The world swam back into focus through a haze of searing pain. Bradley lay in a crumpled heap, the cold floor a stark contrast to the fire raging in his chest. Every breath was a sharp, stabbing reminder of his shattered ribs.
[So, are you gonna get up or not?] Spirit Bradley's voice was a low, resonant echo in the cavern of his mind, devoid of its usual mockery, replaced by a grim urgency.
Bradley groaned, the sound a raw, animal thing scraped from the depths of his throat. With a monumental effort that sent fresh waves of agony through his torso, he pushed himself upright. "Of course," he gritted out. As he spoke, dark spirit energy—thick and viscous as crude oil—swirled around his chest. It was cold, a chilling counterpoint to his feverish skin, visibly knitting shattered bone and torn muscle back together with an audible, wet crunching sound.
"Oh?" The nurse's voice was a silken purr from down the corridor. "Is the little hunter ready for round two?" She began walking toward him, her heels clicking a slow, deliberate rhythm on the blood-slicked floor, a metronome counting down to his demise.
A wide, predatory smile stretched her lips, a terrifying sight that promised prolonged suffering. She was savoring this.
Bradley cracked his neck, the pop loud in the tense silence. "Yeah." He didn't give her the satisfaction of a longer speech.
One moment he was leaning against the shattered wall, the next he was a blur of violent motion, a human projectile launched by pure will and dark energy. His form seemed to drink the dim light from the corridor as he shot towards her.
The nurse's smile only widened. She met his charge head-on, her body becoming a streak of pulsating crimson energy that tore through the air like a bloody needle.
The two forces, one of devouring darkness and the other of rending scarlet, closed the distance in a heartbeat.
They met in the middle of the corridor with a cataclysmic impact.
It was not a punch; it was a seismic event. Dark met red. Fist met fist. The very fabric of the space between them seemed to tear.
BOOM!
The school building convulsed. Inside the classrooms lining the hall, desks and chairs were thrown violently to the floor. Long, jagged cracks raced up the walls like lightning forks, plaster and dust raining down. The floor beneath their feet fractured violently, the concrete cratering under the concentrated pressure of their clashing spiritual auras.
They became twin forces of destruction, moving with speeds that defied human perception.
A punch was thrown and dodged, a kick was blocked and countered, each impact producing a visible shockwave of energy that pulverized the walls around them.
Bradley's mind was a supercomputer, his eyes tracking her every micro-movement, his brain working overtime to analyze, predict, and counter her fluid, brutal style. He parried raking claws meant to disembowel him, deflected spirit-imbued punches that could shatter steel.
They broke apart for a moment, chests heaving, and then lunged again. Fist met fist once more, a direct, brutal contest of power.
BOOM!
A colossal shockwave of intermingled black and red energy erupted from the point of impact, hurling them both backward thirty meters down the ruined corridor. They skidded to a halt, their boots carving grooves in the broken floor.
They didn't wait. They launched at each other again, the distance vanishing in an instant.
The Nurse's smile was a feral slash as she slashed her claws, now wreathed in a corona of blood-red energy, toward his throat.
Bradley responded not with a block, but with a devastating horizontal arc of his katana, the blade trailing a wake of pure darkness that seemed to cut the very air.
Claws met katana.
The building shook once more, a deep, groaning protest from its foundations. A cloud of dust and debris billowed out from the epicenter.
This time, it was the nurse who was thrown back. She flew out of the dust cloud, her body skidding uncontrollably before she was forced to slam her hardened claws into the stone floor, gouging deep, white scars into the material to halt her momentum.
A trickle of red blood escaped the corner of her mouth. She spat it onto the floor, a vulgar punctuation mark, and wiped her lips clean with the back of her hand.
"Not bad," she conceded, a sliver of genuine respect in her voice.
It was all the time Bradley gave her. He was already a dark comet descending upon her, his katana held high for a skull-splitting vertical cleave.
Her claws shot up to intercept the blow—CLANG!—the impact producing a blinding shower of white sparks. The floor beneath her boots instantly cratered further from the sheer, focused force of the blow.
