Dragon Raja 3; Chapter 396: Sakura’s Fall (3)

Dragon Raja 3

There were too many enemies to cut down with a sword alone. The only option left was the Yanling. Chisei still held the “Kingship,” but that sovereign Yanling had a fatal weakness—it could only be used once. Chisei had to save it for the most crucial moment.

After using the Kingship, he would feel completely drained, without even the ability to protect himself. But Sakura didn’t know that, and Chisei was grateful she didn’t.

He chanted words in a long-lost language, and the domain slowly expanded, its borders glowing faintly. The Death Servitors trapped within felt nothing unusual. Chisei walked to the center of the special watchtower, where his domain could cover everything.

A Death Servitor blocked his path, but Chisei casually pushed it aside with his hand. The Death Servitor’s metallic blades trembled violently but did not strike. They couldn’t—the weight of the blades had increased dozens of times in an instant. Not just the blades, but their entire bodies grew heavy. The cracking sound of spines echoed as the Death Servitors collapsed to the ground, like stone statues being pushed from a high platform. Their bones, which regular swords couldn’t cut through and could even deflect bullets, were now being crushed by the ever-increasing gravity.

It was an incredibly eerie scene. The Death Servitors lay prostrate on the ground, unable to even lift their heads. The floor tiles cracked as they were slowly pressed into the cement.

Sakura helped Tachibana to his feet. He used his spear as a cane, and the two of them stumbled toward the elevator.

With a “ding,” the elevator arrived at the special watchtower. The doors opened, and a foul stench filled the air, making them dizzy. The elevator had turned into a sardine can, packed with Death Servitors. Their long tails tangled together, filling the entire compartment. Pale human faces flickered among the rustling snake tails.

These were snake-shaped Death Servitors, but they were muscular and brutish, their fierce muscles gleaming like wrought iron. It wasn’t hard to imagine the power these muscles could unleash.

Tachibana roared as he hurled the Crescent Spear. The massive weapon hadn’t even hit a single Death Servitor before it shattered. Two metallic blades cut through the air, slicing the Crescent Spear into four pieces. The Death Servitor’s slashing motion was as swift and eerie as a mantis.

Dozens of snake-like bodies slithered out of the elevator as if they had been poured out. This was the moment Chisei had been waiting for, when they clustered together. He raised the Western Watch and fired six mercury explosive rounds in quick succession. The mercury vapor exploded among the Death Servitors, leaving large mercury spots on their scales. Their overly dense formation maximized the power of the mercury explosive rounds. Sakura could faintly hear their howls, like the cries of medieval witches on the stake. The Death Servitors, frantically trying to crawl out of the mercury vapor, were ignored by Sakura as she supported Tachibana through the white mist. The vapor was toxic to them too, but humans were far more resistant to mercury than dragons.

Chisei turned back towards the elevator.

The power of the “Kingship” was waning. The Death Servitors, pressed into the cement floor, were trying to crawl out. Some even tore their own bodies apart, exposing dark golden bones. The sight was terrifying, like skeletons pushing open their tombstones and crawling out of their graves. Chisei didn’t even have the strength to lift Dōjigiri anymore. Firing his gun had exhausted his last bit of energy. His dragonbone state was collapsing, and he could fall at any moment. He caught up with Sakura and Tachibana, grabbing Masamune’s other arm to support him, but as soon as he tried to exert force, his vision went black. Fortunately, the elevator doors were just ahead. Once inside, they would be safe. The special and main watchtowers were both full of Death Servitors, but Chisei could find a way to stop the elevator between the two floors.

Tachibana slipped, seemingly tripping on something, and pulled Chisei down with him. Both of them were utterly exhausted. Sakura, too, was unable to support the weight of the two men and fell alongside them.

Chisei struggled to get up, but suddenly felt a sharp pain in his back, as if his spine was splitting open. This fall had caused him to lose the race against the Death Servitors. One that had lost its tail had been crawling behind him, and it seized the opportunity to attack his back. It could have killed Chisei, but its tail had been severed, causing its movements to go awry. Chisei withstood the blow and, with all his strength, pushed Tachibana forward, then stabbed the Death Servitor in the forehead with a reverse slash.

Sakura leaped to her feet and grabbed Chisei by the arms, hoisting him onto her back. Chisei had never expected Sakura to possess such strength. She had developed late, with a slender body, as she had barely had enough food growing up.

