He cleared his throat and wiped his brow. Despite they were covered by the shade of the trees, it was still very hot and humid. He wished he had not arrived wearing all black. He cleared his throat again, but more pointedly, and the chatter started to die down. The odd woman on her own raised her view from the ground and fixed him with a steady cold stare.

‘I am assuming that you all know why you are here?’ The General glanced around hopefully as a few people nodded mutely, or muttered ‘yes’ under their breath. He drew in breath and continued to speak, his voice becoming more and more defiant.

‘We need to get rid of Takeshi! He is poisoning our country, polluting and corrupting the minds of every Japanese person! He and his Emerald Guard are a disease, and this disease has infected us! If we do not resist, if we do not try and cure the disease, we will fall prey to it! We cannot let that happen!’

Without waiting to see if his words had any effect on his people, he let out a war cry, signalling his company to go. He brandished his katana in the direction of Takeshi’s great wall and took off. His army followed, but less reluctantly than before, as though Tani’s words about being a cure had filled them with confidence. Many of the people ran straight up to the wall and grabbed it, pulling themselves up without any problems. Others had slightly more difficulty.

General Tani stood back, watching. He saw one man offer to help up the black clad woman, but she gave him a withering look and jumped, grasping the top of the wall easily. She pulled herself up and slid down the other side as though she practiced every day. Tani saw one woman trying to get up and failing miserably. He jogged over to her and grabbed her legs and lifted her up. She pulled herself over and flashed a smile at Tani.

He knew they had to be quick, other wise the Emerald Guard would become suspicious of a group of people hanging around the wall. He assisted many more of the less athletic over the wall before attempting to clamber over himself. He sheathed his katana and leapt up, gripping the top of the wall. With amazing upper body strength, he heaved himself up and brought one leg over the side of the wall and allowed himself to fall gently down the other side.

The first thing the General saw when he picked himself up was the massive crowd of uniformed henchmen starting towards them. Each one of them had a sword in their hands, and was they were approaching with a smug expression on their faces as though they knew that they were going to come off better in the battle.

Before General Tani could say anything, before he even opened his mouth, the Emerald Guard had scattered their terrified opponents, but still managing to catch the occasionally one unaware. He sprinted away from the wall, yelling and shrieking at the top of his lungs for his army to scatter, which they were doing.

There was a high ledge far off, where the Guards seemed to be coming from. It looked like a very, very large stair case, with square holes in, where another Emerald Guard would try and attack from. So far, they had disabled about twelve of Tani’s army. He ran on, speeding past the groaning figure of someone on the ground, too hurt to continue battling, or even worse, past a dead body. Someone who was nearly past the ambush was taking on five of the Guards, but with unbelievable speed, strength and ability, was not taking a single hit. This figure just moved around in a blur of black, obstructing any attack, that came her way. Tani had to admit, he was impressed.

Many of the Emerald Guard were becoming bored with their talentless prey and the novelty of defending the castle was starting to pall. A few were starting to join the huge struggle, turning five against one, into something more like ten on one. Tani’s army were scattered and had run for cover anywhere they could. No one had gone the safe route, the route that they were going to be taken through. Well, he was going to continue with his plan, taking as many survivors as possible with him.

He charged, and struck one Guard with his katana, catching him right through his ribcage. In mere seconds, he was surrounded. But he was not worried. Tani felt confident that he could take these Guards. Both him and the pale woman were trapped in a ring of Guards. She was nursing several wounds, but none of them seemed to want to fight her anymore. They were now too busy watching how the General would cope. She tried to break free, but could not destroy the grasp the Guards had on one another. She gave in, weakened horribly and turned to Tani as well.

General Tani held his katana tightly in his hand and smiled at the Emerald Guards. He greeted one in the cheerful manner that friends might use, as though this whole thing was an amusing day trip. One Guard stepped forwards, holding his own sword out. The circle was reformed quickly. Tani and the Guard started to move, circling around one another, swords raised. The Guard had an ugly grimace on his face, and the General was still smiling. Without warning, the Guard attacked.

