Chapter 17: Deathmatch
The watchmen weren’t particularly concerned with their jobs, especially as dawn neared. In all of the Crimson Oni’s time running the town, any rebellions were quickly and easily quelled, and at this point, as far as the watchmen were concerned, there was nobody left to suppress, with how thorough their takeover had been. Sure, they could try, but Douji had specifically instructed the gang to make sure people got enough to eat so they could work, but not so much that they would have the energy to try and muster up the strength to fight back. The mansion was quiet, the next shift of guards not yet swapped in, and others lazing about, content in their conquest of Zanch. Dawn was nearing, following a silent night, as always. The weather was surprisingly clear for Zanch, the thick mist and fog largely dissipated, now a gentle coating.
“Why are we even here at this point?” One bored watchman yawned, turning to his partner, shorter and a bit more heavyset.
“What, like, in this town? There’s still plenty of mythril in these mines, it’s the best source from a smaller source. You want something bigger, and you’d have to attack Diamant or Arcadia, and I don’t know about you, but I ain't fighting any ninja or witches.”
“This spot isn’t safe though, you know that. Between us being stuck near Falcidia and the Tempests, we’re basically setting up camp in the dragon’s den.” The shorter watchman gritted his teeth, nervously.
“But they haven’t picked up on us yet, we still have time to pick this place clean.”
“You say that, but I saw what those intruders did to the boss’ pet Echidna yesterday, that thing was in pieces, and the only bodies there were our guys. Plus, I heard a Tempest was there.”
“A single Tempest isn’t all that much, you’re too scared of them.” The bored watchman shrugged, not particularly concerned.
“It’s not just the Tempest you idiot, that Dark Knight’s been running around too. Anyone who sees him ends up dead!”
“If everyone’s dead, then how do we hear about him?” The taller one raised an eyebrow, turning his back from where he was supposed to be watching, as the sun began to peak over the horizon.
“It’s all the townies, man. There’ve been whispers, they call him an Angel of Death, talk about him like he’s some great savior. It’s unnerving, man, they’re always cowering, but the second they talk about him, it’s like we’re not even there.”
“Look, we’ll be fine. Douji’s personal hitman should be more than enough to handle that guy.”
“I don’t know about that, but even if it were a sure thing, Douji spent the night over at the mines, said he wanted to keep an eye on things since they were falling behind schedule.”
“Just stop talking about it then, I’m too tired to hear your scary stories.” The taller guard spoke bitterly. Clank! His skin crawled, as he heard the distinct sound of a suit of armor behind him, and saw a growing look of horror on his partner’s face. As he turned, he heard a tune echoing in the morning winds, and again, a flash of the sun in his eyes. A harmonica played in the Dark Knight, alongside a deliberate clanking of his armor. This was an announcement of his presence, and a challenge. The taller guard didn’t get the chance to see the Dark Knight’s face, as he set aside his harmonica, and donned his black helmet.
It was like looking at a demon, seeing the black armor, seeming to bore into his soul. There was no reading the face of the knight, the helmet perfectly obscuring it. It had a visor for his eyes, but there was no seeing through it from the outside, making it impossible to tell what he was looking at, or, as the guard realized the Dark Knight was glaring up at them, who he was looking at. It bore a crown-like crest, above the visor, peaking towards the front. The armor almost seemed to contour to the mystery man’s body, with more plating at the chest, gauntlets, and pauldrons, though with how naturally he moved, it was closer to a second skin. They were a bit confused however, as the man held what seemed to be a spear, wrapped in cloth. “Is that supposed to be a flag for surrender or-” BANG! An explosion in the distance, like a cannon going off.
