Bushido Online_Friends and Foes

by Nikita Thorn

  Five minutes was a very long time.

  Seiki eyed his Hikari on the ground and made a dash for it. The seconds were still ticking before another Slide recharged and, right now, since he could not take any damage from this samurai, he needed all the speed and energy he could get. Kojiro was getting frustrated that he kept missing with his sword. Suddenly, he switched to Sweeping Blade, which was something he had never done, as he went for range. Seiki threw himself flat on the ground under it, snatched his Hikari, rolled toward Kojiro and pierced his calf with Focused Strike.

  With an angry roar, Kojiro let go of the Oni Cleaver and lunged at him. And Seiki slammed both feet on the ground and propelled himself out of the way with a short burst of Slide. His energy was low, however, and it could not take him very far. With outstretched arms, Kojiro landed on Seiki’s right foot and grabbed hold of it.

  It was turning into a very ugly street fight.

  Struggling against the numbing impact, Seiki twisted his body around and slashed his Hikari at the man, leaving a long but shallow gash across his arm. Even without his health dropping much, Kojiro grunted, but he refused to let go.

  Seiki’s right foot was still on the ground, and he wondered if Upslash would be usable if he managed to push energy down the right way. Gripping the sword with both hands, he swung it diagonally up at Kojiro’s face.

  Before his sword could connect, a sharp cold pierced the back of Seiki’s left shoulder and broke the flow of energy, causing his fingers to go dead and release the weapon. He gasped as his health instantly dropped to a fifth, and Kojiro took this chance to grab Seiki’s right hand. The Rogami member twisted the Hikari off his grip and squeezed his still-bleeding wrist.

  Seiki inhaled sharply as his right arm also went numb. Kojiro, still not letting go of his hand, looked up and yelled, “Who was that? Didn’t I tell you not to interfere?”

  “They sent him out to be a distraction,” said someone Seiki could not see. “They’re going for a surprise attack.”

  Seiki did not have to raise his head and glance around to know that there were now two hundred riders coming this way, commanded by Sayahime. The White Crane Order leader had used the houshi Ward to jump down from the side wall and she was leading her troop through the forest on the west side of the Hall.

  Someone else laughed. “What can two hundred do?”

  “Well, saves us having to fix that wall later if they decide to come out and die over here.” Another person chimed in.

  “You’re here to be a distraction, eh?” said Kojiro, as he turned his attention back to Seiki. Now that he had the upper hand once more, his mood seemed to have improved.

  Seiki could hear the ground shaking now as the horses drew nearer. The cavalry was out, and this bit of the plan was over, and Seiki knew it was time for him to die. Kojiro got to his feet and grabbed his Oni Cleaver. Calmly, Seiki looked into the samurai’s eyes as the man raised the Oni Cleaver and slashed it down across his chest.

  This was nothing new. He had done this ten times already and, although it did not make it any less unpleasant, Seiki knew exactly what to expect.

  Darkness surrounded him and Seiki could not feel or hear anything at all, before three circles of light appeared far away in front of him.

  More than one Spirit Shrines found. Please choose the one you would like to resurrect in:

  Temporary Spirit Shrine [Rogami Clan] (218 feet NE).

  The White Crane Hall Spirit Shrine (779 feet SE).

  The nearest Wilderness Spirit Shrine.

  As soon as he made his choice, the leftmost circle of light expanded and enveloped him, and Seiki found himself lying on a bamboo mat, staring at the ceiling of a red cedar wooden structure about twenty feet across. Seiki had never been in a temporary shrine, and it looked a bit more primitive than the normal Wilderness spirit shrine. But apart from that, everything seemed familiar. To his relief, the place was still empty, and Seiki fought death nausea and sat up, hoping his presence would be unnoticed until five minutes had passed and he could move from the spot.

  Beside him, his Hikari and Kohagane had respawned, and they were laid out neatly on a wooden tray.

