ST.6.1

Rosh spans on either side, the isle of pine, accommodating its green world with Mizupini holding the coast, taking the endless spray which rose to a perpetual rain, to flurry against its sibling night. Both constant and ever enduring, forcing their way from the endless night seas to form their salvos against the Megalopolis, its lower levels abandoned as storm drains, so to create a city of heights, upon which his theatre danced.

His pursuer caught the scent of another and diverted, for the Yarra would not follow one to the sight of their Council. His image disappeared into the downfall. They were to pick off the weak from their perimeter, for anyone who got through would surely be defeated by the next line.

The leaders of this false protectorate; the authors of years of unrest.

Known to a plan of murder, but ignorant enough to still attend their funerals.

Weaker than even the weakest of the Meshuga. As he ran, low and wicked with arching dives and pleats through the snarl of the dead and the dying, there were not nearly enough fallen here. Many, yes, and a great loss. But most were missing. The majority alive. The vast majority, only ahead.

Atop a peak rang one sided battle, so he leapt to the climbing vines and ascended, waters at his back and lanterns hanging, inscriptions of peace against soft amber, swallowed by the dark, swaying among the elements as he strove for the crest, waves below and the fray ahead, as the ancient city stretched out around him. He knew it was a certain victory for one, as the cries of others rang about the successive strikes of a silent assailant, and as one of his brethren was tossed from above, mask torn from his ravaged face, the final few syllables of the fight drawled their guttural halt.

His hands ache and the wet is intolerable, but his own wooden vizard proposes a wild grin and he straddles the ridge, holding to the edge as a woman flares from the centre, bun loose and great blade curling, her armour shredded and her limbs worn as she continues the performance, her bare face a wild fluctuation of wounded hate, her jaw made ribbons. Even from meters away, the boy thought she couldn't possibly speak, as bodies piled around her, and masked students fell to both her further reach and her intense speed, as she wavered and pleated through strikes, spearing clouds of red into the wet, and carrying the colour in great arcs with each turn.

She ended the last and span, too quick for her image to be clear and so rendered as a blur, until she falls into stance, blade high, chest heaving, footwork creating a spray, locked upon the boy with the timber grin, who scales to meet her.

She was not of the Council but hailed as a subordinate, the Meshuga presumed, watching each rolling step and cursing look, the rains beating down against the oceanside city with a savagery he had not seen in years, like their revered spirits were raging over the conflict below, as the people of their wondrous land tore each other apart upon the great metropolis.

The Yarra advanced, guard up and stare unwavering, devoid of the burning pains as the cool spray calmed her mind and bought her blade toward the man with the wooden face. They were the same age, he and this girl, who sought from him nothing but to add his body to the pile. She looked strong too, but her long skirmish had weakened her, as both he and she herself knew, with each step at the limit of buckling clean under her weight.

He approached his equivalent, traced by broken and discarded lanterns, which let flames dwindle under the storm.

She waited for him to reach a certain range undefinable, before she lunged, still breathing hard.

He pressed his advantage, striking to fall back at a distance, picking away at her, she who was too well worn to keep him in check. Serpentine strikes rocked against her with poison of a new strength, a fresh and lesser tested opponent who had but waltzed through the dense smog of this bloody night. She looked fit to curse him, if opening her mouth would not have left everything inside loose, so instead the edge of her glare, sharper than any daggers, stabbed into the fixed countenance, returned only with an invisible scowl, as the dualists sprang against one another under the pouring heavens, as more moved to battle below them.

They fought like cats, lurching and snatching at each other's faces, but one was quicker and lighter, a fine opponent regardless but a surer one in her fatigue, as he cut something and her something snapped, and she wobbled.

A turn and he saw it. The opening among the buildings which fell to the low market, toward which, despite the shroud of the waters, he knew would be surging his fellows, slipping through the crevices and dropping down from above to face the group residing within, concealed to the masked boy as he wondered what he would see, when he rose above the pillars and peered within.

But he rode all of this on the assumption that he would win here, against this wounded opponent, whose dense panoply of moves left his blows to glance aside and roll off, all other defences to her head as she grimaced at his every strike, fighting to, instead of seizing victory, hold him here for as long as possible.

He watched her with a squint of his own, as his advances pushed her to a knee, low grunts breaking her lips against the wet.

He broke her wall, taking her scruff in his drenched grasp and throwing her to the ground, sending her blade aside and forcing his own upon her neck, pinning her, as she splashed against the wet. He thought, as he stood there, rain pouring in its undying tones, surrounded by green and drowned lights and the dead, whether he had actually fought someone who's face he could easily see before. An odd thought, but as images of heads hidden under cowls and heavy hats formed, he saw the facades of those hiding their identities, against this girl who now lay before him, choking against the cold.

As though she heard his notions, she pushed herself forward, driving through a motion to impale herself, but he drew back and slammed her against the height with his foot, her snarls instantly swallowed by the howl of the storm. With bared teeth she struggled against his hold, arms flailing with her, but he kept her down, working to kick away the weapons of the dead as she concurrently tried to reach them.

"It doesn't have to end here."

