Sun Tzu "The Art of War"
Chapter 2: Waging War
9.
Enma Dai-O
A filthy smell engulfed the place as the twisted and decaying carcass stood inside of it.
It's been several days since its official departure and yet, it's been found only recently… It died painfully… Painfully and unnaturally, as anyone else would in this war spoiled world.
It was a murder, no doubt about it… The body has been beaten and mauled, slashed and torn into bleeding figments… Then badly stitched for further mockery… Its head was still missing though.
Despite the grotesque goriness of its condition, it was still possible to determine its gender… It was female… Of what race? That was yet to be found.
There were people around it… Policemen, reporters or just sadistic curious people… And, of course, me.
I was there and I saw everything… I saw who killed her… I saw who did it. I've been found hidden inside the closet… Pale like a ghost… Frozen in fear.
They asked me questions… But I didn't answer any. I knew it was pointless… There was no justice in Earth that could possibly deal with what happened there… No judge, no jury, no executioner…
Beside me!
Suddenly, the crippled, headless corpse began coughing blood… Then it raised from its position like a living dead from its tomb… Its contorted and badly stitched body parts were bleeding profusely and seemed to have a life (or a non-life) of their own…
Its intestines were hanging out of its slashed belly, hissing like snakes… Their flaming eyes fixing on my form. Its feet were where its hands used to be and vice-versa. The rib cage was outside the sternum, it was wearing it like some kind of an armor… It's blood dripping heart was were its head used to be and finally, its spine lay on its shoulders like a fur coat.
It started burning… Like a damned soul in Hell.
It "looked" directly at me… It spoke… It said that this was the fate of people like her… Of people like me.
It said that I was the next in line… That soon I would have been reunited with her…
In the Inferno, where we all belong.
That is what my mother said… Before turning into smelly ashes.
Soon enough, the rest of my kind followed her fate… All of them, except me.
I realize now… They have been the lucky ones.
I avenged them by killing their murderers… All the thousands and thousands of them… Until I was left alone… Alone in my domain…
My blazing domain… My own Inferno.
6 days before the Barley.
As the dream ended, a very frantic and agitated cat girl woke up from her assembled bed… She was sweating profusely, her eyes were widened and almost deprived of pupils. She put a hand on her forehead, trying to regain her mind. She descended from her bed, still holding her head…
One of the things that Bureizo za Kyatto had learn to hate over her years of life, was sleeping… Every time she did such fruitless activity, she would dream about her so-called life in Soleanna, before her mysterious savior came in her aid, challenging the flames that would encircle her… She would dream about her mother and the racial persecutions her kind has suffered.
She took a sip out of the water pitcher on her window and took a look on the outside world…
The land was still dark, the blazing torches through all the village were the only source of light in the suffocating yet, somehow, peaceful night. She opened the window, her face was met by a gentle, fresh breeze that almost made her purr.
Now that her mind was intact once again, she calmly recalled the last day's events.
There were only a few days left before the impending attack of Dokuta Egguman's forces, therefore every one was doing his part… Sonikku, Ruju and young Teirusu were busy studying the surroundings in order to devise a proper battle plan. Shado and (amazingly) Nakkuruzu were trying to turn a bunch of fearful peasants into improvised warriors, a rather useless task in the cat's opinion, especially since there was not enough time to do it…
And then, there was Void.
She hadn't seen him for the whole day, not even early this night when everyone else gathered in Tikaru's hut for discussing a very important matter:
The economical factor.
It is a well known fact that wars are not cheap, they are very expensive actually… Even though they were not working for money, there still was the feeding problem… A war against an unspecified number of robotic soldier could very well bring several time to be dealt with… And robots did not need to be fed… Carbon based creatures, on the other hand...
The harvesting of the Barley was out of question, since it was too dangerous and the village didn't have enough money to buy decent food in the city, not for everybody, at least.
So, they were stuck with limited daily rations per day for approximately other 2 weeks.
They desperately needed to end this battle as quick as possible or they would basically be screwed. It was indeed a bad prospect… Dying for starvation.
She tried to dismiss the thought, the last thing she needed was to lose her optimism, then her gaze fell on a quite un-mistakable figure lying in the farthest corner of the village… And he was alone. She grinned… That was the perfect time to confront him.
Within a blink of a feline eye, she was out of her hut.
It was a warm night, Void could tell.
The stars were clearly visible from the convenient small and grassy hill he sat on.
Stars… Millions of burning masses, probably surrounded by their own planet systems… Perhaps, irradiating with life some of them or neither. The galaxies, the universe were so large, compared to it, the inhabitants of this small world were utterly insignificant and yet… Inside each and everyone of them lay a universe of its own… Galaxies made of emotions, stars made with burning feelings…
Feelings that he was not allowed to experience, because they would hurt him. All he could do was watch them from a security distance… A rather ambiguous activity that some people could misunderstand for a simple perversion… But it was not a lame case of Voyeurism…
Although such concept used to be the basics for most of the human culture's antics…
It was just plain Envy, one of the few things he could still feel… And, of course, it hurt.
