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Pain coursed through his body, starting at the focal point between his eleventh and twelfth ribs on the left side. The center of white-hot numbness spread, reaching down through his lower torso and out his back, barely missing his right kidney. He grunted in pain, but that was all he could manage, his lungs having been pierced several times already. He was only still making noise because none of the blades had been removed, which would have let the blood completely fill his lungs and He wouldn't be able to speak. That would be bad, at least for the one trying so hard to squeeze an answer out of him. Torture. Some way of getting an answer. "So, care to spit it out yet?" Spit it out? Sure, okay. He spat out a wad of mixed blood and mucus, landing it in the bullseye of his tormentor's face. This got him another spear through the stomach, but the pain barely registered. Having a mind deprived of blood was balanced by the numbness that allowed him to resist to extreme pain. "Alright, pretty boy, I think you've had just about enough for today. See you tomorrow." The voice faded, and He sighed. This was one of the shorter, less intense 'sessions' that he went through daily, and all for a single pearl. It was pitiful, and he was sick of it. Opening his eyes, he looked down and started counting how many implements were stuck through him. "One, two three... seven... twelve... geeze, who popped his cherry? thirteen spears, swords, and arrows. You'd think he'd have figured it out... you can't get anything out of someone like me. Time to bust this joint." He glanced at the huge chains that were supposed to hold him still, only grinning as they snapped like toys at the slightest pull. "I think I'll give them a little well-earned scare. Hah, that'll be a laugh worth the trouble of this whole facáde." Grunting, He started towards the enormous iron door, flicking it open and startling the guards. Smirking, He lunged at one, ramming a few of the implements of torture-turned-weapons through the poor man, letting the other one escape to alert the whole citadel to the 'Demon man that escaped from cell five!'. He pushed the dead guard off of the poles and blades, and slid a few of them out so that his movement wasn't so restricted. Taking one of the swords, He glanced along its blade before lighting the blood on it from a torch. Just as he did this, a small army of soldiers who looked like they were trained for dealing with him rounded the corner. Or, at least they thought they'd been trained to. There was no way for them to know what they were up against, and it showed in some of their faces when they found him full of spears and arrows and swords, standing and brandishing a blade of flames and looking at them with death in his eyes. "W-What is that thing?" "He's really a demon! There's no way he could be human!" He stared at them from the other end of the hall. "So, you stupid weaklings, you've come like cows to the slaughter. That just makes it easier for me. Oh, and did you know your so-called 'king' is just some lesser demon? Yeah, that's right. You're working for a monster. A freak. Now, if you'd oh so kindly step over here, I'll be ending your lives." The group of men glanced at each other, then charged as one. He saluted with his sword, then counter-charged.

