A citadel of sorts lay unusually quiet for early in the night. Belonging to the Irine Principality’s noble house of Heythalen, its traditional and intricate orange and black banners hung throughout the keep. The Heythalen Keep’s lights were almost all but out. Only one room lay lit, the lord’s hall. At the end of a browned carpet sat a nervous man, a noble, Lord Heythalen himself. He was only in his thirties, quite young to be at such a position as he was, at the head of his familial House.

Beside him stood fully armed guards. They held large voulges in one hand and stood to perfect attention in their set of platinum tinged steel plate armor. Though their stance and posture, brimming with discipline and loyalty, would appear unbreakable in the face of a common man; The knight’s were not perfect, they were, if only by a little, off their usual regality.

Duke Heythalen, sat in a gaudy throne, with one hand on his cheek, and the other drumming it’s fingers nervously on the throne’s armrest. Sweat, had evidently started flowing down the noble’s brow a while ago.

“S-so? What in the Prince’s name is happening inside my castle!?”

The Duke, apparently fed up, rolled his drumming hand into a fist and struck the armchair.

The poor fellow standing before his rage, a trusted advisor, stood with terror plain on his face and stumbled on his words.

“M-Milord, as I’ve said before, an enemy has breached our walls…”

“You said the garrison could handle them! Now look were we are! The east wing of my castle, may be the only place where people are still alive!”

“M-milord…if I may correct you…the enemy...is a single person…”

The Duke stared at the advisor dumbly for a moment. Just as the Duke were about to open his mouth, perhaps to order the execution of this buffoon standing before him, a loud banging was heard at the door. The advisor’s face went pale, and he turned like a statue toward the large and iron reinforced door that separated the lord’s hall from the rest of the keep.

"Knock! Knock! Knock!"

A voice echoed from the other side of the door.

The two guards adjacent to the door visibly flinched. The guards that stood by the door were armored with normal looking steel, and large longswords that hung at their hips. They evidently didn’t have the same level of discipline as the knights that stood next to the Duke.

The two guards looked at each other, then one moved slowly toward the door, and opened it. Following the large click of the door, a body fell into the guard’s arms. He jumped and recoiled from the door, still carrying the chainmail wearing body. He laid the body down, and him and the other adjacent knight backed up cautiously away from the door, which only led to a black void. The six people within the room stared in silence, the air tense.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

But, completely breaking the tense atmosphere, a figure strolled through the darkness of the other room. It was a woman, smiling smugly with her hands on her hips. Her clothes were dark; Black boots, black shorts, a greyed jacked with a white undershirt. At her hips, rested rapiers, two of them. She wore no armor to speak of, except blackened gauntlets with orangey accents. Her yellow eyes stared deprecatingly at the men in the hall. She halted her stride and gave her equally yellowed and long hair a flare with a hand.

“Lovely night out, right boys?” She spoke nonchalantly.

“W-who the hell are you!?”

The Duke indignantly demanded from his throne, striking his armrest once more.

“My my, you have no courtesy for women I see. I’m just a Sidonian s’all~”

She winked.

The two guards in front of her looked at each other briefly, then drew their blades, and charged. As the woman sat still, unmoving, the two of them brought their swords down upon her.

A clang echoed through the hall. All three of them stood unmoving, the yellow haired woman had caught both of their blades, dead in their tracks, with her gauntleted hands. After her smile intensifying for a moment, she twisted her wrists. The tips of the sword’s blades broke, makingan odd sound like glass shattering. Before the guards could do a thing, she deftly rolled the broken blades in her hands and thrusted them toward the men’s necks, impaling both of them. They fell to the ground, gurgling and clutching their throats as blood poured down their armor. She hopped over the squirming bodies and strode down the hall.

“Really, I just want to talk. You don't have to struggle so much, maybe then I wouldn't let you end up like them.”

She pointed a thumb back toward the gurgling men, shaking in a slow and painful writhe of death.

“…You aren’t a normal Nekomata…D-doesn’t matter! You, Platinum Knights! Deal with her!”

The Duke spoke arrogantly and with unfamiliarity toward his own supposed knights. But, nobody moved. The Duke glanced at the knights beside him, they were shaking, their armor audibly clinking.

“Well?! Off! Andestine promised top quality s-soldiers! Yet you refuse to fight? So much for that ‘Platinum’ ranking you hold in the Andestine Order!”

The Duke berated the knights in a quick and staccato voice, but they still did not move.

“Ya’re a little confused Heythalen boy, since they’re these, ‘Fancy knights from Andestine’ they’re smart enough to know that fighting me is pretty pointless. Man, even my little brother could waltz in here, but you’ve got such fancy knights like these here?”

She strode past the advisor, who shuffled away desperately.

“…It’s almost like you made a deal with Andestine or something~!”

The Dukes face paled.

“How…do-“

“Believe me when I say my lady has ears! Come on, who wouldn’t notice the suspicious death of the late lord Heythalen and the quick rise to power of his son, ey? And with these knights here? Yeah. You're going to tell me everything you know about Andestine…”

The Duke scoffed, about to reply. The woman’s smile deepened into a grin and she cut him off.

“Listen,” She lifted one of her rapiers out of its sheath, and threw it directly to her left with one hand. It flew like a dart, and stuck right into the advisor’s forehead, pinning him to the wall he was hugging. He’d been more than five meters away. She nonchalantly drew her remaining rapier and pointed it at the duke. “You and your ‘Platinum’ ranked knights ain’t leaven here alive…so be a dear and please my lady, Sidonia.”

***