Men scattered like rats in the dark alleyways of Fe Sin, where artificial lighting touched almost every corner, and scum licked the rest with great vigor.
Every now and then, one more door slammed shut. Windows were shuttered and boarded with similar fervor, because night had arrived.
Nights in the underworld were very different from those of the world above, because the dark caverns weren't meant to be inhabited by things other than the creatures that hid in the dark and fed off the light.
Electric-fueled lights sputtered with strain, but inevitably fizzed into darkness. They would regain light by morning, but not until then. Faint bioluminescence brought some visibility to the underworld, reminiscent of the overworld's stars. They lined not only the Ceiling but also the walls of buildings, each layer of the city glowing like a microcosm of its own.
It was cold, wherever the Ashin swept through. Light itself reared and yelped, unwilling to accept their embrace. Formlessly they pounced from shadow to shadow; a single entity with a million faces, yet also a single face across a million creatures. These were the true-born natives of the underworld, beasts of no specification other than a seemingly insatiable desire for flesh.
But not all of them were born of the dark. From the same alleyways that the city men fled, Zora's footsteps rang loud despite her slow pace, chasing off the creatures that stayed behind to lurk. Like uncovered insects, the shadows scurried away from her presence.
She knelt down in an alley between large metal buildings, examining the residue at the scene. More than the piss and feces, the leftover drugs and rubbish, there was magic that left its trace on the world. It sang to her, in a voice no others could hear. And it whispered to her, of secrets that only the architecture and fauna should know.
Zora chased the line that was given to her, hounding after one specific Ashin whose name she held like a leash. Closing the distance again and again, she quickly found it hiding in the corner made by two adjacent buildings.
"Come here, Azi."
The little creature stretched and yawned, trembling but clearly unafraid. Azi nimbly climbed up Zora's outstretched arm, chittering happily, much to Zora's chagrin. Its body and limbs were small and very… rotund, but that didn't stop it from being as agile as rodents less than half its size.
This was the seventh night in two weeks that Azi had run away in the night– a concerning number of nights.
"You worry me, Azi," she said, playing with the little creature's face. Its large eyes reflected the bioluminescent world with a starlit wonder, looking upon her with great fondness.
"Your father and I would say the same about you, Zora."
A well-groomed man walked out of the shadows. It was impressive that he hid himself so well, considering his white robes created immense contrast with the dreary dark metal of the rest of the world.
"Your father asked me to give you dinner, while I'm here. He included meals for your little friends, too."
"...Thanks, uncle. Hold Azi while I take this."
He handed her a paper bag,
"I refuse. The little beast hates me."
"I know. Has the overworld been calm? You seem to be stopping by often, these days."
"Well… I can't just ignore your father, after all. He hasn't been himself for a while now."
Azi, free of its cradle in Zora's arms, climbed up her shoulder as it used its many legs to latch onto her cloak like it would onto a plant's branches.
"Anything else you came here for? Special Rank Adjudicator Kenji?"
Kenji grinned.
"You know me too well, kid."
From inside his garbs, he pulled out a little box. It had intricate markings on it, and the material itself was clearly special– a cracked black-and-red substance that was oddly smooth.
"Tesson can make a weapon for you with this, but only if you take it to him yourself."
He quickly removed his hand when Zora tried to take it.
"You've been avoiding him for too long– he's your flesh and blood, in the end."
Azi chittered, mandibles clacking. There was noticeable disdain even in its limited expressivity.
Zora sneered.
"Always an ulterior motive. I'll consider it."
"Consider it harder. It took a lot to get, even for me."
He held it tantalizingly close, but he was too fast even for her.
"I'm still an Ashin, after all. I might just eat it instead."
Kenji's fierce warrior face slowly softened, lined with a deep-set sadness. Where there was an easygoing smile were creases drawn taught with tension. But that was only for a second.
"You're making your father very worried, kid."
He had nothing else to say, after all.
"...I know. But I'm not worth the world."
"He'd disagree."
"And he's an old fool. He has… he has people to take care of."
She pulled up her cowl, hiding her face.
"I'll drop by the forge."
"Good kid." He tossed the box over to her.
She smiled, and began walking away, with Azi chirping nervously. She could tell when Kenji left, because the world sighed in relief when the space he filled was suddenly emptied, as if a heavy burden had been lifted from the seams of reality. That was the only way she could tell he had left.
The walk home wasn't as long as she thought.
