Hmm, I was thinking of a random dump today... and well I guess nothing would be more random than treating you guys to Chapter Eleven of my current piece Lunatic Moon. Without further delay, I present:
She ran on, not knowing where she was going. Her legs moved, carrying her forward at their own will.
Panting, she kept on running until her legs gave way, sending her crumpling into an unceremonious heap on the ground. Panting, she struggled to her feet. It was night now, she had been sprinting for the whole day and her legs had brought her into the middle of a forest clearing.
I killed him… I killed an innocent person… with these hands… with them… I killed him!
Her heart beating wildly in her throat, she slowly walked through the clearing. Her trained nose suddenly picked up the faint odor of death and decay.
Strange… what would be rotting somewhere nearby?
The stench led her toward a tree in the forest. Skewered to the tree by two spears was the rotting corpse of a dwarf, maggots gnawing hungrily at his decomposing flesh. Twisted remains of what used to be a rifle lay beneath his feet, covered in dry cakes of blood.
Why would a dwarf be skewered to a tree rotting here? But more importantly… those spears… they seem familiar. Her curiosity took her mind temporarily off her confusion.
I remember now. Demon Dinner Forks… Yes, mistress Remilia… no, Balanar… that bastard was here.
Her fingers trembled as they wrapped themselves around the spears pinning the corpse to the tree. The dwarf slid to the ground with a dull thud.
Mistress Remilia… you’re nearby aren’t you? Just where are you?
“I believe that now is not the time to be worrying about a dead dwarf.” An emotionless voice spoke from behind her.
She turned around.
Blue tentacles quivered slowly, framing a face which consisted of only two slits serving as eyes. Inside them, she saw emptiness.
“Dark… terror…” she choked.
“Indeed. What, are you surprised?”
“Didn’t I… didn’t I… kill you?”
“Yes, you might have. I guess I was just lucky, before you killed the real me, my instincts kicked me slightly back through time. Of course, you had totally destroyed my body upon my return, so I had to spend some time rebuilding everything from scratch.”
“So… I didn’t kill you?”
“No, but that was certainly a painful episode. You’ll have to take responsibility for dissecting me. So…”
Sakuya’s eyes narrowed. Her eyes flashed teal as she drew her knife. Darkterror let loose a gurgling laugh, not finishing his sentence.
In unison, they charged, Darkterror whipping out a spiked mace from the folds of his clothing, Sakuya’s knife swinging toward the line across his throat.
He is weak now. Much of his energy has been squandered to rebuild his body. The way he is now, another cutting of his lines is what it’ll take to completely erase him from this world. He can’t step back through time anymore.
Her slash missed as Darkterror crouched low. In a flash, he who was lower than her aimed for her neck and drove his mace upward. Sakuya parried it. She retreated, putting some distance between them.
Her movement of retreating without moving her legs really resembles a spider, Darkterror thought. But, even so, does she know what good are legs if they can’t move?
“Ansuz, Fier, Dist!” Darkterror chanted as he continued to parry Sakuya’s vicious onslaught of slashes, invoking one of his most powerful spells, one that literally stopped the progress of time within a given radius.
A blue dome blanketed the area as he completed his incantation, specks of light rising slowly from the ground toward the skies. Darkterror laughed in mirth as Sakuya was frozen solid, locked by time in the midst of her attack.
As he sauntered forward, ready to bring his mace crashing onto her head, he noticed Sakuya’s eye twitch slightly. A split second later, her knife was already bearing down onto his unprotected forehead.
Had he missed that little twitch, she would’ve literally cut his head apart like a carving knife would a turkey.
Standing up after his unceremonious barrel roll backward, he glared at Sakuya.
“How could you have been able to move within my Chronosphere?”
“I don’t know,” Sakuya replied calmly as she walked forward. “I just learned how to toy with the flow of time to minimize the time I took doing my jobs at the mansion.
“So… die here.”
The moment she said that, the curtains descended upon the stage. She raised her knife-bearing arm.
She’ll definitely throw her knife, Darkterror predicted and readied his body for her assault.
They both had only one weapon. If he deflected it, she would lose her weapon. And he would kill her.
“Cruel Blood…”
She came like a banshee. The tucked arm moved to his side instantly in anticipation of her advance.
Preparing herself for the death blow, she turned her back to him.
Swoosh! She turned like a top.
Woosh! The glimmer of the knife as it cut through the air. Darkterror watched it with his eyes and judged that he could repel the blade. As he raised his mace, she came into his vision.
What kind of trick is this? As if swayed by the moonlight, she had taken off into the air, her back still toward him. At the peak of her leap, she flipped, her head moving down. At a nightmarish speed, along with the knife she threw, she came.
When Darkterror realized it, he was already in a pinch. If he hit her, the lower half of his body would be cleanly cut away. If he didn’t, then it would be death.
Everything happened too fast. Instinctively, he had parried the knife and the impact shook his entire body. As he reeled, she grabbed his head. With a sickening crunch, the bones in his neck gave way.
“…Izayoi.”
She said, landing deftly on her feet without a sound, her hands lifting up the hem of her skirt elegantly, her figure hunched in a slight bow, signaling the end of her miraculous dance beneath the moon.
Darkterror stood, his head torqued backwards, his body still not realizing its death.
Beneath the silver moon, a maid calmly took apart the same body she had dismantled earlier, a faint smile playing on her beautiful face.
... Yep, that's what I have in store for my readers at the DA forums. Though for a clearer idea of Sakuya's attack, I had my friend Robin Larsson make me a video.
Yes, as you can see, it's based in Nanaya's Last Arc, which is one of my favourite Last Arc Drives. I really think I should include Ryougi's Last Arc too next time =)
Oh yes, and we all love you, Lily Chong <3
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