My Pain Against Yours

Tear!

As the image before her split in half like an old photograph, the maniacal crowd of attackers suddenly parted into two, with each collapsing in opposite sides of one another.

Daku then lunged into the air, quickly gaining distance, while Sina stumbled to her feet and ran towards her direction.

As they briefly looked back upon the crowd, Sina was struck with a pang of peculiarity. The crazed attackers remained as they were, unwilling to engage any further. Their eyes fixed on her and Daku as the two chased after Toyo.

Wrapping around the pathway leading towards the outskirts of the shopping district, they ended up face to face with the man who’d started it all. It was clear that he had planned thoroughly for whatever it was that was unfolding, as he stood in wait for Sina and Daku to arrive. But Daku would show no fear for the man. The threat of his presence appearing to her as vacant as a mere hollow vessel.

“Keep heading straight towards the urumar garden just north of the district, the guard carrying Toyo will likely be there.”

Sina hesitated, her head spinning with questions, all coated over with a flood of anxiety. “How are you sure?” she asked.

“Because it makes sense for him to bring her there.”

Sina was confounded. She struggled with understanding Daku, finding her words guarded and veiled, but she nonetheless placed one foot in front of the other and ran towards the garden as fast as she could. After all, a second wasted could be a second short of saving Toyo’s life.

As Sina escaped over the stoned wall and descended towards the north end of the House, the man before Daku made no effort to stop her. He clutched his face in his hand, walking back and forth as he mumbled, “No, no, no… this won’t do… You’re hesitating.” He then wagged his finger towards Sina’s direction while further nagging, “That was a dumb decision.”

Daku eyed the man, her expression falling numb as she returned no words of her own. Readying her next move.

“Fine, general. Tell me, what is it that you’re after?” Daim demanded, finally willing to hear Kohr’s explanation.

“For those to receive the pain that I’ve endured for a lifetime.”

Daim shook his head, restlessly replying, “I don’t understand.”

The general launched another attack at Daim and Zida, this time raining down from above. Daim grabbed Zida and fled from the collapsing library.

“The attacks we deflected from before were directed back at us,” Zida noted.

“Kohr’s energy blasts are unbreakable,” Daim hastily informed, “It’ll either need to lose momentum and dissipate over time or come in contact with something thick enough to speed up that process by absorbing it. The easiest way is to make him shoot it at the earth itself…

“Either way it proves that whatever he’s doing to avoid our attacks, only affects the direct results of that attack and nothing else.”

Kohr emerged from the rubble, his presence imposing. “It’s rare to find you so perplexed my liege.”

Thud!

Tossed to the ground, Toyo looked up to find herself surrounded by an ethereal essence from the urumar trees. “The same thing as always… You people never fight back,” the guard oddly murmured.

Her body moving without thought, Toyo launched a handful of rocks and dirt at the guard, who easily blocked it away.

“The urumar crystals that these trees produce can take decades to cultivate, and that’s just the crystals themselves. With in a hundred years’ time, if managed properly, they can garner a unique property to them.”

He placed his hand against the tree, running up the bark and across its branches, gently sliding his fingers across its leaves. “A minor deflecting effect towards scripts.”

Facing Toyo once again, he continued, “When you build a whole garden of them, they make it nearly impossible for script users to use any attacks with precision. Some are even rendered entirely useless.”

He suddenly pounced on her, grabbing her by the hair. “It forces you to get up close and feel the raw truth of conflict.”

Dropping her to the floor, he then placed his foot on her chest. “Someone like you, you should revel in this. It gives you your only fighting chance. No fancy tricks… Just your pain versus mine.” He then punched her in the face, with Toyo’s body falling limp as the strike sent shivers through her body.

With his hand running through her hair, eyeing its blue die, he chided, “Trying so desperately to hide. You think I wouldn’t be able to sniff out that frailty?”

Drawing his blade from his side, he tightened his grip on her hair. He swung the weapon across the side of her neck, its tip barely piercing the skin, until Sina caught his arm, sending a script surging through to his hand, numbing and knocking the blade free.

The guard quickly attempted to use his other arm to try and strike Sina, but she dodged out of the way just in time, using her hand to lightly push his swinging arm up high enough to avoid striking her head. But the move landed her a few feet away from Toyo, leaving her vulnerable to another one of his attacks.

“Stop!” Sina yelled, but the guard rebuffed, “That won’t work on me.”

“I wasn’t counting on it!”

His limp right arm suddenly attracted itself to his left hand, clamping together like two magnets. “A suture script?” the guard muttered as he peered down at the thin, barely visible string of energy piercing through his arms like stitches. He then gawked at Sina, noting the barrier script on her feet that she used to muffle her footsteps, which allowed her to catch him off-guard.

“You fucking Ayurs!” he decried, but Sina stood poised and unwavering. Her mind focused. The guard then turned to face Sina with his whole body, his conviction coming to a head.

“I’ll give you what your owed, child.”

His body then collapsed to the ground, devoid of all consciousness. Sina was startled by the sudden change, but as she hesitated to react, a danger infested its way from behind like plague. Whispering its imminent revelation to her ears.

“I’ll take from you what he took from her.”