RAGNAROK ONLINE Dark Symphony
a series of ragnarok online short stories by Zanyuki
author of "Virtual-On Sword-Dance Concerto"
Aoshi the Knife-handed
Episode Three
THE SILHOUETTE OF BALANCE
"You two are the only ones I will trust with my life," Aoshi, the Knife-handed, told the other two with him. "We can't have the others do this. It pains me to bring you two into trouble, but..."
The ponytailed Sniper, the failing light giving his hair a dark shade of violet, smiled and put a hand on the Assassin Cross's shoulder. His emerald eyes took in the the Clock Tower of the City of Al de Baran right behind the fastest of their triad, and then rested on Aoshi's own gray ones. "I have been with you for so long, Aoshi. I will never forsake my dearest friend."
The silver-haired Lord Knight behind the Sniper, his hair now slightly shorter and falling gracefully on his shoulders, nodded, one ear of his sporting a large dangling earring. Aoshi thought of him as a little brother, eventhough Zanyuki was one of the newest additions to the guild, filling the space left behind by someone who had left them for a reason still unknown. And he had a peculiar choice of clothing that isn't with a Lord Knight's standards. "I will go with you anywhere, Aoshi, just tell me where."
He patted their shoulders and smiled back. "Thanks, Dilan, Yuki. I know I can depend on you."
"Besides," the Sniper, Dilan, added, "I don't really like people who abduct children." He looked up at the very top of the shining tower, gripping the handle of his Rudra Bow tightly. The white-enameled bow was, as legends say, made from the bones of an archer god, and thus bears Holy power. In addition, it never misses an undead target, and would spell doom for the powers of darkness. "I guess this is where it ends."
"I hope so," Aoshi said. "I have to get my daughter back."
"We will get her back," Yuki said. "Even if I should stake my life on it. I cannot stand by and let this happen to a child, much less a child of a Gai." His hand rested on the pommel of his sword, the Masamune blade that Aoshi himself had given--one of the most prized possessions of the Lightning Triad--after his Muramasa was destroyed during his battle against a powerful Champion, two weeks ago. The Masamune was enchanted with speed and enhances its wielder's reflexes, though its thin, long blade, though flexible and unbreakable, couldn't be effectively used for parrying.
Aoshi nodded and turned to the Clock Tower. "Let's go, then. I'm not one to keep them waiting."
The Assassin Cross shook his head to clear them as he struggled to get up, his bright blue scarf that veiled his lower face blowing against the wind of the High Wizard, the strips of cloth flowing far behind him. His two companions had been knocked unconscious, even with their skill; Dilan paralyzed but trying to reach his Rudra Bow, Yuki hit on the head with flying stones from the Wizard's destructive power, his four-foot single-edged Masamune lying on the floor. Now he was the only one left. He looked up at his daughter sleeping inside a protective bubble a hundred feet or more above, suspended with nothing but air, and he gasped as he forced his knees to support his weight.
"Aoshi, why? Why still fight me, eventhough you know you will die?"
He panted. "Give me... my daughter back."
There was an insane cackle from the black-robed High Wizard, his unruly wiry hair seemingly burned by the elemental powers he had been using. "Haven't you been listening, Knife-handed? Your daughter--Raine--will be an instrument, a glorious experiment that I shall use to create the most powerful artifact in this world...!"
"You're insane..." He straightened up with much effort. "The Sorcerer's Stone cannot be created with human hands, Breannan. Your theories... are..."
"What do you know, Knife-handed?!" Another insane laughter. "I've devoted my entire life researching this area of knowledge, and I alone have the authority and intellectual prowess to conceive this endeavor...! Now... finally... the product of my hard, painstaking work is about to be fulfilled! No one can stand in my way!" The wizard, floating a few feet below the protective bubble that held Aoshi's daughter, pointed a finger at him. "If I have to kill ten, hundreds, thousands of humans to create the Stone, then so be it! I--WILL--BE--AS--THE--GODS!!!"
Aoshi winced as the madman's roaring laughter echoed throughout the dimension they were in. He was standing atop a floating, circular piece of floor, about a mile in diameter, walls of light like an aurora enclosing them in. There was no way out but to kill this Wizard, Breannan, once the second most powerful member of the Gai, nearly approaching the Stormcaller Aoikaze in power and skill, even far more powerful than Dai with his Mysteltainn. He was one of those who had left their place on their guild for their own mysterious reasons, but Aoshi knew only now what Breannan's reason was for leaving the Gai and his sworn oaths. It was the Sorcerer's Stone, and if what he feared was true, then it may already be on its way to completion--by using his daughter's blood to condense the artifact itself.
