Karbon Vs Pash II

A couple months past by and the threat of the Midara have slowly start to dwindle down thanks to Karbon's efforts in the town. He shouldn't take all the credit though as it was a certain someone named Pash that really showed him the way. With her help, he was able to buff up his willpower to certain Midara tricks that made Karbon a formidable foe to deal with on the battlefield.

The days would go by and not a single fight would happen. Which is a good thing, but left Karbon with nothing much to do. He lived for the heat of battle and conquering his foes, but without anyone to go up against, he just sits there idle... Watching... Waiting for his next opponent.

"Gaaaaahhhh I can't take this anymore!" Karbon shouts into the dead of night, "This boredom will drive me insane unless something happens!" Karbon thought about maybe leaving the town to go on an adventure, but there wasn't a knight he is willing to trust to releave him of his guard duty. "Maybe, I should try to take someone under my wing so I can leave this place for a bit?" Karbon pondered. "Eh, maybe another day." He shrugged his shoulders, still looking out into the night.

Welp, she was helplessly lost and now the sun had gone down, making her even more lost. She looked left and had no idea what she was looking at, she looked right and was now wondering if she had even turned in the first place as it looked all the same to her.

And after thinking about the for a second, she became aware that she had completely lost track of what direction she had come from.

Then she heard a male voice shouting out in frustration in the dark.

She pretty much had no reason not to walk towards it. It was way better than walking around in circles in the dark. Sure it could be some axe murderer in a scary mask waiting to chop her up, but her instincts still insisted that this was her best course of action.

That and she knew the voice of a frustrated boy when she heard one.

As she knew very well, frustrated boys tended to be.

And she giggled to herself.

Very easy to work with.

The light from the fire of the torches burned bright into the night. With the glow illuminating the surrounding area of the town. The forest outskirts the town and the glow was just enough to reach the starting point of it. Karbon's eyes were getting heavy with boredom until he saw a figure appear from the forest.

"Finally some action!" He thought to himself as he shot straight up and got his sword ready. He watched before he leaped though as he could tell the figure was female from the way it was walking and it's hourglass appearance. "Oh yeah, looks like we got ourselves a Midara." Karbon said to himself.

He leaped off the guard tower and to the ground in front of the entrance to the town, waiting for the lone figure to approach.

Pash now saw that she was walking toward some type of guard post. Then she saw that there was also the gate to some town before her. Then she saw some crazy person jump off the guard tower and landed right in front of the gate.

Was that sound she heard earlier the cry of someone deep in the throes of despair, one last lashing out at this cruel world before jumping off a tower to end it all?

No, it was someone wanting to look cool she realized as she got closer.

And it was someone she knew.

“Oh, Karbon! Hey, I know you! How are you doing, and would you mind telling me where I…”

She then put one and one together.

“Wait, if you are guarding this gate, that means this gate leads to that town with the king who…”

“Nope, nope! I want nothing to do with this town. I’ll be turning around and leaving now. Nice to see you again, I’m out. Peace.”

As the figure got closer, he started to recognize who it was. "Well well! Long time no see Pash." Karbon said with a bit of joy in his voice, but with a tinge of sadness since it wasn't an enemy.

"I'm doing just fine, how about..." He trails off since she did.

"Wait wait wait!" Karbon says as she tries to go away from the then outed king.

"He doesn't actually rule here anymore. He got... Assassinated..." Karbon said as his voice trembled a bit and he looked down at the ground.

Pash turned around in shock at the news. It was one thing to be upset at a man trying to make a harem of midara, but she never wanted to hear about anyone dying.

“Oh… I see… What happened?”

"It started a couple of weeks later after we had our little sparring match." Karbon began, "There was an upheaval with how the King was treating the Midaras. I brought it to the attention of the council and they had a vote on if the King should be allowed to do this to another living being, evil or not."

Karbon then slumped a bit, "The council ruled in favor of my jurisdiction that the King should not be allowed to keep slaves, but the King retaliated. Not liking the ruling, he ordered me to be executed for treason, but the council backed me up and instead, locked the King away."

