Soul Calibur - Series Fan Fiction ❯ Dawn of Fate ❯ Chapter 3

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

“Yume mitatte ima mite kita subete ni nigete kita korekara no ippo kakete mitai bouken wa ima ajimaru!” ("Was it a dream?" I've come to see it now... I came to escape from everything...Seems like every step I take from now on is a gamble- The adventure starts now!)

~FREEDOM, Riyu Kosaka (of BeForU)

It had been what seemed like forever when Tira finally completed her self-given mission of disposing of the Death Strikers. The bastards had situated themselves all over the world, wreaking havoc wherever they went, leaving Tira more than enough mess to clean up along the way.
Three hundred big ugly brutes spread over three continents, and it had taken her a whole year to destroy their little gang. Now that she’d finished, she found herself back home in the Birds of Passage camp.
But for some reason… it didn’t feel like home anymore. It was almost devoid of life, save the local vermin- rats and the like- and the odd clan member.
“Tira!” a familiar voice called to her from somewhere in the distance. The Master ran into view, flushed and panting. “Mind explaining where you’ve been these last twelve months?”“Aah… Forgive me, Master Wanaka,” Tira said apologetically, bowing in the manner expected of her- palms flat on her thighs, bent at the waist, eyes boring into her Master’s. “I’ve been hunting down the last of the Strikers.”
Wanaka regarded her with a look of appraisal. “Very good. My, you’ve grown in such a short time! Let me have a look at you!” She proceeded to inspect the girl, nodding and muttering to herself quietly. “You’re still as thin as anything, but we’ll fix that soon enough. Where’s Mia?”
Tira faltered, swallowing hard. “She… she died in battle,” she murmured, looking at her feet as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.
“Oh…” Wanaka said quietly. “Well… I think we can safely say she’s better off, now…”
Nodding slightly, Tira looked back at the Master. “She was brilliant to the very end,” she said. “I still have her ringblade.”
Wanaka raised a brow but said nothing. Finally, she patted the girl on the shoulder. “Come, now. Let’s get you settled back in.”
Later that night, when Tira was snug in her thick bedroll, a conversation outside carried on between the Master and… who? It seemed as if the Master was talking to herself- Tira couldn’t hear another voice. Irked, she snuggled back down and tried to sleep.
Then the screams started.
Tira scrambled out of her bedroll and onto her feet, then made her way into the loft of a tree to survey the encampment. Men and women of the clan lay in bloody heaps everywhere; some were outright dead, some barely keeping a grip on life. After a brief moment, Tira noticed that she was one of two people still unharmed… the other being the Master.
Wanaka’s eyes bore an eerie red glow. She looked to the sky, mouthed a sentence and stood perfectly still. A minute later, she put her hands to her sides.
“Wakarimashita.”
She looked in Tira’s direction, a bloodthirsty look on her face. Tira noticed the weapons in Wanaka’s hands- her favored kunai, affectionately named the Zanbatoh Blades- were covered in the blood of her comrades.
“No…”
Tira jumped down and back to her tent where her Aiselne Drossel lay. Picking it up as she bolted through, she came to a skidding halt in front of the Master, shaking as she made herself take up her fighting stance. “What’s happened to you?”
Wanaka grinned. “The Evil Seed has rained down upon us! Can you feel its power coursing through your veins, Tira?”
“Can’t say I do,” Tira replied sardonically, frowning. She’d been warned about this; the Evil Seed was supposedly a shower of fragments of a cursed sword… the Soul Edge, they called it someplace. Someone had shattered it in a failed attempt to be rid of it, and now the entire world paid the fatal price. “This is wrong!” she cried all of a sudden.
A sorrowful look spread across Wanaka’s features, only to warp to a look of distorted malice as she charged at the girl, becoming a blur. Tira could barely dodge the lightning-fast swipes the Master made with her deadly knives…

.::~::.

