“No.” Kagami stayed sitting down. “I don’t want to fight a friend.”

Luke darkened. “We’re not friends. We never were. I would never be friends with you.”

“That’s too bad, but even if you don’t think that way, I do. I like you. I don’t want to fight you like this.” Kagami waved his hand around. “This is a fight to the death? I don’t want to kill you.”

His spear shook in his hands, and the man bit his lips until a trickle of blood dripped from his chin. “What do you know?” His voice cracked. “You don’t even know what you did to me do you? You killed my sister. Burnt her until she was burnt crisp. How could I ever be friends with someone like you? You want to know something? The ‘training’ we did? Walnut paid me, but I enjoyed killing you.”

“Ah.” Another person affected by the prince. He gave a big sigh, and met Luke’s eyes with his own gaze and said the words that would enrage them. “I did not do that.”

A vein popped on Luke’s forehead, and inside of Kagami he could hear the laughter of the phoenix that granted him his immortality.

“I hate you so much. You can’t even take responsibility for what you did. How could I ever be friends with someone like you!”

After a moment to catch his breath, Luke attacked him.

And just like he told him, he didn’t fight. The spear went through his heart.

#

“I will revive you immediately. Enjoy talking to your ‘friend.’” The phoenix mocked him.

#

He pulled out his spear, and the Prince immediately revived in a fury of rainbow flames. Luke waited until the flames extinguished. Stabbing him while the rainbow flames surrounded him did nothing to him. He was invincible. Once the flames extinguished, he stabbed Cedar again.

And again.

He killed him by stabbing through his head.

He killed him by stabbing his lungs and watching him wheeze for breath.

He bled him to death.

Sliced tiny little cuts.

Injected him with his own blood and wrecked havoc in his body, blowing his heart into pieces.

He killed and killed, but grew more irritated when the Prince did nothing.

Finally, after his twentieth death, he could take it no longer.

“Do something!” He yelled. “Fight! Struggle!”

Killing him had been nothing more than stabbing a bag of meat. There was no joy from it. The Prince met his gaze again, his clear blue eyes filled with determination.

“No.”’

He couldn’t take it. Luke stabbed the ground.

“Fight me! Fight me or I’ll…” His mind went back to a conversation they had a long time ago. A sickening smile spread across his face. “Or I’ll find your wife and kill her.”

Cedar straightened himself, his lips parted in shock. And just for a moment, Luke had thought that he had something he could threaten the man with. Instead, he burst into loud laughter.

“Wha-what’s funny?” He taken aback. “I will do it!”

The Prince wiped a tear and his smile was a man in love.

“Even if you did find her, you would never be able to defeat her. If you fought her a hundred out a hundred times, you would lose every single time.”

How dare he, make such a face, and say such things with ease.

He gripped the shaft of his spear and stabbed his knee. The Prince flinched in pain, but he made no yell. His spirit would not break.

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“Fight me!” He yelled, and then in a softer voice, he pleaded. “Fight me.”

In respect to his will, the Prince met his gaze.

“No.”

His spear clattered on the ground. There was no way he could make this man fight him. What could he do? He tried to goad him, threaten him, killed him, pleaded with him, and yet, nothing, nothing would spur this man to fight him.

When Luke had met the Prince in the past, he was extremely prideful and cold man. He would not let any insults fly over him like this. Rather, his personality now was more troublesome. His current self was like a mountain, unmovable.

He would not move to his dance.

The Prince that sat with his bleeding knee would only dance to his own tune.

Knowing that though an answer came to Luke. One so desperate, it was the only thing he knew would work only if he meant it.

Luke picked up his spear.

“I told you, I won’t fight you.”

“I know.” His voice devoid of any strength.

Kagami straightened up.

“What are you doing?”

He pointed his spear to his neck, closing his eyes.

If he couldn’t make him fight then he would die.

Sally, I’m coming.

He had been stopped from killing himself. The Prince had caught his spear by the blade, just an inch where his neck was. His face was enraged and he pulled the spear away from him.

