Rurouni Familiar

Chapter Twelve

"He had lost control. But he didn't care. They wanted him to feel. He would feel, then! They wanted him to laugh? He would laugh as they burned!"
-The Gathering Storm

Wardes walked through the night, bones crunching under his boots. No, it wasn't night. The night had stars. This was … a cave? Regardless, he knew exactly where he was.

When he had first arrived in hell, he had sat and waited for whatever divine or diabolical punishment in store for him, and tried to understand his death.

Soujiro had disappeared as soon as the fight started, but Wardes had known he was still there by the destruction his path had left on the walls. Wardes had his spell set up, making him immune to any attack from a sword.

Then the sword had started to glow, and Wardes' magic, his spells, his power … it meant nothing.

Magic was the pinnacle of human achievement and the foundation of society throughout Halkeginia, but when that dull, rusted sword had begun to shine like the sun over a new world, it all fell apart.

Wardes had died in that moment, literally in one moment. It hadn't even hurt, and a more charitable man than himself would have appreciated that mercy.

Instead he stood in hell and walked through the darkness. His eyes adjusted, somehow, to this lightless world, and he could see upon what he tread. He kept walking, unsure what he'd find. Maybe he wouldn't find anything at all. Maybe this unholy void was the torment he had earned.

Part of his mind had fallen asleep while the rest of him walked. The rhythmic crunching beneath him grew hypnotic, and life had left him tired. He wondered if he would run into any of his dead friends in this abyss, but he doubted it. While he had sent many of his enemies to hell, his friends were all better than he was.

He had nearly passed by the first person in his path before noticing him. The man was sitting on a pile of skulls, wearing a robe embroidered with eyes, and had a blindfold on over his face. His gaunt face smiled.

"I take it you're new here," he said.

Wardes stopped and stared at him. He normally ignored people such as this stranger, but here he had no title or status worth a copper, and his life of indifference and disdain had gotten him nowhere he had wanted to go.

"Here," Wardes said, "being hell, I presume."

The man smiled. "Why? Were you a saint?"

Hardly. He had killed his own mother as a child. It was an accident that his father had covered up, but he pushed, she fell, and the technicalities between murder and manslaughter offered little solace. In a few more years, he might have made up for that and his countless later sins, but here he was, damned and out of time.

"I was expecting flames."

The blind man tilted his head. "Is that so? No, that would be too easy. We don't get to sit back and let something else torment us. We have to do all the work ourselves."

"So what does happen here?" Wardes saw a dreary landscape in every direction, but that was far from horrible.

"We remember," the blind man said. "Memory doesn't fade here like it did in life." He ran his fingers across his blindfold. "If anything, I remember my past now better than I ever did when I was alive."

Wardes considered that. "That seems a mild torment for my sins."

The stranger laughed, weak, raspy, and bitter. "You are new." He said new like fool. "Very well, I will tell you a story, Mr. …?"

He had no interest in stories, but courtesy was ingrained in him. "Wardes," he said.

"Usui," the blind man said. "Let me tell you a story, Wardes. Your story. You traveled along a road, and each day you picked up something and left something else behind. You found friends, but you were not your friends. You found enemies, but you were not your enemies, either. You found terrors and regrets, hopes and sorrows, lies and ideals, but you were none of those things, so as time went by, you left all of those things behind. On the day you were born, you picked up a thing called life, and on the day you died you left that behind. Here, there is nothing left to find, and hour by hour you will lose everything that you are not, until you have nothing left to hide you from that thing you have always been." He paused. "Unless, of course, you leave first."

Wardes raised an eyebrow, though the expression was lost on the man. "Why? Is there a way out?"

Usui chuckled. "Yes, newcomer. Soon, we are all leaving."

WWW

Louise shouldn't have been surprised at her most recent failure. Princess Henrietta had asked her to come back with information on the Reconquista in the form of documents or a veteran, and instead of results she had excuses. The excuse of having one of the finest knights in Tristain try to kill her was a heavy one, but that would only pin the blame on the Princess, and Louise would rather keep it for herself.

More immediately, Wardes had killed Prince Wales after Louise had vouched for him before the Royalists. She had nothing to do with it, but she knew how that argument would go. Yes, I know he came with me and I said he was okay, but I had no idea he was going to murder your Prince! Right.

So Louise avoided that conversation and fled like the guilty murderer she very much was not, and left through Newcastle's secret exit. Yes, the place had one, a massive underground tunnel that a ship could sail through. How the Royalists had managed to keep it a secret from the Reconquista, she had no idea. Maybe it was new? There hadn't been a need for a secret tunnel before the civil war, so it had to be.

Unfortunately, the tunnel was pitch black and straight down. Anyone in a ship would be fine—heck, any half decent mage could have flown down—but Louise had to climb down with her hands and feet like a commoner. A small, terrified commoner with an intense fear of heights and dark places.

"Are you still there?" she asked the darkness.

"Sure thing, Miss Louise," Soujiro answered. "I'm right beneath you."

"I bet you've been looking up my skirt the whole time," she said, wishing that was all she had to worry about.

"How would I do that?" he asked, sounding so innocent Louise would have assumed it false coming from anyone else. "I can't even see my own hands."

Neither could she. The light from the top of the tunnel seemed as far away as the moons already, and she had no idea how far they had left before it leveled out. It would level out eventually, wouldn't it? Oh Founder, what if it didn't? If they were in Tristain it would, but they were in Albion. Albion was a floating island so for all she knew, the hole would go straight down to the bottom.

"How do you find your way?" she asked, trying not to think about it.

Soujiro laughed. "I can still feel."

Yes, she thought, groping around in the darkness for handholds and footholds. Yes you can. The fact that she had to be told that spoke poorly of her. If she had summoned a dog, then she would have seen it bark, whimper, and wag its tail, and she would have known what her familiar was feeling.

That wasn't true with Soujiro. He could smile all day long, behead a corrupt nobleman at night, and be smiling again the next morning. When they began their mission, if Louise had had to guess which one of them was most likely to go insane and start killing people, she would not have chosen Wardes, and that too spoke poorly of her. Soujiro could feel, and she had seen the tears to prove it.

She would have to get him something nice when they got back to make up for it. "Hey, Soujiro," she said. "What's something you've always wanted but never had?"

"I don't know. Always is a long time to want something."

Right. She remembered the joys of talking to her familiar. "What's something you want right now, then?"

"Huh. I can't really think of anything. How about you?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said sarcastically. "Not being here would be nice."

"Then it's a good thing we're moving!"

She rolled her eyes. "If you slip and fall, scream all the way down so I know how far the bottom is."

He laughed. "Sure thing, Miss Louise!"

He spoke like it was all a game, but she was starting to get worried. What if the tunnel didn't have a bottom? She had a mental image of herself dangling from the underside of Albion with nothing below her but clouds, and she felt sick. They should have tried to sneak out over the walls, but Louise had wanted to be clever. Now she had no idea how much further she had to go, and she was too tired to climb back up. There was nothing she could do beside continue on the foolish path she had chosen and hope for the best.

Then the bit of rock she had been holding onto pulled free and she fell screaming.

