Xenia entered through the doors of the large facility to find a dark, eerie interior with the lights off due to the lack of power. Few emergency lights shed just enough light to illuminate a large and predominately empty room with tall ceilings. The borders of the room were comprised of holding cells, and numerous rafters and walkways littered the view above.
She could sense every living being within the building with her ki, and she showed no hesitation as she came upon three men in ninja gear with their katanas drawn. They stood in a fan formation blocking her way.
As she approached, the ninja in the middle declared, “You shall go no further! We are seats of the Karasu Clan. You will not best us so easily.”
Xenia couldn’t help but laugh to herself, “A mere seat? It wouldn’t matter if there were three hundred of you, but three… I’m afraid you may as well already be dead.”
She bloodbent her sword from its secured position on her back and into her hand and said, “But I have been looking forward to testing out my newly upgraded sword.”
She activated her sword with the usual column of red ki shooting up to form the blade. Then, she infused more ki into the black obsidian grip creating a second ki blade opposite the first. She held her double-bladed saber diagonally and said, “Let’s see what the combined might of the Karasu seats can offer!”
She immediately jumped forward and engaged them in sword-to-sword combat. Her footwork and maneuvering clearly outmatched their own by leagues; however, the ninjas were undeterred as they knew their true mission was to slowly move Xenia into position.
Xenia effortlessly blocked their strikes twirling her blade as she somersaulted and dodged. She then held out her blade pointing it forward in one hand while bloodbending with her other hand. She bloodbent one of the ninjas onto the blade skewering him as she used her bloodbending to slide him further down the blade along his abdomen.
As the ninja approached Xenia ever closer, she kissed him over his mask and smiled. She then ripped the blade up through his abdomen all the way through to his skull splitting his upper body and letting him fall to the ground dead.
The other two warriors looked on in shock, but they steeled themselves and re-engaged her together. One moved to her rear while the other focused in front of her.
Xenia twirled her double-bladed saber horizontally at head level to block an incoming sword slash from the front, and simultaneously, she decapitated the ninja behind her as her blade sizzled through his neck completely severing his head as it fell to the ground in a pool of blood.
She twirled her sword listening to it hum and called out, “Last man standing. Come, darling. I’ll send you off with a kiss!”
She held her blade out in front of her sideways, and she bloodbent the ninja towards her. He tried to resist; however, she slowly inched him towards the blade in her hands until his body finally made contact with the blade. Given the orientation of her ki sword, the ninja wasn’t skewered. Instead, the blade cut his body into two halves, an upper half, and a lower half.
The lower half she let fall to the ground; however, she maintained the upper half in a levitating position as she continued to bloodbend him closer and closer to her until she finally pulled down his ninja mask and gave him a long, passionate kiss. She continued to kiss him until she slowly relinquished her hold on his blood, and he sank to the floor.
She looked down at the severed halves of his body and said, “The pleasure was all mine.”
She turned to face the far wall of the facility and noted a prisoner on her knees with her ankles fastened together and hands tied behind her back. A rope gagged her mouth, and the ankle bracelets were chained to the floor.
Xenia began to walk towards the prisoner, “Constance, is that you?”
The prisoner tried to scream through her gag but only produced muffled sounds. As Xenia walked closer she recognized the prisoner to be Constance; however, her cries didn’t seem joyful. Instead, the urgency of her muffled noises seemed to increase.
Suddenly, Xenia felt the cold wind of a domain. She knew the feeling well for her mother, Victoria, had a domain to call on which she used at times during their sparring. The defensive ki at the ready layered around her body fizzled out as she entered the domain, and the ki blades of her sword fizzled to nothing as well. She gave no concern to the domain’s chill on her power as she continued towards Constance at a quick pace.
From the overhead rafters, Natalya whispered to herself, “You arrogant fool. Your arrogance has led you to your death.” She held her breath and squeezed the trigger with the aiming reticle directly over her chest.
The muzzle flashed, and an armor piercing bullet flew through the air at over 3,000 feet per second and collided into Xenia’s chest.
The impact of the bullet exploded her entire chest leaving a gaping hole from shoulder to shoulder and neck to diaphragm leaving a mangled mess of veins, arteries, muscle, bone, and gushing blood. Her body fell to the ground dead as the blood began to pool around her.
Constance screamed in shock and fear as she was helpless to do anything but look on. She began to sob as she watched her best friend die right before her eyes in such gruesome fashion.
Natalya stood and drew her katana as she began to cautiously walk down to the ground level. She maintained her attack ready posture with her sword in hand until she finally reached Xenia’s body and looked at it for herself.
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The damage was extensive. Although her abdomen was still technically intact, the insides were scrambled from the adjacent impact. Her superior neck didn’t fare any better.
Natalya sheathed her sword and began to laugh, “And just like that, the most powerful enemy my generation has known… is dead!” She laughed at the top of her lungs as she rejoiced.
As she came down from her extended laughter, she called out to Master Chief Washington, “John, our plan is all but complete but please maintain your domain in an active state for now. I don’t want to take any chances. Xenia is a freak after all, even in death she could be dangerous.”
Natalya walked over to Constance and removed her gag, “Now that you’ve seen your friend and leader die before your eyes, you must be begging for death. Well, go ahead… beg!”
Constance began to laugh to herself quietly at first but then progressively got louder and louder.
Natalya kicked her in frustration knocking her to the ground, “What?! What is so funny?!”
Constance continued to laugh in Natalya’s face, and Natalya said, “I suppose you’re right! Your death will be quite entertaining!”
