Chapter IV
Before the Breaking
The sun held a vestige of warmth as it peeked its mane over the edge of the horizon like every summer sun did in Germany at dawn. Its light crept along the ground and alighted on the sleeping form of Luzifer. He seemed to be mildly annoyed by the feeling of light on his body but he remained asleep. Siegfried lay on the opposite side of the remains of the night's fire and he awoke with the coming of the dawn. He lifted Requiem slipped it threw the loop on his back so that it hung behind him. The sound of his half-armor clanking with his stiff motion woke up the sleeping Luzifer who stood up as well. Luzifer twisted his neck in a circle and stretched warily. Siegfried grabbed a satchel that contained his things and Luzifer began to walk to the path that they had been following the day before.
Neither of the two spoke and Siegfried let himself be wrapped up in his own thoughts. He needed to figure out a way to destroy Soul Edge but no way was coming to mind. How do you destroy the physical embodiment of death and violence? It was like trying to kill a god. Impossible. Maybe someone would know how but how would he find that one person in a million without drawing attention to himself. And he had that to worry about as well. Practically every person alive had heard about the legend of Soul Edge and many of them dedicated their life to find the weapon that had names in some cultures like "the Sword of Heroes" or "the Sword of Salvation". If someone thought he was carrying Soul Edge life could get a lot more complicated then it already was.
Siegfried could try and find someone or something more powerful then Soul Edge that could possibly destroy it but that seemed highly unlikely. After all Soul Edge had been broken into shards before and could reform from them if they were gathered together once more. Whatever he used to destroy Soul Edge would have to be able to destroy it completely and utterly. This brought up the interesting concept of what happened to those loose shards of Soul Edge now that the main weapon had been sealed away by an equal and oppositely aligned power. Did they go dormant as well or were they still out their radiating evil into the world, possibly corrupting weak souls? There were too many variables to account for and Siegfried didn't like it one bit.
They had now arrived at the path that meandered it way through the woods that occupied this section of the German countryside. The path avoided trees and did its best to follow the contours of the land but at times that was impossible while still going around the thickly spread trees. The forest looked primeval and one could here the beasts of the ground paw their way through the glades that had protected marauding barbarians during the times of the Roman Empire, which was now long passed. The only thing that harkened back to its ancient memory was the Holy Roman Empire, which was its descendent in name only.
Moving along the path to the next town Siegfried was slightly concerned with his half memory of Luzifer. He didn't know if it was a true memory or just an aberration that he had picked up from his time wielding Soul Edge. Maybe Soul Edge had once been wielded by someone similar to Luzifer and had passed the memory on to Siegfried. That didn't seem right though. Soul Edge had probably just corrupted his memory, giving him fake memories and removing real ones.
Trust was also weighing heavily on Siegfried's mind. Specifically whether or not he could trust Luzifer. The boy showed latent abilities with swordsmanship, which was disconcerting. He seemed to be able to play with fire in ways that were…inhuman. Last night he had seen Luzifer playing with a small ball of fire that he rolled along the back of his hand! He had tried asking the boy about it but the boy just left the question unanswered. "It's just something I do" indeed! All that stacked on the fact the boy was named after the lord of demons left Siegfried's belief in coincidences thinly stretched.
Siegfried glanced at the boy walking near him. His head was down cast to the earth, as though his neck could not support the weight of his head, and he looked both depressed and humble. Siegfried knew that if you actually took time to talk to him you would not think him humble, though you might still think him depressive. The boy at times, when he wasn't really thinking about what he was saying, could be very arrogant. Right now he had a very introverted expression painted across his face and he seemed taken with whatever thoughts were plaguing his mind at the moment.
The sun had long ago reached it zenith when they took a quick break to eat. Siegfried tried initially to make conversation with Luzifer but the boy firmly resisted any attempts to pass the time with idle conversation. Suddenly, the boy perked up and looked back the way they had come. He seemed intent on the path they had traveled and scanned the horizon. Siegfried looked at him questioningly, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing" replied the taciturn boy, "Just my mind playing tricks on me."
