Quelling Restless Spirits

Job Details:

Job Sign-Up: Page 23, Post Number 570

-Silver Wolf Guild Hall, Guild Mistress' Office-

Dressed in her green, white, and gold outfit and wearing her Argent Gloves, Leona sat at the desk in her office trying desperately to think of where she could learn upper-class etiquette in a hurry. A day had passed since ordering a proper dress for the auction from The Elegant Dress in Capital Crocus and Leona still had not found a school for etiquette that could give her a crash course in manners. She was starting to wonder if she would ever find a school in time. Maybe one of the Silver Wolf guild staff could help her by either suggesting a school or by pointing her towards an etiquette book that the Wizard Saint could read before the auction. It was a long shot, but it was worth pursuing.

That all changed when an older male staff member entered her office and came in with a brown parchment scroll tied with a red cord bound in a single knot. Leona's thoughts completely abandoned the idea of an etiquette class and turned to what the contents of the scroll were. Was it a missive from the Emperor of Midi requesting her help for another errand?

"This scroll came for you just a minute ago, Guild Mistress." The man informed her, setting the scroll in front of her.

"Thank you." Leona thanked the man, who nodded and then left the office, carefully closing the door behind him. She turned to the scroll and picked it up, carefully pulling the cord and undoing the knot. Leona carefully unfurled the scroll and read it.

"To the Wizard Saint of Courage:

I hear that the holy blade known as Shoki has come into your possession. Priestess Sumika of Okyto Shrine has informed me that it is on loan to you and has informed me that it is in dire need of repair. I can repair Shoki, but first I need a favor from you.

My village is in grave danger of being overrun by the undead, who were raised by a female necromancer in a black kimono less than a week ago. The town guard has been fighting valiantly to stop them from exiting the cemetery gates en masse, but they are stretched thin and I fear that they cannot hold out much longer. Should you help me, I can help you in return.

Come to the village of Chiba in Northwestern Midi and meet with met at the blacksmith's shop. I will tell you more there.

Ieyasu"

Leona gently set the scroll on her desk. Reading the mention of the female necromancer told the Wizard Saint all she needed to know. She quickly scribbled a note on a piece of paper and taped it to her door, then went to her room to get her backpack and Shoki as quickly as she could. The Guild Aces should have no issue managing things in Leona's absence. Leona had a feeling that this job was not going to be a quick or simple one.

-Midi, Chiba, sixteen hours later-

Due to having to walk to Chiba from Midi's Imperial City, It was very late afternoon when Leona finally arrived in the village of Chiba, which was roughly the size of Okyto and had largely the same layout. With Shoki secured to her left hip, Leona walked through the outskirts past older villagers dressed in traditional clothing and younger ones dressed in more modern attire. The citizens traveled either on foot or in horse-drawn carts that rumbled down the central path and highlighted the rural character of the village. Like in Okyto the appearance of a Wizard Saint was an event that attracted a large amount of attention from the village's citizens.

"A Wizard Saint walks among us!" An older man in a blue kimono exclaimed in joy.

"She will save us from the undead who threaten to overrun our town!" An older woman in a pink kimono with a golden chrysanthemum pattern said to the man. The younger people excitedly reached for their iLacs and snapped pictures of the determined Leona as she walked by them. Not wanting to look like a snob, Leona turned and politely waved to the people and they smiled back at her.

Leona could not help but to feel humbled by the reactions of Chiba's citizens.

Even in Midi, the homeland of her fellow Wizard Saint Mura Kensho, Leona was hailed as a hero who could surmount any obstacle placed in her path. She had surmounted many obstacles to get this far in her career and she would do it again to save the people of Chiba from the menace that lurked beyond the cemetery gates. With so many people looking to her to help them, Leona would do everything she could to live up to her title and help them when they needed it most.

Leona was looking for a sign that would point her to Ieyasu's blacksmith shop, but as luck would have it she did not need one because she heard the sound of hammer meeting metal from somewhere a fair distance away. It was a good ways down the main path and to the right, but the challenge would be getting through the crowd, which seemed to grow the further into Chiba she progressed. It seemed like everyone in town wanted to see the Wizard Saint of Courage for themselves. Leona would oblige them the best she could because if seeing a hero among them gave the citizens some much-needed hope in the face of danger she would gladly smile for the camera.

[Post Word Count: 934]
[Total Word Count: 934/11,000]

-The Streets of Chiba, late afternoon-

Leona followed the sound of hammer meeting metal from the town center to a section of northern Chiba that was in the outskirts. The rhythmic CLANG guided Leona to a medium-sized blacksmith shop with a forge, bellows, a trough of water for cooling, and other accoutrements of the blacksmith trade under a roofed open-air section off to the left. Working under the shelter was a dark-haired teenage male wearing white traditional clothing and a black apron hammering a piece of red-hot folded steel on an anvil. He was about Leona's height but had a fair amount of muscle on his arms.

Having been around her brother's forge since she was twelve and having once worked a forge herself, Leona knew better than to interrupt the blacksmith at such a critical point in the process. She kept her distance and waited until the youth had carefully dipped the metal in the water with long metal tongs and submerged it before trying to get his attention. At first Leona tried the non-verbal approach by waving at him, but the youth was too busy avoiding the steam billowing from the trough to notice her. Then when the steam finally stopped she began to approach him while waving, but again the youth was too busy with his work to notice the green-clad blonde standing before him. Attempting to get his attention without words was starting to get more than a little tedious.

"Hello?" Leona finally asked verbally. The young man finally took notice of the Wizard Saint and fumbled the cool steel, nearly dropping it on his feet before finally putting it back in the water. He blushed and spoke to Leona.

"Hi there! Sorry about that... I was so busy with this and dodging the steam that I didn't see you." He apologized to her. Leona noticed that he was still blushing even after recovering from the near-fumble. Maybe he was not used to talking to women and Ieyasu handled that part for him.

"No problem. I've been around a forge a few times myself." Leona accepted the apology and added a statement that indicated she understood the urgency of his task.

"Are you looking for Master Ieyasu?" He asked.

"Yes. He requested that I come here to deal with a necromancer who summoned some undead roughly a week ago." Leona answered. A sliding door to the right of the pair opened and a gruff voice spoke from the shop and footsteps sounded.

"It is worse than you think, Miss Jarnefeldt. The town guard is stretched thin by protecting all of Chiba and thus cannot go into the cemetery to put an end to the undead army massing for an attack on the village. Also, while the town guard is trained and equipped to fend off bandits, it is not trained and equipped to fight undead armies." A tall, shirtless and muscular man with the same dark hair as the youth informed her as he ducked a little to fit through the doorway of the shop. The youth bowed to him at a fifteen-degree angle.

"I see that you have met my son and apprentice, Hidetori." Ieyasu said to Leona. His voice indicated that he was trying to be sociable, but his intimidating appearance made Leona feel a little uneasy. He was buff and had several scars on his arms plus a cross-shaped scar on his chest. Ieyasu noticed her gaze and smiled.

