by Brandon Chen
The boy hated to bow down before someone else, but he knew that he would have to do so; otherwise, his cover would be blown immediately. He couldn’t allow for honor to get in the way of his goals that he had trained so many years for. He closed his eyes and got down on one knee, pressing his right fist to his chest, over his heart. He bowed his head low so that he was looking at his own feet, mirroring the exact posture of the Royal Guard. “Your majesty, you called for my presence?”
“I called not for anyone’s specific presence. I merely called for a personal report on your recent escort mission through the Forbidden Forest on the outskirts of Bassada’s borders,” the king spoke loudly in a deep voice, showing much authority. He leaned back in his throne with a sigh, twirling his scepter in his hand as a bored child would with a stick. “However, I am quite interested in knowing how the escort mission went. Were you attacked?”
“Yes, my liege.”
“By whom?”
“By creatures that lived within the Forbidden Forest, my liege,” Keimaro said, not daring to lift up his head to face the king himself. That would be incredibly disrespectful. “We left Bakaara with eighteen men and arrived with only three.”
“There were no humans that assaulted the cargo or attempted to hide in the wagon at all during your journey?” the king said with a raised eyebrow.
“No, milord.”
“Interesting, do you know why I am asking these particular questions?”
“No, milord.”
“It is because there is a survivor of the Hayashi clan actually out there in Bakaara,” the king said with a heavy sigh, tapping the arm of his chair impatiently. “His name is Keimaro Hayashi, and he is one of the last surviving members of the Hayashi clan. Intelligence has told us that he is coming to Bassada for a particular chest that was delivered to us earlier this week. Do you know what you delivered in the cargo today?”
“No, milord,” Keimaro answered by rote, his mind distracted. He’s telling me far too much. Does he already know who I am? Is this a trap? And how the hell does he know that I’m still alive? I’ve been in hiding for four years. Who gave him this information?
“You delivered the blueprints to a new technological discovery,” the king said, standing up from his throne as he began to pace back and forth, holding his scepter up high. “You see, there are many different creatures and intelligent humanoid forms that exist in our great world. This globe has yet to be explored. One of the most well-known masters of technology would be the gnome…. Are you familiar with this type of creature?”
“Yes, milord.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“Gnomes are small humanoids that live in peace with another race known as the dwarves. These two races live in perfect harmony in the mountains of the northern continent. It is said that they live in an underground city powered by technology invented by the gnomes. What they lack in physical strength, they make up for with brainpower. They are said to be eighteen times smarter than the average human. That is all I know, milord,” Keimaro muttered, a bead of sweat forming on his brow.
“Ah, good. Well, recently, Faar got its hands on our first ever gnome. We captured it and created blueprints for a new type of weapon that will forever change the nature of war! There will be no more bows and arrows, no ranged weaponry that requires a physical nature. Now there will be only precision with the technology that we have created. A rifle, a weapon that fires a small, circular projectile at such a high speed that it is capable of killing or wounding the enemy. All it takes is the pull of a trigger. That is the rumored weapon that you have delivered to us today. Because of your incredible contribution to our military and for helping Faar become a stronger empire, I will give you a chance at prosperity.”
Keimaro blinked a few times, wanting to raise his head, though he wasn’t exactly sure if he was allowed to yet. Prosperity? What the hell was this old fart talking about? He didn’t want prosperity. All he wanted to do was kill the king. And what was this new weaponry that he was rambling on about? It sounded extremely dangerous. A weapon that could fire projectiles that fast without any physical action but pulling a trigger seemed almost too good to be true—and too terrifying for Keimaro to even imagine. “A chance, milord?”
“Now that I’ve told you all of this, I am giving you a chance to either live and become a member of the Royal Guard, or die trying,” the king said with a chuckle, sitting back down in his chair comfortably. He leaned back, and his lips curved into a wicked smile. “Are you prepared for what’s in store?”
