Yandere Villainess Will Die!

Leonidas had severely underestimated the time between the switch, and it had shown. He had been caught off guard, and now his ears felt like they were being banged with a club, relentless and unforgiving.

He fell uselessly to his knees, left arm clawing at his ear, trying, and failing to block the noise, all the while his right stump tried to do the same with his other ear.

A groan sounded somewhere around him, either from him or Willow, but he couldn’t tell, not with the ghastly noise. It was like a scream, twisted and shrill, like a plethora of voices singing together in a sinful dirge.

Eventually, though, it stopped, fading into silence, as if it had never existed. Blood poured down his ears, hot and slick against his skin.

Dizzy...Seridius?

His thoughts were in disarray, and Leonidas could swear he had seen Seridius standing beside him, standing tall with his crimson hair and eyes. He blinked again, and he was gone, just like the bell, as if he had never been there.

Leonidas spared Willow a glance. Her black blade was sunken in the ground, hands on its hilt. She leaned on it heavily, the blade burrowing deeper into the ground with every second.

Unfortunately, her ears seemed fine, a cocoon wrapped around them. There was still a bit of blood smeared near his earlobe, probably before she made casing.

Her state brought Leonidas back from his delusions...albeit still facing immense vertigo.

Can’t even take it like a real man.

Willow regarded him with an impassive gaze, then turned around, staring off into the far distance.

"Are you quite alright, Art? You seemed to have fallen to your knees."

She paused for a moment, then smiled at him.

"I heard people of Frost often pray to anything they came across, but a sound that tried to rupture your eardrums...that must be a record."

"Gotta hit every time, don’t you? And just for the record—"

How unfortunate...he couldn’t complete his sentence, or rather, he was forced to stop. A massive beak tried to pry off his head, missing by the narrowest of margins. Leonidas had spotted it last second and pushed himself backwards, avoiding a fatal, possibly life-ending collision.

He twisted mid jump, unsheathed Blush, and landed in a roll. Willow was by his side in an instant, backs touching, breathing heavy as if they had just run a marathon, yet eyes full of a burning flame.

The flame of war and violence. A fire of murder and blood. Sparkles of light and stars. Intense emotions swirled within the depths of their eyes, yet one thing was undeniable. Like all of the world of the Labyrinth, the pair were war-crazed just like their parents and their parents before them.

The pilgrim moved at him again, a three-foot wingless raven, with thick fur covering its body, a mane of shifting shadow. Its underbelly was full of criss-crossing silver runes, almost 3d, a master piece of art...had it not been trying to kill Leonidas.

"Caw Caw."

The stupid bird chirped as it flew, beak wide open, rows upon rows of skeletal teeth gleaming. Its onyx eyes shone with intelligence, as if aware of everything happening around it.

Leonidas swung his sword overhead. The blade cleaved forward, but Caw Caw dodged it. It flew sideways, redirected its motion, and flew at Leonidas from above.

He was a millisecond too late to react, surprised by the unexpected maneuver. Caw Caw flew downwards like an arrow of onyx, straight at Leonidas’s head. He would have been impaled had he not jumped out of the way at the last moment.

The bird tore through his shoulder blade, flesh tearing with a sickening splatter, and the bird smashed into the colorful ground below. It exploded into bloody mist, staining everything within the immediate vicinity with black blood, hot like burnt oil.

What the hell...

Leonidas couldn’t dwell on the suicide bomber for long, as he heard an all too similar voice speak.

"That was disgusting," Willow spoke while wiping inky blood from her brows, clearly having killed her own ambusher. "Good thing is that there are plenty of birds to take our anger out on. The bad thing is that there aren’t nearly enough of us for them to feast on."

Leonidas looked up at her words, and sure enough, the black clouds that hid the abnormal sun were slowly turning into more Caw Caw, and Leonidas didn’t like the implications one bit.

"So basically...in about 15 seconds, dozens of Caw Caw’s brothers will descend upon us in the name of god to avenge their family...that just so happened to be suicide bombers."

He sighed deeply, already feeling a headache forming.

"Exactly! Glad to see we’re on the same page! Now, if you will, go ahead and be useful for once. Make some flowers like the good gardener you are, and impale some stupid birds. Also, Caw Caw is a weird name, even for you."

Women are rude and scary. Save me, Seridius.

How he wished Seridius were here with him. The man was a much better strategist, an amazing swordsman, excellent under pressure, and to top it all off, he had been an awakened for almost six months!

7 seconds.

He closed his eyes, focusing on his imaginative world, willing everything to go dark.

6 seconds.

He imagined being a god—which wasn’t hard—making life. He raised his hands and beckoned upwards, pulling something unseen towards him.

5 seconds.

Roots erupted from the ground, actively eating his Insenium to sustain themselves. They slid smoothly, barely making a hole larger than they needed, like tentacles of some eldritch horror.

4 seconds.

The roots shrivelled and slowly lost color, their green bark turning gray, then black until they were nothing but drifting motes of ash.

3 seconds.

A sudden disturbance caught his eye. The ground around Willow was vibrating intensely, as if it were trying to break free from its physical bounds. But at the same time, it also looked like it was melting, turning into a melted rainbow.

2 seconds.

Leonidas composed himself and looked at the flowers drifting slowly from the sky, almost hovering. They were easily a hundred feet above him, and he estimated it to be at least 15 minutes before they fell, more than enough time to cull the horde of forming nightmares.

1 second.

A dreadful cry cut through the air, a collecting symphony of newborn birds. It wasn’t nearly as bad as the bell that followed the shifting sun, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant.

0 seconds.

The storm of pilgrims descended with maddening fury, a wave of living shadow moving with the singular purpose of kill or be killed. Unluckily for them, Leonidas and Willow very much preferred to be alive.

A/N: Since none of you responded, I’m just gonna write it here. Today’s recommendation is " Good Girls " by Josie Edwards(song). Its a peak song, love it.