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The Gathering
By Corvus no Genmu
03: Sneak
"Men fear death, as children fear to go in the dark; and as that natural fear in children is increased with tales, so is the other."
It can be argued that even the most soft spoken of girls can find herself shouting to the highest pillars of Heaven itself when presented in a situation they find entirely uncomfortable no matter how much they daydreamed otherwise. Such was the case and then some for one Usagi Tsukino when pressed by her waitress friend Unazuki on whether or not Usagi and Mamoru had kissed.
Sitting on the table opposite them, Horatio winced and rubbed at his ear while his friend, who was unfortunate enough to sit just behind the loud blonde, merely frowned. Lightly tanned with his ebony hair tied into a small ponytail on the back of his neck, the lad was clearly a few years younger than Horatio and fully Japanese to boot. He wore rather plain clothes, a simple pair of jeans and plain white shirt beneath a well-worn leather jacket. He'd easily get lost in a crowd despite the glimmering purple of his eyes beneath his small pair of square-shaped spectacles. He scratched at his neck, just beneath the choker wrapped tightly over what could only be a nasty scar.
It would have to be considering that Arashi Tomoe is mute.
Playing with the kunai-shaped pendant dangling from his choker, the younger boy looked imploringly to his older compatriot.
"You're the one who insisted on seeing her for yourself. Not my fault that she didn't keep her demure nature."
Arashi rolled his eyes and pulled out a small PDA as the girls continued to converse behind him. He started typing upon it but suddenly stopped even as Horatio's fists clenched tightly. The pair looked out the corner of their eyes at the two newcomers into the small restaurant before regarding each other. Arashi pressed the delete key on his PDA and hastily retyped a new message.
Usagi exclaimed her surprise at hearing that Unazuki, so interested in learning whether Usagi and Mamoru had reached "first base", hadn't even truly "gone up to bat" as it were though she had a boyfriend herself. The brunette went on to explain that she wanted her first kiss to be something special, to make it as absolutely perfect as possible. Right then, Arashi finished typing and, with a small smirk, turned up the volume.
"Kisses kept are wasted; love is to be tasted. There are some you love, I know; be not loath to tell them so. Lips go dry and eyes grow wet, waiting to be warmly met. Keep them not in waiting yet; kisses kept are wasted." The PDA's electronic voice, sounding remarkably human if a bit distorted with a slight electronic undertone, recited. The two girls' turned to the pair of boys.
Horatio sweat-dropped at their sudden scrutiny and shook his head. "Forgive my friend here. He considers himself an expert in all things to do with romance and well, you both were rather loud I'm sorry to say."
Unazuki blushed to the roots of her hair at having been so easily overheard, by a pair of cute boy's no less, while Usagi peered curiously at them, Horatio most particular. "… Have we met? I swear I've seen you somewhere before…"
He chuckled and twisted in his seat to stick out of his leg and tapped at the brace adorning it with his cane. "You might have run into me trying to work up the courage to walk up Hikawa Shrine's stairs more than once. Quite literally the last time too. The climb is no small feat for one such as me but I hear the lady atop is more than worth the effort."
Usagi's embarrassed flush quickly vanished as she blinked in confusion at the Native American's words.
"In other words, he's a crush on the priestess and is still working up the nerve to speak with her." Arashi smirked at Horatio's embarrassed flush and, noting Usagi's confusion, hastily typed out on his PDA. "Like Horatio and Eirik, I too am not without my own injuries. I'm mute and though I know sign language, I'm afraid that not many others do."
Usagi blinked again, this time in surprise. "You know Eirik? Are you two his friends?"
It was too quick for either girls, or the nearby eavesdroppers to notice, but Horatio sent a subtle glare Arashi's way, which was readily ignored as he answered, "Yes, we're acquainted through the same program."
Before Usagi could question Arashi on that, Horatio hastily butted back in to the conversation. "Oh, where are my manners today? My name is Horatio Alexander and this is—"
"Arashi Tomoe. A pleasure to meet you."
