Yuga immediately went after Marrow without wasting a second and got to where he landed. But Marrow was already up. He swung his mace at Yuga’s head but Yuga bent back to dodge, allowing the mace to pass over him. Marrow turned around to face Yuga and attacked a second time with the mace, raising his hand high and swinging it down with incredible force. Yuga sees the mace coming at him and tries to evade but once again he’s too slow because he couldn’t use shooting star. But he wasn’t unable to defend himself. The mace continued on its path to Yuga’s head but just before it got to him, it bounced off something in the air which startled Marrow for a moment. In the space just in front of Yuga a barrier of aias energy had formed.

“Oh? You can use barriers?” asked Marrow in surprise.

Yuga tries to jump back to create distance but Marrow switches the mace to his left hand and punches the barrier consecutively with his right. The force of the punches eventually broke through the barrier and one of them hit Yuga to the ground. Marrow’s arm came flying down with the mace again at Yuga who was on the ground. Yuga quickly rolled away, avoiding the attack and it hit the snow where he’d just been. He rotates on the floor and uses his leg to sweep Marrow’s feet off the ground. With that momentum he continues to spin, uses his arms for support and swings his body up to a standing position. Once he was off the ground he front kicks Marrow who was just about to get up, square in the face sending him flying a ways back.

That mace is a problem. Even if I can’t avoid attacks at least I can take them with my body. But if that mace hits me, I’ll get paralyzed. I should get rid of it first.

He moved towards the place Marrow was while charging mal energy in his hand. He lunges at Marrow who had gotten up, arm raised and ready to attack. Yuga points his hand in the direction of the arm holding the mace and fires off the attack.

Venerable Lance

The energy shoots forward with incredible speed, obliterating Marrow’s arm and sent the mace flying far away. Marrow looks at his shortened arm, only half of the upper arm was left now. He uses his left hand to heal his right arm and in a short time a new arm and hand grew. Marrow grins.

Healing. He’d expected this but didn’t think it would be this fast. That last attack had taken a toll and he needed a moment before he attacked again.

Once he’d recovered, he moved to attack Marrow with a punch but he was too slow. Marrow came at him with a lariat and knocked him into the ground. He picks Yuga up by the head and smashes his head into the ground. He does this repeatedly, making small craters with Yuga’s head each time he brought it down. Marrow lifts him up by the head again but before he can send it down Yuga boosts his physical abilities even further. He swipes at the arm holding his head with his right hand formed like a blade. It goes through the arm, breaking the bone and tearing the flesh, completely severing it from Marrow. As Yuga falls with the severed arm, he snatches the arm off the air and drives it through Marrow’s chest.

Marrow quickly takes out the arm from his chest. He charges it with drive and uses it to smack Yuga across the face and Yuga soars through the air from the force of it. The arm is also destroyed when it collides with Yuga, exploding in a burst of flesh, bone and blood.

“You see, I’m a very weak voyager so I’m not much use in battle. All my talent all went into healing, a very rare level of it. Very fitting for my tastes, no?” said Marrow.

Yuga was panting now, his energy was running out quickly.

“I would lose to most voyagers in a one on one. If you’re struggling with me either you’re pathetic or you’re just a fledgling. I’ll assume it’s the latter case. I was scared for a second when I sensed you approach the cave but lucky me.”

Yuga’s continuous use of shooting star and the venerable Lance earlier was depleting his energy rapidly. He’d run out at this rate. He’d have go on defense.

Marrow attacks again with a punch aimed at Yuga’s head. Yuga sees the punch coming at him. He can react to it but he doesn’t move until the last moment. Once the attack was only a few millimetres from his head he cocked his head to the side, letting the punch miss him by a hair’s breadth. He’d upped his reactions to a level that he’d only have to use shooting star at the very last moment, moving just slightly to avoid attacks hence reducing energy cost.

He responds to Marrow’s punch with an uppercut. His physical abilities where higher now and he caused damaged more easily. The uppercut completely shatters Marrow’s jaw and snaps his head back. Marrow returns his head to the right position and heals his jaw.

Yuga was ready to attack again and Marrow was prepared to attack with a headbutt. Too slow. He couldn’t attack or avoid Marrow’s headbutt either but as usual he could react. He puts up a barrier between the both of them and Marrow’s head crashes into it causing his head to bleed. But Marrow doesn’t stop and continues to bang his head against the barrier until he broke through. As the barrier broke Yuga jumped back to create distance. Both of them stood facing each other, each one observing the other before clashing once more.

