Crossed Paths -- Part Two

Crossed Paths
a Soul Calibur fanfiction by Somenosuke.



A/N: Bad title, huh? ^^; Anyhoo, this fic was inspired by the City of Water stage in Mission Battle and it's a continuation of my first fic, Emerald Earrings (so, for a little background info, I suggest reading that *shameless plugs are wonderful*).

Disclaimer: Namco owns all of these characters, 'cause Lord knows what I'd do if I owned them...

Part Two

"Y-you... Are you okay?" Kilik managed to ask the fallen girl after getting over his initial surprise and extending his hand to help her up.

She pulled herself to her feet but did not respond. She was out of breath, her face flushed from what appeared to be a very long distance of running. Her zanbatou was also in her hands. Something has to be up, Kilik presumed. "What's wrong?"

"No time...!" The girl shoved her way passed him, sprinting as fast as she could to the other side of the bridge. Her attempt failed, as a heavily armed guard, one of the locals, appeared at the end, blocking the girl's escape. He drew his sword and she instinctively stepped away. As Kilik observed the situation, curiously and quietly, he grew confused. What could this girl have done to have herself pursued by guards?

Deciding it best to interfere, Kilik stepped forward to negotiate with the guard, to prevent any mishaps. "Hey. What's the---" his sentence was cut off by the clanging armor and the elephant-like footsteps of yet another guard appearing at the opposite side of the bridge. He too had his sword drawn.

"Stop right there!" he shouted at them. "Do you think you can escape!?"

Kilik blinked, dumbfounded as the guard eyed him and the beautiful stranger. "What? I don't have anything to do with this! You have me mista--" he was interrupted yet again.

"Silence!" The Italian guard accepted no argument, it seemed. He and his cohort began to edge towards the suspected criminals in the center of the bridge.

Arrested. For being at the wrong place at the wrong time, Kilik muttered in his thoughts. Where's Maxi when you need him to talk you out of a situation!?

Meanwhile, the girl was painstakingly stepping backwards until the base of her spine touched Kilik's. Her weapon was raised and ready as she whispered to him: "On the count of three, I want you to grab my arm and swing me into the guard walking towards you. It'll distract the one coming towards me."

"What? Why?"

"You'll see if you just do it."

The guards on both sides were approaching them and reaching. Closer.

"One."

And closer.

"Two..."

This better be a good idea, Kilik thought with dread about the consequences of the plan should it fail. His free hand blindly and slyly reached for the girl's arm.

"Three!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Kilik's fingers coiled about the girl's forearm, and with a deft turn and whip, he sent her into a powerful sprint towards the guard. Both Kilik and the guard that had approached the girl were too stunned to move, their jaws falling agape at what seemed to occur in a dramatic, slow motion.

The girl had delved the bladed tip of her zanbatou into the ground, using that and both of her hands as leverage to break into a cartwheel, her booted feet coming down onto her pursuer's skull in blinding-quick succession. The guard staggered only one step before keeling over. Unconscious.

Kilik watched her with sheer incredulity. "Yin Rising," he whispered at the familiar Ling Sheng Su technique. That was his technique, taught to him by the Edge Master. How did this girl know it?

He remained as still as a stag during hunting season. Too still to even realize that behind him, the other guard was plotting to clout him with the flat side of his blade.

"Hey! Behind you!" the girl yelled, snapping Kilik out of his daze. He quickly turned, just in time to defend himself from the sword with the indestructible Kali-Yuga rod. If he had reacted a mere second later than he did, he would have undoubtedly been rendered unconscious.

But if there was anything Kilik could brag about ,should he ever decide to play the role of one with the confidence of his friend Maxi, it would have to be his catlike speed and agility. It had stunned the Italian guard, too, as he struggled to get his sword out of its lock with Kilik's weapon.

"Sorry. But," Kilik mused, "like I said, you got the wrong person." And with only that as his warning, Kilik used his own weight to violently send his assailant staggering back. Not one to give his opponents a chance to recover and rethink their strategy, Kilik lowered one end of the Kali-Yuga towards the ground between the guard's legs. With a wily grin, and a quick, upwards swing of the Kali-Yuga into the man's family jewels, Kilik stepped back to see the guard fall to his face.

"He won't be getting up from that anytime soon," he commented, tapping his rod against his shoulder.

"Hey," the girl said, catching his attention. "That was Earth Fang or Phoenix Claw, wasn't it?" she asked in reference to the two-named technique.

Kilik could only nod to her.

"So then you know--" she paused, looking over his shoulder at something very unpleasant to her eyes. "Uh oh..."

Kilik turned his head at an angle, spotting a horde over about five similarly armored men heading their way, determination present on each of their faces. He looked back and saw the same thing on the opposite end of the bridge. "Wonderful. Just wonderful."

