What Lurks Beneath

The wind blew past thick with tension. The chaos emanating from the city cascading over Zida and Daim like a tsunami wave. “Something’s wrong,” Daim noted, his attention split between Kohr and the ominous feeling trickling through the air. “If what I’m sensing is true, then that would unprecedented.”

“Anything you’d like to share?” Zida itched to be informed.

“General Kohr knows my ratio script well. We’ve trained together enough for him to understand the basic concept of its system and how attacks are converted into numbers called a hit count that need to either be matched or exceeded in order to deflect. He should also be aware of the multiplier that is applied to direct contact.”

Zida flashed back to when Daim placed his palm directly on Kohr’s side, uttering “direct contact” before issuing the hit count. “But you clearly knocked him down earlier,” Zida surmised.

“Exactly,” Daim confirmed, “He may have just miscalculated the hit count and how much defensive force he needed to apply, but Kohr is far from that incompetent. For that reason, I always knew he would be the hardest person to ever defeat in a real fight, but right now I’m seeing none of the Prosecutor General that I know… Someone’s taking us for fools.”

Kohr lunged at them, with Zida and Daim both putting up their guard. He unexpectedly stopped short of reaching them, throwing the two off guard before another one of his indestructible blasts came shooting from both of his hands directly at Zida and Daim’s feet.

“Impact 1245!”

Daim quickly struck the ground with his palm, the force creating a crater with the impact blasting Kohr upwards and causing his attack to miss its target.

“His offensive arsenal is limited,” Zida heeded, “we can use that to our advantage.”

“Kohr’s talent is in his strategic mindset,” Daim warned, “not his arsenal of fancy scripts. With that being said, he does have one other script that I was waiting for him to use. I now realize that he’s been using it this entire time.”

“So, you’ve noticed something?” questioned Zida.

“I have an idea, but I need to confirm it first,” replied Daim.

Back at the urumar garden, Sina dived out of the way just barely escaping the blade of the second guard lurking behind her. She then leapt over towards Toyo, who was still desperately holding her neck trying to stop the bleeding. Sina clasped her hands together, interlocking her fingers. The guard rushed towards her in a full sprint, but Sina was quicker.

Four walls of script interlocked with one another forming a barrier around Sina and Toyo, stopping the guard in his tracks.

The guard’s eyes traced the border of the structure, eyeing how the script had just barely avoided direct contact with the urumar trees by less than an inch. “Now that is an impressive control over script usage,” he praised, threateningly circling around the perimeter of the barrier.

Sina watched his every step, finding the events of the day too unpredictable to let her guard down for even a second.

Meanwhile Toyo’s breathing grew heavy, and her eyes widened like dam. The blood from her neck running through her fingers. Its warmth painfully familiar to her. She could see it playing out before her eyes. The terror that befell her in the dark of the night as she prayed for her mother’s survival.

“Okaa-san!” she cried, “Okaa-san, wake up.”

She desperately clamped her hands around her mother’s slit throat. Praying for a miracle to happen. “Why would you do this?” she wept in the face of what mother’s struggle had brought about. “Why would you leave me alone?!”

With the battle still raging on at the library, Zida and Daim set forth to finally take control of the battlefield. They charged Kohr, both preparing to strike from either side of the general. “Focus your strike directly at where he’s standing, don’t try to anticipate how he may avoid you.” Those were Daim’s words to Zida, urging, “Don’t hesitate no matter what.” But as Zida swung his fatal blow at the general, his heart paused. His strike was headed straight for Daim who had arrived within inches of Kohr. The strike was too fast to dodge, and Daim would never be able to withstand it. Leaving Zida appalled as to why Daim would sacrifice himself in such a way.

Zing!

The strike ripped through the ground like a bullet train, sending debris thrusting into the air at deadly speeds. Zida hesitated to witness the reality that awaited him, bemoaning the thought of not having found another way. But for Daim, however, things were quite the contrary.

Having overstepped Kohr’s position by three spaces, he was completely out of harm’s way. His hand lunging forward, he pressed it firmly into Kohr’s side. “Direct contact, 382 hits.”

Kohr tumbled to the ground with a thud. Daim’s attack had worked, leaving the general suffering from a crippling blow. Zida was completely at a loss for words. Only moments ago had Daim stood within the path of impact, now he appeared elsewhere, completely unharmed.

“While I don’t doubt that Kohr would be capable of concocting such a deterrent to my script. He would never do so while forfeiting his defense against a direct contact hit.”

Daim hawked over the general, the disgust in his eyes raining down on Kohr. “Definitely not more than once,” the liege resumed, “You can’t judge the level of my multiplier because you can’t feel the impact.”

As Daim spoke, the pieces of the puzzle began to come clear to Zida, realizing that perhaps the general wasn’t the one in control after all. Daim would no longer let the tricks control him, however, leaving the enemy before him with a pointed taunt.

“Only cowards hide in the bodies of others.”