CHAPTER 33
Together, they watched as the sun set, and the three were bathed in the magnificent glow of the moonlight. Megumi's and Yuki's limbs and muscles ached as they practiced for long hours under the precarious heat.
After a while, though, Megumi—with the help of Yuki—came to discover that he would fare much better on the scorching ground with his bare feet. After all, his body had always been able to adapt to most harsh conditions rather quickly. Comparatively, at least.
He continued to repeat the dance Gekka taught him, while Yuki stood to the side practicing a few katas of the Great Dragon Sway. And while not as flexible as his Raven's Flick, the technique was far more suited for combat situations than his was.
He had gotten to have a taste of it earlier and had seen how much of a beast Yuki was with only the basics of the battle style mastered. Coupled with that, she was a relentless fighter herself.
Each kick and palm strike, coupled with her crimson flames, was deadly, delivering a consistent flow of fluid attacks. It wasn't rigid like that of the golden knight, nor was it as flexible as his, but it was still quite adaptable.
With each hour that passed, his flow got faster, and his leg movements became more fluid and precise. He tried to remain lucid as the fatigue began to catch up to him, and that helped a little as well.
Meanwhile, Yuki's control of her flames continued to improve, along with her flow. The speed at which she could conjure her flames was slowly getting better, and weaving the flames into her attacks was becoming more seamless.
And pretty soon, they were both sitting side by side on top of one of the large rocks scattered around the desolate, obsidian desert. As the cool night emerged, the area quickly turned cold.
Gekka was standing beside them, looking around the desert of rocks as she waited for them to recuperate.
Soon, they were both well-rested, and with her ability, Gekka was able to teleport back home. They went home, had dinner, went to sleep, and continued their training early the next day.
For days, they continued in the same manner, Megumi with his dance and Yuki with the basic katas of Great Dragon Sway.
And before they knew it, a week had gone by…
*******
As an Awakened who was barely eleven years old, training hard every single day had made him realize just how vast his strength and durability were compared to those of mundane humans.
He could bend metal rods with some ease and had no doubt that he would be able to lift a car as well. That, coupled with the deadly dance of Raven's Flick, meant he would not only be able to maneuver the battlefield to a great degree, but he would also be able to deliver crushing blows to his opponents as well.
Though his strength would very much be matched by the durability of every Awakened creature out there in existence, that included most of the Awakened children his age.
Once again, he was performing the dance that Gekka had taught him, standing by the edge of a stream with strands of sweat flowing down his face.
He had already lost count of how many hours had gone by since he began his brutal training, but it no longer mattered much to him. The dance was almost fully mastered, and Gekka had taught him other techniques of Raven's Flick as well.
He was weaving each new technique into the dance each day, slowly turning the already complex dance into a much more intricate weave of style, techniques, and flawless movement.
With each passing day, he slowly perfected Raven's Flick, feeling his body adapt to the flow of the dance, and now he could almost perform the dance in his sleep.
And after a few more hours, he finally decided to take a rest. Kneeling by the edge of the clear blue stream, he gently washed his face with the sparkling water and looked around him.
He could remember it clearly; after all, it had only been two weeks since Rikiyo had sparred with him in the winding woods he was currently in. The woods twisted and turned into a narrow path with trees gently leaning in.
And through the canopy above him, sunlight filtered in, casting dappled shadows on the forest floor where leaves rustled softly in a hushed murmur.
It was peaceful.
He leaned his head back, staring upwards at the gently swaying leaves above, and then he slowly closed his eyes to take a quick rest. Just as he was about to close his eyes, though, he heard a ringing noise coming from behind him.
Twisting his body slightly, he slowly got up with a groan and approached his bag that was lying by the trunk of a tree a few steps away. He got close, opened his bag, reached in, and carefully pulled out a square, black device that was vibrating relentlessly in his hand.
He furrowed his brow, skeptically staring at the device.
'That's weird.'
Blinking a few times, he double-tapped the screen, and the device turned on, revealing a user interface and a telephone icon that was shown at the very top of the screen.
He tapped the icon and watched as the interface of the device changed completely, revealing a new set of icons at the bottom of the screen and, at the top, the name 'YUKI' was boldly written.
And in the next second, the familiar voice of his friend resounded through the speakers of the device.
"Megumi! Where are you?!"
He flinched, shifting away in a bid to protect his ears from the loud noise, and then he slowly brought the device closer and spoke, his voice calm and charming:
"I'm still at the stream forest."
There was a bit of silence, at least for a moment, as the rustling of leaves and panting began resounding through the speakers. And then he heard a loud gasp as someone came sliding down the slope of the hill, past him.
She was barely able to catch herself on time before plunging into the shallow stream a few meters away, and then she slowly got up from the ground and dusted herself off.
Megumi turned around to look at Yuki, who was already staring at him with a somewhat perplexed and intense gaze. She cleared her throat and walked closer to him.
"Did you get the message I sent you?"
Megumi furrowed his brow and then turned his gaze back to the device he was holding before nodding his head.
Yuki continued slowly:
"Figures… Well, I sent you a message earlier; that's why I called. It's a message I got from Gekka. Well, normally she would have grabbed us both herself, but she seemed to be in a hurry this time, and she asked that we both get out of this area as soon as possible."
Megumi tossed the device back inside his bag and slowly stood up.
"A gate?"
Yuki nodded, affirming his question, to which he simply sighed.
Gates weren't a foreign problem; just like with dark beasts, they manifested due to fluctuations in dark energy in an area. Normally, dark energy isn't supposed to survive outside a living vessel, but if it somehow did, then it would continue to grow, like cancer.
Eventually, it would become a dark beast, but sporadically it would evolve past that, growing into a dark seed. And then it would bloom, turning into a gate for a swarm of dark beasts.
Well, unlike beasts that could evolve by devouring the cores of humans, demons, and other dark beasts, a seed could produce beasts of all ranks, but their ages wholly depended on that of the seed before it bloomed.
So how much of a difficulty a gate would prove to be depended mostly on how old the seed from which it came was, but things could always go south.
Whatever happened, a seed certainly wasn't something an Awakened of his age was supposed to be close to, so he understood quite well why he was supposed to get to safety quickly.
He looked up at the narrow path that wound up the hill and quickly began moving forward. A great tremor went through the earth, shaking him off balance and sending him rolling down the hill.
He cursed under his breath as he got up from the ground, spitting out the sand that had managed to get into his mouth; however, the sudden wail of his friend quickly caught his attention.
He quickly turned to the side, his eyes widening, and his heart beating faster as he watched thick vines slowly crawl out of the shallow stream, wrapping around her legs, and then the vines swung effortlessly, pulling her up.
She struggled, panting heavily as she tried to pull the vines away, but it was pointless; they were just too tenacious.
Just as she was pulled into the waters, though, he felt something wet quickly wriggling around his legs, tightening its grip as it wrapped around his waist. Before he could do anything, he was pulled away, submerged in the depths of the water along with his friend.