Anyway, I am of course grateful for all of the reviews and feedback I received from you guys last chapter. I know when I first published it there were some issues, the most important being that there were no line breaks. (Although that was because I tried to do that line thing in Word where you place three dashes and press enter to create a line; I had no idea that wouldn't show up on FF).
Anyway, I mentioned the poll about future stories in the last chapter, and I'm kind of disappointed about the lack of response to it (I mean, out of the few that did, I'm sure a handful of the responders were you guys). Surely you guys would be interested in dictating the future of your reading material, hmm?
The clash of enchanted mythril against demonic steel rang throughout the otherwise eerily quiet countryside village Amy stood in the center of, with a terrible pile of the fallen at her back and a spectacle of incredible proportions before her.
Thrashing against one another on the rooftops, locked in fatal combat, was Cyril and the woman who had committed the atrocity Amy did her best to ignore. Their blades, vastly different in western and eastern design, clashed against one another with sparks and bursts of energy as the two combatants did everything in their power to destroy the other.
Strangely, Amy was more frightened by Cyril than she was this woman. The usually gentle, kind man, hidden behind his metal helm, had ceased to speak at all. Amy could see the furious tension in is movements; the overwhelmig desire to kill that coursed through his veins… it was palpable. His rage and bloodlust for this woman before him was terrifying, for Amy had never expected such a demeanor to even be possible for the man. It was just so contradictory to his regular behavior… something about that made the whole situation even more frightening.
But despite the underlying fear in her, Amy was utterly fascinated by the intense battle taking place before her. On one hand, Cyril was far beyond human, and his abilities attested to it; but on the other, his opponent clearly had some sort of supernatural powers as well. There was no way a regular person would have been able to hold their own against Cyril's unbridled fury, although it was obvious from the start of the fight that Cyril's adversary had no hope of winning. Even with her demonic assistance, Cyril was quickly overpowering and outmaneuvering her, which was made all the more obvious when the scantily-clad woman was launched into the air by a powerful kick from the Sentinel of Lightning.
The woman managed to keep her grip on her twin katanas as she flew through the air, and she attempted to raise them in defense as Cyril followed her into the sky, with an aerial follow-up in mind. It was a useless endeavor. When Cyril found his opponent's blades blocking his attack, he darted around behind her, faster than Amy could even see. How Cyril managed to maneuver himself while airborne was beyond the young girl.
Now behind the woman, who hadn't yet realized where Cyril had gone, Eros' Sentinel front flipped in mid-air, smashing his booted feet into the woman's backside, and sending her even further from the ground. Cyril darted after the woman again, and began launching a series of gravity-defying kicks that continually pushed his enemy upwards.
Clearly, what Cyril was doing was not physically possible… at least not by humans. Amy could only stare in awe at the man, if one could truly call him that, that she was constantly insulting and criticizing.
Now nearly fifty feet into the air, Cyril wrapped his arms around his stunned and reeling opponent, and arced his body in a way began his descent towards earth. Using his manipulation of electricity and magnetism, Cyril began to accelerate his drop with his enemy in hand. Amy could already imagine the damage this one hell of a pile driver would inflict.
Rocketing towards the ground at high speed, Cyril held his enemy's head, positioning it in a way that would cause it to impact the ground at full force. Using a burst of speed from his electrical abilities, the Sentinel closed the last twenty feet between himself and the ground in hardly more than a second.
With a massive shock wave and a huge cloud of dust, Cyril and his adversary plummeted into the ground with incredible force, and Amy was blasted a few feet backwards by the powerful wave of energy that crashed into her. She landed on an unfortunately rough piece of cobblestone, which most likely bruised her butt something terrible, considering how it had jabbed her there.
Coughing up dust while simultaneously massaging her bruised backside, Amy tried to peer through the smoke Cyril's incredible impact had created. She couldn't see anything for a while, but the dust cleared within a few moments.
Cyril climbed his way out of a small crater in the ground, where he had torn right through the cobblestone road and tough dirt. He seemed unharmed and completely unfazed. As for his adversary, the crater was deep enough to hide her condition from Amy's sight, although the young Rouen girl could not imagine her being anything other than dead.
Still curious as to what the outcome of the attack was, although a little worried that she would be met with a grisly mess, Amy moved close enough to the crater to peek over the edge of it as Cyril brushed off his angel wing fauld.
In a broken heap seven feet into the ground lay the woman's crumpled body. For lack of a better description, she was completely pulverized. Her arms were splintered, her legs were shattered, and her skull was caved in. Even her body seemed significantly flattened.
