“You two!” Eridanus barked. “You don’t look busy, but you do look rested and unharmed.” He greeted a pair of kiji with a toothy grin. Kiji known to have been summoned by Kokoro, one of whom liked to flaunt that fact a little bit.
The brown kiji of the pair flicked his ears back in annoyance. “Do you need something?”
The gold of them, accented with red, black, and white marks, flicked their tail with curious interest.
“Oh, just thought I’d recruit some assistance in fighting a certain… plague-causing individual. What say you?”
The pair of summon-mates shared a look, and the brown, known as Tamashi, rose to all fours. “I would be remiss if I ignored the threat Gaia warned us of. I will join you.”
Vrenus chuckled, and also rose. “And who would I be if I let Tamashi go alone with the Firestarter? You’ll have us both.”
“Wonderful. This way, if you please - another is waiting for us at the portal to the forest this plague-causer was last detected.” Without waiting another moment, Eridanus turned and trotted towards the portal Tirloch had previously entered through.
Their meeting and introductions were brief. Tirloch had chewed on a few more herbs and rested to tend to his wounds, and was now strong and healthy again - enough to face their quarry. “I’ll lead,” he said. “It is my home that the being invaded.”
Eager to fight, Tirloch leapt through the portal first, followed shortly by the other three. Once back in the forest on the other side, they were greeted by a moonless night, casting the forest in deep, black shadows. To kijikaiaku, this posed little issue, given their other reliable senses besides sight.
Tirloch took a few seconds to get his bearings, sniffing at the air, whiskers twitching while the others watched, and then he growled. “This way.” He hurried off at a steady run, careful not to crash into trees.
Eridanus took wing and zipped up into the air above the tree canopy, trusting himself good enough to keep track of Tirloch, while Tamashi and Vrenus followed on foot.
It didn’t take long to follow the trail of rot and un-living things to their quarry.
A massive, white-tinted horse with exposed bones, mounted by a skeletal rider trotted with seeming aimlessness through the foliage, and the ground wilted in its wake. Only when Eridanus made to close in did it make it obvious it noticed their presence. The horse leapt with preternatural nimbleness out of Eridanus’ path, and then turned to face him. The deathly rider brandished a cruel-looking weapon, and swung at Eridanus despite him being beyond melee range.
Eridanus scarcely dodged the supernatural arc of plague energy, strafing left, and then ascended once more, growling.
Tamashi was the next to attempt his attack. He launched at the horse’s flank, and managed to sink his claws into it and rake bloody tracks through its foul flesh before he had to evade a swing from Plague-made-reality himself.
Tirloch didn’t give the horse or its rider a chance to breathe (it didn’t matter that breathing wasn’t a thing either one did), and dove in to swipe at the horse’s forelegs. He managed to snap one knee backwards, but that barely seemed to affect it for more than a moment, as the horse kicked at him and snapped the leg straight at the same time. A rapid jab from Plague’s crooked, rusting blade had him retreat a few steps.
Finally, Vrenus made it atop the horse’s back, behind the rider, and snapped at the rider’s exposed neck. Before his teeth could close around the vertebrae, the horse reared, screaming, and threw him off.
All four kiji now circled the deathly, half-decayed horse and rider, taking turns assailing them while doing their best to avoid injury themselves.
Color would light the sky before they managed to finish the fight, or else end up retreating.