Ronin (An Interactive Story Event) Part 5

The tie breaking vote (sadly not posted here so you’ll just have to take my word for it) makes the winner D) He has no memory before his tenth birthday!  Let the adventure continue!

                There was nothing standing between the Ronin and the faceless child.  The children were all silent now, standing around the Ronin in a perfect circle.  They appeared to be waiting for something.  Hesitantly, the Ronin reached for his sword, feeling a small comfort come from the feel of the hilt against his palm.  Yet, even with his armour and his weapons in the face of these children he could feel a cold dread welling up in his stomach.

                The faceless child stepped forward and spoke.  The sound could not come from its mouth since it did not have one.  Instead, the sound seemed to rebound around the Ronin’s brain, stinging the backs of his eyes as it spoke.
                “It must have been difficult killing your master with his own blade.  Wrenching it from his hands once he had stripped you of your own.  Driving it through his heart and feeling the blood pump over your hands.  The rush as his life left his body.  But you did not rejoice.  You wept.  Despite everything he had been trying to do.  And you don’t even remember why he needed to be stopped.”
                “What are you!” the Ronin cried, feeling the need to shout to be heard even with the faceless child only a few steps away.
                The child took another step forward and continued.  “All that blackness.  All that wonderful delicious blackness where your memories should be.  No mommy to cry for in the cold nights.  No daddy to hold your hand as you trudged through the city streets in search of food.  Maybe you had them maybe you didn’t.  They’re gone from you forever in memory and in reality.”
                “You don’t know anything about me!” the Ronin hissed.  He found himself gripping the handle of the sword now with all of his strength.  He wanted to lash out at this faceless child.  No, this faceless thing.  This was no child.  It was a dark entity.  It was a spirit of malicious intent.  “Where are the people of this village!  What have you done with them?”
                “Can’t you see?” the faceless child asked, taking another step forward.  “They’re all here.  All accounted for.”
                The child spread its arms wide, turning its faceless head to indicate all the children surrounding the Ronin.  The disgraced warrior looked around him at all the faceless.  The children.  But surely there had been adults here before?
                “What sorcery is this?”
                “Our memories define us.  They make us who we are.  Without the, we are nothing.  Empty.  Without purpose,” the faceless child said, its voice seeming to laugh as it bounced around inside the Ronin’s head.  “Our master saw potential in me.  He summoned me and bonded me to you on your tenth birthday.  He sought to train me, to wield me as a weapon.  But you fought, kicking and screaming inside your head.  Finally, our master believed you had become a liability.  He pulled me out of you and bonded me to himself.  Then you tried to kill us.  We fought and I stole more and more of your memories.  And yet, despite your weakened state and no memories to give you purpose you managed to slay our master.  You thought you had slain me as well.  But I had your memories.  Everything from before you were ten years old.  I fashioned myself a body.  I walk amongst you now without any need for a host.  These villagers.  Their memories had sustained me.  With everything I have taken from them their physical forms have changed to match.  Soon, there will be nothing left of them when I am finished feeding.”
                The Ronin glanced around at the face of the villagers, reduced to children by the memories stolen from them by this malevolent spirit.  The Ronin felt the emptiness inside him where his memories had been.  Wounds and scars that would never be healed.  The crushing guilt of knowing he had killed his master with good reason but without the ability to remember why.  At last, he had his answers.

                “I failed to destroy you before,” the Ronin said, turning to the faceless child.  “But I shall not fail this time.”
                When the faceless child laughed the Ronin sank to his knees in pain, his temples throbbing with the sound trapped inside his head.

                “Why both, Ronin?  We are the same.  You have been stripped of your memories and your purpose,” the child that was not a child took his final step forward, leaning in so that their faces – one masked by a helmet, the other devoid of features – nearly touched.
                “You are just as faceless as I am.”

The final battle is here at last.  One final question, and this one’s just for fun.  What is the Ronin’s greatest skill?

A)     Combat with the sword

B)      Combat with the bow

C)      Defense

D)     His way with words