Either way, it was a bloody mess, and Amy didn't have the stomach to look at it for long. But before she could crawl away from the carnage, a most unusual sight met her crimson gaze. The dead woman's face was cracking; literally splitting open like a nut being cracked open. And whatever was spilling out definitely seemed like a bad thing.
The situation at Castle Wolfkrone was dire. Hilde and Luana were defeated, their soldiers were crushed and maimed by Astaroth, and the King himself was at the mercy of the malfested vermin that had bested the princess and her forces.
Twirling her unique circular blade around her gauntleted arm and waltzing towards the king in an overall carefree way, the raven-haired girl that had beaten Hilde and mortally wounded Luana made her way to King Krone's side, as he tried to push his old frame off of the ground. Voldo stood guard nearby, ensuring that the king did not escape.
The monster of a girl cast her sadistic amethyst eyes over at Hilde's prone form before lightly stepping on the king's back, slowly pushing his face into the ground. His body was too frail to resist.
"Some king huh? You lose your mind for a few years, leave everything up to your useless daughter, and then come back just to die on the floor? How pathetic."
A small surge of energy shot through Hilde as she witnessed the indignity her father was being put through, but it wasn't enough to do anything more than yell at the girl that inflicted it.
"Get off of my father, you wench! I won't stand for-!"
"Oh, shut up already. You're too weak to put anything behind those threats. People like you always are."
Hilde ground her teeth in rage. "What the hell are you saying?!"
Taking her foot off of the king's back for the time being, the accosting girl strode over to Hilde once more.
"Isn't it obvious? Sophitia, her darling sister, that Chinese punk duo with the Sacred Treasures; people like you, who fight for everyone except yourself."
Hilde's mind was foggy with pain, and she couldn't make sense of what the girl was saying. "W-what's your point?"
With a sinister smirk, the girl decided that an explanation was worth the time. It wasn't like she had anything better to do.
"C'mon, can't you see it? How could you have possibly lost to me? There were two of you, and as much as I hate saying it, you aren't exactly a pushover. But you're still weak. You both are, because you fought for the sake of your 'friends' or 'family'. That's why you lost to me; I live for myself, I love only myself, and my existence is more important to me than anyone else is. That's why I'm stronger than you, and all people like you. And that's why people like Nightmare are stronger than me. That's just the way of the world, Red. The one who values their own existence the most is the one who will fight the hardest to preserve it, and that person is therefore stronger than others."
Hilde had never heard such nonsense, yet she was in such pain it was hard to find ways to refute it.
"If you live only for yourself… then why do you serve the Cursed Sword? That is an existence… other than your own, right?"
"Oh, you've got it all wrong, Red. Yeah, I serve Soul Edge, but not because I value its existence and its goals more than mine. I serve it because it gives me a purpose that I personally enjoy. Because it's fun, y'know? But most importantly, it makes me feel alive; it gives me a chance to prove that my existence is stronger than yours, or anyone else's. The day it stops providing those things for me, my services are over. And here you thought I was just a malfested fanatic, didn't you?"
"Well that view certainly hasn't changed: you're insane."
"Well there's no denying that. But now that you've mentioned my mental problems, it's made me realize something; honestly, I kind of hate Soul Edge. After all, it's the root of all of my problems. If it wasn't for that damned sword… everything would be so much better for me. The Birds of Passage would never have been disbanded, I never would have had to kill those three… and I'd still be sane, to some degree."
Throughout the malfested's rant, Hilde had been gradually scooting towards her borrowed lance, which had been separated from her earlier. Regardless of her condition, she had to do something.
As the final words of the female assassin's soliloquy faded, it became painfully obvious how quiet the castle hall had become. Beyond the ragged gasps of Hilde's old and frail father, the subdued grunts and moans of pain from Luana, and Astaroth's heavy breathing, nothing else could be heard. The conflict within Castle Wolfkrone was over. After all of these years of resisting Nightmare and his forces, who would have thought that Hilde and her troops would be done in by three of his minions? Just three.
Of course, there were plenty of other soldiers out and around the castle, but the fortress itself was massive, and it was unlikely that any of those would-be reinforcements even knew that there was trouble afoot.
Seemingly irritated by the pervading silence, the malfested girl that had defeated Hilde clapped her armored hands together, as if to signal her sudden shift in attitude.
"Oh, look at me, rambling on about stuff way back when! I mean, I'm sure we all want to get on with this, right?"
With that, the demented one retraced her steps, bringing herself back to the side of King Krone. With a final look of mixed sadistic glee and amusement, she began to twirl her ring blade around her arm, created a lethal arc that would easily and gracefully severe a neck, if swung correctly. Slowly, gradually, she began to lower the spinning wheel of death closer to Hilde's father, who could do nothing but cower in fear. Inch by inch, the edge of her deadly steel moved closer to his vulnerable neck.
