Traces
Time seemed to have stopped.
Such was the stillness that had settled over the rest stop's back yard.
It might have been a mercy if silence were all there was — but it wasn't. A suffocating tension pressed down upon that silence, thick enough to taste.
All of it traced back, of course, to the figures crouched on the rooftop. They made no move whatsoever, only gazing down at the back yard with quiet patience.
Amid that silent, eerie standoff, it was Ash who broke the stillness first.
"I take it you failed to notice the sign posted before the door. The rest stop has closed for the day."
It was a remark wholly ill-suited to the situation — and at the same time, perfectly sensible. The one occupying the center of the interlopers, hidden behind a wolf mask, seemed to find it amusing. He chuckled low.
"So it does. We did not come through the front gate, you see, so the sign escaped our notice."
"It matters not. You know of it now. Might I suggest you be on your way? As you can plainly see, our feast has yet to end."
The wolf mask shook its head.
"I regret that I cannot. Ash Blade."
"Hm? You know me?"
Ash replied with deliberate indifference. At the same time, he swept one arm behind his back, tracing out the simple hand signals used by pathfinders.
[DANGER] [PROTECT] [READY FOR COMBAT]
Ifrit, catching his meaning in an instant, let her eyes flare sharp and bright as she moved — slowly, deliberately — until her arm came around Akina's shoulders.
"Squirt. Stay glued to my side from now on. Got it?"
Akina answered with a nod.
Dullahan and Jack likewise shifted back carefully, keeping their eyes on the enemy. Their target: Santa, and Rudolph, whose half-lidded eyes hovered on the edge of consciousness.
Last of all, Siren crammed her hoarded skewer into her mouth in a single bite and glanced around. She soon found something to her liking — a battered old sword wedged in the junkyard scrap — and drew it out.
Bit by bit, the field was rearranging itself for battle. Yet the ninja behind the wolf mask answered Ash's question in earnest, unruffled.
"Naturally, I know you. You have been quite the topic of late. Our brothers and sisters watched your exploits with great admiration."
"Admiration of what?"
"Your swordsmanship."
"...I thank you for the praise. But you say you cannot leave. Why so?"
The ninja leapt down from the rooftop.
He touched the ground with an impossibly fluid grace.
"There is something we must take with us."
"And that would be?"
"Nothing of great import."
The wolf mask turned its head toward Rudolph, who was at that moment being helped up by Dullahan and Jack.
"Shall we call it... a thief's neck?"
At those words, Rudolph shuddered.
But as though such things were beneath his concern, the masked ninja turned straight back to Ash.
"So I ask you, sir — do you intend to interfere with our affair?"
Surprisingly, Ash shook his head.
"I have no such intention. It is no affair of mine, is it not? A thief, moreover — what cause would I have to stand in your way?"
"Heh. True enough."
At that, Santa — still propping Rudolph up — erupted.
"Hey! Ash! You—!"
"However."
Ash adjusted his grip on his blade and set its edge alight.
"As I said before, the feast has yet to end. And your entrance has soured the mood. It was a right merry gathering, too — how do you intend to answer for that?"
The non sequitur left the ninja speechless.
A moment passed.
Then he spoke.
"...Are you demanding compensation?"
"No. I am telling you to leave. Do not stir the air any uglier than it is. We have a night yet to enjoy."
"As I said before, we cannot—"
"So you will."
Ash's optical sensors locked onto the man.
"You would ruin the feast after all, then?"
The wolf mask said nothing for a long moment.
Who could have foreseen his own words handed back to him so neatly?
He regarded his opponent in silence, then his shoulders gave a small tremble, and a low laugh spilled out.
"Heh... heh heh heh."
Shaking his head slightly, he addressed Ash.
"You are a far more entertaining man than I expected, sir."
He flicked his fingers.
At that signal, the two ninjas waiting on the rooftop sprang down and landed on the ground.
"Regrettably, then, that feast of yours — we must spoil it."
"Hm. A genuine pity."
No more words passed between them.
The wolf mask lowered his stance and reached one arm behind his back to grip his sword hilt. In that instant, the courteous air he had worn vanished without a trace, replaced by a bone-gnawing killing intent that spread in every direction.
Answering it, those behind Ash moved as well.
Jack and Dullahan hoisted Rudolph between them; Ifrit wrapped a protective arm around the rigid, terrified Akina and fell back toward the Revenant.
Santa and Siren, on the other hand, stepped forward.
They took their places at Ash's left and right.
Ash kept his gaze fixed on the wolf mask as he spoke to them.
"Yeohyeop, take the rabbit mask on the left. And the old shopkeeper—"
A glance.
Ash looked at Santa.
"...Where is your weapon?"
Santa cracked his neck with an exaggerated roll of his shoulders.
"Counter."
"...Will bare hands serve? Their killing intent is no trifling matter."
Santa snorted a laugh, plucked off his sunglasses, and slid them into his shirt pocket. Not a drop of drink remained in the fierce gleam of his eyes.
"Can't always fight at your best, kid."
Ash asked nothing more.
And so the six who had gathered on the empty lot glared at their opponents for a heartbeat — then, without so much as a signal, they all charged at once.
CLANG!
Sonic booms cracked through the air one after another.
A symphony of shrieking steel on steel. Santa tore through the cacophony and drove a fist of pure steel forward.
