Despite his unfavorable position, Takumi faced the adversity with a smile, genuinely enjoying himself. He was biding his time and used his titus sparingly, allowing a controlled portion to ride the air and another fraction to sustain the molten metal at his sides.
This battle, like any other, was a test. One of will and strength. It was a game of wits and patience, perseverance, and survival. Both were level tens of an elite nature and Alex watching them from below, could hardly keep up with their movements with his eyes alone.
"He saw me! He saw me! He saw me!" Daniel exclaimed, folding his hands over his head.
"Dude...look at them go,” Alex said, hands gripping a chair's back as he peeked out from over it in awe. Is this how battles are fought? he wondered. As an eleven, will I someday be at their level? How far will I go? Over titus, how much control will I have, do I have?
Melissa nudged him as she glanced over his shoulder. "Is he coming this way?"
Alex looked at her startled. "Huh? Oh...no, I don't think so,” he said glancing back at the aerial combat for confirmation.
"He's not going to kill us, is he?" Daniel asked.
Sierra leaned back from the side of the last seat. "The stage just got blasted."
Daniel looked even more freaked out. "Hey, maybe coming here was a mistake."
"You think?!" Katelyn spat, fixating Sierra with a glare. "It's all your fault!"
"My fault—what did I do?"
"It was your idea to come here,” Melissa pitched in. "Right Alex?"
The blond youth, eyes glued on the battle, waved an agreeable hand. "Yeah, yeah...whatever you say."
Sierra folded her arms defensively.
"You guys followed, no one asked you to come."
"Pah, follow you? Get over yourself, I was following Daniel,” Katelyn retorted, then raised a hand. "Who's for Sierra's demotion?"
"From what?" Sierra questioned.
Alex turned. "Leadership?" he guessed, not quite sure himself.
Melissa gave Sierra a thumbs down. "Demoted."
Katelyn shot them a glare.
"Leadership? What the hell are you talking about? That's not what I—"
"Katelyn,” Daniel said flatly.
"What?"
"Ju-just shut—be quiet for a sec okay?"
After a moment, Katelyn gave a small gesture of assent. "Fine."
Daniel looked to the rest of his friends. "We should be thanking Sierra...or would you have preferred to be in the dark like the rest of the school?" When they said nothing, he moved on. "In any case, we need to get out of here."
"The doors are right there,” Katelyn pointed out, nodding to them.
"What he means is, without being seen,” Melissa said.
"They'll see us anyway,” Katelyn retorted as she stood.
Takumi shot straight up to the ceiling, veered right at the last second and brushing the tile, surfing along the overhang. Mr. Goethe, at his heels, transferred from ceiling to wall.
The monk, suddenly shifting position, shot forth horizontally and curving at the corner, glazed past the arched doors. Catching the brunette's valiant gray eyes, he offered a smile as he sped past.
Free falling to the stage, Akane hit it rolling. Coming up, she drew white twin katanas from their black scabbards at her waist. Tapping the swords together behind her, she lit the blades aflame before stepping into a charge.
Mrs. Quill stepped back into the mix of her already retreating coworkers and pulled out red lipstick. Uncapping it, she manipulated the makeup into a rapier, as the monk cut down her third victim.
Holding the long thin sword in one hand and its scabbard—the former cosmetic cap in the other, she darted forward and saved a young co-worker with a parry. Sliding the blade up between the crossing katanas, Mrs. Quill thrust the scabbard's butt forth, jabbed at Akane’s face, forcing the blade lock to break.
Side-stepping the instructor’s predictable jab, Akane came at Mrs. Quill with a dual slice.
Dipping under the two blades in a squat, Mrs. Quill, shifted forward and came up thrusting.
Getting off with a shallow puncture in the side, Akane dropped back into a roll.
Mrs. Quill held the sword horizontal to her body, then shoved the rapier up and forward. With the support of her other hand on the blade, she rushed her adversary in the attempt at a throat-crushing smash of steel on bone as Akane came up.
