Author's Notes: This was written as a reponse for this "genfic" challenge on Livejournal. Obviously, this is quite a surprise, coming from me…usually, I stay as far away as possible from "fandom" over on LJ, including anon memes and writing memes like this. I suppose I made an exception for the emblanon thing, though. Also, I noticed someone asked for a Renault/Karel thing, so I felt obligated to provide, since I'm pretty much the only person in the world who'd ever write about Renault right now, one way or the other. XD So without further ado, I present to you a humble little oneshot:
Path of the Sword
Karel was very familiar with bloodlust-indeed, it was the only thing he knew at all. The trembling of his hands when he laid eyes on a worthy opponent, the way his sword seemed almost to call to him, begging him to unsheathe it and bathe it in the blood of a strong man. He felt that call now, and yet…somehow, it was different. And it infuriated him.
His opponent was not responding to the call, you see. Both of them were standing across from one another on the grassy fields of Valor, the sounds of battle—sweet music to Karel's ears—echoing all around them. Not that he was interested in the other fighters specifically—Nergal's little puppets posed no challenge to him at all, and the weaklings of "Eliwood's Elite" couldn't even come close to slaking his thirst. But this strange man…this tall, teal-haired bishop with cold, narrow eyes and calluses on his hands…Karel could sense it, could smell the blood on them. He desperately wanted to taste the blood on those hands, but even though he had leveled his family's sword at the clergyman's throat, he had elicited no reaction other than a slight rise of the eyebrows in the man's otherwise expressionless face.
"…What are you doing?"
"I wish an answer to my question," came Karel's reply. "Which do you prefer, bishop: Sword or spell? The tone of your muscles and your hands tells me it is the former, but your robes tell me the latter. It doesn't matter to me. Either way, show me your strength."
"You… wish to fight me? Why?" He gestured around him, to the bodies of morphs strewn about the ruins, crumbling rapidly into dust. "Surely there is enough fighting going on already."
"No. Not for me, bishop. You're strong. Stronger than these soulless morphs. And I live to cut down strong warriors."
"Me? Strong?" The bishop quirked an eyebrow. "Surely a warrior of your caliber can tell a man of the cloth such as myself is no match for you."
"I'll be the judge of that. Defend yourself!"
Faster than the eye could see, Karel flashed forwards, his arms a blur as he raised his blade to slice right through the bishop's neck…and then stopped it in an instant, not even an inch away from the flesh. For the bishop had not moved at all.
"Coward! Why do you not respond?" Karel spat. "Were you not a swordsman, once? You cannot hide it from me. Have you no respect for the blade?"
"…No. Not anymore."
"Pfeh. Perhaps I was indeed mistaken about you," said the Swordmaster contemptuously, turning away from the gutless cleric and sheathing his sword. "The teachings of your cult have sapped away your strength, it seems. A pity."
Karel hadn't been entirely sincere—he'd had many dealings with Elimineans before, and hoped to rouse the man's anger by impugning his "faith." Yet, once again, things didn't go as he'd hoped. Rather than anger, the slightest beginnings of a smirk played across the bishop's face.
All of his experience, all of the men he'd killed on the field, and he hadn't seen anything like this before.
"Perhaps," came the reply. "Or perhaps you realize we share the same weakness…if you admit it or not."
"What did you-?" Karel turned back, readying his blade and preparing to gut the insolent churchman, but as he did so a trio of grey-skinned Pegasus Knights soared through the sky above him, turned, and dove, spears at the ready. Dispatching them—and the squad which came after them, and the squad after that—was not even the slightest trouble for him, but when the short fray had ended—in about thirty seconds—Karel turned, looked around him, at the ruins where the priest had been found, and could not see him anywhere. The man was gone.
Ordinarily, a good fight should have put him in a good mood, but Karel could do nothing but frown as he put away his weapon and started to rejoin the rest of his "comrades."
That damnable priest was still on his mind, and Karel hadn't even gotten his name.
-X-
Karel smirked as he watched the next morph crumble into dust before him, then turned around, blinking. His eyes were used to the darkness, but even that seemed stranger—deeper—in the labyrinthine ruins beneath the surface of Valor they found themselves in now. Despite that, though, he could make out a form slipping past him, almost as if he didn't want to be noticed—a form in white robes.
In a moment, Karel had pressed his blade to the man's throat.
"…Still haven't given up, I see…"
"The Sword Demon doesn't forget an insult," purred Karel, standing behind the priest—slightly taller than he was. "You called me weak? I'll show you weak."
