Pilgrim 2, page 14
Once this was over, he would start a new chapter of his life, one in which he learned how to bend his echo. He hoped it would bring peace; the more Danzen thought about it, the more he leaned toward this idea, disregarding the other side of the equation, the one that promised to make him more powerful.
In a choice between peace and power, he would choose the former.
Danzen never did fall asleep that night, but he did put himself into a calm, meditative state that was almost like sleep. It was within this state that he heard some commotion below, something on the rooftop above as well.
Zipping forward, Danzen grabbed his blade and crawled out of view, hiding in the bathroom as he peeked around the edge of the door frame.
He saw a man in black clothing outside now, the would-be assassin slowly opening the window. As soon as he entered, the man was met by a blade to the throat, Astra returning to Danzen in an instant, dark blood spraying onto Jelmay’s bed, some of it onto the bakeneko’s face.
“What? What’s this?” Jelmay asked, coming awake.
“Kudzu, Jelmay, we have to go,” Danzen told the two. He wished now that he hadn’t aimed for the man’s throat; he could have questioned him, forced an answer.
“What’s happening?” Kudzu asked as she awoke, the fox’s gray eyes going wide when she saw the man on the ground, gargling on his own blood as he crawled toward Danzen.
Jelmay hopped out of the bed, grabbed his sword, and drove it into the man’s back. “What’s it look like, fox? Someone ratted us out.”
“Terru?” Danzen asked, instantly thinking of the hotel owner.
“Who else would it be?” Jelmay placed his bloody sword on the bed and looped his shield onto his back, grabbing his weapon again. He then wiped his sword on his bed and sheathed it at his waist. Smoke began to enter the room from beneath the door, Danzen instantly familiar with this kind of trap.
The assassins had failed in their timing; the man entering the window was supposed to enter after the smoke started up.
“Amateurs,” Danzen said as he gathered his things, stuffing his armor in his satchel along with the purple robes Jelmay had gifted him. He would have to change somewhere else. “You two go out the window; I will handle everything else.”
After placing his helmet over his head, he gave the rest of his armor and his satchel to Jelmay. Kudzu leaped out of the window to the water container outside that would act as a ledge for them to hide on as Danzen dealt with the assassins.
“Wait for me,” Jelmay told her as he did the same, leaving Danzen in the smoke-filled room alone, his Blade of Darkness now in his hands.
Anger filled him as he sliced into the air before him, the impact of his blade cutting through the door and into the hallway, Danzen hearing a cry from someone who wasn’t expecting this kind of attack. He threw his Blade of Darkness forward again, smoke all around him as his shadows cut forward again and again, splinters in the air, the deep cuts tearing into the floorboard and eventually bringing the door down.
He kicked through what was left of the door, his eyes shut now as he moved into the hallway.
Once again, Danzen relied on his other senses as he thrust his blade forward and met a man just as he was trying to stab at him. He pulled the weapon out, shadows and blood trailing back as he cut through another assassin, this one sounding as if she were female.
Blood splatter, people gasping for air, smoke bombs nearly overwhelming, the sound of someone behind him falling down the stairs—Danzen was in his element.
He reached the exit and kicked the door open, only to be greeted by archers standing near the stables, the three training their weapons on the former assassin.
The first arrow passed just over his shoulder; he managed to duck the second arrow, Danzen instinctively going for Astra. He flung his blade forward; it cut into one of the archers’ chests and returned to him, the other two not able to load another arrow before Danzen reached them.
“How many have joined you?” he asked, calling forth his Demon Speak ability.
“E-e-eleven…”
“Defend us while we escape,” he told the archers. “Neutralize anyone that tries to stop us. Do not hesitate to kill for me.”
Danzen whistled, letting Jelmay and Kudzu know it was safe to come down. Kudzu had no problem leaping to the ground; Jelmay was apprehensive about it, the bakeneko pacing back and forth for a moment.
