The Blade in the Desert

The minister fled across the desert, and the mercenary followed. He was sitting at a fire, warming his hands. Anyone who’d think a desert would be hot has never experienced one at night.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning.”

“How did you sleep?”

“I didn’t.”

“You should give yourself a rest, Ike,” Hitomi said, as she started her morning yoga session. “This isn’t healthy.”

He would rest, but only after he had achieved his goal. The minister didn’t sleep, so neither would he. In his head, he listed the names of all his fallen brethren, as not to forget them. Every one of them deserved to be remembered, and all of them deserved to be avenged.

“How do you feel?” Hitomi asked, doing her sun salutation pose.

“I don’t.”

“Please Ike, talk to me. I’m here for you.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

He’d been a soldier all his life, which meant that he had been around soldiers all his life. Now those soldiers were gone, and he had no one left. No one but her, and though she worried for him, he could not bring himself to open up to her.

Not until he had found the enemy. This enemy did not fight honorably. He came, sent his abominations into battle, triggered his weapon and left. Casualties did not concern him. All he did was distract and destroy.

But he had not destroyed Ike, and that was his mistake. A mistake he would come to regret.

“What will you do after you’ve found him?”

“Kill him.”

“And then?”

“Nothing, Hitomi. There is no plan beyond that.”

“Perhaps you could make one. Life goes on.”

Ike swallowed. She meant well, of course she did. When she finished her routine he kicked out the fire and they gathered their stuff.

All they had to do was follow the dark clouds that surrounded the ship. Everywhere it went, destruction followed. They had just witnessed another subspace detonation when they were ambushed by the creatures.

“Ike, we can’t hold out much longer,” Hitomi shouted, as they were slowly cornered within a canyon.

Waves of enemies pummeled them. Many fell, but there was no end to them.

“Then go,” he roared. “Get yourself to safety.”

“I’m not giving up on you.”

“I’m lost as is. Don’t let me drag you down with me.”

“No,” she bit at him. “Just because you’re lost, doesn’t mean you should stay that way.”

She stopped fighting, and embraced him as they were finally surrounded. Monstrous hands grasped at them from all sides.

“Find him,” she whispered. “Then find yourself.”

She let him go, stretched into her tree pose as multi-colored flames engulfed her, burning the terrible limbs of her assailants. Then, she dropped into her warrior pose, and she burst into a spectrum of herself. Hundreds of silhouettes in innumerable colors flashed through the canyon, burning the creatures away like the morning sun.

When he saw the minister, he had just made it out of the canyon. His enemy didn’t see him, or didn’t care, but it had been the first time he’d been this close.

There were others, two wielding swords, one wielding an umbrella for some reason, all three of them missing their mark. The minister was too high up, He breathed in, like he’d seen Hitomi do, and threw his sword into the air. Like her, he tried to empty his mind, be in the moment, and jumped.

He managed to catch the blade mid-air, just as he intended, and used his entire bodyweight to bring it back down to the ground, slicing through the minister’s defenses, cutting off the subspace bomb, and sending the enemy spinning.