"A long time ago I was a traveling swordsman looking for glory and chances to test my skills. I traveled all across Midi exterminating bandit camps until one day I nearly paid for my foolishness with my life when I entered a camp home to twice as many bandits as I expected. I survived but bear the scars you see today. Now I make swords instead of wield them... though sometimes I come out of retirement when the bandit problem gets to be too much." Ieyasu explained to Leona how he acquired the scars on his arms and torso. She did not argue with him. He looked like he had seen nearly as much action as Toshiro and looked like he could break Leona over his knee if he really wanted to. His brown eyes met Leona's green eyes and traveled to the sword at her left hip.

"Is that sword Shoki, the demon-quelling blade that Priestess Sumika informed me about?" He asked her. Leona untied the scabbard from her hip and presented the weapon to him. Ieyasu took it into his hands and wrapped his right hand around the blue-and-white grip and eased Shoki from its scabbard, revealing the blue-and-white blade to Hidetori. Ieyasu held Shoki and moved it under the light, examining it carefully and taking note of the numerous pits and irregularities brought about by extensive use and centuries of being in storage.

"Yes, this is indeed Shoki." The tall blacksmith said to no one in particular. Hidetori watched in awed silence as Ieyasu gave a slow practice swing or two to test the weapon's balance.

"It is off-balance. When you found it you had to use this weapon with two hands, yes?" Ieyasu asked Leona before giving another practice swing.

"Yes." Leona answered. When she first found it the only way she could use Shoki one-handed was to use her special adrenaline rush ability to boost her strength enough to wield it. Being unused to two-handed swords, Leona had difficulty using it and was lucky that her opponents were zombies and not living enemies because living enemies could easily avoid her attacks with Shoki.

"As I said in my letter, I can not only repair Shoki, but also improve it. However, there is a problem." Ieyasu informed Leona. The Wizard Saint recalled that from his letter, but she also recalled him wanting a favor in exchange for the service. The letter stated that Ieyasu wanted Leona to clear the cemetery of the necromancer's army and end the threat to Chiba before he would repair Shoki. Leona thought that service was a small price to pay for a loaner weapon being restored to its prime. However, his mention of a problem made the Wizard Saint feel uneasy... just what could this problem be?

[Post Word Count: 1,042]
[Total Word Count: 1,976/11,000]

Leona was reluctant to ask what the problem Ieyasu had was, but she would ask anyway because maybe he knew something that could help her traverse the cemetery with less risk. Maybe he was going to warn her about the ground becoming soggy from a heavy rain or warn her about a special enemy lying in wait for her. Since Leona was trying to think a little more before rushing into the fray, learning anything she could about the area she would be going into was her objective. Instead Ieyasu paused awkwardly and looked at her with an apologetic expression. Leona did not like this.

"Unfortunately, the blessed metal I need to repair Shoki lies in the very cemetery that you must go into. It resides in the deepest part of the cemetery, where the grave of the man who created Shoki lies." Ieyasu informed Leona. The Wizard Saint blinked. If she was going to give Shoki to him for repair, what would she be using to fight the undead lurking within the hallowed ground? Her knife could work against zombies, but she would have to get uncomfortably close to use it on the reanimated corpses, of which there would be plenty because the undead seldom traveled alone. Her knife would be useless against spirits because it was made of ordinary metal.

"I see that you are concerned about handing me your only viable weapon against the restless spirits. Fear not, Miss Jarnefeldt. I have a weapon that can help you, a weapon I found during my adventuring days." Ieyasu informed her before putting Shoki back in its sheath and securing it to his right hip. Leona was pleased to hear this. Hidetori retreated into the blacksmith shop and she could hear the sounds of rummaging as the youth searched for the weapon that the Wizard Saint needed to fight the enemies she would be confronting. After about three minutes the youth returned with a black scabbard in hand that had a long, thin red stripe along the bottom that was reminiscent of blood running down a blade. Inside was a sword with a red and black grip, a feature which Leona was quick to take notice of.

"I found this sword when I cleared out a cave of necromancers near Chiba some twenty years ago. I learned that it can harm spirits when I had to use it to fight my way past some angry spirits that were immune to my normal sword. It can also be used as a weapon against mundane threats, but using it comes at a cost." Ieyasu warned her while taking the scabbard from Hidetori. Leona's eyes met his. What did he mean by that?

"What kind of cost, Ieyasu? Do I have to feed it Jewels? Do I have to swear an oath of chastity to use it? Do I have to swear an oath to destroy all necromancers? Or do I have to feed it my blood?" Leona asked him, venturing a few guesses as to what she would have to trade in order to use it. If this sword had a cost such as feeding it her blood to use it or swearing an oath to use it to kill anyone who crossed her path, Leona wanted to know before taking it into the cemetery. Ieyasu's face sported a serious expression when he finally answered the question.

"In a manner of speaking, you will have to feed it blood." Ieyasu answered in a completely serious voice. Leona was not happy to hear that bit of information.

"It is a hungry blade that will drain your life force the moment you draw it. It will also drain your life force the longer you hold it. The silver lining is that the life drain will not kill you because the sword needs a user to function. However, it can and will leave you at death's door for something else to finish what the sword started if you are not careful." He explained the drawbacks of wielding the cursed weapon. Leona's face showed concern. Using a weapon that drained her life while simply being held would be a first for her. However, if she wanted Shoki to be repaired, she would have to use the cursed sword to cut through the undead army stalking the cemetery and gather the blessed metal that Ieyasu would need.

"How come it's not draining your life or Hidetori's just by you holding the scabbard?" Leona asked.

"The scabbard suppresses its power." Ieyasu answered with authority born from experience.

"OK. Is there anything I need to know about the cemetery itself? Are there any parts that I need to be really careful in?" Leona asked Ieyasu.

"According to reports received from villagers and the town guard, in addition to warrior zombies from Midi's past there are also restless spirits that have been revived as a result of the spell. Weapons made of normal metal are useless against them, so you will have to use the sword that I have provided to defeat them." Ieyasu answered. Leona was glad to know that because she was trying to think of alternatives to using a cursed sword that drained her life. Thanks to his warning she knew that she would have to use it at some point.

"Also, the cemetery is full of warriors who were buried with their weapons. While the weapons are rusty, they can still harm you and can possibly give you tetanus. Several members of the town guard were wounded in the first days of the army's awakening and would have died from tetanus had they not been treated in time." Ieyasu warned her. Leona would have to make a note of that and remember to stay out of range. That in turn led to the next question.

"If I get bitten, do I have to worry about turning into a zombie myself?" Leona asked the blacksmith anxiously. Ieyasu shook his head.

"No, should you be bitten you do not have to worry about becoming one of them. However, you do have to worry about the diseases that they can pass to you by biting. Zombies have very poor hygiene, after all." He answered, making a dark joke at the end to relieve the tension. Leona was glad to hear that being bitten would not result in her becoming a zombie. She did not want to become a zombie and endanger Earthland in her ravenous new form. Turning away from that dark thought, Leona had one last question to ask.

"Is there anything else I should know about the cemetery or the enemies?" Leona asked Ieyasu.

