If day is the realm of saints, and nighttime the place of sinners, then
Crono walked in twilight. Many who knew him well would say he was as pure-
hearted as could be - those that knew him as a kidnapper thought of him as
the vilest of criminals. But none of them were privy to his thoughts.
Which was not to speak ill of them, most of them cared deeply for Crono, or
thought they did, and indeed knew him as best they could. But Crono had
never spoken his thoughts around them. This was a result, not of secrecy,
but simple incapability. Crono was born without the ability to speak. He
was also born partially deaf in the right ear and with bad vision. A
stroke at age three had given him a permanent tic all along his right side,
so that his walk was a shuffling step and his right hand a useless,
permanently clenched fist. He couldn't write, he couldn't speak, he
couldn't even move without difficulty. In those times, he had cursed the
world and God with the voice he did not have, cursed them for how he lived,
and cursed Fate for dealing him the hand it had, taking from him everything
but his mind, a perfect mind, so that all of his torturous hell would be
crystal clear forever. He lived like this, useless and hateful, for
months, years. His father died a drunkard, stabbed in the eye over a pint
of the local brew. He lived then with his mother for years, being catered
to and waited on. He contemplated suicide a few times, and might have
carried it out, save for two things: his mother, who loved him, and Lucca,
who spoke to him. Not often, and not much, but she would on occasion greet
him, or inform him of some bit of news, or at the very least acknowledge
his presence with a nod or wave, which was more than most would do. Not to
say that they were unkind - but speaking to Crono was like speaking to a
wall, or a bottomless well. Nothing ever came back. So he carried on in
his wretched sort of half-life, believing himself to be doomed forever to
be merely an observer, when a group of monks stopped into town.
Religion had been fading for four hundred years, since the dark ages, but it was still not unheard of to see pilgrims in the world, and Guardia was a common port of call as a midpoint. However, this particular group of monks was not made up of the fat, well-dressed men Crono had come to expect. Rather, they were lean, and rather poor, judging from their garments and the gear they carried. It was clearly well cared for, but heavily worn, and handmade. So Crono, having nothing else to do, simply watched them. It was their reaction to him, though, that changed him.
They didn't speak. Not to say that they never spoke, but they never chatted. They never spoke without purpose. When they noticed Crono following them in his cumbersome, shuffling steps, they didn't do anything. They did not studiously ignore him as most did, nor did they gape at him, or try to get him to speak. All day, he trailed along behind them, following them around town and to their encampment in the woods. And there they surprised him again. Without saying a word to him, they set out another cot. Although certainly suspicious, at that point he was so devoid of hope that he did not really care. And so he slept in that cot, and had breakfast with them in the morning.
That was the beginning of his time with the Children of Fate. He ate with them, traveled with them, and learned from them. He never visited his mother - what would she have been able to understand? Instead, he lived with the Children. They were martial men, and many of them masters of their art. There was a painter, a theologian, a farmer, a carpenter, a smith, and even a sculptor. However, the two that he spent the most time with were Hardeleza and Tuggle. Tuggle had been a politician, and was the nominal leader of the group. Tuggle's age was indeterminate, but his eyes always twinkled, and his knowledge of the human mind and its workings was astounding, and from him Crono learned to see through what people said and what they did - right down to what they meant. It was Tuggle who taught him how to see people, and how he could speak to them without speaking, and understand thought with a clarity that surpassed a normal man's consideration. Tuggle taught him to control his mind and his thoughts, his emotions and his wants. But it was Hardeleza who taught him to control his own body. Hardeleza had been a monk much longer than the rest of them, although he had previously belonged to a monastery in the east. Hardeleza was a master of the martial arts, a god of combat and true master of his flesh. It was the months he spent with Hardeleza in which he learned to overcome his own sluggish form, to transcend the form and achieve a unity of spirit. He regained his hearing through pure force of will. He did away with the clenching of his arm and the uselessness of his leg, walking about like a normal person, forcing his limbs to obey his commands. At first, of course, he could only do it for a short while. But eventually he disciplined himself to keep himself erect and able at all times. Hardeleza helped him overcome his vision by simply blindfolding him for a month. Forced to survive without his eyes, when he finally got them back they were an aid, not a burden.
