~Notes~
Enough suspense yet?

Episode 61 Run! The Fates Have Appeared

“Your name is Kunai, eh?” Lord Gilford says amusedly, overhearing Ivy. “I see…how very interesting.”

“And what if my name is Kunai?” Kunai retorts carefully.

“Nothing,” Lord Gilford replies, his eyes narrowing even more, “it’s just that I’ve already been quite informed of you already… So you’re Lord Kimura’s new pet, huh?”

“Lord…Kimura’s new pet?” Kunai repeats perplexedly.

“Well then,” Lord Gilford grins, “this situation here just got a lot more interesting. I came here looking for the Third Phoneme and to crush her comrades, but instead it looks like I’ve found something even better instead—a fight worthy enough to entertain me!”

Lord Gilford lifts his crimson axe, weighing it in his hands. He coils his hand tightly around its handle, and bends his knees, ready to charge forward. “I intend on taking the girl no matter what,” Lord Gilford frowns, “but defeating the three of you at the same time is a hell lot more fun!”

“You’re honestly gonna fight all three of us at once?” Kunai cries incredulously, loading his claw with a Steely. “You really must be messed up in the head. What do you think we are, children? Even someone like you—”

“‘Even someone like me’ what?!” Lord Gilford spits. “You are underestimating my strength. Don’t disappoint me, now. Fight your hardest.”

Kunai closes his eyes resignedly. “You asked for it.” He opens his eyes, but instead of making his move, his eyes merely widen, as Gilford holds the blade of his axe right up to his face.

“Don’t take your eyes off your opponent,” Lord Gilford growls. “How elementary of you.” Gilford swings, but Kunai uses his agility to easily dodge the attack.

The axe sinks to the ground, trailing after him. Kunai dodges again, and pans over to his right, but the axe continues to chase him with slow, deliberate strokes.

Kunai stares amazed at the edge of the axe, moving so slowly through the air that Kunai can easily trace its movements with his unaided eyes. ‘Impossible! I must be going at least ten times as fast as his axe. Yet why is it following me so persistently?!’

In his stupor, Kunai suddenly takes a heavy blow to the chest, as Lord Gilford slams the blunt edge of his axe into Kunai. He topples over, landing with a splash in the clear water of the lake behind. Waves and foam fly into the air, as Kunai scrambles to his feet again.

However, Lord Gilford has already moved on to Ivy, who only steps backwards slowly, mesmerized and rendered immobile by fear. “Ivy!” Kunai cries, but Rill dashes in front of her before he can.

Rill holds out his arms to shield Ivy, facing Lord Gilford with a resolute expression on his face. “You’re not getting any closer than that! We already told you that Ivy is not the Third Phoneme!”

“Do I look like I care?” Lord Gilford whispers in a hoarse, menacing growl.

He throws his axe into Rill’s stomach as well, this time using the sharp end of the weapon. Rill is thrown several yards backwards, as blood trails after him, spewing into the air from both his stomach and his cut arm.

“Argh!” Kunai shouts a battle cry, lifting an Avenger in his right hand.

He jumps on Gilford from behind, but Gilford merely turns around deliberately and calmly, countering the attack with a skillful stroke. Using only brute strength, Gilford pushes on his axe, hurling Kunai backwards several feet.

Kunai flips in the air, landing on the slippery shore. He remains bent over for a moment, gathering his strength for the next assault.

Kunai’s eyes fly over to Rill, who is lying on the floor, motionless. Blood from Rill’s body mixes with the shallow, flowing water, staining it a deep, dark red. His eyes turn to Ivy, who is frozen still, unable to move due to fear.

Kunai clenches his fists, and then his teeth. “Damn it all!” He forces himself up, chasing after Lord Gilford’s back once more. He stealthily makes another Avenger, and using a speed twice as fast than normal, he darts over to Lord Gilford’s side, intending to strike him off guard.

However, Gilford counters the blow with his axe, shattering Kunai’s Avenger into millions of pieces. The glittering shards of Kunai’s Avenger rain down on him, as Kunai freezes, the initial shock from the hit rendering him temporarily immobile.

