Draco: There is no better sound that can be applied to combat than the variable shear of a katana cutting through the air. I can get the 'frictionless slice' whistle constantly with a backhand grip.
Characters, weapons, origins, locations © Square Enix. Monsters © Akihisa Ikeda.
Strange World
Locke was still fuming as he stormed down into the Blackjack's casino. What he found was less than pleasant - the yoko who had fought Kefka was standing before Terra, with one hand on her helm and the patterns lit upon his flesh. Flames were scattering around his hair, and Terra looked like she was in pain - though she did not seem to cry out.
"Hey!" Locke shouted, charging forward. "What are you-?"
The yoko pulled his hand away from the dancer, and Terra very nearly fell to the floor before Locke managed to catch her. "Calm yourself," the former prisoner insisted. "She is merely sleeping."
"What the hell did you do to her?" Locke demanded.
The yoko closed his eyes, bowing his head; the flames vanished from around his helm, revealing hair of a very distinctive - and very familiar - green hue.
"Forgive me... for answering my daughter's questions."
+x+x+x+
The branches of the trees around her lashed across her arms and face as she ran; twigs and stone dug into her feet with every step; and voices behind her drove her to keep running, despite the pain. The forest was thick, but she knew it wouldn't be enough - she couldn't outrun them forever.
All she hoped to do was get ahead of them, just long enough...
It didn't take long before she ran into trouble, in the form of a solid stone wall. Panicking, she turned round, setting her back to the rock so that she could not be struck from behind. The voices were distant enough that she knew she had time; her legs gave way beneath her, and she slid to the earth, panting heavily before reaching into her pockets.
Her hand came out holding a sheathed knife.
The blade was pried from its hold, and she hesitated only long enough to sight her own horrified expression in the blade before sealing her eyes and raising it above her, with intention to bring it down with all the force she could muster.
It came to a stop halfway down.
"What are you doing?"
The voice prompted her to raise her gaze. A man stood there, clad in a kilt of sorts in deep emerald; his chest was bare, save for the straps of a pair of swords braced upon his back. His skin was all deeply tanned, and his hair was a curious green; his eyes were a fiery gold, and one hand was closed around the blade of her knife. Upon receiving her gaze, he released the weapon, prompting her to lower it at her side, confused. "Who...?"
There was a commotion from nearby, prompting the man to turn. A trio of men became visible through the trees, and the swordsman seemed to notice; motioning for her to stay back, he stepped forward, placing himself between the pursuers and the pursued.
"Who are you?" one of the trio demanded.
"I am Maduin Fuwa," the swordsman replied. "What business do you have in pursuing this woman?"
Another man stepped forward. "She's a maid at our boss' mansion," he snapped. "Bitch doesn't know her place."
The swordsman, Maduin, gave a heavy sigh, reaching for his swords. "So," he mused, "you're... that kind of people."
The third reached for his hip, where the warrior noticed they each had a pistol holstered. "What are you talking about?" he demanded.
"Those who believe that the slightest difference in position means that you have complete command over those below you," Maduin reprimanded. "Those who believe that her being in your employment means that you can do as you please to her."
He drew the swords, just enough to show the blades.
"Those who are unforgivable."
The men each went to draw their weapons; but Maduin moved first, his blades screaming from their sheaths as he moved with a menacing flourish. The first one to draw his pistol found the edge of one sword brought through his arm, leaving his hand still closed on the pistol as it fell to the ground. The other blade was driven through his heart as the next man drew his weapon, firing it at Maudin while his back was turned; the swordsman only braced his unoccupied sword across his back, the bullet stopping against the flat of the blade.
He quickly turned, pulling his weapon from the dead man's chest and lashing it through the barrel of the firearm; the man released his gun and stepped back from the blow from Maduin's other sword, but the warrior only arced into a spin, lashing a blade across his opponent's throat. The last man fired, but Maduin brought his next blow up to sever the bullet in half, the pieces colliding with the stone wall behind him before he drove a thrust into his opponent's skull; the gunner promptly fell back off the blade, slumping to the ground.
