The Angel of Subjugation - Part One: Chapter One
As a foreword, I would like to congratulate myself for doing absolutely nothing with this Substack when actually releasing my first novel. I’m so humbled by the opportunity and I hope to keep exceeding everybody’s subterranean expectations.
Anyway, I’ve decided to release the entire first chapter of the novel here on Substack to give a better taste of what to expect than what some shoddy auto-generated Amazon sample can provide. If you enjoy what you see here, please do consider picking up a copy at Amazon or at least sharing this sample around. I’m glad you decided to dedicate some of your limited time to reading my work, but with that said, on with the sample.
The following text is presented in unaltered form, as it appears in the final product. While I’m aware of some mistakes that only came to light after publication, they’ve not been altered so as to provide an authentic reflection of the work as a whole.
A chill wind grazes my face as my eyes finally open. I don’t need to be yet fully conscious to recognize that my situation is… ugh, to describe it as “dire” would greatly undersell it. My eyes fight the piercing glow of the sun to witness the travesty I barely escaped with my life. The small vessel that just hours ago I had been the prisoner of is now a barren, broken husk that clings to the rocky spires that had so nearly grinded me into paste, sticking out from the thunderous, crashing waves like a sore thumb. Half of it is lost to the depths whilst the other half displays its sorry self for the entire world to see, with the last of the embers that had engulfed it pathetically withering away atop its decrepit mast. Bits and pieces of its exterior are dispersed through the waters, and a lucky few have even ended up on the beach with me. A support beam here, a piece of an engine there… what hideous decoration. My sister always wanted to visit a beach; laying her eyes upon this travesty would swiftly change her mind.
My back and outstretched arms have become all too acquainted with the soft but cold sand that makes up this small beach - where rocky hills enveloped by trees form natural walls for this sandy enclosure - and my legs are dangerously close to where the tide has climbed. Had I ended up much further down, I would have faced a rather humiliating death, but I should count my blessings that I managed to survive in the first place.
Now, what would my esteemed mentor do at a time like this? It’s an easy enough question to ask, but an exceedingly difficult one to answer when bereft of his company. A man of infinite wisdom, infinite resourcefulness, infinite pragmatism; an idol to everything a man ought to be. He would easily jump up to his feet, shake off the sand like a drenched dog and walk his way back home merrily, his journey pathed out before his eyes even opened. But I’m not that. Despite absorbing years of his teachings, I’m as out of my depth on this one as any common man on the street; I’m in the middle of a completely unknown land with only the clothes on my back. All I can do is hope I stumble my way into a solution. In a way, I’m glad he isn’t here to watch me embarrass myself the moment I’m off his leash.
Not wanting to waste any more time, I begin to bend my legs and push my hands into the ground when-
“AAACK!”
I’m sent tumbling back to the ground as a strong jolt of pain shoots up my right leg; said leg crashing into the sand only exacerbates the problem. After my tumble, I can do little else but lay there with burdened groaning in place of the incessant screaming I have nary the energy for. Once the pain begins to withdraw, I raise my head to identify the source: a shard of wood, lodged into my right shin while just barely penetrating its front, and I have no doubts my disastrous attempt to get back on my feet had enabled it to burrow even further within. Worse yet, the wound has begun bleeding anew. I can’t afford to let this problem fester, and so I get to work removing my cloak and then shirt, recalling as much of Saki’s scant teachings as I can. The dark blue cloak Kyrie gave me for my birthday is unfortunately damaged, with cuts and rips dispersed throughout the beautiful fabric – not beyond repair, thankfully, but it still troubles me greatly, as it’s all I have of her at this moment. However, the priority at this time is its internal contents, and as I scramble through its contents I am pleased to discover my serrated knife still in its scabbard, as well as a pen contained in a small, buttoned pouch.
But within this same pouch is a possession not of my own: a strange, small doll with buttons for eyes. It has many strands of stringy brunette hair protruding from its head and is wearing a robe of blinding white. Where and how did this end up in here? I’ve certainly never seen it before. Did it belong to that bastard on the boat? If so, I’ll take some glee in robbing him of his possession, even one as… strange as this. I ought to just cast it to the sea like a worthless stone… but there’s an uncanny familiarity to it that I can’t pin down, and this is all the justification I need to return it to my pocket. Perhaps this act of theft will invoke yet more bad luck upon me, but it’s the only revenge I can enact at this time.
Once again hard set on the task at hand, I remove the lock that covers and tightly secures the knife’s hilt, taking it into my right hand, and begin hacking away at my shirt, producing some makeshift bandages from the ordeal. I set the bandages to one side on the sand with the pen atop them, and take a long, hard look at the oozing wound. This will be far from painless, but… well, the alternative is slowly bleeding to death, and I at least have enough of my wits left to determine which is preferable. Besides, Kyrie will personally hunt my ghost down if I perish to a problem so pitiful. After bracing myself for the pain, I grasp the thick end with my right hand and pull it downwards with as much force as I can muster. The sharp pain is barely tolerable but in just a few seconds, the shard of wood is removed, and my hand falls to the floor, limp from the exertion.