As the archers prepared to defend them, arrows nocked and ready to go, Danzen grabbed a bale of hay and moved to the side of the building for Jelmay to jump onto.
“Get another,” Jelmay told him.
Grumbling to himself, Danzen found another bale of hay in the stables and took it out, placing it next to the first one. An assassin came running around the back of the hotel only to be met by an arrow, which brought him down as the archer loaded another.
Jelmay took a running leap and landed on the hay, Kudzu managing a chuckle even though she was completely alert.
“We need to hurry,” Danzen said as he helped the bakeneko to his feet.
“I would have landed better if I hadn’t been holding all of your stuff!”
“I can change into my armor outside of town. Let’s go.”
They got onto their horses while the archers defended them, Jelmay now morphed into a human. Once they were properly mounted, they took off toward the Diyu Brotherhood, Kudzu in her fox form running at their side.
Rather than going along the main stretch of road that marked the exit to the city, they turned onto a path that cut through a thick bramble of trees, the horses not at all enjoying the route.
Kudzu led the way, calling to the horses as they twisted deeper into the thicket, eventually coming to a riverbed, and from there, to a smoother surface, with large shrubs. It was here that Danzen hopped off his horse and took his armor from Jelmay, who remained on his steed.
“Same plan as yesterday?” Jelmay asked.
“They have found out about us; they will know why I have returned. Our only chance is to move as quickly as possible, before word gets to them that the assassins failed.”
“They didn’t exactly send their best and brightest, did they?” Jelmay asked.
“The best and brightest are generally out on assignment, or training with someone on assignment,” Danzen said with a grunt.
“So you just killed a bunch of students?” asked Kudzu.
“Perhaps.”
“Shame.”
“They knew what they were signing up for,” Jelmay said.
“No, no, they didn’t,” Danzen told him as he finished putting his armor on. “They were likely given very little information as to what they would encounter. Had they known…”
“Yeah, I guess you are right there,” said the bakeneko. “If they had known that they were trying to kill one of the Brotherhood’s best assassins who was also half-demon, they may not go along with it.”
“I wouldn’t say best, but pretty much.”
Once he was in his armor, Danzen mounted his horse again, Kudzu leading the way yet again, the white fox guiding them just far enough from the main road to avoid being detected by any patrols.
It was a suicide mission, Danzen couldn’t help but think that. At the same time, he also couldn’t help but question this notion.
If the Diyu Brotherhood was mostly protected by teachers and students, why did he think it was a suicide mission? Was fear of the compound something that they had instilled in him at an early age so he wouldn’t ever think of returning with malicious intent?
Only time would tell.
****
An arrow hit Danzen’s horse as they neared the front steps of the Brotherhood.
The beast went down, the former assassin able to land on the ground, where he rolled to his feet. They had been riding through the forest to the left of the Brotherhood’s entrance when the arrow struck—Danzen knew that only someone who had bent their echo or had a weapon forged with a Sunyata remnant or enhanced by a talisman could fire a shot like that.
Leaping up to the branch of a tree allowed Danzen to catch a glimpse of the culprit, one of the instructors, a woman known as Yuna.
She had fired her shot from well over a thousand feet away, Danzen keenly aware that his blade wouldn’t be able to travel that distance.
That wasn’t the only thing that caused him to quickly drop down from the tree and get behind its trunk, Jelmay doing the same near him.
There were twenty students with Yuna, all of them with their bows aimed at the forest. Judging by their height and the light-gray robes they were wearing, Danzen assumed that most of them were between the ages of fourteen and fifteen.
Arrows struck trees all around them, the students well-trained, loading them much faster than Danzen would have expected.
“They are either going to hit us, or run out of arrows!” Jelmay called over to him. An arrow landed a tree between the two of them, wood splintering into the air. “See!”
“I’ll move ahead and circle back around once I can gauge how large their force is. Be careful!” Kudzu kept low to the ground as she charged away from the arrows.
