Chapter Thirteen

He said nothing as he led her away from the ruins of her village. Instead, he simply beckoned with one hand and slowed his pace just enough for her to be able to follow. But it was still a gruelling pace he set; at least it was for someone as young as her. Nor did he go out of his way to help her. If she fell then it was up to her to find her feet again, if she was tired or sleepy, then it was up to her to find the strength to keep going.

Only when it came to food and clothing did he make any exceptions. The food he had was dry and mostly tasteless, but after a day spent struggling to keep up, it was almost too good for words. She hadn't brought much in the way of clothes – in truth, there hadn't been much of anything to salvage from the village – so he cut the black cloak he wore into something smaller and draped it over her thin shoulders. Beneath it he wore black pants and trousers, neither of which looked like they were especially warm, but not once did he flinch as they travelled, even when the winds kicked up, cold and clawing, in the dead of the night.

It was on the third night of their journey, huddled close to the campfire he'd made, that she finally thought to ask him his name.

"What's your name?" she whispered, hoping that she hadn't offended him by asking.

He looked at her, eyes dark and inscrutable. "Why do you want to know?"

She blinked. "So I know what to call you."

He nodded. "If you must call me something, then call me master, for I will be teaching you."

"But don't you have a name?" she pressed on, for something had flickered quickly in his eyes, some emotion she couldn't name, but which she knew somehow was very important.

"I had a name once. I don't have one anymore." His voice was bland in its tone, deliberately so. "Besides, I'd rather keep only what I've earned and names are just things that people give us. We don't earn them. Mastery of something is different, it is earned."

She nodded. She didn't understand, not entirely, but it was clear that the subject was closed. They fell into another easy silence. That was another thing that puzzled her too, the way that silence between them never seemed heavy, like something that had to be gotten rid of, the way it always did with other people. It was almost like both of them were more comfortable in the silence.

"You have another question," he said. It was a statement of fact. "Ask it now."

There was one other thing that had been bothering her something that scared her because she'd not even noticed it until today. She hadn't cried for family, not even once, since they'd left the village. In place of tears and sorrow and pain, there was nothing. She felt strangely hollow inside as if she whatever part of her could feel had simply been cut out of her. In her dreams, she'd finally stopped smelling ash and blood and broken flesh, and she'd finally stopped screaming. Instead, her dreams were empty, filled with a deep and everlasting silence.

"Why don't I cry?" she whispered softly.

His eyes softened just a fraction and he reached out to lay one hand on her chest. "Inside you there is something that other people will fear. They will hate you and despite you because you are different. It is the reason that you cannot cry for your family and it is the reason that one day you will be powerful."

"What is it?" Suddenly it seemed cold, even though she was almost close enough to the fire to burn herself.

"Look up at the sky, girl, and tell me what you see." He hadn't asked for her name yet and she got the impression that he probably never would.

"Stars," she said, staring up into the Saturnian night, the sky studded with the small, twinkling gems amidst the larger, ribbons-like trails that marked her home planet's rings. "And the rings of Saturn."

"They are beautiful, aren't they?" She nodded. "But one day all those stars will fade. Perhaps some of them might become super novae, but even they will fade, in time. And one day, our planet and all its rings will be gone, washed away by the flow of time." He paused and caught her eyes, his gaze intense. "The only certainty in this universe is that things end. All that is built must fall to ruin, all that is beautiful must fade, and all that lives must die. There are no exceptions and nothing is eternal. In the end, this universe, for all its wonder, will one day be nothing more than a tomb: dead, dark, and silent." He closed his eyes. "Silence, girl, is what lies at the heart of creation."

For a long time, she said nothing. Finally, she spoke. "So that's what's inside me?"

"Yes. You cried your last tears before I found you. The silence where your heart should be is a part of you now. It always will be."

Part of her wanted to tell him that he was wrong, but something about his words struck a chord inside her. Maybe it was true. In any case, nothing changed the fact that she felt hollow, that where grief should be there was only emptiness. He was right about that much.

X X X

After almost two weeks of travel, she realised where they were headed. It was a place universally reviled by almost all Saturnians. They called it the Great Rift. Millennia ago, during the war that bound Saturn to the Lunar Empire, the Empire had found itself unable to penetrate the planet's defences. Frustrated and humiliated, the Empire chose to experiment with an as yet unproven form of weaponry.

