~Flames~
Darkness...I can’t see...
~Burning heat~
My family, my kin...
~Charred flesh~
I cannot see you...where are you? Father...where are you?
~Fire encircles me. The darkness has swallowed me. Trapped within a
burning maelstrom of heat. The violently vibrant smell of blood fills
my nostrils. My senses are smouldering...my body...my soul...~
{Help me! I need you! Please help me...}
~The frightening yet intoxicating chill of death is upon me. I search
and I struggle, but to no avail. I look at my surroundings through
half lidded eyes, stinging with the thickening smoke. Everything, even
father’s treasured Imari statues are destroyed. I can’t focus. The
smell of burning flesh is just too strong. The overwhelming smoke
bombards me. The tongues of savage fire lick at my skin~
I don’t...can’t...am I alone? No...but why...why is this happening?
~The clouds of black dust around me thicken. I find it harder and
harder to breathe as each second goes by. I can hear thunderbolts
echoing into the night, stabbing my ears with dread. A shadow forms in
the smoke...I see you...~
You...who are you? What is going on? Why is this happening?
~The grin. That lifeless but evil grin shatters my heart. You enjoy
this. And I am filled with a deepening sense of anger when you grin at
me like that. So just then I feel it. It’s you. You are the one. The
flames dance a deadly ballet around you, but...my senses are clear
enough to make out your simple features. And from there I know. That
you are the one...I’ll kill you...~
Who are you?! Answer me! I know you did this you black-hearted
monster!
~You only chuckle at my works. As though I am a frightened dog barking
behind a fence. You treat me with such insignificance. That angers me.
And then you walk away from me. My feet control themselves as I try to
follow you. But I am stopped...by them...~
What...it can’t be...it’s...
~I run no longer. The darkness around me is suddenly irrelevant. All I
am aware of is the hideous and maniacal cackles of these insane
creatures. I back up slightly, unaware of the number of them~
One calls out to me. “The will of our master will not be denied! Type
01, our lord and master, Justice!”
...Type 01...J-Justice...?
~My eyes widen. I let the reality of the situation crush me. This...is
my fault...my family...my friends...our arrogance...~
“Baiken?”
~Later...It’s later. I feel no fire. I see no smoke. My eyes...still
hurt...only one will open. I...crawl across the floor, trying to make
it to somewhere, anywhere I can recognize. But its all been ruined.
Far to greatly for me to recall anything. As I crawl I feel no weight
from my right arm. But I continue on...and then I reach your
corpse...~
Father...
“Baiken...?”
~He’s dead~
No! This isn’t happening! Don’t leave me! I love you!
~And at that point, I feel the full force of the situation. Everything
is gone. The institution...nothing left of it except for the charred
cinders of the rubble. And all the family I have in the world is a
burnt carcass. My father...my mentor...my guide...my friend...All I
can do is clutch his lifeless body to my own.
~And I cry...~
“Baiken?”
~No...no more crying. My eye will shed no more tears. My body maybe
ruined, but the flame in my soul still burns strong. It’s enough to
keep me alive. And with the death of my father comes the true and
final purpose of my living corpse. To seek vengeance. To destroy the
bastard Gears that lay waste to my home, family and country. And to
kill the one who is blatantly connected to this massacre. Him...~
~To make oneself is to define an existence...to pay homage to the
gods. To take a life is to deny its existence...it is a rebellion
against the gods~
~And *my* rebellion begins now...~
“Baiken!”
**********
Baiken awoke with a start, rising up out of the withered sheets of her
plain bed. Across from her at the end of the bed was Millia, with a
confused look on her pale face.
“Baiken,” Millia started. “You...were tossing and mumbling in your
sleep. I could hear it from the other room.”
The one-eyed Ronin rubbed her eye crudely. “What did I say?”
“Nothing I could understand.”
Millia thought she saw a look of relief in Baiken’s eye, but she
quickly dismissed it.
“So...what happened?” Millia asked.
Baiken scowled. Not at Millia, just at the thoughts on her brain. On
that subject...her past. “Nothing happened. It’s just...memories.”
**********
The next day, Millia and Baiken went out to train at a small forest
just a couple miles south of the ruined city. The walk there was
awkward. Both of the women seemed to be pre-occupied with their own
personal thoughts. But Baiken was unusually withdrawn. And Millia
noticed it. It wasn’t like Baiken to be so introverted.
When the two reached the forest, Millia set down the bottles of sake
and the grease for Baiken’s sword. Baiken looked around of any
sturdy/thick trees in the area.