She had expected time to slow down and for her whole life to flash before her eyes. Instead, she had enough time for one single thought.

I'm going to die.

Soujiro caught her and held onto her as rocks rained down on both of them, all without losing his grip with his other hand. Of course, he had never shown any sign of human limitations before, so why should he start now?

A light appeared above her, so bright she couldn't see anything else.

"Hello?" a someone said. "Louise? Soujiro?" Wait, she recognized that voice! "You found them! Good job, Verdandi. Say, are you two going spelunking?"

WWW

Guiche, Kirche, and Tabitha had come back for them, and Guiche's familiar could track valuable gems like the ring Princess Henrietta had given Louise. Kirche and Tabitha had camped out under Sylphid's wings while Guiche's familiar dug its way toward Louise and Soujiro, who were not going spelunking, and that was all the explanation that Louise would listen to or offer until after she had a good night's sleep.

WWW

Guiche took first watch. It was the gentlemanly thing to do, and no one would say that Guiche de Gramont did not pull his weight. Hopefully, his actions would help bury his shame from the La Rochelle incident.

Hiding behind girls and commoners, without even a scar to prove your courage, for you had none.

Guiche shook that thought away. What was he supposed to have done? That man—blind, covered in scars, laughter, and madness—had ignited half the town and was a square-class mage at least. It was … humbling, to say the least, for Guiche to see how he compared to the true monsters of the world. Not at all how a hero should.

"Nice night, isn't it?"

Guiche jumped about a foot in the air and squealed like—like a dashing young nobleman. He caught his breath and composed himself. "Soujiro. You're up."

He smiled. "So are you."

Guiche stood up straighter. "I'm keeping watch," he said, as though it were a noble task.

"Neat. Have you seen anything yet?"

It was easy to remember that Soujiro was just a commoner. It was harder to remember that Soujiro was fast enough to kill someone in the time it took to blink. "No, but you can't be too careful. There are beasts in these woods, demihumans, mercenaries, deserters, bandits, all sorts of enemies who might wish us harm."

"So what do you do if you see one?"

"I will … alert the others." That sounded more heroic in his head.

Soujiro nodded, but he made no move to go back to a bed (or at least a series of adjacent bed rolls) next to three attractive women. Since arriving in Albion, the girls had forgone propriety in favor of unsupervised practicality, and Guiche had not objected—indeed, he had not managed any coherent thought concerning the entire affair.

Still, the idea that Soujiro could charge a square-class mage and shy away from a few sleeping, nubile women both amused and bemused him. "Soujiro," he said finally, "what do you think is the nature of courage?"

The commoner shrugged. "I don't know, I've never tried it. It seems like a waste of energy to be honest."

Guiche blinked. "What? Courage is a waste of …" He shook his head. "You say that, but I have never seen you do anything cowardly."

"You haven't? Okay then."

"So …"

"What?"

"Explain."

"Oh." He shifted on the rock he was sitting on. "Courage is when you're afraid to do something, but you do it anyway, right? You need to be at least as brave as you are afraid, or you'll just do something cowardly instead. But being afraid exhausts you, and if you have to be brave on top of that, it exhausts you even more. It's a lot simpler to just skip being afraid in the first place."

Guiche considered that. His words managed to make a queer amount of sense, despite making no sense at all. "So how do you decide not to be afraid?"

He shrugged again. "How do you decide to blink? No one controls how you feel but you."

Guiche frowned. He actually sounded a bit like Montmorency, who always blamed him when she caught him looking at other women, as though he decided to fall in love seven times a day. He had two shining eyes and one lusty heart, and it wasn't like he could stop feeling on demand. Could he?

"So anyway," Soujiro said, "I was thinking. Mages like you get magic back by sleeping, right? So why don't you go to sleep and let me take over?"

Guiche glanced back at Sylphid. There were three of them now. Kirche was gorgeous and flirtatious, but not as open as she pretended to be. Tabitha didn't seem to mind when his hands wandered—as his hands sometimes did—but she also didn't always notice when Sylphid tried to eat him. And Louise … Louise was dangerous.

Still, there was a lot to be said for quantity, and while he might be outnumbered, Guiche de Gramont was not outmanned. He hoped.

"That makes sense," he said, standing up. He was only a dot-class mage, so while he had more skill than the legendarily bad Louise the Zero, Kirche and Tabitha were the only two triangles in the school, and he would need as much rest as he could get if he wanted to impress them. "So you're taking my shift, and in a few hours you should wake up Kirche, and I expect her to trade off with Tabitha after that."

"Okay."

He hesitated. "Now, I'm not very familiar with commoners," he said to the commoner familiar, "but you people do need sleep eventually, correct?"

Soujiro nodded. "Eventually."

"And you're not planning on staying up all night in a self-sacrificing attempt to accommodate your betters, right?"

He laughed. "You're funny, Mr. Guiche."

Guiche frowned, but he couldn't directly reject a compliment. His father raised him better than that.

"Really," Soujiro continued, "I know that I won't be able to get any sleep anyway until it stops raining, so I might as well help out."

Guiche nodded, but he frowned again and looked up at the clear night sky. "It's not raining at all."

Soujiro looked up as though surprised at the stars. "Oh, it stopped? Huh. Well, it will start up again before you know it. The weather in this country is weird."

Guiche considered that, but he hadn't been in Albion long enough to contradict the boy. Besides, he had his own challenges to face. Three of them, sleeping peacefully. Could he sneak a cuddle, or would he die trying? He strode toward Sylphid, feeling for all the world like an adventurous rogue from a storybook trying to steal a dragon's treasure.

It's alright, Guiche, he told himself. You're charming, you're talented, and you're devilishly good looking. You got this.

WWW

The next morning Louise felt grimy, sore, and like her neck and back had been twisted into knots while she had slept, and she had managed to wake up more tired than when she had fallen asleep.

Then there was how everyone seemed extra cheerful that morning, which left Louise feeling even grumpier. Oh, look! The great outdoors! Nature! Fresh air! Die, die, die.

For breakfast, Tabitha caught fish from a nearby river by freezing them and levitating them out of the water, Kirche started a fire, and Guiche made a knife which Soujiro used to clean the fish, while Louise sat by herself feeling useless, but what else was new?

She did her best to feel sorry for herself. It was easy, and the alternative was thinking about Soujiro with his hands covered in fish blood and slime, gutting their breakfast with practiced efficiency.

He's a murderer, an assassin. That's nothing to be proud of, but you accepted that when you ordered him to kill. And she did order him to kill. He had waited until she gave him permission.

As soon as they were ready to eat, Sylphid returned from her hunt with a deer in her mouth and began tearing into it with cheerful savagery.

Louise made a face. "I'm sorry, Tabitha, but can you make your dragon do that somewhere else?"

Tabitha considered that and nodded, but made no move to send Sylphid away. Louise sighed, steeled herself, and bit into her fish. Somehow, it was dry. She didn't know how you could do that to something that had lived its whole life underwater, but it was. She chewed and swallowed. No salt, no sides, and it had been looking at her a few minutes ago. Yay, nature.

"So," Kirche said. "What happened? The last we saw you guys, you, your hot fiancé, and your cute familiar were sailing off into the sunset, you know, if the sun set in the—"

"Kirche kissed Soujiro!" Guiche blurted out.

