He took a step back, the smile never leaving his ruined face.
Stephen grabbed her arm. “Kisaki, don’t. He’s goading you.”
She knew that but realized she needed to act. The sword rightfully belonged to her mother. She’d already dishonored herself enough during this foray, being stupid and selfish at almost every turn. She wouldn’t allow this beast to take what wasn’t his.
Besides, Stephen had proven that Crag could be hurt. And what could be hurt could be killed.
With a battle cry of her own, she pulled free from her friend’s grasp and charged. If she couldn’t use the weapon against him, then she would be the weapon herself.
Again, though, Crag proved himself to be more intelligent than she gave him credit for. Her attack was rushed, sloppy. His was measured, backhanding her away almost contemptuously.
Kisaki flew backwards and barreled into Stephen, sending them both down in a tangle of arms and legs.
“Ooh, that had to have hurt,” the man with the camera said from some distance away.
“Shut up and keep filming,” his companion ordered.
Kisaki paid them no mind. She rolled off Stephen and turned to check on him. “Are you okay?”
“Nothing a couple weeks in traction won’t fix,” he wheezed. “You’re heavier than you look.”
She reached down to help him up, but he waved her off. “Go!”
“But...”
“I’m okay. Just be more careful this time.”
She gave him a single nod, then turned to find Crag walking away from them, taking an almost leisurely pace toward where the Taiyosori still stood, sticking out of the ruined bench. He was almost there, just a few more steps.
Kisaki ran after him, moving quickly and with deliberation. She knew if she went high, he’d catch her again. She might be smaller and more agile, but he was far more seasoned than she. Injured or not, he had the advantage in raw power and durability. Truth be told, she had no real idea how to stop such a creature.
But maybe she didn’t need to stop him.
Perhaps slowing him down would be enough.
She went low, diving at Crag’s legs. Massive as he was, she was almost certain she’d bounce off, but she hit him solidly in the back of his knees and he tumbled forward.
There was no time for celebration, talking, or anything else. By the time he hit the ground, Kisaki was already back on her feet again. She raced past him, mindful of his long grasp.
She reached the Taiyosori and plucked it from its spot. Despite the wind, it was completely unruffled, in perfect condition, as if it hadn’t been touched at all.
“Please become a sword again!” she pleaded with it.
A shadow fell over her and she spun toward it, only to be grabbed around the neck by a massive hand. Her air was immediately cut off and she was lifted from the ground as if she weighed nothing, which was probably not far from the truth for the mazoku.
“I knew if I let you, you would lead me right to it,” Crag said with a laugh, spittle flying from his mouth. He glanced down at the quill in her hand. “I must admit, I would never have considered this. Quite the disguise. Tell me, how did you do it? A glamour perhaps? Some other hanyou trick, maybe?” He looked at Kisaki’s rapidly reddening face. “Oh, right. You can’t answer. That’s okay. There is really nothing left for you to say anyway.”
Kisaki tried to pry Crag’s fingers loose with her free hand, but it was a losing battle. His strength was immense and she had little leverage dangling in midair as she was.
She thought she felt the Taiyosori throb hotly in her hand but realized she was probably imagining it. She was rapidly beginning to feel dizzy from the lack of air, and Crag didn’t appear to be in the mood to let up anytime soon.
He drew her close, blowing his rancid breath in her face. “And now, I think I shall claim my prize, insignificant as it might appear.”
He reached up to pluck the Taiyosori from her grasp.
♦ ♦ ♦
The enchantments placed upon the great blade of heaven were many, but among them were three tenants which determined who the weapon would judge worthy to wield it.
The sword could be gifted from one rightful owner to another, assuming no trickery or deceit was used. Unbeknownst to most, the weapon possessed a rudimentary consciousness about it and could sense such duplicity.
It could be inherited. A rightful heir could attempt to lay claim to the weapon. If judged worthy, they would then become its rightful master. The blade could be a fickle thing if it so chose, however, and sometimes that judgment took time.
Finally, the sword could be won in fair combat. A worthy adversary, one who laid the sword’s current owner low, could lay claim to it upon the owner’s defeat. A duel of honor would satisfy these demands, if indeed the blade sensed such. However, most often, it was upon the previous owner’s death.
If any other method were used to claim the blade, it would reject its would-be master, using force commensurate with the thief’s power to dissuade them.
Such was Crag’s folly. Had he kept his grip upon Kisaki for a few minutes longer, enough to assure her life force was snuffed out, then perhaps the fate of the heavens would have changed. Perhaps he would have laid claim to the blade and used it to set the celestial palace ablaze, proclaiming himself a god in the process.
But in his shortsighted greed, the mazoku warlord placed his hands upon the weapon while Kisaki was still conscious.
In short, he tried to steal it from her.
♦ ♦ ♦
Crag’s hand closed upon the blade turned quill.
Kisaki expected it to be plucked from her grasp with the barest of effort, but instead, the look of triumph on Crag’s face turned to one of shock and then pain.
Glancing over as best she could, Kisaki saw the quill glowing, first red, then blue. She wasn’t sure what it meant, but then Crag’s hand, still grasping the top of the feather, burst aflame.
