Yozakura [Solo]

Was she really ready to wield it?

Her fingers were thin, yet rough from her constant work. It felt never-ending sometimes, but... What else was life? Sure there was... Romance... Love... All sorts of other... What, "things"? She'd never given them much thought. Maybe once, a long time ago. Maybe she'd had some sort of crush on a boy from her village. Maybe she had felt affections for someone she'd worked with between now and then. Things were a blur; an undoubtable smear was her memory, scattered not unlike paints thrown at a canvas. The knowledge that every day things slipped further from the grasp of her mind haunted her, loomed over her every passing moment. Like a clock, perhaps, ticking down to an alarm that would never come.
She shook her head. Her fingers were thin, and they traced along the white rope what wrapped the gold-trimmed handle; felt the bumps. She would have felt the imperfections, if there were any.
She had little care for perfect things. It was shameful to deny this blade its breath. Surely, nothing but shameful.

A hand traced the wooden sheath like her fingers traced the handle. Both slipped under, and lifted the sword, carefully. It slipped into position beside her other, nameless katana: the shape of the two sheathed swords made a shape not unlike scissors, crossed just at the tsuba with the sheaths trailing behind. There would be more like this, she felt. It would not be easy on her to follow through with her developing idea, but she'd always been a little bit...
Stubborn, perhaps.


Lothric's eyes trailed around Sakuramori's winding trees, ignorant of the night's cold air. In the presence of the moon, rounded and full, she felt little of it. Her swords, now two, swayed with each step. Her hand never left the handle of her nameless blade, and yet it yearned to feel the other. An odd feeling. She ignored it.
The dull beat of her own heart was the only sound that graced Lothric for a while. When something wasn't trying to maul her, mug her, or otherwise tear her apart, she was permitted to simply enjoy the view. The breeze. The feeling of stray petals brushing along her skin.
The sound of what was on its way to kill her.

She wasn't in a hurry to come to a halt. Her stop was slow and deliberate, the Samurai turning on her heel with a lackadaisical grace. She'd come here for a fight. She was getting one. Yet, she made it clear that she would do anything but take it seriously.
'Till the time came to draw, of course.
It was about ten or so. Men, women; she didn't care. They were bandits. Criminals. Missing teeth and toting weapons of inadequacy. They did not compare to the two she wore. Especially, not to the one.
The one her hand had taken hold of without a conscious thought.
She huffed some three things inaudible and the ground shifted beneath her. Her mana flow slowed. She strengthened. So be it then.

Ten stood before her. Eleven, if she counted the one she was already halfway through. Several of them hadn't even seen her move, the splash of blood hitting them faster than the realization that they were down one. The others had already drawn; one particularly eager bug was on her way to cleave her with a bastard sword, thinking she was safe behind the shield. It fell to the ground, bisected, a moment later. The one who had held it met the same fate. Lothric withdrew; a back hop, slapping her sword into its sheath to allow her to mimic the first action. Her left held the sheath, body turning to put her body between it and the group. Her right raised in her low stance, and turned its palm upwards. Her fingers bent twice. A taunt. A challenge. She had avoided striking the one she presumed to be their leader. Their shouting, threats, and tactics fell on deaf ears. Lothric had never been a very good listener. Perhaps she might lend an ear to their screams, if only to draw some sick satisfaction from it while she bathed in the moonlight.
What was it called? Lunacy?

Once more did the girl take off, whirling around one and splitting open his back. Severing his spine. The scraping metal signified her deflection of the one who had tried to cover his... What, friend? Were these people friends?
Lothric banished the thought. These were not people.
Her body brushed to his as she gave him her back; he might have struck her had he not just been thrown wildly off balance by the aforementioned deflect. He might have had time still had she not found the gap in his leather armor and plunged the sword straight through his belly. Lothric turned, blade still lodged, and used him as a meat shield for the oncoming axe. The sound was moderately sickening, but Lothric was uninterested. She usually bore an impassive stare at times like these, but she was projecting her worst onto these people and spared them no mercy as a result.

That was the view she'd had, wasn't it? Outside her window? The cherry blossoms at night?

The sound of tearing flesh punctuated the air as Lothric ripped her blade from the man and brought it to bear against the axe-wielder. She'd left the body with him, and in the split second he took to push it off she had already cut his throat. Normally a spray of blood was something Lothric flinched away from. She did not, this time. It was as though she were possessed by the white orb in the sky. A lunatic, through and through.
She closed her eye at the spray to preserve her sight. Nothing more.

Six remained.

