Violence is not a coping mechanism, it’s a hobby

  Two pitch black swords glinted in the light of the fire as Kato stepped through. His eyes glimmered slightly as they reflected the scene ahead of him.

  Wagons were overturned and waste littered the ground. The stench of smoke and death hung thick in the air and Kato heard the faint sounds of screams and the clash of metal against metal in the distance.

  Before Kato had time to absorb his surroundings the voice from before spoke again. “There is only one objective here disciple. Survive.”

  Faint symbols swirled ahead of him. His rage batted them away with ease. No others would influence his mind today.

  Kato’s rage smiled. The world had taken Styx and now it would pay in turn.

  He trudged forward, following the slope of a low grass hill. His boots squelched in the sodden grass, wet seeped through and attacked him, chilling his feet. In turn he attacked the ground below. Each step left a deep imprint as the soft earth caved under his slender frame.

  With nothing else to do Kato followed the smoke. It billowed ahead of him, filling the sky. Embers and ash alike swirled through the air, hot to the touch. Faint sizzles accompanied his journey as fiery ash met the wet ground.

  “AHHHH!” A sudden scream of anger reached Kato.

  A moment later the source of the noise followed. A lone figure charged towards Kato as they sped down a small barren track ahead. Pebbles skittered as the clean-shaven man tore towards him. His eyes bulged in maddened frenzy, pure black veins intertwined across his irises as if touched by the devil. The man’s mouth hung open wide. Two thick canines jutted over his lips as saliva lathered a square chin.

  He raised a rusted short sword high and prepared to swing as he cleared the last step to Kato.

  Kato tensed. He was unarmed. If he was in control he would have turned and ran. But he wasn’t. His rage was.

  Kato raised a fist towards the maniac charging him.

  And…

  The man dropped dead, mere feet away, collapsing to the ground face first.

  Kato's eyes narrowed. He walked over and gingerly prodded the prone form with a foot. The body remained motionless, with a slight sneer, he roughly grabbed the man’s shoulders, spinning him over. A single eye, still bulging, stared back at him. Its partner left dangling to the ground on red fibrous strands.

  Kato’s rage examined him for a moment. ‘Scared him to death,’ a callous voice chuckled. He reached over grasping the hilt of the dead man’s blade. He tugged it. The weapon refused to budge. He tugged harder. The man's arm rose in turn grasping the blade with all its might even in death he refused to leave himself weaponless.

  It was respectable in a way but in another it was just a waste of his time.

  Kato glowered at the hand, letting it drop back to the ground. If he still had human sensibilities, he likely would have been disgusted by what happened next, but he didn’t and he wasn’t.

  With a sharp kick, Kato struck downwards.The bones of the dead man’s hand shattered with a brutal crack. The fingers splayed out at unnatural angles. Kato's rage paid it no mind as he acquired the newly freed blade. With a sharp turn he made to leave, but something held him back.

  He turned once again, examining the body. The man had clearly been sick and as much as his anger demanded blood and as much as the man had attacked him first. He paused. It just wasn’t right. The wrongs of life were often settled by the great redeemer.

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  Kato’s hand reached down, slotting the eyeball back in its socket, then with a swift two fingered motion he slid the eyelids closed, letting the man have the peace in death that he clearly hadn’t in life. With a slight circling of his chest Kato turned to leave once again. His humanity had flickered to life, briefly, but his rage wasn’t done. Not yet.

  Kato continued to walk forward. The weight of the aged blade hung heavy in his hand and constantly threatened to tip him over. Again and again Kato corrected himself. After a while he was severely tempted to leave the infernal thing behind, toss it to the side and be done with the curséd blade.

  But as peaceful as a trial of battle sounded, he would rather show up with a sword to a sword fight than his fists.

  Crunch! A booted foot ground into the pebbles that edged the dirt track. Crunch! A second joined it, before being replaced with the dull thuds of footsteps on compacted dirt.