Tani was struck across the face as the cold metal blade was whipped through the air. He lunged forwards and the Guard dodged. Tani flailed his sword madly, missing each time. His opponent swung his sword at Tani’s neck. Just before his head would have parted from his shoulders, the katana sprung up and locked. He fought to disarm the Guard, but neither of them could do a thing. They were both red in the face, and sweating. They both put in a tremendous amount of effort, but Tani could feel his energy fading away. His opponent definitely had a killer instinct. Tani was crouched down, with his sword over his head, and the Guard was standing upright, trying to knock his sword out of the way, their weapons still locked. Finally, Tani gave in and the Guard took a heavy swipe and knocked his sword clean out his hands. He tried to stand up, but fell backwards again, and rolled out the way just as his would-be murderer thrust the point of his sword down. As the sword embedded itself in the ground, Tani seized the energy to grab his katana again, burst through the circle, snatch at the woman’s wrist and pulled her as far away from the Guards as possible.

She wrenched her wrist from him and climbed up, kicking anyone in the square gaps while still continuing her way upwards. Tani made his way up behind her, blood dripping down his cheek. She steadily made her way down a muddy slope and came up to a door. She could hear Tani muttering angrily under his breath, and when she turned away from the door to look at him, he was holding his wound and trying to stem the flow of blood. He looked up and she smiled sympathetically before opening the door. As she started to go through it, she was surprised to find Tani had pulled her back.

‘What? I thought this was the way we were meant to go?’ she hissed.

‘Yes, but I do not think it would be a good idea to go marching in. There are more Guards in there, you know.’ replied Tani.

‘Well, there’s a newsflash.’

She snarled as Tani tugged her away from the door again.

‘Do you know what is waiting through there?’ asked Tani, keeping his voice low. ‘It’s...a kind of maze through there. You need to get from one side to the other, obviously, through the door that leads to dry land. Just be careful, don’t loose your head.’

The woman gave the General a look which plainly said ‘I could have worked that out for myself.’ He spoke again as she started to open the door for the third time.

‘What is your name?’

‘Why so interested?’

‘I am trying to be friendly to an impossible person, if you do not mind me saying so.’

‘Thank you.’

‘That was not actually meant to be a compliment.’

‘I thought you wanted to know my name?’

‘Yes.’

‘Give me a chance to answer then. I’m Midian.’

Before the General could say anything else, the woman called Midian pushed opened the door and walked purposefully through.

The walls were a horrible pale pink colour, but what really threw Midian was that the shape of the room was hexagonal. It was like walking in a giant honeycomb. She heard Tani quietly close the door behind her and carefully make his way further through the maze. Midian kept close to him, trusting his judgement, until he walked straight into two waiting Emerald Guards.

They were both of a muscular build. One had his face heavily painted and had long wild red hair. He shouted as Tani and Midian stumbled into their hiding place and ran towards them. The other one was a bald man, with a black symbol painted on the top of his head. He made his way to Tani, while Midian kept the red haired freak at bay.

She kicked up high, catching her enemy on the chin. His head shot back, almost snapping. While he was trying to force some life back into his body, Midian grabbed him by his hair and tossed him bodily out of another door, where he fell through and into a pool of water.

Tani was wrestling with the bald Guard. She tried to work out who had the advantage over who, but they seemed quite evenly matched. Midian came dashing to the Guard and leapt at him. She brought her feet up and seized the Guard around the neck with one arm, before cascading to the ground. He landed on his face, shouting obscenities into the ground.

Midian forced her way out of the maze by kicking the walls, seeing which one was a door, and what was not. Tani tapped her on the shoulder and pointed. He had found the door to dry land, while she was still attempting to bring the whole of the maze down. To Tani’s surprise, she gently flushed red and smiled.

What lay ahead filled Midian with curiosity. A contraption of platforms, bridges and walls lay ahead of them, looking desperately innocent. Tani moved in front of her and walked to the edge of the first platform. He beckoned to Midian who followed, but with a certain amount of reluctance. As soon as they both set foot onto the first circular platform, the narrow bridge attached to it started to move. Tani pulled Midian onto the bridge and walked to the end. She realised now, that it was set out as a kind of physical puzzle. They obviously had to walk to the bridge, step onto the next bridge which was moving in a different direction and get to the second circular platform without crashing into the two walls. It seemed impossible.

While waiting for the two bridges to meet, she wondered what would happen if they fell off. She looked down...

...before gasping and grabbing the General’s arm to prevent herself from falling off backwards in her horror of what she had just seen. Staring up at her from the ground was hundreds, if not even thousands of sharp spikes.