Sometime later the two of them crested a ridge that they were ascending and looked as the ground receded away and the trees became more intermittent, after the last of the trees was a small clearing of a few feet that stopped at the wall of the first house. The entire village was centered on the path and it seemed like not much mercantile traffic passed through the area, for there was only a small hostel/house for their use as a resting station. Oh well, thought Siegfried, It's better then another night on the ground. They walked into town and most of the people looked up from their chores at the two traveling warriors with eyes that only reinforced Siegfried's assumption that few travels came through this way.
Luzifer looked at the people skeptically and Siegfried jaw almost dropped at the boy's lack of trust. And he thought he was being suspicious for suspecting Luzifer. A girl walked up to Siegfried and tugged slightly on his tasset. Siegfried knelt down in front of the little girl who could hardly be more then eight years old, "What do you want?" he said in friendliest voice, which still sounded a little gruff.
The girl looked at him for a moment with eyes that were five sizes to big for her face before she spoke, "Are you a knight, sir?"
Siegfried chuckled as he nodded and the girl smiled. She looked up at Luzifer, "Then you must be his squire."
"What?" Luzifer said with a slight shock. "I'm the squire of no one. Fool girl!" then Luzifer turned and stalked off toward the hostel.
Siegfried couldn't help but laugh at what had just transpired. He put one hand on the girl's shoulder, "Don't you worry about him. He's gets angsty when he thinks someone is insulting him." The girl only looked more confused, "You'll understand when you're older." The girl smiled and ran away. Happiness was so fragile when you're young and even more so when your older. He could remember all the happy futures he had taken away as Nightmare. How he had slain and laughed upon the graves of so many only to grant Soul Edge the power it said that it would use to resurrect his father who Siegfried had murdered during a raid. Of course the blade had no intention of rebirthing Siegfried's father and he didn't know if it had the power even if it add consented to, but Siegfried had give the weapon his soul and his body all the same. Yes, little girl, I am a knight but I am not a very good one. He let the wind blow a single stray leaf, withered and brown that stuck to him like a stone and clutched to his armor, gripping to him like a sullying tick. It didn't make him heavier in any meaningful way but he felt like he could not go forward with it staining his otherwise shining armor. Finally, it blew away into the wind and Siegfried could feel the blocks in his mind that were preventing his movement fade away. Fall is coming, he thought to himself.
Siegfried followed Luzifer, who had escaped into the confines of the inn. He expected to see Luzifer in the process of obtaining their rooms but what he found was something completely different. He walked into the common room, which was relatively free of the scent of smoke and sweat, as the night crowds of tired workers had not yet arrived. There were a few of the town's lazy men who had already pulled up their seats at the various tables that dotted the area around the central hearth. The hearth consisted of a ring of stone around ashes and had not yet been filled with fresh wood for the night's fire. Though there was probably already a fire going in the kitchen to prepare the food for the coming crowds. The innkeepers daughter was sitting placidly behind the bar in order to keep the tavern under control while the innkeeper was in the back cooking the meal for the night. The girl was quite beautiful and had long brunette hair that framed a fair face and a feminine frame.
That's not what surprised Siegfried; he had expected that. What surprised him was Luzifer sitting at the bar as far away from the innkeeper's daughter as he possibly could with a mug of ale in front of him he obviously did not order, judging from the expression on his face. His head was turned away from the girl who was staring at him and Siegfried almost started laughing but he resisted the feeling of humor and began to walk up to the girl. As he passed Luzifer he whispered to him, "Come on lets get our rooms." Luzifer then stood up behind him and walk with Siegfried to the girl to get their rooms, but constantly kept his face looking away from the girl who was still looking at him with that predatory gleam in her eye. Siegfried took his place in front of the girl but she didn't pay him a glance. He never thought Luzifer was the kind of guy that caught the eye of women but then again he was not a woman.
He pointedly cleared his throat and the girl spared him a glance, looked him up and down, gave him a sly smile, and spoke with that predatory glimmer in her eye, "Hey, what can I do for you?" Siegfried could see why Luzifer didn't want to talk to this girl she seemed to be head hunting and for an antisocial boy like Luzifer that is the last thing he could want to deal with.
