Chapter 17-16 A Moment Most Feared (II)

Chapter 17-16 A Moment Most Feared (II)

Shotin Kazahara: No.

Kare Kitzuhada: Ive already taken my oaths, uncle. Im not requesting permission, Im informing you that Im done. Im a Paladin in training now.

Shotin Kazahara: [Sigh] No. Reject the offer. Ill finish up my assignments and well talk.

Kare Kitzuhada: Theres nothing to talk about

Shotin Kazahara: Kare, I dont want to argue

Kare Kitzuhada: Youre not listening to me

Shotin Kazahara: No, Im ignoring your words because they dont make any sense to me. Why? Why are you so determined to be a Paladin? You deserve betteryou are better. With your skills and temperament.

Kare Kitzuhada: I can what? Serve the overclan? Serve our Guild? Or one of our allies? Or go turncoat? Its all the same thing, Uncle Sho, cant you see? This is the only choice that can matter. This is the only choice that lives up to the dreamthat gives this city a future.

Shotin Kazahara: A future? A future? The Paladins. [Incredulous laugh] Kare, my dear, sweet girl, the Paladins are less an organization and more a skin tag that the High Seraph refused to cut off at the end of the second war. Probably because she used to fuck the chief.

Kare Kitzuhada: Chief Naeko? Him and the High Seraph used to uh

Shotin Kazahara: Yeah, groin-buddies of the pre-rash variety. Of course, Samir used to be one hard sonuvabitch back in the day. Literally. Do you know the legends, right? How he managed to break out of one of the last breeding farms and link up with Ashthrone during the Fall? How he ended up slaughtering his way from the Plains, to the island chain of Ao, to the heartland of the Skuldvast itself, butchering priests and nobles while freeing slaves?

Kare Kitzuhada: Well, yes, Ive even immersed myself in a few of Chief Naekos vicarities

Shotin Kazahara: You know what he did to the ones he captured, yeah? The slave breeders? The families of the former faithful? Oh, our consang Samir is limp and castrated now, but boy did his hand inspire some foul work. Foul enough to please old Thousandhand herself. Foul enough to catch even Veylis eye for a time.

Kare Kitzuhada: He regrets those days. He never hid that.

Shotin Kazahara: Yeah. Sure. Regret. Glad hes evolved so much as a man. He and the rest of Jaus war dogs. Kare, the Paladins were a joke then, and they are a joke now. The only thing thats changed is why theyre funny. Before, they were Avandaers fistan outfit dedicated to shattering the last remnants of the old world no matter the atrocities, damn the consequences that followed. Now, theyre a maimed insult. Too crippled to live up to their ideals, but too deluded to dissolve and die

Kare Kitzuhada: Alright, then. Whatwhat would you have me do? Join Ori-Thaum? Be an Incubi

Shotin Kazahara: Fuck no. Thats misery detail. Ill have you working with me. Me, or Kaltain, or Moz.

Kare Kitzuhada: Right. Snatching minds and slitting throats in the dark between guest appearances on prime-time streams to promote whatever the party line is these days. C-can you even tell me what youre doing now? If the person youre hurting deserves it.

Shotin Kazahara: Were doing this for the good of the Guild and our people. Both our citizens and subjects deserve better than to suffer under corrupt officials and constant war. Battling the rot is constant work but noble work. Youll find no juster cause anywhere on Idheim.

Kare Kitzuhada: But theres nothing just about our cause! Were still separating people between humans and livestock.

Shotin Kazahara: These sacrifices will be worth it

Kare Kitzuhada: No! No, they wont! You know they wont! Youve fought the warsmore of them died to fuel our industries than as collateral damage! Whats going to change in the future? What is a single bit of affirmative action that has been provided to them since the end of the Fourth Guild War? What has your service, moms life, dads life amounted to? Nothing! Nothing at all! More propaganda! More slogans! More junk entertainment outputted of a victory that isnt coming! Because were in a stalemate. Forever! All the death and bloodshed rushing down the Tiers into Warrens to spill into the Maw before vanishing. Like it never happened at all.

