Bjorn led the way forward as if following some unerring sense of direction and though Kira chafed at the idea of trailing him like a retainer, there was no other choice. But with his broad back presented to her, Kira could see the tiniest chink in the well-forged mail. She smiled to herself and ran a hand over the reassuring coolness of her staff. All she needed was one weakness. Even mountains were worn away into rubble by the tiniest wellspring. Ever since Bjorn had shook her hand, the silken strands of a plan had been woven together in the shadowed recesses of her mind. It was too soon to enact her plan when Bjorn had not fulfilled his role and she still needed to practice the method. Kira stared forwards at the white insignia of the Erdtree on Bjorn's cloak and imagined red contaminating the purity of the cloth and the Tree Sentinel's pride. She'd slowly tighten her threads with time, quietly so he wouldn't notice until it was too late for him to stop her sinking her fangs into him.
"We'll be entering Limgrave in about a week, four days if you can keep up with me." Bjorn said and Kira looked at him. His face was impassive with no hint of malice but his words were filled with the arrogance she was coming to despise.
"If? You seem to have a thorough understanding of my physical capabilities so why not give us two weeks?" Kira responded coolly.
"I've seen all that I needed yesterday to understand the extent of your abilities." Bjorn said and continued to walk on.
"And I've now seen the extent of your intellectual capabilities when you think you understand everything about a person in one day. You must've been an amazing commander gauging the strength of your soldiers in one day." Kira retorted and was rewarded by Bjorn's pause. She took his lack of response as the victory it was and was finally able to release some of the rage she had carried ever since he had nearly killed her. Four days to Limgrave? She had memorized countless maps of the Lands Between but distance could never be truly understood until one's feet blistered with it. By that measure, it would take about two weeks to reach the center of Caelid. She'd use that time to practice and watch Bjorn for Kira had always been forced to learn through visual imitation. Nobody would teach her after her exile but she had prowled through the shadows of schools to learn the secrets denied to her.
But there wasn't much time to think for Bjorn was increasing his strides and it was harder for Kira to keep up with his long-legged stride. Perhaps he was more stung by their argument than he let on because he was setting a punishing pace. With the hot sun beating down and the mud sucking at her steps, Kira was soon soaked with sweat trying to keep up with him. But she would much rather collapse first than admit the toll it was taking on her. To distract herself from the grueling pace, she intently scanned her changing surroundings. For Liurnia was slowly but steadily changing into a different landscape. The marshes were draining into larger stretches of verdant grass and the thin trees were growing thicker and taller with leaves that filtered the sunlight into shattered pieces of gold. It was the first time Kira had been out of Liurnia and much like the maps she read, the pictures she'd seen did not illustrate the full scope of the Lands Between.
The water seemed confused whether it wanted to be wet or dry and there were still pockets of deep water that Bjorn easily stepped through but left Kira wet up to her knees. She began using her staff to test the ground in front of her and the going was slightly easier. They finally took a midday break in another grove that provided both shade from the incessant heat and dry ground from the marshes. Bjorn sat down and pulled his own supplies out of his pack while Kira wandered away. There were clouds of midges that were attracted to the gargantuan man and she left him swatting away the bugs while she ate her own hardtack biscuits and dried fruit. The food was tough but nourishing and full of good flavor despite the leathery texture.
Come to us. The slightest whisper brushed her ear and Kira froze, her head turning towards the source. Even in the white sunlight, there was the unmistakable gleam of blue light and Kira felt it tugging her. With a hand on her Estoc, she allowed her feet to guide her towards the call that was electrifying her blood with strange power. Fighting her way through a tangle of hedges, Kira's eyes widened when she beheld what the undergrowth had revealed. Glintstone crystals growing from the ground and merging into mystical shapes flickering with light. Everything glimmered in the same blue as her eyes and as she continued walking through the crystalline labyrinth. The calls were louder now, strange whispers that sparkled like starlight and tapped at her senses.
There was a sharp pain in her wrist and she ripped off the bandage to see that the rings of crystals were glittering with the same light reflected from the slender spires around her. Power rushed through her and she fell to her knees with her hand pressed against the surface of a crystal pillar. "Who are you?" Kira said as electricity surged through her palm until she was light-headed. We are the stars, we are the dew of life, we are the amber dripping from the cosmos. We are eternal yet constantly changing. The messages came not in the form of words but images, smells, and sensations and for a moment Kira was plunged in a space of velvety black. Why do you deny yourself? Why do you chain yourself to blood and fear? Join us and unleash your true self. More memories now of a bowl of red water and a white blindfold inscribed with runes of sealing. There were doors inside of Kira that were opening, doors that she didn't even know existed, and things burst out of them. Rushing forward, crowding her consciousness and whispering-
"Yamate!" Kira shouted and yanked her hand away from the Glintstone crystal. She seized her head and forcibly shut those opened doors until the energy dissipated with a sigh of what sounded like disappointment. Her wrist was aching sharply and when Kira yanked the bandage away from it to see the crystals were pulsating. She needed to get out of here where the Glintstones yanked emotions and memories from places she had long closed. Holding her wrist tightly, Kira made a hasty retreat back towards their resting area and her feet crunched over crystals until the ground melted back into the reassuring smoothness of water.
