Chapter 96

Gared sat on the edge of his desk, arms folded, feet crossed at the ankle. He glared at the Diviner, who sat gracefully on one of the hardwood pews, eyes closed, smiling faintly.

"I want you to explain to me, without any of that "The Goddess works in mysterious ways" bullshit, why I should voluntarily break every precept of the Arm of the Sword- and of the Witch Hunters- subject myself to a death sentence, and bring dishonor to-" He paused for a moment, and forced the words out. "What’s left of my family." He raised his head and eyed the woman before him, who appeared to be in her late teens, but was actually older than he was.

She was of the Yamato, though afflicted with albinism, with milk-white skin, and eyes the color of blood. Her colorless hair was nearly as long as she was tall, and her dress was silvery-white, which only seemed to enhance her ethereal, inhuman nature.

"Because I can give you what you want, Gared." Araya replied simply.

"Bullshit, you don’t even know what I want. And you're prevaricating. Cut the shit." He replied brusquely.

"Now I see why Her Radiance was so interested in you." Araya replied, and his hands jerked apart in surprise.

"Wh-" He caught himself. "Don’t change the subject. No bullshitting. Straight."

"Are we alone?" Araya asked, though she already knew the answer to that question. She could sense the presence of every living thing in the Church, barring the possibility that Sasaki had brought that... thing... with her. She didn’t even know what it was, but it terrified her on a fundamental level she hadn’t thought possible.

Everyone radiated a presence, an aura, a vitality that was apparent to her, even when she was not in the room with them. With careful study, she was able to delve deeper and read the surface thoughts of those around her, though this was the least of her abilities. Her most potent ability was the sense of the future that came from each and every person around her, and the constant, conscious awareness of each choice they could or would make to change their future. When she was younger, it was overwhelming, but with discipline came strength.

That thing, though. It walked, it spoke, it behaved like a human being, appeared to be a human being, but radiated no sense of presence. A complete null, an absence of existence. An endless, yawning gulf of nothingness. Her ability to read the past and sense the future didn’t touch it. Whatever it was, it terrified Araya to her soul.

"Yes, we’re alone." He affirmed, and then shifted his gaze to her. "But I’m guessing you already knew that."

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. Even though she could see the future and its multitude of possibilities, there was only so much she could do to shift it. Some things were meant to happen the way they were supposed to happen, and although she could see the things that were to happen, she was helpless to change the fact that they needed to.

She took a breath, held it, and let it out. She knew what she wanted to say, what she should say. What was required of her to say. But if she could choose, if she could make some small change, then she would like to try.

"You have never been afraid of me, isn’t that so, Gared Grimaldus?" She asked curiously.

He shuffled his feet, scratched his cheek, and then, as if realizing what he was doing, forced his hand into a fist. "Stop avoiding the subject." He began, but she held up her hand. "I will tell you everything, I swear by The Golden Lady and by the honor of House Hasegawa. But... please. Answer me."

He sighed, shifted his position on the desk, crossed his arms. She tried scanning his surface thoughts, but for some reason his guard was up. She couldn’t read him. He’d always fascinated her because of that. Oh, she could read his past and future as easily as a playing card, she’d known everything she’d ever need to know about him from the moment she set eyes to him, but she couldn’t quite read his mind. Whenever she tried, he was somehow able to force her out.

"Your gifts are..." He made a gesture with his hand. "...unpleasant to think about. I’ve heard the stories. But each of us have our own burdens to bear." He began. She raised an eyebrow. She wasn’t expecting this. Strange.

"But you belong to the Arm of the Lily." He continued, referring to the overarching administrative body politic of the Church of Angland, the part of the church that controlled everything from the distribution of pastors and missionaries to the day-to-day running of the Empire itself. "You’re not a soldier, you don’t know war, or its costs. All that matters to the Lily is numbers on a sheet- wins and losses. To the Lily, I’m an asset, a resource, a tool. Too often the Lily sees the Sword expendable. You want an objective, and you’re not shy against throwing a hundred thousand lives away in a grab for that objective. You don’t know war, you don’t know the lives lost, or the pain of losing comrades you’ve lived and trained with for years."

He sighed. "My dislike of you is indiscriminate. I don’t like you because of what you represent, not who you are." He gestured. "This... thing you’re playing at- whatever it is, you don’t care about the people involved, or the costs to their lives. All you care about are the results."

"You’re wrong, I do care." She whispered.

"So talk." He finished flatly.

