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  # Chapter 29: Hunter vs. Prey

  ## I. The Price of Weakness

  The air around the small lake boiled with Zack's newly awakened fury. Zuko's severed head lay in the mud, a silent testament to the brutal speed with which the **Black-Eyed Hunter** could act, even under the influence of the **"Weak"** ability.

  Nati, Ygon's general, took a step back, her eyes fixed on her ally's body. The cruel smile that adorned her lethally beautiful face vanished, replaced by cold disbelief. She was accustomed to seeing terror, but Zack's gaze, devoid of fear and full of a promise of slow pain, was something new.

  — Nati... — Zack's voice was a hoarse whisper, a sound that seemed to have been scraped on stone. — I'm going to kill you, you bitch.

  The threat was not a shout of anger, but an non-negotiable sentence. Nati felt a shiver, but quickly regained her composure. She was the master of manipulation, and Zack's weakness was her greatest weapon.

  — What a pity, **Messiah** — Nati replied, her voice vibrant and musical, trying to envelop Zack in her command. — You are weakened, with the power of a rat, and your friend, whom you cherish so much, is now my puppet. You cannot touch me.

  Nati gestured to K, who stood beside her, with opaque red eyes and a rigid posture.

  — **Kill him, K.**

  K lunged forward. With Zack's physical strength, her movements were a blur of violence. The first punch came with the force of a battering ram, aimed at Zack's chin. He dodged, the blow tearing the air where his head had been. The impact of K's force on the ground opened a fissure in the earth.

  Zack, now with K's strength, was fast, but not powerful. He was the prey, and K, his hunter. However, Zack's experience was an insurmountable abyss. He was not just fighting K's strength; he was fighting his own strength, which was now attacking him.

  K delivered a series of kicks and punches, each loaded with the intent to kill. Zack moved with an almost insulting economy of effort. He did not block; he dodged by millimeters, using the inertia of K's blows against herself.

  — You have my strength, K — Zack said, his voice calm, as he leaned back to avoid a circular kick that would have broken his spine. — But you don't have my years of pain. You don't have my hunger.

  Nati watched, frustration growing. The fight should have ended in seconds. K was using the strength of a billion coins, but Zack, the original, was turning the disadvantage into a humiliating dance. He was a ghost, a reflection that K could not touch.

  — Why won't you fall?! — Nati shouted, the melody of her voice cracking in despair. She attempted a direct command on Zack. — **Kneel and beg for forgiveness!**

  Zack paused for a moment, looking at Nati. His black eyes were empty wells.

  — Your command is weak, Nati — he replied, his voice laden with a philosophical scandal. — You try to control the mind of a man who has already lost his own. What can you offer me in exchange for my will? More pain? More guilt? I am the King of Horror, Nati. Your whisper is just white noise to me.

  ## II. The Human Shield and the Poison

  Nati realized the mistake. Zack's mind was a devastated landscape, immune to superficial manipulation. She needed more vicious tactics.

  — If you won't fall, I'll force you to hesitate!

  Nati lunged forward, activating her gloves. Red claws, long and sharp as scalpels, emerged from her fingertips. She positioned herself behind K, using the controlled hunter as a human shield.

  K continued her attack, but Zack slowed his movements. He could not risk a blow that would injure K.

  — You are pathetic, Nati — Zack hissed, dodging a punch from K and a slash from Nati simultaneously.

  — Pathetic, but alive! — Nati laughed, and her claws glowed with a greenish hue. — This is the paralyzing poison, Hunter. One scratch and you'll be on the ground, drooling.

  Zack retreated, the Black Moon in his hand. He could not use the sword on K, but he needed to get rid of Nati. He delivered a horizontal strike, aiming for Nati's head.

  Nati used K. She pushed K's body forward, forcing Zack to stop the blow mid-swing. The blade stopped an inch from K's neck.

  — See? You are predictable! — Nati took advantage of Zack's hesitation to slide under K's arm and deliver a blow with her claws.

  The paralyzing poison missed, but the claws tore the flesh of Zack's forearm. He felt a searing pain, and blood began to flow.

  Nati changed the poison to a dark blue hue.

  — This is the sleeping poison. You will sleep, and I will deliver you to Ygon.

  The fight became a macabre ballet of dodges and restraint. Zack fought with one hand tied, forced to protect K while trying to neutralize Nati.

  Nati, realizing that the physical fight did not shake him, decided to attack what remained of his soul.

