Captain Tash:

No unusual sounds or smells. No rogue Saniya signature besides... who patiently awaited them ahead.

"Alright. I will try to sneak up behind the sorceress with Lightspeed. We need all the advantage we can get," The Silver Knight whispered, cautiously treading beside the Wolf, his feet not daring to step on a measly leaf or twig. He couldn't do much about the dense snow, however.

Tash hummed, "I don't have high hopes for... anything we do." Her steps were sloppier, as she figured Yuki-onna wanted them to witness her full might personally.

"Don't be so pessimistic, Captain." His visor displayed a chastising expression. "Our odds are irrelevant to our resolve. We must stay strong to see our mission through, as it is our duty as bastions of justice." He landed a closed hand on his chest.

She shook her head. "Doesn't this act get tiring for you? Even if your kind is fully comprised of weirdos, I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't go insane after a few days of this."

An irritatingly saccharine expression blared from his helmet. "Oh, Captain. I'm afraid you missed the point entirely!"

Tash's face scrunched with curiosity, but her next question receded back to the pits of her mind when a chilling wave entered it. Yuki-onna's Saniya resonated more intensely with each traversed mile between her and them, making the Wolf captain hiss with a burning headache.

"Captain?" His gloved hand jerked impulsively towards her but stopped midway.

"D-Don't," she growled, clutching her splitting head while she concentrated a piece of her Saniya to coat her mental defenses. "This is just Yuki-onna taunting me. I'll get through it," she reassured herself as the pain slowly subsided.

The guard duo continued walking through the thick, frost-covered flora until a blinding turquoise glint assaulted their vision.

Tash hissed, rubbing both her eyes. "That's Yuki-onna over there..."

She could hear the Human swallowing air. "A-At last, we finally reached the mastermind." The lack of confidence in his voice put a quiet smile on her face.

"Indeed." She opened her eyelids, her vision slowly adapting to the lighting change. "Prepare your Lightspeed ambush. I'll be backing you up as fast as I can."

"Are you sure?" the Knight questioned, his fake eyes showing concern. "Don't you think you can restore more Saniya?"

The captain shook her head. "Forget that. We can't risk being at the mercy of Yuki-onna's patience. I assure you I have enough in the tank to not be dead weight."

His visor's emote didn't change, but he slowly nodded. "I trust you." He steadied his posture, slowly summoning his golden Saniya, seeping via every microscopic pore in the fabric of his suit. The energy abruptly erupted while she glimpsed him, cocooned in pure light before he flashed away. It was not a fun experience for her eyes.

Ignoring the stinging, Tash followed suit, conjuring her strength before she sprinted through the bushes and branches, barely registering any discomfort. The oppressive light of the Yūrei's Saniya meant nothing to one who could guide herself by smell and hearing. Perhaps Lien was not that much helpless as her anxiety painted her as.

She halted, recognizing the crunching sound of ice being obliterated to pieces, most certainly the Knight's mighty blows.

After her eyes gradually adapted to the overbearing glare, she saw what she suspected. Before a blueish minka, a golden flash bolted through a swarm of Yuki-onna's clones so fast she couldn't catch a glimpse of the Human's actual form, who dismantled the heads of tens of constructs in a split second.

Nevertheless, what truly caught her attention was who hovered above the center of the clearing. The real Yuki-onna, encased in a powerful Saniya barrier, barely paid attention to the speedy guard, even when he occasionally tackled the shield, only bouncing off without making a dent. Beneath her feet and carved in the earth, a giant rune beamed and pulsated with an esoteric glow. It was the core of the rune grid, shaped like an inner circle within a larger outer sphere, with four arrows coming from the latter, pointing at the former. Tash's blood ran faster, and her fur bristled by the overwhelming energy coursing through its underground pathways, which were so deep she couldn't sense it after enough depth. No wonder it remained undetected for so long.

Tash kept herself standing in the distance, waiting for the Knight to clear up the wave of blatant distractions. She couldn't afford to lose that much energy with more golems.

Within a minute, the only ones standing in the frozen glade were The Silver Knight, Captain Tash, and the Icy Sorceress herself. Sparkly blue particles, remnants of the shattered clones, slowly clung onto the floor, the Human's clothes, and the Wolf's fur, sending an uncomfortable chill between the latter's nerves.

"Ah, the courageous hero and his trusted guard dog return to slay the evil witch." Yuki-onna's telepathic tone is saturated with amused sarcasm as the impenetrable Saniya barrier dissolved on its own accord while her feet touched the snow she created herself. "And now, for the buffoon in shining armor's last act..."

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The Silver Knight jumped back, landing right beside Captain Tash. "Spew as many witty remarks as you wish, but these two guards shall be your downfall, Yuki-onna!" he asserted, adopting his fighting stance.

At least he wasn't displaying his ridiculous signature pose. On the other hand, that meant their situation was that dire, which wasn't very reassuring, to say the least...

Still, she shook off her hopelessness, leaning on her companion's attitude as a crutch, bending her knees and unsheathing her claws. "What he said. You won't get through us that easily!"

Yuki-onna's eyes closed with pity. "You know you will not win by yourselves, but I must disclose something to derail your misguided hopes." A wicked grin twisted her shrunken lips. "Roughly 90% of your forces are under my mercy as we speak, their frozen bodies guarded by hordes of my precious constructs. There are no other lines of defense to stop me before it is too late."

