by Brandon Chen
Aladdin smirked. “Not just that. There’s more to me than just that. But overall, I want power—power to destroy my enemies. Not just magical power. I want political power as well. I want to obliterate my opponents, but I also want to inscribe my name in history,” he said with a bright smile, flashing perfect white teeth. “I want to become king.”
Keimaro almost choked on his beer and coughed a few times before he set down the mug, looking at Aladdin only to find that the noble was completely serious. He smiled. How interesting. “Well, I’m sorry to spoil your dream then. The only person to assassinate the king will be me. I have a personal accord to settle with that old man. It’s good that you aren’t like him, a fat old man sitting on a throne wasting his days signing useless laws and filling his belly with the finest foods, ripping his rich silks from how big he gets. How is it to be a noble?” He remembered the poor man on the side of the road who had been practically starved to death, his ribs caving in to his own body. Keimaro’s eyes flashed a fiery red. “You guys just have everything, don’t you? What, your rich father doesn’t keep tabs on your whereabouts? Is that how you’re here?”
“Quite hostile, aren’t you?” Aladdin said with a shrug, understanding. “I wouldn’t blame you. Not many like the nobles since they take so much of the wealth in this city and leave so little for the rest of the people. When I become king, I intend to change that. I want to alter this social structure that we have. Why should one family be more revered than another? Why should someone be king who doesn’t even deserve the throne? My reign will change everything,” he beamed, “and what is your goal?”
Keimaro was rankled by this noble’s attempt to get him to speak. Still, he opened up his true intentions. There was no reason to hide them, not here. “I intend to kill every member of the Bount organization. Then I shall destroy the entire empire of Faar. Every soldier who opposes me will be turned into ash in the face of my hate-filled flames. I’ll eradicate every bit of opposition against the Hayashi clan and take my revenge for the deaths of my family and village.”
“Ah,” Aladdin said with a laugh, “so you’re Keimaro Hayashi.”
“You’ve heard of me?”
“We all have.” Aladdin grinned. “You’re a celebrity around here. Your name, at least. The boy who killed his first man at the age of fourteen and obtained natural fire magic from some meteor from space. Lucky chap, aren’t you? Not to mention you’ve already earned a spot on the Royal Guard after being inside of the city walls for less than twenty-four hours. Now that’s either impressive or just damn lucky.”
Keimaro shrugged. “That happened not a day ago. I’m surprised that word spread so fast.”
“Not much to hear about except for the successes or failures of our members,” Aladdin said, leaning back into his chair with a sigh. “You’ve got a nasty bruise on your face; what’s that from?”
“You’ve got a nasty scar on yours. Why don’t you intrigue me with your story, and I’ll amuse you with mine?”
Aladdin’s face paled a bit at the mention of his scar, but he gathered back his smile within a few moments and guffawed loudly, his voice echoing through the halls but dying quickly in the noise of the rebels around them. His face grew serious, and he shrugged, taking a long gulp of beer before speaking. “Fine, I’ll tell you. As a noble, I was usually untouched and treated well because of my position. As a young boy, my skin was perfect, and I was undoubtedly the most handsome boy amongst all of the nobles—even more handsome than the prince himself.”
“There’s a prince?”
“Yeah, you didn’t know? He’s been gone for a while now, off fighting some barbarians with his army, but I’m sure he will be back before you decide to destroy the entire empire single-handedly,” Aladdin joked, and Keimaro rolled his eyes with annoyance. “At any rate, the king didn’t seem to like me very much. When Aika began to favor me at a rather young age, the king said something about me and called me filth. Interestingly enough, Aika still took a liking to me.”
The mention of Aika made Keimaro awaken even more to his story. Aika had taken a liking to this boy? Keimaro looked at Aladdin and could see that indeed his face and hair were matched close to perfection when he took away the scar. “And what happened?”
