Bounty Hunters - Shokin Kasegi

Six Spikes Desert Arc: Chapter 82

==Long-awaited betrayal==

Horuteph admires the weak glow of the bag. He reaches out for the sand with his hand but falls asleep as he touches it. He wakes up abruptly and finds himself standing in front of Giza as a sword which now sticks in the ground.

Horuteph thinks: “What is this? This looks like that room where my brother’s soul resides! Why am I here?”

He then says with a voice that's not his own: “This can’t be…”, and immediately afterwards thinks, “What?! I didn’t say that! What is this?!”

Time suddenly speeds up and pictures flash before his eyes. He actually wakes up again, gasping and his face slowly turns from a shocked one to a face full of hatred.

He mumbles while gnashing his teeth: “This can’t be!”, and storms out of the room.

Shurui asks: “Did he just forget to take the bag with him?”

Erika replies: “I’m more concerned that he fell asleep as soon as he touched the sand.”

Shurui mentions: “But it didn’t do that when it was broken.”

Rahama interrupts them: “Whatever it was, it seems to pain him. What he just saw was something that made him burst out of this room in anger.”

He closes the bag and puts it away: “I’ll stay here while you help him fight.”

Erika and Shurui nod and leave the room.

Zvazera walks through a hallway in the palace and meets up with Zoe. They look upon the destruction the war has already caused inside of the city. Their faces remain without any expression.

Their 4th division now traverses through an open field of the palace grounds and Zvazera tells Zoe: “You know that the gate over there is the only entrance to the palace, right?”

She points over and Zoe replies: “Yeah, of course.”

Zvazera continues: “Whatever division wants to take over the palace, they’ll have to go through there and we’re gonna intercept.”

“So, we only defend? Why aren’t we attacking a division?”, Zoe asks back.

Zvazera explains: “Like this we can totally defeat at least 5 divisions.”, she smiles and turns to the division, “We’re gonna be the winners!”

As she says this, out of the windows one floor above them, dozens of arrows rain into the crowd. They include burning, freezing, shocking, bigger and poison arrows. In a matter of seconds, over 100 soldiers die. The only sound audible are screams from the people.

Zvazera acts shocked: “What?! How did the enemies get here?!”

Zoe on the other hand remains fairly calm and smiles: “Did you really think deception would work on me? Even after always being so suspicious to me?”

She whips out a morning star on a chain and throws it directly at Zvazera. She dodges but Zoe already appears behind her and captures her.

Zoe continues: “I knew that you would betray me in such an important moment, so I prepared. All those people that just died or are still dying a painful death are worthless Ashtarks of the lowest class. They’re almost as pitiful as the Rokuloku.”

Zvazera headbutts backwards to escape Zoe’s grip and Zoe asks: “You just tell me one more thing. Why would an Ashtark like you ever side with the hopeless Rokuloku? I cannot understand how stupid and Ashtark has to be to switch sides in this conflict.”

Zvazera is aggravated and shouts: “I won’t tell you anything you monster! You sacrificed at least a hundred people of your own kind! Do you not care about your people's lives?! Why would you do this?!”

Zoe replies: “Oh come on! Do I look like I care about anyone but myself to you? To be honest, …”, she starts smiling mischievously, "…I simply did this to show you your own double standards! You thought you'd sacrifice our division! Don't those people mean anything to you?!”

She starts laughing heartily and Zvazera pulls out her swords: “You coldhearted bitch! The people I wanted to sacrifice deserved death! All this time in the military, I only got to know this division in order to find out who's a racist, death-deserving asshole! And you... you lived your entire life just to become rich by bending over for that asshole of a king!”

Zoe stops laughing and looks back at Zvazera with a maniacal smile: “Now you’ve crossed the line… first, I’ll slice off your limbs and then I’m going to hang you up in my basement and keep you there forever!”

Back in the middle of the city, the blades of Bukiyo clash against King Crimson’s metal wristbands, creating winds that blow away countless little items from the market stands around them.

They swing their swords and fists at each other very quickly and Bukiyo shouts: “You stand no chance against me, Hiteki! I have more power and two more arms!”

The king responds: “You won’t keep saying that after you see how powerful I truly am!”

He backs away and points two arms straight upward while shouting “Holy sword technique – Second Blade: Fraxinus!”.

An enormous root sprouts out of the street and charges after Bukiyo who dodges by jumping onto it. The root turns around, growing towards him again but Bukiyo rams a sword into the very front and the root stops growing.

“Holy sword technique? That’s only a neat little spell that doesn’t trouble me in the slightest. You’re not even using a sword.”, Bukiyo comments.

As the root slowly decays away, King Crimson replies: “I already figured you wouldn’t understand. Therefore, I won’t even bother explaining it to you.”

The king giggles: “Just kidding, it’s just a few techniques I’ve learned in ancient scripts. Nothing too fancy.”

He then holds two arms horizontally to his sides and the stone floor gets ruptured. Bukiyo holds his six swords in front of him, forming a kind of shield and a marine blue aura consumes the swords.

King Crimson mumbles “First Blade: Crimson Lotus!” and dashes through him with insane speed.

Suddenly, Bukiyo notices a scarring, colossal wound across his chest which starts to bleed heavily.

His eyes widen out of shock and Hiteki declares, standing behind him: “With your death, every Rokuloku will gradually notice that nobody can win against me and resign. I really made it a little overly dramatic, calling it a war when it actually was still the very thing it started as, a little revolt.”

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The war starts with Zvazera trying to outsmart Zoe but... she's so psychopathic she saw that coming!