Tic… Tac
Time flew past faster than Halo realized, the sun dropping steadily lower.
This was Silent Hill, and noise was clearly unwelcome. Even the Sinners nearby didn't dare break the silence. The only sounds were their careful movements in the distance, scarcely louder than a breath.
Halo and his clone had been leaping between shadows, staying hidden from the circling Sinners above and the watchful sentinels guarding the castle on the hill, but their seamless teamwork couldn't last forever.
There was a giant, nightmarish dog before them. Its lips were peeled back in aggression as fluid drooled between clenched teeth, its body unnaturally packed with bulging muscles.
It seemed as though it was the parent of the Sinner Halo's clone slain moments ago.
But that was less of their problem. The Sinner's head was slightly before Halo's clone, sniffing it out.
Halo was a few steps away, frozen in place as he gripped his dagger tightly, his mind analyzing their situation.
His gaze remained fixed on the Sinner as its crimson eyes tracked his clone's movements.
Was it affection or distress driving the creature? He couldn't tell.
With darkness approaching, finding shelter was critical, but the Sinner had spent nearly ten minutes prowling around his clone, blocking any chance to flee.
However, the Sinner abruptly shook its head with an annoyed snarl. Halo instinctively took a step back.
Without a warning, the Sinner struck at his clone, sending it bouncing off the ground.
Halo gritted his teeth in irritation as his legs buckled in fear, but forcefully assumed his fighting stance as the creature steadily walked in his direction.
His clone rose to its feet, unfazed, while the Sinner's breath came in chunks paired with an annoyed snarl.
Halo's mind churned desperately. The thing would probably kill them without much effort, and survival was all that mattered.
However, its fixation on sniffing his clone pointed to one conclusion, Perverted Sinner. A tier above anything he'd successfully fought.
But death? Unacceptable. Not yet.
He took a deep breath.
Night would make everything exponentially more dangerous. The objective hill was barely a mile distant, and retrieving the Magnus Blade would grant him freedom to escape.
Before any of that, though, he had to eliminate the Sinner barring their way.
His eyes rolled in his clone's direction, and it gave him an understanding nod.
His hands shook as he gripped the weapon, body retreating without conscious thought.
Two terrifying firsts converged, his inaugural battle against a Perverted Sinner and his first real use of the dual daggers in combat.
Lightning-fast, the clone's blade carved into the creature's muscled spine.
The transformation was immediate, the Sinner shrieked in agony and snapped around to attack in a single flowing motion, its strike missing the clone by a fraction.
For all the sharpness of Halo's daggers, the blow yielded nothing but an anguished roar. No gash. No blood. Even so, Halo was mesmerized by his clone's decisive action.
Their prospects were grim at best, but despite knowing this, Halo was determined to fight with everything he had.
Halo capitalized on the distraction and rushed in, a grin painted across his face. He dove into a slide through the creature's limbs, blade striking its gut and rebounding as if hitting armor.
His behavior made no sense, even to himself. Who slides on their knees toward a creature that could kill them? Still, he'd done it without thinking.
Fear crashed through him as the realization struck, what an idiot he'd been. The Sinner's thick leg was already hurtling toward his head, impossibly fast and accurate.
'I'm dead.' The only thing that crossed his mind.
Just before the limb could crush his skull, his clone appeared and shoved him clear. Halo tumbled across the ground, thoughts spinning in confusion.
He pushed himself up, paused for a fraction of a second, then looked back toward where he'd left his clone.
Its skull was crushed inward, horribly misshapen from the impact.
Halo swallowed hard.
That strike would have killed him instantly, painting the stones with his brain. Gratitude warred with concern over his clone's careless sacrifice, though his expression betrayed nothing.
"What the heck was that? You could have died!"
It looked at Halo then, featureless except for those bright eyes, while its shattered skull slowly pressed back into shape.
The clone nodded once, gently, as if to say: I'm okay.