Finally, after a year of traveling with the Children of Fate, he bid goodbye to his friends and returned home. He arrived at his mother's home as a fifteen-year-old warrior, wearing the clothes of a wanderer, a blood- red bandana and trail-worn boots with heavy buckles, and bearing a wooden sword, given to him as a parting gift by Hardeleza. His mother asked him what had happened, of course, but he could not tell her. He had learned to read and write, but to do so was torturous, especially writing. To explain to his mother what had happened would have taken volumes - and a hundred years. He always carried a small slate on which he could write a sentence or two, but he did not use it very often. His return precipitated some amount of gossip in the village - how the poor, retarded boy that had disappeared a year ago had finally returned, cured of all his ills save his muteness. However, the people had a short memory, and lost interest rather quickly when he did not reveal himself to be a long-lost heir of some throne, or a new hero, or some such other foolishness. His mother, out of the maternal love that all mothers have, took her son back with an embrace, and doted on him. Crono, although now able-bodied, was still not very sociable, and only one other person spoke to him on a regular basis- Lucca, the inventor's daughter. After his return, Lucca started having full-blown conversations with him - willing to wait the inordinate amount of time it took Crono to sign or write his response, she was perhaps the only one in town with the patience to do so. Even more surprising, perhaps, was Crono's patience in doing so. Although his fingers only moved so fast, his thought was instantaneous. He rarely was patient enough with himself to even exchange pleasantries with most people - but with Lucca, they both willingly waited through the extended silences in which Crono explicated himself. Perhaps it was her own ostracization that made her seek him out - maybe it was something else. At any rate, one of the few activities Crono devoted his time to was speaking with Lucca. Most of what else he did had to do with the things he had learned from the Children of Fate. He would go out into the woods every once in a while and practice the disciplines Hardeleza had taught him. Moving quickly and silently, observing what was hidden, and striking fast and strong. It kept him in shape, and it brought home dinner when he was tired of rice and bread - he and his mother were not poor, but they were not much better than it. At any rate, that was how he filled his days. All the way through to his seventeenth year, when Guardia celebrated the beginning of a new era with the grand and much talked about Millennium Fair.
His actions and his part in the events that immediately followed his visit to the fair marked him as a hero to almost everyone who saw him. His role in the destruction of Lavos was, without a doubt, a pivot point of human history. All of his companions in the struggle considered him an altruist of heroic proportions. His life was a beautiful, come-from-behind sob story fit for an opera or a play. Lucca had come to see him in the hospital every day, and Nadia nearly that often, and both had assured him that he was the most wonderful person they had ever met. And perhaps that was what drove into the bar where he had gone upon his release, where he sat on a barstool and had quickly run up a significant tab. He considered the tall glass in front of him, a triple-something that marked his umpteenth stiff drink in the past hour. Am I fated, he wondered, to drink this in one gulp, or two? After gazing into it for another moment, he tossed more than half of it back in one swig, slamming the other something- and-a-half back onto the bar. Two, he thought to himself, despondently, and drank the rest.
It was then that a purple haired woman slammed the door open and stepped inside. Most of the men looked up, as women did not usually patronize the establishment, and certainly not this woman. She was certainly attractive, and would have even been beautiful but for the face-distorting glasses she wore. Often bedecked in some newly created contraption or another, she was here instead in very modest clothes, and looked rather angry. Crono did not take his eyes off his drink.
Lucca scanned the dim room for a moment, saw what she was looking for, and quickly stamped over by Crono's stool.
"Crono," she asked, quietly, but filled with anger and concern, "what are you doing here?"
He held up his empty glass.
"Crono, come on. Why didn't you tell us they let you go?"
He shrugged.