Even millennia after the event, no one was sure of exactly what had occurred and the Empire had never used the weapon since. She could hardly blame them. The result, however, had been the creation of a massive tear in the fabric of reality that had rapidly expanded to completely devour the largest city on Saturn. If the explosion had simply killed everything, she knew her people might not have surrendered. However, some living things had survived, but they had changed. The tear warped them, turning living things into monstrous reflections of their former selves. Saturn's surrender had come not two days later.

Since then, Saturnians had reviled the Great Rift. It was not only an enduring symbol of their greatest defeat, but it was filled with hideous, mutated creatures driven insane by the unnatural energies of the Rift. For them to be headed toward it meant that either he was mad or extremely sure of his own abilities. Perhaps it was a bit of both.

She knew they were getting close because each day the vegetation grew more subtly menacing. There were colours that plants shouldn't have, shapes and forms that couldn't help but inspire fear. The animals began to change too, little things, at first, like the gaps between eyes or the exact position and orientation of limbs, but soon the changes were too great to ignore. Extra limbs appeared and the light in the animals' eyes became sinister and altogether too knowing.

He said nothing and she couldn't help but wonder about what effects the Rift would have on them. Would they too become twisted aberrations? But if he had a place here, then shouldn't he already have begun to change? Things came to a head when they were finally attacked by one of the creatures of the Rift.

It might once have been a lizard, but now it was something else. It was fifteen feet long with a bulky, scaly body. Instead of four legs, it had six, each with an extra joint and more claws than were normal. On its back, glowing faintly orange, were thick spines that ended in barbed points. It attacked just as they were settling down to eat their evening meal.

In one smooth motion, she was in his arms and he leapt aside and put her a safe distance away before he turned back to face the lizard. He drew the sword on his back slowly, with no hint of trepidation as the creature bore down on him, all teeth and claws and insane fury. At the last moment, he stepped aside, sword sweeping out and glowing green blood splattered onto the ground as he cut three of its legs off in a single smooth motion. The lizard crashed to the ground, flailing wildly, and he breezed away from the feral blows as easily as a wind rustling through the trees before he struck again and cleaved the lizard's head from its shoulders.

It should have horrified her. Blood was everywhere and the lizard's corpse was still twitching, but she found it beautiful. Or rather, she found him beautiful. The seamless union of mind and muscle, each movement performed perfectly with no hint of wasted motion, the flash of sword and spray of blood. And afterward there was the silence, lingering and wonderful, and broken only by the quiet whisper of blood on the sand. It was perfect. And she knew right then what he would be teaching her and that she would be all too eager to learn.

A few days later, they reached a small house near the vast canyon that marked the centre of the Rift. It was his house, his home, really, and he showed her in. It was small and he didn't have much, but what he did have was good. There was a small kitchen with the usual utensils and a room that must serve as the living room. Off to one side was another room, presumably his and beside it a bathroom. He pointed to an empty room and told her it would be hers. There wasn't even a bed in it yet. Hopefully they could do something about that.

"Why did you choose me?" she asked as they sat in the living room, two cups of water on the table in front of them.

"You have it wrong." He watched her carefully. "You chose me. That day, when I asked if you wanted to come with me, you agreed."

"But why?" she asked. "Why did you even offer to take me with you?"

"Because we are very much the same." His eyes narrowed. "That silence that you feel inside is not something that most people ever feel, not until the moment just before death when everything becomes clear. You are the youngest that I've ever met who has touched the silence and remained sane."

"So you feel it too?" She made no move toward her water.

"Yes. And you must be trained. The silence gives great power, but it takes, girl, it takes so much from you and it will drive you mad unless you learn how to use it." He smiled coldly. "And the ones who made you feel the silence are the same ones who made me feel it too."

"Who?" She shot to her feet.

"Not now." He waved her away. "You are young and weak and they will kill you the moment that they see you. Later, when you are stronger, we will deal with them. But not yet."

She sat slowly. "Is it safe for us to be here? Won't the Rift change us?"

He shook his head. "No. Those who are touched by the silence cannot be changed by the rift and here we need not fear discovery. Here, I can make it you what you need to be. This is a place of monsters, girl, and you will need to become a monster to avenge your family."

"I see." She took a sip of her water to wet her suddenly parched throat. "When do we start?"

"Tomorrow."

X X X

The next morning her training began and it was brutal. Each day he would take her through a rigorous set of exercises designed to harden her body. As before, he was pitiless and any laziness or lack of attention was punished harshly. Yet he was kind, in his way, and understanding. If she didn't see how a technique or exercise should be completed, then he would show her and ensure that she could do it properly. He might push her, driving her to the brink of exhaustion and madness, but he always seemed to know when to pull back, to give her time to regather herself.

