Chapter 4: The Girl
Kratos strolled through the forest, his hands behind his head. He smiled as a pair of birds scuffled lightly in the air, gracefully hopping from branch to branch. The sunlight sparkling through the trees created a mottled pattern upon his chest.
Absently, he thought about his destination. He knew he was heading towards something Mithos had called a human ranch, but he also knew he wasn't in a hurry. "Hmm," Kratos thought out loud, "what could a human ranch be?" Mithos had never gone into much detail on the subject. He knew that exspheres were made there, but that still left the mystery of the title. Reasoning that he would find out soon enough, he shrugged and let the matter be.
His thoughts again turned to the flashback that had caused him to kill the bandit. He remembered the hot piercing intrusion, the painful memories, and most of all; he remembered the bandit's faces. Shaking his head, Kratos whispered, "I must not let that happen again." He found a shady spot near the base of an ancient oak and sat down. Settling down, Kratos crossed his legs into what he knew as the lotus position, and began reciting an ancient incantation in angelic.
Long ago, while running an errand for Mithos, Kratos had saved a young man of Mizuho from a wyvern, which apparently had reached the end of its rope. The man was trapped, his back against a huge, sandstone cliff. Kratos had leaped off the cliff, landing deftly on the back of the wyvern, who was rearing back to release a torrent of lightning breath that would have fried the young man. The surprise weight of Kratos slamming into its back brought the roaring wyvern to the ground. With a flourish, Kratos had grabbed on of the spines along the wyvern's back and launched himself into the air, pulled off a quick flip, and plunged Flamberge deep into the wyvern's head when he hit the ground.
The man had thanked him and invited him to his home village of Mizuho. Kratos had obliged. When they arrived and explained what had happened, Kratos had been received with thanks, gifts, and a huge feast. The young man apparently was the son of the chief of the village.
Kratos formed a lifelong friendship with the man, whose name was Kubayashi. Well, the friendship was lifelong in the terms of Kubayashi's relatively short life.
During those sixty odd years however, Kubayashi taught Kratos many things, including the method of disciplining the mind that Kratos was performing. The method was called meditation. Meditation had improved Kratos' fighting skills, and calmed his mind in times of crisis. For that, Kratos was thankful.
Kratos' eyes popped open. He was finished. His mind felt clear, refreshed, and more importantly, pure. His mind was not so clouded with the sour stench of doubting thoughts. Kratos smiled. "Thanks Kubi," he whispered.
Then he heard it. A soft rustling in a large bush across the clearing. Cautiously, Kratos slowly stood up, drew Flamberge, and began to warily approach the bush. Kratos could see that the bush was quivering in short spasms every few seconds. Suddenly, faster than an eye could see, a flash of green and white slammed into him. In a split second, Kratos was pinned to the ground, with Flamberge just out of reach, by six hundred pounds of Noishe.
"Noishe!" Kratos exclaimed, "get off of me, you great wad of fur!" If Noishe understood, or even heard, he gave no indication of it, offering only a wet lick to Kratos' face. He had met Noishe on his journeys with Yuan, Mithos, and Martel. The animal had followed the group around wherever it went. Kratos had always enjoyed Noishe's company, but when Mithos created Derris Kharlan, he had completely forgotten about his beloved pet.
When Kratos finally managed to heave Noishe off himself, he got up, washed his face in a nearby brook, retrieved Flamberge, and set out again, an old, if somewhat furry friend in dogged pursuit.
Kratos knew something wasn't right. About five minutes ago, he had begun to hear screams. Terror filled, horrid screams of desperation. Then came the sound of whips cracking, sometimes it was a loud crack in the air, other times, the crack ended with a muted, fleshy sound. Kratos knew the relentless whips were pounding into the backs of humans. "Damn you, Mithos," he whispered. He hadn't thought that Mithos had sunk to this level yet.
Kratos was crouched behind a large boulder about five feet from the solid, grey wall of the ranch, Noishe silently lying behind him. Kratos peeked around the boulder one last time. The wall was made of a gray metal that he couldn't identify. Black posts that extended a few feet above the twenty-foot high walls interrupted the gray metal periodically. Buzzing above the gray wall between the posts was a purple electric current. To touch that, Kratos knew, was to die.
It was late afternoon by now, the golden sun sinking rather than rising. "Noishe, stay," Kratos whispered, "I'm going to fly up and get a better look. Noishe laid his head on the floor and whined softly in agreement. Willing his wings to him, he sped, barely two feet off the ground, in the opposite direction of the ranch. When he was sure he was far enough away not to be seen, he pulled up sharply and headed back to the ranch, heading slightly upward the whole way..