The battle continued in a repeating. Yuga had the better damage power but lacked the energy and consistency in attacks to put down Marrow permanently. His speed was also inconsistent due to lack of proficiency in shooting star and he put up a barrier to defend himself each time the technique failed him. Marrow on the other hand healed himself each time he received damage making Yuga’s attacks futile.

After a while, Yuga stopped putting up barriers altogether and simply withstood Marrow’s attacks with his body. Marrow held Yuga in place by the head with his left hand and continously struck his torso with his right. He threw him up in the air and caught him again by the ankle, flinging his body against the ground. He continued to assault Yuga’s head with punches and his body sunk deeper into the ground with each consecutive blow from Marrow.

At this rate, I’ll eventually lose the battle from exhaustion. Need to end this in one go.

Yuga vaults off the ground, his hands flat on it and his feet in the air. He uses both feet to hit Marrow in the chest sending him flying then throws a back flip, landing on his feet. He was groggy from all the blows his head had received. He stood facing his opponent and began to prepare to end the battle, gathering all the energy he had left for this final attack.

Ignite.

Marrow was confident he’d win now, Yuga was exhausted and would only lose more energy. Marrow could keep healing himself till Yuga was completely out of energy. He rushes at Yuga again with a punch. Yuga finally puts up a barrier again to defend himself and it stops Marrow’s punch in its tracks. This time he doesn’t make just one barrier, he makes three of them and stacks them on each other while gathering mal energy in his right hand. Marrow kept punching the barriers aiming to break through with sheer power.

Ignite.

Burst!

Marrow eventually breaks through all three barriers but is met with nothing but air on the other side. Yuga had vanished.

Venerable Lance

A blast of energy, from behind him takes off Marrow’s leg and throws him off balance. He hops on one leg and turns around to face Yuga who had vanished out of sight to a distance behind him. Yuga was trying to aim for the head but his vision was blurry from exhaustion and his head ached from the beating it’d received earlier. His aim was off as a result.

Before Marrow can react he fires off another one which also misses the head and instead hits him in the chest, blasting through his torso and lifts him off the ground. He wouldn’t be able to hit the head at this distance, he had to get in close.

Again, Burst!

He rushed forward, moving at speeds far faster than he’d ever been, heading straight for Marrow who’s body was still in the air.

Venerable lance

He gets to Marrow and thrusts his hand at his head, placing it on his face then fires. There’s an explosion that sends both them soaring through the air in opposite directions and the force of it shook the entire landscape around them.

.

.

.

Yuga lay on the snow, face down. He couldn’t move at all, all his energy was depleted and his right hand hurt from the backlash of the last attack. But it was worth it if he’d taken Marrow down.

“Aaaaaahhhh, it’s my win.” said Marrow sounding very pleased with himself.

!

Marrow hadn’t died and that meant he’d be up again soon.

“That last attack took off nearly half my face. Most voyagers would’ve been dead by now but I don’t die as quick as others. Another one of my lucky abilities. Pretty convenient, eh?”

He had to move, create some distance between him and Marrow. Find a way to recover and try again but he could barely even think straight. He concentrated, focusing on his fingers first, trying to get them to move. With much effort his fingers twitched and after a while he regained control of them. He flexed them severally, opening and closing till he was certain they worked fine. Next was his arms which worked after much more effort. This was enough. He immediately started crawling through the snow, pulling himself forward with his arms.

“You should have gone for my arms, without them I wouldn’t be able to heal myself, but maybe you didn’t know because you’re a fledgling. That little extra time I’m able to stay alive was enough for me to heal my head. Sucks to be you right now.” said Marrow who was now done healing himself and already getting up. He got up and walked to where Yuga was. He was still crawling, breathing hard as he did but he’d barely moved ten meters so far.

“You know, a little more and you might’ve won, I’m nearly exhausted too. If I’d lost any more energy I wouldn’t be able to heal.” admitted Marrow “I’m going to kill you. Your body looks really tough so you’d be nasty to eat.”

