By the time the shriek faded, Blanc already had another arrow nocked.
He loosed it without hesitation.
Thud.
From the grass, something burst up into the sky.
It was the eagle from before.
Yet none of the arrows remained in its body; they had fallen away as if never striking at all.
The bird climbed with blinding speed, too fast for Blanc's eye to track, rising until it vanished against the sun.
Then it turned, folding its wings, and dove.
The others shielded their eyes, struggling to ready themselves, but Blanc, despite the pain, kept his gaze fixed upward, searching through the glare of the sun.
The eagle's shape was thin, almost invisible as it streaked down, but it was enough.
He let his bow fall and drew his sword just as he caught sight of it again.
The creature shrieked as it approached, the sound breaking, warping, no longer a cry of a bird but something else entirely.
"CRIEEEEAAAGGH!"
The shriek twisted into a war cry as the eagle became a man, free-falling with clawed hands outstretched toward Blanc.
"My lo—" Celine tried to call out, but her words broke as the figure reached for her husband.
Blanc swung upward.
Too late.
Man, or beast, crashed into him with terrible force.
"Brother!" screamed the twins in unison as Lune drew her chakram while Kael prepared his bow.
Neither Celine nor Miyanna stood by and watched either, as they were already with their swords drawn, waiting for the dust to settle.
Out of the dust, Blanc and the man tumbled down the hill, locked in a brutal grapple.
Blanc landed a punch.
The man answered with a headbutt, then raked his hand across Blanc's cheek.
Another punch followed.
And another.
The man was slower, unable to reply every time Blanc attacked as they tumbled down the hill, while trying to wrestle their way to the ground.
It didn't help that the arrow wound beneath his shoulder, still bleeding, was visible in this form to Blanc, who planned to take advantage of it.
As the slope leveled out, Blanc seized his chance.
He clamped a hand on the man's shoulder and drove his thumb deep into the wound.
The man screamed, letting go of him just long enough for Blanc to twist free and force himself atop him.
Right before they crashed into the grass with a heavy thud.
The man's eyes opened wide as he tried to breathe in air.
Yet nothing came in.
He grabbed Blanc's clothes out of panic.
But soon let go as the coldness of metal was scraping his neck.
Blanc managed to draw his knife.
There were questions that had to be answered.
As Blanc spat out a mouthful of blood, he turned towards the man who was still gasping for air and watching him, his eyes full of rage.
And as Blanc heard the four running downhill, all he could show the man was a wide, bloody grin.
The man-eagle hybrid that stood pressed to the ground by Blanc's weight and knife had deep violet eyes.
His face had sharp angles.
His jawline and cheekbones were as if chiseled in stone.
Yet what stood out most was that pair of brown wings upon which Blanc's knees stood.
"Who and what the fuck are you?" hissed Blanc, still holding that grin which showed his white teeth now crimsoned with his own blood.
But the man didn't reply as he was still trying to gasp for air.
And just as the other four arrived and pointed their weapons towards him, his lungs finally made way for him to draw breath.
And with a large gasp as if it was that man's first breath, he took the air in.
But that only meant that the five people who stood above him with five different weapons drawn would require answers.
Answers he was not willing to provide.
"Speak," ordered Blanc, pressing the knife's blade against his skin.
"Fuck you," said the man through difficult breaths.
Which he soon regretted as a punch from Blanc's right hand fell over his left temple.
"What are you? A bird or a man?" Blanc asked.
"Whatever your mother wants me to be," the man chuckled, unfazed by the punch.
"Oh?" muttered Blanc, taking the knife from his neck, spinning it once, and stabbing it into the ground through the man's right palm.
As the man screamed, Blanc sneered, "A jester, in our midst, half man, half bird. I rather enjoyed that duck leg at the inn. Perhaps I'll try the recipe again."
The man steadied his breath, ignoring both pain and taunt.