With the three attackers dead around him, he arced into a single spin to scan his surroundings, bracing his swords at his side; then, once he was sure the area was safe, he whirled the weapons once in hand and slid them back into their sheaths before turning to the woman they had been pursuing.
"Was your time in their service truly so despicable," he inquired, "that you would choose to take your own life?"
The woman shook her head. "It wasn't only them," she insisted. "Everyone I have ever served... All of them treat me as less than dirt. I've had enough of it. I'm done. There's nothing for me in this world."
She reached for the knife that had fallen at her side.
Maduin's hand fell over the weapon before she could grasp it, and she raised her gaze to him - his expression was one of uncertain contemplation, but slowly he turned to face her.
"What if... there were another?"
The woman was confused. "What are you saying?" she demanded.
Maduin sighed, slowly pulling his hand away from the fallen blade. "Promise me... that you won't panic," he insisted.
Uncertain, she nodded in confirmation.
With a heavy sigh, Maduin raised a hand before him, held flat with the palm facing skyward; and as she watched, a flame began to gather there, slowly growing in his grip.
"What the...?" Her gaze went up to the man holding that blaze her. "You...?"
"Would you escape this world?" Maduin asked. "If it were offered to you, would you accept a way to... leave this human world behind?"
The question hung in the air for a long moment; then she nodded, reaching out to take his hand - and he quickly let the fire vanish, helping her rise to her feet.
"Might I ask your name?"
"Madeline," she replied. "Madeline Branford."
Maduin only smiled in return. "Come with me, Madeline."
+x+x+x+
The swordsman led her into a deep cave, so dark that he needed light a fire in his empty hand to see his way. Yet when at last they reached their destination, the cavern seemed to be consumed in a light of its own, and Maduin dismissed his flame upon deeming it unnecessary. It was as though a great void have been set into the stone, within which were placed a thousand lights - such that it resembled the night sky, set into the darkness of the cave.
Emerging from that night sky, off the edge of the cave before the void, lay a great stone pillar, in which had been set a massive circular indentation, adorned in all manner of mystic runes - and connected to the cavern only by a wooden bridge that seemed as though it would fall apart were anyone to set foot upon it.
Madeline could only watch, shocked. "What... what is this?" she asked, turning to the swordsman who had led her here. "Is this...?"
"This," Maduin prompted, "is the ultimate security. An impenetrable stone barrier, inlaid with the most powerful arcana known to the mortal plane, and connected with the most fragile of wooden walkways..."
At this point, he stepped to the left, and the sound of stone scraping against stone prompted Madeline to turn - whereupon she saw the swordsman shove a large boulder aside, revealing a small opening in which shadows were cast.
"...next to an unassuming, completely ordinary boulder," Maduin finished, "behind which lies the true prize."
Slowly, Madeline approached the gap in the wall, curious at what he meant by 'prize' - and she was rather confused to find what seemed to be an ordinary door sitting there. When Maduin made no attempt to stop her from stepping toward it, she looked over the wooden barrier; it was not embedded in the wall, and there was nothing upon it. 'Barrier' was a generous description; it was a door sitting in the middle of nothing.
"What is this supposed to be?" she asked, turning to the swordsman who had brought her here.
Maduin bowed his head. "I can take you from this world - without taking your life - but you must promise me that you will never reveal this to anyone."
Wary, but set in her decision, Madeline nodded.
"Alright..."
He stepped just outside, pulling the boulder he had moved back into place so that the opening was cast in complete darkness - prompting him to light one hand again. He held his other to Madeline, who hesitated just a moment before taking it again.
"Say farewell to this world of humans..."
Maduin reached for the doorknob with his blazing hand.
"...and hello..."
The flames seemed to recede from around his fingers as they neared the wood.
