Hey everyone. Been a while, hasn't it? I've been busy with other works, but now I'm back in SC fanfiction, which is where (as the "real" author in me jokes) I truly belong. Oddly, all of you seem to have better grasps on English and grammar than the majority of , even those whose primary interest is in (a) book(s). Soul Calibur is a fighting game, yet it is here that I have found those with actual writing skill, while in worlds of books and literature where I expected to find many of high talent, I have found few. Odd.

But, enough of my conjectures. To reviews, then the story you have all been (hopefully) waiting for:

Anonymouse: (reads review and bows deeply) Thank you, good sir/madam (not sure of your sex, sorry :) It is.... quite welcome to hear such deep praise, particularly from someone who is quite obviously as well-read as yourself. I do not know if I'm the best thing to happen to SC literature, but am glad to hear that someone thinks so. As for your notes on my style, I must say that you have actually given me the greatest praise here, to compare me to Stephen King, who I believe to be the greatest writer ever. The usage of certain metaphors over and over again is a matter of personal preference; I prefer to have them repeated, as it makes the message stick and gives the writer something of a background to work with. The fact that I have read so many of Mr. King's books has probably affected my taste. :)

Reiko5: Oh, I don't believe in Fate either, and agree fully with you. But the Fate the burned villager spoke of- and the Fate that does exist in this book- are two very, very different things.... Of which we'll see later.... (low chuckles)

A shout-out to all my other reviewers. And now! One for the money, two for the show, three for the road and here... we... GO!

"SHOWTIME!"

Chapter 15

A Spider In Its Web

Somewhere in Central Asia, heading northeast, towards Russia and Europe. Daylight.

Taki slept, in the small cottage she had taken after slaying the inhabitants (who lay near her, small gossamer strands of red covering them, almost like a spider's web of fire, as Mekki-Maru consumed their pitiful essence) and as she slept she dreamed. And she did more than dream; she planned.

Taki's eyes cracked open only the slightest fraction of an inch, but that was enough. Her sight rushed out, flying past the small, dark house and rushing along the road, miles covered in an instant, flying out, hunting, seeking, searching. And soon enough it found what it had been looking for: two travelers, one young, one old, both trailing her. Taki smiled, in her sleep that was not sleep. So, they were coming. The two who she had seen, before the flames had taken the village. One she had caught the barest glimpse of, a single touch of red against a wooden backscape, seen from the corner of her eye as she stared at Mitsurugi; but the other she knew well. Very well. And if she knew him as well as she thought, then he was coming after her for answers.

She smiled again, laying in her newfound cocoon. Ah, yes. Answers. But what answer would really matter? What answer could matter? She had moved beyond such things. She just was.

To question what she had become, how she had become it, and why she had become were simply not things she found to be in her nature.

Settling into a slightly more comfortable position, Taki wondered just when her newfound companions would join her.

In a hint of black humor that made her smile again (and even in the dimness of the hut, her teeth seemed to gleam where the dull light touched them), she wondered if they just might join her for lunch.

Falling asleep, she was completely unaware of Mekki-Maru's light pulsations, as if it were laughing too. She was also unaware, some hours later when night fell and she left, that Mekki-Maru had arranged for a surprise for her two guests.

It was a long time before Taki was aware of many things. And by the time she was aware of them, it was too late for her.

Too late for any of them.

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Some hours later. Near cottage Taki slept in. Night.

The sun had set, but Mitsurugi and Yunsung walked on. The setting sun had not changed their stride, their determination, or their direction in the least. But it had changed one thing; neither of them had talked since sunset. Talk was a thing for daylight, where eyes could be trusted and the enemy easily spotted. Now, at night, when the moon ruled and darkness crept over the land, the eyes betrayed and only the ears held true. Yunsung and Mitsurugi, hands on weapons, walked in silence, listening with their ears for what their eyes could not see.

And soon enough, their ears told them that something was stirring in the dark, that something hadn't went to bed with the sun; that something, even now, was walking the road in front of them. Mitsurugi held out his hand and stopped Yunsung. Yunsung looked at him, and Mitsurugi pointed to the bushes on the far side of the road. Yunsung nodded and went left. Mitsurugi went right.

Both men waited there, tense, nervous, to see what was shambling up the road. And that was what it was doing; it was shambling, moving slowly, shuffling its feet, scraping the ground and creating a noise that was both irritating and somehow disturbing, as if it wasn't quite right. Soon the sound grew louder, and the two men could tell that there was more than one walker on the road tonight; there were at least three of them, maybe more, all approaching with the same slow shuffle.

And soon they came into sight, over a ridge that blocked out the long view of the road; and in the moonlight, cast stark and bare, both men saw what was coming after them. And both men held their breath, for it was no natural thing.

