3: Sword? What's wrong with that sword?


Maria stood in front of us, as if challenging us. As soon as Norst disappeared, Roy started smiling.

"So, I take it you're disappointed that your brass demons didn't finish the job?", smiled Roy. Maria suddenly shifted to her old cute persona which was, by this moment, not fooling anyone.

"I thought they would, but... may I ask, Mr. Roy... what gave me away?"

"Not too bright for a Mazoku, are you?", said Roy. Maria seemed fazed by this, "We never gave you our names and you blatantly came to us using them... also, 30 gold coins for saving you from bandits? That's a bit too much, don't you think? And the work to Lassadia, just after Norst came to us kindly inviting Logan... and fifty gold coins? It's as if you weren't taking any possibility in us not taking the job..."

Maria started smiling again, with her usual cute face and demeanor, "You are bright, Mr. Roy, for a human being," she said, "sadly, you're going to die here" and with that took a leap into the air. I was shocked, I just couldn't move.

"Levitation!" yelled Roy and started floating up. I could only watch how the two started dueling.

She... she's a Mazoku?

I guess all the signs were there for me to see that she was no ordinary person, and she was indeed way too friendly towards us. I guess I was just that gullible.

Once in the air, she shifted her sight back to me and smiled, "I guess for whom you really are, Mr. Logan, you can be quite simple". She then turned towards Roy again and a ray of eerie purple light went flying from her hands towards Roy. He had put up a barrier earlier and the spell was deflected rapidly.

Roy smiled, "Balus rod!" he yelled and a whip of light formed in his hand, going straight towards Maria. She didn't so much as flinch when it touched her. Instead, she completely opened her eyes, revealing her bloodlust and started laughing.

"That tickles!", she said, and lifted her arms and threw a new beam of puprlish light towards Roy. This time, apparently, his barrier wasn't being held so he fell from the hit.

"ROY!!" I yelled and ran where he was about to fall. However, he lifted himself up and kept floating.

"Nothing to worry about", he smiled and went back up. "I guess I shouldn't be holding back against you, Ms. Maria... though that's probably not your name, is it?"

"Oh, please don't", smiled Maria, "my real name is Mgudza, though I doubt that will do you any good", she said and threw further purplish light beams towards him, all of whom Roy avoided.

"Very well then," he smiled and started murmuring some words.


You, who sleep in the depth of the earth
Dynast, who has a soul of ice
Give me your freezing wrath.

"Oh, you'll be casting the spell of Lord Dynast against me?", said Maria.

"DYNAST BREATH!", Roy yelled and a large chunk of ice formed in the floor, crawling all the way up towards Maria, encasing her in the ice.

Suddenly, the ice shattered, but Maria was still untouched.

"Did you think you could defeat me with such a trick?", she smiled and charged against Roy.

"Mgudza", a familiar voice reverberated.

Norst.

"My oh my", said Maria and she turned back towards Roy, smiling "I guess we'll have to conclude this at a later time, Mr. Roy", she said and disappeared.

Roy came back down and looked at me fazed at Maria's current development.

"Let's go, Logan. We have to save the city..." he said, pointing at the hordes of Brass Demons attacking town. I wouldn't move, but since Roy started pulling me from my shirt, I had no other choice.

It took us quite some time to finish up all the Brass Demons that had plagued the city, but we finished it however. Roy had talked me into it, telling me how Maria had been tricking us all along and that if we didn't stop her the whole city of Lassadia would be destroyed.

After we finished and organized most of the citizens that were still alive in shelters all around Lassadia, we decided to take a break and rest for the time being. As Roy pointed, Norst's target wasn't him but me, and he didn't really want me dead or he would've killed me right away.

"What makes you think this Norst guy is SO powerful?", I said sitting down in a bench in what was left of the inn.

"Well, he did introduce himself as the priest of Dynast..."

"And what's with this Dynast guy...?"

"Ah, right. Well, you know about the Koma war, a thousand years ago?" I nodded. It was a pretty bloody war, when one of... what's-his-face's pieces fought... okay, so I didn't know ALL the details, so I flunked history in school... sue me!

