The Green Dragon and The Crimson Black Knight

The Crimson Black Knight took another step towards Nia, but his green blade was too heavy to make any kind of dash towards her. A yellow glow seeped through his visor, but he had no choice but to wait for a strike. He only needed one swift strike to end the fight, but he had to wait for the green dragon to make the first move. He didn't even care to know her name.

Nia stood with blank eyes. She waited for the demon that she feared as a child to quickly end her life as he ended her friends time ago. She closed her eyes and waited, but the Crimson Black Knight made no move. As she opened them, he still stood there breathing rapidly. His body was tired from running through the forest dragging his blade. He couldn't waste any more energy, but he saw the blankness within Nia's eyes. Her lack of will to live could be felt throughout the air. His body became agitated from the trying to control himself. He wanted to just let go of his blade and charge at her with his bare hands, but he felt that unwise. It could be a trick to let my guard down, he thought. His yellow eyes subsided as his need for control over himself outweighed the benefit of going berserk.

"You're the dragon from Kyte village, aren't you? You killed so many people and one of them was a close friend. You destroyed an entire city for what!? Did you even have a reason!?" The Crimson Black Knight asked in anger. Nia made no sudden movements and only looked down in defeat.

He needed a way to get her to charge at him if he was going to get his one good slash. He gripped his blade ready to end the fight in one attack. If the dragon decided to shoot fire at him, he would have to stand his ground, but otherwise, once she was close enough, he would strike.

"You're kind was always nothing but destructive. Are you afraid that I would be too difficult to kill compared to defenseless civilians?" The Crimson Black Knight taunted.

Some crows flew overhead the two and dropped sharp object from above. The red blade pierced the ground below and stuck itself inside the dirt in front of her.

The Crimson Black Knight became surprised from seeing his red blade once more. There was no doubt in his mind that it was his sword that he lost so long ago.

Nia saw the blade, but didn't reach for it. She saw no reason to fight.

The Crimson Black Knight wondered how Miura found the blade and whether she had mistakenly dropped it near Nia rather than himself. He didn't see any another crows flying around, except for the ones which dropped the sword flying in a circle fare above them. He thought about asking Miura afterwards about it, but he felt no anger towards the witch. He knew that accidents can happen and there have been strange magical creatures and curses around the forest that could have tampered with Miura's own magic. His grip tightened. It took all of his strength to carry the sword above the dirt, but he had enough pent-up rage to use it when he needed to.

Miura ran to the fields and saw the two staring down each other. Once, she got there, she took a breather, and that is when both the Crimson Black Knight and Nia noticed her. The witch noticed Nia's darkened expression. Her face already looked to be half buried in the witch's eyes, and she didn't want that. Not one bit of it. She needed Nia alive.

"Nia! Don't just accept death! Fight!" Miura shouted giving words of encouragement towards the green dragon. Her words entered Nia's ears, but she wasn't listening. She just didn't want to see another day.

The Crimson Black Knight with surprise said, "What are you doi-"

But before he could finish his sentence, Miura interrupted acting sympathetic with tears in her eyes, "Nia, I only told you part of the truth. The villagers weren't killed by just any dragonslayer or torturer."

As Miura talked, a crow flew over to his shoulder and quickly whispered into his ear, "I will try to motivate her to attack you. Play along."

And the crow quickly flew away without Nia ever seeing. He looked at the witch with astonishment as he thought that she noticed his own tiring body. He believed that the witch was telling lies to the dragon with light green scales and dark skin to motivate her to attack. Akai had no quarrel with "playing along" with Miura's plan.

Miura continued her statement, "The Crimson Black Knight in front of you committed those heinous acts of violence. He mutilated them into nothing but piles of flesh."

Nia's eyes began to show color, but Miura wasn't finished. She coughed twice and continued, "He killed those people. He used them as bait to bring you here. And as for your big sister, the Crimson Black Knight made her watch as all of her friends were tortured in front of her eyes until she gave up your location."

Akai assumed that the villagers being dead was an elaborate lie. However, he had no idea that one of them could have been related to the dragon in front of him. He would have sensed if any of them were dragons, but continued to follow along with Miura's story.

Nia's blank expression faded.

"What?" Nia asked.

"It's - uhh - true. I - uhh - killed them," the Crimson Black Knight said while rubbing his head and looking away with a cough at the end. All of it to confirm Miura's words. A clever taunt, he thought. Nothing more.

The witch was about to hide her face from embarrassment and whispered to herself, "Perhaps, I should have taught him some basic acting lessons before all of this..."

Although his acting abilities was lacking, it was still enough to convince Nia that the man in front of her was responsible for their gruesome death.

Nia felt a surge of anger rush through her body. She remembered Nera as she laid dying on the floor. She remembered the rotten bodies in the dungeon and remembered Belze's smiling face. She had no idea how she was going to face the boy to tell him that his parents were dead. That the journey was all for naught. A useless adventure with no gain or reward for their hard efforts. But as those thoughts raced in her mind, a slap across her face struck her. She felt her big sister Nera's slap across her face when she thought about dying once before. Nia knew that there she couldn't die. Otherwise, she would fail her big sister, again. She regretted killing all of those innocent people, and believed herself to never be forgiven for it. But also knew that she nor Nera would ever forgive herself for dying without trying to hold on to life.

