by Nikita Thorn
Seiki, still paralyzed with Freeze, observed this rather hopeless situation. Chise had dismounted and trotted over to the fire, where she dispersed Itsuki’s body and seemed surprised at the number of poison bottles she found, as well as a few unnamed daggers. “And a decent Jade Steel,” she muttered in surprise, as she picked up his dagger.
“Hey, unfreeze him already,” Kojiro yelled to his clan mates.
Seiki glanced back at him. He was certain Rieko would not let the samurai kill him once they found the blood-lock; yet, Kojiro seemed to have his own ideas.
“Rieko!” said Chise, when she finally discovered the blood-lock box among the pile of looted items.
Now, Seiki knew it was better for him to die as quickly as possible, and there was no better way to achieve that than to attack. With a Slide, Seiki broke through the Freeze and shot toward Kojiro, aiming for a Focused Strike on the man’s left side that would leave a wide opening for the samurai to cut him with his most natural forehand downward slash.
All he needed was a tiny impact. But judging from how Kojiro swung up his Oni Cleaver with both hands, Seiki suspected that when it finally came it would not be tiny at all, and dying under such a blade would certainly not be a very enjoyable experience.
The samurai did not bother to defend, knowing that with this difference in their levels, Seiki’s biggest combination would barely affect his health. So, he was just choosing to trade a strike for a strike. Seiki felt the tip of his Hikari pierce through Kojiro’s black chest armor, and he fought against his instinct to dodge as the wide shadow of the blade swooped down on him.
The shadow stopped in mid-motion. The samurai was staring at him. “You’re just trying to die!” said Kojiro in frustration.
“I suppose,” said Seiki, straightening up and looking in his eyes.
Kojiro seemed disappointed. “Too bad,” he said after a second.
“Wait, Kojiro!” said Rieko, but it was too late. The blade was already up in the air again. With a last clink of the metal rings, the thick Oni Cleaver sang through the air and Seiki tried not to wince as the coldness cut through his shoulder.
The force of the heavy blade threw him back, and he felt as if someone had shot a water gun full of bone-numbing freezing liquid across his chest. But as he hit the ground, Seiki realized, with much alarm, that he was far from being dead. His health was only slightly below a third; however, Renshiro was right that basic rules of anatomy still applied and, if you were cut by such a blade as the Oni Cleaver, you were definitely not getting up for a while. Seiki could still feel the Hikari in his grip, but he could hardly move his fingers.
Kojiro was apparently equally surprised. He glowered at the blade of the Oni Cleaver, which was now dripping with blood, before figuring out what had happened. He turned toward his clan mates. “What the hell was that double, triple Weaken for?” he said.
Seiki secretly cursed, as he struggled to get feeling back into his body. That was the obake’s ability that had cut the attack power by more than half. He did not know it stacked when coming from multiple obake, and he had not anticipated they would use it on their clan mate. His legs were still working, and Seiki lifted his knees slightly to place both feet on the ground for a Slide.
“Oh, no, no, no,” said Rieko’s voice, and Seiki gritted his teeth as her icy Freeze immediately paralyzed him from the neck down before he could lift his leg.
Taking a deep breath as everything went numb, Seiki could only watch as the obake slowly came into view. She crouched down beside him with a smile that, for the uninitiated, could perhaps have been mistaken as kind. “You’re not going anywhere soon,” said the obake, lifting his left leg onto her knee. “Just in case.”
In her hand was the tiny blood-locked box. “What have we got here?” she said.
Seiki offered no answer.
“They gave you a blood-lock?” asked Rieko. “Could this be…” She trailed off, checking his expression again.
When Seiki still did not reply, she shrugged. “Let’s get this over with first, then.”
Even when he could not move, Seiki could feel that his whole upper body was completely soaked, and he could now understand Kojiro’s fascination with his ridiculous blade: it produced a tremendous amount of blood, which now drenched his whole front side. Rieko gently lifted his arm to let a trickle of it fall onto the lock, and the enchanted metal keyhole gave a ringing click, almost like a music note.