Shade adjusted his grip on the spear, and drove it into the stone at his feet, letting it unfurl and flow in the morning breeze. It was a simple blue cloth, really, but at its center was painted a symbol, that of the Guild Zephyr. In a swift motion, he drew his blades, blood-red, and made a deliberate advance towards the guards. Slow, without a break in his pace, as others came outside to see what the commotion was, unfazed as the first grabbed his axe to attack, no more concerned by the second joining him. He crossed his blades, then arms, and crouched slightly as they neared him. They weren’t halfway through their swings by the time Shade lunged forward, slashing out, and cutting them down in a single motion. He gave his blades a flick out of habit, not that it would be much help, given how much more cutting they were due for. He remained silent, as a new guard made his attack with a spear, giving him little more in the way of acknowledgement than a slight turn of the head. Shade made a quick parry with his left blade, and followed suit with a decisive thrust of his right. He didn’t need to follow up, the one blow being more than enough, as the guard tried grasping at the blade that ran him through. Shade kicked the fallen guard free of his sword. His blades erupted in shadow, flowing like black flames. “Run, scream, fight, beg. Do what you must. Today, this all ends.”
***
Atma crept up to the fence surrounding the mines from the mountain side, rather than from town. It wasn’t quite dawn yet, and the guards had yet to switch places. Now was the time to strike, when they’d be at their most tired. Atma patted his new equipment one more time to make sure he was ready to go, as he’d done a dozen times on his way over. His armor wasn’t the same quality as what he’d left Deponess with, but it was similar enough in design that it wasn’t hampering his mobility. He kept his spear at his back, and his buckler was small enough that he could still easily get both hands on his spear. “All set,” he said, more to reassure himself than Sienna, who was trying to get a read on the fence.
“Barbed at the top, not gonna be a fun climb.” She started taking off her coat to throw it over the barbed wire. “I really like this one too.”
“You know I can just jump us both over, right?”
Sienna scowled. “I’m not doing yesterday again, please.”
“It’ll be a lot easier, I promise.” Atma held out an arm to her. Sienna readjusted her coat, and got back next to him, like how she’d been when he’d launched them around with the Echidna. He put his arm around her securely, looking forward. He had a good enough feel for moving with her, and more than enough experience moving with his gear, that the jump would be as easy as he promised. Deep breath in and out as the time came to enact the plan.
Sienna gave him a quick slap on the back. “You’re getting lost in your own head. Stop thinking about it, just go.”
He nodded, and jumped, with a swift motion, fluid, and landing with a rather light step. He glanced around, the two of them having ended up in a storage area for ores that were set to be shipped out, and equipment that needed to be repaired. Atma let go of Sienna and glanced around, looking for any guards, not finding anyone in their proximity. “Like I said, easier.” The inside of the mine camp was made up of three primary sections, the storage area, where they were, had a secondary fence separating it from the rest of the mine, and more importantly, its guard towers, built up from stone faced towards the rest of the mine, rather than into storage. The watch towers were clearly new, a series of eight circling the main mining area, being of lesser construction quality, of scrap stone meant to monitor the workers and ensure a lack of escapees, not something the townsfolk had willingly put together. The central office was closer to storage than the mines, a long standing facility often used as a rest spot and dorms for the workers, though now, it served largely as the area where the Crimson Oni and Douji relayed their orders.
She brushed him off and kept moving, “You remember what we’re looking for, right?”
“The plan was to get some of their stray blasting powder, set it off, and draw them in for a second blast, right?” Atma grimaced, it was a bit brutal by his measure, but Shade had come up with the plan, so he had to follow through, like he’d promised. Atma followed her, keeping his head on a pivot, coming up to a minecart filled with old junk, including a few sticks of dynamite used for blasting away rock. “I can’t believe they just tossed this out.”
Sienna felt the nearest stick, and spat bitterly. “Wet from overnight, try and find something else.” She sifted through the cart, trying to find anything else.
Atma’s eyes darted about, before peeking up at a nearby guard tower, hiding back down before he was spotted. “So they didn’t see me, but I saw something you might like.”
Sienna tilted her head slightly. “Show me.”
Atma snuck up to the nearby guard tower, using the storage to cover his approach. One guard, stationed at the foot of the tower, had dozed off, waiting for someone to come take the next shift, while the other was lazily hanging out up above. He gestured to the guard asleep, and then up, Sienna nodding as he leapt up to the watchtower’s nest, and in one motion, grabbed the guard from behind, and held him in a headlock, waiting for the man to stop struggling, and pass out while Sienna climbed up to join him. “Well, what do you think,” he asked as he finally let the man down, and gestured to the piece of heavy artillery mounted on the watchtower, a large cannon, like one might see on a ship. It was more for show than anything, its mounting was impractical in such a location, it was good for exactly one thing, looking scary to people who couldn’t fight back. It had a terrible firing arc and position, and was ill suited to actually defend.
