It had been a very dirty move. Low, treacherous and cowardly. Obviously Kai would never do something like that.
Unfortunately it was very effective—Kai was left dazed and winded. He needed a good dozen seconds to recover. The one mildly positive thing was that it put an end to his dry heaves.
At least during that time the small bird hadn't tried to do anything to him, but… the little wretch had been staring at him with arrogance the entire time.
How could it make that face after attacking in such a despicable way? How could an animal, for that matter, be so expressive?
Kai took a breath and brought a hand to his stomach where the comforting warmth of that fruit still lingered. For a second it seemed to Kai like the warmth was spreading, as if it was moving toward the point of impact to cover it and soothe it.
Kai crouched a couple of times to stretch his knees and put his knife away, rolling his shoulders and wrists as he headed for the exit.
"Not worth picking a fight in here."
The bird shifted its arrogant look to one that almost seemed to pity Kai, gazing at him with something like sadness, as if it were looking at a coward.
Kai kept his expression calm as he walked, cracking his neck on the way and releasing some tension.
Suddenly, when he reached the bird's side, he stopped. They held each other's gaze for a few seconds, then Kai crouched down to pick up a pebble soaked in indeterminable fluids, gave it a look and lit it up with his phone, studying it.
"This thing is disgusting—poor rock…"
Bracing himself, Kai built up a little momentum and hurled it at one of the cocoons. A faint whimper was heard and Kai smiled inwardly, composing his expression.
"Oh! Oh my God! No… W-What?" Kai exaggerated his gestures as if deeply regretting something, switching abruptly to a confused expression as he pointed at the cocoon and brought a hand to his head.
The bird went from pitying Kai to genuinely feeling sorry for him—you could see it in its eyes, as if it thought Kai might not be quite right in the head. It studied him for a few seconds and then turned with clear curiosity toward the cocoon.
At that moment, a powerful kick caught it square in the side.
The bird went flying into one of the walls, bouncing off into what remained of one of the open cocoons and landing inside.
Kai pumped his fist.
"Just like Midorima! Three-pointer! Wait... you don't kick the ball in basketball… Bah, whatever."
After a few seconds of celebration Kai turned around and left the room.
Retrieving his stick in the cave, he put his phone away—more light seemed to be getting in now so it wasn't as necessary. Though he had no intention of sticking around.
He took a couple of steps toward the exit, but when he was halfway there, a projectile dropped in front of him, blocking his path.
It was the bird. It didn't seem to have appreciated what had just happened.
Kai simply raised a confused eyebrow.
"What's the matter, feather ball?" He crossed his arms. "Can't handle a taste of your own medicine?"
He had no idea how the bird felt about Kai's response to its attack, but he was perfectly pleased with himself.
Though you only had to look for a second to see that the bird was gearing up for a real fight. Kai said nothing—he just shifted his grip on the stick and looked at the bird with a hint of contempt.
He could feel his body running hot, as if it was ready to fight.
The feathered devil used its signature move and simply launched itself at Kai with the intent to impale him.
Even knowing what it would do, he barely managed to dodge it.
Then something unreal happened.
Mid-air, the feathered bullet simply changed direction at an impossible angle and came back at Kai. This time Kai could have sworn it was moving even faster than before.
Kai's shirt tore and a small cut appeared on his arm. The bird landed a few steps from Kai, and he swung his stick at it in a downward strike.
But he missed? How could he have missed that?
No—he hadn't missed. Kai felt perfectly well how his weapon slid sideways through the air at the last second, just before reaching its target.
'What the…'
Seeing this, Kai stepped back before the bird could attack again. He caught his breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
'Already? Am I already tired?'
It wasn't normal—the fight had barely started. And his body… his body was burning from the inside.
Suddenly the fight started going badly, the bird kept charging, and with each of its attacks Kai had a new cut.
He couldn't move the way he wanted and he was running out of air. The sweat was making the stick slip through his hands.
Everything was a disaster and Kai was simply fighting to hold on.
"Hey… how about… a little break?"
'It's impossible. It makes zero sense that I've gotten this much worse, this incredibly fast.'
Luckily the feathered devil let up on its attacks—unluckily it wasn't out of kindness. The fight had been getting sloppy on one side for a while, and they were starting to make quite a racket with every clash.
And it seemed they had woken the tenant of the place.
Kai stared at the wall in fear, terror distorting his face, and let his stick drop completely transfixed—then, hesitantly, trembling, he raised his hand and pointed at the wall the spider had disappeared through earlier.
"H-hey bird, are you seeing that?" The tremble in his voice couldn't be hidden.
The bird seemed to have caught some of Kai's fear and, with uncertainty in its movements, slowly turned around.
There, at the far end of the dimness, a stone wall loomed—and on it… there was nothing unusual. The bird turned back sharply, looking for Kai, but there was no one there.
Kai had bolted for the exit.
'Have fun with your eight-legged friend, feathered pest.'
Kai was using practically all his energy just to keep from collapsing, with the rest going toward running. Why had that fever hit him so suddenly?
If only it were just a fever… but he also felt weak and exhausted, almost like the flu. But the flu didn't hit this hard and this fast—besides, he could still breathe fine.
Then something clicked in his mind.