Midian saw that the first wall was looming up, as was her imminent death. She could just refuse to move, get knocked off by the wall and die painfully, or she could follow the insane General over the small gap onto the next bridge, losing her balance and falling off anyway. Life always threw up choices, but this time, it was a choice of how to die.

Tani grasped her hand and stepped forwards. Midian could see nothing else to do but to allow him to tug her across. She got one foot on the platform, but over balanced before getting steadily on the tiny bridge. As she started to fall into the bed of spikes, Tani seized her around the waist and pulled her completely upright.

She had to admit, she was surprised. She never would have thought that General Tani would risk his own life just to save one of his volunteers. But then she remembered being told about him a while back. He always felt strongly about things, regardless of whether it was a negative feeling or a positive feeling. Where a normal person would dislike, he would hate, yet also where a normal person liked, he would love.

He seemed to think of the people in his army as brothers and sisters. If anyone was hurt, he would stay right by their side, looking after them, never leaving them until he was certain they were fine and back to full health again. At these thoughts, Midian could not help but to feel slightly more friendly towards him, as some of her automatic distrust and dislike for anyone she did not know faded away. General Tani urged her to move quickly, before they were propelled into the spikes by the wall, which had loomed up out of nowhere. She jumped off the bridge and onto sturdy ground once more, feeling utterly relieved. Just before she set off again, she turned back and gave the spikes one last anxious stare. She could not believe that she had survived.

‘Um.. thank you...for....helping me back there.’ muttered Midian. She kept her gaze on the ground, embarrassed at what she had said. Being the anti-social woman that she was, she rarely needed to use phrases like ‘thank you’

‘You’re welcome.’

Midian looked up and saw that Tani was smiling at her, apparently pleased with what he had just heard. Moving onwards, Midian and General Tani saw two Emerald Guards. She raised her fists, but they did not seem to be about to come after them.

There was a set of stairs which attached to a rickety bridge. Enough with the bridges already, thought Midian. She felt thoroughly exasperated. Next to the stairs, the ground sloped down very slightly. At the bottom was an odd contraption. It was barely anything more than a metal chute. On the ground was a bag full of large golden balls. Midian saw that the two Emerald Guards were standing by the same machine, but they had heavy black balls with them. The sight only filled Midian with the unmistakable feeling of foreboding.

It would be very difficult to get across the bridge without being distracted by the two Emerald Guards, since they were wearing long multicoloured robes and black hats. Midian thought they looked extremely stupid.

‘So, what the hell do we do here?’ she asked.

‘I need to shoot one of these golden balls at you, and you need to get across the bridge and to the other side with it. You shall see a shut door with a sphere shaped orifice, and that’s where the golden ball goes.’ explained Tani. He walked down to the machine and picked up one of the balls. Midian made her way up the staircase and onto the bridge. It wobbled dangerously, but it did not deter her.

She carefully side stepped along the bridge and motioned to the General to send a gold sphere her way. He placed it into the chute and pushed it along, where it burst out of the other side. He was horrifically accurate, and Midian was just glad that he was on her side, and not with the Emerald Guards.

As she caught the golden ball, the Guards started to fire. The first heavy black sphere zipped over her head; she ducked ever so slightly to avoid it. She continued to side step along and the second ball came whizzing through the air, and caught her in the pelvic region. Her mouth dropped open as she tried to call out. The third shot through the air and plunged into her stomach. She could see out of the corner of her eyes, General Tani wincing as he watched her being pummelled.

Midian could feel the power of gravity tugging her off the bridge as the fourth attack struck her squarely in the face. She slipped backwards yet was able to keep a hold of the edge of the bridge with both hands. The golden ball rolled off the bridge. A sudden inspiration came to Midian and she shimmied along the bridge. The Emerald Guards still fired at her, but each ball was deflected by her foot as she kicked them away.

Once she reached three quarters of the way across the bridge, she pulled herself up, using the same method as she did on the great wall, except this time, there was no one else to try and offer her a hand. Not that she needed help. General Tani was just about able to send her another gold ball. Midian moved forwards ominously but was able to grasp the ball as though it was her life.