"I'd like a room please." Well, Luzifer would have to learn to deal with women like this if he was to survive in the world. In fact, women like this were the least of his worries, there were probably many women, and men, who would kill him without a second thought.
Just as Siegfried had been expecting she played with what he said in order to get Luzifer to talk to her, something she had probably given him the ale in order to get him to do, "And will your friend be getting a room." She said be and getting almost in the same breath intentionally.
Luzifer scratched the back of his head rabidly and kept his gave off hers. "Yeah I'll take a room please." His voice caught a couple times as he said that. Siegfried sighed, that would only encourage the girl. Where was that arrogant disdain that Luzifer used when speaking to him. That would make sure the girl never came back again. Alas, though, the girl would probably be harassing Luzifer for the rest of there stay here.
"Alright, I'll go get your rooms prepared. You may sit and rest in the common rooms until they are ready…but" she held the 'but' and looked at Luzifer slyly, "I was wondering if you could help me as some of the stuff it need is to heavy for me to lift and I hate to bother my mother who is busy preparing tonight's dinner." Yep, Luzifer had not deterred her. He almost felt pity for Luzifer.
Luzifer once more brought his good hand to the back of his head to scratch his brown-blonde hair. "Um…I can't…I can only use one arm and I can't really be of much help with only one hand" He was positively squirming underneath her finger.
She flashed him a dangerous smile, and look at the ground with what Siegfried could tell was fake bashfulness. "Well, I'm sure a strong warrior like yourself can still be useful. Don't tell my mother but I'll even take some off your tab." Luzifer tried to squirm away but Siegfried knew he'd have to step in on this one. Luzifer was beyond lost at this point.
"Look woman" Siegfried snarled putting his hand between the woman's gaze and Luzifer's body, "My friend can't be bothered by you so please go away, prepare those rooms, and leave him the hell alone." The innkeeper's daughter practically scurried to get out of reach of Siegfried and as soon as she went up the stairs to the rooms above, Luzifer let out a tired sigh and walked to a table not to far from where to men were talking.
As Siegfried got close to the two talking men, one of whom was an aging man who had seen much ill in his time and the other was an equally aged man, he could hear some of what they were talking about. "There's fighting up north I heard. The Lutherans are rising up again to fight against the Holy See and there have been some skirmishing."
The other man shook his head and sighed, "Have they not seen enough battle over the last fifty years? What can be gained from the violence but the greater weakening of Christendom? Damn, hot bloods never thinking about the greater good."
A younger man leaned from the bar and shouted back at the two old men, "Your too old fashion, geezers. Christendom is no more! We are finally free to be nation's not some bland conglomeration of bastards, who hardly know nor trust their supposed allies, who spend their time plotting against one another. We can now pursue individual strength as supposed to communal weakness."
One of the old men snapped back at the younger man as both Luzifer and Siegfried took their seat, "What's that? We're gaining strength but at what cost? Our souls! That's the cost! Its faith in His Holiness that got us through the past millennia and its faith that will get us through the next one. What is faith if we abandon it when the going gets rough?"
"Yeah? Want to talk about this outside?" said the youth haughtily. Siegfried sighed with melancholy about the state of things where two old men were about to gang up on a boy all over some pointless argument about a meaningless subject. What would they gain from this fight? He mused that as he watched the three men walk outside. As a warrior he knew that sometimes violence was necessary but surely this was a waste of blood. He glanced at his comrade who was sitting there looking like he was going asleep in his chair. It was at the moment that Siegfried noticed that Luzifer didn't care about how those three men were going to pummel each other for nothing that he heard the first blow land as the fight erupted outside.
How could that arrogant bastard not care? A wide haymaker landed. Does he not care about others? Someone was kneed in the groin. Well, if the bastard doesn't care about the emotions of others then maybe he will conveniently ignore Luzifer's emotions. " Luz, you need to learn to talk to women, you know?" What Siegfried did know was where this conversation would lead, right to a nest of negative emotions inside Luzifer's head.
