Captured

Akiro breathed in, feeling only the cold air, his senses touching nothing else and even with his incredibly sharp eye-sight, the darkness that surrounded him was blinding. He exhaled, a cold puff of air forming before dissipating. It was serene, completely calming– therapeutic.

“A space in between planes of reality, a mirror in which space and time can be warped at will– [Void Walk].” Akiro thought, “To think that I’d steal Jester’s Skill, what an interesting weapon. It’s a shame that I surrendered it, along with most of my things, but it's for the best. I can’t even trust myself with that kind of power, much less someone else.”

“Strength comes along with responsibility, and responsibility requires resolve. I don’t have that, so this is for the best.” Akiro shook his head, looking straight up. “I shouldn't keep them waiting, should I?”

[ You are making a grievous error, Child. ] [ Don’t regret it. ]

Sebastain looked at the prepared location and the ominous magic circle seal carved in pitch-black magic power. He stared long and hard at the object, patiently waiting for it to activate and for Akiro Hiroto to come through. Soon, the paper began to wrinkle, the magic circle whirring to life as tendrils of shadow seeped out.

“Here he comes…” He coughed, leading heavier onto his staff, even more so compared to earlier in the year, “My health is failing me… but my loyalty to this kingdom will not end with my death– It will live on, long after I die!”

Slowly from the swirling mass of shadow, an adolescent emerged, armed with nothing threatening and dressed in a simple hospital shirt and trousers. Akiro opened his eyes, his expectations betrayed with what he saw.

He turned around, the imagined high-tech facility remaining as it was, a figment of his imagination. From all sides, all angles, posted on the ground and tree-tops— he was surrounded. In the middle of the night, in the middle of an unknown forest, he was outnumbered, eyed like prey.

“What is the meaning of this!?” Akiro asked out loud, but he was not answered, instead he was angrily glared at by one of his mentors, “Sebastian, answer me! What is this place!?”

The priest only scoffed, assisted upright by two well-armored knights called Templars. “You are a double-edged dagger, boy.” He coughed again, “You are powerful, yes, but you are not useful to us if you were not a tool.”

“So that’s it, huh?” Akiro thought, not entirely surprised. “Something had been bothering me as of late, but my hypothesis was correct in the end…”

The assassin slowly reached for his side, only to find his weapons missing. “Shit.” He cursed. “Since we first got summoned here, the streets were very hectic, maybe even too hectic because crime and policing forces were swarming. However, as of late, the streets were very quiet, except for key posts around the castle. There were always messengers and priests there, advocating for prayers and donations– for us the ‘Heroes’.”

“There is nowhere to run! There is nowhere to hide! Surrender, and your capture will be painless!” Sebastian laid out the terms, his knees failing him, forcing his left-hand man to reach down and assist him up.

“Your Holiness!” “I’m fine, may the stars shine brightly upon you,” Sebastain recovered, turning back to Akiro. “So, what do you say, boy?”

“Fuck, this is bad…this is really, really bad.” Akiro looked around him. “Don’t you mean that my death will be painless?”

“Don’t try it.” The priest grinned, easily seeing through the boy’s well-hidden attempt at scanning his surroundings. “We have enough men to kill even Jester himself.”

“We’ve basically become puppets, and they're marketed to us like celebrities, used as fundraisers– for what, I’m not sure yet, but with King Earl and his wife…I don’t think it’s good.” The assassin steadied his breath, the chilling air turning his breath into clouds of vapor, eyes steadying.

“I’m no longer useful to you, am I? Is that why you’re getting rid of me? Is that what we were the whole time!? I thought you were our mentors, you did not look sad during my friends’ funerals!”

The memory was bittersweet for him, as he watched from the heights of the medical bay, four grand tombstones raised up by great chains, near-perfect replicas of their smiling faces in their happiest moments.

“Correction, I was your handler– I never was your teacher.” Sebastain’s friendly demeanor vanished from the assassin’s memories. “And you are correct, it was difficult to pretend, after all, we had five aliens to experiment with— you’ll be the live sample.”