She walked peacefully along the bridge instead of sidestepping along. She felt she was doing alright, until one deadly accurate shot from one of the rainbow coloured Guards slowed her down. The large black ball collided painfully with her shoulder. A loud crack tore through the air, and she screamed blue murder. Almost dropping her second ball, she staggered to the other side of the bridge, where she slumped to the ground, keeping one eye on the ball, and the other eye on the General, who was starting to make his way across the bridge. She cradled her left arm with her right. White hot pain was still travelling through her shoulder and down her arm. It felt as though her shoulder blade had shattered from the impact with the ball.

Tani was having slightly more luck than Midian was, but he only had to worry about getting across himself. He did not have to worry about making sure he still had a golden ball in his grasp. As he came to the end of the bridge, he fell flat on his stomach as a ball flew over the top of his head, skimming his hair. He got up and made his way over to Midian, who was breathing heavily and still clutching her shoulder. He placed the golden ball into its orifice and then helped her up. He asked her what the matter with her arm was.

‘It feels like my shoulder blade has cracked, at the best.’ she replied. He felt her shoulder and her upper arm, and then raised it and yanked sharply. There was another loud cracking noise, and Midian howled in pain.

‘It was just a dislocated shoulder. It should be alright now.’

‘Alright? That hurt you b-’ Midian stopped in mid insult when she realised that her shoulder was no longer hurting. She no longer felt white hot pain travelling through her.

‘Yes?’ asked Tani, grinning innocently.

Midian shook her head.

‘Never mind.’

Through the door was yet another strange sight. She saw five Emerald Guards. In a moment’s lapse of mind, she gasped and gripped Tani’s arm. She realised that none of the Guards were attacking, and she drew away from the General, feeling immensely stupid with herself. Each one was standing inside a large coloured ring. Off to one side was a box standing alone on a table. General Tani moved her over to it, gazing at the Guards as they walked past. They all wore the thongs that she had seen on sumo wrestlers, but luckily, only one of them was large enough to be a proper sumo wrestler. The only exception to the sumo costumes was one man standing inside a light blue ring. He was clearly a member of the Emerald Guard with a sense of humour as he stood in his ring wearing a huge and humorous potato costume. Midian snorted when she saw him and walked past.

Tani leant against the box and told Midian to pull out one of the coloured balls from inside, which would indicate who she was to fight. She reached in and her hand found one right down near the bottom. She grabbed it and pulled it out of the box. Tani took it from her, his expression filled with horror and glanced from it, back to Midian and to the ball again. It was green.

‘What? Is that bad?’

‘Judge for yourself.’

She looked at the assembled Emerald Guards and saw the man in the green ring. He wore a green sumo thong and a lightweight but tight green top and trousers.

‘Could have been worse. Could have been Mr Blobby.’ muttered Midian, motioning to the large wrestler.

‘Well, yes, it could have,’ said Tani dismissively. ‘But Animal is still fairly bad.’

‘How do you know his name?’

‘I’ve...studied Count Takeshi and his Emerald Guards. I know quite a fair bit about them.Õ Midian almost missed the delicate stress Tani put on the word ÔstudiedÕ. She could tell that he definitely felt raw emotions like hatred more strongly than was strictly necessary.

Midian mentally shrugged and walked over to Animal. He rolled his shoulders and shook his head before facing her. He snatched up a handful of salt and tossed it into the ring. Midian followed suit. They both crouched down, one hand on the ground, staring at one another. Someone signalled they could start by blowing a whistle. They met in the middle of the ring, shoving each other around to try and outdo one another.

Animal gave Midian a rough shove backwards and she stumbled, but kept her balance. She looked back briefly and saw that the General was watching her battle in anticipation, as though whether she won would decide if he could conquer Takeshi. Facing forwards again, she saw that Animal was right in front of her, standing so close he was almost on her feet. Before she realised what was happening, he had placed his hands on the back of her knees and had lifted her up and was carrying her to the edge of the ring. She balled her fist and collided it across Animal’s face. Stunned, he dropped her, so all she had to do was grab one arm and throw him out of the ring. A few seconds later, he was falling over the edge, but was determined to bring Midian with her. She broke his grip and he tumbled backwards.

Tani made his way over to her, but taking a detour around the large man, who looked as though he would like nothing more than to embed his fist in Tani’s skull. He congratulated Midian on her win and then guided her past.

ÔI wonder what deadly and harrowing task awaits us now?’ said Midian, only with a slightest hint of sarcasm. Tani rolled his eyes.

They came to a part of the castle security by a coast. Midian saw a thin metal rail and a pink board attached to it. She saw on the side of the rail an arrow somewhere near the end. She gave General Tani an inquiring look.

