BLADE SOUL ONLINE

MEMOIR 9

"C'mon Kishin, you're way too slow!" A girl who was clad in white armour called out to a boy who was following her up a hill. She had short teal hair with a floral hairpin holding up her bangs.

"I'm a White Mage, there's no way I can keep up with a Gladiator like you!" A White Mage with silver-blue hair walked to her, using his staff as a sort of crutch. He wore a cotton robe that didn't seem suitable in that seemingly glary hill.

"Excuses, excuses." The girl put her hands on her hips haughtily. "We're almost there, geez! You can't give up now!"

"I'm almost worn out, I don't think I can make it Asagi..." The boy's consciousness started to dissipate as his body almost failed on him. Just before he finally fell face first on the ground, the girl slung his right arm over her shoulders.

"There, there..." Asagi gave him a supporting smile. "Just a little bit more."

The two of them walked up the hill slowly. Asagi's armour was rattling as the metals on it constantly smacked against one another. After a while, they finally got to the top where there was a vast flower field. Asagi let go of Kishin and allowed him to fall face first onto the field.

Kishin rolled onto his back as Asagi sat beside him. "So this is what you wanted to show me this whole while?"

"Don't act like it isn't impressive!" Asagi puffed up her cheeks as she pointed at a gargantuan tree that stretched beyond the clouds that was far from the two. "Just look at the Mana Tree from here!"

"... It's all just graphics and pixels." Kishin uttered with boredom. "Nothing special about it."

"But it's so realistic and beautiful isn't it?" Asagi elbowed the White Mage who was lying down on his back.

"... You win this round." Kishin sat up as he rubbed the spot he got elbowed at.

"How long do you think we're going to have to stay here?" Asagi suddenly had a melancholic tone of voice. "To be honest... I'm scared of dying. I became a gladiator so I can fight to stay alive but... Everytime I get hit by a monster, death just rears its ugly head closer to me. We can't log out and if we die here... We die in real life. Why would anyone make a game this beautiful like that?"

"Everyone's scared of dying, Asagi." Kishin tried to muster a comforting tone. "But don't let it get to you. Once we beat this game, we can finally go back to our normal lives. And once we do, I want to see you, the real you."

Asagi let out a gasp. "B-But! I-I'm not as pretty as this avatar! Really!"

"I doubt that." Kishin sneered at her. "The system made it so our avatars match how we perceive ourselves in the mirror. So I sure know you look somewhat like this. Even if you don't, I still want to meet you."

"I want to meet you too..." Asagi looked away shyly. "If you weren't here for me to heal me and consult me, I don't even know where I'd end up. So... Let's beat this game together alright?"

][-:-][

CanardWing Guild, located in the streets of the town of Czechoslovkia. Rather well renowned for their spirit of altruism in assisting new players to grab hold of the basics of the game and also for consulting those in need. It is however, not as strong as many other guilds and tends to look for help from other guilds in case of an attack.

"Uuuuu!" A pink-haired young girl with cat ears grumbled at a Swordsman clad in a black coat. "Kishin-kun, you're so mean! I thought we agreed that we were going on a quest alone together today!"

"Sorry Mia." The Swordsman ruffled his silver-blue hair. "I was planning to, but Akane decided to tag along with us. She found out."

"Hmph, you naughty girl." A voluptuous woman in a yukata which bared her cleavage folded her arms in such a way that it made her chest much more noticeable. "To think that such an innocent looking girl would resort to such manners for attention. Kishin-kun prefers much more mature woman, am I wrong?" She wrapped her hands around his arm and pressed her breasts against it.

"Hey!" Mia followed suit as she pressed her rather lacking chest toward his arm. "Kishin-kun prefers cuter girls rather than old hags right?"

"Shut it you!" Akane snapped at her angrily.

"Stop it you two..." Kishin sighed as a sweat rolled down his cheek. "Let's just go on this quest together, no quarrelling okay?"

"Uuu..." Mia let go of him and rubbed onto her midriff which was bared for all to see. "Why do you have to be such a playboy? I could have sworn I saw you going on quests with like seven different girls before this... Keep to a girl, will you?"