Danzen knew that the militiamen would have left by now, but there was always a chance that they were told to stick around, which would add yet another complication to the mix with their giant dogs.
Ignoring the arrows, the former assassin briefly closed his eyes, listening for any barking.
He didn’t hear any, and having grown up on the compound, he knew that those dogs were hard to quiet once they got going. He noticed the arrows start to thin, and as they did, he looked to Jelmay, who had a glint of mischief in his eyes now.
Danzen glanced around the tree trunk to get a better look at what was in front of them when an arrow hit him directly in the forehead.
His sugawara helmet shielded Danzen from the strike, but he could certainly feel it, the former assassin stumbling back, keenly aware that the arrow had come from Yuna. He caught himself from falling and kept his hand on his head for a moment, massaging it under his helmet.
“Are you all right?” Jelmay asked him. “Pilgrim. Talk to me!”
Danzen looked at his fingers. No blood. “I’m fine.”
“Good. And by the thunders of Sunyata, don’t peek around trees next time! Listen, I have an idea. Follow my lead…” Jelmay morphed into the spitting image of the assassin, aside from his Blade of Darkness. “Stay close to me,” he said in Danzen’s voice as he pulled his hood over his head and placed a shield before him, ducking in front of it.
Jelmay slipped around one of the trees and picked up a stray arrow, which he stuffed under his armpit so it looked like it was sticking out of his chest.
The former assassin kept to the tree trunks behind him, tracking the bakeneko. Danzen and Jelmay as Danzen slowly crept forward, finally reaching the perimeter of the woods, Yuna and her students dangerously close to them.
“Please…” Jelmay said in Danzen’s voice. “Please stop, I beg you.”
One of the students fired an arrow, Jelmay able to block it with his shield. Crouched to the left of the morphing yokai, Danzen saw that Yuna’s students had indeed run out of arrows aside from a few at the front, who each had a single arrow nocked and ready to go.
“Enough trickery.” Yuna stepped forward with a curved blade, a scowl forming on her face. “The Danzen Ravja I know would never cower behind a shield.”
“Now would be a good time to do something…” Jelmay as Danzen hissed to his counterpart.
Realizing that Jelmay’s plan wasn’t going to work, Danzen simply stepped past him, his famed blade drawn. A few of the students at the back gasped at Danzen’s terrifying appearance, while those at the front each fired an arrow, the former assassin easily batting them away.
“I am not here to fight your students, nor am I here to fight you,” Danzen told Yuna, who wore golden robes, her bow adorned with white tassels. Yuna was an older woman with streaks of gray in her hair, a defiant look on her face, shoulders that told of her years of archery. “I’m here for one man, and one man only.”
Danzen noticed something different about the students. All of them stared at him in a strange way, blood dripping out of a few of their ears.
It dawned on him that using his Demon Speak ability would be useless against them. Yuna had punctured all of their eardrums.
“We knew the day would come if we didn’t kill you first,” Yuna seethed. “Once we received word that you had finally made it to town, we prepared our students. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out last night when the roads were clear between here and the city. The Danzen I used to know would have instantly recognized that something was awry.”
The woman reached back for her quiver and took an arrow out that had a red cloth tied just before its fletching. She loaded it and pointed the arrow in the air. As soon as she fired it, her students dropped their bows and went for their swords, all charging at Danzen and Jelmay at the same time.
“I’ll deal with them; you just get to your teacher,” Jelmay as Danzen said, his sword in his hand now.
Danzen appreciated the bakeneko’s confidence, but he knew that Jelmay wouldn’t be able to handle twenty opponents, even if they were inexperienced. He also didn’t like the idea of cutting down the students, and if he killed one, he would have to kill them all to make sure none sought vengeance.
But that was what his Blade of Darkness was for, and even though the sun was starting to rise, there were plenty of shadows still peppering the woods, the tip of his weapon summoning all of them as he slowly brought it to the ready.
