Know Thy Enemy

Zing!

Clench!

Caught just in time, the stone sent zipping through the air brunt within his grasp. The heat from its blazing fast velocity felt prominently in the palm of his hand. Akari had fallen from his grip, the stone’s movement too quick and precise for him to move out of the way.

Releasing it from his hand, he watched as it sank into the black abyss below. He took a step back, having come dangerously close to nearly stepping into the sinking pit of darkness. As he looked over at Akari, barely hanging on to consciousness, he reveled in the luck that’d befallen her. Just a few inches over, and she too would have fallen to her death. Or did he consider that as well?

“Ayur’s often impress me,” the man spoke, “So meticulous. So versatile.”

He then turned his focus straight ahead as he continued, “Yet so damn weak.”

Now appearing in front of him, a determined Azu held his hand steady, prepared to strike at a moment’s call.

The man looked down towards his feet, impressed by his ability to cast a targeted barrier script rejecting the black abyss, or as he called it, the scrawl. “I see why the Sovereign is always so interested in you Ayurs.”

The man suddenly pounced towards Akari. Azu lunged towards him only to be blindsided by a kick straight to the left rib. Falling towards the scrawl, Azu froze the air, using the sheet of ice as leverage to quickly push off and rebalance himself back on his feet.

Seeing that he wouldn’t gain the advantage over Azu as easily as he’d hoped, the man ominously paced around Akari as she desperately tried to crawl away.

“The script you’re using to negate the scrawl takes focus and time, so you rapidly cooled the air, possibly using one of your medical scripts to prevent yourself from losing your balance I suppose. The air is filled with moisture, so the script doesn’t require you to make something out of nothing, allowing you to produce it a lot faster. And you did all of that while taking a full blow to the side by one of my kicks.”

Azu steadied his gaze onto the man as he carried on with his one-sided analysis, desperately eyeing for an opening to grab hold of Akari. It was clear that the platform he was walking on was erected by a team of barrier script users, theorizing that the man himself likely couldn’t perform the script himself. This would limit his movements, giving Azu one advantage.

“I grabbed this girl thinking she was a member of a tribe we were told to be on the lookout for. But seeing that she’s hanging around an Ayur, that seems unlikely. However, what I just saw from her thoughts was nothing short of a spectacle.”

Azu, though curious as to what he might have seen, knew he needed to keep Akari away from another attempt to read her mind. Considering that he was investigating the incident, it was likely he was operating on order of the Sovereign, which meant Akari was at danger of being targeted by the Eyrie Empire should they find out she was the sole survivor of the incident. A fact that Azu prayed had yet to be revealed to his opponent.

He had to act fast. His only hope of surviving the battle lay misdirecting his opponent and fleeing as quickly as possible. Yet even as the urgency mounted, Azu couldn’t help but question why the man bothered to engage at all. Had he simply retreated and pulled Akari to him as he had before, Azu’s options would’ve been severely limited. Is there a limit to his shift script?

The man pounced again, this time straight for Azu.

Slash!

The man dropped to his knee, a deep cut tearing through his lower thigh. Using the opportunity, Azu quickly dashed towards Akari, managing to grab hold of her.

Lift.

In a blink, the two of them were quickly thrusted into the air. “Dammit, so he could use the shift script,” Azu lamented, his judgement having failed him.

With their bodies suspended into the air, Azu tried to think of a plan as quickly as possible, hurriedly locating the man still kneeled on the ground. Surprisingly not even looking in Azu and Akari’s direction. We’re not being pulled towards him, Azu soon realized, noting the distance between him and the man increasing.

Azu’s knowledge on shift scripts were limited, however, given its rarity among script users. Thus, Azu drew Akari in close, surrounded their bodies with a protection script as he anticipated an oncoming attack.

The man slowly lifted his gaze towards them, holding his hand up as Azu braced himself for the worst. Until everything seemed to stop.

Gripping onto a shaken Akari, he looked downward, finding the familiar face of a young girl standing beneath them. As they drifted gently to the ground, he couldn’t help but marvel at her command of the antigravity script. An ability that, not unique to any one person, required great control to master.

With his feet finally touching the solid ground, he carefully lowered Akari from his arms, refocusing his attention to just a few paces ahead. As he passed a glance towards the man, the face of disappointment glared back. It was likely that the girl’s script negated his shift script, leaving him without his most practical weapon. I guess I should be thankful, Azu thought to himself, his eyes shifting as another child, a boy, stepped beside the girl.

“The Sovereign would rather you not turn this incident site into a battlefield, Sir Didact.” The boy, although young, spoke with a commanding voice.

“I wasn’t aware that the Mu clan was operating on behalf of the empire,” the man returned.

“There’s always room for cooperation,” the boy countered, “with all his best generals providing towards the war effort, perhaps the empire felt that it needed reassurances.”

The boy had an air of arrogance to his words; it was clear that the children commanded a sense of authority over Sir Didact. But by Azu’s point of view, it likely stemmed solely from a place of fighting prowess. An almost terrifying thought considering their young age. And with Sir Didact showing no intention to engage in their presence, Azu began to consider if he was merely exchanging one threat for another that was far more dangerous.

“You should tend to that injury,” the boy then suggested with tongue-in-cheek irony, “that script is a common one used for surgical amputations. Be grateful your leg is still put together.”

Suddenly several security personnel crowded the area, raising the alarm for Azu who wondered if he’d ever had made it out alive at all. Sir Didact gestured for them to be at ease, before forcibly standing on his feet and slowly stepping in Azu and Akari’s direction. Despite the presence of the two children, A sense of danger clung to as he watched Sir Didact step by him. Reality now settling in. Had those two not have shown u when they did, we would’ve been in a very dangerous situation.

“I’ll have a word with the Coordinator General,” Sir Didact remarked, heading towards a facility at the far end of the barrier below, “I’m sure he’ll be delighted to learn that the Mu clan has agreed to lend its support to the empire and the Sovereign.”

With the battle settled for the time being, the boy crouched beside Akari, greeting her with his voice bright and animated, a jarring shift from his demeanor only moments ago. “It’s nice to see you again.”

A strained smile crept onto Akari’s face, the effects of Sir Didact’s mind reading still causing a strain on her body. Her breathing was heightened, and she was visibly fatigued. But nonetheless she was alive and conscious and could still recognized the boy’s face. Something that Azu took as a sign that she would hopefully not suffer any lasting damage.

“Mind reading scripts are unique in that it’s one of those abilities that you’re either capable of doing, or not. You can’t learn it otherwise.” The girl was soft-spoken with a warm expression. And while Azu found her words reassuring, his suspicions of the Mu clan would not subside. To think these two are just kids…

The group quickly relocated outside of the incident site, finding an obscured area back atop the cliff to rest as they waited for Akari to recover. Azu did what he could to speed the process up, but fighting off the side effects of a script so rare and complex proved to be challenging.

“I’d like to think you two showing up just in time to be a pleasant coincidence, but I tend not to believe in those too often,” Azu stated as he turned to face them over his shoulder, a stiff tension suddenly filling the air.

“Iddak, Saba… how long have you been following us?”