Araya sighed again. There were things she was going to say that she didn’t really want to say. Suddenly however, as she considered the tides of the future, there was a different possible future. It wasn’t complete, but things... things might change. Might be different. She would hurt him, and he would hurt her, and there were definitely things in that possible future she would never have expected at all to happen, but still, there was a fundamental difference- She could never see her own future. In this strange, wild, painful, and embarrassing future, she could see herself, and the consequences of her choices.

It was like a breath of fresh air.

"As a Diviner, I can see the past and the future." She began. "It’s not limited to the dreams I can give people, either. Even now, as we speak, I can see the future, and all its possibilities, settling into a new course, with each word we speak."

Gared froze, and gripped the edge of his desk so tightly the muscles in his arms tensed like cables.

"I know your past, and I know your future, Gared. I know what it is that you want." She began. She needed to speak plainly, but she was just as afraid of him as he was of her. Never in her life had she felt more vulnerable than at this moment.

"You hate having seen so many of your men sent to their deaths. You hate that you alone survived. You hate that you were never given chances to avenge them- or to follow them to their end. You feel cast aside, left to waste away at a desk job, while the Lily forces you to dispatch more and more soldiers to their deaths."

She was looking at her hands. They were folded together so tightly that her knuckles hurt.

"You say that to defy the Arm of the Sword and the Witch Hunters would be a death sentence. You don’t shy away from death, and in a way you crave it. But execution isn’t a warrior’s death, a soldier’s death." She paused. Her heart was pounding in her chest- no, it was like there was a fist inside of her, punching her ribcage, her heart was thundering so hard, it hurt.

"You’re the last of your line. There are no direct descendants left of the Grimaldus family."

She looked up at him, forced herself to meet his gaze. "With my authority as a member of the Lily, I could order you- and a detachment of soldiers to accompany you, should you like- to an area that will very soon be the site of an Urthan raid. To the Lily, this would be seen as a training exercise, thus getting you from behind your desk, and into harm’s way." She stopped for a second. She needed to keep going, but her heart hurt, and it was difficult to breathe.

"You will not survive the experience." She finally admitted, but there was more.

She eyed him speculatively. He was ugly. He was short. He was scarred. More than that, he wasn’t Yamato. She would have happily and comfortably chosen anyone else to be her partner had the opportunity arisen.

"If you agree to do this, then there is another boon that I can offer you than a soldier’s death, Gared." She whispered. "I will bear your child. A true heir to the Grimaldus line. They will inherit your honor."

The silence was thick between them in the Chapel of the Sword. No sword could cut it, no warmace could shatter it.

Finally, mercifully, he broke it.

"Tell-" He cleared his throat roughly. "Tell me what you need."

"Give Sasaki a gun, and the Auxiliary Mandate, as I requested yesterday." she began, examining the future she’d just forged. Everything was so tenuous, so fragile, like it was made of spun glass. A single breath could shatter it.

"Dispatch her to Apopka." She decided. "And leave orders here that... should she return, she’s to dispatch to Darnell. Have you heard the rumors?"

He blinked in confusion and shook his head.

She nodded. "Then it’s not important."

"So this is your gun." Gared announced to Sasaki without preamble after her arrival at the Chapel of the Sword. "It’s got two barrels, which means two shots." He gestured to the weapon in front of him, A pistol-gripped stubby thing that lacked any sort of grace or elegance. "It's got a walnut stock, cobalt blue steel and a hair trigger."

He shrugged sort of helplessly, "There’s no such thing as a "spare gun" here or anywhere for that matter, except maybe for Darnell- because that’s where they’re made, and whenever they’re found, that’s where they’re sent. This one... happened to be here, so this is what you get."

He gestured at the pile of ammunition on the table. "This is all the ammunition we have for the thing. Our gunpriests have examined the ammunition thoroughly." He paused and shrugged, "This is all of it. Whoever made these was an absolute madman; we can’t replicate how it was made. We don’t know how. Each shot spits out fire and burning hot shards of metal, meaning anything you shoot will also be set on fire. It’s got an extremely short range- don’t expect to reliably hit anything beyond a hundred feet." He picked up one of the shells, and tossed it back onto the table. "And by a hundred, I really mean about sixty." He pushed the shell he’d tossed onto the table back into the small pile. "You have twenty-eight shots. Originally there were thirty-two, but we first had to make sure the gun and ammunition worked, and then the gunpriests took two rounds in an attempt to reverse-engineer them. Any questions so far?" He asked, while Sasaki listened patiently to his lecture.