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Chapter/end

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He walked into the room and wasn't surprised when thirty arrows joined the ones already embedded in his chest. "Geeze, you guys just won't lay off the projectiles, will you? Well, too bad, 'cause I'm here to break your toys and make some noise. After all, isn't that the best way to become famous?" He started pulling out arrows, eventually tearing out the rest of the spears and swords, leaving him in his ragged, blood-stained coat and pants, boots soaked and filled with the same. "Now, see? You've gone and ruined my clothes! Assholes!" He moved, much faster than the second barrage of arrows, and came to one end of the arc. He started there, and, before the last one he killed could react, was wiping the blood of thirty more men off of his still-flaming blade. "Ah, it's good to be me." he said to himself, then kicked the next door open to find a slightly larger army of men, this time a few on horses with halberds. "Well, welcome to the party, gentlemen. I say gentle because compared to me, you all are just a bunch of kittens going up against a raging tiger. See, who's gonna win, d'you think? Well, that don't matter as you're all gonna die anyways, at least until I get my stuff back. Now, where's that armory?" A soldier pointed a thumb to the door on the other side of the massive group, then bared his sword. "Oh," He said. "So you think you can keep me from my stuff? Good luck with that one. Hey! Tsubaru! Get your a** over here!" A longsword, much bigger than the one He'd been using, burst out of the door, shredding it and then leaping over the iron-clad soldiers and into He's hand. "Hey, what's up? Tanke's locked up? You assholes." He swept his sword across, as though cutting a horizontal line, and a large number of soldiers became half of what they were, though the number of pieces doubled. "Anyone else wanna get in my way?" He said, resting Tsubaru on his shoulder. A unanimous quivering began, given away by quick clanking of metal on metal. "Scaredy cats. How about this? Bring out your best fighter, and if I take him down, you all die. If I lose, you'll have a dead me on your hands. Any questions?" No response. "Then bring out your strongest!" A small man, barely armored, pushed his way through the crowd. "I will defeat you, and we won't have to-" The man's words were cut short when his head came off from the sweep of He's sword. "Okay, anyone who won't bore me with speeches? Don't tell me that was your best shot! Give me a real fight, or I'm just gonna raze this place as I see fit!" At this, a trio walked out of the armory. Two men and a woman, all clad in silver and gold garments. "What are you, the frikin' showgirls? Send out your best fighter or fighters, not a bunch of mamby-pamby wimps with expensive get-ups." "That's not a wise way of speaking, you know." The point man said calmly. He sighed. "Great, a know-it-all. You know what? Screw you and your damn book-worm knowledge. I am not gonna fight someone who's gonna talk me through the Lamberge during the battle." The point man laughed. "The Lamberge? I was intending on the Arcadian Dictionary, but if you wish..." He laughed. "Okay, so I deserved that one, not to mention I set that up. Alright, I will take on all three of you at the same time, if you'd be so kind as to return Tanke. You know him, about a foot long, hollow tube with a handle and sliding thing?" Tanke was tossed into the air, straight up, and the man behind the point made to destroy it with a blast. However, Tanke froze mid-flight and then zoomed into He's empty hand. "Nice try, big man, but you'll have to try harder to get rid of anything I own. Now, as for the fight, if you'd oh-so-kindly let these men out of the way, I'd like a clear battlefield." The woman grinned, and all of the soldiers turned to ash. "Oh ho ho," He said. "So, we've got even more freaks here, have we? Good, this'll be an interesting fight." A look of concern, then fury crossed the woman's features. She whispered something into the point man's ear, and his expression changed as well. "So, you're planning on taking all three of us on at the same time? How about an introduction, first? I am Alton, the wind dancer. The woman who just incinerated the soldiers is Vaeria, the flame singer, and this is Edryk, the earth pounder." He laughed. "So, elementals, eh? Well, if you must know, I am one without a name, though if you must, call me He. It's the only thing anyone's ever called me by, and then, only in combat. I don't have a specific element like you three, but I really don't need one. I've got power, whatever it may be, and I'm gonna kill all three of you using just that."

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Chapter/end

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Alton sent a wind scythe down from above, Vaeria blasted a fireball at He from the front, and Edryk made a massive wall of stone pour down from behind. He simply stood in the center, right where all three attacks would strike at the same time, then side-stepped the focal point, letting the power of the shockwave wash over his frame. Cricking his neck, he waved Tsubaru in front of himself a few times, then said with an amused tone,"Is it my turn yet?" he asked. He blurred, and Vaeria's arms disappeared, Edryk's head vanished, and Alton's legs were torn off and also disappeared. The crack of a gunshot was heard well after He's frame became a clear picture again in the center of all three, holding a pair of legs and a pair of arms over his shoulder, and pumping another shell into Tanke's barrel. "So, do I win?" he asked boredly. "I thought you all would be a fun waste of time. I can't believe it, though. All that firepower, and you're too slow to use it. Thanks for the moves, by the way. I'm sure they'll be put to good use." Alton had fallen to the ground, and had a look of total shock on his face, though his eyes were now blank and devoid of any life. "H-How? W-What are you?" Vaeria shouted, having fallen to her knees. Tears streamed down her face, and He looked at her amusedly. "Tell you what, Miss Vaeria. If you come with me, pledge allegiance and loyalty to me, and stay with me until one of us dies, I will not only give you your arms back, but I will re-attach them as if they were never gone, and I'll let you live as freely as my conditions allow. Do we have a deal? Oh, and hurry up, you don't want to go fainting from blood loss, do you?" Vaeria stared at him in total shock, glancing once to Edryk, then Alton, then back to He. "W-Why? Why are you so strong?" He laughed. "I'll tell you if you agree to my conditions. In fact, I'll even help you get stronger. Deal?" Vaeria stared at him for another second, then nodded. He smiled and appeared behind her. "This might hurt for a second." He placed her arms back on the stumps, right on the right and left on the left, and focused. The severed ends glowed, and Vaeria screamed, then the light vanished and her limbs were reattached good as new. She stared at them, moving them around and in every direction, then turned around. "Tell me. Tell me how you're so strong." He looked her in the eye for a moment, then smiled kindly, not the sort of thing you see from a killer. "It's because I am no human, like yourself. However, I'm not a demon, either, though. I have no idea what I am. Now, come along. We've got some supplies to steal, and then we're riding out." Vaeria stood shakily and followed, extremely scared of this man who had defeated her and her friends so easily. I might as well not even try. There's only been one other case of a hybrid, and that one was beheaded, torn apart, and burned to ashes, which were scattered, and there's no way I could do all that by myself. No, I'll stick with him until I'm stronger, then maybe I can kill him while he sleeps. Yeah, that's not a bad idea. "Vaeria, get your a** moving." "C-Coming!"