"Did you really mean that?" Unazuki suddenly asked, much to the confusion of the three who blinked perplexedly at her. Blushing slightly, she amended, "That poem earlier… About kept kisses are wasted?"
Arashi nodded.
"But… aren't first kisses supposed to be special? Done in the right place at the right moment?"
"No matter the circumstances behind it, a first kiss is something you'll always remember but… A moment please." Arashi spent a bit more time typing something out before his PDA started to recite another poem. "Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score. Then to that twenty, add a hundred more: a thousand to that hundred: so kiss on, to make that thousand up a million. Treble that million and when that is done, let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun."
Horatio's expression darkened for a moment before he chuckled at the girls' gob-smacked expressions. "In layman's terms, kiss as often as you like, but treat every kiss as your first."
Arashi nodded and finished off his drink before rising from the table revealing that he was barely any taller than Usagi at best. He signed at Horatio before bowing to the two girls and heading out of the restaurant.
"That was a quick exit," muttered Usagi, rather surprised that the boy had run off as he had.
"Arashi's patience is more often considered a vice rather than a virtue even at the best of times." Horatio said before he slowly rose to his feet. He handed a few yen notes to Unazuki. "For the meal and the show."
He walked away ignoring the looks sent his way as he shuffled out the door though he couldn't help the smirk on his face when he heard a patron complain of a missing wallet shortly before Unazuki proclaimed the generous tip she had just received. He turned serious though when he glanced at the shadowed alleyway.
"That was stupid of you. I thought that we all agreed to not try and bring any more attention to ourselves in our civilian guises."
Arashi emerged from the shadows and his demeanor was entirely opposite of what it had been in the restaurant. Within, he had been smiling with warm eyes but out here, away from the unknowingly gathered Senshi, he was scowling and his eyes could make even Archer's ice seem molten hot by comparison.
He angrily signed at Horatio, "I was not about to let those two try and discover the truth hiding in plain sight. Don't tell me you were willing to let them figure out just who Sailor Moon truly is?"
"… No." Horatio sighed as he recalled the disturbingly close presence of the two Outers in their civilian guises, "If you hadn't said something I would have." His eyes narrowed dangerously upon the shorter boy as a few ravens landed upon the rooftops nearby. "But using one of my poems to my Lady? That was low Arashi, even for someone like you."
The Japanese boy's demeanor hardly cracked but he did glance away from Horatio and did not deign to reply.
Horatio sighed and shook his head. "Look, I understand how you feel but—"
A lengthy acupuncture needle flew past Horatio's ear and imbedded itself fully into the wall behind him. Arashi glared hatefully upon Horatio as he signed, "The fuck that you do! You and the others haven't even dared to try! I did and look where that got me! Look at what I had to do to protect her!"
The shadows behind Arashi moved like rippling waters and Horatio's grip on his cane tightened as swarms of miniature eyes opened in the blackness and glared spitefully upon him. Above and around the Native American youth, the ravens stirred their feathers and clacked their beaks but did not deign to retreat even as the tide swelled larger.
"When she remembers, and I promise you that she will regardless of the Plan, she'll remember all that was stolen from her, in this life and the last … When she does, she'll hate me with even more passion than when she had once loved me and foolishly agreed to this madness… So no. Not you, not any one of you, know the pain I'm going through right now because none of you have dared to try and love them again as you had once before!"
"They are not the same!" shouted Horatio, prodding the younger boy back into the darkness of the alleyways with his cane and shuffling after him as the gathered ravens took off and the gathered masses retreated under his advance. "They are not the same people from all those years ago!"
"Neither are WE! Damn it, I know that Tobias can't but surely you can see it Horatio? Look at me! Look at yourself! We are not the same either! Our souls might have survived the transition through time but not much else did! Where is our valor? Where is our courage? Instead of letting the wind carry you away from Lady Ares why don't you just try and push it back for once?!"
He turned and vanished into the alleyway and Horatio did not bother to try and pursue him. Because no matter how much he wanted to say otherwise…
He agreed with Arashi.