Louise blinked. "What? What?"

Guiche shrank down. "Sorry."

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Nice one, Guiche."

His shoulders sank. "I couldn't handle the pressure."

"Five words you'll never hear a girl say to you."

Louise pointed her finger at her. "Explain."

Kirche shrugged. "Well, there's not much else to tell."

"What part of 'stay away from my familiar' didn't you understand?"

"The part where I was supposed to care."

Louise turned on Soujiro. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"They don't have this kind of fish where I'm from," he said. "It's gamey. I like it."

"You kissed her?"

He considered that and shook his head. "Nope."

"What?"

"I don't remember kissing her at all. I remember her kissing me though."

"It's no big deal," Kirche said. "I've kissed nearly every guy in the school."

"What about me?" Guiche asked. "You haven't kissed me. Not that I'm interested, of course. I have a girlfriend. It's a very satisfying relationship."

"Soujiro," Louise said, "new rule. From now on, you're not allowed to let anyone kiss you unless I say so."

"Okay."

"You know, Louise," Kirche said, "if he really was yours, you wouldn't need to tell him to be good."

"Shut-up, Kirche. You're a bad influence on him and you know it."

She smirked. "You got that right. So now that we got your power trip out of the way, what happened? Did you get to meet Prince Wales? Was he as hot as they say? And what happened to Wardes?"

Louise sighed. Kirche had put herself at risk to come help her. They all had. But Founder, sometimes the girl got on her nerves. Still, there was something pleasant about hating her, like being at home. Kirche might tease her, but she would never try to kill her, and by hating her Louise could pretend that a little teasing was the worse she had to worry about.

Of course, she'd bite her own tongue out before saying that out loud. "Yes, we made it to Newcastle and we met Prince Wales. Then Wardes killed him."

"What?" Kirche asked. "What? But … why?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "He didn't make much sense near the end. Either he was a traitor or just crazy. Then he tried to kill me and Soujiro killed him."

Kirche blinked. "Oh. So is that all? Founder, Louise, that's …"

She nodded. "Yeah."

"One heck of a dramatic break up." No one questioned her on Soujiro defeating Wardes, but each one of them glanced his way. Odd. She had been expecting more surprise. "So, now what?"

Louise looked at the half eaten fish in her hands and couldn't bring herself to finish it. "Well, the whole point of the mission was to gain information about the Reconquista or bring back an expert on them." Officially, at least. Louise suspected that Henrietta had just wanted to give Wales the chance to save himself without dishonor. "But that's not going to happen. There's not much else we can do besides go home so I can tell the Princess that I … failed completely." Her lower lip trembled, and she bit it to keep it in place.

"There is something we can do," Soujiro said.

Louise looked at him. "What?"

"Well, this was basically a recruitment mission," he said. "My last boss used to send me on these all the time, but it didn't always work out no matter what I did. Sometimes the target wasn't interested in working for someone else, or maybe he was already dead. I didn't like coming back with bad news, so whenever I left on that sort of mission, I would stop by Mr. Hoji's office and ask him if there was anyone in that part of the country Mr. Shishio didn't like. That way if the mission didn't work out, I could kill someone on the way back and tell him that even though he didn't make any friends, at least one more of his enemies was dead."

Guiche stared at him with wide eyes, Kirche's mouth was hanging open, and Tabitha's expression was … unreadable, but Soujiro ignored them. "So sure, our official mission didn't work out, but if there's someone around here Princess Henrietta wants dead, I'm sure we can find a way to cheer her up."

"Okay," Kirche said. "What. The. Heck?"

Louise couldn't help but smile at her discomfort. "Before I summoned him, he was an assassin."

She blinked. "What? Really?"

Soujiro nodded, smiling pleasantly.

"You're an assassin," she said. "But I'm a bad influence. This is crazy. Your first solution to solve a problem is to kill someone."

He shrugged. "Well, it is the oldest trick in the book."

"Louise, please, say something sane. Your familiar's freaking me out."

Without meaning to, Louise let out a giggle. She covered her mouth immediately. "Sorry, the last few days have been very surreal for me. Ahem. Prince Wales died opposing the Reconquista. Princess Henrietta sent me here because of the threat of the Reconquista. If the leader of the Reconquista were to, um, die, then that would at least give us more time to work with."

"Okay," Soujiro said. "Let's kill him, then."

"But it is crazy." Founder, she was agreeing with Kirche now. "They've pretty much conquered Albion right now, and I don't think they're going to let us murder their glorious leader."

"Oh," he said slowly. "So you're saying that killing people without their consent … is wrong."

"No!" Louise said. "Well, yes. Usually. But that's not the point." The Academy had offered a course on ethics last semester, but like an idiot she had gone for history instead because the Valliére name was in the textbook more frequently. "I'm saying that it's impossible."

"No it isn't." Soujiro sometimes questioned her for clarification, but she couldn't remember him ever contradicting her. "It's the simplest thing in the the world."

"No!" Kirche said. "No, no, no! Soujiro, darling, could you do something cute again? Because you are seriously messing with my image of you."

"This is who he is," Louise said. "You can't change him into what you thought he was just by wishing it." She was aware of the hypocrisy of that statement, but no one else was so it was fine. She turned to her familiar. "But you can't argue with the facts. There are five of us, and they have armies."

He shrugged. "An army has never stopped me before."

She blinked. "What?"

"Mr. Shishio never bothered with armies. He always said they were slow, expensive, and not too good at their job. Fighting with one is like trying to chop a tree down with a stick and only slightly smarter than laying siege. The Reconquista does both, so we'll be fine."

Louise tried to figure out Soujiro's mental arithmetic, then decided that he had probably skipped that. "Okay, so how does this … thing usually work?"

"We find him, kill him, and leave. The first part is the only hard one. I once spent months trying to find a hermit living in the mountains before I found out that it was just a practical joke to have me kill someone who didn't exist—it's a great story, I'll have to tell you some time—but you can't lead a revolution while being hard to find, so like I said, it's the easiest thing in the world."

Louise frowned. "You'd think that getting away alive would be the hardest part."

"Not really," he said. "Sometimes I try to kill the target when he's alone so I'm gone by the time someone finds the body, but most of the time I just run."

"This all seems far too simplified."

He shrugged. "If you're weak, you die. It can't get simpler."

The off-hand way he said that made her feel sick, but her mother had always lectured her on the Rule of Steel, so she steeled herself. "Princess Henrietta was worried that the Reconquista would attack Tristain after they took over Albion, but if we kill their leader, choosing a successor would at least slow them down."

She had nothing to base that on. She didn't even know who the leader of the Reconquista was, let alone what his successor would be like. Ideally they'd split into factions and spend the next decade in a civil war that left the rest of Halkeginia alone, but for all she knew they might just replace their current leader with someone worse.

But the alternative was to return to Tristain and tell the Princess how she had failed. She had failed in front of her family and in front of her classmates, but she would not fail in front of the Princess.

"You know what?" Kirche said. "Let's vote on this. I say we do the not crazy thing, and go home while we're still alive."

