The Astral soul system-Chapter 123: It’s you?

Sable dropped the dead drained body and wiped her mouth with her sleeves,her red eyes and fangs giving her an air of danger in the night. She looked at the body and somehow she knew that all the bodies she had drained completely and all the energy she got still couldn’t compare to that breif few seconds in the blood moon.

The dark cloud eventually passed, lighting up the street again.

Sable seemed a bit dazed for a second as she just stared blankly but after a few seconds she suddenly said.

"Ugh,gross. Why was his so thick?No one told me the consistency would matter."

She looked at her bloody hands and just stared silently for a few seconds. Her nose and ears suddenly twitched and she said nonchalantly

"I can still hear you "

Her nails grew into claws and she suddenly thrust her claws directly to her right.

"You’re afraid...i can feel it in your heart...i can smell it in your scent "

Sable commented ominously as blood dripped onto her hand. She heard strained breathing and gasping but still couldn’t see anyone. After a few seconds, the person was unable to keep it up and revealed themself.

A man suddenly appeared directly beside Sable, and now that he was visible, it could be seen that Sable’s hand was in his chest.

"There you are"

"M...monster" the gangster spat out, holding onto Sable’s arm to support himself.

"Monster?" Sable repeated with an innocent expression on her face.

"Yes, that’s right. I’m a monster..."

Sable answered her own question as she felt his heart beat flicker in and out. He was dying.

"And I like it!"

The gangster’s vision faded to black, the last thing he saw being Sable’s glowing red eyes returning to a dull blue and her fangs reverting to her normal perfect white teeth.

Sable brought the body closer and sunk her teeth in before draining the body dry.

She threw it to the ground and sighed.

"That was close. If it wasn’t for that weird heart sonar...thing, he would’ve gotten me"

Sable took a deep breath, focusing on her surroundings, the rustling of leaves and howling of the wind.

She looked at her hands that were still reverting from the claws to her regular nails.

*Sigh*

"How am I gonna explain this to my parents?"

Sable shook her head, forgetting that for now. She had already decided to wholeheartedly accept this part of her so she wouldn’t let doubt creep in again.

"I wonder if Zaine’s okay"

As soon as she thought that out loud,a strange mist suddenly appeared in the air in front of her and a sweet scent filled her nostrils.

Concentrating, Sable realized that there wasn’t actually any mist,it was similar to the heart sonar she could use to see the gangsters, only this time it was her nose and not her ears.

Taking a deep whiff of the scent,a mental image of Zaine suddenly appeared in her mind and she felt like if she followed it she would find him.

Sable picked up her katana, cleaning off the blood on it while making sure she didn’t lick it. She still needed to have SOME self-control. She cleaned the whip to and returned it to her side.

Then she started following the mist, letting her nose lead the way. She made a few twists and turns, walking for about a minute before a sweet scent entered her nose.

"Blood"

Unlike before, she wasn’t thrilled to smell what was comparable to nectar or milk and honey for her. Blood meant fighting, and fighting meant...

Remembering her own experience she imagined Zaine going through that and although it wasn’t Zen, she still felt uncomfortable and increased her speed, although in the back of her mind, she felt a voice telling her with absolute certainty that he was fine.

It only took a few seconds for her to reach the alley and the first thing she saw were dead bodies at the entrance.

She walked in and saw a familiar figure sitting on the ground and catching his breath.

Letting out an unconscious smile, Sable walked closer.

"Hey, Zaine. You’re oka-"

Zaine turned to look at her and as he did, the first thing she noticed was his right arm,or rather, lack thereof.

"Zaine! What happened?" Sable said, not realizing that she felt absolutely no attraction to the blood dripping from his hand.

"Oh, this. It’s fine, it’ll heal" Zaine answered nonchalantly

He had been sitting here waiting for it to completely heal. The problem was that he had ran out of Astra,so although it was regenerating, it would immediately be used to help heal his arm. He was actually about to start meditating to speed up the process.

"This is absolutely not okay" Sable knelt next to him, holding his arm that ended at his forearm.

"How can I help?"

Zaine shrugged.

"I need something with energy. Beast crystal, ability book..."

Sable immediately touched her storage ring and a few seconds later pulled out about five beast crystals.

"Will these work?"

A bit surprised, Zaine answered

"Yeah " and took them

He threw one into his mouth, crunching it and swallowing, immediately gaining ten astra.Theia was about to tell him he didn’t need to eat the crystals completely but just gave up and let him do what he wanted.

He ate the rest and his arm suddenly started to rapidly heal, regenerating until it was completely the way it was before, annoyingly so.

Zaine stared at the mark that had grown back with the arm, snarling but there was nothing to do about it.

Seeing he was upset, Sable gave him a pat on the shoulder and a smile which seemed to calm him down a bit.

"That’s... incredible" Sable said, still unsure who was more monstrous between the two of them.

"But you’ve got to be less reckless. You got seriously hurt"

Zaine scoffed and looked at her.

"Looks like you didn’t go through it unscathed either "

To that, Sable didn’t have a response. After all, Zaine had lost a hand, she had gotten her neck snapped.

Despite both looking like they were a hundred percent,they both didn’t go through it unscathed,strangely though, they were both stronger than when they started.

"Got any more?"

