Cross Effects > Areas

Great Dojo

<< < (133/149) > >>

Kotomine_Rin:
Vega

If he was smiling for a second, it didn't last. He'd been ignoring that boy until now for... obvious reasons. Just how could someone live with himself, with a face like that? Even Vega couldn't hide that for a moment, he looked hurt.

"At least I have one."

So hurt in fact, that he only registered part of what Sethrol said. No, for a moment, he spaced out... until a pang of pain caused him to touch his temple, slightly. Was it the throbbing pain of that punch of Sethrol's? The duel he had not too long ago with the boy? Or something else?


No, no way. Is he... no. He was strong enough to take those blows, I thought he... This isn't...

This is... this is ignoble. Murder. He was no threat to me. How could I kill him? I just wanted to scare the boy a little, crush his fighting spirit. So why...

Why do I feel... like this?

Vega was an assassin by trade. Taking lives, snuffing beasts, punishing those who deserved it... all of that was common to him. But he had never done it before. Not until today.

He had never killed a human.

"And oh please, why would I buy any of that? You're just aching to vent your frustrations, do I look that gullible?" He sighed... for a moment grimacing in pain.

Just being here today all felt like a bad dream. Maybe he'd wake up in the arms of his mother, and this whole nightmare would end. But it wouldn't. It wouldn't, and it all made him feel overjoyed. That alone was its own special kind of hell. That's when his eyes turned to shock, and he realized he was grabbing onto Sethrol. He'd look shocked for a second at how far he had gone... but it was already too late.

"It won't bring him back. Even if you hate, curse, and beat me half to death, it won't bring back those you care about. But it'll feel good. I suppose that's its own reward. Besides, I've still got plenty of frustration to let out. So what's a flesh wound or two, compared to your head under my heel?"

yinsukin:
Sethrol

"Now now, I think your proving my student's point."

Sethrol sat down, just in front of Jonathan's corpse.  A simple deep breath and the aura of the passionate man was gone.  Indeed, something was silenced inside of the old man, that energy gone with the wind.  "Besides what if I am?  If you can survive this training, then it won't be long before there isn't much to teach you anyway.  So here are my terms.  If I win, you kiss the feet of his corpse and apologize for killing him.  Now if you win, I will teach you everything I know and be your personal resource for training whenever you so desire, even over my other students.  Does that sound like a deal?" 

Kotomine_Rin:
Vega

"Fine. I'll make you eat those words, old man. Don't look down on me." He let go of the old man and glared at him, but this time, the fire he was barely suppressing was burning like a kindling.

YOLF:
Orcus
Late Morning, after the clash at Albion

He is surrounded by writhing and bruised bodies, and useless sticks litter the span of the training floor. He is a boulder reaching to the sky, the tip of an iceberg that entombs the strife of a lost world, and they are pebbles thrown aside, tiny boats rendered unto flotsam and waste. They are beneath address, miniscule and meaningless, and to wait for a disaster to notice the things it swallows is merely wishful thinking. But he is seeing them.

He had come after the tournament in the demon's paradise, and greeted them with a question. What is the reason for your strength? Today he asks, what is the purpose of your weakness? And it goes unanswered.

They cannot answer, and their muscles fail to prove that the premises are false, unable to hold on to their weapons. They feel a mind as sharp as the scalpels of the demiurge, press down and peel aside their fear and their monochrome dreams, to expose the colors beneath. They call him Chaos Bringer, the title he used for show. It is only half true. Chaos must be sowed to seize order, as the ultimate alloy of war is the only tool by which peace can be forced. All hearts beat of their own order, fragile and whispy; to make it solid, to know what shape it is in truth, they must first know disorder, and carve themselves out of it. And how can this noble cause be anything but love?

They're eating out of his hands soon enough. He's a good sport about it.

Magery:

--- Quote from: YOLF on January 03, 2021, 01:12:26 AM ---Orcus
Late Morning, after the clash at Albion

He is surrounded by writhing and bruised bodies, and useless sticks litter the span of the training floor. He is a boulder reaching to the sky, the tip of an iceberg that entombs the strife of a lost world, and they are pebbles thrown aside, tiny boats rendered unto flotsam and waste. They are beneath address, miniscule and meaningless, and to wait for a disaster to notice the things it swallows is merely wishful thinking. But he is seeing them.

