The sky was a thick tapestry of color as the sun began to bury itself under the horizon; purple, pink, blue, black. Dark grey clouds had moved in overhead, and a harsh rain began to pelt the two men that came over a small hill. A cold wind blew across the air that sent shivers down every inch of Zamza's spine. The brightness that hung in the atmosphere soon gave way to the emptiness of the black abyss, and the rain started to come down harder. Not even the stars were audacious enough to venture out this night, for even they knew that this night belonged to the nothingness. Had the ethereal orbs the power of speech, they might have told Zamza this, who undoubtedly would have agreed; for he too felt there was something very wrong about this night.

It was everywhere. It hung in the sky like those infinite stars should have, it clung to the bottom of his shoes like the dampening soil, and it coursed through every inanimate and living object like some sort of soul. But it wasn't a soul, it was almost like the opposite, something so large it could easily crush ones soul under it overpowering presence. The feeling of...

(Death)

was ominous, coming from everywhere, but nowhere. It was so thick Zamza could choke on it. The stench that protruded from the stale air was almost unbearable, yet to the casual observer, there would seem nothing amiss. But Zamza could smell it, it was something deeper, something darker.

(Death)

>From the top of the small slope, Zamza spotted the small shack that Slade said Vandle dwelled in. Shack, an appropriate word for the miniature abode that rested just past the crest of the hill. zamza decided to press on, despite the feelings

(Death)

that contaminated the very aura of the day. He moved down slowly, slipping in only a few places, forcing him to keep his balance by throwing an outstretched palm into the mud. Slade tried a different tact, running at the top, then stopping his feet completely, and gliding the rest of the way down on the mud, his arms outstretched perfectly to keep his balance, like an amateur surfer hoping against hope that his body won't be thrown into the unforgiving water.

Slade waited patiently at the bottom of the hill as Zamza maneuvered his way down the lower half of the slope. When he reached Slade, he continued past without a word being said, to the cabin that lay one-hundred feet or so ahead. Slade hurried to catch up, his feet sloshing through the small puddles that had been created by the relentless downpour.

As they walked, they came to a point where the grass suddenly died off, going from its lively, lush green, to a sorrowful yellow-brown. Zamza looked up, and saw it was like this all around the tiny house; perfect lines.

(Death)

It made no sense, Zamza had never seen anything like it, it was remarkable. Zamza shrugged and kept going, and was soon in the immediate front yard of Vandle's home.

He looked around to see that the front yard was almost barren. He saw a tree, old and dying, its sap thick, running down the tree at a glacier like speed, and covering more than half the trunk's exterior. He examined the apples that hung from the branches to find that they were more black than they were red. Rotting.

(Death)

He snapped one off the tree, the apple's addled exterior soft and squishy, backed up a step, and hurled it at the tree. It hit with a sick *splat*, some of the object breaking off and flying in different directions, but most of it sticking to the tree like some sort of glue, then slowly, beginning to run down. Zamza shook his head disapprovingly.

There was also a small swing--at least it used to be a swing--that hung from one of the branches, Zamza saw. The wood rested in two now, snapped right down the middle. The wood was old, but Zamza noted that even in its healthy days it probably couldn't hold more than forty or fifty pounds. The ropes that held up the two segments were thin and strung out now, ready to snap at any moment.

"He used to have a kid" Slade said, breaking the monotony of sound the rain produced.

"Vandle?" Zamza asked, almost unsure of what he had just heard. Slade nodded a reply. "What happened?" Zamza asked again, pushing one of the ropes that held half of a former swing.

"He died" Slade answered, a queer smile on his face. It almost seemed as if Slade liked delivering this news to Zamza.

Zamza let the remark slide off of him--he wasn't going to let Slade get to him, not now, not today--as he moved away from the single tree that inhabited the front yard. He walked up to the front of the dilapidated hovel, ignoring the rain that continued to drench him.

The wood that made the structure of the house was also decaying,

(Death)

corrupted by time and weather. The wood was splintering everywhere, and in certain places, the moisture from years of rain had soaked in, and it seemed as though the slightest touch would form a hole, or cause the whole piece of wood to crack and crumble to the ground. Why anyone would live here was beyond Zamza's comprehension.