“How weak,” Lord Gilford comments, glaring down at Kunai. “I thought this would be an interesting fight because I was told you had a unique power. But it seems you’re no more than a weakling. How disappointing.”

Kunai’s eyes widen steadily, and his jaw drops slightly. His hands, the right one still clenching a Steely, begin to convulse. ‘H-How did he know?!’’

Lord Gilford raises an eyebrow, sneering slightly. “Eh? You’ve got this look about you right now that’s total disbelief. You didn’t expect me to know that truth, huh? You’re underestimating me again.”

Gilford pauses, staring off into the distance, a grim smirk playing about his lips. “I am a Lord in the Myougun, kid. I know much that goes on, and more than you think I do.”

“Damn you,” Kunai curses, freezing on the spot.

“So what’s the matter with you, kid?” Gilford asks, his face contorting in a snarl. “Why won’t you bring out that power or whatever it is out? It’s an insult to your opponent in battle if you don’t go all out.”

“Whether or not I use my skills is none of your business,” Kunai retorts wrathfully.

“Heh,” Lord Gilford frowns, flicking his wrist to bring his axe crashing down. “Suit yourself, kid.”

Kunai darts out of the way, as Gilford’s axe sinks deep into the ground. Water leaps into the air from the impact of the attack, as it splashes into Kunai’s armor.

He pauses momentarily to spit out the water that had landed in his mouth, but is forced to leap again in midair as Gilford rapidly swings his axe at him again.

Loud explosions and earthquakes slice through Ellinia in sharp, pounding waves, as screams flood the city’s tree-lined avenues. Dark, murky shapes glide past the many trees, shredding them as they go. Everywhere, trees are felled, and their cleaved canopies crash to the ground, imploding the city’s layered structure.

Wing turns from his seat inside his mayoral building to stare out the window. His eyes reflect a calm note of lack of emotion as he watches the city fall before his eyes. Wing sighs, and rises to his feet, stepping out of his office.

“So it seems that along with mischief, they bring discord as well,” Wing’s voice trails into his room from outside.

Meanwhile, outside, the others continue to struggle against the oncoming invasion of Paradoxes. Ryuu wrestles with an enormous Paradox in the shape of a giant spider, as it bears down on him.

An incessant clicking and rattling spews from its fanged mouth, as the Paradox continually attempts to draw Ryuu closer towards it. Ryuu agilely hops out of the way, avoiding each of the Paradox’s swipes at him with its legs.

Ryuu draws his blade, and it flares into life, as he skillfully dodges each of the monster’s attacks, returning them with precise slashes with his sword. With a howl, Ryuu makes a clean slice straight across the Paradox, amputating its two anterior legs.

The Paradox stumbles forward, collapsing onto the ground. With one last stroke, Ryuu hits it, setting it on fire. The Paradox shrieks in mortal pain, before that shriek is stifled as the beast disintegrates into thin air.

Coming down, Ryuu sheathes his sword, but almost one second later, he grasps its hilt again, spinning in place as a black, hulking figure shoots past him.

The long, snakelike Paradox throttles Ayame, standing a few feet away. She is sent skidding into the heavy trunk of a falling tree, crying out loud for help. The Paradox continues to blindly tear at her, missing Ayame’s vital points, but still causing much damage.

Ryuu slashes at the Paradox’s tail, causing long trails of blood to ooze from it. However, as the Paradox becomes aware of him, it turns its crooked sight on Ryuu, thrashing about its tail.

With one powerful swish, the monster’s tail rams into Ryuu’s chest, throwing him off balance. Ryuu catches himself on the ledge of a falling tree branch. However, the cracking branch gives way under his weight, and Ryuu is thrown all the way to the bottom of the forest ground.

“Ryuu!” Ayame shouts, darting out of the way of the snake Paradox’s continued attempts to attack her. She draws her Geta, and parries the Paradox’s attacks; however, she finally succumbs to its superior strength, and allows herself to be thrown into the air several feet away.

Meanwhile, Lily casts her eyes about, spinning in place as the amount of monsters surrounding her continue to stack up. She bites her lower lip, hesitating slightly. One of the spidery Paradoxes nearby finally loses patience, and attacks her.