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Chapter/end

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Vaeria picked her way through the small armory, looking for a weapon she could hide within her new, somewhat ragged clothes. He had said that he didn't like show-boding, so Vaeria had to lose the royal guards' wear and don a peasant's clothes. "Why is it that there's not a single concealable weapon here? Ah, never mind." She pulled a small stiletto from a pile, wrapped its razor-sharp blade in a cloth and stuck it into her boot. Walking quickly out of the destroyed room, she moved on to a smaller storage room that held provisions and filled a pair of bags with the heaviest and bulkiest items she could find, including a quintet of water-filled canteens. She rushed to the stable and picked a pair of the strongest horses she could find, not wanting to end up walking because she hated the man. Wait. Why am I doing everything he says, anyways? I'll just run away now, and get an army of people like myself that he couldn't possibly defeat, and we'll kill him! Yeah, that would work... that would definitely work. Okay, now, to get out of here. Vaeria climbed onto the horse, and rode out of the stable into the castle's courtyard, riding towards the gate which was opening for the morning. just before she got through it, however, it slammed shut, cutting the horse's head off and slamming her into the gate. "Going somewhere?" a voice called. He walked out in front of the gate, kicking the horse's head and neck out of the way. "You didn't seriously think it would be that easy to escape me, did you?" Vaeria didn't look at his face, she couldn't. The horse's body collapsed, its knees bending at exactly the same time, sending it straight down. Vaeria was thrown to the ground, but didn't care. Lying there, she watched as the pool of blood from the severed inched closer, widening as the heart that was still beating pumped it from the broken vessels and onto the cobblestone ground. Why? she thought. Why didn't he kill me, too? Why is he torturing me like this? Why doesn't he just kill me now and leave it at that? "What's the matter? Don't tell me a little fall like that is making you cry." Vaeria realized that tears had been running down her face, but made no motion to stop them. Instead, as though a wall had been broken in her mind, she burst into tears, crying her eyes out for nothing but the fact that she was. Vaeria was tired of all the things that had happened to her, all the things she had gone through in such a short time. Losing her blood-brothers, and right after killing so many people. The stress had been too much for her mind to compensate for, and it had left Vaeria exhausted. He ripped the gate out, tossing it behind himself, and leapt over to Vaeria, making sure not to get any blood on her. Picking her up, He almost vanished, grabbing the bags from the storage room, laying the bags across the horse, and stopped there. "Heh. All this for a single woman. I'm getting soft." He walked the horse out of the stable, through the courtyard, past the headless corpse of the other animal, past the wreckage of the wrought iron gate he had ripped out and impaled the wall with, and onto the drawbridge, which creaked and moaned from the weight. Vaeria had cried herself to sleep, and was held by He's left arm. Geeze, she's so small, you'd think she was only a teenager or something. Oh... He rolled his eyes. The other two he had killed didn't look that old, either. Then again, neither did He, and he was much older that he looked. Hopefully, she's got it too, otherwise this one will never survive. Guess I'll just have to ask when she wakes up, if she even remembers anything.
==
Vaeria woke up to find herself held up in the arms of what looked to be an angel. She stared up at him for a moment, then He looked back down at her with an amused smile. Vaeria's eyes widened for a moment, and He couldn't help but smile even wider. I knew it. He thought. I knew it. Her mind has completely blocked out any memory of what's happened. Great. Oh well, I guess it can't be that bad. Just as he thought this, however, Vaeria opened her mouth as if to say something, only to close it again. He raised an eyebrow. Mute? It seemed so, because she tried several times, yet nothing came out, as if she had forgotten how to speak. After a moment, though, she gave up and threw her arms around He's neck. Oh. Crap. Vaeria's eyes leaked a few more tears, though they weren't from sadness. She was inexplicably happy, and it showed. "Well." He said. "I guess it's better than traveling with someone who wants me dead."