“You know how to get a girl a gift. This’ll do really nicely.” Sienna had a smile growing wider and wider the longer she had a hold of the artillery piece, caressing and inspecting it like one might a loyal dog. “Oh they even kept it loaded. Move out of the way for a bit, I’ve got an idea. She closed an eye, and got low to the cannon’s level, as if trying to simulate a shot. With no obvious strain to herself, she forced the heavy cannon to turn on its unstable mounting, where it most certainly wasn’t meant to fire. “Where do you think the main office is? I want to say, right, about… here." She eyed the line from the back of the cannon to an office space on the corner of the building that butted out so it could see a wide arc of the mine area.
“You want me to search this guy for a light?”
She laughed a little. “No need, this I’ve got.” Unlike the snappy motions of Balthazar or Alice, with Sienna, it was more of the motion of her grabbing something invisible, and squeezing it. A flame burst into her hand, inconsistent in size, first bursting as something larger, before compressing down to fit in her palm. “I kept at least a few tricks. Now, I’d cover my ears if I were you.” She checked her shot one last time, and slapped the fuse with her palm with the flame. BANG! The shot echoed throughout the entire camp, workers and thugs alike turning to meet the source of the noise, as a black mound of iron sailed through the air, and the corner office space of the central office exploded into wooden splinters.
“Let’s get moving!” Atma leapt back down to the ground, a gathering of confused, and exhausted looking workers, broken up here and there by the occasional thug. One Crimson Oni rushed him with a blade in hand, but, unlike the day before, Atma was fully equipped, and no random brigand with a sword was going to pose any kind of threat to him. Shield in hand, Atma backhanded the initial swing away, before a decisive thrust of his spear into the thief. It was his first time taking a man’s life, feeling as the man slumped over and hit the ground. The workers seemed unsure of how to respond, baffled that someone had actually killed one of the rogues. Atma wasn’t given time to fully process his first time taking a life, with another bandit quick to rush him. Atma readjusted his grip, his dominant left hand about halfway on his spear, and with a tighter control, he parried the attacking man, sending his blade flying, and with another fluid adjustment of his grip, he spun his spear, and slashed at the bandit’s chest, cutting him down. He’d much prefer fighting monsters to people, but he was getting results.
“You gonna give them a speech or something?” Sienna brandished her axe, strutting past Atma as he started zoning out, not fully sure of his next course of action.
“No, speeches can always be done later. Let’s find Douji and put an end to this.” Atma made his way to the central offices, where Douji would most likely be if he were at the mines. A rogue from behind made an attempt at a sneak attack with an axe, but was tripped by an anonymous miner, sending him face first into the rocky dirt, and his axe clattering to the ground, little more than a tomahawk, but enough for Sienna to take note of, picking it off the ground, and finding a spot for it at her belt. Another, an enforcer in a suit tried intercepting them, but Atma simply tackled past him, bashing him with his shield, and trampling over him. With five guards down, it was enough to incite some excitement among the workers who had seen it, and commotion was beginning to spread, especially with fighters who made Douji’s enforcers seem a breeze.
Yet another jumped from a second story balcony, trying some improvised jumping attack, only for his eyes to widen in horror as he came down, watching as Sienna wound up a swing of her axe like it was a baseball bat, and hit him hard enough that any cuts he received seemed like nothing in comparison to the blunt trauma his body had taken as he slammed into the wall with a sonorous crack. It was dissuading enough that other Crimson Oni were hesitant to move in. One nervously readied a crossbow, only to find himself on the receiving end of Sienna’s newfound tomahawk, just about pinning him to the wall behind him. “Anyone else? Or are you all scared of the little pirate girl that’s come to kick your asses?”
