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The Lost Cathedral was gone before Zasalamel caught up with Taki. Only a bright sky and shadowed mountains remained on the horizon. For several days, he walked twisting wooded trails alone, guided once again by the auras of the cursed sword and the spirit sword. He caught sight of a woman in dark blue slinking through the trees. She gave him a challenging look before dashing into the brush. In that instant, he remembered a glimpse of her between the cathedral’s columns, before the swords’ powers overtook him.
Zasalamel briefly entertained the idea of flushing her out by mowing down the undergrowth with his scythe. A folly that would leave him open for an ambush. He continued as planned.
After he stopped at a fork in the road, she leapt out behind him. Just as before, Taki faced him without fear. Her forbidding gaze would be enough to stop most cold without her snarling demon mask.
He had been right to test her, Zasalamel was already certain of that. She was now one of the few who had shown the strength of will to reach the Lost Cathedral. She had played her part. There remained one thing to ask of her.
“You saw everything?” Zasalamel’s expression was as stern as ever, but his tone betrayed a slight amazement.
Taki gave a terse nod. “It’s a wonder it didn’t kill him. Or either of us.”
Zasalamel felt a jolt of pain at the memory of the cursed sword and the spirit sword clashing. How close he had come to ending his soul’s transmigrations. “Indeed.” That was all he could bring himself to say.
She seemed to be studying him, his scythe, his golden eye, and the black ring-shaped mark that ran through his brow. For a fleeting moment, there was awe in her eyes. She had sensed it, magic accumulated over centuries—lifetimes. “The cursed sword is shattered again,” Taki coldly answered. “Siegfried has the other one.”
Again. That word had long troubled him. But the knowledge that Soul Calibur had chosen another wielder heartened him. “Where did he go?”
“Toward Ostrheinsburg, no doubt.” The name came out harsh. A cursed place for a cursed blade. “I hope he destroys both blades.”
Her words cut through him, but he kept his scythe still. “And if he doesn’t?”
Taki’s eyes narrowed. “If a blade forged by a god that few worship could shatter one half of Soul Edge, then who’s to say that another one can’t?”
The moment she drew one the short swords at her back, he sensed a crackling of arcane energy. A purple light began to flicker and grow like a flame; he recognized it as the one from the paper talisman on the scabbard. Then she sheathed the blade, and the light was snuffed instantly. “The destroyer of demons,” she said. “I can’t waste any more time chatting. Don’t even try to stop me. Farewell.”
She ran further down the westward path, disappearing into the forest.
Undeterred, Zasalamel followed. Pity she didn’t stay, he mused. That blade of hers must have been forged with a piece of Soul Edge. Just as the spirit sword was…
Many days of traveling through the Holy Roman Empire passed without a sign of Taki. The more Zasalamel thought of her, the more her determination intrigued him. He wondered if there was also something deeper driving her, something close to her heart.
He was reminded of another pair of sharp eyes, blue ones this time. A brightly colored kimono, blade hidden in an oil-paper umbrella, fair face framed in dark hair, a name like a whispering winter breeze. Setsuka.
Zasalamel could only suppose that she was still trailing the rōnin Mitsurugi. He could leave them and their feud wherever they were, but the lure of Soul Edge’s power would draw Mitsurugi out soon enough. Setsuka would be there to stop him. How far one could go to avenge a master…
His mentor—for the first in a long time, it pained him to remember—was dust in a grave lost to time. His name survived only in the book Zasalamel penned himself. It was enough to make him regret burning it when he discovered it in Ivy’s possession. It lived only in his memory now, as did much about the clan of his first birth. Now it seemed that only he remained.
The closer he got to the Black Forest, the more fanciful the rumors around the swords seemed to become. He had heard that a remnant of the guardians of the spirit sword once lived far north, as well as word of an insane French lord (though some said Wallachian) searching for Soul Edge shards. Some said this lord’s eyes were red, that he was blond and pale. The more he heard them in tandem, he could almost hear the haughty laughter of Raphael again.
Her snake sword clattered into a coil beside her as she fell to the laboratory floor. Zasalamel glanced at the loose pages that fell from her desk. Many were covered in sketched alchemical diagrams or notes side by side with a copied long-lost script. Without answering him, she made his question of her reading it sound quaint. He stooped to retrieve the fallen book.
“This is a sin from my past,” he said. “The world has no need of this now…”
Ivy staggered to her feet, gasping in horror as it burst into flame in his hand. “Stop!” Her voice shook a little.
He dropped the burning book before her. “If you wish to know all there is to know about the two swords,” he said, his tone impassive, “pursue the knight with the greatsword whom you know well…”
Her form shimmered behind the flames as she hurried to put them out.
All the while, he had felt the intensity of her hatred for Soul Edge, in spite of her cursed blood. Few born with the evil sword’s energy were ever said to be that willful. It was a strange honor to witness, in hindsight.