"Tch… It doesn't matter." Luzifer tried to brush it away but Siegfried wasn't about to be stopped by such a basic technique of subject avoidance. He could hear someone make a block outside.
"You were completely stuttering there. Was it because she was making a pass at you? Or is that how you talk to all women?" Someone slammed into the wall outside and was pinned against the wood wall with a flurry of punches.
Luzifer looked up his eyes throwing daggers at Siegfried, "Leave me alone!" he snarled and his voice scrapped against his throat causing it to come up mangled.
Siegfried couldn't help but get the feeling he was being a bit of a bastard but he pressed on anyway, "What did you murder somebody or something?" One of the old men crashed through the door and the other was grabbing the young man from behind.
Luzifer stood up suddenly causing his seat to tip back and fall to the ground with a clatter. He began walking towards the stairs but stopped halfway there and looked over his shoulder at Siegfried, "If you must know mortal, every women I have ever cared about I have murdered. My mother and Blasa." He then stormed up the stairs in a tornado of pent up anger. Crap, that girl would get him by himself if he went up there now, he didn't know if Luzifer could keep her off by himself. He knew he had been a heel and he thought he owed Luzifer that much at least, so he followed the boy up the stairway.
On the floor above, Siegfried saw Luzifer tearing down the hallway in a seething fury. Doors lined both sides of the hall and from one of them came the girl from earlier. Siegfried began striding towards the two as the girl stood in front of Luzifer. She said something to Luzifer that Siegfried could not hear they he could imagine it was suggestive. Luzifer's response, however, Siegfried did hear and it was a feral growl, each word sounding like its own sentence, "Go. Away. Mortal. Wench. Or. I. Will. Kill. You!" With that Luzifer pushed the girl aside and walked into the room slamming the door behind him. The girl looked shocked and flustered, to say the very least. Suddenly, Luzifer started screaming. It was a despairing wail, guttural, banshee-like, animalistic, primal, deep, high. All these things it was at once. It made Siegfried's skin crawl and his stomach clench. His mouth went dry and his consciousness eroded. He would never make Luzifer angry on purpose ever again. Whatever kind of shrieking was emanating from that room it was inhuman.
When the yelling stopped the girl ran as fast a she could tears running down her cheeks, and Siegfried could not fault her for that.
He finally stopped yelling and collapsed against the wall exhausted. He looked around his room, which was empty except for a small pallet in the far corner and a window that looked out onto the town. You are truly pathetic, he thought to himself. No! He was better then all those other mortals! He was the greatest warrior alive and he would prove it. But more then all else he was a murderer of innocent women. He held his head in his living hand.
He was pathetic and he knew it. What was he doing? What good could he do against Soul Edge when it was the closest thing he had to a kindred spirit? What could a slayer of innocents do against evil? You can't fight fire with fire it only makes more fire.
He sighed. But then what would doing nothing accomplish? That was easy it would accomplish nothing. It seemed that good was in need of hand and he supposed it couldn't be choosy about who it got to help it. That meant that the odd murder could lend its aid if necessary.
Letting his head lean back against the wall he looked out the window at the town, which was now lit by the moonlight that came in seraphic waves and tried to decide what Siegfried and him were going to do about destroying Soul Edge. Suddenly, an idea came to him. The men who had started fighting down stairs mentioned that there was war brewing up north. If they took Soul Edge they could surely keep a low profile working as mercenaries. With the money from fighting they could stay on the move. Not only that but they could meet powerful warriors who might have heard of an item more powerful then Soul Edge and Luzifer could buy books that might also have information dealing with that subject.
Luzifer smiled, his two favorite things in life, fighting and knowledge, война и знание, guerra e conoscenza.
