[Asura]

Asura slightly turned her head around to view an enormous man, two feet taller than herself, fully armored from head to toe, who held a sword that measured as long as her own body. Most men would cower, but her eyes only narrowed with suspicion. She did not sense the being's aura at all.

"Why hello there," Asura said as her eyes closed with her normal polite smile. "Isn't the weather just lovely?"

With a speed belied by his size, the armored man charged forward and swung his huge sword in a horizontal arc. But instead of slicing through flesh and bone, only empty air, a few drops of blood, and two severed tassels met the edge of his blade.

Asura's crimson eyes were fully opened, practically burning crimson as she balanced upon the flat edge of the man's weapon. Both of her kodachi were drawn, blood ran down her left cheek from a shallow cut, and the tassels on the right side of her hat were gone. Her form no longer radiated even a trace of gentility, only a fury darker than night.

"Die."

She lunged forward and buried both of her blades into the small slit in the helmet where the man's eyes would have been. But instead of the cry of pain that she was expecting, the only sound that rang through was that of her own blades as they hit the back of the helmet. Her rage evaporated immediately and she froze when she realized that her weapons had met no resistance.

There was no body inside the armor. And for the first time, Asura felt something akin to fear.

Asura held on to her blades, but did not resist as a large, armored hand grabbed her neck and threw her down on the ground. She remained stationary, eyes wide and child-like even as her foe raised his sword. But despite her position, the emotion that filled the single word that spilled from her lips sounded astonishingly like relief.

"... Death?"