Troy and Selina walked down the darkened path, using his sword as a walking stick to test where the walls were. It was pitch black and he couldn’t see even his hand in front of him. The whispers of demons filled the air, whispering him in several different directions to get him lost.
Selina squealed with joy, excited to finally see Troy die in the emptiness of the abyss. To her lament he survived the darkness without getting lost, turning a corner to find another door down the hall where torches were lit.
As they reached the door Selina jumped off his shoulder and looked towards the door. This time the demon gripped the world in his hands, the pits of hell below him and the kingdom of heaven above, both trembling as he pierced his sword through the very fabric of creation. Selina looked down to the infernal script, reading it carefully several times.
“What’s it say?” Troy mumbled looking to the picture, feeling no memories spark from it. Selina continued to read.
“Thiz one is a little strange.” she admitted. “It’z really old infernal runic. I can’t make out the wordz.” Troy sighed kneeling next to her. “Some of it iz understandable, but not all.”
“What’s the gist of the picture’s message?”
“Well, it reads: I am the Sword Demon, I am the end of the world, the creation of order. I am the black Void. Nothing can stand before me. No saint, no fiend, no god.” Troy lowered his gaze to the world, seeing the oceans running over the torn earth. “It goez on, but I can’t make much of it out. Just sayz ‘the world waz yours, why didn’t you kill him?’ That seemz like a silly thing to zay.”
The two remained quiet as Troy thought about it’s meanings. Sheex gave him his convictions, Rebecca gave him understanding. Both were two parts of the puzzle, but a hole still remained in it. He knew he was a horrible person in his previous life, a monster of some sort, but the last piece of the puzzle was still out of his grasp. What sins did he create?
The door softly rumbled open and cautiously Troy stepped forward, his eyes scanning the room. Selina let him move first, keeping wide of Troy in case danger arrived. Inside the room was a wooden floor, like a dojo, with many murals of warriors fighting to the death. Troy lifted his weapon up and watched as something dark and sinister walked from the darkness.
Dressed in a bright red vlince fighter’s coat with black silk undershirt and pants stood a warrior with nothing in his hazel eyes but venom. Two pictures of scythes crossed the shoulder blades of his back like angelic wings as he turned away from Troy, his black hair flowing behind him as he reverently moved forward towards two swords located upon stone holders. He gently lifted up the steel katanas, swinging them each before he turned to Troy, his face contorted in barely contained rage.
“Will you show me what I have done?” Troy asked lightly lifting his weapon up in a ready stance.
He didn’t even register the attack, so swift was this red warrior’s movements. He was behind Troy, slashing his back open as blood cascaded from him across this warrior’s face. He flashed a step away, turning to face Troy on the ground as he looked to him with contempt.
“Pathetic.” he said at last, his tone dark and cruel. “Will I show you what you have done?” he said in a mocking way.
“Rebecca and Sheex have shown me what I lost and couldn’t understand. Now…what will you show me of what I have done?” he said determinedly.
“I shall show you how to die!” The crimson warrior shouted as his weapons flowed from his body like extensions of his arms. Troy lifted his weapon and rolled to his feet, parrying the blows as they came but unable to create an offense as the two swords kept upon him. A boot lifted up to Troy’s chest, knocking him back into the wall as the swordsman lifted up his right sword. “Blade of Saint Knu!”
A golden ethereal blade materialized before him, pushing against the soft wind in the room creating a howling noise as it charged in. Troy barely had the energy to lift his sword up and block the attack. The swordsman became a red blur as he was upon his left side, kicking him and swinging his blades in a deadly arc.
“They were far to kind to you!” He seethed. “Rebecca should have stabbed you, Sheex should have killed you!”
“Sheex isn’t a killer.” Troy said painfully as he softly got up holding his chest. Two deep cuts were letting blood run down his jacket on his arm.
“Had you finished that drink, you would have proven him wrong.” Troy’s eyes looked to this madman with confusion. “These trials don’t have a retry button, they don’t have a happy ending if you fail. Death awaits those who fail. Hesitation is only your weakness gripping your muscles and pleading them to let you die.”