"To push back the wind… To change the way that it blows, to force it back… To not accept what it brings… Is such a thing possible?" He whispered to himself. "I do want to push back the wind… but I…"
"Caw…?" A familiar pair of ravens settled upon Horatio's shoulders. His grip tightened upon his cane.
"… But I'm too scared to try."
Osoji was quite different from her elder daimon brethren. For one thing, she had been born from a machine much like Steeringoo but whereas the automobile-born daimon was geared entirely towards speed and evasion, Osoji was given a particularly unique set of enhancements.
One of these enhancements was the ability to locate and track down pure heart crystals given the frequency of interference by the Sailor Senshi and the risk of one snatching the crystal back. This radar-like system was also meant as the daimon's self-defense against them. Though they knew no name for them, the Death Busters had a name for those who made a mockery of the daimon with their inhuman brutality.
The Dark Knights.
Standing atop a large garbage pile in the middle of Juuban's junkyard, Osoji had every right to sneer with confidence down upon the down Sailor Senshi at the foot of the mountainous heap. Though Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus had matched her in the mad dash to find the lost pure heart crystal and Sailor Moon had made quite the pretty little speech, that didn't stop Osoji from getting the upper hand, or vacuum as the case was.
Best of all, there was no sign of Saber or Archer!
SQUELCH!
"Huh…?" Osoji glanced down and was surprised to see the pure heart crystal resting in another's hand. A hand that was attached to an arm that was jutting out from the middle of her chest, ivory tinted armor glistening beneath the blackened oil that served as the daimon's blood.
Bladed tips pierced through Osoji's shoulders and before the daimon had the chance to scream, she was torn in half, her broken pieces collapsing into the vacuum that she had arisen from.
"I'm sorry but that was just getting obscene. I mean, "Eat my dust"? Really?" The Ivory Knight crouched low, resting his head upon the back of one fist as he regarded the Senshi below. Quite the polar opposite to Saber, his armor and bodysuit was almost entirely white while the edges and intricate, almost web-like, design of the chest piece were of such a vibrantly bright shade of blue it may as well have been white.
In fact, the only thing about him that wasn't close to pure whiteness are the blackened ovular coverings over his red lenses, which were cut in such a way that he appeared to have not one but four pairs of eyes. Upon his back were two pairs of bio-metallic spider legs, both equally proportionate to what a spider's own would be if the spider in question were the size of a human being. The two lower legs were clutched tightly around his torso, aiming up into the center of his chest while the upper pair lowered themselves down to complete the X-shape. Upon his neck was a simple choker with a diamond shaped pendant dangling beneath it.
Sailor Moon shivered at the sight of the Arachnid Warrior, not just by his insect-like appearance but the memory of Archer's brutality was still fresh in the young girl's mind. But she had other priorities to concern herself over as she remembered just whose heart crystal it was in resting in the Ivory Knight's hand. "Oh no! Unazuki's pure heart crystal!"
She raced for it, not intending to fight the Arachnid Warrior for it but to plead with him to give it to her, but Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune did not see it that way.
"I won't let you have it!" cried Sailor Neptune, leaping past Sailor Moon as Sailor Uranus tackled her from behind, putting her in a chokehold just as she reached the foot of the junk pile.
"We will take the talisman!" Sailor Uranus spoke harshly to Sailor Moon as she pulled her back.
Sailor Neptune landed beside the Arachnid Warrior, intending to fight him for the crystal if need be, but he seemed frozen on the spot as he stared down at the struggling Sailor Moon. He turned his head slowly to face Sailor Neptune. The Arachnid Warrior's voice was strange, a queer distortion like he was speaking from deep within a cave rather than in the open, if not utterly filthy, grounds of the junkyard.
"Do you think it so easy to sneak up on the likes of me? For all you know, I'm already down there." Sailor Uranus froze as she felt a blade press its pointed tip upon the base of her skull, the Ivory Knight's strange voice whispering into her ear. "With a blade aimed straight into that pretty little head of yours!"
Sailor Neptune blinked at the suddenly vacant space atop the pile and looked down. "Sailor Uranus!"
