After Days - Chapter 4: Part 2

“Leon,” Laza gasped. “Your dagger.” The once golden handle was lined with highlights of blue and green light, rippling across its intricate engravings.

Leon’s dripping eyes snapped down to the shimmering weapon, the shield bursting inches from its edge. He couldn’t fathom it. Ueda had told them stories of magical people, with extraordinary power. She said she could speak with them, understand them, learn from them. All she had to do was listen. No one ever believed her rambling about other worlds and holy saviours, but maybe, just maybe. Had she does this? Was this dagger some sort of gift from the magical world to his own? Leon crouched and reached for with dagger with caution.

“Don’t touch it.” Laza slapped his hand away, shooting him an unsure stare. “It’s never done this before, and we really shouldn’t do anything to make it stop doing…whatever it’s doing.” His eyes trailed up the height of the flaring barrier, praying that it would not give way and bring Russell down on top of them.

It was his, for all this time, and he had never know. Leon couldn’t take his eyes off it. It was beauty, safety, possibly even hope. He had held so much power, power enough to change his life, even change the world. Had he been so blind that he could never see it? He figured he was never supposed to know, that it wasn’t a weapon, just a one-off failsafe in case he got in too deep. Though there was no certainty about it.

“You still wanna die?”

With wide eyes, Leon answered silently.

“Or do you have some questions to ask?”

***

Elliott had ran ahead of his rescuers, and since there was no sign of him on the stairway, he must have travelled fast. Laza glanced to his slowly climbing brother far too frequently, trying to figure out what was going on inside his head. The truth was, behind the ghostly pale skin and lost eyes, nothing was going through his mind. Not one particular thing at least, nothing he could pluck out of the swirl of confusion and detachment to focus on. His skin glistened with seeping sweat as the light from the end of the stairwell passed over him. Sickness rocked in his stomach like a swirling ball, heavy and unsettled. This was beyond him. Monsters, Whispers, evils and death, he had come to understand those things long ago. But the light, that powerful, undeniable light. Nothing like that existed in his world of shadows. Nothing.

As they reached the peak of the climb, Elliott came into view, standing at the ledge before the drop down to the open platform. Vicky cowered behind his leg, clinging to it and she buried her head into his stained clothes, or more accurately, rags.

‘At least she’s happy he’s home.’ Laza smiled to himself, but what was with Elliott? He just stood still, not even acknowledging his sister’s embrace. Perhaps Ueda had been too soft on them both, but surely they could still understand basic interaction.

The eldest brothers reached the ledge, Laza still confused and Leon still pale with questions. Elliott’s eyes were stiff and focused, he didn’t even flinch when Laza nudged him. “Hey, little man, what’s going on?”

“Ueda Shiori.” Grumbled a commanding but clear voice as a man stood over her, his back to the group.

“What the hell?” Laza gasped as he frowned to the figure, partly shrouded by dancing, purple trails of thick, dull flame.

“Warden is in your debt.” The strange man granted as he rested a long, clean katana against her shoulder as she rested her hands upon her knees.

“Stop! Hey!” Laza threw himself from the balcony in rational haste and crashed to the ground, Dropping his bar of steel but still trying to sprint.

Leon looked on, but didn’t move. It was as if he were trapped in someone else’s body. No. If it were a body, he’d have forced it to move, he was looking on as a phantom, a soul with no strings to help it move. Despite this, he saw everything in a world that seemed to slow. Her hood was down, the one that concealed her face for an age now. Her hair was long, thin and black as it strayed in the breeze of the man’s pulsing aura. Her skin was fair but smooth, clean, far more youthful than it should have looked. Then he noticed it darken as it reached the side of her head. From her temple, behind her jaw, down and into her cloak, the transition from dark bruises to violent, rutted scars was slight. Her throat was deformed and riddled with old slashes. Maybe that was why she sounded so rough?

Then he let his eyes wander to her foe. Battle was riddled on him, burns, scars, blood, all of this far too much damage to be caused by a single woman. He was tall, as tall as Laza, yet strapping, holding himself like a true soldier, straight and strong with a steady blade. Leon’s eyes trailed its length back to his guardian. She was looking right at him, with not a flicker of anger towards his frozen self. Instead she smiled at him, her eyes gentle with a glint of pride, as if he had somehow managed to rid the world of evil. Did she see what his dagger had done? It would be of no surprise if she felt it, the same way the felt that Leon was close to using Kel’Dar only a day or so ago.