A noise startled him. He turned his rotund head to eye the source of this disturbance.
There she was, in front of him, still and erect, the feline Kaosu known as Bureizo za Kyatto. Her golden eyes were showing a preoccupying amount of glee and some unjustified trace of rage, he could easily tell. His gaze, naturally, was the exact antithesis of her own. No visibly emotion was shown… At least, not in the surface.
She smiled a mischievous grin, giving the woolly-headed, black eyed Kaosu, a very good sight of her fangs. He didn't look fazed by such behavior, only curious.
"May I do something for you?" He suddenly spoke with his surprisingly juvenile voice, slightly taking the lavender cat by surprise.
It was the first time she'd ever heard his voice, she was not expecting it to be so… Childish. So distant from this guy's reputation. After subsiding her small bewilderment, she grinned again and answered him with two simple yet, meaningful words…
"I know."
He now seemed a little taken aback… The almost imperceptible movement of some of his facial muscles was a sufficient clue for her.
"Excuse me?" He asked, now more curious than ever.
"I know that you know…" She replied.
"What do I know?"
"You know that I know…"
He was starting to be annoyed by this little game, another thing that could hardly be noticed by the sudden blinking of his empty eyes, other than that, he was still the portrait of emotionlessness.
"Ok… So, what do you know that I know that you know, I know?" Two could play at this game.
"I know that you know what I am…" She began to say. "… And you know that I know who are you…" She fixed her gaze on his, adding the necessary emphasis before concluding. "You are The Void Warrior, better known by my people as… Enma Dai-O, the immortal Lord of Death!" And now, her eyes were literally producing flames.
At the mention of his other name, his body reacted strangely… He felt as if a cold, rusty knife was slowly cutting off his skin, with sadistic pleasure. That is what he felt internally but externally, nothing really changed from his usual distant glare… That managed to irate the cat girl even more.
"You are the one who's been hunting down my people since Chaos knows when! You're the one who wickedly persecuted and killed my kind, almost causing our own extinction! YOU BASTARD!!!" She was on the verge of a spontaneous combustion… He remained glacial. "Your face and form are un-mistakable… You are that demon, aren't you? Well? Say something… SAY SOMETHING, DAMN IT!!!" She practically howled in desperation.
They stood there for a couple of minutes, burning eyes fixed on distant, cold eyes, in absolute silence… Until he answered.
"Yes." He simply said in a "matter of fact" manner. No smart replies, nor excuses, nor emphatic monologues… Just a simple yes, was his answer.
For a moment, Bureizo's flames were about to unleash their wrath over the immortal's body, such was her fury… The emotionless tone he used in the answer seemed so disrespectful in her mind, as if he didn't regret or feel guilty for his actions, not in the slightest…Plus, she was also frustrated by the fact that their conversation wasn't exactly going the way she wanted. She was expecting to cause him a significant reaction when she basically unmasked his infamous past but noooooo… He had to be so superior, so cool, hadn't he?
As if on cue, Void (or Enma, if you want) raised from his sitting position and began walking slowly towards the blazing feline. She was utterly taken aback by this unusual and illogical behavior, didn't he realize the danger he was in?
"STOP RIGHT THERE!!!" She yelled, not bothering to cover the frantic bewilderment in her voice.
He came closer…
"I'm warning you!" She continued.
… And closer…
"W-wait, do not…"
… And closer…
"Please… I don't want to…"
"Burn me?" He finished for her… They were now inexistent nose to nose.
She was left wordless, apparently unable to utter a single noise. Her mouth was agape and her eyes were sinking into his alienating glare.
"You remind me a lot of my wife." He suddenly said, barely cracking a disfiguring and distant half smile.
Confusion found its way in the feline's mind, joining forces with Fear and Stupor.
He then did something she didn't expect… He took her still flaming hand in his own gruesome, 3-fingered one.
Her eyes were in utter shock as they watched Void's hand burning with her o and his apparent lack of reaction, as if he wasn't feeling it at all… As if physical pain meant nothing to him.
"W-what are you doing!?" She muttered with newly re-found words. His gaze never abandoned her own.
"Go on. Let's see if you can kill me, Bakeneko… Because I couldn't."
She hastily retreated her hand from Void's. She was scared out of her mind, he could tell. A thousands of incoherent thoughts were wildly running around in her being but she couldn't quite put them into rational words. All she could do instead, was to slowly step back from his seemingly imposing form… Tiptoeing away, for being more precise. Once far enough, she abruptly turned and ran towards her hut.
She cried her way into sleep.
Void stood still on his spot. His lifeless glare lost in the darkness Bureizo disappeared in. A strange noise came out of his mouth… It sounded like a sigh but I could be wrong. He then sat down again and resumed his sky watching activity for the rest of the night.
As if on cue, a few stars began to fall.