The cerise haired samurai stopped in front of a metre thick tree, and
tapped on it with the back of her fist to judge its density.
Baiken smiled lightly. “Perfect.”
For a delayed moment, Baiken paused closing her eye. With a calming
breath, she loosened her muscles and joints. By tapping into her Chi,
the power within her focused itself...and her lithe fingers slipped
down to the hilt of her sword...
“OYA!”
Birds and small animals fled the vicinity as the loud crash of a metre
thick oak tree passed through the sparsely tree-endowed forest. Millia
crossed her arms after watching that brief yet wondrous spectacle.
“You have a powerful stroke. How did you learn to channel so much
power into such a quick manoeuvre?”
Baiken sheathed her sword as Millia said that. Normally she would have
done that the second she executed the attack, but she was still
distracted.
“I didn’t learn it.” She said. “It comes naturally to me. The instinct
of knowing the right depth of flesh to cut and adapting the speed of
the strike to suit the needs of target...it all comes from within. I
simply withdrew that knowledge from my spirit for a succinct second,
and trusted in the power of my sword. Trust between yourself and your
weapon is also important. If you can’t learn to rely on each other
like brethren...defeat is an inevitability.”
“Interesting philosophy.” Millia said.
“I just feel a connection to my sword. It’s not something special if
real thought is put to it.”
The blonde rested her hand on her chin. “And you think I don’t have
enough faith in my own powers, correct?”
Baiken nodded. “Correct.”
“Well, tell me if I’m wrong, but I think that a little more than skill
was placed in that attack. It seemed to be very much driven by anger.”
Millia stated.
Baiken’s single peach-tinted eye closed. “What are you getting at?”
“You’re too emotional. Emotions cloud the mind during a fight. It
hinders you.”
Whether she realized it or not, Millia had just spouted a revamped
version of one of the teachings she had learned in the Assassin guild.
‘Don’t let your emotions distract or obscure your mind during a kill.
Concentrate on nothing but the execution of the target’. It’s amazing
how the things you hate the most rub off on you the most.
Baiken opened her eye again. “The fire in my soul is not a hindrance.
It’s a gift that allows me to achieve victory. Sometimes anger can be
a driving force behind your blade. As long as it isn’t enough to haze
your judgement.”
Millia crossed her arms. “I see. I guess it is understandable. When
following a quest of retribution, anger is the most common feeling
that resides in you, right?”
“Is that how you felt when you first hunted down Zato?” Baiken asked.
That name. Millia’s eyes darkened. “No. I just wanted to be free. I
didn’t let my hatred of Zato affect the outcome.”
“Maybe if you fought with all your heart the first time, you would not
have to face him again.”
Deep in her heart, Millia felt that Baiken was right. She wouldn’t
have had to deal with these constant nightmares if she had finished
Zato off. But life is never that simplistic.
Millia looked away from Baiken. “I had assumed the killing arts that
were forced upon me were enough.”
The war-withered woman grinned. “Enough to win, or enough to kill
him?”
“Both.” Millia stated simply.
“If that is true, then why did you not defeat me when we first met?”
That had Millia stumped. There was nothing she could say that wouldn’t
prove Baiken right. But despite that, the unwilling assassin still
distrusted emotionally driven combat.
Baiken chuckled openly, much to Millia’s relaxed ire. “I take it from
that bout of silence that you do not have a reasonable answer.”
Millia tried to direct the conversation away from this. “I made
improvements to my general style. I trained enough to increase the
range of my Lust Shaker, and I abandoned the Living Lancer,” Millia
ran a hand through her hair. “Apparently it wasn’t enough.”
“I understand that. I gave up using certain attacks to concentrate on
my defence,” Baiken said. “And I assume you wanted to improve your
speed, am I right?”
Millia nodded. “Yes. Maybe that desire came from being on the run for
so long. But I have a fairly valid reason for my own modifications.
What about you? You told me that anger is apart of your method, yet
you spent most of our fight defending. You very rarely unleashed that
anger, Baiken.”
Baiken laughed haughtily. “I don’t think my fighting style is as
aerodynamic as yours is, Millia. I like to use my enemy’s momentum
against them and then capitalise on that opening. I don’t go into a
wild frenzy because it puts too much strain on my body.”
“Example?” Millia asked sarcastically.
Baiken let out a tired sigh, drew her sword. The scarred samurai
walked up to another thick oak tree, and looked up. Millia, with her
arms still crossed, watched Baiken on tenterhooks. Very few of
Baiken’s moves were directly offensive, so it would be interesting to
see the result.