[Post Word Count: 1,108]
[Total Word Count: 3,084/11,000]

"Yes, there is one last thing that you must know. A day ago the town guard assigned to the cemetery noticed that some of the undead warriors have glowing violet eyes. These warriors move and fight with the same speed as a living person, which makes them far more dangerous than their brethren." Ieyasu answered. Leona had encountered them before in Priestess Sumika's temple and they had given her the most trouble during her cleansing of the temple. The violet-eyed zombie warriors had pushed her back to the wall more than once and were still a challenge even with Shoki in her possession.

"OK. Thanks guys. I'd better get going to the cemetery before nightfall." Leona said to Ieyasu and Hidetori. Ieyasu handed Leona the cursed sword and she held the scabbard in her left hand. Even when it was in the scabbard Leona felt a faint sense of malevolence and malice towards living things emanating from it... or maybe she was just feeling that way because of what Ieyasu had told her about it.

"The cemetery is directly north of here. Just go straight from here until you find the large red torii gate. You cannot miss it." Ieyasu gave her directions to the cemetery that were so simple even the blonde could not mess them up.

"Thanks for all of your help." Leona thanked him and Hidetori for their help up to this point. Leona then set out for the cemetery to find the blessed metal needed to repair Shoki and to stop the undead army at its source before it overwhelmed the town guard and marched on Chiba.

-Twenty minutes later, Chiba Cemetery-

The moon was in the sky when Leona finally reached her destination. True to the blacksmith's word it was marked by a large red torii gate that stood in front of a wide cemetery with ten-foot high walls off to the sides. Leona saw an open stretch of cemetery that extended to 500 meters before the rest was shrouded in white mist. In the distance pale blue flames danced as if beckoning onlookers to venture deeper into the final resting place of hundreds of people.
The headstones on the clear patch of ground looked normal, but those in the mist looked like teeth jutting out of a jawbone.

About 30 meters away from the gate Leona spotted a group of two dozen town guardsmen holding weapons and wearing a lighter version of samurai armor that was colored blue and protected only the chest and thighs. Leona noticed that the guardsmen were all teenage males who had hair cut so short that it was almost shaved. She also noticed that they were doing their best to hold the line despite their fear of what lay beyond the mist. One of them turned around and saw Leona standing and looking at him. The startled youth alerted his fellows and they hustled to partially surround her like standing near the Wizard Saint would give them some of her courage.

"It's the Wizard Saint of Courage! Man, are we glad to see you!" A dark-haired youth with a white bandage wound around his head said to her. The others behind him had hopeful expressions on their faces. It seemed that they had renewed hope now that she had arrived to help them.

"I was told that you guys were stretched pretty thin." Leona replied. The youth looked towards his fellows and spoke again.

"You're right. The town guard's having to patrol the outskirts of Chiba and the area outside the cemetery, so they're stretched pretty thin. The town guard called for volunteers to fill the gaps and we answered." The person she took to be the leader briefed her on the manpower crisis that necessitated the use of teenage volunteers. Leona had been in that same situation back in Nebdoui. When she was twelve years old there was a manpower shortage in Nebdoui due to repeated bandit raids, so one night she was handed a sword and ordered to guard the granary alongside Joshua Hamlin. Leona made her first kills the same night when a Crimson Sashes raid swept through the village and threatened to overwhelm it before it was repulsed.

"I'm about to go in and wipe out the zombies before they can get past the gate." Leona told them. The teenage guardsmen parted and cleared a path for her.

"Good luck out there, Wizard Saint." The leader wished her. Moments later moaning came from the graveyard and the good mood evaporated.

"Zombies!" A youth holding a worn naginata shouted while pointing towards the gate with his free hand. Leona drew the cursed sword and ran through the opening the men made for her to deal with the first wave of ten reanimated corpses shambling towards the gate. Remembering Luna Mira's admonition against acting recklessly, Leona thought a bit about her approach to this fight as she ran into the fog-free clearing.

This batch of zombies had no weapons, so unless they grabbed her they were not much of a threat. They had no kind of formation; they were so far apart that she could take on individual zombies without any trouble. They could be dealt with using just her knife, but it was best to use the range advantage provided by the borrowed katana and deal with them that way.

Leona engaged the first zombie, a man in rotting burial clothing with a missing left eye. She stabbed him through the forehead and withdrew the blade without any trouble whatsoever. It was like the sword was so eager for flesh that it pulled itself out... Leona approached a second
zombie wearing an elegant kimono and pierced its forehead with a single thrust. Again she withdrew the sword without having to plant her foot on the zombie's chest and pull like she would have had to do with her Silver Longsword.

The katana was so light, balanced, and easy to use that it felt like the weapon was guiding itself towards targets with a will of its own. Leona dispatched the remaining eight zombies with ease and when the last zombie fell onto the ground she heard cheering from the guardsmen standing where she had left them. Leona waved to them and began to walk into the fog. She had just walked into the fog when she felt a jolt in her right arm and felt momentary weakness in her right arm. That must have meant that the sword was beginning to exact payment for being used.

Leona knew that she had to hurry before it weakened her too much. Moaning in the distance meant that she would have to keep the sword ready because the restless spirits could strike at any time. The blue flames continued to dance in the distance and beckon the Wizard Saint to go deeper into the cemetery. There was no choice; to complete her objectives Leona would have to keep pressing forward no matter what.

[Post Word Count: 1,164]
[Total Word Count: 4,248/11,000]

Trudging through the mist with the cursed katana in hand, Leona's right arm had suffered a jolt of pain and momentary weakness earlier, but now the limb was back to normal. That was good because the Wizard Saint heard moaning from nearby, which meant that combat was imminent. As she walked on the path between neatly arranged rows of headstones a pale blue flame appeared just in front of her and the fog lifted to reveal a small army of at least sixteen zombies, including two armored warriors wielding rusty katanas. At least they were not the ones with violet eyes. They were the toughest opponents during the temple cleansing a few months ago because they moved and fought with human speed and also used basic coordination of their attacks to keep the Wizard Saint off balance.

Stuck between the two forces and realizing that it was an unfavorable position to fight from, Leona instead fell back about 50 meters so that they had to bunch up and approach her from the front instead of being able to approach the Wizard Saint from both sides. They obligingly bunched up and approached her from the front without realizing that they had been set up by the blonde. Once they were within ten meters of her Leona raised her left hand and fired a Wind Blast to cut down on the number of opponents she would have to fight at once. The spell knocked down all but four of the zombies, but that was good enough for her.

Leona carefully approached the first warrior zombie and knocked its sword aside with her own, then stabbed it in the forehead and withdrew the blade in time to sever the right arm of a female zombie reaching out for her. She stabbed it through the skull, then turned to deal with the second warrior zombie by cutting diagonally through its skull with a diagonal right-to-left slash. She dispatched the fourth zombie in the same fashion just in time to face down the remaining twelve zombies shambling towards her with arms outstretched. Leona fell back another fifty meters and waited for the faster members of the horde to outpace the slower ones before making her move. Once the taller zombies had outpaced their shorter fellows to break up the pack Leona went on the offensive.

