by Hugo Damas
It was humiliating.
They never stayed for long or show up in large groups, but for the remaining hour it took her to reach the city of Yanszou, they were a constant presence only she could see. A crowd of watchers.
Did they perhaps think she couldn’t see them? That would only make matters worse, that they thought that little of her.
The Shadow didn’t go all the way into Yanszou, in the end. The last thing she needed was for her to publicly show up with an old woman riding on her back. When the city was well in view, she stopped.
“There, Yanszou has not been attacked yet.” She crouched so Yana could get off.
“Alright! Thanks a lot, girl.”
“Yah, gratitude for sure.”
“See yah!”
The deserters went off running, the first to leave them behind. Ayane had never learned their names, but she wasn’t sorry about that, she preferred them to remain nameless. And forgotten, if that was possible.
“Uhm…you can put me down too, Nestor, I can walk the rest of the way.” The little girl requested, and he complied.
The Shadow stood up next to Yana.
“You really saved our butts.” Yana gave a few weak laughs. “Boy, am I hungry! Can’t wait to get some food into this old tummy of mine.”
The little girl giggled.
“Yer funny, grandma.” She grabbed Yana by the hand and ran off, encouraging her to follow. She was more energetic now that she was safe. “Come on come on, let’s go get that food! I wan’some too!” They both were.
“You really did, though, I hope you know that,” Nestor said.
Ayane looked at Nestor, finding him watching her. Awed.
“You saved us. You don’t look very happy about it, I get it. We ruined your sabotage job.”
Yes, Ayane thought, you ruined more than you’ll ever know.
“But you saved us. I, at least -- I’m very grateful.”
Ayane held his stare with what she knew was a blank one, that of her mask with eye slits darker than the night behind her. She didn’t care about the man’s gratitude. The fact he was emphasizing her actions only made her feel that much more disdain for them. They were actions Mist had witnessed and certainly reported back on. To all her leaders and peers. They were actions that would be her undoing.
“You do not know what I look like,” Ayane said in response.
She turned around and ran off, but Nestor would have his say.
“Doesn’t really matter,” he said after her, “thanks so much!” He yelled.
“Really!!” Nestor yelled again.
* * *
Her feet were heavier than they had any right to be. Ayane was sweating more than she should, especially because whatever was affecting her had nothing to do with the fact the Beasts had defeated the greatest military alliance of the century. Less even with any notion of physical exertion.
At least she was traveling light, once again on her own. The Shadow was leaping across the air more than she was running, near-gliding as she made her way towards home.
Agents of Mist were showing up just like before, only more sparingly and staying much more briefly.
You think you can keep up with me?! The Shadow was insulted, and refused to let that stand.
The breathed out in a personal challenge and sped up. The cold air felt like a wall, a wall that couldn’t stand up to her and stay solid. She was going to outrun them all.
It took around ten minutes, but they did stop popping up. The hills and plains sped along past her. Ayane ran into and out of a jungle without giving it much thought, followed by a river she leaped over, followed by a small forest trailing up a small mountain.
It was here that she suddenly sensed the air combusting ahead of her. In reaction, Ayane stopped and jumped back.
Maniacal laughter filled the night around her. The Shadow looked for the source of the noise and quickly found some kind of odd individual, walking out from behind the cover of a tree. Two others did the same.
They were wearing armor that seemed made out of steel, if it had been hacked apart. Each was wearing a backpack which was emitting fumes and seemed to be connected to some tubes that they were holding in their hands.
“Kagekawa falls! We will stop you here, Shadow, and thus come ever closer to the end of the world!”
Ayane raised an eyebrow, her mind reeling. What?
“I imagine you are confused,” he said, vaingloriously tapping his chest. “I am Led by Anarchy! Envoy of the Fire Hazards, Lord of Pyromania!”
The Shadow looked away with such disdain it would have withered the plants she was facing had they eyes to see it, and were she not wearing a mask.
I don’t have time for this insanity. The Shadow threw a flashbang at them, interrupting the evil speech.
“AUGH!”
Ayane ran. If it was true that Kagekawa was already under attack, and she couldn’t see how that could be possible, the last thing she should do would be to get into a fight with some nutjobs who thought it was a good strategy to use fire in the middle of a forest. She was no warrior, but she could very well elude three guys wearing heavy uniforms.
“YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE!” Came the yell, from a place she did not expect it to come from.
The Shadow looked up, seeing they were being propelled by their backpacks. A large volume of smoke was being emitted, leaving a trail for quite a considerable distance. It worked, though, it gave them the ability to fly. That was crazy.
They aimed their arms down and fire spew from their arm tubes. The Shadow jumped to the side and out of the way.
Sweating, the Shadow glared above at them, squinting hard. You want to do this now? You really want to do this with me now?
The Shadow dived into a bush, submerging into a shadow spring in one dive, something a mist would never be able to do. The shadow spring disappeared immediately, due to the light emitted by the fire -- as well as due to the death of its source, the bush -- but she was already in the stream.