It was with a heavy heart that Danzen cut five of them down, a few of the others bristling, others charging ahead. His second strike took down more, Danzen keenly aware of Yuna’s presence during the entire ordeal.
Once he brought down several more of her students, he left the rest to Jelmay, Danzen advancing on Yuna, who screamed as she thrust her curved blade forward.
Danzen parried her attack and blocked her next swipe with his sword. She didn’t deserve to die this way. Yuna had trained him on the bow, and had he taken interest in it, he knew that she would have shepherded him. He also had a feeling she wouldn’t have called for his death once he decided to retire.
But he had two goals in coming to the Diyu Brotherhood—to make this quick and to kill his teacher.
He summoned his speed and curved his glaive in an upward direction, its tip easily puncturing the bottom of Yuna’s chin, and from there to the back of her mouth, finally reaching its natural stopping point. Blood pooled in her eyes as he held her there for a moment, Danzen slowly letting her down. “I’m sorry, Yuna,” he said as she slid off the end of his shadowed blade.
One of her students screamed and jumped at him with a long dagger; he struck her in the side of the face with the poled end of his weapon. She staggered for a moment, Danzen spinning and cutting her to the ground, blood spritzing the air.
He hated the next words that were going to come out of his mouth, but knew that they were the only way. “Leave no survivors,” he called to Jelmay, who was still fending off several attackers.
“Easy for you to say!” Jelmay told him, but there was confidence in his voice, the bakeneko more skilled with a sword than Danzen gave him credit for.
Danzen looked up to see Kudzu approaching in her human form, her armor on, her sword with her. Jelmay finished off the last student, only a few still alive, all of them down and moaning.
“Look who decides to show up to the party,” he said as he withdrew his blade from a youth with dark hair. The bakeneko turned to the next student who was still alive and ended his life.
“You’re… you’re killing children?” Kudzu asked, not saying anything about Jelmay still borrowing Danzen’s form.
“Not by choice,” Jelmay told her.
“I couldn’t make them stop. She did something to their eardrums,” Danzen said, motioning toward their fallen teacher. “And…” He heard a horn somewhere in the distance, signaling that the compound was under attack. “They would seek revenge if we didn’t finish them for good. This is our way.”
Kudzu slowly nodded. “I understand.”
“You should have stayed in your fox form,” Jelmay told her as he moved on to his next kill. “We only have one horse now.”
“Actually…” Something flashed across her eyes. “They have a stable in there with at least a dozen horses. Maybe if we let them out, it will cause a little distraction. We could steal one as well.”
Danzen nodded. “That could work. I’m going to make my way to the instructor’s quarters, and will do my best to stay hidden. Meet me at the rendezvous point when you finish with the horses. If I’m not there within an hour, leave without me.”
“We didn’t make it this far to leave you behind,” Jelmay reminded him. “Now go, deal with your teacher; Kudzu and I will cause a little yokai-based trouble.” The bakeneko started to morph down to his cat form, a devilish grin forming on his face. “Good luck, Pilgrim. And see you in an hour.”
****
Danzen took the path he’d already mapped out during their scouting mission. He could hear someone blowing the horn, but he didn’t see anyone on the ground, Danzen wondering why the place wasn’t filling with guards.
At some point, he realized that stealth wouldn’t help him now that his cover had been blown, so he launched himself from one of the cliffs to a rooftop, and from there he ran in the direction of the instructor’s quarters, which towered over the back of the compound.
He dropped to the ground and ducked behind a movable wall used to teach assassins how to climb.
He waited.
A short breath out and he slipped around the wall, calling upon his enhanced speed. He reached the side of the instructor’s quarters and quickly scaled the rock, going again for the entrance he had pointed out last night.
He found an open window on the fifth floor and jumped from the cliff to the window ledge, quickly pulling himself inside.
Still, no one.