Luzifer stood up and prepared to go to sleep. He took off the sword on his shoulder but, since he had gotten rid of that obnoxious girl before she could finish preparing the room and with that give him some blankets, he left all his cloths on. He hated that girl. She had brought up all his self-loathing and not having quilts to keep him warm was a small price to pay not to have to deal with her ever again. Just as he was about to lie down he noticed something outside. Looking out the window he saw on the rooftop of the house across the way. The house was a primarily wooden structure that had a flat room, in the center of which was a hunched form. The moon gave off enough light so that Luzifer could see that the form was a female human. She had strange blue-green hair and her cloths were green and purple with what look like either fur or feathers at the collar. He couldn't see the details very clearly though. What he did notice was a circle of steel that reflected the moonlight towards him. He didn't know if such a weapon existed but a weapon it appeared to be judging from the way the form was holding it. He knew he had seen someone following them earlier that morning. He moved his sword closer to the bed just incase. Before he got in bed though he waved goodnight to the form across the road from him and it immediately made itself scarce. That aught to intimidate her for a while. To be safe though he slept with his hand on the hilt of the Glam.
"No" Siegfried said. Siegfried would never have considered himself a scholar but this was by far the stupidest idea that any human had ever come up with. Luzifer had just made a case about taking Soul Edge, the greatest object of evil in the world, into the center of violence where warriors gathered, warriors who would probably like to get their hands on the demonic weapon. What if Soul Edge fell into the hands of one of those warriors? What new hells could be release upon the world? Not to mention that Siegfried had done enough killing and didn't feel that he could in good conscience work as mercenary, he had committed enough murders as Nightmare.
"How else are we going to get money to keep up this traveling? If we don't get money from fighting I'm going to have to go back to getting money from stealing!" Luzifer shouted as he walked beside Siegfried down the path the wound its way to the next town. The next village according to the man who had given them directions was larger then the last one they had passed through as it was centered on a hub of local commerce. Siegfried thought about that option. When he was younger he had led a band of thieves known as Schwarzwind and had no desire to return to his shameful past. However, it was true that they would be in severe need of funding if they were to be moving constantly.
"Do what you will but harm none alright?" Siegfried gave in a little. He knew that no matter what he said would really have an effect on what Luzifer would actually do but he still felt a pang of guilt for condoning the boy's behavior.
"Tch…it doesn't matter whether you give me permission or not, mortal. I will do whatever the hell I choose. " Luzifer said, brushing off Siegfried's words easily before continuing, "I have one other thing I feel I should bring to your attention…"
Siegfried cut him off, "If it's about the girl that's following us I already know about her. Saw her last night on the rooftop." Siegfried had hoped that his nonchalance would impress and win some more loyalty from Luzifer but it seemed that it did not as the boy was unphased.
The boy merely continued as though Siegfried's words had been his own, "and I have a plan to deal with her."
Siegfried cast him a sidelong glance, "I hope its better then your last plan." Siegfried was about to tag on something even more bitterly sarcastic but decided against it, he should try to befriend this boy, doing otherwise would only make life more difficult for him.
" When we reach the town we split up. I was watching her last night and she was looking directly at my room the entire time and I believe she will follow me. That way not only will she try to attack my while I'm isolated, even if I loose she will not be able to get Soul Edge as you will have it." Siegfried thought for a moment. It seemed logical, and he supposed all those books that Luzifer carried with him must have taught him something.
"Alright." Siegfried nodded and they fell into silence as they approached the town.
The trading center was indeed of a greater population then the hamlet they had passed through the day before. The streets were filled to bursting with people and carts the lumbered through filled with chopped lumber or containers of salt from the sea. Luzifer and Siegfried came onto the main road from a ninety-degree angle and Luzifer went right while Siegfried went left. Luzifer pushed his way through the crowds of people, only stopping to snatch a small purse of gold that was just begging to be taken from a distracted merchant. After he had gotten his fill of being slammed into by people he ducked into an alley. Took him to a small clearing behind the some buildings. The clearing reeked of human wastes and looking up he noticed windows that people used to throw their…mierda… out of the house and to the earth below where it decay and created the most pungent odor. As was only to be expected the grass grew tall and emerald-colored.
