In the abrupt, grave-cold gust, Ban stood in the wind, unmoved like a stone in a stream.
Most of the ash blew onto Edmund; his purple-black skin was half stained chalk-gray, like frost creeping over midnight bark.
Ban dipped slightly, a bow like a musician’s opening salute at dawn’s stage.
“I’m... a musician...”
Ban’s words rose; the wind carried them into Edmund’s ears, hooking his focus like a fish on a line.
In that moment, nobody cared about one question—how did a gale whirl in an underground room, like a storm trapped in a tomb?
“My favorite instrument’s the flute, and my favorite thing... ah, only settled lately, is ‘using my brain,’ like sharpening a blade in quiet.”
“But today we won’t talk about that good ‘brain.’ Today we’ll listen—my song, incense rising through the dark.”
“This song’s for my newly met brute of a friend; may he learn to use his brain soon, like spring thaw softening stone.”
“Its name is—‘You ♞, Why!’”
With that, Ban lifted the flute to his lips, serious as a blade raised under a winter moon.
He bumped the clown mask over his nose, then adjusted it back, precise as clockwork under a puppeteer’s hand.
Grave-cold wind scraped from behind Ban, flowed through his hollow bones, ruffled his clothes, and carried a not-quite-whistle like a ghost’s breath.
“♬↓#♪@♬&♬↓”
Ban’s performance began, like a night market flickering awake under paper lanterns.
Too bad, this wasn’t an idol show; no one here would be selling singles, only steel and bone and breath.
So of course, the music Ban blew wasn’t lovely; it screeched like rusty hinges under rain.
A note would escape now and then, but that didn’t help; it made the whole thing tumble like a broken cart.
Still, taste differs; the guy’s music had listeners, moths to a crooked lantern in a rainy alley.
Change the song, and the audience changed too, like reeds leaning together in a shared wind.
They didn’t just reform as Skeletons and swarm; this time the music gathered them, made them united—physically, like bricks mortared by sound.
By rights, a few Skeletons should pop near Edmund, get chopped, revive, and get chopped again, waves breaking and breaking.
But fights never stay how you expect; thunder always veers behind cloud.
The ash on Edmund suddenly seethed, and a bone hand—creepy by any measure—burrowed out, like a pale spider erupting.
Plain enough: the hand formed from that ash, wet clay of the dead pulling itself together.
If it were a normal Skeleton arm, fine—one clean cut; but today the scattered Skeletons massed into a hand larger than Edmund.
Edmund froze, a deer in winter brush; he hadn’t seen this coming.
A massive bone linked into his belly; follow it, and a bone arm thicker than his gut stretched away like a tree root.
Terrifying, plain; Edmund was scared, heart drumming like a trapped sparrow.
His fear didn’t mean his sword felt fear; years had smoothed the sword’s soul like river stones.
Either way, it stayed cool, winter water under ice.
It calmly made Edmund lift it, surgeon-steadied; then calmly swung, severing the bone in his belly.
Calmly, it turned violet-black flame into worms, and had them burrow into the cut, like night-crawlers in rain.
Calmly, it took Edmund and moved him aside, shadow tugging man out of danger.
Each motion was orderly; black coating over his body drank the ash like ink soaking paper, and Edmund snapped out of his shock.
Watching the bone hand toppled and burning, Edmund wanted to say thanks, warm breath against winter steel.
But no—his sword cut that thought off, blade through silk.
[Heads up. You’re not safe yet!]
[Also, we’re using each other. No need for thanks!]
Two lines, less than 0.367 seconds apart, wiped Edmund’s thoughts clean like a tide receding.
He looked up, stern, at the bone hand cutting away scorched parts to halt the spread, a dusk of nameless loss pooling under his eyes.
Far off, the bone hand solved its burning, then floated, impossibly, like driftwood on black water.
Its palm faced Edmund; he felt it watching him, a thread of anger pricking like a thorn.
In that heartbeat of wondering why a hand felt anger, it fell like sand from an hourglass.
There was no glass to hold that sand; it hit the ground, then slipped into floor cracks like rain into soil.
Edmund stared around, stunned, but saw no sand, only bare stone under a breathless wind.
But he did find a masked Skeleton in a shadowed corner, flute in hand, a bat tucked in the eaves.
Since the bone hand emerged, he hadn’t noticed; turns out that Skeleton named Ban was hiding there, playing under the wind.
And of course, Ban had shrunk his flute’s sound on purpose, a whisper braided into gusts.
Seeing that focused playing, Edmund naturally thought the flute controlled the bone hand, a puppeteer’s string pulled tight.
As that thought bloomed, more sprang up, sparks leaping into straw.
If I can’t find the hand, smashing Ban solves it at the root, right?!
The idea thumped like a drum.
Thinking that, his sword seemed to know; black substance surged, and his body lunged toward Ban like a storm breaking.
The flute-playing Skeleton kept playing, oblivious, while a black behemoth with a greatsword barreled his way like a thunderhead.
