There was no time to waste. Kai'Sa quickly changed out of her soaked top, wiped the sweat and grime from her face, and pulled on Zihark's clothes.
The tunnel was pitch-black, and she had deliberately turned away while changing, so Zihark saw nothing.
The monsters came at them again. Furious, Kai'Sa balled up her ruined old clothes and hurled them into the swarm, then shot a firebolt after them and set the bundle ablaze.
"You want them? Too bad!"
Then they ran again. Not far ahead, they found a long sloping passage. Grabbing each other's hands, they slid down it at full speed like children on a chute, and this time they finally shook the Void swarm for good.
By the time they reached a dry cave and slumped against the stone wall inside, both of them were spent.
The rock was cold enough to make Kai'Sa flinch the moment her back touched it.
When she turned, she saw Zihark already leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, forcing himself to rest.
"Aren't you cold?"
She was wearing his clothes now, and the thought of him running through the dry underground chill half-dressed made her feel awful.
"Of course I'm cold," Zihark said. "But I won't die from it."
One layer of cloth would never have done much against the cold anyway. On her, at least, it served a purpose.
He pressed a hand to his stomach. It was empty, but not painfully so. Days like this would toughen them up sooner or later. If this life of constant fighting and survival kept going, then he would just have to keep going with it.
"Tired. Get some sleep," he said, folding his arms.
"Mm."
Kai'Sa did not say anything else. She simply moved close, and the two children huddled together in the corner, leaning on each other and sharing what little warmth they had.
After learning that crying was useless and only drew monsters, Kai'Sa had started forcing herself to grow up fast. She cried less now. In her place was a steadier, tougher child, though next to Zihark she still seemed inexperienced.
Zihark noticed every bit of it. If he was not watching the monsters, he was watching how Kai'Sa was changing.
The next morning, Zihark was jolted awake when a group of Void creatures rushed into the cave.
Fortunately, there were fewer than ten of them. He handled the fight while Kai'Sa killed them one by one, turning the sudden attack into an unexpected breakfast.
Once it was over, Kai'Sa quickly harvested what she needed and left the cave with him.
After that, the attacks only became more frequent. Zihark started spotting Void creatures on patrol all through the underground, as if news of the two surviving fugitives had spread everywhere below and the hunt would never stop.
Again and again, they were dragged from sleep and forced to fight, or else flee before they could rest properly. One crisis ended only for the next to begin. Once constant battle became normal, surviving underground grew harder by the day.
The Void brought them endless fighting. It wanted them dead, and it never let up.
So they never stayed anywhere for long. They struck, moved, hid, and moved again. They had no home underground. Anywhere they could pause and breathe was enough.
But the relentless encounters had one result: both Kai'Sa and her armor were evolving faster and faster.
Over what Zihark guessed was about a year, the voidskin spread from Kai'Sa's arms across the rest of her body.
Arms. Torso. Legs. And finally, her head.
The Void's second skin clung to her like a living layer fused to the body, while darker black-violet armor formed over parts of her limbs. The heavier armor protected those sections better, while the uncovered areas remained more vulnerable.
The difference between the two was obvious.
The second skin was a pale violet membrane stretched tight across her body, covered in countless fine overlapping lines. It did not reflect light. It looked dry, alien, and unsettling, the kind of surface that made people think of insects and recoil. Gill-like grooves ran through it like warped muscle fibers, and violet light flowed beneath them like heat under stone.
Looking at her through those lines, you no longer saw an ordinary child struggling to survive. You saw something the Void had begun to claim.
The darker armor on her limbs was different. Smooth. Glossy. Hard as chitin. Its edges flared outward into blunt ridges, almost like engraved patterns on a suit of armor. It was thicker and far more durable than the second skin beneath it.
By then, every part of the voidskin except the helmet had already fused so deeply into Kai'Sa's flesh that it could no longer be separated from her.
Once the armor spread over her whole body, her speed and strength rose far beyond normal human limits.
Her speed in particular was terrifying. If she wanted, Kai'Sa could run straight along the cave walls.
And when the limiting plates on her legs sprang open to vent heat, she could push even further—fast enough to race upside down across the ceiling and leave a violet streak in her wake.
The large shoulder carapaces had not appeared yet, so from a distance her outline still looked mostly human.
The armor over her head formed a retractable helmet. It gave her the strange senses of a Void creature and could open or close at will.
When it opened, it exposed the few areas the armor had not fully sealed away, preserving a last visible trace of the person still inside. For that, at least, she was grateful. The Void had not locked her completely inside a shell. Enough of her human senses remained for her to still feel the world.
As the armor spread, ordinary clothing gradually stopped being practical. By the time the coverage neared completion, cloth could not keep up with what her body was becoming.
The process hurt. It always hurt. But after enduring it for so long, Kai'Sa had learned to bear the cutting pain without making a scene.
Zihark, by contrast, had managed to cover only one arm with the second skin.
He had given most of the resources to Kai'Sa. That was the only reason she had been able to complete full coverage so quickly.
And in the end, it proved he had made the right choice. Every time the monsters chased him to the point of collapse and Kai'Sa had to throw him onto her back and run, he was reminded just how smart that decision had been.
Once Kai'Sa truly started moving, nothing in the Void could keep up with them.
Now, aside from the rare moments when they talked about life on the surface and tried to keep those memories alive through each other's words, Kai'Sa had even begun leaving Zihark behind to hunt on her own.
[End of chapter]