“NO!” Tira flailed awake, sitting straight up.
“Ow! Watch it, Tira!” a sleepy voice groaned. Draco rubbed his now sore nose, wincing. “Bad dream, my love?”
Tira clambered out of bed and rushed to the window, throwing it open. Her body heaved with dry sobs; she raked shaking fingers through her hair and started pacing the bedroom, on the verge of a panic attack.
Draco was more that used to being woken up from Tira’s nightmares- after all, he had them too, often much worse. He walked to the distraught girl and gathered her small frame in his arms, cradling her gently. “I’m here, darling. Relax,” he said soothingly. Tira slowly melted in his embrace, dissolving into tears of old pain against Draco’s shoulder.
“Master…” Tira sobbed mournfully. “I’m so sorry…”
That didn’t sound right… Tira only ever referred to him as Master when he became Lord Dragon... Ah, yes. Draco recalled the girl’s story about her last day as a Bird of Passage… her old master had become possessed and attacked her mercilessly, and she…
She retaliated, killing the woman. No wonder she was crying! Draco could only hope he would never meet the same fate as the Passage Master. He still had so much to do, so many wrongs to make right in the world.
He couldn’t afford to die until Soul Edge was gone for good.

.::~::.

“Can I help you?”
Mia turned around to face a smiling woman in Chinese garb and small, round spectacles. “I’m just having a look at your weapons,” she replied, running a finger over the cool metal of a broadsword. “These are all yours?”
“Yep! I’m the only blacksmith in town, in case you’re wondering. By the way, I’m Hualin.”
“Pleasure to meet you, blacksmith Hualin. I am Mia,” the silver-haired girl said in a vaguely disinterested tone. “I’m curious as to what you have in the way of ringblades?”
Hualin bore a calculating grin now. “Depends. I’m curious as to how much you’re willing to spend on said ringblades,” she replied matter-of-factly.
Mia was taken aback, but recovered quickly to produce a large leather purse full of gold. She looked up to see the awestruck face of the blacksmith. Hualin seemed close to drooling.
“Well, then… please, follow me,” Hualin invited, ushering Mia to a backroom of her large weaponry shop. “I keep my better weapons out here, for my more… valued customers,” she said, stealing a glance at the big purse.
“I’ll bet,” Mia muttered sourly, raking an approving eye over the craftsmanship of the weapons.
Hualin rummaged around among a mass of fabric to produce a work in progress- a ringblade with heavily serrated spikes and a blunted edge encrusted with precious stones. Mia whistled appreciatively on sighting the weapon.
“I’m still working on this one. If it’s at all to your liking, I may be able to have it finished by tomorrow morning,” Hualin offered, eyes still on the money.
Mia tossed the purse to her. “There should be enough to cover that in here,” she said. “I’ll be back tomorrow.” She promptly left, leaving the blacksmith to empty the contents of the purse on her table. There was MORE than enough to cover it! Hualin proceeded to salivate as she went about completing the ringblade.
Morning came, finding Mia sidling through the town in her newest battle gear: a black silk kimono with the bottom hiked up slightly and matching red obi, ruby-tinted shin guards and a new pair of geta and tabi. To complete her new look, she trimmed her hair and pulled it into low pigtails under her ears, tying them with ribbons of black silk.
Upon entering Hualin’s store, the blacksmith greeted her warmly, handling the new ringblade with careful, gloved hands. “I jus finished giving it a final polish. It’s all yours,” Hualin said, passing it over.
Mia inspected every inch of the weapon. She ran her thumb over the edge lightly, smiling to herself when it cut in deep with no force at all. Running her hand over the inner edge of the ringblade, she felt what seemed to be an inscription. Tilting it before herself, she read ‘To Miss Mia, my new favorite customer. Happy Trails! –Hualin’ and laughed quietly. “It’s a masterpiece,” she admitted finally.
“It’s nothing special, really,” Hualin demurred. “Anyway, now that it’s yours, you need to give it a name!”
What to call something of such beauty! The concept boggled Mia’s mind momentarily until the name came to her automatically. “Bifrost,” she said simply.

.::~::.

In one part of Japan, however, life wasn’t quite as peaceful. A fight had broken out in the darkness of a disused building, and three figures could barely be made out. Two were hooded and armed with sharp blades, and one was sprawled on the ground, unconscious. After a pause, the taller woman waved her hand and the room flickered into vision as a match was lit. The two women stared down at the attacker below them.
“Was that really…necessary?” Raven asked.
“It is, if we don’t want to land in a trap again,” replied Jet. “I don’t trust him.”
“Perhaps, but without his help it will take even longer to find Draco this time!”
“A risk I’m willing to take,” she replied. “Now promise me…you’ll look after Noel while I’m gone. He’s too young to get involved with this.”
“But…” Raven frowned at her friend. “Aren’t I coming with you?”
“Sorry,” Jet replied, “but I want to go alone this time. This could still be a trap; I want to be positive that the sword really is restored. Then I will call for you.”
“Alright,” conceded Raven. “But can I ask how long you’ll be gone?”
“As long as it takes,” Jet replied. She gave her friend a brief hug, before stepping into a peculiar tube that she had travelled in once before. “And if Maria’s back, then I’m confident it won’t be long.”

