And then, it appeared, swift and silent, fast and deadly, no more than a shadow outlining against the pale disc of the moon, yet gifted with such a strong presence that nobody in the world could have looked at the silhouette without immediately feeling the most ancestral fear rise from the depths of the heart. For a silhouette it was, and indeed a human one, in spite of the long cloak and large hat hiding the body and features.
Then the blades were out, sharp, flashing brief silvery reflections between two shadows, seeming to cut through air itself with a faint yet lethal chant. A song of pain and death, as these blades only could produce. The men raised their blasters, in an attempt to defend themselves, but it was already too late. The Hunter was amongst them, and none would escape his dance, each of his step, each of his leaps, being the preludium to another movement of the swords’ Song. In front of their frightened eyes, the legend had came to life, unexpected, and was now revealed as even more than what all the tales could have ever told.
From the corner of the street, hidden in the shadows, the child was watching, fascnated by this deadly show to the point of forgetting all logics, when even instincts themseles were screaming to her to run and never look back. Her deep, dark-blue eyes were focused on the dance, unable to follow the Hunter’s moves, yet still trying, trying to decipher their secret meaning. Urban legends were always running in the big city, a new one rising each time another was to die, and still, people told them without really believeing. The Hunter was one of them; for the child, the Hunter wasn’t a legend anymore now.
When the blades stopped singing, thee wasn’t any single human still alive in the dark alley. The silhouette stood amongst the corpses, calm and steady, fresh blood dripping from the twin swords, the chill wind wrapping around her as if to ask for a last dance. And then, all of a sudden, the Hunter turned to her, the hat and floating cloak unveiling, for a brief second, the eyes and face of the living legend. A second was enough, in this moment of pure stillness, enough to discern the dark eyes, the long white air, the odd marks tattooed on her cheeks – for the Hunter actually was a woman, there was no doubt about it, and it was suddenly appearing like the evidence itself.
The little girl thought that she was going to die too, that it was her turn, in a cold, inhuman cycle of logics. But then, without a sound, without a word, without any gesture allowing to know whether she had actually spotted the child or not, the assassin simply turned on her heels, and disappeared in the shadows, to never reappear again.
The Hunter had however very well seen her. It couldn’t be otherwise.