The priest sighed—and that was enough to stoke Karel's anger, so much he could barely stop himself from spilling the man's blood here and now. What was behind this vexatious clergyman? No warrior or swordsman he had met so far held the same strength he sensed from this man…yet it was sublimated beneath…what? Karel couldn't tell. And he desperately wanted—NEEDED—to find out
"You…you're troubled," sighed the priest. "If I fight you…will it bring you peace?"
"Close enough."
"…I will do as you ask. Under one condition."
"Name it."
"…follow me. I need you to do something for me."
"What?"
As he said that, though, almost in the blink of an eye the priest had slipped from his grasp and had begun making his way through the twisting passages of Nergal's underground maze. "Wait!" called Karel, but he could do nothing else but follow. He sensed the air around him…twisting, slightly, as he followed the bishop, and as he sliced his way through the masses of morphs he noticed the man was not holding his spellbooks. It must have been the Silence field the tactician had spoken of.
"Coward!" spat Karel as the man brought him before a locked door in the center of the complex. "You're relying on me to fight your battles for you?"
"Please. This is all I ask. I'll show you everything I have after this." He took out a key and opened the door, allowing Karel to see what was locked inside.
A miserable, hunched little pile of flesh clad in ragged red robes. Karel couldn't even make out…his? No, its face.
"Please," said the bishop, and Karel was surprised to hear…sadness—sadness more profound than any he had ever seen—in the man's voice. "Kishuna…kill him. I beg you. Put him out of his misery. Anything you want, then, I will do as you ask."
"Hmph," sneered Karel. "You're a strange one, priest. I'll do as you ask. But this had better be worth it."
Not even a moment, and it was done. The…morph? Whatever it was had fallen to the floor and crumbled to dust, punctuated only by a cry of sorrow which…seemed to match the bishop's own. For he had fallen to his knees and clasped his hands in prayer over the morph's remains.
"What are you doing?" Karel asked incredulously. Once again, this strange priest was surprising him. Mourning over a morph? He'd couldn't imagine mourning over a human being, let alone a morph.
"…I was like you, once." The man sighed as he got to his feet, looking straight into Karel's eyes. And the Swordmaster couldn't fathom what either of them were seeing in the other.
"Enough with the games, priest. We've won this battle. Now," and he leveled his blade at the man, "Fulfill your promise."
He didn't pay attention. He simply continued talking. "…this was my friend."
"What?"
"Long ago, I was a mercenary. Like you, I lived only for the thrill of battle…to see my enemies' blood stain my hands…to listen to their cries of agony as I bashed their skulls in.
"I was strong…as strong a fighter as you could find on Elibe. And yet for all my strength, I couldn't save…I couldn't save…Kishuna. My friend. My brother…" His voice had begun to tremble, and Karel felt himself lowering his sword and taking a step back, realizing he was seeing something entirely outside the bounds of his experience.
"But I didn't stop fighting. Kishuna had died on the battlefield…because of me. I thought my strength…my skill at arms…would be enough to bring him back. But no…even when I lent my power to Nergal, and subjected myself to his experiments…the only thing I received in return was…this." He gestured to the dust on the ground.
"I don't care about your past!" yelled Karel, angry and confused. "Fight me! FIGHT ME!" He stepped forward, slashing at the bishop's head…and found himself cutting through empty air. His eyes widened when he looked to the side and saw the "priest" had sidestepped the blow entirely.
"All the blood I shed…all the power I gained…it brought me nothing," continued the bishop, sadly and bitterly. "For all my strength, I could not bring back the one man who meant more to me than anything else." He looked at Karel, the sadness in his eyes mixing with…was it empathy? Pity? "You are as strong as I was, son. And you hear nothing but the call of the blade, just like I did. And what has it brought you?"
Karel grimaced, his lips twitching. He'd been preached to about the errors of his ways…and before long, the moralizing hypocrites found their white robes drenched in their own blood. But this man…he was different. He asked a question Karel had never thought about before. And that he didn't have a convincing answer to.
"Everything!" he spat in response. "The sword is its own purpose. It is the way of my clan, for far longer than you've been alive, priest! Our destiny…our reason…is to bathe our sacred blade in the blood of the strongest warriors of Elibe!"
"So…despite all your power, Sword Demon, you cannot cut the chains of the destiny your birth has imposed upon you?"
"Fool. You'd never understand!" Karel smirked cruelly, and threw himself at the priest once again, bringing his Wo Dao up from the ground and into the air as he leapt with it, which should have cut a great gash in the priest's torso, then spun and brought his blade down with him as he fell.
His eyes widened when he realized both attacks had missed their marks entirely. The bishop was standing behind him now.
"Who…who are you?"
"…Renault. I am Renault, a servant of Elimine. Nothing more."
"Liar."
The man sighed once again. "You still haven't learned? Very well. After Nergal is dead…we will duel. And it will be the last time we meet."
