Burden of the Pure

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I always got a feeling of satisfaction when retrieving my sword from the skull of an opponent. It was no different this time around.

After I pulled my katana from the first guards head, Jade disarmed the other by cutting of his shooting hand, and then stabbing him where the apex of his Adam's apple would be. "What the fuck Devante? We agreed my new katanas would draw first blood!"

"Sorry. I saw a wide opening. I had no idea that this chance would come with an exchange of such rage. Oh, and what is 'what the fuck?' Giggling, she replied "I don't really know to be honest. I heard our Muay Thai master say it as an expression once though."

Jade and I attempted to make our way into the building through the front doors, but as expected they were locked. So, we found a window that lead to a room that was absent of people and smashed through. Jade and I could hear the panic throughout the facility, but the disarray was diminishing at moderate rate. We decided it would be best to take advantage of this panic while we could, so we readied our blades and burst through the doors that led to a long hallway.

Jade and I startled a large quantity of guards, and a few of what I assumed to be scientists based on the lab coats. They seemed to be in mid preparation because when Jade and I made our entrance, their panic levels were even higher than before.

The scientists ran past the guards in an unorganized fashion while the guards skillfully regained their composure, readied their submachine guns and pointed them directly at us.

For a few moments silence replaced the commotion until, the guard on the far right exclaimed, "Fire!"

Luckily for Jade and I the guards were well trained and had steady hands, so their bullets came at us in a straight forward linear fashion. This made the task of avoiding and shielding their bullets with our blades much easier. Our ability to avoid such fast projectiles is thanks to our training and our soulcepters.

The soulcepters are special parts of the eyes that Jade and I possess. Whenever something of danger enters our line of vision, the soulcepters greatly slows down our perception of time. This gives us a lot of time to react and to think of the best solution to defend an attack. We are also able to activate our soulcepters whenever we need to, so Jade and I don't have to rely on the automatic response alone.

The soulcepeters are deeply rooted in our brains and have allowed us to be granted a sixth sense as well. I'm not sure how it works, but I become alerted when an object comes within a two-foot radius of my body. If it is entering the radius at a high enough speed, my soulcepter will be turned on. Because of this, it is extremely rare that I get the feeling of surprise.

I was still quite new to this world when I became aware of the soulcepter functions. When I questioned the person that guides me in biological knowledge about why time greatly slows down in times of danger, she seemed caught off guard by my question. But after she recovered, she told me it would be best to ask Kane about it. At first Kane didn't tell me much. He promised he would tell me more about it as I aged, and he did. But every time he would teach me about my abilities, he would give just the right amount of information to enlighten me, but gift me with more questions as well.

Jade and I kept deflecting and dodging pullets as we made a slow advancement towards our enemies. Jade had become impatient, and I was starting to as well. Jade took a quick glance at me that said, "I'm going to hurry up and finish this." Her sudden charge towards the gunmen startled them and they lost their steady shooting. I stood back to watch Jade's back, which was a non-taxing job, since all the bullets had concentrated on her. She deflected all them with her two katanas and proceeded to decorate the walls with the guard's blood. As always, her movements were smooth and flawless. Watching Jade was always a marvel to behold.

The bodies of our opponents dropped to the floor, like puppets whose strings had been severed. My companion flicked her hair back and looked at me and did what Stan once called a wink. The dead bodies began releasing blood, that formed a lake around her, causing her to look quite elegant. I began to approach Jade, but then I heard footsteps approaching the door behind us. A moment later five more guards rushed through the door from outside of the building.

I didn't give them a chance to react this time, for they had come through the doors in a line perpendicular to us. Clearly, they had not been trained properly, so I quickly and silently beheaded them with a single stroke, making sure the man in the middle's eyes met my own. I was not as graceful Jade, and the blood from the severed necks of the fresh corpses sprayed me all over my face and hair.

Using a lab coat that a scientist had left behind, I wiped my face and tried to get as much blood as I could out of my hair. Jade took a long look at me and said, "The red compliments your black hair nicely. You should kill like that more often." I gave a slight smile as a way of saying thank you and adjusted my grip on my katana.

"You know Devante, you're too nice. You allowed those guys to see you even though you knew they were coming."

"I know, but it's like Kane always tells us. 'Just because you can see something coming doesn't mean you can avoid or stop it,'".