Episode 81 Victory is an Elusive Creature
Damon opens his eyes, leering at Cynthia. However, he only spots a flash of light fly past him. He turns, just in time to see the trail of blood flowing out of his body after Cynthia.
The latter comes to a stop just behind Damon, panting heavily, blood stained on the blade of her dagger. Damon looks down, shock etched onto his face as he sees the blood already quickly pooling around his stomach and onto his knees.
Cynthia rises out of her follow-through pose, a cold fury in her eyes. A whirl of blue light can be seen hovering around her Kandine’s blade. It spins rapidly in place like a miniature cyclone, humming loudly as it does so.
“The Cloud Family’s secret move in which the user’s mana is channeled into the dagger immediately before using Assaulter…Special Assaulter!”
Dark bags begin to grow under Damon’s eyes as the blood drains from his body. Cynthia lowers her dagger, the whirring blue mana disappearing from around it.
“It’s over,” she whispers softly.
The blood continues to pool around Damon’s feet. He pants heavily, his breathing ragged. Damon places a hand over the wound, but the blood still insists on squirting through his fingers, staining his palms crimson.
“Damn it!” he curses loudly. “I ain’t gonna die like this!”
Unable to utter any more words for the time being, Damon collapses to his knees with a thud. His Fatalist robes are drenched red with blood. He lowers his head, breathing with difficulty.
“It really is over…” hisses Cynthia, watching with slightly widened eyes. “I did it…I defeated a Fatalist! This victory is for you, Ivy…Ayame! It really is over!”
“THE HELL IT AIN’T!” thunders Damon suddenly.
Cynthia has no time to react before a gigantic arm made of wood rushes at her, slamming her against the trunk of a tree as it grabs her in a chokehold. Cynthia struggles to breathe as the wooden fist’s fingers clench mercilessly around her throat, holding her in place. She rapidly turns blue as her lungs plead for air.
Without warning, the wooden fist abruptly lets go of Cynthia. She slides weakly to the floor, immediately placing her shaking hands around her throat. Cynthia chokes, gasping for air frightfully. Meanwhile, the wooden limb retreats back towards Damon with a pathetic crunch as he now lies face down on the ground, unmoving.
Carefully, Cynthia crawls towards Damon, watching as the light slowly begins to fade from his eyes. He sniffles slightly as she approaches. “Damn…I just wanted to live a carefree and easy life… Then I had to get caught up in this stuff about wars and dimensions…” Damon croaks, his voice barely above a whisper.
Watching wide-eyed, Cynthia can only observe as the light finally disappears from Damon’s eyes without another word from him. Her face softens as Damon grows completely still. The pool of blood around him continues to grow silently and ominously, however.
Her hand quivering slightly, Cynthia reaches out and closes Damon’s eyes, allowing him to lie on the ground peacefully as though in slumber, only the growing pool of crimson beneath him betraying the truth.
“Even if they’re fighting against us…they’re just regular human beings, too,” Cynthia murmurs to herself. “They have dreams and aspirations just like we do. Why are we even fighting…? This war has done nothing but take lives away from people.”
Sunshine pours down on the castle from above, the blue sky slowly growing pink and orange as the sun prepares to set. Arai stands at the edge of the balcony overlooking the forest below outside his throne room. He leans against the railing, extending a finger as a bright blue butterfly lands on his fingertips. He watches it flutter its transparent blue wings.
Across the otherwise spotless blue sky is a long, thin black line, like a fissure in the heavens. It shudders slightly, the crack pulsating periodically like an egg nearly about to shatter.
His face unsmiling, Arai begins absentmindedly tracing the large crack in the sky with his finger. The butterfly hops into the air and flies away from his other hand, disappearing into the hazy horizon far away.
‘It is almost time…’
Far away down below, Kunai, Fayvard, Recelo, and Midori continue their standoff. Kunai and Recelo break away from their stalemate, their swords clattering as metal slides against metal.
Kunai cuts the air with his sword, staring with intense concentration and dislike at Recelo. “I’m going to cut you down if you don’t get out of the way now. I want to see Arai!”
“His Majesty is busy right now. Besides, you have to get past us first! Aren’t you forgetting that you owe us an Anti-Paradox?!” Midori snarls, directing her lightning bow at Kunai. A golden arrow hums loudly in the bow, its head pointed straight at Kunai.
Fayvard sighs, surveying both Recelo and Midori’s weapons silently. “They’re both mostly ranged fighters…” he mumbles to himself. “Forcing them into close-range combat would be ideal.”
Turning to Kunai, Fayvard shouts out loud. “Oi, Kunai! These guys don’t look like they’d do well in close-range combat. Let’s bring the fight to ‘em!”
“Yeah!” Kunai nods.
“Oh?” Recelo retorts smugly. “I’d like to see you try! Triplication!” He holds his Doombringer out in front of him, quickly tripling the amount of swords in his hand. All three swords are connected by a metal chain, as Recelo begins swinging them wildly through the air like a lasso.
“I won’t let you do that!” Kunai roars, taking a step forward. However, before he can do much else, a stabbing pain flashes across his forehead. He automatically grabs his head, grimacing.
Fayvard glances worriedly at Kunai. “What’s wrong, bud?”
“N-Nothing!” Kunai stammers as he shakes away the pain in his head. He continues to grimace though, squinting his eyes with concentration just to ignore the pain.
Recelo bursts into a wide grin and cackles. “Hey, hey! Now’s no time to be standing around!” He jets forward, leaping off one foot and entering top speed right away.
