Chapter 1

Ouch!

That hurt!

She winced and sat up, dazed. There was a host of bizarre creatures – demons, whispered her mind – slowly coming around to surround her.

As she took stock of her situation, she realized that each of the demons clutched a weapon or had their claws and teeth bared. Not friendly, her mind hissed.

Well, duh! She thought to herself.

The demons seemed to be extremely wary of her. Gods only knew why; she felt as though she had been trampled on, she had no weapon, and she was… ah, crap.

One of them had finally overcome his fear and was charging her.

A stab of fear shot through her. What was happening?

Suddenly, she was on her feet and the demon was on the ground, screaming over an arm bent the wrong way. The fearful part of her had been shoved to the back of her mind and strange sort of calm swept over her like a cool wind.

The rest of the demons came forward, weapons, claws and teeth bared.

Her body moved. There was no thought behind it. She just moved.

She leapt into the air to let the demons charging her from the front and back smack into each other. With a graceful flip, she landed lightly on the outside of their ring and was just about to step forward to deal with the remainder of them when her eye caught something lying on the ground.

A sword.

Katana… supplied her mind.

Without even thinking, she kicked the handle up into her hand and held it out defensively in front of her. The handle – hilt – felt oddly familiar in her hand. Almost comforting.

In any case, she held it with the grace of one who knew who to use it. But… that didn't make sense – Think about that later! Her mind commanded.

With the katana positioned away from her body, she darted into their midst and started swinging. No, swinging wasn't the right word. It was more like a complicated dance that she made up the moves to as she went along. Horizontal slash, dodge around the big guy to her right and slit his throat, jump and stab the blue guy to her other right, use his falling body as a springboard to launch herself at the winged demons diving down at her, slice the first one in the face as she went past, slash another's wing, give another a gash in the chest. Why are they moving so slow? When she finally came to a halt in the branches of a nearby tree, she turned and looked back at her results.

Half a dozen demons were lying on the ground, about two stirring feebly in the dirt and the other four motionless while the blood pooled out beneath them. The other two dozen or so were staggering to a stop and gasping in shock at the sight of their dead companions. What was with them? She hadn't been moving that fast! Why were they waiting so long to counter attack?

"You cannot stop during an attack, do you understand me? You must always keep in motion, even when changing directions. And never, ever, let your blade relax until all of your enemies are dead."

The next thing she knew she was on her knees clutching her throbbing head and huddling against the tree trunk.

Raising her head carefully, she saw several demons hurtling towards her. She gripped her sword in her right hand and the branch she was crouched on with her left, and swung herself down, kicked against the tree for leverage and shot towards them like a rocket. As she came, she noticed that they were all moving in slow motion. Did that mean they were really slow? Or was she just really fast?

Then it was time for her to attack and it suddenly didn't matter anymore as she brought the blade across chests, faces and throats with lightning speed and pinpoint accuracy.

When her feet touched the ground less than eight seconds later, she dropped into a roll to avoid a club swinging towards her face and cut out hamstrings mercilessly. Someone managed to land a glancing blow on her shoulder that nevertheless threw her off balance and she was forced to do an awkward crouch-stagger to keep herself moving in the right direction. She whipped out her leg at knee level and grinned viciously as the demons around her went down.

Immediately she was back on her feet and finishing off the grounded demons as quickly as her aching arms would allow.

The demons were now all dead, comatose, or had fled. She was alone. She could somehow sense it.

Now that she no longer had her life to worry about, she was finally able to take stock of her condition.

She hurt. All over. Her legs, her arms, her chest, and her head – gods, that hurt worst of all! She raised a hand and gingerly ran it over her head and through her hair.

Owowow! She grimaced as she hit a painful, wet spot. She looked at her hand. It was covered in bright red blood.

Her head was bleeding.

Fantastic.

With a growl she flipped the sword she still held in her right hand and slipped it into the scabbard on her back… wait, what?

She turned her head very slowly to look at the plain black scabbard lying across her back as though it belonged there. She blinked at the sight of the simple katana sitting neatly inside the case.

How. The. Hell. Had. She. Done. That??

And how had she been able to fight like that? And kill like that?

She glanced at the dead bodies at her feet and waited for the guilt that accompanied the killing of a person.

There was nothing. She felt absolutely no remorse for killing these demons. None at all.

That made her feel guilty. Weren't you supposed to at least feel a little bit guilty when you killed someone?

The voice in the back of her head spoke up, They would have felt no remorse for you.

This brought up another question, what had that voice been when she was fighting? The one that had spoken of constant motion?

She couldn't remember where she had heard it.

She sighed and tried to think about where she was supposed to be going.

There was a mental blank. She didn't know where she was supposed to be.

Okay, who was she supposed to be with? Was she traveling alone?

There was no answer. She didn't know that either.

Okay then. If she couldn't remember her companions or her destination, then she should just go home. People had homes, didn't they? She was sure of that. People had homes. She was a person. She had to have a home.

So where was it?

Her mind gave her no answers.

She tried to remember which way it was.

She couldn't.

Okay, okay… she was just lost, that was all.

If she had a home, she had to have a family right?

She tried to remember them. She couldn't remember.

Now she was starting to feel distinctly panicky. She couldn't remember her family. Or her friends.

I might not have any, she thought bracingly. I must know my name, what's my name?

Her memory was a blank.

Horror rose in her mind so fast that she nearly overbalanced.

"Never let your emotions control you!"

Even as nausea hit her stomach, she found herself pushing away the fear and returning to practical position. Okay, she didn't know her name. What did she remember?

She remembered waking up to a sharp pain in her head and the demons surrounding her a few minutes ago. That was it. Beyond was nothing but emptiness.

The pain in her head suddenly made sense.

Amnesia.

She had hit her head and given herself amnesia.

But how did you manage to hit yourself on the head – or have someone hit it for you – hard enough to get amnesia but not kill you?

Was she stronger than average or had they just hit her the right-

The blue demon snatched her slender arm in his hamlike fist and threw her away from him.

She flew several feet before she collided with something very big and hard and solid. She hit head first and whatever it was broke like a matchstick. Good thing I've got a hard head…

The pain in her head was so intense she thought her skull was falling to pieces. Pressing her hands to her face, she took deep slow breaths and tried to control her ragged gasps.

When she was at last able to stand, she noticed a tree that had been broken in half about halfway up the trunk. Judging by the break someone had thrown something mid-sized and round against the tree that had snapped it like a small cannonball. Or a very small head.

She nearly laughed out loud. Did she really think she had been thrown into a tree head first and survived? That was just too ridiculous. Unless you're a demon, too.

A demon? Her?

Wouldn't she remember if she was a demon?

If you could remember being a demon, you could remember your name too, the voice in her head informed her coolly.

She groaned. Well, whether she was a demon or not, she still had to get moving. It wasn't wise to stick around a battleground.

But where to go…