Shakugan no Hybrids: Chapter 42

Chapter 42:The Snow-haired Ice-blue-eyed hunter

Slowly and carefully, as if afraid rising up hastily will shatter her newfound appearance, the little girl who was once a flamehaze stands up. The process has rendered her a bit numb, but she can feel how power is slowly returning within her veins, slowly advancing through her body. It feels..primal, raw, and above all cold, so much different from Alastor’s blazing infernal might. And yet, the difference does not bother her, the cold does not chill her body anymore. It actually enhances it, becomes a part of her until the pale-skinned girl can no longer tell where her body ends and the hail and snowfall begins.
Her new snow-white hair floats up and around her face, just like it used to do when they sparkled with Alastor's crimson flame. But now instead of blazes, embers and sparks, her hair emits snowflakes and tiny icicle crystals. For some reason Shana feels empty and full inside simultaneously. It has nothing to do with Alastor, but she feels anger flowing inside her veins, so much of it that it is impossible to contain, a terrible anger not her own.  It is frozen like a glace river and stinging like frozen fire. “This anger is not mine” she realises,” not only, but it is the combined anger, coming from all those creatures that lost their lives in that terrible war...
They feel anger towards the creatures who killed them, towards those who took their lives so violently, towards life itself that cursed them to stay in this forgotten, frozen place without being able to fight, aimlessly staying here and re-live in a never-ending circle again and again those terrible events... It is anger towards him, Malachite the Cross, Alex, who stops at nothing, perhaps even willing to open a gate once more, to give The Sox what they want out of desperation.
And not in the least, they are angry for not being able to do anything…until now.” “It is time”. Jures his voice sounds unnaturally clear, and she feels how his voice not just reaches her ears from the outside, but resonates inside of her as well, stirring up the maelstrom of alien feelings even further.
The intensity of all the thoughts and emotions is overwhelming, and Shana forcefully shuts them out for a bit, focusing on the raging blizzard inside of her instead. It is the first time she feels the coldness as a part of herself, and not some vague inconvenience smothered in fire! She, who used to be Flame! Flame of the Heavens and the blazing-eyed- hunter!
“But I am something new now”.
Her brand-new-blue, icy eyes glare as with a force they have never glared before. Shana opens her palm and a swirl of snowflakes forms a weapon of ice, a japanese Oodachi, like a copy of the Nietono no Shana, sharp the same, but made of coldness, right out of the heart of the biter chill. The weight seems perfect in her hands as she forms the "kamae", holding the longsword with both of her hands, taking a determined look and pose. Once again her white hairs float like a winterstorm, similar to the blizzard that swirls around the blade, the same way fire used to swirl around my her sword. Shana has no idea where it came from, or how she summoned it, but it feels right somehow. It has a name, she can feel it, it is as if all the whispers inside of her are telling the legend of this weapon of cold, from a time and place of ice, where dawn never comes and dusk never ends:

“Toumoufubuki Hyou (冬猛吹雪氷)  “ she whispers.

She tightens her grip and breathes out slowly, her breath forming a small cloud. “Yes”, she whispers, finally responding to the Minotaur-ghost. “It’s time!”
Shana can sense all the individuals of the hunt tethered to her, as if they all pledged most of their strength to her cause, and the flamehazes of old through them. It feels..perfect. It is easy to  imagine how it must have felt like, the hunts, for thousands and thousands of years across the frozen icewastes and the tundra...how it once was.
Finally she understands...from a certain point of view...there was beauty in that way of life...dignity...glory..
But also...the raw ferocity..she feels the presence of a deer nearby and it takes almost all of her willpower not to hunt it down and rip it open with her bare arms, tasting its blood. To hunt, to feel alive!  All her senses are sharpened to an entirely new level, not even Alastor’s strength can compare. Alastor came with the strength of a soldier, but this is the strength of the hunter.
Poor Friagne…he would never have been able to grasp the mere concept of the beings he named himself after. The boon of being the hunter…her senses tingle.
Shana hears everything. Insects beneath the snow, scurrying for their next meal, branches rustling in the wind, snow falling, a single flower opening to bloom...As she touches the flower, admiring all the tiny details she would normally have dismissed and ignored, it freezes solid below her fingers.
“My fingers..” she mumbles surprised. The cold blue light of winter is dancing all around them. This..power..it is not as strong as Alastor's, but it is hard to really measure as it is so different..

