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Dad Lore Chapter 12 - It Hurts
🕑 Added 2025-05-31 19:28:19 +0000 UTCTaro did not bother picking up any weapon since he wasn’t really out to kill them, and also since he knew just how petty Ra’s al Ghul, so he just made his way through the winding tunnels with the help of Raven.
There was no hiding that he had escaped since the sound of his cell door being kicked off its hinges probably travelled all through the wavy paths of this hideout.
The fact that they had him held in one of their hideouts meant that they were probably waiting for a transport plane to come pick up all of them, including Taro and Raven, and take them straight to the Demon’s lair. Luckily for Taro and Raven, they hadn’t been put on that plane.
Not even Taro could fight his way through an island of assassins.
‘A few guards up ahead.’ Raven gave him as much help as she could, which was not much, but to her defence this was also the first time she found herself in such a position.
“Do you have a way to detox your body? Or will I have to carry you out of here?”
‘I don’t really know any mundane or easy-fix spells. I do have a way to try, but I’m not sure if it’ll work with me being astral.’
Taro on the other hand was thankful that this was pretty much a deserted base so he did not have to fight through dozens of assassins.
He came to the main intersection, the centre of the base, and waiting for him were the two figures he was expecting.
Talia was sharpening her daggers when he appeared and only stopped what she was doing when he walked up to meet them in the centre ring of the intersection. Deathstroke had his sword and gun at the ready.
“This won’t go as it did the last time, buddy.” The masked mercenary said as he pointed his blade at Taro.
“Old teacher Sakamoto, it aches me to see how far you’ve fallen.” She brandished her short swords at him with an artful flair.
Taro looked a bit hurt at her dig. “Fat shaming.” He murmured under his breath.
“Step aside, Talia. I only want to talk with Wu-San.” He shivered at his own words. He never thought there’d come a day where he’d be the one actively seeking her out.
“How about a revision on fighting techniques? You were always fond of those, weren’t you, old teacher?”
Taro could only sigh at that. His entire body radiated his disappointment and reluctance but that only seemed to stoke the flames of Deathstroke and Talia’s fighting spirit.
Neither of them seemed to care that he didn’t have any weapons. Talia saw it as fair, a testament to her valuation of him, while Deathstroke couldn’t care less. He’d even prefer it if the man lost both arms as a handicap.
Three shots were fired in quick succession, and Deathstroke couldn’t even bring himself to question how the man dodged all of them in such close distance, but that didn’t matter as Talia was upon him with the ferocity of a wounded lioness.
Two more shots followed through the smallest window but Taro had already stepped out of the path of the first one and used Talia’s over-extending blade to deflect the other one while also ducking under the kick Talia lashed out, specifically the knife jutting out of her shoes.
Deathstroke’s blade was coming down so he quickly stepped into the swordsman’s space and halted the slash by redirecting the path of his falling arm. Another shot was fired off at the side of his head. Too close.
He kicked Deathstroke back and immediately had to fight out of the way of Talia’s flurry of slashes. Each slash and stab of her daggers were carried out with pinpoint precision and lethality.
She was fighting to kill him, or at least leave him greatly maimed while he was fighting to end the fight without injuring them too much. And she knew that as well, which only spurred her on.
His brows creased as a bullet flew past his ears with a sharp whizz, forcing his attention back to Deathstroke and the annoying gun in his hand.
Talia came in from behind but he quickly caught her wrist, twisted it, and kicked her at Deathstroke who was forced to halt his shot.
He looked at Talia’s daggers in his hands and his brows involuntary twitched as his nose caught a whiff of an almost odourless scent that wafted from its edge. Poison, how typical.
Swish. Swish.
Good bone. Perfect sharpness. Perfect length. He was impressed. Talia was not.
This time Deathstroke advanced first, wanting to take on the bulk of his attention while Talia peppered him from the cracks.
The two bullets perfectly deflected off the blade’s surface, with the last one being deflected in Deathstroke’s direction, which he deflected to the side, but Taro was already in his range with that small window.
The white haired fatty might be true in his intent not to hurt them too much, but the precision of his attacks didn’t fill Slade with such confidence.
If he hadn’t hastily blocked that dagger with his sword, that thing would have undoubtedly seared into his shoulder blades. Why should he worry about such an attack if he was covered up in armour? Ask the damned fatty that.
The feeling he kept getting from the fatty was that all it would take to kill him was one strike. Deathstroke couldn’t take those chances, armour or not.
He raised his other hand to fend off the man with a few shots but before he had the chance to pull back the trigger, the bastard lashed out his other hand and dismantled the top of his gun. All before he could get a shot off.
Deathstroke keeled over with a pained groan from the force of Taro’s kick but was saved from whatever would’ve come next by Talia who rolled over his back with her blade aimed straight at her old teacher.