"It's not my fault, I swear, I only tried to help be nice to them like how a member of CanardWing should and then... Well..." Kishin scratched his cheek briefly. "I don't wanna talk about this."

"That's fine by me really..." Akane said with a seductive tone as she let a tickling breath on Kishin's earlobe. "I don't actually mind sharing you around."

"Will you three please hurry up?" The clerk operating the counter asked with a gruff tone. He pointed behind them. "You're holding up the line."

"Sorry..." Kishin uttered with modest tone.

The three of them stepped forward to the counter. Kishin was then handed a list of quests that he was qualified to participate in with Mia and Akane. He noted each and every quest's difficulty and reward.

As he skimmed the list, Mia tried to make conversation. "Say, Kishin-kun, did you know you share a name with another Kishin, the Fullmetal Reaper?"

Kishin flinched for a moment when he heard that name. "I... I heard of him."

Mia ignored his strange reaction to the name. "Well, they say he's a soulless PK who kills players en masse without mercy nor remorse. Clad from head to toe in white armour, he's the only player using the 'Reaper' class in existence."

A gruff voice of a young man called out from nearby the three. "Fullmetal Reaper huh?" They turned to the voice to see a hooded young man in a ragged cloak. His face was obscured with only his lips being visible under the hood and he held magic staff which was rested on his shoulder. "I'm actually looking for that guy. Do you three know anymore?"

"Ah, sorry." Mia apologised to him. "We're about to go on a quest."

"Actually, you can come with us if you don't mind, we'll tell you what we know." Kishin grinned at him. "Besides, four members in a party are better than three right?"

"Aww, but don't you think being alone with two girls is more exciting...?" Akane rubbed his hand flirtingly.

"I can stay here and wait for the three of you to be done with your quests." The hooded young man stated. "But just be quick."

"It's fine, really." Kishin signalled at him to follow with a nice grin. "You can come with us. We'll tell you what we know."

"So... Four people?" The clerk asked with an unamused voice.

"Four people." The hooded young man repeated with a nod.

][-:-][

The four of them walked out the city gates together in a group, the hooded young man following the three from behind as the girls held Kishin's arms.

"Hey." Mia looked behind at the young man. "You never gave us your name."

"You never gave me your name either you little bi-" The young man stopped his sentence before the swear word came out. Luckily for him, Mia didn't seem to hear it.

"I'm Mia." Mia looked at him with a cat smile. "A Thief."

"Akane." Akane said to him. "I'm a Black Mage."

Kishin got away from the girl's grasps and turned around to the young man as he walked backwards. "I'm a Swordsman, Kishin."

"Hm?" They could somehow feel the young man raise his eyebrow.

"Ah, just so you know, I'm not the Fullmetal Reaper..." A sweat rolled down Kishin's cheek. "I'm just an ordinary Swordsman, I used to be a White Mage before this though. But I got a class change because it wasn't my style."

"Yeah, Kishin-kun would never hurt another player, he's just nice like that." Mia tossed herself at Kishin. "The Fullmetal Reaper doesn't have a soul or heart. The guy's just pure evil. Every player of this game knows full well that if a player dies here, we die in the real world and yet he slaughters players as if they were monsters."

Kishin gulped. "Y-Yeah..."

"I see..." The young man frowned. "Anyway, I'm a White Mage, you can call me Ai."

"Isn't that a pretty girly name?" Akane tilted her head.

"I know." Ai stated. "Got a problem with that?"

"No." Kishin smiled at him. "The four of us actually make a pretty balance party. A Swordsman, a Thief, a Black Mage and a White Mage. Maybe we should go on more quests together."

"No way, I'm not one to stick at one city at a time." Ai shook his head. "So what more do you know about the Fullmetal Reaper?"

"Hm, can we wait till we get to the dungeon for that?" Kishin suggested.

][-:-][

After a short walk, the four finally reached a forest. There was a sort of portal right at the entrance. They stepped into it and a bright white light engulfed them. When the light seemed to have faded, they were inside the forest. In front of them was a large group of monsters, specifically... Blue... Slime... Thingies...

"I got this." A wand flashed in Akane's hand. She raised it into the air and chanted, "Hellfire!"