Jures appears next to her, in his claws carrying a massive horn carved out of the bone of a gigantic long extinct beast. As he blows it, a long low ferocious tone, a sound having not been heard for millennia, washes across the land, and far away in Misaki city people turn around in their sleep, as the sound awakes an ancient fear inside of them, carried over from their ancestors in a far past, when this horn meant that man...was about to be hunted. Amongst them a boy, a boy who was now a mystes. A mystes with dreams, dreaming of a girl he once knew, with flaming hair and eyes, disappearing and making way for a new image..that of a girl bearing close resemblance. A girl with pale skin, blue eyes and white hairs, wielding a longsword of ancient obsidian, snow crystals dancing around the blade. Unlike the other humans,who would wake up in the morning and shrug off the uncomfortable feelings, dismissing it as nothing but their imagination, the boy would remember…and ponder. Ponder about the whereabouts of the girl in his dream.
Far away and unbeknownst to him, a girl and a monster stare into each other’s eyes, each gauging the other’s readiness and willingness to do what needs to be done. It is the Minotaur that averts his gaze first. “Yes…it is time” he says. “Time for the Last Hunt”.  Around him the other denizens materialise, their faces, or whatever counts as their face, filled with hunger and excitement. What one of them finds, the others know immediately. A faint smell..a trail..anything.

“We can lead the way he went, but only until the edge of the forest” Jures speaks.” After that, it is up to you to find the path. And to lead us to the prize. But to learn how to lead, one must first follow. Follow..and learn, newborn.”
Shana’s breath is hitching in her throat. “This feeling is indeed overwhelming” she thinks.” I cannot hold it back. I have never felt so much strength, so much hunger within me!” And it is true. She has felt excitement in a battle before but is the first time she feels excitement for hunting like this. It almost reminds her of the battle-lust Chanter of Elegies Margery Daw and Claws and Fangs of Violation Marchocias display whenever they enter the heat of battle. “With such ferocity, there is only one thing I can do”. Without a second thought she lunges forward, towards the direction of this primitive instinct that is leading her.  Shana can feel the snow crumbling beneath her feet and she gets filled with excitement. “I do not have the strength I had with Alastor but I feel like my senses of hearing and smelling are stronger than ever, the same as my touch, I feel like I can sense even the tiniest of vibration through the ground, even through the air” she thinks while slowly getting accustomed to her new body. She sprints through the snow, running between the trees, following the countless voices inside of her, steadily driving her into a general direction: North.
To Shana it feels like carrying out their last wishes, carrying out what they wanted to do for countless centuries. Her white-showing hair starts to emit snowflakes with greater intensity, as if celebrating in the rush of the hunt. But that it not all of it, not in the slightest.
As Shana goes forward she becomes aware of a simple fact: She is enjoying it. The ferocity, being fully into the moment, the thrill of it all, the forest, the darkness, the snow..this is living!And these Lords did this for millennia! Slowly, she begins to understand. From the corners of her eyes she sees that she is no longer running alone. Ghosts run, slither, fly and ride beside her like a pack. There is no true silence, somehow they radiate bloodlust and excitement without making a sound. One ghost overtakes her, and as it runs in front of her it looks around once. It is a massive creature, the body of an agile white tiger, the face of a beautiful woman with long blonde hairs and eyes as blue as her own, carrying a battered wooden shield bearing claw marks and a spear twice her length. She smiles, revealing a mouth with shark like teeth. The smile of one predator to another. She turns to face forward again as she lifts off into the skies above the treetops, leaving behind a rainbow-like glow, with the green being dominant. Aurora. Somehow Shana knows her name. And Aurora leaves behind an Aurora. As Shana slows down for a bit to admire the spectacle, the other members of The Hunt pass her...and walk right up the aurora, above the trees as the hunt migrates its territory from the ground to the air between the treetops and the clear skies, littered with stars. Shana’s cannot do anything but sing as she dashes to catch up with the others.

