“Ballad of Angels: her bloody trail”
Athena Sifr had been thrust into the wilderness by herself, forced to rely solely on her senses and her strength to survive. This was hardly an alien concept for her, since that was how she had lived for nearly half her life. Meeting Fuuka had softened her edge and quieted her lust for battle, but it had also opened up a whole world of experiences she never would’ve felt. Her bond with the gentle Kitsune was so strong that in her heart, Athena knew that her lover was safe, and would not allow herself to worry about her, regardless of their distance. With Fuuka gone, of course, that meant she would have to reawaken her old skills; she would cease to become the quiet guardian and would transform into the warrior she had once been.
Thinking about this drew memories from Athena’s past. The world was vast, untamed, and empty; she had plenty of time to reminisce as she hopped over the desolation in search of shelter and food. Her trusty sword Morisato had stayed by her side during the unexpected transfer, but she kept it sheathed and slung around her back so she could run on all fours. All Usagin are exceptional sprinters, but Athena’s skills surpassed even theirs; she had abilities that no natural being possessed. Her memories concerning the origin of these phenomenal powers were foggy and vague, but she wanted to keep whatever she knew fresh in her mind: she did not want to forget.
It was years ago—nearly three decades, to be precise—and worlds away, literally another time and place, now all but concealed by those in power. Athena’s first parental figure was a nameless instructor who taught her how to read, write, and perform rudimentary exercises. She recalled anonymous mentors guiding her through mathematics, sciences, and history; there were men who taught her how to fire a gun, women who taught her espionage, and students as well, learning alongside her—rivals, she believed. She couldn’t remember if any of the other students had been her friend; all she knew was that she was later pitted against them in mock-battles. It was so long ago.
Athena broke her thoughts as she came to a lake. An enormous serpent, its body like a tree and its head as large as a boar’s, lied coiled next to the water, so still that even Athena’s eyes had not spotted him. The slick smell of its grassy scales was the only indication that something was amiss—no doubt her invisible friend thought she was his prey. Athena perked her long ears up and drew her sword, keeping it in one hand as she gradually knelt down for a drink. The beast remained sublimely motionless, not even flicking its tongue or blinking its large yellow eyes. Athena drew two sips and savored them carefully, then slowly backed away from the pond, studying the area the scent was coming from. The serpent’s camouflage was so perfect that she didn’t even notice it uncoiling and slithering her way; it looked like a breeze playing with the grass.
“Don’t do it,” she warned, holding her sword so that it reflected the sunlight. “Go find someone else. If you challenge me, you’ll die. I’ve faced stronger opponents than you, and I’ve killed every one of them.” That statement certainly brought out images of darker times, but now was not the time to be melancholy. The serpent crawled closer, its body wriggling perfectly with the grass, pausing just two meters away from its prey, ready to jump. Athena arched her weapon back, raising her guard as she waited for her enemy’s attack. She was nobody’s prey.
The serpent lashed like a whip, cracking the air as it snapped its jaws. Athena swung.
The head tumbled to the ground, its body flailing. Athena flicked the blood from her weapon. Breakfast was served.
……
She remembered mastering at least fifteen weapons before she reached puberty, and she definitely remembered making her first kill, when that bully pushed her too far. The attempt was clumsy and panicked, but it was also empowering, and it gave her a thrill that would be unmatched for years. Her instructors praised her, saying she did good, that he got what was coming to him, and that’s the way she should do things. The other students gave Athena a wider berth after that day. She vowed that her next kill would be cleaner.
Broad gaps filled in most of her history. She only recalled a handful of names, and fuzzy faces to match them. She remembered the fistfight she got into, and how badly she was bruised. The other girl wasn’t so fortunate, and had to be taken into operation, which she never came out of. There were no holidays, no birthdays, no parents, and no signs of affection: Athena couldn’t recall anybody hugging or kissing her before she met Fuuka. Oh sure, her instructors patted her, stroked her hair, gave her rewards, and sang of her deeds, but they were still emotionally abusive. That was one of the few certainties in her past: nobody had ever valued her life.
Sharing a kinship with the renowned Usagin hunters gave Athena an edge when it came to survival in nature. Several of her classmates had been killed during these exercises, succumbing to exposure, starvation, wild animals, even severe depression. Images of camping, wandering, and hunting were obviously prevalent as Athena made her way through the alien world. She came across a ravine and pushed a tree over, creating a makeshift bridge. She cleaned and prepared the serpent using only her sword and her paws; fires were started and extinguished with ease; and she constructed shelters as if it were a part of her DNA. Athena was slowly growing to enjoy her solitude, and it was fun being challenged again—life with Fuuka had been too peaceful and easy. There was no way Athena would ever trade her new life, of course; it was just a nice change of pace.