Atma thought he saw a brief flash out of the corner of his eye. His body moved on instinct, pulling Sienna down, as a blade cut through the air where their heads had been a moment before. “You’re good.” The man’s voice was fairly quiet with a bit of gravel to his voice. A black hooded figure with a bone white mask looked down on them, standing so close he could have touched them, as if he had appeared from nowhere. He had moved so smoothly, and so silently, Atma hadn’t been able to see the type of blade their attacker wielded, whatever it had been had vanished beneath the assassin’s cloak just as quickly as it had been drawn. Their attacker was dismissive of them, nonchalantly walking towards the blasted apart office space. “I trust you are fine, Douji?”
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“No thanks to your help, Thanatos.” A large, lumbering man stepped out, he had skin burned by years of working the sea, and surprisingly clean, well kept black hair. The man was down an arm, his left, which had been replaced by what appeared to be an old harpoon. Slung partially on his shoulder, and held up by a massive right arm, was a thick iron club, covered in spikes. Douji, boss of the Crimson Oni, glared at the prince and pirate. “And I can’t believe you missed that attack just now. A Tempest and a wannabe knight… Must be the ones from yesterday. Give me their heads and I’m paying One million credits each.”
“I am an assassin, first and foremost, not your guard, Douji, and you are not my master. You would do well to remember that. And I’d have thought you’d be more than willing to pay more for one of those associated with your loss of limb?” Thanatos’ eyes were hard to track beneath the mask. Atma was never sure if the man’s eyes were on him or not, whether or not he had an opening. His voice, likewise, was so flat, that without being able to see any of his face, it was hard to get a read on the man.
“Name your price.”
“Five million in pure mythril, and I want it within the day.”
It was a hefty price to ask of anyone. One Million credits would have been more than enough to cripple the finances of most city-states, and five was enough to feed a larger city like Linia through several harsh winters, and lavishly at that. Pure mythril was an especially steep price, the amount the man was asking for was enough to be a significant percentage of the mine’s production. Thanatos’ asking price would have been nonsense to anyone but Douji, a man who hated the Tempests more than any other. “Done. Now, kill them.”
Atma helped Sienna back up. “He really wants you dead, doesn’t he?”
“Wait till he hears what Katrina did to his arm.” Sienna readied her axe, lining her gaze up with Douji. Tall as she was, Douji was a true giant, swinging around a weapon almost as big as she was. “Your arm makes for a great bathroom sign by the way!” She glanced over to Atma. “I think I can take him, but the other guy? He’s the one to worry about.”
Atma nodded, and took a step back, ready to lunge at the assassin. Douji hadn’t even begun to take a combat stance, as though he were confident he wouldn’t have to fight at all. “Let’s go!” Atma launched himself at Thanatos, ready to thrust his spear and take down the guard in a single blow if he could. As he closed the distance between them, he aimed center mass, the tip of his spear brushing into the assassin’s cloak. In that moment, to Atma it was as if he were stuck in molasses, as he watched Thanatos step back, away from the tip of Atma’s spear, and then off to the side, ever so slightly. Atma skidded to a stop, moving too fast for having not hit anything. He tried turning as he skidded on the loose gravel of the earth beneath him, watching out of the corner of his eye as the assassin held his arm out, now brandishing a weapon from under his cloak. It was almost like a baton in its T-shape, a weapon Atma hadn’t seen in use particularly often, a tonfa. Generally, it was more of a defensive weapon, but Thanatos’ personal weapon had one end bladed. He’d only barely finished turning as the Assassin made a punching motion, the blunt end of his blade tonfa jabbing into his stomach. Atma clutched his side as he came to a halt. Had he not been turning and skidding, the blow would have been far worse. His equipment was light, limited to chain mail at his stomach, any plate mail conservative, more to his chest, his chain mail not the most effective at defending against blunt force.
Thanatos spoke with the same monotonous tone of voice, clearly not exerting himself. “You seem surprised.” The assassin flicked out his other arm, a second, identical tonfa seeming to emerge from his cloak’s sleeve into his hand.
“Most can’t keep up with my speed.” Atma regained his composure, and adjusted his stance, less for blitz attacks, and more for something defensive, shield arm up front, left lance arm back, keeping his feet in line with his arms, to keep his body moving in harmony when he needed to make his next move. He glanced to the side slightly, seeing Sienna about to attack as he spoke to the Assassin.