Breannan was once an Alchemist, a talented, gifted intellectual, though a bit arrogant and greedy. His potions and medicinal cures were said to be unrivalled, and he was one of those few who could summon not only Floras and Marine Spheres, but other kinds of monsters as well, including human-looking puppets called Homunculi. When Aoikaze found him, he had already chosen the profession of a High Wizard, saying that his theory must make use not only of science but of magic, and accepted the Stormcaller's invitation thinking that it would further his research.
But as Aoshi had seen it, Breannan was disappointed. A natural investigator with curiosity unsurpassed by any man he had ever seen, he was frustrated with the calling of the Gai as an Ark, or a mercenary group that maintained the peace in the world. Arks, of which there are three, accepts missions pertaining to the safety and security of people and the loose alliance of the 'states' that survived the cataclysmic war of the Aesir against the Vanir and their allied Dark Elves, of which the battleground was Midgard. The human kingdom of Rune-Midgard was devastated and broken to its fundamental provinces, which maintained a degree of autonomy of their own that they began to call themselves states by their own right. When he was an assassin, he was actually given a mission to terminate the ruling Regent of Payon, who was the first to secede from Rune-Midgard's monarchy at Prontera, but the murder only sparked a bloody revolution that left Rune-Midgard powerless, thus making it rely on Arks for peace and order afterwards.
Breannan went with the missions enthusiastically, at first, but his interest naturally lagged in the succeeding ones. He tried to stay at Glast Heim's library once if not for Aoikaze's stern command to go back to their headquarters. Since then, friction developed between them, and when they were so sure it would go to a showdown between the two Breannan suddenly left without any word of his whereabouts. Back then, Aoshi didn't understand what would make him leave, but now he saw. He had some background reading on the subject of the Sorcerer's Stone, and at the very least, its power was impressive. It was the power of creation, pure and unadulterated, out of absolutely nothing, nothing at all. And not only matter, but power beyond human understanding.
Now, the only thing left for its perfection is his daughter's blood. He couldn't allow that.
"If you shall offer your own blood for that of your daughter," Breannan said, "then die, Aoshi!"
Snaking bolts of lightning spurted out from the wizard's outstretched hand, traveling downward at double its ordinary speed straight to his position. Aoshi tsked, baring his teeth, and jumped upwards, his two hands gripping the hilts of his two weapons in preparation for a counter-attack. But the wizard was too far high, and he couldn't reach him. The lightning bolts, like whips, lashed out on his earlier position, making odd-shaped swaths on the ground where they struck, but at least they dissolved after they hit and didn't come for him right after. But if he couldn't attack, all he could do was to evade until his energy reserves could run out.
"Get down here, you coward," he called out, landing gracefully without even the slightest sound of his footfall. "I will make short work of you."
"Is that so?" A cackle. "Then let's see what you've got, Knife-handed." Slowly the wizard levitated downwards, grinning deviously, the wind battering against his black robes that covered his entire body. Aoshi felt his veil on his face. He'd kill this one remorselessly, and to hell if he was a Gai. Or had been. He didn't care as long as his daughter Raine was alive.
Finally the High Wizard touched down on the ground, the hem of his robes settling on his feet, concealing his entire body. "Attack me now, Knife-handed. What are you waiting for?"
He had barely finished the last word when Aoshi was already right beside him, descending down on him from a leaping attack. Aoshi was too fast, that most consider it teleportation when it was just his full sprinting speed; he was a blur that coalesced into a form of a black-clad Assassin Cross, the daito swinging down with his dagger hand swept behind him, ready for a quick follow-up attack.
The wizard sneered and held out a single hand within the second that the daito, Shadowsbane, was racing for his head. A crystalline sword instantly appeared in his hands, having a wide, flaring blade, a fanged cross-guard, and a chain attached to the pommel. It was as clear and transparent as glass, and looked just as fragile, but--
CLASH--!!
The daito struck against the crystalline sword, showering both combatants with sparks and intense blue light. Breannan wore a dismissive smile, as he supported Aoshi's entire weight with a single arm.