"One of Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu's pieces was awaken and a huge battle came along. Stop staring at me like that, you should at least know who Shabranigdu is! The king of all chaos, the lord of all Mazoku! Anyway, the guy was split in seven pieces a gazillion years ago, and only one of them is incredibly powerful. The thing is, he had created five minions, one of them Dynast Grausherra: one of the most powerful Mazoku alive. And in turn, during the Koma war, each of Ruby-Eye's underlings created generals and priests. So saying he's a priest of Dynast is a pretty damn big statement..."

"So he like, ranks third from top to bottom?", I said

"Sorta... the thing is, we can't defeat him, not with common magic and definitely not with a sword..."

"But you said he wasn't interested in killing us..."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean he has nice plans in his mind... Whatever Norst and Maria, no... Mgudza are planning must be up to no good."

Suddenly, we heard uproar outside what was left of the inn. The building itself was pretty much left untouched, but everything inside had been either burned out or ransacked in the panic. Both Roy and I got up and walked towards the door, with me still feeling very heavy from the revelation Maria wasn't human at all and that she had been manipulating us all along. So we opened the door, and found that a group of residents were fighting over a loaf of bread.

I ran up to them, "Hey you guys! Stop it!"

"What're you meddling in here!? As soon as you got here those demons attacked us!", said one of the men.

Huh?

"Yeah, that's right!", said another, "Maybe we should kill both of you!"

What the hell's going on!?

I took a quick leap to avoid a man with a knife that was running directly towards me, all the while Roy cast a quick levitation spell and lifted us both off the ground. We then started flying out of town, to get some shelter near a few mountains on the outskirts Lassadia. We found a comfortable cave and settled in.

"What's with those people!? We just saved them!", I said. Lately, I had been getting angry at every single thing that happened.

"It's the Mazoku's influence. Not just Brass Demons, Mazoku can bring up the worst of any person. You see, that's why we can use black magic"

Ah, I'd heard something about that: black magic spells were actually drawing power from demons or something of the like, so...

"Wait, what do you mean by that?", I really didn't quite get it.

"I told you, Mazoku feed up on people's despair, hatred and anger. Black magic is just the way for Mazoku to tell us "Here, let me give you a bit of my power so you can feed me up", sort of speak..."

"So when Mar.. no, Mgudza said you were using Dynast's spell she meant..."

"Exactly, I was drawing power from Dynast Grausherra. And the fact that she wasn't affected by it is pretty impressive, and most likely means she's no ordinary Mazoku"

I sat down on the cave, looking at the fire we had set up a few minutes before, still trying to get everything that had just happened into my head. What were we supposed to do now? Mar... I'm sorry, Mgudza was still out there, and so was Norst, and they could attack Lassadia at any moment just to provoke us out of our hiding. But all of a sudden, a loud crackling noise was heard outside, along with a disgusting splash of sorts.

"What was that?", I said.

"Let me go check, you still have to recover completely from your injuries"

"No way, I'm going!", I said and ran outside with Roy.

As soon as I stepped out, I saw the heads of both men that had challenged us back in the city impaled in tree branches, while their bodies were hanging upside down from a tree. I'll spare the details for those of you who want to eat today. Or ever.

I felt like I was going to throw up when Roy looked up. Partly to avoid watching that horrendous frame any longer, I followed Roy into looking up, and there was...

"Mgudza", he said.

"Hello, Mr. Roy, Mr. Logan. I brought you these gifts, I thought you may like them", she smiled at us.

"You bastard!" I yelled and took a leap in the air. I quickly unsheathed my sword, which started glowing again, and before I knew it I struck Maria on the side.

"You think that's going to..." she stopped midsentence when she noticed my blade had struck her in the side and cut her in half. She then let out a deafening scream and her body was cleanly bisected by my sword.

"Logan!!" I heard from below, it was Roy, who in turn had been attacked by a horde of brass demons AND lesser demons this time. Lesser demons were more likely to be random encounters in travels, all of them having a humanoid shape but looking grotesquely enough to make one who had just eaten empty up all their stomach's contents.

Great...

"Why you...!" yelled Mgudza and struck me with her fist. She didn't look like it, but she made me land back in the floor with a sharp pain in my gut, once again.

Damn it...