Once my blood obscures the gleam of the sun on my thumb, I force myself back into action, covering the wound with the bandages - taking care that any parts that made contact with the sand don’t come close to it – and securing it in place by rotating the pen despite the dull, aching wishes of every muscle in my arms. The terrible tourniquet is complete, if not particularly effective. If by some miracle I end up ten years in the past, I’ll stop at nothing to find myself of the time and force him to pay more attention to Saki’s teachings.
With the dismal self-doctoring complete and my vision mostly cleared, I can finally absorb more of my surroundings. In addition to the rocky walls at my left and right that reach maybe 30 meters into the sea itself, I look behind me to discover I am closer to the upper edge of this beach than expected, being met by a dense forest with sparse hints of ice and snow forming along its perimeter. A foreboding path leading into abject darkness lies within its centre, laying behind me as though setting foot in there is an act of tempting fate itself. Will I be eaten by a wild animal the moment I set foot in there? I don’t fancy sitting on this beach for the rest of my life, so I have to take my chances, two functioning legs or no. I put back on what remains of my shirt in addition to my cloak and force myself onto my legs. Just standing up proves to be painful, let alone continuous walking, but I summon the strength to power on through the path’s opening regardless.
My eyes growing accustomed to the harsh sunlight proved to be short lived once I limped into the forest, as the dense oak trees are making a commendable effort to prevent any and all sunlight from highlighting this doomed soul’s plight - this has made it exceedingly difficult to assess the physical damage I’ve suffered, but I can at least make out that my prosthetic thumb has been twisted slightly, maybe by 30 degrees or so at its central joint. It’s producing an unsettling sensation in my nerves now that I’m aware of it, but it’s not exactly painful, per se. I’m not particularly bothered by the lack of light; the subdued gloom in addition to the lack of any sounds aside from the irregular chirping of birds affords me some time to ponder as I navigate the linear path.
While I should be devoting my speculation to who exactly abducted me and for what purpose, I can’t help but worry about my family I left behind in Ford; I was thankfully separate from them whilst I was accosted, but if my survival at the cost of my abductors’ lives is learnt of, I can only hope they aren’t targeted for retribution. Confirming their safety is of utmost priority, but that begs an even greater question.
Where am I?
I have no idea how long I was held in that ship for before my escape, but surely I remain in Morosus still? A trek across even half of the country would take weeks, if not months; the idea of ending up in another country only complicates the issue by orders of magnitude, due in no small part to the ongoing war between Morosus and Ennui.
My pondering is brought to a swift halt once I reach a fork in the road: a stone path to my left, with unlit and (formerly) Tenkite-powered lanterns atop poles roughly half my height running parallel across each side of it – a dirt road to my right, still muddy and wet from the rain in which I had made my unceremonious departure from the ship. Thinking the solution to be obvious, I look away from the dirt road and begin taking a step towards the stone path. My foot is not even able to make its first footstep before I’m frozen by what I find before me: A… cobra, coated in black with white stripes breaking up the stygian tedium, emerging from the bushes.
…a cobra, here?!
My foot touches the ground once again as its full body emerges, coiling into a circle at the left edge of the path some ten meters away from me and slowly opening its maw, inviting me into its digestive system. From this distance, I’m certain I’ve seen a cobra such as this one before- no, I’m certain this is the same one I saw in my childhood; the black and white pattern of its face is an exact match. A chill runs down my spine, and while frozen in place, I can only blink as I await my fate – and then she appears.
“Why, oh, why, Vega? Why look at my precious with such disdain in your bright little eyes?”
Sitting on the tree stump right next to the cobra, she speaks down to me in an accusatory yet mocking tone with her exposed back facing me and her hand beneath the cobra’s chin, gently tickling it with her right hand as its expression changes from disdain for its prey to joyous glee… at least, as gleeful as I imagine a snake can look.
“My serpentine darling is bestowing upon thee a gift, and I beckon you to regard it with open arms.”
Her presence explains to me in an instance the cobra’s familiarity, and with her demand made, she finally turns around to face me, crossing her legs in extravagant fashion as her devilish, childishly elated grin looks exactly as it did all those years ago. With more for me to witness than just her face this time, I can finally affirm that my saviour is as suspicious-looking as she is appealing to the eye, adorned in a crimson dress that reaches down to her ankles - with sparkling golden trims at its edges and little coverage of her ample breasts. Her asymmetrical skirt reveals a pair of legs that tread the earth with only a pair of brown sandals, in stark contrast to the blood red nails found on the appendages of both her feet and hands. None of this seems out of the ordinary, until you look at her hair… or the lack thereof; she’s completely bald, with only a spindly silver tiara in place of hair. A small image of a snake eternally coiling in a circle lies inside the gem that rests within the centre of the tiara.