The fire, blue hot, traveled up his arm, igniting the fur as it went and leaving behind an acrid smell that burned Kisaki’s nostrils.
Hold on, I can breathe!
Crag’s grip upon her loosened as he screamed in pain, either unwilling to or, as seemed to be the case, unable to let go of the Taiyosori.
Finally, he dropped her. She fell to the ground, the quill pulled from his grasp by her weight. He beat at the flames with his uninjured hand, but the damage had been done. His right arm had been reduced to a charred mass of burnt flesh.
Crag reared back and screamed to the sky, the sound echoing around them, audible for perhaps miles. Kisaki coughed, trying to catch her breath. With every battle she’d fought, her body had proven far stronger than she’d imagined. Thankfully, it was more durable, too. Despite some lingering pain, she seemed to be otherwise okay.
However, she realized that might not be the case for long.
Crag looked down upon her, misery etched upon his face, which then gave way to pure unadulterated anger. “You! Do you see what you have done to me?!”
All at once, the doubt Kisaki had felt vanished. She hadn’t known what to do with the Taiyosori once she retrieved it. If anything, she’d feared it might be useless to her. But she saw now that it wasn’t. It was indeed filled with power and, if so, that meant she could use it.
“I do see now,” Kisaki replied. She kicked out, catching Crag in the ankle with a forceful blow, strong enough to knock his leg out from under him and drive him to one knee before her. “But you do not.”
With one fluid motion, she drove the tip of the quill through Crag’s remaining eye, blinding him.
The demon screamed out and reached up to claw at his face, but Kisaki quickly backed up, still holding the now bloody quill.
Crag began to beat at the ground around him. “I will kill you! I will find you and your friends and I will kill you all!”
“No,” Kisaki said, that cold logic seemingly filling all of the vo
ids within her. “You will never kill another again. I will see to it.”
The quill trembled in her grasp at her words. It heated up again, but not painfully so. Instead, it was a comfortable warmth, as if it were a living thing. It began to glow, growing brighter until it again reminded Kisaki of a supernova. She looked away but could still feel it in her hand, except now it was different. Gone was the softness of the feathered quill and in its place was a solid grip as if she were holding...
The light died down and Kisaki saw it was true. The Taiyosori was once again a gleaming translucent blade filled with an ocean of stars, but she knew now it wasn’t glass. It was more, so much more.
But none of that would matter if Crag had his say. Blinded as he was, he’d heard her. He stumbled her way, reaching down to batter the ground as he went, no doubt hoping to crush her with a lucky blow.
She grasped the grip of the sword with both hands and waited for the right moment.
Crag’s titanic fist momentarily blotted out the sun as he raised it above her and brought it down where she stood.
At the last possible second she sidestepped, and he again tore a gouge out of the concrete of the sidewalk, but it brought the rest of him level with her height.
Now!
Kisaki swung with all she had, expecting to meet resistance from the mazoku’s massively muscled form, but the blade sliced through his neck as easily as if cutting through rice paper. Crag’s head, a look of surprise upon its face, tumbled away from his body and came to rest several feet away as the rest of him crashed to the ground.
The hunter, so long the scourge of any who stood in his way, had been felled.
34
For a time, Kisaki simply stood peering down at Crag’s body, as if unable to believe what she’d just done.
You have been judged worthy, my master.
At first, she was confused, wondering why someone had called her that, but then she realized she hadn’t heard it with her ears, but in her mind.
She looked down at the sword, her eyes wide. “Did you just speak to me?”
If it had, it was now silent. The only thing Kisaki heard were the ambient sounds of the town around her, quiet now that the battle had ended.
“Holy crap, you did it!”
She looked up to find Stephen headed her way. He ran up and grabbed hold of her in a hug. Then, almost as if realizing what he was doing, he backed up a step, looking embarrassed for whatever reason.
“Heh,” he said, looking down at the Taiyosori. “Is that a sword in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
She inclined her head at him, not understanding. “It’s not in my pocket.”
“I know, it’s a ... never mind. You were amazing.”
“It wasn’t me,” she said softly. “It ... the sword...”
“Yeah,” he replied, looking it over. “Pretty wild. Although I’d be lying if I said that was the weirdest thing I’ve seen today.” He gestured toward Crag’s body. “By the way, he isn’t going to get back up again, is he?”
“I very much hope not.”
“Good.” He let out a sigh of relief before turning once more toward the Taiyosori and holding out his hand. “Could I? Just for a second anyway. I mean, I haven’t seen anything this cool since Conan the Barbarian. Heck, Frostmourne’s got nothing on this bad boy.”
She backed up a step. “I’m sorry, but touching it would likely destroy you.”
“You’re kidding, right?” He let out a laugh, but then noticed how she shook her head. “You’re not kidding? Okay, I’ll take your word for it then. It’s still pretty darn cool.”
Kisaki smiled. “I believe you are right. It is indeed cool.”
“Although not even remotely inconspicuous.”
“True, it is perhaps a bit overly...”
Kisaki trailed off as the sword began to glow again. The blood upon the blade instantly evaporated and then the glow intensified until it was once more painful to watch. When it cleared, she was once again holding a mere quill.
