by Aaron Oster
Korgo felt bile rise in his throat as one of the Ingo’s arms – the whole one – landed just a foot away, the fingers still twitching.
This was too much. He needed to run.
***
Aika stood back, watching the carnage unfold with a strange sort of detachment. She’d heard Roy talk of these people, of all the horrible ways in which they’d treated him, how they’d tormented him and made his life a living hell. But hearing about it and seeing it in person were two very different things.
Just judging by the way Lynn and the others had spoken to him, it was clear that they viewed him as subhuman, a despised creature that had been tolerated but definitely not wanted. More than that, the casual order of his execution and the obvious glee they’d taken in condemning him to death made Aika want to rush in and butcher them all herself.
These monsters deserved nothing less. That was why she was so upset that Roy had asked her to stay back. She wanted to fight with him. To show him that he wasn’t alone and that despite how horrible these people were, there were those who knew him for the amazing person he was.
“Roy is okay alone,” Ferry said, placing a hand on her shoulder.
“I know that,” Aika said, watching as he easily handled the group of Orange-Belts. “That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help him.”
“You are a good friend to Roy,” Ferry said. “You love Roy, just as I do. But sometimes, Roy needs to fight alone. When Aika fights bad smell man, she will also fight alone.”
Aika nodded. Though the delivery was a bit odd – Ferry was still learning – she made a good point. When she faced Doragon, who Ferry still referred to as “bad smell man,” she would want to fight him alone, for betraying and killing her father and joining up with the enemy. To Roy, the Shah Clan was her Doragon, and she couldn’t allow her personal feelings to get in the way of allowing Roy his closure.
When he was done here, he’d be able to leave the Shah behind for good, but if she got in the way, he might still have some unresolved feelings to work through.
“Thank you,” she said, giving the ferret a smile.
“I helped?” Ferry asked.
“You always do,” Aika replied as Ferry beamed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the clan leader, Korgo, tensing. He was eyeing a spot on the wall and clearly preparing to run. She might have been unable to do much for Roy in this fight, but she would stop the man he’d come for from getting away.
“Watch the door,” she said, already preparing to run as soon as the man moved. “I think the little rat might be preparing to bolt, and I’m going to make sure he can’t get away.”
***
Roy stood, facing off against the most powerful Martial Artists in the entire Shah Clan, one containing thousands of members and one of the great powers of the Waterwood. They were all weaklings, pathetic in their attempts to hurt him, but that didn’t mean that he was taking it easy or showing mercy.
He wasn’t really using any techniques, but that had more to do with the fact that it was an unnecessary waste of Essence or Qi than any sense of morality. They were trying to kill him, and had he been unable to defend himself – as they’d thought he was weak – they would have succeeded. Now that the tables had turned, he wasn’t going to be merciful.
Roy stepped back, feeling a blow crack into the back of his head as he did. The pained scream from behind told him what had happened. His aura, radiating from his body, was overwhelming the other’s defenses as they struck, damaging them far worse than they’d have done to themselves normally.
He twisted, slamming a fist into the elder’s shoulder and destroying the arm completely. Ignoring the howling woman, Roy leaned to one side, avoiding a Water Blade, and drove his fingers – formed into a blade of their own – through her chest. His arm exploded out the other side, and Roy felt oddly sick as he removed it, allowing the woman to fall to the ground.
His arm was now covered in blood, gore, and the smell. Roy shook himself as another few elders tried to charge at once, hoping to overwhelm him with greater numbers. He dropped, spinning in a circle and scything their legs out from under them. Screams sounded as their bones broke under the force of the sweep, leaving his attackers writhing on the ground.
Roy stepped over them, leaping after a fleeing elder. He caught the man by the back of the head, then drove his face into the ground. The sound was like a rotten fruit bursting, and as Roy rose to take stock of his situation, he saw Lynn and several others pulling their Armorer techniques around themselves while the rest summoned their Water Blades.
Now that they saw what happened when they tried to run, they knew it wasn’t an option. Despite the elders lying on the ground, Lynn seemed unfazed, her certainty that he was still weak overriding common sense.
“Kill him!” she yelled, summoning her own Water Blades.
They began hurling them at him, a barrage of half-moon blades of water coming at him from all sides. While they wouldn’t really do much to hurt him, Roy knew that his robes were a different matter entirely. So, while allowing them all to hit and showing them the futility of their situation might be nice, his clothes wouldn’t thank him for it.
Instead of doing that, Roy turned, running up the wall. Power Essence ejected from the bottoms of his feet, leaving small craters in the wall as he did so. The force and momentum of his charge took him above the attacks, though they followed him, trying to pin him down.
Roy flipped, landing back on the ground, then dashed for his attackers. His Shockwave took him around his opponents, the loud boom following a moment later as he canceled the technique, driving a double-punch into an elder’s back and shattering his spine.
Cries of alarm and surprise sounded as the elders spun, suddenly finding their opponent behind them. It didn’t take long for them to figure out that he’d used a Movement technique, though, and they all began using theirs.