All of this is present and accounted for, but there’s something else that catches my eye yet – across her chest is a gruesome scar, reaching across the entirety of what she exposes of her upper chest. It looks faded but deep, and stands out strongly from her fair skin. I can’t say for sure if this is a newly acquired wound or if I simply never noticed it before, but I’m leaning towards the latter given its seeming age. Either way, her very presence is difficult for the eyes to process; had I not met her in my early youth, I would be eyeing her with substantial suspicion, as would any sane man.
“Who… who are you?”
“Who am I?” she says haughtily as she raises her cobra-coated arm to her face, stroking the head of the critter in question with her finger, “My dear, there’s one thing you ought to know about this world: knowledge is only as powerful as those who can hear of it. And yet, as a battered little boy and with your tongue constricted in such a manner, you pursue that which you cannot share regardless?”
…in retrospect, my question really was thoughtless. Considering I can’t even so much as write about her, let alone speak of her, who am I to pursue anything from her?
“But I’m feeling generous. What good is it to step in on your behalf and leave you with no name? Not that I would lose sleep over the matter, of course.” she continues, much to my shock, and daintily strolls ever closer to me with each set of cryptic words to leave her mouth, “The inhabitants of this world have called me by many names. All of them long lost to time, of course, but names carry power, and an alias too to a limited extent. Cacophitas, Anta-Rakamos, many more you will never find in a history book…”
My mind is telling me to remain steadfast, but my body is insisting otherwise; I’ve been pacing backwards as she approaches, and now my back is against a tree whilst she pushes forward yet. The sensation is suffocating, much like our first meeting; her presence alone is far more overpowering than the dreadful tunnels of the Basin.
“But my true name is Sihan-Perseli. Commit my name to memory if you must, for you obviously cannot chronicle such a thing.”
Having answered the question I now wish never left my lips, she at last backs away, maintaining an unclear expression.
I’m completely unsure what to make of it. Sihan-Perseli… I can’t construe meaning from such a strange name, and further yet why she would provide it to me. Is she trying to… tell me something? I certainly can’t share it or make any real use of it. Is she… tormenting me?
“W…why did you tell me that?!”
“You did ask me.” she says with a yet more gruesome smirk, “Anyway, I am certain it requires no explanation from myself, but for clarification, whatever choice you intend to take at this moment will result in…”
SWOOSH!
“…your certain death~”
Her final words are accompanied by a spear materialising into her hand as she runs it hair-raisingly close to her throat. I no longer have any idea if she genuinely means to warn me or decided to stomp on my face as I entered another spot of bother.
That being said... if she held any ill will towards me, I would have died before I even saw ten years of age. With no reason to doubt the sincerity of her warning, I reluctantly accept her words, but the continued silence as to her intentions, her origins, her… anything is as aggressive as ever, perhaps moreso now that I’m not a frail little boy anymore. If she had never showed up again, I could have chalked her up to being an imaginary friend or a childhood guardian angel. Now that she stands here before me again, in the flesh and very much real, all I can do is wonder what ulterior motive she holds; I don’t fancy dancing to the pull of any puppetmaster’s strings, no matter their allegiance. Regardless, I have no idea when we shall meet again, so I’ll take any chance for answers I can get.
“If I could get you to produce a name, is there any chance you could tell me what it is you want of me? I enjoyed leading a simple life; if you’ve some grand ambitions for me, then our wishes align not.”
I keep myself reserved and calm as I pose the request, doing my best not to let the anxiety pour into my words like a busted fountain. The smirk on her face doesn’t even finish forming before the regret sinks in.
“I have shared everything that you are at liberty to know of, Vega”
Ugh… while I’m frustrated that she remains tight-lipped as ever, I also can’t help but feel utterly defeated by my own ignorance, especially in matters pertaining to my life or death. It would be avaricious to demand more from a woman who saved my life, but she’s really leaving me to grasp at straws in a most tormenting manner. She may well be the only entity in all the world who could befuddle Kyrie through words alone.
Satisfied by the bewildered look on my face, she at last perks up and snaps her fingers.
“That cloak looks good on you! Until we meet again~!”
Upon the utterance of her cheery farewell message, I rush forward as fast as my wounded leg will allow, begging her to stop and reaching out my arm towards her, hoping to grab onto anything; risking a cobra bite is little deterrent from gaining at least a small facet of the answers I’ve sought for ten years now. Sure enough, a few meters away from her, I am forced to blink by the wind rushing into my eyes, and she disappears along with her pet before my eyes open once more. An ugly scowl scrawls itself across my face; what would I have even done if I could have reached her? Slapped some answers out of her? In a state such as this? What a miserable exchange; all I can do is obey her warnings had march along the dirt road, uncertain of what future Sihan-Perseli has waiting for me.