Her blade didn’t find the purchase of red she hoped for but she did not falter. The moment one of her feet touched the ground she kicked out with the other one, forcing him back two steps to avoid the hidden blade.
Her hand lashed out in a flair, an unnecessary motion it might have seemed, but the three blades Taro had caught – two in his hands and one in his mouth – told another story.
Neither of them were keen in making him too comfortable in this deathly bout. Deathstroke showed this in how he rushed at Taro and came down with a hard swing that, while blocked, did nothing to stop his momentum.
The moment Taro blocked his heavy slash, he let go of his sword and caught the short sword flying up in his face mid-air as he flipped over Taro.
Talia caught Deathstroke’s falling sword and slashed at Taro’s legs as soon as Deathstroke jumped over him.
Taro however showed greater skill by calmly raising one leg up and quickly stepping down on the blade in the split moment it travelled under his foot.
He held his blade behind him and halted Deathstroke’s stab. One attacked from the front while the other from behind; it might have looked like they had him in a tough spot but it was far from that. He had them dead to rights, and neither of both fighters looked pleased to admit it.
“Let’s stop here.” Taro’s faint voice reverberated an old memory in Talia’s mind and all it did was make her angrier.
All the voice reminded her of was her first betrayal. It belonged to someone who she had looked up to in the same way she did her father. It belonged to someone who had been her teacher, her only teacher.
It was the voice of someone who had taught her everything she knew. From language and numbers, to values and resolve, to strength and techniques – he had taught her everything she knew. Because he had been there for her since her earliest memories.
Only for him to disappear on a very normal day without so much as a word.
“I hate you.” She spat out as she stared up at him with frigid eyes.
“I know.” He accepted the hatred in her eyes. The ease at which he did it, with the same soft eyes he always held for her, made the venom in her heart bubble sinisterly.
“You knew... More than anyone, you knew...” She gritted out while never letting go of the blade he had underfoot.
It was something she could never understand, not because she wasn’t smart enough, but because she knew exactly the kind of person he was.
The lack of an answer plagued her so much for the first five years after his disappearance that it affected both her mind and skill, that was until her father personally forced her to suppress her emotions and do away with those memories. And that was what she did for the next seven years.... Until it all started unravelling at the seams a few minutes ago.
“.... So how could you?” It came out in a whisper that even Deathstroke who was behind him failed to hear her.
Taro’s eyes broke off from her for a second as he grabbed the other hand trying to stab him from behind and turned to fully face Deathstroke.
Deathstroke tried to free his wrists but it felt like they were held in a reinforced steel vice. His fight and flight instincts screamed flight in the brief second their eyes met, but his stupid wrists just won’t budge.
Slade Wilson, in his extensive career as Deathstroke, has brushed against death more times than he had fingers and toes and one of the main things that preserved his life was his abilities to judge his situation with prejudice, bias, or prideful thinking.
In the moment where their eyes met, in that fraction of a second, Slade Wilson, the legendary mercenary realized that, without a doubt, this deceitfully jovial and fat white haired man, Taro Sakamoto, could have killed him if he wanted to.
In that moment, his death was certain. In that moment, Slade Wilson, The Deathstroke, finally met Taro Sakamoto, The Assassin.
“Excuse us for a second.” The man’s whisper-like voice flowed into his ears at the same time that a momentous force kicked him flying into the tunnel behind him.
Finally taking care of Deathstroke, Taro turned back to Talia who still remained kneeling with her head down and her fingers gripping tight the hilt of Deathstroke’s sword.
“Talia...”
“How could you?” He heard her say in such a fragile voice, one he had never heard her speak with. The Talia he knew could be a lot of things, but fragile wasn’t one of them. He had personally made sure of that.
Her head tilted a little bit upwards and that was when he saw it.
Her trembling lips. In that moment he knew that something was wrong.
“Talia.” He called out to her while reaching for her shoulders but she slapped his hand away harshly.
“I thought a lot of you while growing up.” She spoke as if the very words leaving her lips were an afterthought. “I thought you immutable. I thought you venerable. I thought you perfect. I thought you flawed. I thought you invisible.... And I thought you human too.”
He frowned. Her words bringing up memories of decades past. Memories of him teaching her to do away with rigid thoughts, especially of how she thought of him, and instead make it constantly fluid.
She was his student, one of the very few he actually taught, and the one he taught the longest. He knew she would likely be hurt with his disappearance, he expected as much, but that was it.
He was missing something. The look in Talia’s eyes told him as much.
“But even after all that, you did something I never thought you would do. I could have expected something like that from my father. Anyone else, but not you.” Her voice was soft and fleeting but all it did was weigh more on Taro’s mind.
It was so jarring that it felt like Taro was meeting Talia for the first time.
His mind churned for clues on what he might have done – which was a lot – that might have affected her like this – of which he had no clue.