The red swordsman was a blur as he appeared right behind Troy, weapon located in a death cut around his throat. “If you wish to survive this trial, you will only have to know my name.”
Troy ducked down to avoid the decapitating attack, crawling away as the red swordsman bellowed out to him in anger, placing a boot on Troy’s back as his sword stabbed right through his upper shoulder. Blood dripped down the floor and out his mouth as he choked on his own life fluid, feeling light headed at the sudden pain.
“You are the warrior I fight in my dreams.”
“I am the warrior who kills you in your nightmares!” he corrected. “My name should be embedded in your mind, but I can see you have fallen so far that I will kill you before you learn. That is a pity. I should have been so easy to defeat.”
Troy slowly got to one knee, keeping an eye on his foe as he tried to rack his brains into remembering this man before him. He lifted up his sword in his weaker hand, his more dominate hand a ruin as it dangled uselessly to the side. This warrior was an amazing fighter, keeping pressure with his two blades on the sword while he rotated in a round house kick to his wounded shoulder.
Troy felt the pain cross over him and he lost his stance opening himself up for another cartwheel kick in the face. His body lifted upwards and backwards as he corkscrewed hitting the walls and destroying one of the art pieces. He slumped down on the ground to his face, his body awkwardly held up as the man snarled his rage to the fallen foe.
“I…” Troy said weakly. “I can’t remember who you are.”
“Maybe because you didn’t care about me. All you cared about was yourself. This is the fight I should have given you, the fight you started to destroy my life!” he shouted. “You ripped my happiness away, you ripped my pride away, you left me a bastard and broken!”
Troy weakly used the wall to shoulder himself up, his body a mess of pain as he tried weakly to lift his sword. He felt the world split in two as his vision doubled, realizing he wasn’t going to live much longer if he fought this man. “I’m sorry…” Troy wheezed.
Infuriated by the words the swordsman charged forward, slipping inwards lifting his weapon up and easily knocking the blade out of Troy’s hand as both weapons bit deep into his chest. He howled his pains as he fell to his knees, dropping to his face as he felt the blood pool underneath him. His head was lifted and his body turned over as the red swordsman became relentless, punching with one hand and punching with the hilt of his sword in his other hand. Sharp pains filled his mind as one eye turned bloodshot red, the other puffy as his nose leaked blood out at an alarming rate.
Not finished with the punishment the red swordsman picked up Troy by the collar and brought him weakly to his feet where he sized him up. He pulled back his sword and prepared to thrust it though his face. Troy only closed his eyes.
”So you’re the blessed Saint of Swords.” the grey swordsman said calmly, pacing around the blue coated fighter.
“Yes I am,” he said carefully, his hand resting on the hilt of his swords.
“The Sword of Saints,” he continued, looking to each weapon and calculating the speed at which they probably would be drawn. When he came to a logical conclusion he halved that time. A blink of an eye, that was how fast this man would draw his blades up.
“That would be my title, backwards.” He said irritably.
“Of Saint Swords.” he spoke again, looking as the muscles in the arms tensed, his fingers flexing above the hilt. He halved the time again. At this rate he couldn’t blink or he would be dead.
“That didn’t even make any sense.” he said darkly, his eyes never leaving his. The grey swordsman quickly turned, pointing to the Saint of Swords.
“Quick, if orphans were burning in a building would you risk your life to save them?” he spoke rapidly as he watched the confusion sink into his eyes.
“Well, yes, of course.” he said honestly.
“And if you saw an older man getting mugged, would you step in?” he continued, watching as the Saint of Swords eyes began to lose their edge. He added five seconds to the draw time.
“I would, but that is mostly because I am a decent human being.” he said. The grey swordsman smiled as he caught the Saint of Swords in his trap.
“And if you were challenged by a warrior, would you not pick up the gauntlet and accept it.” he said evilly. The Saint of Swords eyes widened. His draw time on his two blades dramatically lowered. Now he could fight him and kill him.
“I would.” the blue swordsman said in a defeated tone.
