Story:Kings of Strife/Part 3

Part Three
The next time Maria awoke, she found that she was on the ground and it was very bright. This time, her eyes didn’t need much time to adjust, and she quickly was able to look around herself. She sat on and was covered by a threadbare gray blanket that protected her from sitting on the ground. Before she awoke, she had been leaning on a tree, and as such she currently sat in a forest. The season must have been autumn, because there were leaves of most colors falling onto the ground and making graceful piles. They magically caught her attention before something stirred to her left and she glanced at it.

Silverius had been sitting with his knees crossed and his back to her, but now he turned around upon hearing her stir. His expression was cheerful but his eyes were solemn. “Ah, so you’re awake. Are you feeling any better?” Maria began to inspect her body to make sure everything was in order. Now that he mentioned it, she did feel much better; her throat no longer pained her, a semblance of energy graced her reserves, and she could move with much better acuity than before. “I fed you a little bit and gave you some water while you slept. Here, now that you’re awake, eat this. It’ll help some more.” He tossed her a biscuit and she missed it, allowing the fist-sized chunk of cold bread to land on the grass beside her. She grabbed it into her hands anyway.

The bread trembled in her hands while she held it in front of her mouth. An overload of agendas took over, and she started to ravenously eat the biscuit and apologize to her rescuer at the same time. She only managed to succeed in spewing biscuit crumbs everywhere, and the man in front of her burst out laughing. Now that she focused on him, she remembered what he said before she fell asleep earlier, and reached for the memory – embraced it. Crono Silverius. That was her rescuer, her savior, her caretaker. She knew she had to speak to him in name and share her own name, the one true original memory she had to savor within her consciousness. As he finished laughing, she finished eating the biscuit without any shame.

“Mr. Crono,” she was a bit relieved that she could speak freely now, “thank you for doing all of this for me. But… Why did you save me? What were you doing there? Why are we in this forest, where am I? Who-“

“Whoa whoa, alright already, that’s enough, okay?” He put his hands up in a resolved gesture so that she could stop questioning. For some reason, a blush ran across Maria’s cheeks and she felt obliged to hug herself. “Listen, first things first. What’s your name?”

Maria was enthusiastic and joyful to answer this one, and her hair bounced as she perked up. “Maria Zorphan, sir.” Crono shook his head with a strained smile on his lips.

“Okay, Maria, you don’t have to call me sir or mister all the time. I’m only 25, there’s no reason for you to make me feel old like that. So, you wanna tell me why you were in that room like that? How old are you?” Maria noticed that Crono’s eyes looked over her hair and her body often, for her own eyes never left Crono’s. His brown eyes betrayed a darker shade but still held a lightness of their own.

“I don’t know. To any of those.” Crono looked confused, and she felt bad again. “I’m sorry, Crono…” Maria looked down and rubbed her elbows in a self-hug. The situation grew silent and awkward as Crono reached to put his hands into his pockets when he remembered that he gave his jacket to Maria. He dropped his hands to his lap instead.

“…Alright, then. I guess it’s time for me to answer some questions, then. Well, to start things off, you already know I’m Crono Silverius. I’m a mercenary and, well, long story short – I need to stay out of Morshia City for a while.” Maria looked at him with a confused look and a tilt of her head. “Do you… do you not know what Morshia City is?” She shook her head and he sighed in response. “Urgh… Now this is a situation.” Crono stood up and shrugged off a backpack. Maria hadn’t noticed it before. He reached towards her and spoke again, now in an elementary tone that felt just a little resigned. “Pass me your blanket. We’ll talk on the way.”

Maria nervously stood and wobbled a bit. The feeling of standing and the next movement of walking was foreign to her yet felt familiar in her bones. She was very focused on making sure she didn’t fall when she remembered that Crono was speaking, so she tuned back into him and watched the back of his neck as he spoke. Idly she noticed his jacket was missing and still found it around her.