Bjorn was there in the grove with his armor glittering like a golden beacon through the sun. Kira's wrist had finally stopped tingling once she was far away from the siren's call of those crystalline woods. She wrapped it up discreetly and Bjorn stood up when he spotted her and without another word, resumed their journey. It was only after an hour that he finally deigned to speak to her. Kira was brooding on the significance of what had happened and it was almost a welcome distraction to hear his voice. "Did you find something out there? You looked rather troubled after returning."
"I found nothing of importance." Kira responded. What would Bjorn know of what had happened?
He grunted and no more words were exchanged between them but the silence was not as tense as it had been because the both of them were absorbed in their own thoughts. There were fewer battles than there had been yesterday for they seemed to be leaving the territory of the Wraithcallers and Albinauracs. Their brief skirmishes consisted of fights against packs of roaming wolves who emerged from the growing abundance of forests. Though they were massive in size, they were wary of Bjorn who had a strange familiarity with them. He changed his body language from neutral passivity to a threatening aggression and many of lesser wolves backed away whining. The only wolves that engaged were the ghostly direwolves with teeth the size of knives and Bjorn scared them away with fireballs that threw up sheets of steam. Kira curiously noted that he never continued any of these battles after scaring them off.
"Are they not deserving of an honorable death?" Kira asked as she watched a trio of wolves running through the dappled sunlight with their tails between their legs.
"They withdrew from the fight and they are nothing but poor beasts acting from hunger. I don't see the point in chasing them down when I've proved my superiority over them." Bjorn responded with his hand still smoking from the flames he had wielded.
"Your superiority? That may work for animals but you are astonishingly naive when it comes to humans. You don't take into account a human's desire for power and revenge. Humiliating and leaving them alive is not an act of mercy or moral superiority. It is an act of contempt that speaks to your lack of respect for them." Kira said and Bjorn stopped to look at her as if truly seeing her for the first time. There was no hint of dismissal in his brown eyes as he felt the silken brush of her veiled threat. Kira stood her ground and looked back at him with no emotion but for a moment, it felt like a bright light had stripped away the shadows that cloaked her from everyone's gaze.
"I believe in second chances." Bjorn said quietly and an uncomfortable feeling stirred inside Kira's chest. "It is not a sin to know the extent, or rather the limitations, of your strength and to pick your battles. Would you murder a child that attacked you?"
"If the child attacked me with the intent to kill then yes. If I left them alive then the humiliation of loss would sharpen their weapon into something deadly enough to kill me in the future." Kira responded. That's the way it's always done. She remembered the soft screams of children as they felt the bite of a blade for the first and last time. Their bodies falling and staining the dojo mats with an overabundance of red. Strange how such small bodies could hold so much blood.
"I don't know your circumstances but it will always be reprehensible to kill a child." Bjorn said. "If you as an adult are unable to find a solution that does not involve killing an innocent child then that speaks more to your lack of foresight." Bjorn said coldly and Kira found that she was empty of clever retorts. Because even if she would never admit it to him, this was a thought that she had long harbored. Even if she had anything to say to him they were interrupted by an encampment guarding the path winding between two steep cliffs. Kira narrowed her eyes when a curl of wind swirled through her hair and unwrapped the pennant bearing an all-too-familiar coat of arms.
Red and blue stripes proudly unfurled to display a twin crest of cuckoo birds and Kira saw the glint of mirror-bright armor. The encampment was protected by a fence built from sturdy logs and Kira could hear the coarse laughter of soldiers and the clatter of weapons. Bjorn would've continued his stride forward if Kira had not tugged on his cloak with an irritated hiss. "Why do you always walk into circumstances blindly?" She bit at him. Before he could come up with a retort about how "he was always prepared," she pointed at the pennant and at the layers of soldiers armed with crossbows and hulking dogs. "They're Cuckoo soldiers. Raya Lucaria hired them as extra guards from invasion but they're infamous for their rapacious ways. We've always had trouble controlling them, especially now that they've learned Glintstone sorceries."
