Chapter 51: Battle
Boom!
Explosions sounded constantly at the main entrance of the Ainu Flame School.
A blue light flashed, along with the roar of thunder.
Grrrrrrrr!
Bam!
Boooooom!
A large blob of darkened mass, filled to the brim with tendrils and walking quadrapedaly screamed in pain as the lightning from the Heavens above smote down upon the accursed creature.
Darkness swelled in the surroundings, writhing and prowling as if it were an actual creature that was alive.
Abenanka appeared to the right of the curse, and in her hands, a blazing pyre suddenly lit up with the brilliant colour of orange and red.
"Flame Aspect- Bird!" She yelled.
The Flame that had been swelling up in her hand, upon the landing of her words swelled up even more, appearing even more disastrous. The Flame turned into a gigantic bird, three times the size of Abananka and with a soft expression of her hand, it was launched towards the curse.
Blllleeeeeeerrrrgghhhhhh!
The bleating of a Goat sounded, and is it did, the Flame enveloped the curse completely.
To the side, Gabimaru appeared and adopted a strange hand sign.
Ethereal pages appeared in the air all around the curse and plastered itself to it's skin.
Then, Natsuhiko who had been standing still all this time, opened his eyes and punched out with his fist.
Whooooosh~
Shaaaa!
His footing broke through the sound barrier the ground shattering beneath his feet. Cracks like spider webs extended from his previous position, and so, Natsuhiko's presence reached the vicinity of the curse immediately. His fist, which had already picked up speed impacted the soft body of the curse.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
A brilliant light flashed, and with it a thousands light lit up the pages that had stuck to the curse's body.
Auuurghaghhh!
Bleeeeeeerggghhhhh!
A disgusting scream rang out in the surroundings, sounding like a sonorous mosaic of all types of voices imaginable.
Gabimaru jumped on the curse, a collection of pages appearing on his hand. He muttered something under his breath, and then, the pages sank into themselves.
Throwing his arm back, he punched the head of the curse.
Bam!
Aurghh!
The body of the curse that had yet elongated to become like a worm, writhed in pain underneath, its sorry figure lying in a small crater made out of rubble.
Gabimaru landed on the ground, and to the side, flames danced in Abenanka's hands.
She smashed her hands together, compressing the flames into a pin like state. In her mouth, she sung a melodious tone, like a fiery song being sung by a glorious warrior of the past.
Then, like a water jet, the laser like condensed fire launched into the maws of the curse, piercing it instantly. The curse went up in flames, most of its body already burned to a crisp.
Homura slammed the butt of the khakhhara in his hand into the ground.
Grrrrrrrr!
Thunder roared, and with it, lightning dashed at one-third the speed of light, hitting the curse with a resounding explosion.
Boooooom!
The ground below has long turned into magma from the extreme temperatures and splashed around madly.
In Gabimaru's hands, more pages appeared, atop which Kanji symbols were written. They appeared on his body, pressing firmly onto him and encasing him into an armor of paper.
Taking their formation all around the cursed spirits, they waited for the smog and dust to settle and the surroundings to cool down.
Even though the barriers limit the overall output of energy, the curse is still mostly in a single piece. What a terrifying vitality! Gabimaru thought with a smile.
As of now, the nerdy and laid back librarian seemed more like a mad fighter.
Slowly but surely, the smog cleared and from it, the cursed spirit emerged.
It was in an extremely sorry state, its four legs embedded into cooled stone and half of its body charred into a black state. Although the entire body of the curse was black, its natural body state was of a void black colour, while the charred skin was a normal black.
"Auuuuuuuu~" the curse made a pitiful attempt at a scream, not even being able to break out if the concrete that bound its legs.
"Kill it." Homura said tersly.
Without missing a beat, Natsuhiko dashed at the opponent.
Then, just as his fist was about to meet its figure, something snapped.
Crack!
The air cracked and like the brittle glass, it separated into a thousand pieces.
A gigantic gust of wind uprooted the ground beneath Natsuhiko's feet, pushing him back.
Abenanka shielded herself with a wall of fire, which quickly crumbled down as the dark tendrils spurted out from the grounds, destroying everything in their path in a frenzy.
Gabimaru and Homura who were standing at a distance jumped back and widened their gap.
Bleeeeeeeeerrrrgghhhh!
The bleating of a Goat sounded again, this time, extremely high pitched and malevolent.
As the dust cleared up, some strange came into view.
It was a figure that was roughly humanoid in shape. It stood at a staggering 8 feet in height, having large and strong legs and powerful looking arms. It's entire body was covered in fur that was blacker than the darkest of nights, with multiple tendrils extending out into the air, disappearing into nothingness as if connecting to a greater web.
The fur of the creature opened up in many places, revealing deep cavities, which somehow turned to be darker than the fur they were on. Inside these deep dark cavities, hundreds of eyes seemed to be watching their every move and the rough expressions of hundreds of faces of various kinds could be seen.
The head of the strange beast that had emerged was particularly strange. The otherwise roughly humanoid body had the head of a Goat, which was also covered by equally dark fur.
It had yellow protruding eyes that were almost falling flat out of its sockets. It's teeth were held out, brught like diamonds shining across a black canvas, stars in the night sky.
And finally, at the top of the head, it had antlers. Giant antlers that spread out like the branches of a tree, bright, oh, so bright that it seemed almost blinding in contrast with the rest of its body.
The each end of the antlers, a small bluish red bead was hanging from them with the use of transparent threads.
The goat like being stood upright on its hind legs and looked around at the 4 sorcerers that stood around it.
Then, it spoke.
