"It's… Beautiful…"
Aaron's eyes reflected the cityscape fading into view below him, the orange hue of the morning sun glowing like fire over the metallic rooftops.
The streets were packed with civilians, the bridges towards the West Island were unmoving due to the traffic, and the day of the final two tournament matches had finally come.
The blond boy himself, as a competitor, would be fighting Akari Ayaka at one in the afternoon that very same day, only an hour after the temporarily exiled Marshal Masaru Kurogane would resign from his match against Camilla Buckley.
I'd hate to be in the arena when he resigns…
Grinning, he pulled on his parachute, his momentum slowing to significantly more than when he had first begun to fall.
Chrone Castle had finally begun to come into view, the massive structure on track for Aaron's landing.
Lighten up on the cord is what it said in the manual, but this doesn't feel right…
Trying to tear out the landing cord, he heard a gentle pop and then a rush of wind slam into his ear.
"Eh?"
Before he could even react, a secondary parachute popped out from the pack he wore, his figure immediately ricocheting back upward as his momentum practically ceased.
What the hell!?
A gust of wind collided with the now two parachutes, his body flinging completely vertical as he dangled by his legs.
The white threads that had been so carefully straightened had tangled together, creating a net of wire that acted as a sail, the sound of ripping fabric inaudible over the air.
Feeling the blood rush to his head and his flight path being spun to the side, he reacted with quick intuition, his blade appearing in his hand without hesitation.
Flipping the hilt in his hand and shrinking the sword to the size of a dagger, he slashed it across the white thread, severing the secondary parachute that had appeared.
POOF!
The bag on his back that held his parachute burst into magical flames, the landing magic having experienced backlash.
Aaron's eyes widened in shock as he tried to stop the searing hot flames that ate away at his back, the sound of his now unstoppable descent filling his ears.
DAMMIT!
Slashing away at the parachute's cord and throwing the backpack off of himself, he grabbed ahold of a single loose string, holding onto it for dear life.
The bag containing all the essentials fell without his body to hold it up, the still near one thousand meter fall forcing it to smash to pieces against the roof of a townhouse.
He, however, dangled with only one hand, grasping at as many of the threads he could find of the unburnt original chute.
The boy had thrown off the flaming pack to prevent the descent device from also bursting into a fiery demise, his fate sealed upon that reality.
Now, however, without any landing magic, he drifted aimlessly, the winds of the sky guiding him towards the very heart of Blackport Ridge.
His hand was bloodied and red from holding onto the metal cords with his bare hands, a pain much less severe than the burns he suffered from the magically induced flames.
I-If I let go, I die…
Holding his breath and looking downward, he nearly vomited, the large river that ran through the city taunting him with its beautiful waters.
There would be no second chances if he fell, not even the abilities of the Ghostship would be able to protect him if he fell a thousand meters downward.
Luckily for Aaron, his relatively light weight of seventy-seven kilograms allowed him to cling tightly to the chute without the risk of breaking the cords.
C'mon…
His hands trembled as the thoughts came through his mind at once, his eyes fixated on the rapidly approaching terrain ahead of him.
With the wind blowing him off course and the fire ruining his focus, he had gone too far off target to attempt his original landing spot, the only thing ahead of him being Chrone Castle.
The boy had no control over where the parachute brought him, his eyes tracing the path from where he floated into the distance to where he was expected to land.
Please be on land…!
Carefully tapping his temples with his knuckles that were still wrapped around the wire, he felt the world shift, and the mana around him begin to surge
Shooting a bolt of mana from his wrist in a straight line towards his descent, he watched it streak across the sky, eventually colliding with the very top of Chrone Castle.
I-I'm fine!
Laughing in relief, the boy smiled ear to ear, his joy incapable of being withheld even as he dangled eight hundred meters up.
The top of the tallest tower measured six hundred meters in height, and the balcony to the lofty perch approached quickly.
Tightening his grip on the threads and preparing to collide with the surface, a gust of wind slammed against his figure and the chute itself.
His eyes burst open as the net lurched to the side, blowing him slightly off course.
W-what!?
Aaron's heart sank as he realized slowly that the path towards the balcony was no longer in view; instead, a trajectory much further away began to appear.
Too scared to even look, he felt his teeth rattle against each other, his blood running cold as he guessed his options.
I can either jump or…
He looked out towards where his new path would take him, the endless expansive sea all that he could see.
Dammit… Then there's no other choice.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he braced himself for what he was about to do, the tight knot of fear in his chest beginning to curl closer.
Focusing his entire attention on the task before him, he began to swing back and forth using momentum, the only hope of his jump resting on how much inertia he could generate.
Three.
His body swung backwards, the hot desert wind making his flesh turn red with heat and his eyes water.
Two.
He began forward, his speed fast enough, yet the actual jump itself was still impossible to predict until the moment he was in the air.
One.
The top ledge of Chrone Castle passed by in a flash, his body flinging forward, attempting to cling to the metallic balcony.
Unfortunately for Aaron, he had miscalculated one thing.
To prevent vultures from slamming into the glass tower windows, a barrier had been installed on the highest ledge of the building.
Therefore, as the boy's body collided with the barrier, his body was wracked with energy and flung backwards, his figure falling weightlessly down the side of the building.
WHAT THE—
His body screamed in pain, but he couldn't do anything to stop it, the feeling of complete helplessness filling his chest.
All he could do was scrunch himself into a ball and hope for the best, the last-ditch effort of a boy wrought with misfortune.
There was nothing else he could do, the turquoise-eyed boy at the mercy of fate itself and the winds of old to guide him to safety.
…
Aaron's eyes shot open, his entire body wracked with pain, and his mind cloudy as if he had been in a deep sleep.
Feeling a sharp, agonizing jab digging into his hip, he sat up slowly, moving his hands to touch the region.
"...?"
Something rather hard, perhaps metallic or wooden, graced his fingertips, his brain rejecting the possibility and requiring a visual.
Wiping his face and waving away the massive cloud of dust that surrounded him, his jaw nearly fell completely open as he looked at his left hip.
I-Is that a nail? Or is that a stake?
Groaning hard, he watched as the clouds of dust around him began to fade, the room around him becoming more visible as the moments passed.
However, that wasn't a concern to him at the moment; the only goal he had now was to remove the foreign object tearing through his body.
I can cauterize the wound easily and then get it healed if I take it out, but…
He squinted to take a better look at the metal object, its form covered in thick layers of rust.
This won't be good if I don't get it treated quickly…
Attempting to move, he realized swiftly that the stake was holding him down, the only option if he wished to stand being to pull himself off the impaler.
Damned parachute… Couldn't we have walked down?
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he thought back to every time within the past six months when he had been injured, the one measly injury before him akin to child's play compared to some of those times.
How bad could removing one rusty nail possibly be? It's not like I haven't lost a leg to an Apex terror before or had half of my shoulder blown off. Hell, I even died for crab's sake! This won't be that bad!
Motivating himself inside the dark room of Chrone Castle, one could be convinced that he knew what he was saying.
They, of course, would be incorrect, a rumor of a 'screaming banshee' appearing within the ancient building being spread throughout the cleaning staff that very same day.