[May 4th, 2010]
[THE STARLESS EXPANSE]
"Master... you are back."
"Who is your master here?"
"You, master."
"Me?"
"You were meant to be king...
But my hands—these cursed hands—dragged you away from that fate.
I didn't just fail you... I destroyed your destiny."
"None of this is mine... Then who am I?"
[Cut]
[Zorian Sterling - POV]
The city wasn't calm. The rainwater was flooding the roads, but...
The city was broken, lights flickering. Water was flowing through cracked streets. Debris was everywhere.
And one of them was cursed, as on it stood a Tatari floating, the rings behind him rotating, and his shadows constantly shifting.
"Raika!" the Tatari shouted.
The rings behind him rotated, and his body started becoming invisible.
RINNE NO TSUKASA (Arbiter of the Wheel)
has already completed his first manifestation.
"Huh, this is what you call a shikigami?" I asked in a crude tone.
"Across cultures, they are known by different names—shikigami in the east, pawns in the west—but their purpose remains unchanged: bound entities that carry out the will of their summoner," Rinne shouted.
"For this to be 'your' pawn, you must be a king, but you look like buying bread would give you generational debt." I wasn't able to complete my own sentence.
"You think money is what makes a king," Rinne said in a calm tone.
"I think money is just another trait, but kindness is what makes a king, which you clearly don't have, as you ate humans. And corrected—how can we forget you corrected your vocabulary in just a few minutes of speaking." I took a pause...
"The moment this fight ends, I will show you what really a king is," I said, my rage from before settling.
"Fine by my side, let's see who really wins and rewrite the definition of king," Rinne said while his shikigami was fully manifested.
WHUMP - GRAB!
Rinne's shikigami moved like it teleported and tried to grab my face and crush it.
"Ah, not so fast," I mocked the shikigami.
CHOP!
I severed his hand from which he tried to grab me and tried to move away from him.
WHOOSH!
The shikigami moved far from me without letting me think about my next move.
"Raika, what are you doing?" Rinne's voice echoed as if he was merged with the air while being invisible.
"Raika, so this is your name. How did you get that lean physique, and where is your mouth?" I tried to distract Raika.
But I think the moment I stepped inside the academy, my luck turned 180 degrees from good to worse.
THUD! THUD! WHAM!
Raika appeared in front of me, and he was so fast that his punches were impossible to track without focus, and with his constant hitting, who could even focus?
CRACK-BOOM!
I was thrown towards the building and was blasted into every building, taking all the hits on my own body.
[My thoughts]
What is happeni—
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!
Raika didn't even let Zorian think for a second and started hitting him again continuously.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
I hit myself on the head for shocking and distracting the shikigami, and it worked as I thought.
"Focus, focus, and focus, just focus already, Zorian." As I shouted, my fresh wounds started bursting with blood.
BOOM! SMASH!
Raika exploded from where he was standing and aimed for my head from above.
WHOOSH! CHOP!
Zorian slid from his last position, but holding Raika's severed hand in his non-dominant hand. As blood drops fell from the severed hand, Raika's body screamed and recognized Zorian as a danger, but—
"You know, my best friend Arashi once said... But when?" I was interrupted while thinking.
Raika lunged forward without regenerating and tried to grab my neck, but before him, I moved.
CHOP! CHOP! CLATTER - GRAB!
I chopped every limb of Raika and wrenched my manacles around Raika's neck. In that movement, the length of my manacles increased themselves, and I placed both of my legs on Raika's chest and raised my other axe above Raika's head.
"Do not interrupt," I said without a doubt, not with a kind intent.
BASH! BASH! BASH! BASH!
I ruthlessly inserted both of my axes inside Raika's head with the same speed Raika was attacking me and created a BLOOD POOL on the floor we were currently on.
KAPOW!
Raika failed to regenerate, but Zorian was still hitting it in that very movement.
Rinne showed himself and clapped.
"Iwa!" Rinne shouted again.
BOOM! BOOM! WHAM!
Another shikigami of Rinne was manifested, breaking every wall between him and me.
Iwa charged, and without any wasted movement, Iwa directly raised his hand to deliver me a killing punch.
THOOM—!!... STOP.
The moment Iwa landed its punch on me, I stopped hitting Raika and put my dominant hand's axe between Iwa's punch and me.
CLINK - SHRRRKK!
I then, without a single thought, moved faster and coiled my non-dominant hand's axe, which itself extended in length, around Iwa's neck, and then pulled it with the entire strength in my body.
CLINK - CLINK - SNAP! CHOP!
I pulled the manacles with so much force it actually snapped Iwa's neck, and finding the right moment, I detached Iwa's head from his body.
Even with their regeneration ability, they failed to regenerate, as being under the constant attacks of Zorian Sterling and in the way of his living, moving manacles.
AT THIS POINT THE FIGHT BECAME ONE-SIDED.
THUD! THUD! SPLASH! SPLASH!
I moved fast and was constantly attacking both the shikigami, even though it was taking a lot of effort to attack Iwa, and a lot of blood was flooding the floor with their and my own blood, but it was necessary for them to not regenerate.
Suddenly, the air started taking a form and began mumbling.
Rinne's technique of being invisible was failing by seeing what I was capable of.
"Yumi, you are my last hope for defeating this filthy human." Rinne took a pause. "No, alone you will be weak. So, Yumi and Sai, together you can, you will," Rinne said slowly, becoming invisible again.
TNNNN... TWANG! DOK!
Suddenly, an arrow from a crossbow got directly into my back, and before I could even feel the impact, the arrow vanished.
THUD! THUD!
I stood up and walked towards the window to actually see who was the one to hit me, not from close, but from a range.
BRUNK!