Roy stood at the center of a blue pool, rippling Water Essence flowing in a circle as the elders moved to surround him. His eyes flicked to each individual elder, counting how many were left. Out of the original twenty-four, only nine were still on their feet. Not all were dead, of course, and so long as they remained where they were, Roy would allow them to keep living.
The pain and humiliation of the loss they suffered today would haunt them for the rest of their lives, and they likely wouldn’t remain elders after this. Some might recover fully, though most would likely carry the injuries from this fight for the rest of their lives.
“Well, come on then,” Roy said, lifting his hands. “Let’s get this over with.”
8
Shah Virra came for him first, screaming out of the circle of blue, her body shrouded in Essence and carrying two Water Blades. Roy dispatched her with a single blow to the liver, the woman crumpling to the ground with a wheeze. Shah Aebor came after, trying to sweep his legs, while Giro came from above, aiming for his head.
Roy snapped up a knee and elbow at the same time, blocking both attacks, which resulted in broken bones and more screaming. He silenced both of them by retaliating. A knee took Aebor under the chin, cracking his jaw and spine, and his elbow rammed Giro across the jaw, resulting in the same injuries.
Lynn tried to move in then, but when Roy turned to face her, she backed off, allowing another elder to try stabbing him in the back. Roy growled as he felt his robes tear and whipped around, his hand, enhanced by Power Essence, ripping through the man’s neck and sending his head spinning.
The others didn’t really pose much of a challenge, throwing themselves at him to no avail, until only he and Lynn remained.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Korgo struggling in Aika’s grip as she pinned him to the ground, one arm twisted unnaturally over his head. It seemed the man had tried to make a run for it, and she’d thwarted him.
Seeing as he’d barely made it a foot from where he’d been sitting, Aika had spotted him trying to run long before the man had even moved to do so.
>
“Looks like we’re the only ones left,” Lynn said, glaring at him.
“And do you know why that is?” Roy asked, turning his attention back to her.
“Because you’re afraid of me,” Lynn said. “Because I’m the strongest this clan has to offer. Because I am a prodigy!”
Roy snorted out a laugh at that.
“I’ve seen prodigies, and you’re definitely not one of them,” he said.
Lynn’s face went red, and she lunged, hands extended to try and claw at his throat. Roy easily sidestepped, even as she used her Movement technique, and kicked out at her knee. She screamed, stumbling off balance and tripped over one of her fallen comrades, but Roy didn’t follow, allowing her the time to get shakily back to her feet, clutching at her knee.
He’d held back a good deal on that blow, but had her Armorer technique not been active, it would undoubtedly have been broken.
“What do you know, freak?!” Lynn spat, trying to circle to his left.
“A lot less than I’d like,” Roy admitted, following her with his eyes. “But your world, this world, is so small. I’ve been outside the Waterwood and saw the world for what it really is. Out there, there are monsters that could wipe the entire clan out in an instant. Monsters that could wipe out entire clans of Martial Artists stronger than me with little effort. I’ve faced down Beasts and fought against Scions. You are nothing.”
Lynn screamed and charged him again. Roy stepped to his right, neatly snagging her arm and shoving it into her face. She screamed as the Water Blade she held sliced into her cheek before she dismissed it, but that was just a distraction. Roy’s foot swept her legs out from under her, and then, he used that momentum to slam her to the ground.
Bones cracked as she impacted, her eyes going wide and the air being knocked from her lungs.
Roy crouched, feeling that odd sensation again of the crimson color overlaying his vision. The color of blood. It thirsted for this woman’s death, demanded he tear her limb from limb and feast on her flesh.
“Ew… Why are you having such strange thoughts?” Geon asked.
“Beats me,” Roy replied. “Does it feel like it’s coming from an outside source?”
“It does,” Geon replied after a few moments had passed.
“Like it’s coming from that Dungeon you sensed?” Roy asked again, feeling the sensation trying to overwhelm him, but with little luck.
“…Yes,” Geon said again. “We need to go to that Dungeon.”
Roy agreed wholeheartedly, but he was reminded of where he was when Lynn lashed out at him, trying to claw at his face as he held her pinned to the ground by her throat.
“Sorry,” Roy said, ignoring her thrashing. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes. I was explaining why you were still alive,” he continued in a conversational tone.
Lynn screamed, then spat blood in his face. She grabbed his arm with both of hers, her body flaring with strength as she tried to force it off of her. But she’d forgotten one thing. Water was not a Path that forced anything. Power, on the other hand, was.
“You are still alive,” Roy said. “Because I wanted you to see what I have become. You treated me as though I were sub-human, a piece of trash unworthy of gracing your presence. I wanted you to see. I single-handedly destroyed all of your elders without even breaking a sweat. You, Shah Lynn, are nothing. The entire Shah Clan is nothing, and before I leave, I’m going to make sure that everyone who’s been treated as I have will know of what happened here.
Everyone deserves equal treatment, regardless of the color of their Belts or the wealth they have to their names. When I leave here, the Shah clan will be no more. Whatever they choose to be after that isn’t my concern, just so long as the name Shah ceases to be.”
Lynn’s face was a deep red, verging on purple by now. Her eyes were wide in terror as she found herself unable to even budge Roy’s arm. It was as though there was a steel bar over her throat, growing tighter with each passing second. She tried to say something, to croak out a plea for mercy, but it was already too late.
