Chapter Nine: Kai: Surprises in Store; Trapped in the Eternal Maze? Pt. 1
"Ready?"
"Let's go."
Black*Star stepped through the mirror, my shortest blade – a Scottish dirk – clutched loosely in his hands. We didn't know what to expect for the second round. All that Lord Death had told us was to walk through the mirror when cued by the flashing light, so here we went: mindlessly following orders. I was too cold when I mirror traveled to be much more than slightly irritated, however. Somehow it was even more uncomfortable as a weapon than it was as a human.
The room we stepped into was dimly lit and Black*Star's footsteps echoed like we were in a cave. That's when I realized – of course – we were in a cave, and the only illumination was coming from an odd vein in the walls. As soon as my eyes adjusted I manifested as a reflection to catch my meister's attention, signaling that we should speak via our resonance telepathy instead of aloud.
"Kishin Blade would be much better for this sort of battle," I thought, referencing our heightened senses and abilities while tapping into my controlled powers of madness. "We would have a better chance of winning this event."
Even before Black*Star shook his head, his disagreement was obvious through our link. "Nah, we don't need it yet! And we gotta save it for the finale, anyways. A big star like me has to have some cards up his sleeve!"
"This isn't about your pride!" I grunted angrily, but conceded. The bluenette began sneaking away from the mirror, scoping out our surroundings in the terrible light conditions. I conveyed silently what I sensed about the cavern and we continued quietly. Being in a place like this reminded me of the tunnels of Calypso's castle. Shivering slightly – Black*Star was startled a bit by this – I shook off the memories and forced away the shaky feeling of madness that rose up with those thoughts. What was needed now was focus: I needed to give Black*Star my all!
"It seems like we're in a sort of maze," I commented as we had been exploring the tunnels for a few minutes, twisting and turning until I felt like I couldn't return to our starting point if I was held at gunpoint. "Which means that our objective must to be to find the exit, right?"
"Yeah, and kick some kishin ass." Black*Star silently turned as a noise behind us, a sort of chattering like a large rodent, echoed.
"You don't think Lord Death would have-!" I gasped in shock as a shape loomed out of the darkness. One glance at its soul told me all I needed to know: "Black*Star, go!"
In a move that possessed more grace than most people would have thought Black*Star to have possessed, he threw me with spot-on precision. As I buried up to my hilt in the chest of the rat-man, who screamed an ear-shattering roar and clawed at me like an irritating splinter, I morphed into a claymore. The added length and weight drove me all the way through in a splatter of blood. The screams halted at once as the life drained away from the kishin, and I morphed back into my human form and rolled out of the way quickly as it toppled over and disintegrated, leaving a single corrupted soul behind.
Snatching it out of the air, I grinned sadistically and held it above my gaping mouth by its little flashy tail and dropped it in, swallow smoothly. Smacking my lips, I sighed happily before returning to Black*Star's side and morphing back into a dirk.
"Remember what Lord Death told us: 'the other competitors won't be your only foes'?" I scoffed, slightly annoyed but also feeling satisfied with getting a soul. "I didn't think it would be kishin that were in here, just some three-star meisters or something. It's almost kind of sick."
The darkness was almost a little spooky and I wanted to suggest Kishin Blade again, but through our resonance Black*Star's arrogance regarding it was still firmly in place. I could sense a small bit of nervousness coming from him but it was a deep, buried feeling. He wasn't allowing the atmosphere to unnerve him – so I couldn't either. I swallowed my own anxiety to do my best at finding souls from here on out. Casting out my Soul Perception abilities I could sense another kishin coming down our tunnel, too far away to worry about. After relaying this to my meister, I allowed my mind to wander over the last few days. The photo shoot had ended well, though Lord Death had chopped me for trying to break the photographer's camera. Though the magazines made me blush – we hadn't even been doing anything, damn it – I had to admit that the photos he had caught were kind of cute. Even Merle, who I was beginning to despise despite everyone's immediate assumption that we would be best 'twinsies', looked kind of okay… I mean, she had to look at least decent with a face like mine.
Other than that, I had been pretty fortunate to be able to talk to a few of the Death Scythes who had come to town for the Games. Azusa Yumi, a personal idol of mine with her being a crossbow and all, actually had a lot to say about my peculiar possession of Soul Perception. Considering that the ability was usually restricted only to certain meisters, she believed that once I became a Death Scythe (if I became a Death Scythe) it would show its true nature as a Weapon-specific ability. So far, however, she noted that it gave me the ability to also wield weapons, if I ever wanted to become a meister. Though the idea did seem appealing I had to laugh a bit at the idea. Sure, the thought of being in control of a fight sounded good, but Black*Star couldn't exactly turn into a weapon, now could he?
Still, hearing her thoughts on my Soul Perception were interesting.
"Black*Star, try and take the next branch."
"There was one a few minutes ago – should I go back?"
I deliberated for a moment before affirming my thoughts and sent him back. His footsteps were light and fast and I was almost difficult to keep track of where we were in my head. I reflected myself in my blade to get a better sense of where and watched the shadows whir by. So far, so good. Retreating back into my own mind, I tried to form a map of where we had been so far in my head. There had to be at least sixteen different starting points in the maze, which meant we might not be looking for an exit in the traditional sense, but maybe a mirror? Whatever our goal was, it would make the most sense for it to be in the middle of the room, or would Lord Death really go to the expense of putting all sixteen entrances on one side? I pondered this for a moment to see if I could decide to no avail; oftentimes Lord Death seemed to pick things at random, without reason. It would do little to no good to try and figure him out.
