Sachihiro

There are single-family houses scattered along the road abandoned with broken pottery depicting exict signs of life, I decide not to ransack them as there in the distance I spot a watchtower looking over the area. Getting close I spot the town, walled in wooden palisades that look fairly recently built with some green in the wood still evident. I get close enough to be within their range of attack as the people watch me approach from their high positions on the wall.

‘’Halt, who goes there?’’ Someone shouts down. It’s the middle of the day but the gates are closed and the watch looks to be well manned though many of the faces look youthful.

‘’A traveller looking to trade and be on his way.’’

‘’We have no coin here, we are no traders.’’

‘’It is not coin I seek but provisions. Does the butcher not need meat or the tanner hide to replenish their supplies?’’

There is whispering as they discuss, I wonder what’s been happening to have them so jumpy but it's a fleeting curiosity. I don’t really care.

The gate is unbarred loudly, the mechanisms seemingly not easy. A man steps out looking a lot like the caster I left bleeding in the woods, blue lightning playfully running along his arms and torso in silent threat. Behind him a woman stands, tall and handsome with a stern beauty about her that implies a no-nonsense attitude.

‘’You are welcome to trade traveller but we shelter no strangers in our town for longer than a day at the most.’’

‘’That is fine, I’ll be on my way in less than an hour.’’ I don’t trust people, they always have their agendas.

‘’Good, Kenzan will be your escort to make sure there are no complications.’’

Kenzan sparkles more prominently flexing but otherwise doesn’t say a word.

Inside I find the aura of fear and curiosity intermixed with disgruntled acceptance. The faces are dirty, the inhabitants weak to my senses in every way that matters but every single one I come across at tier 1 with a few greater. How can Awakened beings look so destitute?

We find the butcher who is very pleased to have an awakened beast fresh from the woods. We skin it together, Kenzan not straying far but keeping his distance. I don’t talk much either and am given a wooden chit by the butcher with an open eye drawn on it.

‘’What’s this?’’

‘’We don’t have any coin in these parts so you’ll exchange that at the deport for some of the supplies you want, It’s not much but it should be enough to get you some decent clothes and a meal.’’

‘’How will they know how much it's worth?’’

‘’They’ll know, Kenzan here will help you. Isn’t that right Kenzan?’’

He ignores us.

I take the skin and horns to the tanner who gives me a chit with a different symbol and I head towards this deport. Eyes gawk at me in mistrust and curiosity in almost equal measure but no one talks to me, no one approaches that I don’t approach. There is something off about these people.

I get a back-sling pack and a pair of pants before a disturbance calls my attention towards the hostile mob crowding towards me, shit, what now?

‘’There he is, he robbed us and cut our fingers off.’’ The archer says pointing at me from a crowd of people. One person disappears in a burst of smoke to appear behind me already throwing a punch. Grabbing his arm I pull him over my shoulder slamming him into the ground dislocating the shoulder with a twist.

Two large guys rush forward to both get slapped across the face by water bolts, I’m between them kicking their knee-caps out of alignment sending chops to the throat that change their priorities to getting air instead of getting me.

A blue spark of energy shot at me I catch with an open palm having cast a water shield only as large as my hand to block the beam. I condense my spirit-aura sharply at all within my awareness as I gaze at the caster of that spell in the eyes. I could kill you as easily as turning a hand, I could kill all of you and it wouldn’t take me a minute. None here is a king, none here is armed with anything that would even slow Honour’s edge if I unleashed myself upon them. I could slaughter your whole town and not one person I’ve sensed could stop me.

Collectively they step back, even a dumb person is sensitive to those intrinsic instincts of prey when in the presence of a predator. There is a sourness in my stomach as I watch the fear seep into the crowd of eyes, suddenly I despise everyone here for their spinelessness.

[Rhaa ptu], I spit on the ground at their feet.

I grab my empty pack stuffing in a water canteen, a wine-skin, bandages, flint, grabbing an old tunic from a rack before facing the now much smaller crowd of people meekly gazing at me as though startled children. Kenzan opens a path and I take it, walking behind him until I’m all the way out the wooden gate.

