Katana 76 - Chapter 5. The hunt

Kilan ran towards the forest through the streets of the village to avoid causing collateral damage, deflecting the shots of his persecutor away from the fragile structures that surrounded them.

"Are you crazy!? You're going to end up killing someone if you keep pressing the trigger like a madman!"

"Don't worry, as long as you stay put no one will get hurt... Well, no one except you that is!"

The unusual sceptre opened right over its handle, reloading energy from its surroundings and shooting a wonderful pink-and-golden projectile towards its prey.

"Shit!"

The prey, with a quick strike of his yet seethed katana, launched the attack towards the skies, where it exploded in a way as beautiful as its previous form.

"Now, now, Shikata... Weren't you the one that said I should watch my language?"

After turning his retort into a click of his tongue the prey resumed his escape, bursting into the forest.

"Oh come on, were you waiting for me only to run away? Did you really want to play catch that badly YOU SCALED LITTLE SHIT?"

With a twisted smile, the angel continued his hunt.

Meanwhile, in a house already familiar to this story, another angel left her worries exposed.

"Shouldn't we stick to his plan? It sounded really solid to me..."

"Don't worry, I'm sure he took this into account when thinking about the plan."

"Even so..."

The talk came to an end when the door of the house was violently slammed open.

"Someone dangerous arrived! Kilan said it's time for something!"

"Let's go to the portal."

"Mana... Are you sure this will work?"

"It may not work, but I refuse to run away and leave the rest of the village behind"

"What..? What are you two..?"

"Don't worry dear, I won't let any of you suffer anymore."

The trio got out of the house with nothing but what they had on them.

"Shouldn't we at least take our special belongings with us?"

"Well... Your mother has a... quite extraordinary plan"

"Oh right, Kilan asked me to say thanks for him and give you back these bandages."

"...Eh..? But... he already thanked me... and it's not like he needed to give the bandages back..."

The two youngest of the trio stopped, confused, looking at each other as if they were the other's mirror.

"Don't tell me..."

The girl turned, looking back towards the forest, where explosions made clear the battle continued.

A shot impacted against one of the many trees of the forest, which absorbed it and dispersed it through its branches, almost hitting the original caster.

"Hot damn, what are these trees made of?"

This forest was in the middle of a battlefield, the soil was dead, the air was burnt and lost attacks landing in it were a common occurrence. These trees, whose wood could even be made into weapons, developed a way to aggressively absorbs magic from its surroundings and disperse a part of it with the surrounding trees.

"That girl back there was his sister, right? And those bandages she was carrying must have been made by Feliziel, no wonder you healed up so quickly... Seems like you got on their good side before they knew the truth."

The hunter taunted his prey, luring him out of his hiding spot, and it appeared to work.

"They already know the truth, I've told them everything and I can do the same for you if you-"

"HAHAHAHAHA... Do you think I'm a fool!? That I'll listen to a single word you have to say!?"

The angel shot at the place where his prey's voice had come from, but he had already changed its hiding spot.

"You always do the same! People lower their guard because of your curse and then you devise a way to trick them!"

"I didn't lie to them! I told them everything with honesty, and I'll do the same with you if you stop shooting me..."

"IN YOUR DREAMS!"

The hunter shot at a tree, which redirected its attack towards Kilan, but he evaded it.

While the angel's sceptre recharged the white dragon got out of his cover, holding his katana by the sheath with the handle pointing upwards. With a light shining from his finger, he siped it through the tip of the handle and started drawing an apparently erratic line on the air.

"Oh, so hide and seek is over now? ... TAKE THIS THEN YOU FUCKER!"

The angel's shot was faster than before, but his target intercepted it with the handle of its weapon and shot it back from the tip of its sheath, gracing past the side of his attacker's face.

The angel started laughing frantically, veiling his face with the palm of his hand as his body arched backwards.

"So you're going to use that sword as a sceptre... Then I'll use mine as a sword!"

With the same light Kilan had used a moment ago he inscribed a line on the back of his sceptre, when he finished, the line dissolved in the air as if it had never existed, his sceptre started to stretch and, from the base, a blade of pure energy was born.

After the transformation ended the angel started to run towards his prey and lept towards him once he was close enough, he drew a line from the sky to his prey's core, but the white dragon stopped it before it could even reach his white hairs, using only the tip of its sheath.

They both entered their combat stances and commenced to slowly walk around in circles, as if gravitating the point at which their gazes clashed.

"You don't look as sharp as usual Shikata, maybe you should have kept those bandages on you a little bit longer, what? Were they so soaked with guilt that they were weighing you down?"