Sasaki wiggled her hand. "Will you show me how to break it down and clean it?" She asked, remembering Katarina’s constant maintenance on her own gun. Gared raised his eyebrow.

"Maybe you really were her apprentice." He muttered, but nodded. "Of course. but remember: two shots, and then you have to reload, plus they can only be done at short range, so make them count. Twenty-eight shots total, then the gun is essentially worthless until you get to Darnell. Likely the College of Firearms will have more ammunition there. Barring that, they can give you a different gun after you’ve been inducted as a proper Witch Hunter."

Sasaki opened her mouth, and then closed it, deciding to keep her comment to herself.

"Since you’re an ‘Auxillary’- a polite word for ‘mercenary’, I have an assignment for you. A little town east of here called Apopka."

Sasaki perked up at that. "I’ve seen Apopka. It’s abandoned." She replied.

"No shit." He replied dourly. "The village was lost to beastmen a couple of years back. You’re going to purify it."

Sasaki frowned in confusion at this proclamation. "Purify?"

Gared nodded. "With sword and fire. Kill anything that lives there now- beastmen, monsters, mutants, abominations, whatever, and burn it to the ground. Oh, and you’re to cleanse the mine as well. You see, we need that mine. We can’t establish a new village until we remove the old one. Purify it with fire."

"There are buried dead there." Sasaki reminded him, and he gave her a puzzled look. "Their souls rest with the Golden Lady."

Sasaki blinked. "Ah yes. You cremate your dead." She remembered aloud. He nodded. "That’s not the case with the Yamato?" She shrugged ambiguously at the question.

"So burn what’s left of the village down, and clear out the mine." She confirmed, and he nodded. "The Lily will see that a new village is established there, and the mine reopened, but that’s not your responsibility. You’re just there to cleanse and pacify. Also, if there’re any people there; kill them. They’re likely Urthan. We’re currently at war with them, so don’t feel obligated to keep them alive."

Sasaki nodded at that.

"When you get back, I’ll have new orders waiting for you. Do you have a horse?"

Sasaki opened her mouth to explain to him exactly what she thought of horses and provide him with a brilliant, scatological and blasphemous coupling he could attempt with such a beast, but she closed her mouth.

"No... no horse." She replied docilely.

"Will it be just you?" He asked. "I was told you arrived with others."

"Just one other. But we can handle Apopka." Sasaki affirmed.

"Good." He tossed a small pouch of silver on the table next to the ammunition. "That should be enough coin for two horses and some travelling gear. Don’t disappoint me."

Sasaki, remembering Katarina’s preparedness, purchased her horses and supplies. Among the items were the obvious bedroll, tinderbox, foodstuffs, a spool of rope, and a sundry of other items espoused by ‘adventurers’, like a pair of healing kits; a small bundle of bandages, suture, packets of healing herbs and what was commonly referred to as "health potions": a mixture of healing herbs brewed in wine and bottled in flasks. Everyone swore by them, but Sasaki herself hadn’t used them before, so worried over the expenditure. In the end, she bought two.

"I hate horses." Sasaki grumbled as she rode with Kuroyuki into a forest she had once trudged out of just ahead of Katarina a year prior.

"I hold no particular animosity or affection for them, mother," Kuroyuki began, but then added, "However, I do dislike the indignity that comes with riding one. My legs are exposed quite indecently." She complained.

"You should have worn a hakama, Kuro." Sasaki advised, glancing back at Kuroyuki. True to Kuroyuki’s word, her legs were bared to the thigh. Sasaki worried about that. Kuroyuki could sustain any number of scrapes, scratches, or insect bites, riding like that. How would Katarina handle the situation? She wouldn’t have to handle the situation; she wore trousers. Sasaki’s mouth twisted. She needed to stop questioning herself as to ‘what Katarina would do’. She had to forge her own path, gain her own status, so that- She cut herself off at that. Her original goal was to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Witch Hunter, share her companionship, her adventures, her successes and failures. To that end she’d abandoned home, family, and country, only to discover the shocking truth that Katarina had, in her absence, died.

"Fuck." She spat bitterly. It was a mockery of everything she’d sacrificed, a joke.

The road that led from Aston to ... what was it, Higgen-something? "Ah, Higgenfal", she muttered to herself, was rutted, canopied by trees. Apopka was a goodly distance in, though she couldn’t tell how quickly she’d get there, since the last time she’d traveled this way had been on foot.

"I cannot wear the hakama of a warrior as I am no warrior, mother." Kuroyuki replied, as if it made any difference. Sasaki immediately worried again about scrapes, scratches, and the inevitable bites from bugs and animals. Kuroyuki was a strange girl; would she have any way to defend herself?

