1Title: White Reflections
Author: Sephira jo and Cap'n Dampel (contact: Soul Calibur
Pairing: Hwang/Mina
Rating: R
Disclaimer: We Don't own, well, other than the our own little copies of the game, the franchise belongs to Namco.
Archive: with permission only.
Author's Note: Well, we're back. We both have been busy and living our lives, but Soul Calibur 3 has brought life into us, and we plan on working on this a lot more. We're over the halfway point I think, so sit back and enjoy this new chapter!
Chapter Six
"Let's go," Yung Sung decided as he pressed against the hidden doorway.
"So much for your talk about being a man," replied Ling. But as her tongue chastised him, her fingers worked furiously at finding the mechanism that would release the door.
"If I go back to the dojo now, everything I've done will have been in vain."
"And this new path I've started upon will be just another dead end. I need this quest just as much as you do... move out of my way."
Yun Sung allowed her to push him aside, shocked at the sincerity of her words.
Of course, he thought. How could I be so childish? Of course Ling has her own motivation for helping me track down the Patriot Sword. She didn't just set out with me on a whim.
"There," she said with satisfaction. They were now crouched before the small door promised by the outline revealed by the reflection in the sword. A door into a world that was almost completely dark and draped in dank, stale air.
"We don't know what's in there," Yun Sung stated. But it's nothing compared to the fiery doom Mina will wreak on me. "Let's go," he repeated. They hurried on in silence, the sound of their accelerated breathing filling their ears so that there was no room to hear anything else. It was so dark that they could barely see the shapes of their hands, making their way mostly through touch. Yet there was some light that allowed them to see that much, although Yun Sung could not detect where its source was. Occasionally his hand would slip from the rough wall of the passage, meeting nothing but air. That meant that they had reached a fork in the tunnel. Always, Ling would lead him to the right. When he questioned her about this, she said that it was only common sense to keep the direction consistent. That way, if they had to backtrack, they would not become lost.
Three forks later, while they paused to catch their breath, she admitted that she had been in such a place as this before.
"This part of the country is dotted with underground passages and ruins. Yoshimitu's band used one for a hideout once, when he needed to disappear for a time."
"Are they interconnected?" Yun Sung asked her.
"I don't know. We never ventured far into them."
"What was all this built for?"
"I have no idea. Perhaps in times more ancient, there was an underground political or religious group that needed to be able to move about secretly."
"I wish I knew what we were secretly headed toward," sighed Yun Sung. "I think we're still heading East, but I can't be entirely sure." He closed his eyes and tried to push away the feeling that they had wound themselves around an endless loop. He could usually count on his sense of direction…
As he focused his concentration, he detected a low humming sound.
"Does the humming help?" Ling murmured.
"No. Can you cut it out?" he whispered back irately.
"You're the one doing it," she giggled softly.
"No, I'm not!"
"What, seriously?" she asked. Yun Sung opened his eyes.
"What is it?" he wondered. It was not a constant sound, but it broke at regular intervals.
"I think it's coming from the right passage," whispered Ling.
"The way we were going to go anyway. Should we check it out?" He really wanted to avoid it altogether, and he really didn't think that consistently choosing the right path was going to save them from becoming hopelessly entombed in the subterranean passage. But he detected fear in her voice, and that fear offered him a chance to prove that he was brave.
Ling hesitated. Yun Sung pushed ahead, creeping along the right passage toward the mysterious humming. The passage opened up into a huge cavern. Whatever the sound was, it was being amplified by the acoustics of the chamber. It was accompanied by tiny flashes of light. Light, he realized, that was being reflected off a great pool of water that filled the bowled center of the cavern. He crept closer, realizing at last that the light he had made his passage with emanated from the rock itself. It was concentrated greatest here in the cavern, and lit the pool with an eerie green glow.
There was a figure standing in the middle of the pool, taller than any man, and it was swinging a giant axe. The swift movement of the axe through the air was the quiet but distinctive hum. The metal of its blade caught the dim light of the lake at certain angles and projected it in tiny flashes. Yun Sung watched, mesmerized by the spectacle and suddenly frozen with fear.
The creature seemed to be growing in size and his axe movements increasing in fury. Too late, Yun Sung realized that he had been noticed. Before he could react, the giant took one swing with his mighty axe, extending it an impossible length across the pool to snatch up Yun Sung by the front of his vest. He yelped as he was jerked off his feet and carried across the pool, his clothing ripping away with the violent motion. The fabric of the vest completely gave way just as the giant deposited him onto the stone island. Yun Sung scrambled to his feet instantly and drew White Storm, though his knees shook and his mind raced with panic.
"Little worm! Where did you crawl from?" the giant rasped through tiny stitches laced across the leather mask he wore. His eyes protruded through the mask, glowing like the water that surrounded them.
The next thing Yun Sung noticed was that he was on the ground again. White Storm quivered with the force of the blow it had blocked from the giant's mighty axe. How can a thing of that size move so quickly? He managed to roll out of the way before the axe could bear down on him again. As the giant hefted the axe up from the stone, Yun Sung made a lightning strike at the creature's torso. Although a large enough target, the massive thing recovered and evaded the blow in a mere instant.
"So, they did send you to fight me, peon. Now, squirm!" the thing roared through its hideous mask.
