Chapter 304

"Again!" Zesshi shouted at Brain from her position, after the unbeaten swordsman was beaten once more. He stood up, held his sword out, and charged.

Moments later, he was down clutching his balls and Zesshi was holding her hand down to help him back up.

"I'll… need a minute." He gasped. "That's… dirty."

"Fair fights are for morons and duels." Zesshi said with a cocky smirk, "Raymond actually taught me that one."

"Raymond… the Cardinal you were traveling with?" Brain asked in a tiny voice while he tried not to wonder if his balls were swelling up or not.

"Yeah, him. Funny thing, I'm three times his age, at least, but you'd think he was my father from the way he acted." She chortled, and Brain took her hand and got up to his feet with her pull.

He hunched over, the tip of his sword piercing the grass and clinging to the hilt to help him stay up, his other hand rested just above his knee. "You're… a half elf, so don't you mature slower…?"

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "If you're going to say I'm flat, I'll kick you in the balls again. For real this time."

Brain laughed at her glowering expression, "N-No, I mean, you're like a teenager in human years."

"I'm human." Zesshi said, and at his long steady look, she couldn't meet his eyes. "Half… the half that matters, the half that raised me, kept me, took care of me when I was too young to feed myself… if I'd been left with my father I know what he'd have me doing."

"And if you'd been born with no more power than her?" Brain inclined his head toward Layali where the girl was setting up the small cook pot over the little fire pit she'd dug. "What do you think humans would have you doing?"

Zesshi shivered in spite of herself. "It's not like that, Raymond is my comrade, my handler… he'd never… besides, my mother chose to keep me, she never treated me like Layali's father treated his daughter.."

"Then she was quite a woman." Brain said as he pushed himself up straight, "But you know Layali, and you saw the auction and the public servants in Ikari, do you really think it's that different for most living in powerful houses? I've been in enough to know it isn't. Your mother might have loved you, maybe to Raymond you really are a comrade, but you're not a full human, and if all the elves and the rest were gone tomorrow, you'd be expendable too." He took up position again, and then Zesshi froze his blood.

"I know it's not different, I finished your work for you when you got lost in that estate, I broke all the chains in the basement and told the slaves to get going… why are you looking at me that way?" Zesshi asked, and his face was drawn and it went several shades paler.

"Did you see them leave?" Brain asked.

"No… why?" Zesshi replied, and his shoulders slumped.

"Did you tell them the guards were dead?" He pressed.

"No, just that it was safe to go out, as long as they made for the hole in the wall, I mean the repair people were looking tired, they weren't going to finish, so it would be unguarded and open till morning. Why?" Zesshi felt her annoyance start to rise and tapped her foot. "What's with the questions?"

'They're dead then. Fuck.' Brain thought and took a deep breath, and exhaled as if relieved, "Oh, never mind then, it's nothing."

Before Zesshi could prompt him any further, a scream caught their ears and both snapped their eyes toward the sound, Layali was clutching, clawing at a stray root, and tugging at her leg was a long blood red tentacle that wrapped itself all the way up to her thigh. "Yeaaaaaaghhh… help! Help meeee! It hurts! It huuuuurts!" She squealed in pain, her eyes wide with fear.

Even before he could move to rescue her, he realized what happened. The iron pot lay tumbled on its lips nearby upside down, the stick had an obviously large knot on it. 'She must have thought to put water in the pot by holding it on the stick… damnit…'

Zesshi and Brain moved at the same instant, but where Zesshi went for Layali, Brain went for the water. "Don't!" Brain shouted as she grabbed the girl in one hand while grabbing the tentacle in the other.

He hit the water with a splash, his sword burying itself into the eye of the monster he could see undulating down below. Zesshi's strength ripped away the tentacle, and he could hear the tearing of flesh for only an instant before her piercing wail drowned out even that, and a gushing of blood turned the water and grass red.

The creature went slack, and Brain yanked his sword like a fishing rod, drawing the pierced creature out of the water and throwing it over his shoulder and far onto dry land where it wiggled and flopped. It had a large body, and multiple long tentacles that flopped and slapped around on the grass and dirt, a large hawkish beak, and sharp teeth gleamed in the light off of many cuplike sections of its tentacles, the eye was shut and bleeding, but the creature wasn't dead.

"Zesshi! Go and finish it! I've got her!" Brain shouted, and seemingly without thinking about it, the half elf shot forward, her fist smashing into the soft bodied creature, its tentacles wrapped around her, but unlike Layali, it couldn't pierce her flesh, nor could it keep her body under control. She punched, and punched, and punched into the long body of the creature, ignoring its pathetic slaps and attempts to cut her skin…the ground shook beneath her feet from every blow as she pounded the thing until it was limp red mush laying at her feet, oozing blue blood onto the grass.

"Damn it!" Brain hissed as Layali clung to him and screamed as he sloshed out of the water and picked her up from where Zesshi laid her. 'A thigh wound, if it got her calf that would be painful but…' Blood fountaining out of the wound revealed the ugly truth.

Brain knew from experience that wounds to that artery were lethal, it took only a minute or two for full grown adults to bleed out, a child? He mentally gave her mere seconds to live. "I'm sorry!" He said and put his hand over the bloody wound to try hopelessly to staunch the bleeding. A chunk of flesh was missing, and the blood soaked through his pants and shirt as he struggled to close the wound. "Get some herb!" He shouted at Zesshi, who rushed to his pouch.

Layali felt cold, Brain's face, normally utterly passive, indifferent, or occasionally somewhat sly, was suddenly full of worry. 'I'm dying… I'm finally dying… this is it…' She caught a glimpse of how much of her blood was on him. 'He jumped at that monster without a second thought… a human… like when… he fought Zesshi when he thought she was a slave catcher… I…' She blinked back tears and fought the pain enough to keep back the screaming.

"We're going to put you to sleep! That way you'll heal and it won't hurt!" Brain said, his hand was hard, calloused, but it held the wound down with incredible strength, his arm was beneath her back and wrapped around so that it held onto her opposite shoulder.

"Lying… you're lying… I'm dying… I'm sorry… I tried to listen… I just wanted to help…" She whimpered. "I'm scared… I thought I wanted to die… thought I did… but I don't wanna… not like this… thank you for takin care… takin care of me…" She rattled out.

"Damn it, Zesshi! Hurry up with that herb!" Brain shouted over his shoulder just as she came on.

She held four different bottles in her fingers, Brain snatched one out from between her fore and middle fingers, shoved the lip into his mouth, bit down on the cork, spat it out, and then held the substance under her nose.

Layali's eyes were instantly shut, but as he held the herb concoction up to her nose, his hand came away from her thigh wound and Zesshi saw the injury for herself.

'I… I killed her.' Zesshi whispered, as Brain slowly let Layali slip from his grasp and laid her down on the red stained earth.