.::-::.

Back at Ostrheinsburg unbeknownst to Draco and Tira, a young woman clad in dark armor had made her way into the castle’s armory. She slowly approached a locked door- she could sense the demonic sword’s power behind it.
“Humph! They think a few locks can keep me out?!” The girl quickly slashed the lock with her great blade silently, then entered the room.
As she walked around she saw weapons and suits of armor everywhere, but none of this was of interest to her, for she was looking for only one thing- the Phantom Soul Edge that had appeared in Draco’s hand after his rebirth. She slowly walked up to the blade and it opened its eye.
“Father...” she said softly, then she began chanting some words, she was preforming the ritual Zasalamel had years ago to restore Nightmare.
The sword became surrounded by and evil aura which then engulfed the room. The evil sword manipulated several suits of armor into a single suit which was jet black. The armor reached out and grasped the sword’s hilt and Soul Edge’s will entered the dark armor.
The girl bowed to the cursed knight. “Lord Dragon... my father!”
“I should thank you for restoring me, my loyal servant.”
“I’m always loyal to you, father....” replied the girl.
“Before we go... I think we should leave Draco with a parting gift... don’t you?” asked Lord Dragon.
“Of course,” replied the girl with a wicked grin.

.::~::.

Back in their room, Draco began to feel an immense pain in his right arm; it was so painful that he fell to his knees.
“Draco! What’s wrong?!” asked Tira.
Draco didn’t answer, for he found himself having a vision of the day he became the cursed knight know as Lord Dragon. He’d been searching for Soul Edge when he came up on a village that claimed to be attacked by the Azure Knight.
Draco tracked down the knight and challenged him, but in the end was defeated. For some reason though, the knight spared his life. Draco made his way to a cave above the village to stay for the night, he’d return to the village the next morning to have his wounds treated, but the next morning he found himself in the village with his sword and hands stained with the villager’s blood.
“Damned Soul Edge! Damn you!” yelled Draco.
“Draco! You’re scaring me!” Tira walked up to him.
“Look out!” Draco pushed Tira down right as Lord Dragon busted down the door and missed her by a hair, cutting their bed in half.
“It’s good to see you again, Draco!” cackled Lord Dragon.
“So, you plan to free yourself on your own because you knew I would finish you off? Well, it won’t work, Soul Edge,” said Draco as he grabbed his sword, ‘Ewige Liebe’ from the bedside and clashed it with the cursed knight’s phantom sword.
“This ends here!” yelled Draco.
“For you it ends before it even has begun!” replied Lord Dragon as he clashed swords with Draco.
Tira quickly rose to her feet and grabbed for Ixion. Lord Dragon was an easy target, but before she could strike, she heard a voice behind her.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you... let the men fight! You have bigger worries, like me!”
“Who are you?!” demanded Tira.
“They call me Lust!” replied the young woman as she charged at Tira and attacked, but Tira managed to block her attack with her ring blade.
“How pathetic! Using an old weapon!” laughed Lust as she shattered Ixion right before Tira’s eyes.
“No! That was all I had left...” mumbled Tira as she fell to her knees.
“Die!”
“Tira!” Draco quickly dodged Lord Dragon’s attack and slashed the cursed armor across the chest, then he blocked Lust’s attack saving Tira from certain death. “Leave her out of this!” yelled Draco.
“Heheheh! Is that how it is? All your little follows hide behind you like cowards! Me, I don’t need anyone!” yelled Lust as she backed off from Draco to see Lord Dragon was obviously injured.
The cursed knight regenerated the damaged area, but he also realized this body was too unstable to fight Draco- they’d have to retreat for now.
“Servant! We must escape!” yelled Lord Dragon as he jumped out the window. Draco turned to follow him, but he was gone and Lust had escaped as well.
“Dammit!” yelled Draco as he punched the wall. “I can’t believe it! I should have foreseen something like this happening!”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself...” said Tira as she placed her hand n his shoulder.
“Leave me alone!” snapped Draco as he pushed her hand away.
“Draco, I was only trying to help...”
“I’m sorry, Tira... it’s just that...”
“I know, but it’ll be okay. We’ll stop Soul Edge and whoever’s behind all this,” said Tira as she hugged him.
“I’m sorry... about your ring blade... I know it was special to you...” said Draco as he placed his arm around her.
“It belongs to a good friend... Mia, I hope you can forgive me,” said Tira as she looked up at the sky.
“Tira, go to another room and get some rest... there’s something I need to do...” said Draco.
“But what if those two come back? You won’t have much of a chance,” replied Tira.
“Don’t worry; he knows he needs more souls and the remaining shards of Soul Edge if he is to stand a chance against me... I feel bad for the people that will cross his path, but we have to approach this correctly or the entire world could be doomed.”
Tira did as Draco said, she went in another one of the castle’s bedrooms and went back to sleep. Draco headed down to the armory which was now a complete mess. He quickly picked up some fresh metal and began working with it using his blacksmith tools. Eventually the metal began to take shape, the shape of a ring blade.