She could no longer hear or see them, that well, she was in the silent void, her place of most comfort. However, Ayane could still tell direction. She headed left and back and emerged out of view, behind a tree. She ripped some roots off of it, the hardest pieces she could get her hands on, and in doing so, produced a snap that called their attention.
“Over there! She hides in the shadows of the trees, the coward!”
She climbed a tree in fast leaps. Once the Shadow reached its top, she leaped to another tree, drawing an arc that placed her in reach of them.
“Hey what!”
The Shadow threw the pieces of roots at their faces. One of them yelped in pain and lost control, reaching for his wound.
“Auuguh, my eyes! My eyes!”
He spiraled out of control and into the ground, his collision shutting him up for good. He would live, though. Probably.
Landing on another tree, the Shadow ripped off a piece of a branch and jumped again. She threw it hard, hitting another one in the back. She heard a loud crack and the spitting of bolts. The vapor and smoke were consumed as the man realized what was happening while his body was still reeling from the actual blow, having been pushed a bit aside.
“Oh no!”
It blew outwards, expelling the man against a tree and violently pushing the third man, and final one, to the side across the air. The main victim bounced off and fell to the floor, knocked out or dead.
The Lord of Pyromania looked a bit scared as he stabilized and gained altitude, all in the time it took for her to land.
The Shadow stared up, measuring the distance, the surroundings, and coming to the conclusion that she couldn’t reach him
Ayane scoffed in her mind, planning her next course of action.
Once she was done, she started running again. Ayane would spend as little time on them as she could, and if the man would let her leave, she would do so. If not…then her plan would come into effect.
“I still see you, Shadow!” The man yel
led, clearly traversing the skies after her.
He followed and shot his flames, but he was now too high up for them to hit her, with how fast she was moving. And that’s if they would even cause any serious burn if they did hit her.
“You think you will take me down with a couple of twigs? I don’t think so! Not the Lord of Pyromania!”
The flames suddenly began to get much hotter, which was a telltale sign the Shadow had to take combative action. It meant he was lowering his altitude. The Shadow ran around a tree to hide from him, at which point she slipped back into its shadow stream.
“And now you hide behind a tree?? You do know those are flammable?!”
He started torching it. He laughed maniacally and slowly hovered around the tree, trying to catch sight of her.
“I don’t even get why they consider you a threat,” he mocked, “you don’t even have any weapons!”
“I have weapons.”
He turned his head so fast that his neck cracked. Not mortally, just with that kind of snap that locks the neck into place by providing a great deal of pain should one try to turn it. “I simply refuse to waste them on the likes of you,” Ayane told him.
She had dived straight out of a shadow next to the base of a branch at the top of a nearby tree, located behind him. The Shadow landed on him, turning him around and thus making the flight turn wild. With how much the gadget began to trash around the air, it was a wonder they didn’t immediately hit a tree.
The Shadow hit his backpack twice with her knees and heard it break and crack.
She gave it one last kick which doubled as a jump, leaving him be. He propelled his way along a very uncontrollable flight path, breaking through multiple branches until one finally had the force to stop him. The flying backpack continued on while still being connected to his flamethrowers by metal wiring, and those tubes were attached to his arms. Because of that, it spun around the tree and inevitably crashed against his side terribly violently.
He, more than the others, was probably dead, even if there were no explosions. Ayane tried not to think about it while she landed straight into a run.
Fighting her in the cover of the night? Did they think the light of their flames were enough to keep up with the Shadow?
Ayane then noticed a Mist agent was crouching on a tree branch. Because of the fight, they had managed to catch up.
That is right, tell all of them, mist, the Shadow thought, vindictively, all while leaping her way out of the forest. She would leave them behind again, soon enough. Tell all of them how dangerous I am.
The Shadow didn’t know what those three had been about, really. Led by Anarchy was an agglomeration of crazy people who wanted civilization to crumble, she knew that much. Well, in truth, they wanted to be free but all they ever talked about was taking down civilization.
What they had against Kagekawa was beyond her, she thought it was stupid for organizations to fight each other in the middle of an invasion by a common enemy, but then, who was she to judge? Ayane had lost half a day saving people who would probably be dead before the week was over, nobodies that would not contribute at all to the fight. Some of them were cowardly deserters, even.
Actually, Ayane found some relief, however small, in the fact she wasn’t the only one whose judgment was suffering on account of the world being under threat of ending.
When she reached the top of the mountain, Ayane was forced to come to a stop. She was supposed to keep running since she had not yet arrived, but she had to stop.
The same way she had seen hundreds of the beasts running back to Pelindrad, she now watched many hundreds more running. Well, leaping. True to their name, the Beasts were tearing their way across the landscape at astounding, terrifying speed. A thin layer of mist followed them, mostly hidden by the dust their rush was raising.
The direction? Kagekawa.
Looking back, the Shadow caught sight of a Mist agent. The Shadow stared right at him and waved him to approach her.
He didn’t.
With a scoff, the Shadow darted off towards him. He moved to run, and that insulted her even further -- that he thought he could.