Suddenly I pity them and despise myself for the overbearing behaviour. The strongest person there felt to be in the peak of the 2nd tier, there was a large number of tier 1 awakened but no one my equal. In fact, I think everyone I came across was at least tier 1 but ultimately I was bullying. No one there would be worthy of me getting upset let alone reaching for my Honour.

‘’Thank you for not killing my brother,’’ is all Kenzan says before the gate closes shut locking the town and everyone in it back behind their useless wall. That was weird right?

I don’t stay to wander about the village, my direction unchanged and a spring in my step now that I at least have a knife and some clothes. There is an excitement in me as I feel myself to be close, I recognise some of the fauna here by name.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

*

The waterfall I hear first, slowly surveying the tracks and creatures near the water. I see much with my awareness, the reptile under the tight grasses nesting. Large enough to swallow me whole but weak and tired fat with eggs, the spiders only as small as my palm with venous hairs and its water repellent fur.

I step carefully, not disturbing the fire-ants at my feet or the mudglum disguised as a mud puddle as it awaits prey. I can feel how close I am to the thread that’s been leading me here, my heart pounds loud to my own ears as I make my way carefully forward.

I hear childish giggling; happy, carefree and it closes my throat as tears well to the precipice of my eyes. That could have been anyone, but it also sounded like it could have been Morpheus.

A guard comes into my awareness, armoured in enchanted steel I can't see into from head to toe with a large sword held with the tip just piercing the ground. The man is large, almost 2m tall with a heavy build and even heavier armour, the broadsword is silent but likely enchanted as well so best watch out for it. I move closer spotting another guard at the bottom of the falls in light amour pieces strapped with leathers playing with a spear.

Two more people are half-naked in a pool at the bottom of the falls fishing with long spears with one on the bank playing with pebbles floating them around. I hone in on the boy playing in the water with two large multi-coloured fish circling him. He splashes giggling and beating at the water, small maybe 9 or 10 years old with a striking resemblance to Kira that squeezes my heart tight.

But it’s not Kira, for one that’s a boy and I don’t recognise him no matter what my spirit says about the bond between us. Fuck, that’s not any of my children. All this effort and deals struck with serpents for nothing?

Somehow I'm spotted, the large ball of armour starts running towards me fast with the blade held forward readying for a swing.

I ran for days. Months I’ve been running and fighting and it’s all been some sort of lie? I’m outraged, I’m fucken’ livid and I have no one to blame but myself.

I meet the attacker momentum for momentum swerving past the stroke of his blade to deliver a chakra phthartic enhance punch that ring across his chest plate. Phthartic, I move around him keeping close blocking and swerving delivering punches kicks chops elbows knees ever in motion punishing the armour with chakra-aura-spirit enhanced attack after attack after attack.

I’m blown back by a repulsive wave to have the sword-bearing down on me as I land, I tap the flat aside as I swerve. The weapon cutting a furrow that travels with a wave of sharp force beyond me. I punish the joints of the armour again having gotten close, stopping elbows and knees as the knight attempts counters too slow to slow me.

I sweep his feet out as I duck and roll away from a slash delivering water-bolt after water-bolt into the visor of the helmet. I push back as the sword swings missing but a wave of force scores across my quickly upraised arms, how did I miss him moving?

He gets up steadily with no apparent damage from my barrage of attacks, my forearms cut open to the bone by the force-energy released by the sword.

‘’Name yourself and your intent here or perish,’’ the knight calls in a voice booming with righteous authority.

*Snort, ‘’fuck you.’’ I congeal mana within connecting with all my still active water mana within my awareness.

In a panic he claws at his chest plate screaming, the armour burst outward in a vapour of my water mana violently pulled out. I’m attacking a moment later but change my heading dodging balls of sinister light that chase me shooting thin beams of energy from their centre I evade. I blast water bolts at the caster waving his hands about controlling the 3 now 4 now 5 balls of energy getting harder to evade.

My bolts splash harmlessly on a shield around the caster that's there and gone a moment later.