Suddenly she wondered if she should have left Kuroyuki back in Aston.

"I’m a terrible mother." She spat to herself. She should have thought of that before setting out into the fucking wilds. She stopped her horse and looked back to Kuroyuki.

"Do you want to wait for me in Aston, Kuro?" She asked, and the young woman blinked at the question.

"Whyever should I want that, mother?" She asked honestly. "I said before that I wish to see the world with you. Where you go, I will follow."

Sasaki let out a breath, and idly touched the gun tucked into the sash at her waist.

"Fine." She decided, and urged her horse forward. She’d never had to protect someone else, before. It was always just her and the sword. Fighting alongside Katarina was like that as well. They fought together.

The forest canopy made it difficult to assess daylight. Should she make camp before arriving in Apopka, and then enter what was left of the village at dawn? Should she ride into Apopka and make her camp there? Should she simply start a fire at the junction where this road and the road to Apopka joined, wait for the fire to cease, and then clear out the mine? Should she just burn the village? When she burned the village, should she douse the blaze afterward?

Stupid. She should have thought of such things before setting out. She’d look the fool if she went back to Gared for answers, though.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Her sword was cleaned and polished. Her knives sharp. On her arm was a bracer that fired three long steel darts in succession. She had her gun. Moreover, she herself was a weapon, trained in deadly arts that were now considered forbidden in Yamato. "I am dangerous." she’d once proudly proclaimed to Katarina, but this was different.

Ah. She realized. She was simply nervous. All she had to do was prove herself. She’d done it before, in a hundred duels, in a long, bloody rampage that left a trail of bodies in her wake as she fought her way across the yamato isles. In her travels from Einsamkeit to Higgenfall she’d slain mutants and beastmen alike without fear. The only obvious difference is that it was a "mission", a job that had to be done in exchange for a reward.

Nothing was different. If it were necessary to kill, she would kill.

Travel was slow because Sasaki didn’t trust her equestrian skills, and she kept looking over at Kuroyuki to make sure she was all right, though the younger woman hadn’t voiced a single complaint.

Sasaki could have left Kuroyuki in Yamato, she realized. Kuroyuki would likely have made her whole family happy with how refined, dignified, and composed she was. There was no reason she couldn’t have done so, were it not for her self-imposed exile and banishment.

More decisions, made in haste. She grimaced to herself. Was everything going to be a series of hasty decisions and regrets?

She paused, drawing her horse to a stop. More to the point, where was the road to Apopka?

"Keep an eye out for a wooden sign, Kuro." She offered to the other woman. "It should be somewhat difficult to see, since Apopka was deserted and the road neglected, but we should be able to find it if we’re attentive." She gestured to the side of the road. "It’ll be along this side of the road, if I recall correctly."

"And that thing, mother?" Kuroyuki asked, pointing in the complete opposite direction. Sasaki tried to turn her horse, but couldn’t figure out how to do so; She jerked around in her saddle, letting her sword drop from her shoulder to her hand, and remembering Katarina grabbing her leg and swinging it over the saddle, tried to do the same thing. Instead, she overcompensated, booting her horse in the neck, which caused it to jolt forward, upsetting Sasaki’s precarious balance. She fell off the horse and into the mud.

She rolled to her feet, and spotted what Kuroyuki was pointing at; A giant lizard about half the height of her horse and about twice as long from arrowhead-shaped head to the tip of its bony tail.

It surged towards the two of them with uncanny speed; Sasaki immediately drew her sword; it responded by belching a gust of flame towards her. Her horse bolted, screaming, Sasaki rolled out of the way.

Gripping her bared sword by the handle, Sasaki closed her eyes and ran her fingers lightly down the side of the blade. "I am the blade." She whispered, as if in prayer. "I am the sword. The sword knows no fear. The sword knows no doubt. The sword knows no hesitation."

No hesitation. Some idle thought flickered through her head, but she was already moving, lunging forward, blade ready to swing. The beast awkwardly hopped sideways; Sasaki pushed off the ground with her feet, twisting her body like an acrobat so that both feet hit the trunk of a tree. She sprang off of it, her sword a glimmering line that bit into the lizards scaly hide. Her momentum carried her over the thing, and it immediately screeched and swung its bony club of a tail at her like a bludgeon. Sasaki couldn’t avoid it, the blow knocked her rolling.