Missions—there were missions they sent her and the surviving students on. Some of them involved acting as bodyguards, assassins, or members of a sweeper team. She clearly recalled being asked to bomb the office of a radical lawyer, and didn’t she have to master a sniper rifle in three days so she could kill that corrupt police chief? Yes, that’s right, and sometimes she had allies. The students she fought against one day were coworkers the next. They were expected to fight when ordered to fight, cooperate when ordered to cooperate, eat and sleep when ordered to…but who was controlling them? Athena couldn’t think of them at first. It was most likely a private organization, sequestered on an isolated planet, away from the scrutiny of authorities, endowed with an impressive fortune—what else could explain those facilities, the intense research, the operations, the drugs, the endless tests and weapons, the indifferent way her mentors reacted to another death…
“Number C-49-J is down. Transfer him to operations and extract what you can. Continue with your objective, please.”
“We’ve lost eight today. They seem to be reacting better to the treatment. I wonder how many we’ll lose during the next trial. At this rate…”
“Subject is epileptic. Go ahead and put them down; there’s nothing more we can do. Bring in the next one, please.”
“Well done, number D-89-F. Keep up the good work. You may even earn a name if you continue to improve.”
“Yes sir,” she replied quietly. “I will do my best.”
They had ultimately settled on naming her Athena, after one of the Gaian goddesses of wisdom; one of her mentors also tagged “Sifr” onto her, drawing on his mother’s maiden name for inspiration. Out of the hundreds—the thousands that Athena had interacted with on that primitive, hellish world, only the elect were given names. These special few had to be handpicked by a panel of distinguished observers, eight men and women who oversaw and funded the project (whatever it was). Athena couldn’t remember the exact number of students who received names—somewhere around fifty, she believed—but she did recall being the only one unanimously voted for. That meant that even among the elite, Athena had emerged as an exceptional student and warrior, which, needless to say, created quite a few enemies.
She had to kill three of them before people started to leave her alone again.
……
After eating and drinking her fill, Athena left the serpent and the pond behind, and resumed her search for Fuuka. Initially, the iron-willed doctor and her immediate family were the only people Athena trusted and opened up to, and when she first signed on for this indefinite voyage, she kept this habit. Only recently did she start to warm up to others, as they continued to prove their trustworthiness and their valor, but she figured the majority of the crew still saw her as a cold, aloof, quiet warrior, which was perfectly all right with her. Athena didn’t want friends who didn’t trust her completely, nor did she want to be around those she could not rely on. Amy Miracle was definitely one of the exceptions; Athena also liked Herut for her no-nonsense maturity, Shana for her sickly-sweet charm, Alala for her inner strength, Mink for her calm, rational behavior, and Kate for her sincerity.
She came upon a surprising site as she followed the grass and the clouds and the stampeding herds, something so extraordinary and alien to this primordial civilization that she halted in her tracks, opened her mouth, and shivered. It cast a great shadow as it defiantly pierced the sky, two spires protruding out of a box-shaped construction, very nearly resembling a devil. The building, probably an ancient sanctuary or shrine, was a rusty green color, thickly-coated by mosses and vines, its outer walls crumbling. There were bird’s and wasp’s nests on the higher levels, and several insects crawled on the broken tiles inside. As Athena inched closer, her sword drawn and senses on full alert, she spied wedge-shaped runes carved into the rock, created in an era before history began, symbols to alert visitors of some long-forgotten ritual. A single brick from this mysterious monument went up to Athena’s knee; the tips of the spires stretched above all but the tallest trees. Her spine trembled, and she decided to escape, leaving the sanctuary in peace.
Athena’s memories of her previous life improved the closer they came to its conclusion. She recalled with near-perfect clarity the events that led her away from that maelstrom onto calmer shores. The organization that bred, kept, and trained Athena and her few remaining contemporaries had been running them through a standard test, when a revolt broke out and the test subjects made their getaway. This was no spontaneous rebellion: it had been carefully crafted over two years by a dozen or so survivors who were bitterly disillusioned and desperate for freedom. They, along with a large group of sympathizers and rabble-rousers, orchestrated a great confusion during the training exercise, bringing fresh destruction to a world that was controlled by chaos.
As misanthropic as Athena was, she nevertheless put her lot in with the rebels, and finally managed to exact some revenge against her captors and teachers, using the very same killing methods they had been hammering into her brain since birth. Several of her comrades fell; she believed a fourth
of them perished in that initial pandemonium, while another half were killed during the actual escape. Athena never learned how many survived, but she didn’t think it was very many. She herself only made it out by the skin of her teeth, and only because Fuuka had found her so quickly.
“Fuu-chan…” Merely whispering her name raised Athena’s spirits. She never would’ve believed that such a frail, quiet, sweet woman could also be so incredibly strong. Fuuka had bravely taken a complete stranger into her house—an enemy of the Kitsunes and a dangerous killer, no less—nursed her wounds, and opened her heart with love and patience. She chose to remain by Athena’s side even when she learned about her friend’s sordid past (or what little Athena could dredge up), and the terrifying powers she had—yes, they stayed together even when Fuuka was diagnosed with a debilitating illness that would one day cause her to rot away. That last blow was the wickedest one of all to Athena—how could someone as wonderful as Fuuka die so miserably?—and yet her darling Fuu-chan continued to smile, heal others, and enjoy life. Just thinking about her brought a tear to Athena’s eye, and she wiped it away gently. She had never cried before meeting Fuuka; it was a very disturbing, yet wonderfully relieving sensation.