I got up as fast as I could while Roy yelled "Dill brand!" and a huge chunk of earth split from the ground and went flying upwards, all with five of the lesser demons. I gasped for air and this time I noticed how my blade had been glowing.

"Is it the sword, Mr. Logan?" said half-Mgudza, and then her shape changed to that of a vicious monster, with fangs in her... scratch that, it's waist, and flaming hair -literally made of fire-. Her... it's eyes -or rather her eye sockets- glowed viciously red and she had nasty looking tentacles coming from her sockets. It had no mouth whatsoever, and anything it spoke came from the mouth in it's waist, "Or is it you!?", she continued while charging at me from the air, landing on my gut with her fist.

I lifted my blade and struck at it side badly hurting it I could tell from the loud scream it went with. It's huge grotesque hands kept attempting to strike me but I somehow managed to dodge her every attack rolling right and then left, and getting up with a quick leap.

"Are you alright, Logan?!" yelled Roy while still battling some of the demons on his side, throwing off a few spells left and right just to harm them enough. However, no matter how skilled a sorcerer Roy was, there were too many demons for him to handle alone.

I didn't answer to his question, instead lunging towards Mgudza and impaling her with my sword. It let out another deafening screech, as I felt I was doing some real damage to it. It wasn't moving as agile as it had begun it's attack, and it didn't have some of it's witty comments to spare either. I forced my blade into it's... mouth, or whatever that thing in it's waist was, "GAAAAAHHH!!!" I yelled while Mgudza's screech was getting louder and louder.

"ENOUGH!" I heard coming from the air. I lifted my gaze and noticed how Norst had appeared out of nowhere, sporting his arrogant look and voice, "Enough of this, Mgudza!".

"But Lord Norst, I...!", the monster before me somehow said.

"ENOUGH I SAID!", yelled Norst and sent flying a yellow ray of light that knocked me off balance and had me take out the sword from Mgudza's... mouth.

"Rest, Logan Feniss, we will see each other soon enough", said Norst and disappeared.

Mgudza then turned back to her old self, the cute small girl I had fell for back in town, "This isn't over, Mr. Logan", she smiled and disappeared. It might have been just my imagination, but she was lacking both an arm and a leg. I then took a moment to grasp for air and ran to help Roy who was still fighting three lesser demons: he had already disposed of all the brass demons.

I swung to one of the demons and it laid before me, dead, while another jumped towards me.

"FIREBALL!", yelled Roy and blew up one of the lesser demons, while I impaled the last one with my sword as he fell towards me.

"Are you okay?", I said. Roy looked tired and hurt: we could both use a good night's sleep.

"Yeah... what about you?", he smiled.

"I'm... fine, I guess", I said.

"I didn't know you could use Astral Vine", he said. He had mentioned that before, back when we thought Maria was dead.

"I..." I didn't know how to put it, but I couldn't deny the fact that my sword had been acting really strange lately, "I can't..."

"What?", said Roy.

We took shelter in another cave, this time Roy taking enough precautions for us not to be tracked by either Maria/Mgudza or Norst, even though by his own words he wasn't quite sure how safe we would be against a Mazoku of Norst's ranking and what he thought was a pretty powerful one too. We took turns to rest up our injuries in the string of battles we had today and to even take a chance of really digesting everything that had happened so far. He hadn't spoken a word to me about my sword again, but he still didn't seem satisfied by that "I wouldn't even know how to cast a spell" I gave him earlier. There was no helping it, though: I was pretty certain my sword wasn't more than a regular bastard sword and so was Roy, so the way it was acting barely had any explanation.

We had been dining on some boar Roy had managed to hunt -and roast- while I was setting up the shelter when he suddenly started speaking out of the blue.

"There's another possibility...", he said with a gloom look in his face.

This doesn't sound good... not to me at least...

"What do you mean?", I inquired.

"Remember the story I told you about Shabranigdu back in Lassadia?", he said, I nodded, "Well... bear with me here, this is gonna be a bit long...

"Where should I start... more than five thousand years ago, there was a war between Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, lord of the Mazoku, and Flare Dragon Ceifeed, lord of the Shinzoku... well, the Shinzoku are basically the 'good' side of the coin of the world. You could call them Gods, if you will: while destruction is every Mazoku's goal, creation and preservation is the goal of every Shinzoku.