"So be careful of their little spells. Is that it?" Bjorn said with an unimpressed tone."
"I would've thought that self-explanatory." Kira responded coolly. "My point was that I will talk to them and see if they will let us pass as I am a Raya Lucarian mage." She walked forwards before Bjorn could start arguing about wanting to attack everything with his ridiculously oversized Greatsword. The dogs growled at her approach and common foot soldiers pointed their crossbows at her. Tucking her staff into her belt, she held her hands up in a peaceful gesture though her wristbands were primed with hidden knives. Kira noticed Cuckoo Glintstones gleaming from loops in their belts and she could barely keep the disdain out of her voice.
"Cuckoo soldiers, I am a mage of Raya Lucaria just seeking safe passage to Limgrave. We do not wish to infringe on your noble mission to protect my patronage school." Kira said and then noted the way the soldiers smirked at each other. She slowly put her hands down and reached for her staff, the movement hidden by her long indigo sleeves. So when she heard the first creak of a crossbow string, she flicked her Estoc in a graceful arc that deflected the quarrel launched at her kneecap. Interesting, they had shot to maim rather than to kill. She heard rather than saw the flock of quarrels that whistled towards Bjorn but she knew they would not have incapacitated him. There were several dull thuds and knew that the Tree Sentinel had blocked the projectiles with the flat of his blade.
"I'm impressed you reacted so fast. Most mages would've been screaming by now." A Cuckoo Knight, resplendent in red and blue stood up with his face hidden by a helmet crowned with blue and white feathers. He was well-built, standing almost as tall as Bjorn, who had come to stand beside her with an impassive expression. She could almost hear his smug retorts that they should've stormed the camp from the onset rather than attempting diplomacy. "We've come across tasty little students like you, grown dull and fat as you crane your head at your stars. They've always taught us a pretty spell or two when we tickle them with our swords." Here, the knight ran a hand across his sword until it gleamed with the blue sheen of Magic Grease.
"You are directly violating the oaths you swore to protect Raya Lucaria. If you don't stop, this will not go unpunished by the Conspectuses." Kira said and she noticed the other soldiers were filing forward with their hands bristling with spears and swords.
"Which Conspectus? It's hard for a poor common soldier to keep track of who he needs to report to when they're constantly fighting with their Queen." The knight laughed and he advanced on Kira with a burnished shield and his blade glimmering brighter than the Glintstone crystals. "I can tell by your robes you're but a fledgling mage. You won't have much to teach us but we can find…other ways for you to serve us. You're a little bony but maybe you can last for a week if we're patient." His coarse laugh boomed from beneath his helmet and Kira's usual control over her emotions snapped.
"Stay back!" She snarled at Bjorn when he stepped forward.
"The situation is getting out of hand." He replied calmly.
"Take care of the riff raff then. But that dog is mine." Kira said and her blood pounded through her head, humming with energy. She stared at Bjorn defiantly, daring him to argue but he dipped his head in acquiescence. It was the tiniest nod yet the impact of that small movement was a seismic wave that shifted something between them. Bjorn faced the remainder of the camp and the soldiers did not look pleased at the prospect of the gargantuan man in gold armor who had shaken their quarrels off like raindrops.
"I shall take care of the rest. Focus on your battle for these soldiers shall not touch you." He promised and Kira stared at him with her mind wiped completely clean of resentment for once.
"My, aren't you a brave one? You're not going to cower behind your golden friend there to shoot spells? I like them with a little fight." The knight said, his words a taunting cover for his sudden lunge forward. Kira barely had enough time to push her Estocs up in the guarding position and her arms went numb from the immense impact of the knight's two-handed swing. She backed away, hissing under her breath as she forced the tips of her Estocs back up into the en garde position. Stupid. Never counter brute strength with a direct block.
Her arms were already trembling and the knight sauntered around her in a taunting circle. "Did I already clip the little bird's wings? That was foolish of me. I should've at least left you one hand." He swung at her again with horizontal strokes and lunges so favored by the warriors in the Lands Between. Kira was quick to learn from her first mistake and used her Estocs to direct the momentum of his blows. She couldn't use any of her spells when she needed both of her swords to withstand his swings. Every time Kira tried to back away to give herself the room to pull her staff out, the knight closed the distance with a swift stab.