With those words, he turned his back to Karel, leaving the swordmaster with both an anticipation that made his sword arm shake…and something else he'd never felt before.
Doubt.
-X-
The moment of the army's greatest triumph was the moment of Karel's greatest defeat.
He hadn't lost in combat—for he now stood on the sunset-limmed fields of Valor, the orange sky above him bearing witness to what would be his last battle with his last for. The army had succeeded in their mission—Nergal lay dead, along with the dragon he had summoned, and all of them had embarked on the ship back to the mainland. All of them, that is, except the Swordmaster and the Bishop.
No, Karel had lost the fight with his destiny. And the man before him, with just the smallest smile on his face, realized that.
"…You now realize the limits of your strength, don't you?" asked Renault. "Nergal, the dragon…foes beyond your imagination, and certainly beyond any power you could possibly hope to achieve. Your family's sword couldn't even damage Nergal's cloak of darkness…nor leave a scratch on the dragon's scales. "
Karel didn't respond, his face twisted into an angry grimace. "Enough of your preaching. Fulfill your promise to me, priest."
Renault did nothing, and for a moment it seemed he was reneging on his oath. But then, in a single movement, he shuffled off his Eliminean robes, standing bare-chested before Karel clad only in his worn traveling pants, allowing the swordmaster a good view of his body. And that alone was enough to make Karel's blood burn.
The body beneath those robes was hard, muscular, and toned, but that wasn't what made it clear Renault was no true Eliminean. No, it was the scars—hundreds upon hundreds of them, crisscrossing every inch of the man's bare skin. More scars than Karel thought anyone could gather in a single lifetime. More than anyone who was not a skilled warrior could claim and still survive.
"…Defeating me will prove nothing," Renault said. "Even if you do, your dream is still shattered. Killing me now will not prove you could have killed Nergal, or that—"
"It matters not," Karel snarled. "My patience with you is through, cultist. Ready your weapon, for I'll cut you down here and now, whether you defend yourself or not."
Renault merely nodded, then brought his right hand down to his side. Karel noticed what was hanging there—a small sheath, out of which the priest drew a dagger. A nondescript metal blade, notable only for the strange piece of broken chain which protruded from the end of the handle.
"A priest who carries a weapon? I'm glad to see your cult hasn't infected you as much as I feared."
Renault didn't rise to the insult. "Do you know what this is?"
"Why should I care? Your little blade is no match for my family's sword."
"…I used this to kill a man. One among many, but…"
"Your babbling bores me."
"When I killed him, I left it embedded in his chest—my haste to satiate my…own greed…overwhelmed me. But it was returned to me…by his son."
Karel's eyes narrowed, his anger rising. "What are you talking about?"
The "bishop" stared into those narrowed eyes, with something there the swordmaster couldn't understand—at least not yet. "I killed his father…and yet the son forgave me. Offered me a reprieve from my guilt; solace for my conscience.
"Do you have that same strength, Sword Demon? The power not to kill, but to love?"
"I already told you I have no interest in the teachings of that worthless cult."
Renault simply chuckled in response. "Forgiveness is not solely an Eliminean virtue. If it was, a faithless fraud such as myself could never enjoy it.
"There is no reason you should not take its path, Sword Demon. You have already seen where the path of the sword leads. Why not try another one?"
Karel couldn't stop himself from letting out a low growl. The man's words were cutting him deeper than any blade ever did—for despite all his skill, after what he had experienced at the Dragon's Gate, he could not find any convincing refutation. So he responded in the only way he could.
"I've heard enough of this! Die!"
-x-
A pump of his strong, lithe legs sent the Swordmaster literally flying through the air, aiming his blade straight at the Bishop's neck. Just as Karel had expected, however, he was prepared. As fast as the Swordmaster himself, faster than such a large man could be expected to, Renault ducked, allowing Karel's blow to pass cleanly over his head, and then flipped his dagger and thrust his arm to stab upwards, intending to skewer the airborne Swordmaster.
I was indeed right about you, thought Karel as he twisted his body to dodge Renault's thrust and flipped through the air, landing on the ground behind his foe. Wasting not even a fraction of a moment, he launched another charge, his Wo Dao held above his head as he readied an overhead slice that would have cut right through Renault's back.
His eyes widened in utter surprise when the vertical blow passed through empty air once again, then shut themselves in pain when he felt something hard slam into the back of his head.
Renault had cleanly sidestepped the blow, spinning as he did so, which allowed the back of his left fist to connect squarely with Karel's head.
"Damn!" sputtered the Swordmaster, and though it took but a moment for him to regain his balance, he knew that was far too long an opening to give his opponent. So when he heard the air twist behind him, he instinctively whirled around and whipped his blade at whatever it was, even though he couldn't see it.
