Tales of a Lost Sword 61

Episode 61 Cage
A single Fatalist cloaked in black saunters down the dark hallway, listening intently to the hushed whispers and footsteps ahead of him. A sneer creeps across Recelo’s face as he drags his Doombringer behind him.

“I’ve got you now…”

Kunai glances back over his shoulder yet again. He narrows his eyes, his breathing ragged as the group continues to hurry on. “It’s no use. Whoever’s following us is definitely gaining on us.”

“Dammit,” Fayvard curses. He turns to Rill, barking at him. “Hey, you. Is there another route we can take to lose them? This is getting annoying.”

“We’re getting very close to the place I want to get to,” Rill replies, “we can’t change directions now…”

Fayvard curses under his breath again, punching the wall next to him with his fist. “Dammit!”

“At any rate, we cannot simply just stand here,” warns Silver. “We must keep moving if we hope to keep avoiding the Fatalists.”

“Yeah, Silver’s right,” Kunai says. Taking one last glance behind him, he turns back to the others. “Come on, let’s get moving!”

The group continues heading down their designated pathway. The tunnel merely leads straight on, with no other pathways branching off from it. Slowly and steadily, the path begins to climb uphill.

“We’re starting to go uphill,” Fayvard pants after a while. “We must be heading further up into the main castle.”

“At last,” Kunai mutters under his breath.

“There’s still one more place we have to go through first…” Rill hisses to himself.

After some time, the five of them arrive in a grand lobby. An eerie blue glow lights up the entire room. Elaborate, fifty-foot high pillars line the hall from end to end. At the center of the hallway are two identical arches, each leading into an equally dark pathway ahead. Written in the stone above the arches are curious runes and ancient characters. Directly in between the two arches is a faceless statue of a bust, with an empty white skull mask in the place where its face should be.

“Where…is this place?” Wake gapes in awe, soaking in the breathtaking surroundings. He stares upwards, where the heavenly blue light appears to enter through narrow, arched windows near the ceiling.

“Damn it!” Rill gasps. “Which way is it…?”

“What?! I thought you knew the way!” Fayvard howls, standing next to Rill.

“We’re heading in the right direction, but…I don’t know which way we’re supposed to take!” Rill gasps.

Meanwhile, the tapping of approaching footsteps continues to grow louder and louder in Kunai’s ears. He clenches his teeth and his fist as well. “They’re getting closer…!”

Without warning, the stone wall to the left of them explodes with a fiery blast. Rubble piles onto the ground as debris and dust float into the air. Kunai, Fayvard, Rill, Silver, and Wake all jump in alarm at the explosion. Kunai and Fayvard immediately draw their swords, readying for an attack.

As the dust settles, however, a bright red head emerges from the debris. Coughing loudly, Ryuu stumbles into the hall, his clothes tattered and blood dripping from his various wounds.

Both Kunai and Fayvard lower their weapons in relief as they spot Ryuu. Kunai and Rill both sprint forward to join Ryuu, helping him into the room. Fayvard remains motionless, gazing stoically at Ryuu’s crippled condition.

“You don’t look too good, Ryuu.” Fayvard’s face remains unreadable.

“Yeah…” Ryuu heaves, clearing speaking with much difficulty. “I had to…use my trump card… I managed to kill the Fatalist, but it really drained me physically…”

Fayvard closes his eyes. “I see. You used that thing you told me about.”

“Yeah.”

‘This is bad…’ Kunai thinks to himself, inspecting Ryuu in his weakened state. ‘If we were to be attacked by a Fatalist now…there’s no way Ryuu can fend for himself in this state.’

Ryuu slowly steps into the room with Kunai and Rill’s support. In the meantime, the footsteps trailing behind the group continue to grow louder, the echoes reverberating in the very hall they stand.

“Everyone, there’s no time! The Fatalists are almost here!” Silver shouts, abandoning all pretense of composure.

Kunai, Fayvard, and Rill glare at the corridor from which they’d come. Even now, the echoes continue to chime, as the clatter of footsteps grows nearer and nearer.

“What do we do…?” Rill murmurs. “One wrong turn and it’s over…”

“All right, it’s decided then,” Fayvard suddenly announces to the others. “We’ll split up. Some of us will take one way, some of us will take the other way.”

Kunai rounds on Fayvard in a fit of rage. “Splitting up? Are you crazy?! That’s the last thing we should do!”

Fayvard returns Kunai’s glare with one of his own, sternly staring down Kunai. “If we go down the wrong path, at least some of us will not and be able to rescue us!”

At that moment, the footsteps round a corner and can be clearly heard in the chamber. The Fatalist is now in a sprint, all efforts at stealth abandoned.

“There’s no time!” Silver cries. “We have to get moving!”

“Damn it!” Kunai shouts. “All right! We’ll split up!”

Fayvard nods. He gestures to Rill. “You go with the others. Kunai and I will take Ryuu down this way.”

Nodding in compliance, Rill joins Silver and Wake as they hurriedly sprint down the right pathway. Turning to Kunai, Fayvard helps Ryuu up with his shoulder on one side and gives Kunai the thumbs up. “Let’s go!”

With all the speed they can muster, Kunai, Ryuu, and Fayvard scramble down the left pathway, disappearing into the darkness within just as Recelo emerges in the hallway behind them.

Recelo doubles over, panting heavily. Nonetheless, a wide grin is splashed across his face. “All right, they took the bait!”

Rill, Silver, and Wake hurtle breathlessly down the dark hallway, not noticing even as the ground below their feet steadily begins to rise higher and higher as they climb a narrow staircase. In an instant, they emerge from the darkness into a brightly lit area.

They find themselves in a narrow glass box. To their right stand several rows of seats, as in a sports stadium. To their left is a glass wall looking down a precipitous fall into a massive arena below. Multiple bright lights illuminate the arena, lighting up the viewing box Rill, Silver, and Wake now find themselves in.

Ahead of them are Zack and Cynthia, their arms bound. Each is held back by an armored and masked guard wielding a spear crackling with electricity.

As the eyes of Rill, Silver, and Wake widen with alarm at this chance encounter, Zack suddenly breaks loose from his guard’s grip, his eyes bulging maddeningly. “You guys! Stay back! It’s a tra—” He is silenced as the guard holding him swipes at him across the back, causing him to double over choking.

“Welcome esteemed guests,” a sneering voice says behind the three. Rill, Silver, and Wake turn as one as they spot Recelo standing in front of them, his Doombringer drawn. A smile creeps across the Fatalist’s face.

“You’re just in time for the show.”

Kunai, Ryuu, and Fayvard scramble desperately onward through the darkness. At last, the corridor comes to an end as they force their way through a pair of metal double doors.

With a gasp, the three stumble into a brightly lit arena, the bright lights causing them to squint. A bang sounds behind them as the metal doors slam shut, locking them in. There appears to be no exit ahead.

On either side of the arena are glass boxes overlooking the stadium. To the three’s right is situated the box in which Zack, Cynthia, Rill, Silver, and Wake are now trapped in the hands of the Fatalists.

Directly in front is another glass box, much larger and closer to the battlefield than the others. Many people are standing in this box looking down upon Kunai, Ryuu, and Fayvard, including Arai. A smile runs across Arai’s face as he sees his guests.
—END SIXTY-ONE—
The confrontation at last.