Disclaimer: I don't own Soul Calibur, if I did then this fanfiction wouldn't be necessary because I'd make SCV into the best fighting game EVER!

But I digress...

"Senpai?" The blond ninja shivered with her hands on her sheathed knives, looking up at the Fu-Ma Clan Shinobi who surrounded the Black Wind mercenaries, "Why are you...why attack us?"

"Questions? Who cares why she's attacking! Prepare to fight!"

"We can inquire later," Seigfried stated in agreement with Mitsurugi, "After we've won."

"Natsu, you knew that this day could occur," The leader of the Fu-Ma Shinobi chided sadly, "Ever since you left with Xianghua's daughter, I've been watching you and your fellows. I observed your failure and now intend to make amends for your mistake."

"Mistake?"

"What do you mean!" Leixia shouted with her own sword drawn, "Natsu hasn't done anything wrong!"

"Wrong? She hasn't done anything." Taki corrected, "The moment you allowed that impure boy to gain access to Soul Calibur and then unlock it's full power, you had already failed. Remember what I taught you Natsu? A shinobi must be able to see beneath the underneath and act in accordance with what you see."

"More cryptic talk," The samurai scoffed, "You haven't changed a bit you old hag!"

"Heishiro Mitsurugi? You're still live..." Taki commented warmly before addressing Siegfried, "I'll cut to the point, surrender that girl."

"Me?"

"Like hell!" Cassandra yelled, standing in front of a confused and fearful Pyrrha, "What are you going to do? Kill her?"

"If we must, then yes." Taki's blunt answer unnerved the mercenary group, "She holds a conflicting power inside of her, one that may prove just as dangerous as her brother is now. This power must be extracted from the girl or it must be extinguished to prevent this crisis from becoming worse."

"Crisis? A crisis that you've done nothing to help-"

"Don't start with me Azure Knight," Taki warned Siegfried, "I warned you. I told you that you should've destroyed both swords to prevent this conflict from ever repeating itself. Now look what has happened! The scales of balance have already shattered with the merging of the two swords and the responsibility for this rests solely on your shoulders."

"Enough talk!" Mitsurugi made his point by dashing forward and cutting through the tree that Taki was standing on. As it fell in an angle that caused several shinobi to leap out of the way, Taki landed gracefully behind him, "After twenty-four years you still yap like a lap dog! I've had enough of you?"

"Mitsurugi..." Taki drew out her knives causing Natsu to breath more quickly from the fight that was to come, "Twenty-four years of frivolous warfare and travel and you haven't had enough?"

"Of course he hasn't," A drowsy Xiba pointed out, "Otherwise, why would he be traveling?"

"Not now Xiba!"

"Come on Maxi...it was a stupid question-" The young monk was silenced when Taki swiftly embedded one of her daggers into Xiba's lower neck and pulled it out while the boy fell to his knees.

"Xiba!"

"Are there any doubts as to my intentions?" Taki asked, "I avoided the boy's vitals, but if you do not yield, none of you will be so fortunate-" Taki was quieted when a staff slammed into her neck and sent her back towards Mitsurugi who avoided slashing open her neck and spun to avoid Taki's spinning back kick.

"That hurt!" Xiba shouted when he jumped to his feet and was intrigued by the trickle of blood that flowed from the small hole in his neck, "Am I going to die Maxi?"

"She avoided your vitals kid."

"Oh! That's good!"

"No it's not! How are you even talking?"

"Maybe it's the pink fairy?" Xiba answered, drawing Leixia and the group's attention to a pink fairy that flew around Xiba before it faded out, "The cut's gone...guess magic is real..."

"What should we do boss?"

"All troops! Back to back! Circular Barrier!" Siegfried commanded the Black Wind to answer ZWEI, "I've already made enough mistakes with Patroklos, I won't make another with his sister."

"So be it." Taki flipped over Mitsurugi and landed next to an armored warrior with a wooden arm, "Take the girl, incapacitate the rest. Kill them if you have to."

"Understood." The warrior motioned with his hand, causing several other armored warriors to appear alongside the shinobi, "Behold the righteous blades of the Manjitou!"

"Yoshimitsu?"

"Not the same one that you knew," Natsu explained to a confused Cassandra, "The name of Yoshimitsu is a title that is earned...earned through killing it's previous owner and taking up their mission..."

"It is I, Yoshimitsu!" The armored samurai dashed towards the mercenary group and quickly cut open the neck of a soldier, "But you knew that? No?"

"Bastard!" With Hilde's words, the battle was joined. Hilde thrusted her spear into Yoshimitsu's side and thrusted again to throw him back. She then swung her short sword to block the attack of a Manjitou warrior while using her spear to trip a Fu-Ma Shinobi and allow the grey wolf to jump on the shinobi and bite into his head.

