Clash of Blades

[nekoryuuha]

"You might want to engage the assassin, Zorlo, before they kill your new friend," Aihime stated as she walked forward, taking a deep breath to set herself. Her Aegis was less of the body and more on the mind. Her mind Cleared, the second breath focused her senses and muscles as she drew her sword. The Third expanded her spacial awareness and sharpened her awareness. She was ready now. The Golems' advance paused as the Blonde woman approached fearlessly. The nearer paused but a second before attacking Aihime. The result was floor shaking as Aihime full-on stopped its crushing attack before allowing it to deflect sideways into the floor with barely a scratch on her heavy shield. The other Golem and Assassin both took pause now as the Aegis knight's sword took the helm of the first Golem. "Not my first Golem, but definitely not the last..." she spoke aloud as the two attacked together and was again stopped dead by the Aegis Knight's shield, though she slid slightly. Would the floor survive this fight? Even she wasn't sure as she lead the Golems back from Kenshin & Infinity Blade with practiced ease, even managing to deflect or dodge those Crossbow attacks.

[Zorolo]

Zorlo chuckled as he watched the women fight. "Seriously, all she had to do was ask," the man stated as he unsheathed his sword. He waited. Counted. And when opportunity struck, he stood behind the assassin and rested the edge of his sword against the Assassin's neck. "It was clever of you to attack someone who isn't the God King, even with his sword, but you should be more careful. After all, the veil is thin here," he stated with a chuckle.

A sword of ice formed in his free hand and he rested it to disarm the woman of her crossbow. "You should surrender. After all, everyone else moved effectively to grant me all the time I needed," the Magi stated with a chuckle. "Although from this angle, you are quite attractive as well. Perhaps i've found luck at last."

[Kaori]

Instead of surrendering however, the Assassin scissor kicked Zorlo and pinned him to the ground, she also tore off the rings around his neck, "Thanks for the trinkets handsome, these should sell well" she said as she chuckled, she then rushed towards the Infinity Blade, however, it dissapeared in a flash and was back in Kenshin's hand, The Assassin saw a ring on her finger, a Golem however tried to smash Kenshin, only for her to parry it's blow, she then stabbed it on the knee, bringing it down, and stabbed it on the head, disabling the Golem, "I am not the God King" said Kenshin flatly, "Then why do you wield that blade then?" asked the Assassin, "I killed the God King! I am not one of the Deathless!" said Kenshin in a loud tone, The Assassin then brought out her crossbow, but instead of shooting Kenshin, she shot the Golems in their heads, disabling them, "Explain" said the Assassin, Kenshin didn't know where to begin....

"I see" said the Assassin, Kenshin sat on the throne, tired, but otherwise okay, "I heard the rumors, but I didn't think they were true" she said, she then offered a bottle to Kenshin, "Don't worry, it's not poisoned" she said, Kenshin drank from the bottle, it was ale, "I'm Kenshin, and you?" said Kenshin, "Haruka, Haruka Kasugano", said the Assassin, Kenshin found the way she introduced herself odd, she said her first name first and her last name last, "I take it you're not from around here?" asked Kenshin, "Nope, I came from beyond the sea" said Haruka, Kenshin then stood up, she had to find a place to cut her hair.

The God King lounged on his throne in the upper room of his Seventh Temple of Reincarnation. He played with a knife in one gauntleted hand, watching the massive screen that dominated his far wall. In it, the girl stood in the rubble of the Lantimor throne room, speaking with that Assassin.

Who is she? he thought idly about the Assassin. Which one does she serve? His query to his deadmind ledgers had returned no results. She wasn’t Deathless—or if she was, the ledgers had no record of her face.

The God King moved his other hand across the input pad on his armrest. He’d scanned Kenshin’s Q.I.P. while his old throne had attuned the ring she wore. You couldn’t get much from a surface scan; you needed bloodlines. Still, there was some information there.

Curious. He needed some of the girl’s blood to be certain. Or, at least, that of a true relative. If I’m right about her, so much will suddenly make sense . . .

“Great master?” Eves asked from beside the throne. “Great master, I don’t understand. Why . . .” The Devoted fell to his knees, bowing his head. “Your ways are mysterious and wonderful, great master. Too grand for my mind to comprehend.”

“I didn’t want the Assassin running off with the Blade, Eves,” the God King said, still playing idly with his knife.

The female Swordsman was quick-minded. When the God King had remotely disabled security on his throne—covering what he’d done by implying damage to the throne had caused the lapsed security—the Female swordsman had immediately seen what to do. Good thing, too. She had to be a minion of one of the other Deathless. The Killer of Dreams, perhaps? Or Vist? Both coveted the Infinity Blade. They weren’t the only ones.

Well, Kenshin had recovered the Blade. That was just as well; better the foe he knew than the foe he did not.

