Chapter 7: Proving to be worth (part 2)

Empty while pouring, even though the heavens fall, even though the earth shakes.

They kept walking, the putrid smell filled their nostrils. The rage within the siblings kept boiling with no outlet besides the few soldiers that dared to approach. At some point, the soldiers stopped approaching. They got scared. Not of only what they saw, they have seen corpses, smelled putrid smells and seen their colleague henchmen get killed right before their eyes plenty before. That is not what they were scared of. They were scared of the look on their faces, not of Srishta. It was clear that day that this was the first time he was seeing a massacre unfold before his very eyes. It was about the faces of the siblings, the brother looked so calm and calculated every time they beheaded one of their goons. Their rage was felt but not seen; they knew it was suppressed and needed just one more push to explode, leading to a carnage. They have seen that before, but it still scared them. What they hadn't seen before was this woman walking up to the henchman.

Further in the centre of the village, a few henchmen heard of her and spoke while they were approaching, debating if they should go for the kill on her to prove to their boss that they were worthwhile.

“She’s the devil,” one henchman said to the other.

“No, she isn’t, she is an oni, never heard of them? It’s an old race that has long been dead, but she might be the last survivor. If you look closely, I swear you can see a horn on the front of her head.”

“She is neither,” said an older henchman. “She’s the son of her father, that’s what she is. He had the same expression when we exiled him from this village.”

Bran Tren listened to the conversation closely while acting as if he didn’t; his body was massive and lay in the center of the village. He was lying down next to the fire they had made. It was an opening within the village with pavement, it looked like any other village center. Before the village was captured, it was used for parties and announcements. Now it is still used for parties, but in another kind. Not parties where people dance, fall in love and have a good drink, but parties where people get absolutely wasted, fight and commit acts of degeneracy. Bran was pleased with this; he liked it. He was thinking back on the deal with the government.

“Kill their family line and the village is yours, you will be able to do anything you want with it. With the support of the government” he remembered a government official saying.

“Why can’t you guys kill her instead, then?” He asked the government official when they spoke. They never replied to that question.

He now looked at the fighter, reminiscing about the face he saw on that man’s face. ‘The head of the village,’ he thought, ‘that’s what they called him apparently, I do not know what was so special about this guy. Some threats, and he was gone,’ The train of thought quickly got interrupted with one of his henchmen coming up to him, screaming, missing an arm.

“THEY'RE COMING AND THEY TOOK MY ARM THEY ARE COMING THEY WANT TO-”

Without even a second thought, the massive body of Bran Tren moved and smashed the little man. His fist was as big as that of the man who walked up to him; that man was now a mush of meat, blood and bones.

“Let them come then, what is the issue?” Bran Tren said in a bored tone. He was surprised that they came so far; these siblings didn’t seem very strong to him. They seemed like the average human adult. ‘These humans are so stupid,’ he thought, ‘what are they supposed to do, to a giant like me?’ Bran Tren was indeed a giant, but not a very big one.

While this all happened at the center of the village, the group of siblings and Srishta kept walking on the pavement. The siblings saw bodies they recognized among the masses of rotting corpses, and they also recognized faces. Their resentment grew by the second that passed by. It was a feeling they had never experienced before; it seemed like the brothers could handle it. Chairo couldn’t; her brothers were maybe sly foxes, animals some would say. She wasn’t; there was something else inside of her, not something from this world, something different. She felt it deep inside of her. Her brothers, the foxes, were sly and patient, while still letting out their rage with every kill they had made. She didn’t; every murder she committed upon these pavements, her father taught her the ways of life felt like a mistake, something she could have prevented. To her, the only way to repent for those mistakes was killing the person who caused all of this and that person was at the center of her beloved village. Even a fox, in front of danger, would walk away. What Chairo had was something different, something that didn’t care about the consequences of its own survival; it was something that only cared about the destruction of what was in front of it. Maybe the soldiers were right; perhaps she had a demon inside of her. Chairo herself didn’t care; all she cared about at the current moment was making sure Bran Tren did not take one more gasp of air on these pavements her father protected before he showed up.

As she walked, her emotions flared up, and her halberd began to tremble. She was unsure if it was her hands, so she tried to keep her hands still while holding her halberd. It was still trembling; it was her weapon. It felt like a living thing. She had trained with this weapon her whole life, but this was the first time this had happened.

Suddenly, everything around her disappeared: the pavement, her siblings, Srishta, the air and the sky, the rotting corpses, the houses in ruins, the putrid smell, it was all gone.

She was there, without her halberd, in a void. It was entirely black. Yet, she still stood there. Suddenly, she started hearing her voice.

“You woke me up, or maybe it’s more accurate to say you two woke me up,” Suddenly, a pale figure, a woman of her own height, appeared before her. She wore a beautiful long blue dress with an umbrella made out of paper. Her hair was black at night, and her face, besides her cheeks, was entirely white; the only reasonable comparison for them was snow.

“WHERE AM I,” screamed Chairo.

“You’re inside of my space,” the woman answered.

“WHO ARE YOU?” Chairo screamed again, this time in panic.

“I am Nayotake ######,” the woman answered calmly.

“What?” Chairo was confused. Suddenly, the world around her, pitch black, transformed into a forest of bamboo, and the ground became green.

“Let me present myself. I am Nayotake #####, I am the one residing within your weapon. Maybe you could also say I am the weapon you have been using all this time; you just woke me up, so I thought it was maybe time to do the presentations.”

“What do you mean?” Chairo, still visibly confused, only had questions.

“Never heard of the folklore tale of objects? Objects that are kept for a long time, taken care of, or made in a very special way acquire a soul. I am one of those objects.” Nayotake answered

“So you are a person?” Chairo asked.

Nayotake laughed. “Not precisely, I am more so a soul imprinted within an object. We can talk later. It seems like you are quite busy. I just wanted to let you know I am there for you. If you need me, utter my name and I will be there guiding you through your battles.” Nayotaka said in a calm and caring tone.

“I still have so many questions, you can’t just pop up, transport me to another world and-,” Chairo got interrupted by Nayotoka.

“I didn’t transport you anywhere outside of this world. I am letting you into my inner world, which is a bit like entering someone’s property. You will understand in due time, I hope so at least.” Nayotaka started wandering around the forest. She walked through the bamboo, clearly enjoying herself as she talked to Chairo. Her figure was very slim, and she seemed so fragile yet so firm in how she stood. She looked patiently at Chairo.

“As I said, if you want to talk later, I will do that with utmost pleasure, I will prepare us tea-,” this time it was Chairo interrupting Nayotaka.

“WITH WHAT THIS IS JUST A FOREST OF BAMBOO,” Chairo got frustrated.

“I think it is time to go now,” Nayotake waved goodbye.

Chairo was suddenly back on the pavement, she left with the weapon in her hands that had stopped trembling. Her siblings and Srishta looked at her.

“Are you ok? It looked like you were gone for a second; you just stood still,” Srishta said.

“I’m fine, don’t worry about me, focus on what we have to do,” Chairo answered.

They kept walking towards the center.