Tainted Souls, Tainted Swords
Chapter Ten: Awakenings
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Within a dream, within a memory, Taki found herself staring at her reflection in the water and seeing the girl from twenty years ago. Just an obedient orphan girl who lived with her grandparents, helping her grandfather forge swords and armor. She was no one special, but she had ambitions of seeing the world. She had just finished performing her daily chores (finished early as always), bowed respectfully to grandfather Hideo, and set off to deliver a new katana to Sensei Kurusawa and watch the warriors train before she'd rendezvous with her friends to play before the dusk.
Taki hurried across the village, delivered the weapon, and claimed her usual spot to watch the warriors (a spot that required formidable tree-climbing skills to reach.) From her vantage point, not only could she observe the men sparring, but she could also look out across the landscape and how her home radiated with welcoming beauty and perfection that felt somewhat surreal, and yet it seemed more real than her (future) journeys through Europe. The colors of the green grass, the pink and violet sky of sunset appeared brighter, fuller, more lively than anywhere else.
Her heart was full in this time and place above the village, expertly maintaining her balance on the branch. The young Taki never suspected that she would never meet with her friends by the well before the dusk. That she would never play with them again.
And something in the distance caught her attention. A man running at full speed across the countryside. Curious, Taki leaned forward and strained her eyes hoping to identify him. "He's not from the village . . ." she whispered to herself, "Who is he?" Taki was the first to notice the man; she was also the first to notice the demons.
A band of monstrous humanoids, grotesquely warped, gave chase to him. Her eyes widened in shock. They gained at an unbelievable rate. He wouldn't make it to the village in time to warn everyone. Taki opened her mouth to scream for Sensei Kurusawa; however, no words came out of her mouth. Faster and faster they ran, still hundreds of yards from the gates but only a few feet from the running man. "Sensei," Taki said quietly, almost whispered, too horror strickened by the sight of the monsters leaping for the kill.
And finally, "Sensei! Sensei!" Frantically she pointed, "Monsters!"
Kurusawa glared up, infuriated that a child would interrupt until he noticed who the child was – Taki. She knew better. Knowing she would not play a prank, knowing she had a good reason, he motioned for one of the men to climb the tower and see for himself, then he quietly motioned for Taki to come down from the tree.
Taki did immediately, rushed to the Sensei and bowed her head, "Forgive me Sensei, but I saw—"
"It's Oni!" The warrior confirmed. "The demon comes!"
"Gather the men!" Kurusawa ordered, "Yoshitaka, I need you to ride and summon Toki of the Fu Ma. Make haste!" And the entire population burst into a frenzy of activity around Taki. Warriors rushed to don their armor and prepare their weapons. Most of the women scrambled to gather the young ones and take them to safety, taking up a secondary guard inside the temple. And the memory, distorted by emotion, played out slowly so the young girl felt completely isolated from the events happening around her. Everyone around her knew what to do. Everyone went to work immediately preparing for the battle, but she was lost, she was scared, she stood motionless watching the world around her. She heard neither Kurusawa nor her grandfather call her name.
Until finally jarred back to her senses as Kurusawa shook her violently and yelled, "Go Taki! Now!"
Gulping, Taki nodded and rushed into the arms of her grandfather, Hideo, upset that Kurusawa had scolded her. Her grandfather, armed with a katana, carried her to the temple in the center of the village, and escorted her down to the basement, where he held her. "It's okay, Taki. I'm here. Your friend Kado is here. You'll be fine."
To Hideo's (and the children's) horror, a mysterious supernatural wind swept through the cracks of the doors to put out all the candles, letting a veil of darkness fall upon the already panicked children. Hideo grasped the handle of his Katana as it reacted to the dark powers. Taki felt her heart pounding in her chest, felt beads of sweat form upon her brow, and anxiety mount by the second. "Are we going to die?" She remembered asking, and remembered the panic it caused in the other children.
Her grandfather quietly, soothingly, answered, "not while I'm here."
Then came the sounds of the battle . . . the sounds of the slaughter. The sound of steel on steel, steel meeting bone, the inhuman roar of other-worldly beings, and the screams of the adult warriors amplified in the dark silence. Taki remembers herself on the verge of hyperventilating as she clung more and more to her grandfather, mumbling something under her breath over and over again along the lines of, "please don't let us die."
"Shut up, Taki!" Kado commanded, glaring at her as tears welled up in her eyes, "Be strong! You're scaring the little ones."
"I . . . I can't—" her answer turned to a scream as the ceiling above her collapsed. She fell away from Hideo, and cried out, "Grandfather!" Without thinking she entered the dust cloud, feeling blindly through the debris for some sign of life. "Grandfather!" She found an inhuman foot, a monstrous foot . . . a demonic foot. And before the dust had cleared enough to see the beast, a powerful hand gripped her around the throat and Taki felt burning claws sink into her skin. Her lungs gave off a shriek of pure terror. She found herself staring into the glowing crimson eyes of the demon, Oni. So scared she didn't even think to scream for help, for someone to save her. Too terrified to move. She could only shriek.