Constance shook her head, “I don’t know how. You don’t know how. But you are the dead one.” Constance smiled to Natalya and nodded with her head to look behind her.
Natalya turned slowly to see Xenia on the ground. However, her hair was now red, and the hole in her chest was rapidly rejuvenating right before her eyes. Xenia began to stand slowly as she groaned and moaned loudly from the pain of the injury and the pain of healing.
She flipped her crimson red hair behind her and shot a menacing look to Natalya, “You must be the Second Seat, Natalya Belova.”
Natalya took a step backwards subconsciously and mumbled, “No… No… this can’t be… you… you’re dead! In a domain! John Washington, activate your domain!”
John called out from the adjacent cell where he was hidden, “It is active!”
Natalya held out her hand to create a ball of ki; however, as she gathered energy, it flickered away due to the domain.
Natalya was speechless as she looked to Xenia who was using what must have been mountains of ki to heal such a serious injury. Xenia then held her palm up and created a dense, terrifyingly powerful energy blast that whirled in her hand before dispersing it on her own accord.
Xenia smiled and said, “Weak domain skills such as John’s only have an effect on ambient ki. Normally, that would be more than effective. Almost all ki users in the world, even the Heraklinos Family, merely draw on and control ambient ki in the environment.”
She began to pace around a scared-stiff Natalya as she continued, “But me? I’m not a typical ki user. Not in today’s world and not throughout history. The BloodStars draw on ambient environmental ki, sure. But our true power comes from internal ki in our blood. Every ki user has it, but the internal ki is usually infinitesimally small. But mine, is massive.”
She came to a stop in front of Natalya and said, “To diminish my ki to zero would require a true death domain. One would need to diminish my life force to absolute zero. A domain such as that doesn’t exist outside of legends, I’m afraid… I’m afraid for you that is.”
Xenia smirked, “You did catch me off guard though, and to honor your guile, I will fight you to the death using only my sword. You may attack with everything you have.”
She turned towards John, “Deactivate your domain!” John obediently followed her instruction.
Natalya felt the warm rush of ki as it flooded back to her.
Xenia took a step back and activated her double-bladed ki sword, BloodBane, and said, “Come and kill me! If you dare!”
Natalya covered her steel blade in ki and lunged forth at Xenia. Xenia gracefully dodged and continued to mock Natalya as she dodged one slash, strike, and swing after another. Xenia taunted her, “Your Master Karasu must either not be very powerful, or he must not have very good students! Which is it, Natalya?!”
Natalya grit her teeth, “Grrr!” Fueled by Xenia’s taunting, she gathered a large ki blast and threw it directly at her. Xenia slashed her double blades at the ki ball cutting it in half as the two halves continued behind her crashing into the walls of the facility shaking the building’s foundation as the two women continued their duel.
Xenia taunted her further, “You’ll have to do better than that if you wish to defeat the future Empress of the BloodStar Empire! Show me your strength!”
Natalya held her sword straight up with both hands clenched around the hilt as she yelled at the top of her lungs. A black mysterious energy gathered from the base of her blade and began to crawl upwards with flickers of electricity as it did.
Xenia assumed a defensive position and said, “Yes! That is it! Show me the vaunted power of the Karasu Clan of old!”
Natalya continued to struggle as she poured all of her energy into this one attack. Xenia could have easily struck her down while waiting for her to build her attack, but Natalya gauged that she was interested in taking her on at full strength. Her decision had paid off.
Natalya’s blade was pitch black and covered in an amorphous and mysterious energy with surrounding flickers of electricity. She then yelled, “Void Strike!!!” She swung her sword forth sending a crescent shaped surge of black energy towards Xenia.
Although she had never seen the maneuver first hand, as a scholar of history, Xenia knew very well that blocking such an attack required more than just power. It required a specific skill set. One she did not have. She simply side-stepped the slow attack and watched it pass her as she stood unharmed.
The energy went on to strike the building. The entire area that made contact with the energy simply disappeared. It wasn’t destroyed or obliterated, it just disappeared. Xenia turned back to Natalya, “The infamous Void Strike of the Karasu Clan. That section of the building is in… another dimension now, yes? A dangerous attack. I’m surprised you can even perform it.”
Natalya fell to her knees with exhaustion as she was completely spent. She huffed and puffed to catch her breath and maintained eye contact with the ground as she struggled to maintain consciousness. She knew her attack was too slow. Too slow to perform. Too slow to strike. Xenia couldn’t block such an attack, but she didn’t have to.
Xenia walked up to Natalya, “In the end, you defeated yourself.” She walked over to Constance and freed her of her restraints and healed her immediately as Natalya was the one suffering on her knees now.
Xenia deactivated her sword as she and Constance walked back to Natalya. Xenia looked to Constance and motioned with her hand to Natalya, “If you would be so kind. I think you owe Natalya. Why don’t you return to her the hospitality she has shown you?”
Constance smiled, “With pleasure.” She then gathered a dense ball of blindingly bright ki on her fingertip and touched it to Natalya’s forehead as she said, “Inflict!” The ki then melted from Constance’s finger and into Natalya’s forehead as it seeped into her brain. Constance then yelled, “Terror!”
Natalya suddenly looked at both of them with wide eyes filled with fear and began to scream and cower on the floor.
Xenia laughed and Constance smiled as Natalya began her descent into hysteria with a fit of fear and dread that would plague her for many months to come until her eventual death unless the ki Constance had infused could be removed from her central nervous system.