Casting her violet, spiteful gaze over at Hilde, the girl took some amusement in the princess' reaction. Moved by urgency, Hilde pushed herself and scrambled for the spear she so desperately needed. But it was obvious that she wouldn't be able to grab a hold of it, muster her strength, and charge at her enemy in time to save her father. She needed a diversion: something, anything that could stall this demon with pigtails. The only thing she could think to do was speak to the girl, but what on earth could she say that would cease the violent advance of the insane?
"Y-you don't have to do that! You could-"
The girl cut her off.
"Oh, but I do, Red. Nightmare isn't very forgiving, y'know? Besides, I haven't killed anything all day…"
Her mind scrambling for something that would hold significance for this girl, Hilde tried to appeal to her sadistic side. "Wouldn't it be better to torture me instead? Y-you never did make me scream, right?!"
"Nice try Red, but this right here is the ultimate form of torture. I'm sure you'll scream nice and loud when I lop daddy's head off, right?"
Running out of options and still out of reach of her spear, Hilde made one last ditch effort, although appealing to this monster's humanity seemed like a ludicrous idea.
"Wha… what would your family think?! What would they think of this?! Surely… surely they would never condone such actions!"
A sneer began to form on the girl's face as she thougt of how ridiculous such an appeal was. "You idiot, I don't even have a fam-"
The expression of disdain on Tira's face froze as a sudden realization crashed into her mind
Wait... I... I don't have a family now, but I did! I used to!
Don't listen to this bitch, she doesn't know what she's talking about! Those people were not our family!
Although that was true in a blood relation sense, Tira had truly considered those people her family at one time: well, she had at least considered the daughter as such.
Thoughts of that girl also brought back memories of her demise. Memories of how hurt and angry she had been when Tira had lost control for the final time in her presence.
I bet... I bet she'd be disappointed. That even after that day we're still doing stuff like this...
Stop thinking about it! It's in the past, it has nothing to do with right now!
For once, Tira's gloomy half wasn't making any impact on her opposite. Even if the jolly her usually batted away her suggestions, serious Tira was usually the voice of reason, and her happy counterpart almost always agreed with whatever she said.
Not this time. This time, quite unusually, Tira's jovial side was lost in deep, intense thought. For the first time in a long while, she was considering the thoughts of another being besides her old mentor and the leaders of the Birds of Passage. The opinion of another person mattered, if only slightly, and if only for a moment.
Would she be disgusted with me?
Why do you care?!
Would she hate me for this?
It doesn't fucking matter!
With a violent and powerful mental shove, Tira's dark side shoved her counterpart somewhere into the recesses of her mind, taking over completely for the first time in years. In an angry frenzy, mostly directed at her mental roommate, Tira screamed out in rage, and swung her deadly ring blade straight at Hilde's defenseless father.
Cyril could only stare in awe as the body of his dead opponent, lying smashed in the center of a large crater, began to crack, as if she was nothing more than a piece of pottery. From out of these cracks flowed a strange miasma that was such a dark purple that it was nearly black. Cyril had never seen such a thing.
His amazement only deepened once the colored fog ceased to seep from the body, because once it did so, the woman Cyril had killed literally crumbled into dust. There was nothing left of her body: only her clothing and weaponry remained.
But the dark fog remained. Swirls of the foreign substance began to coalesce in one spot a few yards in front of Cyril. It began to spin, forming a vortex of sorts. However, this was not the strangest aspect of the phenomenon occurring right before the Sentinel of Lightning's eyes. That would be the bone-chilling laugh that accompanied the fog.
"You came, you saw, you conquered…you unleashed fury almost equal to my own, molded rage into a weapon powerful enough to destroy my host, wielded power like an animal! I love it, this lust to kill!"
Cyril scowled as the purple mist before him began to form into a somewhat humanoid shape. During the gradual process, the Sentinel felt a light weight against his leg. Looking down, he noticed that Amy had made her way to his side, an easily distinguishable look of fear on her face. Despite her stubborn pride, she had experienced more than enough fright today. She had no reservations about depending on Cyril for protection, especially now that the two were confronted with this new enemy, which was just now forming into something that resembled a human.
The purple mist had now taken on a somewhat solid form, and needless to say, Amy probably wouldn't sleep soundly for a while. Before the two companions was a hellish creature of beastly proportions. It almost looked like a Minotaur, but the creature possessed rent wings that fanned out from its body, claws on its feet instead of hooves, and twisted spikes growing out of a head that resembled more of a twisted, maimed dog than anything else. Speaking of which, the creature's fangs were far longer than any Cyril had ever seen, at a length that was easily three feet. The monster didn't even have a right arm. In its place was a cluster of snakes that wriggled and writhed, seemingly growing out from the creature's torso itself. To top it all off, some sort of ghastly black ooze was pouring out of several holes in the monster's body.