Stepping forth, the monk brought up a sword and slid the blade along the rapier's steel. Completing the disarm, she sent the rapier flying into the neck of a wayward enemy. Stopping the second katana halfway to her opponent's throat, Akane sensed a disturbance through the stage's flames. She parried a thrown knife without so much as a glance.
Turning she appraised a young man with black eyes, three sticks of gum in both of his hands. He conjured the gum into five inch knives and slipping them to the base of his knuckles, launched them.
Takumi, breaking from the wall, opted for a detour and cut through the auditorium seating. The monk ducked and dodged, bobbed and weaved through the lower level seating as the bolted furniture was uprooted by his opponent's wayward blasts. Passing overhead a row from Alex, Takumi laughed sadistically as the chair flew into the air. The assault’s after-winds slammed into one of the large doors, forced it open, and ripped it off a hinge.
"Stop moving, damn it!" Mr. Goethe roared after him.
Coming around, the monk zipped past the young adults at a reduced speed and waved at the youngsters. Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he grinned at the predicted look of astonishment writ across Mr. Goethe's face.
Alex waved back impulsively, awed. “I want...power,” Alex said, his eyes transfixed on the monk.
"Don't we all?" Katelyn agreed.
Takumi, stopping at a safe distance, watched his adversary’s reaction.
"What are you—run!" Mr. Goethe shouted at the huddled students, stopping at a standstill in midair. "Get out of—" The monk shot a wave of liquid iron at the principal.
"Watch out!" Sierra screamed, redirecting her grandfather's attention.
Turning his body to the side at the last moment, Mr. Goethe grimaced as a piece of hot metal grazed his shoulder. The pain severing his concentration, the old man dropped like a rock. Hitting the ground with a thud, he clasped hand to his burned shoulder as his titus cloak dispersed.
"Hey!" Daniel said reaching out. "Are you alright?"
"I don't need your help!" Mr. Goethe snapped and swatting the youth's hand away, he got to his feet. "It's just a flesh wound."
Taking advantage of his enemy's inattention, Takumi called his metals back, then shot them out at Goethe's back, hoping for a quick death.
Relying on intuition alone, the principal ducked.
Takumi, half expecting the reaction, let his swarm of metals return to him on their original course. But in doing so, he split a fraction from the iron before the main mass reached him. With all eyes on the larger portion of minerals, Takumi shrewdly stored the small ball of molten ore hovering under a seat beside Alex.
It was all game for the monk, a test of brains, not courage. "Pick one,” Takumi ordered, his eyes trained on his enemy. "Your life or theirs!"
In actuality it was a question: how would Goethe like to die? Sunny side up or scrambled? There were two choices at hand for the principal. Use his death to cover for and encourage his students’ escape or abandon them in the effort to kill the monk.
Which will you choose? Takumi wondered. Will you die a hero or a spectacle? The monk, who'd toyed with many using the two-choice death game, enjoyed leaving options. For when one was at the end of the road, he believed there was no better gift from enemy to enemy, rival to rival, than the offer to pick one side of a coin. A choice before fate, an end inevitable, an existence erased in this life and a journey to the next.
Takumi, clear black eyes glinting with curiosity, waited, then frowned as Mr. Goethe turned from his students. Wrong choice. The monk thought, observing the opaque tan of hi
s adversary’s titus rise.
Cloaking his body once more, Goethe took to the air. "Your life is mine!" Mr. Goethe declared and lifting his good arm, palm forward, he blasted the monk with another wind torrent.
"How unfortunate,” Takumi said as he shaped the little glob of metal in his mind's eye. “You die a spectacle!”
Shooting out from hiding, the molten ball entered the back and went through the front of Mr. Goethe’s skull in less than a second.
Takumi, calling back the iron, added it to the larger mass swirling about him. Stepping down from the air, he hefted a heavy sigh laced in disappointment as his opponent hit the floor’s red carpet, eyes wide open, crumpling before his students in death.
Sierra alone screamed, her voice wailing out the horror, despair, and fear the rest of the tier ones felt as they instinctively shrunk back.
Sliding a foot forward, Akane launched into the air. Clearing the oncoming blades, the monk, cloaked in her blood red titus, launched forth for the new attacker. Drawing her blades to one side, Akane leveled out with the knife thrower's upper body, sliced through his neck with first one blade, then another.