The God King’s hand hovered above his input panel. The Swordsman and the Assassin were no longer trying to kill one another. Pity. The God King could make out no sound; those systems actually had been damaged in the fighting.

He needed more redundancy there. He hated discovering where he’d been insufficiently prepared.

He pushed the button on his input pad. In doing so, he shut down and destroyed the entire deadmind system in his old palace. That one button-push remotely wiped all the memories, then set the fail-safes to destroy the deadminds’ mechanical housings. In moments, the palace systems were completely unrecoverable.

The cameras had to be turned off too. Unfortunate, but he had his other means of keeping watch on Kenshin.

The God King stood up. “Come.” Twelve knights in black armor fell in behind him as he strode from the room. “It’s time to pay a visit to the Worker.”

“The Deathless won’t leave you alone,” Haruka said. “Not as long as you have that sword.”

“What do you know about the sword?” Kenshin replied, tapping her razor on the washbasin.

She’d stripped to the waist, and was standing in a bafflingly luxurious bathroom. It appeared that the God King, despite being immortal, had still needed to use the privy. There was a silver one in the corner. The mirror was almost as long as the wall, the washbasin was gold, and the polished razors were incredibly sharp. Haruka sat beside an enormous tub turning the water on and off. Kenshin's mother would have loved a tub that large, though she’d have used it for washing clothing. The water came out warm.

“Well, I know that someone seems to want that sword badly,” Haruka replied. “They sent those golems to get it. It must be important.”

Kenshin raised the razor to her long hair. “Nice lie. You came here for the sword specifically, didn’t you?”

Haruka sat primly, giving no reply.

“Well?” Kenshin asked.

“Give it to me,” she said, “and I’ll spread a rumor that I killed you and took it. They’ll believe me. You’ll be free to go back to your simple life.”

“What makes you think I want a simple life?”

“You’re the Daughter of a farmer or something, Ribbons. It comes with the package.”

Kenshin washed off the razor, keeping a close eye on her in the mirror’s reflection. Would she take the crossbow to her again? So far she hadn’t, though she did catch her slipping a fine hand mirror into her pouch.

“You have your vengeance,” she continued. “The God King is dead by your hands.”

“So you believe me on that now?” Kenshin said dryly.

“Sure. Why not? You have a bit of a godslayer look to you.” She was eyeing her chest in the mirror, smiling appraisingly to herself. She resisted the urge to grab her shirt and throw it on. Being leered at was an . . . unfamiliar experience.

Nobody should look at me like that, she thought. I should teach her, show her, make her bow. I—

She cut off that line of thought, razor frozen at her hair. Where had those impulses come from?

“Look,” Haruka said, rising, strolling toward her. “So you’ve done it. You killed the God King. Congratulations. You do realize that now every Deathless in the world is going to come hunting you for that blade, don’t you?”

Kenshin said nothing.

“Don’t you want to be done with this?” she asked. “Go back to your family and friends, Kenshin. Go be their hero. I’ll take the sword and lay down a false trail. Nobody will think to connect you—and the ones you love back home—to the girl who slew the God King and stole his riches.”

“I already tried going back,” she said softly.

Haruka frowned at her.

Still, her offer was tempting. At the very least, she could go make a new life somewhere. Perhaps visit her mother occasionally, once she was certain that she wasn’t being hunted. Of course, to do so she would have to trust this woman—a woman who had tried to kill her.

It would also mean giving away this weapon, the only weapon that could fight the Deathless. That made her hesitate, which made her feel like a fool. She’d come to this castle seeking freedom, hadn’t she? This was a great chance for that.

I do want freedom, she told herself. But I’m not going to take it until I’m certain I’m not damning humankind by giving away our one path to salvation.

In the end, she needed to be able to face her mother with a clean conscience. So, as she cut her hair, she quietly revised her goals. He would find freedom, would find someplace anonymous to hide, but only after she had properly disposed of this weapon. Perhaps delivered it into the hands of someone she trusted to use it to fight.

Haruka took a step toward the sword. Kenshin snatched it by reflex, dropping the razor to the basin with a clatter.

“Touchy,” she noted, then reached past her—and the sword—to pick up what appeared to be a soap dish made entirely of silver. The motion put her close to her. Close enough that she readied himself to slap her hand if she tried to knife her in the gut.

She stepped back and held the soap dish up to the light. Her scent lingered close to her. No perfume. She smelled of leather and of wax. Good smells.

She dropped the dish into her pouch.

“Looting?” she said. “You’re nothing but a common thief.”

Haruka slung her crossbow over her shoulder—she wore it on a strap, like an over-arm pack. “Hardly.”

“Then what are you?” Kenshin asked, genuinely curious.

“A person who gets things done,” she replied, turning and walking toward the exit.

“For a price, I assume.”

