Nigel looks to Ixnes with bewilderment, but she simply waves him off. “Please, address the boy yourself. I had no knowledge of any of this. We are both hearing his report for the first time. He just returned.”
“According to you, he is now conveniently dead and cannot face justice for what he has done.”
“Don’t treat this so lightly. It is neither convenient, nor is it easy. With only a slight difference in events, he could have very well been the one standing instead of me.”
“If this was such a harrowing battle, why do you show no signs of injury?!”
“Medics are great?”
“None of this makes any sense-”
“Then what does?! I have spent the last year admirably serving my country to try to make up for an unfortunate incident I can never take back. That is something I must live with forever. Why would I throw all that away to attack my own home? You also have evidence that I was on campus during the attacks. What else do you want from me?!”
“The fact there is no body to corroborate your story is a substantial loss-”
Anaar had been trying to play the cool, dominant role, but there was only so much he could take, and the wounds were still far too fresh. “Loss?! What the fuck do you know about loss?! I lost a person I shared a womb with for nine months! A person who was genetically identical to me! A person who had a shit run at life so I could have everything! He is gone by my hand! What did you lose? The chance to get justice? I seriously doubt you would be keeping a Demolitionist in prison. You were going to kill him anyway. My hands are the ones dirty and stained with the blood of my brother that I will now never know!”
Anaar’s sudden explosion of emotion caught Nigel unaware. For so long he had been incensed that Anaar had been allowed to walk free with not so much as even probation. He had begun to loathe the smug attitude shown by the boy as he engaged with him. He felt that someone with the level of power he had either needed to be eradicated or very strictly regulated. Now all Nigel saw was a crying boy who was very clearly struggling with a void that could never be filled, and he was the cause.
Nigel had seen all the data on Yefferson Costa that was provided to him by the FBI and Homeland Security. He had recognized that the two boys were without a doubt twins, but where one showed a history of violence, the other had a perfectly clean record, barring one catastrophic event. It was clear that the pattern matched that of the elder brother rather than the younger. Now standing here he saw the result of the younger shouldering the sins of the older.
Nigel’s throat had begun to tighten, and after a few moments, he finally came to speak. “I will give my input to the appropriate parties. Know that if even the slightest of such incidents were to happen again, there will be no recourse for you. Ixnes, I’ll take my leave.”
Ixnes has the man escorted out as she stands to comfort Anaar. She too found it curious that Anaar had been so bold and callous before, but it appeared it was part of the act he was putting on in hopes it would hide his true state. She wondered how much time would pass before he would be able to compose himself, but to her relief, he came around somewhat quickly.
“Well I guess you know about Yefferson now. I found out that our birthmother gave us up, our birthfather might well be a terrorist psychopath, and to top it all off, we were created by months of rape to destroy the world. That pretty much sums up my journey.”
Ixnes knew better than to press him for anymore. In time he would become more comfortable sharing more details, but for now he needed time to heal. She was happy he came back to her safely, but she wondered what was in store for the future with the obvious fragility of his spirit. There was one thing she did want to know since he had mentioned it earlier.
“Child, you said you could give me proof that your brother was dead. If it is too painful for you right now, I understand, but know it may become necessary in the future.”
Drying his eyes, he sniffles slightly then looks up. “Apparently we were never supposed to be twins. We were supposed to be one person. I guess killing Yefferson caused that to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
Extending an open palm with a ball of flame, “When I killed him, I somehow absorbed his powers. I now have every attunement.”
Ixnes could not believe how Anaar continued to do the impossible. “I found it hard to believe you had two attunements, now you are telling me you have four?!”
“Five.”
“Five what?”
“Five attunements. Apparently Life is a real thing.”
Before, she said she would never let a man bring her to her knees, but now in just a week, he had done that and caused her to faint. Anaar looked down at the unconscious Ixnes, sprawled out on the floor as if she were a beautiful figure created by an artist. With a shocked gasp he poked her hesitantly as he wondered what would happen when he actually showed her what he could do.
“Ummm, Ixnes?”
With no response, he picked her up, surprised at how light she was, and placed her back in her chair, then made his way upstairs to see Seles again while he awaited her to come to her senses.
3
Ixnes had long since awoken from her fainting spell, but given the circumstances, Anaar thought it would be best to move on to his next destination. He had also spent quite a bit more time with Seles than he anticipated, which made him conscious of the things he had left to do in the day. He had initially thought to enjoy the day by taking the scenic route utilizing the shuttles, but instead he opted to simply portal to the dojos.
He could sense the old master in his spot as usual, thus he prepared himself to defend from the flurry of knives. Something occurred to him as he took a deep breath, and rather than preparing himself, slid open the door and waltzed in completely undefended. If Master Shin had already seen the occurrence, he would no doubt seize the opportunity to test him, which made his experiment that much easier.