"And I vote to assassinate the evil warlord," Louise said. "It's his fault my fiancé tried to murder me, and I take that sort of thing personally. How about you, Soujiro?"

"Hold on," Kirche said. "We can't let him vote. It wouldn't be fair."

"Why not?"

"Because he's your familiar. He's not going to vote against you where you can hear him. It would be like letting Guiche's mole vote." Kirche turned to Soujiro. "No offense, cutey, I still love you."

"None taken."

Guiche cleared his throat. "I would also like to forfeit my right to vote in this matter. I learned long ago to never have opinions where beautiful women are involved. That has gotten me this fair, and I'm not going to ruin a good thing now."

"An odd number works better in this situation anyway," Kirche said. "Tabitha? Break this tie!"

Louise sighed inwardly. Of course Tabitha was going to side with her best friend. Still, there was no reason why Louise would have to go along with the outcome. From what Soujiro had said, assassinations weren't that complicated, so they might be able to do it by themselves. Getting out of Albion without Tabitha's dragon would be a problem, though.

"Assassinate," Tabitha said.

Kirche smiled before she realized what Tabitha had said. "What? Are you serious?"

Tabitha nodded.

"But why?"

"Arithmetic."

"Arithmetic. That's all you have to say."

She nodded.

"Arithmetic. Fantastic." Kirche sighed. "Okay, let's go murder someone. Great."

WWW

They found the leader of the Reconquista, Oliver Cromwell, without even trying. He wasn't hiding—he had never been hiding, and after Newcastle fell, he named himself Emperor of Albion.

They traveled to Londinium, Albion's capital city, under the pretense of being lower class nobility or upper class commoners trying to protect their mercantile interests with the settling kingdom, not that many cared to ask. The locals were celebrating, and Louise had met maybe five sober people since they arrived.

Emperor Cromwell was scheduled to give a speech the next day. Everyone in Londinium would be there, far more than the guards could keep track of. Besides, even if the people weren't caught up in the throes of patriotic victory, everyone knew that commoners weren't dangerous.

For now, Louise had to focus on the hardest part of the plan: falling asleep.

She tried to fantasize about her heroic return. You know how you sent me to find out more about the Reconquista? Well, I kind of ended them instead. She'd be smug when she got back. She had never been smug about one of her accomplishments before, and was viciously looking forward to the opportunity.

Unfortunately, her imagination kept on veering towards the worst case scenario where they failed, ended up captured and killed, and the Reconquista used their assassination attempt as an excuse to invade Tristain.

She rolled over on the lumpy straw mattress. Pretending to be common had seemed great on paper (they were nearly out of money), but it was worse on straw. One small room, one small bed, one small window, and one small candle. There was supposedly some peasant trick to light candles without magic, but for the life of her Louise couldn't figure out what it was.

She rolled over again and looked at Soujiro, sitting on the floor next to her bed. "Are you awake?" she asked.

"Yes I am, Miss Louise," he said, sounding cheerful.

"I can't sleep either." She hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase what she wanted to say without sounding like Kirche. "You can sleep in the bed with me if you want. I know you won't try anything weird."

"Thank you, but I've always slept better sitting up."

Louise rolled her eyes. He would be unable to take a hint. "I take it back. Everything you do is weird."

He laughed. "I suppose it is."

What kind of response was that? Was her familiar incapable of standing up for himself? Or did he just choose not to? When she had first summoned him, she simply took him for a commoner who knew his place but now … for all she knew, he saw her as a butterfly that had landed on his finger, too small and weak to be concerned about.

After all this time, she barely knew him at all.

"Soujiro," she said. "How did you become an assassin?" No. Assassin wasn't the right word. An assassin could kill you in your sleep, but Soujiro could defeat a square-class mage in a fair fight. What was the term he had used? Hitokiri.

"I told you. Mr. Shishio taught me."

"No, don't tell me the event. Tell me the story. How did you become, well, you?"

For a moment there was only silence. "Ah," he said finally. "Well, I suppose it started when I was born."

Louise groaned inwardly. Well, she was having trouble sleeping.

"My mother was a prostitute, and my father was rich. His family didn't want me running around making them look bad by existing in public, so they took me in to keep people quiet, but they never wanted me there. I was never one of them, you know? I remember they used to hit me a lot. If I wasn't working hard enough, they'd hit me, if I broke something, they'd hit me, if I cried, they'd hit me. I learned to stop crying real quick, and I noticed that when I smiled they left me alone more." He laughed. "I've pretty much been smiling ever since.

"But anyway, when I was … seven? Eightish? Around that time, I first met Mr. Shishio. He was already an outlaw, and he was in one of his moods where he kills everyone in his way. He was about to run his sword through me, but then he changed his mind. I think he was confused why I was smiling instead of screaming like people usually did, because I did that a lot. He ended up living in my family's shed … and we talked."

He fell silent for a moment, gathering his thoughts. "You know, I think he was the first person I ever really talked to. Everything before that was just, 'Do this, do that, don't ask stupid questions.' I knew rice and I knew work, but I didn't know … people. Everything I know about people, I learned from him.

"I always thought that my family hit me because they were embarrassed to have a bastard in the family, but that was just something they told me. The truth was they beat me because they could. They were strong, I was weak, so they could do whatever they wanted. If you're strong, you live. If you're weak, you die. Everything else is make believe.

"Of course, I was a little kid at the time and I loved make believe, so when Mr. Shishio gave me a sword, I didn't know what to do with it. The idea of being strong like him … it scared me. I didn't want to be killed, but I didn't want to kill either, and being the stupid little kid like I was, I thought I had a third option.

"Then my family tried to kill me, and I had to choose. Maybe they found out that I was hiding Mr. Shishio in the shed, or maybe they just figured that if there was a wanted murderer in the area, they could kill whoever they wanted and blame him. I ran crying for help, knowing that Mr. Shishio was strong enough to kill them all without trying, but he didn't come. Saving weak people who are just going to die anyway is silly, but he gave me what I needed to save myself, and that was enough. So then I grabbed the sword he gave me, and I chose to live.

"I remember … I remember the rain washing their blood off the sword after I was done, then Mr. Shishio offered to make me his apprentice, and I started traveling with him."

"That's horrible!" Louise said.

"Oh. Okay."

"No, I mean … nevermind." She thought back to her own family. Some parents claimed to love all their children equally, but hers had never bothered to pretend. Louise was the least favorite daughter, and an embarrassment to the family name. But she knew her parents would never try to kill her. "You told me that you stopped working for him before I summoned you. What made you quit?"

He didn't answer for a moment. "Do you ever have those times where you know you have to do something, but you don't really know why? Like how a baby knows it wants to eat, but doesn't understand what it means to starve to death? It was like that. Part of it was from someone I fought. During the Revolution, Mr. Shishio was the government's top hitokiri, but before him there was another, who might have been even stronger. When Mr. Shishio tried to seize power, the government sent Mr. Himura after us, and I got to fight him twice.

"And let me tell you, nothing about that guy made sense. In the war, he had killed as many people as Mr. Shishio, but he had spent the next ten years becoming a 'sword that protects the weak.' He was a grown man, possibly the only one in the country who could threaten Mr. Shishio, and he had dedicated his life to the sort of make believe I had outgrown when I was seven! And he was completely serious about it, too. I couldn't even call him a real swordsman after hearing him talk, but he was strong enough to say whatever he liked.