  From outside, he could hear commotion as people went to engage in battle with Sayahime’s mounted troops. There were only two hundred in that cavalry, and they would be quickly overwhelmed, after which they would retreat back toward the gate—hopefully without heavy losses. Once in range of the White Crane healers on the battlement, Seiki hoped they would be able to hold for a little while longer.

  As soon as five minutes was over, Seiki jumped to his feet, equipped his weapons and gingerly peered out of the shrine.

  Behind him, in the temporary building, the first casualties of the battle were starting to come in. A Rogami member materialized on the mat with a loud curse at the realization that he had just died and that, since this was a formal siege challenge, he would be confined to the building until it was over. Seiki quickly slipped out before the man could see him.

  A quick scan of the environment showed most Rogami members moving toward the charging cavalry to get in on the excitement. Compared to the Fuoka Army where shouts of orders were constantly being relayed through the ranks, the Rogami Clan seemed to be much less organized, and no one paid Seiki any attention. A girl in all black glanced at him as she rode past with her NPC unit, but she apparently dismissed him as a quester who had accidentally wandered by.

  About two hundred feet to his left, Seiki spotted his target. The sturdy wooden frame of the counterweight trebuchet stood high above the flow of people on horseback. It was perhaps best to avoid attracting attention by staying on foot.

  A too-familiar voice greeted him as soon as he took a step toward the siege machine. “Traveled light?”

  Seiki spun around and found Kojiro standing by the spirit shrine, his Oni Cleaver propped upside-down against his leg, his hand holding a bottle of basic healing potion, which he had looted from Seiki earlier.

  The man let out a scoff and shook his head. “The balls to rez here.” Seiki could not quite tell if his executioner was angry or just excited for more kills. Knowing Seiki was watching, Kojiro slowly flicked the cork cap off the potion bottle, poured out its clear content onto the grass and tossed it down to the ground to let it burst into a small cloud of smoke about his feet.

  When Kojiro grabbed hold of his rectangular blade, a smirk was back on his face. But the gleam in his eyes that had been arrogant yet playful all this time had turned rather deadly. “We can do this all night.”

  The only way Kojiro could have known that Seiki had resurrected here was that he had actually searched for him with Locate—which showed a rather disturbing level of obsession with killing him. At this point, the plan to stay on foot no longer made sense, and Seiki turned around and mapped out two long Slides and whistled to Fubuki. The snowstepper appeared almost instantly, miraculously dodging the flow of riders coming toward them.

  “Get the horse but don’t touch the guy!” Kojiro was shouting. At that, Seiki quickly leapt off and dismissed the snowstepper. A second later, someone did the samurai’s bidding, and an arrow whisked past Seiki and went straight through Fubuki without dealing any damage, as she was now invincible.

  A few Rogami stopped to look at the chase, but Kojiro yelled at them to get out of the way. With his eyes fixed on the trebuchet, Seiki kept sprinting ahead. There was no need to glance back, as he could gauge quite well how far away Kojiro was by the sound of his horse.

  As he heard the hooves drawing closer, Seiki threw himself in a Slide to the left and kept running. The giant blade swooshed through the air, barely two feet behind him. “You can’t run forever!” said Kojiro, growing more and more upset.

  In front of Seiki, the trebuchet towered up against the night sky like a massive wild beast, with legs made of bulky triangular frames set firmly upon the ground. A ladder in the middle allowed access to the counterweight basket, which was being loaded by
four Level 10 NPC soldiers under the command of some Yuuto of the Rogami Clan [Level 21], who was nowhere to be seen. At the end of the long beam, tied down with a piece of rope, was a sling, currently empty.

  The blade swooshed behind him again, and Seiki ducked low. He had done this so many times that his body almost instinctively knew how to dodge an Oni Cleaver Mounted Strike. In one smooth motion, he drew his Hikari, spun around and drew a nasty cut across the black horse’s chest, causing it to tumble forward.

  As the horse fled, Kojiro jumped off and landed on his feet between Seiki and the siege machine. “How many times do I have to kill you?”