The creature's entire body was bound in some sticky coating that appeared to be rust colored at this distance; as the creature shuffled forward, the men saw that the color was actually a dull red. The creature's body moved with the shuffling gait both had envisioned when they heard the dull shh, shh, shh of its passage in the distance; one foot dragged, as if dead and limp from the ankle down. The creature's body was bloated, full of some foul putridness both men caught a whiff of when the wind turned their way. The creature bent at the waist, and its back protuded upward far too much, as if bulging.

Then two more creatures topped the rise, one slightly smaller than the other, and a few moments later, a very tiny creature rose over the rise. The four things kept walking down the road, shuffling forward as if ignorant of the warriors on either side of them. As they passed, Mitsurugi noticed with horror that the creatures looked like humans, and may have been humans, once; he turned his eyes as the small one began to pass. He did not want to see what a child would look like, turned into this, any more than he wanted to fight these things. He lay back, keeping his gaze locked on the lead creature, glad that they were passing and glad that Yunsung had kept his silence. These thoughts went through his head a few moments before the small corpse went past Yunsung's hiding spot, and Yunsung burst out of the bushes, screaming a warcry.

Yunsung had kept his silence mostly out of fear up until now, but he could not restrain himself when he saw the young one turned into a monster. All of Yunsung's surprisingly strong decency and justice railed against it, against this abomination. He could have and did take watching the two men and one woman pass him by, turned into monsters, but this he could not stand. The child thing merely looked at him in surprise before Yunsung lopped its head off and toppled it to the ground.

The other three wheeled about and leapt at him with such speed that Yunsung was sure their shuffling gait had been an act. The three leapt in the air, like horrid spiders, coming down feet and hands first. One struck Yunsung directly in the chest, knocking the breath out of him and causing him to fall. As Yunsung fell on his back, the other two leapt at him, mouths open wide to tear his neck apart. Yunsung prepared to swing his sword, but the third stepped on his wrist and pinned it in place. Yunsung headbutted one of the demons atop him, and it merely reeled slightly before opening its mouth again and lunging down like a snake. All this time, not one of them made a sound.

Mitsurugi, cursing in Japanese, ran out, swinging his katana, and the newly sharpened edge of Shishi-Oh (he'd resharpened it while they were walking, repairing it after the beating it had taken in the Town of the Wind God) neatly split the head of the one holding Yunsung's wrist to the ground, and the body fell backward, freeing the White Storm. Yunsung swung in a diagonal, sweeping motion, protecting his face and neck, and chopped through the neck of the last remaining male monster. Its blood splattered out on him, and he sucked in his breath as his skin burned where the blood touched him. The last monster leapt high into the sky, raising its arm and swinging as it came down, obviously meaning to crush his skull. Yunsung rolled out of the way, and when the creature landed, its hand created a hole in the ground where Yunsung's head should have been. Mitsurugi swung his sword and cut the female thing's head off at the eyes. The body slumped over and stopped moving.

As the two victorious warriors stood panting from their quick but furious battle, Yunsung cursed and dropped to his knees. Mitsurugi looked at him and said, " What?"

" My neck," Yunsung said, holding the spot where the blood had touched him. " It burns."

" Turn your head," Mitsurugi said, deciding to wait until after he'd checked Yunsung's neck to yell at him for not keeping quiet, " Your chin's blocking the moonlight."

Yunsung obediently turned his head. Mitsurugi narrowed his eyes. On Yunsung's neck was a pattern of droplet-shaped burns.

" Looks like that blood was poisonous," Mitsurugi said. " Like acid. It burned your neck."

" Burned it?" Yunsung said calmly, considering he had just been told that monster blood had burned his neck.

" Yes." Mitsurugi sighed. " The next time anything- soldiers, monsters, even merchants- are passing by and apparently don't notice us, let them by. It is very dangerous to enter a fight, and you should by all means avoid them whenever possible."

" I know," Yunsung said, grumbling as he touched his stinging neck, " but I just couldn't take that girl child. She was..." Yunsung stopped, lost for words. He had never been much of a talker, and he didn't know a word to describe what he had felt when he'd looked at that poor child.

" It was more than wrong, to do that to a child," Mitsurugi said, shaking his head, " it was despicable. An act of the most horrendous monstrosity." He paused and sighed again. " It was foul."

Yunsung stopped for a second, then nodded his head. " Yeah. That's right. It was foul. That's what I felt. Foulness."

Mitsurugi nodded his head and said, " It is hard, in all truth, to watch things like that pass you by and not do something about it, even if it is the simple act of slaying the creature and ending its torment. But there are times when we must put our gut reactions aside and take a different course." Feeling oddly like he'd just imparted a first lesson, Mitsurugi helped Yunsung to his feet and turned back to the road. " We might as well continue walking. We might get another hour of traveling if we keep walking and don't stop."

The two set off again, into the night.

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Somewhere in Europe, heading from Firecat, Spain, to Athens, Greece. Night.

Siegfried and Ivy sat around a small campfire, not really ready to go to sleep yet, just watching the embers die down as they talked. They were in a small, semi-secluded valley, and the light from their fire was invisible outside it. What little smoke the fire made was invisible now that it was night.