What is he talking about? "I'm not going to let up for a second!" Yun Sung declared. If this monster wanted a fight, then it would have one. But Yun Sung would be humiliated before no one. They circled each other for a few long moments, each assessing his opponent. Yun Sung briefly scanned their arena as well. It was a small area raised above the rest of the flooded cavern. With the giant's massive reach, it did not provide a lot of space for the boy to work with. The center was slightly uneven where an intricate tile pattern had been worn away in places. The edge was rimmed with cool blue tiles that glistened with moisture. Even as Yun Sung realized the full danger, the giant was slowly herding him toward the edge of the arena where the boy's movements would be further restricted.
"Hell awaits, peon," the giant growled, already becoming impatient with his game. Yun Sung felt a pang of desperation. He could not hold out against this speedy titan for long. He struck out three times with White Storm in rapid succession. The axe met each strike with a quiet hum and a sharp clash of steel. Yun Sung barely brought his blade back in time to block the returning blow. Just the force of the axe almost toppled him over, but he kept his stance intact until the violet-skinned beast crushed his foot with one massive armored boot. Yun Sung twisted in pain and barely evaded another strike with the axe. It hooked the air just above his right shoulder, slicing a chunk of his auburn hair.
They were both dangerously close to the edge now, dancing along the rim in a battle that was quickly going to the giant. The thing was not too enraged with bloodlust to notice this, and pressed forward. With its tree-like forearms, it gripped Yun Sung by the shreds of his vest and embraced him in a deadly vice. Lightning pain seared through the boy's body. Then, like a thunderclap, he was forced into the free air. He dropped to the ground like a broken husk, one hand finding the icy water of the pool and the other grasping at his chest in pain. The force of that attack… he felt intensely like a part of his life had just been ripped away from him.
"You thought you could live through this?" the monster grunted gleefully. Through his fading vision, Yun Sung saw shards of metal within the thing's armor spark with blue lightning.
I am not going to lose!
It shifted from a two-handed grip to a single-handed one, at the same time bringing the axe into a powerful overhand strike. Blue fire raced along its blade as it bore down crippled Yun Sung.
"Too… slow!" he taunted the speeding blade, rising into a crouch and dodging between it and its enormous wielder. It was all he could manage to get to this point of relative safety. Slow though this giant wasn't, Yun Sung slipped between those massive pistons of steel that were its legs and transferred his strength into a sweeping uppercut with White Storm. It wasn't powerful enough to damage the thing's massive backside, but it played to his direction of force. The monster toppled into the water. The strange lightning flared along the surface of the pool, and then the thrashing monstrosity went still and sank into its depths.
"Hey, get back up here! You're not still done, are you?" Yun Sung shouted after it, though he could barely keep from collapsing. He felt mad with emotion as the fear and adrenaline drained from his damaged body, replaced now with fury and relief. His vision swam, then suddenly he too fell into the water.
When Yun Sung awoke, he was lying on his side on the hard cavern floor. Ling's face, faintly illuminated by the eerie glow of the lake, hovered before him. She was smiling like a demon.
"I just saved your life," she said.
"Is that why you're so happy?"
"No… I was laughing because it was so perfect how you slipped over the edge after your dramatic victory."
Yun Sung groaned, coughed up a small spray of water, and sputtered, "I just saved your life, too. That thing would have killed us both!"
"Yeah," she admitted. "Although from were I stood, it just looked like a giant bunny."
"A bunny!" Yun Sung cried. "It had a huge axe!" He felt a smile pull at the edge of his mouth, as he realized, "With those ears or whatever they were sticking out of its mask, it did kind of resemble a giant freak-bunny."
Yun Sung turned his gaze to where Bear was sniffing at the edge of the lake. The cub was dragging something out of the water.
"No, Bear. Leave it!"
It was the giant's violet-skinned torso. Something glittered at its center. Shards of dark metal lay clustered about a larger metal spike in the flesh, like fragments of iron to a magnet.
They're like the thorn I pulled out of Bear's paw…"Leave it alone," he repeated, even as he decided to pocket those shards along with the other he carried. There was some mysterious power about the dark metal that would only go to waste at the bottom of a cavern pool. A power he would investigate after he rested a little bit to regain his strength. He didn't think he could stand up just yet…
"Yun Sung! Don't go to sleep. I'm going to bandage up your wounds and then we need to get out of here," Ling Mei pleaded. Yun Sung was fading fast, drifting into a world darker and more dangerous than the buried shrine.
Assassin walked a road between reality and nightmare, sanity and hell. The addition of the most recent shard, the one taken from the lizard man's tail, had catalyzed this state. Perhaps he lacked the strength or the mental capacity to control so much power.
It won't matter in the end. After I kill Mina, I will take my own life as well. Look at what she made me… I'm not even human anymore! His heart no longer beat, but his entire body pulsed. He didn't breathe, but siphoned life out of the environment. His senses belong to a body that was poisoned by fragments of the Soul Edge. The world he traversed now was dark, save for trails of silver that shone through the murk, markers that connected him to the other shards. Other life forms were dim red blurs. If one crossed one of the silver trails, it became prey to Assassin. Otherwise he avoided them, for he had doubled his pursuit of his enemy, determined to subdue her before this world of madness claimed him completely. She was like a butterfly, always landing just beyond his reach before taking flight again. He swam through rivers of sand, crossed over mountains darker than the deepest night and climbed down valleys that blazed red. He avoided the cities, although the teeming life within them called to him. They sparkled like fool's gold in his nightmare world, cities with spires that reached to the sky, towns than sprawled along mountain ledges and filled entire valleys. He must have traveled a very long way to have seen so many of them… but distance and time did not exist for Assassin. He possessed only a vague concept of the near future.
I will be the last thing that Seung Mina ever sees.