A large fireball appeared in the sky and crashed in the centre of where the blue slime thingies were grouped. The moment it touched the ground, it exploded and engulfed the monsters in fire. As the fire died down, not one of the monsters remained.

"... That was anticlimactic." Ai muttered.

"I did pick a low-level quest for us." Kishin shrugged.

"So anyway, Fullmetal Reaper...?" Ai's voice seemed rather impatient.

"Why do you want to know about him so much?" Mia asked him. "Did he kill a friend of yours?"

Ai was silent for a few moments. "You can say that. I heard he was pretty strong."

"The only reason he's strong is because he's a Reaper." Akane sighed as she started walking deeper into the forest. "They get the most advantages out of any class. I mean, they can wield every weapon, use every magic and switch equipment in the middle of battle. If there weren't so many hoops to jump through to become one, I'm sure this game would be full of Reapers."

The three started to follow her. Ai then asked Akane a question. "And do you know what these hoops are?"

"I do." Kishin answered on her behalf. "First, you have to get to the end of the Corpse Garden alone to meet the NPC, Babylon. And then, in order to have him change your class, you have to give up all your items and equipment, 666,666,666G, and you'll be relegated back to level 1 with your stats and abilities being what you had when you first started the game."

"The monsters at the Corpse Garden are all over level 70." Mia seemed to cringe out of horror. "You can't even get out of there and avoid the monsters because they would have taken all of your Sparrow Wings. A lot of players died immediately after becoming a Reaper just by trying to get out."

"So do you know how this Kishin managed to escape the Corpse Garden?" Ai asked.

"No idea." The three of them said in unison with a shrug.

][-:-][

After several waves of enemies, the four managed to make it to the end of the dungeon which looked like the ruins of a temple. There was a treasure chest at the end of the ruins with a suspiciously large area between where they stood and the treasure chest.

"There's a boss monster coming right up." Kishin unsheathed his blade, revealing a sword which had an odd dragonwing-esque design.

And almost on cue, a huge chimera dropped down from literally nowhere and let out a horrific roar.

"No worries, I'll take it." Kishin held the hilt of his strange sword tightly. He ran toward the chimera as a blue aura engulfed his blade. "Zantetsuken!"

With a fell swoop, he passed straight through the chimera. A bright line split the monster in half and just as Kishin sheathed his blade, the monster dissipated with a loud roar.

"... That was anticlimactic." Ai muttered softly as two girls ran past by him.

"Kyaaaaaaah!" The two girls shrieked as they ran to Kishin and glomped him.

Mia's eyes were dazzling. "That was so cool Kishin-kun! You beat that boss monster with just one hit! Not even the Guildmaster can do that!"

"Yeah, that was really amazing." Akane smiled at him somewhat erotically. "You never fail to surprise me."

"For all we know, you're secretly the Fullmetal Reaper!" Mia jokingly said.

"Actually, it's impossible for him to be the Fullmetal Reaper." Ai stated bluntly.

The atmosphere suddenly turned dark when he said that.

"Yeah, he's way too nice to be such a jerk eh?" Mia looked at him with a grin.

"Actually, that's not my point." Ai replied, his tone of voice getting rougher. "There are three things one should know about Kishin, the Fullmetal Reaper."

The girls' expressions started to brood.

Ai continued. "One, he only attacks strong players."

Kishin bit his lip as he listened to Ai.

"Two, he's nearly unstoppable if he's wearing his armour."

A loud roar of thunder sounded across the forest.

"Three, he's lost his reason to live."

A heavy rain started to fall upon the group.

"You sound like you know way more about him than us." Akane furrowed her eyebrows.

Ai ignored her words. "You see, it's impossible for that Kishin over there to be the Fullmetal Reaper because he doesn't attack strong players, doesn't wear a single piece of armour and actually has a reason to live. But the main reason he can't be the Fullmetal Reaper is because..."

Ai grabbed his cloak and tore it off, throwing it aside. He had glowing red eyes and silver-blue hair that started to get soaked as the rain fell on him. He wore a black trenchcoat with a white shoulderpad on his left shoulder. The staff he held suddenly glowed before turning into a demonic scythe.

"I'm the Fullmetal Reaper."