He was rewarded with the harsh clang of metal on metal and the sight of Renault's dagger spinning harmlessly through the air. The "bishop" had turned and threw his dagger at the stumbling Swordmaster, intending to embed it in the man's neck. His plan failed, and now he was unarmed.
Or so Karel thought.
"Gah!" He couldn't say any more than that as he felt something very large crash into him, tearing his Wo Dao from his hands, then two strong arms wrap themselves around his midsection and squeeze, slowing crushing the life out of him.
It had been a feint, Karel realized. Renault had tossed his dagger at him expecting him to deflect it, and then lower his guard when the thought his opponent was now helpless. But Renault still had the advantage of a larger, stronger physique, along with speed matching the swordsman's own, and he had tackled the man into a great bearhug, and Karel felt his consciousness slipping away as Renault's vice-like grip continued to tighten.
But the Swordmaster had more than a few surprises of his own. "If you think you've won, you're very mistaken!" Renault had wrapped his arms around Karel, but hadn't pinned those of his opponent. With his now-empty right hand, Karel quickly reached into the folds of his own robes and drew out his secondary weapon—a small, vicious concealable dagger. And in the same movement, he flicked his wrist, spun it around, and drove it into Renault's right shoulder.
"Agh!" Renault grimaced in pain and stumbled back, his grip on Karel's body loosening. This was enough for the man to wriggle out of it and dive towards his fallen Wo Dao.
As Renault hunched over in pain, reaching up to extricate the dagger, Karel once again flashed forwards, and the wounded, off-balance Renault couldn't defend. This time the bright gleam of his blade was accompanied not by the sound of clashing metal but the spray of blood and the crunching of bone.
It was over. The battle was finished.
Yet when Karel looked down on his fallen opponent, blood staining the ground around him, he saw the man did not seem to be in any pain. Quite the contrary—he seemed…happy. As if a great weight had been removed from his shoulders. And when Karel looked down at his own bloody sword and his bloodstained hands, he realized that he felt no elation, no satisfaction. He had fought and triumphed against a strong opponent, one of the strongest he'd faced. And yet, for the very first time in his life, he realized he had gained nothing from it.
"You…what have I…" The color drained from Karel's already-pale face as he stared at his dying…foe? Friend? As emotions he had never felt before in his life crashed through him like waves.
Renault merely chuckled from the ground—a strained, hoarse laugh, indicative of his mortal wound. "Don't…don't despair…Sword Demon. This is nothing but payment…for the sins I've committed in my life. Now…after so long…I can finally…rest…"
Karel dropped to his knees. "I…I've won. I've triumphed! I…but why am I…"
"I'm the only man…of all the ones you've met, you've killed…I…the only one who's ever made you face these questions. And…now you've…"
"But…but why? You could have—"
"Won…? Or…run away? Neither mattered. I wanted…only to fulfill your request. But now…" He coughed, the last remnants of life fleeing him. "I…I want to ask a request of you…in payment."
The expression on Karel's face didn't change. "I…what is it…?"
"Find…find your own answers to the questions I've asked. At least…at least look at the other paths I've shown you. For once…cut the chains of your destiny rather than flesh."
Those were his last words. The bishop's breathing slowed, shallowed, and then stopped entirely, his eyes closed as if he was sleeping on a crimson bed.
For much longer than a moment—what seemed like an eternity—his killer stood above him, unmoving as a statue. And then, finally, without yet understanding what he was really doing, Karel knelt down again and did one more thing he had never, ever done before in his entire life.
He cast aside his sword and, with his bare hands, began to dig.
-x-
No one knew the old him. Only one knew what became of him. The only evidence the burdened bishop ever existed is a small mound of dirt on Valor, a sword at its top serving as its gravestone. The Sword Demon is buried with him, and the Saint of Swords now follows the path he tread.
::Linear Notes::
This fic takes place in a different "canon" than Wayward Son, though the "broken chain" on the end of Renault's dagger is an oblique reference to his weapon in my "epic," hehe. However, in this fic Renault's friend is portrayed as Kishuna, while in my other he's much different, being an entirely new character. IMO Kishuna couldn't be Renault's friend, because Renault says Nergal gave him an "empty vessel" while Kishuna has emotions and a soul, albeit fabricated. However, a lot of folks over on the anon said they thought he was Renault's buddy, so I went with that.
Anyways, here's hoping you enjoy it. It may not be my best work, but whoever commissioned it seemed to like the first two parts, at least. Like I said, I don't normally accept requests (please don't ask), but I felt bad leaving a request for Renault to languish forever in some forgotten recess of the Internet, so I decided to write this little piece. :)