Waterstrider

8th District, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Thirdmonth, 1634 PTS

I found myself staunchly regretting the whim that had drawn me to this black market in the first place.

It had taken me a moment to recover from the fall. I was lying in a dark hallway strewn with rubble. A large chunk of stone had fallen onto my chest, cracking a few ribs. I grimaced as I slid it off of myself and onto the floor. The only light came from the crack situated roughly fifteen feet above me that I had fallen through, splashing a ream of domelight across the shadowy interior.

The hallway was bare and covered in a patina of dust and the greenish excretions that emerged from Staiven skin. The walls were made of some sort of metal, patchwork and unadorned in the typical Staiven style. It smelled of mildew and Staiven. What was this, some sort of maintenance tunnel running inside of the stack?

This was when I realized I was no longer holding my sword.

Cursing, I dug through the rubble. It had been with me for decades, crossed countless solar systems and star clusters with me. I would not be losing it here.

It took me several minutes of searching to find the blade, lodged midway through one of the rubble piles. I had been lucky, as the only part that was damaged was the red ribbon that I had wrapped around the handle, which had been slightly torn. I carefully rubbed the rock dust and debris off of the ribbon, lost in memories for a moment before returning my thoughts to my current predicament.

I seemed to be on the lower level. Assuming the barrier did not extend down here, the fall might actually have been beneficial for me. At the very least, it would be difficult for enforcers to follow me into that crack without blasting it even further with explosives.

The image of explosives being used caused me to suddenly remember the cause of the shattered ceiling above me. There had been an explosion from below… I had anticipated the Celans preparing some sort of trap below in case I tried to escape in that direction. Had something gone wrong? Either way, it was almost certain that something had gone on down here, so I would need to be careful. I only needed to make it off of the stack, and then my odds of successful escape would be good.

Once again, I wished I had asked Rachel to come to the black market with me. I was starting to notice a pattern of rash, erratic behavior in myself, and it was worrisome. Were the symptoms of madness beginning to show themselves?

I thought back to the prophet, to the lead he had informed me about. I would ask Rachel to look into it the moment I returned to the safehouse. The hourglass inside my soul was dripping thick grains of sand, and they were starting to run out.

I followed the hallway, my soft footsteps leaving small marks in the dust. I found several hatches leading off to one side or another, but each one merely opened to reveal austere dormitory rooms that almost seemed monastic in nature. Some of them bore small books or trinkets inside of them, most emblazoned or depicting an oddly shaped red dagger. I passed by them, not allowing my curiosity to get the better of me. It was presumably a base of the organization running the black market, and I could investigate their background later.

The hallway ended with a larger hatch, crowned by a small vent resting atop the frame. The air was slightly fresher, here, not as heavily filled with the wet smell of dust, mildew, and Staiven sweat. I placed my ear closer to the hatch, listening to try and find out if anyone was on the other side. The continued gunfire and screams appeared to be relatively distant, so I carefully tapped the door, only for it not to open.

I tapped it again in annoyance, but it still didn’t shift. Was it wedged, I wondered?

I clambered my way atop the frame, peeking through the vent to see the alleyway outside. As expected, the door was indeed jammed under the weight of rubble. It would not be able to open under its own power. I sighed, tightening my grip on my sword. It seemed I would have to use brute force.

Soon I clambered up through the hole I had wrenched in the steel hatch, finding myself atop a small mountain of iron and stone that had crumbled from the floor above.

I made my way down from the pile only to find that the edges of the stack had fared far worse than the interior, crumbling almost completely. The street was a field of boulders and rubble strewn all around. The occasional limb or head stuck out of the rubble where someone had been crushed.

Given the diversity of the corpses, I wagered that this had been where the Celans had crowded the fleeing customers of the black market. I pitied their terrible luck that had led them to be dragged into this.

Some of the bodies belonged to Jobu and Korlove, guards that had been caught in the falling wreckage along with the rest.

I looked to the left and right, peeking around the corner and down the streets to see if there were any survivors still active on the rock-strewn street. To the left I saw a group of Celans picking over the rubble and inspecting corpses, while to the right I saw a single figure in the distance doing the same. I chose to take the right, remaining close to the wall as I snuck swiftly down.

There was no barrier down here, or if there was, it had been destroyed by the falling debris. If I wanted to, I could jump over the railing by the street as I had the previous week, but without the conduit such an escape plan would be pointless. Instead, I was looking for the nearest accessible bridge from which I could reach other stacks and get as far from the area as possible.

It was slow going, as the uneven rubble was large enough I sometimes had to hop between pieces. It seemed unstable enough that moving faster would cause it to loudly crumble, and I felt that going slow and steadily might be the more effective tactic for now.

The further I moved, the more condensed and demolished the rubble was, and I got the feeling I was moving closer to the epicenter of the explosion.

Soon I arrived close enough to the figure to get a better view of them. It was a woman with blonde hair and pale skin, covered in various cuts and bruises, presumably from chunks of debris launched by the explosion.