As far as Athena knew, she was the only one that had made it past the spaceport. Being the only one of its kind in the whole world, it was very heavily protected, but the rebels had planned for this, even though few if any were alive to challenge it. The remnants split up and went on a frenzy, utilizing all their abilities and all the training for this, their very last trial. The odds of survival were minimal; the slaughter was gorgeously violent. Athena easily recalled the bloody trail she left in her wake, how so many bodies were piled, how frightened those people looked, and how cold she reacted as her comrades were picked off. She alone made it into a ship, and thanks to her drills as a pilot, she was able to break away from that nameless world and achieve freedom at long last.
But of course, nothing really goes according to plan. She barely made it to another system before her ship was attacked, and brave as she was, Athena was outnumbered. She managed to destroy a fair number of her pursuers before she was forced to make an emergency landing. The crash wounded her brutally, but thankfully, she had just enough strength and ammunition left to finish off the last of her foes. She couldn’t remember passing out, so Athena took her lover’s word for it, and relied on the Fujiwara clan to fill in the rest. After all, her life didn’t really begin until she woke up in their care, protected by an angel whom she would one day devote her life to.
……
“What do you think you’re doing?!” Athena turned around casually to face her friend, who had a frightened and surprised expression. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though, so she was a little vexed.
“I’m going out to hunt, of course. You said that supplies were low and times were hard. Don’t worry, Fuu-chan, I can take care of myself.”
“That’s not what I meant!” she exclaimed, marching over to the imposing Usagin. She yanked the guns out of Athena’s hands, threw them in a trash can, and dusted her paws off. “What were you thinking, Athena? Don’t you know how terrible guns are? You do realize they kill more people than they save! And besides, they’re loud and vulgar, and they stink, and bullet wounds are difficult to operate on.”
“Fine,” she sighed, “then I guess everyone will starve.” Fuuka took a relaxing breath and put her arms around her friend, expressing love even as her patience was tested.
“Listen, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t go out hunting. We are desperate, and I really appreciate this. Just don’t use a gun, okay? Not ever. Can you promise me you won’t?”
“If it’s that important to you, then yes: I’ll never use a gun again. What would you suggest instead?”
“How about a bow, or a knife?” she offered. “Oh, wait, I’ve got an even better idea! Hold on!” Fuuka scampered away, and returned about two minutes later carrying a sheathed sword, tied to a strap. She grinned beautifully, bowed, and handed it to Athena, who drew it out slowly. The luster was flawless; it was like looking into a mirror, and the edge was amazingly sharp. The blade’s surface was unmarred, but the hilt had the Fujiwara seal on it.
“Magnificent,” Athena smiled. “Did your grandfather make this?”
“No, actually, it was passed down our family line. I think it was made before my clan became doctors. Uh, let me think… Yeah, we used to be sword-smiths a long time ago, when there were warring tribes and feuds, but we later became doctors. This sword is the last of its kind, and it’s been our birthright ever since. I figured that since it belongs to me, I can give it to whomever I choose…” Athena shivered, not knowing whether to refuse or accept it. Fuuka pushed it into her arms before she could decide, smiling cutely and even leaning up to kiss her nose.
“You are certain?”
“Positive. I mean, you’re like a member of the family now, so technically, it’s yours as well. I even gave it a name!”
“Probably something from those anime shows you watch,” Athena snorted. Fuuka giggled.
“Am I that transparent? I actually named it after the male hero of my favorite anime, Ah My Goddess.”
“You mean Keiichi Morisato? That’s what I’d call ironic, naming a sword after a spineless wimp. But…it’s fitting, in a way. I approve.”
Athena pulled her sword out again, just to look at it and smile. Her life had been so blessed since she met Fuuka; she couldn’t imagine a time or a place outside of her world. Athena knew that part of the reason why her past was so obscured was due to the enhancements she was given, along with her brain’s own defense mechanisms—but the biggest contributor was Fuuka herself, whose bright smile, shining eyes, and beautiful soul helped wash the blood away and made Athena forget all but the most important memories. She vowed to one day repay this kindness, however she could, even if she had to give up her own life. Fuuka was so pure; she deserved to live.
But until that time, Athena’s journey through isolation would continue. She would prove herself worthy of reuniting with her soulmate. That meant picking herself up and moving along, over hot stones and slick grasses, past graveyards filled with haunting bones, through a river and over a—
Suddenly, it came to her, like a bolt out of the blue. She finally remembered.
The organization that had been sponsoring the project to create a breed of super soldiers was the United Cosmic Military.
And leading the project was a man named Franklin Baker Hill—Rebecca’s father.
Preview of next chapter
Athena: Um…I’m not comfortable doing this myself. I think the next chapter will show other members of our crew who are separated and lost. It will probably chronicle their experiences, conflicts, and bonds. I don’t know much else. They can give a better preview than me. Anyway, please read the next chapter, “Hearts and Stars: a moment of tranquility”. Thanks.
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