  — K, look at him! Look at the monster who used you to get to Ygon!

  Nati's voice, full of emotional venom, hit K. For an instant, the opaque glow in K's eyes flickered. A tear rolled down her face. She was fighting the control.

  — **You are a mistake, Zack!** — Nati shouted, taking advantage of the opening. — **You are not a messiah! You are the reason your friend was hanged!**

  K's body trembled. She managed a microsecond of control, and her red eyes fixed on Zack's, full of pain and plea.

  — **Forgive me...** — K whispered, her voice choked.

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  Nati immediately pulled her back into control, forcing K to punch herself in the face, as punishment for her weakness.

  Zack did not move. The scene was a direct hit, but he remained unshaken.

  — Do you think her pain breaks me? — Zack replied, his voice cold as ice. — I live with her pain. I live with the pain of everyone I failed to protect. Your manipulation is childish, Nati.

  ## III. The Touch of the Black Moon

  Nati's fury peaked. She could neither break the man nor kill him easily. She needed a lucky shot.

  — Your feelings will kill you, Hunter!

  Nati and K synchronized an attack. K, with Zack's strength, delivered a series of punches to Zack's face, while Nati, with her claws, changed the poison to a crimson hue, the flesh-rotting poison.

  *CRACK!*

  K's punches hit Zack squarely, breaking his nose and jaw. Blood gushed out. At the same time, Nati plunged her claws into Zack's chest, tearing the flesh in a deep diagonal slash.

  Zack staggered back, the Black Moon slipping from his hand and falling into the mud. The wound was severe, exposing ribs and muscle.

  Nati laughed, a shrill, victorious sound.

  — Finally! You are just flesh, after all! A billion coins for this? It was too easy!

  She approached the fallen sword, the trophy of her victory. K stood beside her, panting, but still under control.

  Nati bent down, picked up the Black Moon, and raised it above her head, preparing the final blow. The black, cold, ancient blade reflected the red moon.

  The instant her fingers touched the sword's hilt, Nati's world shattered.

  She was no longer on the battlefield. She was in her **small village**, the smell of fermenting bread dough in the air. Children laughed, their hands covered in flour. Her parents, with faces blurred black and eyes of pure light, smiled. It was the peace she had lost, the innocence she had buried.

  Then, the **old man in the blue kimono** appeared. He chose a child, the child with the face blurred white and crystal blue eyes.

  Nati watched her parents hand the child over to the old man. She heard the laughter, the clinking of glasses, the celebration. And, in the background, the sound that tore her apart: the child's crying, begging them to stop.

  The trauma, absorbed by the Black Moon, exploded in Nati's mind.

  — **STOP!** — she screamed, but the sound only grew louder.

  The smell of bread turned into the smell of blood. The pure light in her parents' eyes turned to darkness. Nati ran, desperate, into the darkness, away from that nightmare of lost innocence.

  But the darkness was not empty. In the background, there were two **giant white eyes**, bigger than mountains, watching her. They did not blink, they did not judge, they just *were*. And Nati knew: those eyes were her sentence.

  Nati let out a guttural scream, the sound of a soul being shattered. She dropped the Black Moon, which fell into the mud. She put her hands to her head, trembling uncontrollably, tears streaming down her face.

  Zack, staggering, took advantage of the moment. He crawled behind Nati, who was completely catatonic.

  — The price of your arrogance, Nati, is your soul.

  With a dry, precise blow to the back of her neck, Zack knocked the general unconscious.

  K, free from control, fell to the ground, exhausted, her body trembling with the sudden liberation.

  Zack picked up the Black Moon. The black blade, upon touching his hand, began to pulse. A dark, dense energy rose from the sword, enveloping Zack's body. The deep wound on his chest began to close, the flesh regenerating at an unnatural pace. The Black Moon did not just absorb pain; it transformed it into power.

  Zack looked at K, then at Nati, and finally at Zuko's decapitated body. The red moon in the sky seemed brighter, witnessing the chaos.

  He was weakened, but alive. And now, he had one prisoner (Nati) and an exhausted friend (K) under his care, along with a mountain of questions.

  The Embrace and the Sentence

  ## I. Captivity and Routine

  Nati awoke with a searing pain in the back of her neck, a dry, brutal reminder of her defeat. She was in an improvised but secure cell in Zack's basement. The walls were cold brick, and the only light came from a small crack in the ceiling. The humiliation of defeat was less than the terror the Black Moon had planted in her mind. The smell of fresh bread and coffee, however, was an anomaly that confused her.