Tachibana crawled into the elevator. Sakura, carrying Chisei on her back, dashed inside. The elevator cabin was covered in slime, left behind by the Death Servitors. The weapons Tachibana had prepared were still there, but Sakura was the only one strong enough to hold a gun at this point.

Sakura leaned Chisei against the elevator wall and untied the belts from their trench coats, binding Chisei’s upper body in a cross shape. This would help him endure the pain from his broken bones.

“Close the elevator door! Close the elevator door!” Chisei shouted hoarsely.

Sakura seemed flustered and did the completely wrong thing. She should have closed the elevator door first, not started treating Chisei. The Death Servitors, freed from the effects of the Kingship, were crawling toward the elevator.

Sakura touched his hair, then his cheek, and finally his hand… In her hand, she held a sharp blade that sliced open Chisei’s radial artery. Blood sprayed out, covering her in it.

Chisei could hardly believe his eyes. Sakura, one of the people he trusted the most, had betrayed him at this critical moment. She had always stood in the shadows, willingly becoming his shadow, more than just a subordinate, becoming a part of his life.

If even Sakura would betray him, who in this world could he trust?

Sakura grabbed the Western Watch from Chisei’s hand, stood up, pressed the door-close button, and stepped out of the elevator. “Goodbye,” she said.

“No!” Chisei suddenly screamed, reaching out to grab her.

Sakura pulled a grappling gun from behind her waist, fired it at the roof, and was lifted off the ground as gracefully as a swallow. Chisei couldn’t reach her.

The Death Servitors had already reached the elevator door. Tachibana grabbed an MP5, pressed it against the forehead of a Death Servitor, fired, then kicked it out. He pulled Chisei back into the cabin by his coat. Another Death Servitor wedged its metallic blade and wrist into the door crack, but Masamune drew Raikiri and severed it with one slash. The elevator doors finally closed with a screeching rumble and began descending. Silence fell above them, then suddenly a chorus of infant cries, filled with joy, echoed.

“No… no! No!” Chisei roared.

Chisei could barely remember how he and Sakura had first met, as it had been so long ago.

Unlike Yasha and Crow, Sakura wasn’t someone assigned to Chisei by the family. She was someone Chisei had specifically requested from the family.

When they first met, Sakura couldn’t even speak much Japanese, but she was fluent in Pashto, a language spoken only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. She rarely spoke, as no one in Japan could understand her Pashto.

She was a Japanese orphan who had ended up in Afghanistan. Even Sakura herself couldn’t remember when her parents had died. She had survived the chaos of Afghanistan by selling herself—by killing for the local guerrillas.

She had started this work at the age of nine, which wasn’t considered extreme in that region, where boys of seven or eight could handle submachine guns. The local guerrillas all called themselves Mujahideen and sought to eliminate infidels. Sakura killed people on the streets of Kabul and then walked away calmly. Witnesses only remembered seeing a little girl with slightly blue eyes, but no one believed she was the killer.

She had unlocked the power of Yanling on her own, using thin iron sheets and even broken glass as weapons. Her outstanding assassination record eventually caught the attention of the Fūma clan, a ninja family within the Yamata no Orochi. A top ninja from the Fūma clan traveled all the way to Afghanistan to find her. To his surprise, the top assassin wasn’t hiding and didn’t have a manager handling her affairs. The ninja found Sakura buying naan at a street stall. Her slightly blue eyes reflected the beautiful Afghan sky, yet they carried a loneliness that was indifferent to everything.

“We’re your family. Would you like to come home?” the ninja asked Sakura. She replied, “Yes, as long as you give me food.”

After she was brought back from Afghanistan, she was cast aside because she didn’t fit in with Japanese society. She grew up unnoticed until she was sixteen, though in Japan, anyone could get a meal, and the Fūma clan didn’t lack food for a girl.

She matured into a young woman, but her clothes were always disheveled, and few noticed her beauty. She was assigned a job as a weapons keeper at a shrine. Every day, she oiled and maintained the weapons, her body smelling of kerosene.

One day, seventeen-year-old Chisei went to the shrine to offer incense, accompanied by several family heads. Afterward, he smoked a cigarette in the hallway. He had started smoking at a young age, seeing it as a symbol of rebellion.

Series Navigation

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