At an unseen signal, the fight resumed. Jaeger and Kaeleth met in the middle, striking at the Flesh Trader; he came in high with a decapitating blow, while she came in low, throwing her dagger in a whipping motion. The slaver meets Jaeger’s slash with a parrying swirl and simply hops over Kaeleth’s dagger.
Jaeger hammers his left fist into the slaver’s jaw, a sickening crack followed by a slurping pop announces it breaking out of the socket. Meanwhile, Kaeleth’s now empty dagger hand whips around, the dagger flying back into her hand, and she lunges in to stab.
The Flesh Trader kicks Jaeger away, uses the momentum to slam into Kaeleth, ruining her attack, and whips his head back into her, breaking her nose. As she stumbles back, blinking away the involuntary tears, he slips around her and rapidly stabs her four times in the side.
“Shade!” Jaeger grabs Kaeleth, dragging her behind him. The Flesh Trader watches for a moment, his jaw distended and hanging loose, before placing both hands on his jaw and twisting it.
Taking the momentary pause, Jaeger pulls out his powder horn and hands it to Kaeleth.
“Drink this. Once you’re back up, join me.” Making sure she’s aware enough to nod, he leans her against a crate and turns his focus back to the Flesh Trader.
The slaver’s hands are still on his jaw, and in a single move, he shoves it back into place amid a series of pops, cracks, and sounds of meat rending. It’s off-putting enough that Jaeger’s advance is slowed, and that seems enough time for whatever the Flesh Trader did to work. His jaw moves up and down before he speaks.
“Good showing so far. I must admit this curse is quite potent. Blindness, organ disorder, and partial paralysis? When I have you, I shall have to know the recipe.” The man said, looking in Jaeger’s direction but not looking at him. “It does make fighting a bother.”
Jaeger didn’t bother waiting to hear more and moved. He shot forward like a bullet.
He slashed diagonally, right to left, over his chest. The slaver stepped back.
He sliced right to left, in a Z. Another step back, arms loose at his side.
“No mercy for an invalid? Good, you’ve earned what comes next.”
Ignoring him, Jaeger comes in with a low lunge, stabbing deep and ripping sideways. Again, the Flesh Trader steps back, but with purpose this time. Blind or not, the man-thing is still perceiving his strikes. The slaver retaliates with a wild flurry of dagger slashes. Jaeger easily steps away, dodging them; they seem more like a wall of strikes than anything coordinated.
“That’s better. Now witness me!” The final word is yelled with an emotionless face and disquiets Jaeger, but not as much as what happens next. Ripping away his silk and metallic robes, the Flesh Trader reveals a nude body. It is completely hairless and devoid of anything, a featureless expanse.
“I’m a work of art, I know.” The Flesh Trader says. “But art is nothing without the blood of its artist.”
Thrusting both daggers deep into his body, the slaver cuts deep before dropping his daggers and grabbing with his hands. He proceeds to rip away chunks of meat and viscera. Frozen in shock and disgust, Jaeger watches as the slaver starts to make a pile of meat. He does not stop until it’s half of his height.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“That should be enough.” The Flesh Trader’s voice is calm and free of any pain or discomfort that should come with everything he just did; instead, it is almost bored, as though performing a household chore. “Take what was put upon me and vanish!”
The pile of meat starts to emit a faint crimson aura before burning up, leaving nothing but a black mark where it once sat.
“Ah, much better.”
At those words, Jaeger looks back to the Flesh Trader to see him blinking his eyes. As though sensing him staring, the slaver makes eye contact with the bounty hunter and, for the first time, smiles.
“I hope, for your sake, you have more to offer.”
Crouching, the slaver reaches for his daggers only to push forward and sprint towards Jaeger on all fours. The slaver comes at him with an animalistic fervor. Leaping upwards, slashing out with blood-drenched fingers. Parrying with his Darkblade, the bounty hunter expects to cut clean through, but instead meets resistance akin to the toughest hide. His blade is caught, and the slaver takes advantage, blasting each knee into his chest and driving his hand into his throat.
“He is mine!”
A loop of barely visible wire slips over the nude attacker’s head, and a Nerve Rocker smashes into the side of his head. His body spasms, and he releases the Darkblade, allowing Jaeger to fall back with a grunt.
Kaeleth comes at him hard. Her one hand holds her Xainishi blade and manipulates the noose around the Flesh trader’s neck, while her knuckle duster slams into his body. She works him over, slamming blow after blow into his back and neck. For a moment, he is stunned, barely able to stumble through her blows.
Until she comes in for another body blow and is met with a wildly twisting body. The Flesh Trader allows himself to fall forward, dragging Kaeleth towards himself while shooting his legs backwards and up, wrapping around her wrist; in a move that would snap any other human’s spine. With her locked in, he curls backward until his body is bent into a U and slashes across her knife hand.
As Kaeleth drops the Xainishi blade, from now nerveless fingers, Jaeger has caught his breath and comes in stabbing towards the man’s exposed stomach. The blade catches on the skin; its resistance is strong, but Jaeger’s full weight and the blade’s magical nature win out. First an inch, then, like any good fight, Jaeger’s in to the hilt.
A howl erupts from the twisted slaver, who releases Kaeleth and falls to the ground.
Barely maintaining his grip, Jaeger starts to work his blade sideways. He tries to rip and tear, but finds the blade locked in place. With an angry growl, Kaeleth drops into a fist strike that slams into and through the slaver’s head. With that, the tight hold on his blade relaxes, and Jaeger pulls it free.
He helps Kaeleth back to her feet, and they stare at the dead slaver. Kaeleth reaches into a pouch at her side and retrieves a bottle of pills. Shaking one into her mouth, she dry swallows it and groans with relief as her hand stops bleeding. Jaeger moves around the body, checking to make sure nothing has escaped it or stretched free. Thankfully, the Flesh Trader seems to have died, leaving no surprises.
“Since you’re already there, you check his body, and I’ll go through his robes,” Kaeleth said as she started to dig around the pile of silk.
“Check his body for what?” Jaeger is stunned at the suggestion. The slaver is a genderless, featureless sack of broken meat and bones; there’s nowhere to check.
“A flesh pocket or skin sack. Someone called the Flesh Trader is bound to have one.”
Jaeger nudges the body before replying.
“I’m starting to think he’s called the Flesh Trader because he deals in slaves; you saw that train of souls he had. I think the Smoking Succubus’ barkeeper might have lied to us.”
“Look at him. If that were surgical, even magically, he’d have scars. Instead, he’s smooth, like a newborn. No, the oni was telling the truth or something close enough.”
“Ah, Hayate, that gossip hound. I haven’t worn an oni’s skin before. I hope he’s taken care of it.”
Jumping back at the voice, Jaeger turned to the broken thing and watched as it rose, a jerky process. It stood stooped bones jutted free, jagged and broken, blood and red meat hung free from its chest, and it swayed on its feet.
“I must commend you two. You’ve done quite a number to this body, broken bones, lacerated organs, a crushed skull, and that curse once again. Well done. A finer pair of assassins I’ve never met. What are your names?”
The pair did not respond and simply stared at him. Their eyes caught on the crushed skull; its mouth was nothing more than a suggestion, while its eyes were almost on the sides of what remained of its face. This thing was a grotesquery.
“Ah, yes, my broken shell? I guess you have earned the right to witness me, fully.”
