by Hugo Damas
“You can see through the darkness, can you not?” He asked.
The Shadow looked away, embarrassed while attempting to look insulted. She had not been able to discern much before, but right then, she had clearly seen him. He was wearing nothing but bandages around his privates, the rest of his body stood naked under the cloak.
It was…very well defined. His body had the makings of an expertly trained martial artist.
“This cloak is special. It was formed from a piece of shadow that was ripped from the shadow spring at the mansion,” the Darkness explained.
Why was he telling her that?
“So you should see through it,” he added, oddly hopeful.
“I mean no offense…but what are you doing?” Ayane asked.
“What do you mean?” His voice sounded normal, too normal, it even lacked an accent.
“Telling me this,” she added.
“We are unique,” the Darkness told her. “Now that you have the lenses back, you are likely the only one in the world who can see me for who I really am.”
Ayane looked back at him, and he was looking at her. It was weird how the lenses worked to allow her to see reality in layers. She could see the dark hood, void, staring at her. But she could also see the gray eyes behind a face made of pale porcelain, one never scarred or hurt or in any way hampered by imperfections. The dark hair mixed with the cloak. Bathed in it. It went down and around his neck, lightly brushing his smooth gem-like neck and shoulders.
The Shadow gulped in an effort to retain her composure. “Take off the cloak, and all will see who you really are.”
“The cloak does not come off.” The Darkness reached out with his hand, and the dark cloak swirled and curved around his arm like a natural tissue controlled by wind as if it was some unnatural power that he possessed for flair. The hand touched her shoulder, but the cloak did not. “It is only seen, it does not need to come off.”
The Darkness took his hand away while also looking aside. Ayane, however, kept watching him, no longer weirded out by the situation. She was not used to people showing an interest in her, outside of her teacher, but she could now understand his. As he had said, no one else could see him.
That was quite a burden. “I am sorry,” the Shadow said, sincerely.
“It is an honor and a blessing,” he was quick to say, just like she would have. “But most blessings are, in some situations…curses. Are they not?”
“They certainly are,” Ayane agreed.
Ayane followed his gaze to see many soldiers were climbing back up the valley, constituting the melee force that would protect the siege equipment. The rest were arraying into their battle formations. They would take a downward charge to be slaughtered while the Beasts were flanked and fired upon.
“You would think they would give you an easier task to start with,” the Darkness said, compassionately.
“I started two years ago,” the Shadow said defensively, “I have had many easy tasks.”
He chuckled again. It embarrassed her to see him react that way, especially when he had such an unusually soft voice. She managed not to show it, though.
“We could die this day, so I must ask. You changed your uniform.”
Ayane glanced sideways at him, even though he couldn’t tell. “…that is not a question.”
The Darkness coughed.
“Your previous uniform was already different from your predecessors. And yet you’ve changed again. I am curious why.”
Indeed, she had changed.
Her previous attire didn’t work well with a mask, and she wanted one to go with the lenses, so she had changed it. Her hair was the same: long, tied back into a spread ponytail in the back, framing her mask at the front. The clothes covered her limbs completely, and they had a reddish tone to them instead of blue. Ayane had replaced her scarf with a wide but short cape that still enveloped her neck and chin like a scarf. Otherwise, she yet wore the same kind of gloves and boots, they were just in a different color to better match with the dark red.
She didn’t have a great reason as to why she had switched. Ayane wanted to do it and did it, and nobody had complained. She might even change again if she survived the day.
Ayane liked clothing. She liked to put them together, to come up with her own ensembles, to dress in stuff that she liked to look at in the mirror. In summary, she liked looking cool, and it bored her to dress the same forever. If she could change that part of the Shadow legacy, that would bring her great happiness.
The Shadow couldn’t say any of that, however, least of all to the great Darkness.
“If we make it out of this battle, I will tell you,” Ayane said, dramatically.
The Darkness laughed that time. Not a long laugh, nor loud, but it was more than a chuckle.
“Let that be the driving force behind our survival then. The great mystery behind your dressing habits,” he said, amused.
Ayane giggled at that, surprising even herself at her reaction. For that one second, her defenses were down, and she was at her most comfortable. How had he disarmed her so fast?
“Skill and honor be with you, Shadow,” the Darkness honored her.
“And with you,” she said, nodding at him, “glory to the Kagekawa.”
“Glory to the clan.”
The Darkness dissipated into the ground, using the same ability she had. She wondered what the cloak was for. Did it make the shadow arts easier? Did it provide him additional abilities?
More than that, she wondered what in the occult had happened between them. The Darkness was notoriously a very dangerous, silent, menacing loner.
The Shadow looked out into a landscape of armies and tried to remember how deadly her task was. She tried to let fear take over her imagination. The Beasts should make up all the imagery in her mind. Her entire focus.
He had such a lithe body, though. So surprisingly…defined. Athletic. Even if skinny, it seemed so very sturdy.
Beautiful.
