Solo Up From Beneath, Hell

[Shouta]

The Sixteenth day of Fall, 513 A.V.
The Sharp Blades HQ, Near Dawn.

“Shouta, I can’t hear you!” the little girl said, giggling as if it was a game. Senya Skyglow’s visage was bright and happy, every detail as it was the last time he had seen her. She sat on a log near the fire, wooden flute in hand. She began to play a simply, light melody.

“Stop! Run Senya!” Shouta continued to bellow at the girl, face contorted in frustration. “You’re going to die!” He waved and stomped, but for sue reason he could not touch her. The brightly colored leaves continued to fall lazily around them. It seemed the whole world was Senya, Shouta, the fire, the flute, and thousands upon thousands of bright fall leaves. A paradise to Shouta if ever he had imagined one, save for the feeling of danger that overwhelmed him. Why would she not listen?!

Senya merely giggled and continued her song. The tune struck him more than any blow, for it was the same one she had been playing before she died. The little girl was exactly as she had been those long years ago. And for Shouta, she would always remain the same, forever perfect and hopeful in his mind’s eye. The notes played like punches against his heart, weakening his knees and making him tremble. He fell to his knees and tears ran freely down his pale cheeks. Senya smiled and played on.

“Please, please Senya… You need to survive. Not here…not again.” Shouta begged, his body rocking with sobs. He had been forced to watch the girl die once, and now he would relive that horror.

“Don’t be afraid Shouta! Everything is okay. You can hold my hand if you are afraid of the dark.” The tinkling sound of her voice was as light and sweet as a forest creek running over pebbles. She did not understand, but that was alright, they were together. He could hold her hand if he was afraid. “Everything is okay.”

He took the proffered hand and smiled at her. The warmth of her small fingers spread through him like heat from the sun. It was the happiest feeling he could remember in a long time. “Okay, Senya. I’m not afraid.” He smiled at her, and she smiled back. Her Vantha eyes turned a pale pink and he knew it meant she was happy as well.

But the second he took her hand he felt a pull at his back, as if unseen hands were trying to pull them apart. She looked confused. Shouta tried to hold onto something, but there were only the leaves everywhere. The more he struggled, the more he was pulled back, until he lay on his stomach grasping at leaves as he was dragged away from Senya. She stared back at him, her eyes a deep green now, fear. Her small hands clutched the flute to herself and her smooth face was distorted with confused terror. “Shouta, where are you going? If you leave I won’t be safe.” She started to cry, and he was dragged further away.

Then the fire danced higher in front of her and the leaves around her began to swirl up. They circled her lazily at first, but with growing speed. He could not find the ground beneath the leaves. There was nothing to latch on to, just the bright colors of the changing season. “Senya!” he shouted in vain. The desperation thick in his throat.

Then the inevitable happened and the swirling leaves around Senya began to catch fire. Shouta smelled the stench of the flame from where he was. She was in tears now, trying to avoid the leaves but not moving from her spot. He thrashed and screamed on the floor, unable to right himself or get to her. She began to scream at the leaves engulfed her in flame. Shouta’s last sight of her was a hand reaching upward in vain. “Shoutaaa!”

Then he was lost, falling through the leaves. The last thing he saw was an infinity of white, and thousands of autumn leaves dancing around him. And then he woke gasping in his cell in the Sharp Blade Headquarters building. His kusarigama hung from it’s peg on the wall and his robe was folded, red blade up, underneath it. The cool air of the night was floating in through his small window. And Senya was long in her grave.

[Shouta]

The emotional upheaval of the dream had followed him back into the dark reality of his room. Shouta sat up on his small mattress and wiped real tears from his face. Moonlight flooded the window and melded with the dust particles above his floorboards, the only movement in the room besides his heaving chest. It had been too real for him.

Shouta rubbed long fingers over an unmarred face. Dark red eyes burned from beneath his fingers. In his Vantha form they would represent a deep sorrow. The symbolism of that was not lost on him. He laid his head back against the roughspun pad he used as a pillow and stared at the cracked and chipped ceiling.

His room was sparse and void of any affectation of humanity. His only worldly possessions were stored carefully in a small chest, or in the case of his dummies, leant against a wall. On the wall directly above his head was painted a red blade, cut off just before where the hilt would have been. It was a broken, aged room. But it was enough to keep him happy. What were possessions but distractions from what was really important?

Shouta lay for a few moments in his bed, unable to return to sleep. He did not want to experience the vivid horrors of that dream again. He decided it would be best to walk it off in the stiff morning air. He stumbled out of bed and whet his tongue from a basic of water he had in the corner and set about putting his robe on. The rough wool scratched at his bare skin in a familiar way. It was his armor, his pride, and he would wear it until he died. After tying the simple, threadbare rope about his slim waist, Shouta looked up at his kusarigama. The weapon waited for him silently.