“Well… I don’t know what to say. Since you don’t have a place to be, you can just stay with me for a while until I find someone who can help you out. Is that alright?” He looked back but she didn’t answer, and he turned back around. “Right. Like I said, I’m a mercenary, and I had a deal gone wrong, sorta, so Morshia City is not where I wanna be right now. So we’re going over to Shorica – maybe one of their villages can be nice and chill. I know of one pretty close to the border, and we should get there in just a few hours. That sound fine to you?” He didn’t bother to look back this time, so Maria didn’t answer. It meant nothing to her, really. Crono sighed.

Their trek continued onward for the next few hours, like he said they would. It didn’t take long for Maria to realize that she still had no pants, but Crono’s jacket ended a little bit lower than her butt. She was wearing shoes, a medium sized boot, and Crono was wearing only socks. “Thank you, again.”

Now he turned around and looked at her with confusion. “Er...you’re welcome?” She said nothing else and Crono sighed again. “What is the deal with you? You seriously just not going to tell me anything? How you got in that place, where you belong? Nothing?”

Shame permeated Maria’s consciousness. Why was she ashamed? A battle with her inner feelings delayed her response to his questions. “I’m sorry. I just… don’t remember. I don’t remember much of anything. If I knew, I’d tell you…” Her hands felt awkward and she swung them around her hips before remembering Crono’s prior action. She followed his lead and kept her hands in the pocket of his jacket. The sensation dulled but did not fade.

Apparently Crono noticed her discomfort and did not press the issue further. His steps slowed as he reached into his backpack and pulled out a small hand instrument that had plastic teeth. Maria’s head tilted as she examined the object that he now gave to her. “Uh… that’s a comb. You hold it and move it through your hair. Makes it straight and not as curly and stuff. Okay?”

“…Is this my comb now?” She looked up to Crono and pierced into his eyes. “Do you relinquish this comb to me?”

He looked down and a blush swept across his cheeks. “If you want, I guess. I can just buy another one. It’ll give you something to do while we walk there. You have a lot of hair, so…”

Maria comprehended the gesture as compassion and pondered an appropriate response for a second before one came to her. She smiled slightly. “Thank you, sir Crono.” Crono just grunted and turned his back to her before continuing to walk. Maria’s smile faded and her face fell a bit as she continued to walk behind him. The combing was painful at first, but eventually it became smooth and efficient. The action began to please her.

****

“Oh Gods! Please, please, let me g- Agh!” A knee to the stomach silenced the guard and knocked him out of consciousness. He fell to the ground quietly and moved out of dodge with a swift kick to the chest. The action required no effort from the man in the red coat and no thought, as his entire being was focused on his task at hand. Even though he was completely serious, a dark and sinister smirk took over his face.

The village of Troia was the closest settlement between the Shorican and Inusian borders. Despite the relative usefulness of the land, travel between the two countries was almost completely done through a naval medium, and has been for countless years. Because of this, Troia was relatively backwards and still rather small, although it attracted a great deal of tourists due to its scenic locale and beautiful nature around it.

This day it attracted a group of far different tourists. If what he had heard from his hostage village guard, and these people tended to tell the truth when their lives were in danger, was true then a man with a suspicious backpack and unruly black hair with a gunblade had entered the town no more than an hour before. To make matters better, he traveled with an unarmed girl who wore what looked to be his jacket. This pleased the man in the red coat, who now looked out over the relatively small village from the guard tower he had infiltrated. Now his emotions matched the grim smirk he wore.

“All this is very good. That woman he has must have handicapped him, or he should have been able to get into this place and get out much quicker than it took me to find him and get here. He’s moving rather slow for someone with a national artifact… No matter. It will be easy to defeat him… and then this town with it. It should be.” The man began to finger his long, curly hair as his gaze grew in intensity. “I can’t understand this one. Perhaps… He is finally the one?”

A noise alerted the man and his coat flared into the air as he dashed towards it. The door to the tower observatory opened, and the changing guard froze in surprise at the man running at him along with the image of the previous guard knocked out on the floor. He began to raise his rifle, but he was too slow and the red-cloaked man snatched it from him and bashed the muzzle into the guard’s face.

