The Legendary Knight-Tears of Blood

"I have been assigned to keep you company."

"I don't need a baby-sitter! I think they did a pretty good job of making sure I don't go anywhere." Kai glanced over at her ice-covered window, which only seemed to make her angrier.

The servant in the room stepped forward, a bit more. "I overheard what happened. It's sad."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Aren't you in the least bit sad?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it!" Kai snapped. She glanced over at the picture sitting in the inner windowsill. "If you're just here to keep an eye on me than do that, but don't talk to me."

The woman walked over and sat down a foot away from Kai. "They locked you in here, because you planned to meet with Yuki, am I correct?" Kai's angry eyes slowed in her direction. "You want to get your mother back. Tell me, do you have any other family?" Kai just kept staring at her. "So you're alone. You hate being alone. Is that why you sleep walk. Because you fear being alone. So you sleep in the rooms with others. It makes you want to cry doesn't it."

Kai finally looked away from her. "I said stop talking."

"It's wrong of them to lock you in here like this. They won't let you do anything for your mother. You came here voluntarily. Yet against your demands, they won't let you leave. I know I shouldn't say this…"

Kai looked at her with curiosity. "Say what?"

"There's an emergency hatch under the bed floor board. We maintain it incase we need to evacuate the palace. It leads directly onto the path leading out of Lefaenia.

Kai looked at her oddly. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you're not the first person to have a mother who the Lefae Knights will do nothing for." Before Kai could say anything more, she was interrupted. "Go, before they come to check on you. I'll leave and say you are sleeping." The woman closed the door.

Kai changed into a set of black clothes in her closet, tied her hair in a black scarf, and grabbed her sword. She took one last glance at the picture of her, her mother, and Mao then crawled under the bed to exit through the escape slide that was surely there.

-

"Weren't you supposed to tell her we'll check it out and get her mother for her?" Hayate said as Shin raced back into the room.

"When I went up there to tell her," Shin began, "She wasn't there."

"She wasn't what!"

"You do realize that if she kills any of those people, she will no longer be able to be the pretear. She'll have human blood on her hands, making her impure and incapable of proceeding with her active duty," Kei explained in a bit of a panic.

"Thank you for stating the obvious, Kei." Hayate slapped his face angrily. There are people guarding the front door. How'd she slip out? "We have to go, now."

"Wait, Hayate!" Himeno said grabbing his wrist. "She's my friend. I'm coming too."

-

Kai swept in quietly. She had yet to use her sword. Instead, she would sneak up behind the guards and rotate their necks a bit too far, causing them to black out for what would probably be hours. She didn't want to waste too much energy on others when her main goal was in the home she now approached. This had to be it. It was the biggest. She walked right in through the front door, and surprisingly, there were no guards. No surprise attacks. Not even a maid skulking about. She slowly made her way down the main hall to the meeting room. Their home was designed much like her own. She un-strapped her sword from her waist belt and held it in her clenching fist. She entered the main room. It was well lit, and cleared of furniture, chairs, distractions. "YUKI!" There was no answer in all that was silence. Where is that bastard… "YUKI!"

"I'm coming, I'm coming." Yuki walked in through another entrance with a small little smirk on his face. He had entered on the far side of the room. And yes it only proved more that it was a very large room. "I knew you'd come. You're alone? Where are those new friends of yours?"

"Where's my mother?"

"You already want to get to the point? But you just got here."

"I didn't come here to play games with you. Now, where is she?"

"That is just like you. Rude and short tempered. However that can be fixed. Very well. Bring in the hag." Two men entered not too far away from Yuki. Behind them in chains, was her mother. Her curly tan hair was now mangled and dirty. Her eyes were of emptiness and she looked old beyond her age. She had obviously been worked. They threw her to the floor before Yuki. Kai began walking forward but Yuki signaled her stop. "I don't want you getting too close, now. You get her, when you go through me." Yuki drew his sword from its case and stepped forward to the middle of the room.

"That's fine with me," she said following suit.

-

"Is that the best you can do! I'm not as easy as when we were twelve." Yuki charged at her. She jumped out of the way but his foot came forth and knocked her on her back. "We can stop now. I still remember my end of this deal and I don't want to kill you."

"If I loose I'll kill myself," she snapped as she raised back to her feet. She charged at him and swung her sword but it only tore his shirt. He swung his sword back onto her but she blocked it.

"Have it your way." They continued in there fight. An attempt made and an attempt blocked. Yuki became annoyed. I'm not going to loose to a woman! Yuki blocked off her next attack, then turned his attention toward the two men. "Kill her."

"You need help? I didn't know you were so weak."

"Not you," Yuki grinned. Kai looked over at the two men. One of them with his sword drawn. But before she could shout the word "NO" or do anything about it, his sword came crashing down. Kai's mother let out a loud scream before her head rolled across the hard wood floor. While Kai wasn't paying attention, Yuki swung at her and tore the surface skin on her arm. She bled through the black sleeve. I never knew the Haritanzu assassin held such emotion toward family. Not a peep when her father died but the world ends when her mother does. If she won't agree to be with me, then I'll make sure she sees her mother on the other side.

-

"I can hear her. It's coming from there!" Sasame said while leading everyone into the huge home on the hill. They rushed in, down the hall and into the main room. It was a blood-splattered mess. A woman lay dead on the floor not too far from two other slaughtered men. And there, in the middle of the floor, was Kai, positioned over Yuki. She was repeatedly driving her sword into the obviously already dead man.

"We're too late," Kei murmured.

"Kai stop it!" Himeno shrieked. It was as if they weren't even there. She pulled the blade from is torso and thrust I back in. Blood wet her face, running down her cheeks as if they were her own tears. She lifted it again, but Mannen grabbed it before it came plummeting down. Himeno didn't like the sight of so much blood. The pretear is not supposed to take life. She's supposed to save it. Why did she do this? It wasn't worth it.