Seiki had to look away to avoid seeing her satisfied mug. If anyone were to have what was inside the box, he honestly wanted it to be Renshiro.
Rieko gave a soft chuckle. “Now, who can pick a Level 22 lock?” she asked, turning toward her clan mates.
“I can,” said a voice that Seiki recognized as her clan mate Suguru’s.
Rieko turned her eyes back to Seiki.
“Did Ichikeya manage to recruit you after all?” She inched closer and studied him. “Thought you’d go with the Society, honestly.”
Still no word from Seiki.
“Not in the mood for conversation today, are we?” Rieko said.
The obake let go of him and leapt to her feet, casually shaking off the blood on the edge of her sleeves. “Now you can kill him,” she said to Kojiro.
Kojiro, now standing with the end of the Oni Cleaver resting on the ground, shot her a sullen look. “How is this even fun? The guy wants to die.”
Rieko cast a last knowing glance back over her shoulder at Seiki. “Now that death doesn’t do anything except put him further into Fatigue, I bet he doesn’t anymore.”
“If you don’t want to do it, I will,” offered Chise, running up to Kojiro. She was new, and perhaps was trying hard to impress everybody.
Rieko had disappeared from view, yet Seiki could still hear her laughing. “Won’t it be funny that after all the accusations from the Fuoka Army, we would really end up with their key?”
Sighing, Seiki kept his eyes fixed on the sky, which was now a pale shade of blue. Someone was still maintaining a constant Freeze on him, and maybe Rieko was right that there was really no good way out of this.
That was when Seiki remembered that it was not only him who liked logging in and out from treetops.
High on a red pine nearby, crouching on a branch, was Satoru.
The ryoushi pressed a finger to his lips and grinned.
Chapter 16
Seiki could hear Suguru’s voice, and he could tell that the man was worried. “Are we sure we want to go against Ichikeya?”
“Pick it first and we’ll see,” said Rieko. Seiki thought he could hear Suguru sit down on the ground. “If it’s the key, then Ichikeya doesn’t own it in the first place. And I really wonder what Takeru is going to say if he learns about this.”
On the pine tree to Seiki’s left, Satoru the ryoushi was still quietly observing the situation. After a few seconds, he stared intently toward one spot on the ground, then another, before meeting Seiki’s eyes again.
Seiki knew what it meant, and his heart filled with hope.
Silently, the ryoushi nocked three arrows, pulled the bowstring and, with one last glance at Seiki, he let loose his Rapid Shots.
Suguru and Chise cried out, and the paralyzing effect of Freeze fell off Seiki like melted ice as the two obake took damage. With the Hikari still in his hand, Seiki pushed himself off the ground and dashed forward toward Suguru, who held the wooden box. His chest was still damp with blood, but the nasty gash was already closing and his health was slowly climbing back up.
The first three arrows had caught the obake unawares. A second bout of Rapid Shots followed, piercing deep into the damp ground, and Rieko shouted, “On the tree!” as she Dispersed to avoid more arrows.
Seiki swept out his sword as he rushed past Kojiro and Chise, cutting the obake girl and throwing her backward. Kojiro lifted the Oni Cleaver to Parry, and Seiki felt the impact vibrating in his hand.
“Now this is more like it,” said Kojiro in relish.
>
On his right, Seiki could see a flash of purple and silver.
Satoru had clued Seiki in on where his companions were hiding, and Seiki ducked low as Itsuki appeared from the bush and shot out her Poison Dart at Rieko, which connected as the obake came out of Disperse. With a sweep of the ninja’s other hand, a smoke bomb exploded in front of Kojiro as he was about to rush in with his raised Oni Cleaver.
Suguru had been on the ground, working on the lock. An arrow had struck him on the shoulder, and the man was now back on his feet, looking up into the tree as he tried to locate and Life Drain the hidden ryoushi. As Seiki closed in, Suguru gave a start and raised his hand to lay down Nether Chills around him. This was a rather mildly damaging area ability often used for its slowing effect but, considering the level difference between them at this point, it would most likely be enough to immediately kill Seiki.