  Seiki tightened his grip on the Hikari as he turned to face his worst enemy. Stealth would have been preferable, and this delay would most likely cost the White Crane army a larger portion of the troops than they had planned for, but there was no chance to avoid this fight now. And deep down in his heart, Seiki was glad.

  There were only so many times a man could be trodden on, whether willingly or not, and at this point Seiki was getting utterly sick of it. The match was still as unfair as it had ever been, with Kojiro being a full ten levels above him, but Seiki had secretly been wishing for this opportunity all along, ever since what had happened at the spirit shrine. He had played out hundreds of different scenarios in his head and sorted through all his options, just for this very chance.

  Seiki forced air down his lungs to calm his racing pulse. He needed his full concentration on this, since any little mistake would mean the end of everything.

  Kojiro raised his Oni Cleaver. By now, Seiki knew that the sword, because of its size, had a limited number of possible moves. Once it was in motion, it was often locked in that particular direction, as it was difficult for the user to fight the momentum and adapt mid-form.

  Rushing in with a fake attack, Seiki left an intentional opening. Kojiro fell for it; he raised the Oni Cleaver with both hands, stepped one foot forward and brought down the sword in a swift diagonal move Seiki was now convinced had a name. It all had to do with speed. At the last second, right before the blade reached him, Seiki threw himself to the right in a curved Slide, spending as much energy as he needed to max out his speed. His hand drew his dagger to slash out with a Sweeping Blade, before twisting his body right as he passed Kojiro. In a split second, Seiki was behind him, while the Oni Cleaver was still buried in the ground.

  The dagger had left a mark on the man’s cuirass, and Seiki aimed his Focused Strike directly at that mark, drawing up his left hand to join his right on the sword’s grip. He could feel the tip of the Hikari pierce through the armor. And as the Slide ended, he pushed all his energy down his arms and stepped forward his right foot to swing his sword up in a diagonal Upslash.

  He could hear the blade rip through the armor on the man’s back as his Hikari forced its way through thick leather and metal. Kojiro let out a cry as Seiki’s sword drew blood, before he spun around and swung his Oni Cleaver out in full force.

  Even with the full connect on the combination, Kojiro had more than five thousand health points. The move barely took twenty percent, and now Seiki was out of energy.

  Yet, that hardly mattered. It was a statement, and both of them knew what it meant. If Seiki had been within challenge range, the man would be dead.

  Kojiro let out a furious scream as Seiki jumped back to avoid his strike. And he immediately followed through with two successive attacks, swinging his gigantic blade in wild rage. “Die!”

  The samurai’s x-cut was difficult to avoid, and Seiki—now out of energy—had to dive and roll to dodge it. The Oni Cleaver was slow, and a ronin’s strength was speed and open spaces. As this became clearer and clearer to Kojiro, the man suddenly let go of the Oni Cleaver and ran in, lifting his leg to kick Seiki before he could scramble to his feet.

  Again, it was turning into an ugly street brawl and, at this point, impact was unavoidable. Seiki knew any direct blow would most likely be instantly fatal, and all he could do was to jumble up the intention and calculation as much as he could. Raising his arm, he struck the samurai’s leg from the side just as the kick was about to land, and he rolled out of there. The maneuver cost him a quarter of his health and the feeling in his forearm, but it also caused Kojiro to stagger for a second, allowing Seiki time for a short Slide out of there as his energy allowed.

  The match was blatantly unfair, and there was nothing he could do about it. By design, it was impossible for him to win this. Seiki suddenly turned and ran.

  “Running again?” asked Kojiro in disgust.

  Since the match was biased, and since the statement had been made, it was now time to survive. One thing Seiki had learned from martial arts was that the best thing you could hope for when you were at a severe disadvantage was that your opponent would underestimate you.

  And at this point, Seiki still had, not one, but two tricks up his sleeves.

  It had been Ippei’s idea to have Seiki carry one potion bottle in his bag, just for Kojiro to loot and create the illusion of an empty inventory. With Kojiro in close pursuit, Seiki quickly undid the middle strap on his armguard and reached his fingers in for the spare bottle of potion. The refreshing liquid filled his health and energy in one gulp.