Calling her rapier to her, Mrs. Quill took hold of the sword as the monk lobbed off the head of her fellow alumni. Pointing at the monk with the thin blade, Mrs. Quill willed it to rapidly extend as the robed woman flipped her body in midair, her feet stretched out for the wood of the back stage wall. Shooting forth, she aligned the sword tip with the monk's right eye, speared instead loose red fabric. Sailing through the air, the blade sank into the stage’s dark wood.
Getting off with a bloody ear, Akane infused her titus with that of the dark wood at her feet. Rebounding from its surface, she took a breath and sheathed her swords as she propelled back through the air, dark eyes trained on Mrs. Quill.
The fighter, Akane had named her, the one who refused to die.
"Haruki...damn him,” Takumi muttered turning to leave through the doors. "He forgot about the fire alarm."
Alex looked at Sierra, then clenched his fists and stood. "Hold it right there, you son of a bitch."
Takumi postponing his exit, looked over his shoulder. "What?"
"Why? Why are you doing this?! What's the goddamn point?!" Alex's voice shook as his eyes fell to the principal's body, a man he'd scarcely known, and yet someone he also felt somewhat attached to.
What was this welling in his chest? Ah yes...pain, it felt familiar. It was familiar. Fear and rage, two sides of a coin, both emotions also plain on Sierra's face.
"You trash the place; you kill... You damn sociopath; he didn't even have your stick! So why...?"
Takumi refraining from leaving the auditorium, turned.
"For a key to the Dark Realm I would lay waste to the world if I had to. Power is freedom,” the man said, his eyes glimmering with amusement and his mouth a twisted smile. "Though I envy you, Eleven, for all your friends are still alive. But I wonder, will they still be after this? Will you? Fate is as fickle as the lives it guards."
Reaching up Sierra grasped the chair's back in support as she stood. Dark hair spilled into her eyes which were a sharp crisp green and stared out like gems, unmistakable, incapable of being overlooked. "You...you..." She breathed. She snapped her head up to reveal an anguished expression twisted by hate, combed over with rage, and streaked with running makeup.
Putting her hands together, she pushed them both forward, conjuring from the ground a spike of diamond. Lifting it up with her mind, she launched it forth. Cutting through the air, it flew right for the monk's head.
Raising a hand, Takumi karate-chopped it down the middle and turned. “After I seize the rod, I’ll be back for your life…Eleven,” he said.
His metals carving out a hole within the unhinged door, returned to the state of poles as he walked on through.
A chill went through Alex as he watched the monk leave. Back for my life? he thought, frantic. They’re going to kill me…? What the hell? I’m not even from here; why am I on their hit list?!
"Damn,” Mrs. Quill muttered as she began to call back the extended sword. However, she wasn't fast enough.
Slamming her feet into Mrs. Quill's chest, Akane grabbed the fighter by the shoulders and as the red eyed woman went down, the monk, pursing her lips, unleashed a torrent of fire into the woman's face.
Stepping away as the instructor’s body caught fire, Akane caught a glint of metal out of the corner of her eyes, and ducked under the incoming javelin. Spinning around, she sputtered as she was hosed down by a blast of water. Drenched, the female monk recalling her titus cloak, shot up through the roof.
Chapter 29
Rod of Radiance
Giving the vent a light tap, Aaron dropped into the basement. Though the security was tight on the outside, he’d found another way in. Stepping onto the wooden crate below, he released a breath, relieved it was still there and able to hold his weight.
It’d been a few years since he'd last been down there and the basement’s smell of mildew brought back memories. He remembered the day he and Sierra had climbed down there, the day she broke his arm.
~*~*~*~
"We're not allowed to be down here,” Sierra protested, climbing down from the vent and settling down next to her cousin. She was tall for a ten-year-old, long-limbed and a tad awkward; the young girl's choppy locks were tucked back in the confines of a high ponytail.
Aaron, on the other hand, was a stocky child and shorter by nearly half a head. The difference between the two relatives was surreal.
"You're not allowed,” Aaron reminded her arrogantly. "Gramps lets me go where I please."