“Most aren’t me.” He dropped himself below Sienna’s swing as she came at him from behind, catching himself as he neared the ground, and pivoting to kick her as he went down, squarely under her ribs. Her axe impacted the ground with a heavy THUD! Despite its lack of weight, cracking the earth from its point of impact ever so slightly. Her grip was ironclad, refusing to lose ground, and taking the hit, gritting her teeth through the hit,a grin growing on her face with him still very much in her reach. She stomped down where Thanatos’ leg had been, intending on breaking it, the assassin rolling out of the way, and springing to his feet.
“Wiry little bastard, isn’t he?” Sienna coughed a bit, as she pulled her axe from the ground.
“He’s strong too, really strong. That should have been a glancing hit back there, but I thought he was going to knock the wind out of me.” Atma tried not to show it, but internally, he grimaced. There was something, looking at Thanatos, that made Atma feel like screaming. His teachers had called it battle sense, a recognition that his opponent was beyond him. Everything seemed to feel that way, the cold confidence, his ability to dodge, and how he’d seemed to appear from nowhere. Atma could feel that there was no beating Thanatos.
The assassin tilted his head, years of battle making Atma’s realization obvious to him. “You seem to recognize it; the gap in our skill. How wide, I wonder, do you think it is?”
Atma wasn’t sure, but he also knew it wasn’t as though the assassin could simply play around. He’d had to evade their attacks. For as strong as the man before them was, he wasn’t invincible. He was fast, but not so fast that Atma couldn’t keep track of him. Atma had a few pieces, but the puzzle that was Thanatos was going to need some experimentation. Atma lashed out with his lance, making a few quick thrusts for the assassin’s head and chest, which Thanatos casually parried or evaded, batting attacking aside with agile movements of his full body, and spinning his tonfas to throw off attacks send his way. As he knocked Atma’s spear aside, he closed the distance Atma kept between them with his lance, and jabbed at the prince, Atma again having to readjust his grip, to be closer to bo staff combat. He swung with the bladed end, a blow blocked, so he immediately followed up by striking a glancing strike with the other end of his spear. Certainly, it sped up his rate of attacks, but it was a style of combat that he wasn’t overly proficient in, and not quite so powerful. It was an intensity unlike anything he’d ever trained for, spinning his spear to try and land a hit with either end and pressure his opponent off, but Thanatos’ weapons’ more defensive nature let him block these lighter strikes easily enough. Every blow from the assassin, guarded or not, made Atma feel as though his bones were ringing from the impact. In between strikes, he would flip his tonfas in hand, the bladed end occasionally lashing out instead of a blunted one, and vice versa. Atma made a sweep with his spear towards the assassin’s legs, which again, didn’t seem to work, Thanatos jumping over the attack, about to strike with the bladed end of his tonfa, but Atma took a page out of Sienna’s book, and moved to use more force against him, bashing out with his shield. Thanatos stumbled back, patting his chest as if to inspect the damage. Atma chuckled. “Not so wide that you can play games.” The prince winced, feeling a few minor cuts and blows he’d taken in the exchange, nothing serious, but clearly worse off than his opponent.
Thanatos tilted his head. “So it would seem.” Thanatos held up his arms in a cross, as Atma and Sienna circled him, trying to find an opening, but with his eyes impossible to read beneath his mask, they couldn’t tell who he was watching. In a sudden, yet smooth motion, he lunged forward, swinging his arms out wide as Sienna moved in front of him. She held her axe low and high block with its long handle, as to try catching his hit when the blunt ends of his tonfas impacted with her axe. With a slight adjustment of his swings, Thanatos hit her axe in just the positions to force it to twist in her grip, going with her body’s natural ability to turn, rather than try to brute force past her guard. As the head of her axe impacted the ground, Thanatos flipped one of his tonfas, and thrusted out with a bladed end.