“Do not fall behind.” She can  hear Jures from inside of her, from the place where Alastor normally would reside.
“Once the hunt takes hold it is hard to stop.”
She nods her head, somehow feeling overwhelmed to see more but above all, to reach the true target! To reach him, Malahite the Cross Alex! Somehow, though the hunt itself is something she has never felt before. “Is this the feeling that made Denizens cross the barrier between worlds?” she wonders. “Is this…Desire?” She lunges forward again to run past the ghosts that overtook her earlier to get in the head of the group once more, like the Alpha female of a wolf pack.
The forest becomes a blur below her as Shana picks up speed with the horde of ghosts following in her wake. It is a massive collective of trees, and if one would not know the way it would be very easy to wander and get lost forever. But somehow she knows that won't happen to her.
For reasons she cannot explain she has faith in the hunt:  in Jures, its caller,in  Aurora, its navigator, and in all the others and their small but irreplaceable roles that created the hunt, something bigger than the individual. After some time, the trees start to grow more apart of each other, and then, without warning, they abruptly reach the end of the tree line...being greeted by a sea of purple flowers spanning all the way to the horizon. The scent thickens...Malachite was here! But..not just recently..it is confusing...Unsure Shana gazes over the purple sea in front of her feet.

“Magenta Garden.”
For a second Shana is puzzled how she knows this but then remembers: What one of the hunt knows, all of them know.

“He came here.” It is the feathered snake with the mask, one of the first to materialize when Jures told their story that speaks. His voice sounds like ice cracking on granite, as if unfamiliar with human words. The hunt makes her know his name: Sthiss of the Frostblaze. Memories not her own flash by. memories of several ages, years, seasons..but all having one familiar element: All contain Malachite, doing something at the very center of the garden.



Despite the pressure of time Shana takes a moment to just stand there, mesmerized by the view. It almost reminds her of the flaming fields Alastor had been telling her about in his bedtime stories about the previous Flaming-Haired-Blazing-Eyed-Hunter. It is amazing that even in the middle of the winter, the flowers are fresh and in full bloom as if it is the middle day of spring... Shana hears the hiss somewhere in her mind and her clear-blue eyes look around. It is almost as if she can feel the hybrid’s moves in there, as if she  can see his past actions the same way she used to see the moves of a Torch after barging into its existence for her own purposes. It is a strange and unfamiliar sensation.

“Yes...” she whispers in response. “He was here...I can feel it...”
“It has no heart anymore.” It is Aurora who speaks. Despite her frightening appearance her voice sounds very soft, delicate and higher-pitched. As she makes her observations clear Shana combines it with Sthiss his memories and she suddenly understands. This garden was once powered by an extremely powerful object, something that kept the flowers alive. But that object...a hougu probably...is now gone, and the first flowers have already started to wither. But why did he…

“He did it to honor a memory” Aurora answers the unspoken question. “He gave up a little bit of himself every time he came here. When he made it he wanted it to last forever. If he has taken it away now...” she does not finish her sentence.

“We must press on, our time is limited” Sthiss speaks. The second Shana left the forest she felt some form of...invisible bump. Now she understands what it was. Some members of The Hunt have started to look a tiny bit less solid. Hardly noticable unless you know what to look for. She remembers how Jures told her how they dissolve if they venture beyond the forest. And even within the forest they faded, albeit slowly. With the added power of the ancient flamehazes they could now travel beyond the forest that held them prisoner, but they would have to hurry. Time was now their enemy.

“I cannot navigate without knowledge of the land.”  Aurora speaks.
“We have lead you here.
Lead us now...Snow-haired Ice-blue-eyed hunter.
Send the ravens, see the land, open the path...show the way and lead us..and The Hunt will follow.” The hunt was blind in a land they did not know, in a time where they did not belong. Shana would have to lead them. From Initator and caller to soldier, from soldier to scout, from scout to tactician and from tactician to leader. The roles within the hunt to be able to do what they did was an endless list. And this night, Shana would have to fill all of them.