Bab 21: Black Knight
In rapid strokes with the bow, his hands danced swiftly as the wind on the strings of the violin, Hugo's head only focused on the music, he didn't care about the fight at all, a few days without classical music drove him mad, and now that he had the chance to play and fight he would obviously take that opportunity and let his strongest emotions flow.
Hugo would call himself a liar and a scam; he deceived everyone with mock emotions and never really displayed his emotions in public; he also had several... special ways of coping with the expression of emotion and playing classical music was just one of them. This was the safest coping method, and one he would recommend avoiding bloodshed.
The song he was playing was one of his own compositions, he called it the Tornado Overture; he made it when he was first able to summon Zephyr.
'So, I wonder what you call yours old man?' Hugo's eyes didn't drift away from the old man's figure, his figure though not as young-looking as Hugo's he still looked full of vigour and youth.
"Hah!"
Hugo stroked the bow against the strings and conjured a terrifying wind that shot for the old man's figure.
"Hungh!"
The old mand steadily stroked his bow and the small tremors erupting in the ground became large earthquakes. Hugo closed his eyes and continued playing the erratic tune on the violin, and when he opened them again, a different sound left the violin entirely.
'Enough playing around!'
One couldn't tell the difference immediately, but it was definitely there, that erratic sound became a little more organized like it was following a sequence just then, and with the change in the song came the change in the weather.
Tornado, Op. 1 in A major.
That was the name of the piece he was playing right then, it was elegant yet wild, orderly yet chaotic. The listener could tell that Hugo put his heart, soul and character into this piece.
A violent tornado rose from nothing and out of nowhere ravaged the environment fiercely, tearing apart buildings, ripping apart clothes, destroying nature.
A scene from a cartoon that was for sure.
The old man's sound also changed from an ever-steady sound to an unstable and shaky sound. It riled up nature's forest and not just passively.
The earth split open, threatening to swallow everyone and everything up. But the summoning of elements was not what made the fight so interesting, it was the music itself; it was like a brawl without the hurling of fists or the swinging of kicks, this brawl touched one's soul instead of heating the blood.
Hugo' music score was reaching its peak, every single stroke on his strings summoned lightning and thunder and lighted up the clear day.
The old man's score was just at its beginning but it was rivalling the peak of Hugo's by creating disasters that split the earth open and unearthed volcanoes buried deep within the earth, these two could easily receive titles as gods if they wanted to.
But they didn't want to. Both Hugo and the old man knew of their strengths yet they didn't want to capitalize on them if they didn't have to, free spirits would remain free spirits.
The battle was ending, Hugo was losing miserably to the old man in the bunny mask. However, something was changing, his playing style was changing gradually once again, the tornado was also dispersing as his original song stopped, but something more sinister occupied the air.
A bloody red aura took on the form of streams and crossed the sky, leaving a foul taste in everyone's mouths.
The other violinist's concentration shifted for more than a minute and he looked up to find the sound of Hugo's piece changing once again. This change didn't prove to be well and the piece itself even sounded like bloodlust and murder.
The man in the bunny mask stopped playing and kept his violin aside. He had to stop this kid from playing more of this demonic musical piece, only death would come from such a piece being played.
However, before he even reached Hugo, the latter had already stopped playing.
"I told you. Zephyr can be a bit greedy, don't you agree, Mr Two Face?"
Hugo smiled slightly and unconjured the violin. The old man in the bunny mask also smiled slightly and pulled off his mask, revealing a youthful and handsome face. The man looked like he was in his thirties, albeit very handsome thirties, but he also looked far older than that with his wise and knowledgeable eyes.
"Congratulations Mr Hugo, you've passed the Skydancer exam. We shall give you your license shortly." He stretched out his hand and smiled again, offering his congratulations to him.
"And as for the others who fought with my subordinates, they shall judge your battle prowess and judgemental abilities, and if they found you up to the pass mark, then you have passed as well, however, you have to wait a bit until we have completed the analyzation process."
Two Face signalled for his subordinates to stop posing as enemies and had them come to him.
It baffled the rest of the candidates. The leader of their enemies was actually a highly admired and respected Skydancer and a newbie Awakened just fought with him and this newbie Awakened also guessed his identity, what in the world was going on?!
Smart people went with the flow and just accepted it as it was.
"Thank you." Suddenly, Hugo spoke to the air near him and bowed.