Forced to respond, Kunai just manages to dash out of the way of Recelo’s attack at the last minute. The Fatalist pivots on a dime, turning around to face Kunai again, his heavy Doombringers soaring threateningly through the air.
“Take this!” All three Doombringers fly straight for Kunai at once, cutting through the air with their sharp blades. Kunai slips past them and tries to cut them by the chain with Myou, but the metal chain proves too difficult to cut; the three swords soon wrap themselves around Kunai, tangling around his arms and legs.
“Got you now!” cackles Recelo viciously. “Weapon Explosion!”
With a resounding boom, the three Doombringers explode in a haze of smoke. A flash of black light escapes from the tangled mess of chains and swords at the last moment.
Recelo’s eyes widen as he spots Kunai zooming at him. He steps out of the way as Kunai smashes into the ground like a meteor, a miniature crater forming around his landing area. Kunai quickly turns, elbowing Recelo in the chest. Recelo tumbles backwards into the air out of control.
“SOUL COMBU—!” Kunai screams, but is interrupted by a rapid flash of golden light this time. He takes a breath of surprise, as Midori steps between him and Recelo with shocking speed, the very tip of her light bow locking onto the spot between Kunai’s eyes.
Kunai gasps at the unexpected counter, his throat running dry. He takes a step back, the intense heat from the bow causing him to sweat.
“Don’t move!” Midori orders sharply, her commanding voice piercing the air.
“I should say the same to you!” interrupts Fayvard from behind. In a flash, he brings down his sword on Midori; she reacts quickly, sliding back to avoid the worst of the damage from the attack.
With a burst of golden light, she counters Fayvard with an attack of her own, throwing him backwards and off balance. He stumbles back a few paces, blood running down from a gash in his forearm.
“Not bad,” Fayvard grins, shaking the blood off his arm with a shrug.
Midori winces as well, a large cut sliced into her shoulder blade from behind. Her golden bow wavers as she as she sways, obviously rattled from the attack. ‘To think he was fast enough to get me even after I dodged…’
“Midori!” Recelo cries, rushing over to his companion’s side. “Are you okay?”
Still shaken slightly, Midori nods. “Yeah. Don’t worry about me.”
In the meantime, Kunai glances at Fayvard. “You all right?”
Fayvard merely flashes Kunai a sneer in return. “You worry about yourself first before you go worrying about me.”
“All right,” Kunai growls in reply. “Then I won’t. So don’t go blaming me if I injure you when I blast these guys out of the way!”
“Hmph!” Midori breathes. “We shall never allow you to reach His Majesty!”
“Yeah!” agrees Recelo, gathering all three of his Doombringers once again as Kunai readies himself. “Time to kick things up a notch! Doom Avenger!”
Kunai points his sword forward as Recelo creates an Avenger with his three Doombringers. The massive shuriken forms in Recelo’s hands as he dashes forward to meet Kunai with it.
“Don’t forget this, Recelo!” Midori shouts, firing an arrow from her light bow. The shaft of golden light forms alongside Recelo; he grabs it out of the air with his other hand as the light shapes itself into a thin sword of light.
Armed with a weapon in each hand, Recelo approaches Kunai at top speed, screaming at the top of his lungs. But Kunai proves prepared for the encounter. His eyes glowing menacingly, Kunai raises his sword.
“Tch!” Recelo sneers. “You’re predictable as hell. I already know what’s coming, all I have to do is dodge!”
“Assaulter!”
“What?!” Recelo cries, his eyes widening as Kunai zips past him. “Crap!”
A trail of blood follows Recelo the other way as Kunai flies past him, his sword singing mercilessly alongside. Recelo comes to a grinding halt, blood exploding out of his chest as he doubles over weakly.
Meanwhile, Kunai skids to a stop as well and turns, his eyes bright crimson. “Soul Combustion!”
Recelo can only grit his teeth in anticipation as the blast comes thundering towards him at full force, a massive white ball of pressurized energy. “God damn it!”
Tau sits lazily on a makeshift throne not unlike Arai’s, though it is made of a much simpler metal-like material. He yawns, curling up in his throne as he peers lazily at a magazine, resting his propped-up head idly against an arm.
All around him, the sound of clinking and clanking as of machinery rattle on and off. Around his throne are an eclectic collection of massive pipes, wheels, cogs, and other strange apparatuses.
Suppressing another wide yawn, Tau hurls his magazine to the ground and rises to his feet, treading over the volume with his feet as he strides away from his throne. He leans over the edge of a rusty metal railing, peering far down below.
Unending rows of masked Fatalists greet his eyes. They march almost robotically in neat rows of ten, their heavy boots trampling upon the concrete ground and generating an almost rhythmic drumbeat. Tau closes his eyes, listening intently to the ceaseless pounding of their feet.
Suddenly, he reopens his eyes, looking over his shoulder as a dark figure approaches him from behind. “Oh, it’s just you,” he says, as the masked woman with her dark hair tied up in a bun saunters close to him. “What did ya want?”
“His Majesty Arai desires an update upon the status of the Fatal Knights,” Seraphe answers.
“Tch,” Tau snarls, turning his attention back to the soldiers marching below. “Tell Arai that they’ll be ready. I always deliver, don’t I? I told him I don’t like keeping debts. It’s only a matter of hours now. The enemy won’t know what him ‘em. I, Tau Astrus of the Fatal Knights, guarantee it!”
—END EIGHTY-ONE—
Well, here it is.