  Kato pressed forward, leaving the grassy hill far behind him in favour of the wreckage of overturned wagons and the acrid scent of burnt wood.

  Soon enough, he reached the wagons. No one was there. Absently, he prodded a blackened chunk of burnt wagon with his new blade. It crumbled at the touch, crashing to the ground in a burst of ash and smoke. He looked at it for a second, then looked away. ‘I thought this was a trial of battle,’ his rage growled.

  Kato looked back to the hill. His eyes blazed, demanding answers. 'Was this some kind of trick?’

  The sounds of battle still raged in the far distance, but the noise hadn’t grown any louder since he started walking.

  His eyes narrowed as he scanned the area again for the mystery fighters. They were nowhere to be found. ‘Another trick,’ his rage spat.

  Kato was not prepared to be left alone with his thoughts, and he especially didn’t want to think of Styx, but his mind drifted there nonetheless. His pupils slowly morphed back to more humane round spheres. ‘Why was she so prepared to die?’ he thought mournfully. ‘I could have done something. I could have saved her. If only she had given me the chance.’

  He looked back to the sky, a single tear slid down his face. He hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye.

  He stayed motionless for some time until a strong, male voice broke out once again. “Preparation time for the trial of battle is now over. Fighting will commence in one minute. May suffering guide you."

  Kato blinked wearily, hastily wiping the blur from his eyes. ‘Preparation time? I was supposed to prepare?’

  Then the veil was pierced, and hundreds of bodies thronged his immediate surroundings. Maybe even thousands.

  His hand wrapped around the sword’s hilt tighter.

  “Survive,” the voice stated simply and disappeared, apparently its spiritual wisdom had been depleted.

  Kato wrapped his body tight against the cover of the wagons, he couldn’t be foolish about this.

  Clang! Clang! Clang! The once-distant sounds of metal striking metal were now all encompassing. Kato darted his head around the side of a wagon. Four men stood amidst the burning wreckage. It was a vicious three on one. Three lightly armoured attackers beat down on a singular iron clad soldier with their vicious barbed maces.

  Kato didn’t know much about warfare, but blunt force trauma was blunt force trauma. Each flinch and stagger of walking suit of armour made it painfully clear that they knew that too.

  They kept hitting him, forcing him back. The iron suit dropped its blade and a large two-handed sword with an ornate wooden handle dug deep into the ground. Soon the lone figure was pushed back up against a charred wagon's wall.

  Kato might have been content to watch this unfold. After all he only had to survive. From this he could learn more about his enemies. That was what he had been planning, it was what he had wanted to do.

  Then one of the attackers laughed.

  Kato’s mind flashed back to the blursons laughing at him while he was defenceless, unable to fight back. He wouldn’t let it happen again. He couldn’t. His eyes contracted violently, pitch black swords taking over once again.

  His rage smiled. He wasn’t unable to fight back anymore.

  Kato sprung into action. His rusted blade cut through the air with a vicious hiss, burying itself into one of the attackers’ necks. Swiftly Kato attempted to yank it back, seizing the element of surprise. His blade began to pull back, obliging him, but just as he prepared to gouge again it snapped off at the hilt. The blade had decided enough was enough, following Styx's example and quitting at the first real sign of resistance.

  Kato’s hand drew back, clutching the gnarled wood he still had tightly. With no time to think his hand went into motion again. He swung it. Hard. The wood thwacked into the side of another attacker’s head. He kept moving. His rage refused to acknowledge the absurdity of fighting unarmed.

  The man turned, rage painted his pale face red and with a vicious motion his mace tore through the air arcing towards Kato’s unarmoured body.

  Bang! A metal covered fist shot out, clipping the mace wielder’s head. His opponent went down like a sack of bricks, collapsing to the ground, but the metal man wasn’t done yet.

  Bang! A second fist followed the first, and the last attacker joined their companions on the ground, his skull caved in.

  The metal man turned to face Kato, and his stomach churned. He remembered all too well what had happened the last time he had met a faceless man.

  Chapter 1

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