‘You have to slide on that board-’ he pointed to the pink thing just in front of them. ‘- and push off with enough force to travel to the arrow at the end, but not too much force, or else you will fall off the other end.’

This sounded harmless enough to Midian.

‘What’s the catch? Let me guess, if you fall off and end up into the water, you become swamped by piranha fish and eaten?’

The General smiled mirthlessly. There was no humour in this task.

‘All I am going to say is that, well, you do not want to know. Trust me.’

Midian sighed and jogged to the board. She threw herself on it and it started to move. She wished she had not been so hard, as she was approaching the end way too fast. But just as she gave up hope of staying dry, she slowed down and landed directly on the arrow. Taken unaware, she lifted herself upwards and stepped off onto a platform to one side. She gave the board a hard shove back so General Tani could get past this task as well.

She watched as he ran up and landed on the board on his knees. He had moved it far too hard. Midian stepped backwards as he zoomed past and chucked himself off the board sideways. As it met with the water, something came nearer the surface, and what Midian thought was a shadow broke the surface of the water and snapped the board into pieces with huge and jagged teeth.

‘See what I meant? Much better not to know.’

Midian nodded mutely, staring wide eyed at the tiny bits of pink floating to the surface.

They walked along the small platform, the dark shadow following their every movement, hoping that they would loose their footing and fall in.

‘Just one more task we have to complete, and then we come to the castle. I suppose it’s lucky really. If everything had gone right, and he had not been scattered by the Emerald Guard, we’d still be trying to get through..…’ he paused while he tried to think. ‘Bridge Ball.’ Midian looked at him in amazement. He nodded.

After roughly five minutes of searching for the next task, they arrived at a large and deep swamp. Tani walked to the edge of the ledge, peering down at the sheer drop. Up above them, in the trees was a rope that had been tied to a branch. He lowered his gaze and glanced around and saw that they would have to swing, almost in a complete circle and time their landing just right to get onto the other end of the drop. He turned to face Midian, who seemed to have gone even more pale, which was almost impossible, as she was already as white as a ghost.

‘Have you figured out what we have to do?’ he asked, his voice coming out softly. She nodded, never taking her eyes off the large drop.

As she stared down, she felt her head spinning and came over all dizzy. It was like looking at a gorge. She took a step back and shut her eyes as the feeling of anxiety, and a love for a life she did not want taken away from her sank further into her mind. She felt the General’s hand on her chin as he raised her head. She opened her eyes and jerked her head away from his hand. He stared at her, his other hand clutching at the rope.

‘Shall we do this together, or one at a time?’

She let out a snort.

‘You really want to kill us both?’

‘Fine. I’ll go first.’ snapped Tani. Midian noted that he sounded angry.

She watched as the General grasped at the rope with both hands and kicked off, away from the ledge. He swung gracefully around, soaring through the air. As the other side of the swamp drew nearer, he allowed the rope to slip through his fingers. Midian watched as he plunged downwards, feeling a painful clench in her stomach, which she knew had to do with her worry.

General Tani’s feet landed directly onto his target. He sank to his knees with the momentum of his movement, but straightened up again almost instantly. He risked a smile at Midian and threw the rope back to her. She caught it, looking as though she had just received a heavy blow around the face. She copied what Tani had done and flew through the air. The rush of wind against her face, and through her hair was actually quite peaceful. She kicked her legs forwards to give herself a boost and launched herself off the rope.

Her fingernails grazed the edge of the drop and she started to fall, gravity pulling at her, tugging her down. The General threw himself flat on the ground and snatched at her wrists, gripping one hand. Midian screamed as their grasp on one another started to loosen. She gripped Tani’s hand with both of hers, almost cutting off the circulation in his entire arm.

With amazing strength and determination, Tani raised his chest off the ground with his other arm, and pulled the woman up, calling out as he did. It was extremely hard work. Tani had his feet against the ledge, standing straight, but slightly diagonally, tugging Midian up. She struggled to get up, and once she was, the pair fell backwards. The General landed on his back, and Midian had crashed down on top of him. She hurriedly got to her feet and muttered another ‘thank you’ before setting off again.

‘I don’t think I remember seeing you this worried earlier.’ pointed out Tani.

‘Well,’ started Midian. ‘Seeing all these traps of spikes and huge falls has made me realise that...I don’t particularly want to die.’