Ravens wheeled through fog over Ostrheinsburg, their black shapes disappearing and reemerging in the gray-white sky. Zasalamel, with his scythe at hand, followed their incessant croaking until the ruined castle was in sight. With such a flock around, he could not rule out the possibility that some unfortunate had fallen here—perhaps a foolhardy adventurer or a would-be robber. One of the ravens swooped down and alighted on the grass before him. It looked up at him with strange, intense red eyes, then flew off croaking loudly.
Near the crumbled remains of an eastern wall, he caught sight of a figure carrying a large metal hoop. Zasalamel cautiously held out the blade of his scythe. To his disbelief, the figure bounded up to him. Before he could see the sharp edges, he recognized the ring blade-wielding girl. Pale, dressed in tattered bright green, with her blue hair darkened at the roots; she was glaring at him.
“What do you want?” Tira growled.
Zasalamel raised an eyebrow. “Mourning your liege, are you?”
Tira narrowed her eyes. “I thought you’d be more like one of us with that scythe. Pah. You’re just a know-it-all.”
“Is that so? I thought that ring blade looked familiar, Bird of Passage.”
“How’d you like a sky burial, baldy? My birds are looking hungry.”
Zasalamel suppressed a grimace as he stepped back. The brutality of the Birds of Passage had not changed in two centuries. Small and slight as she was, she was doubtlessly no less dangerous now that the Azure Knight had been destroyed. A show of defiance for the sake of a fallen lord—he knew it anywhere. “Careful. I can send you to join your puppet knight.”
With a shrill cry, she thrust the ring blade. Zasalamel quickly dodged it. He felt only a sharp rush of air as the jagged edges narrowly missed his robe.
Suddenly, Tira turned on her heel. She cackled with eerie glee. “Let’s you and I put on a show first! A dance of death!”
It was bewildering to watch her dart around him, swinging the ring blade over her head. Even a seasoned warrior might have been baffled by such techniques. Their blades clashed in high, strangely musical tones. The more he parried, the more she forced her weapon with a snarl. One errant slip of his arms and she could slice his fingers.
On the last parry, her grip slackened just a little, and that was enough. Tira jumped back, then prepared to strike. Zasalamel swung his scythe, hooked onto her blade, and tore it from her hands. She stood breathless as he flung it several feet away.
“No fair!” Tira cried indignantly as she ran to retrieve her lost weapon.
“I’ve seen quite enough,” Zasalamel said. “I’ll leave you to your Watchers.” Without taking his eyes off her, he turned away from the castle.
Tira was busy dislodging her blade from the dirt as several ravens silently alighted beside her.
The time to test Siegfried again came when he returned to Ostrheinsburg. Zasalamel had watched him from a bridge and recited the first spell as the young knight’s raft floated downstream. It was an ancient spell he had learned during his quest for the secrets of resurrection, one seldom used in his time as a guardian of the spirit sword.
Siegfried started at the sight of his father before him in full armor, but he raised Soul Calibur. It had already taken the form of a two-handed sword, its blade crystalline and jagged, shining icy blue. He struck without hesitation until the illusory Sir Frederick fell and faded away.
The revenant assassin he summoned fared little better. Siegfried sent him howling as he knocked him into the river. When the raft chanced to drift toward the bank, Zasalamel immediately boarded it. “Do you now remember who you are?”
“How dare you!” Siegfried growled.
The spirit sword rang as it collided with his scythe. Perfect, Zasalamel thought as he struck Siegfried’s side. The scythe ground loudly against his cuirass, but Siegfried began to shake him loose. He felt the raft start to turn with the current under his feet. The ruins flew by as a sharp kick knocked Zasalamel backward.
Nothing taught a man how to fall like centuries of combat.
Water rushed past his head. He opened his eyes to the gray sky. The raft was aground with Siegfried standing by, holding Soul Calibur over his shoulder. As he slowly rose, Zasalamel found his scythe lying next to him.
“So, you’ve spared me,” Zasalamel sardonically said, rubbing his right temple.
Siegfried cast a suspicious glance at him. “You used the same kind of trick Soul Edge used on me. Are you still after this one too?”
Zasalamel’s brow furrowed as he considered his answer. He remembered, with a chill down his spine, how exhilarating it had been to pick up that sword. It had been worth having his arms broken. “Perhaps you should know that there was an ancient law for those who guarded the spirit sword: ‘Any man who was to touch the sword will never be allowed to touch it again.’ It chose you and now things must run their course.”
Siegfried examined the sword. “So, that girl who had it when I was the Azure Knight… Could she…?”
“Men made this sword, and men have made rules for its use, but it’s the sword that ultimately decides who wields it.”
“I see.” A somber expression fell on Siegfried’s face. “The fact that I’m alive after… everything. I’d never dreamed I would get such a chance to atone.”
Zasalamel only gave a knowing nod.
Siegfried watched uneasily as ravens gathered on the nearest towers. “Tira’s birds,” he muttered. “I must go. The Azure Knight is mine.”
“We shall see.”
Siegfried slowly nodded, then abruptly headed to the castle gate. Zasalamel watched him as the spirit sword’s blue glow shone through the gloom. He would let Siegfried play his part for now. Ostrheinsburg seemed to thrum as the boundary between the Astral Chaos grew thinner.