Tainted Souls, Tainted Swords
Chapter Nineteen: Finished
Taki closed her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the abuse coming her way, knowing she would barely be able to fend for herself if she could stand up. Maybe if she had secretly gotten hold of Rekki-maru, she could have sliced his throat as he came up from the secret chamber. But now? Now he held both her swords – she couldn't flee without at least one of her weapons. Zasalamel had her in the palm of his hand. Now she was doomed.
However, she did not feel his wrath. In fact she heard receding footsteps as the Egyptian spoke, "I doubt you'll believe me, but I'm not an evil man."
Taki opened her eyes, and looked across the barn to find her enemy with his back to her approaching the barn wall. The shinobi tried to get up, tried to push through the pain in her aching body to stand on her two feet, but midway up she collapsed face first in the dirt. Sending up dust in her face to agitate her senses. In her mind, she cursed but did not verbalize it; however, her curses manifested clearly in those reddening eyes that watched Zasalamel with bitter resentment. What was he doing?
"In taking this demon sword, I did you a favor," Zasalamel continued, his back still turned to her as he unsheathed Mekki-maru and studied it a moment. God how that bothered her than anything – even Fu Ma ninjas and Master Toki himself knew better than to turn their backs to her. But here lie Taki, unable to creep up, unable to get the killing blow, unable to even stand up. She felt pathetic, she felt as though all her training had been for nothing, and she hated herself for how far she'd fallen.
The Egyptian dropped the scabbard uncaringly upon the ground, and he plunged the blade into the barn's wall so it stuck out at a perfect perpendicular angle, "But do you recognize that favor? The burden I'm trying to lift from you? Do you try to understand?
"You assume anyone wanting Soul Edge is vile and evil," and the Egyptian turned his attention to Rekki-maru, removing it from its case and stabbing the sword into the wall just below Mekki-maru. Still ignoring Taki like she was some sort of insect. The shinobi couldn't take it anymore. Biting her lip, Taki tried again to push herself up off the floor and made it to her hands and knees before feeling a sudden spell of weakness and dizziness. She paused, momentarily hoping to gather the strength to stand.
Zasalamel lectured on, looking over the arrangement of swords stabbed securely into the barn wall, "You assume I seek power, seek the lies that surround the sword. You foolishly assume I know not of the powers that forged that sword. You assume I'm a man with intentions of destroying you and everything you hold dear. You've assumed to much, and you're dead wrong on all accounts."
As the dizziness faded, Taki answered, "Mekki-maru is my sword."
Leaning his scythe against the wall, the Egyptian approached the downed and harmless ninja with his arms crossed, "Look at you, woman. You're on all fours like a dog, too weak to stand up, and you're only alive because I willed it. You're not strong enough to wield Mekki-maru. You're not wise enough to recognize your weakness." Then as he came to a stop in front of the pathetic shell of a shinobi, he made a statement that pierced her heart and set her mind in a rage, "You don't deserve to wield Mekki-maru."
The glare she cast reflected her boiling hatred. Mekki-maru was her's. Who the hell was he to say she doesn't deserve the sword? Who was he to take Mekki-maru from her? What right did he have? But what could she say from this position? On her hands and knees, too weak to stand up – afraid to try and stand up in fear of falling on her face again. Who was she to challenge what Zasalamel has proven. Her heart sank. She was unworthy . . .
Shaking away those thoughts, Taki quietly bit her lip while searching for something to say. Something that wouldn't be just the lashing out of a wounded ego. Something that would prove her nobility, her wisdom, her inner strength . . . but she couldn't. The answer lie somewhere in her training – that secret Tenebraurum locked up and set her in motion for depressing failure after depressing failure. Zasalamel's words came back in her mind with a vengeance, and this time she couldn't dismiss them so easily. She was unworthy . . . she was worthless without the knowledge of her training. She was worthless . . .
The ninja bowed her head, overwhelmed with despair. She felt her strength giving, the dizziness returning, the weakness of a worthless woman consuming her. She felt the talons of defeat sink deeply in her flesh, holding on with a deathgrip. Giving up and trying to stand, she seated herself and leaned heavily on her hands.
Reaching out, Zasalamel touched her chin gently but Taki wouldn't accept his touch. The Egyptian sighed, "I gave you an opportunity to surrender the sword peacefully, and had you complied no harm would have come to you. You are strong, ninja, don't misunderstand that. Simple peasants or town guards would have been no match for you even when you are weakened; however, I am no peasant or lowly town guard nor is the current holder of Soul Edge. He would have crushed you just as I have, only he would have finished you." At this point Zasalamel's hand snapped forward, grabbing Taki and forcing the woman to meet his gaze, "Do you understand?"
Taki's fury was boiling, but at the same time her heart was drowning. He had a point to prove, granted, she couldn't stand up to Nightmare in her current condition. But did he have to kick her while she was down, and beat the tar out of her to prove it? Was she really that stubborn—
'Damnit, Taki, stop thinking that way!' She quietly commanded herself. So many emotions, her soul torn in so many directions at once. 'Enough self-pity. I'm a woman of action. I'm not this pathetic.'
"Do you understand?" Zasalamel repeated, losing patience.
"Mekki-maru is my burden," she said, carefully controlling her tone, "and I will bear it. I will keep standing until I'm strong enough to finish this." After a long pause, she narrowed her eyes and growled a challenge, "And I will surrender Mekki-maru to no one."
"Stupid wench," Zasalamel release Taki and stood up. He turned, and returned to the swords still sticking out of the barn wall, "Did I not tell you that I am not evil! You're not suffering to satisfy some sick twisted sense of pleasure – you're suffering because of your own ignorance! Because you chose this path for yourself!"