Before she knew it, Ayane was dressing him in all kinds of cool uniforms -- black and red, silver, gold, all strapped tightly to his body, of course. With a scarf! A big scarf to make his movements seem as fluid as he was, or maybe a thin cape, a cape half the width of his back but as long as his--
She shook her head. Focus, Ayane, she told herself, massaging a forehead that was warmer than it should be. The world is ending, focus on that.
* * *
It was an impressive display of force. Thousands of soldiers stood in support of armored vehicles with gun emplacements, the ballistae and the cannons. Uniforms were varied, manifesting the coalition of nations that had been formed against a common enemy. Japien had soldiers there, Ayane recognized them most of all.
The supernatural mist advanced, its edges reaching across the valley at a visible crawl. The army had gone silent meanwhile. The valley reeked of anxiety towards the unknown, one which was too supernatural for even men who were ready to die, and all too cloaked by the dark mist.
They were lucky they could not see what was coming for them, Ayane was sure they would not remain in their posts otherwise. Her new vision was able to pierce through the thicker mist. Even the thickest. More than ever, she was shocked at how much her vision was improved by the shadow lenses.
The Beasts advanced in a disorganized cluster that seemed nonetheless geometrical. They had their own vessels, half-submerged in the ground and hampered not a bit by it. Their numbers? Greater.
They were wide and larger than any man, those Beasts, and still, they outnumbered the allied army Melor had assembled.
The Shadow gulped.
“What do you see?” A whisper inquired.
The Shadow looked aside at a grey-uniformed member of Mist, the group of spies that Kagekawa employed.
“A greater force than ours,” Ayane stated, succeeding in not letting her voice shake. “Your assistance will truly be meaningless, as far as combat goes.”
The spy nodded and jumped off the ledge, cli
mbing down the face of the cliff in swift hops. In a regular fight, Mist could still help in a combative capacity, much as the Shadow could. However, that would not be a regular fight.
“DO YOU HEAR THAT, MEN?” Melor yelled, unsheathing his long sword. “That is glory coming for you!”
No, Ayane thought silently…that was the sound of the vehicles burrowing into the ground. Ayane had been taught to lack sympathy for the loss of life since there was very little of innocence to anyone in the world. Alas, she had not been a good learner. Faced with such a scene, her heart couldn’t help but pain her.
Still, the Shadow was already on the move, and so she continued.
The thickest part of the mist enveloped the valley just as she passed it from afar. The battle began right around the time she cleared the front line. By the time she had cleared the back line of the Beasts -- mere minutes -- Melor’s army was already being pushed back.
Her mission was simple, if suicidal. It was shared by the head of Mist, the leader of the group and the best of them. They had to go behind enemy lines, using the battle as a diversion, and infiltrate the Beast’s ranks looking for sabotage opportunities or, failing that, relevant information.
The head of Mist had started at the opposite flank of the battle, and both of them were acting without Melor or his generals knowing. That was to be expected, the military men wouldn’t take lightly to have what they felt was the last battle be nothing more than a diversion.
The Shadow ran as fast as she could, heading to Pelindrad. Hopefully, their main vessel would be waiting there, the very same she had infiltrated with the Hunter and the Sorcerer. The Shadow would not have time to go beyond Pelindrad, she knew that much, because Melor’s forces would have been defeated by then.
Ayane felt the air growing hostile, but thanks to her mask, it was still breathable. Ayane had considered that application when she fashioned the costume.
Her shadow lenses made it very easy to avoid the Beasts. The Shadow could see them in the distance, and she was sure her sight was now a lot better than theirs was. Though in fact, there weren’t a lot of them to be seen anyway. Not once she really started approaching the city.
Was that all of them? As many as there were, that is still a lot less than -- Ayane remembered that they were spreading in all directions. That was just one front of their invasion.
Feeling increasingly desperate, Ayane tried to focus on the moment. The Shadow had been trained on several techniques to deal with stress and she would use them.
Situational awareness took a couple of seconds of concentration and needed to be repeated every half minute or so. A potential unknown variable can easily distract one’s attention but, with the shadow lenses, she could see everything around her. The Shadow could see every foot of abandoned land that was being scoured by the Beasts. There would be no surprising her as there was no unknown variable creeping out of some darkened corner of a street.
The Shadow was capable of all of this without even a need to squint or force her vision. What little time she had had with the lenses was enough that she could already seamlessly change focus, able to inspect every layer of visible reality at any moment.
There was also breathing. One could focus on breathing, especially when it was so hard. Ayane heard herself breathing in and out and tried to diminish that sound. She could always improve her techniques, so she concentrated on that, making her steps lighter and her movements swifter.
After spending some solid ten minutes running, the Shadow reached the city. An assortment of box-shaped buildings, as tall as five floors, were arrayed around several large squares that were known for a crazy amount of commerce. Stands and kiosks spiraled with all manners of products, from spices to food and weapons, jewels and crafts and, of course, clothes. She had visited just a few months prior and had had a very pleasant time. The Shadow had had the goal to steal a gem that a maharajah hired Kagekawa to acquire. The owner, a warlord of the mountain lands to the north, didn’t want to sell.
Simpler times, those. Less grim.
