Hegemony Shift

"Prologue
Part I: Enfant D’ Enfer
Shanghai November 1881
The young Master stands in the pouring rain, water flickering on his face, the memory of his beloved is still as present as life can be. A man in a yellow robe is still talking about Chen Zhen and as the rain keeps falling the coffin is being lowered, and the cries and the weeping play in his mind like a faraway song. With the determination and a will as strong as the dragon, his decision was made.
The white linen fell perfectly on his dark clothing, turning curves into lines, heavy with water, the flow he can feel throughout his entire body.

The evening has come.
The brutal Japanese occupation is never-ending, and even though the school will be allowed to stay open. Li has no hope any more. The far away and new country is his next only destination.
Some will believe he is running away.
Others will believe he is a traitor.
But deep in his heart he knows the rumours will only be follies.
As he stands still in the rain, while everyone is gone, he draws his future life in his mind.
He will rebuild. He does not yet have the skills. But he knows with certainty that a master he will become.
He doesn’t wonder in unknown places any more. His mind has never been this clear. He can foresee, the path the school will take. He knows changes will be made. Major and intense changes. Most of them he will have know control over, but he will be the legacy.
A forbidden word re-enters his watery mind. A word of thunder.
Revenge.
The highest love is still present, but the good must be protected at all costs. Chen Zhen might have been right.
He will rebuild and advocate. He will co-ordinate and teach, and after, long after his death he knows the time will come, and the truth will cut like a sword.

A short but sharp cracking noise, like a branch being stepped on, rake him away from his state of fullness. In seconds he’s turned into a lethal weapon. The young female child looks at him, half-scared, half-fascinated.
Li focuses on her so intently that the child begins ( ? ). The young man walks toward her, and as the child is still nervous, kneels in front of her.

-What is your name?
-Kindvan Hel
-I never heard such a name, what is the significance of it?
-My father was from a faraway land, whispers the child. He gave me the name after my mother died.

A silence appears and the music of the rain is all they can hear. As if, surrounded by a veil, they feel a strange but agreeable intimacy.
-What does it mean? Asks Li, at last.
-Child from Hell.
-From now on, Li says with such a powerful voice that Kindvan Hel shivers, every single ( ? ) sense will carry your name child. May the powers always stand on our side. May the good be avenged, and the evil pierced to their death. As he said that, he finally realizes the most important decision he will ever make. The warriors will have to be female. All but one, says the uncontrollable voice in his head.
“Always” says the voice before bringing an eternal silence.
Li rises up, the water still falling down, straight and pretty, and takes the small hand in his palm.

-You are alone.
-Yes murmured the child.
-You are coming with me. We are going far away. Come in my arms. I will always protect you, and the warmth of my body will teach you the powers. After your growth, the roles will inverse, the legacy will be you. You will never die, for a warrior queen will always be with you, in you, the exterior of who you are, who you will become.
Li takes the child in his arms and while the rain has doubled in intensity, walks away from the cemetery, to never be seen again on that continent.

Part II: The Burial
San Francisco November 17th 2003
The weather has created a pattern with time.
As the rain keeps falling, the mourning goes on. The memories, as painful as they are, bring everyone together. A procession a ritual to the adored soul. The Mission Dolores Church Cemetary is almost deserted, but the rain drums on the ground and on the heads of the supreme six.
The Leader stands still, well above the others.
Her memories are mixed with regrets and concerns. It has become her role to lead, so fast and unexpected that she can feel her heart being crushed in her chest. Still, she stands still and listens to the priest, her eyes on the coffin, seeing red again.
She has inherited the highest duty. She will find the next “Child from Hell”. She will follow the scriptures and turn it into the most powerful scene of all time. She will....
The pain is growing, and for the first time tears are knocking at her eye’s door. The image of her master is growing to intensely for her. The face. The lips. The way she walked and fought. The touch of her hand.
, soaked beyond reason, raises her eyes, letting them come to rest on the solid face of Mykl.
As Devilicious still wonders about the true meaning of his presence. She more than anyone, follows the sacred scriptures.
-“One male. And one male only”
“He will have the sacred mark on his back.”
“He will stand will all of you, and will have the ultimate balance.”