Baiken briefly crouched down, and in one fluid manoeuvre, she soared
into the air, and somersaulted in a flash of lightning fast quickness.
Baiken’s sandaled feet connected to the ground a few seconds later,
and Millia stared wide-eyed at the tree Baiken had attacked. It had
been split directly in half by nothing more then the air pressure, and
it hade been executed so fast, Millia couldn’t register the actual
blow.
Baiken sheathed her sword and clutched her waist, throwing a tired yet
superior smile at Millia. The blonde was clearly impressed.
“...A little sloppy, but an interesting technique.” Millia said.
Baiken breathed out. “It’s called the Youzansen. I used it a lot back
in the past, but now I try to avoid using it. At the moment, I want to
focus my attentions on the Sanzu Watashi.”
“I see. You seem to take training very seriously...”
**********
May darted through the dark streets of Madrid to chase after Dizzy.
She was surprisingly fast on her feet. But after what had just
happened to Dizzy, May expected her to be upset. Those people were so
mean to her, and in May’s head it didn’t make any sense. Dizzy wasn’t
like the other Gears. She wasn’t like Justice.
Dizzy was different...she was special...
After running for a good ten minutes, May gave up and leaned on a
building to catch her breath. Dizzy was nowhere in sight by now. It
was then that May began to think that Dizzy might do something silly.
{What if she tries to run away, and she doesn’t come back...?} May
thought.
May was about to start running again until she heard weeping. May
walked around the building into a small alley, and saw Dizzy huddled
up in the far corner, crying heavily.
It broke May’s heart to see Dizzy so sad. She was never happy unless
Dizzy was happy. The pirate girl took slow, cautious steps towards her
friend, and gently called out to her.
“Dizzy...?”
The Gear in question gasped after hearing that voice. She turned
around and looked dejectedly at May, her face stained with tears. For
a while, neither of the two said anything, rather they looked at each
other silently. Neither one of them could find the right words to
address the situation.
But May didn’t wait long. “I’m...I’m sorry for what they said.”
Dizzy said nothing. It was worrying May.
“They were wrong about all that, Dizzy. I’m sorry for what they said
but it’s not true...I don’t think that way about you.”
Dizzy maintained her silence and looked away. May stepped closer to
Dizzy, and rested her hand on the blue haired girl’s shoulder, only to
have Dizzy quickly jerk her hand off.
Dizzy closed her eyes again, to stop any more tears from spilling.
“Why wont they leave me alone? I didn’t do anything wrong...” Dizzy
said solemnly.
“I know,” May said. “But you shouldn’t care what they say. It doesn’t
change the way I feel about you. You’ll always be my friend...”
If Dizzy heard that she certainly didn’t say so. “...Am...am I what
they say? Am I a monster?”
The instant May heard that, her dark eyes flared with an unused anger,
and she crudely pulled Dizzy around to face her.
“How can you say something like that? You’re not a monster you are my
friend. Nothing will change that. I couldn’t care less what those sad
losers think, all I know is that you’re the nicest, prettiest and
sweetest girl I know. And I hate seeing you so sad...I just wanna see
you smile again...”
Dizzy gently wiped the tears from her eyes, and looked at May with a
thundering beat in her chest. May always knew how to make Dizzy feel
better.
“May...”
The pirate girl smiled sweetly. “Please don’t push me away, Dizzy.”
Nonchalantly, May’s arms wrapped themselves around Dizzy’s loosening
body, and pulled Dizzy’s lithe form into a tender hug. Before long,
Dizzy’s own arms curled around May’s waist.
Then, at the far side of the alley, April was watching the two of
them. She didn’t dare break up the scene. It was cute but in a strange
way, very intimate.
“Well,” April mumbled to herself. “It might not be that hopeless after
all.”
**********
Kaiser’s Afterthoughts
----------------------
* Ya like that? I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed
making it. The next chapter should be up in a few days time.
* If while reading that you thought, ‘what the hell kind of Youzansen
was that?’ then let me just say that it was my interpretation of the
move and I imagined it more like the original Guilty Gear version.
(Back in the days when Baiken was REALLY powerful)
* Once again, if you read this and you like it, PLEASE tell me about
it. I said it once and I’ll say it again. Nothing makes me happier
than to know that someone out there likes my work.
* I’m going to add new characters (e.g. Jam and Venom) in the next few
chapters, and I was thinking about a new scenario aside from the
May/Dizzy relationship and Baiken-Millia friendship. If you have any
requests, please give them to me.
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