FALL SEVEN TIMES
by Ulquiorra9000
Chapter 17
"Ugh. Finally!"
Mizuki groaned and picked up the pace as she and Ayano and Azrael slipped out of a copse of trees and toward a sleepy town further down a dirt road that evening. Three tense days of dodging Phyrexian thopter scout squadrons and cyborg samurai patrols had worn her nerves quite thin!
"Mizuki, slow down," Ayano said, but she couldn't keep an amused grin off her face. "We're all tired, I know. But we should be clear for now."
"I concur," Azrael puffed, red in the face from hiking all day, his rust-red hair askew. "This region of Kamigawa is more rugged than I imagined."
"Yes, and it used to be popular with bandits for that very reason," Ayano said as the group neared the town's front gate. "Traveling merchants wouldn't see them until it was too late. But with the invasion, I suppose that many bandits have already been captured and... converted?"
Azrael nodded. "I believe that's a good term for what they're doing."
Mizuki felt a chill. By now, she and the others had spotted makeshift "conversion" buildings along rivers and streams, where chrome-armored golems and spindly Phyrexian surgeons experimented on groups of captured bandits and vagrants. The horrors that walked back out of the labs were not human, not any longer.
So this is what it took to solve Kamigawa's roadside bandit problem!
Mizuki had never found irony very funny.
"Think they'll have a cozy ryokan?" Mizuki asked, trying to put some cheer in her voice as the torchlit town came nearer.
"Perhaps," Ayano said. "If we move out at first light, we should reach the Minamo waterfall system by early tomorrow evening. We may be in a relatively safe region of Kamigawa, but that will quickly change once we approach the siege."
Mizuki had no doubt of that. Accoding to Ayano, daimyo Kirinji's coalition army was on the march and near the besieged Minamo Academy, over two thousand assorted samurai, clerics, ninjas, battle mages, archers, and monks cobbled together from various mercenary gangs, small noble clans, and local security forces. Friendly lantern kami had scouted out the safest route for the coalition army and Ayano's covert squad to take, but that safety wouldn't last for long.
Loud, metallic shrieks shattered the air.
"It's them!" Azrael shouted, and he wrapped himself in his dense blue-black mana aura. He switched on the flame rubies in his Fiora bracers, his hair tossed and buffeted by the combined ambient magic.
Mizuki, all fatigue forgotten, cloaked herself in her protective green-black aura and drew her enchanted short sword. Its red-white magic glowed in the evening twilight, and nearby, Ayano's green-white mana aura shone like a beacon.
From the other side of a hill emerged about six Phyrexians, a mixed lot of artifact monsters and refined Kamigawa natives.
But something was different.
"Their aura... it's white!" Ayano warned her fellows. Her eyes were locked on the incoming monsters, her body in a traditional ready stance.
Mizuki gave them another look. "They... what?"
With frightening speed, the Phyrexian squad blocked off the town entrance and advanced on Mizuki's squad. Four of them were converted kitsune, but they didn't have chrome plating or surgical needles like the other Phyrexians.
The kitsunes' faces were enveloped in off-white masks, etched and scratched from earlier fighting. Black oil leaked from the dark eyeholes like tears, and their half-machine bodies had porcelain armor plating and thin tubes of oil. Their feet had long claws of white metal, streaked with black oil.
The freakish kitsune sprinted and swung their crooked katanas. Ayano deftly blocked a sword strike and knocked the odd kitsune's blade aside, and her own katana pierced the cyborg's chest between its armor plates.
The kitsune, however, didn't go down. It grunted in pain, then seized Ayano's blade and pulled it back out. Then it delivered a clawed kick that knocked the noble girl back, and another kitsune moved over to finish her off.
"Ayano!" Mizuki tensed to go help her friend, but too late: another Phyrexian cut her off, and it was no kitsune. It towered over her with twice a man's height, its body entirely machine, oil, and porcelain plating. Although humanoid, it had four arms, each with a short sword. It twirled these blades in the air, its eyeless mask face leering at her.
"Uh, Azrael... got any ideas?" Mizuki blurted, her voice tight with terror as she took a few steps back. She held her enchanted sword in a defensive position, but the weapon seemed pitiful before this monster.
"Got my hands full here," Azrael warned her, as another, smaller golem confronted him. "Try and lure your opponent to me!"
Yeah, I'll try, all right! Mizuki yelped in terror as the huge golem slashed its blades through the air in a dizzying assault pattern. The swords hissed and whooshed through the evening air, and it was all Mizuki could do to evade them. She vaulted, rolled, and twisted, but she felt the blades slice off bits of her hair and slice up her skin in shallow but stinging blows.
I can't keep this up!