Shotin Kazahara: You know she wouldnt have wanted this for you.

Kare Kitzuhada: What? What? S-screw you! Dont use her against me like that.

Shotin Kazahara: Im not using her

Kare Kitzuhada: Yes, you are! Yes, you are! You are using the memory of my mother against me. You always do this! When you cant beat me down with your whining and complaints and constant degrading of my beliefs

Shotin Kazahara: Kare

Kare Kitzuhada: You always turn to the last thing you know that is certain to hurt me. Pull the wound open and press. Its always the Paladins fault. Its always them. Highflame just does what they do. You had to follow orders. Ori-Thaum had to sacrifice that district to buy time. None of you have any choice. But the Paladins have to be the only adults in the room with none of the authority! So FUCK THEM am I right?The initial instance of this chapter being available happened at N0v3l.Bin.

Shotin Kazahara: Look. Im sorry. This topic isnt easy for me

Kare Kitzuhada: And it is for me? I dontdont I'm not doing this. Dont contact me again. I need todont come find me. If our shared blood means anything, you stay away. Dont call me. Dont call me.

Shotin Kazahara: Kare, wait

[SESSION DISCONNECTED; SESSION BLOCKED]

Shotin Kazahara: Kare? Kare? Godsdammit! Fuck. Fuck! FUCK! Great job, Shotin. Great fucking job.

-Transcribed argument between Shotin Kazahara and his niece Kare Kitzuhada (Memories provided by a member of Clan DRongo)

17-16

A Moment Most Feared (II)

People feared exploding babies. Chambers wasnt sure why.

Babies were pretty lame if you thought about them. They were like the shittiest version of people possible. Short ass limbs, big ass heads, always screaming, pissing, and shitting themselves. Hells, even the ghouls didnt really go after them that much during the Uprising. Why get a sausage when you could have the whole pig, right? Adults had a lot more meat on them.

Still, the psychological advantage of forcibly pushing countless half-grown, screaming homunculi from the burning sores flaying your Heaven was one that couldnt be denied.

The Straying Tempest recoiled away from the half-strandfear or disgust halting her path.

Turning his attention to monitoring the fight between Chambers and the final Paladin, he re-entered Nether-stable space and quelled his Crown as well.

Soon, a new presence would grace his mind. A new perspective toward greater understanding.

Guilt swelled inside Paladins Kassamons template. [Shit Im sorry. Im so fucking sorry.] And to think that his actual self was still topsideprobably resurrected by nowand completely ignorant of his part in the betrayal. What delicious subterfuge. [Youre a fucking monster.] Poor little Kassamon. How could the truth hurt Avo? Perhaps this new one would be wiser. [Oh, gods.]

Watching and waiting as she tore into Chambers, shredding his Lushburner apart piece by piece, drinking his flames in before he could use them to grow more bioforms, the opportunity came as her confidence grew. She was growing closer, unaware of her coming fate.

Kassamon struggled. Avo let him. The template raged against empty space, screaming, and striking at nothingness. [Get away! Dont come any closer! Get away!] He turned his focus on Avo again. [You promised youd just burn her! You promised.]

Avo ignored the template and demanifested his Zephyr. The paths vanished as all the tunnels collapsed over each other, the debris collected from the ambush spilling out into the inner mechanisms of the Layer as the cocoon holding Kae and Dice struck structural support.

Abandoning his own body for an instant, Avo triggered his session and poured his consciousness over into Chambers. As his awareness reloaded, he found himself on the cusp of defeat and execution, the half-strands minds too drenched in thrill and desperation to notice as the Tempests limbs lashed through the air, a falling storm seeking to tear its hated adversary from this mortal coil.

REND CAPACITY [LUSHBURNER]: 88%

***

Kares left leg cleaved through the stretching distance between her and the Lushburner as the plane around her vanished. The temperature of her surroundings swelled as the oppressive glow of heat vents and sparking generators loomed around her. Structure supports and various rusted mechanisms blurred along her peripheral vision, but she found herself too engrossed to care.

