Black Fang dove headfirst down through the open sky with the battlefield rushing up to meet her and the wind tearing at her clothing hard enough to strip the violet comet trail into wisps behind her.
A second into her freefall, her hand found the katana's grip.
She drew it in a single motion and the blade rang free of the scabbard with a clean metallic note that cut through the wind like a second edge, high and sharp.
"[Damnation's Fang]," she murmured, and her serpent tattoos moved.
Every inked serpent on her body lifted from her skin in the same heartbeat, flowing from her shoulders, her back, and her thighs in dark rivers that converged along her right arm toward the hand gripping the katana, and where they reached the steel they bled into the metal and became part of it.
The edge ignited in an infusion so dense the blade looked dipped in concentrated night.
