## Story 1 ![17-1.png](/uploads/17_1_dc9832bc55.png) Cold steel flashes in twilight. The man's dagger disposes of his target in an instant.
There is not even the opportunity for last words.
The man is a nameless mercenary hired by his homeland.
His job is to accompany a gifted assassin and assist her whenever
she eliminates important figures. Before he can even sheathe his blade,
he hears the sound of steel whistling through air behind him.
Another target falls, never to rise again.
A beautiful assassin stands over the body.
Her eyes are the cold ice of riverbed obsidian.
She is the assassin he is tasked with assisting.
The pair has accomplished much in the short time they have been together.
"You're quick," says the woman as she wipes a bit of blood from her blade.
It is a rare moment, for she is not the type to offer praise.
Clearly she was impressed with his bladework.
The man is proud to rub shoulders with the woman, and finds himself growing more
infatuated with her by the day. No—not infatuation.
Love. But for this woman, who was born to an assassin family,
love is an unfamiliar concept. One day, she will be placed in an arranged marriage in
order to continue her bloodline. Her family would never recognize a union between
her and a nameless mercenary such as himself.
And even if they did, the woman does not seem remotely interested in romance.
Yet that is why. That is precisely why.
Her otherworldly beauty is a naked scalpel glimmering in the evenfall,
and it enraptures him. Yet the man knows he is not her equal.
Not as he is now. So he bottles his emotions deep in his heart,
completes his mission, and sets out on his own. ## Story 2 ![17-2.png](/uploads/17_2_7e6bc724f2.png) Years have passed since the mercenary and assassin last crossed paths.
The man abandoned her suddenly, his torrent of emotions left unsaid and unmentioned.
Yet the passing of time has not dulled his feelings—indeed,
they have only grown more acute with each rising of the sun.
He has moved beyond attraction.
Beyond love. It is obsession now. He forgets the worth of all other things,
and uses his tenacity to discover repeated success in his trade.
Eventually his hard work pays off, and he finds himself the lord of a fine manor.
And then, finally, the day arrives. The day of their reunion.
The silhouette of a woman shimmers into existence.
The figure moves with hidden grace and purpose.
Her appearance has been disguised with false hair, heavy makeup, and a cloak.
Her identity should be an enigma. A mystery. Yet he knows.
One glance at those obsidian eyes is all he needs.
She passes him without a word or a look.
Her presence is a thousand icicles on his skin.
He can sense her skill—feel it. She is something beyond all measure.
It takes all of the man's considerable will not to collapse in the presence of her aura.
The air quivers as they pass. He reaches for the dagger in his pocket,
but the woman slips past before he can act.
He turns to watch her go, squirming with bubbles of delight.
He has been waiting for this day.
It is why he worked so desperately to gain fame and
fortune enough to own his own estate....So he could finally become her target. ## Story 3 ![17-3.png](/uploads/17_3_b443132f0e.png) Night falls on the day of the mercenary's reunion with the assassin.
He waits for her in a bamboo grove lit by the haze of the moon.
The dense thicket should prove an advantage against the woman's long robes.
He has also surrounded himself with traps learned during
his long years of mercenary work. Of course, she sees through all of this.
Yet despite her awareness of the situation,
she slips through his traps and stands boldly before him.
She is bewitching. Moonlit rapture.
His breath catches in his throat as he grasps his dagger.
Somehow, impossibly, her allure has only grown stronger over the years.
The man suddenly understands that she can never be his.
No. Impossible. Such a thing would only serve to sully her beauty as
one might dull a blade while fighting a sandstorm.
He has but one desire left: Though the woman has come for his life,
he now intends to claim hers.
Despite the thick foliage around her,
the woman moves like liquid smoke through an infinitesimal opening.
She is a wraith. A willow.
A fiendish dread that slips and flickers like a goddess dancing on an ocean of endless ice.
I am going to kill her.He burns this image into his memory,
then quietly seals it away. And in doing so—in looking off to limitless futures—
he knows that if this country ever meets its end,
she will never again look upon another man.
His dagger flashes. Her katana gleams.
A second strike. A third. The man's arm is grazed,
but he deftly turns the attack aside and leans his whole being into his counter.
Ripples from the honeyed act echo in his heart.
For in the whole of paradise, this is the greatest pleasure he has ever known. ## Story 4 ![17-4.png](/uploads/17_4_73e0cd226f.png) Each time the man brandishes the dagger,
he feels the woman's body growing ever closer to his own.
Crimson seeps from her wounds to lie gleaming in the light of the moon.
The woman staggers, her eyes empty. She has lost much blood.
This is the peak of my pleasure!
Yet as the man grips his dagger and readies to end her life,
he realizes something. His intellect is honed. Sharp. His obsession deep. Pure.
These things have driven him to the brink of madness.
And he is tumbling into endless hallucination. He rallies himself and dispels the illusion,
reclaiming his sanity against all odds.
But the moment the woman's katana grazed his arm,
his fate was already sealed by the poison on the edge of the blade.
His foggy consciousness desperately attempts to train his vision on the assassin.
But she is a featureless blur.
The man cannot read her expression; he does not know how she looks at him.
Yet he keeps going all the same. "I am the one who must end you."
Fuel returns to his soul, and he brandishes his dagger anew.
"You should have stayed within the illusion," murmurs the woman.
Her words drift through the air toward the man who lies crumpled in a pitiful heap.
After so many years, his bladework had grown even more precise.
And because she knew this, she did not wish to kill him.
Instead, she wished only to render the powerful man powerless.
Yet his intellect combined with her immaturity, ended up removing his future.
"I will remember your skill," she whispers.
With a sad sigh, she takes her leave of the bamboo grove.
The man's corpse gazes forlornly at the clouds that drift endlessly across the sky.
And for reasons known to none, the smile on his face is brighter than the moon.

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