It takes roughly an hour of walking through the dirt path to catch a glimpse of civilization once more: as the trees recede, giving way for the gloomy grey clouds to look down upon me once more, I catch a glimpse of a mountain – not a particularly large one, but an impressive sight nonetheless. I’d sooner see this on Ford’s horizon than the Skyspur and the grim memories stapled to it. The mountain is shaped in a distinctive way, as if reaching its arms as wide as it can to swallow up as much of the little village in front of it as possible, and even from this distance I can see a tower of red and white standing by its lonesome at an elevated lot of land beneath the central peak, with a single wooden bridge connecting it to the rest of the settlement below, rendered slightly harder to see by black smoke with an origin closer to me but yet unseen. The distinctive red and white bring to mind a certain place: Tenryuu. But… surely I can’t be that far from home, right? That would imply my captors somehow snuck through the raging naval war taking place between Morosus and Ennui, a naval war just as violent and dreadful as the warfare one finds on land.
Seeking confirmation, I pick up the pace, rushing forward as the makeshift tourniquet unravels and becomes one with the wind, but the still pressing pain in my leg is completely overshadowed by a single, dominant feeling: dread. Maybe I ended up in one of the more obscure corners of Morosus, maybe I somehow missed this very distinctive mountain on every map of Morosus I’ve ever seen, maybe my way home won’t be agonizingly long, maybe, maybe… no… it’s useless. The gold sign at the entrance arch of the village confirms every one of my fears; it proudly states the name of the village I face at this very moment: Dias. And this isn’t just any old village in Tenryuu, not at all; the machinations of whatever fate or god is pulling my strings have sent me to the village of my mentor: Mahro Katsuragi.
My feet feel heavy as I force myself through the opening to the village, though despite my current predicament, I can’t help but take a moment to observe the beautiful little abode I have wandered through the entrance of; each and every building’s exterior stays true to the red and white colour scheme found at its upmost establishment, as does the entrance arch with its two pillars meeting above my head. Each building stands out for their great volume, largely exceeding those seen in my hometown of Ford, and their shingled roofs presenting a wide spectrum of shades of red, most of which are now adorned with blue, ovular lanterns to commemorate the arrival of winter. Judging from the signs denoting a blacksmith here and a clothier there among others, the entrance leads directly into a business/industrial sector. The entire scene is complimented by a layer of ice dressed across the canopies of these buildings, though the slowly gathering rain seeks to put an end to such natural decoration. Even the weather has an ill sense of humour.
Not that the rain particularly bothers me after swimming away from my certain death, but it acts as a cue to head deeper into the heart of Dias. As bad as my circumstances are, it’s long been a dream of mine to walk the streets my mentor calls home; I wish my first visit were not so abrupt or unanticipated, but I’m in dire need of a silver lining, and this is exactly it.
As the rain begins to fill the cracks in my stony path, I pass by a cramped-looking guard station within the entrance plaza to see nobody inside of it. I suppose living in a part of the country largely free of war affords a little more flexibility in matters of security, but I still feel ever so slightly uneasy without a reliable guy like Ringo watching our backs… I can’t help but wonder if he’s running himself ragged trying to resolve my sudden disappearance, the poor old geezer. Guess that gives me more cause to hurry up and send word to the folks back home. The thought of Kyrie and Tsubasa crying themselves to sleep, not knowing whether or not I’m even alive… impalement is less torturous.
Seating myself on a bench beneath a tree for some very necessary rest, the next course of action is materializing somewhere in my clouded mind: if I’ve been directed to the village of my mentor, somebody clearly wants us to have a chat and work this whole mess out together. And he’ll no doubt pull through; I’ve watched him slay an unimaginable abomination with my own eyes – arranging a return journey should be nothing for such a monolith of a man.
My only problem, albeit a colossal one, is that Mahro never mentioned any details about his home beyond the name of his village; my only recourse is to ask around for details while keeping an eye out for either Mahro himself or Matra. Of course, his other daughter or his wife may also be around, but I know nothing of Myra or Minami beyond their shared hair colour with Matra and given that I’m already the stranger in a strange land, I don’t fancy getting thrown in a jail cell for approaching random women on the off chance they might be my master’s other daughter or his wife. The rain shows no sign of slowing down, so I have no excuse to be sitting down here myself; given that I’ve spent some hours lying on a beach and plodding through a muddy forest, an impromptu shower should do me more good than harm.