A green glow enveloped her eyes as she allowed her dragon-like instincts to take over. She saw the Crimson Black Knight in front of her. Not as a demon, but as a man. Nothing, but a fantasy created by her childish imagination. The knight was responsible for all of her and everybody else's suffering. She no longer blamed herself for the fate of the villagers or Nera. She blamed the Crimson Black Knight.

Nia picked up the red blade quickly and dashed with all of her speed. Her eyes green. Her teeth sharpened. The only thing she saw in front of her was just another monster. And there was nothing to fear.

The Crimson Black Knight smirked behind his red helmet as he prepared himself to strike. His blade heavy, but he was ready to give it his all, even if it meant tearing a ligament to do so. He believed that Miura's lie was brilliant and that she should be congratulated after it was all over.

As Nia zoomed through holding her red blade with both hands, the ground beneath her footsteps grew white flowers. With each step, she kicked up a gust of wind and as the dust settled, flowers of different kinds sprouted up from the ground.

"You took my world from me! You killed everybody I cared about! You took away my big sister Nera!" Nia yelled in anger.

Upon hearing the words "big sister Nera", Akai froze. He didn't know what to make of it. He was sure that Miura was playing a trick, but as he looked into her rageful eyes, he knew that the green dragon wasn't lying. He had a lot of questions for Miura such as the red blade and the story she concocted. Questions that he wanted to ask after he was finished killing the dragon in front of him.

The Crimson Black Knight readied himself and as soon as Nia jumped up to strike down on him, sharp vines grew from underneath his blade and grabbed his sword and arm to his dismay. She roared with all of her might. As Nia lunged her blade downwards towards his head, the red blade ignited into a fury of red flame. The Crimson Black Knight quickly took his free left arm and blocked the blade from hitting his head. The magical gauntlets protected him from getting cut, but the heat from the fire was too much to bear and his armor only increased the temperature within himself. His skin on his left arm started to boil and meld with his unbreakable armor. For the first time in the Crimson Black Knight's in a long time, he felt being pushed to the edge. If he was only a millisecond slower, the red blade would have struck his head and if the armor didn't protect him, he was sure that his face would melt right off.

Nia roared with all of her might, but the Crimson Black Knight still had plans on ending the fight quickly. The pain only quickened his response. With his left arm, he pushed away the red blade from Nia's hands with bruteful strength. Nia's green eyes faded away as she watched the blade fly away from her. The red sword's fire extinguished itself before landing onto the open grass field.

In an instant, the Crimson Black Knight held Nia by the neck with his free hand and began to choke the life of her as he held her up with one hand. Nia tried to break free of his grip, but he was too strong. She looked at the knight and saw the yellow glow seething out of his visor. No human could be this strong, she thought. It must really have been a demon.

She continued to struggle to break free, but nothing would work. She even tried to grow into a fully-grown dragon, but when she attempted it, his grip became tighter to the point where she couldn't transform.

The Crimson Black Knight exclaimed, "You're strong. But unkempt. Sloppy. Untrained. And Undisciplined. Whatever battle took place between you and Captain Halido must have been a fluke. That, or age has caught up to him."

As she looked into his yellow eyes, she couldn't help but make a smile. And this intrigued him, letting go of his tight grip.

"Why do you smile?" he asked, "Do you take pleasure in dying? I wouldn't blame you. Dragons are too dangerous to be left alive as evident by your knack for random destruction."

Nia attempted to laugh, but she only managed to cough. "Do you think that you'll be able to kill every dragon? I know there are more dragons still alive out there hiding in plain sight."

The Crimson Black Knight relaxed his grip for a moment and said, "Oh. Maybe, you would like to say where any of them are? I'm sure that any information you have would be helpful."

Akai believed that the green dragon would know where some of them were and any hint towards the location of another dragon would be extremely helpful. His yellow eyes faded and he was willing to listen. Nia thought that if she kept talking that she would eventually break free of his cold hands. She just needed time.

"Hah. Even now, I can sense a dragon nearby," Nia said arrogantly trying to hold a cocky smile. She continuing to struggle against his tight grip.

When he heard this, he realized that she knew nothing.

Nia continued to fight back and said, "Yeah. That's right. You can kill me, but in the end, you'll need more than one lifeti-"

Tremendous black wings sprouted from the Crimson Black Knight's back casting a shadow over the grass. His long tail whipped against surrounding grass, vegetation, and dirt. His yellow eyes seeped through the visor as it stared straight at the green dragon.

Nia was frozen. Her heart skipped a beat as she saw the giant black wings around her. As she looked at his yellow eyes, she couldn't believe that what she was fighting - the thing that she feared and hated for most of her life - wasn't a demon. Nor a human. But a dragon just like her.