Clutching his bleeding nose, the guard stumbled around long enough for the red-cloaked man to grab the guard’s head and bash it into the stone wall. He was killed instantly as his skull was crushed. The man in the red coat stood and looked over his handiwork for a moment before he started to leave the tower. “The time has come.”

****

Silverius stood in the cabin that had been assigned to him and Maria inside of Troia Village. A personal favorite of his, it was a small town that he had stayed in for a good while before he joined the military. “That was so long ago… Good thing I still owe Elder Jhasten a thing or two.” He shook his head and sighed; it wouldn’t be best for him to think too hard about the past. Looking at Maria asleep on the only bed, he wasn’t quite sure if his future looked very bright, either. “Just who is this girl? What’s happened to her?” Common sense told him to leave her in the village and go about his way, but something else hindered him. He knew he was making a mistake by deciding to take her with him, but that was his decision and if it was wrong, he would just have to suffer for it.

“I could end up getting her killed, or raped, or taken hostage or something. But at the same time… If that old guy finds out this girl had anything to do with me… He won’t hesitate to kill her.” This was a fact. If her life was going to be in danger regardless, it would be better to take her with him so that he could protect her until he got that crystal off his back. That was all that mattered… right?

Silverius couldn’t help but feel doubtful of himself as he looked onto Maria’s sleeping form. On cue, she shifted her sleeping stance, tossing off the blanket Silverius had given her and exposing her curvy body. She was extremely skinny, almost unhealthily so, but her slim figure was still noticeable. Small yet shapely breasts and long legs contributed to her body image. And her eyes… Silverius found himself absolutely entranced by them. They were so large and amazingly dark, like pools of shadow. Once she had combed her hair out over the course of their journey, even her hair began to take on a beautiful sheen that drew his eyes to admire them. With a touch of self-restraint, Silverius turned away from Maria and uncomfortably adjusted his pants.

“I’m not supposed to feel like this. Getting close to people just hurts them... and myself. That’s what happened the last few times and I can’t let that happen again.” That was why he had told her to call him by his middle name – to keep some distance between them. So why was he giving this eccentric girl the time of day? Frustration took over his philosophical urges, and he tossed his shoe at the wall of the cabin. “Ugh! God dammit!” The fragile frame of the one-room shack shook, and he took point staring out the only window in the cabin.

“I guess the first stop is finding out just where this girl came from… And finding somewhere to sell that weird crystal thing.” He called it ‘weird’ because of how odd he felt when he was close to the trinket. If he held it for too long, his head would begin to ache. Speaking of ache, Silverius rubbed his left shoulder. It still pained him. “But where can I get that kind of information…? Maybe the Great Datalog over in Norzaven…” He retrieved his portable datalog from his pants pocket and began to fiddle around with the touch screen of the device. An information center and functioning communication device, a datalog was crucial to those who travel or research and need to know or coordinate prices, stocks, and situations. A quick search on the Great Datalog told him what he needed to know. “That’s over in Norzaven… Maybe I can get an airship ticket there before they start looking for me in the flight customs department.”

Something grabbed Silverius’ attention outside of the window. Nothing he could see jumped out at him, but an unbearable feeling compelled him to explore the situation. He glanced back at Maria once again before he belted up his gunblade and donned his boots. “I needn’t worry. My instinct will see me through; it always has.” The mercenary resisted the terrible urge to look back at Maria once again as he closed the door to the cabin shut. “I need a walk, anyway.”

Admittedly, the outside air of Shorica was enough to brighten his sullied mood somewhat. In this country, the sea was much closer than in the cities of Inusia, and so its essence could be smelt on every breeze. Salt and fish and wood tickled the nose at every opportunity and prevented things from becoming too hot. Now its wind rustled the mercenary’s hair slightly as he walked aimlessly around the streets. He was a bit disappointed that the sea wasn’t visible from this part of Shorica, but it was something he’d be able to deal with for a little safe haven.