The priests drawled his words, adding a condescending flare to the insult. Akiro knew not to fall for simple tricks like that, but at that deceleration and the current situation he was in, that was an incredibly difficult task. “So no wonder they were very calm about the whole scenario, and despite me being forced to choose— they were just thinking about using us even after our deaths.”

The crowd watched as the assassin's shoulders dropped, his body slouching down as his arms trembled. “So this is it…huh?” His voice cracked in between soft laughter.

“I killed Tsuki’, Ryu’, Toshi, Rei— so that they’d die human, just like they begged while they were under Jester’s control, only for their corpses to be used as test subjects!?!” He raised his head, sky-blue eyes staring at the moon directly overhead, before it fell sharply to glare at Sebastian. Painful memories resurfaced, their fearful, death-resigned expressions forever carved in his mind. “I’ll kill you, old man.”

Boom!

A large cloud of frosting fog exploded with the assassin in the center, swiftly enveloping everybody in range. The templar knights immediately pulled back with Sebastian in their arms.

“Your Holiness! It’s dangerous! We must pull back!”

The aged priest nodded, “Yes, we shall. He may be alone, unarmed, but he is still one of the strongest warriors of this century’s batch. Proceed as planned, whittle him down little by little.”

The templars simply obeyed, putting their right fists on top of their left chests as they continued running with Sebastian. “By your will!”

“Now let’s see! How long will you last! Akiro Hiroto!?”

The bystanders held firm in their places, their varying weapons drawn and ready to be used. Hundreds, perhaps a thousand and some, all hired for the same purpose of killing a singular man. Dozens of banners littered every direction, their quantity varying amongst the size of each company, and each of their members wore uniforms that signified their rank.

Officers wore better, superior gear compared to the common footman, but common or superior, they all waited anxiously as the fog slowly began to fall lower with its weight– layering the ground and vegetation with a layer of frozen dew. The bog slowly began to clear, revealing the target in the center, having not moved at all.

“Where is he?”

“Did he run?”

“Fools,” The lone silhouette muttered, basking in the rays of moonlight that passed through the fog, “You’re in my way.”

The air grew frigid, the molecules of water vapor slowly collecting into droplets, before freezing into solid snowflakes. Every bystander watched in silence as the wind carried the freezing air past them, coating the nearby forest in a thick, growing layer of snow.

“They want me to waste energy in trying to escape so that capturing me will be easy– so running is pointless. After I’ve dealt with everyone here, a second force will follow. I’m not strong enough to fight a hundred of those Templars either, who knows how many there are?” The assassin further fueled the surge of weather-changing magic power, mixing both his elements unknowingly. “My defeat is imminent, but my death isn’t. I don’t know what they’ll do to me– torture, experimentation, imprisonment– but I’ll escape…because I made a promise.”

The superior officers gasped in realization, and so they rallied with a single order, “Brace yourselves!”

Ka-Boom!

A snowstorm erupted from the silhouette, eroding the surrounding landscape, replacing it with frost and blackened Ice. Large wedges of black Ice replaced trees and uprooted rocks– raising his spot and creating depressions in the surrounding terrain, collectively making the field around himself incredibly chaotic and difficult to traverse.

“It seems that he won’t go down without a fight.” The officers frowned, soot-colored snowflakes slowly descending from the dark thundering clouds above them. Some offered a simple prayer as they raised their swords, “Gods help us all. Advance!”

The summoned soldiers began to march forward, their pacing growing with each step, until their march turned into a run. Akiro looked down at the men approaching him from all sides, “Come…” He thought silently, breaking off two spikes of ice, molding them into replicas of his own daggers. “I’ll kill you all.”

“I will kill you! Die!” Came from his right, from the first, most eager soldier. Akiro’s eyes smoothly tracked his movements, tilting his head and body back to avoid the upward diagonal swing. As the sword passed by, he could see the other soldiers flicker in the reflection, and he completely absorbed everything at first glance.

“Four behind. Two spears, one longsword, and one shortsword.” Akiro noted, spinning counterclockwise to cleanly slash the first soldier’s throat. “Slow.”

Shing!

He faced the four incoming men, dealing with them appropriately in order of the length of their weapons, taking advantage of the long reach of the spears before finishing off the swords.