"I told you, he's become somewhat of a hermit" Slade said, as if reading Zamza's thoughts.

Zamza nodded, then shouted, "Vandle!" After a couple of seconds and no one answered, Zamza knocked on the door.

"Maybe it'd be better if you just walked in" Slade recommended, that smile back upon his face.

Zamza considered it for a second, then decided that would probably be best. He took hold of the knob, and opened the door slowly, the hinges howling like a banshee at the two interlopers. "Vandle?" Zamza said slowly, the word broken as it escaped his lips. Again no one answered, so Zamza pushed boldly into his friend's haven. He was placed immediately within a hallway, the other side containing a room which must have taken up at least half of the area of the whole house. At the end of the hallway, around the corner to the left, Zamza spied some flickering lights, obviously candles, providing a dim glow for the large room.

Zamza moved inside cautiously, leaving the door open for Slade behind him. He began to move towards the room, as well as the flickering lights, his shoes leaving wet footprints on the dusty floor below him. The walls were completely bare; no paintings, no items hanging, just desolate. The floorboards creaked and yelled under his weight, adding more tension to his already nerve-racked system. He continued to move forward, and when he reached the end of the hallway, the empty corridor opening up into the large chamber, Zamza boldly turned the left corner.

Relativity. Time. It was all a state of mind. Wait in breathless anticipation of something, a minute could pass like an hour, an hour like a day. Hold a beautiful woman in your arms, an hour passes faster than a second. Unfortunately for Zamza, the last few seconds as he reached the end of the hallway and came to the large room, time moved like the former, not the latter.

As he turned the corner, his eyes first locked on the candles, sitting on top of some sort of altar. Next came the chair, that bland, brown chair, it's four legs resting comfortably on a large rug. And in that chair, oh! in that chair, was Slade's greatest achievement.

"YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO DIG HIM UP!" Slade bellowed, his mad cackling echoing through the small house. "I mean, they had him buried deep down there! Took me almost a whole night!" he continued to brag.

But Zamza wasn't listening. Oh, no. He couldn't hear a word being uttered. His eyes were transfixed upon the skeleton that sat in that chair. The skeleton of a seventeen year old boy who had been savagely murdered up on Tenzan Pass ten years ago. This whole quest had been utter bullshit from the beginning, Slade just stringing him along for one more good laugh.

Zamza closed his eyes. So many emotions swirled through his every being; sadness, anger, fury, guilt, frustration, they were so many that not all could be counted. As he opened his eyes, had someone looked just right, they would have seen those emotions filtering through his body, tearing him apart like no weapon could ever do. Tears streamed down his cheeks, as everything became a blur of mixing colors, light and dark. He could not see anything, or hear anything, for everything was oblivious, lost in some realm Zamza couldn't seem to find. And he couldn't feel Slade's claws burst through his stomach, entering from Zamza's back and exiting his front. He felt no pain as Slade lifted his body from the ground, his claws continuing to rip through Zamza's chest. He still felt nothing as his flesh and organs began to tear, Slade's claws already at his chest. He heard nothing as the blood burst from his mouth, flowering his tunic with even more specks of blood. There was not one sensation as the blood dribbled down his chin, tainting his teeth a red hue. He never saw his rune shine, wallowing its empathy for Zamza's position. There was not one bit of tingling in his body as his blood began to boil due to this, the crimson fluid getting so hot that Slade would notice later that it had actually begun to melt his harmonian-steel claws. And as his enemy's claws reached their zenith, stopping right under his shoulder blades, and he was thrown into the wall behind him, Zamza got the feeling he was floating, for where he was, nothing could go wrong. It would be like this forever, he knew, and he suddenly wasn't sad or despondent, but happy, for a feeling like this too good to be true, and he knew he was going to a place Slade could never harm him again. Now he would get to see Vandle for sure, and Arya and Master Forge, and that simple fact made this well worth it, and as Zamza lay there, rapidly approaching the light he thought Kage was being sucked into under Mt. Rakutei, there was a smile on his face. For all was at peace now, and that could never be changed.