Chapter 12:

He who by the sword wounds, by the sword perishes

The Divine Punishment


We got into position: on one side was us, on the other was Acuro.

"Okay guys, are you ready?"

"Yes," we replied in unison.

"Good, then let's get started!"

Acuro dashed towards us, I was scared, but I had to do what he had taught me. I put my katana against his and managed to parry his hit; behind him was Evan who was ready to hit him.

"FIREBALL!" He screamed with a fireball bigger than his hand, he had bent his arm as if he was going to throw a punch.

Acuro jumped up to dodge it.

"I'm still here," Emmy said trying to use the Susanoo, by then, she had almost taken total control of the float.

"Dear, look down, now Evan has taken the charge, he can't stop. He's going to hit Tenkei!"

"That's their problem, I trust their strength and I know they will come out unscathed," Evan replied.

Immediately after this sentence, Emmy threw a "delayed" punch at Evan using the Fujin technique.

"Ahhhhh" she screamed as she fell to the ground, standing up.

Meanwhile, Evan realized that he was close to colliding with me, so he committed to interrupting the technique. He didn't extinguish the flame, but it was enough to make me parry it (not because the blow was too strong, but because it was so sudden it had to be a little less strong than normal for me).

With the katana, I managed to stop it.

"Yes! We did it--"

Behind me Akuro tried a lunge.

"Never let your guard down."

I turned and defended myself as quickly as I could, just in time. We were with our katanas slightly tilted against each other, behind the opponent I noticed that Emmy was floating with a fairly large trail of fire. I could tell that Evan was helping her.

"Let's see if you fall back on your feet again," Emmy said.

"You have to hit me, though!"

Acuro jumped into the air, it was just a distraction, and then snapped to my left. I had to do something, their attack was going to go up in smoke they were going to hit me if I stood still. So I concentrated...

"Kaiten!"

I decided to use this move because it was not high-demanding, it was the one I discovered the night against Dario, but without a katana, it was a simple stream of lightning swirling in my hand. I jumped on him and knocked him, then, after stunning him, I also tried to hit him with the katana, making him think it was a faint, but it wasn't; with an electricity-laden kick, I threw it at Emmy, who was hit hard.

"Ahhh! You guys are bra--"

"Ahhh!"

Behind Acuro was Evan with the chainsaw (his ace in the hole that he can use in a limited way), it was on fire, he was about to hit him; he backed away and the attack went wrong.

"It's not over yet! You have amazed me! But now I'm going to work harder to get you to a higher level while we're at it."

He snapped at me, wanting to attack me... but then, we heard some screams. There were so many of them.

"Mah, I must have imagined them. Now I just have to think about fighting--" I thought.

Out from behind the house came countless of Clark's zombies.

"What the fuck?!" we all thought to ourselves.

We were all distraught, a man came in too.

"Uh?! But you're..." said shocked Acuro.

After this sentence, he also missed the shot, fortunately, since I would have to fight with those beings later.

I took a closer look at the man as well.

"B-but that's... the guy from last night," I thought in my head.

"Hello, Acuro. Hello to you too Tenkei." said Dario.

"What are you doing here?" asked Acuro.

"I have to do a task for someone."

"And by the way, didn't you just say Tenkei's name? How do you know him?"

"Didn't he tell you? Let him explain it to you."

"Well, do you remember last night, when you had come to check on me? This man had come over and we talked for a moment."

"W-what? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I-I didn't know if that was the best thing to do, I wanted to wait a while and see what would have happened."

"Tenkei, you should have told me right away. The next time something like this happens, talk to me. We're in an apocalypse, you have to tell me if a random person talks to you during the night!"

"Y-yeah, sorry. You're right."

"Never mind, there won't be 'a next time'. Why don't you give me your kamien?" said Dario.

W-what?" asked Emmy, Evan, and I.

"Who is this guy, Acuro?" asked Emmy.

"He is Dario, an old friend of mine. We've known each other since we were kids, but we never mistreated each other or fought. Except for one time: the downfall of our friendship; it happened about a year ago. He met two guys from the U.S., they had come to Italy for a "business trip, they had seen that he was strong, so they decided to propose him to join their gang. At that time he was in an economic problem, and he needed money, he couldn't miss this opportunity that would have saved his life.

However, I disagreed, our Sensei (we were trained together) had taught us that the sword should be used only with those who deserve it, one should avoid using it with those who do NOT deserve it. Joining a mafia gang would surely break this rule, but he didn't care; I told him that if he didn't want to follow Sensei's teachings, I would never see him as a friend again, and that's what happened."

"That's right, that's exactly what happened. And I don't regret my choice, I would have died even before the meteorite if it wasn't for my new boss; since you were friends with one of his victims, I guess you've heard of him, Clark Anderson."

"Uh?!... C-Clark... Anderson?! The man who along with Reid Regan killed Senator Weber?" The three of us said.

"Yes, him. I told you that last night didn't I?"

"That's right...you told me, but I let it go thinking I was imagining it or dreaming it...I'm going to kill you!"

Screaming this sentence, I jumped at him, but Acuro stopped me by putting his arm in front of me.

"Tenkei, I know you're angry, but I know his strength. I have to solve this myself."