"Kishin up ahead – only one." I informed Black*Star, diving out of my thoughts and switching to a Claymore at his prompting.
A horrid smell reached my – metal – nostrils and I flinched involuntarily. In response Black*Star tightened his grip, his face scrunching slightly as he slowed his steps and resisted his gag reflex. Whatever was ahead smelled absolutely horrid – not only that, but I began noticing an odd slime residue on the floor. As Black*Star approached the corner it got worse, and the muck thicker. Turning the corner, seeing the kishin, and I almost lost my weapon form when I gagged.
The only zombie I had ever met was Sid, who was pretty much the nicest teacher I had ever had for combat training. With the added plus of him pretty much being Black*Star's surrogate father, he and I had nothing but good times. Somehow this must have translated to my brain as 'zombie = good' because for a brief moment I couldn't even put a name to the form of the kishin in front of me. His form was rotting so grotesquely that it took me a few moments to realize that you couldn't actually see any bones or anything. In fact, he looked pretty whole, except for a few slices of skin that hung off muscle in a few places. Somewhere along the way it looked as if his jaw had been unhinged, or maybe it just hung open at that caliber all the time, oozing a thick saliva and displaying multiple rows of jagged teeth. Two eyes with no iris or pupil stared at us, which was when I noticed we had actually entered another cavern. This one was lit up, and you could actually all the way around it without squinting.
With the lights back on, I couldn't help but think that things were looking up for us. Unfortunately, that made me forget for a moment that the lights meant that Fleshy over there could see us better to, which – with Black*Star's small mental capacity – meant that he was also distracted. I remembered my manners just in time to see the seemingly mindless, ambling zombie suddenly go turbo on us and dash out of sight. Black*Star turned in circles, trying to get a lock on him, but the disgusting thing seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Just as I was about to sense for his soul, a gagging noise echoed from above. "Black*Star?"
"Not me," Black*Star gasped, and suddenly I was thrown from his grasp as he went into a summersault. Yelping, I metamorphosed into my human form and whipped around to find my meister with his leg encased in a glob of the goo that the zombie-kishin had been excreting. The jackass had been hiding on the ceiling, and was now climbing down a string of his own fluid towards the slightly less-defendable-than-before Black*Star.
My heart pounded painfully in my chest, adrenaline spiking. Without a second thought I broke into a sprint, noting in a passing second how far he had thrown me to get me out of harm's way. Mid-run my arms glowed pink from the elbow down, both turning into blades. As the zombie crept closer, its mouth gaping, it hacked up another wad of goo and Black*Star's left hand was pinned. He yelled some expletives, I pushed myself faster. Planting one foot on the ground, I went into a spinning attack: launching myself into the air and swinging both my arms around in a 180, one in a slicing motion and the other in a stab. The zombie's head was speared, then severed, before it even turned.
Panting, I slid to the ground, nearly shaking, staring at the head stuck to the end of my left blade and nearly vomiting. His smell was even worse in death, the only consolation being the floating soul that I quickly devoured while shedding my blades and kicking the head away like a soccer ball. Then I turned to my meister, fury rising up in my throat as I stared down at him. My rage grew by the second until I couldn't even express in words the amount of my anger towards him.
"What the hell was that?" I hissed finally.
"I wouldn't be such a big star if I let you-"
"Cut the crap!" I snapped, grabbing at the goo on his legs and yanking it off like a bad batch of wax. "I'm your weapon in the field, not your girlfriend, so while I appreciate what you tried to do, it's me who's supposed to be protecting you. Let me do my job!"
The kicked puppy look on his face made me feel a little bit bad, but I knew that I had to say this before it got out of hand. "Do you get it?" I asked in a softer tone of voice, gently tugging on the goo that was trapping his arm, trying desperately to hide the blush that was climbing up my face as I spoke. "I want to protect you. Who's gonna make me a goddess if you go off and die, huh?"
I didn't look up once as I worked to free him, but I could feel his eyes on my face. I was sure my skin nearly matched my hair. All this blushing probably wasn't healthy, actually. I resolved to get it checked out when we got out of this stupid maze. Who knows, I could be carrying a lethal disease or something! That would certainly be a good explanation for all the excessive blood in my cheeks.
As the last few bits of much binding him to the floor snapped, I grinned. "There you go, all fr- oof!" The wind was knocked out of me as Black*Star wrapped me in the tightest hug I had ever had in my life. My ribs creaked to the point that I wondered if they were going to just up and quit.
And in a quiet, bashful, and rather gruff voice, "I'm sorry."
That made me blush almost as hard as my scolding had.
Author's Note: Nya! A little bit of fluff in here as well as action. Stay tuned, because there's more yet to come for this round of the Games!
To my two reviewers:
BrainStormer: pretty sure I PMed you saying this, but your review seriously made me laugh. Like... I think I pulled something. Thank you! (I don't know why I'm thanking you for a pulled muscle, but it's quite sincere)
Starlight: Yes, I DID write it cause of you, but it made me happy to write it! Don't be afraid to make suggestions in the future! It actually helped me kick my writer's block in the butt, so I should be thanking you!
Anyways, last but not least: review, favorite, follow! Ciao for now, ducklings!