"Our first fight ended with a tie, but the second time he beat me, and I started questioning a few things. I've killed enough people weaker than me to know that Mr. Shishio was right, and I'm sure that Mr. Himura had too during the war, but it takes a special kind of strength to believe something you know is false. And the idea that the weak have just as much right to live as the strong when the world is shaped to kill them off, and that people should be saved even when they aren't strong enough to save themselves … it's nonsense, but it's the sort of nonsense that sticks with you.

"That was part of the reason I left. The other part is everything I ever believed had been given to me. I could recite those ideals perfectly, but they weren't mine. Mr. Shishio didn't fight with second-hand convictions, he earned them, and I'm sure Mr. Himura earned his too. But me? You asked me earlier how I became me, but I'm not sure I've done that yet. Sometimes I feel like I'm just a bunch of bits and pieces of people I've met along the way."

Louise chewed on that mentally. Sometimes she wanted to just call her familiar crazy and move on, but other times she almost understood him. Still, she was sure that no one else had to deal with a familiar with those kinds of issues, so she had no idea why she ended up with him.

Actually, that was a fair question. Out of all the familiars she could have summoned, what did it mean that she got him? Was she supposed to understand what was wrong with him and make him less crazy? If so, the Founder had far more faith in her than she merited. Louise had never made sense of anyone in her entire life. She never had to. Everyone she met already came in nice, sensible packages until Soujiro came around. And noble society didn't cure insanity; they just stuffed crazies in the basement and hoped the neighbors didn't talk.

Louise realized she was thinking about this backwards. When had a mage ever summoned a familiar for the familiar's benefit? Sometimes the familiar was better off, but the point of the summoning ritual was to help the mage. The real question was what was did it mean that someone like Soujiro with a traumatic childhood, a twisted morality, and a work history of homicide was what she needed?

He could kill. He had been trained to kill, and had been taught to see it as right. Louise understood that such things were necessary—the honor of the Valliére household and most of the old noble families was built upon valor in battle—but she herself was too weak to fight. Was that what she needed, someone strong enough to fight for her and twisted enough to not ask why?

Well, that was what she was using him for. When she told him to kill Wardes, that was in self defense, but now she was planning an assassination. There were dozens of reasons why someone like Cromwell needed to die, the murder of Prince Wales and the wellbeing of Tristain being only two of them, but did Soujiro care about any of those?

"Soujiro?" she said after a moment. "What is it like to kill someone?"

"It only hurts if you let it."

His sing-song tone of voice made it hard for her to catch what he meant at first. "Does it hurt you?"

"It did the first time," he admitted.

"What did you do?"

"I smiled until I stopped hurting, same as always. I got better at it as I went along, and eventually I could go without feeling anything at all."

After his fight with Wardes, there were tears on his face. "Did it hurt when you killed Wardes?"

"Yes."

Louise sat up in her bed. "Why? He was trying to kill us! He had already killed Prince Wales. If anyone's death could be justified, it was his."

He paused. "What do you mean by justified?"

"I—well, justice. He was evil. If I was strong enough to kill him, you can bet that I wouldn't feel bad about it afterwards."

"Because he was evil?"

She hesitated. "Yes?" That sounded weak. "Yes."

"Could you kill me without feeling bad?"

"What? Of course not! You're my familiar."

"I've probably killed more people than Wardes has. If he's evil, then I am to, aren't I?"

"You're not evil; you're my friend."

He cocked his head. "Is that the difference between good and evil, then? People you like and people you don't?"

"What? No, I'm saying that if you were evil, I wouldn't … you're avoiding the question!"

"Am I? Oh, right. Why. Because Wardes was strong."

She frowned. "So you feel bad about killing people who can fight back, but you're fine killing people who can't?"

He paused. "I suppose so."

"What?"

"Is that odd?"

"Very."

He paused again. "It's like this. I am the best swordsman I've ever met, but there are two people I couldn't beat. The first was Mr. Shishio. I'm faster than he is, but he is smart. He can counter any attack and pierce any defense, and I'd have to run twice as fast as him just to keep up. The second was Mr. Himura, and he fought with all his heart. In strict swordsmanship, I was stronger then either of them, but they were focused in ways I can barely describe while I was half asleep. If I'm fighting someone weak, I can win without waking up all the way, but when I fight someone strong like Wardes, I have to think, and I have to feel."

Louise rolled over and stared at the ceiling. "It only hurts if it's a challenge. What about tomorrow? Will it hurt to kill Cromwell?"

Soujiro shrugged. "I don't know how strong he his, but it's definitely going to hurt him to die, so it's only fair. We can stop and go home instead if you want to, though. I don't care either way."

"No," she said quickly. "No." Killing Cromwell was the right move. He had started the Reconquista, caused the death of Prince Wales, and if his talk of reuniting Halkeginia was anything more than rhetoric, he would be a threat to Tristain, too. Compared to that, a few tears, even from someone she cared about, was a good trade.

Right?

She kept telling herself that as she fell asleep.

WWW

"For the record," Kirche said the next day, "this is a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. I don't even think I should be talking about the idea out loud because it is just that bad."

Soujiro laughed. "That's silly. You're just saying that because you've never killed anyone before."

"No. No I have not. Soujiro, darling, I'm pretty sure you're the only one at the table who has. Guiche is a total weenie, Louise is all talk, Tabitha just likes books, and I am a longtime advocate of making love instead of war."

Soujiro suspected that Tabitha was more like him and Wardes than Kirche suggested, but he didn't press the point. "Then take advantage of my years of experience when I tell you that you guys have nothing to worry about. Honestly, I usually just improvise these things on the go, but we are ridiculously prepared for this. We've planned every step of the way, we have an escape route, and we even ate breakfast first."

He was pretty sure he was the only one who enjoyed breakfast, though. Tabitha nibbled at it while reading one of the many books she had brought along, but the others didn't even do that. Louise closed her eyes and kept on chanting, "Rule of Steel," to herself over and over again, Kirche forgot to flirt with the waiter, and Guiche excused himself to the washroom where Soujiro was pretty sure he started retching.

But the escape route was a nice touch that they could all agree on. Traditionally Soujiro's escape route was a running start, but Guiche came up with the idea of digging a hole, and it all went from there. They, or rather Kirche, explained to the innkeeper that they needed to use his yard for legitimate but unexplainable reasons, and the innkeeper agreed not to disturb them as long as they cleaned up after themselves and paid extra. Pretty soon they had a hole that went all the way to the outside of the city, so they wouldn't have to deal with walls or guards on the way out.

The nice innkeeper could wind up dead for unknowingly assisting in the assassination of the emperor, but Soujior didn't see the point in bringing that up.

They went outside to join the celebration. This one was far different from the one a few nights ago in Newcastle. Instead of a bunch of old soldiers cheerfully awaiting their last battle and imminent doom, the inhabitants of Londinium cheered their past victory against the Royalist and looked forward to a bright and glorious future.

