A Simple Job, Part 2

“Yamato. We must never use our strength against those we have sworn to protect.”

“But, Master —”

“No. No matter what, the White Bamboo does not kill.”

The first man went down like a chump. All that bravado, all those threats, meant nothing as his body hit the ground. But that didn’t stop the other seven from trying to overwhelm me. The bastards decided to split into two groups, as they descended upon me and Stella. It seemed their would-be leader decided to pounce on Stella with two other men while the rest swarmed me. My size didn't seem to register as a threat to them at all. Strength in numbers. I guess. But they were cowards. 

Damn cowards.

After I annihilated the first, the rest raised their guard and started playing it cautiously. I wish they’d all continued to be stupid. Would’ve made my job easier.

“Surround him!” one barked.

I tried making my way to Stella, but I was surrounded instantly. It looked like she was holding the other three men off just fine. But I didn’t have much time to watch, because pain lanced through my arm. One of the bastards got lucky and struck me with a spear while I was distracted.

Luckily for me, my arm was fine. Toughened by years of pain and practice. But my temper wasn’t. I grabbed the spear of a man who’d overextended his thrust, hauling him toward me with my right arm as I deflected the swings of the other three with my left.

I drove a punch into the pitiful sod directly on the chest. I could feel his bones crack on impact before he launched backwards into a tree.

Two down.

I leapt up into the darkness, and I could see it on their faces as I rose. Somewhere between fear and awe. I could tell. My speed didn’t match my size, and it had just dawned on them how badly they messed up.

I landed on a man wielding an axe, and the impact probably killed him. I didn’t stay to check. He never got back up.

Three down.

In an instant, I spun, driving a round kick into the side of someone’s skull. He hit a rock and didn’t get back up.

 Four down.

I finally had a good look at the last three men, trembling before me. They looked like the typical bandit crew that relied purely on numbers. Cheap blades, light armor. The moment someone strong came around, they would dissolve immediately. They’d already proven the point by running. They were most likely making for the rest of the flank guard. If what their leader said was true, the whole flank meant to kill us. 

I launched after them like a gust of wind, caught up to the slowest one, and slammed into him.

Five down.

One of them finally decided to be brave, sword tip aimed at me as he charged — but I’d already been hit once, and I wasn’t going to disrespect my teacher again. I grabbed the sword by the edge, its blade slicing into my hand. 

That was intentional. 

I shattered the blade in two then landed a strong uppercut to the man’s jaw.

Six down.

With the last man farther away, I flipped the broken tip in my hand, gripping it by the fractured edge so the point faced outward, and closed my eyes. I focused only on him. His breathing. His panic. The clink of his armor echoing through the trees. I isolated him, felt his aura pulse against mine. I launched the blade from my hand like a leap of faith. 

I landed my hit. His aura faded away.

Seven down.

I exhaled and opened my eyes. The thrill of the fight was still humming under my skin, restless, unwilling to leave. I looked at the chaos I’d created. Broken bodies, broken ground. So much for being a peacekeeper. My master would have had words for this. If she were still alive to say them. 

The procedure was to give these men, no matter how vile they were, a proper sendoff. But I didn’t have time to grant these men even that much respect. I was already moving, tearing back through the trees towards where I’d left Stella.

That idiot. I could have taken all ten of them. Why didn’t she listen and run away? Another death on my hands. I wouldn’t survive that shame twice. 

Never. 

Never!

I broke back into the clearing. The sounds of fighting had already died. No clash of steel, no voices. Just the fog, and the silence underneath it. Stella was gone.

No. No, they hadn’t. They couldn’t have. Not her too.

“Stella!” I yelled at the empty forest. “Stella, where the hell are you?!”

I retraced my steps through the wreckage of the fight, and that’s when I found traces of blood, dark against the leaves. Whose, I couldn’t say. But it was something. I followed it, and just a few steps from the clearing, I found the first body. I bent down and turned it over. One of the men who’d attacked her. Dead. 

The trail went down a small decline, and I jumped after it. The trail thickened as I went, blood darkening from old rust to something wet and recent. Until the trees broke open into another clearing.

Kneeling over two bodies was a cloaked figure.

Stella.

“Stella!” I shouted, closing the distance in a jog. Relief hit me like a fist to the chest. Surprising. When was the last time I’d felt that? It must have been ages.

She turned. Shock crossed her face. But that’s not what stopped me. Not the shock, and not the fact that she’d dropped three fully armed men on her own. It was her eyes. Crimson, just for a blink, red as the blood soaking the ground under her boots. Then blue again. Dull, ordinary blue, like nothing had happened at all.

But I didn’t care. She was breathing. That was enough.

“Yamato. You’re okay.” She rose, and her blades folded back into the tips of her gauntlets with a soft click, gone like they’d never been there at all. What in the hell was she carrying on her arms? Every minute with this woman raised another question I didn’t have an answer for. Elves fought with steel, with bowstrings, with spells. Not this.

The danger had passed. Well. Should have passed. But Stella’s steps toward me kept quickening, and her eyes had narrowed to something sharp. A jab, fast, clean. I caught her wrist before it landed. Reflex, mostly. Half a second later I had the other one too.

“Stella?”

“You.”

Her glare could’ve cut steel.

“Are.”

A short, useless kick to my shin.

“An.”

Another.

“Idiot.”

I felt none of it. Maybe that wasn’t the point. Maybe the point was just to hit something and I happened to be standing there, alive, and hers to be furious at.

“What is the point in needlessly endangering your life?”

“What are you—”

“Let me finish!” Stella interrupted. “I know what people think when they look at me. Weak. Useless. But I can fight! I can help! I don’t need you to protect me.”

Her arms were tense, and as I looked at her, gone was the carefree and relaxed attitude. Her lips were trembling from pure rage as if she wanted to say more. Her dull blue eyes had a fire to them I couldn’t quite describe.

I stayed quiet.

‘I can fight! I can help!’ 

I could sense her desperation when she said that. Her need to prove that she was strong. Some part of me sympathized with her.

Master! Let me help! You can’t do this on your own!

I let out a heavy breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Out of all the times to remember.

Damn you, Stella.

“Look, Stella.” I paused. How was I going to tell her? No matter how many times I tried to formulate the right words, in the end if I could do something on my own, why risk the lives of others? That’s how lives are needlessly lost.

“I told you to come with me on this patrol. It’s my fault that you got in this whole mess to begin with.” A half-baked excuse, but it was the only one that I could think of without possibly pissing her off even more.

“Liar,” she whispered, already dropping her arms. It seemed that she didn’t want to push the subject further. We were in a dilemma after all. “Your past is yours. If you’re not ready then that's fine.” She continued to look at me. “But life is precious, remember that.”

She raised her hood up again. “Next time just trust in me. Can you promise me that?”

I stayed quiet. She was talking as if this expedition wasn’t a one time thing.

Why keep a promise if I’d never see her again?

“Yamato—”

“I cannot.”

Her knuckles turned bone white and her fingers dug into her palm as she clenched her fists.

“C’mon, we have to return to the carriage. Brutus has a lot to answer for.” I said, turning my back on her. I’ve made it alone all these years. It’s better this way.

“Yamato—”

“Look, we don’t have time to continue—”

“Your lantern. Why is it glowing?”

I looked down at my side and it was the one omen that could make this night go from bad to a nightmare. My lantern. Glowing. A sign meaning only one thing.

The Abyss.