"You’re hopeless"

Sable started handing him crystal after crystal until Zaine himself refused them. His health and energy was full.

He didn’t ask why she had so many, partly because he remembered Zen gathering them.

"So. What do we do now?"

"Now we head to their base"

"What if there are more -"

Zaine cut her off.

"There aren’t. I read their minds and found out that this was their full force for patrolling. As long as you killed all the ones on your side, we’re free"

"You...read their minds?"

Zaine suddenly realized he’d divulged a major secret

"Didn’t you do something similar?"

Sable suddenly remembered what she’d done to Darryl. Honestly, she had no idea exactly what she’d done,or if she could even do it again.

’Guess he wasn’t lying about not being human. He can do some... special things,just like me. He doesn’t... feel like me though. He uses cores instead of blood’

Zaine suddenly rubbed his nose and looked at her

"Did you change something? You smell..."

"Sweet? Cozy? Safe?"

"... Yeah" he replied.

’He smells it too’ She thought.

"I smell it off you too"

Suprised, Zaine sniffed himself but didn’t smell anything special other than the blood of his enemies.

"Weird "

They both stood up and decided to ignore the smell thing for now. At least they could probably distinguish each other in a crowd.

Zaine stretched a bit, cracking his knuckles and neck.

Zaine noticed that the black goop didn’t come out of his body to cover his mark but he remembered Black was resting so he didn’t bother. They had hidden him in a discreet corner of the city on their way here, and although Sable was worried, Zaine assured her that almost nothing could kill it and it would find its way back to him no matter the circumstances, so she was a bit more calm.

The two of them, using the map quickly made it to the building where the boss was hiding.

Immediately they came into view,two gangsters at the entrance noticed them and were about to yell when

’Ghost step’

’Dash’

The wind howled, resembling the vengeful moans of a spirit as Sable disappeared, before briefly appearing behind the gangster and slicing his head clean off. Zaine’s movement was more straightforward, with the enhancement of shadow steps, he dashed forward, grabbing the gangster’s throat and squeezing it in his hand.

He looked at Sable, pleasantly surprised to find something that functioned similar to dash and helped with rapid movement. The main difference was that Zaine was straight forward while Sable’s technique made use of multiple quick twists and turns, taking advantage of the darkness and the natural gaps in human vision to reach them without them noticing, and the whooshing sound generated by her speedy quick turns was what created the ghostly howling. Of course he had been able to see it,it just suprised him.

"What?"

"Nothing. Let’s go"

Sable followed behind him, looking back at the corpses but after feasting on the previous gangsters, she didn’t feel very hungry,at least not enough for it to bother her. A part of her felt she was adapting to this too quickly, but she already promised herself she’d accept this side of her,so she ignored it.

She walked in after Zaine, letting the sweet scent guide her to him.

’Why does he never wait for me?’

Zaine in front was already charging ahead, having killed a few already. There were quite a few gangsters here, but compared to the previous ones in strength and number, they couldn’t compare. It seemed that their forces had been spread out before they come here.

Sable tried her best to catch up, dodging the low level attacks and decapitating them right after, using a single swing.

Zaine on the other hand could finally use his sword again and was recklessly swinging left and right, not dodging at all and letting his healing deal with the damage he took.

After a solid few minutes, Sable and Zaine were the only two standing, not seeming tired at all.

Zaine recharged with a few crystal, filling up his meter again.

"That was easy?"

Sable said, unsure before looking down.

"I can feel a heartbeat. There’s a person down there"

Zaine and Sable immediately went looking for the bunker and after a few seconds found the stairs, going down.

Walking down the dark staircase, they both kept their guards up, looking around for a surprise attack but luckily nothing came of it.

A few steps down and they found the underground passage with a door at the end of it.

Zaine suddenly stopped. He suddenly got a weird feeling as he looked at the door.

Pushing through it, he turned the knob and opened the door.

The door creaked open and the first thing they both noticed was the ferocious looking man at the center of the room. Strangely though, Zaine wasn’t interested in him.

"You said there was only one person here"

"There is" Sable said, somewhat confused.

She suddenly gasped as she heard something and looked at the corner of the room. To a normal person the darkness would’ve obscured their vision but it was ineffective against this duo.

Zaine clutched his sword as he looked at the figure but realized this room was too small and also underground,so if he wasn’t careful, he could bury them.

[Soul gun]

Zaine impatiently fired towards the person in the shadows.

A sly grin was visible through the cowl they wore and in the next second, they suddenly weren’t there anymore.

"Z-zaine?"

Zaine looked back and immediately saw the cloaked figure behind him.

"This will be fun"

They muttered, thrusting their hand forward in a claw formation towards his heart.

Snarling, Zaine grabbed the hand as it was about to touch his chest and suddenly turned, fixing the arm over his back and immediately flipping the cloaked figure all the way across the room.

"W-what? No way. Mutated right eye,red right eye... and that crazy demeanor. It’s you!?"

Zaine was confused by the words of the figure until he touched his face and realized his mask is gone, revealing his face. The cloaked figure got up , their cowl knocked off when Zaine flipped them,and Zaine’s eyes widened as he realized that strangely familiar feeling he had before.

Blonde hair, pixie cut, glowing pink eyes, boyish smile and demeanor, and a crazy glint in her eyes.

"Chelsea?"