No! Aoshi thought as he bounded away again. His Shadowsbane was resonating, vibrating with obvious power. It had touched a malignant blade, he knew, but what was it...? Was it that crystalline sword? He touched down far back, wondering and watching the elegant sword of the High Wizard as Breannan flourished it before him.
"Do you like it, Knife-handed?" He made a booming laugh. "This is Talefing, Aoshi! The second Forbidden Blade!"
The sword immediately took on its real appearance, its blade a wild shade of gleaming violet, its hilt and cross-guards black. Electric-blue currents were running across its length, and its chains wrapped themselves on the wizard's arm like of its own accord. It was emitting a sort of a sickening, purple light, like the shade of an ugly bruise, and it was blinking like the eyes of an inviting woman.
"What... what have you done, Breannan?" he asked in a hoarse whisper. "Are you... that hungry for power?"
"Hunger?" he repeated. "What hunger are you talking about? Talefing sought me, Knife-handed. It wanted me! Now--"
"You are mad beyond reason, Breannan!" For the first time Aoshi raised his voice. "Do you know what kind of hellish horror that blade will unleash on the world of men? Have you lost your mind... your very own soul?"
"The soul is nothing but a figment of your imagination," the wizard replied, waving him away. "It doesn't exist, Knife-handed. Do you like to see?"
"I will destroy both you and that blade, Breannan." He crouched, brandishing Shadowsbane in front of him. "I was created entirely to hunt down those weapons of darkness. I will never fail my calling."
"Le'ts test your mithril-forged blade against mine, from the blood of Hel herself!" The wizard's eyes were bulging with maddened amusement as he raised Talefing upwards. "Take this!"
The sword swished down on the air in a vertical slash, and he had about a split-second to react as a cutting wave of air suddenly erupted from the passage of the blade, right at him, plowing through the ground like some inexorable, monstrous anchor dragged through the seafloor. He won't be able to dodge it, he knew, with its speed. He'd have to block it, intercept it with his sword. He raised the blade of the daito, the blade turned away from his, and braced for impact.
The invisible wave terminated on Shadowsbane's upraised blade, and as it cut through dark-wrought energy the spent, wasted winds gusted through and blew against his entire body, almost tipping him off-balance. The second wave was already en route to him, but he knew what he had to do; the blocking of the first gave him enough time to prepare for the next. As the second cut through the ground, exploding rocks and stones, he sprinted diagonally forward, skipping on tiptoe, his eyes and senses alert. The second wave tore through past him, exploding far behind him in a column of dust and stones. The third approached him head-on, tearing the ground and whistling as it sped.
He twirled once, his sword hand extended and cutting through the air visibly, trailing rent wind like a myriad of threads unravelled all at once. His timing was impeccable and exact; as he faced the vertical wave slash his sword swiped in a diagonal motion in front of him. With his forward momentum, and that of his sword, it easily unravelled the wave like a tailor's knife cutting across fabric. The wasted energies washed over him, but he carried through, an arrow piercing through a tornado. His profile was bent down, hurrying forward, his footsteps light yet damaging the ground with cracks and small fountains of disturbed dust, the only thing that announced his presence and his direction. He was very fast, that he flitted in and out of the visible reality the naked eye was used to, and he was almost at the sound barrier, the air thinning in front of him that it looked like, in the moments he was visible, that an aura of compressed, hot air enveloped him, the daito swept back for a lethal sweeping strike, the dagger in front of him.
Breannan was just as fast. He pointed Talefing downwards, then raised his other arm upwards. Red light, swirling about like a whirlwind, quickly materialized around him, an angry, crimson glyph with numerous symbols. "Sightrasher!"
Numerous fireballs sprang out from this whirlwind of red energy, scattering in all directions, their furious, fiery heads seeking out the body of the Assassin Cross like molten boulders flung by an angry giant. As the fireballs went and raced outward from him, Aoshi knew that even his agility and lightning reflexes wouldn't save him from being devoured by the fireballs of Sightrasher, as they were spread out pointing at all points of a circle. With one last look on the sneering Wizard at the center of a fiery whirlwind, he pivoted and used a foot to brake and halt his progress. Three fireballs, their tails made up of smaller beads of fire yet muted by the intense heat of the fireball heads, he quickly struck the ground just in front of his forward foot. The top of the mithril blade easily drove itself into the malleable ground for a few inches, and he readied himself, all his muscles tense, his eyes locked onto the approaching fireballs.