"I thought you'd have learned your lesson from Archer," said the Ivory Knight. "Did you think him alone in his opinions? That the rest of us would have a different sentiment, that we would let you run rampant as you wish without repercussion? Saber's sword would take you down before you even realize it had been drawn. Archer would make you dance as his bullets sing the song of your demise before he finally puts one between your eyes."
For a brief horrifying moment the two Outer Senshi could see it happening right before their eyes. Saber swooping down from the heavens on wings of obsidian steel and his sword tearing the sky asunder with but a single swing. Archer standing atop Tokyo Tower, Gatling gun blazing and sending a storm of bullets before growing weary of the game and finishing them off with two simple shots from the rail gun on his back.
Even Sailor Moon was not immune to witnessing these visions but whereas Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus saw the events unfolding through their own eyes and the demise of their partner before their own, Sailor Moon watched as an outsider, her viewpoint that of an unseen angel in the sky above the bloodied battlegrounds that the Ivory Knight was painting.
"But me? You won't even see me coming. Why? Because I am not Saber, coming from the front. I am not Archer, attacking you from afar. I am Assassin and when I strike it is always right when you least expect it."
And as quickly as it had started, the story was over and Sailor Moon found herself standing beside Assassin, her hands occupied by the pure heart crystal once in his own grasp. His head tilted and Sailor Moon could almost swear that he was smiling beneath his helmet.
"But as I said, I'm not like Archer or Saber, and I don't feel like fighting you when I don't have to. So take that heart crystal back to whom it belongs, Princess. This crystal doesn't have what those two are hoping to find."
Sailor Moon looked back and forth between the heart crystal and Assassin, and surprised the Ivory Knight when she reached up with one arm and gave him a quick hug. "Thank you!"
And she was away, faster than anyone would ever have thought possible of her.
Assassin watched her go and for a moment, he seemed almost tranquil, at peace with some inner demon that he was struggling to overcome throughout the entire confrontation. Then, his fists clenched tightly and he turned sharply to glare down at the two Outer Senshi, still recovering from the illusionary assault he had unleashed upon them.
"You two have no idea how fortunate it was that it was I and not any of the others that were here to witness this… this travesty! Be grateful of your good luck because I promise you, the next time you feel a knife on your neck, I guarantee that blood will be spilt."
Assassin's arachnid legs uncurled and with a single, enhanced leap, he was gone.
In the darkness of a misbegotten pit of dreadful souls, an entire wall's worth of monitors slowly came to life until the entire fixture was a mass of static white. A simple click of a button, an image appeared in the central most television screen before it spread like wildfire across the multitude of squares. A series of clips began to play, showing off five familiar Senshi using their strongest attacks.
"The five Sailor Senshi… They are most bothersome…"
The clips were replaced by a single still image of a pair, the Outer Senshi standing side by side as they sneered down at friend and enemy alike.
"Then there are these characters, the ones calling themselves Neptune and Uranus… They are after the talismans just as we are."
Kaorinite stood in silence as her professor spoke from wherever he resided in the darkness. She had a calm façade as she regarded the image of the two Senshi, for though they were quite the troublesome pair; they had not yet earned more than a scholarly curiosity from the red-haired witch.
"Perhaps they know our plan of attack given the frequency of their arriving mere moments after our daimon emerge…"
"Yet these even these two are of little consequence compared to them!" The Professor continued on as though he hadn't heard Kaorinite. A click and the images changed once more to a series of clips and Kaorinite took a step back and bit down hard on her lower lip to keep from screaming aloud.
It was them…
"Though we've yet to see them for beyond a few instances, it is quite clear that these—these knights have a clear disfavor of Uranus and Neptune… Because we can use this to our advantage…"
"Professor?"
"Yes… Yes that's it exactly! It will be like killing two birds with one stone! Lure them out Kaorinite and annihilate them!"