Halo would have appreciated a moment or two to reconnect his thoughts. Was his clone immortal? But the Sinner gave him no room to think.
The onslaught continued without mercy, fast, brutal and precise. Halo soon wished they'd retreated.
His clone took the full brunt, savage bites that would have splintered Halo's body beyond recognition.
It absorbed everything.
Though the mutilated flesh reformed quickly, Halo couldn't stomach the sight.
Though outmatched, the two refused to go down easily. Halo felt his muscles burning, his limbs screaming in exhaustion, but every strike they landed carried brutal, bone-jarring force.
Even that wasn't enough to pierce the Sinner's iron hide.
However, every determination needed similar strength to back it up.
Eventually, they fell short. Halo was too drained and battered to even twitch, leaving his clone to weather the onslaught alone.
The relentless damage mounted until even the clone's resilience wavered and its movements grew sluggish.
Halo found himself calling out to his god. Death.
He wasn't ready to die.
In that moment, it seemed Death had truly come to his aid. A powerful blow cracked against the Sinner's jaw, the impact sending it reeling backward on unsteady legs.
Halo's mouth parted in both confusion and relief.
It was the octopus-like Perverted Sinner he'd freed himself from earlier. The violent force of its entrance made one thing clear, it was fighting to take back what it considered rightfully its.
The Sinners' fight meant nothing to Halo and his clone right then.
This was a chance they had to seize. Mustering their last reserves of energy, Halo draped himself across his clone's shoulders.
Through sheer determination, step by painful step, they made it to a distant structure offering shelter.
The two Perverted Sinners' conflict exceeded all of Halo's expectations.
The desolate structures nearby suffered further destruction as their exchanges created horrific bone-breaking sounds, each impact louder and more violent than the last.
"I think the Sinner loves me." Halo forced himself to murmur something humorous as he leaned against the wall, trying to relax his muscles.
His clone remained razor-sharp, however. Its black clothes hung in strips, body parts still knitting themselves back together, yet it refused to stop scanning for threats.
Then came a fierce wind, loud and sudden. The moment it passed, the battling Sinners fell silent. Halo's body seized up completely, every limb going stiff and immovable.
His clone checked the battle's direction, then turned back with a gesture that needed no translation: stay still. Halo knew at once what it meant, a higher-ranked Sinner had ended the conflict.
Sweat formed on his brow.
This was bad.
The danger was twofold, if the Sinner surveyed their direction, it would find them trapped with no escape route. And with nightfall complete, even a minor error could draw the attention of every Sinner nearby.
While Halo remained lost in thought, his clone moved forward, passing him with careful footfalls. In the next breath, he heard an aggravated snarl emanating from his right.
Halo's heart sank. He turned to the source.
The darkness and his clone's position prevented him from seeing the Sinner clearly, but Halo understood the danger, another growl would guide the superior Sinner directly to their hiding spot.
It will be their end.
Mid-thought, the creature began its snarl. In that exact moment, his clone's dagger swept across, severing the head completely from its shoulders.
The system's bronze display emerged, informing him of his Sin Fragments, newly acquired ability, and his clone's growth, but he dismissed it without hesitation.
They needed to move now.
The sound, brief as it was, had been far too loud.
Halo willed his broken body into motion despite the screaming pain, which dulled slightly when his clone discovered a safe spot and motioned in its direction.
A fallen section of wall left a narrow passage, dark and relatively isolated, with just enough room. Halo squeezed through and pressed his back against the standing wall.
His muscles gradually unwound from their tension, but his clone only gestured for the dagger before positioning itself on watch.
A tired smile crossed Halo's face as gratitude washed over him.
He knew what the clone was, a shadow-self that could reason and plan but possessed no emotions and human warmth.
Even so, he appreciated it deeply. In the real world, no one had ever cared for him this way. Not his best friend, not anyone.
Before he knew it, sleeping was already claiming him.