Chapter 11-Battle Lines

Sweat trickled down the side of Saya’s face as she focused on her hands. The small orb of black energy hovering between her hands floated in the air like a ball atop water, and she was visibly exerting her control over the orb to keep it intact.

“Easy, Saya, you’re doing fine.” Sai whispered to her.

‘Shut up, Sai.’ Saya thought, annoyed.

After spending her morning lounging around watching old school anime with Sai, Saya decided to get some training done while she still had some quiet time with Kira out of the house. She had been working at manipulating her mana for almost an hour now, and it seemed that she could barely keep her energy from exploding outward the second she lost focus. It wasn’t that she wasn’t making progress, it was just slower for her due to her lack of fine mana control.

“Okay, now bring your energy back into your body.” Sai instructed her.

Saya slowly brought the energy back into her hands and into her body. Once that was done, she let out a breath and slumped her shoulders.

“That was good, Saya. You’re getting better every time we train.” Sai said.

“Don’t patronize me.” Saya grumbled.

“I’m serious. But you just started training, so don’t expect to get this right off the bat, even if you are a demigod.” He said and helped her up. “You feeling okay?”

“I’m good.” She nodded. Saya was silent for a few seconds before asking, “When do we get started on training with my avatar powers? I want to see what I can do with that.”

Sai made a face and scratched the back of his head. His lack of an answer agitated Saya.

“What?” She snapped.

“Saya, I can’t really teach you how to control your powers. You need another avatar to even teach you the basics, and the other avatar is nowhere near us right now.” Sai said. “You and Kira are on your own, right now.”

“Wonderful.” Saya sighed. “Well, can you at least tell me when we start learning some spells?”

“When you get far enough with your energy control.” Sai replied. “I’m not teaching either of you any spells until I know that you two can control your aether properly. Improper energy control can cause a spell to misfire or something worse. I’ve seen it happen before and it’s nothing something you want happening to you.”

Before anything else could be said, there was a loud knock on the door that made them jump. Sai motioned for Saya to stay back as he went back into the house and to the front door. He looked through the eyehole and saw a very angry Mai standing at the door.

“Sai, open the door!”

“Auntie?” Saya walked into the hallway just as Sai unlocked the door and opened it.

The poor boy was thrown into the wall by the sheer force of Mai slamming the door open. The woman looked around the house and saw Saya there.

“Auntie, what’s going on?” Saya asked.

“Saya, where is your brother?” Mai asked sternly.

“H-He went out with Amaru to spend the day with Emi.” Saya answered, not prepared for the intimidating aura emanating off her aunt. “What’s wrong?”

“I told you two to inform me if you planned on leaving the house. Those were my specific instructions!” Mai said.

“We did call you. Several times in fact, but you didn’t pick up.” Saya growled back.

Mai blinked and checked her cell phone, wincing a bit as she saw a lengthy list of unanswered calls from her niece.

“What? Not going to say anything?” Saya taunted.

“Saya, stop.” Sai said. “Kira’s okay. He’s being watched over by Amaru. They’ll call us if anything happens.”

Before any more could be said on the matter, there was a loud beep and Mai’s other hand quickly took out another device, a military radio that Mai somehow managed to keep inconspicuous in her tight pants and blouse.

She switched it on and talked into it. “Asakura here.”

There was a few seconds of silence before Mai’s face morphed from an apathetic expression to an enraged one. “What?!”

“What’s wrong?” Sai asked.

After another minute Mai hung up and looked at the two children grimly. “There’s been an explosion downtown. STAF scouts report magical activity at the blast site, just seconds before Kira and the others were spotted there. They’re all gone and we have no idea where they are.”

XXXXXX

“A bodyguard?” Shirahata said with a good natured laugh. “Aren’t you a bit young for that line of work?”

“Are you going to fight or talk?” Amaru shouted.

“So rude.” Shirahata said, grumbling as he tossed his jacket and dress shirt to the ground. He was covered in tattoos. Dozens of stylized animals, monsters and weapons competed for every inch of skin on his chest and arms, glossy black as his sword-thing. He produced a pair of lone needles from his pocket and wiped them on his slacks, leaving behind hairline streaks of red.

“If it’s just a workout, then let’s start with two.” He said and stabbed himself, each point going into one of the snakes coiled around his forearm. Tattooed snakes wriggled off the assassin’s arm and hovered above his shoulder. Shirahata waved a hand and snakes lunged through the air, coils twisting in opposite directions.

Amaru fell to her knees and clapped her hands together. Another pillar leapt out from the circle as the first snake bared its fangs for her left flank. The ink creature plowed into the light barrier with a splat. She bated the second one away and sprung onto the second pillar. The snakes reformed and chased after her.

“Let’s go, Renmaru.” Amaru said, grasping her bokken as though it were a real sword. A tail of wind spun about her arm like a dusty comet. A length of steel flashed out of the wood and the street shook with a sonic boom.