“Ah, we were so young that it didn’t particularly mean anything,” Aladdin said, “but the king had a man cut me when I was only twelve so that my face would be ruined. He wanted to separate Aika and me. In fact, it was to set the example that Aika wasn’t allowed to be attracted to any males for a while. It was quite painful and scarred quite a bit across my eye. Luckily enough, I still have vision in both eyes,” he said with a smile. “At any rate, I have hated that man ever since. A man as disgusting as him shouldn’t be upon the throne. I want him off, and I want myself as king. I want him punished for what he did to me and everyone else that he’s hurt.”
Keimaro lowered his eyes at Aladdin’s story. His face had been cut by a blade for his natural beauty? That was a terrible reason. No doubt the noble’s family shared a hatred for the king as well. “My story is just that Yuri decided to punch me in the face for being disobedient.”
“You don’t seem like the obeying type.”
“I’m not.”
Aladdin smiled at him and leaned back in his chair, inhaling deeply. “So, you’re taking place in tonight’s show, huh?”
“You know about it already?”
“I heard a few birds chirp here and there.”
Keimaro shrugged.
“Are you nervous?”
“Should I be?
Aladdin leaned his elbow against the table and sighed, spinning his empty mug on the table, bored with Keimaro’s responses. “Well, you’ve got to assassinate a few politicians in front of the king, who is the most heavily guarded person in the entire empire. No doubt there’ll be dozens, maybe hundreds, of guards against such a small number of you. A large number of the Royal Guard will be there as well. I heard they have a strong reputation for being able to cut down enemies quickly. They eliminate our assassins before we are even able to reach the throne room. I heard a couple of us died last week; they’ve been strengthening their security, no doubt.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Keimaro said boldly and sighed, standing up. “I need another drink.”
“As do I,” Aladdin said with a smirk, “but before we do get a drink, might I ask something quickly?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you know someone by the name of Buu?”
Keimaro’s eye twitched at the mere mention of his name, and he turned to face Aladdin fully. The bully from Bakaara? How did this guy know his name? Don’t tell me…. His face grew serious. “Yeah. Why, is he alive?”
“He’s very much alive and incredibly strong, one of the finest warriors out of all of our assassins. Well, maybe not the finest, but definitely the most aggressive and daring. Ironically, you’re from the same village, are you not?” Aladdin said with a sly smirk. “The two of you come from the same place and take your spots at the top of the assassins. What’s your secret?”
“We both lost everything,” Keimaro muttered. “Not just a cut to the face. Our families were killed before our eyes, and every human we had ever known was left burned to ash or slaughtered on the roads of our own homes. Babes were dashed against walls, and children were left to hang. Everyone else met the brandished steel of Faar,” he paused, coughing awkwardly. “So, Buu is eager to see me?” Do I really want to see that bastard?
“Quite,” Aladdin said. “In fact, overly excited, really. He’s been fighting triple the amount that he usually does in the sparring ring. The original amount was already a lot, but now he just fights and fights and fights. Undefeated, he is. I think someone ought to bring him down, you know? I figure he’s trying to get your attention.”
Keimaro scoffed, sitting back down at the table with Aladdin with a disbelieving shake of his head. “So, that’s why you came to me, to find someone to defeat this incredible, undefe
ated champion of yours?” He looked forward, fire blazing in his eyes. He wanted to fight Buu badly. He wanted to show that bully that he no longer needed Yata as his bodyguard. He wanted to show Buu that he was stronger than he was before. Much stronger. Wroth heat shot through his veins, and a smile spread across his face. “I could use a fight. A good one, at least. I have to blow off some steam after Yuri gave me a good whack to the face.”
Aladdin’s expression brightened as he stood up, patting Keimaro on the back with a grin. “That’s it! Show him. I’ve already bet money on you!”
“What?”
“Oh, well…,” Aladdin said with a nervous smile, scratching the back of his neck. “It’s a bit of a rumor that you’re a hot-head, so we kind of knew that you would go after Buu. So, there’s a bit of a pool of betting going on….”
“How much?”
“Enough to make you rich.”
“I get half of your profit if I win.”
“Rather greedy, aren’t you?” Aladdin murmured with a pout.