The mercenary had to stop as a multitude of men in dark blue uniforms ran perpendicular to him and into a building that connected to a tower. He looked after them in confusion. “Security guards or public safety members? What could be the problem?” It was really none of his business, he knew, but something still compelled him to at least bear witness to the situation. A scream came from inside the building, alarming him, followed by many loud bangs and crashes. People began to look out from their windows and houses in surprise and confusion, much like him.

Then, as soon as the commotion started, it ended. The door to the structure opened again, but now only a singular man walked out of it. He was tall, maybe a good two feet taller than Silverius was, and he could be characterized almost entirely by the red coat he wore and the long mane of curly red hair that went down his back. Two large swords were sheathed on the back of his waist, and he walked with a confident gait. Silverius instantly distrusted him and kept his distance from the man. Unfortunately, not all had his precautions, and a gruff and largely built man left his house and stomped over to the man in red. Despite how overly large his muscles were, the man in red still managed to dwarf him in height.

“Hey, buddy!” The shorter man, whose presence was made even less intimidating due to the apron he wore on his waist, puffed his chest out in an attempt to strike fear into the red man’s heart. “What the hell happened in there to all those guards? You causing trouble?! My son’s in the police force, and I’ll have you know – “

The man in red closed his eyes and smirked before cutting off the huge baker’s words. “Have you seen a tourist with black hair and a female companion?” Silverius was taken aback – this man was looking for him?!

The baker man looked as confused as Silverius felt. “Uh… No? Don’t change the subject, you bas-“

“Then remove yourself from my presence. I have someone to find and I don’t believe you want to die today.” The man in red opened his eyes and let out a surprising glare at the man that unnerved him. He attempted to move past him, but the chef refused to move. The street seemed to freeze in anticipation for what would happen next.

“…Listen here, you psycho! Nobody I’ve never seen before is going to push me around in my own village!” He pointed to a woman leaning out of her window with fearful eyes. “Schitalla, call for some more of the police! This guy is insa- gah?!” The chef looked genuinely confused, as did everyone else in attendance, to find that a broadsword had been impaled directly through his chest. A bubble of blood popped from the man’s mouth and landed on the blade and a spasm went through his short legs before he became limp and died. Behind him, the man in the red coat seemed completely unfazed as he retrieved his blade from the body of the chef, allowing him to fall on the cobblestone ground with a hard splat.

“If I have to repeat myself to someone, they are unintelligent scum who don’t deserve to live.” His words stunned the street enough that most people collectively began to scream and retreat back into their homes with haste. He merely flipped his head up, removing some hair from his eyes, and looking over the environment for any other potential victims. Silverius, hidden behind the side of a building yet still in viewing distance of the street if need be, was extremely confused and appalled.

“That man… I didn’t even see him draw his sword,” Silverius thought to himself. “And the area where he shoved that huge sword… For him to pierce the spine, the rib cage, and then continue on to the other side… This man means trouble. And trouble is something I do not want to involve myself in!” It was by this logic that Silverius turned tail and ran, accidentally tripping over a discarded bottle. It crinkled underneath his feet and alerted the man in red to his presence, but he didn’t bother to stop running. “Maybe I can lose him!”

Back at his perch, the man in red watched Silverius run away and knew instantly that he had found his target. He grinned viciously. “The time has come…” His hair drifted behind him as he sauntered after the mercenary. A guard ran up behind him with a sword of his own, but the man in red idly twisted while walking and slashed behind him. The strike parried the guard’s attack and cut open his throat. The man in red did not bother to even watch the man die on the streets, his only attention on the mercenary before him. He shouted after him before bursting into laughter. “You won’t get away!”

Silverius didn’t stop running until he had arrived at his cabin. It took him longer than he expected due to him wandering to where he had seen the man in red, so he was breathing heavily as he arrived and burst into the door. Maria, who was apparently awake and sitting on the bed, jumped at his arrival.

“S-sir Crono, is something the matter?”

Crono shook his head and bounced on his toes in hesitation for a moment before he started to pack up their supplies into his backpack. “No time...” A breather. “… to explain. Get yourself ready, we have to get out of here, alright?” Maria stood up and held his jacket to her bosom but otherwise awkwardly watched him fold up the blanket.

