Kellios, after how chaotic the past few days have been, chose to take a walk by the seaside. "Freedom... Huh?"
He closes his eyes and memories back at the mountains far away to the north, enveloped by the blistering cold of winter. Existing there enough is hell itself, but it was simply the natural habitat for that of the Fortis bloodline.
The waves of the seas crashes to each other, matching that of Kellios' memories of his sparring days back at the mountains.
Sound, enough to scare anyone was being produced by nothing but sixteen year old children.
Was it the sound of concrete? No, it was far too brittle to be it. Was it the sound of wood? No, it was too quiet to be wood.
It sounded visceral.
Kellios delved deeper into his memories and a very clear conjuration of his memories flashes through his mind.
Ah yes, that's right, it was simply the sound of bones and flesh being torn apart.
A very normal day in the Fortis family.
...
"Yargh!" These kids shouted.
A kick to the side, Kellios raised his guard, but this kid he was fighting landed a clean shot right to his temple.
"Wh- what..? Where did that come from..? This bastard Erkal..." Kellios felt dumbfounded, there was no damage taken from his arm. "I blocked it, I definitely blocked it..." He hallucinated, talking to himself as he felt his body falling down to the snow covered ground.
His hallucinations were cut off as soon as he regained back a portion of his consciousness, immediately ducking, barely dodging a stomp from his opponent.
Erkal takes back his stance, surprised that Kellios took his kick and was there still conscious and able to move like that. He pushes forward, a straight kick, his toes gaining the power of his entire body. His entire body turning into a spear.
Kellios grabbed the soles of his feet, and threw it upwards, blowing off Erkal's balance.
"Wha-" Erkal, very surprised by the sudden parry, suddenly forgot which was up and down. His body spun around like a ragdoll, "What just happened!? Aiki!?" He thought to himself until all he forgot which white scenery was supposed to be the sky or the ground.
The speed of kicks of an average human can go up to 95 kilometers per hour. It's barely visible by the normal person. For professional fighters? It can go up to 120 kilometers, it's pretty much near invisible.
It's the reason why most fighters, like boxers for example don't react to punches, they predict the punches by looking at the opponent's body.
What Kellios just did was otherworldly, concussed from the previous kick, he still had enough strength, reaction and intelligence to completely parry something like that. "Wake up... wake up..." He screamed to himself. "I could only deflect, this is the best chance I have... WAKE UP!"
In that single moment, Kellios unlocked the ability to 'tune'. His body seemingly turned soft and malleable. He twisted his body, and just like a whip, unleashed its fury, slapping Erkal on his chest as he fell down from the initial parry, sending him flying.
A man, that has been observing the fight this whole time, stood there far away. His long white hair billowing from the harsh cold winds of the north. Those eyes that seemed so bored, fiercely oversees the fight. This was the head of the Fortis family, Uriel Fortis. "Tuning... For you to achieve it right here..."
...
Tuning, is an ability exclusive to the Fortis bloodline. One of the researchers, a Peace Prize winner, a Peace Laureate who once examined the head of the family talked of this ability in his research.
"I think the best description for tuning is too difficult to understand if I explain it right here. As crude as I may be, I think the easiest way to understand tuning is like an RPG. Yes, a role playing game. Sounds completely absurd right? But that's the easiest way to understand it."
...
"And for it to be so pathetically utilized so badly, enough for me to be ashamed to call you even a part of the Fortis family... Is this really all you can live up to Kellios?" Uriel looked at his son with a pitiful look on his face.
Kellios looked at his hand and saw it damaged badly, mangled by the activation of the tuning. "GRARGH!!!" His screams echoed throughout the mountain.
Erkal slowly stood up, a big red mark on his chest, an imprint of Kellios' slap.
...
"Think of Tuning as a sort of stat screen that you seen in those RPGs. You've got strength, speed, durability and intellect. Imagine that you have five points in all of these categories, fully balanced. Now you can use tuning to take away points from all or some of the stats to relocate that point somewhere else." The researcher stood up and drew a radar chart on the whiteboard.
"So you can see here, I'm taking away the four points from intellect and then putting it onto strength." He started erasing the drawing and started fixing the radar chart. "You lose the ability to react faster, focus, the ability to dodge properly, think properly, but in exchange you gain nearly double strength, depending on how much points you added to the strength stat. You see where I'm going with this? That's how absurd tuning is."
"You might be thinking right now, this is a completely overpowered ability then! Yes and no. After my research on the Fortis family, it's quite the drawback that makes it very dangerous. Both for the enemy, and the user of tuning."
He pointed at his own head, "The brain is the great unknown. Did you know that some people, very, incredibly rare, some even undocumented from the news due to the large curiosity of scientists that after experiencing a stroke or anything neurological related can somehow start speaking other languages? It's an absurd tale, a completely absurd story, but it's one of the many reasons why we haven't found a cure for dementia or schizophrenia. The brain is a very complex thing, but those who have mastered tuning can manipulate their own brain to do things that otherwise they normally can't."
He bit his finger and immediately let go. "I have the ability to bite my finger off if I wanted, but my brain stops me from doing it. Tuning completely removes that restriction. Okay now you might be asking, 'so if I just think I can do it, then I just can?', yes, but not exactly. Think of adrenaline, the thing that pumps your body when it goes fully alert. When you're fighting against someone or lifting something heavy, adrenaline starts pumping. Normally you can't lift these heavy things or keep continuing to fight when you're being damaged. However, with adrenaline you can because it suppresses everything irrelevant just to keep your body alive and keep it moving. You can lift that heavy object, you can keep fighting after being very damaged, but your mind will actively stop you, but with adrenaline you completely bypass those restrictions without a care for your body."
"That's what tuning is and what it does. It acts as a bridge like adrenaline. Your body, your cells will activate according to what you want it to do. You tune your brain to make your cells come alive and believe that doing things is second nature to you. The powerful punches from tuning will completely ignore your durability and the tuning will keep increasing your power in exchange for breaking your own body. The same happens for the other things. Increasing your mental capacity allowing to react faster, the ability to dodge faster, the ability to make your body mold into whatever you need it to be for your body to be the ultimate weapon."
...
"I suppose this is the end of our fight brother." Erkal touched the hand imprint on his chest. It was a good move. You did your best.
Kellios looked at him with unbridled rage. That phrase, 'you did your best', "Come back here Erkal!"
"The loser does not have the right to demand, Kellios." Uriel descended from his viewpoint intervening between the two of them. "The doctor will take care of you." He turned his back from Kellios. "The reason why I allowed this fight was to see your growth. I planned to not let you leave whether you won or not as long as you met a certain standard, a standard of the Fortis family." He sighed, "Seeing how you performed, I grew tired. Your wish to leave if you win against Erkal? You have it granted."
"What..?" Kellios wagered everything in this fight to finally run away from this cursed bloodline, yet his heart continued to ache despite this being something that he wanted.
"..." Uriel's look of pity was unforgettable in Kellios' eyes.
Erkel and Uriel left, leaving Kellios bleeding in that nightmarish blizzard.
For the very first time in the past 100 years, the Fortis gates opened, to let go of a bloodline of the Fortis family.
...
"How stupid..." Kellios opened his eyes back in that seaside overlooking the bright lights across the city.