Kratos flew to a spot between the ranch and the sun, so if anyone looked his way, they would be blinded by the fiery orb. Accessing his cruxis crystal, Kratos uttered an angelic spell for eyesight. With his improved vision, he scanned the complex as if he was two feet from the tiny figures on the ground.
One large, L shaped building took up the southeast corner of the large complex. Judging by the heavy security around both the building's doors, Kratos determined that the large building served as a center of operations, and perhaps housed the leader's quarters. Another rectangular building took the northwest corner, and extended south about halfway along the east wall. Kratos determined that this was the barracks.
A large, open space took up the rest of the space inside the wall. On the west side of this space, figures in plain, brown clothing pushed huge metal blocks through the western gate, across the space between the buildings, and out an eastern gate. On the other side of the wall, other humans pushed the blocks around back to the western gate, carefully watched by a solid line of guards sporting the signature half-face helms of Desians. "Damn you Mithos," Kratos whispered again. The humans who pushed the blocks eastward in the first place cycled back, and got another block. The process then began all over again.
Kratos understood the process easily enough. "But, what's the point?" he wondered aloud. Then it hit him like a hard punch to the face. Kratos knew that exspheres react to your battle instincts, and gave you power. He gasped, clutching at the cruxis crystal affixed to his chest. He understood. The continuous strain, the relentless whippings, all heightened the stress of the humans, essentially adding power to the exspheres Kratos could now see attached to the hands of the prisoners. Exspheres were made from people. Kratos stared coldly at the establishment, knowing what he must do. He must destroy the whole thing.
Suddenly, those thoughts fled his mind like a speck of dust in a whirlwind.
Kratos had never found himself a romantic, even though many girls over the years had squealed at the sight of him. But this was different. A young woman on the east side of the open space had just passed her block outside of the wall. Understandably tired, she bent over, panting, her long brownish gold hair tumbling about her neck. Her brown, sweat-drenched dress draped close to her body, revealing a graceful and curvaceous form. Kratos quickly averted his eyes, blushing deeply. His heart pace quickened, and he found he was slowly sinking. Quickly snapping up to his original place, he scanned the complex, and quickly located the young woman again. Now surrounded by three desians, the woman still had her back to Kratos. He hastily muttered a spell in angelic to improve his hearing.
"-re you needing a break missy? The desian in front of the young woman asked, his eyes hardly directed at her face.
"Yes please! I glass of water would be great!" the young woman answered, looking over to a shady spot near the wall.
"Oh, not that kind of break, dear," a desian behind her lewdly remarked.
"Huh?" the young woman asked, turning around, her face scrunched up in confusion.
The desian who hadn't spoke turned to the one who just had. "I don't know if you could be calling it break," the desian smiled lustily at the woman, "it might be more tiring than the actual work."
The woman got the picture. With a high-pitched squeal, she tried to flee between two of the desians. The desians grabbed the young woman's delicate shoulders as she ran between them and dragged her between the two of them to the east gate, led by the third.
"No! No! Help me, please! Oh Spiritua! Help me!" the young woman screamed to her fellow prisoners. They watched without moving a muscle, without any emotion at all. Thanks to the nonstop work and beatings, the only things these empty human shells thought of was their daily ration of bread.
A final cry of "No!" shattered Kratos' heart for the fourth time.
His eyes narrowed.
The desian trailed his hand across the human woman's smooth face. "I think your going to like this, young lady," he whispered in her ear. The woman, fervently whispering a prayer to Spiritua, didn't answer. The desian roughly grabbed her face and forced it up. "Wench! Look at me when I talk to you!" the desian growled, his face barely an inch from hers. Smirking, he stepped back, to undo his belt, then looked up to make sure his two companions were still holding the woman against the tree.
They weren't.
Suddenly, a blur of white, blue and red flashed before his eyes, the colors of death.
Kratos leaped to the ground with catlike quickness. Upon landing, he smashed a part of the desians face in with a wicked jab with Flamberge's guard. With his left hand, Kratos then grabbed the desian by the neck and pushed him up against the tree. The desian's legs began flailing with the realization that he couldn't breath.
"Damn you, you bastard," Kratos growled, "damn you to hell." He quickly twisted his hand, cracking the desian's neck. As the body slumped to the ground, Kratos turned to the young woman, who had ran for cover just after he had killed the first two desians with a whispered spell. Kratos stood in awe. Before him stood the most beautiful woman Kratos had ever imagined, much less seen. Her face was smooth, her body voluptuous and shapely, and her eyes shone with that lust for life that he had lost so long ago.
The young woman managed a small smile and a nod before suddenly bursting into racking sobs. She ran toward Kratos and embraced him, still weeping bitterly. Kratos hesitated for a moment, then embraced her in return, wanting this moment to last forever.
---This story is the property of Nightshade Woe. Please PM me if you want to use it for something.---