“The Shah clan dies with you,” Roy said, then leaned down, exerting pressure until he heard the crack.
Lynn stopped struggling, her eyes bulging and wide, glazing over in death. Roy remained as he was for a few more seconds, watching the 3rd Dan Orange-Belt around her waist dissipate into the air. In his mind’s eye, his Spirit Sense saw her Core go dark, the brilliant blue fading to a dull, lifeless gray. Only once he saw that did he release her throat.
The imprints of his fingers remained, but Roy ignored it, turning away from the dead Lynn, feeling as though a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Although Korgo was still alive, the Shah were functionally dead, and before he left, he would make sure they knew it.
“Sorry I roughed him up,” Aika said, hauling Korgo to his feet. “He tried to run.”
“No need to apologize,” Roy said, reaching down and tearing a section off one of the dead elder’s robes. “He had it coming.”
“So, what do I do with him?” Aika asked, keeping a tight grip on the man’s broken arm.
“I’m going to ask him some questions. If you think he’s lying, break something.”
“Where should I start?” Aika asked, giving him a feral grin, which was very unlike her.
“Wherever you want,” Roy said, staring Korgo in the eye. “He can be smart and tell me what I want. Or we can break every bone in his body, and he can tell me what I want. Ultimately, it’ll be his choice.”
“What’s the point?” Korgo spat. “You’ll kill me either way.”
“True,” Roy said. “But I can always make your death worse.”
Power blazed around him as he said that, removing the tight veil he’d kept around his Core and allowing Korgo to feel – for the first time – what he was truly facing. The Blue-Belt vanished, replaced by Purple once again, only this time, it contained a single red slash on one end. Even Aika’s eyes widened a bit at that, and Korgo let out a whimper, the only thing stopping him from dropping to the ground in a heap being Aika’s grip on his arm.
“Now,” Roy said, leaning in closer. “What happened on the day you attacked my mother and me?”
Roy could see the golden light reflected in the man’s eyes as they widened. It was hard to believe that someone who’d once been held up as the pinnacle of power in the Shah clan and had been something everyone aspired to be was so very weak. It wasn’t just physically, but mentally as well.
Korgo licked his lips a few times. Then, he began to talk.
“I…I don’t know much, only what I was told.”
“And that would be?” Roy asked.
“We were given orders to go hunt down a woman and her son who’d found themselves in our territory. They said she was very dangerous and needed to be dealt with. By the time I arrived, she was already dead, but for some reason, we were ordered to leave you alive and bring you back with us. Please…That’s all I know. I was just following orders.”
“Whose orders?” Roy asked, feeling his heart rate increase in anticipation.
“Shah Mordio,” Korgo said. “He was the head of the clan at that time.”
“And where is he now?” Roy asked.
He’d never heard that name before, but it must have been the other man in his dream-vision.
“He left right after the mission, leaving me to take over. All I know is that he went to the Felrin clan to talk with one of their elders. I believe it was the town of Fireside.”
“And do you know who killed my mother?” Roy asked, staring into the man’s eyes.
Korgo shook his head quickly.
“She was already dead when I got there.”
Roy nodded, staring into the man’s eyes for several long moments.
“Let him go,” he said, straightening and standing back.
Aika gave him a questioning look as he reined in his Qi, suppressing his Core and returning to normal. His Belt faded as well, reverting to its previous Blue, th
ough he now saw an unmistakable purple tinge that hadn’t been there before.
“Are you sure?” Aika asked.
“So long as he knows that the Shah clan is no more, we’ll let him live,” Roy replied.
Korgo let out a sob as Aika let go of his arm, causing him to collapse to his knees.
Roy turned to leave, Aika trailing behind him as he went. There was no longer any need to try and be stealthy. No one would dare attack them or get in their way now.
He’d gotten what he’d needed from Korgo, and although he was aggravated that he hadn’t gotten his answers, he now knew who had them. He very much doubted that Mordio, the old clan head, would still be in Fireside, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t find information on him there. Even if this had happened nearly sixteen years ago, Martial Artists had good memories. He just had to hope that the elder he was looking for was still alive.
“Oh, one last thing,” Roy said, pausing at the door. “If I find out that the Shah has reverted to its old ways, I will come back and finish the job.”
He didn’t wait for a reply, shoving the door open and heading out of the meeting hall, leaving over a dozen dead and another dozen so badly wounded that they would be crippled for the rest of their lives, just as he had been.
9
Hermit flew over the Burning Hills, his eyes roaming over the rampant wildfires and roaming beasts worriedly. When Azure had shown up to warn them all of the rise of an Ancient Cavern Beast, he’d apparently meant the present, not something that was imminent. The Ancient Cavern Beast had already risen, and now, the Burning Hills were under siege.
It had taken him longer than he’d have liked to reach this place after splitting with the other Sovereigns back in Reign City. They’d managed to avoid a crisis with the Scion, Komura the Winged, only to have this dropped on them. Although all of the Sovereigns were mostly at odds – him and Ikari, his sister, most of all – they’d agreed that something of this magnitude warranted a meeting.