The ninja in the rat mask standing in his path didn't meet the force head-on. Like a loach slipping through fingers, he wove left and right around the attack, all the while sweeping a razor-thin dagger downward.
KANG!
It was an impossible sound for blade meeting flesh — but then, Santa was a cyborg who had replaced most of his body with cyberware, a being nearer to a humanoid robot than a man. It was only natural.
"You little rat bastard!"
The ninja raised his dagger horizontally to block Santa's oncoming straight punch — but the blow carried too much of it, and his body shot backward at a blistering speed.
Through the gap that opened, a gleaming sword arc blossomed. Siren's blade, descending on the rabbit-masked ninja.
"Hah!"
Her sword was nothing like it had been before.
Bold, relentless, devouring momentum — hardly what one would credit to a beautiful woman scattering sword strikes.
It was neither the Undyne data stored in her right arm, nor the same principle as Ash's blade — that sword aloof and solemn as the clouds in the sky above. This was something else entirely.
Undoubtedly, this was Siren's own sword.
Under a furious barrage like crashing waves, the rabbit-masked ninja was driven reeling backward.
But it didn't last.
In a flash, something lit behind his mask. Disregarding his cornered position as if it were nothing, he thrust his body into her attacks — as if he meant to take Siren's sword strikes upon his own flesh.
SCHLUCK!
Just as expected.
The ninja's right shoulder ran her through.
Yet even as blood poured from the wound, he charged Siren without a flicker of hesitation, like a man incapable of feeling pain.
Worse — he seized the very blade buried in his own shoulder with one hand, locking her movements in place.
"What—?!"
Horrified, Siren wrenched her body aside just in time to dodge a flashing dagger. But her balance had already shattered completely.
She wrenched her sword free, scrambled back to put distance between them, and breathed hard — even as her eyes swept over her opponent.
And she witnessed something impossible.
The ninja's shoulder — the one she had pierced moments ago.
No blood flowed from the wound anymore.
No — beyond that, the torn muscle fibers were writhing and reknitting with a grotesque sound, and the skin was closing over the injury as though forcing its way up from beneath.
"What in the world...?"
Regeneration beyond reason.
It was on a different plane entirely from a cyberware self-repair function — a bizarre, surreal sight, as though the very domain of life itself had been transcended.
Santa was every bit as staggered by the same phenomenon.
"Take THIS, damn you!"
Allowing every one of his opponent's strikes to land, Santa had nonetheless cornered him — and now he drove his steel fist squarely into the dead center of the man's chest.
CRUNCH!
With a sound of crushing metal, the ninja's chest caved in and he was hurled clear across the lot, slamming into the wall. A perfect blow — one that would have killed an ordinary man instantly.
But.
"...The hell?"
The rat-masked ninja, crumpled against the wall, rose to his feet with a grinding creak — like a broken android rebooting.
The crater in his chest pushed outward from within, restoring its original shape, and with every inch of it came the sound of bones reassembling.
A few seconds later, the ninja stood as if nothing had happened, re-gripping his dagger and leveling it at Santa.
"You... you insane monster of a man...!"
While Santa and Siren fell into a brief stalemate, a battle of an entirely different character was unfolding at the center of the lot.
Ash and the wolf mask.
The two of them traded blows without pause, holding to a brutally close distance, the terrifying shriek of steel against steel ringing out without end.
Yet the outcome was unmistakable.
The one holding the advantage was Ash.
The rapid-fire sword strikes pouring from the wolf mask carried a genuinely keen edge — but alas, not one of them ever touched Ash's body.
Ash's own occasional counters, by contrast, always left long, deep gashes across the wolf mask's body.
The problem was that those wounds vanished, healed over, in the blink of an eye.
A body that regenerated the instant it was cut.
Even for Ash, this was a kind of enemy he had never faced before.
"Truly, your sword is magnificent, sir."
Then the wolf-masked ninja spoke.
Even at this very moment, Ash's blade was opening him up — yet his voice did not waver in the slightest. A perfectly calm tone, as though they were old friends in idle conversation.
"But as you can see, it is meaningless."
Ash did not answer.
He simply swung his blade in grim silence, focusing everything on the man's swordwork.
At that, the ninja let out a low chuckle.
"Discomfited, are you? Your edge seems to have dulled somewhat."
And it was then — after refusing to grace any of it with a reply — that Ash finally activated his voice module.
"Discomfited. Not an inaccurate word."
With that, Ash leapt high and fell back. The relentless exchange that had raged since their first clash subsided, if only for a moment.
"One question, if you would permit it."
"If it concerns the hyper-regeneration, I cannot—"
"No."
Ash shook his head.
"I have no interest in such cheap tricks."
Ash cut the man off with a single stroke. His optical sensors blazed with an intensity he had shown never before.
"What I wish to know — is your sword."
"My sword?"
The ninja failed to catch the significance of the odd question. Failed to notice how subtly Ash's manner of speaking had changed.
"So I ask."
Ash took a single step toward the wolf-masked ninja who had echoed him. Then, exhaling a violent killing intent the likes of which he had never once revealed, he spoke in a voice as cold as ice and as flat as steel.
"Why does a man I have never met wield the Thirteen Swords of the Cloud Dragon?"