YUKAN WINCED AS HE LANDED ON HIS BROKEN ARM in the prison cell. The lighting was incredibly harsh, consisting mostly of fluorescent bulbs reflecting off of a white tile floor. He could see his own reflection, so long as his eyes could find an angle from which they would not be blinded. The brightness bordered upon torture and had not seemed to change since Yukan first arrived, even though it felt like he had been there for at least the entire night. At least the blinding light, which kept him from telling night from day, served to distract him from the horrible pain in his arm. It had become swollen from when it was smashed into the drawer and his hand was visibly broken. Not one finger was completely straight and the bone was sticking out from just under the knuckle of his index finger.
“You’re one shitty nurse,” Yukan quipped, looking toward his kidnapper as she grinned maliciously.
“I wasn’t going to just let you fight back, you know,” Mirikiteki began. “You know, without your fighting hand or that sword of yours, you’re not really much of a threat.”
Yukan swept his leg underneath the assassin, tripping Mirikiteki with an immense force that caused her to lose balance and hit the tile floor with a loud thud. Once she got back onto her feet, she kicked Yukan hard in the skull and slammed his arm into the ground.
“You’re lucky you’re alive,” she growled. “I knew I should’ve killed your girlfriend in front of you.”
“If you touch Ite, I swear I will-”
“You’ll what?” the assassin scoffed, tossing her short black hair to the side. “Kill me? Good luck with that when you can’t even throw a good punch.” She walked toward the exit of the cell, her boots clacking against the tile as she walked. She opened the door and stepped to her right, concealed by the wall.
“He’s all wrapped up and ready for slaughter, my lord,” she said to a man on the other side of the wall. The man nodded and, as he stepped forward, the tall figure, well above six feet in height, made himself known as Emperor Kunshu Mujihina. Yukan suddenly threw himself toward Kunshu when he recognized him, ready to land a punch targeted straight for the scar on the side of his face that he’d gained from his previous battle against Zero. Before he could land the punch, however, Kunshu pointed the Alpha Blade toward his throat, keeping Yukan from getting even remotely close to him. Yukan barely managed to stop himself, the edge of the blade lightly touching the center of his throat.
“What the hell do you want from me?” Yukan pleaded. “Why do you have me trapped here?!”
“Oh, my dear boy,” Kunshu began. “How nice it must be to be as naive as you.” He threw a hefty punch into Yukan’s chest after saying this before continuing.
“I wish I were as blind to the truth of this world as you are,” the emperor carried on. “The truth is, boy, that you were trapped in this war from the day you were born.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Yukan cried out once he finally caught his breath after he had the wind knocked out of him. Kunshu did not answer him initially, instead opting to once more attack his victim, driving his knee into Yukan’s ribs. The wielder of the Omega Blade felt a few of them crack as the emperor’s knee drove itself into his sternum. The bones barely avoided puncturing the younger swordsman’s lung. As Yukan collapsed from the pain, Kunshu stood on his damaged right arm, grinning as Yukan screamed out in pain.
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“You have the Omega Blade, don’t you?” Kunshu finally answered. “That means that you’ve joined this war, whether you knew it or not. See, your family and mine don’t like each other, Yukan. They’ve been feuding since long before either of us were born. And that’s all the more reason to take you down.”
“And you never thought of trying to form a truce?” Yukan wheezed. “Are you so caught up in this stupid feud of yours that you never thought to break away from all of this pointless fighting?” Kunshu, developing an expression of rage, grabbed Yukan by the broken arm and threw him against the wall before pinning him behind the full length of the Alpha Blade.
“I want more than just the end of some family rivalry, boy!” the emperor snarled. “I want the Omega Blade, and I intend to remove every obstacle in my path to get it. Even you. Especially you.”
The room remained silent as Kunshu awaited Yukan’s last words. Only a short phrase emerged from the last Kenshi’s lips.
“Go to hell.”
“I’d thought you were smarter than that, Yukan,” Kunshu teased as he drew his blade back. “The unkillable don’t need your pitiful afterlife.”
Suddenly, the door burst open to the cell and Shirei entered.
“My liege!” he hollered. “Akuni is calling for reinforcements! They’ve dug in for a siege. They’re going to starve the fort out!”
“Nevermind the siege,” the emperor groaned. “I have bigger fish to fry right now!”
“But what if the reinforcements arrive and take the fort?”
“Don’t be a fool, Shirei!” Kunshu shouted, growing irritated with his second in command. “They’re not going to tear this fort down if they think they can save Yukan.”
As the two highest officials in Aotoshi argued, Yukan began to see a chance to escape, slowly sliding himself along the wall he was pinned to in an attempt to get himself unpinned from behind the Alpha Blade.
“Then what do you think they’ll do when they find that you intend to kill the boy?”
“When they find out I killed Yukan, their morale will be in shambles. No matter how hard they fight, they’ll know the war is unwinnable. Nothing that they possess could kill me and I can simply march into Murasakino, take the Omega Blade, and siege the palace in Acophis myself! Seizing control of Crenon will be a walk in the park at that rate. Now stop distracting me!”
Kunshu pushed the blade forward just as Yukan managed to escape from behind it. Yukan fell to the floor as Kunshu glared at him with the same disgust one would use when looking at maggot infested meat. He grabbed Yukan by his broken arm and tossed him toward Shirei.
“In fact,” the emperor began as he prodded Yukan a few times with the Alpha Blade, causing Yukan to bleed from those spots where his skin had been punctured, “why don’t you go out there and let them witness the moment they lost the war, Shirei? And bring Mirikiteki with you. I don’t care how you kill him. Just make sure that they all see.”
“Understood, my lord,” Shirei grunted as he hoisted Yukan onto his shoulder, using Yukan’s better left arm, both to make the process easier for himself and balance out the pain on his other arm slightly. After he met up with Mirikiteki, they took a buggy to the frontlines, ready to show the 154th Regiment that they were going to lose the war.