Ningyō no Ohimesama (The Doll Princess)

Daku's Death

{MIHO'S POV}
Tulip Village is silent. Too silent. It reminds me painfully of the Lost Town. I have to remind myself that this time will be different.

There are two guards at the entrance, nobody else in sight. The assassination is too easy. Aoi-kun takes left, I take right, and two throats are slit before the guards can even think to shout.

Aoi-kun and I are a well-oiled killing machine after fighting side by side constantly for the last few years. I know what he's thinking as he thinks it.

Asahi isn't bothered with the death she's witnessing. In fact, she very calmly follows us as we kill as many soldiers in secret as we can. I might be tricked into thinking she's enjoying it.

Finally, someone sounds the alarm. Several people run out of houses, crumbs on the fronts of their shirts and mouths stuffed, hollering in muffled confusion through mouthfuls of food that isn't theirs.

"Asahi... take Aoi-kun... to the meeting hall. Rescue... your dad and... the others."

They both nod, and Aoi-kun follows Asahi towards a big building in the center of the village. I step out into the open. Everyone recognizes me immediately, because of my telltale strawberry pink hair.

I fall into a pattern. Stab, slice, stab, hack, stab, chop. Heads and limbs fly in all directions as the air is tinged red. Some scream and try to run. Other fall to their knees and plead for their pathetic lives.

I give them the same amount of mercy they gave the villagers. None.

I'm aware that I'm covered in the blood of their comrades and I relish the fear in their eyes. They deserve to feel every ounce of pain they inflicted. I'm their judge, jury, and executioner. Does this make me evil? An interesting question.

Not that I care how stained my soul is.

Too soon, I stand alone. Everyone around me is dead. Satisfied, I head towards the meeting hall to regroup, quickening my pace after I hear a scream that sounds suspiciously like Asahi.

The door is open. I poke my head inside, staying low. A man, who I can only assume to be General Daku, has a sword pressed to Aoi-kun's throat.

He dares to touch my shield?

Asahi is wrapped in the arms of who I can only assume is her mother. They have the same cocoa skin, the same almond eyes, although Asahi's mother has multi-colored beads braided into her dark hair.

The two sides face off from either side of the great room. Daku's back is turned away from me. Asahi's mother sees me, and her grip on her daughter tightens almost imperceptibly.

I creep up behind Daku, and wack him hard with the hilt of my rapier. He wails and falls, dropping his sword to clutch the side of his head. How could such an incompetent man become a general?

I level my rapier so it's flush against Daku's adam's apple. I want so badly to run him through right now and be done with it.

"What happened?" I ask Aoi-kun.

"He told the villagers that Asahi was dead. He said his men caught, raped, tortured, and killed her, in order to keep the rest of them in line so they wouldn't try to escape again." Aoi-kun informs me.

I fix Daku with a scathing glare. He stares shakily back up at me, his crotch wet with piss. "G-Go on then! Kill me already!" He yells.

I look at the villagers, then back at Daku.

"No."

"Oi, Miho—" Aoi-kun starts, but Daku laughs.

"Oh? Is the great rebel Commander too chicken? I'm just too amazing of a general for you to take from this world, is that it?"