The clouds rolled in, setting a grim shadow upon the Black Rabbit compound. Elucard stood quivering. The entire clan knelt around a bridge that ran over a creek. Ryjin stood cold and still, his hands folded across his chest. Jetta’s lifeless body lay strewn on the stone ground. Her clothes were soaked through from a gaping opening in her throat. Her eyes, stricken open from witnessing her own traumatic demise, stared blankly at Elucard…

His nails dug into his palms as his fist tightly closed, turning his skin a ghostly white. His body trembled as he struggled to stand, “J-Jetta…”

A silence blanketed the retreat.

Elucard’s face wrinkled in complete anguish as he began to bawl uncontrollably. He fell to her body, cradling her in his arms. Her blood seeped into his clothes as he held her tightly in his embrace. He felt that if he held her tighter, he might rouse her from her bloody slumber.

“I wasn’t there… I wasn’t there to protect you. I’m sorry! Please don’t do this. I’m so sorry.”

Inle slowly moved forward, crouching down beside his grieving friend, “Elucard, it was for the best. Now you can move on without conflict or confusion.”

Elucard clenched his eyes shut, he sucked in lungs of air, and stopped his crying before exhaling a single question, “Inle, what do you mean?”

Elucard turned and stared at his masked pupil with eyes hot from tears.

Inle placed a hand on Elucard’s shoulder, “Elucard, you knew this day was coming. You knew she needed to be dealt with. She was corrupting your mind. You couldn’t think clearly with her around. A blade is only as sharp as the Rabbit wielding it.”

Confusion scryed over the elf’s face. Elucard spoke quietly, “Inle, did you know about this?”

Inle shook his head, “It doesn’t matter who was involved, Elucard. You need to let her go. With the king’s soldi–”

“Who did this?” Elucard asked with a biting chill.

“It doesn’t matter, Elucard,” Inle said again.

“Who did this?! Who killed Jetta?!” Elucard shouted at the top of his lungs. Elucard snapped his head, searching for any Rabbit brave enough to come forth with the truth. Finally, his eyes rested on Ryjin.

Elucard softly laid down Jetta’s body and made his way toward the Silent Master, “Tell me. Who did this?”

Ryjin slightly raised his chin, “Take her body and bury her. Put her to rest and beg Alanna to take pity on her traitorous soul. Mourn for however long you must, and then put it behind you. That is what I expect—no, command of my First Blade.”

Elucard’s eyes shifted from a tormented sadness to a deathly coolness as thoughts raced through his head, “Ryjin. Who killed Jetta.”

The Silent Master replied slowly with a dangerous edge in his voice, “Bury her, and bury your hatred with her. I will not tell you again.”

Elucard gently picked up the lifeless body of his childhood friend and walked toward the woods. Calling back to the assassins watching, “Pray to Alanna I never find the Rabbit who did this.”

***

“You saw stars in even the cloudiest of nights, Jetta. I don’t know how you did it, but you never gave in. You never surrendered and they tried to extinguish the flame that burned inside of you. And here we are,” Elucard chuckled as he stood over the makeshift grave marker. Her blood stained his garbs and gloves. He had no more tears to shed for his fallen friend, “I made a promise to protect you, and in the end, it was you who protected me. You know, my father and you might have been right all along, but I don’t know if any of that matters now.”

Elucard quickly drew his sword. He wasn’t alone anymore, “Have you come to pay your respects?”

Inle had a hand resting on his blade’s handle and stepped cautiously from the shadows. He knelt in front of the grave and said a silent prayer to Alanna, “You should have played your cards better, Jetta. In another lifetime, perhaps.”

Elucard turned to Inle, “I never told you about what I did to become a Rabbit, Inle.”

“I’ve heard rumors…” Inle said quietly, not sure of the purpose of the conversation.

“Three of my friends from Ravenshore – we survived the Blood Forest together. They ran away from the Rabbits, hoping to start a new life away from it all. I had the chance to join them, but I killed them instead.”

Inle nodded, “You did the right thing, Master.”