"...to a world..."
A light danced across the doorway, and Madeline heard a faint click.
"...of monsters."
The door was thrown open - and a sunset light was cast through it.
+x+x+x+
One hour.
With no watch on her person, nor a clock upon the wall, her only method of keeping time was to count the seconds as she sat there in seiza, with Maduin at her side, before a man with snowy white hair, pale skin, and a pair of black, batlike wings emerging from his back. His eyes, a blood crimson that had set horror into Madeline upon first seeing him, were now sealed, and his garb consisted of an open robe in black and a pair of dark blue leggings, leaving his chest bare.
Silence had flooded the air when Maduin had introduced her as a human, and had lingered now for an hour. As she began to count the seconds of the sixty-first minute, the winged man bowed his head. "Maduin, rise."
The swordsman was on his feet swiftly, whereupon the winged man guided him to a back room. Madeline continued to count the seconds, waiting for them to return. In less than five minutes they did so - and Madeline was silently horrified upon seeing the sheathed katana the winged man now wore.
"Madeline Branford," he said firmly, his crimson gaze settling on her. "It is my understanding that you desire to no longer have anything to do with the human world. That you would accept any escape offered to you. That you would have taken your own life, if not for Maduin's intervening. Is this true?"
Her fears seeming confirmed, Madeline refused to let her voice carry her horror. "What you have said is true," she confirmed. "The human world is naught but a spiral of greed and vanity. If you will provide me with a way to leave that world, and never return, I will accept."
A heavy breath fled her lips, and she closed her eyes.
"Regardless of what escape it is."
She waited to hear the scream of his blade being drawn.
No such cry sounded.
A light snicker prompted her to open her eyes and raise her gaze, to see the winged man standing there with his head bowed. "You are fortunate Maduin was there when you entered this place," he admitted. "Had he not brought you to me directly, you could well have been at great risk, for the beliefs of those who reside here."
Slowly, he drew his blade in a backhand grip and set it against the ground before her - and the tip drove itself firmly into the stone surface as his hold shifted, so that his index finger and thumb circled the handle, just against the hilt.
"Set your hand against the pommel of this sword," the winged man prompted.
Madeline found she could do so without affecting her seiza posture.
"Do you swear, upon your life, that you will not leave this place willingly except in the most dire of circumstances, and that, should ever you leave this place, you will not breathe a word of its existence to those who are not already aware?"
A firm nod. "I swear."
The winged man shifted his grip, and Madeline released the weapon as he pulled it from the stone and slid it back into its sheath.
"Welcome to the community of Roku Okoku - and the world of monsters."
+x+x+x+
The winged man was Haku Ryu, the elder of the community - and a Nosferatu who embraced the transformation his kind was granted. His demand that Madeline be left alive was unquestioned the moment it was stated, and many of the inhabitants helped her with that she was not familiar with whenever the need arose. Not that it arose often; Maduin accompanied her more often than not, providing direction and explanation should she need it. She learned the names of monsters, and she learned the people of the community; and slowly, Madeline Branford was accepted into Roku Okoku.
At least... on the surface.
She made no pretense of ignorance to the conversations that went on at volumes their speakers believed would not reach a human's ears. As much as she desired to fit in, she was a stranger to this community - a lone human in a world of monsters. The mutterings were rarely malevolent, merely curious and uncertain as to the safety of her presence here. Maduin's presence often helped to comfort her... but any guardian will have his limitations.
It came to a head one day, a few years after she had come, when Madeline insisted that the yoko relax with his friends, and that she would not be doing anything more than taking an idle walk around Roku Okoku. The area was a beautiful sight - homes were little more than caves that were dug out and furnished, leaving a natural landscape unlike anything the human world had to offer - and often she would simply stroll through the community and take in the sights. At one point, she came to a stop at the edge of an expansive lake, sitting down near the shore.
"Madeline, yes?"