His sword is to her stomach. Despite herself, and the pain the motion derived, she managed to form in impulsive smirk, and under that pouring, winced through, forcing her mouth open.

"You won't win."

She gurgles her words, reaching up and taking his blade in her hand, moving to haul herself into it as he retracts.

"We have to." Came the response, muffled as he slowly thrust back, keeping her against the ground. "Not running around with a Yarra." He pushed harder, keeping to the plates of her gear, holding hard, but either she found his effort or his world amusing, for she barked a laugh which sprayed her fallen shades, eyes swelling.

She shudders, testing his force, and slips the edge between the slats, taking the edge again in hand and dragging it in.

He stumbles, almost crashing against her grin.

"No, you won't."

She lent in.

She gutted herself.

Yet still, she muttered.

"You'll have your moronic masks soaked in tar and burnt against your skulls." She coughs. "You'll have your charred heads mounted upon pikes for the heresy you call duty. You'll fight your way to our Council and leap down upon them, blades flashing, and be sliced into streamers before-"

He pulled clean, taking the fingers of her clutching hand too as she fell back, a scream lost to a crumbling jaw.

The vast sea which beat against Roshi's shores cast its spray high, the waves becoming vapour which fell unceasingly, collapsing back down and onto the coastline which infringed, with its towers and homes against the great forests which populated the rest of the island. Condemned to its allotted land the city sat, watching over the waters and the forests like some ebbing eye, waiting for something to stir among its people. With a raised brow it waited, casting a gaze upon its kingdom and the wilds, watching the wildlife in their fervour.

This city watched, immune to the chill of the winds and the shuddering wet. To stand upon a tower is to stand in the storm, facing waning candle and lamp light, back to the barrage, great greenery bleeding from below. It is witnessing a battle upon rooftops proud of peace and prosperity, with a place so nourished and wondrous, permanently soiled by its warring combatants, lost to reason among an age of conflict which drove one against another, and drove sword through student.

Killed and killed, among the hive of worship and love toward such a particular world. Sprayed their blood over totems toward order and amity, their artful dance wasted on young dullness.

In all districts, in all blocks and arenas the battle raged as Meshuga and Yarra threw themselves into the pooling rains and reds. Students of their perfect land and a powerful pride, staring into one another between the piles of fallen friends. As the beasts of the wilds do the children stalked, passing fearful tenants and neighbours to cut down the youth which traced their vicious steps, grinning in return to either flashing blade or wooden façade, smirking as their whole lives came to fruition upon the edge of their drenched swords.

The Meshuga boy ran, leaping the edge of the peak and landing on the adjacent mass, rolling upon a knee as another masked man turned to him, braced to dual but ready to wait, the moment of fierce posture falling with their raised weapons as they continued together, all time to be wasted already gone as they rushed the rising storm, counting the steps as the neared the sunken market, composing themselves as to not collapse at whatever thing awaited them, down in the depths of the blood soaked.

Birds raced for asylum, hunting refuge from the approaching squall, moving between the gale overhead and the tempest below, weaving like images of paper upon a breeze as a flock of steel and spite shifted underneath, zeroing in in the epicentre of this violent, endless eventide. The vines struggled against the winds, hiding themselves around stone walls and watching from afar, waiting for the storm to ease as a rumbling call echoed from the ocean, a cry from the horizon, a scream among the clouds which resounded throughout the megalopolis, the beat and drum of a terrible might sounding alongside those advancing, as the Yarra fell back among the streets and the surviving Meshuga, tired and weary, came to the fall of their city.

To overlook their ambition, watching through their false faces as five gazes returned.

The boy and the newfound slowed, falling to a walk as images emerged of figures, surrounding what they already knew. Through the noise the boy heard a call, and turned to the girl he'd walked with, she of the timber horns and bear arms, but with one now strapped, trembling, by strips around her chest. He wanted to speak, but recognition fell to that which boiled within all of them, as they exchanged glances and continued to the thing once a market.

As the shapes loomed, the boy began to figure. Saw characters of specific shapes, armours and tools, standing in a square, gazes cast down.

Each drowned, he joined their lines, coming to a stop by their sides, droplets and edges illuminated by their sacrificial lights, most left scattered and overturned, to blee into the waters.

He looked down, the horns and the newfound on either side, cast in that leafy darkness of the wood, postures defined by fatigues unseen, and injures seething.

Conditions worsening.

Hatred, flooding.

A shape of figures, caught in the downfall. Things in abstract collages of menace, faces hidden by crazed, grotesque facades, more accurate than any true features. They waver in harsh winds, steel catching their limitless moon which hung eternally, all other light in chocked amber, trying to flee from its glass and paper cages, wavering against timber loathing. Trailing chords and wooden pendants declare faith and devotion, but it is their being there, and their holding of that gaze which defines their almost complete definition.

But it is their spectacle which beats their own beauty.

For the image looks down upon another. Deep, between four tall building and atop another, the roof made a market, to be accessed through windows. Pipes tangled in vines and shrubbery and then ladened with totems and lanterns bid their escape on rising, and the rest fall in, trailing in the storm.