A crescent shaped arc of wind exploded from the tip of Amaru’s blade, but a cloud of grit blinded Kira before he could get a good look. His eyes opened find a new tattoo monster hovering over Shirahata like a shield. It looked like an artist’s vision of a tortoise, huge and angular with wings instead of front legs. A smoldering cut ran diagonally across its skull patterned shell. Where the tortoise had been on his chest there was only bare skin with a dot of blood.

“That was a neat trick, old man.” Amaru laughed. “I thought I had you, but then you pull out that high speed summoning on me. That’s pretty badass.”

Shirahata just shrugged. “Not really. Bladed Wind’s kind of a kid’s trick.”

Amaru balked and nearly fell off her column. “Oh, yeah? Well, what was all that big talk about ‘starting off’ with two summons? I don’t see your snakes anymore.”

“Kurmaja is a bit of a problem child.” The assassin answered with a strange smile, stroking the tortoise’s head. “Banishing a weak familiar to summon a stronger one is hardly indicative of a lack of skill.”

The shadow turtle flickered and returned to its place on his chest. Shirahata grinned, only one of his arms had a snake on it. Kira tried shouting a warning just as the tattoo creature leapt out of a drain.

Amaru swung her scabbard into the creature’s mouth, its glistening fangs sinking into the wood. The snake thrashed about, nearly wrenching the scabbard away before she wrapped a cocoon of air around her sword and hacked it apart. She rounded on Shirahata, but a fish-tailed trident flew from his arm and caught her between the tines, pinning her to the ground. The assassin pricked his back, and a shadowy giant in full samurai armor rose mountain-like behind him.

Kira stepped out into the street. This was too much. He didn’t care if his powers were half-wild, he wasn’t going to let his friend get killed in front of him. Concentrating, he gathered up his mana within him to attack.

“Not yet!” The shout came from Amaru, who hardly looked worried about her situation. She jabbed a prayer stick into the ground. Another burst of air leapt up into the second gap and hurled the trident into the air. The giant lunged and caught it in the air, but Amaru was already on her feet and running down the street.

The giant grasped the trident with both hands and swung it like a club. The sidewalk exploded, showering them in chunks of gravel. A thick, oozy liquid gushed out of the broken waterline, which hung in the air like some vanquished subterranean beast. Kira and Emi recoiled from the sludge.

“Gotcha now, bastard!” Amaru said with an evil sounded laugh, hanging from one of the trident’s tines by her legs. She had tossed her scabbard aside and was now carrying two ikupasuy in her left hand. One had the character tsuchi scratched at the tip and mizu on the other. Globules of sludge gathered along the edge of her blade, encasing it in a wavy blob several meters long. She gave a savage shout and slashed the giant across the chest.

The blob popped like a bubble and left the giant drenched but little else. Amar stared. The creature shook as if in laughter and casually flung her off its weapon.

Kira stepped up and caught the wailing Oina. The impact knocked the boy off balance and sent them both crashing to the ground.

“Are you two all right?” Emi asked as she helped Amaru up.

“We’re just peachy.” Kira grumbled. He let the girls pull him to his feet as he stared at the giant with a scowl. “What the hell was that, Amaru? You only made the thing a little wet.”

“Shut up.” Amaru snapped. “What else would you use on a construct made of animated ink? I’m not a water mage, you know.”

“That stuff is water?” Emi said, disgusted.

“Damn it, I should have been able to rub at least part of it out with Reramaru. It’s not like it’s an actual spirit or anything…” Her voice trailed off, her face pale as she smacked a hand against it. “Unless they are. Gawd, I’m so stupid! Kira, what’s its aura like?”

Kira ley his eyes go out of focus and braced himself for the oncoming headache. Colors flashed in a midnight colored haze as the auras flared up around their opponents.

“The guy has this sort of wiggly, purple one.” He said. “But…ugh. There are all these other auras crawling around him like bugs, and none of them are like his at all. Even that giant and its weapon have different auras.” He fought off the urge to be sick and closed his aura sight before vertigo hit him.

“Great! Then that means he isn’t using animancy.” She said, thrusting her sword at Shirahata. “You’re a shaman, like I am. Those shades are the spirits you’ve encountered and sealed a portal to each of them in your skin so your enemies would think it was a different kind of magic. You’re a spirit mage!”

Shirahata beamed. “Well done, kid, you figured it out. Though you’re still just a kid, taking so long to figure that out. I gave you at least two major hints.”

Amaru ignored him as she took out another prayer stick and tossed her ragged sweater aside, letting a sky blue haori tumble down to her knees. She wore a sarashi underneath, her stomach muscles and lined with scars. She discarded two of her prayer sticks and adopted a two-handed fighting stance. Her knees coiled like a spring, and then she sprang forward, a sky colored blur streaking through the giant’s knee.

The creature hefted a leg to stomp her, but its target made no move to alter its course. An armored foot the size of a car door fell like a guillotine. Amaru raised her sword over her head and a scarlet tongue of flame leapt from her blade. She twisted her wrists in a circle, sheering through the giant’s foot and foreleg like a soft stump of wax. The creature wind milled about for an instant and crashed into the road.

