He who by the sword wounds, by the sword perishes, part 2

"Now you won't get away from me!" I shouted.

With immense speed, I catapulted myself towards Dario, who was trying to escape, despite having a hole in his chest.

"No, Tenkei, don't!" said Acuro to me.

I couldn't forgive Dario after nearly killing my teacher, I had to take him out at all costs.

After spending the whole afternoon training, it was finally time to try one of the most fatal techniques.

But I didn't think it was time to use the Kitsune yet, it wouldn't make sense in a fight like this.

So I decided to use the blade that cuts through anything, the Raijin.

After pulling the katana out of its sheath, I headed towards Dario with great speed.

I applied the sharp electricity as my teacher had explained to me.

"And now, you must know pain! RAIJIN!"

The blade of the sword became very shiny, so much so that I couldn't tell if the color was yellow or blue, like lightning.

In addition to becoming shiny, it became very long.

I was standing at a distance of about 10 meters, but I still managed to hit him.

I was getting used to the light of the katana, so I could see where I hit. The blade reached Dario's head, cutting him slowly into two equal parts.

It was the first person I was killing in my life, but I wasn't regretting it at all.

"AAAAAAAAAH!"

He didn't have time to finish screaming that his body had split.

I canceled the technique and quickly ran towards my teacher, who was about to die, but I thought I could save him.

"Acuro-sensei!" I yelled.

In the meantime, Evan and Emmy had gotten rid of the zombies and were catching up to me.

"Come on, master, we need to get you to someone right away, we can still save you!" I said.

"Ahah, Tenkei, but don't you see how I am? It's a matter of minutes before I die. Take care of Emmy and Evan and save the world. This is no place for people like Dario..."

Meanwhile, the two had arrived.

"Before I die, I have to give each of you a serious talk."

"Y-yes," said Emmy, who had already seen the senator die in front of her eyes; she wasn't ready to go through another trauma.

"Evan, the new guy, you're strong, you have great potential, you told me about your brother, avenge him, do what you have to do, and most importantly, protect Emmy and Tenkei, who sometimes act up."

Evan couldn't hold back the tears but this sentence put a smile on his face.

"Then you, Emmy, the smartest one, don't be fooled by Evan and Tenkei, you have great potential too, use the moves I taught you and perfect them so you can restore peace in this apocalyptic world..."

"Finally...you, Tenkei."

He looked at me, I probably expected the longest speech, being the one Acuro believed in the most.

I also for the first time felt very strong emotions, so I started to cry before he even started to say what he wanted to tell me.

"Tenkei, you are the strongest among the three of you, protect them and defeat Clark and his people, I know you can do it, if you join forces you guys are great. Be sure to have a great trip. And, if you don't make it... Well, I'll see you in the other world... Goodbye, guys..."

It wasn't that long of a speech, though.

He had just shut down. Like a laptop when it runs out of battery.

But the battery wasn't rechargeable.

I felt really bad.

My master had just turned off.

In these two days, he had not only become my teacher but also a kind of father, having had a very weak father figure since childhood.

I was aware that this death would change my outlook towards life, but I was somewhat happy about it. I had received one of the greatest teachings: "Use the sword to defend those who need it."

"Evan, Emmy, let's go, it's time to eliminate those bastards."

"But... Tenkei, we need to greet Acuro properly," said Emmy.

"I agree," replied Evan.

"Alright, you're right."

If I had a euro for every funeral I went to after an apocalypse I'd have two euros, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

"HEY! You over there!!! Are you okay?!" yelled two people in the distance.

"Oh shit, it's not going to be any more enemies! Fireb-" said Evan.

But I stopped him in time, they were dressed as farmers, I don't think they could be on Clark's side too.

"Stop, Evan. Look at the way they're dressed. They're locals."

We caught up with them, they were two farmers, they were very sweaty.

"We heard a tremendous confusion and then we saw Acuro dead on the ground, was it the zombies' fault?" the two said.

"It's a long story, the teacher died to protect us," said Emmy.

"The teacher?" replied the female farmer.

"Yes, Acuro was our master, wait, but do you guys know him?"

"Y-yes, he helped us a lot these days to eliminate the zombies in the area, without him we would have been dead for days now."

"I see, I didn't know sensei was so thoughtful to even take care of the people in town. I'm glad," said Emmy.

"..."

"When we'll leave from here we will only aim at one thing: retrieving water, the water in the vicinity is running out, it is evaporating, thanks to the drought"

"Don't worry, head north, there is plenty of water there," I told them.

"Okay, thanks, how about you spend the night with us? We can offer you food and bury your master Acuro if you'd like."

"Well, it's dark now and we don't have anywhere else to go... So I'd say yes, thank you."

"Well, follow me," said the farmer."

I took Acuro's body on my shoulders, the blood was now stopping coming out, and we walked to the little country house of the two farmers, whose name we still didn't know.

"Tell us, where are you guys from?" the woman asked us.

"Poland."

"Germany."

"England."

"WOW! All three of you are from different places, how did you guys meet?"

"Well...I don't know if you heard about us ma'am, but we...we're the kamien guys," I told her.