“Where are we going this time? You said we were safe here…”

“Would you just come on, dammit?! We don’t have time to be playing around here!” His outburst startled Maria, and she stumbled backwards from him. Silverius felt a terrible ache in his heart when he saw the sadness and alarm that resounded in her large eyes before mentally preparing himself for the worst. Now was not the time to be weak. “Look, I didn’t mean to yell at you, alright, it’s just that –“ As he spoke, a rapid speed of footsteps became apparent to him, and he turned around while rapidly unhooking his gunblade from his belt. “Move!” A shove pushed Maria onto the bed and himself to the ground as a large broadsword went swimming through the air. It lodged itself into the wall directly behind where the two stood just a moment before.

Silverius stood up and raised his gunblade. He stood in front of the thrown sword and gripped his blade hilt tightly as he saw what was coming. The man in the red coat had caught up to them and still wore that disgusting smile on his face. Silverius wanted to spit on it.

Appallingly, the man spoke to Silverius. “Hello there! My name is Gin Taoris. I believe you have something that I must return?” Taoris limply pointed inside of the cabin, even as Silverius slowly shuffled out of its door.

“I have nothing for you but this sword in my hand. I can deliver it to you if that’s what you want, but I have to tell ya, the sales tax on these stamps is getting ridiculous.” Gin’s smile faded at Crono’s quip and he adjusted his grip on the remaining blade still in his hand.

“Now is not the time for jokes, Mr. Silverius.” Without another word, he rushed forward with an extremely strong slash. The mercenary just barely managed to meet it before being pushed right back into the wooden walls of the cabin. It shook and threatened to collapse around him. Taoris stepped towards Silverius, who lay stunned on the ground still. “Stand and prepare yourself.” Silverius had other plans on his mind, moreover what would happen to Maria if the cabin fell, and how he would take down this threat before him (if he even could).

A plan began to form within his mind as he stood up and backed away from both Taoris and the cabin. He began to talk to himself as he ducked further and further away from his predator. “If I can get him away from this place, maybe out of the village, nobody else will get hurt. If I’m lucky, that girl will have the common sense to get out of here while she has a chance…” The mercenary began to grow frantic. From what he had observed of his opponent and the brief minutes they were engrossed in battle, it was obvious that he was outclassed, but now he had managed to lure the man away from his second blade, and his relentless swinging had to have left him winded, at least. With a smirk, Silverius planted his feet in his spot a few feet from Taoris and slashed his blade into a prepatory stance to the side of him. “I’m prepared…” Taoris wasted no time in rushing him with a high horizontal strike, but was caught off his guard once Silverius ducked under the attack instead of blocking it. “…for you to die!” Now with his own horizontal strike, Silverius cut Taoris’ torso open.

The red man’s sword arm fell to his side limply as his blood rushed out of the wound. “So… you have the potential, after all.” Despite his terrible injury, the man made no form of grimace or even a grunt of pain. Silverius was alarmed and began to back up as Taoris spoke again in his matter-of-fact tone. “That has just saved your life, my friend.” In a flash, Silverius found his shirt sliced open when Taoris swung his own sword and made a mirrored version of his own wound on the mercenary’s chest.

This time, the injury was effective. Silverius immediately let go of his sword and fell to the ground clutching his chest. His agonized scream pierced the empty streets of Troia. The blood of the two wet them, as well. Taoris lifted his foot and swiftly kicked Silverius in his chest, eliciting yet another scream from the man. Now shirtless, he began to roll on the cobblestone and clutched at his chest even tighter. “Oh, come now.” Taoris lifted his armored boot and wiggled it over the writhing body. “That was just a somewhat shallow wound. Not quite deep enough for you to die or anything… I couldn’t kill you. Not yet.” Even so, he began to stomp on Silverius for good measure. The man’s screams began to weaken in intensity. “Almost done now?” The warrior with the red mane’s pitch black boot was now covered almost entirely in blood. “Looks like I’m finished here, for n-Hm?!”