Assassin watched in the canopy of the forest as the newest daimon to come out of the Death Busters' labs made short work of Sailor Neptune before moving on to Sailor Uranus. He didn't know what disturbed him more, that he was actually feeling sympathy for the two traitors or the appearance of the, apparently twinned daimon Tiren. While the daimon thus far have all been female and somewhat provocative, Assassin had absolutely no idea what to make of this one aside from disgust.
"For crying out loud, it looks like a damned purple latex bodysuit with equally bad colored wig and accessories. How is that supposed to intimidate anything? Merciful Light, she better not have been in charge of that one's design or I swear I'll die of shame right here and now…" He muttered to himself. He shook his head, smiling beneath his helmet. "Still, there's something to be said in watching those two get their long waiting comeuppance."
It was right then that Sailor Moon entered the fray and between their arguing over who should be the one fleeing with injured comrade and who should mind her own damned business, failed to realize how easily they were setting up the witch's trap.
"I don't care what happens to those two but she MUST BE PROTECTED. Do I make myself clear?" grumbled the echo of Dirk's voice in Assassin's mind.
The Arachnid Warrior leapt down from the forest canopy and landed between the two Senshi.
"You!" exclaimed Sailor Uranus in anger.
"Assassin!" cried Sailor Moon in surprise and… relief? The Ivory Knight spared a glance at the pony-tailed blonde and that one second's hesitation was just enough for the daimon twins.
"Chain Ring!"
The red visors of Assassin's helmet brightened slightly as he slowly glared down at his wrists and what shackled them to Sailor Moon and Sailor Uranus. Somewhere in the vicinity of Juuban, he was certain a certain gun-toting maniac was laughing his ass off at that very moment to which Assassin had only one thing to say.
"… Oh you've got be fucking kidding."
The Tirens cackled with glee and converted themselves into their wheeled forms and shot towards the chained trio. Assassin proudly stood his ground ready to face them down but the two Senshi leapt in opposite directions and ended up sending all three of them to the ground. Assassin uttered a series of oaths that left Sailor Moon blushing a vibrant pinkish hue as his spider-legs launched them up into the air just in time to avoid the daimon twins. Unfortunately, with the added weight of two women strapped to his arms, Assassin did not get as far as he intended and came crashing back to the earth with the Senshi colliding on top of him.
Kaorinite actually had the audacity to laugh.
"Uranus, run! You have to survive to continue the mission!"
"Fine by me!" snapped Assassin, his spider legs lifting him and the two Senshi strapped to his wrists up into the air. "Laugh while you can witch! As soon I remove this dead weight from my arm, I'm coming for you next!"
Kaorinite laughed and she kicked Sailor Neptune hard in the ribs, sending the injured Senshi tumbling over the cliff and into the raging waters of the waterfall where she disappeared from sight.
"Neptune!" cried Sailor Uranus, heartbreak evident in her voice. Assassin cursed and turned the opposite way and started for the forest, his bio-metallic arachnid legs giving him a greater burst of speed even with the extra weight attached to him.
"Wait!" yelled Sailor Moon, "The waterfall is the other way! We have to go back!"
Assassin ignored her as he continued to run, his teeth clenching tightly as he bit back the urge to turn right back around and lay waste to the Tirens, regardless of the harm he'd let befall the girl attached to his right arm. The shame of retreat was one that would be damned near impossible for him to clean off but he was sure that witch's blood was a good enough cleanser as any.
CLANG!
"Fuck!"
CLANG!
"This!"
CLANG!
"Horse!"
CLANG!
"SHIT!" Assassin roared as his upper arachnid legs bounced off the chains with enough force to send him falling flat on his back. Sailor Moon looked concerned at the Ivory Knight, silently grateful that he had aimed his attempts at the arm not chained to her own, while Sailor Uranus looked quite unimpressed.
"Well you're just full of it aren't you?" she said, sarcasm dripping like ice in her voice. "Any other bright ideas you want to see fail?"
"Shut up, wretch. I am not Archer," snarled Assassin as he sat himself upright, his lenses almost entirely aglow in the darkness of the cave he had dragged the Senshi in to escape the pursuing daimon twins. "I do not possess the Gift of Freedom! Much as I want to be free from your company, the only feasible means I can come up with to rid myself of your attachment is by cleaving your arm clean off, an idea that your attitude is making rapidly enticing."