Seeing the air misted up around the obake, Seiki stopped short just out of its range. From the corner of his eyes, he could see Renshiro burst out of his hiding spot behind a tree, and his Sweeping Blade struck both Kojiro and Chise from behind.
This freed Itsuki up for a second, and her hand shot out with a volley of shurikens that forced Suguru to Disperse. At Level 19, Renshiro could afford to step through Suguru’s Chills, and the ronin closed in with another Sweeping Blade at the materializing obake—his attack throwing Suguru backward out of the radius of his misty air. Arrows were still raining down from the tree, and Chise was yelling something.
Rieko grunted. “We have no business with you, Renshiro,” she said. Renshiro struck out at her, and she Dispersed again.
Seiki did not let this opportunity go to waste. With another Slide, he shot forward and was already on Suguru before the Rogami member could properly catch his balance. Sweeping his foot forward, Seiki tripped him and threw his weight over the man’s back, sending the obake sprawling onto the ground. Quickly pinning him down—one knee on the back of his neck and one foot pressing hard down on his left wrist—, Seiki tried to pry the wooden box off Suguru’s iron grip.
Behind him, Seiki could hear another smoke bomb explode, and metals clanked as blades met.
“The ex-Jigokuryu guy?” said Kojiro, alarmed, and perhaps delighted.
“What did you do to my stuff?” Itsuki shrieked.
With a Disperse, Suguru evaporated from under Seiki into a wavy form of himself, and with him went the blood-lock box. Seiki’s grip suddenly went through the obake’s arm as if it was air, which almost tipped him off his balance. The man faded back in a half-crouch in front of Seiki, swinging out his arm behind him as he struggled to his feet. Seiki ducked under the sloppy punch and threw himself on Suguru again, bringing him down to the ground once more.
It was chaos all around.
Seiki could feel the sickening sensation of Life Drain starting to wrap itself over him from behind, and he knew a mere second of that would be more than enough to end him.
“Get out of there, kid!” said Renshiro, as the Life Drain broke, perhaps because one of the obake responsible had taken damage. But Seiki knew they did not have long. Rieko was Level 26 and, even with the initial element of surprise, the three outlaws were out-leveled and outnumbered.
There was no time, and Suguru was still holding onto the box with a death grip as he yelled curses at Seiki to get off him.
In his back, Seiki heard Chise cry out as she fell to the ground. Perhaps Seiki was directly in her line of sight; anyway, her Life Steal reached into him and yanked out a fifth of his health to heal herself. Seiki gritted his teeth against the sudden chill. Under him, Suguru had started to waver as he tried to Disperse, and Seiki knew they could not keep this up.
Some idea flashed through his mind as he saw the box starting to waver with the obake. This was still his lock after all.
Before the Disperse could come into full effect, Seiki lunged over the obake’s pale grip. He snapped open the lock, snatched the neatly folded piece of paper from within, and threw himself to the right into the longest Slide he could manage on his knees. With Suguru in mid-Disperse, he went unobstructed right through the obake, and ended up in the thicket at the edge of the clearing, with the tall grass prickling his arms.
“Run!” said Renshiro. Multiple whistles sounded almost at once. Even before his Slide had completely ended, Seiki called to Fubuki and scrambled over the knee-length undergrowth onto the horse. Satoru had dropped down from the tree, long bow in his hand, and was immediately on his gray mount.
“This way!” said Satoru, and they both burst into the forest.
A bit further to their right, Renshiro and Itsuki, also on horses, were galloping at full speed, with the ninja girl laughing merrily. “That should teach you not to touch my things.” In her arms were her poison bottles that she had somehow recovered.
Seiki glanced back, and he could catch a glimpse of Rieko staring at him, fuming, before the forest’s thick growth hid her from sight.
Renshiro and Itsuki were hanging at low health. There was a deep slash on Renshiro’s thigh, which was bleeding freely, but which the man did not seem worried about. Itsuki, hands off the rein of her slender gray horse, was casually putting her belongings back into her bag.
“I shot all their mounts,” said Satoru, laughing. “That will keep them on foot for a while. People have this bad habit of leaving horses standing there.”