Signs of battle were everywhere now. Parts of buildings were broken or exploded, weapons dropped on the ground, most of them bent blades and discarded guns. Defeat was evident in the amount of blood and corpses lying around.
It wasn’t even a day old, the scene of the slaughter, but it was helped by the mist. Whatever was in the air was covering the whole environment in a coat of dark particles. That included the bodies and the blood, which were likewise not as fresh as they should be. Likewise, there were clear signs of fires that had already been asphyxiated by the mist.
Even for one such as the Shadow, whose stomach was toughened through arduous training, Pelindrad was a tough sight to swallow.
Worse yet, there was no capital transport vessel like the one in Prusnia. No Beast structure to infiltrate.
After a good fifteen minutes of running around the rooftops, avoiding what few Beasts had remained to carry out search and destroy tasks, she could not find it.
The Shadow found other vessels, the ones she had seen burrow their way into the fight, but that was it. That and a more static, and less scary, piece of equally alien machinery.
It was a pillar, of sorts, and they were actually scattered all over the city. Each was twice her height and width, made of the weird Beast metal that was foreign to their world. The top was punctured with a lot of holes, and they seemed to be spewing the mist. Meanwhile, at the base of the top, of the area with all the holes, was a small gem. It was a dark oddly shaped thing that seemed made of onyx. Or it was a raw piece of the rock.
I should take a sample, Ayene felt, taking a look around out of habit. Then she drew a knife.
The Shadow could not carry the whole pillar, but she was going to bag whatever the pillar was spewing, and she would take the gem, too.
She jumped up and hugged the pillar with her legs. The Shadow tried to remove the gem for two minutes. After that failed, she held a pouch down to catch the mist particles being spewed into the air, closed tight with a string, and then went back to work on the gem for five more minutes.
Grrr… it quickly unnerved her enough.
Ayane turned the knife around and pummeled the gem, trying to break it. She grew tense because of the noise she was producing, but she didn’t want to go back to Kagekawa with nothing but dust.
Then, a yell rose.
The Shadow turned around after the scream, knowing it had to be a survivor. She grabbed onto the top of the pillar and kicked off of it, jumping out into the air.
The Shadow ran towards the yell.
An explosion, coming from the collapse of a building, directed her movement. Ayane had no plan -- she was hardly even thinking -- having moved before even considering what could really be happening.
The scream erupted again as she turned a corner. The Shadow was met with one of the Beasts pushing through a hole in the wall of a pummeled building. Some person was crawling away into the street.
“No no no oh no! Please!” He coughed uncontrollably now that he was faced with the full corruption of the open air, all while trying to get up. Ayane hesitated, wanting to think of a plan of approach, spurred by the cautiousness that had been drilled into her. But there was no time to be cautious, the Beast’s legs initiated the piston-like movement which would result in the guy’s death.
The Shadow swiftly threw a flash bomb right at his head.
“Ah!!” In reaction, he dove from the hit just as it exploded. She closed her eyes in preparation but felt no additional flash of light assailing them.
It can even handle the light?? That was unexpected, but welcome, it gave her that extra second. Ayane was running when the beast was still in mid-air, missing the leap over the frantically tumbling guy she sought to save.
Ayane grabbed his hand and gave him a harsh whisper.
“Come!”
“What?” He questioned but he ran along immediately. “What’s going on, I can’t see!”
“I can, shush!” Ayane
whispered to him. Her voice was shaken but it was okay for him to hear that since he was nobody important.
The Shadow turned around the house as soon as possible, hoping that the beast’s senses hadn’t returned quickly enough to catch sight of their escape.
However, Ayane heard a crash behind them, and looking back, she saw the beast had landed on that side of the street. It looked around.
Crap. Unaware but guessing correctly.
Ayane led him around the tight curves produced by the houses. Since the Beasts could only cover large distances by leaping, which meant straight lines, this made it difficult for the beast to catch up and see them. The man was losing breath fast but keeping up anyway, such was the need to survive.
Eventually, they had enough of a lead for the Shadow to feel confident that they could hide with decent chances of success. She flung him through an already broken window of an obviously assaulted house.
“Ouf ow! What was--”
“Shh!” Ayane dove right after, through the window, and outright tackled him into the ground. Grabbing hold of him, she made them roll out of sight. Then the Shadow looked around and saw a flight of stairs leading up that had no wall underneath. That meant it would cover most on-looking angles.
Ayane pulled him into the cover and sat him down.
“Wha--”
Ayane covered his mouth with her hand and held the other to her lips. “Sst!”
At that moment, she thought he could see her face. Ayane had forgotten he would not be seeing the concerned, near-terrified red eyes of a fellow human, but rather the closed-off mask of a mystical being he should be afraid of.
Then she remembered.
“Breathe,” Ayane whispered to him, as calmly as she could. “Through my fingers. The air is rotten.”
He nodded, tears still in his eyes. He was roughed up, cuts here and there, and obviously horrified. But he had moved and kept himself from panicking, which was enough. Slowly, his breathing relaxed away from heavy gasps and into more regular breaths. Ayane used her other hand, waving it up and down, to help him control his breathing.