The voice drew her gaze to the side, where she saw a young-looking girl standing all of three paces away. She was dressed rather simply - white top, white skirt - and had a small pair of white, feathered wings upon her back. "Ah, yes," Madeline responded. "Um... Sylph, correct?"
The girl, Sylph, nodded. Madeline had met her before - she was a siren, and younger sister of Seraph, a friend of Maduin's. Most of the monsters in Roku Okoku went only by one name - even 'Haku Ryu' was parsed as one name rather than given and family name. Maduin using the last name of 'Fuwa' was for several reasons, the most practical being that he was the main link the community had to the human world and the monsters hidden therein.
"I heard you asked Maduin to leave you alone today," Sylph mused, taking a seat next to Madeline. "Are you starting to get used to this place?"
Madeline nodded, turning back to the lake. "Yes," she confirmed. "I suppose you could say that. It's truly wonderful, what you all have here."
Sylph nodded. "Monsters in the human world have to keep themselves hidden," she prompted. "Otherwise, humans would start doing nasty things to them. The elder's family made this place as a sort of... a place to be free."
"I can understand that," Madeline observed. "This place is like... a paradise. Hidden away, and kept safe."
"I wouldn't call it paradise," Sylph argued. "It's kind of small, when you've been here for a while. Humans have so much more, and they just... they keep it all from us."
Madeline bowed her head. "They keep it from their own kind, too," she admitted. "Only the most powerful or the most fortunate can experience everything in the human world. The rest are condemned to dream about that they can never have."
Sylph turned to her. "But what if one of the rest gets lucky?" she asked. "Or gets stronger? What happens then?"
"Often, their luck or strength escapes them as soon as they become comfortable with it," Madeline replied. "And if it takes hold... they simply join the ones that keep it to themselves."
"Don't they ever share?" Sylph asked.
"That's something that monsters are better at," Madeline admitted. "Sharing the good things with those who don't have them."
Her voice had a sad edge to it, and Sylph seemed to understand she had brought up something uncomfortable. Quietly, she got to her feet. "Well, it was nice to speak with you, Madeline," she prompted.
The human found herself lingering at the lake for a long time further - until a comforting heat approached her from behind, and she leaned her head back with a small smile. "I thought I said you could relax today," she prompted.
"Zona talks like an inquirer if he gets an audience of one," Maduin mused from behind. "I swear his every other word has 'dark' in it somewhere."
Zona Seeker was a werewolf in a mask and a cape, with a voice a lot slower than anything that fast has right to speak. Madeline only chuckled at the comment, turning as the yoko took a seat beside him, and the two were quiet for a long while.
"Sylph mentioned you seemed... displeased about something," he admitted. "She insisted it was something she said, but Seraph mentioned she has a tendency to exaggerate." He turned to her. "Were you... thinking of the human world?"
"I guess you could say that," Madeline admitted. "I've never known a human who's shown me the same kindness that these people have. That this community has." Her gaze fell to the waters. "...That you have."
Maduin remained quiet, turning to the waters himself.
Madeline was the one who broke the silence. "Why did you bring me here?" she asked, turning to the yoko. "Why did you defend me from those men in the woods, that day? Why did you stop me from...?" She didn't finish - she didn't need to.
A small smile rose on Maduin's face as he turned back to her. "Would it be horrible of me to say that I found you beautiful," he asked, "and didn't want to see that image marred?"
This earned him a light cuff to the shoulder that Madeline knew wouldn't hurt him.
"To be honest," the yoko insisted, "I guess... I simply felt hopeful. Humans are numerous, and no power in a few will overcome that great a disadvantage. Monsters hide out among the crowd, or take refuge in small communities like this." When Madeline gave him a look, he admitted, "Although this is better than most. I was thinking that, maybe I could convince a few monsters to... not be so fearful. Take that smallest of risks, and see if we can find a better conclusion."