She cleaved through the skull of the first with a one-handed diagonal chop and did the same to the second, then stabbed through the skull of the third just as its cold, clammy hands reached for her shoulders. Leona withdrew it and sidestepped to avoid a staggering lunge from the fourth zombie before using a spinning slash to cut through the top of its skull. She recoiled at the sight of congealed blood pouring out like an overflowing wine cup before the zombie collapsed to the ground after using its last few seconds of life to turn and face her, then turned back to face the eight zombies still coming towards her. They were so spread out that she could dispatch the rest with little effort. Still, she needed to be careful to avoid getting hurt because there was still a lot of ground to cover and the sword in her hand would exact payment whether she was able to afford the cost or not.

Leona quickly cut through the fifth zombie's skull with a two-handed slash, then dealt with the sixth and seventh zombies in the same manner. Leona used a two-handed stab through the forehead to dispatch the eighth zombie, then moved in to finish the remaining enemies before more arrived. After dispatching the last of the sixteen zombies Leona paused and listened to her surroundings because the sounds of battle were almost guaranteed to draw more zombies towards the fray. After a minute in place she concluded that there were no more incoming enemies, so the blonde gently stepped over the bodies and pushed deeper into the cemetery.

-Deeper in the cemetery-

Leona walked through the mist until she reached a clearing with a small wooden shrine to her left and a cluster of gravestones to her right. Since the immediate area was free of enemies for the moment, she set down her backpack, fished out a bottle of water, and took a drink from it while surveying the area around her. She had expected another gang of undead to burst from the mist and shamble towards her, but so far they were nowhere in sight. A few moments later she looked towards the shrine saw a violet-eyed warrior zombie who was missing the right pauldron of its armor and had two arrows lodged in its forehead like a macabre pair of antlers move towards her with a rusty katana held in a two-handed ready grip. Leona spit out the water in her mouth and hurriedly closed the bottle before putting it away and zipping her backpack, then threw it on her shoulders just in time to get ready for the zombie warrior's charge.

How did it get so close without her noticing it? That was a question for another time, a time when a zombie that could move and fight at human speed was not trying to murder her. Leona raised her sword and blocked the downward power chop of the zombie and parried a second diagonal slash before trying to make an attack of her own. She attempted to land a diagonal slash on its head, but it blocked the slash and took the opportunity to kick her in the right knee with its right foot. Leona backed away from it and felt another jolt of pain in her right arm as her sword glowed blood red and pulsed like a human heart beating.

Leona's right arm was numb from the sword's draining her life. She now barely hung onto the sword and was dragging it on the ground as she backed away to put more distance between herself and the attacker. Her right arm was numb at a very bad time; the zombie warrior was pressing its advantage and moaning in the distance coming from her right clued her in to the arrival of two more violet-eyed zombies. Leona suspected that the sword she wielded was actively trying to kill her because it had picked the worst possible time to drain life from her.

[Post Word Count: 1,060]
[Total Word Count: 5,308/11,000]

"Damn it!" Leona complained to no one in particular as she experienced the awkward feeling of sensation returning to her right arm just as the zombie in front of her received reinforcements consisting of two more violet-eyed zombies ready to carve the Wizard Saint into bite-sized chunks. The two newly arrived enemies approached from the right and the third zombie in front of her ran straight at her with its sword held above its head. Leona gripped the cursed katana firmly in hand and barely blocked the powerful downward swing in time to avoid being cut down the middle of her body. While her sword was knocked down from the force of the blocked attack the other two zombies worked to hem her in by forming themselves into the base of a triangle with Leona in the middle. Leona needed to escape the unfavorable situation fast and she knew exactly what to do.

Raising her left fist into the air and focusing silver magic into it, Leona dropped to one knee and punched the ground, sending out a dome of wind to stagger her opponents just long enough to escape. Storm Impact worked as intended and gave the Wizard Saint just enough time to turn around and use a Zephyr Dash to get past the two zombies trying to box her in. Leona appeared on the other end of the "flash step" and turned around to face the three enemies charging her all at once. Leona used a Wind Blast to staggered two of the three before engaging in a blade lock with the zombie warrior who stayed on its feet.

The two combatants held the lock until Leona broke it by punching the zombie in the face with a Mach Straight from her left hand. Leona took advantage of the opening to cut through its skull with a one-handed downward diagonal slash before its friends got to their feet and renewed the attack. Since they were capable of rudimentary teamwork, Leona needed to separate them before attacking so that the other could not intervene on its colleague's behalf. Leona pointed the index finger of her left hand at the head of a zombie getting up and focused magic into it until a silver marble formed at the tip of her finger. She then adjusted her aim to account for it getting up and fired a Wind Bullet at its head, exploding it like a watermelon just as it got to its feet for another effort to kill the Wizard Saint.

Leona now had just one enemy to deal with, but that state of affairs did not last very long. She heard a large amount of moaning coming from the right and saw that another gang of normal zombies was shambling towards the commotion. She needed to finish this fight before the rest got here and made life more difficult, but the zombie with the arrow antlers was not making it easy. This kind of situation was why a Wizard Saint was called upon to help... the town guard was valiant and determined to protect the people of Chiba, but they could not quite handle warrior zombies who moved and fought with the speed and agility of living people, especially if said warrior zombies also had enough intelligence to attack in coordinated groups instead of mindlessly shambling towards potential prey like their brethren. Leona would make sure that the beleaguered town guard did not have to fight by defeating the zombies at their source.

Leona stood her ground and blocked the sword stroke with her own weapon, then retaliated with a downward diagonal slash that cut the rotting skin off of the zombie's face, causing her to shriek. The enemy reached out with its free hand and grabbed Leona's left shoulder to hold her in place for a stab through the stomach. Leona managed to get free with a forceful punch to its face and only have the rusty katana punch through the left side of her outfit instead of punching through her stomach. The blonde felt the cold air hit her stomach and frowned.

Furious over another outfit being damaged, the angry mage eschewed finesse for a powerful downward two-handed chop that shattered the zombie's sword and split it right down the middle from the head to the groin, leaking congealed blood before it fell into halves. Leona was astounded at the power of the cursed katana, but now was not the time to admire her handiwork because more zombies were heading her way. Leona slowed down and saw that they were more "civilian" zombies without weapons, so she could take a few more risks around them than she could around the reanimated warriors. They numbered eight in total, so this would be a quick skirmish now that the tougher violet-eyed enemies were taken care of.

Leona rushed to the attack and began carving through them with a practiced ease acquired from several previous encounters with reanimated corpses, always aiming for the head with her weapon. Two minutes later and the enemies were lying on the ground with their heads split. This was easy... almost too easy. The Wizard Saint figured that there were more of the special zombies waiting deeper inside the cemetery guarding whatever it was that brought the dead to life... if a special object had been left behind. Ieyasu had claimed that the necromancer had cast her spell and left, but Leona was not sure if that was the case.

Remembering her last encounter with the woman in the black kimono, Leona recalled that the necromancer had explicitly told her that she had tried to get Shoki before Leona so that the holy sword could be kept out of the Wizard Saint's hands. Having failed that, perhaps the necromancer had set the bulk of the powered-up zombies to protect the blessed metal so that it could not be used to repair Shoki. Leona would find out whether that was true later... if she survived the sword draining her now!

Leona groaned in pain and dropped the sword to the ground as it glowed blood red and began to pulse. Her right arm hung limply at her side, but a look at her numb hand showed that it was now blood red. The sight brought back unpleasant memories of the "Night of Eternal Darkness" incident on Celestial Sanctum, but now was not the time to reminisce. Leona was distracted from her worsening condition by the flames from earlier dancing in the distance and a group of angry ghosts emerging from the mist about 200 meters ahead of her.

