Chapter IV:

The Semi-Finals

(Just another small update. Will have more soon.)

After countless hours of the only sound you hear being the clashing of metal and screams of men crying their last breaths, the pandemonium of battle settled down to a soft droning in your ears. Too many things happened all at once for the mind to keep track, but a soldier managed his best to keep his composure under fire. It was times like this that you had to steel your soul and push forward. He had lost track of how many men were left to fight for him. After the first strike -- which was more or less losing a large portion of his group to catapults and ballista artillery -- morale had fallen drastically. Of course, he had no trouble marching on, but the others were not so hard.

Mitsurugi snarled through clenched teeth as he slit another opposing soldier in two. He flew through the enemy ranks so swiftly that most probably didn't have time to realise they had been cut until it was too late. His mastery of the samurai sword had truly become a valuable skill to have at his disposal. More soldiers came darting forward, all with smudged faces -- either blood or dirt or both -- and a fatigued glaze over their eyes. They came at him sloppily and he had no issues with parrying an overhead strike, ducking low and tearing him across the middle. All in the same motion he managed to spin and raise his blade, catching an oncoming attack. Mitsurugi turned to assess the battle and dragged the blade downward, using the break in battle to his advantage and cutting this one up the middle. The third and final just stood, openly afraid of Mitsurugi. The battle-hardened samurai dashed forward, driving the heel of his foot into the other mans sternum. He had already prepared the finishing stroke when he noticed that upon falling, the soldier had cracked his skull against a large rock jutting out of the soil.

What sounded like small, yet loud explosions permeated the atmosphere and entirely overpowered the sound of steel and anguish. He knew it for the long-ranged militia some of the Japanese had begun using and he detested it in every way. Using a gun, as he heard they were called, was not an honorable way to win battle. Mitsurugi believed that the blade and only the blade brought true honor and his soul filled with it on this day.

He turned in the direction of the fire and set to climbing a steep hill at full pace. As expected, the resistance here wasn't any lighter and again he found himself deftly weaving a bloody path to his destination. Parrying an attack here and impaling in counterstroke, deflecting two or more at the same time and delivering an astonishing flurry of steel. Combat readiness was much like instinct now. It seemed like he was inside a bubble of calm. An impregnable bubble of battle fluency. Rounding on the peek of the hill, a whole new view of the skirmish came into view. Many soldiers continued fighting with swords and pikes and lances, some mounted and some afoot, while a seperate division stood to the back and fired careful shots into the crowd.

Mitsurugi weighed all the odds evenly and spat in disgust for the guns, as if the thought actually put a foul taste in his mouth, and charged ahead, sword held high in one hand. It wasn't until he was nearly upon the gunsmen that a few turned and fired. He did not stop the full-on assault even as the bullets slammed into his shoulderplates and bounced off harmlessly. They packed quite an impact and made a nice sting where they hit, but aside from some mild discomfort, they were useless. Unless they decide to shoot me in the head...

Heaving the blade downward, not only did the rifle split in two, but so did the skull of the marksman holding it. He spun and dipped and dodged his way through the multitude of soliders and picked out his targets according to the biggest threat. Though they all carried guns, he sought to take out the ones with the long knives attached at the end. They fall just as easily as the others had and before too much time had passed, all that remained was bloody, grotesque lumps of what were once living beings.

Now that things had begun to settle down, his mind had time to focus on things he had missed in the heat of combat. Heat was the right word for it. A bright golden sun scourged the midday with blistering heat. Coupled with the pounds and pounds of armor he wore, it was possible to suffer heat stroke. Bearing that thought in mind, he took to undoing the straps that held his chest plate in place and tossed it to the ground. The shoulders pads would have to go, as well. Even the armored tasset about his waist and gauntlets were removed. He wore a traditional samurai garb now. One of black and white, swirled together intricately to catch the eye. The stench of the dead was almost unbearable when you had the leisure to care what the air smelled like. Less frequently the clanging of metal rang. Almost as if to suggest that only a few stragglers still remainedm as if refusing to believe they had lost.

Looking back on it, Mitsurugi couldn't remember just how he wound up in the middle of all this. He was traveling down what he thought would be the most solitary path in search of Soul Edge fragments, when all of the sudden two armies rushed out from either direction and began killing each other. He was mixed up with it all and became one of the participants. Which was all good and well with him. It was nothing more than another chance to hone his skills. Just as he felt he could not take the heat for much longer, a large crackle broke the stillness and not long after, rain began to fall. A good thing that it did. He wasn't sure how much longer he could've remained standing unassisted otherwise. There was something off in the distance. Or at least Mitsurugi thought that there was. A strangley dressed gentlemen hovering above another grassy hill. He shrugged it aside as the disorientation of battle. Believing that ghosts were around was a foolish belief, but he still could not shake the feeling that he had seen something. And felt it, too. He had felt filled with the greatest of sorrow, but only for a brief moment. After this, he would take a long break from combat with thousands of men.