Jinteki Tenma
Chapter/end

"Hey, Vae, would you be perfect and fill this canteen at the river over there? That's a good girl." Aireav, dubbed so by Vaeria's writing it in the dirt, then pointing from it to He, couldn't help but grin as he watched her small frame scamper through the thin veil of trees towards the sound of rushing water. When she came back, the canteen was filled to the brim, and dryer than when he had given it to her. Vaeria constantly emitted heat, a subconscious reaction to the cold climate they had drifted into. Or maybe it was from what had happened in the last village. Aireav patted Vaeria's head as though she were a puppy, then lifted her back up onto the horse and continued along the path. They had been doing the same thing for weeks, walk a few miles in a direction, stop, eat, walk a few miles in a slightly corrected course, stop, eat, rest, start again, over and over and over again. On one occasion, they had come across a small band of men. The group was hunting, going after some sort of creature that had attacked their lord's castle. Aireav and Vaeria had stayed with them for a night at their camp, deciding safety in numbers was important for the region they were in. However, when the two of them had woken up, their weapons and belongings were gone, and Vaeria made it obvious she was sore in a fairly private region. At this report, Aireav had left her in a cave with a small fire, telling her to stay hidden, and tracked the group down. A few days later, when they were passing through a town, they overheard some talk about a group of bandits who had been found headless, handless, and dickless. Aireav only nodded when Vaeria looked at him with questioning eyes. When they left the tavern, Vaeria had surprised Aireav by jumping up and kissing him on the cheek, a thanks of sorts. He had stared at her from behind, stopped short from total shock as she ran ahead a few steps. Looking back, Aireav could see that Vaeria's face was flushed red, and he couldn't help but offer a bewildered smile. Huh. That was interesting, if not totally unexpected. However, the moment he thought this, Vaeria was snatched from sight, into an alley by a mugger or something. Aireav didn't even think. His reaction was to appear behind the kidnapper and put the end of Tanke in the small of his back, while holding Tsubaru in front of his neck. "Let the girl go, now." He had growled, scaring the poor man into raising his hands in fear, which got them halfway severed on the blade. Aireav was forced to slit his throat when he opened his mouth to scream. After cleaning and putting away Tsubaru, and placing Tanke in its sheath, he picked Vaeria up and got to the inn, packed their stuff, paid for the room and was out of town, horse and all, in under half an hour. "Idiot shouldn't have raised his hands. Shouldn't have tried to take Vaeria in the first place..." While Aireav muttered, totally in his own world, eyebrows twitching a bird flapping away, fingers flexing with every step, Vaeria only giggled silently. She liked being protected so ferociously, and she was starting to like Aireav a lot more that she thought she should.