'Huh, who's he talking with?' Almost everyone thought Hugo had gone mental from fighting with someone as strong as Two Face.
"You're welcome."
A crisp and delicate voice spoke back to him and faded away again, but the voice lingered on in everyone's mind.
'Who was that just now?'
"Oh, my mistake. Congratulations to Ruki Oda too for passing the Skydancer Exams, we will send your exam results and Skydancer License to your communicator a short while from now."
Some people connected tow and two together and came to their conclusions, Ruki Oda was the one who was "hidden" in the air.
. . .
In the Little-Big Hotel lobby.
"All of you who made it so far have passed the most gruelling Skydancers testing exam yet, you all are eligible to receive the role of Skydancer, and now comes your hardest decision yet..."
"... Choosing a Skydancer title!"
A day had passed since Hugo's battle with Two Face and they had finally analyzed the battle results and out of the 500 people who made it out of the fourth round, over 400 more people passed the fifth exam administered by Two Face; It was higher than Loudmouth expected, especially for an exam administered by that man himself.
Everybody who passed the exam understood the significance of a title, it was what the public would remember one as for years to come, and a good title inspired fear and deterred one's enemy, essentially it captured one's essence and showed off a person's creative sense and naming style.
And right then, Loudmouth gave them the task of choosing a Dancer title. They usually recommended giving one's self a title, because more often than not, the public's naming sense wasn't very impressive, as they could see from Loudmouth's example.
"Hurry and think of a cool name like mine!" Loudmouth ushered them with a smug smirk on his face and the new Skydancers snickered at his "joke".
'What are they laughing about though?' Loudmouth's genius IQ seemed more and more like a bluff with each passing moment.
"Hyena."
Hyena was the first person to decide upon a name, well his name was already like a title so it mostly made no difference.
"My title shall be... Shining Star!" It wasn't very hard to figure out who spoke there, the name on its own spoke volumes.
"Water Queen."
"Quiver, Arrow and Bow!" A trio of similar-looking men spoke, it was obvious they formed a group.
"Cryo."
"Echo."
A lot of candidates had already decided on their titles and just stood by the sidelines watching for some specific things.
"Arcturus Littell, the Shadow Group welcomes you to join them. Do you accept?"
A hoarse voice sounded out in the hotel lobby, the voice posed some sort of invitation towards one candidate.
"I accept."
The boy who accepted's name was Arcturus, he had long and shaggy brown hair and forest green eyes that matched his hair colour, only one of his eyes showed since his hair hid the other eye.
The hoarse voice rang out again. "You will receive the details of the group on your communicator shortly and your title from now on will be Forest Shadow."
This one snatch prompted the other big groups to take their picks from the candidates.
"Yuko Ryusei are you willing to join the Yokai?"
"I am willing."
"Your title shall be Kidagitsune!"
.
"Olivia Withers are you willing to join the Ancient Birds?"
"I am."
"Your title shall be Pheonix!"
.
"Heathcliff are you willing to join the Party?" Yes, the name of the group was Party.
"Yes, I am."
"You are Beastmaster."
.
"Alpha2 are you willing to join and fully embrace the Pantheon?"
"I... am."
"Your title shall be Hermes." Alpha2 received the attention of some bigshot group called the Pantheon, it wasn't too surprising, after all, he was one of the most well-rounded candidates in Hugo's batch.
.
"Muzmo, are you willing to join the Rando's?"
"Mhmm."
"You shall be Spectrum from now onwards."
.
Only six people got picked by bigshot groups. There were definitely some other talents in the batch, but the higher-ranked groups were looking for specific skills that most of the candidates didn't possess.
The other candidates resumed their naming once they were sure no one else was going to receive an invite from groups.
"Lycan."
"Iron Alchemist." Surprisingly IA V-1 had excellent naming sense, but people only realized what sort of 'naming sense' he had. IA V-1 stood for Iron Alchemist, and if they guessed correctly, Version 1.
"Portal"
"Icarus"
"Justice"
"Shiro"
The names went on and on until there was only one person who hadn't given himself a title.
"Uh, Mr Hugo all these candidates are waiting on you, can you please hurry it up?" Loudmouth became awkward and spoke to Hugo through clenched teeth.
"Hold up, I think I got the perfect name."
"Yeah, so what is it?!"
"Haha, whatever, I'll ignore that from now on. From now on, unless familiar with me, please refrain from calling me by my first or last name, you will call me the Black Knight."
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