Swearing hard, Shirahata left a trail of punctures down his ribs and along the legs of an ugly crab faced spider on his belly. The new creature jumped out legs first like some twisted pregnancy. Kira and Emi could only stare transfixed as each appendage came in from every direction. But Amaru danced between them, leaping a hair’s breadth ahead of each attack. Her flaming sword cleaved through the spider crab’s head before it could fully energy, banishing its form in a blizzard of onyx covered dust.

Another snake leapt off his arm, arching over her sword for Amaru’s neck. She swept her sword in a flaming arch and decapitated it, then swung at Shirahata. Her sword rang off as his tortoise monster rematerialized, its shell restored from the wind blade. She aimed for his midriff, but the floating tortoise zipped back into her path. Its ebony scales seemed to warp under the fiery glare, but the shell did not yield.

Amaru gave a shout and hammered at the shadow creature. Sparks trailed like a streamer with each fruitless stroke. Each blow sent up a shockwave of wind, the breeze causing the spiral fringe of her coat to undulate like ocean waves in a hurricane.

“It’s over.” Kira said in a daze. Emi looked at him in confusion, but then she froze as a sudden tremor ran down her spine. The wind was changing, blowing first this way, and then that way. Then everyway at once.

Shirahata’s scream rang above the squall of dozens of bright red lines that were cut across his skin and briefly cloaked him in pink mist. Amaru leapt clear as the assassin exploded into a sea of black. Hideous faces and jagged limbs churned in the morass of shadow creatures, at first like a wall of boiling ink. The wind intensified, and the liquid thinned into a mist and vanished into the sky. The air grew still. Shirahata collapsed, his skin bare of anything but a hundred cuts.

“Amazing.” Emi breathed. Kira could only give a feeble nod as he watched Amaru retrieve her sheath. The Oina mage sheathed her sword with deliberate slowness, her face a mask of samurai stoicness. But when the blade clicked into place, her face split into the cockiest grin Kira had ever seen and flashed a V for victory.

“Ya saw that, Kira? Pretty awesome, huh?” She said before rounding on her opponent. “What was that, old guy? About wind blades being kid’s stuff?”

“What just happened?” Emi asked in a daze.

“She used his blood to release his seals.” Kira didn’t even realize he was the one speaking. He flushed as the girls turned to him. Amaru nodded for him to continue, so he finished his explanation.

“S-Shirahata had sealed those shadow things into his skin using blood magic. His own blood was the trigger that let him summon them, but he could only control a handful at a time. So Amaru cut him up so that they were all summoned at once and he lost control of them.” Kira looked down, feeling rather awkward, but Amaru gave him an admiring grin.

“Exactly,” She said. “I’m surprised you figured that out so fast. Of course, I should expect nothing less from an avatar.”

“I agree. He’s insightful for a child.”

Kira turned, his eyes widening in terror as Shirahata staggered to his feet, rising like a zombie and covered in fresh blood. At a second glance, Kira realized that his wounds weren’t severe, and most of them had already stopped bleeding.

“Are you getting back up?” Amaru asked, sounding bored. Kira did not miss the clenching of the Oina mage’s jaw, or her minute swallow. Shirahata seemed to have noticed it too, as his face split into a delirious grin.

“I have to. A contract’s a contract, you know.” He said, his voice trembling. For a moment, Kira thought he was in pain.

‘No,’ Kira thought. ‘He’s holding something back.’

His breath caught and his skin prickled as he felt as though he had plunged into ice water. A lustrous blackness more substantial than aura but as fluid as mist rose up from the ground and wrapped him in its tendrils.

Amaru ignited her sword and backed up to stand in front of Kira and Emi. She was saying something about finding shelter, but Kira was too mesmerized by the weaving of the shadows. They seemed to be multiplying now, and a sound like a distant flock of crows resounded in his mind. Something terrible was about to happen.

“Yeah, doubling up is a good idea, kids.” Shirahata said, his voice grew more unsteady as the shadows rose out of his body lie steam escaping a kettle. “I’m usually able to keep this guy under wraps with my other spirits, but you kids brought me so low even my basic seals have failed. I’m out of juice at this point. Sorry.”

The shadow coils tightened around his body. Then there came a sound like snapping twigs and the black mist dissolved.

“Gah!”

Shirahata gave a strangled cry, blood dribbling down his mouth as he stared at the spikes jutting from his stomach. Kira and Emi stared in horror as a tall figure in old fashioned robes thrust him to the ground, bearing the assassin down on a viciously curved two-pronged staff. The creature resembled a man but for the black feathered wings stretching out from its back. A bearded mask of scarlet porcelain hid its face, a long beak-like nose stretching for many centimeters, shiny, black merciless eyes glaring out from beneath it.

“Kids,” Shirahata grunted through bloodstained teeth. “Run.”