She wore torn robes that were the white and green of the Hadal clan. This marked her as Seiyal, as if the skin and hair were not already a suitable indicator. I moved to walk past her, but as I neared, her eyes locked onto me with a dark gaze.

Her eyes shone a brilliant amber in the light as we locked gazes, frozen for a moment before she lifted an arm.

She was disheveled, her hair that seemed to have once been intricately braided now half loose and bunched up awkwardly. Slight scrapes marked points all across her body, marring her robes and flesh. She held a shortsword tightly in each hand, and leveled one at me, in a clearly threatening display.

“My name is Karie Hadal of the illustrious Hadal Clan, and I will be the one to kill you, Riverfiend of the Unorthodox Path,” she said, speaking in a forceful tone.

I gave her a look of confusion. Hadn’t the Hadal Clan wished to recruit me?

“Oh? Has the Matriarch changed her mind so quickly?” I asked.

The woman, Karie, shook her head, one disheveled lock of hair flipping back and forth across her face as she did so.

“No, but she will after hearing of your death. Once it happens, it will have always been by her will,” she replied smugly.

I narrowed my eyes. So she intended to kill me without permission, and force her clan to support her in order to save its face. What was her goal, to be lauded for killing me? Or perhaps she legitimately believed it was just to slay all members of the unorthodox path.

Such details didn’t matter at the moment. What mattered was how I got the feeling that she did not intend to let me go by any means. Fine, then. I would give her the fight she wished for. Her soul measured up to the same core formation realm as my own, so I found the odds to be in my favor. Very few martial artists of the same realm could keep up with my speed, after all..

“Fine then,” I said, settling into the first stance of my Downpour Sword Art.

Karie charged at me, shortswords pointed right for the intersections of my meridians, just as if she were performing acupuncture. I sidestepped, my moves flowing smoothly through my strides.

Her blades pressed toward me again, and this time I met them with an attack of my own, slashing for her neck and forcing a block with both blades.

In just two strokes, both of us had already determined the nature of the other’s martial arts. Hers was a genesis path, utilizing the core techniques of the Hadal Clan, focusing on the ebb and flow of energy, absorbing some of the power of the opponent’s attacks when she blocked and expending it to increase that of her own. Her moves would be swift and decisive, both on the attack and the retreat.

Her dual swords were unusual, and her ambidextrous mastery of them implied that she was able to split her mind to control both at once. It was a powerful, dangerous technique utilizing the cerebral dantian. It was rare to find someone who had mastered it to this extent.

Our blades flew once more, and I had to dodge the second blade once again. This was the advantage of twin blades- It was not simple to block them both with a single sword. I had once known a twin blade wielder of the Downpour sect, and he…

I forcefully ended the train of thought, focusing again on the person I was fighting here and now. Karie Hadal was not as fast as me, but the control she possessed over her body went beyond even the effects of the Mindsplitting Technique- to a prodigious extent. She placed her blades in the perfect positions to halt my motions, limiting the advantage I could acquire from my speed.

My movement technique was far more inscrutable than hers. Hers was a movement technique of pure genesis- able to burst out with great motion for moments at a time. She indeed was at my level, but it was not enough.

My sword slashed in over and over, the flurry of blows forcing her back while I shifted around her in a circular revolution to dodge the attacks of her second weapon. While she was able to hold me off, and even to continue pressuring me to move, I still controlled the tempo of the engagement due to my footwork outpacing her own. Every time I shifted she had to turn to match my angle, and her techniques were not specialized in this type of motion.

She stabbed again with her dagger, and I twisted my torso backward to dodge, but was stopped due to intense pain from my broken ribs. I cursed at the oversight in forgetting about my injuries. The shortsword pierced my side, and Karie gave a ruthless grin as she felt it cut through flesh.

I grabbed her wrist with my free hand, and her expression changed to surprise. It was a common weakness of many young orthodox martial artists-not recognizing the tactics that would see use in real combat but never in training.

My sword hand held off her other blade, while I drove my head in, colliding with hers to stagger us both. She stepped back, hands instinctively going up to her wounded head, spouting quiet curses.

I raised my sword, moving to take the killing blow, when I heard a booming voice behind me echo in Staiven, while I could sense multiple figures enter into the range of my soul sense. I could only piece together a few of the words, but they were enough to figure it out, since all of the figures were undoubtedly Staiven. The Pantheonic Government had arrived.

I cursed to myself, lowering my weapon and turning to the station security officials. Beside me, Karie did the same, a sullen expression on her face. We both knew that the opportunity to fight had passed.

I sighed, cursing again in my head. The clusterfuck had still yet to end.

Genesis: [Genesis is the birth of all things, the formation of matter and energy, and the place it all collapses to in the end. The genesis offers rebirth and revitalization, but a cost must be paid. That which is granted must always be returned, one way or another. It is a contract with nature, but it is also merely a force. Genesis miasma is a compressible mass, a storage, allowing energy to be stored and taken out at will. It is inherent and it is inassailable.]