"We're leaving," Mannen said in a low tone as he pulled the sword from her grasp. "C'mon. Get up."

Kai looked up at him momentarily with eyes red as fire. It scared him but they quickly faded back to its golden hazel color. "I really don't feel so good," she spoke in a most inaudible whisper. "My stomach hurts."

"Let me see it." Mannen got over his shock and knelt down to take a look at it. By this time the others were approaching. "O my god."

"Don't touch it!"

"If I don't pull it out, it'll get worse." Mannen wrapped his fingers around the broken blade and quickly yanked it from her stomach. Mannen dropped it when it cut into his own skin. Kai shrieked and doubled over. Mannen ripped off part of his uniform and tied it around her wound. He scooped her off the floor.

-

Kai woke the next morning in her room. Mannen was slouched over in a chair, sleeping at her bedside. Then she saw Sasame hovering over her. "You're finally awake."

Kai tried to sit up but the bandages around her stomach and the sharp pain running through it stopped her. "O god that hurts."

"Don't try to sit up," Hayate spoke from the door. He approached with a scowl on his face. "I thought I told you to stay here. Because you were stupid, you got hurt."

"Is that all? I've been hurt before. I'll be fine by tomorrow."

"I highly doubt that that wound is going to heal by tomorrow! This is more important than that anyway!"

"So what is it?" Kai asked while pulling the covers over her head.

Sasame now spoke because he felt Kai was annoying Hayate. "You have a human's blood on your hands. He's not the enemy, nor is he associated. Your power's gone. You can still become a princess of disaster, but you can no longer preat with any of us."

"Is that what's so important?"

"Take something seriously for once!" Hayate boomed. He snatched the cover from her face.

"I was just trying to say, it doesn't make sense since I've been doing stuff like that since before I met you," Kai said pulling the cover back over her head.

It was silent for a long while. Hayate asked Sasame to get Mannen and leave the room for a moment, which made Kai shake a little. Great. He's going to yell at me until I die myself. "Before you say anything-"

"Shut up," he cut-off as he sat down in the chair Mannen previously slept in. "Tell me the truth."

"What? I just did."

"I don't believe you. The text states that you couldn't have taken another life unless they were the enemy. A true pretear would face death before killing others."

"Well your text is wrong. And it's not like I was really given a choice! Why would I want to make up something so stupid when I wouldn't hesitate to leave if I were no good here anymore."

"So what, who made you do it? Father? Are you afraid of him?" Kai sneered at him. She tried pulling the covers back over her head but he yanked them back down. "Answer me." Kai sat and ignored him. "I said answer me!"

"Yes."

"So what would he do to you that was so bad, you had to go and kill other people?"

"Trust me when I say I would have rather been dead."

Hayate looked at her confused. "I don't get it."

"The first time he told me to do it, I said I didn't want to and he hit me. The second time, he threatened to kill me. The third time, he threw me in the cellar. Left me down there for a month or two with god only knows what. I was scared. I had to have been at least 6 or 7."

"No body ever comes back up from the cellar. You've got to be lying."

Kai reached over and grabbed his hand, then, in a flash of light, Hayate was gone, and Kai was in the Pretear of Wind uniform. What the hell! "I told you I wasn't lying." Kai stood up and poked her stomach. "It doesn't hurt anymore. I knew it! I think this is twice you were wrong now Hayate." Shut up… Kai unpreated with Hayate.

"Are you sure it doesn't hurt anymore?"

"Yes. And I need to use the bathroom. In fact, I need a shower. So go."

-

So it's obvious that she's not a pretear, so what is she?" Hayate asked Kei, expecting one of his directly blunt answers.

"I don't know," Kei sighed.

"You don't know? Wow. This day's just full of surprises," Hajime joked.

"There aren't any legends of an impure pretear," Goh pondered.

Himeno sat up, alert in her seat. "Maybe it has something to do with that story you found in the cave, Kei."

"That is a possibility. I haven't fully translated it yet. The Lefaenian elders don't seem to understand the text either. They say it's too old for them to read. I've managed to translate a lot but the text runs for miles."

"Can you take us to it?" Sasame asked, interested in Kei's new project he's been working so diligently on. The elders have been around for centuries. What could be so old that even they don't understand?

"Take us to what?" Kai asked as she descended the stairs.

-

Kei lit the way down the ancient Lefaenian cave that ran deep underground. "the earth here is so old," Shin commented as they walked further on. As they walked, they passed scrimptions painted onto the walls of old legends.

"How much farther is it Kei?" Hayate asked in fear they would get lost. Himeno would squeeze his hand each time she saw a spider or rat.

"We're here," Kei said as they approached a cliff. They each looked over the ledge, and there, under them, was an enormous space that ran down as a gigantic hall. It was very wide and ran long as far as the eye could see. The Lefae Knights, with the exceptions of Himeno and Kai who were helped down, floated down to the area. Kei led them toward the enormous hall. "To this side, I have yet to translate. But it seems to me, by the heroic drawing before you, that it has to do with a Knight. However, the drawing has curves, signifying that it is a woman." The art was old but well done. A radiant knight in white clothing.

"This seems so important. Why didn't you translate this first?" Hayate asked.

"Because this seemed more important," he said, pointing to the other side of the hall. As they approached, the old drawing scared them. "It speaks of a great evil. The greatest evil know to all Lefaenia, and the world. She is the opposite of the female Knight we just viewed. However, that is all I have managed to translate.

Mannen looked at it closely. What stood out most was the eyes as red as fire. Then it hit him. Before, when he saw them. …Kai…