He stood straight up and looked her in the eyes, "I visited the King every night when he was in jail to try and convince him to end his ways, but every night was the same, 'No! They are evil and mine to command!' He would always yell at me. A few more weeks past and I went down to his cell like I always did, but something was different."

"The king was slumped underneath the window of the cell. Blood poured from the barred window down onto the King's lifeless body. No one knows who did it, but the killing blow was a sharp object piercing the top part of the Kings head."

“Oh no. I mean, it is not even the,” and she did air quote for this, “‘enslavement’ of midara that is the real issue here. Slavery is bad and all, but any midara serving as a slave, is probably doing it by choice and any midara worth her salt will know how to, oh how to say this, dominate from the bottom.”

“My biggest fear was the potential for being used for the ‘captured’ midara’s selfish gains or madness or both. Seems like neither of those ended up being the issue.”

“So far as we know I guess.”

“But now here is my question. You have a disagreement with the king. You regularly visit the king in his cell. You know known for fighting with a sword. The king dies to a sharp object to the head…”

“How are you not the number one suspect for all of this?”

"It's the fact that I visited him every night is the reason why my name is cleared. When you visit someone in the jail, you need to sign in your name, the date, time you entered and left, and you need to leave all your weapons at with the guard before you may enter."

"They examined what weapon could of caused the wound and determined it was not done by a sword, but a very fine point, something like a saber or pick."

"Since I wield a broadsword, if I were to try and impale someone from the top of the head down, his face would be sliced in half and laying somewhere else." He held up his broadsword for her to see and compared it with the size of his face, "see how the width of the sword is the width of my face?"

Also, my broadsword wouldn't fit in between the bars to begin with."

“Ah, that makes sense,” said Pash with her hand on her chin because she felt like it made her think better to have her hand there.

“So how is that working out now? Like now that the king has passed, who is the new king? Or did the council just sweep in and take power for themselves?”

“Also, how are you in all of this? You worked for the king no? If someone went after the king, are you worried they will come for you too?”

"Since the king has passed, his son has now ascended to the throne. The Midara are still being held captive until a cure is found, but they are no longer used as slaves."

Karbon rested his body up against a tree and said, "Since I was tasked to protect the King before his jailing, I'm at no fault for his death, but I still do feel bad for it." Karbon looked down, "He may have had some loose screws, but he was still a nice person deep down inside."

"I'm not worried, no one has ever bested me at the tournaments, so bring them on!" He said with a small fist pump.

“Oh no, oh no no no. See, while I’m appalled at the idea of midara being “forced” into slavery, your kingdom should be worried less about the morality of it all and worry more about the practical side of things. Midara are very good at turning boys against one another or spreading madness. Even when in chains. Actually, especially when in chains. I don’t think it is wise to hang on to them.”

“Then again, you have kept them for so long that if you were to set them free, they would probably terrorize the kingdom first thing.”

“Oh boy, this is now a no win situation,” said Pash sadly.

“But I’m glad to hear that you are having such success at the tournament,” she said, changing the topic to distract herself from all the bad things she was imagining that might happen to the kingdom.

“Haha, I thought I was going to get to claim credit for training you, but I guess you were not really fighting *giggle* sexy girls out to drive you wild with lust.”

Karbon laughed at her last statement and said, "Yeah, usually all my opponents there are big, burly men that talk all sorts of trash, but can never back it up."

"Now that that is out of the way, what brings you back here? I thought you would of been long gone from this place by now. I mean, it's really nice to see you and all, I'm just surprised."

“Haha, you are not going to believe this, but I was lost,” said Pash with one hand behind her head.

“I figured it was about time for me to leave the last town I was in, it was pretty small and people were starting to notice me, so I started walking, got lost in my thoughts. Next thing I knew it was dark. I could not tell where on earth I was, I heard you screaming, so I wandered over here, and there you have it.”

“And it is nice to see you again too haha.”

“So, ummm, you got anything to eat? I’m kind of hungry.”