Jinteki Tenma
Chapter/end

Vaeria tapped Aireav's shoulder, waking him from a fairly unpleasant dream. Opening his eyes slowly, he saw an odd shape in front of his face, then, as his vision cleared, he realized his nose was getting a one-on-one with the tip of a spear. "Huh. I thought that shape was familiar. Whaddya want, spear-wielder? It's rude to wake someone with selfish intent." The spear was jabbed another centimeter into Aireav's nose, then withdrawn. "I wish to speak with you." Aireav was standing instantly. "What about, spear-wielder?" The one with the spear stiffened. "You should know, swordsman. You killed my father." Aireav laughed. Hard. "I've killed lots of people, kid, and lots more hate me for it, but you know what? I don't particularly care. As long as anyone I deem worth keeping safe is safe, I'm fine. What's your name , I might remember it." The spearman relaxed slightly. "I am Treyk Flamme." "Never heard it." Treyk slumped at the flat response. "But you didn't even try-" "I act, move, think, and even sleep a lot faster than any human, Flamme, so don't be surprised if it doesn't look in the least like I try, even if I occasionally don't. Now, since neither one of us has any real reason to hold a grudge, as I don't know your name, and you don't know mine, you should go now, before I give your kids a reason to hate me." Treyk was dumbfounded. He was sure he could get a fight out of this character, but was out of ideas. He remembered the girl that was now half-hidden by his would-be enemy's figure. "Ah, who's that?" Treyk asked with an innocent tone, though his idea was monstrous. Aireav raised an eyebrow. "This is... a companion. She's mute, though, so you're not going to get much info out of her." Pulling gently, Vaeria was coaxed in front of Aireav, though she stayed as close as possible to him. Placing his hands on Vaeria's shoulders, Aireav grinned as though he were her father showing her off to a neighbor. His grin vanished, though, when he felt her convulse. Looking down, he saw a wooden handle protruding from Vaeria. The handle extended away, and was held in the hand of the man he'd just been talking to. Tsubaru was invisible in moving, but the effect was clear as day. The shaft of the spear was obliterated, splintered into a million pieces, and Treyk's arm flew to bits. Before the attacker could even react to the pain, the rest of his body was sliced neatly into even pieces. Aireav had moved in front of Vaeria, but the spearhead had already entered her side halfway. Catching it before it could embed itself with the inertia of the uninterrupted thrust, Aireav pulled it out and threw it, cutting a tree in half with the force. Pulling a bag of bread out from one of the larger sacks, he dumped its contents onto the ground and tore it into one long strip. Moving back to Vaeria, he opened the bottom of her shirt and wrapped the bandage around the wound tightly. He then picked up her small frame, carrying her like he had when they had first set out months earlier. I should've seen that coming. I'm being stupid, not thinking at all... Vaeria was clutching her stomach, definitely in pain, and Aireav cursed. Leaving the horse, he sprinted through the trees, cutting down the ones that were in his way, moving towards the closest castle. Once he was inside the gates, he made for the inner castle, fast enough that the lazy guards noticed nothing but a strong wind. Aireav found the king's medicine man and had Vaeria treated, then was gone again before anyone had noticed. Hours later, when Vaeria woke up, she found that Aireav had brought them to a cave. He didn't know she had woken, and went off to hunt, leaving here there, quite distraught and very frustrated. Upon his return, Aireav did notice she had moved, and was now sobbing on the floor of the cave. "Oh, no no no, no," he whispered, picking her up gently. Sitting down, he rocked her in his lap like one would a child. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I couldn't protect you in time, and then you were hurt, and I took you to the doctor, and then left you here, I'm never doing any of that again. No, I promise I'll never leave you again, never let you get hurt, I swear." Aireav hugged his self-proclaimed charge, then fell asleep against the cave wall. Outside, however, a group of hunters were waiting for just that.

