THE PRIZE DAUGHTER | ASHINA HEIR
CORUSCANT | BUSINESS DISTRICT | SOME PLAZA
LIGHT THINKS IT TRAVELS FASTER THAN ANYTHING, BUT ITS WRONG
NO MATTER HOW FAST LIGHT TRAVELS
IT FINDS THE DARKNESS HAS ALWAYS GOT THERE FIRST,
AND IS WAITING FOR IT
The radical candour of his exposed face was undeniable, and even if she wanted to, she couldn’t avoid the brutal reality that had been concealed beneath his intimidating disguise. It had only been a few years since she’d seen him, but he was undisputably himself, maybe just a little angrier, more focused. There was a hardness to the lines of his face that hadn’t been there before.
Their eye contact was fierce. Stormcloud greys warring with bleeding, burning ember. Within, there was the briefest flicker of connection that seemed to recognize there used to be a light in his eyes, she tried to remember. It wasn’t there now. Out. Or no, not out. Not extinguished. Only wrapped in something. Armour. Or hate.
Hate for her.
She felt it in her sternum, like someone taking a hammer to the bones over her heart. It pounded loud enough to force out:
“Qiy’on..” she whispered, her voice so hoarse it was just a soundless buzzing on her vocal cords. She wasn’t even sure she said it out loud, but she felt that name she’d said so many times before pass through her lips and die in the space between them, falling into the void of respect only shared between two duelists actively engaged.
Realization hit her like a tidal wave, and it felt like drowning. Comprehension’s current encircled her and threatened to submerge her entirely.
It was one of those things where she would have denied it, accused anyone of being a liar, that her brother had turned into a mercenary. Was a hired gun for the galaxy’s most gruesome, dishonourable, and cruel butchers.
Above the waves of terrible awestruckedness, she furrowed her brow and resolved her expression with the same strictness he tossed back at her. A furious tremble travelled through her muscles, and she tightened her grip mid-swing.
"Once, maybe."
How could this be? Is this where he turned to, after all they’d done together? After everything he’d been raised to ——
"I'm on the only side worthy of an Ashina,"
Of course.
“How dare y——” the audacity of his boasting blinded her to the trill warning that spiked at the nape of her neck. In an instant, the orientation of his physique changed, centre of gravity shifted forcefully right into her.
“—Uh!” Her body buzzed like she’d stepped into the blast from a firehose. Shockwaves of pain tore through her chest and spread through her entire torso. It almost felt as though, and very well could have been, her ribs had given way. At least one when the flat of his foot connected with constricted muscles that forced the air from her lungs and knocked her balance. Ishida was thrown back and dropped unceremoniously her knees while technicoloured dots danced in the peripheries of her vision.
Her heartbeat hammered loudly in her ears, above the din of Coruscant’s pending collapse. Eruptions and quakes rolled through the city’s multiple levels somewhere in the distance, and the Force wailed out far away from The Temple.
"An Ashina should be remembered. You think the titles Undefeated and the Invincible come with fighting alongside the many?" "Yes,"
"Titles? That's what you're after?"
He sounded just like him. Like her father. Like the words he was speaking weren’t even his own, as if he’d been there the day she’d chosen to leave and track down Inosuke, the exile. The foundation of the insult was the same.
"I believe you will be remembered Ishida, for the great strength it took to fight with the superpowers of the Galaxy, and crash down upon uncivilized Space!"
Everything internal and external was so loud, she could barely hear his vehement denial. The only sounds she could make in rebuke were guttural gasps, pleading for fresh air. The breath that left her lungs found conflict with all that wanted to flood back in, and she sputtered to regain a sense of awareness while her dread alarm rang loud. Her brain was firing off desperate commands through her body, and she leaned forward to force herself to heave once-twice before finally being able to feel air’s sting swell in her chest and belly again.
Collecting herself, she pushed herself back up to a stance that would be ready to engage again.
“No. Permanence.” She corrected her earlier question. Titles and names were tied to legacy. The words brought another bout of ouch; her ribs ached and hurt badly when she tried to breathe. Her leg continued to bleed and tighten. Her mind engaged in another war with her heart; This was her brother. She was supposed to guide the family, to be instituted as the heir. Authority and influencer.
And here they were, in the hotbed of conflict, ready to soak themselves in the other’s blood.
"You want to use your earned Ashina name to be remembered." The word earned was scornful. Especially in the wake of now.