They carried on in silence for a moment.

‘You mean you did before?’ he asked gently.

‘It’s more of a case of I didn’t care.’

Tani muttered ‘oh’ and decided to drop this unparticularly cheerful topic of conversation. Guiding the woman further, he saw several other figures ahead. In a group in front of him, were the survivors of Takeshi’s gruelling tasks. They had obviously taken many different routes, and judging by the way some of them were nursing bloody wounds, they had ran into the path of the murderous Emerald Guard. The occasional person smiled happily at the sight of General Tani, but many of them looked unhappy. Midian counted them up and realised with a stab of horror that that, including her and the General, there were only nine of them surviving to storm the castle.

They were in a small enclosed area, with only one way on; through a large pipe and clambering out of the other end. Tani strode over to it, motioning for his ever so small army to follow.

The group of nine fought their way through and climbed out the other end. Tani waited, helping them out. One woman almost fell over. He took her hands, gave her an encouraging smile and moved her aside so the next volunteer could get through. At the very end of the nine came Midian. She vaulted out, ignoring the help that General Tani was offering.

‘Show off,’ he muttered, grinning at her. He was very surprised to see that he got a smile in return.

Five men were making their way towards them. They all wore the same uniform, except for the man in the middle. The Emerald Guards wore white helmets, with pink and yellow stripes running down the sides, and green-blue trousers and top, also with the same coloured stripes. On their feet were yellow boots.

The person in the middle was wearing light coloured orange robes. Midian noticed that he was the only one who was not armed. The Emerald Guards were all equipped with swords at their belts. As they were drawn, Tani took out his own, and saw a tall and muscular built man whip out his kunai and holding it up, as though was about to make a gory over arm thrust into the ribcage of a Guard. None of the rest of them had any sort of weapon. Midian felt rather vulnerable without anything to protect herself but before she could say anything to Tani about it she found that he was screaming.

Midian stared at him as he continued to bellow, pointing the blade of his katana at the Guards and Takeshi himself. He charged, as did everyone else. She ran forwards, seized a Guard around the neck and brought his head back sharply. She was rewarded with a gruesome crack. As the body slumped to the ground, she snatched the sword out of his hands.

The woman stood back for a minute, surveying the scene. She would have thought that they could be victorious easily. Nine against four, the Guards did not stand a chance. But now, it was almost level. No more Guards had been killed. It had shrank to five against four. Tani flailed his katana around in his attempt to hit Takeshi who was moving with such speed General Tani always missed his target spectacularly.

She saw the woman who General Tani helped out of the tube back away from the Guard fighting her. She let out a gasp as he came towards her. He took a rough step forwards, making the poor woman think he was about to try and grab her. She jerked out of the way, before figuring that he was trying to scare her. He did it again, and the woman tried to get out of the way again. As he did the same thing for the third time, she stood standing, staring. This time, the Guard really did lunge forwards. He grabbed her upper arms and turned her round, so she had her back to him. He grasped her hair and pulled her head back as though about to slit her throat. Her mouth was open slightly as through trying to scream. The Guard’s sword descended. Midian heard the sickening sound of blood hitting the ground. The Guard tugged the blade of his sword out of the woman’s throat and out of her mouth, before heading towards Midian, before attempting to do the same thing to her.

As the Guard rushed her, she threw out one arm and caught the Guard’s hand. They fought over the sword, grappling with each other and punching whatever they could find. Midian felt something cold and metallic brush past her arm as the Guard made a fresh attempt to pull his katana free. Midian struck the man with her knee in the mid section. He crumpled to the ground in pain. She made to cut his head off, but she was jumped from behind. She cascaded to the ground, and saw that the only survivors were her and Tani. But it looked as though neither of them would be alive soon. Another Guard approached her, and two crept up behind Tani.

She thrust out one arm to the side and found the kunai one of the men was clasping. She grasped it and shot upright, the knife in one hand and the sword in the other. The Guard kicked up, sending the kunai flying out of her hand. She body swerved around the Guard and ran to help Tani, who was now wrestling with the ones that tried to jump him. Takeshi stayed back, out of reach.

Both Midian and Tani turned to face all four of the remaining Guards. The Count Takeshi saw his chance and grabbed it. If it could have been a real person, Takeshi would have seized it by the throat. He struck the General around the back of the neck, coming close to a killing blow. Midian let out a scream of horror as he slumped to his knees. She was on her own.