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Chapter/end

Aireav woke up when it started raining. It was cold, icy rain, but it felt good. He heard voices, or rather, a very loud, echoing voice, yelling something. "Wake up, idiot!" It was an unfamiliar voice, and Aireav didn't understand what it was saying. He was already awake. Aireav was about to try and stand, then realized why he couldn't move. He was hung by hooks dug into his skin, all along his arms and legs, and had small pins embedded all over his chest. "What the... where the hell am I?" he muttered, trying to piece it all together. His mind was unusually sluggish, and it bothered him. "Hah, so the great swordsman is nothing but a man when it comes to morning wake-up, eh? Well, as for where you are, all I can say is, 'Welcome to hell'!!" A raucous laughter filled the chamber, echoing off the walls and giving Aireav a headache. "Alright, who the ******** are you, and why did you string me up?" A fist hit him in the face. "I'll be the one asking questions, though the only one's you'll be hearing are 'Does that hurt enough?' and 'More? Okay!'." Aireav actually laughed with the man. "You think you can hurt me with the pitiful junk you call torture tools? I'd like to see that." A shaft, some extremely hot metal, punched into Aireav's side, spilling blood in pools. He didn't even grunt. "That's it? Just a warm stick? You people have no imagination." A frustrated grumble was heard, and the fat man rammed eight more white-hot rods into Aireav's stomach. "So, how do you like that, eh?" Aireav laughed, the rods shaking with his convulsions. "What do I think? Little to nothing. The last time I was tortured, the entire castle was slaughtered, including the king. Did you think you'd be able-" "Is that content suitable for the young lady over there?" the fat man interrupted. Aireav looked in the direction of his gesture, and his eyes widened as he saw Vaeria, barely anything, curled up in the corner, marks, cuts and bruises covering her exposed limbs. "Ah, so it isn't, is it? Shall I demonstrate exactly what I was doing before you were woken? Here..." The fat man lumbered in the direction of Vaeria's curled form, and Aireav narrowed his eyes. When the fat man turned again to start talking his way through beating Vaeria, the chains that had held Aireav still were empty. "What the...?" The last sound heard was that of breaking flesh, sloshing, boiling blood, and then a dull thump as one dead fat man fell to the ground, dead. After extracting the rest of the rods from his stomach, Aireav moved to Vaeria's side. "Hey, are you alright? Hey, Vae?" he shook her shoulder lightly, then jumped back when she literally fell apart. "W-What the... this is some sort of joke, right? Hey. Hey!" He picked up the severed head, his eyes searching it wildly for some sign of life, but found only a blank void. "No." he whispered. Aireav's muscles tightened, all at exactly the same time, tearing some of them, and he roared louder than any animal could, startling everyone within miles, scaring others far beyond that range. A shockwave emanated from the castle, destroying anything that wasn't stone wall or iron metal. People, royalty, cottages, animals, everything was obliterated in an instant, turned to particles too small for the naked eye, for hundreds of miles around. All that was left behind was a bloody wasteland and a single man. Aireav, left alone with only the walls of whatever castle didn't get pulverized by his extreme release of pure destructive power, sat in a twisted golden throne, not moving, frozen by his torn soul.

Jinteki Tenma
Prelude/end

"Children, children, gather round if you care, hear a tale of ages old. Come on, now, don't be shy." Obana waved a few more children to seats around the gazebo, a fire dancing and sparking in the middle. When they all had their attention on the elderly woman, she leaned against a particularly large log. A heavy sigh escaped her lips, and the ancient lady began her nightly tale. "As you all know, long ago were the creatures known as the Centurions. We know not what they were, nor whom they were, but only what they could do, and that in itself was both fantastic and terrible. They were the most valiant fighters to ever walk the earth, but also the most wretched demons. They knew nothing of compassion, or love, or caring for any but their own. There was a man, by the name of Kyrn Fliin, who discovered the Centurions' one single weakness, and he exploited it, wiping out the family all together. He died in the process, but has been heralded as a hero, the one man who did alone what armies that covered the ground for miles could not do. There was one thing he must have missed, though, because a wanderer who turned up in sixteen different countries while matching the description of the Centurions of late caused a bit of havoc all by himself. However, that was almost three thousand years ago, and we haven't... dear lord, Hauve! What in god's name happened to you?" Hauve stumbled into the middle of the small group, completely drenched in blood, and stopped there, dripping the red fluid onto the ground. "R-Run..." he croaked. "Oba... Obana... it's... Centurion..." The horribly wounded man fell face-first into the flames, Obana doing nothing as she could only stare. There was no way, no possible way...

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CHAPTER/end