As she watched the handsome man, she acknowledged in silence, that she didn’t understand him. But she accepted.
Further in the back. Far from anyone else, she stands where she wants, protected by the massive oak tree which she sees as a cherry blossom tree.
She don’t mix. She ain’t like other people And he ain’t like them either.
She touches the wet ground, the dark mud. Her fingertips stained, she brings them to her mouth and sucks them dry. The rate of dirt mixed with water is smoothing. Again, she looks at the burial scene. She never cries. She likes to stand alone in the dark. She sleeps with her weapons and the taste of blood. She is never afraid. She smiles and touches the mud again. I’m ready is the only thought that comes to her mind now.
Tonight is our night. Oktavia takes one of her Shiriken, turns it over a little in her hand, brings it to her mouth, then climbs the gigantic tree.

Mykl Magus is in perfect control of his mind. A complete and silent control. He feels not the rain falling. He is above the elements. Memories have little effect on him. But his mind is set. They all had their minds set after the death of their beloved sensei was poisoned again. The story seems to repeat itself. Instantly, his mind says No. And for the first time in days, a smile appears at the corner of his mouth. The time has truly come. The ultimate battle. The one to solve all battles is being held tonight. They will come to conquer, but we will be waiting. With blood and pain we will thank them. They will get no decent burial. Suddenly he feels a soft touch. Something on his face and shoulder. He turns his face faster than any human can. His eyes are his leader’s eyes. He is surprised by his smile. Then she understands. Their inter connectivity is at its peak. Indeed, Mykl is right. The time has come. She closes her eyes at last. She tries to project the events that will take place later on. She can see herself, her 2-handed sword in hand, her face splashed with her enemies blood. Her dark hair falling across her face. The vision stops abruptly.
A hand is on her shoulder. A friendly hand. She opens her eyes and turns her head at the same time, allowing her face to dance a strange dance. Lucid Poetress is standing right beside the leader as she always does. As soon as ‘ eyes are filled with hers, Lucid whispers:
“It’s your turn master. The priest just finished. Your voice must be heard”
She looks around, and the familiar faces ease the pain a little. She walks toward the hole, the master’s new residence, closely followed by Lucid.

The kid doesn’t care.
Or does she?
She is crying, heavily but silently. She can’t control her emotions. She feels weak and lost. Her beauty doesn’t mean anything any more. She looks at the ground and keeps on weeping. She has no will left. No strength, and very little hope.
Her white and black hair, mixed with emotions and water make her look young and fragile. With tears as clear as a lost lake, and dark eye-liner, she is the XXX Emotional Kid. She is a little naïve. She likes birds and rats. The soft smell of her master is still present, comforting and guiding.
The music from Japan fills her head as her eyes close themselves. The childhood, her childhood, brutalized and raped, stolen from her. The cries and the blood, her head turns for the first time. The black veil and the powerful feeling that always follows. The carnage...
Who’s the next follower. And that sense of peace and achievement.
The light-haired woman walked closer to her. There was no fear. No pain, no tortured mind any more. Just a motion of peace. Only this white hand and a seriousness in the moment. And never a smile. The long voyage. The painful learning curve. The others and the challenging path to control. The never-ending white hand. Her face in her hair. The “I will always be there” which was never said. And at last, the control over the demon inside. The duality then, ceased to be an act of the devil. It had become a powerful friend. XXX Emotional Kid raises her head silently as is still talking and for the first time she can look the future in the eyes. No fear is left. Because, more than any others, she is the Berserker.

Listening
Listening and analyzing then acting.
A katana As sharp as a mind.
A leather coat.
An L and a P.
She liked to dance. Before...
Before Sarah.
Before Sarah and Mary.
No emotions left. Only a strength. The Strength.
Lucid can have many thoughts at once and can control them all.
To that extent she is unique. A fragile soul with a robust shield.
Devilicious has paused for a few seconds.
Lucid observes and stands.
The rain will never stop falling. The clouds are getting darker. The light will be obscured and cold very soon.
For an instant, the glittering music of the rain transports her to the faraway lands she likes so much. The huge yellow river. The people working in the fields. Her master walking beside her. The warmth. The little wind with its perfumes and white butterflies.
Lucid looks at the kid and shares her pain. She can heal people. She has this power, too.
As the kid raises her head, Lucid has done her work. Or part of it.
After tonight, it will finally be completed.

Part III: The Waiting Game
San Francisco November 18th 2003/1.03 am
If you were to step back, just few feet, you would certainly feel a mix of emotions, somewhere in between fear & anxiety.
At first, you would be lost. All your senses as sharp as you could allow them to be, tracking for some clues, any clues in that absolute dark room.
There would be no doubt that you would be in absolute survival mode.
After few minutes, your eyes would eventually notice some lighter parts, lighter shapes, moving shapes and silent ones. And then, nothing again.
It would be an absolute silence. And, as you would still feel the taste of unease & scares in your mouth, it would be, for the other occupants of the house, a time of reflection and peace, peace as in equal rights and justice, before the battle.
The six fighters would have six different ways of meditating, getting ready in harmony, harmony with one self & with the six.
The time before the change comes.

