Nabil took a fighting stance and charged his body with energy. He felt his two basic runes draw themselves warmly, one on his chest and the other on his right forearm, and at the same time observed his opponent. He had done nothing but sketch a backward foot movement as a stance. Did he really think that was enough, or was he physically unable to do more given the state of his body? Nabil had no idea, but that wasn't the only thing he didn't know. The last time he had used sembou, Nabil hadn't seen his runes because of the flames surrounding him, he couldn't say what phase the child was in. So, the question came to his mind…
Should I go all out… Or just take it easy?
Nabil weighed the two options for a few seconds. He had used warabarabow over a fairly short distance and his energy reserves for manipulating light had decreased. However, he still had enough to give a good fight, but was it the right thing to do? The kid facing him seemed barely able to stand. And Nabil's goal was not to kill him. He didn't even intend to give him his name and recognize him as a warrior.
His goal was to humiliate him, to punish him for his arrogance.
Nabil smiled broadly before activating his basic rune.
Ukufihla konwabu, the chameleon's camouflage!
The rune on his chest lit up as light particles immediately moved around him, like scales covering him down to his clothes. This innate technique allowed him to capture ambient light and reflect it on his "scales" to mimic the surroundings. Moving too much could make him detectable since it took a few seconds for the rune to adapt to too large a variation in the scenery behind him, but he just had to go too fast for his opponent to clearly distinguish him. He traced a route for warabarabow to the kid and slightly distorted space by playing with light. It was a rather complicated exercise for him, but the officer managed to triple his base speed this time.
With camouflage and Warabarabow, taking his young opponent by surprise and finishing him with a reinforced punch seemed easy. Given his condition, it should be more than enough
Nabil immediately went into action, conjuring the circuit before rushing into it. The pressure of space expanded around him as he sped towards the young boy, holding his breath during this short time between departure and arrival. The passage of air in the circuit combined with the speed of movement meant that Nabil did not have the physical capacity to breathe, let alone the technical knowledge to remedy it. But it was a price to pay, especially since his eyes could adapt and capture everything at that speed.
So he took a malicious pleasure in watching the boy's face during that second. His fixed eyes, still unaware of what was happening right before his eyes… His static eyes… which pivoted slightly to the right, right in his direction… contemplated him… before narrowing with disgust.
Nabil couldn't react fast enough. The child's body exploded in flames as his body pivoted, his fist swinging back. And, with a step forward, he received the officer right at the exit of the circuit with a punch.
The impact almost made him lose consciousness, causing him to release the energy accumulated by his optical layer in a flash of light. The shock wave raised a cloud of dust that he inhaled before being violently pushed back. His body painfully hit the ground twice before landing. Belching in pain, Nabil straightened up, spitting sand and blood, trying to catch his breath. He then felt the dust around him disperse in a warm breath and looked up. The teenager was already in front of him, his eyes burning even brighter than the flames surrounding him.
_… What the fuck was that?
Nabil felt almost physically struck by the amount of disdain and rage in the kid's voice. Looking closer, his right shoulder formed a strange angle with the rest of his body, but he didn't seem to care too much. With a crack, he put his dislocated shoulder back in place, his eyes barely trembling with pain, still fixed on Nabil.
_ How long, the child muttered furiously, will you continue to destroy the little respect I still have for you? Coming at me with such a ridiculous tactic, do you at least take this fight seriously?
The child leaned over and grabbed Nabil by the collar of his uniform, and he could see the state of his body. Besides the burns and the clothes that had completely melted on his upper body, flame marks ran across his skin, connecting the runes on his right hand and left forearm to those on his chest in fanciful arabesques. Nabil felt reality hit him like a stone in his stomach.
This kid… is in phase 3.
There were theoretically 6 phases in a diambar, but there was an important context to assimilate. Phases 1 and 2 generally only differed by the assimilation of a rune other than the main rune that allowed the use of sembou according to the type of diambar. But once in phase 3, the diambar finally becomes able to use his téén, the essence of his sembou, directly instead of using the reserves in the khôl. Most diambars reached this stage after years and years of training, and they were thus considered confirmed diambars, having reached the goal of every chosen one, that of being connected to his téén.
A confirmed diambar… that's what Nabil had in front of him.
_ I'll try to explain it more clearly, the child said, placing his forehead on his, this is a fight to the death. Next time, I won't hesitate to kill you, so you'd better fight like your life depends on it.
Nabil immediately backed away, putting as much distance as possible between himself and the child until he reached the edge of the barrier, which gave off an icy aura, his heart beating a hundred miles an hour. The death threat rang like a chime in his ears, and the perspective of defeat, which he had long fled, suddenly appeared to him.
I refuse to die like this.