Being heavily injured, open wounds, blood flowing, and now a new wound in my back, a firm push from behind made my body imbalanced, and I fell from the building.
FWOOOOO-DOOM!
I fell from the building, piercing the air directly to the ground, just like holding my last breaths before I actually die.
KREEEAK...
I used my last left energy to turn and lay on my back.
Only to see a levitating Tatari with only his half body visible, followed by his four shikigami.
Raika for speed.
Iwa for defense.
Yumi for ranged offense.
Sai for making their regeneration fast, and also to work as a healer and the one who pushed me from above.
"Finish him, Yumi." Rinne took a pause. "Or wait." Rinne became fully visible and swiftly stood on his legs.
Rinne turned as his shikigamis followed him, leaving me there to die.
They returned in a second. Iwa grabbed my red hair and lifted me. I wanted to shout but failed to do so.
Rinne lifted a headless dead body of a boy not more than 4 years old.
"This was the only one I could find, my," Rinne laughed as the blood from the dead body fell to the ground.
The settled rage returned again with more force, but it instantly stopped due to:
The guilt,
The intentions,
His actions, and
His helplessness.
[Flashback]
[Inside Zorian's mind]
[Graveyard in the aircraft]
"Zorian, here for talking with me alone?" Vance Sensei asked in a soft tone.
"No... actually, yes, there is always a thought in my mind," I said awkwardly.
"What is it?" Vance Sensei asked.
"Does winning mean losing who you are? Sometimes I feel the weight of the manacles is too heavy," I said while looking down.
"I think you are asking the wrong person; you should ask Arashi about this," Vance Sensei said while looking to the grave.
"But why him, not you? And also, he is unconscious from our last and first lesson," I said in a disappointed tone.
"Ahhh, yes, then in my terms winning means knowing yourself better if you fight for yourself. But I told you to ask Arashi, as he fights for everyone except himself, just as you do." Vance Sensei took a pause.
"You know why he is different? 'Cause he once said that in every possibility, in every dream you have, you share the same trait," Vance Sensei said finally with a smile.
"Never thought he would say something for someone like me who just met him 3 days ago, in which he is already unconscious for one day," I said.
"It's not just 3 days, Zorian. You two are old souls, maybe old friends in some other universe or in a previous life, but that is not the question," Vance Sensei said with a giggle.
"Ohh, yes, he might have said determination, or no... dedication, I guess," I said in confusion.
"Kindness. He said because of this, you will always be the King, and he will be your happy pawn," Vance Sensei said with his warmest smile.
[Everything turning to dust]
"Arashi, but why do you trust me so much?" I asked myself in the dark.
"Even if I won't do it for myself now, I will become the King, not for myself, but for him," I said to myself.
BOOOM!
A sudden shockwave hit all of us, opening new wounds on the body of the Tatari and shikigami, but healing my wounds.
"Thank you, Arashi, now you may rest," I said with a smirk.
GRAB! GRAB!
I drove my left axe into Rinne's shoulder, grabbed Iwa's hand which had me hanging, and raised my dominant hand.
ZZK-SNRRK…CRK
The attack that had slaughtered countless lives over decades, as arcanists failed time and time again to meet its criteria, was a technique said to be usable by anyone—yet its users were so rare they lingered only as whispers, as if deliberately erased from history. Zorian, unwilling and unaware, fulfilled those impossible conditions, and the technique was unleashed—driven straight into the jaws of the SPECIAL GRADE TATARI, carving a wound that will never heal.
My new attack distorted reality. A thin black fracture line flashed inside Rinne's whole skull, and then instantly another red and blue coloured light flicked inside Rinne's body, and it sounded like glass cracking underwater.
THEN—
All five, including Rinne and his shikigamis, flew and spread across the battlefield due to the shockwave, but...
Everything stopped.
Even sound... faded.
Suddenly, Zorian's body blurred like it never existed.
But something remained inside his body, not outside.
A faint glow. His flux core.
It pulsed once.
Then moved.
From his Core... to his chest.
"So this is what flux stage 2 is," I said very, very slowly.
KTHUMPH!
Suddenly, all 4 shikigamis' fists connected to Zorian's skull and broke every single bone, tore every single muscle, and crushed Zorian's brain.
[Cut]
[The Starless Expanse]
"So this is how I reached this place?" I asked the remnant.
"How forgetful of a boy are you, Master!" the remnant shouted.
"Oh, come on, now we have been here together for 5 years now. You told me everything about the technique and everything, then why am I still here?" I asked in annoyance.
"That is why you are different, Master. For others, it would have taken more than 15 years; for example, take an average person here who spends more than 200 years learning all this you have learned in just 5 years," the remnant said.
"Really??" I asked.
"Master, you won't understand everything now, but when you are in the real world... so just understand this," the remnant took a pause.
"What?" I asked.
"Master, this is not your first time here. You might, you should, you must become the strongest of them all, but that is in your hands. But there is something I need to tell you: there is an old soul that himself will be in the dark to keep you in the light," the remnant said and was gone.
"But who? Just tell me who," I asked in a desperate tone.
"So fighting with unanswered questions is really tough... but no, he said I will remember and understand everything once I am out. Hahahaha, I guess I will know," I giggled alone in the Starless Expanse.
[Cut]
[Back to the battlefield]
"Still nothing," I said while looking to the ground.
The moment I entered the battlefield, all the shikigamis had taken their positions as if they knew I was alive and they were about to DIE.
"I shouldn't have let you guys wait for so long, so let's begin," I said with a smile, looking up in the sky.
The moment words escaped my mouth, all of them jumped on me.
"SHŪKYOKU KENGEN - TENSADAN-KAI
(Ultimate Manifestation - Heaven Chained World Severance)"
A King has risen—one the world was never meant to witness.