Madeline was suprised. "I never pegged you as the type to hold ambitions like that," she admitted.
Maduin chuckled lightly. "Ambition?" he mused, laying back. "No, this is but a pipedream."
"You know," Madeline argued, lying back beside him, "a great change in human ways always starts off with a pipedream. It becomes something greater - and even if the dreamer never lives to see it come true, fully and completely... they die with the knowledge that things are changing."
There was a long quiet.
"No."
The single word confused Maduin, prompting him to turn again. "No?"
Madeline returned the gaze. "No, it wouldn't be horrible."
+x+x+x+
"...Well?"
Kirin was a witch, one of Maduin's close friends, and praised the most perceptive resident of Roku Okoku. Without hardly lifting her wand, she could pick out the smallest of details and come to a conclusion - one that was most often correct - and though she specialized in healing matters, both arcane and mundane, she always had at the tips of her fingers a spell or two to peer deeper than the surface.
So it came as no surprise when, confronted with Maduin and Madeline's worried gazes and less-than-tidy appearances, her only preempt was an amazed look at Madeline, and the words "I have no idea how you survived that."
It had been a year since that afternoon by the lakeside, and one could mistake the monster community for a bunch of human teenagers at the tone (and subject) their conversations of Madeline carried nowadays. The witch in white had been asked to perform a simple analytical spell on Madeline - a test that humans had more mundane means of performing, though none as effective as practiced arcana.
And one might forgive them both, for wanting confirmation of a child.
Kirin now held her wand (a rather simple thing, with a circular head carved of conjoined goat's horns) tightly in both hands, her eyes sealed in contemplation. Maduin and Madeline both stood with tight breath for her response - and soon enough, she raised her gaze to the two of them.
"The conception is positive."
Madeline loosed a relieved sigh, closing her eyes and releasing the tension in her muscles. Maduin only smiled, bowing his head.
"However... that may prove your undoing."
Maduin raised his gaze, confused. "What?" he asked. "No, wait, hold on, what are you talking about? I spoke with Golem on this, she said-"
Kirin's expression turning firm drew him to fall silence - as kind as she was, she could be frightening when there was a point she felt needed be made.
"Under most circumstances," the witch admitted, "there is no harm to be brought from a child between human and monster - outdated traditions and overzealous parents notwithstanding. But a yoko is a being born of blaze. The growing child will be a flame, burning ever brighter... and could very well sear you apart from the inside."
Madeline's face paled, and she fell back, horrified. Maduin was in denial. "No, that can't be right," he argued. "I specifically asked on the topic of yoko. She said there were recorded cases-"
"Of a child born of a human father, and a yoko mother," Kirin insisted. "And there are several instances of a child from a yoko father and a mother of another monster. On the rare occasions in which the child is not a monstrel, inherited traits from the mother spare her the burning pain. But a human has no such traits to inherit."
"No..." Madeline was starting to tear up.
Maduin shook his head. "This isn't happening," he protested. "It can't be happening. It can't. Isn't there any way...?"
Kirin sighed. "I know nothing," she insisted. "You may speak with the elder, but I know nothing that might keep her safe."
"Then we go to speak with him," Maduin said firmly. "Madeline..."
"I... I'll come," Madeline forced out, getting to her feet.
They had nearly left when Kirin's voice caught their ears.
"That's not true..."
Maduin turned. "What?"
"It's... not true," the witch repeated. "I..." She shook her head, getting to her feet. "We still need speak with the elder, but..."
"Out with it," Maduin demanded.
Kirin loosed a nervous sigh, closing her eyes.
"I know nothing that may keep her safe... but I know of a way to let her endure it."
Madeline turned in time to receive the witch's gaze.
"But... it will change you."
+x+x+x+
Magic is a strange and powerful thing, steeped in risk and loss.