"I'm not sure if you're a mage. I haven't seen a single spell out of you, not even a Glintstone Pebble." The knight mused and his diagonal slash was so powerful that Kira felt the wind parting before the blade. "I know how to stop a mage's spells but they've all been more entertaining than you." Kira ducked a horizontal swing but the knight had simply been feinting and he turned his sword so that it veered downwards. Kira desperately rolled to the side but the greatsword's hilt caught her a glancing blow on the shoulder and the muddy ground sucked one of her Estocs out of her hand. "You lasted three minutes, that's worse than most." The knight said and continued the fight leisurely.
With only one sword, Kira knew she could no longer fight a defensive battle of attrition. She lunged forward, aiming for the gap between helmet and breastplate but the knight caught the tip of her slim sword and backhanded her. Kira hit the ground hard, the brutal blow sent stars reeling across her vision and her teeth cut into her lip. The salty taste of blood cleared the last of the rage from her mind. She looked up to see Bjorn was watching her, his head inclined as if he was silently asking her if she wanted him to intervene. The bodies of Cuckoo soldiers were all around him and the rest of the company was fleeing into the trees. Using her staff, Kira pushed herself upright and took in a deep breath. The scent of the Liurnian marshes settled in her lungs and she shook her head at Bjorn. This Cuckoo knight was going to die by her hand.
"I would've been gentle if you stayed on your back." The knight said. Kira sneered and spat a mouthful of blood at him.
"I'm not going to be gentle with you. Your screams will be my lullaby tonight." She said and for the first time, held her staff aloft. With a graceful arc, Carian Glintblades appeared above her head and Kira lunged like she had the first time. The knight knocked her thrust aside but Kira moved with the momentum, swirling around him and slashing at his neck with Carian Slicer. He barely ducked out of the way in time and for the first time, he used his silver-bright shield to block the delayed Glintblades soaring towards his helmet. Kira gave him no time to breathe for she cast Carian Piercer. The knight blocked the blade once more but she used the pause to close the distance to him. With an enemy of superior strength, stay close so they don't have the time to wind up. The voice behind the whispered words was familiar and Kira's body went into autopilot at the memories.
The knight swung his sword, one-handed, and Kira caught the blade on her hilt and raised her staff into the gleaming blue Havel of Gaima, smashing downwards so that the shield was knocked into the dirt. He wrenched his sword away from her Estoc hilt and shoulder-charged her. Kira dropped her Estoc and grabbed his arm and used his momentum to flip the massive knight over her own shoulder. He was the one who hit the ground this time and Kira slashed at his head with Carian Slicer, except it wasn't Carian Slicer but a blue blade that appeared to be…
She only caught the tip of the helmet's white feather, pinning the helmet to the ground and ripping it off to reveal the knight's fine-featured face. He had glittering green eyes and golden hair that bards would longingly make poetry of. He laughed but Kira could hear the anger boiling beneath the pleasant sound and see the cruelty under the even more pleasant face. "That's the first time a mage has ever unmasked me. I underestimated you."
"It's not the first time for me but it'll be your last time." Kira said, picking up the Estoc that had been previously knocked out of her hand.
"I was wrong, I don't want to keep you. Once I defeat you and kill your friend over there, we'll take you to the marshes. Then I'll tie you to the Wraithcaller horses, a chain for each arm and leg. And then I'll watch them run in four different directions." The knight said and he was no longer hiding his rage over being humiliated. He was holding his sword with a two-handed grip once more and this time, Kira was ready for his charge.
The magic-greased greatsword met the slim Estoc and the two went at it in deadly silence. Kira's blue spells filled the air, Magical Downpour to harry his movement, Star Shower to hide the point of her own sword, and Comets to break his guarding stances. Kira sidestepped his swings and spun around him in graceful circles that gave her the time to cast her spells. They broke apart after a fierce volley and Kira had a deep cut on her left arm and was limping from a scrape to her knee. But the knight was far worse off with a lamed arm and puncture wounds in the armor chinks that Kira had accurately stabbed through. They locked eyes and knew the next volley would be the last.
Kira cast more Star Showers that wavered and changed into strange shapes that whistled and spun. The Cuckoo Knight charged forwards through them blindly and Kira stumbled backwards, waving her staff, though no spell appeared. The knight swung his sword triumphantly, the blue blade hissing towards her exposed neck when he was abruptly knocked forward. "You…filthy…bitch!" He snarled and Kira repeated the spell she had just cast in mockery. An indigo blue streak of magic struck him in the back of the head, forcing his face into the mud. She then relentlessly struck him with Comets, a familiar scene that made her wrist ache, until his armor shattered into pieces.