Lily throws up her arms, swinging her axe futilely as the Paradox approaches. Sasha intercepts the Paradox at the last moment, throwing it to the side with the heavy weight of her sword. The Paradox flips over, and shrieks vehemently.

“You okay, Lily?” Sasha asks briefly, before turning to finish another Paradox.

Lily nods, rendered speechless by shock. Sasha glances kindly at her, her eyebrows furrowed in furious battle concentration. “You can’t give them a break,” Sasha continues, panting slightly. She turns fully to Lily, a knowing expression in her eyes. “If you do, the enemies will overpower you.”

Behind Sasha, the flipped spider Paradox flips over back onto its legs with a dull rumble. “Trust me,” Sasha says, spinning around. She reaches into her bag, and rapidly takes a bite of a brown Warrior Pill.

Sasha takes a swing at the lunging Paradox, and shatters its torso, disintegrating the entire monster. “I know from experience.”

The shadows on the ground continue to wither and grow, as Paradoxes of every size and shape dart in and out of the town of Ellinia. Their monstrous shapes scatter across the blue sky, blocking out the warmth of sunlight.

A particularly large dragon Paradox looms closer to Sasha and Lily all of a sudden, charging a black-white beam in its fanged mouth. Sasha takes notice only just in time; she shouts out loud, and grabs Lily around the waist, throwing the two of them backwards and out of the way just in time.

The beam shatters the entire tree branch they had been standing on. Sasha leads Lily, as they breathlessly hurtle up another branch, and hide momentarily under the cover of a bough of leaves.

“That was dangerous,” Sasha pants, peering at the monstrous Paradox through the crack in the leaves.

“They keep coming,” Lily comments softly.

All of a sudden, the Paradox lunges forward again, having located Sasha and Lily. Ayame dashes out of nowhere, meeting the Paradox head-on before it has a chance to attack the other two girls.

Performing a quick spell, Ayame summons two enormous giants, their eyes popping mad with rage. Directing them with a wave of her hand, Ayame commands them to attack.

The two giants punch the palms of their hands with their fists threateningly, surrounding the Paradox and wrestling with it. However, the Paradox easily overpowers the two giants, and firing a beam of dark light at each of them, destroys them both quite easily.

Ayame leaps back in shock, as the debris from the Paradox’s attacks falls on her. “Damn!” she curses, clenching her teeth. “I need more power!”

“Ayame!” Sasha yells suddenly.

Ayame turns, just as the Paradox releases its stored beam of black energy. The stream of black light thunders through the air, heading straight for Ayame.

Just at the last moment, a fiery blast of explosive smoke and flames intercepts the attack, negating it. Out of the smoke of ashes, Ryuu appears, standing in front of Ayame, guarding her with his sword.

“Don’t count me out just yet,” Ryuu sneers.

He cuts the air with his sword, releasing another blast of explosives at the Paradox. It shrieks out loud in response, overwhelmed by the continuous attacks. Embers leap about in the fiery chaos of Ryuu’s attack, as several trees are set on fire by the dancing flames.

The Paradox rolls about, shrieking insanely, as its entire body becomes engulfed in flames. Ryuu finishes the kill, with a combination fire, lightning, and ice blast.

The blast from Ryuu’s sword collides with the Paradox in an earsplitting cacophony. A dust cloud emerges from the two crashing entities, as the Paradox disappears in one ball of growing flame.

Ryuu falls to one knee, breathing heavily. “That…took a lot of mana,” he breathes, clutching his chest. He inspects his injuries. “Doesn’t seem like I’m that badly hurt, despite the fall.”

“No time for that, look!” Ayame cries, pointing up at the sky.

Ryuu looks up, and his eyes widen immediately. Replacing the one dead Paradox are three more just like it. They howl and shriek, baring their grinning jaws of sharpened fangs.

“No way!” Sasha cries next to Lily.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ryuu growls, clenching the hilt of his sword. “Well then, I guess I’ve just got to—”

Several black and red beams of light, like shooting stars tainted with an evil glow, clap thunderously and appear out of nowhere, falling from the sky furiously. Each light smashes into the head of each Paradox with key precision, and kills them right away.