And all is real, all except the fact that you would never witness this.

Part IV: The Here & Now
San Francisco November 18th 2003/2.37 am
On the top left corner of the main dinning room, right where Sarah had those columns designed and crafted, on the top of the one which sustains the roof, Oktavia stands, invisible and deadly.
She had been trained in many different type of weapons, and even though, she had used them all at some point, she finally refined her choice to three main type of weapons, the dagger, or daggers should I say, shurikens & arrows. Lots of arrows...
And, even though she had used the bolas a great deal few years ago, she had completely stopped by now.
As it was already mentioned, she also had been trained in a way to kill at first sight. One shot, and the soul of the assailant rest in peace. But, along her some fifteen years of killing, she had developed a fine pleasure in killing who ever deserved it in a slow and painfully manner.
Just as if it was to illustrate the last comment, she had killed this Japanese man with many arrows. Few in his legs and arms, then as it turned violently, two more in his back, the last one piercing his throat from behind. Oktavia had smiled and noticed how much she loved wearing lipstick nowadays.
Out of the 12 men that she killed that night, only one managed to see her, for a split of a second, and the fear in his eyes was the symbol of a poisoned arrow piercing his heart.
Oktavia, really was invisible that night, and she wore it well...
Lucid, or Caroline, if one was using the name that was given to her at birth, only had one weapon. She always had only one, and she will always do.
A perfectly balanced Katana, with the blade so sharp, you could have cut smoke in two with it.
The weapon had been made especially for her in the cold mountains of China, and had the talent to turn Lucid’s healing power onto a dedicated weapon.
She had just killed the Japanese man, and the other was rushing towards her, stepping onto the dead body. Lucid was quiet, but alert. She knew, as the other was getting closer at terrible speed, that a third person was also closing behind her.
Faster than one could possibly wish, Lucid had thrown herself towards the other, and had started an infernal dance, dance where everything her blade touched would fall to the ground.
The other was the first one to experiment it. His two hands fell to the floor, and while he raised his eyes to see Lucid’s serious face, he also felt her blade cut wide open his own throat, and then, it was only darkness, as log as he could remember.
She had learn the dances with Mary, in India, when she was an early teenager. Her favourite was the dance where she had to turn very fast for very long, making colourful strikes of light with her blade shinning in the powerful sun of the driest season, a long time ago. She had danced many time with Mary, the two of them could dance the deadly steps, close enough to smell each other, and still, never provide any cuts.
That is the closest to love as Lucid as ever been.
She rapidly turned, using the power of her previous movement, and instantly, killed the third opponent, the one coming from behind her.
It always seemed to be, to feel the same. It all happens very fast, faster than a breath, but in Lucid’s mind, it goes very slow. She has the time to look at the wind made by the blade moving, she has time to notice the texture of the skin of the enemy, and she certainly has time to prepare her next move. This time is no different, but she also noticed how young the third man was, barely a man, more a child than anything else.
And, it is with infinite sadness, as she has become accustomed to, that she now moves towards the Kid...
And the Kid doesn’t care.
A cold wind has snapped the smell of blood out of her, and still, XXXEmotionalKid doesn’t care.
For a brief instant, everything is quiet again, the past joins the present, the perfumes of the thousands flowers swirl in compassion & understanding, the agenda is wide open, and there is a notion of happiness in the air.
The Kid has no preferences as far as the choice of weapon is concerned. She can use a sword, she can use a rope, she can also use her surrounding. She can use a sharp blade, she can use a bate, she can use a morning star, or even a chain saw.
She can use them all. But in the end, she can hardly remember how it went, and none of the details will survive. None, except for the last look in those eyes, and the insane satisfaction that always follow...
One could think that the four men were coming from behind, but one would then be wrong.
The kid had noticed the four shades on the pale wall, and had turned in a stormy movement.
Once, a lover who saw her fight, told her that, when she lost all control, when the “other” takes over, she still carries the same beauty of her face, with the exception of her mouth. Her lips become dark red and dry, the skin cracks and turns white, the smell is closer to blood than to softness of a summer kiss.
- “Of course it is”, had she replied, “It’s the cry for blood!”
And the four men were getting closer. And the Kid was getting closer too. In an instant, an almost magical instant, the black of her air married the white of her purest lines, the long Scimitar she had picked moving in a fast and wide circle, striking the first, then the second man in the abdomen.
The Kid was always the one who would get injured the most, because she could not fill any pain when the Berserker who lived in her took control.
The one who lived inside...
This time had been a little different, the Kid had been able to stay in absolute control almost for ten entire minutes. But then and again, what had to happen ended up happening. Once and again...
The third man had moved close enough to hit her ribs with his long and flexible rod. Before she could put herself in a position where she could prepare her next move, he had hit her again, on her left leg, with the part of his rod where was inserted a small and sharp blade, a scalpel. The blood rained on her leg, but no pain was there to be seen.
The fourth man was also coming closer, too closer and too fast. But by then, XXXEmotionalKid was able to counter attack the two men at once. Taking the opportunity that the third man had just hit her and used all of his strength in a movement in motion, she grabbed the back of his head, and pulled her entire body over both men, swirling in the meantime, and, cutting all of the ears and noses she could spot.
The two men dropped their weapons at once, and desperately tried to reach their faces with their hands.
But the kid was already running towards two other Japanese men, leaving behind her, four mutilated bodies...
With my bare hands.
Even Though The Kid could have been thinking so, it was a thought coming directly from The Magus.
The source of all Magic, the beginning of time, and all the answers.
Mykl started his training at the late age of 12. He was discovered by Mary while searching for the Food of the Gods in Mexico, right on the beach the child had made his own. Mykl still remember the colours of that day, with a lots of yellow and blue. And also, a touch of pink.
He had followed Mary and met Sarah.
He had spent years with her afterward, and silence had been his main ally. He had learned the ways of the invisibility, walking on the clouds and stepping on ice without even feeling it. He had grown into a fine young man, and had been one of the fieriest student. He had become the only man of this generation to participate on the sacred rituals Sarah always professed.
Then, the day of the marks arrived. Around his eyes, covering his forehead, the black tattoos were implemented, deep onto his skin, as the eternal mark of his present soul.
The man had jumped into his face, from nowhere, with a striking dagger. In the meantime, two other Japanese warriors were in motion to stop the Magus on his move.
The first jump was to paralyse the “alone” assailant, and with a swift turn, his neck was broken. The two others had almost reached him when the ring of his right hand became shivering. The blow the man took on his forehead was the last of his memory in this life. Blood splattered on the wall, velvety and thick, to end on the two paintings behind Mykl.
But this one had not stop his swirl motion. Coming back to his feet, the same right hand, the same right fist met with the last Japanese man. The blow on the chin so heavy and hard, his teeth cutting his own tongue in two, and the last fly of the bloody warrior who landed on the metal bench Sarah and mary had so meticulously chosen.
A breath, a second, and Mykl was already onto another man.
With my bare hands, did he suddenly think, I will kill as many as I can, with my bare hands.