Keimaro thought about Aika—and buying her some flowers, but he blinked the thought out of his head. She was royalty; this wasn’t his place. Nevertheless, he figured that sooner or later he would need some money. He might as well scrape some of it off of this noble while obtaining some pay from the king for being his Royal Guard. “Quite so. Otherwise, there won’t be a fight to see.”
Aladdin rolled his eyes and scoffed. “Whatever, fine, fine. Just make sure that you put your maximum effort into this fight. I won’t be losing my weekly allowance because you decide to mess around.”
Keimaro stood up, cracking his neck. He exhaled air. “I don’t mess around. I don’t make jokes. I always do my best. And I always win.”
***
Darkness. Noah’s glasses were cracked on his face and dirtied to the point where he could hardly see anything except shards of images. His hands were stretched into the air and bound by heavy metal clamps like those on his ankles. He was in an empty cell with nothing but rats and disease-infested blankets. Not a single bit of light could be found. Some liquid dripped down from the ceiling; whether it was clean or not couldn’t be known, but Noah found himself catching the liquid on his tongue regardless, so parched that he thought he would die from dehydration without any nourishment. He had been beaten relentlessly by the soldiers of Faar and tossed into this cell with no food or water. It had been only a few hours, but his uncomfortable position combined with his broken ribs and injuries to make it feel like an eternity. He wondered when someone would come and just kill him already.
Footsteps sounded nearby, echoing through the underground jail. Perhaps the guards were taking him away for questioning or an execution. Noah closed his eyes and sighed with regret. Why hadn’t he taken Yata’s hand in that split-second when he could’ve been saved? Why had he just given up and accepted his fate? The look in Yata’s eyes had been so filled with hope.
He yanked on his chains, trying to move forward. They were heavy and ponderous, allowing him to make no progress in moving across his cell to at least touch the iron bars that confined him. Seldom had he ever felt this defeated.
The footsteps grew louder and echoed through the dark recesses of Bassada’s underground cells. A light flickered in the distance, a blazing torch that blinded Noah. He turned his head away and winced, writhing against the light. He looked past the torch and saw a large, burly man with heavy, gold-plated armor clamped over a layer of chainmail. At his side, his hand gripped a caged knight’s helmet with a red feather hanging loosely from the top. His other steel, gold-rimmed gauntlet was wrapped around a large, thick torch with blazing flames. The man’s face was shadowed by the darkness around him, and he was unfamiliar to Noah’s eyes.
He walked over to a brazier that had been so encased in the darkness that Noah hadn’t noticed it. He lit the brazier, and the area brightened. The shadows retreated back to their corners, and soon Noah felt relieved to be around any sort of human company at all.
Noah saw that the man had a black beard that had recently been trimmed to smooth stubble. His dark eyes wandered over Noah near the fire, and he smiled, showing a golden tooth. His sword was sheathed at his side, the blazing steel hidden. He stood there for a moment in complete silence and sighed when he spoke, “What did you see?”
The question was utterly idiotic. The man knew everything that Noah had seen, yet he still asked the question. Noah knew that this would lead to more beatings, and he closed his eyes, shaking his head. “We didn’t see anything,” he lied straight to the man’s face.
“My name is General Mundo,” the man said simply, reaching out and grabbing one of the rusty iron bars with his large gauntlets, squeezing the metal. “I command three of the king’s largest armies alone. I am a legend among legends, and you break into a laboratory that is under my supervision and think that you can simply lie to my face?”
“You shouldn’t leave entrances to your secret laboratories in a public area then,” Noah snapped.
General Mundo raised an eyebrow in amusement at Noah’s tenacity and clicked his tongue, pacing back and forth. “Well, well, how do you think we get our experiments? Since there’s no reason to hide anything anymore, I figured that I might as well tell you. I capture curious cats that go down there and perform tests on them so that perhaps, one day, Faar can become the ultimate superpower of this planet. A god amongst humans. And the rest of the humans in the world will bow down before our almighty king—or, rather, the genius that created such an invincible army.” He smiled at Noah. “The only reason you aren’t in a tube like the rest of those poor slum children is that you know specific information regarding Keimaro Hayashi’s whereabouts, don’t you?”