"No, we can deal with it safely!"

"Hey, brats. My goal right now is to kill Acuro to get an enemy out of the way, otherwise, with him alive, I wouldn't be able to get your kamiens. He'd be able to kill all of Clark's zombies with ease. Oh also, be careful they are starting to advance."

"..."

All the beings that were in the house we had stopped at began to run at us.

"Don't worry guys, I'll take care of killing them" said Acuro.

"No, I'm sorry. I told you that you will be my opponent" he said starting to launch an attack.

He struck the sword at Acuro, he parried it.

But Dario didn't give up and immediately retaliated on the other side, then retried again and again.

"As I remembered, you are resistant."

"Am I mistaken, or have you become a little stronger as well?"

"Could be, since I'm not you, loser!"

He tried to hit him again, this time with a much more powerful blow, enough to break his guard. He was about to hit him, but he moved, planting his sword on the ground. Acuro immediately took the opportunity to try to stab him, but he kicked him, which gave him enough time to pick up the katana and go back to fighting.

This time it was Acuro's turn to try to attack, he ran against Dario, attacking him from the side, parried the blow and the opponent responded with an elbow in the belly and an attempt to lunge.

The sword almost entered his body, but he defended himself by throwing himself to the right, trying to get back on his feet. He was on his knees, Dario countered the lunge and then was hit by the sword.

The wound wasn't too deep, but it wasn't too shallow either.

"Ahhh!"

"Ahaha, you asshole! Did you make this wound to me? And I'll make you a bigger one!"

Acuro tried to attack him again to keep him from getting back on his feet, but unpredictably Dario struck a lunge that entered his belly.

Fortunately, he seemed not to have taken any vital points, but he was losing a lot of blood, he couldn't close the wound at the moment though, he was full of zombies that I and the others were dealing with and his opponent could still hit him at any moment.

"I-it's nothing... I-I can still fight."

"Yeah, I can see that," he said in a sarcastic tone.

"If you don't believe it, I can prove it to you."

"Alright, then let's continue."

Darius took the initiative, he started by throwing a broadsword from the front, Acuro parried it, but that alone was already a bit tiring. But he didn't stop there, he tried to make it hit from the left, then the right, up-down, all over. But Acuro was leading him, fortunately. He then got tired of parrying and decided to try to hit him, he managed to hit him in the left arm, but this cost him a lot of energy, given his wound. It wasn't over yet, he continued to throw swords again and again, but Dario parried them all. They almost alternated, one hit, the other parried, one hit, the other parried. They were now almost exhausted, with fairly serious wounds, whoever gave the last significant blow would have practically won.

"Ahhhhh!"

"Ahhhhhh!"

One scream after another, one attack after another, they were losing too much blood, they were about to pass out, and if they didn't get treatment soon they would have also died.

"Cough... I can't die here, I have to kill you to save these guys... it may cost even my life, I don't care, the important thing is that I only use the katana to defend those who deserve it..." said Acuro spitting blood.

"Enough of these fucking morals of yours... the teacher was just talking bullshit... cough" replied Dario also in a bad way.

"N-no..., I will prove to you that what the teacher said was right, and if you had not used the sword for selfish reasons, you would have lived much longer."

"Even if I were to kill myself, you would still die, and yet you used the sword correctly, as you say."

"Mine is a sacrifice, that will leave my honor alive which mustn't die, not material life."

"Ahahah... then kill me. I am here."

"O-ok. now... you will die!"

Acuro, who was kneeling on the ground, scrambled back to his feet and snapped at Darius, delivering a blow so powerful that it took off his guard.

"Cough" Acuro spat blood.

Then he hit him hard without using too much force, to knock him down. He kicked his legs to keep them locked for a few seconds.

"And now... DIE!"

Acuro jumped into the air, gripping the katana as if it were a dagger, he fell sticking it into Dario's chest.

"Ahhhhh!" they shouted in unison.

"Illusion! It won't be enough to kill me, now I can hit you with my katana, and win this fight!" said Dario.

"Are you sure about that?"

"Huh?"

"This is a technique of my invention, which uses a lot of energy. To do it you need to have a lot of precision, to hit the right spot on your opponent, and have the right speed, neither too slow nor too fast. When the sword sticks, it's like your body starts to crack, like a wall."

"Ahhhhh!"

Branches were created from the sticking sword that went on all over his torso, they were quite deep cuts too.

"Y-you can't escape anymore... with this technique you'll soon bleed to death, Dario."

"I-idiot! You'll die too, with the wounds you have!"

"I don't care, I've done my job of protecting my people."

"I-I can't die because of this asshole!" shouted Dario.

He then grabbed his katana and cut off his leg.

"Ahhh!"

"Ahahah, now you'll die before me!"

"B-bastard!"

And so Dario got back on his feet, though destroyed. He needed to escape as soon as possible.

"Acurooooooo!" I shouted.

I noticed his fall.

"Where are you running? Now I'm going to kill you!" I continued.

With electricity pouring out of my body from the anger, I killed all the zombies that stood in my way, and then I got in front of Dario. Acuro was still on the ground, bleeding to death.

"Now you won't run from me!"