He had wandered around and joined the League of Assassins when he was barely an adult. He needed a conducive environment to practice and hone his techniques and Ra’s had offered the younger him an island of assassins. There was no better environment than this to hone the craft he had picked up a few years ago.
His younger passion and full-time investment in his craft made him far above those he’d have called his peers. Ra’s had noticed, and had let the talented young man become one of the instructors for his young daughter. A bare child hardly ten years old.
He travelled all around the world in search of new inspiration for his craft and whenever he returned, he’d teach the young Talia all that she could learn. He even went ahead and taught her some of his most prized techniques that he never taught anyone else. All this was just because she shared the same inquisitive passion as he did.
He taught her as any teacher worth their title would: he went over and beyond for his most talented student.
He watched her take her first kill. Watched her carry out her first torture. Watched her go through her first torture. Watched her forge her first bond of friendship. Watched her kill her bestfriend on a lesson on how to strengthen her resolve.
Those thoughts came back to him so fast because he could never forget them.
He was among the few people, of which included Ra’s al Ghul and Wu-San, that cultivated her into the accomplished assassin she was.
She was not some simple woman, in some ignoble town, that was easily besot by complex emotions. He trained her above such trivialities.
And that was why seeing her like this unsettled him a good deal. He would have been fine if she simply hated him with all her being. He had trained her to the point where she wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if she had a reason to, and the chance to.
They were assassins after all.
“Talia, what is the meaning of this?” He took a step forward and had to consciously hold himself back from reverting back to her instructor.
She finally looked up at him and all the negative emotions she had for him were put aside for now to ask him the questions she needed answers to.
There were hints of red around her eyes but no signs of a tear shed.
“Was it another one of your lessons? All these years, was it just another test from you and him?” She asked, much to Taro’s confusion.
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you speak of, but I can assure you that you’re wrong in your assumptions.”
“Then why? That is all I want to know? Why? And why you?”
This time he kept silent and she must have taken that for something else he couldn’t understand because she slowly rose to her feet and held up the sword in a stance, drawing the hilt to the side of her head.
“How about one more lesson, old teacher?”
He frowned.
“Right here, right now. Kill your student. Or let her kill you. Sever, with your own hand, the lifetime bond between master and student. Just like any of your old lessons, old teacher, make your choice.”
She waited no longer for whatever words he had to say and commenced a life and death duel with her old teacher.
Taro could tell with a glance that she was committed to fight and die in this duel and while he had no intentions of greatly harming her, she failed to share the same sentiments.
“Stop this at once, Talia.” His voice, always soft and faint, carried with it a clarity that Talia couldn’t ignore.
She fought him while dual-wielding a katana and a tanto with such masterful skill that every stroke of her blade was a kill strike. All it would take was one strike to kill her opponent.
Taro on the other hand was increasingly baffled. Things had taken a bizarre turn with Talia all of a sudden and he wasn’t sure what kind of conclusion they would come to if they kept fighting like this.
“Stop this, Talia.” She ignored his words, going straight for his throat the moment he spoke.
She was brutally calm and focused on killing Taro that nothing else mattered.
“I won’t kill you, Talia. Best stop this now.” He said to her as he clashed blades with her sword, but not before twisting his blade around her sword so he could use the pommel of his to stop her tanto, effectively trapping his blade between her sword and her tanto.
“I won’t kill you, Talia. I don’t want to.” His words were completely serious that it made Talia falter.
“If you can’t do that, then how could you have been so vile back then?” She asked, confusing him once more as he had no idea of what she was referring to.
In all his memories, he had always been her teacher. Nothing more, nothing less. He had been the strictest with her and could vividly remember breaking her bones more times than the total number of bones she had in her body.
But all that fell under his purview as her teacher. The other assassins of the League went through similar training as she did so that couldn’t be it.
“I have no recollection of being so vile to you to push you this far against me. What kind of man and teacher would I have been if I continually tortured you flor nothing more than my own pleasure?”
Try as he might but he couldn’t recall what he might have done at any point in the past to hurt her this much. He had been her teacher and nothing more.
The only thing that came to mind was him leaving without a word but even that wouldn’t have hurt her this much. She might have felt betrayed that her teacher ran away without a word, but she would have seen that as betrayal towards the League and not simply to herself.
Once again, they were assassins and he had been her teacher for most of the time. That was all it had been.
Her eyes trembled but the hurt Taro could see behind them ran so deep that it was almost impossible to cause with physical harm.
“What kind of man will I have to be to hurt someone so deep and yet remain ignorant of why I did it?” His words were said trying to convince her of his unintended ignorance, but that thought froze when he saw a stream of tears running down her cheek.
“You tell me.” Her voice had never sounded so frail and broken as it did when she spoke.
“What kind of father abandons their child without so much as a parting word or a farewell?”
Taro Sakamoto froze. He finally saw the hurt in her eyes.
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Taro: O _ O
Depth: o _ O
You: O ~ O'