In a desperate motion, less a conscious thought, and more instinct instilled by years of life as a pirate, Sienna let go of her axe as it was wrestled from her control, pulling her swordbreaker from its sheath, just barely catching the blade in her dagger’s serrated back. Thanatos pulled back before she could twist, and tried breaking his tonfa free from his grip, glancing back briefly, as he heard Atma moving behind him. He raised his tonfas over his head, again in a cross, recoiling slightly as Atma leapt, and swung his spear in a slashing motion, intending to bring it down on Thanatos’ head. It would have been a lethal hit, not something the assassin expected from the seemingly mild mannered dragon knight, realizing in the same instance that it was a ploy to force him to guard at an awkward angle. He moved to try and throw Atma off of him, all while Sienna flipped her dagger in hand, and moved to stab him in the heart. Between both attacking him at once, there was little room for escape, the assassin twisting his body, to throw off the prince, and change where the stab would hit him. The pirate’s dagger impacted with a weapon hidden beneath his cloak, diverting off to the side, still gouging his side, but the damage was far from lethal. The assassin didn’t so much as flinch, as he broke free of the two, his blood dripping to the dusty soil at his feet.
Atma didn’t give him the time to recover, launching himself to Thanatos’ wounded side and slashing with his spear, as Sienna picked her axe back up and moved for the assassin’s opposite side. Trapped between them again, Thanatos parried Atma’s strike with one arm, swinging early to parry Sienna before she got enough power and momentum in her swing to overwhelm him. Both out more of their weight and strength into pressuring the man, trying to force him to crumple under their combined strength. With a surprising burst of strength, the assassin swung out, staggering the two back ever so slightly. Atma, adapting to the terrain as they fought, had a smoother landing, and immediately lashed back out, thrusting his lance, forcing Thanatos to parry again, knocking his speartip into the ground and backing off to a safe distance, which should have stopped his attack.
Atma, back in his training days, had tried a similar tactic against Dante. With the high speed thrusts of Dragon Knights, forcing their spear into the ground could use their momentum to rip their weapon from their grip, or stop them in their tracks. But when one used the same tactic against someone often enough, they developed a counter to it, a counter Atma had been on the receiving end of more than enough times to learn. He readjusted his grip on his spear, being closer to the end, not giving up his momentum, and jumping slightly. He used his spear as a pole to vault forward, driving his metal plated boot into Thanatos’ side, where Sienna had cut him before. It was improvisational enough that the assassin hadn’t seen it coming. There was no escape, Sienna still on his opposite side, swinging a fist into his masked face. With a battle cry from them both, Atma and Sienna sent the Assassin rolling to the ground.
Atma landed next to Sienna, panting slightly. “Nice follow-up. Thanks for not swinging the axe there.”
“Hey, I can read that much, I’d have cut you in two if I’d missed. Still probably have hit you otherwise.” She shook her hand, her knuckles slightly red. “The hell is that thing made of? I hit that thing as hard as I could, and I still couldn’t break through it.”
Having seen her break a boulder with that same punch, it was hard to imagine a mask enduring a hit better. Still, with force like that, from two opposite ends, Atma knew they should have broken the assassin’s neck. It made it all the more unsettling as the man silently got back to his feet, slowly rising, pushing himself up with his arms first, then standing to face them. His mask was cracked, bits of white chipping and crumbling slightly near the cheek, where he’d taken the hit. He cracked his neck to either side, as if he had been sleeping in a bad position, and nothing more.
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Douji was turning red in rage. “I said I’d pay you to kill them, Thanatos! Stop playing with them and kill them! I’ve seen you kill bastards far stronger than them!”
Atma’s blood ran cold. He’d been giving the fight everything he had, and thought he’d at least gotten Thanatos to take them seriously. Was it still not enough?
Thanatos turned back to his employer slightly, and raised his arms, tonfas in hand, letting them slip back into the shadows of his cloak. Then, with another flick of his wrist, a large blade, akin to a broadsword, mounted to Thanatos’s arm, extended from beneath his cloak. He’d had a much more offensive weapon the whole time, but had decided to use the more defensive tonfas instead. Atma’s battle sense had been right, they were outclassed, but he hadn’t fully realized the monster in front of him.
The assassin was out of his line of sight without Atma ever breaking eye contact with where he’d seen the man a moment before. Atma felt something sail past him, before finding the assassin again before him, his wrist blade held mere inches away from Atma’s throat. Atma glanced to the side to see what exactly had flown past him, finding a single hand length sword, pulsing with shadow.