She snapped. "God damn it, answer me!"
He waited for a moment, and then made an obscene gesture. He did not look up.
She sagged. "You're drunk."
At, this, he finally looked at her. He looked her straight in the eyes and shook his head, then held his thumb and forefinger apart. No, but I'm getting close.
Lucca sagged like a pierced balloon, and dropped into the seat next to him. "You didn't tell anyone when they let you out. Did you come straight here?"
He nodded.
Lucca was dumbfounded, "For gods' sakes, Crono, why?"
There was a long silence, in which Crono stared introspectively at the bottom of his glass. Then he reached into his pocket for some chalk and, lacking a slate, began to write on the counter.
Go to hell, he printed neatly.
Lucca was silent for a moment, and then suddenly slapped Crono across the face, her face flushed. She stood there for a second, breathing hard, and then her hand flew to her face. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Crono, I wasn't thinking - "
Crono waved her off, writing on the counter again. It's all right. I deserved it.
She took his arm. "Come on. Come home."
Crono sat still for a moment, then pulled his feet under himself, getting ready to stand up. Given another minute, he would have exited the bar with her, would have allowed himself to be put to bed, and the events that followed would have never taken place. But that time was taken away, and a life was taken with it.
At that moment, the tavern door was thrown open with a slam and two royal guards entered, taking up positions on either side of the door. Then the Crown Princess of Guardia, Nadia to some, Marle to others, stepped through the door, Royal Guards before and after her. Her expression was angry, and her step hurried. She marched up to Crono, and, without preamble, began to berate him.
"What were you thinking? That we didn't deserve to know you'd be released? That it was too much effort for a commoner like yourself to inform such unimportant personages as myself?"
She was very upset, Lucca knew. Usually she resented being treated differently because of her status as princess. For her to be rubbing it in his face like that meant that she was beyond caring, and that meant she was likely to do something they would all regret later. "Marle, please-" she began.
"Shut up!" she nearly shrieked. "He didn't tell you either! He nearly gets killed while in the hospital, but doesn't even bother to tell anyone, and then just leaves, without so much as a thank you for everything we've done for him, and that's just fine and dandy with you?" When she said we, Lucca knew, she really meant herself, and the time with the royal surgeon that Nadia had insisted Crono spend.
But now Nadia had gone back to addressing Crono. "I don't suppose it occurred to you that maybe we were all worried to death about you, about how you were, that we were waiting for a word from you?"
Lucca knew that what Nadia wanted was an apology, maybe some groveling. What Nadia wanted was for Crono to apologize for making her feel foolish about not knowing where he was. Lucca knew that Crono was not going to apologize, and was in no condition to do so even if he was so inclined. Crono had always been a belligerent drunk. "Marle," she began again, "Let's just go home, we can sort it out in the morning. It's late, we're all tired. It's been a long week."
But Nadia was not to be placated. "You're telling me that? What do you think I've been doing this last week, having my dresses fitted?" She turned to Crono. "What do you think, Crono? Should I just not bother with you? Am I not good enough for you?"
Crono turned his back on her.
Nadia turned beet red. The royal guard grabbed Crono's shoulder and pulled. "Do not turn your back on the princess, commoner!" He commanded.
Crono turned around.
In the fleeting instant in which Lucca saw his face, she recognized the look he had. The slightly closed eyes, the flat line of his mouth, the muscles standing out in his neck.
It was his killing face.
The next few seconds were a blur, and only because she had spent the last weeks fighting by his side did she realize what happened. Crono spun on his heel and slammed the heel of his hand into the face of the guard that had grabbed his arm, knocking him backwards. With his other hand he had drawn the dagger from his belt and thrust it into the belly of the second guard. He pulled the dagger out of the man's belly, and as the man folded over, he slammed it into the side of the man's neck. He then released the dagger and grabbed the hilt of the sheathed sword the now-dead guard wore. Putting his foot on the man's shoulder, he shoved the still-standing corpse into the other guard whose jaw he had broken, pulling the sword out with the same motion. The whole process took less than a second.