Though he was a very skilled young master of Ling Sheng Su Style Rod, there was no way Kilik could take down nearly a dozen guards, with or without the girl's help.

"They're not getting me. I'm innocent," the girl announced as she climbed onto the elevated edge of the bridge. "You comin'?" she turned, asking Kilik.

"You're going to jump!?"

"Better than getting caught!"

"Good point." Kilik climbed up next to her and gazed down at the pellucid water not so far below them. He figured the worst thing that could happen was having to swim a rather long distance, which he didn't mind. But much to his relief, a gondola void of any passengers just happened to be passing under the bridge. Someone up above loves me!

He nodded to the girl, and she nodded in return.

And they both took a possible leap of faith off the bridge. Lady Luck was definitely on their side that day, for they landed in the gondola with nary a fracture or bruise. Naturally, the operator of the boat was startled; he wasn't used to passengers just dropping in on him. "What the..."

"Just get us away from the guards!" the girl ordered the man, who instantly complied.

Atop the bridge, the guards cursed themselves and their luck as they could do nothing but watch the two young and innocent warriors escape. The girl smiled devilishly and taunted the guards with a raise of her middle finger [1]. It was all Kilik could do not to laugh.



A little over an hour later, the gondola operator pulled into a small dock where other similar boats were tied to a bit on the nearest road to keep them from drifting away.

"Sorry, but you're going to have to get off here, lovebirds," he informed them, climbing out of the boat. "My workday is over."

"'Lovebirds'!?" the girl exclaimed.

"Uh," Kilik interrupted before the girl could explode with fury, "how much?"

"Considering the trouble you just put me in," the middle-aged man looked over to the girl climbing onto the narrow sidewalk with help from the young, tawny-haired man accompanying her. He eyed her bare legs, her neckline, and her bust, and smiled a lecherous smile at his thoughts. "Free if you give me one night with her."

"What!?" both Kilik and the girl exclaimed.

"Or, we can settle for 1000 lire."

"What!?" they both exclaimed again.

"Look, if you don't pay up, I'm gonna take you both in." The gondola operator held up a thin, silver whistle. "One toot of this and the guards will come here like bees to honey."

"And then they'll come to get you," a male voice rang from somewhere behind a nearby corner.

"What!? Who's there!? Come on out, you punk!" the man challenged with a shaking fist. He soon regretted saying those words as out stepped a young man, donned in heavier armor than that of the local guards. Though he wasn't exactly tall, the bulky dark armor he wore gave those who looked his way the appearance of a man that could lift buildings with the same ease one would take in lifting a sheet of paper. And the weapon he held in both hands... It was the largest sword Kilik had ever seen. It looked to weight twice as much as the blond young man, yet he held it with ease. With the shining armor and massive sword, the young man could very well pass of as some sort of knight.

"You're..." the man said, his words barely escaping his throat.

"Now, how would the Council take you? I'm sure you'll get several punished for extortion... Demanding a young woman's maidenhead and then a ridiculous price for assisting them goes against the laws, hm? And haven't you heard of the Good Samaritan?"

The middle-aged man forced a very heart laugh. "Oh, come on! You know I was just playing with them! Them being foreigners and all..."

The young man's handsome face registered no emotion as he stepped a little closer to them. "So, you want me, a foreigner myself, to tell the Council of your toying with visitors to this country?" he asked.

"No!"

"Let them go," the young man ordered.

"But they--"

"They're innocent. I witnessed everything. The real culprit was recently apprehended," the light-skinned lad interrupted, "so let them go."

The older man seemed reluctant to let Kilik and the maiden go without getting some form of payment for his "kind deeds". "Come on! Don't I get anything?"

"You can get to walk as a freeman. It's not like I don't know of your other exploits, Lucio."

The man said no more, not expecting for his name nor his personal life to be known by another. Quietly gathering his few belongings, he left out into the city, post haste.

With the man gone, the blond lad turned to the two, who had been observing their exchange quietly. "A shame," he sighed in reference to Lucio. "You two look tired and hungry. Please follow me."

"All right!" Aside from being a tactful fighter, Kilik was also not one to pass up a free meal. Especially an Italian one. He had loved the nation's food since his arrival. He gingerly stepped behind the departing gentleman. But the girl had stayed behind.

The young men stopped to face her. "Are you coming?" they asked in unison.

"You're..." she couldn't manage to finish her sentence. She knew this young man. "You're Siegfried Schtauffen, aren't you?"

* * *

[1] -- I got this little quirky action from a scene in Titanic (when Rose and Jack escape from that old guy). I don't know. I just had this urge to include it, even if it's rather OOC. ^_^

A/N: Whew, that seemed to take forever! So, what do you think of it? Hope you like it! Oh, for the record, I am not going to involve the three into some sort of love triangle. =P Please read and review!