He had come after the tournament in the demon's paradise, and greeted them with a question. What is the reason for your strength? Today he asks, what is the purpose of your weakness? And it goes unanswered.

They cannot answer, and their muscles fail to prove that the premises are false, unable to hold on to their weapons. They feel a mind as sharp as the scalpels of the demiurge, press down and peel aside their fear and their monochrome dreams, to expose the colors beneath. They call him Chaos Bringer, the title he used for show. It is only half true. Chaos must be sowed to seize order, as the ultimate alloy of war is the only tool by which peace can be forced. All hearts beat of their own order, fragile and whispy; to make it solid, to know what shape it is in truth, they must first know disorder, and carve themselves out of it. And how can this noble cause be anything but love?

They're eating out of his hands soon enough. He's a good sport about it.

--- End quote ---

a girl

it was probably midday. it may have been afternoon. hard to argue that it was evening.

There are stories that begin like this:

A great and powerful tyrant visits a place of swords. Their temerity—to think of wielding a blade without his permission!—amuses him, so he seeks to remind them of their place. He challenges them, one by one, one by two, one by three, one by four, one by all. It does not matter, for he is a great and powerful tyrant. They cannot crush him in the moment of his strength. And so his blade introduces them to the floor and his glory introduces them to fear. It is a kind lesson, as far as tyrants go—and therein lies the trap, for hopelessness learned by kindness is the most terrible of all.

But of course for every tyrant there must be a hero.

In a story like this, they are a peasant, unlearned and unfamiliar with the blade but an old friend of hope. Or perhaps they are a passing stranger, the only one who will not recognise the tyrant by the shape of his name. Sometimes they are a child, for truth is known to come from the mouth of babes and swordlaw is the oldest truth of all. Usually they are there by accident; often they do not watch their step or their mouth or their curiosity and so pique the tyrant's.

In the end it is always a challenge. Sometimes it ends in ignomious defeat. Others in impossible victory. This is never what matters. What matters is that the peasant stranger's child picks up a sword for the first time and they think oh. So this is what love is.

The rest—well, that hasn't been written yet.

Orcus, of course, is not a great and powerful tyrant. He is the tyrant's congenial vizier, easy with a smile and wise with advice and always, always here to help. So when he comes down to a place of swords, he does not meet the hero. It is not his place.

No: he meets the witch.

There's a switch in her hands. Not even a wooden blade, for she is but a friendly maiden unfamiliar with the law of swords, just a simple wooden stick good for rapping recalcitrant apprentices around the knuckles. It taps the ground in a jolly rhythm as she walks across the floor—well-polished bamboo covered in sweat and the memory of bruises—loud enough that you can't hear how you can't hear the sound of her steps. She winds delicately around the exhausted students, favouring each one with a gentle smile that eases what little disgruntled defeat Orcus has not already soothed from their souls.

There's something idyllic about the way she moves—her skirts flutter around her ankles like rosepetals in the wind and her hair is a careful stream falling across her shoulders and back like a river of ink. It's as if someone decided to sing a fairytale to life and set it across the stage just to remind the tyrant and the vizier what genre they're in. One of her ears, thick and furry as a well-loved dog, twitches toward a corner of the room where one student is regaling his friend with a highly exaggerated story about how he came this close to actually parrying Orcus' first blow, and she giggles softly just as she stops directly in front of the man himself.

"They love you, you know," she says conversationally. Her switch bounces out an idle beat as she stands there, her fingers drumming on the handle not out of impatience but out of the sheer joy of the song. Between bounces, she points to some of the students at random: a dark-haired, dark-skinned elf, a yellow-eyed naiad, a shy little foxgirl with a pretty black tattoo on her cheek. "Just one short spar and you're already their hero."

She's partway through another friendly smile when it twists into a short, unhappy frown.

"Ah, forgive me, that was rude. I've forgotten to introduce myself." She bows, her back perfectly angled to avoid offence and obsequiousness both, and looks up (and up) to meet Orcus' sharp red eyes. "I bear the name Kakura Yuzu, and I would appreciate it if you would honour me with the chance to become my hero too."

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page