Backwards Treatment

Each move was designed to push him into a disadvantage, to limit his options. And Youlun realized something that nearly made his blood run cold. She was forcing him into the defensive. She was outmaneuvering him.

'What kind of training has she undergone?' Each strike, each slash forced him back another step. The more he dodged, the fewer openings he found. She wasn't just attacking blindly. She was herding him. His breathing grew heavier. He was running out of space. Running out of time.

'Was this still Rhianna?' The girl fighting before him was a stranger, wearing the skin of someone he thought he understood. She had dodged crossbow bolts at point-blank range. She wielded a longsword with the precision and fluidity of a veteran. The more Youlun fought her, the more unease crept into his mind.

For the first time in his career, he felt the urge to walk away. But his discipline held firm. The battle raged on for five relentless minutes. Rhianna fought with everything she had, pushing herself beyond her limits. But limits were real, and they could not be ignored. No matter how skilled she had become, she was still human. Her body was reaching its breaking point. Her breathing had become ragged. Fatigue weighed down her limbs. Her attacks, once crisp and powerful, now faltered. Her footwork grew sloppy, her swings lost their perfect edge.

Then, she stumbled. Her foot twisted awkwardly against uneven ground. And in that instant, a massive opening appeared. It could have been an accident. Or a trap. Youlun didn't care. His instincts screamed at him to finish it.

The executioner struck, daggers flashing like twin vipers, aiming straight for her throat and heart. She had no room to evade. No time to block. No chance to survive. And then— Rhianna lunged forward. Straight into his attack. His blades found their mark, piercing flesh. One dagger buried itself in her palm. The other sank into her shoulder.

Youlun's breath caught. It wasn't him who had landed those strikes. She had chosen to take them. Rhianna's lips curled into a bloody grin. Her voice was breathless but steady. "I caught you." Before he could react, she moved. She dropped low, twisting her entire body into a brutal, sweeping cut.

Youlun felt the impact before he understood what had happened. The sword sliced clean through his legs at the knees. His body pitched forward, momentum throwing him off balance as his severed legs remained locked in place. And before the pain even registered— The second slash came.

A silver arc cut through his torso, splitting him apart at the waist. The world spun. He hit the ground, blood erupting around him in great gouts of red. For the first time in his life, he truly understood death. 

His mind reeled. 'How? How had this happened?' Even as his vision darkened, he struggled to comprehend it. He had prepared for death, had known that one day it would come for him. But he had never expected to fall like this. Not to a noble knight. Not to an Imperial assassin. But to her. The girl he had dismissed as weak. The girl whose existence he had long forgotten. His fingers twitched. His mouth opened slightly. But no words came. The Executioner never closed his eyes as he died.

Rhianna stood over his remains, her chest heaving. Her arms felt like lead. Her vision swam. The pain in her palm and shoulder was excruciating, but it didn't matter. It took her a long moment to fully grasp what had happened. She had won. The Executioner—Youlun—lay dead at her feet. Her enemy, the one she had feared for years, was gone. She waited, half-expecting this to be some cruel trick, some illusion that would shatter at any moment. But the corpse didn't move. The blood was real. She let out a shaky breath. Slowly, she turned away, using her sword as a crutch as she limped back toward camp. She had prepared for this. Her supplies were waiting—a clean cloth, a jar of congealed oil, and a container filled with live leeches. She had work to do.

Kayvaan stepped out of the jungle, arms crossed as he observed the mess before him. He eyed the dead assassin, then the blood-soaked Rhianna, then the jar in her hands. His expression shifted slightly. "You fought well," he said, tone even. "Decisive. Ruthless. You blocked your enemy's offense with your own body, turned his advantage into a weakness, and struck without hesitation. A textbook execution." His lips curled faintly. "You're qualified."

Rhianna barely reacted. She was too exhausted to care. Instead, she lifted the jar slightly and muttered, "I need to treat my wounds."

Kayvaan arched a brow. "With those?"

"Obviously."

He took a closer look. "...Leeches?"

Rhianna sighed, rolling her eyes despite the pain. "It's a common treatment used by the priests and scholars." She winced as she adjusted her grip. "They use leeches to drain bad blood, apply grease to stop bleeding, and wrap everything in cloth."

Kayvaan snorted. "Bloodletting?"

Rhianna nodded. "According to the scholars, it's a cure-all."

Kayvaan looked at her, then at the jar, then back at her. Then he exhaled through his nose and shook his head. 'This planet had a long way to go.'

Kayvaan had read about these crude medical practices before. The so-called "healing arts" of this world were barely more than ritualistic superstition. The ignorant practitioners of this land relied on absurd methods—bloodletting, leeches, and crude salves—treating illness and injury alike with the same archaic nonsense.

In his own time, he had seen accounts of this era. Medieval Terran medicine had been as much a death sentence as the diseases it sought to cure. In places where apothecaries and chirurgeons still fumbled in the dark, the simplest infections could claim lives. While some cultures had developed effective herbal remedies, others—particularly in the western traditions—had embraced bloodletting as their universal solution. Fevers? Bloodletting. Wounds? Bloodletting. Even ailments unrelated to the humors of the body? More bloodletting.

At one point, it had been so rampant that leech populations had nearly been driven to extinction. And now, he was witnessing it firsthand. Kayvaan sighed, shaking his head. "Ignorance."

Rhianna, seated before him with her makeshift medical kit, looked confused. "What?"

"This is nonsense," he said, gesturing at the jar of leeches. "You fought your way through hell, bled for your victory, and now you want to risk your life with these medieval treatments?" He scoffed. "I didn't spend over a month shaping you into a warrior just for you to drop dead from some quack's superstition."

Rhianna frowned. "But this is the standard treatment. Priests and scholars use it all the time. Even knights and nobles rely on it."

Kayvaan rolled his eyes. "Which only proves that fools exist at every level of society."