HOME | DD

Description
Mist and darkness...
The forest was filled with it.
The silence...
It was as a grave.

Two souls dwelt there as the moon hung in the sky, barely visible through the suffocating trees. It's light dimmed by the mist that hung as close as ink on a brush.

As though misplaced in the darkness, two lights pierced the shroud as vibrantly as a waking sun, two blades, each holding the light of the moon perfectly within their steel. Lit by the reflection, the two figures that stood in perfect stillness looked as restless spirits, playing at a vestige of life. Yet to speak of them as spirits would be an affront, spirits no longer held to honor in endless death, but honor is what drove these men. Both stood, readying themselves, each thinking of honor to be gained and honor to be lost, each preparing to meet the other's blade with the graceful kiss of his own.

Both knew that soon, as the moon reached its climax, the forest would take one of them and make itself his grave.

One figure opened his eyes, eyes that had been trained to penetrate the darkness and guide the blade Jota to its mark. In the darkness those eyes saw Saito, the blade that stood against his honor.

It was Takeshi who stood with his eyes searching the darkness and it was Takeshi who held Jota.

The wind shifted almost imperceptibly alerting Takeshi of the one that held Saito. Alerting Takeshi that he too was now being watched through the darkness. As Takeshi watched, the one named Shigeru, raised his blade and changed his stance showing Takeshi that he was ready.

Takeshi wasted no time. Raising his blade he launched off one foot, throwing fallen leaves into the air and sending himself like a crow towards Shigeru and his Saito. With the dance started Shigeru Shifted his position and gracefully parried the attack, Takeshi used the shift in his momentum to bring himself down to the left of Shigeru, hoping to get through his guard.

Shigeru was a master of the blade and watched every fold of Takeshi's robe flutter like a hundred wings as he landed beside him. Shigeru, prepared for Jota, rolled his blade around in his hand making a shallow sweep at Takeshi's middle. He was not expecting Saito to find its mark with the blow yet, as the dance was much too young, both blades had far too much energy to fail now. So surely Jota met the sweep with its own perfect arc.

The blades sung a whispered chorus with each other, a chorus of death and honor, blood and grace. It was no longer Takeshi and Shigeru, but Jota and Saito that danced, for the sword and the swordsman were one, the blade a mere extension of the warriors own will. The blades song rose and fell, quickened and slowed, both attempting to outdo the other and bring ruin upon its foe. The darkness of the forest lit by the cacophony of the dance within its silence.

The dance whispered so perfectly that the mist itself was severed and the blades shone with further intensity. Flashes of light played across the trees, depicting in violent grace, memories of both blade's and both warrior's lives.