Before, she might have agreed, proudly that he was an Ashina. But here he was, reeking of tainted Force connection. Preventing her from helping her Jedi friends. From helping...any citizens. Instead, they were together, caught in a struggle of strength and pride.
That was not the family her mother would have wanted. That was not the head she was supposed to be.
"Ishida, the Cowardly, or perhaps, the Weak."
It hurt more when he said her name. It meant even more that he knew her. Knew her beyond just recognizing her face, that was hurtful, but he knew the fears she harboured inside. That one that had been so deeply ingrained: Failure.
His words stung, ripping through her just as the residual aches of his kick did. His taunting epithet of her was too close to her present shame. Too close to the wounds she’d experienced since leaving Atrisia; she’d been untouchable once. Here, amidst the altruistic, she was ill-regarded and it brought fault to her work.
She was the granddaughter of Ashina the Undefeated, daughter to Ashina the Invincible and sister to Ashina the Manslayer. Noticing faults and harm done by others was just a painful reminder on how she’d failed to secure her own Ashina title. Ashina the Wounded was a pathetic insult.
Purposefully, she’d fallen silent again. Not just to get her strength back, but to resort back to observation. There was more one communicated with what they didn’t say –– though with the punctuated vitriol he spoke with, there were few words left unspoken. Other than the fervency of his resolve. He was ready to kill her, this much was clear.
Beyond reading between the lines of his scarring jeers, there was a lot to consume. The years had been generous to him, bulking and making him stronger –– angry, powerful. So much that it was almost tangible in the Force. So tangible in fact, that there were little threads she could almost touch and follow.
The glass shards she’d kicked into him earlier, from the speeder’s glasteel, were still there. Not actually the shards themselves, but the exposed fissures of his flesh. All tesselated and unconnected, fault lines on his body, separated and r
eady for exploitation with the right touch. She had to get close.
And if she had the time, there were wounds from days long past that would forever been unhealed. Those could be exploited too, with the right amount of connection. She had to secure precious time, intimacy, keep herself close.
Somewhere in the midst of it all, they’d closed their gap. She’d regained enough strength, fuelled by her fury and focus, to strike at him and he’d hit her back. The clash was brief, the buildup much longer.
Twisting her shoulders to avoid the incoming attack to her upper body, she moved to slide in and get close again. But he was ready and when she moved to defend, he plunged that super sharp blade into her thigh.
Anguish stung her throat as fire flashed through her bloodstream, white-hot pain tore through her leg but she shoved herself forward through the incredibly numbing torment to maintain her momentum.
Her father's condemnations rang in her ears, almost as loud as her guttural gasp of extraordinarily blinding suffering:
Weakness is next to uselessness. My heart is not a home for cowards.
She forced herself to speak through the bite of the metal in muscle:
“Do not forget who you’re speaking to.” she grimaced, growling through a toothsome sneer,
“Ashina the Weak is still more of an Ashina than the strongest pretender.”
At this proximity, she had access to those fissures she’d seen. Had the ability to activate and control them. The heel of her sabre hand shoved into his torso, the blade flashing outward to his arm while her skin sought to press against the pillar flesh he’d exposed when he removed the helmet. With her touch against his neck, she’d be able to exploit those tiny fractures of cuts all over, make them spread, reopen them, expand them. The Force seared, superheated, through her and angry. Networks of partial nerves snapped and hissed in her mind’s eye, and the little Jedi worked to exploit them. The opposite of the healing touch she was supposed to have. Those old injuries would be used to tear him apart.
Distantly, pedagogical reminders scratched at the corner of her mind.
" Its capacity for healing, for compassion, and forgiveness."
But they had no place here. They had no place in family business. How could she forgive the boy she’d grown up with for terrorizing a peaceful home? For leaving Ashina estate after all they’d given him?
He knew her, but she knew him. Or, she thought she did. And he’d certainly revealed through his harping how obsessed he was with legacy. A legacy that they should have been sharing, but he was on the wrong side. He was paid by murderers to prolong pain.
An individual mercenary marauding as a warrior and bringing reproach on a name that had been steadfast for Centuries.
She would not let him. Family was strength and a weakness; there was still a chance to perhaps alter the pair’s warped conception of which definition the Ashina name weighed more heavily.
“Blood’s legacy is far stronger than a title.”
Her katana hand was not done –– she shoved it forward toward his ribs; keeping him locked enough with his own sword in her femur.
ALLIES | NJO | SJC | GA |
Konrad Harrsk
NOT ALLIES | BROTHERHOOD OF THE MAW |
He Who Was Lost