[Post Word Count: 1,102]
[Total Word Count: 6,410/11,000]

Spotting the gaggle of thirteen angry ghosts floating menacingly towards her and with not much time to spare, Leona picked up the sword and waited until the spirits closed in before engaging them. Her magic was useless, so the nameless sword she had in her hand was the only way she had to get rid of them. That was all the Wizard Saint would need for these dime-a-dozen spooks. Experience had taught her that unlike with zombies she did not need to target a particular point on their body. Attacking any point with a weapon that could harm supernatural entities would do.

Leona let the first ghost get within reach before lashing out and cutting it in half at the waist. It vanished in a puff of ectoplasm and the next stepped up to take its shot at the blonde. Its effort ended the same way, with a cut across the waist and a puff of ectoplasm as it was sent to the great beyond. There were only about eleven more spirits to go and not all the time in the world to do it, so Leona kept going and cut through ghost after ghost until they were all sent back to whence they came. It was shortly after finishing the last of the specters did she realize that something important was no longer in her left hand.

She was missing the scabbard of the sword!

Leona panicked worse than she had when facing down the ghosts. She needed to find the scabbard so that she could return the sword to Ieyasu when this was over. She also needed to find the scabbard so that if she happened to go through a patch of cemetery where she did not have to fight she could just sheathe the weapon and avoid the life drain. The blonde retraced her steps and began to search around the shrine for the missing scabbard. Maybe she had accidentally launched it at one of the zombie samurai when she had used Wind Blast earlier.

Leona did a quick circle around the wooden shrine and did not find it, so she did a second, slower loop around the shrine to thoroughly canvass the area for the missing object. After a third and final loop she concluded that it was not here and that she would have to go back to find it, an act which would burn valuable time and bring her closer to death's door. However, she would need it when the job was done, so it was time to retrace her steps. Leona spun on her heels and began heading for the front of the cemetery.

-300 meters towards the front-

Leona retraced her steps until she had returned to where she had fought the large mass of zombies and had first used a Wind Blast. Maybe she had accidentally launched the scabbard at one of them, so she began the unpleasant task of searching the corpses for the solid black scabbard with the red line at the bottom. The Wizard Saint carefully picked through the bodies and looked all around them; she even toed over each and every one, but it was no good. She just could not find it to save her life, which finding it would do. Leona did a loop of this area and searched behind every gravestone in case it somehow ended up there, but again the effort was in vain.

Leona had stepped away from the bodies and was about to give up on the task when her right foot slipped on something and she fell backwards, releasing the sword when she did. She landed on her back and looked up to find the cursed sword plummeting point-first towards her head! Leona screamed and the sword lodged point-first into the ground uncomfortably close to her right ear. The Wizard Saint lay on her back to recover from the shock of nearly killing herself by accident, then slowly rolled over and picked herself up. She recovered the sword and looked down at what had caused her to fall.

It was the scabbard!

Leona found it ironic that the very object that could save her life had almost taken it instead. She then picked it up and slipped it into the straps of her backpack so that it was resting against her back. It was not an ideal setup, but it was too long to fit into the backpack and she really did not have time to arrange it just so, so the Wizard Saint left it at that and hurried to make up for lost time.

-300 meters towards the back-

After the brief backtrack Leona was back where she had killed the zombie samurai, the normal zombies, and the ghosts. She moved forward past the bodies and into the mist, which parted for her the deeper she went. In front of her loomed another patch of cemetery with neatly arranged headstones to the left and the right of the central path Leona was taking.

Maybe it was safe to put away the sword for awhile and just move forward. However, in Leona's experiences traveling through Silent Cemetery "safe" was a relative term. While there were no shambling corpses stumbling about, that did not mean that the path was clear. Ghosts could turn invisible and appear whenever they felt like it, so Leona had to assume that the seemingly innocuous patch of cemetery in front of her was actually filled with invisible assailants just waiting for her to put the only weapon she had that could harm them away. She would do no such thing.

If they wanted Leona dead they would have to fight her. It was at that very moment that the jolt of pain raced down her right arm and forced her to drop the blade due to overwhelming pain that felt like every nerve in her arm was burning. Leona clenched her teeth and watched the sword glow red and pulse as it absorbed still more of her life. Its appetite was insatiable. Leona looked down at her right hand and saw that the skin was still blood red.

However, there was one noticeable difference from the last time some of her life was siphoned. Now the veins and capillaries of her right hand were so prominent that it seemed like they were threatening to burst out of the back of her hand. The disgusted blonde fought back the urge to vomit at the sight and looked away, waiting for her arm to regain feeling so that she could pick up the weapon and continue onward. She heard moaning just ahead of her, so the arm had better hurry up and recover.

[Post Word Count: 1,116]
[Total Word Count: 7,526/11,000]

After about two tense minutes of waiting for her right arm to recover enough to wield the sword, Leona bent down and picked up the weapon to get ready for another group of zombies who needed to be eliminated. They emerged from the fog, all two dozen of them. They were unarmed and no spirits or special zombies arrived to support them, so this would be a straightforward fight against ordinary zombies. Still Leona needed to be careful even with the normal undead because there was likely a brawl with the violet-eyed zombies waiting for her at the very end of the trail, right when she would be the most depleted from the sword's siphoning her life.

Leona paused in place, backed up 50 meters, and carefully observed the two dozen corpses shuffling towards her to get an idea of the best way to defeat them without undue risk to herself. They were slow and unarmed, but they were clumped together, which meant that trying to take them on without breaking up the formation would be risky. After spending half a minute observing them she reached the conclusion that the time-tested tactic of using a Wind Blast spell to break up the mob before going in to kill them all was the best course of action. Certain that this time she would not launch the katana's scabbard by using the spell, Leona raised her left hand and cast a Wind Blast that staggered around half of the zombies, breaking up their formation and allowing the Wizard Saint to pick off the zombies who outpaced their fellows in a blind attempt to get to the fresh human standing in front of them.

Two zombies about ten meters apart from each other staggered towards her and Leona cut them down without any difficulty. More pairs and trios of zombies began to arrive and Leona eliminated them in turn before waiting for more stragglers to make their way to her. Leona was saving her energy for the big fight that would surely take place near the place the blessed metal was kept in, but the enemies did not know that. They were just mindless corpses who were hungry for flesh and whose nonexistent sense of strategy made the basic plan of Leona look like the work of a peerless tactician.

Now down to only twelve enemies, Leona continued her plan of letting them come to her and started to whittle them down with distance spells. Leona prepared a Wind Bullet spell on her left index finger and aimed at the head of a well-dressed female zombie in almost new burial attire, then fired the spell. Its head exploded like a watermelon and its body collapsed to the soil; now eleven zombies were left. Another one went down when Leona employed the Crescent Cutter spell to cut its head in half from afar with a sharp crescent of wind. Now only ten were left and they were shambling at varying speeds, which would allow Leona to move in and finish them with the sword to save her magic for the violet-eyed zombies.