"I will suffer whatever I have to to end Soul Edge's curse. It's not an easy road, and I never deluded myself into thinking it was. It'll probably cost me my life, but I'm willing to—"
"It will cost you your life!" Zasalamel snapped, snatching up his scythe and gesturing towards the ninja with it, "Your heart is in the right place, your dedication is admirable – why do you think I've spared your life? You don't deserve to die for your actions!" A moment passed while both stared at each other, wordlessly. Zasalamel gripped his scythe until his knuckles turned white, "I've hurt you very badly, and you may force me to inflict even more pain upon your fragile body. But consider this: after your enemies have crushed you as I have, what will they do with the broken woman sitting there now? And would you rather discover your weaknesses through me, or through them?"
Zasalamel hovered his scythe of Mekki-maru, then raised it up and Taki realized his intentions. "Don't you dare!"
The Egyptian paused and without taking his eyes off his target, Mekki-maru, he intoned, "Breaking your body has failed to teach you, shinobi. You've brought this fate upon yourself, and your swords—"
"NO!" Taki's faced turned bright red as she yelled with every last breath of air in her lungs. Instinctively she thrust herself forward—after Zasalamel—the beating she had taken before had taken its toll on her balance, reflexes, and instincts but she miraculously stayed on her feet. Lacking her ninja grace, but making up for it with her determination she charged across the barn seconds too late.
Zasalamel's scythe came down, striking Mekki-Maru at the proper angle, and the blade shattered into half a dozen pieces. Pieces that had yet to touch the ground when Taki arrived in full charge, and her moment of heroics efforts came to an abrupt end as Zasalamel countered by thrusting the blunt end of the scythe into her midsection. The force of Zasalamel's thrust combined with Taki's charge knocked the wind from the woman, and she collapsed to her knees with her arms wrapped around her tender stomach.
She tasted blood in her mouth, and could not get air into her lungs. Add in the devastation of seeing Mekki-maru in pieces beneath her – a revelation that pulverized her already shaken spirit and self confidence. "It's time for you to sleep," Zasalamel said as he grabbed her by the hair, forced the girl up, and threw her against the wall headfirst. "And whether you choose to believe it or not, I'm saving you from yourself."
Taki caught herself before she crumbled into a heap on the floor again. She looked up and there was her last hope! Rekki-maru so close! So nearly within reach! Until the scythe bludgeoned her lower back, and she found herself stunned. Using the blade, he turned Taki around so her back was against the wall, and then Taki saw how Zasalamel was holding his scythe. She knew her fate. She knew history would repeat itself. "Please no—"
Once again the two ends of the staff cracked against her ribs, smashed her abdomen, uppercutted her against the wall. Once again, Zasalamel beat the living hell out of Taki in a devastating wall combo from which she couldn't recover, she couldn't defend herself, and she suffered the full brunt of every blow until her legs gave out. Once again she slid down into a seated position, slumped against the wall. And before she was out cold, she witnessed the scythe come down upon Rekki-maru. The guillotine blade came down upon the last of Taki's self-confidence, the last of her hope, and it drove the nail in the coffin for the Shinobi. She whimpered a pitiful, "no" before the strength left her body entirely. Her eyes closed. And she moved only to breath.
Zasalamel surveyed his work, then declared, "You're finished."
With the woman unconscious, Zasalamel returned to the treasure he came here for: the essence of Soul Edge within Mekki-maru using an elaborate and somewhat time consuming form of sorcery, which required evil symbols drawn in the dirt, incense, and a vile of a mysterious red liquid (some sort of mystic concoction.) When he had finished, like Mercury the essence of Soul Edge separated from the broken Mekki-maru and formed into one shard – that same shard Taki had pulled from Sophitia all those years ago.
After collecting the shard, Zasalamel returned to the unconscious ninja who moved only to breath. Taking her by the one foot, he dragged the unconscious woman near the trap door and began another ritualistic casting. He suspected the shinobi had finally learned her lesson, learned her place in the world, and would trouble him no more. However, he would not take a chance. From his belt he removed a vial of a red liquid, and poured its contents upon the sleeping ninja. From another pouch on his belt there were grains of a strange sand that too fell upon the unconscious ninja. With one hand, he gestured and his hand glowed violet while he recited an ancient Egyptian incantation.
A curse he could not set up in an active battle; however, it was a curse he could call upon spontaneously once he had established it. Should Taki ever stand against Zasalamel again, he can defeat her with a quick incantation – all the strength will leave her, and she will crumble. She wouldn't stand against him . . . she could not stand against him now.
He glanced around the barn, surveyed the damage, and gripped the fragment of Soul Edge in his fist. He could feel its enthusiasm for the crushing defeat in this girl, but the power within the fragment did not move him nor tempt him. His desire for eternal peace, that millenia long desire, outweighed the promises the sword had. Satisfied that his work was finished, Zasalamel used his scythe to hook the trap door and open it.
"Farewell Shinobi," Zasalamel whispered, and holding the trap door open with the scythe, he used his foot to roll Taki's lifeless body into the dark pit like death uncaringly pushing a soul into the dark abyss of eternity. The sexy ninja, or what was left of her, collided with a whole shelf of contraband – coins, jewelry, wine bottles – and their contents went crashing to the floor along with her. A loud crash and a small dust cloud answered her fall, but it didn't wake her. She lay motionless half buried in the debris. A slight whimper escaped her lungs as she breathed.
"Rest in peace Taki of the Fu Ma." And Zasalamel let go of the trap door and it slammed shut from its own weight, sealing the beaten, crushed, and humiliated remains of a woman in complete and total darkness.
Taki … was finished.