Then it was time. He proceeded to slash upwards with his daito, a motion much like an uppercut as the tip of his blade was gouged down on the ground. Shadowsbane proceeded to rip away a great cloud of stones, the destroyed rocks hurtling upward from the force of the blade's sudden, upward-slashing motion while its tip was still embedded on the floor. The fountain of crumbling earth became a pillar of white dust and stone that blocked the fireballs that instantly collided with the solid mass of upheaval, igniting and exploding a shower of smoldering, chipped fragments of stone, embers, and sparks.
"What!"
But before the column of fiery earth subsided an invisible wind lanced through, creating sporadic jets of dust on the floor as it came ever closer to him. Something struck him on the shoulder, a cut that instantly dripped fresh blood. Breannan winced. Where... what is it...
The wind hurtled through behind him, then turned back all within a split-second. Another struck him on the other shoulder, nicking him only slightly since he was able to cringe. And it passed through again, only to turn back. A blow on his stomach. Then on his back, elbow, right thigh. It seemed as if winds were cutting at him, striking at him all at once and surrounding him, then beating at him with a hit-and-run tactic. The spontaneous ripping of wind on the ground still continued, getting close enough to him for a hit, then cutting across to the other side only to renew the assault. Breannan knew they were footfalls, marks made on the ground by a speeding human so fast his steps fired on the ground rapidly.
"AOSHI!" he bellowed, and turned. The wind was running directly forward of him, or behind him if he hadn't faced his opponent. The Knife-handed had used the dissipating dust cover to initiate a quick Grimtooth, a move named after a well-known dagger that enabled an assassin to score successive attacks on the enemy while not being detected. But Breannan knew it now. A magical target glyph appeared around the figure of the wind sprinting at him full speed, showing him Aoshi's real form. He was at least thankful the distance was in his favor. Aoshi needed at least a split-second to reach him, even if the Knife-handed was that fast, and a split-second was enough.
"Cold Bolt!!"
Jagged shards of ice, razor-sharp and had tips as pointed as swords, instantly materialized above the sprinting form of the Assassin Cross, and then darted down, all converging on him and whistling as they succumbed to the force of gravity. The blade-long shards exploded right on the Aoshi's position and dust and small stones erupted outward, a billowing nimbus of dark upturned dirt blowing all around. Shattered shrapnel of ice jettisoned in all directions, like snowflakes, as the booming rumble of the Cold Bolt spellcasting terminated, gusts of wind spreading that fluttered the High Wizard's black robes. Breannan covered his eyes from the dust, sneering once again, Talefing glowing sick violet beside him. At last. Someone had finally destroyed the meddling Knife-handed, and--
"You're much more a fool than I've believed if you think you could kill me with that," a voice said behind him. A familiar voice. All so familiar... but... but...
He whipped around, shock on his face.
The Assassin Cross smiled grimly. "Quick, ain't I?"
"I WILL KILL YOU!!!" He raised Talefing, the chains clinking softly, the blade vibrating.
Aoshi was just too fast for him. The assassin became a blur and emerged like horizontal lines breaking out to be a figure of a human. The dagger was upturned, about to be stabbed right at him, and he doesn't have any choice. As the long-dagger thrusted for him he positioned his palm downward, right between them. Napalm Vulcan, he thought. Save me!
An explosion bloomed between the two combatants, and before Aoshi could stab at his assailant both of them were thrown aback in opposite directions, flying through the air and fighting for balance. The eruption of dirt came from the area-effect properties of the several telekinetic forces of Napalm Vulcan, and it caused a narrow jet punctuated by sizzling white and blue currents of power. Aoshi landed opposite of High Wizard, about a score of meters from the affected site, Breannan at the same distance. The fountain died down, and both of them regarded each other carefully, half of their faces obscured by the lingering dust, the wind blowing at their garments, pressing them close to their faces and bodies.
"This is past time for frolicking, Knife-handed," Breannan announced in a judge's voice, grave and dry. "It is time to get serious. You cannot stand in my way."
Aoshi nodded and took a deep breath, then relaxed himself, loosening his tense muscles and straightened. His voice was almost a whisper, but it still carried through. "I don't know if I can kill you and take my daughter back, but I will to the best of my abilities. You are powerful, Breannan, but not all things are resolved with power alone. I ask for the last time, release my daughter Raine and I will leave you alone to complete whatever you plan to research."
