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Philip Williams writes:

KILL PHIL
A rip-roaring tale of blood, death and fanfiction.

Chapter twelve:
"Showdown at House of Azure Flora"

Garnet

Looking at the fallen knight Rubus, Tcutla downed a stiff shot of whiskey. It burnt the back of her throat, but did a good job of numbing the weariness she was feeling deep in her muscles and joints. Out of goodwill, she threw a glass of the foul liquid onto Sofie, who was barely conscious in the corner and looked as though she'd been dipped in a vat of blood. Covered in dried blood and bad whiskey, the crippled girl started crying again. Tcutla had no time to yell at her.

Once again, she walked up the staircase to where Helen would no doubt be eating. This time, no armoured giant appeared as she was walking up the stairs…

CRASH!

He'd been waiting till she was at the door before he did that.

Garnet smashed straight through the door into Helen's room and bashed into Tcutla, knocking the psychotic assassin down and sending for careering off the stairs and down onto the blood-soaked dance floor. Tcutla hit the ground hard on her back and was carried along slightly by the blood slicked surface. She felt stunned, and unable to move.

Garnet continued running. His armour clanked and groaned, and the stairs seemed to buckle slightly, but he ran down and onto the ground room. From a back-strapped sheath he pulled out an enormous blade, with an strange eye engraved onto it. He swung the bastard sword in a powerful but slow attack. Tcutla rolled out of the way and Garnet broke apart a piece of the floor instead. In no time at all he had pulled the blade out and swung again, but Tcutla rolled and dodged. Again and again. Garnet was destroying the floor. Tcutla swiped at his feet with the ACROSS Blade, but Garnet just managed to deflect it with his huge sword. From his black he was momentarily distracted, and his balance lost it's perfection, so Tcutla summoned her strength and leapt up off the floor. She ran up the staircase and onto the walkway, with Garnet chasing her in his heavy gear.

Garnet reared up to strike Tcutla as she ran, but he missed and destroyed a part of the walkway instead. Tcutla leapt, rolled and landed facing Garnet. The two faced each other off. Garnet swung his blade, menacingly, and charged…

And then I realised I was cornered.

There was nowhere left to run, Tcutla did a quick survey of Garnet's armour. She took in every detail of his ornate armoured suit…

Just before Garnet made contact, Tcutla slashed him and twisted her body out of the way of his massive bulk. Garnet screamed in pain and hit the wall with a crash.

His right hand, cut off at the wrist, fell to the floor. Garnet was on his knees, his head raised in pain. Tcutla pitilessly pulled up his head, looked into his evil, demonic eyes, and then cut his throat.

Garnet gurgled and toppled over the banister. The huge armoured giant smashed into one of the decorative koi ponds, and finally it could be said that there was more blood than water in those pools. Tcutla gazed down, neither smiling nor frowning, at the shattered visage of a one of the greatest fighters in the world, dead. If she kept working through the world's greatest warriors at this rate there'd be no-one left.

Beloved Fool's eating room was empty. Probably during the battle with the Toms, Helen had finished her green tea and her meal. Tcutla spotted a door at the end of the room, and opened it.

Past the door she found that she was…

Outside. In a pure, white, snow-covered garden. The stream that ran through it was nearly frozen over, the fountain still, the cherry blossom trees almost bare. At the end, a fair and beautiful maiden sat on a tree stump.

The suit had been replaced by a short, white kimono. Her hair had returned to it's natural brown colour. But it was Beloved Fool, watching the birds in the decorative garden of the Azure Flora restaurant.

"I've been waiting for you…" said Beloved Fool. A samurai sword rested behind the stump.

The snow began to fall…