Disclaimer: I own nothing. All recognisable names belong to Namco.
Chapter One
"Kilik!" Maxi shouted.
At once, Kilik straightened up from the defensive crouch he was in, practice sparring against his close friend, Xianghua. Both of them looked up as Maxi came skidding down the dirt hill behind which they had been sparring.
"Kilik," Maxi said, once he was in front of them, "I need your help."
"What is it this time, Maxi?" Kilik teased, rolling his eyes.
Xianghua smirked. This was a joke between her and Kilik. "Need another hand with—"
"Be quiet, both of you," Maxi scolded, impatient. "This time is serious; I can't find Talim anywhere."
Talim was the youngest of the little misfit group; at fifteen, she was the most accomplished elbow-blade warrior they had ever met. With raven hair just past her shoulder, and inky black eyes, Talim was slight and slender, a befitting daughter of a wind shaman.
Kilik pushed his straight brown hair out of his eyes. "Relax, Maxi. She's probably in the woods, practicing. Or in the woods, meditating on the wind. Don't worry about it. She'll be back."
"But that's the point!" argued Maxi. "I've already looked in the woods. I have scoped the earth and the sky in a roughly 10 meter diameter. Talim isn't anywhere."
Kilik clapped a hand on Maxi's shoulder. "She'll be back. You know how she loves to run like the wind."
"I wish you wouldn't take this so lightly, Kilik," Maxi retorted. "Maybe it's because you don't care for her as much as I do."
Xianghua decided to step in, judging Kilik's face and knew that once he started raging, he would never end.
"Maxi," she began in a soothing tone, her hand lightly resting on Maxi's arm, "You know Talim can take care of herself. She's fifteen, she's a warrior, she has her weapons… She'll be back soon."
Maxi looked at Xianghua's beautiful face. It was a face of royalty; it did not match here, sword fighting, on the run from the empire. Her brown eyes were gazing into Maxi's cold black ones, trying to reassure him that Talim would come back.
"And you would do well to remember, Maxi, that you are not the only one who cares for Talim," interrupted Kilik. "She is close to all of us."
He turned away from the others, hiding his face. He knew it would be burning with embarrassment. He had chosen his words carefully.
He tapped his long rod, Kali-yuga, against the trunk of a tree, ignoring Xianghua's attempts to calm Maxi down.
Talim… she was more than just a friend to Kilik. And he wasn't sure if he liked where he and Talim were going. He was twenty-three, and she was fifteen. He often felt like he was taking advantage of her young age and supposed naivety, but when he was with her, he couldn't help but forget about everything.
Talim was wise for her years. She belayed the strength, pride and courage of a mature warrior. Kilik enjoyed the time he spent with her, whether it was practicing in a meadow, hunting for food, recounting stories, or anything at all.
But he knew she did not know. That was her one weakness, her one naivety, so to speak. Talim was so blind to things that other people felt. She could not see how much attention Kilik spent on her; getting her anything she wanted, fruits from the topmost branches for their quality, the best stones to polish her elbow blades, the way Kilik smiled at her, the way his eyes would often gaze into hers, for minutes at a time.
But Kilik could not tell her. She was, after all, much younger than him. She would probably perceive him only as a close friend, or at most, a brother, but nothing more.
Kilik hung his head in shame. He knew what Maxi would say; Maxi, his best friend for two years, when he had ran from his village in terror. Maxi, who treated Talim as his younger sister; spoiled her and adored her.
He winced as Maxi's furious expression filled his mind. His long black hair, tied in a ponytail, was slick and shone in the sun, and so did his glinting black eyes, and the scar above his eyebrow that extended down to his cheekbone stood out, intimidating.
"You WHAT? How COULD you, Kilik? She's still a child, and you go and take advantage of her? I won't let this happen, not my own sister, not Talim!"
Kilik sighed. Xianghua's sympathetic face swam in his mind's eye. He knew what she would say, too.
"Kilik, why? Maxi is right, Talim is just a child…"
Kilik closed his eyes in frustration. It was bad enough that they were on this dangerous quest to secure as many of the Soul Edge's fragments as possible. He didn't need distractions (in the form of his best friend's adopted younger sister) to stray him from his path of revenge. He couldn't afford having Talim close to him—he would hurt her if something went wrong, and he couldn't live with himself if he did.
Kilik gnashed his teeth, and resolved to push all things of Talim out of his mind. He would concentrate on his quest, on his fighting, on his sparring, on defeating the thing that killed his adoptive older sister, Xianglian.
Xianglian was the sole reason why he was pursuing the Soul Edge. She was the reason he was endangering his life to avenge her death.
Xianglian's face battled with Talim's in Kilik's mind. Curly copper hair against pin-straight iron. Green eyes against blue-black. Gentle and kind against fierce and proud.
Xianglian and Talim.
Kilik opened his eyes, and smashed Kali-yuga into the ground. He sometimes had issues with his temper and strength. He needed to physically vent his frustration. But he couldn't; not now, when Maxi and Xianghua were within a few feet of him. They would ask why, and Kilik was not ready to give answers.
Kilik looked over the trees, scanning for a hint of a rushing, black-haired figure, but none came. His jaw was clenched in restraint of smashing his rod into the ground again, and his brown eyes flashed coldly.