But Bradley was already flowing into his next move. His knee drove upward to smash her jaw, but she caught it in her palm, the sound a sickening thud of flesh and spirit.
Using her own block as a platform, Bradley stepped onto her shoulder, pushed off with impossible agility, and executed a fluid backflip. Mid-air, his free hand flashed, throwing a fan of shurikens, each one infused with a sliver of devouring darkness.
She moved in a dizzying, serpentine blur, the projectiles embedding themselves in the walls where her body had been a nanosecond before.
The moment Bradley's boots touched the ground, he compressed space itself. He didn't run; he appeared before her, his movement a single, seamless burst of speed that left the air groaning in his wake.
The nurse's crimson eyes widened in genuine shock, her predatory confidence faltering for a split second.
The tips of his fingers stopped a mere inch from her stomach.
Sensing a terminal threat, she instinctively slashed downward with her other hand, her claws aiming to shred him from shoulder to hip.
"One Inch Punch." Bradley's voice was a whisper, cold and final.
A massive, perfectly compressed sphere of spiritual energy detonated from his palm. It didn't travel; it simply was, the force bypassing her physical form to explode directly inside her.
BOOM!
The sound was a deep, internal thunder. Her downward slash faltered, the claws stopping just short of his coat. Her eyes bulged, and she was launched backward as if hit by a runaway train, smashing into the far wall with a impact that shook the entire wing. She crumpled to her knees, clutching her abdomen, which was now visibly, horrifically concave. A torrent of bright, arterial blood erupted from her mouth, splattering the floor in a wide arc.
"Fuck..." she gasped, each word a wet, bubbling struggle. "This brat... actually made me bleed..."
And then she started to giggle. It was a high, broken, erratic sound that was far more terrifying than any roar. "Heheheheheh... it wouldn't be any fun if you couldn't fight back... I do so love it when my prey struggles." She slowly, painfully, pushed herself back to her feet, one arm still wrapped around her ruined midsection.
"You didn't even fuse with your spirit... and you're still standing... not bad at all," she rasped. Then, her form flickered and simply vanished.
It wasn't just disappearing; it was more like her existence was erased from space.
No presence. No sound. Nothing.
She was just gone.
Bradley's eyes darted frantically, his spirit sense stretching out, searching for any trace of her malevolent presence.
The fuck?! Her spiritual energy... it's just gone!
[On your left!] Spirit Bradley's warning was a desperate scream in his mind, but it was a fraction of a second too late.
She materialized out of nothingness on his left flank, her movement utterly silent. She did not teleport; she moved faster than his own senses could track her.
"However," her voice was a venomous whisper in his ear, "if you don't fuse now—you will die."
Her fist, wreathed in a final, concentrated shell of red energy, drove like a piston into the left side of his ribs.
CRACK.
The sound was sickeningly loud. Bradley gritted his teeth so hard he feared they would shatter, holding back a scream and the gush of blood he felt rising in his throat. He swung his katana in a blind, desperate arc to his left, but he was cutting through empty air. She had already sidestepped, her body flowing like water, and delivered a vicious uppercut that connected squarely under his chin.
THWACK!
His head snapped back, his vision exploding into stars and static. The blood he had been holding back finally erupted, a dark fountain that hung in the air for a moment before raining down. His thoughts scattered, coherence lost to the blinding pain.
The nurse, tracking his limp trajectory, met him in the air and drove another fist, reinforced with crushing spiritual energy, into his already shattered ribcage, doubling, tripling the agony.
He was hurled backward like a discarded toy, crashing through the corridor's drywall and disappearing into the darkness of an adjacent classroom in a thunderous shower of splintered wood, shattered plaster, and twisted metal.
BOOM!
The nurse stood amidst the devastation, her breathing slightly labored. She looked down at the fresh, warm blood Bradley had left on the floor. She crouched, elegant even in her brutality, and dipped two fingers into the crimson pool. She brought them to her lips, her tongue darting out to taste the fluid.
