Twilight dashed in between cover, getting closer as she and little Starlight neared the center of town. There were two dozen more samurai herding the townsponies back into a group by the edge of their swords. Most a collection of small foals and the women of the wounded stallions who now sat in front of them, with knives at their necks. Starlight had brought the blades she had shown Twilight, but her concern was with her people. Not the objects in her hooves. Twilight, however, could not take her eyes off the weapons. But her ears listened as Starlight watched.
"By decry of the shining empress, Amaterasu, you are hereby tasked with the search of the Yoso no Chowa!" ordered a very familiar voice. Starlight looked closer, it was the captain who had chased her into the Everfree. Twilight noticed this as well and looked to the red armored coward and her troops. Her helmet had been removed for a moment, allowing them to see her gold and amber mane. Her eyes a lighter shade of orange, and her coat an even lighter green.
"We don't know what you are talking about!" said a wounded stallion behind the captain. "Tell us what they are and-" He was quickly pushed to the ground with a knife pointed at the back of his head. A worried gasp from a mare in the crowd was heard and the captain turned to meet the struggling villager.
"You needn't know what they are, only that the empress desires them. You and the rest of your people have been hiding enemies of the empire." The captain said.
"I thought the empire had no enemies?" the witty pale stallion uttered. Which only led the captain to nod her head. The samurai then lifted the stallion up and began to beat him with no telling of stopping. The same weeping mare from before cried out for them to stop but was hit back by the captain herself as she approached. Starlight turned away.
"Those who are uncooperative will be punished severely!" The captain continued, nodding again to the samurai, who then dropped the stallion to the ground. Weak and bleeding.
Starlight looked back, seeing the stallion barely able to raise his head.
"You have to save them!" She said to Twilight. Her voice almost loud enough for the samurai to hear.
"Quiet, or they'll kill us too!" Twilight forced her hoof over Starlight's mouth. The young filly was shocked to see her savior act this way. Tears began to fall from her face again as she breathed heavily through her nose. Twilight let go slowly and was then shoved away by the six sacred swords Starlight still held.
"Take them! You coward!" Starlight cried, taking one of Twilight's other katana from her back, galloping for the crowd.
"Starlight!" Twilight reached out again, missing her grasp of Starlight's clothes. Twilight sat back, thinking on those words.
Coward? Me? Twilight thought. But then she looked down at the blades that had been traded. She undid one of the chains, it was to the Chusei blade. Loyalty. And when she unsheathed it but a little, red light brightly burned from its shining metal. "With these, I will never be a coward again," she then said, looking ahead to little Starlight.
"Leave them alone!" Starlight shouted to the captain as she lifted up her sword, held in magic. The captain backed away just in time before the blade came down on her. One would think that such an act of defiance would have angered the captain even more. But the mere sight of little Starlight reminded her of one thing. The Stranger.
"Back away from her!" The captain ordered her troops. The fear they saw on her face made them all worry. They retreated, leaving the pale stallion and the others to crawl back and return to the townsfolk. Starlight lifted her katana again, pointing to the army of samurai.
"Starlight?" the pale stallion said. Looking to the filly with swollen eyes. Starlight couldn't bring herself to spare a glance as she stared down the captain. Fear shook throughout her body, her katana rattled with the lack of concentration she was putting into levitating it. As it only grew worse as her spark of confidence burned to a halt. Now she was alone, and with no hero to save her.
"Where is she?" the captain questioned. "Where is the Ronin?"
Starlight then realized something even worse. She wasn't the reason the samurai were scared. It was the possibility that Twilight, the traveling Ronin was still close by. Starlight felt foolish for giving her the weapons she had been seeking. Now she wished that she had withheld them as a reward for saving the town. But now Twilight was long gone in her mind. Content with saving a lone filly, but not noble enough to risk life again for a hundred more. Starlight began to cry again. But this would be a terrible end to our story, as it had only just begun.
Twilight walked out into the town square with six blades on her back. To anypony else, they would've appeared to be any old swords. But Starlight knew what she now wielded, and those blades were not the same ones that had saved her. They were the Yoso no Chowa, unbound now, and ready to be drawn.
"Here," Twilight answered the captain, who stumbled back into the mass of samurai at her back. Twilight stood beside Starlight and took hold of her blade with her own magic. "Good job, but this is my fight now," she told Starlight, motioning her to step back.