He didn’t know whose room it was, but the place was well-kept, Danzen quickly moving to the door. He paused, once again focusing on any potential movement in the hall.
In a choice between peace and power, he would choose the former.
Danzen never did fall asleep that night, but he did put himself into a calm, meditative state that was almost like sleep. It was within this state that he heard some commotion below, something on the rooftop above as well.
Zipping forward, Danzen grabbed his blade and crawled out of view, hiding in the bathroom as he peeked around the edge of the door frame.
He saw a man in black clothing outside now, the would-be assassin slowly opening the window. As soon as he entered, the man was met by a blade to the throat, Astra returning to Danzen in an instant, dark blood spraying onto Jelmay’s bed, some of it onto the bakeneko’s face.
“What? What’s this?” Jelmay asked, coming awake.
“Kudzu, Jelmay, we have to go,” Danzen told the two. He wished now that he hadn’t aimed for the man’s throat; he could have questioned him, forced an answer.
“What’s happening?” Kudzu asked as she awoke, the fox’s gray eyes going wide when she saw the man on the ground, gargling on his own blood as he crawled toward Danzen.
Jelmay hopped out of the bed, grabbed his sword, and drove it into the man’s back. “What’s it look like, fox? Someone ratted us out.”
“Terru?” Danzen asked, instantly thinking of the hotel owner.
“Who else would it be?” Jelmay placed his bloody sword on the bed and looped his shield onto his back, grabbing his weapon again. He then wiped his sword on his bed and sheathed it at his waist. Smoke began to enter the room from beneath the door, Danzen instantly familiar with this kind of trap.
The assassins had failed in their timing; the man entering the window was supposed to enter after the smoke started up.
“Amateurs,” Danzen said as he gathered his things, stuffing his armor in his satchel along with the purple robes Jelmay had gifted him. He would have to change somewhere else. “You two go out the window; I will handle everything else.”
After placing his helmet over his head, he gave the rest of his armor and his satchel to Jelmay. Kudzu leaped out of the window to the water container outside that would act as a ledge for them to hide on as Danzen dealt with the assassins.
“Wait for me,” Jelmay told her as he did the same, leaving Danzen in the smoke-filled room alone, his Blade of Darkness now in his hands.
Anger filled him as he sliced into the air before him, the impact of his blade cutting through the door and into the hallway, Danzen hearing a cry from someone who wasn’t expecting this kind of attack. He threw his Blade of Darkness forward again, smoke all around him as his shadows cut forward again and again, splinters in the air, the deep cuts tearing into the floorboard and eventually bringing the door down.
He kicked through what was left of the door, his eyes shut now as he moved into the hallway.
Once again, Danzen relied on his other senses as he thrust his blade forward and met a man just as he was trying to stab at him. He pulled the weapon out, shadows and blood trailing back as he cut through another assassin, this one sounding as if she were female.
Blood splatter, people gasping for air, smoke bombs nearly overwhelming, the sound of someone behind him falling down the stairs—Danzen was in his element.
He reached the exit and kicked the door open, only to be greeted by archers standing near the stables, the three training their weapons on the former assassin.
The first arrow passed just over his shoulder; he managed to duck the second arrow, Danzen instinctively going for Astra. He flung his blade forward; it cut into one of the archers’ chests and returned to him, the other two not able to load another arrow before Danzen reached them.
“How many have joined you?” he asked, calling forth his Demon Speak ability.
“E-e-eleven…”
“Defend us while we escape,” he told the archers. “Neutralize anyone that tries to stop us. Do not hesitate to kill for me.”
Danzen whistled, letting Jelmay and Kudzu know it was safe to come down. Kudzu had no problem leaping to the ground; Jelmay was apprehensive about it, the bakeneko pacing back and forth for a moment.
As the archers prepared to defend them, arrows nocked and ready to go, Danzen grabbed a bale of hay and moved to the side of the building for Jelmay to jump onto.