Mizuki grunted and parried one sword blow with her short sword, then blocked another strike and rolled under a third to reach the golem's blind spot. Her own blade scored a charred slash across the golem's chest plating, but it only seemed to make the giant angrier.
"Ooooof!" Mizuki felt the golem ram her stomach with a sword pommel, and she rolled away, watching from down on the ground as the golem advanced to finish her off. Like hell!
Mizuki rolled away from another sword blow, and the weapon cut right into the earth, sending up a spray of dirt. She sprang to her feet and hurried over to Azrael, who was busy fending off his opponent's sword strikes with his enchanted fists.
"Good! Now draw out an attack!" Azrael cried.
"You're askin' for an awful lot!" Mizuki shouted back.
"Mizuki, hurry!"
Baring her teeth, Mizuki spread her arms wide. "Come and get me, bastard!"
She didn't know if the Phyrexian golem even understood her. It silently lumbered over, raising its upper two arms to prepare for a savage strike.
Mizuki focused her sword's enchantment and jabbed the blade toward her opponent. A helix of red-white mana bore into the golem's chest plating, and acrid smoke poured from the point of contact. Mizuki dug her sandaled feet into the ground to brace herself as she poured more energy into the attack.
Yes! The focused spell finally boiled its way through the golem's plating and torched its insides, and the stink of burning oil choked the air. This time, the golem shouted something in a strange language with its deep, metallic voice. It took a step forward and slashed down its swords, all defense forgotten.
Mizuki sprang away, and just as the golem's two swords cleaved deep into the ground, Azrael slipped around his opponent and wove his mana together into a new spell. He wove his arms in an arcane pattern, like a puppet master, and two thick ribbons of blue-black-red mana snaked out of his bracers. With more motions, he guided the ribbons through the air and into the huge golem's neck and wounded chest.
Once again, the golem roared in pain and cursed at them in its strange Phyrexian langauge as its insides cooked. But still it stood.
The golem flung one of its other swords through the air, and the sudden attack caught Azrael off-guard. The thrown blade grazed his ribs, and Azrael was thrown back and onto his knees, hands clasping the sudden wound.
Azrael's mana tendrils dissolved, and the smaller golem moved in to finish off its vulnerable opponent. It raised a blade to behead him -
"NO!" Ayano burst onto the scene, her enchanted katana stained with the masked kitsunes' oily blood. Ayano had already suffered several wounds all over, but her green-white mana was already sealing them as she moved to aid Azrael. Her katana caught the small golem's sword in mid-air, and she hardened her other arm's skin to rock. A punch sent the smaller golem reeling, and her sword took off its head in one strike.
Ayano, however, was clearly exhausted, and she wobbled, her mana aura flickering. "Mizuki! Look out!" she shouted.
Mizuki whirled around. The larger golem had wrenched its two upper swords free and slashed them through the air, even faster than before. Mizuki hastily brought up her blade to block, but once the golem's swords clashed against hers, the sheer pressure flung her onto her back, and she rolled away, stunned. Dammit!
Now the golem lumbered after her again, and the sight of it infuriated her. Why hasn't it gone down yet?! She got to her hands and knees and thrust out her sword, once again channeling its mana into a blistering helix. But she had nearly exhausted its inner mana already, and only a narrow helix issued forth. The golem was barely slowed down by the spell that struck its belly, and it raised its blades to finish her.
Then Mizuki's helix sputtered out, and the enchantment, what little was left of it, condensed on the blade. It was melee or nothing at this point.
Then Azrael stumbled over, one hand still clamped to his wound, his other hand free to guide a new mana ribbon. The tri-colored spell snaked through the air and wrapped itself around the golem's ankle, and the beast fell flat onto its belly with an earth-shuddering thump. The golem grunted and started to push itself back upright.
"Mizuki! Now!" Azrael cried. Then Mizuki stared in shock as his mana ribbon parted from his hand and flew right at her.
At first, Mizuki thought that Azrael had lost control of the spell, but instead, it wrapped itself around her sword, layered over the white-red enchantment. The blade glowed and hummed with new power.
"YES!" Mizuki knew what she had to do. She gathered up her strength and leaped at the golem, then cleaved the golem's bowed head clean off in one final stroke.
With a spray of sparks and hot oil, the golem's severed, eyeless head hit the ground and rolled away. The headless body fell back down and went totally limp.
Mizuki, panting, stepped away from the golem and powered off her sword. At the mental command, Azrael's own spell dissolved as well. "E-everyone okay?" she croaked.
Azrael shuffled over, his red hair in damp clumps. "I'll live," he wheezed. "By the gods... this is new. Horribly new. There's another faction of Phyrexians at work, no doubt."