At the bottom, all eyes are drawn. That declared a target still awaits in effect, however painted by another mind. One twisted to common interpretations. They, who hear what a massacre should be, and then fling to their canvas wildly, blindly, mad and ruthless in their sibling shades, of red and its synonyms.

For the drains are clogged, and the pool merges with blood to create a pond, still at the base. It is the colour of gore, tracing the mound of bodies, a raft upon the lake, interlinked and torn, to float at the centre.

Ruined shapes, flung and cut, oozing. Left as footing for the five who straddle the design. They are equally spaced at the furthest points, crowning the mass, and they each individually look up to those who surround them, each individual shaped and well defined, as characters of cause and effect.

Even now, through all of this, the Meshuga boy knows he looks upon those who truly, without their masks, grin back.

The girl next to him lingers on a step, unsure with a head angled, to the motion of someone speaking. Nobody does, each of them equally fuelled by the mind but empty of body, tired and lesser in number. If they had just a few more, they would have been certain, or if each had had to fight one less. But they all verge on uncertainty, toes over the edge. They have been told to jump, but what of the one to hold their ropes? Are they tired, or scared? Are they even still there? And to turn, as the boy oddly does, is just to stare into the raging night, without reason to assume success.

The newcomer, his mask one of a great squint, the mouth quivering with mock accusation, asks quietly of the boy wants to try. His shoulders are hunched when the boy turns, looking at a soaked figure.

The newcomer shows no humour, rapt in the sight, of wet bodies piled upon one another, statues of slaughter standing atop.

The girl with the horns says that they must. They can't turn around. Anyway, she continued, rubbing her arm, she knows that she didn't kill every Yarra she saw on the way here. Looking around, she said that she doubted they could even make it out.

The newcomer, with a slight smile in tone, says that she can jump in first then. Clutching his own leg, he says that he'd rather face every Yarra on the heights at the same time than go up against a single one of their Council.

He didn't say it, but each Meshuga could define, among the five, the key figures.

He mumbled, saying that if they all go at once, they won't be killed quickly. They'll run in, get something cut off, and be left to bleed out. If they turned, he pushed, at least they'd probably die quicker.

The Meshuga boy tells him that he can jump off the roof if he wants.

The newcomer shrugs.

The girl with the horns asks the newcomer if he doubts his friends.

The newcomer says no, but the Meshuga have lost hundreds tonight doubting theirs, as he points to the pit.

Yet retort is cut by a shove, as someone shoulders past the boy, long hair trailing from a plainer mimic face, etched with symbols which descend through the middle. If he were to complain he thought he would be thrown, as the engraved Meshuga stops at the very edge, slouched and watching. As all others find their attention drawn to him, he seemingly nods down toward the five, who all find his way, heads leant in each direction, as they seek their address.

The shoving boy holds a bundle of pendants in one hand, carved of light wood. The Meshuga boy looks him up and down, and sees none similar. He stares as the shoving boy, holding someone else's pieces, leans in and calls to the group below.

Nobody objects, for they smell opportunity among the damp greenery.

They find their brows high and their own clutches tighter.

The shoving boy asks if the council have seen someone in a mask which has fangs. Raising both arms, one holding the bundle and the other his sword, he replicates the teeth with his fingers, the storm flaring against his side, dripping from his hands.

Everyone gazes, caught. Even the Yarra, despite their stillness, seem to pause even further.

The pause makes the rain artillery against the ear.

One of the Yarra turns, looking behind him. Another follows, and soon each of them are turning, trying to see something among the pile. They do not move, but they search regardless, the shoving boy is motionless as he observes.

The Meshuga boy wonders if he should run or fight here, when they are unaware, but as his foot hovers, he sees the shoving boy, and wonders what he would do if someone worked to halt the search.

One of the Yarra waves, drawing all. She has short, sheered hair, and her chest is bound by stained ribbons, her pants tied around the shins as timber faces hang, strung around her waist. In her empty hand, she holds a corpse.

The shoving boy does not step, but he leans an inch.

The Yarra uses both hands to haul the corpse free, She brushes away things from the dead's face, cleaning with bare hands, but before she can even finish, she feels ripples against her legs.

The Meshuga all blink, frozen in sight.

The Shoving boy crouches, frozen, in the bloody pit. He is still hunched in impossible impact, but his arms are splayed, one with hold and one with blade, stretched, gleaming.

And even though none can see his own face, he shudders in stance.

Uncontrollably, two broken legs and a feeling without a word fry, curling through his body.

It is electric, his heaving quiet.

The Meshuga boy watches, dead to the downpour, mind hanged.

Around him, he knows mirrored attention.

The Yarra with the body drops it, turning fully to the shoving Meshuga, who seethes.

She looks at something which boils, the waters around his feet practically bubbling, and the air around him is heavy, as the mind makes the lights dimmer.

The shoving boy watches the Yarra but his mind is elsewhere, twitching and flailing through the wind.

It searches, thoughts reaching for each other without touch, lingering upon the pendants which float at his shins.

He quakes, unable to stand.

Surely, he is alone, now more than forever, the cold and the wet howling against his mind.

He blinks and turns to the soft ripples.

Someone takes his shoulder.

The floating Yarra raise their blades, swaying upon forming waves.