, and Zeke whipped himself back into the scuffle with a new gash on his chest that slowly healed.

Aida’s patience with the lovestrucked moron was wearing thin. She conjured another DNA-modifying helix and had the molecule pass through the side of Zeke’s forehead.

It swelled into a massive ball of meat and then burst into a griffin wing. It flapped up and down, taking Zeke to the sky.

His other half acted fast, producing a blue gun from her Garb and shooting at a nearby tree. Once the bullet connected, it sprouted a giant ice pillar that Zeke’s ankle got caught in.

As the wing continuously tried to fly away with Zeke, he screamed in agony as he was being pulled forcefully with his ankle frozen inside the pillar.

“Undo your spell. You are going to break him in half,” Aida jeered.

“No, you first,” Violet said and shot an ice bullet at Aida’s legs using just one hand. Then with the same hand still using her foot to pin the snake creature that is now her other arm, she made a lightning-fast succession of hand signs as Aida cut the ice bounding her.

Violet’s eyes glowed in accordance as powerful winds pushed up from a magic circle that formed under her. Her hood was pushed off her head, and her dark hair blew upwards. A mounted railgun raised in front of her from the circle. It was marked with sigils and bigger than her entire body. It looked like it belonged on a battleship. She grabbed the handles on the top of the mystical piece of artillery and clicked a button.

The giant sphere of pink energy that swelled off the barrel exponentially fast froze Aida in place.

“If I ever find you hurting Ezequias like that again. You’re dead,” Violet said as the devastating pink blast thrust into Aida’s torso.

The pain that multiplied through her body was so intense that it left her unable to scream. She saw Violet pull up the weapon, and the next thing she knew was flying in the air, losing consciousness.

###

Yaalon woke up back in his snowboarding gear but in a scorched body. Laying on a bed of snow had zero cooling effects on his searing agony. Mainly because most of that scorching pain came from within his soul.

Isaac was also back in his gear and crouched to him, holding both hands out as they radiated a pure white, healing glow. “You survived the soul burn, congratulations, I know you could do it, Yaalon!”

Yaalon glowered at Isaac. He would punch him square in the face if his body didn’t feel like it was taking a bath in lava.

“So, you’re investigating everyone, huh?” Isaac said. “Tell me, who do you suspect the other conspirators are?”

Yaalon didn’t respond. He just continued to glower.

“Hm, okay,” Isaac said, flashing his smile. “Is that the only thing you are investigating? Surely, there must be more… like that new virus that appeared in Zurich. Something like that must’ve caught your eye, brother. The timing is impeccable. It is almost as if this getaway was planned to be a distraction for us Healers as a sinister plot has its way.”

Yaalon didn’t want to give Isaac the satisfaction of being right, even though he was. He had been following the news about the unnamed virus that has infected a select few. The symptoms are grave but not deadly under medical care. The concern about the virus is that it is made out of stands never seen before in this world, leaving doctors stumped.

It has to be supernatural.

“I have a bad feeling about it, but I am positive that you will be able to put a stop to it before things get out of hand,” Isaac said.

Yaalon raised a brow.

“I am leaving this resort. I’ll leave things in your hands, okay, brother? Team up with Hezekiah and Ugo. They’ll be a great help.

###

The griffin wing melted away, and the side of Zeke’s forehead was back to normal. The ice pillar was undone by Violet, and Zeke nosedived into the snow.

Zeke wondered how much he would cry in pain if he didn’t have his Healer’s Garb on. He stood up, suspecting his left leg may be a little longer after being stretched for a lengthy period.

Then, an intrusive thought invaded his brain as he put his hand over his forehead.

“Wait, her spell….” Zeke turned over at Violet, whose arm was back to normal. “Does that mean she’s…?”

Violet shrugged and called off her Healer’s Garb.

Zeke gave her a look and ran in the direction Aida blasted off.