To Anaar’s surprise, no knives nor other projectiles came his way, but instead he found Master Shin staring at him with a strange look. It was appraising as always, that would never go away, but the other emotion that was reflected seemed to be a mixture of disbelief and fear. Normally Anaar would need to wait for Master Shin to speak, but this time the words came immediately, rushed and somewhat breathless.
“What have you done?!”
Anaar had no idea what could be causing Master Shin to behave in such a manner. His character had always been indelibly calm and composed, which completely contradicted with the person before him.
“I’m not sure I follow. Master Shin, are you okay?”
“I would never think to discuss this with the person in question, but your potential was already so incredibly vast it utterly dwarfed the next closest person in comparison to you. Now it is so immense it feels as if it could consume all creation.”
Master Shin’s words punctured Anaar’s heart, and squeezed his lungs, sapping the breath from him. He fell to his knees as he tried to comprehend the meaning. Though he too could sense potential, it would seem his own potential was something that was so organic to him he had become blind to it. Even with his changes, he never felt his own fluctuations.
What was more concerning was Master Shin’s specific use of the word consume, which seemed to be the hallmark of his existence. Not only had he mentioned consumption, but to give it the scale of being world-ending was enough to debilitate what little strength of spirit Anaar had been able to recover. From his position on the floor, he began to speak.
“I killed my brother. To be more precise, I absorbed him. The powers he had, and a whole host of others have suddenly awakened in me. My echelon has exponentially increased about forty times, and there may be more things I have yet to discover.”
There was a sorrow in his voice that belied the seeming monster he had become. Master Shin internally chided himself because from the very beginning Anaar had always struggled with his own power. Now things had become much more dire than he could have ever imagine
d. Pushing away the crushing fear he held within by pure strength of will, Master Shin crossed the space to the young man he had been tasked with mentoring so that he could perform his duty.
“I can hear the pain in your voice. For you to say he was slain by your hand contradicts everything you wanted to achieve when you set out. Tell me, how did this come to be?”
Having told the story so many times, experiencing the pain over and over, Anaar found he had no tears left to cry. Instead, he began recounting the things that had occurred.
“I went home to speak to my mother, hoping that she could help me make sense of Yefferson’s existence. Instead, I found out she is not my birthmother and that she had no idea I had a brother. From the very start things were derailed. That is not even taking into consideration Yefferson killing me before that.”
“He killed you? I thought you said that you did not know where to find him.”
“Well it turns out there is a lot I have to learn about, hell, everything. Apparently we had a bond that allowed me to open a portal directly to him, which I tried, and he was not happy with.”
“I fear I already know the answer, but I would be lax for not asking anyway. Did you not try talking to him?”
“I couldn’t even get out a statement! He just started swinging immediately! In trying to converse with him, I let down my guard and was killed in an instant.”
“An instant?”
“Yes, that was just how much of a difference in power there was between us.”
“You mentioned before you left how hopeless it seemed to oppose him in a fight. If that was truly the case, how did you emerge victorious?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I think the very thing that constituted his ultimate weakness was the thing I had dreaded so long. When I let the darkness overtake me, I never told anyone, but I could feel it getting stronger. The only thing I can think of is that he had not done the same kind of cultivation with his light. Because of that, rather than canceling one another out, my darkness overtook him. Though he might have been stronger specifically from an attunement standpoint, it seems this other factor of ours is governed by a different set of rules.”
Master Shin stroked his beard as he listened to Anaar’s words. He could tell the boy was trying to understand it all himself, which was perhaps the reason for his uncharacteristically coarse responses.
“You mention dark and light, and that they were supposed to cancel one another. From the sounds of it, the concept of Yin and Yang would be an apt comparison.”
“I thought of that, and wondered if it is not all the same thing, or at least closely connected. There are so many things I wanted to know that only he could have answered. I never wanted him to die, I simply wanted to stop him.”
“The path we tread may not always be the one we desire, however it very well may be the one that is necessary.”
“I can’t help but feel like a failure though. Logically I understood the immense threat he presented. I want to ignore it, but I have to acknowledge that I carry just as much, and actually now even more threat. Killing him seems like such a lazy and extreme course of action. There must be millions of troubled people out in the world, but it isn’t right to just kill them to be rid of the problem.”
“I can see there are no words that can be a balm for your heart. With time I am sure you will overcome. That I believe is your greatest strength. I am curious to see how this infinite potential has translated into your current skills. Join me in a sparring match.”
Anaar’s face immediately paled as he felt a staggering apprehension wash over him. “I don’t think that is a good idea.”
“Why not?’
“I am forced to say something I thought I would never have to say again. I don’t know how to control my powers.”
“You have never had this issue before.”
“Yes, and I was never this… potent. Even the slightest things end up being way more than I expected.”