"I can only complete it with the help of your daughter, Knife-handed." Breannan pointed the forbidden sword at the assassin. "I have been too lenient with you, Aoshi, thinking that you were once my comrade. But not anymore."
"Knife-handed!" a shrill, commanding voice reported behind him.
He spared a moment to incline his head to see who it was. A blonde woman, her hair cut short to her shoulders and having short white kimono that barely reached her knees, stood beside Zanyuki's prone form. She...
"Mai?"
The girl nodded, and produced a dagger with a wave-like blade from her back pouch. "I was about to give this to the idiot over here," she said, glancing at Yuki's unconscious form, "but I think you'll need this most than he ever could."
"That's..." he said breathlessly.
"This is called the Walgwanggum." She flung it at him with a deft flick of her wrist, and he snagged it on the air, wondering at its immaculate blade and the bejeweled hilt. "This is the only weapon that could destroy Breannan's thirst for power. Kill him, Knife-handed."
"But..."
"There is no time," Mai interrupted, and pointed. "Look!"
The High Wizard was gathering his energies, charging for a final attack. An aura of pale yellow, like electric gold, was whirling around his body, and lightning bolts were striking the ground near him. Loose pebbles, flakes off the ground, and some jagged rocks were levitating about his charging figure, rising from the ground only to be pulverized when they reached a certain height. The ground was groaning, Aoshi felt, and numerous faultlines were drawing up from Breannan, some already so messed up that entire slabs of uneven ground were shooting up. He was like boring a crater, Aoshi judged, with himself as the center, and his energies were shooting out of him like searing searchlights, destroying everything it came into contact with.
"Walgwanggum is the spirit of the Moon, Knife-handed," the woman explained. "Once it touches either the blade of Talefing or Breannan's body, it will drain their soul for a moment. In this window, you must execute your hidden attack and finish him off. Do you understand?"
Aoshi nodded once, and dropped his earlier dagger on the ground. He gripped Walgwanggum tightly. This is his only chance. His daughter's life was at stake.
"Breannan is extremely powerful, Knife-handed," Mai said. "If he gains control of the Sorcerer's Stone, all will be lost for you and your kind. You are the only one who could put an end to his ambition." She nodded at him meaningfully. "Aoshi, end it here."
He turned to the High Wizard slowly. He was baffled as to how Zanyuki's maidservant knew these things, or how she had been able to get here when this dimension had been sealed; much less she had known that he was hiding a secret attack reserved for special occasions. Mai was mysterious in some ways, and when he first saw her, when Yuki introduced her as his trusted aide, he had somehow doubted her real identity. But if she could penetrate the seal of the dimension Breannan had wrapped them in, he felt that he could trust her words and her knowledge; bypassing the High Wizard's power was no small deal.
"Thank you, Mai."
"Don't thank me." There was a faint touch of hesitation on her voice. "Go, Knife-handed. May the Mother of Shadows protect and keep you."
"As with you." He nodded.
"AOSHI!" the High Wizard screamed. "Feel the power of my wrath!" Breannan spread his arms wide, palms outward.
"HEAVEN'S... DRIVE...!!"
It was Aoshi's cue. Just as a nova of light exploded from Breannan and a rotating ring of light fringed with incomprehensible glyphs appeared all of a sudden right above the entire battlefield, the Assassin Cross executed a quick, complicated squat, a prebattle stance, and darted forward without any more preamble. The ground moaned, then swelled, and surged, absorbing the entirety of the spellcasting glyph; the earth lurched and produced a myriad of stalagmites thrusting out of the tiled floor. As the platform spontaneously and rapidly gave birth to towering spikes spread out in a random manner, stabbing at the air wherever there was space and shaking the platform to its very foundations, Mai kept a ward around the two disabled Gai, Yuki and Dilan, gnashing her teeth as the earth shattered around her force field but barely keeping it out.
Aoshi still dashed forward, adroitly evading and dodging the numerous protrusions suddenly rearing upwards from the swollen floor. The consternation, the rumbling and the chaos of the spell that finally destroyed the remaining semblance of order enveloped him, but he had a goal, and he could only reach that goal by going forward. Stalagmites jutted out everywhere around him, in front of him, but he mercilessly hacked away. Not that it was a trivial matter. True, Shadowsbane was mithril, several times more powerful and sharper than any steel yet as light as hollowed-out wood, but the projections around him were made of earth and marble, and it wasn't easy to shatter them to bits as he progressed. But he had to save Raine. That gave him strength, propelled him to go forward, granted him the skill to evade and counter-attack. Two spires rose up in front of him, but he cut them down with one slash, and he leaped forward, evading a newer spike thrusting upward that was quickly left behind.