Taoris looked down at himself, slightly perturbed by what he found. An arrow was transfixed right through his right shoulder, slightly tensing up his arm. By now, his chest wound had stopped letting out blood so violently, but its small stream was joined by the dripping of blood from the arrow through his arm. As he stood, dazed, two and then three more found themselves into his body. Still he made no cries of pain, simply perplextion. He looked behind himself, as well as Silverius, who had recovered enough to open his eyes and pant heavily.

In the distance stood Maria Zorphan, holding a bow and notching an arrow into its string. The sun was beginning to set and she stood right on its apex, shading her from view but illuminating her silhouette. She still wore Silverius’ jacket unzipped and it flapped slightly in the sea breeze, along with her very long hair. Without a word, she raised her bow and took aim at Taoris.

He attempted to run off, but she let the arrow fly and it smashed right into his throat, knocking him onto the ground and unable to make a sound. Somehow he writhed still on the ground, bleeding profusely out of his wound and his mouth. Silverius propped himself up on his elbows and couldn’t help but smile as he mustered up his energy to yell at Maria. “You’ve got him on the ropes! One more of those shots! Finish him off!” When she heard his voice, however, a change came over her. The girl looked first at Silverius, then at Taoris, and then at herself, and she dropped the bow. The mercenary’s mouth hung open. “What the hell are you doing?! Finish him off – right now!!”

The opportunity fled. Taoris was up again and stomped once more on Silverius, this time on his back. The mercenary smashed into the ground and his vision blackened. Weakly, he swore and pounded his bloody fist onto the ground.

As for Taoris, he glared at Maria and ripped the arrow from his throat. Even more blood continued to spill, but he still made no reaction to the situation. Screams resounded through the houses near the man in reaction to the gory act. The man opened his mouth to say something, apparently, but only a stream of blood absconded through his lips, so he gave up and walked off. Maria found herself unable to respond or go after him. Her knees buckled.

When the man in the red was out of sight, the entirety of Troia village took on a quality of silence. No living thing dared to move and some of them didn’t bother to breathe after the intruder had wrought his wrath. Maria Zorphan herself was in quiet awe of the events that had transpired. Everything had happened so fast, and she had felt emotions beneath her breast for the briefest of moments when Crono spoke to her. The event liberated her questions and thirst for knowledge, yet it caged her within a prison of shattered truths and new revelations. Where did she get that bow from? Why did she act as she did? Although she vaguely could see how she attacked the man in the red coat, why didn’t she remember, well, doing that? When she tried to recall just what happened after Crono left the room, all she could visualize was a girl, one cloaked entirely in shadow save her eyes. They were an amazing shade of blood crimson and brutality. So could she have…

Maria’s attention was caught by Crono standing up and grabbing his gunblade. He staggered towards her and held at his bloody chest with an equally sullied hand. The image was altogether quite visceral and disturbing, she knew, but it failed on this front and affected her on another. For this strong man, the one who had strove to protect her even at the cost of his own convenience to be so wounded, was amazing for her to see. That same feeling quickly turned into fear when she realized that the person to cause this was the one that she somehow drove off.

Crono grabbed roughly at his jacket, dragging Maria off the ground and holding her close in a limping walk. “You… We have to get out of this place. I don’t’ want to stick around and be questioned by these guys…” His breathing was heavy and he looked forward the entire time Maria stared at him. She had no reason to object or find fault with his plan, so she did not criticize them.

“…Don’t you want to rest up or go to a hospital?” Maria found herself shaking as she spoke to him, but for what reason she did not know exactly why. Did her experience affect her so strongly?

Crono shook his head and coughed. “I’ll stitch myself up. Those hospitals don’t like people like me.” The very fact that a hospital, an institution apparently set up to help and heal people, would discriminate against the two of them was appalling to Maria. She glanced back at Troia, now becoming smaller and smaller with each step the two made. The sun had almost completely fallen, and the darkness had eclipsed the town and hidden it from view.

...End of Part Three.

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