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a family of four aren’t going to reside in the industrial sector, so I take my leave from the area and head inward with haste, soon arriving at the town centre. At the town’s centre lies an expansive patch of grass, with two rings of stone surrounding a fountain with a stone statue of a nude woman standing in a sterile pose atop it, no doubt a mythical or historical figure of high importance to the natives; out of respect for the locals I’ll refrain from ignorant shots in the dark as to her identity. Next to the base of the fountain, a structure with two large wheels on each side houses some sort of mobile restaurant, though the climate is sending the queue into a frenzy to hurry up and return home. The indescribable mixture of pleasant delicacies wafting towards me from the mobile restaurant would no doubt compel me to march helplessly into the queue were I not so lacking in time or funds. Speaking of… shit! I just remembered my wallet was taken by the bastards on that ship after they abducted me; I hope they didn’t get a chance to waste it, but I would rather that money be in my pocket and food be in my stomach.
Sourly disappointed and reminded of my encroaching starvation, I walk past the foot of the fountain just in time to watch a crowd almost universally clad in white and red robes dispersing. Most are walking in the same direction as me, towards a large array of buildings looking similar to the area I just left but without the abundance of signs and attempts to extract Sera from wallets. I opt to follow the crowd into what I hope is the residential district, heading forward as fast as my tortured right leg will allow. As I approach the mass of people, I attract the odd strange look from men and women alike. Whether it’s due to my being a foreigner or looking like a breathing, shambling corpse, I couldn’t say. Mahro made me well aware of his people’s general distrust for outsiders, but I’m certain my physical appearance isn’t doing me any favours. I’m not particularly self-conscious either way; it’s no use rushing back to the beach for a bath when attention is best devoted to looking for Mahro or Matra.
But while I’m here, making some observations about my temporary company should be inoffensive at worst. First of all, Mahro continues his streak of being proven objectively correct about everything (come on, I’m tooting your horn, show yourself already you bastard) as I notice that indeed, many of the women are both imposing in height and fairly well-endowed in comparison to those of my home country, and are not shy about showing off both their stature and their beauty to the rest of the world. The men too are as a whole well-built and carry a dominating aura, though the contrast is not quite so pronounced in their case. A frequent sight among the males is a scorching red dragon adorning the back of their robes, looking ready at any and all times to reduce me to ashes. While their subject matter is shared, each robe provides its own unique dragon illustration, and I’m stared down by an army of red dragons, all disputing over the best intensity with which to roast me – the gods of weather may be all that prevent me from ending up a well done steak in the middle of this street. The females, on the other hand, appear more prone to decorating their backs with… cats. Not a ferocious “cat” such as a tiger, but rather little kittens who couldn’t hurt a fly. The disparity is so jarring I can’t help but snort in amusement, drawing yet more suspicious glances from some nearby residents. The people of Tenryuu have a special intensity in their glares; in a stark betrayal of everything Ringo has ever stood for, I ought to exercise some caution in my mannerisms.
The most important observation to make, however, is that no familiar faces lie among the crowd. Right as I’m just about ready to curl into a ball and give up, a pleasant smell forcefully invades my nostrils; it turns out that as I turned the corner along with the slowly shrinking crowd, I unknowingly entered a market district, full of stalls for all sorts of food. Mostly delicacies of the Tenryuu people, namely an awful lot of fish and the associated infinite number of ways these people could come up with to devour them. I have no money to offer these people but perhaps I could get an answer or two as a freebie.
I wait patiently, leaning over the seats of a small stall calling itself “River King” as I watch the small ripples in the green curtain separating its back from its front ebb and flow. It’s a long shot but I’m not unconvinced that anybody serving here for a decent amount of time would know every face in the area off by heart. Sure enough, a charming young lady soon emerges in a pink shirt and black apron, looking ever so pleased to see this half-dead foreigner. I have no interest in declaring her apparent pleasure to be artificial or prolonging an interaction with a customer who has no money to offer, and so I throw out my question as she leans against the counter, before she has a chance to spew out a sales pitch.
“Miss, I am terribly sorry but I am not here for business. I am desperately searching for a man called Mahro, do you happen to know where I can find him?” I ask sheepishly.
At first she just stares in disbelief - I bring my hands away from the counter and scratch the nape of my neck with my right hand as the silence festers, and the strong aroma of her rose-tinted perfume is doing little to help. She ultimately sighs in disappointment, but at least she isn’t chasing me away with a sharp utensil as I slowly came to dread these past few seconds.
“That man would sooner eat raw mammal, fur and all, than anything with even a hint of fish. An odd duck, that one. I have no idea where he lives but I suggest paying a visit to the Head Enforcer’s office, darling. Turn left at the end of this road and you’ll know the building when you see it, he should be able to help.”
Her smile looks painful as she points to the end of the road I was already traversing; it seems Mahro has a bit of a reputation even in his own town for his strange proclivities.
“Thank you. Sorry to disturb you.” I say as I rush away to follow her directions, breaking eye contact before I can see if she hates my guts for wasting her time and not even having the decency to pay for it.