As they moved closer to their destination, the streets grew more and more crowded. At least half of the people who brushed against Kirche's breasts did so on accident, and even if the four of them (Guiche had stayed behind to guard their retreat) didn't know where to go, they could have just let the mass of people shove them them forward until they made it to the town square.

Soujiro eyed the defenses, such as they were. There was a stage at the center of the square for public executions and other announcements, though the standard gallows had been dismantled to make room for the new emperor. Two rows of guards stood around the stage and along the road to the palace to keep the enthusiastic masses from getting in the way, though Soujiro was too far away to make out any useful details through the crowd.

The mass of people erupted into a cheer as the emperor arrived. Soujiro stood on his toes and craned his neck, but he could just barely make out the imperial carriage. He considered climbing up on something for a better view, but that would draw too much attention to himself. From where he stood, he could see a lot of white and gold on both the carriage and the six horses that pulled it, though only the horses had feathers. They even had wings, as wide as Wardes' griffon. He doubted that they could fly very well harnessed to a cart, but they still looked pretty.

The first man to board the stage wasn't Emperor Cromwell, but an announcer, introducing the emperor and working excitement into the crowd. He spoke of Cromwell's victories, and the people's victories in supporting him, and he hinted of future victories to come. The crowd all seemed to know when to cheer, when to laugh, and when, should the situation demand it, jeer.

"I can barely see anything," Soujiro said. "I'm going to try to get closer."

Louise nodded. "Alright. Let's go."

He hesitated. "It might be best if the rest of you stay near the back, just in case something goes wrong."

She frowned and fixed him with a hard look. She wasn't very strong in a fight, but she was one of the most stubborn people Soujiro knew. "You're not going alone." The corners of her lips twitched in a smile. "Just in case something goes wrong."

He considered that. He had never been part of a team before. Well, he had, but the point of the Juppongatana had been because he couldn't be everywhere at once instead of him ever needing help on a mission. Still, there was nothing wrong with trying new things. Besides, every time Soujiro had met him, Mr. Himura always had a friend at his side, whether it was the police officer, the Oniwaban girl, or the tall guy who liked to punch things.

He shrugged and smiled at Tabitha. "Would you like to come with me?" he asked.

She nodded wordlessly.

"Wait, why her?" Louise asked.

"She's quiet and fast." She was also decent in a fight and had at least some experience killing people. Meanwhile, no matter how quiet they were, Louise and Kirche had loud presences, but he left that out.

"Alright," Louise said. "But promise me you won't do anything stupid."

He laughed. "Of course I won't." If he thought what he was going to do was stupid, he wouldn't do it. He squeezed through a gap in the crowd as gently as he could, and Tabitha made her way behind him.

WWW

Louise watched them go. Guiche had stayed behind, so the only one she had left with her was Kirche. Lovely.

"So what did she mean by arithmetic?" Louise asked.

"Hmm?"

"When we were voting about what to do. Her only reason was 'arithmetic.' What did that mean?"

"Oh. She thinks we might be able save more lives than we, you know, don't save. Prevent a war and all that, greater good. She has this thing called 'logic,' you know? I never touch the stuff myself, but it works for her."

Louise nodded. She was focused on what was best for Princess Henrietta and Tristain, but Tabitha wasn't from Tristain. For that matter, neither was Kriche.

"So why are you here?"

She looked down at her and smiled. "Isn't it obvious? Soujiro. He is a ridiculously good kisser."

Louise scowled. "See, I might fall for that, but I've kissed him too, and I know for a fact that's a lie. He just stands there politely until you're done. 'Oh, a girl is kissing me. That's nice. And would you look at that cloud!'" She rolled her eyes.

"Maybe I'm just more engaging than you are."

"If you don't want to tell me, that's fine."

"Okay, okay." She harrumphed. "See if I ever try to have fun at your expense again. Logic."

"Logic? That's why you're here?"

"Yup."

"But you just said you never touched the stuff."

Kirche gave her a self-deprecating smile. "Precisely."

WWW

"So how long have you been a hitokiri?"

"Confused." Tabitha's voice wasn't just quiet, it was pitched just right to blend into the background noise of the breathing of the crowd, the rustling of people's clothes, and the wind itself unless you were listening for it.

"Oh, sorry, that's just what they call people who do this sort of thing where I'm from. I don't think assassin has the right connotation, though."

She nodded. "Three years."

"Not bad. I've been doing this for ten, but I'm not from here, so I'm likely to make a least a few more mistakes before I figure out all the rules.

She nodded again, but didn't seem too interested in making conversation. That was fine, because the announcer finished announcing and Cromwell took the stand. Soujiro never would have noticed the man in a crowd; he was well dressed, but Soujiro knew nothing of local fashions, and the smooth skinned, white haired man had nothing of the presence that Soujiro had come to expect from truly great men. But the crowd knew him, and they roared.

Their cheers came, not just as a sound to be heard, but as a force. He had fought a few people who had tried to intimidate him with their chi, and this was nearly the same. Cromwell's soul wasn't just in his body; it was in the entire city. Soujiro smiled and waited for him to speak.

The emperor took a moment to bask in the adulation of the masses like a cat in the sun before he raised his arms, silencing them. "People of Albion!" he cried out, his voice magically enhanced to reach the edges of the crowd. "The Royalists have fallen, and we—are—victorious!"

The crowd cheered, and Soujiro shouted and jumped up and down with them, partially to blend in, but mostly to spot a gap in the press of bodies wide enough to squeeze through. Oh, there was one, just a little to the left and then he could move forward a few meters.

"Soon," Cromwell bellowed, "all of Halkeginia will be united under the banner of the Reconquista!"

"Yay, Reconquista!" Soujiro shouted along with the crowd, moving closer.

"Just as all of Albion is now one!"

"Yay, Albion!"

"The tyranny of the Royal Family is at an end!"

"Hooray!"

"And the last of their line has fallen with the traitors at Newcastle!"

Soujiro didn't understand how the Royal Family could be both tyrants and traitors. You needed something old and established to betray against, but the crowd at least made sense of Cromwell's words and cheered vigorously. Soujiro, though, remembered Newcastle and had spoken with Wales the night before he died.

What are you willing to die for?

He never had anything worth dying for. But there was always something to kill for.

"The Royal family," he continued, "has long glutted themselves upon the labors of the righteous sons of Albion, and bled us dry, taxing us to support their indulgences."

The crowd booed, but Soujiro didn't join them. He was worried he'd get his cheers and boos mixed up. Instead, he finally made it to the front. To get any further, he'd have to get past a line of spearmen who had been tasked with the job of looking unfriendly. Behind them was twenty feet of empty space and then a line of mages. Then there was the stage, about ten feet off the ground, with another line of mages in nicer uniforms. Twenty feet forward, ten feet up, and only three lines of protection. Was Cromwell using himself as bait, or was he just that dumb?

"They have robbed their own people as surely as any band of pirates, defiled our daughters in their beds for their own pleasure, and in defiance of the will of God, they have even consorted with elves, time and time again!"

More booing. Soujiro ignored them as he studied the situation. There were plenty of guards around the square, but not nearly enough. They'd be busy containing the crowd, which would erupt in a panic as soon as Soujiro attacked. Mr. Shishio always said that all a crowd needed was the right spark, and this crowd was already frenzied.