The skirmish lasted barely ten minutes, but the sheer brutality and carnage of the battle made every minute seem like an hour. The Fu-Ma Shinobi ruthlessly assaulted any weak point that they could find, backstabbing and disabling Black Wind soldiers as they faced off against the equally lethal Manjitou warriors. Despite their disadvantage in numbers and readiness, Hilde and Siegfried's leadership held the Black Wind together to stand up to their ambushers.

It also helped that the Black Wind was aided by a group of fighters that were the equal to any platoon of soldiers. Despite her fragile hesitation, Pyrrha was only grazed by the ambushers and managed to defend well against their multiple attacks while her more experienced and aggressive aunt was able to answer the Fu-Ma shinobi with her own ruthlessness. Neither fought out of hatred, but to protect their family nearby...

Despite tears that flowed from her eyes, Natsu did not hesitate to drop Fu-Ma shinobi with one lethal strike of her knives. Her coordination with Leixia, Xiba and Maxi enabled the four to anticipate surprise attacks even as the Manjitou warriors assaulted them from all sides. Xiba's long range and tricky demeanor with Leixia's heavy yet fluid sword dance made a deadly combination against the Manjitou warriors while Maxi singled out officers or higher ranked warriors to keep them from endangering his protegees.

Siegfried, Hilde and ZWEI held their own, though watching many of their comrades fall had it's toll on ZWEI...enough for Yoshimitsu to nearly kill him if not for the interference of the grey wolf. As if recognizing the wolf as a valid adversary, the Armored warrior faced off with the growling wolf while any other did nothing to interfere.

Mitsurugi and Taki fought within the forest around the main battle. Both knew that they would seek for one another anyway, as they have for over two decades. Despite his age and Taki's agelessness, it soon became clear that this would not be the day that the two adversaries would settle their decades long strife.

It also became clear to the senior shinobi that she had underestimated the strength of the Black Wind and their allies. A mistake that she would not repeat again.

"To die here would be pointless..." Taki jumped onto Mitsurugi's katana and leapt off of it into the treetops above, "But this is not over ronin."

"Giving up already?" Mitsurugi asked the retreating ninja, "Why haven't you died after all of these years?"

"Senpai!" Natsu cried as she appeared and tried to follow her sensei, "Wait!"

"Forget it!" Mitsurugi grabbed the blond girl and forced her onto her back with minimal effort, "You're not going to change her mind...none of us can."

Mitsurugi and Natsu returned to find a downcast mood amongst the Black Wind mercenaries, most of whom were busy accounting for casualties in this skirmish.

"Is anyone wounded?"

"Thirteen...Fourteen...Fifteen...Seventeen wounded..." Hilde counted off, "Some of them won't survive their injuries...and five...no, eight...eighteen deaths."

"Hope you're grateful little miss," ZWEI said to a shaken Pyrrha, "WE JUST LOST EIGHTEEN PEOPLE FOR YOU! AND WE MAY LOSE MORE!"

"I'm...I'm so sorry-"

"Don't give me that sorry shit!" ZWEI shouted, grabbing Pyrrha by her sleeve and causing her to gasp, "You think that saying sorry's gonna make up for what happened here! Or for any of the hundreds that you've already killed! Sorry won't cut it!"

"Back off!" Cassandra slammed her shield into ZWEI's wrist, causing him to grab it in pain while Cassandra stepped in front of Pyrrha, "Pyrrha didn't do anything wrong here!"

"When the hell are you going to let that weak little girl stand up for herself?"

"You wanna blame someone for the deaths of your comrades, blame the shinobi killed them!"

"Or the person who made them do this," The three of them heard a solemn Natsu comment, "I knew those shinobi, something's wrong about this attempt."

"Wrong?" Mitsurugi asked, looking at the damage from the battle, "I'd say that they caused a lot of damage despite their failure."

"I need a body..." Natsu said out loud and then called out to the gathering, "How many did we kill?"

"A lot, they were quick but lack protection." Siegfried observed, "And here's another problem...I don't see any of them..."

"You mean ones that we killed?"

"Exactly," Siegfried answered his wife, "Is this a normal practice for Shinobi?"

"Yes." Natsu answered, "Ensures that the dead will not reveal their secrets."

"How could they take all of those bodies?" ZWEI asked, "Me and EIN had to have killed at least seven of them..."

"I got four."

"Five myself."

"Hell..." ZWEI pointed to a worried Pyrrha, "Even the little miss here got three..."

"Get off! What do you want?" Xiba asked as the Grey Wolf grabbed jacket's sewn in tail and started dragging the monk from the group. When Xiba shook the wolf off, set his staff on the ground and sat on it while the wolf barked more, "You got one boy?" The wolf nodded and ran to a recently covered over patch of dirt and quickly dug away the thin layer to reveal a deceased Fu-Ma Shinobi.