As I turn the corner in pursuit of the Head Enforcer’s office, being met by a completely empty street, the rain begins to intensify once again. Before the rain can cloud my vision any further, I catch a glimpse of a familiar sight: the bridge leading to the sole building sitting in front of the mountain’s central peak; this street in particular is where the mountain’s presence is by far the most pronounced and noticeable, and I stand there for a moment to take in the sight, with the wide waterfall emerging from the rightmost peak and blending into the river running beneath the bridge proving to be particularly enchanting. I can’t say ending up on the other side of the world was worth the pain and strife of getting here, but I can at least rest assured that I won’t go home devoid of stories to tell.
At last I reach the Head Enforcer’s office - located only about 20 meters away from the bridge and identified by a fairly direct “Enforcer’s Office” sign above the door - and begin ascending the stone steps, only to be greeted by a sign kindly informing me that “only the dead or dying may knock”. Undeterred by the living status-based discrimination, I raise my hand and prepare to knock on the door when a pair of wet, loud footsteps erupt from the steps right behind me. In a hurry, I turn around to discover a cloaked man staring up at me with a cold, vacant look in his one eye and a mangled mess in place of his other. His hands are withdrawing from his pockets but remain concealed within his cloak, and his legs are widened, ready to cut off any attempt to run. He clearly means trouble, but I can’t afford to get caught causing it here. I just have to endure whatever he throws my way…
“Well, what do we have here? I’ve been fishing all over the world, let me tell you, my little’un, I’ve plucked fish from lakes you can’t find on any map I ever heard of and I’m certain I ain’t never seen a catch… like… this…”
The stranger steps up to me with a voice so intense and rough that a blind man would think he’s speaking with a rock weighing his throat down. Almost his every tooth is black, barely distinguishable from the first fish I ever tried to cook, and the stench emanating from it proves that the cover can serve as a prelude to its contents; I can barely stare him down without wanting to gag, but this is the last moment at which I want to display any kind of weakness.
“What’s with that look on your face, boyo? You lose your Mommy? Well, I dunno about you, but standing around here is no good, no sirree! Being the kind gentleman I am, I’ll help you look for her! I’ll even be so gracious as to offer you the clothes on my back!”
With a feigned look of solemnness, he raises the side of his filthy cloak towards me with his left hand, tittering as he brings it in front of my face, before dropping it like blazing coal and keeping his finger pointed towards my face.
“So come on, where did she lose you, little boy?”
A thick silence ensues, and our mutual gaze of abject hatred intensifies by the second until the stranger brings his pointing hand to the wall next to me, obscuring most of my vision with his foul, beaming mug. In addition to his sickly skin, he reveals a pair of two gold teeth on his bottom jaw, looking awfully tacky and excessive to the extent that I have to hold back the urge to punch them out here and now.
“Aaaaaah, that’s right! She’s burning down there, isn’t she? The big man downstairs is having all sorts of fun with her body, doing all those dirty, disgraceful things I wish I could’ve done to the bitch while she was still kicking. You have fun suckling on her cold, dead tits when it all wrapped up, boy? Or did you like ‘em warm? I’m not judgmental, keheheh~”
What the law says is meaningless now; this shitbag undoubtedly carries ill intent, and if his disgraceful attitude towards my late mother isn’t solid ground to knock him out cold, then his threatening aura and physical proximity are more than enough reason for me to act. Uninterested in how exactly he knows about my family history, I prepare to retaliate by balling my fist and…
“Know your place!”
As he says this, he delivers a punch to my gut too fast for me to react, forcing me against the door to the Head Enforcer’s office. Now I’m just being sloppy. With a sickening snicker, the stranger bends down to run his mouth forevermore.
“This is where you belong, kid: under my boot, impotent and useless. Now… if they get their hands on me the man in that building is gonna drag my ass down to the capital. But for a catch like this... hell, what wouldn’t I risk for that? When I’m done making you squeal like a piggy, for all the shit you put me through, maybe I’ll even take a little stroll down to… I don’t know, Ford, maybe? Your buddy Pat’s in bad need of a piss, and old Stephanie’s grave is looking reaaaal dry! Then I can give her some company, if you’re picking up what I am so graciously putting dowAAAH!”
His bloviating is interrupted by my headbutt, sending him tumbling down the steps and landing face first on the stone road. I’m more than a little dazed now but I eventually regain my balance. The vile creature cowering before me is struggling to stand again, coughing and wheezing as he makes the effort. I remain in place, reluctant to kick even this disgusting weasel while he’s down. My strike was cathartic, but I shouldn’t escalate it further; I don’t wish to shed blood within my mentor’s very own home, and I don’t need whatever trouble that would cause getting in the way of a path home through his efforts.