Her training asserted itself; she turned the roll into a controllable slide, sandaled feet digging into the loamy soil of the forest. The lizard belched a gust of flame at her again, and Sasaki twisted away and rolled to her feet again. The underbrush was burning, acrid smoke stinging her eyes and making them water.

She glanced around; she couldn’t see Kuroyuki or her horse- or the road for that matter. She ran her hand down the back of her blade, focusing her will. Each maneuver she performed was forbidden; abandoned and intentionally forgotten, the techniques labeled as dishonorable.

But this was against a monster of a beast; honor was irrelevant. Flash Step, Wall Hop, Soul in the Blade; all of these were perfectly fine to use against a beast of this size.

Sasaki took a breath, and lunged forward, twisting her wrists to bring all of her momentum to boost the strength of her cut.

Unfortunately, she misjudged the height of the lizard; her blade arced over it harmlessly. Still, she slammed into the lizard and rebounded, and switched to an overhead strike, intending to bring the thing down.

The lizard belched another rush of flame, Sasaki immediately swung her sword as if to cleave the fire in two; her blade passed right through, but the tip of her sword slashed through the lower jaw of the thing. Sasaki leapt back, letting her instincts allow her to fall into a roll in an attempt to smother the flames licking at her clothes.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t a drake like she’d encountered with Katarina; those relied upon some form of flammable spittle. It seemed to be exhaling some form of flammable gas that didn’t stick and splatter like a drake’s.

The lizard let out a rattling screech again; Sasaki couldn’t see it through the haze of smoke, but the sound pinpointed it easily enough.

Sasaki considered her options. Flash Step assumed her foe was at least human height. Her first cut didn’t seem to wound it much; the thing was armored well with those scales. The darts from her bracer might penetrate it, but she wasn’t certain she could hit a vital spot without seeing her target.

She had picked up a number of "hidden", "secret", and "forbidden" techniques, but they were taxing on her, physically and mentally draining. She could use a sequence of wall hops to move from tree to tree, building up momentum and then launching herself downward to pierce the thing’s skull, but if she missed her timing her strike would be wasted. It was time to up the ante.

"Please let this work." She muttered, and ran her hand down the blade of her sword again; Soul in the Blade. It was a necessary prerequisite for the more advanced techniques she knew.

"Strike of Unlimited Possibility." She muttered, and then leapt forward like an arrow launched towards her target. This was it; she had to land this hit. She’d committed everything.

A strange feeling; excitement, euphoria, exhilaration, brute savagery, exhaustion, all of it rushed through her. Her eyesight dimmed to a single point. Her ears roared; her heart throbbed painfully, her chest constricted as though breathing was an impossibility; her arms seemed numb, flimsy, immovable, and yet at the moment of impact Her blade flickered out like lightning.

Each strike landed; some merely bit into the hide, some cut deep into flesh, one strike dragged a gaudy slash just under the lizard’s eye, several left telling cuts at the vulnerable juncture between head and neck. Blood sprayed in savage arcs, and just as quickly as the surge of power washed over Sasaki it left, and she fell to her knees, drained. The lizard, however, had decided to seek easier prey elsewhere; it sprang from the ground , swarmed up the trunk of a tree, still screeching, then launching itself to another tree, and still another; it was running.

Suddenly, it seemed like Sasaki’s chest unlocked; she took a deep, gasping breath of the smoke-laden air and immediately wished she hadn’t as she broke out into a fit of coughing.

Hands tugged at her, Sasaki looked up with swimming eyes, her chest afire; someone was trying to drag her away. She blinked rapidly; it seemed to be Kuroyuki.

Sasaki tried to rise to her feet, but they moved sluggishly. She felt weak and helpless like a kitten. Somehow though, Kuroyuki was able to help Sasaki out onto the road, where she lay in the cool mud, taking great gulps of air.

"Fuck." Sasaki croaked, and then curled up into another fit of coughing. Embarrassing; disgraceful, shameful. Sasaki was absurdly grateful Katarina was not able to see her like this.

When she felt like she was able to sit up, she did so, and examined herself. Dirty, splotched with mud. Her arms and face were burned by the thing’s fire breath. The technique she’d used had a high price and she hadn’t even killed the thing. Strike of Unlimited Possibilities forcibly allowed her to make a blinding number of slashes, almost all of which were useless against the thing. A piercing thrust, her darts, or even her gun would have been more effective. Stupid, foolish, reckless. Futile.

Sasaki curled into a ball, and whether her eyes watered from the acrid smoke of the burning underbrush or from tears, she couldn’t say.