The polished stone corridor of the sanctuary blurred into a continuous streak of grey as Asami sprinted.
Her midnight-blue hair whipped wildly behind her.
Crackling arcs of electric-blue and purple Plandacorus aura surged around her legs, propelling her forward at extreme, hyper-speed velocity.
Her icy blue eyes were wide with a mixture of absolute terror and burning rage.
Horuto…
hold on, she prayed silently.
She burst into the main courtyard, her boots skidding against the cobblestones.
She immediately spotted the two guards who had escorted Kenshin back from the estate.
They were standing near the armory, casually adjusting their newly issued brown cloaks.
Asami crossed the courtyard in a fraction of a heartbeat.
She grabbed the nearest guard by the thick leather collar of his armor, slamming him roughly against the stone wall.
“The estate!” Asami demanded, her voice trembling with barely restrained panic.
“Give me the exact location of Zenjiro’s dungeon! Where did you leave Horuto?!”
The guard’s eyes widened in shock.
“L-Lady Asami! It is beneath the eastern wing of the manor! Down the spiraling stairs! What is—”
“What is wrong, Asami?”
The deep, resonant voice belonged to Master Brados.
He stepped out from the inner sanctum, his dark eyes instantly zeroing in on Asami’s panicked posture.
Asami released the guard, turning to the Master.
Her breath was coming in ragged gasps.
“Master… Horuto linked his consciousness with mine just moments ago. Takashi… Takashi is not in his senses. He attacked his own guards. He struck Horuto down! We have to act fast!”
Brados froze.
For a split second, the impenetrable, authoritative facade of the ancient Gladeon fractured.
The revelation that his own son had betrayed them, striking down his most loyal student, hit him like a physical blow.
“Take our strongest guards,” Brados ordered, his voice dropping to a dangerous, rumbling baritone.
“Go there immediately. Do not engage recklessly if it is a trap. I will gather my weapons and follow right behind you.”
“Master… let me go as well.”
Asami and Brados turned.
Kenshin was standing at the edge of the courtyard.
He had run all the way from the upper towers, his chest heaving, his dark-green eyes fixed on the elder.
“Not you,” Brados said strictly.
“You are not trained yet. You will only get yourself killed.”
“Trained?! What training do I need?!” Kenshin yelled, his hands balling into fists.
“I am already healed! I have to help them. They went down into that hell because of me!”
Brados took a step forward, his aura flaring with heavy, suppressive magical pressure.
“I said, not yet! You are staying here!”
Kenshin took a deep, shuddering breath.
He looked out past the heavy iron gates of the sanctuary, then back to Brados.
“If that is what happens to people who help me… I will live out on the streets,” Kenshin said, his voice lowering to a cold, absolute resolve.
“But I will not just sit here and watch while someone dies for my sake.”
Before Brados could reach out to stop him, Kenshin bolted.
His raw, unrefined Gladeon speed exploded.
He tore past the guards and shot through the sanctuary gates, his bare feet kicking up dust as he vanished into the city streets.
Asami did not wait.
She summoned her massive, double-bladed Guandao and launched herself after him, her body completely enveloped in violet lightning.
-Break-
The streets of the Underward blurred past them.
Asami pushed her Plandacorus power to its absolute limit, her boots barely touching the cobblestones as she leaped across rooftops and bounded over merchant carts.
Yet, to her absolute shock, Kenshin was right beside her.
He had no magical training.
He did not know how to channel his aura efficiently.
But the raw, terrifying physical conditioning forged by a decade of torture allowed him to keep pace with her hyper-speed.
As Kenshin pushed himself even harder, actually passing her by a fraction of an inch, Asami’s icy blue eyes narrowed.
She increased her own speed, her competitive pride flaring, but she could not completely overtake him.
Within moments, they reached the imposing iron gates of Zenjiro’s estate.
They did not slow down.
They tore through the empty manor and plunged down the dark, spiraling stone stairs.
The scent of fresh, metallic blood hit Asami’s nose long before they reached the bottom.
They burst into the antechamber outside the dungeon.
The floor was a lake of crimson.
The bodies of the forty-eight elite senior guards lay scattered, their armor cleanly bisected.
“Horuto!” Asami cried out.
She dropped her Guandao, the heavy weapon clattering against the stone, and slid to her knees.