“Get another,” Jelmay told him.
Grumbling to himself, Danzen found another bale of hay in the stables and took it out, placing it next to the first one. An assassin came running around the back of the hotel only to be met by an arrow, which brought him down as the archer loaded another.
Jelmay took a running leap and landed on the hay, Kudzu managing a chuckle even though she was completely alert.
“We need to hurry,” Danzen said as he helped the bakeneko to his feet.
“I would have landed better if I hadn’t been holding all of your stuff!”
“I can change into my armor outside of town. Let’s go.”
They got onto their horses while the archers defended them, Jelmay now morphed into a human. Once they were properly mounted, they took off toward the Diyu Brotherhood, Kudzu in her fox form running at their side.
Rather than going along the main stretch of road that marked the exit to the city, they turned onto a path that cut through a thick bramble of trees, the horses not at all enjoying the route.
Kudzu led the way, calling to the horses as they twisted deeper into the thicket, eventually coming to a riverbed, and from there, to a smoother surface, with large shrubs. It was here that Danzen hopped off his horse and took his armor from Jelmay, who remained on his steed.
“Same plan as yesterday?” Jelmay asked.
“They have found out about us; they will know why I have returned. Our only chance is to move as quickly as possible, before word gets to them that the assassins failed.”
“They didn’t exactly send their best and brightest, did they?” Jelmay asked.
“The best and brightest are generally out on assignment, or training with someone on assignment,” Danzen said with a grunt.
“So you just killed a bunch of students?” asked Kudzu.
“Perhaps.”
“Shame.”
“They knew what they were signing up for,” Jelmay said.
“No, no, they didn’t,” Danzen told him as he finished putting his armor on. “They were likely given very little information as to what they would encounter. Had they known…”
“Yeah, I guess you are right there,” said the bakeneko. “If they had known that they were trying to kill one of the Brotherhood’s best assassins who was also half-demon, they may not go along with it.”
“I wouldn’t say best, but pretty much.”
Once he was in his armor, Danzen mounted his horse again, Kudzu leading the way yet again, the white fox guiding them just far enough from the main road to avoid being detected by any patrols.
It was a suicide mission, Danzen couldn’t help but think that. At the same time, he also couldn’t help but question this notion.
If the Diyu Brotherhood was mostly protected by teachers and students, why did he think it was a suicide mission? Was fear of the compound something that they had instilled in him at an early age so he wouldn’t ever think of returning with malicious intent?
Only time would tell.
****
An arrow hit Danzen’s horse as they neared the front steps of the Brotherhood.
The beast went down, the former assassin able to land on the ground, where he rolled to his feet. They had been riding through the forest to the left of the Brotherhood’s entrance when the arrow struck—Danzen knew that only someone who had bent their echo or had a weapon forged with a Sunyata remnant or enhanced by a talisman could fire a shot like that.
Leaping up to the branch of a tree allowed Danzen to catch a glimpse of the culprit, one of the instructors, a woman known as Yuna.
She had fired her shot from well over a thousand feet away, Danzen keenly aware that his blade wouldn’t be able to travel that distance.
That wasn’t the only thing that caused him to quickly drop down from the tree and get behind its trunk, Jelmay doing the same near him.
There were twenty students with Yuna, all of them with their bows aimed at the forest. Judging by their height and the light-gray robes they were wearing, Danzen assumed that most of them were between the ages of fourteen and fifteen.
Arrows struck trees all around them, the students well-trained, loading them much faster than Danzen would have expected.
“They are either going to hit us, or run out of arrows!” Jelmay called over to him. An arrow landed a tree between the two of them, wood splintering into the air. “See!”
“I’ll move ahead and circle back around once I can gauge how large their force is. Be careful!” Kudzu kept low to the ground as she charged away from the arrows.
Danzen knew that the militiamen would have left by now, but there was always a chance that they were told to stick around, which would add yet another complication to the mix with their giant dogs.