Outside the dream, back within the forests of Italy, Varelli Tenebrarum opened his eyes and pulled away so he could look at the frightened full-grown ninja. Adult Taki still lay beneath him with her eyes shut tightly, breathing heavily, as she experienced a darkened and distorted reflection of her past. The demon smiled an evil smile at how well the mind-warping techniques were working. "Yes, Soul Edge . . . awaken the terror of the girl, and let it thrive in the woman!"
Within its scabbard on her back, Rekki-maru resonated as always, and it seemingly cried out for its master to wake up. But Taki would not, the Soul Edge fragment around her neck and the taint within Mekki-maru had her under its spell . . . and a dark fate awaited her when the evil finally did let her open her eyes.
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Rothion awoke from the depths of peaceful sleep to find his soul mate missing from his side. The blankets were pulled back, and her spot had grown cold. Throwing off the blankets, Rothion stood and pulled a robe around his body. Searching their home, careful not to wake their two children. He found no sign of her. "Not again," he pleaded to the Gods as he charged to the temple of Hephaestus.
And to his dismay, there stood his wife in an Athenia gown that hung over one shoulder, she stared up at the statue with red-eyes and tear-stained cheeks. Even in this state of emotional turmoil, her image against the greek architecture in the moonlight was poetically beautiful, and the lamenting overtone of the implications behind finding her here of all places made his heart cry out. "Sophitia . . ." Rothion whispered.
She sadly broke her gaze from the statue to look at her husband, then bowed her head. Surrendering to her fate, surrendering to her calling, surrendering to her God. "I have to go," She whispered the unnecesarry words, "She needs me."
Rothion went to his wife to sooth her, he touched her chin gently as he always did and gazed deep into her eyes, "Sophitia, Cassandra will be fine. She's a grown woman." Sophitia hugged her lover, slipped into his embrace, and lay her head upon his shoulder . . . holding tightly as though afraid that letting him go would mean losing him to the evil of Soul Edge. Rothion stroked her hair, and rocked back and forth with the woman in his arms, "You don't have to do this, Sophitia—"
But Sophitia pulled away abruptly, "Yes, I do." And she ran her fingertips across one of the scars Soul Edge left her with, and as she did her memory flashed back to the moment of impact where the sword of the gods shattered the evil blade. Remembering how dozens of shards cut her perfect skin, and how one fragment buried itself within inches of heart. In response, the evil within the scars ached just enough for her to feel their presence. "I should have faced Soul Edge to close these wounds once and for all; I should have faced Soul Edge for my children's future. Cassandra shouldn't have needed to leave. I should have left weeks ago to bring Cassandra back. Rothion, if I don't leave my convictions are only going to grow in number and intensity."
Trying to reach out to his wife both emotionally and physically, Rothion quietly comforted, "Cassandra'll be fine. She'll destroy the sword. Our children will be fine. You'll be fine."
But Sophitia would not be comforted by words. "That's what I told myself, too." Only truth would comfort her, only actions to amend for her mistakes in hopes that it's not too late. "Who's going to help Taki?"
"Who's Taki?"
And strangely, Sophitia couldn't answer very well. Her only memories of the Japanese woman who intervened came from the brink of death, blurred by the extreme circumstance taking place around her. "Someone who helped me once, and now she's in trouble. She needs me. Hepheastus showed me in a dream." Sophitia doubted she remembered enough to recognize Taki at a glance, but during the nightmare the knowledge was innate – Taki was the woman she saw suffering at the hands of evil.
"I don't understand – you won't go for your children or your sister, but you'll go for this Taki person?"
"I'm responsible . . . indirectly, I feel responsible for her pain," Sophitia recited, almost oblivious to his question, "I owe her my life, and if she dies I'll never forgive myself," then looking up to her husband not as a wife, but as a warrior about to set out on a quest. "Hephaestus has shown me these dreams because I was too blind to put things together on my own—"
"Sophitia, listen to yourself—" Rothion tried to interrupt, tried to talk sense into his wife who had a family.
She wouldn't hear it though, "If I act now I might be able to save her. If I do nothing, her fate is sealed forever. And one day in the future, it won't be a stranger I barely met once. It'll be you, Rothion. It'll be my children. And that will kill me." The tears now flowed freely down her cheeks, dropping to the marble floor of the temple, and it was apparent that nothing would hold this woman away from her destiny. "You don't understand the evil within Soul Edge, Rothion, that blade spreads darkness like a plague. One cut, and you're forever tainted. It happened to me. I won't let it happen to Cassandra. I won't let that taint destroy my children. I'm not willing to take any chances on Soul Edge surviving. I owe it to my family, to everyone I care about, I must ensure the destruction of that sword once and for all."
Understanding the sad truth, not wanting to, Rothion quietly nodded.
