Lefty

He could see the shadowy figure smiling through his mask.
What froze his grin was that the arm that had shielded D’s chest seconds
before had halted his deadly sword thrust with its palm.
As the terror-struck shadow watched, the face that arose in D’s palm
laughed heartily. The tip of his sword was held in that wicked little mouth.
Clearly someone had bitten off more than they could chew.

Perhaps the ashen figure’s shock was too great, or perhaps he couldn’t
match the strength of that uncanny mouth, but, for whatever reason, the
shadow let go of his longsword and jumped out of the way. He was trying
to extract the sword that was still stuck through his chest when the crunch
of severed vertebrae came from around his neck.

This time, blood spouted out like a fountain, and, without even
watching the decapitated torso drop, D approached the ash-gray head
rolling around on the floor.

The impact after its flight through the air had knocked the mask off, and
the face of what was still a young man glared at the heavens. The right half
of the face looked like it had been caught in a press, with both the eye and
the ear shrunken to half their normal size.

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