.::~::.

In a far away land, Draga, Tela, and Endora had set up a camp for the night. The three young warriors sat at the camp fire talking unaware that they were being watched by someone in a nearby tree.
“Do you think... we can stop it if it is Soul Edge again?” asked Endora.
“Of course! Father always said we were destined to do it!” said Draga as he took a bite of the fish he’d caught earlier.
Tela sat silently; she hadn’t talked the whole time they were there. She just couldn’t believe her father was wrong. Could it be true that his and Tira’s deaths were in vain?
‘No! I won’t let that be! If it is Soul Edge, I’ll make sure it’s destroyed even if I have to sacrifice my life!’ she thought to herself.
In the trees above, Viper watched the three as Draga and Endora conversed. She couldn’t hear much of their conversation, but one word she heard crystal clear- SOUL EDGE ‘These three know about Soul Edge... perhaps they know something about Kunpaetku, Astaroth and the Cult of Ares as well... then again, they may be working for him... I shall find out, one way or another!’ thought Viper as she disappeared into the night. An attack at night would be efficient, but Viper wanted to study the three a bit further before she made her move.
Little did she know, she was not the only person spying on another…another figure nearby had spotted her as she crept down from the tree. Sensing this, Viper paused and looked round. After a moment, she picked up her paces and disappeared into another part of the forest. The pursuer stopped, hiding in the shadows, waiting for her return. She was bound to be back…after all, she was as desperate to find Soul Edge as they were. Whether friend or foe, however, it was impossible to make out…had Viper waited a little longer, she may have found out, but she did not return for the rest of that night, and giving up, the intruder vanished into the woods.

.::~::.

Dawn had come and the sun slowly rose over the horizon at Ostrheinsburg castle. The light shone three Tira’s window which woke her almost instantly. Tira quickly turned to see Draco standing at the door holding something wrapped in rags.
“I know it can’t replace Ixion, but I made this for you,” said Draco as he handed the ring-shaped item to Tira.
Tira slowly unwrapped it to see a beautiful ring blade which was shaped like a silver and gold serpent with ruby red eyes. “It’s... it’s beautiful!” said Tira as she hugged him. It was almost as if he’d given her another wedding ring.
“I call it Ouroboros. The serpent that devours its own tail; it represents eternal return,” said Draco with a smile.
“Ouroboros... I like it!” said Tira as she smiled up at him.
“Let’s go, the others are probably waiting. It’s time for us to move and find out what’s going on here... and hopefully stop Lord Dragon before he takes innocent lives...”
“Of course,” replied Tira as she picked up Ouroboros and followed Draco out to the castle’s courtyard where drake and the others were waiting.
“It’s time for battle!” yelled Draco as they all prepared to move out.

.::~::.

Not too far away, Lord Dragon and Lust had wasted no time in gathering souls for Soul Edge. The duo had already wiped out an entire village. The grass was covered I blood and the surrounding land’s air was fouled with the stench of death.
“More, we need more souls if I am to defeat Draco and be restored!” yelled Lord Dragon as he raised his blood-soaked blade.
Lust stood behind him with her Demon Knife sword in hand a vile smile gracing her face which was well hidden by her dark blue armor. When Soul Edge revived her it restored memories that Lust had forgotten long ago. She remembered her real name, her mother and step father who had been killed when her village was attacked by bandits. But most importantly, she realized who her real father was... ‘Yes, Lord Dragon is my true father and once he kills Draco, I need not worry about it anymore!’