His gaze slid to the two women holding swords to his throat. "Your wives? Cute little things. Vita, what I'd do to them if only-"
That was enough for the confused and angry Blanc.
The man didn't even get to finish his sentence before Blanc snapped.
His fists hammered down, blow after blow, until his mind blurred into red haze.
Blood spattered the grass; teeth scattered among it.
That man had to die in his mind.
There.
And then.
"Blanc, calm down," Celine pleaded, laying a hand on their husband's shoulder.
But there was no Blanc to hear her.
Only bloodlust, only the need to watch life drain from the creature's eyes.
It was no longer husband or brother who struck; it was a harbinger of death.
A being of pure instinct.
Step.
Step.
Step.
Something rushed toward them.
Even in his frenzy, Blanc heard it first.
With a sudden twist, he freed the knife from the man's hand and hurled it past Kael and Lune.
They froze, shocked by the savagery before them.
The blade flew straight and true past them, biting into the ground a fair bit of a distance away, just as two women came to a halt.
"Heru!" they shouted, trying to press forward.
But Celine's voice cut sharply across the field, "Move a single muscle, and I'll bury this sword in his neck."
Only as Celine spoke did Miyanna and the twins turn towards the women.
"Don't you dare!" yelled one of the two women.
"Dare?" Miyanna spat, "He fucking attacked us."
"It's a grave sin for you to hurt our husband while we are here," said Celine, pressing the tip of her sword just a little bit harder into the man's neck, "This man deserves to die."
"You will die before your sword wounds him," said one of the women, unmoving.
"Shall we find out?" Celine asked as she pressed the sword lightly on the man's neck.
"And who are these two ladies, Heru, hm?" Blanc asked, his face wicked, "Are they perhaps your wives?"
"Don't you dare touch them…" the man muttered through all the wounds on his face, his voice trembling.
"Oh? Is that fear I smell, or did you shit yourself?" Blanc asked, his bloody teeth still visible for Heru to see.
"Fuck you…" The man said through broken teeth.
"Let go of him," said the other woman.
"Now, why would I do that, hm? He followed us for over an hour and was preparing to attack," Blanc replied, finally letting his grin and anger subside.
"Because you are enemies," Heru muttered, but a slap from Blanc silenced him.
The two women wanted to move, but as soon as they attempted to make a step, Celine pressed her sword lightly on the man's throat until a groan left his lips, and the women stopped.
"You don't get to speak," said Blanc before turning towards the two, "Speak. And you better answer truthfully, or you will have to carry the winged bastard's corpse back into the hole you came from. Am I understood?"
The two women stood there, lost in thought for a few moments.
Just enough for Blanc to take a good look at them, too.
They were the same as this Heru was, but different at the same time.
They had on their bodies beast parts, which perhaps made them the same thing Heru was.
However, their body and animal parts were different from his.
The woman on the right had something behind her legs that looked like a yellow tail, but besides that and her yellow catlike eyes, she looked normal, without any other weird parts attached to her body.
Even her clothes appeared to be of a decent quality.
The woman on the left looked normal in the sense that no animal parts were visible, but, even though she was slim and shorter than the woman on the right, her eyes were of a crystal white that reminded Blanc of the first winter snow, with only a black dot in the middle of them, breaking that thought of his.
Her ears were quite round behind her pale grey hair, and even her clothes were of a perfectly clean white.
But one thing jumped in Blanc's eyes. Besides her neck, where the white clothes should have pressed against her skin, a few ghostly pale white hairs were standing between, stopping the two from touching.
Since he did not receive an answer even after a few seconds, Blanc spoke again.
"Am I understood?" he asked.
"Y-yes," said the woman on the right, stuttering.
"Good," Blanc nodded, "Who and what are the three of you?"
"I cannot tell you yet who we are," began the woman on the left, her voice calm, "But I can tell you what we are."
Blanc blinked once, waiting for an answer. "Well?"
The woman sighed, but replied all the same, "We are Metamorphs."