It had been made clear that this was what she was getting into - and so Madeline had dismissed her garb, allowed menacing patterns to be arced across her flesh, and now sat with her legs crossed, as though to meditate, with her hands upon her knees, her head bowed, and her eyes sealed. The most arcane patterns arced across the surface below her, forming a great circle that glowed, just faintly, in the darkness of night - a glow obscured only by her own body.
Kirin stood outside the circle, to Madeline's left, her wand gripped between both hands, murmuring alternately mystic incantations and prayers to Asura.
Maduin stood likewise on her right; his arms were crossed over his chest, his hands closed on opposite shoulders, and his eyes were closed in silent wish.
And before her stood Haku Ryu, his wings folded behind him.
"I ask only that you confirm once more," the elder stated. "This will bring you pain. It will change you irrevocably. You will no longer be able to consider yourself, in fullest truth, human. I cannot guarantee that we will conclude with your life intact. And even if you survive, you may very well lose what little you will gain the moment your child is born. Will you still go through with this?"
Madeline nodded firmly.
"I risk only that which would inevitably happen if I were to refuse," she said firmly. "Death - not only my own, but that of my unborn child. I refuse to condemn to death that which has not yet seen life. That is all I hope to gain from this - for my child to be born. I will not back down."
Haku Ryu started to move forward.
"In return," Madeline demanded, "I insist this of you. Do not fall back. No matter what screams I may sound, no matter what torment may befall the world around us, and no matter what new risks may arise... see this through to the end."
The words brought the elder pause; yet he only bowed his head.
"You ask much - but no matter."
His wings spread behind him - and all that showed for it was the vanish of stars behind him.
"On my blood..."
He raised one hand to his side - and a force of sheer magic began to gather between his fingers.
"...you have my word."
Kirin's last incantation concluded, and Haku Ryu leapt into the air, soaring over the runes as a shining force rose around the edge of the circle. As he passed over Madeline, he twisted into a spin; something flew from his hands at speeds that could not be seen until it came to a stop at Madeline's shoulder, drawing her attention and prompting her to open her eyes.
It was a needle - the tip driven into her flesh.
She had little more than time to take notice before the flesh around the impact rent, like water into which a stone had been cast. Her head lashed back as the needle seemed to dissolve into her body, leaving only a gap in her skin to show for it - a gap that, when the pain subsided and she fell forward, did not bleed.
Haku Ryu only grinned, a fang poking out over his lower lip.
"You underestimate yourself. Making me swear that vow, despite your silence when the first of the pain comes."
He turned to Madeline, still hunched over from the pain.
"Do you not feel it? The magic flowing through you? That needle is not but the sheerest arcana, woven of my power; upon contact, it unravels, its threads writhing through your body."
He raised both hands at his sides, fingers poised as though gripping the air.
"They brace for the conclusion; for when your body is held completely by those mystic threads, it will be rearranged. Magic will take hold within you - arcana more than enough for you to survive your child's birth."
Force began to gather in the air around Madeline, forming a scattered dome from points of light.
"But do not think the worst is over yet."
From each of those points emerged a sharpened tip, tremoring from the power within.
"There still remain one hundred and eight of these needles to enter you, and thousands upon thousands of threads to brace in your flesh."
His words hardly registered in Madeline's ears.
"Do you believe you can endure?"
Her breath was too heavy for her to respond.
"You need not answer - now that we have begun, I will not put this to an early end."
She managed to rise to her former position, but her eyes were fogged, and she could make out nothing.
"I know that your resolve will survive this ritual."
At last, her vision focused - and she saw the arcane points that surrounded her.
"We shall see if your body shares that endurance."
The next needle connected, just above her right breast - and this time, when her flesh rent, a scream tore from her throat.
Draco: I remember when I read Rosario + Vampire Season II Chapter 40, my thought process went something like "This looks like it's supposed to be a cross between fanservice and a shounen scene, but all I've got is mental imagery reminiscent of Daughters of Mnemosyne. What is WRONG with me?"