***
"Talin. We're going to head to the Iron Palace tomorrow, so tell the twins."
"Zora! When did you return?"
Talin's short stature made his way to the door, his formal manners unbefitting his age. In all the time they'd been siblings, it was only recently that he allowed himself her name.
"Just now. Take Azi."
This time, the little creature was very compliant, and crawled its way into Talin's embrace. Zora smiled slightly, resisting the urge to pinch the kid's cheeks.
"The old man gave us food. Take a bowl."
Cold noodles again. They were soggy now, and the eggs were cut into those strange shapes she used to complain about a long time ago. Or at least, pretended to complain about.
The little group she had made camped out in this abandoned inn, one of the last buildings left with a mostly wooden structure. Even the slums nowadays were at least coated in dull metal, if not entirely made of it. Fe Sin being underground meant that architects built not just from the ground-up, but from the Ceiling-down, and only various metals were structurally sound enough for these kinds of towering pillars that hung like manmade stalactites.
This was their most recent hideout, and the one they liked most. There were even enough rooms for each of them, though Talin still chose to sleep in the same room as his older siblings.
Four bowls of noodles sat on the kitchen table, her bowl unwrapped and half-eaten. The twins would come down later, whenever they felt like it– the smell of broth had already begun to waft throughout their home.
"Anything I need to know?"
"Litost and Mei came back and now they're sleeping. And we had a visitor, asking for you."
"By name?"
"Yes."
"I'll check it out when we return. Thanks, little man."
Talin nodded. He unwrapped his bowl and started eating serenely, all while balancing Azi's figure on top of his head. Whenever they had a visitor that asked for her by her real name and not her codename, it meant they were a higher up of the Spider Nest organization.
In the few hours until the day-lights turned on, she would get some well-deserved rest. She ruffled Talin's hair, which was cut short to a near buzz, and wearily headed to her room upstairs.
Though she wanted to sleep immediately, Azi had found its way upstairs and forced her door ajar with an annoying creak.
Crawling up to her bed, Azi snuggled itself into her arms, where it presented her with something shiny that it held in its mandibles– a ring of subtle but intricately engraved design, of a serpentine creature clad in scales of pure white skewered by an equally white blade.
"What? Azi, where'd you get this?"
No, it couldn't be–
Zora sat up instantly, trying to hear farther and farther until finally she heard a whisper, and it told her to run.
Hoisting Azi onto her shoulder, she quickly hurled the ring at the wall and bolted out the door.
"Talin, get the twins! We're going right now!"
A low hum, an empty space where a presence should be. An Adjudicator.
Being as small as he was, Talin was still eating. He was in the middle of enjoying his food, and though his shock would normally have been funny to her, there was no mirth to be found in this situation.
"A Snowman's here. Let's go."
Talin was the youngest, but undoubtedly the most helpful. He spoke very little, but always seemed to understand things well. He nodded somberly, pursing his small lips like he had something to say. But he didn't say it, and instead ran to wake the other two siblings in their little family. Two bowls remained untouched on the table, the aroma painting the house with some faint heat.
The little family had no time to orient themselves, as Zora kicked the front door open, waiting for her siblings to follow while keeping track of the ever-decreasing distance between the Adjudicator and themselves.
Groggy and upset, Litost dragged Mei, and they were in turn guided by Talin, whose hand was being yanked by Zora this way and that way through the abandoned urban streets of the inner city. They would have to leave everything behind, but they hadn't had much to begin with.
Though they made distance from the rented-out home, it seemed as if the presence got closer rather than being left behind. As if it was tracking them closely and specifically.
Zora grit her teeth, understanding that the kids were simply too slow. Kneeling down on the metal floor, she urged all three of her siblings to climb onto her back, shifting her weight as each one of them climbed on. Once they were secure, she began running faster– her feet beat the ground as she accelerated, trying but failing to escape the incoming Adjudicator.
The Webs were huge, spanning multiple layers of cityscape through thousands of buildings, half of which bridged the floor to the great underworld Ceiling. Regardless of how fast she went, it felt like she crossed no distance at all.
She ran faster. As an Ashin, her physiology itself was different from a normal human's, and her muscles grew taught with the firmness of steel, her tendons unbreakable and her joints unyielding. She cut lines through the concrete underbrush, hot-streaking with more speed than most of the underground's vehicles. And even still, the Snowman grew closer still, falling down upon her with the inevitability of snowfall.