"But did the elves save them from the wrath of God?" Cromwell demanded. "Did they?"

The crowd chorused the negative, and Soujiro made his decision. Louise had told him not to do anything stupid, and he'd have to be an idiot to pass up such a golden opportunity. "Are you ready, Mr. Derflinger?"

"Partner, this is literally what I was made for," his sword replied. "I could do this in my sleep."

"No!" Cromwell said. "For we have a power greater than any devilry upon this world. We have the ancient Void, restored for this our promised day! The power of Brimir blazes upon the land once more, and no traitor, heathen, heretic, or demon will stand against us! The hand of God supports us, my people, and we—will—never—fall!"

Soujiro hopped over the spearman in front of him. Even without a running start, a jump like that was as easy as a game. As he landed, the second row of guards pointed their wands at him, but he broke into a run and that was all he needed. He leapt onto the stage past the final line, flicked his sword from his sheath and cut Cromwell in two.

That should have been the end of it. It usually was. He killed quickly so there was no response, no pain. But there was pain. Getting your vitals sliced in half? That was nothing, but Cromwell turned just enough to look him in the eye as he died, and Soujiro knew exactly what he felt.

Nothing is worth dying for.

I don't want to die.

Please, oh God, please, I need more time.

And Soujiro killed him.

No, he didn't just kill him. He took away everything he had.

The guards around him pointed their wands and attacked.

He screamed.

WWW

She screamed.

Louise didn't know what had happened. One second Cromwell was on stage ranting Reconquista rhetoric, and the next Soujiro was standing over his dead body, waiting to be attacked.

Had he planned this? Stay back, just in case something goes wrong. But this wasn't the plan at all. They were supposed to watch and wait until they saw an opportunity, not—not this.

"Run!" she shouted. She didn't always understand her familiar, but Soujiro always did what she told him to.

But not this time. Cromwell's honor guard struck to avenge their emperor, shooting blasts of fire, ice, and lightning, but their spells veered off course and were drawn to Soujiro's sword. He stood unharmed, while Derflinger exploded into light.

Then he vanished.

And people died.

WWW

IF YOU'RE STRONG.

Nothing is worth dying for. A new truth. One that fit into every crevice in his soul.

YOU LIVE.

Soujiro wanted to live more than anything. His mind was free to wander when he was calm, but when he opened his heart to use Derflinger's magic to its fullest, there was only one question, and only one answer.

IF YOU'RE WEAK.

He didn't want to die, and he would pay any price to live.

YOU DIE.

In blood, if he had to.

He screamed, a tide of terror and desperation spilling out of him, and he buried his sword in the first mage that attacked him up to the hilt. It was sloppy, a distant, lucid part of his mind thought as he ripped the sword from the man's body. It only took five inches of steel to kill a man; anything else was a waste of energy. But Soujiro couldn't hear his mind whisper, not when his heart was screaming.

And it happened again. He killed again, took a life, took everything, just so he could continue to draw breath. They cast spells at him because he killed them, and he sliced through them again and again because they tried to kill him. He screamed with them, and it rained blood.

WWW

This was not part of the plan. This was madness.

Louise and Kirche huddled against the wall, trying not to get trampled to death. Literally. If she fell, the panicked, fleeing masses wouldn't stop to wonder what they were stepping on in their rush to get away, and neither would the lines of mageknights charging inward to avenge their emperor.

She caught a glimpse of Soujiro during one of the few moments he stopped long enough to be seen. He was turning more and more red as the blood of his enemies covered more of his clothes and skin. The only part of him that wasn't stained crimson was his sword, bursting with light like a shard of the sun. How long had Derflinger been magical? Well, the talking sword had always been magical, but Louise had no idea that the rusted weapon had ever ever been magically useful.

"We have to do something!" Louise said, shouting to be heard over the din.

"Like what?" Kirche demanded. "I can flirt and burn things, Louise. I mean, I can give you relationship advice on what to do when you're dating someone who's nuts, but that's it."

"We need a distraction so he can escape!"

"I can take my top off or light a building on fire, and that's about it."

Her eyes lit up. "That could work!"

"I'm going to have to stop you right there and say—"

"Fireball!" Louise shouted, pointing her wand at Soujiro, knowing that whatever she hit, it wouldn't be him. Beyond the town square, part of the imperial palace itself exploded, one of the towers collapsing. Even better, due to some unique quirk of her magic, there was no visible tell that connected her to the effect of her spell. Hopefully that would divert some of the defenders away from the town square.

"So, wanton destruction," Kirche said. "Is that the plan now? I'm asking, because it's starting to look like we're just throwing crazy at the wall to see what sticks."

An icicle impaled the wall above them and Tabitha dropped from the sky, perching on it. "Shouldn't be here."

"Tabitha!" Louise said. "What happened there? Why is Soujiro doing this?"

Tabitha shook her head. "Broken."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Kirche stepped in front of her. "Tabitha, wonderful to have you back. We're all in a screwed pickle right now, so I'll need you to say something clever."

"Withdraw."

Kirche nodded. "I love it."

"What?" Louise said. "Withdraw? We can't leave now! Soujiro needs our help."

Tabitha shook her head. "Can't help. Leave."

"No. There is no way I'm leaving my own familiar surrounded by people trying to kill him."

"That boy seems to be handling it pretty well," Kirche said, peering over the crowd. "They're running out of guards, and he looks like he's still getting warmed up."

Was that true? Louise hadn't been in enough situations like this (none) to tell, but she doubted that Kirche had either. She pointed a finger at Tabitha. "This is your fault, you know. You were supposed to be watching out for him! Why did you let this happen?"

Tabitha gave her a look without anger or apology. Instead, she pointed at Louise with her staff and made her fly.

WWW

Louise, Kirche, Tabitha, and Guiche waited in a forest outside Londinium. Louise wasn't pouting—that would have been immature and childish—but she was sullen and unwilling to look anyone in the eye. Not at Tabitha, because Louise had been wrong to blame her for what happened; not at Kirche, because she had been right to vote against the assassination plan and Louise had been wrong; and not at Guiche, because she didn't want him to feel left out.

She spent most of the time staring at a hole in the ground, waiting for Soujiro to come back.

"So," Guiche said slowly, "what happened?"

Kirche sighed. "We told you. We went to see the emperor give a speech, Soujiro killed him in broad daylight in front of everyone, then he started killing everyone else, and the rest of us did the smart thing and ran away like gutless cowards."

"No I didn't," Louise said.

Kirche rolled her eyes. "Okay, fine. Tabitha and I ran away like gutless cowards, and we dragged Louise with us because we're not heartless ones."

"You're right," Louise said, shooting her a glare. "It sure would have been heartless to abandon a friend in a place like that."

Kirche shrugged. "We would have brought Soujiro with us, but he was feeling a lot more murdery. But if you want to go back for him, the hole's right there."

Louise looked away and mumbled something incoherent and impolite. She couldn't think of anything they could have done better than what they already tried, but darn it, she was not going to be pleasant company.