Ignoring the arrows, the former assassin briefly closed his eyes, listening for any barking.
He didn’t hear any, and having grown up on the compound, he knew that those dogs were hard to quiet once they got going. He noticed the arrows start to thin, and as they did, he looked to Jelmay, who had a glint of mischief in his eyes now.
Danzen glanced around the tree trunk to get a better look at what was in front of them when an arrow hit him directly in the forehead.
His sugawara helmet shielded Danzen from the strike, but he could certainly feel it, the former assassin stumbling back, keenly aware that the arrow had come from Yuna. He caught himself from falling and kept his hand on his head for a moment, massaging it under his helmet.
“Are you all right?” Jelmay asked him. “Pilgrim. Talk to me!”
Danzen looked at his fingers. No blood. “I’m fine.”
“Good. And by the thunders of Sunyata, don’t peek around trees next time! Listen, I have an idea. Follow my lead…” Jelmay morphed into the spitting image of the assassin, aside from his Blade of Darkness. “Stay close to me,” he said in Danzen’s voice as he pulled his hood over his head and placed a shield before him, ducking in front of it.
Jelmay slipped around one of the trees and picked up a stray arrow, which he stuffed under his armpit so it looked like it was sticking out of his chest.
The former assassin kept to the tree trunks behind him, tracking the bakeneko. Danzen and Jelmay as Danzen slowly crept forward, finally reaching the perimeter of the woods, Yuna and her students dangerously close to them.
“Please…” Jelmay said in Danzen’s voice. “Please stop, I beg you.”
One of the students fired an arrow, Jelmay able to block it with his shield. Crouched to the left of the morphing yokai, Danzen saw that Yuna’s students had indeed run out of arrows aside from a few at the front, who each had a single arrow nocked and ready to go.
“Enough trickery.” Yuna stepped forward with a curved blade, a scowl forming on her face. “The Danzen Ravja I know would never cower behind a shield.”
“Now would be a good time to do something…” Jelmay as Danzen hissed to his counterpart.
Realizing that Jelmay’s plan wasn’t going to work, Danzen simply stepped past him, his famed blade drawn. A few of the students at the back gasped at Danzen’s terrifying appearance, while those at the front each fired an arrow, the former assassin easily batting them away.
“I am not here to fight your students, nor am I here to fight you,” Danzen told Yuna, who wore golden robes, her bow adorned with white tassels. Yuna was an older woman with streaks of gray in her hair, a defiant look on her face, shoulders that told of her years of archery. “I’m here for one man, and one man only.”
Danzen noticed something different about the students. All of them stared at him in a strange way, blood dripping out of a few of their ears.
It dawned on him that using his Demon Speak ability would be useless against them. Yuna had punctured all of their eardrums.
“We knew the day would come if we didn’t kill you first,” Yuna seethed. “Once we received word that you had finally made it to town, we prepared our students. I’m surprised you didn’t figure it out last night when the roads were clear between here and the city. The Danzen I used to know would have instantly recognized that something was awry.”
The woman reached back for her quiver and took an arrow out that had a red cloth tied just before its fletching. She loaded it and pointed the arrow in the air. As soon as she fired it, her students dropped their bows and went for their swords, all charging at Danzen and Jelmay at the same time.
“I’ll deal with them; you just get to your teacher,” Jelmay as Danzen said, his sword in his hand now.
Danzen appreciated the bakeneko’s confidence, but he knew that Jelmay wouldn’t be able to handle twenty opponents, even if they were inexperienced. He also didn’t like the idea of cutting down the students, and if he killed one, he would have to kill them all to make sure none sought vengeance.
But that was what his Blade of Darkness was for, and even though the sun was starting to rise, there were plenty of shadows still peppering the woods, the tip of his weapon summoning all of them as he slowly brought it to the ready.
