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A gentle breeze blew across his face, carrying the smell of salt water from the sea. He moaned as the sun shone through the hole in the hut and right into his eyes. He attempted to turn in his hammock bed to avoid the sun but was thwarted when his hammock was pulled out and up, sending Izazu sprawling to the floor. “Hey Niwa!” Aiken kicked him. Aiken was Izazu’s friend for as long as he could remember, he had the same dark complexion as Izazu and had long black hair that was usually tied up so it didn’t get in his face.

Izazu looked up at Aiken, he tried to process what was happening. He wanted to hug Aiken but all that came out was a, “huh?” It was like a cut scene in a game where the character could do something to stop a tragic event but inexplicably stands back and does nothing (you know who you are!). Izazu scratched his head and stood up as he stretched with a loud yawn.

“You’re on gate duty today,” Aiken told him and looked Izazu in the eye, “listen Izazu, you’re on thin ice as it is so don’t go sleep at the gate again, I don’t know if I could bail you out again.” Aiken warned his friend and walked out of the hut.

“Okay,” Izazu mumbled while he rubbed his eyes and walked outside to the gate. He knew what would happen: he would go to the gate and fall asleep after a few minutes, then next thing he knew he would wind up in hell with an arrow through the Aorta. He knew that because today was the day he died.

“Izazu-dono,” A medium built man man with a pale complexion, neat blonde hair, a habitual womanizer, and for some reason the only person in the village who wore a white outfit which somehow never got dirt on it came up. “We’re on guard duty today, aren’t we?” Takan asked and spotted Aiken who admittedly had a deceptively feminine form from behind. “Hello beautiful,” Takan wrapped his arms around ‘her’ waist, “where have you been all my life?”

“Get your hands off of me,” Aiken said through slit eyes, “or I’ll break them off.”

Takan backed away, gagging and hugging himself as he felt dirty and unclean. Aiken walked off and Takan found another target “I feel so unclean,” he told the woman, “help me feel right again.”

“Get the hell off of me,” Aiken growled, becoming enraged.

Later on in the day Izazu and Takan, who had a black eye from Aiken, stood guard at the gate and watched people go in and out of the village. A woman walked out of the village pulling a melon cart behind her, Takan turned to him about to say something witty “Go ahead,” Izazu yawned. Takan looked at him confused “You’re going to make some comment about having to inspect her melons.” Izazu explained.

“Have I become that predictable,” Takan looked hurt, “am I just some horny pervert?”

“You pretty much hit the nail on the head,” Izazu told him, leaning back in his chair.

Takan fell into despair “I’m not,” he complained and stayed at his post. He looked over and saw Izazu looking at him strangely “What?”

Izazu shook his head “Nothing,” he said and shrugged. He was surprised because Takan was supposed to go off to chase the melon girl but instead he stayed at his post. This gave Izazu a slight glimmer of hope that he could change his fate. From then on he made a point of staying awake the whole time.

Sometime in the late afternoon it happened. There was quiet roaring of whooping and hollering coming from the beach “Takan, sound the alarms,” Izazu yelled to him and scanned for an enemy sniper through the telescope. Takan ran for the bells and grabbed the rope before he was silenced by an enemy sniper “Takan!” Izazu cried and an arrow whizzed right by him, Izazu yelped having narrowly avoided the arrow that was meant to kill him. He wasn’t supposed to be alive so he decided to make the most of his borrowed time. Izazu stepped over Takan’s dead body and yanked on the rope, the connection of bells along the inside wall of the village rang signaling they were under attack. Izazu drew the iron dagger in his belt and used it to cut the rope supports on one side of the massive tree trunk gate, the gate’s weight snapping the supports on the other side and it slammed shut.

More arrows were launched by enemy snipers, a few flying over the wall and hitting people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time “Archers,” Hawk eye, the commander of the village archer corp. yelled, “fire!” with that archers and hunters from the village fired back, covering the field in arrows and killing the enemy snipers through sheer number. “Fire!” he yelled again as pirates armed with axes and bows charged over the hill, then the enemy sent in what everyone thought was the heavy hitters.

“Berserkers,” A hunter called as the brutes came over the hill, absorbing the arrows without slowing down. Izazu ran to get the anti siege weapon that hadn’t been tested while Berserkers began scaling the walls by sinking their swords into the wood to climb. Izazu got back to his post as the first one came over the wall a good distance away from him. Izazu held up the anti-siege bow and fired a metal bolt from in, smashing the Berserker’s head like a watermelon. One came up in front of Izazu and he fired the hastily reloaded bow at point blank, blowing the Berserker’s head into little fragments, the cable on the bow snapped and hit Izazu in the face, sending him to the ground below. Time seemed to slow down as Izazu laid there trying to catch his breath, his hearing was muffled by a ringing sound. Aiken’s troops and the other warriors were fighting off the Berserkers who scaled the wall and slaughtered the archers including Hawk eye.