Tash grimaced as a pang of frostbite struck her paws, shaking and stiff. "Then we'll have to make do with those odds." A sharp, brief burst of electricity thawed her hands, her fur bristling. "Call it an occupational hazard."

"That's the spirit!" The armored Human dashed at the Yūrei with his light magic! However, a powerful gust of wind deflected the golden bolt and forced the Wolf to brace herself so as not to be swept away.

"WHAT?!" the Knight bellowed after being sent rolling in the snow. His silence was brought when the white sea beneath him moved unnaturally, clinging to his body with a frightening speed until he was entirely swallowed.

The Wolf's knees trembled from the layer of snow crawling up around her feet, her dread aggravated by the connection she sensed between Yuki-onna and the grid's core. Not only was her Saniya coursing through her veins, but all her accomplices' were also thrown into the mix, blending into the most potent weapon the captain had ever witnessed.

"Afraid, Tash?" The Yūrei chuckled. "If only you had listened back then..."

Tash gritted her teeth, a fiery aura starting to envelop her fur, vaporizing the weaponized frozen water. "I've had enough of your 'voice'!" Her flames erupted into a searing inferno! "I WILL FINISH YOU!!!"

The captain launched a series of slashing, burning attacks, each strike forming an orange and yellow arch that lingered in the air. However, the pale maiden weaved through the Wolf's blows with even more ease than before, her taunting eyes never breaking from hers for a fleeting moment.

"If your 'comrade' could not land a finger on me..." Yuki-onna's fist, coated with frost, moved in a blur, colliding with Tash's ribs. "You are more desperate than I thought..."

The sharp agony was replaced by numbness and a burning cold as her fur was slowly coated in ice. Captain Tash refused to utter a measly sound. She couldn't give the wench that satisfaction!

"Go on..." Her free hand quickly summoned an ice katana. "Sing for me, you bi-" A golden projectile knocked the blade from her hand. Tash distracted herself from her agony by watching the Knight push the sorceress away with multiple shots from his weapon, to which the Yūrei responded by placing her pale hand on the ground, forcing him to retreat when enormous, jagged ice spikes emerged.

The Wolf capitalized on the retreat to keep pressure on her opponent, discharging two fireballs at her. Yuki-onna dispelled both with a mighty burst of air before lunging at the canine, her blade glistening with such bloodlust the captain's muscles froze for a split second.

The Silver Knight flashed between them, aiming for an uppercut. However, the Yūrei's enhanced reflexes were legendary, catching the punch with a hastily put-together ice gauntlet, which broke from the impact although it accomplished its job. Quickly, the sorceress clutched his hand, covering it with a thick layer of ice. Grunting with the agony of being frozen to the bone, the "hero" used Lightspeed to flee to the Wolf's side.

"The Icy Sorceress is untouchable while she has access to the grid's power!" the Knight lamented while covering his remaining hand in light, using it to melt the ice covering its sibling.

"I wouldn't be so sure..." the captain muttered to herself.

Tash's nose could pick up the slightest change in the pale Monoke's scent - adrenaline and cortisol pumping into her bloodstream. No matter how hard Yuki-onna tried to maintain her cold and collected mask, her body would always betray her...

But why would she fear them? The Human's speed was nothing to her mere moments ago.

...

Tash decided to wait, her body relaxing as she concentrated on her Saniya detecting technique. Meanwhile, after recovering both hands, the "hero" kept pushing the icy Monoke further with his martial arts and occasional blaster shots.

A series of deep breaths brought her mind closer to tranquility. In her mental void, the Yūrei's Saniya, previously perceived as a steady mass of energy, resonated with more nuance. The shifts in intensity, like tides hitting the coast, became more prominent in her natural radar.

"Huh... That was... interesting," the captain thought, her lips contorting into a grin in the sensitive plane.

Yuki-onna's Saniya dropped significantly, even as the overwhelming, abundant energy seeded into the grid remained unchanging. Considering her species' physical attributes, the only reasonable explanation was that the Icy Sorceress' body wasn't made to contain that amount of power all at once, so she needed to use it in short bursts before she exploded from inside out.

"So the almighty Yuki-onna has a weakness. So much for misguided hope..."

Her yearning was abruptly halted by a sharp pang in her spine, different from the burning, frigid pain from the Yūrei's ice spells. Quickly, the sensation spread throughout the canine's nervous system, the ache subsiding into a minor yet aggravating discomfort.

"The Body Scramblement again..."

When Tash finally opened her eyes, the first thing that caught her attention was her comrade encased on ice from the neck down, stuck on a tree's bark.

Yuki-onna smiled at her handiwork, slowly turning to the captain while hovering slightly above the ground. "Enough rest time for you..."

Tash stood firm, not moving a muscle, while the pale Monoke approached her, halting a few inches in proximity. "It pains me to see you go so soon, but you are no match for me as you are now..." Her misty, chilly breath clung to the canine's fur.

The sorceress pointed her open palm at the captain, frigid gas emitting from her bony fingers. Tash's eyes widened in disbelief as they witnessed a red, inflamed scar, precisely shaped like the core rune, gruesomely carved into the Yūrei's flesh. There was barely any regenerated tissue from it.

The scar radiated a faint, blueish glow. The Saniya from the grid was quickly returning to its vessel.

"Goodbye, Captain Tash..."

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