She and Stephen looked at each other in amazement, then back at the former weapon. “Better?” she asked after a moment.
“A cell phone would probably stand out less, but yeah. I’d say so,” he replied with a laugh. “I guess in this case, the sword is actually mightier than the pen.”
“Hey! How did you do that?”
Kisaki and Stephen turned to find the woman from the van approaching them, followed by the man with the camera. He aimed it at Crag’s body for several seconds, then turned it toward Kisaki.
“You’re certain that’s not a weapon?” she whispered to Stephen.
“Depends on who you ask,” he replied.
She looked at him sidelong for a few moments while the woman turned toward the camera and spoke. “Beth Billingsly here for Excitement News. Cartersville, a sleepy little town in the middle of nowhere. Normally a quiet place, one where you can safely leave your doors unlocked at night. But today, it’s become a battleground in a war between monsters. Impossible to believe, but true. I can assure you, no camera tricks were used in the footage you just saw, nor now as we show you the aftermath of this battle in which the age-old words of King Kong were proven true. 'Twas beauty slayed the beast.”
“Who is she talking to?” Kisaki asked. “Has she been driven mad by fear?”
“They’re a local news affiliate out of Punxsutawney,” Stephen explained in a hushed tone. “My mom sometimes watches them. They usually cover boring stuff: bake sales, pig roasts, crap like that.”
“News?”
“You know, like gossip, except on TV.”
“I do not know...”
Before Kisaki could say more, the woman stepped up and shoved something at her face, the cylindrical object she’d been wielding. Kisaki raised her hands in a defensive stance, but Stephen spoke up before she could throw a punch.
“Not a weapon,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “Just a microphone. It records your voice.”
“Ah. Like a magic glyph.”
“Excuse me?” the woman asked before turning back toward the man with the camera. “Keep rolling, we’ll edit that out.”
He gave her a thumbs up.
“I think I speak for the residents of this town, nay, perhaps the whole state when I ask how does it feel to have done what you have accomplished today?”
“Feel?” Kisaki replied. “I simply did what I had to. Many more would have suffered had I not.”
“Tell me, do you have any regrets killing Sasquatch?”
“Sasquatch? You mean the storm giant? I regret the path he chose, that he attacked this town rather than leave peacefully. I regret that he slaughtered my friend’s people a millennia ago. However, I do not regret ending the threat that Crag presented.”
The woman raised a skeptical eyebrow toward Kisaki, but kept asking questions. “Crag? Was that its name?”
“Yes.”
“And would you feel different knowing he might be an endangered species?”
“I believe I have already noted that he was a danger, to my friends as well as all those who walk upon this world. That danger would have been magnified a hundredfold had he managed to take possession of the Taiyosori.”
“Oh boy,” Stephen muttered by her side.
“Tie oh sore ee?” Beth asked, butchering the pronunciation.
“The blade of heaven,” Kisaki explained. “A weapon of divine power.”
“A weapon of ... mass destruction, you might say?”
“No,” Stephen said, jumping in front of Kisaki. “She did not say that. Nobody is saying that.”
“Cut! Listen, kid, you can have your turn when I’m finished with her. But if this is something that people need to be aware of, then I’d suggest you get out of my way. My viewers have a right to know.”
“All six of them?”
“Not after tonight’s broadcast. Now kindly...”
“Oh great, the cops are headed this way,” the man with the camera said.
“Quick, start rolling again.” She pushed the microphone past Stephen. “Can we at least know your name?”
“I am Kisaki, daughter of Midnite...”
“Kisaki, Stephen!”
The pair immediately turned toward the sound of Tamiko’s voice. She was waving to them from several buildings down. “Come quick! I need your help.”
“People need to know if they’re in any...”
Kisaki interrupted the reporter. “You must please pardon me, but my friend requires our assistance.”
Stephen paused long enough to smirk in the news woman’s direction, then they both turned toward Tamiko.
This didn’t appear to discourage Beth in the least as she started talking again the second they stepped away. “You heard it here first on Excitement News. The impossible has come true. The world has its very first superhero and her name is ... Midnight Girl.”
Kisaki and Stephen ran to where Tamiko stood beckoning them on. As they neared their friend, she glanced over at him.
“Tell me. What is a superhero?”
♦ ♦ ♦
Kisaki practically bowled over Tamiko, grabbing her in a hug and lifting her from her feet.
“Whoa!” she said. “Someone has been eating their vitamins.”
“And then some,” Stephen added.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Kisaki said at last, putting Tamiko down.
“Me too. I hated to leave you guys alone against that freak, but I didn’t know what else I could do to help.”
“You served an important purpose. It is far more honorable than perishing needlessly.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. Speaking of which, that’s why I was yelling for you.”
“Not just saving us from the paparazzi?” Stephen asked with a grin.
“I found Shitoro,” she said, “but I need your help with him.”
“Is he ... hurt?” Kisaki asked hesitantly.
“I don’t know,” Tamiko admitted. “Best come see for yourself.”
They followed her as she ran past another building, then turned behind it, where a large pile of trash stood heaped against the wall.
Midnite's Daughter Page 24