He threw his scythe directly toward Mia who quickly drew her knives to deflect the spinning weapon. The Fullmetal Reaper jumped up toward the scythe, grabbed it and it glowed again, this time turning into a huge axe with a skull design. As he fell to the ground on both feet, he smashed the axe directly onto Mia, splitting apart the ground she stood on.

Mia was trembling in fear as she realized her HP had hit zero. Her hands started to fade away in a blue hue. "A-Am I going to die...?"

The Fullmetal Reaper took his axe back and rested it on his shoulder as he looked Mia straight in the eye without a hint of remorse.

She started to tear up. "I don't want to die... I don't want to die... I don't want to die... I don't want to die... I don't want to die... I don't want to die...!" The blue hue engulfed her entire body and soon, she disappeared, leaving only the sound of the rain.

Kishin was taken aback by the sudden attack. He couldn't even respond let alone reply to Mia who faded away. He turned to the Fullmetal Reaper, the one he identified as 'Ai'. His shoulders were trembling with anger. "Why did you kill her...?"

"..." Silence was the answer he got as the Fullmetal Reaper took a battle stance.

Kishin gritted his teeth as he unsheathed his blade, nothing but bloodlust in his eyes. Akane was also furious as she gripped onto her wand tightly. The two were ready to kill.

Akane raised her wand up into the sky. "Thor's Hammer!"

A green glyph appeared in the sky above the Fullmetal Reaper and from it, a huge bolt of electricity crashed down upon him, creating a mist at where he stood.

"Did I... Get him?" Akane stared through the mist, hoping she beat him.

And just then, a single thin blade stabbed her from behind, piercing straight through her abdomen. She looked behind to find the glowing red eyes of the Fullmetal Reaper. He then took the blade back as her HP also hit zero.

She started to fade away. As she faded, she took small and slow steps to Kishin as she smiled at him. "Kishin-kun..."

Kishin was watching in horror as she limped toward him and finally walked straight through him.

"Run..."

And with those words, she too had vanished in the rain.

Kishin's grip on his blade was tighter than before as he took a battle stance while glaring at the Fullmetal Reaper coldly. "Do you know that you have just killed two human beings...?"

"I know." He replied bluntly.

"This isn't just a game... People are dying here!" A blue aura surrounded Kishin's blade.

"I know." The Fullmetal Reaper's blade glowed again and this time transformed into a zweihander almost three times his size.

"And yet you kill without even caring...?" A tear rolled down Kishin's eye. A tear of anger. He ran toward the Fullmetal Reaper, readying his most powerful skill. "You BASTAAAAAAAAAARD!"

The Fullmetal Reaper charged forth with the gargantuan blade. The two of them swung their blades at the very same moment and passed right by one another. A flash of lightning illuminated the two.

The silence was heavy. Only the rain was heard. Kishin then asked him. "Why do you insist on killing...?"

"The real monsters of this game aren't the monsters, it's the players." The Fullmetal Reaper replied. "And the only way to kill a monster is to send an even bigger monster at it. I'm that bigger monster."

Kishin started to fade away. "So you know that you're a monster...?"

"Yes." The Fullmetal Reaper replied.

"And you live every day with the weight of your sins...?" Kishin's torso started to fade away.

"I never cared about that weight." The Fullmetal Reaper stated bluntly.

"Someday, all of this will come back to bite you in the a-" Kishin's head faded away before he finished his sentence.

"Karma's already been unfair to me ever since the day I was born, I'm repaying all the things it's done to me." The zweihander the Fullmetal Reaper held glowed and disappeared as he talked to no one.

He turned around and left the ruins, ignoring the treasure chest that was yet to be opened. His body glowed with a blue light and then a ragged cloak covered his body, the hood obscuring his face.

There was one thing the world definitely knew about the Fullmetal Reaper. He was a cold-blooded killer. If he was said to be nearby, players would go someplace else to escape him. No one has faced him in battle to come back and tell the tale.

But before he became the Fullmetal Reaper, he was just a simple White Mage, nothing more, nothing less.

This isn't the story about Kishin, the Swordsman of CanardWing.

This is the story about Kishin, the Fullmetal Reaper.

This is my story.