Suikoden VII

Chapter One: Part Five

Note: I'm thinking of getting both a physical and digital copy of the Remaster. Do you guys think that's excessive?

You've probably noticed, but I've arranged both Suikoden VI and VII into a series called Suikoden Beyond.

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Chapter One: Part Five

"The Massacre of Innocents". The name for what would later be adopted for the incident that happened at the island. It's not what Astraea called it though; in the frenzied chaos, only fragmented words could describe what she experienced.

Murder. Blood. Blood. BLOOD.

Astraea had been standing near Darko, and so she was close by when the blood geysered from his neck. All he could manage were a few gurgles before he collapsed to the ground. No one made a sound. A stunned, hurrified silence swept over the clearing as the group stood frozen. Astraea's mouth open and closed rapidly as she stared down at his body. She couldn't force the words out but words were screaming inside her mind.

Resurrection Rune? Resurrection Rune! We need a—

A dozen soldiers dressed in white armor burst from the trees and upon the unprepared teenagers with war cries. Nils and Annalenya were the closest to them, and they both barely turned in time to find themselves each sliced down and run through with a sword. Then suddenly, everyone was screaming and scrambling for their weapons, but the butchers were faster. In an instant their training as soldiers dissipated as the panic and horror overtook them. Astraea sucked in a breath to scream, but when she saw someone lunging at her out of the corner of her eye she fell backwards, landing on her backside and scrambling away. "R-RUN!" she finally screamed. "RUUUUUUN!"

Barely five seconds passed between the arrival of the butchers and her scream but already Darko, Nils, Annalenya, Anredj, and Moza lay crumbled in the dirt. Oskar broke into a sprint into the trees, but three butchers gave chase after him. Something seized Astraea's left arm and she quickly looked up to see Barrett help her to her feet. "COME ON!" he shouted.

Milo and Ritta quickly joined them, and Astraea saw that they were armed. The remaining nine butchers charged towards them, and someone threw a knife at them, barely missing Ritta. Milo grabbed the burning torch out of the ground and flung it towards them with a shriek. The torch landed on the grass and ignited it. Ritta fired two arrows towards the assassins as they retreated, and Astraea saw an arrow strike an assassin in the shoulder and he shrieked in pain.

The murders flickered in Astraea's vision and she blinked rapidly to clear it. "F—Follow me!" she shouted. She did not say where they were going, but she tore through the trees and her half-siblings quickly followed. In the distance she heard a boy's scream, and her stomach churned as she realized that Oskar must have been taken down by the three butchers who had chased him. She looked behind her and saw that only her half-siblings followed. She had known what happened to the others. She had seen it. But her mind...her mind had held out hope that maybe, just maybe they had survived. But only Milo, Barrett, and Ritta followed her, with the butchers in white giving chase. She knew then what she didn't want to be true.

They were dead. Everyone else was dead.

"Get to the beach!" Astraea shouted behind her.

"Yeah!" Milo shouted. "The crew needs to come back and help us!"

But as they neared the beach, Astraea saw a giant orange glow through the trees. She knew that her siblings had seen the glow because Ritta started chanting, "Oh no, oh no, oh no" in a quiet voice. The four burst through the trees and reached the beach, and the entire area was illuminated by their ship consumed in flames. Astraea suddenly violently ill as she realized that this was the emergency the captain had told them they needed to evacuate for.