To Shouta the thing always seemed to have a mind of it’s own. It was his closest companion, and the one who could provide the peace he needed in his life. It waited for him, a feeling of excitement coursed through his body as he donned the weapon, as always. To a monk of the Sharp Blade, a weapon was an identity.

He wandered the streets outside the Sharp Blade Headquarters, walking briskly but not going anywhere in particular. The night was cold, icy air flowing over the city like a blanket from the ocean. It kissed his face a thousand times, chilling him over and over as he traveled the deserted streets of the Mother City. He passed by the popular shop The Bloody Hunter and decided he was close enough to the Bridge of the Dead to make it a fitting end to his wanderings.

At the newly reconstructed bridge he found candles lining the stone walls of either side. Some were still lit from the day before. Nykans had built this bridge with the discarded shards left in the Djed Storm’s wake. And it was a place for mourning. Shouta stepped onto the stone of the bridge and knew he had come to the right place to pay his respects. On the other side, in the Celestial Quarter, two monks lounged against the stone wall of the bridge. Men of the Tempered Anvil it looked like by their weapons. One sported a bow, and the other a hammer at his waist. Both had their hoods up against the cold. A monk was only supposed to raise their hood when fighting to the death. But at night, amongst friends, who was to see?

[Shouta]

Shouta looked down at the candles in front of him, one was lit. Behind it was the mysterious depths of the Aperture, but this light endured. Some Nykan had come and lit this candle for one they undoubtedly loved. Senya.

Shouta took the candle in his hands slowly. Would she know if he lit another in her name? Would it banish the horror of memory? It would not bring her back, so what did it matter. Shouta grimaced as hot wax trailed down upon his long, Ethaefal fingers. He tilted the candle and lit the smaller, crooked one next to it. Replacing it at its post, Shouta was pleased the candle he lit had not fluttered out with the breeze. It must be some sort of good luck. He wiped his finger off on his robe, not taking his eyes from the flames.

As he watched the candles, standing sentinel in the darkness, he murmured a quick prayer for Senya and her parents. His oldest friends, the closest thing to family he had. They were gone now. So he tried to put them out of his mind. Then he saw it, the quivering of something green.

Shouta’s gaze followed whatever it was. It had moved past too fast to make out, but not it was visible. A birdlike thing had flown up from beneath the bridge, its wings shone with a vile green hue. And as he looked on in horror, more appeared. Then came up from beneath. At least a dozen. “Greenwings!” Shouta bellowed as he ripped the weapon off his shoulders.

His kusarigama’s chain chattered and it seemed to him it was excited to fight. Shouta swung the weight over his head in a wide circle, ready to drop it on the skull of a Greenwing if need be. They were small, about the size of a seagull. But what they lacked in size they made up for in acidic skin. One touch could leave a man scarred for life, and enough of them could kill a man. But the real danger lay in them breeding above ground. That could spell the end of Nyka.

Shouta could barely see the weighted end of his kusarigama in the night, but he knew where it was from the pull of the chain, and the sound of it breaking the air around it. “Kill them all!” He spat as he pulled down on the chain viciously, almost touching the ground with it. His face, usually the calm perfection of the Ethaefal, was contorted in anger. Dark lines splayed across it, making the monk a creature of wrath rather than a man.

The fox head weight came down upon the wing of one of the monsters. It crumpled under the impact and came spinning down to the stone wall of the bridge. The thing looked at him with it’s small head and Shouta could see the seething rage in it’s eyes. It squawked at him and attempted to fly in his direction, but the now torn membranes of it’s thin wing would not support it. Instead it knocked candles over and stumbled off the wall onto the bridge and began shrieking in pain. The noise quickly riled the other Flyers up, and they began to squawk.

Shouta flicked his wrist and the weight was in the air again. He spun it round his body twice, the chain rustling against his robes ever so slightly. Then he brought it down on the Greenwing Flyer. Hard. The thing exploded into a nova of glowing green innards. By the time Shouta looked up, one of the monsters was diving for his head. He dove aside just as the thing swooped past and hit the opposite wall. As Shouta hit the unyielding stone, he saw the bottom of woven sandals and the rippling of a robe. One of the other monks had leapt over him and dispatched the Flyer with a swung of his hammer. Now his partner held the yew bow he sported toward the sky, waiting for one to get close enough to shoot.

They did not have to wait long. The beasts began to dive claw in rapid succession, squawking all the while. Shouta just had time to duck one before having to roll again. A Greenwing Flyer landed its sickly looking wingspan upon the back of the man with the bow like some sort of hellish cloak. The vicious maw of the diminutive beast began to tear at the cloth covering the man’s back. The Flyer’s siblings darted through the air like vile green arrows fired down from the heavens as Shouta sprinted toward the monk.