Noah blinked a few times in disbelief. How the hell did this guy know about Keimaro? Had they already performed the assassination? No, it couldn’t be night already. Could it? Then again, who knew the time in a place as dark as this? He lowered his head, a shadow looming over his face. Keimaro hadn’t even been with them, and no one else had been caught. How could they even know that he was associated with Z’s group? “I don’t know who that is,” he said simply.
“You’re lying again,” General Mundo growled. “My intelligence tells me that he has been spending time with your band of blubbering buffoons and that he was spotted last infiltrating the clock tower near the central square this morning while you were off exploring my laboratory.” The general was pacing back and forth as if in deep thought with a sly crack of a smile across his face. “And each time I hear his name, the people seem to say it in fear—as if, by some chance, he might actually be a threat to our empire. The guards themselves couldn’t confirm him. They could only recognize his voice since they heard him speak, but with that black cloak that he wore, no one can be sure if it was him. Though, some spectators seem to believe that the boy had red eyes. A black cloak … that could be only one of two things, the Bount organization or your group of assassins. Shall I question everyone in this city until I find him? My guards will recognize his voice. Tell me, do you know him?”
Noah shook his head, unknowing. “I don’t know! I wasn’t informed about any mission involving a clock tower. I don’t even understand why they would go up there!” he exclaimed, raising his head to shout, his voice bouncing off of the walls of the dark jail.
General Mundo turned to face him, lacking emotion, his arms robotically at his side. “Well, then, I suppose we will have to extract what you know.”
Noah watched as a second figure stepped from the shadows. What? he thought. There was no way that this person could’ve come here undetected by me. He was standing there the whole time, and I never noticed him?
A black cowl came over the man’s face, and silver skull chains dangled from his neck, posing as a replacement for an amulet. His face was obscured by shadows, and his sleeves ran down much too long for him. The border of his entire cloak itself was red as blood, and all that Noah could see underneath his cowl was a wicked smirk filled with evi
l. There was no doubt about it; this was a Bount. But even Noah knew that the Bounts were no longer associating themselves with the government. In fact, they hardly had any history together other than hatred. As far as Noah knew, the government and the Bounts were trying to destroy each other. So, why was this Bount member here working with General Mundo?
“Who are you?” Noah demanded, his heart thudding against his chest as he thought of the horrible, torturous things that a Bount could do to him. He wanted to die, to be spared from future pain.
“My name is Danzo,” the Bount said with a flashy smile, his face still unknown. His voice was raspy and old, as if stolen by age. He held out his sleeve, an eternal darkness gaping at Noah. Two silver chains burst from the darkness of his sleeves and lashed outward at Noah, wrapping around his arms and legs and finally his throat.
Noah gasped, feeling the air choked from him—or perhaps it was his life. The silver chains began to glow, and the young man felt his memories flash before him. He could see it all. His father, his mother, sitting alone at the side of a beautiful lake, outside of the confines of human society. They were in solitude, a wonderful solitude where they could enjoy the peace of silence. He remembered his mother’s long, auburn hair and her flashy white smile that was so bright it could blind even the strongest of men—that, or mesmerize them, like it had Noah’s father. Her beauty was incomprehensible, and her blue eyes smiled just as her lips did. He remembered her laughter as they sat beside the lake on that wonderful summer day. The sun beat down on them as they enjoyed a picnic on the softest sand that could make a man fall asleep just from lying in it. It felt like clouds. His memory was vivid as the scene flashed in his mind.
Noah’s mother graciously handed him a piece of bread just as men in black cloaks waltzed from the forest behind them, walking on the sand and kicking it up into the air. Dark, ominous clouds filled the sky and blocked out the light of the sun, casting a gloomy shadow across the earth that sapped all happiness. Noah was just a child, still biting on the piece of bread when he glanced to see the man who began it all, the entire Bount organization, Kuro.