On most days, she would also follow him around as he hunted the creatures of the Rift, watching and learning from his example. She learned how to identify the weaknesses of each creature through careful study and observation and how to judge the finest moment to strike. And, of course, she learned to hide, clinging to even the barest shadow as she watched each kill with a sort of detached admiration.

On other days, he would leave her at his house and order her to read through the books that he had. He was surprisingly well read although many of his books seemed to be devoted to military strategy, martial arts, politics, psychology, and history. There was very little in the way of fiction, almost none, really, except for the few so-called classics of Saturnian literature.

However it was the lessons on fighting that she took to best. Her body he seemed to understand on some instinctive level how best to kill. But he refined that instinct, honed it to razor sharpness and added to it the mindset of an assassin and the skills of a martial artist. When she looked at the furniture in what she'd come to think of as their home, she no longer saw tables and chairs. She saw spans of wood bound together by nails. The furniture could be broken, the wood used for staves while the nails could be thrown or used to stab an opponent.

She also wanted very much to learn how to use weapons, to lose herself in the almost silent song of whirling steel, but for more than a year he refused to teach her.

"Why won't you teach me how to use a sword?" she asked, hands clenched into fists. She couldn't understand his reasoning. Hadn't she learned everything that he tried to teach her? Hadn't she endured every hardship without complaint?

He looked at her and then slowly nodded. "Did you know any swordsmen in your village?"

She paused in thought. The memories of her old life, of her village, seemed almost alien to her now. "I think so…"

"Was he good with a sword?"

She nodded, more certain now, the memories coming quickly. "Yes, I remember. He lived down the street from us. He was a soldier before."

"How was he without a sword?"

Her eyes widened in understanding. "I don't think he was very good."

"Exactly." His voice was firm. "You should learn how to fight without a weapon because any weapon can be taken from you. Your hands, your feet." He punctuated each word with a solid rap on each limb. "Your knees and your elbows and the rest of your body. These things cannot be taken from you short of crippling or killing you and if that happens, then the fight is over anyway."

"But you use a sword," she pointed out, grinning.

He frowned and she would have giggled had he not made it very clear that such emotions were unsuitable for one of his students. "Naturally, there are situations where weapons are preferable over hand-to-hand combat. Against the creatures that I hunt for our food, weapons are much more effective." He paused, considering. "Tomorrow then, I will begin teaching you how to use weapons, but never forget what I have said."

He was true to his word and from that day on, weapons were added to her training. He started with the sword but in time, she learned the staff, and many others, as well. Still, it frustrated her. She was good enough with a sword, in fact, he told her that she was good with all the weapons, but none of them felt quite right in her hands. All of them felt like they were just substitutes, things she used because what she really wanted wasn't available. He must have sensed her discomfort, because one day he vanished only to return with a glaive.

At first, she wasn't sure what to think. It was long and heavy, and the blade at the end made it awkward to use compared to the staffs that she was used to. But the moment she held it in her hands she knew she'd found her other half, the weapon that would fit her as well as the sword seemed to fit him.

And so the years passed.

She was six when she first arrived at the Great Rift with him.

She made her first kill at eight. It was a large, vaguely feline creature about ten feet long. He watched from the edge of the clearing of warped, mangled trees, as she and the creature circled each other. It was fast, faster than her, but it was hungry and that hunger made it careless. It leapt and she darted forward, driving the point of her knife up and under and into the tender flesh of its throat. Blood rained down on her and it took every ounce of her strength to shove the heavy weight of its corpse off her. She looked to him for approval. He said nothing, but he was smiling and then he showed her how to skin it.

By the age of ten, she was hunting on her own and he began to leave for weeks at a time. He never said where he went, but she had her suspicions. The weapons he had must have come from somewhere and the house also had its fair share of technology. Things like that cost money and she didn't have to be very bright to work out where he got his. He was an assassin, or something similar.

Over the years, the silence in her grew, as well. Each kill made it a little louder, each new technique made it harder to ignore. By the age of eleven, it had begun to manifest physically. The first time had been an accident. She was hunting something perhaps a shade too large and strong for her to bring down on her own and during the fight her spear snapped. The creature leapt on her and they went down in tangle of limbs. She felt its teeth biting down on her shoulder and shoved to keep it away from her throat. Her blood pounded in her veins and the silence inside became a roar. The next thing she knew, her hands were wreathed in deep violet and her fingers were clawing through a skull that was harder than reinforced crystal-steel.