The moment his blood touched her tongue, her eyes flew wide open. A shudder of pure, ecstatic pleasure wracked her body. She licked her fingers slowly, sensually, a deep flush rising on her cheeks.
"Ahhhhhhhh," she moaned, her voice a seductive, throaty purr that was utterly at odds with the carnage. "Your blood... it tastes so gooood. So rich... so potent."
She rose to her feet, turning her gaze toward the gaping hole in the wall. "I'm sure you know that my kind grows stronger by feeding on the souls of the living, yes?" She received only silence in reply, which seemed to please her.
She continued, lecturing the darkness like a professor to a captive audience. "But that is the... pedestrian way. There is another, far more efficient path. Cannibalism. We feed on the spiritual energy of our own kind. Consuming a thousand human souls might grant a modest increase in power. But consuming one single, powerful spirit..." She trailed off, touching her flushed cheeks with both hands, a gesture of grotesque, girlish delight.
"...it can make you skyrocket! Isn't that just amazing, Bradley?!" She let out a breathy laugh. "It is, of course, strictly forbidden among our kind. But rules are for the weak. And after I consume you and your little parasitic friend, I will be far too strong for anyone to chastise!" She spread her arms wide in a triumphant, terrifying T-pose, reveling in her own declared supremacy.
---
Inside the ruined classroom, Bradley lay motionless in a nest of splintered desks and collapsed ceiling tiles. He was drenched in his own blood, his once-styled red hair a matted, sticky mess, his lower body pinned under a heavy oak teacher's desk.
He looked less like a warrior and more like a broken doll.
Spirit Bradley materialized, his form flickering with distress. He crouched next to Bradley's head, his expression grim.
[Wake up, you bastard,] he urged, his voice tight. He received no response.
Smack!
His spectral hand connected sharply with Bradley's cheek.
[Wake up!]
Smack!
He kept smacking him, the sound unnervingly solid, until Bradley finally stirred, a low groan escaping his lips. His eyes fluttered open, dazed and unfocused.
"You can stop... smacking me..." he slurred, each word a monumental effort.
Spirit Bradley ignored him, delivering one final, stinging smack for good measure.
"H-hey! I said stop!" Bradley protested weakly, bringing his hands up to cover his throbbing cheeks.
[You're finally awake,] Spirit Bradley said, his relief palpable.
"I've been awake... you just kept smacking me!" Bradley struggled to speak through the fog of pain and concussion.
[Yeah, right. You see?] Spirit Bradley gestured at Bradley's general state. [I told you not to waste time styling your hair. Look at it now. A complete bird's nest.]
"Shut up—argh!" Bradley groaned, trying to shift his weight and sending a fresh jolt of agony from his ribs. His jaw felt loose, wrong. With a choked, guttural scream of pain, he gripped his face and wrenched it back into place with a sickening pop.
[Now that you've had your fun and gotten your ass thoroughly kicked in your base form,] Spirit Bradley said, all traces of humor gone, [let's fuse. It's time.]
"Yeah, yeah," Bradley wheezed, managing a bloody, defiant smirk. "I just wanted to see how far I could push myself. But playtime's over. Let's go beat her ass."
"Beat who~?" A feminine voice, sweet as poisoned honey, whispered directly into his ear.
A chill, colder than any spirit energy, shot down Bradley's spine. He reacted on pure instinct, snatching his katana from where it lay and spinning with a pained cry to slash backward—but his blade sliced through nothing. The nurse had already retreated, now standing a casual ten meters away, examining her claws.
"What a creepy woman..." Bradley cursed, his heart hammering against his broken ribs.
"Aww, how offensive," she pouted, a mock hurt expression on her face.
Then she was gone. She reappeared directly in front of him, not with a blur, but with an instantaneous pop of displaced air. Her foot, encased in a deadly red aura, slammed into his chest with the force of a demolition ball.
CRASH!
He was hurled backward, smashing through the pile of desks that had pinned him, wood splintering around him like a bomb blast.
