Naph's heart and mind is beating wildly. He is surrounded. He knew that.
What instilled this change within him was 'he did not know by how many'?
It hadn't even been a day that he has started questioning if the world had magic.
'I killed Bulwark! For the one who walked's sake! Why am I even trembling?' Reprimanding himself, he hit the butt of his left dagger down at his left thigh.
Whispering to himself, "I can't even feel their gazes. Tch."
Zanlo replied swiftly, "Too bad Anaphol, you should have attended some school for that."
Naph's eyes flicked for a second to Zanlo. His mind already thinking with intent 'ca'. But he stopped himself.
Zanlo's head tilted slightly, "Don't you want to complete tha-!" He skipped to the right as mirrors coloured in several patterns fell like broken shards all around him and on him.
He saved himself by an inch of getting impaled.
"Huhh!" he inhaled and spun his head to the boy glaring at him.
Naph meanwhile was astonished at what just partial thinking did. 'This I have not tested. Why does that work?' He questioned to himself.
Astref in that time drew out a sword and slashed at multiple shards that have broken out and fallen towards him. He smiled as he looked through the shimmering glass dust at Naph.
The twelve people who had entered declared together, "We, Streno knights, on behalf of the Monarch and Lord of the World claim to have the right to take that boy to the kingdom of Streno!"
Huffing a strong breath in, Naph turned his head to the twelve in front of him. They were across the crossroad. He still believed a few stood behind him away safely.
'Can I hit them?' His eyebrows furrowed.
"Let me try something," Astref winked at Naph.
He clapped his hand twice while his eyes glanced up in the air twice. A soft glow of soft red suffused his hands. And he smiled back at the Streno Knights.
Three of them jumped forward while two did not understand the danger they were in as suddenly a reckoning force of strong wind slammed into the position of the five to the left of the center of the twelve knights.
All five were smashed into a red smudge on the pavement.
"Now, it seems fair. Right, Zanlo?" Astref bemused to his partner.
Zanlo rather grabbed his temples with his right and shook his head.
Naph grabbed ever more tighter on Bulwark's corpse. He felt more out of place than anywhere he has ever been at.
'He…he just… he just killed them. With a clap!' Terrified he kept his mouth shut. Naph thought of witty remark.
But Astref broke the silence after, "Nah, don't think too much boy, Zanlo will read you before your next move."
"Truth is painful. Don't tell that." Zanlo shook his head still grabbing his head.
"Ah right, I forgot. You ended up reading those fives entire life, did you not?" Astref pointed the butt of his sword at his partner.
Making an excruciating face in the shade of his hand, Zanlo nodded.
In that span, Naph spun his head back and with intent thought of 'ta' as the ending of the word of cata. His eyes set on the supposed attackers he believed were behind him.
Except there were none.
Only dozens of frightened and running crowd of people. All suddenly surrounded by a kaleidoscopic space that folded around itself and constricted to a specific unknown limit and then shattered itself.
The people caught within? All warped together. Hideous forms were left in the wake of this temporary descent of the kaleidoscopic space.
His eyes could not believe what he had done. "I…I…I did not mean to do th-that," Naph's voice cracked.
The warped bodies attempted to move away in their own disfigured manner out of the crossroad. However, the attackers Naph had missed landed atop them and cut them all.
"DO NOT LET ANY CAESTRE ESCAPE!" Screamed one of them atop their lungs.
Naph horrified at the man's declaration. Then he felt angry, not at himself but at the fact that the ones who came to attack him cannot even distinguish what a caestre is.
"Can you not tell them apart! Someone could save them if they figure out how to undo that!" He screamed over the high affirmations by the others from the attackers.
Coughing echoed behind him. Naph snapped his head back, "What!"
"You are just the same as them." Zanlo softly spoke. "Uneducated."
He continued, "I don't think they are after you. They are just like you. Uneducated bounty hunters that sometimes cash in caestre bodies through the local government."
Naph's right hand gripped tighter Bulwark's severed neck. "Really? You think so low of your target?"
The twelve who were now seven stepped forward together. In a harmonious melody they resounded, "What makes you think you qualify even as a target?"
Chill ran down Naph's spine. 'That…was eerie.'
He quipped back, "Do you shit together too? Or sing even?"
All seven's right eye twitched slightly but they kept walking together towards the boy's location.
Naph keeping an eye on Astref and Zanlo grabbed on his ride's handle and pulled it to his right. Taking step by step away from them and the incoming seven.
Zanlo shook his head and looked up. Astref rather called out to Naph, "Try swirling around the fountain! Like a couple of times. We will wait!"
Naph avoided the man who had chosen to stay still after being hit by one of his cata combinations. 'Yes, cata combinations. That's what I'll call them.'
Zanlo spoke, "Not the correct term but you aren't far, boy."
Astref swung his sword and slashed them rest of the fallen mirror shards around him and Zanlo.
Naph noticed at the same time that many of the mirror shards had evaporated even before Astref began destroying them.
'Why is he destroying them? Is it not useful?' He queried within.
Zanlo looked at his partner tilting his head back while doing so, and waved his hand at the boy.