He had not thought, now was a time for instinct. And instinct told his legs to move and his callused fingers to grip the handle of the kama tight, for it was time to kill. He raised his arm, every muscle in it tight with adrenaline. Ripping his arm down, Shouta attempted to tear the very air in two pieces with his attack. He wanted the Flyers to watch their fellow die. He wanted to scare them, to taunt them, to make them rue the day they ventured to where the stars shine. But alas, they were merely Greenwings, and he had no idea if they could even comprehend such things. Nevertheless, his blade cut through the Flyer like a knife through melting butter. It fell to the ground in two pieces, dying in silence and without the climactic end he had somehow been hoping for.

“Kill them all, brothers!” Shouta yelled into the night, he half hoped he attracted more monks with his war cry. But another part of him wanted all the foes to himself.

[Shouta]

Shouta felt the excitement of combat rush over him. He felt no fear for his own life, nor that of the other monks. He felt only the need to inflict pain on the Greenwing Flyers, the nine that were left. And an ever present need to contain the situation. He would not let any innocents die from these fiends! The Order of the Sharp Blade would beat back the monsters, spitting and screaming into their hell.

The hiss of the chain was it’s own battle cry, the snap of the weight crashing against stone and candle. It was hard to hit them when they moved so swiftly. Shouta could not anticipate their movements, and the man with the bow was fearful of wasting arrows, not to mention burned.

They would have to kill these horrendous beast fast, or they’d be dead. Shouta reigned in his kusarigama and held the weight in one hand, and the kama in the other. He had only seen the two sides of the weapon, but the kusarigama was a three piece tool. Holding his arms wide, shouta crouched in the center of the bridge and made eye contact with the other monks. Both sets of eyes were clouded with fear, though they stood their ground. They may be Tempered Anvil monks, but they were part of the eight hundred most deadly people in Nyka. “I’m going to try to hit them out of the sky with my chain. Take them out when they falter. Let’s see how many we can kill that way.” His pressed extra volume in his voice, making sure it sounded confident. He didn’t want these two thinking they could take charge. This task, the defense of the city, needed to be done correctly.

Motionless, the monk of Uphis waited. It took all the discipline he could must to stay still while the Flyers dove and screamed around him. The other monks were following his lead, nervous and jittery as they were. Then a Flyer dove so close that Shouta could make out the ugly abrasions upon its wings. With a flick of practiced wrists, the black chain rippled in the air. It clipped the aerial monstrosity in the belly and the thing tumbled to the ground. It strained it’s small body to return to the air, but was impaled by an arrow. The wooden shaft split through the Flyer’s body and sent blood splaying across the nearby cobbles.

Meanwhile Shouta was already on the hunt again. His breath came quickly and shallowly as he searched the skies for more monsters. They were still all around them, dodging and dipping like so many birds. But these things were much more dangerous than your average bird. He was just glad they were all a bright green, thank Uphis for small miracles.

Shouta was about to attempt another wave of the cold chain when he felt a tugging on his leg. The monk glanced down at his robe distractedly, and then quickly looked back at the sky. A cold shiver crept down his neck. A Flyer was attached to his robe, clawing up his side like some sort of mountain climbing fiend. He let out a startled yelp and frantically tried to kick the thing off. It did not budge.

Shouta could feel the terror in him rising. It threatened to grasp at his control of the situation. Burning. Pain. It was eating through his robes. He was going to lose his leg!

No.

He had to calm himself. He snarled a vicious curse at the thing, as if willing his hate to take physical form and cut it down. But in the end he resorted to knocking it off his robe with his kusarigama. Then he dropped his heel on it’s skull. Once. Twice. Thrice, and a gruesome crack left no doubt as to if the thing was dead. When he lifted his sandal the thing’s brain was leaking out of it’s head. A bit of it was still attached to his sandal. Another down.

He inspected his knee and found a spiderweb of sizzling burns where the skin shone through the now shredded part of cloth. It would scar, but did not need immediate attention. He looked up in time to see one of the monks looking over at him.

“You okay, brother?” The monk with the bow asked, his face admitting his worry. Normally the Tempered Anvil and the Sharp Blades were not so concerned with each other’s well being. But tonight it was Nykan for Nykan.

“Yea, just a souvenir from a new friend.” Shouta replied forcing a somewhat carefree tone. The monk let out a grunt of laughter right before he caught a flash of green in the face. He fell backwards against the wall of the bridge, screaming in the kind of terror that curdled blood. He immediately dropped his bow and clawed at the Greenwing desperately.

The Ethaefal made to rescue him, but his friend got there first. “Petch you! Damn monster!” His face was growing a deep red with anger as he connected the tip of his sandal with the thing on his friend’s face. He sent it flying through the night air towards Shouta. He was sure it was not on purpose, but it worked out nonetheless. Shouta was able to dispatch the beast on a spray of dark blood and glowing green carcass with one fell swoop of the kama.

Dodging another green blur of skin boiling death, Shouta was growing worried that they would die here. Where was the nearest patrol? Could they signal them for help somehow? He thought things were getting too bad to handle. But then, sensing weakness, the Flyers began darting down at the burned monk, covering him in their deadly acid torture.