Cyril had never seen anything like this monster, but he wasn't frightened in the least. He was confident in his own abilities, and the power The Four had granted him.
"What hellhole spawned you? It must specialize in abominations."
The monster's mouth didn't move, but his rumbling, deep, and malicious voice could still be heard.
"Foolish mortal; you must be truly insane to speak to me so defiantly. I am Zanshin, most powerful of the demon wardens of Hell's Gate!"
"Oh. Literally Hell. Go figure."
Obviously unimpressed, Cyril remained completely calm, as he was well aware of the nature of this foe, thanks to the vast stores of knowledge in Valhalla. Amy on the other hand, was literally quaking.
Cyril did his best to calm the girl.
"Don't worry Amy, this foe is hardly as strong as he'd like you to believe. Yes, Zanshin is one of the Wardens of Hell's Gate, but he's number six, the weakest of their number."
"It seems you have a death wish, Sentinel… such that you beg for death by my hand."
"I may have actually been quite worried about this, but considering that you were residing within a human to boost your own strength, I can tell that you've fallen far; although I didn't think you could be of any lower status than you already were."
A loud and fearsome roar echoed throughout the town, causing Amy to huddle in closer to Cyril, who merely winced in annoyance at the obnoxiously loud sound.
"You loathsome worm… you'll burn in Hades for daring to insult my power!"
Unimpressed, Cyril tightened his grip on Naegling, ready for another fight. Even though he sounded confident about the situation, he knew this opponent would be far tougher than the previous one. But he had to maintain an aura of assurance for Amy's sake. The last thing she needed to do was doubt Cyril's ability to protect her.
"Words mean little. If you intend to punish me for my insolence, you'd best attack me."
With another deafening roar, Zanshin launched his bundle of cobras at Cyril and Amy, their venomous fangs extended. They were obviously a lot longer than they looked. With one well-timed swipe, Cyril decapitated the lot of them with Naegling's peerless edge. Zanshin hissed in pain and retracted the severed reptilian bodies, but Cyril noticed that they were already beginning to regenerate, much like a lizard's tail does.
Using the brief respite to look down at Amy, who was hunched over in fear, Cyril momentarily dissolved his helmet so that he could give her a smile of reassurance.
"Alright Amy, I think it best that you put some distance between yourself and this engagement."
The young, trembling French girl raised her tear-streaked face to look up at Cyril. She had been sheltered for most of her life, and supernatural stuff like this was clearly taxing her greatly. The look in her eyes said that she didn't want to leave Cyril's side, but she would actually be safer away from the powerful warrior than beside him. He was fast, but one stray attack and Amy could be killed in the blink of an eye. It was a risk he wasn't willing to take.
"Amy, please. You'll only get hurt if you stay. He's after me for the moment… but I swear I'll annihilate him if he even thinks about coming after you. I'll protect you with everything I have; and believe me, that is quite a lot."
Slowly nodding, but still too frightened to really speak without stuttering, Amy shakily rose to her feet before casting a final crimson glance at Cyril, although this one was filled with more concern for him than it was for herself.
"Y-you'll be fine, right...?"
"Of course: I'd never trust you to roam around the country by yourself."
Fully aware of the sincerity and belief behind Cyril's little joke, Amy turned and ran from the battle, looking over her shoulder only once; why was it that this man reminded her so much of another?
Once Amy was clear of the field of battle, Cyril summoned his helmet again and returned his attention to Zanshin, although he had never fully taken it away from him in the first place. By now, the cobras that sprouted out of the demon had regenerated, although now there were twice as many. With a sigh, Cyril raised Naegling and prepared for a tough fight.
"For some reason I feel as though my comrades aren't having to deal with such problems."
Elsewhere, in three different parts of the world, three supernatural warriors loosed devastating sneezes. On the plains of Africa, a large swath of field grass was instantly ignited, scaring away a herd of zebra. In Antarctica, a blast of cold accidentally froze a poor penguin solid, which the perpetrator set about rectifying immediately. And finally, off In some forest in the lands of the west, one green-clad, confused inter-dimensional traveler was blasted into a river by an immensely powerful gust of wind. Strangely, all three of the sneezers were pretty sure of the cause of it.
Alright, that took forever to update, but school is a bitch, and unfortunately more important to my future, so it does take priority over writing. I know we still haven't moved past this little part involving Tira, Hilde, Cyril, Shura, etc. but I promise it'll get wrapped up next chapter. Look forward to the next installment, and don't forget to vote for a story from the profile page if you want to influence future projects!