Then, once he felt ready, he left the room without giving Raiden a second thought.
It was time to begin the mission...
____________________
The next day, it was night, and as usual, Raiden Ei's voice was coming out of the labyrinth's radio, explaining the rules and warning them to be careful, since the people who entered there never knew that it was an assassination maze.
There were several players, over 600. Scaramouche was preparing in the assassination room near the maze, and when the match would start, he would start his mission.
He would kill all those people in one night.
Once the mission had officially begun, Scaramouche entered the labyrinth wearing his assassination outfit, with the knife in his hand. This time, he made sure to be fast and efficient, after all, those were his orders.
He approached the first target, one of the first players that appeared right next to him, they were a little away from the others, so Scaramouche could swiftly kill them without causing much trouble.
A few seconds later, he had successfully assassinated the first target, with no signs of emotion on his face, with no mercy either.
Scaramouche was killing, faster and more efficiently than ever, screams of despair and people running, shouting words like:
"Help!"
"Do not kill me please!"
"I regret being here!"
"Please stop!"
Scaramouche clearly didn't care for any of the words, and continued killing everyone. Cutting off the heads of several, some with their arms cut off, others torn apart, Scaramouche did everything to give these people intense pain in death.
Quickly, in less than 30 minutes, Scaramouche killed 50 people.
The sounds of screams and panic of the others was not even reaching his ears, he was fully concentrated on the mission, he had one purpose, to kill all of those players that Raiden Ei had chosen. There was nothing else that mattered to him, it was either him or them, that was the only thing on his mind.
He didn't feel anything, neither hatred nor affection towards them, only the need to complete his mission, to fulfill his role, he was just doing his job.
So, he kept killing, and killing, and killing.
Dottore was once again in the labyrinth, and he ran into Scaramouche faster than he thought.
"Oh? After 500 years you still kill?"
Scaramouche turned to look at Dottore, he was killing another player, and it didn't take too long for him to finish him off.
"Hello, Doctor. Yes, it's my duty to kill, it's what I do on occasion."
He was cold, even when speaking, and he said everything in a monotone voice, without letting any emotion slip out of his lips.
"Who is your target?"
He was looking ahead, looking for his next victim, while replying to the Doctor's question.
Dottore smiled and took the knife out of his pocket, a knife that could kill puppets, it was one of his newest experiments.
"Well, I'm still an assassin too."
He laughed.
"My next target is you."
It seems that this time Scaramouche had a new challenge, Dottore entered here being just a "player", but it seems that deep down he wanted to kill Scaramouche.
Scaramouche narrowed his eyes, and for a moment he studied Dottore, trying to guess what his next move would be.
In that time, Dottore was already getting ready to try and kill Scaramouche, but it wouldn't be so easy.
Scaramouche was ready to defend himself, he had trained for this for a long time, and he would try his best to not disappoint Raiden Ei, by letting someone try and kill him.
"A worthy opponent, let us have a duel then."
Dottore got ready, and started attacking Scaramouche, it wasn't easy, Scara was a trained assassin for many years, but Dottore was good too.
Dottore attacked and attacked, but Scaramouche deflected all attacks.
Over time, Dottore was stabbed in the chest by Scaramouche, just as Scara was leaving, Dottore took the chance and got up quickly, taking the knife out of his chest... and thrusting it into Scaramouche's chest, hard.
One point he had overlooked, the knife he used to attack Scaramouche was not the one that could kill a puppet. The knife he used, just gave Scaramouche a little bit of pain.
Scaramouche took the blade to the chest without falling to the ground, and without making a sound either. He pulled the blade out of his body as if it was something ordinary, a small drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, but that was all the reaction he showed.
He took two steps back, and with a single motion, he turned around, holding the knife in his hand, and threw it at Dottore.
Then, he walked a little closer, trying not to even blink, as he was still looking at the Doctor.
Dottore fell to the ground, almost unconscious, bleeding profusely from his chest, he laughed a little bit and said:
"Well, you're an assassin ready for anything."
He just looked at Dottore, still expressionless, still calm.
"How can someone like you call themselves an assassin? You aren't careful, and you are too emotional, you shouldn't have underestimated my ability to fight back."
He started walking towards Dottore, and his expression changed. For the first time, he showed a very small sign of anger, but he still maintained a serious demeanor for the most part.
"But I will admit, you tried your best, Doctor."
Dottore took the knife from his chest and continued to lie down.
"Well, if I survive I think I'll improve my techniques as an assassin... Good job, puppet."
Scaramouche stared at the Doctor's wound for a few seconds, and then, after analyzing it, he came to a conclusion.
"You've already lost too much blood, you will not survive."
He said it calmly, but he meant it, the Doctor was dying, and there's little he could do about it.
"Your death will be written as an accident, so it's likely no one will realize that I killed you, Dottore."
Dottore laughed lightly as blood came out of his mouth.
"Well then, good luck killing the rest of the people here."
Dottore's breathing was slowly stopping.
Scaramouche watched the scene, he was trying not to smile, to not show any positive emotions, but he just couldn't help it. This man's death was nothing to be sad about, and the more he thought about it, the funnier it got.
He looked at all the blood coming out of Dottore's mouth, and as he tried not to laugh, he took a step back to not get his clothes stained.
"...Thank you, Doctor."
He said it quietly, but he genuinely meant it, he was thankful for their duel.
Dottore died, and Scaramouche was proud of it.
Afterwards, he went looking for his next victim... When he got close to his next target, Scaramouche pointed the knife at his neck. The boy's player name was "K6", the same as Kazuha's 500 years ago...
He seemed to be, friendly and peaceful... When he felt the knife approaching his neck, he turned around in despair and looked at Scaramouche, scared in the first moments.
Seconds later, he looked into Scara's eyes and came to a conclusion... he was familiar, and he would have seen him somewhere before.
The boy's eyes were bright, he didn't say anything. As they spent a few seconds staring at each other, Scaramouche felt something too.
Scaramouche tried to ignore his feelings, and to simply complete the task that Raiden Ei had given him, just as he had done countless times before this.
But when he looked at K6 in the eyes, he felt for the first time, a brief moment of hesitation.
Even if that boy was a stranger, he couldn't help but think, in those few seconds that felt like minutes, that he looked just like Kazuha.
The boy continued to look Scaramouche in the eyes, and without warning, he spoke with a slight smile.
"You are familiar to me. Do we know each other?"
His voice was friendly, and he didn't show fear due to the fact that Scaramouche was an assassin, it's like he... had already met Scara.
Scaramouche felt as if time had stopped, he could still hear the screams of the other players, but to him, everything around him was completely silent, and even the voice of the one in front of him was just a whisper in the wind.
He kept looking at the boy, his mind was racing, a million different thoughts were crossing his mind. He wanted to ask something, to say a million things, but he could only manage one word.
"Kazuha?"
K6 smiled.
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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed the book. Follow me for more books.
None of the arts there were mine, credits to the artists, characters are from Genshin Impact.
Fanfic by © Loxermp/2023.
"Assassination Maze [Kazuscara]"