"Kill her!" the captain yelled, but the samurai did nothing save look at her.
"Who is she?" they asked. But all the captain could do was whip her head back in anger.
"She's an enemy to her highness!" She shouted, sweating. "Kill her or-" The captain's words were silenced as she saw a sword impale the samurai in front of her, this was followed by the cries of many more samurai as now arrows, littered about from the town siege were finding their marks at necks and in between eyes. She herself began to fly at the sight of chaos around her, until one of the arrows clipped her wings. She fell helplessly to the ground. Some samurai were able to see this attack coming and shielded themselves, but then the main attack began and Twilight charged with katana pointed at her foes.
Twilight fired the last of her gathered arrows in magic and pelted the other samurai before cutting into one, taking his own sword before continuing the offensive. The entire town watched as this lone unicorn danced around the enemy with grace and exactness. Targeting the ones still surprised by her first attack, lessening their numbers with every minute.
And as the samurai fell, the captain stood, drawing her own sword to face the Ronin. But the armor she wore and the weapon she held felt heavier than they had ever felt before. Her lips trembled at the sight of Twilight, thoughts of death raced through her mind, but she forced them out with a different one.
She is just one mare! she thought. And suddenly a path was made clear to her, a path to slaying the Ronin.
"Warriors to me!" she called, and four samurai away from the battling Ronin ran to her. "Surround the Ronin, and attack on my signal!" The other four responded and took positions around Twilight. As she was now finished fighting with another, Twilight glanced about and saw the last remaining five readied for attack.
"Now!" the captain shouted, and they all charged. Twilight turned to the one that faced her, and struck with one sword, only to kill with the other in her magic. Two of the others reached Twilight first and swung, their blades had pinned down Twilight's hat, but not her body as she dodged them. Regaining her standing, Twilight lost focus with one of her blades as she brought the other closer to her body, before maneuvering herself around the captain's sword, cutting away at her hair. She then knocked the captain's blade aside with one hard stroke, as she then kicked the kicked the captain away. Only, one more replaced the captain before Twilight took her own blade in hoof and beheaded the samurai. The next that charged at her broke his blade with her's as they clashed. She then caught the broken end of her blade with her teeth, before slicing at his throat. And that is when the captain returned, tears falling from her face, she refused to let another comrade fall before she did. The captain swung high at Twilight's head, who dropped her broken weapon dodge the attacks until the most precis moment. She finally drew one of the six blades on her back, and broke the captain's blade. It shattered into pieces when the common metal touched the holy metal of the red blade of loyalty, Chusei.
Then the captain fell back to the ground, with Chusei pointed at her neck. Twilight stared down at the captain and then to the only other remaining samurai standing scared of her. The captain was trapped in the Ronin's lifeless eyes, no emotion could be found in them. No pleasure of killing, no disgust for the eighteen dead by her hooves, no sadness, nor anger. Just the void of a soulless killer.
"I am the chosen one to wield the Yoso no Chowa. For my heart is aligned with heaven, and my gaze..." Twilight started, drawing the remaining of the six swords, "Is guided towards the evil of this world." Each of the six holy weapons glowed a different color. Chusei, the crimson blade of Loyalty. Shinsetsu, the golden blade of kindness. Warai, the cobalt blade of Laughter. Kanyo, the violet blade of Charity. Shojiki, the silver blade of Honesty. And Yujo, the colorless blade of Magic.
"Now return to the capital, and tell Amaterasu that her faithful student has returned." Twilight said. The captain then stood and dropped the hilt of her destroyed sword, and ran away from the town with her last samurai, toward the East Capital. And as they disappeared into the forest, cheers and rejoicings sounded from the gathering ponies of the town, overjoyed that they were once more free from the empire's wrath. All sang and praised Twilight. All but one.
Starlight remained apart from the crowd, and watched Twilight with judging eyes.
She didn't run, she saved us. She thought. Those words should have been a comfort to her, but all they did was confuse and pull at her heart. Twilight, her hero and guard chose to stay and defend Starlight's home. But to what end?
Starlight turned her back to the ponies and walked back along the path to her home. As now that the Yoso no Chowa were in the hooves of it's chosen, what other reason did she have to be near them? Her family was still without graves to shelter them, and she didn't to see them rot any more than she already had.