The howling wind carries the siphoned voices of warcries,
Stifled only by the choking darkness of death.
Thus, begins the search for that lightless void.

Episode 43 Training Commences: Lightning Strikes!

“Silence!” Azuma cries. “You stand upon a battlefield. The ground on which you conduct battle is no place for speeches. Only ruthless fighting happens here. Kill, or be killed. Talk, pause, leave a single opening, and the tip of a metal blade will pierce your side.”

Azuma laughs, his voice booming across the valley. “I simply wish to take an accurate measure of your current strength. Draw out your claw, and keep it drawn out. Release as much strength and power as you can from it; I wish to see how powerful you are. My assistant will fight you.”

“Your assistant?” Kunai wonders, turning his head from side to side.

“Tada!” Arai cries, popping out of absolutely nowhere. He summons his Dark Ritual out of thin air, and digs his feet deep into the ground, readying himself for combat.

Kunai does the same, bracing himself for the attack. “So…you’re gonna fight seriously, huh, Arai?”

“Are you ready, Kunai?” Arai cries, charging a bolt of electricity in his right hand. “Here I come!”

With a flash, Arai penetrates the air next to Kunai, forcing him to cringe slightly. Kunai draws back, feeling the sheer pressure of Arai’s lightning attacks.

“Come on, Kunai! Try this out for size!” Arai launches the charged shot of lightning at Kunai, who blocks it with his raised claw, but even still he is pushed far back on his heels, sliding back fiercely from the force of the attack.

As the resulting explosion clears, Arai leaps out from the splitting frames of dust clouds and directs another golden shaft of lightning straight towards Kunai.

Kunai leaps out of the way just in time, using a Flash Jump to dodge as Arai pursues him with Teleport. “This is neither the time nor place to attempt to run away, Kunai!” Arai shouts in midair.

He fakes a third lightning strike at Kunai, who takes the bait. Kunai flips in the air, entering a defense position. Arai uses the opportunity to launch an ice attack instead, blasting shards of glittering icicles at Kunai.

Kunai draws a Steely, using it to bat away the shards of icicles flying straight at him. They shatter in the air, even as Kunai flies past them, his Steely held and poised to strike.

“Oh?” Arai smiles, as Kunai leaps straight at him.

Arai teleports to the left, sidestepping the attack. He then shoots a blast of chilling ice shards at Kunai’s retreating back.

Kunai swiftly turns, challenging the attack. He raises both arms to defend himself, pushed back again by the immense force of the attack. The spears of frozen ice tear into the ground as they ram at him, creating large craters in the ground.

With a loud, crunching explosion, Kunai blasts away all the remaining ice blocks with his Avenger, scattering the hundreds of blades of ice into the air.

Arai watches, wide-eyed, as Kunai blows away his futile attack, sending shards of ice raining right back at him. A pleased smile on his face, Arai grips his Dark Ritual, and enters a new casting mode. “So it looks like you’ve gotten pretty strong too, Kunai. But let’s just see how well you do with this!”

In a blinding fusion of bright yellow and blue lights, Arai creates an enormous bow as tall as himself cocked in his two hands, holding it at will as it hums exuberantly. He lets go of the strung arrow, and lets it fly. It zooms through the air, seemingly slashing through the atmosphere on its way towards Kunai.

The arrow explodes through the air, leaving a trail of sizzling smoke. Out from the right, Kunai darts into sight, an Avenger held cocked in his right hand. “Take this!”

As Kunai launches the Avenger, it spirals in the air, headed straight towards Arai. However, with a single flick of his wrist, Arai creates a counterattacking spiral of lightning, blasting the Avenger apart into four pieces upon contact.

Kunai lands roughly on the floor, stunned from the counter. “Don’t let your guard down, Kunai!” Arai cries, appearing in a blue flash right next to Kunai.

Kunai reacts, but not in time as Arai sends him jolting back with a fiery blast of lightning. “Any rebuttal?” Arai asks pleasantly. He hovers just over Kunai, who is lying on the ground, weakened from the initial attack.

“Guess not,” Arai murmurs. “Cold Beam!”

Kunai’s eyes widen, as he is forced to roll to avoid the attack. He quickly raises himself to one knee, before realizing Arai has created another spear of lightning in his right arm.