"The war had been going on for aeons and it was beginning to get to a stalemate, but Flare Dragon used up all his remaining power to seal up Shabranigdu and divide him in seven pieces. Hoping he would eventually disappear completely, he sealed those fragments in human beings" I was about to ask a question, but Roy seemed to read my expression rather quickly, "Yes, Ruby Eye created his subordinates before that: Greater Beast Zelas Metalium, Deep Sea Dolphin, Chaos Dragon Gaav, Hellmaster Phibrizo and Dynast Grausherra himself.

"In turn, Flare Dragon created his own subordinates right before he used up all his power to seal Ruby Eye: Aqualord Ragradia, Flarelord Vrabazard, Airlord Valwin and Earthlord Rangort.

"You see, a thousand years ago, Ruby Eye's five subordinates had detected that one of their lord's fragment was sealed in the renowned sorcerer Lei Magnus, and staged a large scale conflict to release him. This is how this peninsula came to be known as The Demon's Peninsula, being sealed from the outer world: Hellmaster, Greater Beast, Dynast and Deep Sea had set up a barrier making both physical and spiritual contact with the outside world impossible..."

"What happened with Chaos Dragon?", I asked.

"No one really knows: I think he was defeated by Aqualord Ragradia before being defeated himself. The important thing here is... you see, for their own goal of total annihilation and destruction they even went as far as forcing one of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu's fragments to appear in this world. That was the whole reason behind the Koma War: to have Ruby Eye resurrected. He wasn't defeated though, and he still resides frozen. But there are still six more fragments for Ruby Eye's subordinates to mess with... and since Aqualord was defeated in the Koma War... there is basically no Shinzoku here that could help us..."

Oh shit... you've got to be kidding me...

"I'm no Mazoku, if that's what you're asking...", I said, clearly annoyed.

"I'm not saying you are, Logan. But you have to admit there's a possibility: Norst doesn't want you dead for some reason, and the chances are high that you have one of Shabranigdu's fragments residing with you"

The mere thought of that repulsed me, and I threw away my boar steak, landing far away from the cave. A few minutes later, a group of carrion birds had started eating it. I was left speechless, and disgusted: I couldn't speak even if I wanted to. What was more, I had to force me from punching Roy in the face for even suggesting that.

"I'm not saying this is final, but..."

"But what, you just implied I'm some kind of demon king! That's outright rude, if not disgusting!"

"I wasn't implying anything, Logan... I was just saying that there's a possibility. Lei Magnus was extremely proficient in magic; he had powers beyond comprehension..."

"But just because my blade can shine doesn't mean I'm some sort of evil guy!" I said, while getting up and started walking outside.

"Where are you going...?" asked Roy, only as if to see if I changed my mind. He didn't seem interested in stopping me.

"I'm gonna go take some fresh air..." I said and walked out.

I was definitely feeling horrible: being told you weren't who you thought you were was bad enough, but being told you were some sort of reincarnation of a demon king? Hell, even in my wildest dream I would never think I was that important. What's even more: I DIDN'T want to be that important... but if what Roy had said was right...

I have to settle this...

I walked a bit up north and started going in circles for a while, thinking about what to do. I had to make a decision, and it had to be final. Mazoku lord or not, I had to fight, I had to stop Norst and Maria/Mgudza... even if it meant killing myself. I started closing in on Lassadia, back where we had been chased out by citizens, only to see how everything was starting to get better. All doors and windows were closed: everyone was probably sleeping, granted they had had an horrible day and it was pretty late at night -or very early in the morning, depends on how you want to put it. All the arcane lamps were either off or destroyed by the brass demons, and the streets still had some of it's previous foul stench: a mixture between a slaughterhouse and a burned down forest. There was no street left unmarked by the battle, with traces of blood everyone. I went to the center of the city and sat in one of the few benches that had been only mildly torn by the demons, watching the fountain still giving away it's water from the top basin, overflowing into the middle basin and falling down to the bottom. I guess water soothed people, thus they decided to leave it on, powered by whatever magical device it had installed in it.

I suddenly felt a cold chill go down my spine and I turned away, and I could swear I saw a shadow run past me, very quickly.

Must've been nothing...