"He must have grabbed the body while that smoke screen was here."

"Or maybe he killed one of the shinobi as they tried to run." Maxi suggested to Leixia's confusion, the Ryukin Pirate just nodded to the wolf, "Either way, good boy." The wolf barked in reply and walked off of the scene.

"Move over!" Natsu shouted when she pushed aside her senpai and pulled off the shinobi's mask. Leixia was aghast, Cassandra shook from an urge to barf, Pyrrha turned away fearfully and ZWEI shook his head in disapproval, "As I thought...a malfested within his body..."

"A what?"

"Malfested are those who have been infected by Soul Edge's taint," Siegfried explained to Cassandra, "In time, it festers and mishapes them, turning them into mindless slaves for Soul Edge. The only way to stop one is to purify it or kill it."

"It?" Cassandra asked, mortified from the expression of quiet pain on the shinobi's face, "He smells...but he's still a person."

"After a while, it doesn't matter." ZWEI countered, "But the malfestation wasn't as strong here, this man was still in his right-mind when he died."

"That means that he either had a strong will or accepted this taint willingly." Natsu concluded, shaken by the lengths that her former clan was now taking, "What is senpai doing?"

"Whatever she's doing, it must quicken our steps." Siegfried decided, "Cassandra, Maxi, you should get moving and stay away from the main roads unless necessary."

"Already planning on it." Maxi agreed, "Younglings! Clean up and get your gear! We're moving out!"

"Understood."

"Already?"

"Can I eat first?"

"No complaints, younglings!" Maxi barked at his protegees, "Student just doesn't sound right to me."

"Neither does aunt," Cassandra admitted before she poked a quiet Pyrrha on her nose, "Ready to go home, Pyrrha?"

"Yes..." Pyrrha replied, "What about you?"

"We'll be alright once we regroup, then we'll have more numbers than Taki will bother to attack."

"Numbers? When has she cared for those?"

"She'll care enough not to engage in a pointless battle," Hilde explained to an unconvinced Mitsurugi, "She may have many shinobi under her, but not in limitless numbers. She will most likely pick and choose her battles, more likely hit and run rushes as she did here. Not against a fully manned and fortified fort."

"Then we will have to hurry up ourselves," Siegfried concluded, "We can carry the wounded...but we'll have to leave the dead..."

"The dying?"

"They're not dead yet," Siegfried answered to ZWEI's relief, "Until they draw their last breath, we will not abandon them."

"Thanks boss."

"Why thank me? I only do what I am meant to do." Seigfried said to ZWEI before he addressed Pyrrha, "From here, your path will be your own child. I won't tell you what to seek or if you will find it. But your choices from here on out will yours to make, for good or for ill. If you lack the will to make that choice, then forge it from within yourself before that weakness costs the lives of those precious to you."

"I...I understand my lord..."

"I say this so that you will not commit the same sins that your brother has committed," Seigfried stated to a thoughtful Pyrrha, "The same sins that I committed..."

Author's Notes:

This one's brief because I've really got nothing right now...I've been so busy...

I really appreciation the reviews and reception that this story has gotten so far. I honestly expected most folks to just write it off as a "Hate-Story" made in response to a game that they hated.

Also, still no word on rather or not SCV is locked away in the "Forget about this game vault" without any DLC or expansion support...so we're most likely stuck with an incomplete game with no way of fixing it's BS story mode or even unlocking the content that's apparently locked on the disk without Microsoft sewing said-gamer for hacking...

Even though they're just unlocking something that's on the disk...the disk that they legally purchased and therefore legally own...

If this is how the Soul Series was going to end then what was the point of jumping on in SCII? What was the point of downloading SCI on Xbox Live? What was the point of nagging my mom to get me a PS2 just so I could play SCIII? What was the point of pre-ordering and eventually purchasing SCIV before I even got an Xbox 360 and could therefore only play the game when my unofficial college dorm-mate let me play on his 360...

I'm probably going on way longer of a rant than necessary, after all, Soul Calibur V isn't a bad game as far as fighting games go. The Combat is neat, the online mode is cool, the soul gauge is good and the expansion of the character creation mode does allow for some fun and awesome character creations and combinations...so fighting game fans will be happy...and I guess that's what matters...

Not the fans who petitioned for this game's creation, only to regret their actions and feel like Namco is slapping them in the face; Not folks who've been with the Series since Soul Blade or Soul Calibur only to find out that their main character since that first game has now dropped off the face of the earth without any explanation; Not those of us who've followed the story of the Soul Series and were always interested in seeing how our favorite characters would develop and change in between each game and what would become of particular rivalries, character dilemnas, relationships (romantic or otherwise), who would die, which side of the battle between the two swords would each character fall over and I could go on but...but I won't waste anymore of your time...

Read, Review and Enjoy...