Kunai Flash Jumps out of the way only in time, as the lightning spear falls crashing into the ground, leaving a large, smoking crater in its wake. “Damn!” Kunai curses fearfully, as another charged spear of lightning zooms through the air after him. “Why is he attacking me so damn quickly?”

With a quick change of direction, Kunai is forced to once again use Flash Jump to switch direction in midair, heading left as the spears follow him right.

Kunai lands haphazardly on top of a large stalagmite of murky rock, holding out his hands to balance himself before he falls.

“Not a good place to hide, Kunaiii!” Arai’s voice rings distantly below.

Presently, another charged bolt of lightning slams into the stalagmite, breaking it in half with one shot. Kunai stumbles, falling along with the rest of the rocky debris to the ground.

He rolls around awkwardly, avoiding the jagged pieces of rock raining down on him. “Oh crap!” Kunai cries, as another flash of yellow reveals Arai’s presence.

Kunai darts behind another stalagmite, hiding behind it as he catches his breath. “I see you!” Arai shouts on the other side of the stalagmite. In a flash of blue light, Arai appears on Kunai’s side, with a Thunder Spear held in his arm. “No time to play hide-and-seek, Kunai!”

“Ahh!” Kunai cries, jumping high into the air to avoid the blast of lightning. The stalagmite breaks in half once again, collapsing to the ground in a crumpled, rocky heap.

Kunai is reduced to running once again, using Flash Jump every now and then to conjure a narrow escape as Arai’s spears of lightning rocket through the air with a blistering sizzle.

‘Dammit!’ Kunai thinks. ‘How come I keep running?! I’m supposed to be fighting Arai now, not running from his attacks! Since when did he get so strong?!’

Another spear of charged lightning flies through the air, barely passing to the left of Kunai’s shoulder. Kunai grasps his right shoulder in midair, which had been singed in the attack.

“You let your guard down!” Arai shouts cheerfully from below.

“I know that!” Kunai shouts, running in the opposite direction now. He leaps on top of another stalagmite, just before it collapses as another Thunder Spear blows it away.

Kunai flies through the air, leaping on another one, even as it collapses as well. Landing on the floor, Kunai disappears with a plume of smoke.

He pants heavily, gathering himself as he stands in a shady version of the world, staring at it through a thick, grayish fog. ‘Using Dark Sight will buy me some time until I can figure out a way to beat Arai.’

Kunai glances apprehensively around; however, Arai does not appear to have tracked his movements. ‘Perhaps he was always this strong…just that he never showed it. What a weird guy.’

Having caught his breath, Kunai grabs a Steely from his side pocket, examining its minute details. ‘How should I come at him? He’s got all those ice and lightning attacks covering him…I can’t afford to let him keep coming after me like that. I can’t even pull off an attack if all I do is keep running!

‘He’s fast, too…I’ll warrant that. Unbelievably fast for a mage who has to cast magic. Since he’s got all those projectiles, long distance fighting may not be good for me. However, I’m a long distance fighter, too…I won’t be able to do much damage up close—unless…!’

“Oh?” Arai cries aloud in the real world. “KUNAAIII! Where’ve you gone?”

A blast of smoke to Arai’s left suddenly announces Kunai’s return. Arai spins, even as a gleam of silver flashes in his eyes. The Thunder Spear held stiffly in Arai’s hand disperses into invisible mana particles as he stops charging it.

“SAVAGE BLOW!” Kunai shouts.

Six stabs of the knife later, Arai remains standing quite still, though his breath is gone. He holds his Dark Ritual curiously in hand, using it to lean some of his weight on. “Very nice, Kunai!” Arai cries. “Using Dark Sight to disappear from sight and then reappearing with a new weapon—a dagger.”

Kunai holds the Fruit Knife loosely in his hands, staring down at it pathetically. “Well, it’s not exactly strong…it’s just a knife I keep with me when I need to cut things.”

“It’s very impressive that you thought to fight close range by tapping into the Chief Bandit skills you gained from Ayame, Kunai,” Arai murmurs, “but that won’t do at all!”

“What…?” Kunai asks questioningly.

“Thunder Spear!”

Another blast of lightning suddenly charges through the air, ramming into Kunai directly in the abdomen. He is sent flying across the battlefield, before scuttling to a stop and finally slamming hard into the wall of a stalagmite.