Not understanding the Snowman's specific powers, she had thought that her intimate knowledge of the extremely dense cityscape would be a boon to her and a disadvantage to her pursuer.
Yet, risking her speed by turning her head to look, she could see the snow– the brilliant white robes– glinting faintly in the distance–that distance wasn't increasing, and the snowfall wasn't slowing at all.
She could already feel exhaustion trying to take a hold of her beating heart, whispering into her ear of failure, of loss. Breaking through regardless, Zora could feel her speed slowly draining, slowly leaving her. The Snowman drew closer.
In a few seconds she would likely be able to discern key features, but for now all she could think about was the fact he was gaining on her. Within moments, running would be completely futile, and then she'd have to fight.
Which, in all fairness, wasn't the worst– the Adjudicator's presence was much smaller than Kenji's, so he wasn't a Special Rank. That itself did not guarantee anything, however, merely noting that her hunter was a lesser being than a demigod.
Pushing her legs just a little bit more, she noticed that the distance that she covered was smaller even though her strides were vaguely the same.
The distance to Tesson's territory was still great, no matter how far she had traveled just now. Even by train the journey would take an hour and change, so to simply run was out of the question. However, there was one last hope for her to outrun the Snowman: the area where they lived was called the Webs, because the zipline-slings created so many overlapping wires that they looked like spiderwebs from a distance.
With the kids on her back, supporting all of them with just her right hand, she jumped and reached out with her left to a higher-hanging sling– a blue sphere in the center of the machinery whirred to life with electric power, shooting lightning throughout the body of the sling, and launching her up the cable at a speed higher than she could run right now. Though slower than a train, the slings avoided ground-locked obstacles and cut a lot of travel time.
They also traversed the multiple layers of the underground, sending her up multiple "floors", which were areas with giant platforms where multiple webs converged. Rising into the air, she noticed a speck of white in her peripheral, neither growing closer nor leaving. Even now they hadn't escaped.
Tesson's territory was hard to get to, even by train, because it was so elevated within the underworld. The Webs would be their best chance– the last of the slings brought them closest to the mountain upon which his territory lay.
However, just like her running earlier, the sling started to slow down, shooting sparks as raw energy clashed against the cable it traversed upon.
Zora would have to fight. The more the sparks sang, the more she realized it was inevitable. But she delayed it as long as she could, so that the children would be safe. From one sling, when it wasn't even finished moving up its wire, she used all her forward momentum to launch herself towards another sling, bracing her arm for the impact.
That was one of the advantages of the Webs– the widespread nature of the cables allowed for all kinds of self-transportation. The new sling trembled with the sudden added weight, but flared to life all the same, shooting itself with speed renewed and unburdened by the Snowman's pursuit.
She played a dangerous game, balancing the timing that she would jump to a new sling. If the speed of a sling became too slow, it had the risk of shutting down immediately, which obviously spelled doom. However, jumping too quickly would mean missing the next sling and falling. They were high up now to the point where the onlooking vagrants were as small as they were landbound– a few wrong moves would mess up the slings entirely and send her hurtling back to any of the cold steel floors of the Webs.
Yet, she managed– even as sweat beaded her brow, as her little siblings grunted with pain and fear, the distance between her and the Snowman had not decreased all that much.
The mountain's figure grew closer, towering over the rest of the underground. Just a few slings would take them close to the peak, where a towering hall held its open maw towards visitors and invaders alike.
Suddenly, the sparking of the sling grew unbearable, and the force with which it slowed became incomparable to before. The sling itself imploded, mechanisms malfunctioning and launching Zora- forward momentum included- towards the base of the mountain.
Midair, she turned around and hugged her little family, bracing her tougher body for the brunt of the impact.
Bang!
She crashed with enough force to disfigure the face of the mountain where she landed, the collision creating a small crater that shook her bones and ligaments. Though she could feel the approach of the Adjudicator, the pain made it hard to breathe. Taking just a second to gather her forcefully dispersed breath, she let go of the tight hold she held on her siblings, telling them to run towards the castle on the hill. It would at least welcome the children kindly should she fall.
With no one behind her, with no scared sibling to protect, she pulled out two orbs from her pockets. As an Ashin, one not born from the dark, the magics were beyond her, so she had to improvise. From her father's own mighty talents, she had forced the forge to bless her smithing, to consecrate her mortal weapons.
The snow fell, and a Snowman creeped closer, forcing its unnatural presence into her world.