The first ray of light was still nowhere to be seen, but the number of men laying on the floor, just like an unfinished puzzle, kept on growing, just like an almost completed painting.

Lucid sits down, she breathes slowly.
Dawn has made an appearance, and the morning is mysteriously quiet.
Lucid smiles.
The cuts on her arms and legs have disappeared. She hold her head straight and look at the horizon, the hills behind the buildings, the old factory beside the hills and the sweet smell of orange trees.
Is it her imagination?
Or is it the simple truth?
Lucid looks at Mykl and Oktavia taking care of the remaining corpses.
The van is almost filled.
In different circumstances, this would have been funny.
Mykl and Oktavia are too busy to notice Mary breeding XXXEmotinalKid’s hair.
The scene seems so natural, so peaceful... How can the ultimate revenge feel so good thought Mary in a blink.
But she smiles too.
XXXEmotinalKid looks tired, empty should I say. She has given it all, and from far, she had scored the highest number. The taste on her mouth is still made of blood and metal. Iron to be precise. But she doesn’t mind. She only focuses on Mary’s hands, the comb going up and down on her own black and white hair, the smell of the morning, and that surprising flavoured smell of orange trees.
- Are you OK? said Mary.
XXXEmotinalKid smiles again, and stays silent.
Epilogue
Part V: Remembrance
The child looks at the woman, the breeze reminding her of the spring, her blond hair floating in harmony.
There is no fear any more.
Li looks at her and his fingers softly touch the silky lines he already loves so much.

The woman throw her net, then bring it back.
She repeats the same gesture many many time.
Sarah doesn’t get bored looking at her over and over.
Li sits patiently, and wait.

Tonight, they will sleep in the poorest area of Shanghai, then they will be off to another continent.

Li smiles, at last.
The ocean facing them, they face the morning breeze, hand in hand, they face a new morning.