Thu-Thud!

Akiro weaved underneath the spears, thrusting both daggers through their hearts, before throwing both of them in between the gaps of their helmet and chestplate– their necks.

Shi-shink!

Without a wasted beat, the assassin grabbed the spears from the falling corpses before jumping back up to the center of the hill. “Two more– Ha!”

Thud!

On the way up, Akiro threw the first one through one soldier’s heart, killing him swiftly, before finishing off the second with three brutal strikes from the spear-turned three-sectioned-staff. Coated in hardened ice, the wooden weapon is sectioned into three parts, further reinforced by a curse.

Ba-Bam-Pow!

[ Passive Skill: ‘Weapon Master’ is activating. ] [ You are charging your weapon with your magic power. ] [ Curse of Frost and Curse of Weakness has been imbued into the weapon. ]

“I can’t think of a more perfect place to test out my new abilities, and it's not like Sebastian can watch my abilities inside this storm.”

[ Name: Akiro Hiroto / Age 18 / Job: Assassin / Sub Job: Gunman ] [Race: Superior-Human][ Title: Grim Reaper’s Emissary ] [ Lvl 100 ] [ ATK: 800 / STR: 400 / DEX: 700 / SPD: 500 / DEF: 200 / INT: 500 / MANA: 1500 ]

[ Active Skill: ‘Gunman's Manual / EX’ ] [ Active Skill: ‘Appraisal / S’ ] [ Active Skill: ‘Stealth / S’ ] [ Passive Skill: ‘Weapon Master / S’ ] [ Active Skill: ‘Sprint / S’ ] [ Passive Skill: ‘Radar / S’ ] [ Active Skill: ‘Disguise / S’ ] [ Attack Skill: ‘Square Cut / A’ ] [ Passive Skill: ‘Language comprehension / D’ ] [ Passive Skill; ‘Swordsmanship / S’ ] [ Weapon Art: Moonlight-Execution Style / C ] [ Ultimate Skill: Reaper’s Culling / S]

[Active Skill: ‘Appraisal / S’ ] → [ Passive Skill: Eye of Truth / EX ], [Active Skill: ‘Sprint / S’] →[Active Skill: Acceleration / E], [Passive Skill: Radar / S] → [ Passive Skill: Spatial-Perception / E]

( New Skills: [Active Skill: Void / E] [ Attack Skill: Imbue Curse / E ] [ Passive Skill: Dominating Spirit / E ] [ Passive Skill: Alchemy / F ] )

“Some of my skills simply evolved into their highest forms, or transformed into the lowest level of a superior version of it. But even if they were still weak, they’re different compared to what they were before.” Akiro summarized, jumping and spinning to clockwise to narrowly avoid arrows from the base of the hill, “For example, my eyes–”

Whish! Whoosh!

“Never in my life did I ever think that the world could move so…slow!” The assassin landed, but quickly dropped to sweep the opponent’s legs, touching his back with an open palm. “May you stumble alone in darkness and in silence. [Curse of Blinding Silence]”

“Not only that–” Akiro grabbed the blinded soldeir’s shirt form underneath his armor, he pointed the man in the direction of the arrows, soaking up the barrage while his shield writhed and squirmed instead of screaming. “I have skills from when I…when I killed them. This…This is Tsukiko’s unique fighting style, her personalized way of fighting the enemy despite being in the backline.”

“[Blind] and [Silence] are different curses, but she discovered a way to combine and simplify them for practical combat– She was always good with words, especially English.” Akiro huffed, kicking the shield down towards a group of approaching fighters, locking them down. “Now’s not the time to reminisce– Ice [Crystallization / Spiked Boulder].”

A hollow ball of ice grew from his palm, rolling quickly down the hill, gaining speed, size and longer spikes. The men watched in horror as the attack quickly overran their position, costing them their lives.

“The night is still young,” Akiro breathed in the air, the forest scent slowly saturating with blood. He turned around, spinning slowly to completely grasp everything around himself, how many were approaching at the given moment.

A layer of frost began to grow around his fingers, coating them like armor– sporting sharp cutting edges. “And there's still a lot more of you to deal with.”