Luzifer needed only to wait a moment before the girl landed behind him, in a small area where green grass did not grow. He looked over his shoulder at her, not even bothering to turn around to face her. He looked her over. She had a torn green shirt that was barely held together by purple stitching and covered entirely too little of her body. Her arms were more adequately protected by long leather gloves that had the strangest purple tint. It was indeed feathers that Luzifer had seen around her collar, wrists, and thighs the night before and they were green like the plumage of no bird that Luzifer could recall from memory. She had tight green pants that were snug around her hip and had slights going down both thighs to the shins, which were wrapped in light greaves. She had an unusual shade of cerulean hair that had threads of green winding threw it. Her eyes had a lavender hue to their irises and her lips were as green as the rest of her cloths. She looked to be off an age with him, which was in the late throes of adolescence. Physically she was beyond attractive and, as his eyes pulled themselves away from her thanks to a quick aversion of his head, he could feel his lust squeaking in its little corner of his mind but he had grown resistant to it desires. The only thing that he let play on his consciousness was his self-loathing. Once, his abhorrence had gotten his emotions under control he turned around and marked the weapon in her hand. It was indeed circular with three evenly space fins with barbs that looked able to hook into the flesh and tear at the nerves.
"What do you want, wench?" Luzifer said arrogance dripping from his tongue.
She beamed a innocent smile at him, "I came to kill you and take Soul Edge!" she squealed with a childish glee the belied that deadly words that she spoke but the glee seemed fake. It was too over done to unreal, like someone trying to look happy when they had never felt happy in their life.. Oh well, though Luzifer, at least she thinks I have Soul Edge. "I'd say that you would also make a good host but my master said that descendents of Azazel could not be used as hosts. Pity! You look real strong too!" the last two sentences she said with an almost genuine pout of disappointment but again it was astonishingly fake..
Luzifer drew Glam and pointed it at the girl, "What do you mean a descendent of Azazal?"
She brushed off his question with a wave of her hand, "I don't know that's just what he said." She then moved her ring blade up and looked through the middle, "but come lets not talk of such boring subjects let's play!" she brought the weapon around in a horizontal slash at his head but he easily ducked beneath the blow.
They struck at each other for the longest time. Both were incredibly fast, with the girl only ever so slightly edging out Luzifer. But what little he lost in speed, he more then made up for in weapon reach. The girl, like Luzifer, relied on speed and individual strikes to defeat her opponent. Neither could truly gain a great advantage over the other, until…
Luzifer baited the girl in and she brought a vertical down that he easily sidestepped. The ring blade slammed into the ground and for that brief second was still. Luzifer thrust his sword through the ring blade and into the ground so that the girl could not bring its edge to bear. Luzifer then kick the girl sharp in the abdomen and she was knocked backward and to the ground. Luzifer removed his sword from the ring, let it fall to the ground, and stomped his foot through the middle of it, thus keeping it permanently out of her reach. She knelt in front of him ready to take the killing blow she deserved for her failure from his raised sword. He held the blade up but did not bring it down. Memories of his mother and Blasa bleeding in front of him came to his skull and he could not kill the girl. He could never kill a woman.
He stabbed the sword into the ground and kicked the ring blade away. The girl looked up at him, in shock that she was still alive but showing no fear of the possibility that she could still die. "Go and retrieve your ring blade and come again to kill me if you wish I don't care. Just do me a favor and leave me alone for the rest of the day." He then drew his sword from the ground and began to walk away.
The girl looked at him, her head cocked to one side quizzically, not knowing what to do in such a situation. Suddenly, an idea came to her, "My name is Tira. And no one will kill you but me!"
Luzifer glanced over his shoulder at the green girl named Tira, with the corpse of a smile on his lips, "My name is Luzifer. And no one will ever kill me."
Another chapter done. Tira truly joins the ranks of the main characters and we will be seeing a lot of her. The next chapter will probably be another week or so, it's a pretty heavy chapter if I do say so myself.
Also I want all of you to review! Even if you only say how much you hate me and that you want to kill me. Even you people who don't belong to the website can review as this will accept anonymous reviews. So I implore you all to review.