Guiche cleared his throat. "I admit, I'm still confused, but it seems to me that we just finished assassinating the leader of the Reconquista and the de facto emperor of Albion, and we are currently sitting next to a tunnel that connects where we are with the inn where we were staying, and it might be wise to relocate to a different … kingdom."

Louise stood up. "We are not leaving him!"

"Actually," Kirche said, "that's a good point. Louise, I'm sorry, but I told you I could give you some advice about dating crazy, and here it is. If there's a chance that he's going to get you killed, you might want to reconsider your options. Hanging out here isn't too helpful and it's terrifically dangerous, so maybe we should do as I've been suggesting for a while now and go home."

"No!" Louise said. "We … we …" She looked around, but found nothing encouraging. None of them wanted to leave Soujiro behind, but they had come to Albion to save her, and there was no guarantee that they could save him by staying. Besides, if they had to sacrifice one to save four, that wasn't cowardly, that was just … good arithmetic.

And this was what she had accepted when she agreed to go on this mission for Princess Henrietta. There was no way of knowing how many of them would come back alive, but when she was given the choice, she decided to push her luck even further and try to topple an empire. She, Louise the Zero, the worst mage in the history of magecraft, could not help but toy with death.

Before they could make a decision, a blast of wind shot out of the tunnel. Louise panicked, thinking that the Reconquista had followed them back here, but it wasn't a spell, it was Soujiro! He was covered in blood, but he was alive and he was back.

"Well," Guiche said, "that's that. Glad to see this resolved. Now we can go back home." He waved his wand, and the ground sank as the tunnel collapsed.

Soujiro didn't move. He stood still as a statue, blood dripping from his red-drenched clothes and the tip of his rusted sword.

How much of that is yours? Louise thought. "Soujiro?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"

Drip. Drip. He turned slowly, stiffly, and there was blood on his face, a desperate smile on his lips, and tears in his eyes.

Then he screamed.

"Soujiro!" She took a step towards him before he lashed out. She could barely see his blurred movements, but she felt the wind and the chips of bark flying through the air, and then a tree fell crashing to the ground.

"Get out!" he yelled, eyes unfocused.

"What?"

"Get out of my head!"

Louise heard Tabitha began chanting a spell. No, no, no! "What's wrong?"

"It's all wrong! It used to make sense, and now it's a mess of screaming, slaughtering—I shouldn't be the the on to—he said if I was strong—but it's not enough! It's not enough!"

Part of Louise wanted to walk up to him and slap some sense into him, but that seemed like a tremendously stupid idea. No, he was hurting because … why? He had told her about this the night before, but all she had understood from that conversation was that it had made sense to him.

"You were just doing what I told you to," Louise said. He felt guilty, and he needed someone to blame besides himself. "It was my decision and I gave the order." This was how it worked in war, right? The foot soldiers only needed to obey, and the commander dealt with the consequences. "If you need to blame someone, blame me. It's not your fault, Soujiro. It's mine."

WWW

Could a drowning man hear reason? Soujiro couldn't, and he drowned in screams.

He had lost himself at the start. He had been ready to so he could use Derflinger's power, and when they tried to kill him, he killed them first. They tried to run, so he chased them down. The screamed, and he screamed with them.

He wore their insides, breathed in their images, and silenced their cries as best he could, but alive or dead, they would not stop screaming!

Had he ever understood this, what a terrible thing it was to be strong? To be unstoppable, even by his own power? Maybe if he had been weaker, or if he had learned how not to kill … but no, he had never learned that.

He hadn't run when the fight was over, or when he was overwhelmed. He ran when he wanted to escape from who he was, but his damned and bloodied self ran with him like his shadow, memories and all.

Then Louise began to speak. A drowning man would grab onto an anchor if it was within reach, and Soujiro latched onto her words.

"It's not my fault," he whispered, repeating her. That was … nice. Like Mr. Himura's sword that protected the weak, it was something he wanted to believe. "It's yours."

He felt the pain of everyone he killed. He had always been like that, but he had gotten worse at not feeling it. But that wasn't fair! It was her fault, so shouldn't she be the one hurting? And he hurt so much, like there was a hole in his chest … like he was dying.

But that wasn't fair! He couldn't die, he was … strong.

If you're strong …

He was strong. Strong enough to kill. He could still feel the resistance in his arm as his sword cut through armor, flesh, and bone.

If you're weak …

He didn't want to die. If he had to kill everyone in front of him to draw another breath, he'd call it a good trade.

Yes, he thought. A good trade. Besides, it was her fault, wasn't it? He'd make it quick.

"Um, Partner?" Derflinger asked, recognizing his stance. Shuntensatsu. Sword sheathed, foot back, low center. "I don't usually do advice, but you might want to rethink this."

"Soujiro?" Louise asked.

"If you're strong, you live," he whispered. "If you're weak, it's all your fault." He could hear them screaming in his head, Cromwell, Wardes, countless others. Even when they never had time to scream when he killed them, they screamed now.

And he heard the rain, pattering down against the shed he was hiding under, clutching a wakizashi with trembling hands, as though that was enough to make the monsters go away.

But it wasn't. In the beginning, the end, and the now, there had only ever been one way to get rid of them.

He struck, but a shard of ice fell from the sky and landed between them. Tabitha's spell. There was more ice surrounding the four mages, and it coalesced into a smooth wall. He slashed at it, but the magic of his sword didn't affect Tabitha's ice like it had the other spells that had been cast against him, and the strange energy that had filled him during his fight against Wardes and the Reconquista was gone entirely. He didn't feel tired—all he felt was pain and screams—but it was like his bones were hollow in his arms. He flailed against it weakly, determined to wear it down, but after each strike, the ice shimmered and healed itself, becoming as smooth as a mirror.

He looked in that frozen mirror, and saw himself.

His reflection stared back at him, sword raised, face twisted, and bloodstained. He wasn't the child hiding from the monster. He was the monster children hid from. He had been that monster for ten years.

He drew his sword back and struck at the monster that was self, plunged it deep into the chest of his reflection. It was suicide and salvation, and when his mirror self returned the blow, it was only a phantom pain, an expected wound that never bled. The ice shattered, and Soujiro felt something hard within himself shatter with it, and for one sublime moment there was silence.

Then he saw Louise cowering in front of him, eyes wide and imploring, looking so much like the frightened child he once was that it hurt all over again. Please, don't hurt me, she seemed to say, seeing him as he had just learned to see himself. Please make the monsters go away.

But the monsters never went away. Either they killed you, or they killed with you. That was the price of strength. The strong never had to fear others, but the weak never had to fear themselves, and Soujiro was still just as scared as he was before.

He barely noticed Tabitha passed out from exhaustion or Kirche pointing her wand at him. All he could see was himself as he had been, and himself as he was now. He could not kill that monster, but he could run. Yes, to run: the last refuge of the weak. So he ran, taking that monster far away from Louise, his friends, and anyone he knew, to hide it somewhere it would never hurt anyone again.

WWW

A/n And that's another chapter, the longest one yet unless I miss my guess. Thank you Chroniklerx for editing this, and thank you readers for reviewing it. Hopefully I'll be able to publish the next chapter … while it's still 2018.