There was barely anything left of her foe. He attacked her head-onreckless and savage, but showing no skill. After her initial unbalance, she steeled herself and fought. And found herself winning.

Winning despite being alone.

She let him break himself on her fissures first. Then, she set about cutting him down to size.

Now, only the head of the phoenix remained, the rest of its manifestation worn away and not given time for restoration. She learned to steal its fire to prevent the coming swarms, but still, the homunculi spilled. They were increasingly bleeding from her sores as well, though she fried them using her electricity when she had the chance.

As her final blow hewed into the ontology of her foe, she noticed something flicker and change in the flames.

That was when victory was snatched from her very jaws.

The impenetrable radiancethe kind that vanished with the demiplaneshone into being around the Lushburner. Her blow splashed uselessly against the shielding. Acting on instinct, Kare shifted her attack to something indirect, seeking to drain what remained of its flames.

Little did she expect another kind of fire spear out, seeking her mind instead.

A faint screaming emanated in the Nether as the burning wisps shot out to claim her. Faintly, she heard echoes of someone screaming for her to run.

Too late.

She made the mistake of attempting to catch the flames with her Heaven, only to find they werent of the natural world, unbeholden to her Domain. The first tendril struck her ward and she expected to feel a rattle.

Instead, all her ghosts ignited at once, and her protections disappeared beneath a vast wall of cascading conflagration. Through the miasma of fire and chaos, she saw vague contours formed by the flickering inferno. Her senses melted into each other as she felt her grip on her body and Heaven fade.

In this place of disorder, she found the world rebuilding around her as ghosts tore through her, pulling aspects of her memory out against her will, each pass whittling at her consciousness. The faces and places around her spun and splashed as he felt herself lost and cast into confusion, mind drawn deeper and deeper into a maelstrom.

Then, as sudden as the madness began, it ended.

Her eyes were hers again. Her senses, body, and mind. But her Heaven she couldnt call it. She couldnt feel it. And most disturbing of all, she wasnt where she was supposed to be.

No. She was in her childhood bedroom. During During the war. The night her uncle called her to tell her about her mother

More mem-data settled around her as the scene loaded with impossible precision. Kare Kitzuhada beheld herself as a child, hugging her pet nu-dog and on the verge of tears she listened to Uncle Shotin break and just weep. He couldnt speak by the end. He couldnt speak.

Niece, a sibilant voice rumbled with excitement from behind her. Kare flinched and spun, lashing out with her hand. No lightning leaped out. No Heaven protected her from the creature that stood before it. What a find. Fortune after misfortune.

Monstrous laughter followed.

A pale thing of nightmare stood before her, its limbs unnaturally long, its back laced with transplanted limbs that bit and chittered at the air. There was a fluidity that danced across its flesh, coating its shell in smooth, polished armor. But it was the look in its eyes that infused her guts with mind-hollowing fear, and the flames rising from its halosmoldering high into the ceiling and spilling over into the ghosts and phantoms that formed this place.

Was this a vicarity? A memory simulation?

Had she been trapped in her own mind?

No, it said, chuckling softly. Not just yours anymore. Ours.

What? she whispered. Whowho are you?

That question made it pause. It contemplated its response for a moment as its fangs spread wide, running from ear to ear as it offered a twisted parody of a smile. The one who is going to burn this city, I suppose. But just want to practice understanding right now Learn about you?

It took a step forward and she instinctively put herself between the creature and her younger self. An inquisitive tilt of its head came thereafter.

Stay away, Kare said, shifting into a guarded stance. She wasnt that well-versed in unarmed combat, but her uncle showed her enough. This thing was still shaped like a personjoints spine, bones those were all there. She could exploit that. And if it had arteries, she could bring it down by severing the oxygen.

So much history between you too, it said, almost unable to contain its happiness. Came just for him Became mine just because you were worried about his safety. The monster clicked its teeth together. He will be touched when I add him to us.

What do you want? she said, forcing strength into her voice. What are you even talking about.

It stared at her and lowered its head. I told you Understanding.