::Onwards::

Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not own the universe.

A/N: Sweet war scenes...

*

Daleria winced as she felt her right shoulder blade scored against the back of an opposing blade, but swiftly turned her dagger around and stabbed the attacker in the back of the neck as she turned around. By then, at least seven series of flares had been thrown, and still the fighting went on. Both sides were tiring, but none wanted defeat, and so the foxes and hares both fought endlessly onward. The captain was stabbing, slashing and turning in a mad attempt at getting to her target: Seppak the Black. His sinister form could be seen in the light, cutting down hares as swiftly as she cut down foxes. She could hear loud battle roars from every angle, around her, friends and foes alike were pulled down around her. She saw her secondary target, the hostages. Sheathing her two blades while loosing her sabre in it's sheath, she sliced a fox's throat before coming unto the clearing where the five were. Glamoren fought his way into the clearing as well. Consellariel had not said anything about rescuing the hostages, but she had not said not to either. Thus, Glamoren and Daleria had concocted their own plan of their own to execute, deciding to bring matters into their own paws. Daleria had been incredibly angry that Consellariel had not taken time to acknowledge the five, which only added to her current dislike towards the badger lady. Glamoren made his way over to her, stabbing and booting away foxes as he went.

'Wot ho Dale! Get them up now!'

Sheathing her sabre while Glamoren covered her back, Daleria grinned at the stunned hostages, who were looking at them as if they were ghosts.

'Stay still for a bit now!'

Daleria unsheathed her right dagger, and in five swift strokes, shed them all of their bounds. Glamoren threw her five of his longer daggers of which he had brought along with him for the trip. Glamoren threw two of the longer ones to her, and Daleria gave them to the captain, Tehora. The captain stood shakily on her footpaws, but regained her balance as she grew accustomed with her weight once again after the few days of stationary captivity. Daleria gave her precise instructions.

'I'm putting you in charge of these four now, be sure to cover each other. I'm counting on you.'

Tehora nodded resolutely, acknowledging her task, and Glamoren threw her another four daggers in swift concession. Daleria handed them out.

'Stick as close together as you can, some of you should not be fighting in this kind of a situation. Who here has the most knowledge of the longer blades?'

Silecy raised her paw nervously. Daleria motioned to her with a swift nod.

'Very good. Protect the more seriously injured ones, sergeant. The foxes are more dangerous than you think them to be. Keep them in a tight circle. Don't let any of them get cornered. Good luck.'

Rising out of immediate instinct, the captain turned her body just in time as to slit a on coming attacker's throat before throwing herself deeper into the rage of fighting beasts, never looking back. She left a bleeding path of dead foxes behind her as she went onwards towards Seppak's ominous form in the range of clashing steel. Tehora got them up, and Glamoren gave them last cover before dispatching away and slaying another few foxes as he went. The odds were against Seppak's horde now, and the battle was nearly to an end. Except that Seppak was still alive. The only way to kill a snake was to take its head. And Daleria was intent on doing just that. Withdrawing both daggers, she used both to stab the gut of one before rising in a quick spin off, taking down the neck of another, then stabbing down through the shoulder blades of another while kicking her footpaws off the ground. Using the blades in the fox's shoulder as a support, she rammed her strong footpaws into the skull of another before rolling off to the left and loosening the blades enough to exert force, then ripped them out as she felt firm ground, both daggers slicing in a downward diagonal left, killing an approaching fox before he even had time to come unto her. Daleria felt confidence and speed grow within her, as she pushed nearer and nearer to her target. Suddenly grabbing the two paws of a fox, she slid underneath the stunned attacker's legs, blades parallel to the fox's arm as she pulled him under, before releasing her left, stabbing him in the chest, then using the momentum to swing across and up slightly in a windmill effect, embedding into the back of the neck of another. Once again using the right blade as support, she ruthlessly stabbed in deeper before wrenching out her left, and used all her strength to fling herself upwards while digging her right blade in deeper. Gritting her teeth in pure determination, the captain felt the blade come slightly loose in her paw as she flew free of the force, swinging herself up and landing her blade directly into the front face of the throat of another fox that foolishly came after her. The move took less than a second, as complex as it was to execute, Daleria was having a freedom to use moves she never would have dared to use during sessions where hurting somebeast was a major risk. Using the two foxes as support, she threw her footpaws upwards, kicked an oncoming fox full in the face before ripping herself free, flying slightly forward and crossing the two daggers diagonally, taking down another two before landing on her feet as flares erupted above her in a chaotic spree. She captain grinned and moved in further. Seppak was only four foxes away. Catching her footpaw on one, she tripped him up, unsheathed her sabre in her right paw after sheathing her dagger, finished him off with a swipe along the throat, stabbed another in the stomach before ducking an attack that was meant for her head and stabbing forward again. The fourth one fell with a throwing dagger in the middle of the eyes. She ground to a stop as she reached Seppak, just as the black fox did so as a hare fell to his cutlass. Daleria sheathed her left dagger, leaving herself with only her sabre.

'Seppak. It has been long.'

The fox smiled as he faced her. He eyed her laughingly.