“Than I challenge you to a fight!” the grey swordsman said laughing. His body tingled with excitement as he just made the challenge of a lifetime. He watched the swordsman look to him with sorry eyes, seeing within them a heavy burden as if this fight wasn’t just a mere fight. It didn’t matter though. He wanted to fight the Saint of Swords, damning anything that got in his way. He smiled sickly as the Saint of Swords said his answer.
The memory was missing something. It was incomplete, forced and rushed. Something in his mind was not locking into place and he sadly shed a tear of sorrow. He couldn’t learn what he did wrong.
Troy’s body was being stabbed repeatedly, his energy to even scream leaving his body as he was a bloody mess. His left shin was broken, his right arm dislocated, three ribs broken along with a broken nose and four fingers in all. He was bleeding out of his eyes and nose, his mouth missing a few teeth as the Red Swordsman went to town on him.
“You’re…the…” he breathed tiredly. “Saint of Swords.”
The red swordsman stopped his advance, but as he looked to Troy he narrowed his eyes into slits of hate.
“That is nothing but a stupid title. My name is not in your brain yet?” he chastised him. “All you can think of is my title? How worthless you truly are, cretin.”
He felt the wind in his body get sucked out as a powerful kick hit his stomach. He lifted up into the air, feeling his body stop in the flow of time as the kicks repeated themselves over and over. After a minute in this frozen state time had returned to normal and he puked up bile from his stomach as he landed upon the floor in a heap.
Understand your convictions to learn of your sins. a soft woman’s voice said.
He tried his best to think of it.
Understand your convictions to learn of your sins. a carefree man’s voice said.
He didn’t know, he had so many sins.
A gunshot went off wide as a door slammed open, a brown blur sliding on the fallen weight as it skidded forward. He held up a steel katana in reverence, the grey swordsman spinning in one fluid motion, drawing the weapon and cutting the throat of a pudgy man in a tailored suit. A black diary fell from his grip, as did the weapon in his hand. He looked up to the grey swordsman in shock, unable to believe what he saw.
“Took you long enough,” The grey swordsman said crassly.
“Well, I did have to go through the entire asylum to find you.” they both gave each other a look of respect. No words were said between the two. They had traveled for nearly two years and they still had stubbornly refused admitting they were friends.
“He was obsessed with you. Wanted to know how the ghost that died long ago found flesh to live again.” the grey swordsman kicked the book to the side of the room in disgust. “Not a damn word about me though. Muttered insanely about what pushed you. Never asked what pushed me.”
“What pushes you?”
The grey swordsman looked down upon the fallen body with contempt. He thought about what he was just asked, and then as he turned he let off a vile grin as the depressed warrior followed him. “My push you ask? Psssh,” he gave him a dirty look. “I thought you knew all along. It’s hate, you moron.”
“I’m sorry Karel Raven…” The sword was centimeters from his eye. No longer was the red swordsman there, but now a blue burlap coat with a white shirt and brown traveling pants. His hazel eyes lost a lot of the edge of hatred, but they still held contempt.
“I’m sorry I let my hatred of who I was blind me. I took away all you knew, loved…I did the same to myself and my only friend…all because I was filled with such hate. I can’t take back what I have done, but I can learn and say I’m sorry.” He noticed he was standing perfectly tall, his wounds not bothering him. He noticed he had no cuts, bruises, his eye wasn’t bloodshot. It was as if he never was beaten up.
“I have opened your eyes to your sins, and now with the understanding of those sins your convictions caused, the picture is near completion, but it still has one final piece left. Goodbye Swordsman.” Karel turned and walked away, his weapons sheathed as he walked down the dimly lit hallway fading into the shadows.
“Well that was certainly a close call.” Troy breathed out in relief.
“You’re a jerk!” Selina shouted pointing an accusing finger at Troy. “How clouded waz your mind, human, to think zo stupidly?” she ran up to him, kicking him once in the shin. He knelt down to rub his shin as she jumped on his back and moving to his shoulder.
“The blood wasn’t good enough for you?” Troy asked as he walked forwards.
“I can’t wait to see you in piecez!” Selina said angrily.
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