Horuto was lying near the rusted iron door, a massive pool of dark blood spreading from the jagged puncture wound in his chest.
His olive-green eyes were half-closed, his breathing a wet, shallow rattle.
Asami’s hands trembled as she pressed them against his cold cheeks.
“He is breathing… Horuto is still breathing!”
His dark-green eyes were locked onto the heavy iron door of the dungeon.
The damp, cold air of the subterranean vault washed over him, completely paralyzing his muscles.
The phantom scent of acidic alchemy burned his nostrils.
He could hear the imaginary, shrieking grind of the bone-drill.
He was sixteen years old, but in his mind, he was suddenly five again, chained to the heavy iron chair, sobbing for his mother.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
The steady sound of footsteps echoed from the spiraling stairs.
Asami snapped her head up.
Kenshin slowly, rigidly turned around.
Descending the stairs was a man in a structured dark robe.
He possessed a flawless, unblemished body.
Both of his arms were perfectly attached to his shoulders, completely regenerated from Horuto’s earlier strikes.
In his hands, he held his dark, jagged broadsword.
With a swift motion, he split the hilt down the middle, separating the weapon into two thick, brutal blades that crackled with intense cyan-blue lightning.
His face was hidden behind that perfectly split mask—half pitch black, half stark bone-white.
“Who are you?” Asami demanded, her voice vibrating with lethal intent.
Kenshin’s breath hitched in a throat that felt entirely too small.
“Null…”
Asami’s icy blue eyes widened as the realization hit her.
This was the monster who had tortured the boy.
This was the assassin who had nearly killed Horuto.
“You…” Asami murmured, her voice dropping to a terrifying, deadly whisper.
Her midnight-blue hair defied gravity, lifting into the air as strange, violent purple lightning began to flow over her entire body.
She gently laid Horuto’s head against the stone floor.
She stood up, extending her hand.
Her double-bladed Guandao flew from the floor directly into her grip.
Null raised one of his cyan-lit swords, preparing to strike.
But he was too slow.
Asami vanished into a blurry, hyper-speed motion.
She appeared directly behind Null.
With a single, devastating swing of her Guandao, she sliced the assassin cleanly into two pieces right across his waist.
Null’s upper torso hit the floor with a wet thud.
Asami’s eyes were glowing a pure, radiant purple, exactly matching the explosive waves of aura radiating from her body.
“You can regenerate, right?” Asami spat, venom dripping from every syllable.
Just as Kenshin had described, Null’s torso rapidly sprouted a mass of writhing flesh and bone.
Within a heartbeat, his lower half reattached itself.
“I thought so,” Asami sneered.
“How could someone not be able to regenerate after forcing a child to learn how to do it? But this is good. Because now I can cut you to pieces as many times as I want.”
With another burst of violet lightning, Asami engaged her Violet Phantom Flurry.
She appeared in a dozen spots around Null simultaneously.
Her Guandao became a meat grinder of purple plasma.
She sliced his arms off.
She severed his legs.
She cut his chest into ribbons.
His mask is not breaking…
Asami thought, gritting her teeth as she parried a desperate strike from Null’s regenerating arm.
Not a single cut is removing it.
How is that possible?
While the brutal, high-speed execution played out, Kenshin remained entirely frozen.
His racing heart was beating so fast it felt like a continuous, painful flutter.
The dungeon, the blood, the sight of Null—it was a sensory overload that violently shattered his mind.
Kenshin fell to his knees, clutching his head, a raw, agonized scream ripping from his throat.
He was lost in the abyss of his own memories, drowning in a decade of absolute suffering.
I need to finish this fast before Horuto loses his last breath, Asami thought, her muscles screaming in protest from the excessive use of her Plandacorus power.
And what is wrong with Kenshin?!
With a final, devastating upward swing of her lower blade, Asami completely severed Null’s head from his shoulders.
She spun, delivering a heavy kick that sent the masked head flying across the antechamber.
Asami rushed over to Kenshin.
She grabbed the boy by his throat, forcefully slamming his back against the stone floor.
“Wake up, idiot!” Asami yelled angrily, slapping his cheek hard.
“Where is your mind?!”
But Kenshin’s dark-green eyes were unseeing.
The psychological trauma of the bunker was too heavy.