'Daleria Windbind. Indeed, your doom has been delayed far too long for me to feel comfortable.'

'As has yours.'

'Truly? Then why not finish it now?'

'If it pleases you.'

Fighting around them ground to an immediate halt as the two leapt at each other. Hares and foxes alike stood still in limbo to see the play that would define the outcome of that war of which they played in. Daleria sparred against him as he tried to get his blade over her head, but struck it back down from its crescendo before using the momentum to arc upwards and struck against the rising cutlass. There was more fury in her play than she had ever dared add before, she brought it to heights that she never would have dared to create, it was a tidal wave of physical movements and emotional rebukes. She stabbed forward again and again, relentless even as Seppak's blade scored her right shoulder. Her sabre sliced down the right of his face in return, as she snapped forward in a rapid double windmill turn, scoring a hit once on his left shoulder but was blocked forward in the second. Seppak struck forward again, pushing relentlessly against her force, but she parried back doubly as hard. She was spurred on by hate, by the tears, by the nightmares, by all her life that she had. Seppak started to taunt her in that moment, trying to wind her away, knowing that she more than equalled him in his art as her rage fuelled her to create moves that defied all possibility. He tried to draw her away.

'Do you remember her expression, Daleria? The look as I struck her down and she breathed her last?'

Daleria's mind was suddenly flooded with images from that night of the fall of Clandestine. But she forced herself to cast them aside, knowing the fox's intention full well. Growling, she shoved forward, sliding forward as she side stepped away from Seppak's flying blade, doing a double cross which repelled him away. Nobeast seemed to win nor lose in the desperate dance that the two blades incorporated with each other, merging into a deadly flying array to steel, as sabre clashed against cutlass in a classical symphony of the ringing of steel, whispers of air that was sliced into shreds as the two blades flew, a crescendo of flashing glints and reflective flashes, binding into each other as the fox and the hare did a mad race, a insane game of hard steel. The spinning turns, the straightforward clashes, the sideways stabs, folding over each other in an ocean of moves, running like silk over each other, like waves crashing over one another. An oceanic orchestra of epic proportions that was played out. Daleria decided the only way to repel him was through his own trade. She responded as she did a figure of eight and a spinning turn, hissing into the Black One's face.

'And do you remember what it was like? The emotion on your sister's face as the arrow took her? The only reason being she could not eliminate me? Do you remember her scream as she fell? I do. So clearly. It was embedded in my memory. The thing that grasped at my heart. One of my tormentors torn down. The indefinable joy.'

The fox faltered for a slight moment, but returned and growled and tried to parry against her, but Daleria knew that he had slipped. She stabbed forward, using the same move that Rapieratce had used against her, the effect of another figure of eight, a spinning parry, a turning jump and a curving arc. It pulled, pushed, thrust and drew back all at the same time, defying the laws of the mind, bending the imagination as it was executed, grace and coarse movements intertwining in a vein of fluid motions, turning, twisting, bending, curving, melding into a infinite range of movement, slashing down yet parrying up, a mirror image from every side, binding the fox in the centre of a move that was indefinable and striking. It wound around him, twisting into a web of agony and hate, anger and regret, revenge and perusal, as the blade flew around him. Seppak could not even begin to comprehend what had happened when his blade flew out of his reach, curving away as a multitude of sabre strokes flashed madly around him, twisting madly, a silver web of emotion that wound around him, cutting, slashing, binding him. It was no longer physical. Daleria tortured him with her emotions right then, in that reflexive move, sowing him into what he had reaped, an evil unbearable. The only thing Seppak noticed was that he had stopped moving before Daleria flashed up in his face. The hare glared at him as the fire from her strokes suddenly ground onto him and rendered him useless. The fox gasped as suddenly, one of her long curved daggers pierced his heart, stabbing inwards as she pushed him backwards to the point where she leaned over him and whispered venomously into his ear.

'The dance of the swords is a dangerous and underground game that takes bravery and skill, slyness and cunning. It takes movement, and co-ordination. It takes heart. It that is all the emotion that you can muster. All your feelings, all your fears, all your hopes, all your dreams, all your aspirations, all your secrets, all your darkness and all your light. It is created only through you heart and your mind, only yourself that can control yet create it. Only your mindset, only your need that brings the skill forward, unteachable, unrenewable. It stretches the limits time and again, as it fuels your heart, your mind, your blood, your very essence. It takes your heart and rips your soul. It is undeniable. It cannot be comprehended by mere words. It strikes before you know it, and leaves before you acknowledge it. It damages and scars without definition. It portrays what you want it to portray. It takes everything. It conquers you for that moment. You will now and never understand what you and what you were did to my life. It ruined me, time and again. I can only show you what remains, not how it happened. That is beyond my skill to implement. You will always be of the black heart. The only thing you will receive is the guilt, the sorrow, and the evil. You, and whatever that you have done before me, will live only to be a nightmare. But to you, it will live. It will kill you. It ends now.'

Daleria ripped out the dagger, then used all the strength that she possessed, and carved her sabre through his neck. Seppak the Black breathed his last.