I cast my own shield, Water Shield. The shell of water taking the attacks easily until one of the balls crashes into it turning the water a volatile purple. I disconnect from the shield as it burns through my mana creating a new one as another ball of energy bomb dives at me. I disconnect from that shield as well my mana half gone with the swordsman bearing down on my fast.

A water shield won’t stop a sword, I throw the dagger with an afterimage amplified throw right at the now exposed chainmail under the armour. I kick a wolfish mutt on the head that goes for my calf, avoiding its spiked tail as it lashes at me. A water shield thick but only as large as my palm slaps aside a ball of purple energy that burns a wound in the world where it lands.

Phthartic, I break the dark wolf’s back with a kick as it lashes out at me. It disappears in a puff of smoke as I duck under a cutting force from the knight having deflected my throw. Avoiding shots from the floating balls of energy I come up in a spin throwing the two sharp bones at the caster as more and more energy balls fill the sky heading towards me.

A thrown javelin flies past my head, the two half-naked men running through the water armed with spears. I take a deep cleansing breath taking everything in, I shake loose listening to the vibrations of the world. Listening to the vibrations of Shi no Meiyo/Honour in Death. Even without a nodachi in hand I carry my zanpakuto with me always, I resonate with my soul weapon in zanjutsu, the art of the soul-sword.

I move forward to meet my foes.

Cutting left and right moving at the razor's edge of swordplay in zanjutsu. I am the soul-weapon and the soul-weapon is me, I slap aside the falling energy balls with water-shield covering my palms. Each shield replaced with a chunk of my mana after every collision but it's much cheaper producing smaller shields on my palm than a big one.

The knight and I meet as he fights to keep me pinned instead of pinning me to a tree as he previously was trying. I duck dodge rolling behind him but a burst of force has me stumbling away as a spear is thrust at me by one of the others. Fuck this!

Spirit Oppression, everyone within my awareness but the knight goes down like their strings are cut. I feel my spiritual pressure slide down the knight's armour like oil, he gets wet but he won’t drown. I duck down kicking his sword up as it trusts at me delivering a water bolt to the exposed chest mail delivering a sharp elbow to one of the downed spearmen at my feet.

I deflect the blade again, getting nicked. I punch the armour, the vibrations reverberating clearly showing me all the structural weak points as the enchantment on the armour starts to wane.

I jump back a purple barrier of energy appearing between my prey and me as the caster stumbles to his feet with his arm pulsing with maintained mana. I could safely throw four more water bolts or a water spear with my own mana but after that, I’ll be running on fumes.

‘’Wait! Stop!’’

I throw myself into the fight spinning through the attacks as I track everything coming at me within my awareness. The razor’s edge, the instant between instances in a sword fight, zanjutsu. I am the sword, the sword is me, I am zanjutsu the art of the soul sword. I kick at the weaknesses in the armour letting a few beams of energy land scorching into me as I disable the knight's armour.

Explosively I rush the caster, his outer shield popping like a bubble as I smash into it knee first.

‘’Wait stop please, Sachi!’’

I stop with a spear hand armed with chakra an inch from the caster’s chest. Sachi?

I look, and there running through the water is the princess of Atopia as beautiful as ever with a wide-eyed boy not far behind her like a tail. No, it can’t be, can it?

I drop the caster, my head suddenly buzzing with confusion, my mouth dry with the implications as I see the resemblance and count the years. Fuck fuck fuck fuck!

‘’Sachihiro, how are you here?’’ she asks now catching her breath as she looks at me stupefied. Please don’t tell me I wasted all this time and energy getting to a kid conceived at the Brothel while my actual family suffers without me.

I take a step forward but pressure from an immense aura has me stop to take stock as a fresh knight in shiny armour makes himself noticed behind the boy.

‘’Princess Erena, do you mind telling me who that boy is behind you?’’

She looks behind her seeming startled to find the boy there so close, she looks at the knight then gestures for the boy to take her hand, holding him protectively. ‘’This is Robert, my son.’’

Fuck! I kick the rising caster unconscious.