A smoking hole opens up in Kunai’s Scorpio armor, as he lays weakly in the crater he’d created after crashing into the stalagmite. Arai walks slowly up to Kunai, examining his injuries.

“Looks like the injuries weren’t too extensive…” Arai murmurs to himself.

Two flashes dart past Arai, reshaping themselves into the forms of Azuma and Yttrius. Arai benignly steps aside, smiling self-satisfactorily in the wake of the two others.

“That will be enough,” Azuma orders to Arai.

“Sure thing, Uncle!” Arai replies, saluting Azuma.

Kunai looks up at the cloudy figure of Azuma, his vision obscured by pain and dank fog. He vaguely registers the chill caress of the fog around his cheeks, as the pain intensifies in his abdomen. Kunai merely continues to stare blankly at Azuma, a towering figure hovering over him.

“Stand, Kunai,” Azuma orders distantly. “Why do you lay on the ground like a beggar? A true warrior does not allow his enemies to slay him; if he must die, he dies fighting. Stand, and prove yourself worthy of this apprenticeship.”

Kunai struggles to lift his arm, but fails to do so, as it falls limply to his side once again. “I-I can’t…” he murmurs weakly, blood running from his lower lip.

“Heal him,” Azuma orders shortly.

“Yes,” Yttrius replies from Kunai’s side.

A soft, green light suddenly envelops Kunai, as it bathes him in a soothing, melodious light. The pain from Kunai’s chest and abdomen disappear immediately.

“These bandages will seal those wounds for now,” Yttrius mutters softly, taking several yards of white bandages and wrapping them around Kunai’s various shoulder, chest, and stomach injuries. “There.”

Kunai finally stands, shakily, as he grabs onto the stalagmite behind him for support. He turns and stares Azuma in the face, his expression resolute. “Sorry about that,” he mutters. “But I’m ready for your training now.”

“Very well,” Azuma replies, after returning Kunai’s gaze for several long moments. “We shall begin your training. However, I must first educate you in the vast knowledge there is to know about souls.”

“Souls?” Kunai wonders out loud. “But I already know all about them. A Paradox splits your soul, you use a Hybrid Seal to patch it up, and you even get stronger too, from it.”

“Fool,” Azuma insults, causing Kunai to contort his face in surprise. “The nature of souls is much too complicated to be explained in a few simple sentences like that. You know only the very basics of soul theory, but I congratulate you, because you already know more than the majority of those that exist in the world.”

“Souls are not just an intangible feature of one’s mind,” Azuma explains. “They are much, much more complex than that. The possibilities and variations that can be found in the nature of one soul are uncountable. They define personality, behavior, strength. They define the core of that which makes up good and evil.

“A soul is one whole person, one whole being that exists in this world. However, along with that, the soul can be broken down, contaminated, shared—the possibilities are innumerable. That is what happens when one’s soul is shattered by a Paradox—a soul variation that modifies the core soul itself.”

“So what?” Kunai asks. “All you have to do then is make a Hybrid Seal, right? I know all about that. When a soul is damaged or shattered, the actual person runs a great risk of losing control, and dying. In order to sustain that soul and keep everything together and functioning properly, you make a Hybrid Seal in order to balance everything out.”

“It is exactly the importance of that,” Azuma begins, “that I am going to show you. The manipulation of the soul in order to gain power…”

“Manipula—?” Kunai begins.

A stunning flash of blue suddenly cuts through the air, slashing through Kunai’s eyes and reaching far deeper into the very depths of his soul. As the sword is drawn out, Kunai feels a powerful, explosive surge rush through his body. He collapses onto both knees, and screams out loud, as his very soul is torn apart.

“Wh…what have you done?!” Kunai gasps from the floor.

“Lesson One,” Azuma begins, “soul fission.”

Next Time: Episode 44 The Unsealing of Power Through a Split Soul!

Arai: So! At last, Kunai’s training has begun. Kunai’s soul has been split by Azuma! Just what is Azuma’s true goal, and how will Kunai use this to grow stronger? What is the real truth behind the souls? Tune in for this and more next time, as Kunai’s progression to gain power continues!

Episode 44 The Unsealing of Power Through a Split Soul! coming soon!
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Out a little early, two chapters to celebrate my return and the 100th chapter in the Phoneme Series!