Yuga ignored him and kept on crawling. He was looking up ahead, up ahead towards the…. Light? From the distance a ball of light was racing towards where the two of them stood, floating just slightly above the snow. It got to where they were and stopped just before Yuga. It floated from left to right as if observing the scene. Most of its body was a glowing blue gas like substance with glowing yellow core that pulsed at a constant rhythm. An appearance Yuga was quite familiar with. Mimic.

“I don’t know what you are but you’re not meat so shoo. Something of yours, boy?” asked Marrow not really interested in the creature.

Mimic was back and had found him. There was a chance, if mimic changed into him or even his opponent they could win. But could mimic even fight?

“Mimic change-” before he could finish his sentence, Marrow stepped on the back of his neck, cutting off his voice. But mimic was already reacting to the situation. Its pulsing yellow core continously increased its rhythm, glowing brighter and pulsing faster. Although Yuga hadn’t seen mimic react like this before he could tell what this was. Mimic was angry. And then it transformed.

It didn’t change into a beast as Yuga had expected, neither did it change into Yuga or Marrow but it did change into a person. Forming hands and legs first then a torso and head last. A tall man with dark skin, black hair and black eyes is what it changed into. It transformed into the strongest person he’d observed and maybe even the strongest person on Lehrone. Kirveas.

Marrow was completely awed at what just happened before his eyes and just stood staring for a short moment. “Now you are meat but I’m still not too sure about that. I’m not taking.”

The Kirveas copy stood unmoving without the slightest expression on its face, inanimate like a sculpture.

“If it’s a fight you want I’m exhausted but-”

And with that unfinished sentence his life ended, because his head suddenly burst into a spray of blood, flesh and brain matter. The Kirveas copy had suddenly come to life closing the distance between itself and Marrow and thrust its hand at his head, so fast that neither Marrow nor Yuga had realized what happened until Marrow had lost his head. But it didn’t stop there, it brought down its hand in a straight line and divided the rest of his body in two.

It was over, Marrow was finally dead.

.

.

.

Yuga lay unmoving in the snow, covered in blood from Marrow’s body. He had stopped crawling, he could finally rest to recover because the greatest danger was gone now. But there was Luke back in the cave, a few minutes to rest and he’d go back there to get him. Mimic changed back to its gas form and hovered around Yuga as if willing him to get up. And after a few minute he did, with a lot of pain and difficulty. He walked back to the cave, every step causing him to grimace and mimic floated by his side as he moved.

The cave was quite far away from where he and Marrow had fought. He’d made sure of that as he battled, directing the fighting away from where Luke was. He got to the cave and entered through the second opening he’d made earlier. Lighting from the moon illuminated the insides of the cave now and its features were much clearer. It’s ceiling was covered in stalactites, there were limbs scattered on the floor and the table they once rested on was overturned. At the other end was Luke. He wasn’t against the cave wall anymore but lying on the floor. He’d stopped shivering but most importantly Luke couldn’t sense anything from him…..

He walked over to where Luke lay, with a single glance he realized why he couldn’t sense Luke and his heart dropped. From Luke’s neck flowed a stream of blood and next to him was the blade that had been on the overturned table. Luke had slit his own neck.

He knelt down beside Luke and stretched out his hand. He mustered every bit of energy he had, so small he could barely stay conscious and used aias on him. He tried and tried but Luke didn’t move or get better. Was it because his level aias wasn’t enough? Maybe if he was as good as Marrow he could save him. But that wasn’t the problem. He already knew why Luke wasn’t getting better, he had sensed it ever since he got to the cave. Luke was dead.

Yuga collapsed on the cave floor next to Luke. Exhaustion had finally kicked in and he was losing consciousness. Luke had tried hard, he’d overcome so much but in the end his spirit broke, not because he lacked a strong will but the world was just too cruel. He was pushed over the edge. Never again would he play with Yuga or mimic, never again would he cut logs, he wouldn’t go back to home to his family and tell them what he’d found. For Luke, there was no tomorrow. With pain in his heart and exhaustion so deep his very soul felt weak, Yuga finally passed out. Right next to Luke, and the both of them lay unmoving under the moonlight.

Mimic who had been with Yuga hovered to where the two of them lay. It floated in circles around them then stopped. It transformed into a large red bird and let out cry that rung through the entire mountain and deep into the night. Then it flapped its massive wings, each of them as large as a person and flew off. Unknown to the unconscious Yuga, tonight was the last time he’d see mimic for a very long time.