"Do it, Knife-handed," Mai whispered, far behind.
Soon the ground was not only full of spikes, but unstable as well, like it was suffering from an earthquake. Aoshi solved the problem by quickly jumping from spike-tip to spike-tip, touching down for no more than a split-second for optimal balance then taking off just as quickly as he had landed. More came up to block his way, but a cloud of dust and rocks signalled that he was able to come through, and he pressed on. He was like a flash of black darting among the earthen towers, almost being impaled several times but miraculously avoiding certain death.
"My daughter..."
A spike rose up to meet him, but he quickly stepped on its slope, drove Shadowsbane onto it and used it as leverage to clear the hurdle.
"... give me back..."
A field of upswelling, jutting out spikes met him head-on, rising, ever jutting out, hungry for his flesh like the serrated fangs of a dragon.
"... my daughter.... RAINE!"
With one powerful bound he cleared the field, his leg power giving him the necessary speed to launch himself in the air. The kickback of the motion shattered the spike where he had hurled himself, crumbling into fine stone and dust, and he lanced through the air, upwards and diagonal, an aura of blue-white light blazing around him, his eyes shining as if they were burning gold. His two blades swept and sliced the air as he forcefully whirled around, building up speed and force for the final strike, gaining tremendous height over the battlefield like a fired arrow.
And then oriented himself straight to the High Wizard below him, and he rocketed downward.
"Come, Knife-handed! To your death!" Breannan shouted hysterically, cackling wildly and madly, his eyes bulging. He turned his back to the descending Assassin Cross, half his face concealed with a veil. Talefing was raised horizontally, level with Breannan's chest, and the High Wizard chuckled wetly as the chains jingled on his arm. The wide, gaping mouth on the cross-guard seemed to grin voraciously at him.
"I will get my daughter back, Breannan," Aoshi quietly said in the back of his mind, and he closed his eyes. "I have to do this, Elders. Please let me use it... this is the first time. Forgive me."
He snapped into position, his body oriented and straight and lean like an arrow on its passage through air, the blades of Shadowsbane and Walgwanggum outward. He coruscated with cross-shaped, bright golden light, and it seemed as if a falling star was about to pulverize down on Breannan's position. The High Wizard meanwhile, swaddled in flaming flashes of energy, still held Talefing from him, his back turned on the imminent assault. The arms of the cross-shaped light on the Assassin Cross flashed and lengthened, spun twice, and glowed brighter than ever.
Finally Aoshi stretched out his arm holding Shadowsbane and announced to himself. "Angel... of the Cross...!!"
At the same time Breannan twirled about on one foot, graceful like a ballerina, and the energies splashed outward from him like water as he faced the Assassin Cross sweeping downward with the mithril daito extended. "Talefing... grant me your destruction!" Talefing seethed bright purple and the currents of black energy fringing its blade shattered. "Talefing's fang... Fatebreaker!!"
Talefing and Shadowsbane met with a loud, resounding clash. Thick currents of lightning erupted from the opposing blades, and a fearsome blue-and-purple nova like a fireball radiated from them, destroying the platform utterly in a traveling shockwave of disintegrative power. The floor platform crumbled under the dome-shaped explosion, pulverized to fine powder, and there was nothing but light...
Nothing but dzing white light, and Mai shielded her eyes and the two Gai with her as the deafening, thunderous report washed over them.
Moments later Aoshi knelt by the crater on the entire floor his duel with the High Wizard had done. Everything had been shattered to pieces, all scorched and broken into fragments so fine he could crush them inside his fists. Walgwanggum stuck at the center of the crater about five feet deep at its deepest; stabbed right on the garments of the High Wizard Breannan that he had fought before. Dim light from the torches lining the chamber at the very top of Alde Baran's Clock Tower cast eerie shadows over the dilapidated battlefield, and Aoshi's gauntleted hand ruffled the hem of the High Wizard's robes.
"He is a Silhouette, Aoshi," Yuki said behind him.
The Assassin Cross slowly nodded and stood up, not caring to turn around and face the two. "So was my daughter. It was all an illusion."