He could not spar against Xianghua anymore today. His anger would be too strong to hold inside, and he could not hurt Xianghua; she was innocent to his frustration.
Lifting his foot and resting it against a rock, Kilik brooded with his head on his arm.
Xianglian and Talim.
Suddenly, he found himself wishing Talim would take a little longer to come back.
"I have had ENOUGH!"
Kilik sat up, abruptly woken from his fitful nap. Xianghua was staring at him, the dusk hiding her expression from Maxi, begging Kilik with her eyes to let Maxi rage, and ignore it.
Little did she know what Maxi would say next.
"That's it. I don't care if you two are coming or not, but I'm going."
At once, Xianghua leapt to her feet. "What do you mean, Maxi? Where are you going?"
He strapped his boots on so forcefully, Kilik was surprised that neither Maxi's face nor the laces showed the strain. Maxi grabbed his Nunchaku and proceeded to walk towards the woods.
"I'm going to look for Talim," he said over his shoulder.
"Of course we're coming with you," Xianghua shouted. "If you slowed down a bit, Mr Fast and Furious, you'll realise that we all care for Talim the same way!"
Kilik winced.
Xianghua took two steps towards Maxi's retreating back, then looked at Kilik, who had not moved.
"Aren't-aren't you coming?" she asked, doubtful.
Kilik closed his eyes. This hunt for Talim would do not help resolve the conflict in his heart.
Xianglian or Talim?
He could feel the presence of the evil weapon that had killed Xianglian. It was still far, but he could definitely feel its aura. Any meandering caused by their hunt for Talim would shorten their time to hunt for the Soul Edge.
Sighing, then gritting his teeth, he picked up Kali-yuga, and strode after Maxi with Xianghua at his heels.
"Why are we going this way?" Kilik asked Maxi, after ten minutes walking in the forest.
"You are right, Talim tends to spend a large amount of time in the forest. She might have left traces of where she has gone."
"You didn't look before?" Kilik asked in disbelief.
"I was looking for her person," Maxi said coldly. "Forgive me if I do not jump to conclusions about Talim's causes of disappearing."
Kilik opened his mouth to retort, but a soft hand covered it.
"Shh," Xianghua whispered. "There's someone here."
Kilik reached out one long arm and pulled Maxi back.
"Wha—"
"Shut up, Maxi," Xianghua hissed, as Kilik proceeded to cover Maxi's mouth. "I can hear someone around."
Someone dropped right in front of them. Instantly, they all drew their weapons, for the person in front of them had hers drawn.
"Well, well, well," the woman cackled. "Are you looking for the little girl who stumbled in here? Black hair, big green amulet?"
Maxi was the first to speak. "Who are you?"
The woman cackled again. "The name's Taki, ninja of Fu-Ma No Sato, Japan. You?"
Maxi ignored her question. "Where is the girl?"
"I'll trade you the information you seek, on the information of your identities. And be warned, Taki knows when she's being lied to."
Kilik had no doubt about that. Japanese ninjas were usually well-gifted at identifying false information.
Maxi had his face screwed up in distaste, not trusting the ninja, but having no choice. "Maxi," he said curtly.
Taki bowed to him, her face sarcastic and patronising. She turned to Kilik and Xianghua, who in turn gave her their names.
"Now," Maxi continued, still sour, "You know our names, give us the information."
"She was abducted."
Taki bounded up, and reached for a tree branch.
"Wait!' Kilik shouted. "Who took her, did you see?"
Taki cackled again. "Yes, I did. Handsome man."
"Man?" Xianghua gasped. Surely, some feminist thing was going through her mind.
"Yes," Taki continued, relishing the raptness of her audience, and drawing it out as torture. "Blonde hair, you know. Blue eyes. Piercing blue eyes."
She looked straight at Kilik, as if knowing the painful clench of his heart at the description of the man.
"Very handsome. Brave, must have been. Many scars, yet they only made him more beautiful."
Kilik clenched his teeth again. Taki was goading him.
"Do you know his name?" Maxi shouted.
"No, never saw the man in my life."
"Which direction did they go?"
"West. Due west, straight into the setting sun."
Taki cackled. "Strong man, too. Carried a nice big sword. Had an eye on it. A living eye; blinked and everything."
She hung upside down, and stared at the three horrified expressions of the people below her. Her mouth widened as she waited to deliver the bomb.
"Called it Soul Edge."
.
.
.
AN:
Yes, Talim is my personal favourite character to play in SoulCalibur II on PlayStation 2. I feel like I relate to her, both of us being young (fifteen at the time of writing), having to battle it out against older, more experienced competitors.
I also play Kilik a lot, because he's a very easy character to play—his weapon is quite convenient for beating enemies. This story was also supposed to be Talim/Kilik story, about how their love survives their search for the Soul Edge blah blah blah, but things changed.
I totally get what Mrs Meyer is talking about when she says her characters have their own "lives", and they make their own stories within stories.
My favourite antagonist is Nightmare, because I feel like he is quite noble, and because I feel like it's not his fault; everything he did was in the name, and because, of the Soul Edge. The Soul Edge possessed him.
My least favourite antagonist is Ivy, purely because I hate her. I don't like her looks, I don't like her personality, I just don't like her. She's annoying. Although her weapon is quite unique.
Also, there are some minor characters—called 'one liners' in movies—that are here purely to add some spice to the story. Don't get confused.