A two-minute head start was a very good one. It was slightly past noon, and the sky had cleared now, lighting up the pine forest in a lush shade of green. Seiki felt a sense of inexplicable excitement as he fled through the forest with the outlaws. They had come back, after all. Even if it had ultimately been for the stupid box, it still made him glad.
“We’ll cross to the other side of the road,” said Renshiro. His white horse, Seiki could now distinguish, had simple leather armor on, which presumably would protect it from mild attacks.
Seiki galloped after them. Now that the fire had brought him back up to only Slight Fatigue, his energy recharged at a decent rate, and the three outlaws slowed down occasionally just enough for him to keep up.
The forest swept by as they approached the East Main Road, and the outlaws pulled their horses to a sudden stop. Seiki reined in Fubuki in surprise.
Itsuki drew her horse up beside his, and handed him an item. It was his Jade Steel Dagger. “Told you I was only borrowing it,” she said with a grin. “Had to kill that bi—”
“Itsuki,” Renshiro warned her.
The ninja girl giggled and shrugged. “They’re in for another nice surprise.” She dismissed her mount and found a low branch on a tree on the side of the road. Leaping up and waving her hand in the air, she used her ninja Camouflage to fade into the background.
“We’re lucky that they’re pretty much all obake, since they’re kinda helpless against ninjas,” said Satoru. “And if she misses, I still have Rapid Shots.” The ryoushi also got off his horse and scanned the trees for a good hiding position.
Seiki realized now that they were planning to hit the Rogami mounts again as they caught up, locking them out of fast travel for another two minutes.
“Three of them are above Level 20,” said Seiki, a bit worriedly. Itsuki and Satoru were at Level 17, which put them way within danger of being one-shot.
“This is our home territory, kid,” said Renshiro with a smirk. “They know what they’re doing.”
Satoru was already halfway up a nearby tree. “When you’re on the Rangers’ kill list for three months, you learn how to get away cleanly.” He laughed, pulling himself up onto a high branch and readying his bow.
“See, Sat-chan? It wasn’t for nothing,” said Itsuki’s disembodied voice.
“Come on, kid,” said Renshiro, nodding toward the south side of the road. “We’ve got to lose them.”
Seiki looked up toward the ryoushi, and at the spot where the invisible Itsuki was. “Thank you,” he said.
“Go, or you’ll give us away,”
said Itsuki.
Renshiro was already disappearing into the thick growth on the other side, and Seiki turned his horse around and galloped after him. He took a quick peek down both sides of the East Main Road, and found that it was a stretch he did not recognize, so they must have come further east.
The Wilderness looked the same everywhere, but Renshiro seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led the way skillfully through trees, grassy mounds and across tiny streams, which Fubuki splashed through with ease. The scenery changed rapidly, and perhaps if you paid attention you could learn to appreciate how it all fit together.
The forest soon thinned, and they came upon a large clearing that hosted a medium-sized rice village, a collection of hay-thatched houses and peaceful green fields—very much like the village with the man-eating demon. Renshiro told Seiki the village belonged to the Kensogu Guards of the Kensoku Temple, as indicated by the brown and green flag it flew.
“They’re not on good terms with Rogami, but they welcome travelers,” said the ronin. “Being clan-less has its perks.”
Now that they were a safe distance away, Renshiro let the horse slow down to a walk as they passed through the village and he gave Seiki the basic rundown of the map. They were on a small dirt path that would eventually join a road that led to the Kensoku territory. And cutting through more villages, they would come to the East Main Road again. Seiki glanced around him and found endless rice fields. The farmers looked up at them as they rode by but said nothing. A woman was sitting on the roadside, in a manner that suggested she would normally offer a quest, but Renshiro said that she would only interact with clan members and people on the clan’s guest list.
“Or if you really want to annoy them, you run into these villages and kill the NPCs, especially ones you have to talk to in order to collect rice, and they take a while to respawn.” Renshiro chuckled. “Sometimes you do miss it. You know, the clan life.” He glimpsed around and sighed.
It was indeed a picturesque sight, with villager children playing in the dirt, and small pigs grazing on the nearby grass.