  In the days that followed, Nati became a forced observer of the routine of that dysfunctional family. She expected to see the monster, the King of Horror, but she only saw a tired man.

  Lyra and Mira took turns caring for "The Boy," teaching him to handle the dagger with the sweetness of mothers and the precision of warriors. K, the pragmatic one, trained with silent ferocity, but never missed an opportunity to cast disapproving glances at Zack.

  Nati noticed the contradiction: the man whose head was worth a billion, the most feared in the world, was the center of a home. He was gentle with the women, patient with the boy, and carried the fragility of someone on the verge of collapse.

  ## II. The Deconstruction of Nati

  Nati's mind was a battlefield. The silence of the cell brought back the flashbacks that the Black Moon had awakened.

  She was only eight years old when the **false elder** began. The entire village worshipped him. By fourteen, the abuse was a silent routine, and the betrayal of her parents, who handed her over in exchange for blessings and status, was the deepest wound.

  *The smell of fresh bread...*

  She remembered the smell of fermenting bread in her parents' house, while the elder took her to the barn. The smell of innocence mixed with the smell of rot.

  Then, **Ygon** arrived.

  He was not a fairy-tale savior. He was a red-eyed giant who destroyed the village in the name of a new order. He found her, dirty and broken, and took her out of the barn.

  > "You are no longer a victim. You are **Nati**. And from today on, your pain will be your strength."

  Ygon embraced her, an embrace that was not of lust, but of care. He trained her, gave her a new name and a purpose. Nati saw him as a messiah who took her out of suffering.

  Nati rationalized the hunt for Zack: Ygon needed fame, allies. Killing the most dangerous man in the world was the perfect proof of power. It was a necessary sacrifice for her savior.

  ## III. Family Tension

  K could not contain her frustration.

  "Zack, she's a general of Ygon! She tried to kill us! Why is she still alive?" K asked, her voice low, but laden with venom.

  Zack was sharpening the Black Moon, the metallic sound filling the room.

  "She is a prisoner, K. And a source of information."

  "Information? She tried to kill you with your own strength! And she tried to break me with my own pain! Kill her, Zack! It's the pragmatism you taught us!"

  K looked at Lyra and Mira, seeking support, but they just shook their heads.

  "Zack always has a reason, K," Mira said, without taking her eyes off "The Boy" who was training.

  Nati, in the cell, watched the scene. She did not understand why Zack did not argue with K.

  "Why don't you kill me, Hunter?" Nati shouted one day, her voice hoarse.

  Zack approached the cell, his face tired.

  "You are ill-mannered, Nati," he said, with a slight smile. "But I don't kill you because... not everything is solved that way. Often, a hug is enough."

  Nati felt the bile rise. She spat in Zack's face.

  "You hypocrite!"

  Zack wiped his face with his sleeve, the smile unshakable. "I know you are suffering, Nati. And I won't give you the relief of death."

  ## IV. The Boy and the Liberation

  "The Boy" was persistent. Every day, he brought a piece of bread and a cup of water to Nati.

  "You shouldn't be here," he said one day, his disguised golden eyes fixed on her.

  "I am a prisoner," Nati replied, her voice cold.

  "You don't look like a prisoner. You look sad."

  Nati did not answer.

  One night, "The Boy" went to the cell. He used the dagger Zack had given him to force the lock.

  "You are free," he whispered.

  Nati left the cell, adrenaline rushing through her veins. She turned to the boy, murderous intent in her eyes. She prepared to attack him, to kill him and then kill everyone there.

  But, looking at "The Boy," she saw herself at eight years old, before the elder. She saw the innocence that had been stolen. She saw the boy's smile, a pure and malice-free smile.

  She did not want to be a monster like her parents and the elder.

  "The Boy" approached and hugged her. His small, warm body against Nati's cold armor.

  Nati remembered Zack's phrase: *"Often, a hug is enough."*

  She did not return the hug, but she did not push him away either. She felt the pain transform into something different.

  ## V. The Silent Farewell

  Nati moved away from the boy. She did not attack him. She did not attack the house. She did not attack the family.

  She turned and ran into the darkness of the Red Forest.

  Zack was on the roof, watching her leave. He did not stop her. He did not call her.

  He just smiled, a smile of relief and weariness.

  Nati's sentence was not death, but the freedom to choose who she would be.

  ***

  *End of Chapter *