  Whether Kojiro had noticed or not, he had already raised his Oni Cleaver, and Seiki, now with energy to spare once again, broke into a Slide. Gritting his teeth, Seiki gripped both his hands on the hilt of the sword, spun around and pierced the Hikari down on the ground, sending a flash of energy shivering through him deep down into the earth. This move, too, he had rehearsed over and over in his head during the ride earlier that night.

  Kojiro’s surprised cry was cut short as the stun effect hit him. It only lasted for a second but, in combat, a second could be a very long time. Seiki rotated and did what he knew best. Grabbing Kojiro’s arm, he swept the man’s foot off the ground and, in one momentum, slammed him on his back.

  There was no way Kojiro could have held onto his Oni Cleaver, and the giant blade clanked as it dropped. If it had been a real match, Seiki would have been able to easily force a submission right now.

  One second was up, and the stun had expired. Yet, Kojiro was stuck in this position, with one wrist grasped firmly in Seiki’s hand and his other arm pinned down under Seiki’s weight. Moreover, he appeared to be in too much of a shock to try and struggle.

  Seiki bent down to pick the Oni Cleaver up. The weapon turned out to be even heavier than it looked, and Kojiro’s eyes widened in alarm. Perhaps nothing like this had ever happened before, and the man had forgotten that blades did not cut their owners. Still gazing into Kojiro’s eyes, Seiki lifted the blade and swung it horizontally, sending it whooshing through the air into the dark patch of growth twenty feet away.

  Kojiro was still staring at him, and Seiki firmly met his eyes but said nothing. Maybe there was really nothing to say in a moment like this.

  With a whistle, Fubuki was right beside him. Seiki grabbed his sword, leapt onto his mount and burst into a gallop toward the trebuchet. He had already made it more than halfway there before he was obliged to fight Kojiro. Within a few seconds, he was right under the siege machine.

  Seiki got off his horse and quickly made his way up the ladder, pulling off one NPC soldier who was trying to load the counterweight with more rocks and sending him tumbling to the ground with a surprised wail.

  The fight had captured all his attention, and it was only now that Seiki was aware again of all the chaos going on around him. The interruption must have not taken longer than five minutes, but it had felt much longer, and Seiki now hoped he had not lost too much time.

  The top of the ladder put him into the path of a night wind, and from the top of the siege engine he had a clear view of the battle. In a confused mix of horses, weapons and abilities, the White Crane army was slowly being pushed back by the Rogami’s more numerous troops. Seiki tore his eyes away from the scene and looked left.

  Right beside the
wall, hiding in the darkness, a group of White Crane Hall soldiers were in place. Seiki took a deep breath and called in the unanswered prompt that had been lingering in his mind this whole time.

  Kiku has invited you to fight for White Crane Order as a mercenary. You will be bound by the same rules as clan members as long as you are within the service. Would you like to accept?

  “Yes,” said Seiki.

  You are now fighting for the White Crane Order as a mercenary. Enemy soldiers will attack you on sight.

  “Soldiers, to me!” Seiki shouted at the group of soldiers out the left wall.

  Once he had accepted the post, the Rogami NPCs loading the trebuchet earlier let out a cry and drew their swords. Seiki grunted as one climbed the ladder and tried to stab upward, and he stomped his foot down on the man’s fingers to force him to let go.

  From the left wall, the group of base-level White Crane soldiers who belonged to absent members heard his call and rushed toward him.

  “Shoot them!” It was Kojiro’s voice. “And shoot him!”

  The White Crane troops were already halfway there before one of the near Rogami members noticed and could order their men to engage.

  From somewhere below, an arrow flew and pierced deep into Seiki’s thigh, dropping his health below a quarter, while another NPC had climbed up the ladder and was trying to slash at him.

  “What is this?” Kojiro was shouting. “More distraction?”

  What Kojiro could not comprehend was that it was not Seiki who had been the distraction, but the cavalry, as well as these NPC soldiers making their way through the Rogami army.