"Aruruuhh, ccyio youuuy," It's voice was a blend of various voices, shifting between hundreds of different tones and ages.
The spines of the four sorcerers' chilled to the core.
Their eyes widened in surprise as they realized what was happening.
"Yyy-yyoou. You are bugs." A shrieking voice appeared from it's mouth, seemingly ancient, appearing hundreds of years old.
The sorcerers didn't speak.
"Look at what you need. Look what you need to protect yourself." The curse, speaking in the same disturbingly humane tone and voice spread out its arms, gesturing at something that couldn't be seen.
"You bugs need a barrier just to make me weaker, yet even then you will lose.
"You must not resist. Give in to me." The curse's shadow seemed to stretch out infinitely, covering each of the four humans present, whispering in their ears the sweet words of rest and respite.
"You need not work, you need not fight. You don't need to do anything." The tendrils out of darkness, like claws of a beast, or the body of a boa constrictor circled around them. Their eyes were somewhat glazed over appearing bewitched.
"You will find the eternal rest within me. As a part of me." The eyes of the creature shone with a malevolent yellow light.
And then, light flashed.
Grrrrrrrrr!
Crack~ crack~
The roar of thunder and the crackle of lightning woke everyone up. Homura held his staff up high, shooting lightning bolts one after the other to the body of the curse.
"The previous form was just a cursed womb! It has overtaken its true form now!" Gabimaru yelled. More papers appeared in the air and around him. Some of them were shaped strangely like humanoid paper figurines.
With a single shake of his hand, the paper figures flew into a spiral, creating a hurricane with the curse in the eye of the storm.
The body of the curse which had been somewhat bruised by the lightning attack just now recovered with speed.
The curse bleated again. It threw its hands into the air and the darkness came alive under it.
At every end of the street, under every small pebble and behind every single blindspot, a shadow came alive and turned itself inside out.
Under every sorcerer present, tendrils arose and turned to bind then like tentacles.
They jumped away. Abananka, Homura and Gabimaru each did their own attacks, the air a flurry of fire, lightning and paper.
Then, Natsuhiko snapped his fingers.
Immediately after a thousand lights seemed to illuminate the surroundings, igniting the paper figurines and even the fire itself in light.
Auuurughuhhhhghghhh!
The curse bore out a guttural scream, and then dashed out towards the perpetrator.
Bam!
A punch threw Natsuhiko back, crumbling through the architecture and the decorations that the festival had set up.
Then, the darkness curse turned and opened it's mouth.
"Witness the true despair!" It spoke without so much as a twitch in it's mouth. Then, out from it's mouth crawled out darkened human figures, shadows given life, or perhaps life turned shadows.
Slowly, the shadows crawled out of the darkness' mouth, each having its own aura of malevolence and curse, exhibiting a piercing presence.
In just a second, the entire front end of the compound had been filled with more than a thousand shadowy figures.
The sorcerers' eyes turned into needles, trembling in disbelief.
However, they all quickly recovered.
"Gabimaru!" Homura yelled.
"On it!" Gabimaru yelled and just then, a piece of paper appeared before him.
A quill appeared in his hand, one he seemingly hid beneath his sleeve. He wrote something on the paper, but suddenly, the colour drained from his face.
Turning to Homura, he shouted.
"There's only 538 barriers left!" He said in urgency. One had to know, that before the darkness curse invaded, there were well over 3000 barriers all around the compound, with each serving as a protection mechanism. And with them being an extension of the Blessed Torii Gate, a sacred treasure, any invader would be suppressed.
Under normal conditions that is.
The Great Harae led to the overexertion of the Gate all over Hokkaido, prompting it to constantly absorb all the negativity and cursed energy in the environment 24/7. Even after the main ritual ended, the process had not.
In such a situation, the main focus of the gate had shifted from defence to collection and purification.
Which meant that the barriers functioned not as a collective unit representing the Sacred Treasure, but thousands of independent units sewn together using the Sacred Treasure.
As such, the curse had simply smashed right through the barriers.
Homura slammed the khakhhara in his hand into the ground, triggering a huge explosion of pure lightning.
The dark figures were pushed back, some getting destroyed completely while the others were partially obliterated.
However, they again rose from the shadows, seemingly Immortal.
This short time frame gave Homura, Abenanka and Gabimaru the time to jump back and gain some distance.
Natsuhiko, who had been slammed back was on his way again to the fight, almost about to reach them.
However, the darkness curse wasn't about to watch.
With a burst of cursed energy, it disappeared from it's place, appearing above Gabimaru with a speed frightening to comprehend.
"Die!" The curse yelled.
Then, as his fist was about to make contact, a lone paper figurine appeared before it.
Booooom!
An explosion. And the a crash.
Something landed on the ground like a meteor. Wait, was it Gabimaru?
Gabimaru dusted himself out of the crater that had formed. He looked around. Before they knew it, they were all surrounded.
Sigh!
He sighed. His figure not appearing at all terrified or even nervous.
He put his pinky into his ears and scratched it.
"What a drag." He sighed. Then, his eyes turned serious.
This has gone far enough already. He thought and readied himself for a clash.
Then...
"Everyone! Your saviour is here!" Amidst the shadows and the crackling of fire, a pretentious voice sounded. Indeed, Gabimaru and everyone else present knew all too well whose voice it was.
Far from the pagoda, two figures jumped towards the battlefield, one of which was the infamous Edward Horrowitz. And then second...
"Hope we can join in on the fun!" Shuichi said with a smile.
~~~
A/N: Gimme all your stonez!
Also, tell me your thoughts about the fight scene.
Weekly Power Status
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