Leona closed in with a male zombie of medium height dressed in burial clothing and cut through its skull with a diagonal slash before doing the same to the head of a shorter, more rotund male zombie in a rotting blue kimono that was so tattered it threatened to fall off in the next strong breeze. The Wizard Saint continued chopping through zombie skulls until none were left standing. The blonde did not take a single scratch during the fight. Leona paused long enough to take a deep breath and to stretch her legs before moving on. The flames danced in the distance and beckoned Leona to continue her trek. Leona had barely taken fifteen steps forward when eight angry spirits materialized in front of her to bar her path.

Leona stopped and hefted her sword into a two-handed ready position and waited for the first ghost to make its move. A Wizard Saint's work was never through.

-400 meters deeper into Chiba Cemetery-

Leona had fought her way past several small groups of angry spirits that popped up along the way and was now standing in a section of the cemetery that seemed to have been reserved for Chiba's fallen warriors. To the left of her position the area was dominated by a giant stone statue of a samurai in full armor with his sword raised in triumph. To the right of her position was another group of neatly organized headstones that reminded her of soldiers standing in ranks and files, but there were numerous openings in front of the headstones like the dead resting within had either been dug out of the ground... or had dug themselves out to answer the necromancer's call to arms. Leona was not sure what had happened, but she knew that there were a lot of bodies missing and that was never a good sign.

Leona walked a quarter of the way through the area when she had to pause and take a rest. Whether it was due to simple fatigue from traveling and fighting, the effects of her life energy being drained from her by the sword that was loaned to her, or both, Leona could not go any further without first taking a break. The Wizard Saint was about to fish out the scabbard from its awkward carrying place to sheathe the sword and sit down for a minute when another small group of six ghosts appeared in front of the samurai statue. The fatigued Leona turned to face them and noticed that the spirits were garbed in nearly complete samurai armor and bore spectral copies of the wounds that had caused their exit from the mortal coil.

One samurai spirit had a deep gash across his throat that made Leona shudder. Another was missing their left arm at the shoulder and thus wielded its spectral sword with only the right arm. A third was missing the left arm below the elbow plus had two arrows sticking out of its collarbone and one lodged in its throat. It did not matter... Leona would cut through these spirits just like she had all the others before them.

Leona raised her weapon into a ready position when the sudden jolt of pain seared every nerve ending in her right arm and caused her to scream. Her arm went numb and the sword clattered to the dirt, leaving her helpless against the advancing samurai spirits. The agony lasted for two full minutes before Leona could raise her arm to look at her hand. She soon wished that she had not.

The entire hand was dark and took on the appearance of suffering from a lack of blood circulation. It also hurt just to move it, but Leona needed to use the sword in order to survive this adventure. Unless she wanted to occupy a grave, she would have to work through the pain.

[Post Word Count: 1,167]
[Total Word Count: 8,693/11,000]

Leona fought through the pain and grabbed the sword with blackened fingers. It was starting to hurt even to move a muscle in her right hand, but she needed to fight or she would be dead. It did not matter if the denizens of the cemetery struck a killing blow after the sword drained her to the point of death or if one of the undead samurai killed her with a rusty katana, but dead was dead and Leona was not ready to die. She still had to save Chiba and its people.

The ghostly samurai did not wait for Leona to make a defiant speech and hurried to the attack while the Wizard Saint was struggling to keep a grip on the sword that had already caused her so much misery. Leona willed herself to hang on and managed to tighten her grip enough to start slicing through the ghosts with crude slashes that lacked the precision she could bring to bear if her right hand were still intact. One ghost was cut diagonally in two from the right shoulder to its left pelvis and vanished. The second ghost was cleaved down the middle by an artless one-handed power chop before Leona was forced to retreat from the remaining four ghostly samurai.

The beleaguered blonde hurried away from them until she was 200 meters from her starting position, but that was not enough. She had time to kill just one more with a slash through the waist before she had to fall back yet again before the enemy. Leona retreated to 100 meters away and killed a fourth with a decapitating slash before her sword dipped to the ground and fell out of her hand completely.

"DAMN IT!" Leona hissed through clenched teeth. Her right hand was numb, so she had no choice but to use her left hand to fight the last two ghosts off. Leona scooped it up and awkwardly wielded the sword, cutting one ghost in half at the waist and standing her ground to split the last down the middle with a downward power chop. Once the ghosts were gone the Wizard Saint groaned in pain.

Her right hand had regained feeling, but she had no idea how long it would keep feeling. Leona carefully transferred the grip of the katana to her right hand so that she could use her left to cast spells. Leona was in a bad place.

If she hurried back to Chiba to get medical help, she would leave the woefully inexperienced teenage town guardsmen guarding the town outskirts to face the zombies and spirits that would be chasing the Wizard Saint.

If she tried to use the volunteers to help her fight through the zombies, they would get hurt and killed and would still be unable to fight spirits with their normal weapons.

If she stayed where she was and continued to fight, she was at the point where one or two good hits could kill her.

Leona closed her eyes and took a deep breath. There was only one thing she could do to protect Chiba and live up to the title of Wizard Saint of Courage.

She would stay.

The people of Chiba were counting on the Wizard Saint to help them. Leona could not afford to back out now. She would press ahead and fight for them until she won or she died. Filled with a grim kind of determination, Leona walked forward until she was back where she started when she was forced to fall back.

"LEONAAAAAAA!" A voice called out from behind her. Leona opened her eyes and turned around. Someone was running towards her.

Leona lifted her sword and faced them. The figure was not a violet-eyed zombie because it lacked the violet eyes, it was unarmed, and it could call out to her using her name. Who was it?

"LEONAAAAAAA! IT'S ME, HIDETORI!" The voice shouted the answer. Leona relaxed and lowered her weapon to let the blacksmith's apprentice approach her.

"It's still dangerous. What brings you here?" Leona asked him as calmly as she could, clenching her teeth to dull the pain. Hidetori took one look at her right hand and visibly recoiled. Leona did not blame him... the sight of a hand that appeared to be suffering from a lack of blood circulation was rather revolting.

Hidetori fished something out of a brown leather satchel slung across his shoulders and presented it to Leona. It was a small round bottle of a syrupy red liquid.

"Here, take this potion. My father says that taking a healing potion can give you back some of the life force that Kamisori drains from you." Hidetori urged Leona. Leona blinked. The sword had a name?

"Kamisori means "razor" in the language of Midi. My father named it such because the sword is sharp enough to cut into the wielder's life as easily as it cuts into the life of its wielder's opponents." Hidetori explained to her. Leona reached out with her left hand to take the potion when Hidetori yelled and flinched at something in front of him, throwing the potion far off to the side and causing the bottle to hit the base of the samurai statue and shatter. Leona's heart sank.

"NOOOOOO! THE POTION!" Hidetori screamed and clutched his head in despair. Leona clenched her teeth. So close and yet so far.

"It's OK. You tried. Now get out of here, Hidetori." Leona said to him grimly. Hidetori pointed towards the gap in the fog.