Lothric raised her hand to her blade, and drew fingers along it. She knew not what it did; what the gesture meant; merely that it felt good. It felt, daresay, right. Similar to the feeling of the parry she committed to, sending the short sword flying into the air. A thrust through the neck. Out. A flick. Her eye turned to the five left. She was surrounded. She spun on her heel, then fell into another spin. Surrounded would not do.
She tore through another one, wheeling to face the group. A fireball met her.
Lothric turned her jacket to the blast, feeling the ripped and torn fabric smoldering for a moment, before what weak magic resistance the jacket held fizzled the flame out. It had been a glancing blow. She could feel the residual burns anyway.
How... Fun. A mage. She truly almost felt a bit of joy at the prospect of one standing up to her for, at least, one blow. Of course the one blow was all he would get: she was a fool, an idiot; but she seldom made the same mistake twice. They were taking defensive positions around the mage. The clink of her guard kissing the sheath echoed in her silence. It was the only thing she deemed necessary to hear. To see. Her feet spread. Her stance bent. The girl leaned forward. A straight line.

The time between Lothric standing before them, and Lothric standing far behind them, was so indescribably small to the untrained eye that she simply appeared to have teleported. A millisecond pause before she was somewhere else. Then again, and again. Bodies fell. Lothric slowed only to allow the final one, who she’d been too cocky to identify as a mage until he’d scorched her, to turn.
With such speed did the diminutive Samurai behead him that she looked to have been surprised herself. To push her body to this extent was… Exhilarating.
Behind her, a stream of wind rocked the trees as the severity of her sprint set in on the world. Such a clean cut was it that the blood had nowhere to gush ‘till he fell over some five seconds and stumbling later. Her chest rose and fell erratically. Her mana flow spiked. Calmed. Spiked again. She fell into a plunge, driving her sword into the dirt and leaning her head against it, fingers trailing loosely down the rope-strewn handle.

...Could she do that again?

Devising new techniques in Sakuramori wasn't a recent development for Lothric. It was, after all, where she spent most of her time. New swings, new cuts, new thrusts; shifting her stance to drive deeper or pierce armor; but this time it had felt different. It had gone different. She was no stranger to her all in approach to fighting, but such aggression had come out of her in reply to the fireball... Or had it been once more to the moonlight? Every rise she felt different, almost like she was losing herself. Or, perhaps, replacing herself with a better thing. Discarding what was irrelevant and bringing in a superior version.
She canted her head in contemplation. Did she really think she was a tool? Nobody wielded her. Perhaps her own hubris or some sort did, but she felt like she'd... Improved, past that. No. She couldn't be a tool.
And yet, she really felt like she was losing herself.

Slowly did the smallish girl push to her feet, slipping her blade from the ground and into its sheath. She replicated the stance, spreading her feet and pushing up dirt. It made sense, of course; to perform such a definitive slash while moving at a high speed would, without a doubt, cut someone clean in half. But she'd almost felt... Different, when she did. Like something had changed. Had she broken some metaphorical skill ceiling? Or had she simply improved her technique? Or perhaps it lay with the blade itself...
Confidence? Was she more confident? A better state of mind, lending itself to more focus? It seemed to be the most plausible answer for such a dramatic improvement. Perhaps this had been long overdue, then.

A testing dash forward, petals stirred as she went a third of the speed of sound—a barrier which she looked forward to breaking soon—and performed a near-identical strike to the one she'd done before. She was a blur to the common eye and had, in the space of under a second, travelled a full ninety meters. She half-knelt in the recovery of her swing, before twirling her blade and sliding it into its sheath. It felt natural enough...
Her head rolled from side to side inquisitively. She'd done this maneuver plenty of times, but now she was... Faster. It had a sense of power behind it that she'd not had before. How odd.
She did it again.
She'd not done something like this before. Something that took a sizeable toll on her stamina. This sort of exertion. As if she had really put everything behind it. As if she had something, now, to put behind it. Was this what motivation felt like?
She stood, her legs shaking. If this was motivation, then she quite enjoyed the feeling.
But... Why?
Not why did she enjoy the feeling, of course—it was quite pleasant to not feel empty inside—but she had to wonder what motivated her. What drove her, now? What had changed? Or, had she simply solidified how she felt. Was it the moon? Her attachment ever since Luna blessed her had been undeniable, to the point where she started to feel a bit weak in the sunlight. Was Her purpose synonymous with Lothric's?
Perhaps. Perhaps many things. Lothric was more concerned with what she knew. What she knew was that this had been enlightening. That ten less roamed these woods, and that she was, as a result of this outing, stronger. That her dear sword reflected beautifully in the moonlight, even if it was dulled by the encroaching blood. A flick. Two. She spun it between her fingers, and slid it into its sheath, slowing just to emphasize the clink. This time, a sound of finality.