His body went entirely limp, his consciousness fleeing into the dark mercy of a faint.
No…
I cannot carry both of them out of here at once…
She quickly glanced back toward the center of the room.
Null’s headless body had already walked over and picked up its own head.
With a sickening crunch of knitting bone, the assassin attached it back to his neck.
He picked up his dual cyan swords, slowly turning his blank, masked face toward her.
This is tough, Asami thought, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
I cannot just keep cutting him down forever while trying to protect two unconscious bodies.
Especially with Horuto on his last breaths.
She planted her feet, preparing to launch another volley of plasma strikes.
Suddenly, Asami felt a strange, cold sensation around her boots.
She glanced down.
A thick, sticky black jelly had materialized from the stone floor, completely encasing her legs up to her knees.
It was Null’s Abyssal Snare.
She grunted, violently trying to pull her boots free, but her legs were anchored as if encased in solid iron.
She looked up just as Null flash-stepped directly in front of her.
The assassin did not hesitate.
He violently thrust both of his jagged, cyan-lit broadswords directly into Asami’s shoulders.
The anti-magic lightning overloaded her nervous system.
Asami released a blood-curdling scream, her arms instantly losing all power.
The heavy Guandao slipped from her trembling fingers, clattering uselessly to the floor.
This cannot be happening…
Asami thought, her vision swimming with tears of pain.
Why haven’t the Master’s guards arrived yet?
I cannot move my legs even an inch.
He is too strong.
Null yanked the swords out of her flesh, blood trailing from the jagged edges.
He raised the right blade, aiming a lethal horizontal slash directly at her neck.
Asami squeezed her icy blue eyes shut, waiting for the end.
“Stay in your limits, boy.”
The deep, booming voice shattered the air like a thunderous impact.
Suddenly, the black jelly binding Asami’s legs violently evaporated.
Before Null could complete his swing, Master Brados materialized between them.
The elder Gladeon did not even draw his weapons.
He raised his bare hand, which was radiating a continuous, blindingly intense dark-green magical aura.
He struck Null squarely in the chest with an open-palm thrust.
The kinetic shockwave was absolute.
Null was blasted backward, flying through the air and crashing so hard into the far stone wall that the masonry cracked in a spiderweb pattern around his body.
Brados lowered his hand, turning his intense dark eyes to Asami.
“Our guards are securing the perimeter upstairs,” Brados said, his voice a calm, commanding rumble.
“Is Horuto alright?” He cast a brief, sorrowful glance toward the unconscious Kenshin before meeting Asami’s tear-streaked gaze.
Asami staggered back, clutching her bleeding shoulders.
She rushed to Horuto’s side, pressing her trembling fingers to his neck.
“Master… he is still breathing. But barely. Please, do something!”
The squad of heavily armed sanctuary guards rushed down the spiraling stairs, their boots clanking against the stone.
“Take Horuto back to the sanctuary immediately,” Brados ordered the soldiers.
“Instruct all of our highest-tier healers to focus entirely on him. Go!”
Several guards gently lifted Horuto’s limp body and hurried back up the stairs.
Asami leaned against the wall, wincing in pain.
“Master, that boy is Null. Kenshin named him before losing his mind.”
Null slowly pushed himself out of the cratered wall, his mask completely devoid of expression.
Brados turned, his heavy mantle shifting.
“Null… is it?”
The Master casually raised his hand and flicked his wrist.
An invisible blade of raw green aura severed the air.
Null’s head was instantly separated from his body, both pieces tumbling to the ground in a spray of blood.
“Master, he is going to regenerate rapidly, just like Kenshin!” Asami warned, gripping her wounded shoulders.
“He cannot regenerate if we keep the head and the body entirely separated,” Brados replied coldly.
He gestured to two of the remaining guards.
“Pick up his head. Bind the body in heavy chains.”
Brados looked around the blood-soaked antechamber, his brow furrowing.
“Where is Takashi?”
“I do not know,” Asami whispered, exhaustion finally overwhelming her.
“He has not shown his face since we arrived.”
Brados remained quiet, his dark eyes staring into the dark depths of the dungeon.
The betrayal of his own flesh and blood hung heavily in the damp air.
“Bind the assassin,” Brados ordered finally.
“And carry Kenshin. We are returning to the sanctuary.”