CHAPTER 48: CHAPTER 48; HER EYES

"Her eyes!" a man shouted, pointing at Shuyin. "What the fuck is wrong with her eyes?"

The observation rippled through the crowd like wildfire.

"They’re glowing!"

"Is that some kind of trick?"

"Those aren’t human eyes, look at them! They’re like a reptile’s!"

"What the hell happened to the Princess?"

"Last time she was here, she was normal! What is she now?"

The whispers grew louder, speculation and shock spreading through the spectators. Some leaned forward for a better look, morbid fascination overriding their initial surprise. Others pulled back slightly, some primal instinct warning them that something was fundamentally wrong with what they were seeing.

Guard Chen noticed the crowd’s reaction and moved closer to the cage, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Shuyin’s glowing jade eyes with its vertical reptilian pupil. "What the fuck?" he muttered to Guard Wu. "Her eyes weren’t like that before, were they?"

"I don’t know," Wu replied, equally disturbed. "Maybe it’s the lighting?"

"That’s not lighting," Chen growled. "That’s... I don’t know what that is."

But the crowd was eating it up. The shock was transforming into excitement, into even greater anticipation. This wasn’t just going to be a normal fight, this was going to be something special.... Something weird. Something worth talking about for weeks.

The betting intensified, voices calling out odds, money changing hands with increased fervor.

Tank moved closer to Shuyin, her massive body positioning itself protectively between the smaller woman and the crowd’s hungry stares. "Shuyin, just stay behind us," she said urgently, her voice low and fierce. "Don’t make a move. Just hide behind us and let us handle this."

Blade and Razor immediately shifted to flank them, forming a protective triangle with Shuyin at the center. Among the four of them, Shuyin was by far the smallest, the most delicate, the least equipped for this kind of brutal combat.

They’d protected her before. They would protect her again.

Even if it killed them.

Shuyin gazed at the three women, her glowing eye unreadable. She didn’t respond immediately, and something in her silence made Tank’s protective instincts flare even stronger.

"Princess, did you hear me?" Tank pressed. "Stay back. Let us...."

"The throat," Shuyin said quietly, her voice cutting through Tank’s words with clinical precision. "The human throat is the easiest target. A strike with proper force collapses the trachea. They can’t breathe, can’t scream, can’t fight back."

The three women froze, staring at her.

"What?" Blade whispered amazed.

Shuyin’s expression remained eerily calm as she continued, her voice in that same detached monotone. "The solar plexus, here...." she touched her own chest, just below the sternum, "disrupts breathing and can cause temporary paralysis if struck correctly. The knee joint is weak when attacked from the side. The temple, obviously, but that risks killing them, which might cause problems."

She tilted her head slightly, her glowing eye fixing on each of them in turn.

"Behind the ear, where the skull meets the spine, a hard strike there causes immediate disorientation. The floating ribs here...." she gestured to her lower ribs, "....are unprotected by muscle and crack easily. The instep of the foot has twenty-six small bones that shatter with minimal force, immobilizing them."

Razor’s mouth had fallen open. "How do you... Princess, how do you know all this?"

"The eyes are obvious," Shuyin continued as if Razor hadn’t spoken. "But gouging requires getting close, and close means you risk being grabbed. Better to strike the bridge of the nose, upward thrust with the heel of your palm. Drives bone fragments into the sinus cavity. Extremely painful. Debilitating."

Tank’s protective stance had shifted into something more uncertain. This wasn’t the gentle, educated Princess they’d met a few days ago.

This was someone, something, that spoke about human anatomy like a butcher discussing cuts of meat.

"The groin, everyone knows," Shuyin said, her voice never rising above that clinical calm. "But the inner thigh is better. Large artery there. Even a deep bruise can cause muscle failure. They’ll drop."

She finally met their stares, her reptilian eyes glowing brighter in the harsh spotlight.

"You want to protect me," she said softly. "I appreciate that. But I’m not as weak as you think."

Before any of them could respond, something else happened.

Guard Chen had moved closer to the cage, still trying to figure out what was wrong with Shuyin’s eyes, his face pressed almost against the chain-link. His earlier grip on her wrist had been unnecessarily brutal, his fingers digging in with the casual cruelty of someone who enjoyed causing pain.

Shuyin’s glowing eyes were fixed on him.

And something in her mind, something ancient and furious and still adjusting to the limits and possibilities of this new form, reached out.

She felt it like flexing a muscle she hadn’t known existed. Her consciousness, her will, her power extending beyond the confines of her body. It wasn’t water manipulation, there wasn’t enough moisture here for that. It was something else. Something that had translated into this terrestrial form in unexpected ways.

Her mind touched Chen’s.

And squeezed.

Guard Chen’s eyes went wide. His mouth opened in a silent scream. His hands flew to his head, fingers clawing at his temples as if trying to relieve some enormous pressure building inside his skull.

"Chen?" Guard Wu stepped toward him, confused. "What’s wrong with you?"

Chen’s face had gone bright red, veins standing out on his forehead and neck. He staggered backward, away from the cage, his body convulsing. Blood began trickling from his nose. Then from his ears.

"Chen!" Zhang grabbed him, trying to steady him, but Chen’s eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed.

Just dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, hitting the concrete floor with a heavy, final thud.

The crowd’s noise faltered, confusion rippling through the spectators. This wasn’t part of the show. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

Wu and Zhang dropped to their knees beside their fallen colleague, checking for a pulse, shouting for medical assistance. Other guards rushed over, surrounding Chen’s motionless body.