False Dragon


"Again!"

Sakura's head maid ordered her to attack again. Sakura was taking the time to learn more Five-Dragon Style martial arts. Szoreny was being quiet with the next steps she should take so she decided to be proactive in regards to becoming stronger.

They weren't fighting with weapons today, apparently the next charm for her to learn was easier to use while unarmed. The head maid had said that it could be used with a weapon though.

Sakura clenched her fingers for a moment before relaxing them. She then made claws with her hands and prepared for another attack. The head maid was the target of each attack so she could see where Sakura had made mistakes.

Sakura leaped, her claw-like hands rushed towards the woman.

"No."

The head maid didn't even try to block. Sakura's clawed hands failed to leave much more than a scratch mark.

"You need to focus the essence as your starting the attack, you can't leave it for the end."

Sakura prepared again and struck. Unlike the last time, her finger nails glinted like the claws of an animal. This time the head maid sidestepped the attack.

"Good, again."

Each attempt exhausted her. The charm took a lot of her focus to use as she had yet to learn it properly. She needed the ability to use it reflexively when she needed it and so was trying to force it with muscle memory.

It was meant to be a fairly easy to use when mastered and then require only a trickle of essence to use it. Until then she had to take a break after only ten minutes of practice.

She sat down in the nice chair that the head maid had brought to the dojo for her and allowed herself to soak up the energy of hell to recover her essence supply.

While she waited she became curious. The head maid was very skilled, what could have caused her to sell her soul to the Yozi.

She asked the question only a few moments later.

"Head Maid, what were you given in return for service to the Yozi? Who were you?"

The head maid bowed to her.

"My princess, do you really want to hear the story?" It sounded like she wasn't excited to tell me but she would be forced to if Sakura asked. She didn't seem insulted by the question though so Sakura nodded "Tell it, feel free to skip parts that you don't wish to retell."

The Head Maid nodded and began.

"My wish was for immortality or rather for eternal youth. Though in all honesty it wasn't me choosing the wish"

She paused for a moment before starting her story.

"I was born in some backwater village to a simple family. My father tended to the fields while my mother tended to the family. My life was normal for the first decade of my life. Then I Exalted."

The maid grimaced before speaking more quickly.

"I'm sorry my lady but I don't think you would find what happened next to make for pleasant listening. I shall simplify it. I was what was refered to as a 'Lost Egg', A Dragon-blood who exalted outside the main families. It meant I carried noble blood from one of my parents. I was taken from them and trained in a noble school. From what I heard they were payed well for me but later I heard that they had been killed by a neighbor for the money."

She stopped for a moment and took a breath before continuing at a more normal pace.

"The family that adopted me... maybe it would be better to refer to them as an organization due to how it seemed that it was money rather than familial ties that bound them. They were a family that didn't have many dragon-bloods of their own so they adopted a lot. Regardless I was brought up as a dynastic Dragon-blood just like them."

Her face hardened.

"Once I was out of normal schooling I took the first chance I could to leave, I joined the Immaculate Order and learned the martial arts I teach you now. I actually became quite good at it but I never learned any supernatural martial arts above my level. I was about sixty when I realised that I simply wasn't improving. I asked my master in the order about it and he told me to join the Wyld Hunt for a few years."

She smiled but with no joy.

"I was there five years before I broke. There was a man there, I don't remember his name anymore. He was awful."

She looked at Sakura then and frowned at her expression "No not like that, there are rules in place and everyone was watching. He was awful to work with but he never went far enough to cause a problem. Regardless I knew then that the Wyld Hunt wasn't where I was going to find my way forward so I returned to the monastery and continued training, this time taking a greater focus on the spiritual parts of the world."

She paused and thought before continuing "I think I was around ninety when I met my first master. I had been sent out after a demon cult that was trying to grow in the south of the blessed isle, something that had come over with a ship of cultists. I fought to stop them but one of them was able to call out the demon they worshipped."

She gave a small laugh "Mara, that small group was able to summon lady Mara."

Sakura tilted her head "Which demon is Mara again?"

The Head Maid blinked a few times at her before answering "You haven't met her? Lady Mara is a second circle demon decending from the Ebon Dragon's seventh soul Erembour. Sometimes she is called Mara the seducer."

The head maid shook her head slightly and finished "Regardless, there isn't much more to my story. Within ten years, lady Mara had remade me into a servent to her will. Over the last six hundred years I have passed from master to master before finally coming to you."

The room was silent for a moment as Sakura digested the story. She then stood back up "Sensei, I am ready to continue learning."

The Head Maid nodded and they began.


A few hours later a letter came to Sakura's house. It was an invitation to a party of the newer Green Sun Princes and she was expected to go.


End of chapter.

Honestly I didn't know what I wanted to do with this chapter when I started it. I decided just to use it to flesh out the backstory of the head maid. About half way through writing her backstory I had the idea of the party that will be the focus of the next chapter.