She caught him with a tackle, smacking him hard against the ground, where she pinned him down.
“Ooof!”
“You think to be skilled enough?!” Ayane demanded.
“You attack your own?!” He sounded shocked.
“Attack? You think this is an attack?” The Shadow approached her mask to his. “You have not seen me on the attack, little Mistling. Not even those fools back there with the flames saw me truly on the attack. Why did you not respond to my call?”
“We are to watch alone,” he replied. His tone seemed to indicate that talking to her was beneath him. “We cannot follow any command you give, for it is without reason.”
“Without reason?” Her voice went a bit too high, appalled to hear that.
“You risk all of Kagekawa for the sake of the lives of a few strangers,” he revealed. “Your judgment has been deemed poisoned.”
“I did my duty,” she said, squinting her eyes, forgetting he couldn’t see them. “What I do besides is none of your concern.”
“None of mine, yes. But the clans’,” he said, in bitter accusation.
He was right, of course. She expected consequences, but she expected them after returning. After being faced with some damming dialog where she could only say “yes” to all the accusations, after which she would finally have the responsibility of her mask and lenses taken away from her. The weight of her duty would go on someone else’s shoulders. Saving the world would then be expected of someone else.
Yet, the night hadn’t even dawned. Ayane had not even spoken to them, or heard them, and the decision had already been made?
“Am I banished?”
“You should be,” he said in respectful spite, “but I know not.”
They wouldn’t banish her, they would never lose someone who knew their secrets. They would send Darkness to deal with them. Ayane looked around her, suddenly nervous.
Him, she couldn’t fight.
“Why have I not been contacted?” The Shadow asked.
“I know not,” he answered.
“What do you know?” She asked, shoving him against the floor in frustration.
“Ow…I know you will pay for attacking your own,” he said again.
“I DID NOT ATTA--”
“Release him.” She turned around to notice she was surrounded by Mist agents. Almost a full dozen watched her menacingly. She didn’t want to back down, however irrational that might be. Not from Mist, most of whom were shadow rejects. That was even worse than being a fake Shadow.
“If Kagekawa is really under attack, what are you doing here?” Ayane asked of them, accusingly.
“That is more a question for you.” The Mist agent accused. “We are but mist…you are the Shadow.”
Ayane stood up properly, in challenge. She would not fear these spies.
“Cowards! You stalk after my feet like perverted little imps instead of being where you are of use to the clan. To our masters.”
“We obey,” he said.
“We do our duty,” another said.
“What are you doing?” Yet another asked.
The Shadow clenched her fists, her heart in turmoil. The guilt and indignation were fighting in her throat, choking her. Tears dripped behind her mask, she had never been so relieved to be wearing it.
Without another sound, for fear her voice would break, she sped through and past them.
They were right. Every fiber of her being knew they were right, so why didn’t she feel like she was wrong? Why didn’t Ayane feel wrong on top of disobedient?
She didn’t know. What she did know was how to get home and that she wanted to see it standing.
Ayane ran. She left them all behind and ran until the sun came up and, minute by minute, mile by mile, she overtook more and more of the Beasts’ advance.
They ignored citie
s in the way, they ignored towns and such things, stampeding through without stopping. Alas, they were traveling in such a large number that it was enough to obliterate the cities.
They had no vehicles with them. They leaped on and on. The Shadow still overtook them. Far away at their flank, she sped with all the ability she could muster.
Ayane was exhausted. After carrying Yana for so long, after having already been a full day awake before Melor’s battle had even started, she was about to collapse.
The Shadow never ran so fast for so long. And every step was taken in the awareness that when she arrived, she would need to fight. Most likely without having any capacity to, she would have to fight and die.
But she ran in any case.
Her home could not perish, her father could not die.
Master, Ayane corrected herself, gritting her teeth. Not father. She had no father.
Tears ran down her cheeks.
Had Ayane caused all that? Stealing the lenses, stealing the pillar, had she incurred this wrath that was running rampant and unstoppable towards her home?
She had, Ayane knew she had.
Using the shadow-streams, fueled by guilt and desperation, she was able to overtake them. The Shadow was ahead by roughly one hour by the time she arrived at the top of a hill from which she could see the face of the rising coastal cliff on which Kagekawa had been built.
Enabled by her lenses, the Shadow finally saw her home. The castle and the palace and the living quarters layered out across the walls of the mountain, everything interconnected through bridges that were parallel to the walls of the terrain.
It was intact. No fires or destruction, not yet.
Ayane stepped forward, to head for it. She had arrived in time.
“Shadow.”
She stopped dead, recognizing the voice. She didn’t turn around, she didn’t want him to know she was scared.
“I have commands for you.”
The Shadow turned around then, curious bafflement overcoming her fright. “They use Mist to stalk… and the Darkness to send messages?”
“Times are dire,” the Darkness offered in the way of apology. “You are to go and do what part you can for the Shadow Conclave.”
Her heart skipped a beat, knowing what that meant. Exile. “They are coming, Darkness. They are coming to destroy our home,” Ayane said.