"I saw some violet-eyed zombies in there, in that mist. They made me flinch and throw the potion. I'm so sorry, Leona, I'll make it right. I'll go get another potion! I'LL FIND YOU AND BRING IT TO YOU!" Hidetori promised before sprinting off as fast as he could go. Leona clenched her teeth. The pain was so bad that she did not know if she could last until he got back. The cemetery's denizens were not going to let her last until help arrived because some of the zombies Hidetori warned her about stepped out of the fog to fight the Wizard Saint.

Leona screamed as yet more pain flooded her right arm and caused her to drop Kamisori. It glowed red and pulsed as it greedily drained yet more life from its wielder, who was close to death's door. The zombies that were approaching threatened to give her the push that would send her over the threshold and into death's waiting arms. However, that was not all the trouble in store for her.

Leona mustered the courage to look at her right hand and vomited. Most of the flesh was missing from it; the only flesh she still had was on the very tips of her fingers and she could see the bones of her fingers! She could hear CLACKing as she flexed it in defiance of logic and biology. Her right hand was completely useless and was nauseating to look at, but she needed to pull it together and fight.

Leona gripped Kamisori in her left hand and faced down the eight approaching violet-eyed zombie samurai. This was going to be rough.

[Post Word Count: 1,198]
[Total Word Count: 9,891/11,000]

Weakened by nausea brought on by the sight of her skeletal right hand, Leona pulled it together long enough to assess her situation as the violet-eyed zombie samurai formed up and charged in for what looked to be an easy kill.

Leona had to use her healthy left hand to hold Kamisori, which meant that she could not use magic to help her. She would have to fight with Kamisori and run for her life because she could not take many hits in her current state. However, she had two trump cards she had been saving for this situation, one of which she should have already brought out.

The first was her Wind Summon Magic, which would let her call in reinforcements and did not need any hand gestures to use. She should have already called for help before her right hand turned skeletal thanks to Kamisori's greed.

The second was her special adrenaline rush, which would give her enough strength to make the sword strokes delivered by her left hand powerful enough to cut through the enemy despite it being her non-dominant hand.

Now was the time to play both of those trump cards.

Leona activated the adrenaline rush ability and felt a surge of strength flow through her body. She then spun Kamisori's grip in her fingers, jammed the blade into the ground, and used her left hand to cast a Wind Blast to break up the enemy formation before it reached her. Three of the zombies were staggered, leaving five of them to close the distance. She grabbed Kamisori's grip and spun it around, then stopped when the blade faced the enemy. Leona then delivered a horizontal sword stroke that cut through the skull of one zombie, dropping it to the dirt.

The Wizard Saint then fled from the second and third rotting samurai to play for time until she could get enough space to play her second trump card, her faithful summons.

"SKY CHAMPION RAFALE!" Leona telephatically after focusing magic into her body. The green-clad warrior flew to her side and spoke.

"What do you need, Mistress?" He asked Leona. He took a glance at her skeletal right hand and flinched.

"Fight those zombies for me! Go for the head!" Leona instructed. Rafale nodded and took to the sky, diving on three of the zombies and slicing through the skull of one with his violet energy blades before landing to engage the two survivors. The other six charged by Rafale to get to Leona, but she was ready.

She jammed Kamisori's blade into the ground, focused magic onto the fingertip of her left hand, and fired a Wind Bullet at the head of the lead zombie. The Wind Bullet hit and destroyed its head in an explosion of congealed blood and rotting brain matter, leaving five to approach her. Leona grabbed the grip and yanked the blade out of the dirt, then used Kamisori to cleave through the sword and skull of another zombie in one blow before retreating from two enemies who were trying to box her in with their attacks. The Wizard Saint ran far enough away to call in another summon.

"TEMPEST AVIAN!" Leona telepathically called for the metallic owl. Moments later he arrived and landed beside Leona.

"What do you ask of me?" Tempest Avian inquired.

"Help me with those zombies! Go for the head!" Leona instructed before parrying a diagonal sword slash from one zombie and retreating from a second zombie rushing at her with its sword held above its head. Tempest Avian took off and flew up into the air, then unleashed a volley of Steel Flechettes that pierced the heads of her two attackers and dropped them to the ground. Rafale had finished off his two opponents and quickly took to the skies for a diving attack that cut through the heads of the remaining zombies, leaving the Wizard Saint in control of the area.

Leona almost cracked a smile. She just might get through this after all. Buoyed by her victory, Leona pressed ahead to what she hoped was the last part of the cemetery. Even with her summons and her adrenaline rush she did not know how much more traveling and fighting she could take.

-500 meters later, the final section-

With Rafale and Tempest Avian at her side, Leona managed to push through to the final portion of Chiba Cemetery. The walls stretched another 200 meters before terminating, meaning that there was no more cemetery to traverse. To her left loomed a stone statue as large as the samurai statue from earlier, only this one was of a blacksmith pounding a piece of flattened steel on a stone anvil. To her right and front were rows of gravestones, but gravestones were not all that stood in front of her.

Twenty-four of the powered-up zombie samurai glared at her with weapons at the ready. They promptly divided up into two groups of twelve and ran to encircle her. Leona took a deep breath.

"Well, here goes nothing." Leona commented to her summons. Tempest Avian flew into the sky facing the group to her left and Rafale flew at the second group of twelve running to her right. Tempest Avian launched a spread of Steel Flechettes that pierced the skulls of three zombies, leaving nine on the left. Rafale took out two to the right with energy blades held at head level, leaving ten to the right. Leona began to fall back to avoid being encircled and to set them up for further attacks from her summons.

Once she was about 250 meters away she turned to face the nineteen enemies still left. Leona's left arm began to hurt and her left hand went numb for a few moments due to Kamisori's collecting payment, moments she could ill afford to lose because the zombies were closing in fast. Thanks to her summons she could still win this, but she could use some more help right about now. Maybe she needed to quit worrying about forming the "perfect" team and just bring in two more summons to further divide the attention of the zombie samurai and make it easier on herself.

[Post Word Count: 1,032]
[Total Word Count: 10,925/11,000]

Leona was in mid-stride when her special adrenaline rush wore off, reducing her strength back to normal levels. She had arguably wasted it by not engaging the samurai with Kamisori to take advantage of her heightened strength, but since she was so badly outnumbered by enemies who had enough intelligence to use formations and to try and surround her, no one would fault her for playing it safe. It would take a long time for the adrenaline rush to replenish itself, but she would not need the ability because her faithful summons were leveling the playing field for her.

Tempest Avian fired a spread of Steel Flechettes that hit three more zombies in the back of the head as they chased Leona, leaving her with sixteen zombies to contend with. Rafale claimed another two zombies when he dove on them and cut through their skulls in mid-air before zooming well out of reach. The odds were slowly improving, but Leona was getting tired and needed to take a stand somewhere... but where?

All of the cemetery was flat terrain, so aside from using the statues or gravestones to break up the rotting samurai formations there was no special terrain feature that she could use to her advantage. Speaking of the enemies, they merged together and shuffled numbers about until they formed two teams of seven apiece, which was more than enough to overwhelm the Wizard Saint if she was not careful. Leona needed to keep playing it safe and whittle down their numbers instead of trying to commit to a last stand, so she kept moving and ran behind the blacksmith statue. The rotting samurai followed her while still in two teams of seven... that did not quite work out as planned.