With three subsequent shrieks of pain, the Paradoxes dissemble and part, becoming nothing more than a floating black matter in space.

Ryuu and Ayame’s jaws drop, as they watch the starry spectacle above them. They cry out loud in alarm, looking about wildly. “What the hell was that?!” Ryuu shouts, his eyes widening.

“Look, there!” Ayame points up at the sky, where a falling black figure descends from the sky, darting towards the ground at top speed, with nothing to break or slow its fall at all.

“Th…that’s a person!” Ryuu cries in alarm. “Whoever that is, they’re falling without so much as a parachute! They’re gonna—”

However, Ryuu is silenced immediately, as he feels a gust of wind speed right past his shoulder. The next second, he shouts out loud, grasping his bleeding arm and shoulder. He stares bewilderedly at it, his eyes growing wider by the moment as blood pours from the stinging wound.

Ryuu looks up, and sees the falling figure from before floating in the sky just above him. A woman dressed in a black gown and with her face hidden behind a white mask in the shape of a skull merely floats in the sky, her arms folded supremely.

Her curling, long black hair glides over the shoulders of her black kimono; by her side is clasped a thin, red sword, hidden inside its sheath.

Ryuu opens his mouth in awe. “Who the hell…”

“…are you?”

Tide trots slowly, leading Silver as she leans on him weakly. She is only walking on one leg, having injured her ankle. Together, the two of them trudge slowly through a path in the Ellinian forest, as panes of calm sunshine stream down from above.

Footsteps sound behind Tide, and he turns, only to meet a man in a black kimono, leaning against a tree, his arms folded smugly. This man’s face is hidden behind a white mask depicting a skull; he carries a sheathed Doombringer by his side.

Silver’s eyes widen immediately in recognition. “You’re—!”

“Fatalist Rank Number 77. Recelo. Nice to meet you.”

Ryuu, Ayame, Sasha, and Lily continue to gape in awe at the woman floating in the air before them. Ryuu automatically tightens his grip on the hilt of his sword, digging his heels into the ground.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” the woman says, “Fatalist Rank Number 6. Blod.”

Kunai contorts his body from side to side, avoiding each of Lord Gilford’s attacks very narrowly. He flips in the air to dodge the last one, and feels a heavy breeze sweep by his forehead, slicing some of the hairs sticking out from under his Dark Identity off.

Kunai grips his forehead, but not before he notices Lord Gilford stumbling towards Ivy again. He clenches his teeth angrily, growling to himself. “Damn it, damn it all! Die already, Gilford!”

Lord Gilford approaches Ivy hurriedly, a large, evil grin planted on his rough features. Ivy steps back, but trips over a loose stone on the ground. She stumbles onto her knees, just as Gilford reaches her.

Gilford swings his axe, intending to knock her out, before Rill appears out of nowhere, throwing his arms up in the air and taking the bulk of the attack. He sinks weakly to the ground, closing his eyes.

“Rill!” Ivy screams, her eyes widening.

“No one left to save you, woman!” Lord Gilford howls, swinging his axe again. He brings it down with a rush of wind and speed.

“No one left, you say?”

As Gilford’s axe goes down, it suddenly meets with a strong resistance, forcing his axe to skid to a stop in midair. Lord Gilford glares, looking up to find Kunai standing between him and Ivy, a thin black sword held firmly in his right hand.

Lord Gilford pauses, thrown completely into shock for one brief moment.

Kunai smiles grimly, his black eyes glittering slightly in triumph. “What’s the matter? Never seen a Hermit with a sword before?”

Next Time: Episode 62 A Darker Evil: The Successor of Fyx

Otis: So, so, tell me, who’s gonna win, Kunai-gorilla?

Kunai: I can’t tell you that.

Otis: Why not? I’ll lend you this dirty magazine if you tell!

Kunai: That’s…just a magazine covered in mud.

Otis: Hehe!

Ivy: Next time…will the presence of Myou’s form in a sword be enough to stop Lord Gilford?!

Episode 62 A Darker Evil: The Successor of Fyx coming soon!