"For some reason, I don't doubt your story one bit." Karbon said with a hardy chuckle at the end.

Pash then asked Karbon for something to eat, "Oh? You're hungry?" Karbon turned around and sat down the rucksack he was carrying on his back and started to dig through it.

"Hmmm... Do you like roasted meat?" He said looking back at her.

“Oh, I’ll take anything on offer haha. And yes, I do like roasted meat, especially if it is little bite sized, bone free pieces.”

“Yeah, I don’t really plan things. Usually it works out, but then sometimes I just end up walking to back where I started haha.”

“So, did you even get the chance to put my training to the test? I mean, once you know all the tricks a girl can pull, it because a little easier to, *giggle* withstand her assault.”

Karbon turns back and pulls out a pack of roasted, salted meat that is indeed in bite sized pieces and tosses it over to her.

"Seems like your intuition is pretty good if it leads you back to your starting point."

"I did indeed! As you probably noticed in the forest, not much, or any, Midara around right?" Karbon said triumphantly. "But... That does lead to a bad thing once the Midara become fearful of this place and me..." Karbon pauses and says.

"It has become extremely boring now!"

“Oooo, food! Thank you Karbon!” said Pash as she got to work om nom noming the bite sized pieces of meat with much joy.

“Eh, it’s more like I don’t really care where I go. Honestly, it is all the same to me. I arrive, I stay for a few days, then I move to the next town. It’s not like I actually have to be anywhere.”

“Haha, sounds like one of those good problems. I mean, was your whole mission not to keep your kingdom midara free? Well, you succeeded. Good job!”

“I mean, isn’t the kingdom going to like have to build a statue of your or something?”

"The duty of our kingdom is to keep it prosperous and to keep all enemies of the kingdom at bay. Whether that be from Midara's or any other type of evil force that may come."

"Oh no no... They would never do something like that for a knight." Karbon said blushing, "But that would be a nice gesture."

"So, how has your 'skills' progressed since the last time we had our battle?"

“Well, if they won’t build you a statue, that’s fine. I’m sure all the girls are flocking to you right now seeing as how you have made the kingdom safe, so that is good too, no?”

“Have my skills progressed? Haha! You talk as if I’m some type of warrior, constantly training. Nah, I’d say they are about the same. I only know enough to defend myself, and that’s all I care about.”

“That being said, I’m still very good at defending myself mind you.”

"Yeah, the girls come and go, but there has never been a steady girl for me."

"Oh? Is that so? Want to have another test of abilities? It's been such a boring night and I'm down for sparring if you are."

“Haha, that’s a funny way of saying ‘I want you to tenderly dominate me and use that sexy body of yours to turn my brain into mush.”

“Then again, I suppose it really is logical for you to want a sparring match. I mean, you win, you get to brag. You lose, you get my butt in your face. Either way you get what you want out of it.”

“So, what about me? What do I get out of this?”

Karbon blushed a bit by her teasing, but he cleared his throat and said, "No no, It's not like that at all. These past Midara's really lacked in battle after I fought you. Besides the one that took out my father, you are the second best Midara that I ever battled against!"

"But what you can get out of this? Hmmmm..." Karbon pondered for a bit then said, "How about this, if I lose, I will have to take a direct order from you and I will have to do it, no questions asked. How does that sound?"

“Hmmm, well boys already will be doing whatever I want them to when I win *giggle* but I suppose it will be a thrill to watch a boy be my pet without me forcing,” said Pash with a sly grin.

“So if you don’t have a girlfriend, and you have not been defeated by a midara for a while, do you not think that gives me a bit of an advantage? I mean, you boys, *giggle* do get frustrated after going too long without, no?”

"Heh, trust me, you are going to need all the advantages that you can get." Karbon said with confidence. "With the way my training has been going and the undefeated streak that I've been on after I met you will make me a force to be reckoned with!"

Karbon then unsheathed his sword and planted it in the ground in front of him, "I will give you an option: sword or no sword for this sparring match?"