Leona was forced to relocate and hustled away from the statue to run for the gravestones. Tempest Avian fired a spread of Steel Flechettes that killed another two zombies by punching through the side of their head and Rafale's dive attack accounted for another one, leaving only eleven. The Wizard Saint was forced to turn and fight by two faster zombies who were literally on her heels, so turn and fight she did.

She blocked the downward swing of the first and sidestepped to keep her opponent in front of her, then parried a two-handed thrust from the second before using Kamisori to stab it through the skull. She withdrew Kamisori from the dead zombie and blocked a diagonal swing from the first opponent, then fell back when the rest threatened to surround her. A rotting samurai ran in front of her and tried to decapitate her with a two-handed horizontal swing, but Leona ducked under the blade in mid-run and kept going since the rest were hot on her heels. The Wizard Saint was getting tired, but she had to keep moving because if she stopped and got surrounded she was dead.

"LEONAAAAAA!" Hidetori's voice called out. Leona's stomach turned a flip. The youth had come back to make good on his pledge, but now four of the ten zombies broke off from chasing Leona to go after him. She could not help him and she was afraid her summons might hit him if they intervened... all she could do was order him to back off and hope that he could hear her.

"DON'T GET ANY CLOSER! THERE ARE STILL ZOMBIES HERE! RUN!" Leona shouted at him, but soon she realized that he was not alone. Hidetori had also brought Ieyasu, who was wielding Shoki. The Wizard Saint did not have time to celebrate because the remaining six zombies went after her with a vengeance as Ieyasu prepared to fight the four who had went after his son.

"They're too close to you, Leona! I can't use Steel Flechettes without hitting you!" Tempest Avian said apologetically.

"It's OK. You've done the best you can." Leona assured him while parrying a sword stroke from a zombie to the left and stepping back to avoid a two-handed thrust from a zombie on her right. Leona caught a third zombie raising its sword above its head for a two-handed downward chop and stabbed it through the forehead, which was a mistake. She had just withdrawn Kamisori when she was kicked in the back of the right knee. Leona fell to one knee and struggled to lift Kamisori to defend herself, but the sword was knocked out of her left hand by a powerful swing that sent it flying away to her left.

Leona was disarmed and had nowhere else to run. She could not even draw her knife to defend herself. The Wizard Saint clenched her teeth and tried to stand, but it was no good. She was just too tired.

At that moment Ieyasu came to the rescue in dramatic fashion, using Shoki to cut a zombie in half at the waist. The zombie fell in half and both halves burst into blue flame, but Ieyasu was not done. He was wielding both Shoki and Kamisori and began to cut through the remaining three zombies with ease by employing a dual-wielding fighting style that was beautiful to behold. The tall, burly blacksmith moved with uncanny grace as he deftly used Kamisori to cut through the rusted weapons of his adversaries before delivering the finishing blow with Shoki. Ieyasu finished off the last zombie with a whirlwind spin that cut through its torso and its skull within seconds of each other.

"Here, take this potion." Hidetori advised Leona, presenting the small round bottle of syrupy red liquid to her. Leona carefully took it into her left hand and drank the contents. She felt a surge of a feeling that felt like renewal as her right arm tingled and her right had suddenly regained feeling. The Wizard Saint clenched her teeth and tried not to vomit the potion as her skeletal right hand regrew its flesh before her eyes. When the process was finished her right hand was blood red and the veins and capillaries were prominent, but she could use her hand again.

"Thanks, Hidetori." Leona gratefully thanked the youth as strength returned to her body. Leona stood up and Ieyasu faced her.

"I see that we arrived just in time, Wizard Saint." Ieyasu said to her.

"You certainly did. Thanks for the save." Leona thanked Ieyasu for his timely assistance. The blacksmith nodded.

"Father, spirits!" Hidetori shouted a warning and pointed towards a group of thirty spirits that had materialized a short distance away from them.

"Are you able to fight, Wizard Saint?" Ieyasu asked.

"I'm able to fight." Leona replied in the affirmative. Ieyasu handed her Shoki.

"You did well to get this far on your own wielding Kamisori, Wizard Saint. Now let me help you the rest of the way." Ieyasu said while clutching the cursed katana in a two-handed grip. Leona nodded at him.

"OK, let's finish this." Leona replied. Together the pair stood their ground and waited for the charge of the spirits, who would not give up the blessed metal without a fight. Leona and Ieyasu would be glad to oblige.

[Word Count: 1,188]
[Total Word Count: 12,113/11,000]

Leona and Ieyasu let the spirits come to them and waited until they were close before springing into action. The pair cut their way through the spirits one ghost at a time, claiming five of them in the first few moments of the fight before sprinting away from them; Ieyasu claimed three and Leona had accounted for two. The pair then joined up again and let the mass surge towards them before carving through them again, claiming another five before sprinting away.

"Split up!" Ieyasu commanded. Leona broke away from him and ran right as he ran left. This tactic made the ghosts break up into two groups of ten, which was a lot easier to face than a single group of twenty. Leona turned to face her opponents as Ieyasu faced his enemies. Both of them went into action at almost the same time.

Leona took a step forward and made a horizontal two-handed slash that eliminated three ghosts that had clustered together in one swing. She then cut through the torso of a fourth with a diagonal slash and cut a fifth down the middle with a two-handed downward power chop. Ieyasu had carved through five ghostly assailants and had just cut through his sixth with a one-handed diagonal slash by the time Leona could bring her sword back to the ready position.

Leona rushed forward and cut through one ghost with a slash through the waist, then performed a diagonal slash to the seventh, a diagonal slash to the eighth, and a downward power chop to the ninth. The tenth and final ghost hesitated for a moment, which gave her just enough time to take one step forward and cut through it with a final diagonal slash that cut it from the right shoulder to the left pelvis.

Ieyasu finished his last enemy at the same time. Leona dispelled her summons and finally took a breath. It was over.

Leona fished out Kamisori's scabbard and clutched it in her left hand. She approached Ieyasu to give it to him and he gratefully took it. He sheathed Kamisori and looked around the cemetery for the blessed metal that would be needed to repair Shoki. His eyes wandered to a grave in the very back and he approached it, taking care not to step on the graves he passed by. Leona watched as Ieyasu reached the grave in question and picked up a nondescript wooden box with a small length of rope on the top that served as a handle.

The Wizard Saint watched him bow towards the grave in gratitude and whisper a few words of thanks before turning around carefully walking past the graves.

"I have found the metal I need. Now I can repair Shoki for you, Wizard Saint." Ieyasu informed Leona once he had cleared the last gravestone. Leona was glad that the metal had not been taken or had been replaced with ordinary metal. Now that they had what they came for, the exhausted Wizard Saint wanted to get out of here and let the spirits residing in Chiba Cemetery rest.

"Now let us go back to my shop. Hidetori and I will begin work on Shoki at first light." Ieyasu added. Leona and Hidetori did not argue with him. The pair fell in behind the blacksmith and followed him out of Chiba Cemetery. The village was safe from undead invasion and Ieyasu had the blessed metal needed to restore Shoki to how it was when it was first forged centuries ago.

[Post Word Count: 588]
[Total Word Count: 12,701/11,000]