Keimaro slowly raised his head and looked up at the king with a sly smile as he pushed himself to his feet, standing tall. He lowered his head slightly, a dark shadow coming over his face as he saw and heard the movement of soldiers from the perimeter of the room converging in on him. “So, milord, is this some type of a test?”
This is exactly what I wanted.
“Yes,” the king said with a chortle of amusement. “Whether or not you leave this citadel will depend on your skill. I have been looking for a loyal personal bodyguard for quite some time now. It’s time to prove yourself.”
Keimaro sensed movement around him as the soldiers suddenly drew their blades, brandishing swords in the moonlight, their steel cutting at him from multiple directions. The boy had yet to react when the weapons were already about to cut through his body. The look on the king’s face belonged to that of a bored child, yawning drolly. The boy stomped his foot into the ground, and his sword shot out of its sheath as if the weapon had sprung to life. The soldiers were still in mid-flow of their attack and watched in surprise as the boy caught the hilt of the weapon in the air, holding the blade backward. It was unlike anything they had ever seen before.
Keimaro reacted to the slashes at the last moment, ducking his head with incredible speed and flexibility. The soldiers’ blades hacked into open air. His hair came over his face and then lifted as he spun around in a perfect, fluent motion, his sword slashing across the face of one of the soldiers as if he had been wielding a dagger. Crimson blood misted into the air and splattered onto the ground at Keimaro’s feet. The man crumpled to the floor.
The boy was ready for the second soldier’s attack from behind, though the man probably thought that Keimaro would be caught off guard. Their attacks were far too predictable. In fact, the Shokugan was unnecessary to fight these weaklings. He smiled to himself as he glanced at the man over his shoulder, seeing the jab coming straight at him from behind, a backstab. His body rotated, and the tip of the broadsword flew past him.
Far too predictable.
Keimaro’s sword drove straight through the man’s chest and burst out of his back as the life drained from his fear-stained face. The smell of urine filled Keimaro’s nostrils, and he scoffed in disgust as he twisted the blade, feeling the man’s spine. These men were responsible for the murder of his village; he felt no remorse when he killed them. He ripped the blade from the man’s body, dragging a stream of blood across the ground before the man collapsed silently. He turned and glanced at the king, looking for approval. He smiled when the superior motioned for more soldiers to come at him.
Keep them coming. I’ll teach them all a lesson.
This time, five soldiers rushed forward, two of them with long spears. They gripped the wooden shafts and jabbed outward, the sharpened stone slicing cleanly through the air at his legs in the attempt to wound him. He saw the movements clearly and sidestepped so that the first spear went between his legs and the other jabbed past his right leg. He kept moving, stepping around, making sure that he wouldn’t get tangled in any of the spears. His eyes flickered from soldier to soldier, realizing that they had surrounded him. Though, there was no hint of fear in his heart, which kept a steady and calm beat throughout the fight.
A soldier jabbed with his spear, and the boy grabbed the wooden shaft, yanking hard. He smiled as the man flew forward, losing his grip on his own weapon. How boring. The weakest point of a spearman was when he jabbed; he
loosened up because he thought that he would hit a target. His grip weakened in the split-second before he pulled his spear back. That was precisely the moment when Keimaro yanked, sending the man stumbling toward him. Completely defenseless, the man’s entire upper half was slashed open with a brief whip of Keimaro’s blade. He fell to the ground as Keimaro whirled the spear over his head, using a single hand, and slammed it downward into the shoulder of the second spearman, who bellowed in agony. He fell to his knees, the spear bulging from his body as his screams split the air.
The boy turned to the swordsmen now, kicking backward without even looking. He drove his foot into the face of the wounded spearman, knocking him into unconsciousness. He spun his sword in his hand experimentally, his eyes locked in the direction of the remaining soldiers, who were sweating and shifting uneasily. The Hayashi clan boy could practically smell the fear coming off of them—or was that just the fact that they had all pissed their pants in fear? Perhaps it was both.