But my hesitancy evaporates, becomes utterly incorporeal, once I witness what is scrawled onto the man’s arm: a tattoo of a wyvern. And this is no ordinary wyvern tattoo…
…it’s the insignia belonging to the Band of the Wyvern.
…this…
…this can’t be!
Julius told me, with absolute certainty, that they had been destroyed, exterminated even! So WHAT is this bastard doing here, with that garish tattoo scrawled on his arm?! When confronted with a sight like this, all I can think about is my mother’s death and the role played in it by these bastards; all of the security and stability brought about by his clan’s supposed end is unravelling in mere seconds. My head feels like it’s been forced onto an uncomfortably fast rotisserie.
I storm towards him with no further hesitation, filled with an overwhelming desire to wring his neck as the artificial fingers occupying the spaces of those I lost all those years ago begin to throb furiously. Beating the stuffing out of him won’t bring back the security I’ve enjoyed for these ten long years, and it may well cause an ugly stain on my relationship with Mahro after I drag this bastard through the street by his hair until his arms and legs go numb, but it’s the only way I can personally enact some small revenge for that miserable day.
Before I can reach the second step, I’m alerted by a creaking sound from above me, and by the time I turn around a new assailant’s foot is mere centimeters away from my left shoulder and it lands with great force before I can react, sending me tumbling back to the street and smashing my right leg into the bottom step. As my mind starts to go numb from the resurfaced pain and limitless fury, I bring my hand behind my cloak, discreetly unlocking the scabbard for my knife and pulling it out with a reversed grip before Pat enters my sight once more. The odious bastard rests on his knees above me with a knife in his hands, as his companion stands with his arms folded a few meters away. Even in my rain-coated, dazed vision, I can tell the knife is about 10 centimeters away from my face; I can’t afford to slip up now, given that any mistake here is going to result in parts of my brain ending up with steel in their place.
“You piece ‘a shit! If you wanna die that fuckin’ badly I’ll gladly send you to He-AAAAAACK!”
Seeking to cut the chatter, I swiftly pull out my knife while Pat continues to monologue incessantly and shove it straight into his gut, tilting my head as far to the right as possible and getting away with only a light cut to my cheek as he tumbles forward and drops his weapon. There’s a light stinging in my left cheek, but it’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. Before his buddy can jump in and subdue me, I grab Pat’s knife with my free left hand and launch it at him, missing my throw but sending him into a panic.
Seizing the chance, I tear the knife out of Pat’s gut and turn him around for use as a human shield – this being the only reason I haven’t killed him here and now - whilst his assistant, obviously inexperienced in the ways of combat, is scrambling for Pat’s knife and uttering all sorts of profanities under his breath. He turns back to me, knife in hand, to see my knife at Pat’s throat.
The brawl seems fairly decisive in my favour; Pat’s clearly the leader of the two, and to put it into terms favourable to Kyrie, a pawn isn’t going to dare strike a man holding his king hostage. I’m ready to negotiate a surrender, but it’s at this point that I hear a rush of footsteps from my left. Fearing more assailants, I turn to see a darkness-cloaked figure skulking towards us from an alleyway between two buildings opposite the Head Enforcer’s office; the body shape appears to be that of a young woman, but I have no means by which to determine if she’s friend, foe or even looking to get involved in the first place.
“Stop it! Stop, you fucking idiot!” my foul-mouthed captive cries out, thrashing his arms around like a wild animal.
Wondering why he’s crying out, I turn my head back to his pawn charging towards me, preparing to plunge his knife into my head. I begin pressing the knife against Pat’s neck, the hostage in question wincing in pain, but this does nothing to deter my attacker. My eyes widen in dread; I’ve made a horrible miscalculation, and I’m in nowhere near good enough shape to deal with the fiery mess I’ve been flung into. If I’m to die here, my only option is to take Pat with me…
Though before he can get close enough for me to carve a cavernous wound into Pat’s neck, a crossbow bolt flies from my left into the man’s right eye, followed by another one hitting his right arm and a third bolt flying past him into the wall of the head enforcer’s office, all in the span of a few seconds. The first shot is enough to instantly kill him and he collapses to the floor with a loud, bloody crunch, his grip on the knife staying firm. It’s a mortifying sight; the bolt protruding from his head with slimy viscera coiled around its shaft makes me extremely glad this third party was on my side.
“What the hell is going on here?!” a commanding voice booms from inside the Head Enforcer’s office, and the door soon flies open.
Stepping outside his door with his hand shielding his eyes from the rain, the man looks in my direction, seeing me there with my knife still at Pat’s throat and looking awfully confused by the whole ordeal.
“For the love of…” he says as he stares daggers at my hostage with a laboured groan, “Is the other guy a friend of yours?”
“Yes sir. My father’s student.”