When she told him what had happened, he hadn't seemed the least bit surprised. Instead, he seemed faintly pleased, as though something he'd been waiting a long time for had finally occurred. And so he began to train her in the powers that the silence had gifted her with, as well.

It took her a while, but she realised that their powers weren't quite the same. The silence let him move more quietly and swiftly than anyone should be able to move and he could use it to sharpen the edges of his weapons. Her powers could do those things too, but more than that, they were destructive. The purple effulgence that she could summon disintegrated almost everything after only a few moments of contact. It was also disturbing how quietly it did so.

She was fourteen years old and capable of killing just about any of the creatures that lived near the Rift inside of a minute when he finally decided to tell her what had happened to her family.

"Are you ready to learn why your family died?" he asked. They were sitting at the table, their dinner long since finished. Normally, he would read and she would do the same, or perhaps practice outside, but now his eyes were intent, serious. It was time.

"Yes. I'm ready." Dimly, she was aware that the emptiness inside her had begun to howl. "Tell me everything."

"What do you know about the politics of the Solar System?" He had a habit of asking her questions, of making her work out the answers for herself. Normally, she could appreciate the point of such an approach, but now she had little patience for it. Still, she knew she had to play along. He had all the cards here.

"The Lunar Empire is centred around the Moon and encompasses all of the planets in Solar System apart from Earth." She paused. "The Earth is a protected zone, its people deemed too primitive to bother with, its environment pleasant enough but hardly worth the effort and expense that would be involved in subjugating the local populace given that there is ample space elsewhere."

"Good." He nodded. "You have learned well. Now tell me, what is the relationship between the Moon and each of its planets?"

She forced herself to stay calm, even as the silence inside her began to claw at the walls around it. Over the last few weeks, she'd noticed that she'd killed her prey with unnecessary ferocity. She would have to ask him about it later. "All of the planets pay tribute to the Moon. The most noticeable examples of this are the senshi, typically the first-born daughters of the planets' ruling families. They serve as the Empress of the Moon's personal bodyguards and most trusted subordinates. However they are also hostages, tools to be used should the planets ever rebel. But Saturn has no senshi." She frowned. "From what I've read, we seem to dislike the Moon very much, but lack the strength to rebel."

His eyes moved from her to the wall and he seemed to be looking at something far away, something she couldn't hope to see. "Exactly. Those creatures that killed your family were prototype weapons of war created for the coming battle with the Lunar Empire. It is the intention of the royal family of Saturn to formally secede and to do so they will need weapons and they do not care what it takes to create them. They are willing to pay any price to secure independence from the Moon."

She slammed one hand on the table. "The royal family? That's crazy! How could they do that to their own people?"

"Easily." He met her gaze levelly. "I have sheltered you here so that I could make you strong, but that has also hidden the way that things are from you. Soon, we will leave this place and you will see with your own eyes, just what the royal family of Saturn is capable of."

She settled. "But why their own people?"

"Had they used anyone else, the Moon would learn of it." He must have seen her sceptical look, so he pressed on. "Think about it. You must remember the way that all villages are connected to the Network. Any attack should have triggered an immediate call for assistance. Yet when I found where were they?"

She was silent. He was right. The Network was a system of communication that was supposed to connect the many villages scattered around Saturn to the major cities. It was supposed to ensure their safety, but she'd waited three days and no one had come except him. Was he right about everything?

"You don't have to believe me just yet," he said. "In three days, we are going to be leaving for Requiem City and you will see for yourself what the royal family has done." Something that would have been a grin spread across his face. "Besides, you have been here for far too long with only me and the creatures of the Rift for company. It is time that you learned more about others."

X X X

Author's Notes

As always, I neither own Sailor Moon nor am I making a dime off this.

So… this chapter has us heading back into the past. I know it's been a while since I addressed the past (as in this part of the past), but I thought it was time to do so again, especially since I'm sure people are curious about it. Whatever the case, it should be clear that things in the past weren't all rainbow, kittens, and butterflies. I'm not sure if someone can be born a monster, but I know that people can be turned into monsters by what happens in their life.

If you're wondering about the quick updating, it's because I said that I'd try to update once a week and I'm not sure I'll have the time next week. I am well aware of the occasionally protracted length of time between updates, so if I have a chapter, rather than wait, I will release it once I think it is not completely terrible. That said, this chapter does have a rather peculiar history, in that it was written to a mix of Erza's theme on the Fairy Tail OST and watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. I'm not sure what to make of that…

As always, I look forward to your feedback. Reviews and comments are appreciated.