While the two guards at the door were still drawing their blades, Crono had swung at the injured guard and opened his belly before kicking him in the knee and dropping him to the floor, where he would stay. The two at the door started towards him, cautiously, coming around the table that separated them from him from both sides. Crono sidled left and engaged the first guard while the other was still coming around. The Royal Guards were skilled enough that Crono would not have been able to outfight him in the second or two that it would take the other to reach them. However, Crono didn't need to. He slashed at the guard, and easily parried blow. His right hand wielding his sword, he raised his left hand and, using the art that Spekkio had taught him, blasted the guard's face with light.
The attack set his hair and eyebrows on fire, and reduced his face to a smoldering briquette. The man dropped to the floor. Crono, not waiting to see him hit, twirled around with a spin kick that connected with the approaching final guard's knee, which made a strange cracking noise and bent sideways. The man did not scream, but also did not have the leverage to parry Crono's blow while balancing on one leg. He stumbled and fell backward, and Crono slammed the sword through his chest, pinning him to the floor.
The entire fight lasted less than seven seconds.
The silence that followed was broken by Nadia's shrill scream. Lucca simply stared wide-eyed at Crono, not able to accept what her eyes had just told her. Crono slowly rose from his crouch over the impaled man, and turned to face the two women. The small, straight line of his mouth had been replaced with the spectral smile of a predator. He began pacing towards them. Nadia scrabbled backwards, tripped over the corpse of one of her guards, and pushed herself back on the floor until she hit the bar. Lucca stood her ground.
Crono kept walking forward until he stood over Nadia, his face frightening and terrible. Then he blinked and shook his head. When he opened his eyes, the hate that had been reflected in them had been replaced with a shock and horror, as if waking from a nightmare. He extended his had to Nadia, about to help her up. It was then that Nadia pulled the small stiletto dagger out from her sash and slashed at him, trying to force him back. The edge cut into the palm of his hand. Then instincts took over, and, before Lucca's horrified eyes, Crono wrested the dagger from Nadia's grip. Before anyone could move to stop him, he had swept the blade across Nadia's exposed throat. Her eyes locked onto his for a timeless instant, then she gurgled and was still.
Crono was frozen in place for a moment, and then stood. The dagger fell from his shaking hand. He looked at Nadia. His eyes cast about the room for, filled with desperation, looking for a reassurance, a moment of hope, a wakening from this horrible dream. Finally his eyes locked onto Lucca's, where found nothing that he was looking for. There was only pity behind those eyes. Then he turned and fled the tavern, running into the night with tears on his cheeks.
Lucca watched him running into the darkness, then looked down at the face of her friend, bathed in firelight. In her mind, a decision was made. Then, wordlessly, Lucca left her friend by the fire and ran out into the night.
Religion had been fading for four hundred years, since the dark ages, but it was still not unheard of to see pilgrims in the world, and Guardia was a common port of call as a midpoint. However, this particular group of monks was not made up of the fat, well-dressed men Crono had come to expect. Rather, they were lean, and rather poor, judging from their garments and the gear they carried. It was clearly well cared for, but heavily worn, and handmade. So Crono, having nothing else to do, simply watched them. It was their reaction to him, though, that changed him.
They didn't speak. Not to say that they never spoke, but they never chatted. They never spoke without purpose. When they noticed Crono following them in his cumbersome, shuffling steps, they didn't do anything. They did not studiously ignore him as most did, nor did they gape at him, or try to get him to speak. All day, he trailed along behind them, following them around town and to their encampment in the woods. And there they surprised him again. Without saying a word to him, they set out another cot. Although certainly suspicious, at that point he was so devoid of hope that he did not really care. And so he slept in that cot, and had breakfast with them in the morning.