That voice… there’s absolutely no doubt, that’s Matra. The Head Enforcer (whose name has been mentioned by Matra but currently eludes me) storms over to us and tears a now limp, shocked Pat from my grasp, and as much as I would like to use this newfound freedom in arm movement to wave hello to Matra and have a nice chat about what we’ve been up to since we met, the intense bleeding in my leg as well as the blows I sustained in the fight cause me to fall back in exhaustion once the fight dies down. I hear nothing from her, but a moment later I can feel myself being raised from the ground.
“Nice work, but just… get him to your dad, fast. He looks more like a corpse than the guy whose eye is slung out the back of his head…” the Head Enforcer says with a nervous chuckle.
Matra begins panting heavily as she struggles to bring me to her torso and walk across a path completely unfamiliar to me. I can’t see her face, but I hope she can still smile at a time like this; from the brief time I spent with her, the sheer optimism emanating from her broad smile was contagious.
That being said, I won’t be smiling anytime soon; the minute or so of walking that follows is greatly disorienting – assisted in no small part by the sound of rushing water filling my ears - and I can feel my consciousness badly waning, kept alive only by my wish to hear my mentor’s voice again. It’s a mercy that Matra doesn’t speak a word the entire time, as much as I desire to hear her voice further yet.
“Matra, who’s this gu- wait a minute, Vega?!”
Mahro’s voice is the last thing I hear before I fully lose consciousness. Above all else, I at least got what I wanted most…
I at last wake up, this time in a home completely unknown to me. It only feels like I’ve been asleep for a few hours, but the stern look on my mentor’s face at the foot of the bed - infrequently exchanging words with an unseen observer to my right - as well as the dark sky outside the window right behind him suggests that I may be slightly underestimating in that regard.
Once he at last notices I’m slowly re-entering the realm of the living, he leaps into action, rushing to my side and pushing his hand into the pillow next to me as he watches for any sign of life I have left in silent dread. From here, I can make out that he looks… tired. Dreadfully tired. Not in exhaustion, but as though he’s perpetually disdainful of life itself. The shadows beneath his eyes are nearly as large as the eyes themselves and his hair is beginning to lose some of its vibrancy, inching ever closer to grey instead of black. Mahro’s worries are assuaged by the time my eyes are at last fully open; he retreats to his previous position, sighing in relief and wiping the sweat from his brow, upon which I at last see his two daughters.
Matra is uncharacteristically intense but composed, crossing her arms and closing her eyes as she breathes in the stale air through her nose, whilst a shorter but similar looking young lady – no doubt Mahro’s youngest daughter Myra – is staring at me in abject confusion, and she appears to be hiding behind her older sister. I, too, would be bewildered if my father and sister dragged this scruffy looking stranger into the house and threw him onto their bed as if I were just an old drinking buddy who was too inebriated to tell the road home from my own arse, but I suppose her surprise is mirrored by my own; rather than the casual and revealing clothes she spent her impromptu trip to Morosus in, Matra is wearing a lifeless black blouse and thick red overalls that reach up to the lower side of her chest and cover the entirety of her legs – the overalls are burdened by a bevy of scruffy pouches.
In a blinding contrast, Myra is robed in elegant white and pink silk, all of it remaining translucent save for her chest and the area surrounding her waist whilst prominently baring her navel – she looks utterly unperturbed by the dreadful chill that has come to fill the air around this time of year. I guess it runs in the Katsuragi family?
Matra’s eyes finally open to awkwardly meet my own, though the brief glimmer of relief in her eyes is quickly torn away as her attention diverts to her father.
“See, he’s fine. We can finally get some answers.”
Her behaviour seems… strange. She doesn’t necessarily sound dismissive of my situation, but definitely seems somewhat detached and blunt, expressing none of the exaggerated emotion I’ve come to expect of both her and her father. Already, what should be a momentous, triumphant occasion is boring a chasm in my stomach.
“I understand my student far better than you do, believe me, I’m perfectly well aware of how tough he is. It’s just… I can’t imagine he’s ended up on the other side of the world with not a Sera to his name by his own free will. Am I correct to think that?”
Much to my relief, he’s not lost one bit of his wit; I nod with as much strength as I can muster without straining my neck, but it quickly becomes apparent that his disposition is eerily similar to Matra’s. The dark bags under his eyes suggest his issues aren’t just contained to this conversation. Either way, I by far have more explaining to do, so I’ll hold off on prying into their circumstances.
As the blinding brown walls and intense stares from all parties in the room leave me to ponder, one single, significant question is pounding the forefront of my mind, and it is soon repeated by my mentor, as if he can read me like a book.
“How in the world did you end up here?”
I also crafted this beautiful trailer that I posted on my Twitter; please retweet it and/or follow me there if this proved to be a valuable use of your time!
https://twitter.com/Kishinjou1/status/1641083058244800513?s=20