“What do you think you’re doing?” The Prince yelled. “Did you intend to kill yourself because I wouldn’t fight you? What are you stupid?”

“You think it’s stupid?” A bitter taste rose from his throat. “Maybe to you, but to me, fighting you, killing you, breaking you, it is everything to me! You think you can just take that away from me? This is your fault! Stop running away from your responsibilities! You were the one that did this to me? You took my home. You took my sister. You took everything and forced me to live down here. You say we’re friends? Then fight me, or I’ll kill myself.”

The Prince stayed silent in deep thought. Then, in resignation, he handed Luke back his spear.

“I don’t agree with you, but you want to fight fine.” He bashed his fists together. “At the very least I can respect that will. I will fight you because it’s convenient for me. This is a good learning experience.”

“Even now, you’re just so god damn annoying. This is a torturing event, Cedar…no, I guess you’re not that person anymore, Kagami.”

#

Her blade sliced through his sound barrier with ease. The oni would have died if the giant didn’t pulled him back to escape her white blade.

“Great Goddess!” Subaru said after only realizing how close to death he had gotten.

He had escaped with a shallow cut across his nose. Aura surged from the giant and he transformed into a great red demon. He pitched forward, bringing down his great broadaxe. The ground where she had stood exploded and she landed on top of the axe and climbed up his arm from there.

She carved from the bottom of his face to above his right eyebrow. She had taken an eye, sealing it forever in darkness.

Walnut roared in pain and moved erratically. She kept her balance, shifting her weight from one side to another with ease, as if she were on lull. Then she used the shifting momentum to spin and slice the arm she was riding.

She would have cut through it if the oni boy’s whistle hadn’t forced her to jump aside.

“If both of you want to give up, I won’t kill you,” she said.

“Acting like that,” the demon’s voice was rough and loud. “Are you one of the Virtues-”

“I am not. Nor will I ever be.” She cut him off before he could finish. “I for one, despise each and every one of them, because they aren’t as virtuous as they pretend to be.”

The Demon took a step back and she realized that her Aura exploded at that. She took a couple of deep breaths bringing it back to tempered control.

“Once more, give up. The two of you don’t stand a chance. The further this goes on, the more likely you two will die.” Her eyes went to the injured Demon. Steam was coming out of the injury. She had heard that those of the Demon clan had accelerated healing.

“You know we’re not good people,” the demon said. “Letting us live would be a mistake.”

To that, she snickered. “I’ve seen worse people.”

With that their somewhat pleasant conversation ended. She honestly didn’t wish to cut these two down. It was a waste of life. She brought her white sword at eye level, her sword’s tip pointed at them.

“I have time to kill until the prince’s mind is destroyed, so let’s go ahead and have fun.”

“You’re underestimating us.” A vein popped on the demon’s forehead.

“I don’t think I am. I’m taking you with utmost seriousness.”

#

Bell maintained the barrier with his sword’s current form: Eclipse. It allowed him to create pockets of time and change the speed. He could speed it up just as he was doing now, or slow it to a crawl. Watching the fight inside take place was like fast forwarding from those old VHS tapes his parents had.

He had heard stories of Cedar Oswell. A Prince so cruel that he used his flames to burn down towns and salt the area so that it would be unlivable.

But the Prince he had heard about had been strong…this one was incredibly weak. He heard that the Prince was a skilled swordsman, but the Prince in front of him fought with his fists.

He watched as the Prince was killed over and over by the man holding the red spear. The first few times were interesting, the man was skilled with a spear, but it might as well have been watching a noob being battered around by an professional gamer.

It was sad.

At first he didn’t struggle, but then he tried, and even that was more pathetic.

Why did the Goddess want this man? He was told that he was dangerous? How?

He watched the spearman use orbs of blood that shot skewered the Prince like swiss cheese. That was pretty cool.

But his focus started to wane, and he felt himself sleepy. It had been a long day after all.

Then, he noticed a change. The Prince stood up after reviving, and he saw a mirage of a great beast that brought shivers down his spine.

Bell decided it was a delusion when the Prince died almost immediately again.