Sailor Uranus held up her other hand, a familiar orange light beginning to shine through her clenched fingers. "At this range, I think I can manage to take you down with me!"
"Stop it!" shouted Sailor Moon, "Stop fighting! How can you two be fighting with each other like this, especially you Sailor Uranus! Sailor Neptune could still be alive, why didn't you want to go back and save her?"
"If we go out there like this, they'll kill us." Sailor Uranus argued.
Assassin merely scoffed, "Just you. I think you're body will make a good meat shield personally."
Sailor Uranus shivered as the image appeared before her of Assassin doing just that and she snapped at him, "Shut up!"
"I'm just telling you how it is," said the Arachnid Warrior. "Be grateful that I didn't just cut your arm off and dump you into the same river as Neptune. At least then you'd share the same grave with your lover."
Sailor Moon looked away from the two, whispering quietly to herself. "You both are cruel hearted people."
To her surprise, both Assassin and Sailor Uranus responded at the same time, "What do you know?!"
She looked up and saw that the two were standing up and glaring down upon her. Uranus was the first to break and turned her back upon Sailor Moon as she spoke, "Neptune and I made a promise, that we wouldn't let our emotions get in the way of our mission. That even if one of us must die to do so, the other must continue to try and find the talismans."
"Do you have to go that far for your mission? Just what are these talismans anyway?" asked Sailor Moon.
"I don't have to tell you," said Sailor Uranus, obstinately looking away from the shorter blonde.
"How can you be so cold?!" demanded Sailor Moon. "People whose pure hearts are stolen from them all suffer and could even die! Why?!"
"Because Silence is coming."
Both Senshi turned to Assassin, one with confusion in her eyes and the other with surprise.
"Those who are behind the daimons, the ones your Inners call "Heart Snatchers" have a different name for themselves. They call themselves DEATH Busters and they seek the talismans to stop the release of one of the few means of defense against the true power behind the daimons. Their… progenitor I suppose you could call it." He scoffed and glanced towards Uranus. "However, the traitor and her cohort here are also after the talismans for the exact opposite reason despite both their inability to actually release the talismans at all never mind using them to their advantage!"
"Who are you?" whispered Sailor Moon.
"I am Assassin of the Fabled Spider, a Servant of… Well, you have someone else that you can ask about that." He shrugged. "We are another means. That's all that you need to know."
"Bull shit! You… How could you possibly know all that?! Do you have someone on the inside!? Do you serve these DEATH Busters!?" demanded Sailor Uranus. "Tell me!"
"I don't have to tell you shit! You and your backstabbing whore—"
Smack.
Assassin blinked and slowly tilted his head at Sailor Uranus who held her hand with painful grimace. "… Once upon a time, that would have taken my head clean off… How the mighty Senshi have fallen…" He sighed and glanced askance at Sailor Moon. "…And now she's reopened her wound."
"She what? Oh no!" Sailor Moon reached around in her subspace pocket and hastily pulled out a handkerchief. Putting herself between Assassin and Uranus, she clumsily tried to try tie it into a makeshift bandage around the taller Senshi's reddening shoulder.
"What are you—Don't touch me!" She snapped before turning a heated glare upon Assassin who held her arms in place. "Let go!"
"Either she does it or I do and trust me, you wouldn't like how I would wrap it."
"There! All better now right?" asked Sailor Moon, smiling gleefully at the rather crudely tied handkerchief.
Begrudgingly nodding in agreement, Sailor Uranus turned away from her. "… Thanks."
"Now that we've had our tender moment, I think I might have an idea of breaking these damnable chains…" He glanced once more at Sailor Moon. "For this to work though, I need you both to be still and, in your case, absolutely quiet. Do you understand? Still and silent as the grave."
"Uh… Okay?" said Sailor Moon.
Assassin nodded and looked at Uranus who huffed. "Fine… But this better work!"