“There’s always a price,” she said. “Thing is, if you’re lucky, someone else ends up paying it for you. I’m going to go wait down below until you decide to hire me.”

She turned to leave.

“Wait. What did you just say?”

She looked back at Kenshin. “Well, it doesn’t look like you’re going to let me take the Blade—”

“I’ll die before you lay hands on it.”

“I don’t doubt that’s true,” she said, a twinkle to her eye. “Answer something for me. How did you find your way to this castle?”

“Everyone knows where it is. You just keep following the river until you reach the cliffs.”

“And I assume that before coming here, you hadn’t ever left your little town?”

“Why would I have needed to?”

She just smiled. “I know where everything is—everything—and I can get you wherever you want to go. Keep that in mind as you contemplate sitting here, in a castle everyone knows how to find, holding a weapon that everyone wants.”

She strode out the door.

What a strange woman, Kenshin thought, holding the Infinity Blade close. Haruka's last words lingered with her. In a castle everyone knows how to find . . . a weapon everyone wants . . .

After a moment of consideration, she went looking for Strix.

“Great Master,” Strix said from beside the broken throne. “It is so wonderful to see you well. The golems’ attack did not harm you greatly, did it?”

Kenshin didn’t reply at first. She walked around the throne, feet crunching on bits of broken marble. She’d found the yellow-faced daeril poking and prodding at the God King’s broken seat, ostensibly trying to fix it.

Kenshin rounded the throne and stepped up to the daeril. Kenshin regarded Strix for a moment, then grabbed the gaunt daeril by the throat, hauling him up and slamming him back against the remnants of the side of the throne. She held the Infinity Blade in her other hand.

The daeril’s black eyes bugged out, and he tried to gasp for breath. “Great . . . master . . . Why . . . ?”

“Who is it you serve?”

The daeril’s eyes grew more panicked. “Master . . . I . . . of course I serve you . . .”

“You are a smart one, Strix,” Kenshin said. “You know that it’s dangerous to be found here. The other Deathless will slaughter you for what you know of the God King’s death. I can understand why Kuuth stayed; he doesn’t care about life. But you? You stayed for a reason.”

The daeril struggled, eyes widening.

Kenshin tightened her grip.

“Who do you serve?” Kenshin demanded.

Something crunched behind him.

Kenshin spun without thinking, the Infinity Blade lashing out. She’d intended to behead the person sneaking up on her. Instead, she sliced through her fifteen-foot-tall opponent’s stomach.

Kuuth, the blind troll, stumbled back, blood dribbling down his waist. His large, treelike staff clattered to the floor. He’d been about to smash Siris across the head.

“Hell take me!” Kenshin yelled. Traitors! Kill them both! Bring them pain. Make them fear.

She spun on Strix and drove the Infinity Blade into the stone of the throne, just beside the creature’s head. “What,” Kenshin bellowed, “is going on?”

“Do not blame Strix, warrior,” Kuuth said in his rumbling voice. The aged troll gasped in pain, then went down on his knees. “He did as I instructed him.”

“Kuuth,” Siris said, turning. The dying troll toppled onto his side. “Why . . .”

“We serve our master, warrior,” Kuuth said, voice growing softer. “It is . . . what we were created . . . to do . . .”

“Your master is dead!”

Kuuth fell still.

Kenshin spun on the quivering daeril beside the throne. Strix shrank down farther.

Kuuth had tried to get him to stay in the palace. That must have been what the entire conversation had been intended to do. Make him trust the troll, make him agree to remain behind. Where he could be found.

Kenshin leaned in. “What. Did. He. Mean?”

“The Infinity Blade doesn’t work yet,” Strix said, cowering. “The God King was preparing it with the souls of your bloodline! He thought killing you would be the last step. But he didn’t kill you. He—”

He fell to me, Kenshin thought.

Which meant . . . if the sword didn’t work yet . . .

The God King is still alive. He knows where I am.

Oh, hell.

Kenshin stumbled back, pulling the Infinity Blade from the stone and clutching it. Strix rubbed his neck, standing up and coughing. “He’ll come for you soon,” Strix said, hatred in his eyes. “I don’t know why he let you defeat him, or why he ordered Kuuth to answer your questions. But this is all part of his plan. Everything is always part of his plan.”

Kenshin longed to strike the daeril down, but she stopped herself. There had been a time she’d fought only when someone challenged her. Where had this bloodthirst come from?

The sword, she thought. It’s corrupting me. I can’t even use it, and it’s corrupting me.

She stumbled back farther, and Strix laughed. “Flee. He will find you, human. He will reclaim what is his, and you will come to learn—as your ancestors learned—the price of defiance!”

Clutching the Infinity Blade, Kenshin fled.

"We must flee!" shouted Kenshin as she dashed past Aihime and Zorlo to Haruka.

Moments later, the four of them were on the road, with Haruka on a horse.