That was the beginning of his time with the Children of Fate. He ate with them, traveled with them, and learned from them. He never visited his mother - what would she have been able to understand? Instead, he lived with the Children. They were martial men, and many of them masters of their art. There was a painter, a theologian, a farmer, a carpenter, a smith, and even a sculptor. However, the two that he spent the most time with were Hardeleza and Tuggle. Tuggle had been a politician, and was the nominal leader of the group. Tuggle's age was indeterminate, but his eyes always twinkled, and his knowledge of the human mind and its workings was astounding, and from him Crono learned to see through what people said and what they did - right down to what they meant. It was Tuggle who taught him how to see people, and how he could speak to them without speaking, and understand thought with a clarity that surpassed a normal man's consideration. Tuggle taught him to control his mind and his thoughts, his emotions and his wants. But it was Hardeleza who taught him to control his own body. Hardeleza had been a monk much longer than the rest of them, although he had previously belonged to a monastery in the east. Hardeleza was a master of the martial arts, a god of combat and true master of his flesh. It was the months he spent with Hardeleza in which he learned to overcome his own sluggish form, to transcend the form and achieve a unity of spirit. He regained his hearing through pure force of will. He did away with the clenching of his arm and the uselessness of his leg, walking about like a normal person, forcing his limbs to obey his commands. At first, of course, he could only do it for a short while. But eventually he disciplined himself to keep himself erect and able at all times. Hardeleza helped him overcome his vision by simply blindfolding him for a month. Forced to survive without his eyes, when he finally got them back they were an aid, not a burden.
Finally, after a year of traveling with the Children of Fate, he bid goodbye to his friends and returned home. He arrived at his mother's home as a fifteen-year-old warrior, wearing the clothes of a wanderer, a blood- red bandana and trail-worn boots with heavy buckles, and bearing a wooden sword, given to him as a parting gift by Hardeleza. His mother asked him what had happened, of course, but he could not tell her. He had learned to read and write, but to do so was torturous, especially writing. To explain to his mother what had happened would have taken volumes - and a hundred years. He always carried a small slate on which he could write a sentence or two, but he did not use it very often. His return precipitated some amount of gossip in the village - how the poor, retarded boy that had disappeared a year ago had finally returned, cured of all his ills save his muteness. However, the people had a short memory, and lost interest rather quickly when he did not reveal himself to be a long-lost heir of some throne, or a new hero, or some such other foolishness. His mother, out of the maternal love that all mothers have, took her son back with an embrace, and doted on him. Crono, although now able-bodied, was still not very sociable, and only one other person spoke to him on a regular basis- Lucca, the inventor's daughter. After his return, Lucca started having full-blown conversations with him - willing to wait the inordinate amount of time it took Crono to sign or write his response, she was perhaps the only one in town with the patience to do so. Even more surprising, perhaps, was Crono's patience in doing so. Although his fingers only moved so fast, his thought was instantaneous. He rarely was patient enough with himself to even exchange pleasantries with most people - but with Lucca, they both willingly waited through the extended silences in which Crono explicated himself. Perhaps it was her own ostracization that made her seek him out - maybe it was something else. At any rate, one of the few activities Crono devoted his time to was speaking with Lucca. Most of what else he did had to do with the things he had learned from the Children of Fate. He would go out into the woods every once in a while and practice the disciplines Hardeleza had taught him. Moving quickly and silently, observing what was hidden, and striking fast and strong. It kept him in shape, and it brought home dinner when he was tired of rice and bread - he and his mother were not poor, but they were not much better than it. At any rate, that was how he filled his days. All the way through to his seventeenth year, when Guardia celebrated the beginning of a new era with the grand and much talked about Millennium Fair.