Everything slotted back into its own pace as the figure drew his arm across his chest. “You have ended this world.” With his blessing said, his foot shifted across in front of the kneeling woman as his weight quickly followed, driving the blade through the air. It gave only a slight whistle as it passed through her neck, cleanly, her eyes fixed on Leon.

Laza tripped to the ground as he felt his heart turn to ice, watching as the blood trailed from the end of the murderer’s long blade. Elliott squeaked, then collapsed to the ground, fainting beside his still crying sister. Leon just stood, very still, sensation drifting around his body but never touching it.

“You bastard!” Laza dragged himself to his feet as he bellowed. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

The man took a glance over his shoulder as Laza flew towards him, though he made no hurry to evade him. He took the time to look at the two standing men, his eyes almost thin with sorrow. As Laza was upon him, he suddenly jerked, flickering from his place by the spilling corpse to the edge of a neighbouring rooftop. His knees bent as he landed steadily on the ball of a single foot, leaving a failing path of purple flames.

Laza howled with madness, not even startled at the man’s powers. He smashed his hands into the sides of his head, clawing at his scalp as he squeezed harder, trying to rip the truth from his mind as he buckled beside his ‘Mamma’s’ body. Suddenly the air grew dense, his cries becoming more like a shockwave than an outcry. Dust began to circle his trashing body as trickles of blood got caught in the rising air around him. They rose like elegant red pearls before being mixed with the dirt from the roof.

The wind circled him tighter, turning the campfire to a spray of ash and hurdling logs as they spiralled down towards the street. It was enough to begin to bring Leon to his senses, the stinging wind against his skin and the crippling pain of his brother.

The murderer steadied himself on the rooftop, leaning forward into the gusts as his long, feathered red locks littered over his face. He watched Laza closely, barely having to narrow his eyes in the rushing air.

This was wrong, Leon could feel it in the core of his bones. What was happening? Nothing made sense to him. It was as though, when Ueda’s head was severed, so was his brother’s sanity. His yelling had distorted into an almost inhuman roar of anger. His eyes rolled back into his head as he clamped his hands against it tighter, then all was quiet, like the pause before thunder.

“No, don’t! Please!” The assassin jolted his hand forward, trying to reach out to the mindless man, but it was too late. In a sudden rush of heat and pressure, the space around Laza burst, pushing green fire outward like a bubble, crushing the roof beneath him, though he did not drop. He floated in place, a blank look of insanity and bloodlust tattooed onto his returning eyes. The murderer’s arm dropped with the weight of failure as he abandoned his military posture, almost sinking into himself.

Laza lifted one of his tensing, swelling arms and drew it back, clenching his fist before throwing it forwards. The strength of his punch seemed to tear through the night, quickly coming down towards his opponent, but before it could reach, the villain flashed, disappearing completely in a blink of light with a look of helplessness on his honest face. The force ripped through the opposing building, bringing it to its foundations.

“Where are you?! Fight me!” Laza demanded as his muscles growing and tightening, the corners of his mouth lifting further to reveal grinding teeth. There was no reply from the dead city as the crumbling sound of demolition hushed away. “Fight me!” He threw his arms back, pushing out another sphere of hardened air, so thick that it stretched his clothes and ripped them apart.

The pressure pushed into the hideout, breaking more and more of it away as it tossed his siblings back into the stairway. They tumbled, confused, frightened, and outmatched, everything about what the world had become in the blink of an eye was too much. The twins rolled down the stair close to one another, both of them now unconscious from the ordeal, though Leon let his useless body fall, with more unanswered questions drowning his mind.

Cries of challenges, taunts and promises of revenge echoed from outside, though they were difficult to hear over the sound of crashing concrete as the whole building came down around the few. Leon dropped through an opening in the twisting floors and landed hard, though the pain was numbed by his wandering thoughts. Mercifully, he did not have to endure himself for long. As his vision became patched with blinking black dots, he started to lose himself, and with the crush of one more explosion, and with a glimpse of what he thought was Ueda’s head, he did.