“Then we will have a bout for old times, completely devoid of your abilities. I had come to understand I was limiting you before by prohibiting them, but if you feel they will only be a hinderance, then do not utilize them.”
The idea seemed logical. His senses were still much more sensitive than he was used to, but it had been steadily moving to a place where he could function like he always had. If nothing else, it would be a good test for him. If he could feel more, that meant pain would come easier. It could possibly cause him to act in a way to avoid damage altogether until he got his pain threshold back under control. Nodding, he joined Master Shin in standing, then moved to the middle of the room with him.
With a bow to one another they commenced in trading blows. Master Shin had always been one to hold back significantly, likely due to his overwhelming prowess, but also because he wanted to assess the threat of his opponent. From the first strike, Anaar could tell there was considerable force behind each blow, and they came even faster than normal. Master Shin might have for the first time been seriously fighting him.
After dealing with Yefferson, who was all indomitable strength and not speed nor grace, Anaar had forgotten what it was like to have someone who could read his movements and respond accordingly. Even more so, though he did not need to worry about a single strike ending him like he did Yefferson, Anaar could not begin to believe just how blisteringly fast the blows came at him.
He understood feeling as if opponents like Yefferson or the men who had attacked him were moving in slow motion, but it was bizarre to get a similar feeling from Master Shin. Though they were indubitably coming at him at an almost inhuman rate, Anaar felt completely comfortable with dodging them. Where he normally took blows he felt were weaker but much faster, preventing him for properly evading, there were no strikes that Master Shin threw that Anaar could not escape.
For a moment his head had a rush, and in that time Master Shin was able to pressure him enough to where he was forced to block the blows. The attacks were almost as if he did not feel them at all. He knew they connected, but they did not faze him in the least. His vision flashed, like the image before him was a pane of glass shattering, and without even trying he found himself evading the blows again.
He had been completely on the defensive, but suddenly Master Shin’s moves became repetitive, something Anaar was not used to. Grabbing a fist from the air, he felt something give, and Master Shin slightly buckled. His opening found, he moved to send a single strike to Master Shin while his hand was captured. What resulted in no way matched what he had planned in his mind.
When he struck Master Shin’s chest with what he thought was a light open palm strike, he could feel the old man’s bones crushing beneath his hand. Master Shin’s body rocketed away from him, crashing into the sturdy wall with a sickening crunch that his enhanced hearing could pick up easily. The most horrific of the scene was that he looked down to see he was still holding the fist and arm he had caught.
Anaar was completely horrified by the scene, but his powers could feel Master Shin’s life very quickly fading. Moving so quickly to the wall that he almost could not stop himself from trampling the old man, he knelt and put the arm back where it was missing, as the blood was raging like a river. He had no time to methodically assess Master Shin’s injuries, and instead, in one burst put all his intent in fixing the damage.
Though covered in his own blood, the old man’s breathing immediately stabilized and the arm knitted back to the rest of his body even faster than he himself had ever regenerated. In what felt like only a blink, Master Shin was back to normal. Though he could not understand how he had this information, he could even tell the blood lost had been restored as well. He knew he had a new manifestation from the Life attunement, but he had never expected it to bring about such remarkable results.
Master Shin sat up completely confused as he swung his arm around, finding no issues with it, and patted his chest and midsection in wonder. The sea of blood was not lost upon him, but it was disregarded as he look
ed at a very remorseful and ashamed looking Anaar.
“I’m so sorry! I don’t know what happened! One minute everything was fine, and then it happened so fast…”
“This is remarkable. I actually feel better than I did before. Did you heal my preexisting conditions?!”
Master Shin’s response was not one he expected, which took him completely unaware. “Ummm, no? I don’t think? I didn’t intend to.”
“You said you became much stronger, but to think that would be the result. Did your mental acuity increase as well?”
Anaar continued to become more and more confused as Master Shin questioned him. “What? I don’t think so. Why?”
“Because just before you grabbed my hand, it was similar to how I feel when dealing with you calculating how to control your knives with explosions, only much worse. I have never had that feeling in a normal sparring session.”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you what that was. Are you sure you are okay?!”
“I feel ten years younger quite honestly. This floor is a ruined though…”
Anaar looks down and realizes there is indeed quite a massive amount of blood. Creating many small constructs of water, he sets them about cleaning up the floor. Master Shin knew Anaar was capable of creating items out of water, but he seemed all the more impressed they were going about their business without instruction that he could tell.
“Where did such monstrous strength come from? I thought you did not possess any enhanced strength attributes.”
“That is what I was trying to tell you! When I killed Yefferson, not only did I absorb his True Fire and True Earth attunements, it also created a new one, something I thought was just a myth.”
“What attunement is a myth?”
“Life. True Life at that. I have yet to be able to change into an elemental form for it, but I don’t even know what that would entail! What do you imagine as the essence of Life?!”
Revelations (Song of Sophangence Book 4) Page 4