The Emerald Guards closed in on her, surrounding her. One had picked up the kunai that had been kicked out of her hands. As they all rushed her at once, Midian moved her katana around, striking the Guards with force, but unable to cause any lasting damage, only able to keep them at bay for a few minutes while they recovered. The Guard that she unarmed punched her around the face. She felt her head snap sideways from the force of the blow. He said something hurriedly and caught the kunai, which whizzed past her head. Before she could fully recover from her attack, the blade of the kunai was rushed towards her, guided by the Guard. She swerved out of the way, but not fast enough. The blade sank into her injured shoulder from getting across the rickety bridge, the serrated edge tearing at her flesh. She let out a scream of agony as blood poured from her wound. She moved jerkily away from the Guards, trying to get herself into a position that would be slightly advanteous to her in her situation.

She held her breath and pulled out the kunai, determined to keep breathing, determined not to pass out from the pain. She threw it. It was a very accurate throw, and travelling at speed. The Guard she had aimed at did not have any time to move, or react in any way before the point cracked his skull and forced its way through.

He fell backwards to the ground, the hilt of the small knife sticking out of his face. The other three started towards her again, all raising their weapons. Midian risked a glance back and saw Takeshi looking, watching her battle as though amused. She gave him a hard stare and turned back to the Guards, who had just lunged forwards as she turned back. She rolled to the side, dodging the thrust from the Guard. Getting to her feet, she struck the men with her fists. She tossed her sword into the air and catching it by the blade before clubbing another Guard around the head. He collapsed, unconscious.

The last two Guards faced her, ready for any attack she might throw. One ran at her, bellowing, with his katana raised high. He brought it down, trying to hit Midian on her head. She caught it in her hands, holding it by the blade in her palms. She pulled on the blade, bringing the Guard near to her. She then turned the blade inwards, still in its owners hold, and pushed it in. The blade tore its way through the Guard’s chest, impaled in his heart. She ripped the sword out again and looked at the last man. Before he even sucked in one more breath, he found his knees meeting the ground with a blood red wound running around his neck.

Midian sprinted over to the fallen figure of General Tani and sat him up. She shook his shoulders, yelling at him, screaming at him to wake up. She saw his eyelids flicker, but they stayed shut and so she slapped him around the face with all the strength she could muster. He awoke as though a foghorn had been sounded inside his head and stared around at the scene of the battle. He saw all the shed blood, all the bodies, Midian still alive, and also...Takeshi. He got up and renewed his hold on the handle of his trusty weapon.

Takeshi moved one hand behind his back to the bright orange belt around his waist and also drew out a katana. He ran under Tani’s sword, behind Midian before she could stop him and placed his sword at her throat, forcing her own sword to the ground. He threatened to slit her throat, if Tani did not stop attempting to kill him. General Tani did not move, but simply stared deeply into Midian’s eyes. The cold metal blade pressed harder into her throat.

‘Takeshi, there is no point in saying you will kill Midian. There would be no point to it if you did. This is between you and me. This does not involve anyone else. Not Midian, not your Emerald Guards, nobody.’ said Tani. He managed to keep his voice steady, and met the Count’s stare head on.

When the Count did not release Midian, she shoved one elbow back, deep into Takeshi’s torso. Winded, he backed off, glaring at her. The General rested one hand on her shoulder and gently guided her as far away from the fight without being too far away from Takeshi.

‘This fight does not need you yet.’ he whispered. Midian gave him a look.

‘When will it?’

‘It only will if I die.’

General Tani moved away from Midian without letting her speak and stopped in front of Takeshi. They started to fight. The General blocked high, then low, he ducked and jumped. He could not get a chance to attack his foe, and swiped the sword out of Takeshi’s hands. The General ran behind him as he groped for his katana to try and strike him from behind. When Takeshi grasped his weapon again, he swung the sword at Tani’s neck, who defensively raised his own, blocking the attack. The two swords locked. In a flash, both of them, red in the face and sweating, tried in vain to out do each other. Takeshi swung his sword free, letting it fly through the air at Tani’s head. He ducked and pulled his leg round to trip him up. He looked down at the fallen Count and heard him say, very softly,

‘You really think you can beat me?’

General Tani sharply moved his sword down.

‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

THE END