"Good. Because honestly?" He looked once more at Sailor Moon, or rather, over her shoulder and into the depths of the cave. "I think your screaming will scare them more. Never mind how irritating it will be for me to have to explain cutting out your tongue."
Them? Sailor Moon blinked and looked back into the cave. Her eyes widened to the size of saucers, her pupils shrinking down into miniscule dots, and her flesh rapidly paled into a sickly gray. To her credit, Sailor Uranus merely stiffened and developed a small quiver to her shoulders at what was approaching them from all directions.
Spiders.
From the floor to the walls to the ceiling to the open mouth of the cave, every square inch was swarming with spiders.
"What are they doing…?" whispered Sailor Uranus as Sailor Moon had apparently retreated to her "happy place" at the sight of a legion's worth of arachnids. "Are they here to help?"
Assassin shook his head, inwardly amused at the notion that he would use spiders as a means of breaking a quartet of daimonic handcuffs. "No. They're here to watch. We Servants tend to… resonate… with certain species of life as you've already seen with Saber and Archer."
"Resonate…? That doesn't make any sense…"
"Is it not the same with you and the wind? Neptune and the sea?" He asked in return. "Now be silent. It'll take every ounce of my concentration to make sure I don't end up killing you both with these in my hands…"
Sailor Uranus turned to Assassin and saw that his once empty hands were now occupied by a pair of weapons that she vaguely recalled seeing on his person but not quite sure of where specifically. The two weapons in Assassin's grasp looked like a pair of double-bladed daggers, with curved blades of pristine white and gilded hilts of dark obsidian.
They are the Neith.
Assassin curled his arms tightly and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The spiders appeared almost eager as they chittered quietly in the shadows, though those dangling from lines of webbing hastily climbed to safer heights. He slowly started to spin the daggers in his hands with ever increasing speed as power began to build within the blades until he unleashed it with a single command.
"Spring Calamity."
Kaorinite cringed and turned towards the forest. "What was—?"
A thick strand of something wrapped tightly around her throat and she was suddenly dragged downwards to the earth below. She tried to gasp for air but the rope tied tightly upon her throat offered no lax for more than what was necessary to keep her conscious. She landed with enough force to crater the earth beneath her and as she struggled for enough breath to scream, she looked up into the lensed eyes of her attacker.
Assassin.
"Let me tell you a story…" He yanked hard on the strand of webbing, which was no thicker than a cord but no weaker than titanium of the same circumference, sending her flying into a tree. "About a red-haired witch who thought it wise to mock an assassin."
She tried to teleport away but he yanked her towards him as her body started to flicker between the dimensions and punched her solidly in the face, sending her down into the dirt yet again.
"This is my only warning. You push me again as you did today and you will to deal with the real me and not just a figment of your nightmares, orders be damned."
He crouched down next to her and leaned close enough that all that Kaorinite could see were the eight lenses that so dreadfully resembled the eyes of a demonic spider.
"Run Kaorinite. Run back to Professor Tomoe and tell him that the Servants of Terra have returned."
The red-haired witch gasped for breath, her airway suddenly opened and unobstructed. Her hand reached to her throat, to find it clear of Assassin's webbing and after glancing about like a frightened deer, she realized that she hadn't even moved from her perch atop the highest tree in the forest. She reached out to the Tiren twins and wasn't surprised to feel the emptiness that awaited her call. She looked down at her hands and saw them trembling. She clenched them and tried to find some satisfaction that she had something new to report to the Professor at least. Her mockery had at least instilled enough anger in Assassin to reveal the name of his group after he had—
Her eyes widened.
Assassin…
He had called her by name.
The Professor's name!
He knew!
His entire group all knew!
Kaorinite would never know that her teleportation spell achieved new records in both the fastest execution and the most overpowered as she overshot the base by several kilometers.
Next time...
Crush
"A human creature deprived of reason, and disordered in his senses, is still an animal, or instrument possessing strength and ability to commit violence; but he is no more so than a mere mechanical machine, which, when put in motion, performs its powerful operations on all that comes in its way, without consciousness of its own effects, or responsibility for them."