He'd already been feeling that fire in his body before going into the cave—a deceptively pleasant warmth in his stomach.
That damned fruit! It had done him in. Here he was in a completely unknown world, a fairly violent one so far, and that disgusting thing had left him completely wrecked.
Just before reaching the exit, with the sun's rays already lighting up his face and drops of sweat falling down it, something dropped in his path, blocking his escape.
"You again? That's the second time you've stopped me from leaving. Do you like me that much?"
The bird hadn't even bothered to land properly—it had simply slammed into the ground with a powerful impact that kicked up a cloud of dust and made the walls vibrate.
Kai's eyes went wide.
'What would that have done to my poor body if it had hit me?'
Kai shuddered and shook the thought away.
He moved from side to side trying to make a move to leave but the bird blocked his path every time. Kai smiled pleasantly.
"Hey, friend—what if we forget all about this and you let me out? We could even help each other… once we're outside the cave, of course."
Kai wasn't going to forget anything—he just wanted to get out of there. He intended to continue the fight, but somewhere else. Every cell in his body was screaming at him that he was in danger in there. And honestly, he had no chance of surviving against that spider, let alone winning.
But the bird simply stared him down without leaving any gap, and you could see in its eyes how much it was enjoying watching Kai so on edge.
That vile creature… How badly Kai wanted to recover and give it another good kick—maybe even make some fried chicken out of it.
"Hey, are you serious right now? Do you want that thing to devour us both?"
The bird studied him with its eyes for a moment, then shoved him with a tackle—and an instant after the impact Kai felt a second force push him even further, sending him a few meters back.
The bird approached slowly and fixed him with an arrogant stare. Its answer was crystal clear: "It'll devour you—I'll just fly away."
Kai launched himself at the feathered devil in a rage, forgetting all about the spider—he just wanted to finish off the bird.
Not expecting a counterattack, the bird was caught off guard and the two of them ended up in an anything-but-elegant scuffle.
"What a shitty way of thinking for a little animal! Does being such a twisted little thing amuse you?! How about I twist your neck?!"
Yeah… that wasn't his best line, but it served its purpose.
Kai gritted his teeth as he wrestled with the bird, both of them rolling across the damp floor through a mess of sweat and blood flowing from his cuts. The damn thing kept pecking at the air looking for his face, making Kai flinch every time at the thought of what it would do to him.
"Hey, asshole, don't aim that thing at me… you could hurt someone."
The bird let out a hoarse shriek with an almost mocking edge, and charged at him again. Its beak grazed Kai's face, but its body slammed directly into his cheek, threatening to knock a tooth out and sending the thunderous sound of the impact echoing through the entire cave like a gunshot.
That echo only served as a prelude to a sound Kai found far more sinister.
A rhythmic tapping that vibrated through the walls—the spider's legs. Getting closer and closer, as Kai felt more and more done for.
"Just what we needed…" he muttered through his teeth.
The bird kept its eyes on his face. That arrogant expression, that look of amusement—it was driving him up the wall. But it was nothing compared to the urgency he felt at the arrival of his new "sparring partner'.
"Look, I get it—I'm your new favorite toy. But is it really worth it if my face is the last thing you ever see? You know I won't let go of you. If I'm going down, we're going down together."
The bird's expression shifted, considering Kai's words.
At that moment, the spider burst through the crack, its presence instantly chilling the air. Less than a heartbeat later, the two of them separated and hid behind a rock.
The spider didn't put much effort into looking for them—it knew someone was there and seemed to know they hadn't escaped yet.
At a calm pace it approached the entrance, the rhythm of its steps slowing to something like a metronome marking out a tragedy.
When it got close enough to the crack, a few rays of light illuminated its form, letting Kai get a slightly better look at the spider.
Not only did the creature's front legs have the shape of scythes—they were also slightly shorter than the rest. Its face was revolting, with enormous fangs and too many eyes; milky eyes that seemed to have lost some of their vision, at least the ones not already rendered useless by hideous scars.
But what caught Kai's attention most wasn't the arachnid's face. There, on its abdomen, Kai could see something the previous angle hadn't allowed him to. A deep, horrible laceration ran through just over half its abdomen, still oozing the occasional trickle of a disgusting black liquid. Whatever had caused the wound had taken a chunk of its armor with it, leaving thin cracks running through what remained.
Before Kai had time to keep studying it, the spider wove several white threads across the crack, sealing it—it seemed to want to make sure whoever was inside didn't get out again.
Kai kept one eye on the bird, which had been trying in vain to hide how much it was trembling. Watching the spider seal the exit, its gaze hardened.
'Could I take advantage of its wound…? Rush the spider and attack there…'
Kai shook his head, pushing those thoughts aside.
'It'd most likely cut me in half before I even raised my arm… And what would I do with just a pocket knife? I couldn't get deep enough to do any real damage…'
Kai kept running through his options while the bird shivered slightly beside him, seemingly working through the same problem. The spider, for its part, had already begun to prowl the room, looking behind some rocks while keeping several of its eyes fixed on the other exit—the one it had come from.
However, it wasn't paying attention to the entrance to its pantry. That was a dead end—it would be pointless to even try to hide in there. Probably it would seal the way to the deep cave before looking in there.
It seemed like only a matter of time before the spider found Kai and the bird.