"It is more than an illusion," Dilan commented, and puffed up smoke from a lean cigar, like a small sheet of paper rolled for Dilan's mouth to chomp down on it. "A Silhouette is real. What happened here is not."
The Assassin Cross rounded on his friend. "What do you mean?"
"Look everywhere around you. You destroyed everything, you and your battle with Breannan. Or whom you thought was Breannan." Dilan gestured, sweeping his arm in a circular motion. "Where you fought, what you've seen, was all an illusion. The dimension, the floating platform, your daughter... even us."
"You... weren't... there...?" Even Mai...? She was just an illusion... but why did Walgwanggum become real, when she did not?
"No," Yuki replied. "You went missing all of a sudden when we entered some antechamber adjacent to this one. It was about as big as this," he said. "The next thing we knew, Dilan and I were surrounded by a horde of Alarms, and we couldn't figure out where you've gone."
"We fought the endless stream of Tower Guardians, and we were almost overwhelmed when we heard an explosion beyond the locked door we tried earlier," Dilan expounded. "The Alarms suddenly dissolved to black powder right around us, but there was no time to waste and we tried the door. It opened this time, and then we saw you here."
"I see." He bent down and retrieved the Walgwanggum from the ground, straightened, and flipped it on his hand.
"Where... where did that come from?" Yuki asked, curious.
Aoshi turned and smiled weakly. "From another Silhouette, Yuki." He sheathed the dagger on an empty scabbard. "A Silhouette that I believe you are acquainted with very much."
The assassin walked past the bewildered Sniper and Lord Knight, the numerous ripped cloths from his ninja-style suit flapping against his motion. "It's time. We have to find the real Breannan before he can summon the Sorcerer's Stone."
"... oh... uhh, yeah," Yuki stammered, scratching his head. "You got it."
As his two companions caught up to him he whispered under his breath. "Raine... hold on. I will come and get you. Please... be safe until then."
"Your Homunculus failed, Breannan, as I see," a voice from the shadows interrupted his reverie. "Not that we expected him to kill the Knife-handed."
Breannan leaned back on his seat, away from the clear pane of glass supported by ornate frames, resting on a gilded table in front of him. the voice was directly opposite him, beyond the table, and only his reclining body, from the chest downward, was visible, his arms crossed on his chest and leaning on the far wall. "It will buy us some time, Sachiel."
"The Knife-handed... nay, he and his comrades as well,are not to be underestimated," the one called Sachiel said, and emerged from the darkness. A cross-like weapon was slung on his back, glinting fiercely on the moonlight, a pearlescent surface, the sword-tips on all four points. It was even larger than this assassin, so it was harnessed to his body obliquely. "You of all people must know that."
Breannan made a dismissive gesture. "Only three of them are powerful, Sachiel, of whom we are to be wary of. The Knife-handed, the summoner of Mysteltainn, and the Stormcaller himself, and of the three, only the latter could destroy us all unaided. We need time for the Sorcerer's Stone."
"We have waited long enough, Breannan." Sachiel's voice was cold, stony.
"The development of the Stone is proceeding right on schedule, don't worry." Breannan issued a small chuckle. "Besides, the other Arks have been set in motion. The Ciela will undoubtedly strike back at the Gai for the loss of a castle at Danau. Covenant... well... they have a spy set in place at the higher echelons of the Gai itself."
"I don't care about the Ciela or the Covenant." Sachiel stepped close, one side of his face bathing in moonlight. His messed-up white hair reflected the light. "The Gai is our priority. They have always been the most meddlesome of the Arks, and everytime we delay the Knife-handed gains a foot closer to the Cross. We cannot let him get close. We must eliminate him."
"I have set measures to prevent any of them approaching within a mile of the Cross and the Stone." Breannan said, then shifted and crossed his legs. "The Cross is safe. But if all else fails, we still have the Knife-handed's daughter. He won't dare attack us with his precious child in our hands as hostage."
"You have always been a dirty player, Breannan," Sachiel snorted and spat, then finally turned and walked away. He was about to walk past the door when he stopped. "We have the ace up our sleeve, Breannan, but do not think too lowly of the Knife-handed." He whirled and faced the High Wizard, gimlet eyes boring right into Breannan's soul. "He is the emissary of the Cross. But never forget, Breannan, that we are dealing with the Gai here. The guild that single-handedly prevented the destruction Fenrir may have caused. The Gai...
"... and Aoshi the Knife-handed is a Gai."