Keimaro leapt forward, engaging all three swordsmen. Their blades slashed and hacked at him in a flurry of blinding movements. His eyes darted back and forth, swatting their blades away from him, parrying hard in the attempt to open up some of their weaknesses. He alternated exchanging blows with each of them, smiling when he saw them beginning to spread out in an attempt to surround him. That was their downfall.
The boy slashed at one of them, who parried and stumbled back from the force of the blow. The man behind him seemed less tense since Keimaro was now attacking one of his comrades rather than himself. Unfortunately, he was the next target. Keimaro whirled around in an instant, slashing the man’s leg as he spun, while ducking two slashes from the other swordsmen. The injured man yelped in agony, but Keimaro had already turned away from him, casting him away as no longer a threat.
He faced the two swordsmen who were still standing tall. He smirked, swinging his fist in a fast blow across the face of one of the swordsmen. The impact was an instant knockout, sending bloody teeth flying into the air as the man’s cheek jiggled from the force of the blow, his face already turning red from the punch. Keimaro whipped his sword upward, ripping the man’s chest open in a hissing cut from his blade. His hand released the hilt of his weapon, letting the sword spin in the air above him. He spun around and lifted his leg, driving his heel in a heavy kick across the second swordsman’s cheek, stunning him momentarily. Lashing out, he grabbed the hilt of his sword, taking advantage of the fact that both of the soldiers were stunned from direct blows to the face. His hands curled around the sword’s hilt, and he swung it with full power. The blade tore through flesh and bone, flaying their bodies as fountains of blood gushed into the air. Both men were cut open with a single slash of Keimaro’s sword that practically tore them apart.
The boy relaxed and stood tall as they collapsed at his feet. He turned to the man who had been cut across the leg. The soldier was crawling toward his comrades, who were hesitant to step forward and help their friend, which was against the king’s orders. He caught sight of the struggling, wounded man and smiled to himself. He walked after the man, spinning the weapon in his hands, and positioned himself over the soldier.
Feel my pain. Feel my hatred.
Keimaro brought the blade slamming downward into flesh, panting as the familiar sight of blood began to pool around the man’s unmoving body. His look hardened as he wrenched his weapon from the cold corpse, swinging it once more. The blood on the blade splattered onto the ground, and his heart thudded at the silence that surrounded him. He’d done what the king had asked, hadn’t he? It was an awfully odd test for the king to give, for his own subjects to kill one another. He glanced up at the king and saw his bright smile, now resembling that of an excited child on his birthday. Perhaps the king was simply insane.
The king was clapping his hands together rapidly, the sounds echoing through the silent church. The soldiers shifted uneasily as they watched the man who had slaughtered seven of their comrades. Several guards staggered forward, grabbing the corpses of their friends and pulling them away. Keimaro watched as bloody drag marks began to stain the floor, but two servants rushed forward and began to scrub the blood with sponges in order to hide the evidence.
So, the entire test was actually planned before Keimaro had even gotten here, meaning that the king was simply insane. Keimaro had originally thought that the king was wary of his true identity and was trying to kill him with this test. However, it occurred to him that it was impossible for the king to know what he looked like. He watched for a moment as the servants rubbed the bloody stains, their faces clearly disgusted at the stench of corpses and blood.
“Very well done, Riku! My, my, I haven’t seen talent like that in ages! It is no wonder you were one of the very few men who returned to the city alive! I thank you for your cooperation with this dangerous activity. You are hereby a member of the Royal Guard. You displayed incredible skills before me today and are probably even capable of assassinating me, were you not so loyal. Might I ask, are the other survivors as skilled as you are? Or did you merely protect them throughout the escort?”
Keimaro didn’t want Yata or Gavin to get involved in the Royal Guard like he had, so he simply shook his head with a sigh. “They are simply lucky that I was around is all. They were both nearly killed on the way here,” he lied without any sense of emotion, and the king nodded with a sigh.