It was with a heavy heart that Danzen cut five of them down, a few of the others bristling, others charging ahead. His second strike took down more, Danzen keenly aware of Yuna’s presence during the entire ordeal.
Once he brought down several more of her students, he left the rest to Jelmay, Danzen advancing on Yuna, who screamed as she thrust her curved blade forward.
Danzen parried her attack and blocked her next swipe with his sword. She didn’t deserve to die this way. Yuna had trained him on the bow, and had he taken interest in it, he knew that she would have shepherded him. He also had a feeling she wouldn’t have called for his death once he decided to retire.
But he had two goals in coming to the Diyu Brotherhood—to make this quick and to kill his teacher.
He summoned his speed and curved his glaive in an upward direction, its tip easily puncturing the bottom of Yuna’s chin, and from there to the back of her mouth, finally reaching its natural stopping point. Blood pooled in her eyes as he held her there for a moment, Danzen slowly letting her down. “I’m sorry, Yuna,” he said as she slid off the end of his shadowed blade.
One of her students screamed and jumped at him with a long dagger; he struck her in the side of the face with the poled end of his weapon. She staggered for a moment, Danzen spinning and cutting her to the ground, blood spritzing the air.
He hated the next words that were going to come out of his mouth, but knew that they were the only way. “Leave no survivors,” he called to Jelmay, who was still fending off several attackers.
“Easy for you to say!” Jelmay told him, but there was confidence in his voice, the bakeneko more skilled with a sword than Danzen gave him credit for.
Danzen looked up to see Kudzu approaching in her human form, her armor on, her sword with her. Jelmay finished off the last student, only a few still alive, all of them down and moaning.
“Look who decides to show up to the party,” he said as he withdrew his blade from a youth with dark hair. The bakeneko turned to the next student who was still alive and ended his life.
“You’re… you’re killing children?” Kudzu asked, not saying anything about Jelmay still borrowing Danzen’s form.
“Not by choice,” Jelmay told her.
“I couldn’t make them stop. She did something to their eardrums,” Danzen said, motioning toward their fallen teacher. “And…” He heard a horn somewhere in the distance, signaling that the compound was under attack. “They would seek revenge if we didn’t finish them for good. This is our way.”
Kudzu slowly nodded. “I understand.”
“You should have stayed in your fox form,” Jelmay told her as he moved on to his next kill. “We only have one horse now.”
“Actually…” Something flashed across her eyes. “They have a stable in there with at least a dozen horses. Maybe if we let them out, it will cause a little distraction. We could steal one as well.”
Danzen nodded. “That could work. I’m going to make my way to the instructor’s quarters, and will do my best to stay hidden. Meet me at the rendezvous point when you finish with the horses. If I’m not there within an hour, leave without me.”
“We didn’t make it this far to leave you behind,” Jelmay reminded him. “Now go, deal with your teacher; Kudzu and I will cause a little yokai-based trouble.” The bakeneko started to morph down to his cat form, a devilish grin forming on his face. “Good luck, Pilgrim. And see you in an hour.”
****
Danzen took the path he’d already mapped out during their scouting mission. He could hear someone blowing the horn, but he didn’t see anyone on the ground, Danzen wondering why the place wasn’t filling with guards.
At some point, he realized that stealth wouldn’t help him now that his cover had been blown, so he launched himself from one of the cliffs to a rooftop, and from there he ran in the direction of the instructor’s quarters, which towered over the back of the compound.
He dropped to the ground and ducked behind a movable wall used to teach assassins how to climb.
He waited.
A short breath out and he slipped around the wall, calling upon his enhanced speed. He reached the side of the instructor’s quarters and quickly scaled the rock, going again for the entrance he had pointed out last night.
He found an open window on the fifth floor and jumped from the cliff to the window ledge, quickly pulling himself inside.
Still, no one.
He didn’t know whose room it was, but the place was well-kept, Danzen quickly moving to the door. He paused, once again focusing on any potential movement in the hall.