His actions and his part in the events that immediately followed his visit to the fair marked him as a hero to almost everyone who saw him. His role in the destruction of Lavos was, without a doubt, a pivot point of human history. All of his companions in the struggle considered him an altruist of heroic proportions. His life was a beautiful, come-from-behind sob story fit for an opera or a play. Lucca had come to see him in the hospital every day, and Nadia nearly that often, and both had assured him that he was the most wonderful person they had ever met. And perhaps that was what drove into the bar where he had gone upon his release, where he sat on a barstool and had quickly run up a significant tab. He considered the tall glass in front of him, a triple-something that marked his umpteenth stiff drink in the past hour. Am I fated, he wondered, to drink this in one gulp, or two? After gazing into it for another moment, he tossed more than half of it back in one swig, slamming the other something- and-a-half back onto the bar. Two, he thought to himself, despondently, and drank the rest.
It was then that a purple haired woman slammed the door open and stepped inside. Most of the men looked up, as women did not usually patronize the establishment, and certainly not this woman. She was certainly attractive, and would have even been beautiful but for the face-distorting glasses she wore. Often bedecked in some newly created contraption or another, she was here instead in very modest clothes, and looked rather angry. Crono did not take his eyes off his drink.
Lucca scanned the dim room for a moment, saw what she was looking for, and quickly stamped over by Crono's stool.
"Crono," she asked, quietly, but filled with anger and concern, "what are you doing here?"
He held up his empty glass.
"Crono, come on. Why didn't you tell us they let you go?"
He shrugged.
She snapped. "God damn it, answer me!"
He waited for a moment, and then made an obscene gesture. He did not look up.
She sagged. "You're drunk."
At, this, he finally looked at her. He looked her straight in the eyes and shook his head, then held his thumb and forefinger apart. No, but I'm getting close.
Lucca sagged like a pierced balloon, and dropped into the seat next to him. "You didn't tell anyone when they let you out. Did you come straight here?"
He nodded.
Lucca was dumbfounded, "For gods' sakes, Crono, why?"
There was a long silence, in which Crono stared introspectively at the bottom of his glass. Then he reached into his pocket for some chalk and, lacking a slate, began to write on the counter.
Go to hell, he printed neatly.
Lucca was silent for a moment, and then suddenly slapped Crono across the face, her face flushed. She stood there for a second, breathing hard, and then her hand flew to her face. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry, Crono, I wasn't thinking - "
Crono waved her off, writing on the counter again. It's all right. I deserved it.
She took his arm. "Come on. Come home."
Crono sat still for a moment, then pulled his feet under himself, getting ready to stand up. Given another minute, he would have exited the bar with her, would have allowed himself to be put to bed, and the events that followed would have never taken place. But that time was taken away, and a life was taken with it.
At that moment, the tavern door was thrown open with a slam and two royal guards entered, taking up positions on either side of the door. Then the Crown Princess of Guardia, Nadia to some, Marle to others, stepped through the door, Royal Guards before and after her. Her expression was angry, and her step hurried. She marched up to Crono, and, without preamble, began to berate him.
"What were you thinking? That we didn't deserve to know you'd be released? That it was too much effort for a commoner like yourself to inform such unimportant personages as myself?"
She was very upset, Lucca knew. Usually she resented being treated differently because of her status as princess. For her to be rubbing it in his face like that meant that she was beyond caring, and that meant she was likely to do something they would all regret later. "Marle, please-" she began.
"Shut up!" she nearly shrieked. "He didn't tell you either! He nearly gets killed while in the hospital, but doesn't even bother to tell anyone, and then just leaves, without so much as a thank you for everything we've done for him, and that's just fine and dandy with you?" When she said we, Lucca knew, she really meant herself, and the time with the royal surgeon that Nadia had insisted Crono spend.
But now Nadia had gone back to addressing Crono. "I don't suppose it occurred to you that maybe we were all worried to death about you, about how you were, that we were waiting for a word from you?"
Lucca knew that what Nadia wanted was an apology, maybe some groveling. What Nadia wanted was for Crono to apologize for making her feel foolish about not knowing where he was. Lucca knew that Crono was not going to apologize, and was in no condition to do so even if he was so inclined. Crono had always been a belligerent drunk. "Marle," she began again, "Let's just go home, we can sort it out in the morning. It's late, we're all tired. It's been a long week."