Nabil reached into his pocket and pulled out a white cube, which he swallowed. The boy didn't even react to it, he just takes a few more distance between them. The sweet taste mixed with the metallic one in his mouth, and he felt his khôl fill with sembou. He would worry about the side effects of consuming Bouy later, he no longer had time to worry about anything.
Despite having reached phase 3, it was clear that this kid's body was not keeping up. He was going beyond his physical limits, his own flames were slowly marking his flesh, and yet, he showed no sign of giving up. He was ready to die in this fight, a logic that completely escaped the officer.
This was not the reasoning of a normal human being, let alone a child; no person would self-destroy himself so simply and easily without serious mental problems.
His opponent was not a child, he was a monster. An illogical monster that he feared and had to eradicate.
Nabil conjured his second rune and held out his two fingers like a pistol.
Mbeba ya Motane, the red bomb.
The light accumulated around his fingers in the form of an orb in a rainbow-colored ray that stabilized in a red color. Nabil immediately swung it towards his opponent, the orb going at a basic speed of 100m/s. The officer was not fooled, he had seen the child react to warabarabow, which gave him a speed rivaling that of the technique. So, he was not surprised to see him step aside as the red orb hit the sand under his feet. But that was what he had planned.
Contact between the sand and the orb was barely initiated when it shimmered and exploded. The detonation echoed as energy formed under an inverted scarlet cup that rose to head height. The blast carried all the sand from the area, which was blocked by the barrier and rose higher and higher, in a swirling dust. Nabil, grunting, ignored the cries of the public, probably shocked by the violence of the blow.
Tss, he dodged.
Indeed, the child had propelled himself with a burst of flames during the explosion, far enough not to take the energy wave. But not far enough to avoid the blast. He got pushed further back, disoriented, and lost his balance upon landing, his body leaning back in an attempt to not fall. Nabil immediately seized his chance and sent a new orb at him.
In this position, as the dust slowly settled around them, Nabil saw, as if in slow motion, the kid raise his head, his body still off balance, and, from his mouth, a perfectly audible whisper was heard.
_ Ngolgol, na khal yi djug!
_ Ngolgol, let the flames rise!
In a burst of flames, the rune on his left forearm lit up and shot out a curved sword that glowed with incandescent reflections. Nabil barely had time to distinguish it because the child immediately grabbed it in the air and swung it towards the orb.
Nabil could hardly believe his eyes when he saw the orb split in two before disintegrating into fine red particles that continued their course behind the child, who completely collapsed this time. The particles exploded in small red detonations behind him, pushing the dust in front of him, his silhouette illuminated by the scarlet light.
A sword… he's a materialist!
One of the reinforcement types, which explained his physical abilities and his extraordinary speed. Despite this, Nabil had already set up the Warabarabow circuit to take advantage of his opponent's vulnerability, and this time he put all his concentration into at least quintupling his base speed. With an explosion, he launched himself at full speed, breaking the sound barrier. He had barely enough visibility, but it was enough, as long as he managed to hit him with the accumulated energy of the sonic boom in the optical layer. As he approached his target, Nabil saw the child's body bend at such speed that he didn't have time to process the information. The boy placed his left hand on the ground and pushed, spinning on himself to swing a curved strike while pivoting. Nabil saw the sword blade graze his chest, barely missing him at his speed.
Then, a thousandth of a second later, he was thrown back by the force of the impact.
Warabarabow produced a lot of energy around Nabil's body, energy that could put him in danger without the optical layer he conjured to capture and convert shock waves into light at the end of his movement. What had just happened was that the sword blow had hit a precise point of the layer, breaking the cohesion of the field and disintegrating the layer, like a stretched fabric that had taken a fine cut that would spread to tear the whole. Nabil had just taken the sonic boom he himself had generated.
He flew into the air, the world losing all logic as he drifted in space. For an instant, he heard only shrill sounds in his ears and his vision was blurred. He only regained a semblance of consciousness upon the violent contact of his skull with the cold barrier.
He probably had two cracked ribs from the pain, his ears were bleeding from the sonic boom, and his mouth was filled with blood. He was still struggling to stay awake, out of pure survival instinct, but his consciousness wandered into darkness. His peripheral vision darkened, and the only thing he saw and perceived as light were incandescent flames. As well as the silhouette that was drawn in them, dragging a curved sword on the sand, advancing slowly, cutting through the dust effortlessly.
He walked towards him, the child, without fear and without hesitation, despite his injuries and his now completely naked body. In a dark corner of his mind, Nabil couldn't help but let a strange thought cross his mind: that, no matter his choices, there was no chance for him to win this fight from the beginning.
For the one who looked down on him seemed at that moment an unattainable and absurd existence.
_ It was a good fight, the child said coldly, raising his sword, it's time to die now.
And as the blade lowered towards him, inevitably, Nabil felt his consciousness sink into darkness, perhaps anticipating his future and inevitable death.