Chapter 19

Nightmare made his way to the pawnshop that I had sold his armor to. Obviously, Inferno had a sense of pride in itself, and wanted to make the people believe that Nightmare had never been, and would never be, defeated.

Nightmare finally reached the pawnshop after passing two guards who were oblivious to the fact that I had just committed two brutal murders. He then kicked down the door, and I made a mental note to myself that if I ever got my body back then I would have the common sense to make sure the door was unlocked before making an attempt to break into a building.

The pawnshop was still open, albeit completely barren except for the neurotic shopkeeper. At the sound of the door splintering and falling to the ground, he nearly jumped out of his skin.

"My armor… where is it?" Nightmare's voice had its usual raspy quality.

"I-I-I don't have it… sold it to the armor shop—" He then extended a finger toward the armor shop down the street, the same one I had been in earlier. The wall he was pointing through held a number of rare and valuable trinkets, weapons, and artifacts.

I could feel a familiar aura from it, and sure enough, Nightmare plucked another shard of Soul Edge from its contents. It burned into the same spot in my armor, and I could feel my body slipping further and further away…

The shopkeeper, too stricken by fear to say any more, simply hid behind the counter, shaking. Nightmare stepped over the folded door to meet the same two guards.

"Hey, are you going to pay for that door?"

Nightmare simply ignored the guards, walking right between them and turned to go to the armor shop.

"I said, are you going to pay for that door?"

Once again, the question was answered by silence. I begged that the guards would just leave me alone; there had already been two murders committed tonight, and they had no clue what they were up against: Azure Nightmare, the creature that struck fear into the hearts of men in every corner of Europe. I guess the only way that the point could've been made is to have a huge spiked arm hanging out of my armor.

The guards' swords were drawn from their scabbards. This had been what Nightmare was wanting: they had let down their guard to attack him, and they would both pay the ultimate price for it.

As both of the guards ran toward the monster in my body, he flung Soul Calibur off his shoulder, thrust it behind him, and stabbed it deep into the taller guard's stomach. The infected sword was then turned to the side and pulled straight up through the man's breastbone and stopped at his neck.

With a swift move, Nightmare swung the corpse around on the blade to knock the other to the ground. Tipping the blade upward to cause the body to slide down the blade into his hand, he grabbed the guard's neck and drained yet another soul.

The other guard, who was on the floor and paralyzed by fear and shock, stared at his lifeless comrade, his mouth wide open. Nightmare reached out with his hand, planted it on his chest, and sucked the soul out of the living man, causing a shriek to fade into nothing.

A thud came from inside the pawnshop, where the keeper had fainted and fell to the ground.