"I thought you said you were used to fighting mages. None of them used Ambush Shard?" Kira asked and carelessly kicked him onto his back. She straddled him with her Estoc held in hand and her eyes burning with intensity. "I know a fine, strong man like you doesn't like a woman on top. But trust me, I know how to make a man scream." Kira plunged the Estoc into the knight's stomach and she smiled when he began screaming. A feral, wide smile that bared all of her teeth. She slowly moved the sword from side to side until blood fountained forth and the knight was thrashing.
"K-k-kill me…please! I beg you…" The Cuckoo Knight choked out.
"What was that? I couldn't hear you." Kira said serenely. She dug the sword upwards through the unresisting flesh by an inch. The knight's screams were scaring the birds out of the trees. She leaned down and whispered in his ear. "Don't worry, I won't hit any of your vital parts as I slowly split you apart. Tell me, how does it feel to have a puny mage doing this to you. TELL ME!" Kira shouted with a wild fervor and stabbed down furiously. "TELL ME! TELL ME!" Her own shouts were barely drowned out by the man's animalistic howling. Hot spurts of blood hit her cheeks and she closed her eyes, savoring this rare moment of pure bliss. Kira dragged the sword up further, widening the man's grievous wound, and heady pleasure coursed through her veins like an intoxicating draught of sake. She controlled this man utterly. He screamed when she moved her sword, he begged for mercy when she stabbed him deeper. He lived and screamed at her whims.
"M-M-Marika…grant me mercy…please…m-m-mother." The knight babbled and tears were falling from his eyes as Kira ravaged his body further. She then gently drew the tip of her sword until it rested between his legs. He suddenly went taut under her and his beautiful face, smeared with blood and tears, went white.
"Oh, that got your attention, didn't it? Maybe I'll leave you alive after I've cut this away. Then I'll drag you along to another encampment and let whatever knights are there "service" you with whatever's left of you." Kira dug her sword in and there was an agonized whimper.
"Kira. That's enough. I didn't agree to witness torture." Bjorn's voice cut through her fevered haze and she whipped around to stare at him. His face was calm but his posture was tense with a hand casually wrapped around the hilt of his Greatsword. Filled with rage, Kira laughed to see his unease and finally felt the sense of power that she had always lacked with him. That's all she had wanted to see, that look of fear, however subtle, on Bjorn's impassive face.
"You agreed to let me have my kill. Who are you to jump in after you stood back and watched? He surrendered, his life is mine to do with as I see fit." Kira snarled at him, all traces of her cool tone melted into consuming rage.
"That is true. I did agree to leave him to you, though I didn't expect you to torture him as if he were an Omen. Do you derive pleasure from your actions?" Bjorn asked calmly, not breaking his gaze from the blood-soaked warrior.
"Yes, is that not evident?" Kira asked and dug the sword down, eliciting a gurgling scream. "The moment he surrendered, he lost any right to die as a man. You said that fights were a contest of strength, I have fulfilled your ridiculous notions of honor."
"You proved your strength the moment you held the sword to his stomach. What you did after was not about strength or honor, it was about your own ability to control yourself. You're just like him." Bjorn said, a somber tone darkening his voice. With this statement, he finally broke his gaze from Kira's furious stare, looking back to the pile of corpses where a squadron once stood. "Your methods may be a bit… different, but there's no mistaking that contempt."
Kira had been prepared to argue against Bjorn's moral posturing but the sudden change in topic caught her off guard. And for the first time, Kira sensed a chink in the massive man's emotionless demeanor. It cleared the bloody haze from her mind and she spotted a flash of gold in his dark brown eyes but it winked out of existence as quickly as a firefly. Bjorn was lost in thought, his hand slack on the hilt and for a moment, Kira felt the urge to attack him. But the unexpected vulnerability piqued her curiosity and she finally removed her sword from the groaning Cuckoo Knight. "Who?"
"He was my best friend ever since I could remember." Bjorn replied, a hint of longing in his voice. But his gaze refocused on her and hardened. "Finish him cleanly. And then I'll tell you more."
The command irked Kira and she stabbed the man's thigh, eliciting yet another scream but it was clear the knight was fading quickly. "You are not my master. You don't give me orders."
"Kira, please. Grant him an honorable death." The order was barely softened into a stated question but it was the first time he had called her by her name. And he had not stepped forward to force his code onto her. For those reasons, Kira finally dug the tip of her Estoc into the man's throat and leaned forward as blood spurted forth for the last time.
She locked eyes with the Cuckoo Knight, savoring the last glint of light leaving his eyes and the crimson washing away his beautiful features. "My name is Kira, remember that as you die. Jigoku de aou." She whispered in his ear before standing up to face Bjorn. "Tell me, you owe me this much." Tell me a weakness that I can exploit.