As Siegfried poked the fire with a stick (an old habit of his; some of his father's mercenaries had openly wondered if he was a firebug due to his propensity for flames), Ivy said, " Have you ever been to Athens?"

Siegfried stopped for a moment, thinking back to a time when his body had not been his to command, when another mind had lived in his, when his voice would speak words he had not thought and his eyes would look at things he had not sought. After thinking past all that, he said, " Yes."

" What Is it like? I've heard it's a Pagan country, full of strange idols and stranger religions."

Siegfried, thinking about Fygul Cestemus, smiled. " Yes, it is that."

" Interesting." Ivy looked at the fire for a moment, then said, " What do you know about Fygul Cestemus?"

Caught off guard by the question, Siegfried said, " Huh?"

" The way I see it, they are the only ones who could be trying to kill me." IVy said, closing her eyes and folding her hands together so her pointer fingers met together and formed a triangle while her other fingers were held together. Bringing the triangle to a spot below her nose, she tapped on her upper lip while she spoke. " They alone would take the trouble to hire Middle Eastern assassins when so many groups could be hired out here in Spain alone. The Scarabs are their personal hit squad, and work for them as trained killers. The Scarabs only work for Fygul Cestemus, and only take the most high-profile jobs. So now the question is, why are they after me? I see only a few possibilites." Ivy pursed her lips and made a light clicking noise with her tongue. " It is possible they know I am the daughter of Cervantes. I personally doubt that, however. I myself did not know about it until I walked into my father's mansion a few days ago."

Siegfried, not wanting to interrupt her while she thought out loud, merely nodded, only realizing afterwards that her eyes were closed and she could not see him. Feeling embarassed, he said, " Yeah."

" However, I also doubt it for the more practical reason that if they did know, they would be trying to take me alive. The relatives of..." Ivy stopped, took a breath, and continued, " evil men are worth a lot to Fygul Cestemus, worth a lot to the dark god they worship. They regard them as special sacrifices." Her lips smirked in black humor. " I would be a very special sacrifice in their eyes."

" Don't say that," Siegfried said, trying to discourage Ivy from her line of thinking. " That's depressing."

" More for me than you," Ivy said, but her voice did not carry all the sorrow Siegfried had feared it would. Continuing as if he had not spoken, she said, " So, that scratches the idea that they know who my father is. So why are they after me? I think it's simple. They do, in a way, know who my father is. And they are after me for revenge."

" Huh?" Siegfried said, completely lost in the twists and turns of Ivy's mind.

" They, along with everyone else in the world with the exception of me, you, and Kilik," Ivy continued on, " think that Lord Valentine was my father. I do not know all the details of the work he did while searching for the Soul Edge, but I do recall that he owed a lot of people money. That, in fact, is what ate up the family fortune. We were rich, once, before Fat- Lord Valentine went insane." Her face took a downcast tone.

Siegfried wanted to say something, but stayed silent. He didn't know what to say and was afraid of tripping up on his own tongue, so just remained where he was, poking the fire.

" So, my conclusion is that my father owed Fygul Cestemus money, and they are going to kill me in lieu of payment."

" Why would they do that?" Siegfried wondered. " You'd think they'd simply ransack your father's mansion, instead of going to the bother of killing you. And why wait all this time? Wouldn't they have killed you as soon as your father died?"

Ivy shook her head, opening her eyes and putting her hands back to the ground, their job finished. She said, " You don't understand how Fygul Cestemus works. They are not only a group of thieves, they are a group of religious maniacs. A debt owed is not just a debt, it's a binding contract. Traditionally, they slay the family members of anyone who reneges on a debt, for any reason whatsoever, starting with cousins and moving in until they reach the children, the spouse, and then finally the debtor themselves. That way, they completely ruin the debtor's life before they kill him. Since I am the only living kin my father has, I'm the only target left to shoot."

" But he's dead! Even your death won't bring him pain anymore. He's past all that now," Siegfried said, wondering at the cruelty of Fygul Cestemus. He had dealt with them as Nightmare, but that entire section of his life was a blank to him, and he hoped against hope he had never participated in such a horrific undertaking.

" Such trivial things don't matter to them," Ivy said. " Also, as for your second question, Fygul Cestemus is powerful, but not omniscient. They may not have known my father was dead until it came time for him to pay his debt, and they would have only heard the news when they reached London. They probably heard about it right before we returned from Travens Castle, which would explain the assassin waiting for me when we got back."

Siegfried nodded. " True. But if you know all these things, why are you asking me about Fygul Cestemus? I'm just your average German mercenary," Siegfried said jokingly.

Ivy yawned and turned around, stretching out on a small blanket she'd put down nearby. As she pulled a corner of it over her, she said something that made Siegfried start and kept him up for hours to come.

" For some reason I feel that you are far more than that," Ivy said, tossing it behind her shoulder as she wrapped herself up to sleep. " Good night, Siegfried."

" Night," Siegfried barely managed to say.

- See you guys later. R&R, please!