The 50 Thousandth Mark

In a shadow lit arena, littered with pillars and incomplete ruins, an assassin named Ratenza hid behind an archway. She sat with her back to grainy, ancient designs, clutching her shoulder in one hand and resting her spear along the wound of the other. Over and over, in her head, she fought with her body, willing her lungs to stop pumping so excessively.

The glass-like surface on which she sat, acted as this chamber’s only form of light, forever moving in random splotches like fire turned to liquid. She’d grown tired of its orange hue, the way it spit out faint puffs of faulty flames, the way the strange substance followed sound, and the way it reflected the colour of her eyes.

The quiet of the room broke with a kshhh- and a woman’s voice sparked from the darkness above. Ratenza often liked to think the voices were truly coming from beneath her feet; beneath the fake flares. “You hereby enter your final round.” Ratenza used the moment of noise to take her much needed gulps of air. If her final round of the day was starting, that meant the poison finally resolved the life of the last bastard who gave her this wound. Unexpectedly, the voice continued. “If passed, this will mark the end of your testing. You’d have reached your 50 000th kill.”

Instinctively, Ratenza shot her eyes skyward in shock. She had not realized she’d driven her blade through enough enemies to reach the finale; the end of it all, not just today; the years of it. If the voice overhead spoke any more, Ratenza heard none of it. She gripped the leather hold to her polearm and rolled to her feet like the bottom rails to a soundless rocking chair. In the next instant she pounced off, far enough from the center-most summoning ring to be undetected by the new coming monster. The sound-leeching flames did not follow. Her shoulder stung with the passing brush of air, but she’d fought through worse injuries.

When she felt far enough, she settled atop a chipped and roofless second floor, Ratenza pushed out a small corked bottle, with her pinky, from an arm-belt. Then she poured the last of her poison over the sheen of her weapon; a cheap solution, but a reliable one.

Clack.

Her heart stopped. A flutter of light drew at her peripheral. The sound rang too close. How? Whatever it was, it shouldn’t have made it to her this fast. Next, came a growl, a low guttural noise that ended with several clicks, sounding like chattering teeth that had grown into the back of the monster’s throat.

k-k-k-k-k---k-----k--------k-------------k- the clicking slowed. Ratenza chucked her poison vial over a wall to her left. When she heard its clink, she ran to the right, down the ruined building, over fallen pillars, through pre-shattered windows, until- “GRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH ~~~~” filled her ears with a volume so colossal she thought she might pass out.

The entire surface, spanning under the whole arena, turned a blinding pastel shade of orange. Ratenza clutched her head and buckled to a knee. The ground seemed to double up and twist, pushing her further from balance. When the roaring stopped, she could only hear ringing, but she felt the creature’s presence drawing near. She couldn’t move.

It was using echolocation? She thought. What kind of monstrosity did they find this time?

‘kkk-k-k-k-k-k-----k--------k--------krrrrrrgh’

Ratenza took her hand from her bleeding ear and snapped her polearm in two with the quick twist of the middle dial. A second blade slid out of the bottom half. She twirled them both, spun around and up from her knee to her feet. In the same fluid motion, she rose one spear half over her head and pointed the other straight forward both aimed steadily at the being that tried sneaking up on her... until she saw its face.

Her grip, shoulders, and jaw went lax.

First, it was his hair she recognized; the muted blue colour peeping out from under an equally familiar zig-zagged, winter’s hat. The hat drooped at the sides of his head, almost covering the stretched and pointed ears which angled out behind their flaps. Piercing through the woolen hat were two large, out of place, silver horns, which curved towards the wolf fur pompom behind him. The popping veins combined with the fangs, were too much for Ratenza.

Her weapon tips clinked to the floor in defeat.

“Kien”; her friend. Her single, irreplaceable, gentle, kind, loving, and forgiving friend. She watched as his fingers-turned-claws twitched and jittered, broken completely through a pair of mittens that clutched, by threads, onto the boy’s palm. She watched these strips of fabric with anguish, as they zoomed up to her face right by the curl of his claw. Red cast across her vision and she was struck backwards off her feet. The floor whizzed by, her split spear flew out of her grasp, and she crashed, back-first, into a brick wall.

Kien made another ear-splitting roar, forcing bright wisps of orange into the air between them.

Ratenza’s head was bowed. How could they do this to him? How could they do this? How could anyone...

...Could it really be him? She forced her gaze upward. The streaks of her blood stood stagnant in the air thanks to the high density of mana all around them. The droplets made an arc to her face, from where she stood to where she landed. Kien was prowled over on all fours. Yeah, Kien - it was really him.

The winter jacket he wore was no more, but the scarf remained, rippling upwards in mingle with the orange. The blue choker necklace he always used to wear never looked so much like a collar until now. His Jeans were shredded, his boots had vanished, and his smile wasn’t there, but it was Kien. No one else had the sky-bright eyes of Kien, but Kien.

How dare they do this.

-kssshh “This boy is your weakness, Ratenza. Fight it. Break past your earthly desires of camaraderie and friendship. Demolish your one flaw!”

This was the first target they pitted her up against that looked more like a human than an animal. It made her think; how many of the 49 999 foes she was ordered to brutally murder, were people before their hideous forms? The thought brought her to her feet.

Distracted, Kien shook his head and looked all around for the voice, probably scared out of his mind.

Ratenza spoke:

“If my one flaw...” she stared at Kien, ”...is my one friend,” Kien followed the voice and stared back. “Then I’d rather demolish-”

She summoned the compartments of her spear to her hand, as a whole. A circle of darkness sprouted beneath her, where the orange could not enter. Her fiery hair turned to ebony black as she raised her spear above her. Kien made an instant dart towards her, with a killing intent.

“ALL MY STRENGTHS!!!!”

With her shout, the flames curled up like a chrysanthemum enravelling the two, and like threading a needle, her poison-tipped blade shot through a floating blob of blood and straight into the glassy ground.

The arena collapsed.