"..."

"If the handle and sheath had been sealed along with the blade this would be much faster..."

"Please stop, I don't want to harm you..."

Hatred swallowed the angel's face as fast as the blade from his sceptre grew.

"I'm sure you didn't want to harm Kanan too, right?"

The resentment on the dragon's face was obvious, and his enemy didn't waste a second to take advantage of that. The angel dashed towards him and bashed him from the side, and even after blocking it, Kilan was sent flying towards one of the multiple trees that surrounded them.

"Amikael... you know this is not what Kanan would have wanted..."

"Yeah, you're right, I'm sure he would have wanted to still be alive!"

Kilan couldn't do anything but lower his head, which only served to irritate the angel even more

"... If you regret it so much... PAY WITH YOUR LIFE YOU FUCKING TRAITOR!"

The slash cut through the tree right at the level where his neck used to be, making its long live end and its even longer body hit the ground, trembling the entire forest.

Kilan, who had taken advantage of his adversary's blinding rage stood now at a safe distance from his back.

"You are the ones... that joined the plan he gave his life to fight..."

"HAHAHAHAHA... It's funny that you have the balls to say that to my face even after what you did..."

His word struck the angel's core, but what fueled his killing sight the most was knowing his prey believed in his own words.

"Neither you nor Kanan understood how cruel this war truly is, you were lucky you didn't have to set a foot on a battlefield... YOU HAD NO FUCKING IDEA! What's a couple of innocent lives compared to peace all around the Kosmos? NOTHING, THEY ARE NOTHING! We soldiers kill each other to protect the safety of our faction, but we have to cause suffering to others for that... whether we win or lose we're only creating suffering so that other's indifference can continue, killing the worlds we're fighting for in the process...

Why couldn't you get it? If he hadn't started a revolution, saying things like there had to be another way... if you had trusted in our suffering instead of fighting to the end... we would all still be together"

The energy blade dissipated into the air, and the little particles that flew and hit the angel's face turned into tears...

"Amikael..."

The dragon lowered his weapon and approached his friend, who pushed him aside before pointing him with his yet unpowered sword.

"DON'T COME NEAR ME!"

Rikan ran as fast as her 'damn leg' would allow her, following the trails of battle right as she heard a scream of anger right outside the path.

"COME ON, SAY IT! I WANT TO HEAR IT FROM YOU!"

The screams could be heard louder with each step, but one of those steps stepped on something the stepper wasn't expecting to step on.

"Isn't this... my sword? Wow, I can't believe how fast it is to run through here when rain isn't pouring down your face..."

Sword in hand, she continued her stepping, and after a few steps, she saw her old tree companion surrounded against one, being pointed at by the angel's sceptre, and just like she always did, once she saw someone in need she acted without thinking about it too much.

"TAKE THIS FUCKFACE"

The girl threw herself against the angel, pointing at him with her sword.

"NOOO!"

the sword caved itself in his shoulder, then the shot from the angel that hadn't reacted in time hit his back.

"What has... W-What have I..."

The girl, holding the sword that was still going through Kilan's shoulder, fell to the ground as he fell over her.

"Why did you save him!? Isn't he one of my brother's killers!?"

After releasing his pain with an unscriptable sound, Kilan grabbed Rikan and started to run to safety.

Meanwhile, Amikael raised from the hard soil as he laughed.

"Me? Kill your brother? Don't make me laugh. Hey, didn't you say you told them the whole truth?"

"What the fuck are you talking about!?"

"Congratulations, you just stabbed your brother's assassin."

"Fuck of! As if Kilan would kill my brother!"

Kilan stopped running...

"Right...

           ...Kilan..?"

Rikan freed herself from his clutch and gave a step back.

"Kilan... you just have to say you didn't and..."

"..."

"Kilan...

                    say that...

  you didn't..."

Fear took control of her face and soul, as she gave another step back.

Kilan looked at her, his eyes covered in the shadows of his white hair.

"Kanan and I were the only ones in the room where and when he died."

"...No, but...     ...that doesn't mean...    ...you were..."

"Kanan's life was ended by his own Katana, the same one I now hold just like I did at the moment of his death."

Rikan stepped back again... stepping on a root... making her lose her step...

Kilan graved the edge of the sword that was still firmly sheathed in his shoulder and plucked it out. He threw it, still covered in blood, right in front of the scared girl, making her release a piece of scream she couldn't contain.

"At the time of his death, the blade of this sword was passing through your brother's neck."