The warriors fought with discipline, not one thinking of retreating in the face of death as they were taught that to retreat in battle was unforgivable. Aiken cut down a Berserker with his ancient katana and ran over to Izazu “Izazu,” he yelled, though his voice was muffled by the ringing. “Get up, answer me!” A dark magic seeped under the gate and it was lifted up with ease as an extremely tall man, wearing naught but a pair of black tattered pants that had a hole for his raccoon tail, walked through the opening with his greased back black hair and large machete. The dark magic ripped the gate away as Berserkers charged in behind him.

Aiken drew his katana, which he got from a previous attack, and stood in defense of his friend. He attacked the man to no avail, the man grabbed him by his long black hair and pulled Aiken’s head back to expose his throat. With one swift chop the man had decapitated Aiken. There it was, his friend’s head dropped to the ground with a dull kathunk, the 20 years they had spent together, Aiken’s hopes and ambitions, his hope to see his daughter go off in the world, all of that was erased with the fall of the man’s blade. Izazu’s body trembled as he tried to stand up the hatred rose within him and peaked at a white hot fury, he screamed and charged the man. Izazu scooped up Aiken’s katana and tackled the man to the ground, plunging the katana into his face over and over again.

An eerie silence fell across the battlefield as Izazu killed the raccoon tailed man. The Berserkers were distracted momentarily but that was enough for the villagers to mount their counter attack against the invaders, not as an army but as a mob fighting for their lives. Those who were in the army fought with swords and spears, the farmers fought with hoes and scythes, the artisans fought with their tools or with stones. Hammers smashed into skulls like ripe watermelons, swords carving through bodies as though they carved into a nice hot Turducken.

The battle was violent, and the Berserkers fought until the last of them fell. But that wasn’t enough for Izazu, no he wouldn’t rest until they had lost everything like Aiken had. Izazu mounted a horse and raced down to the beach, wishing he had put a saddle on before bolting off. The remaining warriors followed him either on horses or on foot, along with the hunters and their trusted bows. “Charge!” a man yelled behind Izazu when the pirate camp came into sight. Izazu remained silent though, slashing through a pirate he passed with Aiken’s katana, leaving the pirate to bleed out. They took the camp by surprise as hunters fired a wave of arrows and then foot soldiers came in and killed any surviving pirates, Izazu and the other warriors with horses rode through the chaos and boarded the ship by going up the side.

Izazu and his comrades grabbed onto the side netting and scaled the ship, he was carrying the katana between his teeth which was much harder than it looked. Izazu managed to pull himself onto the deck and was immediately attacked by a pirate with a large round stone tied to a long rope, a primitive Meteor hammer. It hit him in the chest and he would have fallen over board if he didn’t catch himself. Some other warriors stood poised to defend him but he said, “I got this guy, you go after the little guys.”

“Got it,” the warrior told Izazu, “don’t slack off now.” The warriors went to attack the other pirates.

Izazu attacked the Meteor hammer pirate, let’s call him Pete, but Pete (Yeah, Pete’s a good name) threw the hammer at his head. Izazu ducked under and cut the rope, the force kept the stone going. Unfortunately one of the soldiers who accompanied Izazu didn’t have great upper body strength, getting up there only to get a stone ball to the face “Yeeeaargh!” The soldier screamed, plunging into the shallow ocean below.

“Dude,” Pete said, startled, “you killed him.” He said looking over the edge.

“You threw it,” Izazu countered, also looking over the edge.

“Well you cut my rope, so it’s actually your fault.”

“Where were we,” Izazu asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, you were just about to finish me,” Pete told him.

“Thanks.”

“No prob-“ Pere was interrupted by getting a katana through the chest, courtesy of

Izazu. “Weak dude.” Pete said and died.

Izazu went back to cutting down pirates and made his way down to the Pirate leader in his quarters, after finding the way to the lower part of the ship was locked. “You’re life ends here.” The leader said with a bad French accent “I, Lestat Lenoir, the scourge of the seven seas and future ruler of this world shall end your quest here with my dark magic----!” Izazu cut off a hand when he raised it up. “You, you monster!” he cried.

“Don’t monologue in a fight.” Izazu responded.

“A Gentleman always gives his enemy fair warning so his enemy can surrender.” Lestat brushed his hair away and had his other hand chopped off “ah----,” he examined his two stumps as tears filled his eyes “Rosie!!!!!!!” He cried running out of the quarters, past Izazu.

Izazu picked up a key Lestat had dropped and found it unlocked the metal grating and he went to the lower deck. It was filled with people the pirates had enslaved, he even saw the melon girl as he was unchaining the slaves. She had dark black hair which stood in contrast to her pale, but not sickly pale, skin and her olive colored eyes. “Are you okay?” Izazu asked, examining her wrists after freeing her to make sure they didn’t hurt you.

“Uh huh.” She nodded quietly, a blush coming over her face as she looked into his eyes.

“That’s good,” Izazu said and there was a sharp pain and he blacked out.

“Hey, wake up!” a voice echoed and kicked him in his side again.

“Huh?” was all Izazu could get out as he looked up to see Diamond, Vincent, and Rose standing around him, he was back in hell.

“We would have woken you sooner,” Rose chuckled, “but you looked like you were having a good dream.”

As Izazu sat up after yawning, there was a klink from his hip. He looked at Aiken’s katana that rested in its sheath on his hip and he knew it wasn’t a dream.