“I’d back off if I were you!” With black armor, and footsteps that clanked ever so slightly, Shade was an immediate draw of everyone’s attention. To the miners and townsfolk of Zanch, a heroic myth, to the Crimson Oni, a nightmare, in either case, the Dark Knight’s presence demanded attention.
“Ah, so you have finally decided to join us.”
“Oh, so you’re familiar with me?” Shade had a far more confident showing to Thanatos than Atma had ever had. The assassin backed off, as the Dark Knight stood between him and Atma, drawing his second blade from the earth, which pulsed with an even greater shadow as it felt its master’s grip once more.
“I’ve been watching you for a while, Dark Knight. You are unlike most I have faced in recent memory, a real challenge. I was hoping to duel you, in a well and true deathmatch.”
“You what?!” Douji fumed. “I told you weeks ago to kill him, and you haven’t done so? Out of what, some sense of honor or glory?!”
“Not so,” the assassin replied, caring little for his employer’s growing rage. It was as expressive as Atma had ever heard him, almost speaking like an artist pondering their work. “Battle is the only reason. Challenge. A true battle where he would come and face me, not unlike how these two have. I would have it no other way, so see their truest potential. A battle one chooses to fight, for their own desire, not for a hostage, or desperation. That is true power. That is true beauty.”
“You’re mad!” Douji let his club hit the ground, seemingly ready to strike out at the assassin, pointing his harpoon arm menacingly.
“Perhaps.”
“I don’t care the price, assassin, just kill the-” Douji didn’t finish his sentence before he hit the ground with a heavy thud. Blood dripped from Thanatos’ wristblade, though it was slight, the cut he’d made extremely clean. The assassin flicked the blade to clean it of blood, before sheathing the blade beneath his cloak. It was probably for the best that Atma couldn’t see the bandit’s face, or the source of the gurgling noises.
“You have enough time left to understand why, at least.” Thanatos crouched down next to his former employer’s face. “I told you, I am not your guard. And you are not my master. To put it simply, you couldn’t outpay my loyalty to them, and their orders supersede yours.” He glanced back to Atma and Shade, as the gurgling stopped. “I would like to continue, but my orders take me elsewhere. You impress me. I will expect more of you in our next encounter, Prince Atma.” Smoke kicked up from his feet, the assassin walking away, vanishing into the haze, gone as the wind kicked the smoke away, as if he had been a mere phantom.
“He… he knew who I was.”
“He killed Douji for us?” Sienna walked up to the fallen gang boss, kicking him with her foot to see if he was well and truly down. The man well and truly was dead. “Well, shit.”
Atma fell down, the gravity of it all crashing down on him. “I almost died!”
“You alright there?” Sienna turned back to him and crouched next to Atma. “You’re a bit more shaken up on this one.”
“The assassin knew me by name, and he almost killed me-”
“No, he wouldn’t have.” Shade interrupted, removing his helmet. “He stopped before I threw my sword. I wasn’t fast enough. He let you go. If I’m reading this situation right, he wasn’t allowed to kill you.” He inspected Atma’s wounds. “Light scratches and bruising, but there’s nothing that would be lethal. Not to discount your skill or anything, but all of your vitals are untouched.”
“I think that’s a bit scarier to be honest. It means someone is plotting something, and I think it’s involved in this greater plot in Deponess.” Atma found his mind racing again, trying to piece the puzzle of his father’s death together. He had a new piece, but it only invited more questions, the whole situation just seemed to get bigger and bigger with every step.
“There’s no point worrying about it now,” Shade began, “You don’t exactly have much more to go on at this point, we need more information, but, I think this proves that there’s someone out there who does know what’s going on, and that means we absolutely can clear your name. So do try and perk up, it’s really not a good look for you.” He glanced around before extending a hand to help Atma back to his feet. “Besides, that’s no way for a hero to appear to these people.”
Atma looked around, finding a crowd of civilians gathering, and the bandits who remained either fleeing or throwing up their arms in surrender. He took Shade’s hand, rising back to his feet to meet the gaze of the crowd that had formed. Returning home, even if still far off, felt just a step closer. He felt stronger for having fought, and looking to the people he’d helped, he’d found his efforts more than worth it, and with that, he smiled brightly.