When I turned back towards the fountain, I noticed Maria/Mgudza sitting in the air, right in front of me, smiling as usual.

"I see you've decided to settle this, Mr. Logan", she said with her usual cute tone. It was disgusting.

"What do you Mazoku want with me, Mgudza?" I said. I thought she was going to change to her true form, but she didn't. Instead, she crossed her legs and stared directly at me, her eyes showing no malice whatsoever.

Mazoku can really be deceiving...

"Well, your friend Mr. Roy may have brought you up to date with what's on our minds..." she said with a sly smile on her face, closing in on me.

So they really think I am Shabranigdu...

I got up defiantly and smiled, "I'm not this Shabra-whatshisface you think I am... so you can stop trying now"

"We'll see about that", she said and changed to her demonic form once again, charging against me. I immediately drew my sword and fended of against her, only this time my sword wasn't glowing and nothing happened when I clashed against her with all my might. "Are you too tired, Mr. Logan?" she said in a deep voice coming from the mouth in her waist. She then threw off another punch at me, forcing me to take a leap to the right, right on top of the fountain. I almost slipped, but managed to keep my balance upright, holding myself from the edge of the fountain.

"You just haven't seen anything yet", I smiled arrogantly. Seriously, I wasn't even such a great mercenary, relaying mostly on luck... what got into me into challenging a Mazoku like that, I can't figure it out for the life of me.

"GAAAAH!!" I took a leap into the top basin of the fountain and charged at her mid-air and lunged with my sword in her face. CLANK! Nothing happened, my sword bounced and I fell to the floor, almost losing my balance once again.

"What's wrong with you, Mr. Logan?", smiled Mgudza... however someone how's mouth in her waist and it's mostly composed of fangs can smile. I leapt up back to my feet and charged at her again, clashing against her tough skin, making her retreat at least just a bit from the force of impact.

At the time, some Lassadians had started coming out from their houses, watching me battle the hideous monster.

"Take cover, all of you!" I yelled, and most of them went back to their houses, but some of them had been way to curious to let this go.

Mgudza then leapt in the air, extending her arms (or whatever you wanna call fanged lumps of flesh that can move as arms) over her head (or whatever you wanna call a lump of flesh with only crimson-lit eye sockets with vicious tentacles coming out from it) and sent flying a purplish ray of light towards me. I had to leap right and left to avoid them, all the while they kept coming. Finally, she sent out one of the tentacles that came out from her eye sockets down towards me, grabbed me by my ankle and lifted me up. I struggled to get free, but I couldn't. I tried to reach the tentacle with my sword, but was unable to.

"I think you may want to watch this", said Mgudza/Maria, lifting me up in the air and then using both her arms to form up a giant ball of purplish light on top of them. She turned her head towards me, and I swear I could see her waist smiling.

Finally, the ball of light left her hand, falling down towards Lassadia, where all the citizens were either sleeping or watching the dreadful fight between me and Mgudza.

"NO!!!!!!" I managed to yell, but the ball then hit the ground and a huge explosion ensued. I could see every single house being destroyed, every single inhabitant being mercilessly murdered by the monster that I was fighting. The city was completely obliterated, and all I could feel was anger: they were doing all this just because they wanted that fragment of Shabranigdu that was inside of me? And they weren't even certain that I had one... they were doing this based on A POSSIBILITY.

"NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I yelled once again and lifted my sword, instantly cutting Mgudza's tentacle. I began falling as I could hear a loud screech coming from the monster and as I glanced below me, the huge dust cloud that had been lifted by the explosion was starting to dissipate. What I saw was awful: where once a huge city had stood, only a wasteland of death was left. All its inhabitants were gone, simply erased.

As I fell to a certain death, I felt sort of relieved: if I died, they wouldn't be able to awaken the fragment inside of me, even if there was one.

"RAY WING!" I heard from a distance. Roy's voice. He came rapidly towards me and saved me from falling into the ground "You still owe me seventy two gold and five silver, buddy, I'm not counting what we did back in town. I'm not gonna let you die that easily", he smiled. All I could do was smile back.

As we came down and Roy lifted his flying spell, he smiled once again, "Let's do this, alright? Let's defeat Mgudza and Norst, and prove them wrong. Prove them that you're not one of Ruby Eye's fragments waiting to be awakened".