“Oh well, couldn’t have expected that much talent in a simple escort mission,” the king said with a wave of his hand. “Anyway, I’ll have Judal bring you to your chambers tonight. The Royal Guard always sleeps in the same castle as the king. This is a bright step forward for you, Riku Hikari. Make sure to grasp this opportunity the best you can. You are honoring your empire with your service. I will give you two days to pack and bring anything you want to your room.”
“Thank you, milord.”
Keimaro watched as one of the original Royal Guards that had escorted him here stepped forward. So, this was Judal. His skin was a dark color from what looked like either ancestry or long hours of work in the sun. His eyes were a light brown, and his full lips were pursed together as he stood there with his tabard thrown over himself, his toned muscles exposed from the sleeveless uniform of the Royal Guard. The soldier held out a tabard and a suit of armor to Keimaro, the uniform of the Guard.
“Go and get changed in the back room. Leave your clothes here, and I’ll be showing you to your chambers. You don’t need to spend the night there tonight. Your job starts in two days. Two days from now, your life will be dedicated to protecting the king, understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
Keimaro accepted the abyssalite chain-vest and the tabard. He quickly scampered off to the back room of the church. He took his armor off, letting it clank to the marble floor. He slid the abyssalite vest over himself, accustomed to the lightweight material. Impressed, he also put on the tabard and shrugged. What was he even doing, taking this job? Why hadn’t he just killed the king on the spot? Even if he wanted the chest, he didn’t have to join the Royal Guard in order to obtain it. He probably could just kill everyone in the citadel and take it straight away. That was, unless the Bounts interfered. But after Gavin said that the Bounts and the king weren’t in association, he felt that there really was nothing to fear. Killing the king and obtaining his vengeance came first. Getting the chest was second; then he would save Mai. Perhaps his priorities were a bit scrambled up, but he was closer to the first two goals than anything else.
So, why didn’t he just open the door right now and kill everyone? This was the opportunity of a lifetime. He could just kill every single soldier and the king and be done with it. The king was outside his castle; he was defenseless. No one would’ve known that he was the one to do it. His heart was throbbing, though. It was longing for something more. Keimaro already knew what it was, but hated to admit it.
He wanted to see Aika.
He wanted to see if she was still alive, if she was oka
y, what the meteor’s foreign powers had done to mutate her. He wanted to see her progression, her changes, what she looked like. He especially wanted to hear her voice once more. He had thought about her all the first week after the Bakaara massacre. Afterward, she had slipped his mind when he began to focus on his revenge. But when Keimaro looked at the king and into his eyes, he saw the resemblance of royalty, and he remembered Aika’s gleaming royal blue eyes that had mesmerized him the day he had seen her underneath the apple tree.
Keimaro slammed his fist into the wall of the dark, empty back room. Huh, how stupid of him. He was letting a girl that he had met for only a single day, many years ago, get in between him and his goal. Sure, she was the only girl that he had talked to at the time, but was she more important than his vengeance? His hands were balled into tight fists, and he gritted his teeth as he heard a knock on the door and glanced in the direction.
“Oi, Riku, is everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Keimaro said softly and pushed the door open, walking out to Judal with a nod. “I’m ready. Sorry for the hold up.”
“Faster than lightning when he cuts down warriors, yet he’s slow as a snail when it comes to changing,” Judal said, and the soldiers in the room burst into laughter. He shrugged and waved for Keimaro to follow him. Keimaro saw that all of the Royal Guards had already left the area, and now normal guards and soldiers were filing out of the church.
Keimaro saw that the king had also left, and he sighed with disbelief. His chance had slipped away. Aika was the princess, and he would be able to see her in two days’ time. But, there was also the possibility that she would recognize him. That could prove a problem—and killing her father in front of her would probably also arouse some hatred.