"Fuck, I am at my limit, Let's fuse, Brad, now!" he choked out, blood spraying from his lips.
Spirit Bradley didn't hesitate. He phased toward Bradley, a streak of luminous intent. But before he could merge, a clawed hand, now visibly wreathed in a complex pattern of crimson energy, shot out and grabbed him by his spectral throat.
[W-what?!] Spirit Bradley gasped, his eyes wide with utter, profound disbelief. [How is this possible?!]
The nurse smiled, a mischievous, cruel twist of her lips. "Did you truly believe I would just stand by and let you fuse right in front of me? How naive." Her grip tightened, and Spirit Bradley grunted in pain, his form flickering violently. "If you thought that I, a higher-rank spirit, couldn't touch another spirit, you were gravely mistaken. I am your equal in nature, if not in power. And you... you don't fight like one of us!" She slammed him down onto the floor, the spiritual impact cracking the stone beneath his intangible form.
Spirit Bradley groaned, trapped by a force he couldn't comprehend.
"You see," she began, her tone didactic, as if lecturing a dull student, "earlier today, I felt a malevolent presence. A power so dense and ancient it sent shivers through even my core. Then, my connection to my subordinate was severed. I assumed it was you. I was... apprehensive. But now, having fought you?" She laughed, a short, derisive sound. "For a higher-rank spirit, you are pathetically weak. Untrained. A newborn kitten with the fangs of a tiger but no idea how to use them."
She pointed her free hand toward Bradley, who was struggling to rise. A thick, oily red energy, darker than blood, coalesced in her palm.
"Since you are so woefully ignorant of your own nature, allow me to educate you." Her voice took on a lecturing quality. "The lower ranks can haunt and feed, but they cannot directly touch or harm a living being with a strong will—which most of you humans possess, protected by some frustrating, inherent force which I sometimes think that there is some kind of divine entity protecting you all. But we, the higher-ranked, we have broken that barrier. The world's resistance to us is lesser. Our will is law. And what truly separates us from the rabble... are our Special Abilities."
Special abilities? Bradley's mind, fogged with pain, struggled to grasp the concept. This was entirely new.
She savored their confusion. "Powers unique to the individual, awakened upon reaching our station. My Special Ability is Blood Bending. I can manipulate blood. My own... and that of my victims."
Bradley's eyes shot wide open, a cold dread washing over him that had nothing to do with his injuries. He remembered his long coat, now heavy and sodden, soaked with the blood of the slain students from the cafeteria. He remembered the pools of his own blood he was lying in. With a frantic, desperate energy, he tried to shrug off the coat, to crawl away from the crimson puddle—
"Too late," she whispered, her voice dripping with finality.
She closed her outstretched hand into a tight, cruel fist.
SPURT!
The sound was wet and horrific. A dozen jagged spikes, forged from the very blood that soaked his clothes and pooled beneath him, erupted from his back. They were a brutal, dark crimson, hardened to diamond sharpness. They lifted him from the ground, impaling him in a grotesque, bloody crucifixion.
A final, silent scream was torn from him. A fountain of warm, dark red blood poured from his mouth, his body convulsing once before going terrifyingly still.
[BRADLEY!] Spirit Bradley screamed, his voice a raw, psychic shatter of despair and fury. He thrashed against her grip, but it was like iron.
Ah... Bradley's consciousness, what little remained of it, flickered. Is this it? The thought was distant, peaceful almost. Quite a pathetic death. I didn't even... do much damage...
He saw his own arrogance now. A boy playing at being a warrior, challenging a centuries-old monster. The gap in power was an ocean, and he had been paddling in a puddle.
She was too strong... The thought was a final, weary admission. Still useless... until the very end, huh...? His fading gaze found his other self, still screaming, the sound now completely lost to the void claiming him.
Hahahaha... He laughed inwardly, a soundless, broken thing. I can finally die...
That was his last, coherent thought as the world dissolved into impenetrable, welcoming darkness. His body went completely limp, hanging from the gruesome scarlet spikes, a puppet with its strings cut.