But Nadia was not to be placated. "You're telling me that? What do you think I've been doing this last week, having my dresses fitted?" She turned to Crono. "What do you think, Crono? Should I just not bother with you? Am I not good enough for you?"
Crono turned his back on her.
Nadia turned beet red. The royal guard grabbed Crono's shoulder and pulled. "Do not turn your back on the princess, commoner!" He commanded.
Crono turned around.
In the fleeting instant in which Lucca saw his face, she recognized the look he had. The slightly closed eyes, the flat line of his mouth, the muscles standing out in his neck.
It was his killing face.
The next few seconds were a blur, and only because she had spent the last weeks fighting by his side did she realize what happened. Crono spun on his heel and slammed the heel of his hand into the face of the guard that had grabbed his arm, knocking him backwards. With his other hand he had drawn the dagger from his belt and thrust it into the belly of the second guard. He pulled the dagger out of the man's belly, and as the man folded over, he slammed it into the side of the man's neck. He then released the dagger and grabbed the hilt of the sheathed sword the now-dead guard wore. Putting his foot on the man's shoulder, he shoved the still-standing corpse into the other guard whose jaw he had broken, pulling the sword out with the same motion. The whole process took less than a second.
While the two guards at the door were still drawing their blades, Crono had swung at the injured guard and opened his belly before kicking him in the knee and dropping him to the floor, where he would stay. The two at the door started towards him, cautiously, coming around the table that separated them from him from both sides. Crono sidled left and engaged the first guard while the other was still coming around. The Royal Guards were skilled enough that Crono would not have been able to outfight him in the second or two that it would take the other to reach them. However, Crono didn't need to. He slashed at the guard, and easily parried blow. His right hand wielding his sword, he raised his left hand and, using the art that Spekkio had taught him, blasted the guard's face with light.
The attack set his hair and eyebrows on fire, and reduced his face to a smoldering briquette. The man dropped to the floor. Crono, not waiting to see him hit, twirled around with a spin kick that connected with the approaching final guard's knee, which made a strange cracking noise and bent sideways. The man did not scream, but also did not have the leverage to parry Crono's blow while balancing on one leg. He stumbled and fell backward, and Crono slammed the sword through his chest, pinning him to the floor.
The entire fight lasted less than seven seconds.
The silence that followed was broken by Nadia's shrill scream. Lucca simply stared wide-eyed at Crono, not able to accept what her eyes had just told her. Crono slowly rose from his crouch over the impaled man, and turned to face the two women. The small, straight line of his mouth had been replaced with the spectral smile of a predator. He began pacing towards them. Nadia scrabbled backwards, tripped over the corpse of one of her guards, and pushed herself back on the floor until she hit the bar. Lucca stood her ground.
Crono kept walking forward until he stood over Nadia, his face frightening and terrible. Then he blinked and shook his head. When he opened his eyes, the hate that had been reflected in them had been replaced with a shock and horror, as if waking from a nightmare. He extended his had to Nadia, about to help her up. It was then that Nadia pulled the small stiletto dagger out from her sash and slashed at him, trying to force him back. The edge cut into the palm of his hand. Then instincts took over, and, before Lucca's horrified eyes, Crono wrested the dagger from Nadia's grip. Before anyone could move to stop him, he had swept the blade across Nadia's exposed throat. Her eyes locked onto his for a timeless instant, then she gurgled and was still.
Crono was frozen in place for a moment, and then stood. The dagger fell from his shaking hand. He looked at Nadia. His eyes cast about the room for, filled with desperation, looking for a reassurance, a moment of hope, a wakening from this horrible dream. Finally his eyes locked onto Lucca's, where found nothing that he was looking for. There was only pity behind those eyes. Then he turned and fled the tavern, running into the night with tears on his cheeks.
Lucca watched him running into the darkness, then looked down at the face of her friend, bathed in firelight. In her mind, a decision was made. Then, wordlessly, Lucca left her friend by the fire and ran out into the night.