“I don’t know that I did. I don’t know that anything I do is the right thing anymore,” Elucard said. Exhaustion and confusion set in as he buried his face in his palms.

“Master, that’s Jetta talking. Do not listen to her, remember your lessons, remember who your family is.”

“My family… my family is in Ravenshore wondering how their son became so lost. My family is in the ground before our feet. My family would never have me kill my king or my friends. My family is who I promised to protect!” Elucard spat as he turned his head to face the shadow elf, “My family is not the Black Rabbits!”

Inle stepped backwards, a hand still on his sword handle, “Elucard, please, I don’t want to harm you. No blood has to be shed tonight.”

“You forget so soon? Blood has already been shed,” Elucard sneered, sliding his blade from its sheath, “Stand aside, Inle. This clan has manipulated me long enough. It is time I dealt retribution.”

Inle drew his blade, “The Silent Master was right, you are a defective tool. That bitch has twisted you too much. Her death was supposed to put her mind games to rest. I wish I cut her throat myself!”

Elucard roared, tears flowing from his eyes as he rushed his former student, “The Rabbits have poisoned every aspect of my life. They strip away the potential you have and replace it with the drive to murder, and for what?” Elucard yelled as he savagely swung his blade.

Inle parried and unleashed a ruthless backhand, swiveling Elucard’s head, “The drive to murder? Have you forgotten our divine purpose in life? There is no greater honor than to live and die by the Black Rabbit’s blade!”

Elucard snapped his head back fast enough to dodge a series of thrusts from Inle’s sword, “How can you think Alanna would want us to slay the innocent for coin? Inle, they feed us lies! I saw the prince’s eyes when I took his father away from him. I was a fool to think that a man uniting his people deserved to die! It brought me no closer to the glory the Rabbits promised! How is a society supposed to function if there are individuals that live outside the law?”

Inle jumped, spinning into a roundhouse kick that sent Elucard sliding backwards, “You spew the same bile as Jetta. It pains me to see you as an enemy. I loved you!”

Elucard took out a fan of shurikens, “Rabbits are incapable of love, Inle.”

Even before the shurikens plunged into his chest, it was as if Elucard clenched and crushed Inle’s heart. Wide eyed and speechless, Inle stood entranced as he took a flying kick to the head and crashed to the ground. He slowly recovered to his feet, his head lowered, his mask veiled in the shadows.

Elucard readied his blade before charging once more into the fray. Inle broke from his daze and fired several mad swipes with his blade, slicing gruesomely into Elucard’s side and right shoulder.

Elucard ignored the sharp pain and unleashed a flurry of slashes. Several connected, spraying blood from the grievous wounds. Elucard finished with a heavy kick to Inle’s chest, making him reel backwards.

Inle slid, catching himself with an arm and knee as he fell to the ground. Lifting his sword, Inle leaped at his former Master, cutting deeper into Elucard’s side. The clown-assassin spun neatly, attempting to lop off Elucard’s head, but the elf from Ravenshore was quick to raise his sword behind and block.

Both blades were locked in a struggle. Inle’s energy and rage slowly rose, “I did it all for you! For you, Elucard!”

Elucard slowly lifted Inle’s blade away from his exposed neck. With the flick of his wrist, he was able to fling it out of Inle’s grip, sending it deep into a tree, “Don’t let your sick delusions fool you, Inle! You did it all for yourself!”

Inle slid a pair of small daggers into his hands and threw them at his enemy. Elucard back flipped several feet, dodging them with grace.

Elucard landed, breathing hard. The gaping wound in his side poured blood onto the grassy forest floor. Inle frantically ran to his sword, which was still stuck in the tree. Elucard snapped a shuriken through the air, catching Inle’s palm as he reached for his weapon.

Inle growled in pain, giving Elucard enough time to dropkick Inle onto his back. While kneeling on top of him, Elucard heaved his sword, face down, over Inle’s chest and stabbed downward. Elucard stopped just short of the shadow elf’s chest, “Pull off your mask, Inle!”

Inle slowly complied, removing his mask, eyes wide in fear.

“You won’t die tonight, not you.” Elucard hissed, thunder bellowed across the heavy night skies.