I smiled back and took a strong grasp of my blade, "Let's do it, mate", I said, and we ran towards the dissipating wall of cloud. We couldn't see anything clearly, but what we could feel was clear death on our surroundings.

"Here she comes! Fireball!" yelled Roy and threw the ball of light towards a shadow that as forming slowly in the cloud.

"Hehehe, that tickles!", said Mgudza and one of her tentacles almost grabbed Roy this time, but he leapt right and managed to avoid it. I ran to the right, flanking Mgudza with my sword, which I noticed started glowing again. I lunged forward as the cloud of dust had completely dissipated and could make out her figure clearly. My blade went all the way into her flank was motive enough to hear the loud screeching noise Mgudza's waist had started to make.

"NOW, ROY!" I yelled.

"BALUS ROD!" yelled Roy and a large whip of light formed in his hand, wrapping around Mgudza and shocking her with electricity. I pushed my sword forward with all my might, her screeching being even more deafening with every pound of strength I put in my blade.

Once the whip of light disappeared from Roy's hand, he leapt in the air. "MOVE!", he yelled. I pulled my sword from Mgudza's flank, quite painfully for her I might add, and ran towards my right, getting as far away as possible from Mgudza. "DILL BRAND!" yelled Roy and a circle started forming in the ground the pained Mgudza was standing. It suddenly lifted and all the debris that went up with it started falling quite rapidly, Mgudza included.

She got up rather swiftly, and started laughing, "Do you think that's going to be enough?" and threw up a barrage of purplish rays towards both me and Roy. Roy came back to the floor quite close to me, and we were forced to get separated quickly while evading Mgudza's barrage.

I leapt right and rolled a few yards to avoid her barrage, all while Roy was probably doing the same. I leapt forward and lunged against Mgudza, this time cutting her in her back, thrusting my sword there.

"DAMN YOU STUPID HUMAN!" she yelled and her torso dislodged from her legs, this time forming a gap between her lower and upper fangs, giving a more creepy look to her... mouth, or whatever you wanna cal it. Her body was free from my sword and she instantly hit me in the back with both har arms, painfully bringing me face-flat to the floor.

"GAHH!!!" I yelled as I felt blood in my mouth. I rolled and quickly left Mgudza's range, while I could see Roy beginning to chant something.

Darkness beyond twilight
Crimson beyond blood that flows
Buried in the flow of time
In thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness
Let all the fools who stand in our way be destroyed
by the power you and I possess...

Mgudza instantly turned towards him, with both of her tentacles charging against Roy. I could feel the enormous power Roy was gathering, while a large ball of red and black formed between his hands. I knew it was going to be messy, so I ran as far away from Mgudza as possible.

"DRAGON SLAVE!!" yelled Roy, and a huge red and black ray of eerie light flew from his hands towards Mgudza. As soon as it hit, a huge explosion formed, engulfing a large portion of what once was Lassadia. I ran towards Roy and smiled.

"What was that!?"

"If those two are correct, I was drawing a bit of YOUR power", he said, with clear sarcasm in his face.

"Not funny!", I said, and turned to see how the dust cloud that had formed from the explosion begun to dissipate.

I could hear someone laughing from the dust cloud... a female laugh.

DAMN!

"Asking your friend for help won't do you any good, Mr. Roy", laughed Mgudza. I then decided to take my chances while Roy threw off some flare arrows as a red herring and I ran towards Mgudza again, this time grasping my sword with all my might.

I don't care if it's Shabranigdu or whomever, but please give me your strength to kill her!

I lunged against Mgudza, thrusting my sword in her abdomen, and an eerie bright light started emanating from my sword.

"GAHH!!!" I yelled, forcing all my body against my blade and in turn forcing it inside Mgudza's body.

"This...!!!" she yelled, as a loud crack was heard. I lifted my gaze up and noticed how Mgudza's body was starting to get cracked all over.

Please.... Please!!!

I kept thrusting my sword against Mgudza's body, and from the cracks in her skin strong rays of light started to appear and finally...

"ENOUGH!" I heard. Roy was standing a few feet away from me, and he lifted his gaze up, noticing at the same time I did who was speaking.

Norst.