"The kamien guys? But weren't there 3 people with kamiens? Two boys and Senator Weber, right?"

"I'm sorry to tell you that the senator is dead, and we've been joined by Evan, who is from England, as he told you earlier."

"Oh no, now what are we going to do about the water!"

"Don't worry, ma'am, the canisters filled by the senator will be enough for a month, and within that month we'll be able to defeat the bastard who collects the stones."

"Who would that be?" said the farmer.

"He is a person with very big ambitions, unknown to us yet, but it seems he wants to take possession of all the kamiens because he has a specific kamien that sucks up the others, we don't really know how it works yet, but he will definitely be able to use all the ones he collects, so until we manage to defeat him we won't have the water back," I said.

"Ah sir, if you want I can make a pizza if you have the ingredients, you have a wood-burning oven, I have the electricity kamien so at my house I usually used the electric oven to make it, but Evan has the fire kamien so he can help me."

"Unfortunately, we don't have the ingredients for pizza, but we can make you some meat and vegetables by taking advantage of Evan." the lady replied.

"That's fine, no problem," replied Evan.

They then began preparing food and Emmy, the farmer, and I went out into the field to find a place where we could say our final goodbyes to Master Acuro.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes," replied Evan.

"Wait, Evan? Weren't you inside making food?" asked Emmy.

"Well, yes but I took the opportunity to try using one of the Kagu-Tsuchi's fireballs so I could practice since the fire is infinite and only goes out when I want it to."

"Brilliant!" I answered him.

"Isn't it? Ahaha."

We laughed, Emmy included, even though the situation wasn't exactly ideal, we had yet to decide how to say goodbye to our teacher forever.

"Well, all kidding aside, let's get started," said the farmer.

"Don't worry, I've got this," replied Emmy.

With a small breeze, she moved enough dirt to be able to bury Acuro.

"Will that be enough?" asked Emmy.

"Yeah, I think that's enough."

We joined in "prayer" before putting more dirt over his body.

We weren't religious at all, maybe the farmer was, but that didn't concern us, we just wanted to pay respect to our master.

After a few minutes of silence and tears, we covered Acuro's body and went back inside to have dinner.

Once we got inside, I hugely needed to do something.

"PLEASE, WHERE IS THE BATHROOM?" I asked.

"There isn't, or rather, there is but the flush doesn't work for obvious reasons, if you need to do your business you can go to the fields behind."

In an apocalypse, you can't extinguish human needs.

After finally clearing my stomach, I went back inside and we finally got around to eating.

"Hey, one question, what are your names? We've known each other for a few hours but you haven't told us your names yet," said Evan as he chewed.

"Ahah, right, well our names are Annalisa and Maurizio respectively."

"Ah, that's good to know, Italian names are all so confusing..."

"Well, not to mention the German ones!" said Maurizio, the male farmer.

"Can't argue with that, haha," said Evan and I as we looked at Emmy.

"..."

"Well, we better get some rest, it's going to be a long day tomorrow, we're going to have to go after the bastards in the ZETA organization."

"ZETA?" asked Emmy.

"Yes, that's what they call themselves, from what I remember from high school it's a Greek letter ( Ζζ ), I don't remember specifically what it means but I'm sure they don't mean any good.

"I see...Well as you say, it's better to go to sleep."

"Come, I'll accompany you to the rooms," proposed Annalisa, the woman.

We went up the stairs, unlike Acuro's, this house was much larger and more spacious, we had a room each.

"Good night, guys," the lady told us.

"Good night." We all replied together.

Before we separated and went each to our own room we all gathered in mine, where we decided on the plan for the next day.

"We have to get ready. We need to decide what time to leave, where to go, and what to bring," Emmy told us.

"Well, we can use the electric car as we've always done, we can bring the food we haven't eaten so far, and we can ask the farmers for more of it," I proposed.

"Right, and I know where we need to go," Evan said.

"What? Where?"

"I saw where Dario was coming from, I'm pretty sure he was coming from the outpost of the ZETA organization."

"Probably, and where did they come from?"

"From much further south than where we are."

"Good, then let's stick with those plans, now let's rest, we won't have much time to rest tomorrow."

"Good night everyone."

After the dialogue, we went to sleep.

Tonight I finally wanted to get a good night's sleep, crazy things were happening every night that kept me sleepless.

After a long sleep and yet another hearty breakfast, we started heading south.

"Goodbye, guys! Have a safe trip!" the farmers told us.

"Thanks, you too, we hope to see you when we get back!" yelled Emmy to them.

"Yes! Please come back safely!"

"Sure. Thanks and have a great time!" I yelled at them.

"Well, guys, what are we waiting for? Let's go kick the zeta bastards' asses!"

"Yeah..." replied Evan.

We left in the style of a Hollywood movie where the main characters walk away leaving behind an explosion.

Only we weren't leaving an explosion behind us, but only pain and tears. We had lost someone who had raised us. Although only 2 days, they were the best days of our lives.

We packed up the car and set off, more hard work and pain would have awaited us, but this time we were more prepared than before.