“No one will ever love you the way I did!” Inle whispered, his eyes now flared with passion.

The rain came down fast and hard. Blood seeped into the pores of the wet ground. Elucard stood, towering over his apprentice, his sword still pointed at Inle’s cut up chest, “I want you to understand this, Inle. I want you to watch this clan burn. I want you to have it all come down around you. And when you have suffered as much as me, then I will kill you.”

“Elu–” Inle started.

A hefty kick across Inle’s face rendered him out cold.

***

The winds howled as Elucard entered the compound. The rain was relentless. It pounded on his shoulders and the wind bid him to turn around. But his hatred possessed him and so onward he marched.

Staggering into the familiar center of the Black Rabbit compound, Elucard hunched over, leaning slightly on his and Inle’s swords, as if they were canes. Elucard lifted his head and sneered at Ryjin, who seemed unmoved by his dramatic reappearance.

“The Black Rabbits have tipped the scales…” Elucard could hardly speak, faint with the loss of blood.

Ryjin snapped his fingers, signaling for all the assassins to draw their weapons and move closer to Elucard, “You are nothing but a rabid dog. You must be put down.”

Blood dripped down both sides of his mouth as Elucard responded, “Will you put me down, Ryjin, or will one of your other dogs do it for you?”

Ryjin smirked, “Kill him.”

The Rabbits roared as nearly a hundred bodies leapt into the night to strike Elucard down. Elucard spun wildly, parrying and deflecting steel with his two swords. Taking well placed strikes, Elucard moved his way through the crowd, decimating and maiming his former clan mates. Bodies dropped into a bloody heap behind him. However, Elucard moved slower and slower as swords, sais, and daggers shredded and punctured his body. The closer he moved to Ryjin, the weaker and more sluggish he became.

Elucard fell to his knees at the feet of the Silent Master, blood and rain soaking through his clothes. He could no longer lift his arms nor his head.

“Who k-killed J-Jetta?” he murmured, barely aware of his surroundings.

Ryjin grabbed the weary Elucard by the throat, lifting him up so that they were eye to eye, “You’ll die, never knowing,” the Silent Master whispered in his ear.

With adrenaline pumping through Elucard’s body, he let out a soul shattering scream as he lifted both his swords and cross cut the hand that choked him. Ryjin reeled his head back in pain as his handless wrist gushed and sprayed blood across Elucard’s face.

Ryjin sneered, gritting his teeth as he landed a savage blow to Elucard’s chest with his remaining fist. Elucard’s chest compressed as his heart rattled. Landing hard, several feet away, Elucard lay sprawled on his back, drifting dangerously close to death.

The rain patted down on Elucard’s sleepy face, “Jetta, wait for me. Wait for me at the old willow tree.”

Elucard heaved in a great whiff of breath as he rolled over. Sputtering up the iron taste of blood, he used his last bit of new found energy to stand. Rabbits to either side of him cautiously shuffled forward, over their fellow clansmen that blanketed the ground. Ryjin seethed pure anger, shivering in pain while grasping his bloody stump.

It was as if all time paused in a brief moment of solace. Elucard reached into a pouch and exploded a smoke pellet on the ground, concealing a last ditch effort to escape the dire situation.

“After him!” Ryjin shouted over and over as the pursuing assassins pierced through the smoky cover.

***

Elucard ran as fast as his battered body could take him, but collapsed at the cliff face of a waterfall. The waters rushed, more powerful from the stormy weather. Elucard gripped his swords with a slippery, blood-soaked grip, waiting for any assassin to catch up to him. Legion moved into the moonlight from the shadows.

Elucard surrendered his blades to the feet of his friend and mentor, “So it ends here?”

Legion kicked the swords aside in a clatter. He lifted up his student’s bloody heap of a body, “Elucard, do you remember when you asked me if I kept any humanity?”

“Yes, Master,” Elucard sputtered.

“You are my humanity, Elucard,” Legion kissed the forehead of the dying elf, before dropping him over the waterfall.

Several assassins approached Legion, “Where is he?”

Legion passed them heading back to the compound, “It is done.”