Ayano joined them, lending her green-white mana for healing. "The coalition is moving through the area where these attackers had come from," she said, glancing over in that direction. Dread filled her eyes. "Perhaps the Phyrexians called in reinforcements to intercept the coalition and break it up?"
"That is possible. Likely, even," Azrael said as Ayano pressed a healing palm to his torso. "Is there anything we can do to draw them away?"
Ayano took a moment to think it over. "Perhaps we could lure away a few scouting parties," she said cautiously. "But any more than that, and we'd quickly be surrounded and overwhelmed."
"We might be surrounded already," Mizuki said nervously. She scanned the horizon for more Phyrexians. None appeared. Yet.
Ayano nodded. "In light of this ambush, perhaps we should get provisions from the town and camp in the forest for added cover. It seems that the Phyrexians mainly attack proper settlements in order to destroy armed resistance or abduct civilians for conversion. At this point, we cannot afford to be caught in the crossfire until we regroup with coalition forces."
There was no denying that. The Phyrexians still had probes to search the wilderness for runaways, but it was better than spending the night in a town whose very existence advertised civilians ripe for the taking.
As night fell, Mizuki settled into a sleeping bag near Ayano and Azrael. They didn't dare make a campfire. Better to keep this a covert op. While they still could.
"Mizuki," Ayano said quietly from her sleeping bag.
Mizuki couldn't see the noble girl, but she felt reassured just hearing her voice. "What's up?"
"I... want to thank you, and Azrael, once again for all that you're doing for us. For my father and his clan, the townsfolk we've met... everyone."
"Hey, it's no trouble," Mizuki said. She tried to sound offhand, but she doubted that the noble girl bought it.
"When I saw you and Azrael enter my father's court, I had a good feeling about you both," Ayano said earnestly in the darkness. Her sleeping bag rustled a bit. "Without your help, my father and Osamu would still be under Phyrexian control. Where would we be then?"
Mizuki made an exasperated grin and shook her head, even if no one could see it. "That's all moot, y'know," she said. "We're gonna be fine. Your dad's coalition is probably the biggest mortal army on Kamigawa in... centuries, I bet."
"I am confident that daimyo Kirinji can handle this new threat," Azrael added. "Have faith, lady Ayano."
Ayano took a second to respond. "I certainly do, but... I had thought myself so attuned to utsushiyo and its affairs, and I was soon to study kakuriyo as well. All this has taught me such... humility! Especially when a villager girl and an otherworldly man are the ones making survival possible. I -"
"Ayano. Come on," Mizuki said, but her grin was wider. "You can kick ass in a scrap, and your connections are really useful. Don't be jealous of me. Us Kamigawa girls are better than that."
Ayano chuckled. "A fair point, Mizuki. Thank you. I... don't think I can put in words how grateful I am to you both."
Azrael thanked her and was soon asleep, but Ayano's words struck a chord in Mizuki. A debt of gratitude...
Mizuki lay on her back, trying to see the stars through the light forest's canopy. She only saw a few of the brighter ones. Where would she be without otherwordly help? Without Veldor and Zoira's planeswalking experience, Veldor's eccentric genius, Zoira's tracking and hunting skills, or Morrel's dogged faith and loyalty...
She'd have been Haijin-no-Imari's tortured victim forever!
She pushed that thought away. Ever since getting her planeswalker Spark activated and seeing the vast Multiverse, she'd expected to live as a loner and freak... now she ached as she missed Morrel all over again. He had his own life and battles to deal with on Bant, and Mizuki had her own problems here on Kamigawa. They both knew their duties.
But damn... Mizuki traced a finger along her lips, and she remembered the sensation of Morrel's lips on hers, the way he'd hold her close, how she felt perfectly safe with him.
Mizuki rolled on her side and fell asleep mulling over extraplanar boyfriends and crazed planeswalkers. In her dreams, Morrel was inside a hazy fogbank, calling Mizuki's name while swords clashed, invisible, in the background. Mizuki called his name back and ran to his voice, but she never found him. Then the ground beneath her bare feet turned to sludgy black oil, and loud shrieks and the metallic rasp of oversized surgical equipment surrounded her -
Mizuki bolted upright, her hair in damp clumps from sweat. She stared around the place; it was the crack of dawn, and she saw Azrael and Ayano still asleep, Azrael with an arm draped across his forehead, and Ayano... she was drooling a bit! Some noble girl she was!
Come on. Clear your head, girl, Mizuki told herself. She rolled to face the other way to get a bit more rest before Azrael would wake everyone up to continue the trek to Minamo Academy.
Just a little more rest... a bit of comfort before the biggest battle yet.