"Then why did we have to crawl through a vent?"
"Because...um, you're here. Duh."
"Right... So, what's the plan? Why're we down here?"
"It's off limits,” Aaron said climbing off of the wooden crate. "Why else?"
Sierra climbed off after him, following him with a dull expression as he tried to make an adventure through piles of useless junk, half opened boxes, unworthy tables, and abandoned items.
Sierra poked a bobble head in passing.
"Whoohoo...how interesting is this? You discovered a dumpster. What knick-knacks are you going to pick up from the trash Aaron? You pack rat you."
"Oh shut up,” he said pausing at a desk and opening up a drawer. "We're looking for something Grandpa doesn't want us to find."
Sierra prodded the glass decorations of a chandelier. "Like what?"
"Something..." Aaron climbed onto an intricately carved chair balancing atop a stack of boxes.
Sierra put a hand on her hip. "Like what? Small? Big? Stupid?"
Aaron getting to his feet, stood atop the chair and putting his hands on his hips looked down at her. "Bow, peasant."
The door of the basement creaked open. "Where's my favorite grandchild?"
“Who’s a peasant?” Sierra sneered as she kicked the box at the base.
As she knocked the tower off balance, it toppled. Aaron screaming, sent up the blue of his titus in a cloak about him and flying through the air at an awkward angle, he crash landed into nearby boxes.
"Aaron I know you're down—Aaron!" Mr. Goethe called out as he saw his grandson go down.
Putting his hands together as he walked towards the scene, the old man's eyes caught sight of his granddaughter, her arms crossed as she watched the scene, devoid of guilt. Sending a gust of wind to fetch Aaron, the grandfather approached the girl. "Sierra, what are you doing down here?"
Sierra met her grandfather's eyes and shrugged. "Aaron invited—"
"What happened? What did you do to Aaron? You're responsible for this aren't you?"
"No," Sierra lied.
Had she been innocent, the questions wouldn’t have changed. If she'd fallen, however, Aaron would’ve never encountered such suspicion. Instead, she would've been reprimanded for her clumsiness, it would've been her fault; she should've been paying attention, been aware of her surroundings, et cetera.
Sierra had never surpassed her cousin as the favorite and suspected she never would. Hard things, like flying, came easier to Aaron while easy things came hard for her. Being the inferior to her cousin, the girl loathed him and wondered, not for the first time, if she should've taken a knife to him early on.
"Ah! Ah! My—my arm!" Aaron cried out as he was carried in by his grandfather's winds.
"Aaron! Oh Aaron..." Mr. Goethe said, taking a look at his grandson's broken arm. The old man turned on his granddaughter. "Look what you've done! You've broken your cousin's arm. You should be—"
"Ashamed?" Sierra asked with a small laugh as she walked past smiling. "Why? He did it to—"
"Stay away from Aaron! You leech!" The grandfather boomed.
With a sweep of his hand, he sent Sierra flying. Suspended in the air, though not of her own accord, she skidded across a dusty table and tumbled off into a box then a closet.
"Ungrateful...adopted trash."
~*~*~*~
Aaron was pulled back into the present by the creak of wood as a shudder went through the crate beneath him. He yelped as the relatively warped wood gave through.
Drinking on the job, one of the guards—the sober of the six, looked up. "What was that?"
"What was what, Nathan?" one of his companion's asked, her voice slurring with the influence of liquor. Nathan stood, looking into the shadows for a moment. Among the old furniture, useless supplies and various other unused appliances, the sudden movement of the falling Aaron had caught the guard's attention.
"Would you stop doing that?" one of the guard's complained. "You stand up every five minutes. Take a seat and drink!"
He pushed a can of the alcohol at Nathan only to have it swatted it out of his hand. "We have a duty to the rod. Stop drinking!"
"That thing's going be out’a here tomorrow," the female guard said, staring at the alcohol in her hand.
"Yeah, no need to worry," another pitched in, pulling Nathan back onto one of the many cardboard boxes. "There are guards upstairs, too."
Nathan shook off the hand. "Whatever."
Rod Wars Page 20