A rude awakening

“You killed him? Somebody’s gonna look for him! We gotta move!”

Shrill voices pierce the endless silence of death as I return to the land of the living. There’s a burning pain in my side, but nothing in my head.

“It’ll be fine sir, no one’s coming.” The thug from earlier is consoling another man in a rather funny hat.

“Then get rid of the body and kill off the girl.”

“Wait, sir-” The thug pleads with the shaman and Rikiyo’s eyes go wide.

“That’s Vanguard to you, and I’m done with this. Whatever artifacts she can make aren’t worth the trouble. Tie off these loose ends and bring me another… ALONE.”

The man in the strange hat storms off into the industrial darkness of the warehouse, and the thug turns back to Rikiyo. Tears leak from her proud eyes.

“Please, no. I can help you, just let me… just let me live!”

The thug raises a hesitant blade to Rikiyo. “Can’t kid.”

A strange strength flows from my toes to my head. I feel in tune with the earth and the environment, smooth like water but solid like a stone. Before I can realize it, I’m standing.

“Kenji?” Rikiyo whispers in desperation, the thug turns around.

“You… I killed you. You died. How are you alive?”

“I really don’t know.”

The thug lunges at me with thunderous speed and power, his single fist sending me flying across the room into a wall of blades. I’m cut and grazed, but nothing pierced me too deeply. In a single blink the thug crosses the room, his eyes aglow with mystical yellow power.

“Then take this opportunity to stay down.”

I quickly reach for one of the blades.

“Tough luck kid, won’t help you now.”

My fingers connect with the handle and a cool rush spreads down my arm. My mind awash with the calming smell of rain in autumn. My eyes only catch a frame of the thug driving his blade towards me, but my body’s already moved. I’m on my feet, the cool feel of water flushes over me, healing my wounds.

“Another pure affinity huh? You two are a handful. Shame you’re one of those water users.”

The blade feels comfortable in my hand, as if it belongs there. My body feels loose and light, ready to react.

“And what does that mean?” The thug grins in the dim lighting.

“It means the Cult of Power doesn’t take kindly to other affinities.”

A spark appears under the thug’s heel. His speed is inhuman, slashing and slicing at every ligament in my body. We dance around the warehouse, it’s everything I have just to play defense, and everything he has just to scratch me. A blur of leather and denim with a silver grin, his yellow eyes glow with malice and murderous intent.

“Come on kid. KEEP UP!” The thug gets a deep cut across my thigh and takes the chance to kick me clean through an empty wooden crate.

“Heal up kid, I’m taking that hand as a trophy.”

My bones crack back into place. I can’t do this, I don’t know how.

“Stand up kid, do something, do anything!” My father’s face comes clear into my mind. I stand up to the thug.

“I can do anything, you’re right.”

The thug grins for the killing blow, but I don’t flinch. My body clicks into place and I finally understand the power. The blade glows with a chilling blue hue, it frosts over as it the air around it cools to a dense vapor. The thug’s eyes go wide.

“Wait… wait, this is- this isn’t possible. That’s not real magic.”

I throw the blade in the thug’s foot while he sits in his own stupor.

“AH, God!” The blade embeds in the thug’s foot and immediately starts icing him to the floor. He reaches to pull out the blade and finds his own hand tainted by the freezing blade. His body begins to freeze solid a limb at a time, the pain is clearly excruciating.

“OH GOD! Oh my… you little- JES- I can’t… I can’t.”

The frost has reached his lower body, its curse tainting him into a block of ice.

“You little… Hey kid?”

He addresses me in surprising clarity, the frost has taken nearly everything except his upper torso and head.

“Yes?”

“Good luck with Vanguard Kobayashi.”

The ice immortalizes the thug with a cheeky grin and fearful eyes. I pull the blade out of his frozen foot and the other from his frozen hand. His fingers crack under the tension and clack to the ground, nothing more than solid water. The combination of artifacts in my hands feels abnormal, but not bad.

“Rikiyo!”

I forgot about her in the heat of the moment and immediately start running across the warehouse to find her.

“Rikiyo?”

She’s still there, broken and bound to a chair in the middle of the dank warehouse.

“Kenji, is that you?”

Her voice is still trembling. I walk out of the shadows and do my best to reassure her.

“I really don’t know.”

“WHAT the HELL does that mean?” She’s back.

“Just get me out of this, we can talk about THIS later.” She gestures to my whole body.

I blink behind her and immediately cut the rope before she can say another word.

“How did you do that?”

I pause for a moment, I shouldn’t have done that.

“I’m- I’m not sure.”

“You can’t have two pure affinities, just put one of them down. They’re gone now.”

I decide to play along and hand her the lightning blade before she catches on.

“Yeah you’re right. We should go.”

“YOU’RE not going ANYWHERE.”

Vanguard Kobayashi emerges from the shadows, his eyes glow violently in the fading darkness.

“I knew you two were here to KILL me.”

The vanguard has a double-headed axe, clad in arcs of electricity.

“Sir, that artifact is poisoning your mind. We’re not here to kill you, just let us leave and nobody will know.”

Vanguard Kobayashi screams out tearfully.

“BUT I DON’T KNOW THAT. I don’t know that you won’t squeal to the cops immediately! I can’t trust you, I can’t trust them, I can’t trust ANYONE!”

He gestures behind him to the only doorway outside, bodies are strewn across the pavement. He steps closer into the light and the blood coating his axe is more apparent. Rikiyo steps forward and holds my hand.

“Um Rikiyo?”

“GIVE me the blade moron!”

Rikiyo pries the blade from my hand and her own eyes glow with an intense yellow arc. Her fingertips glisten with electricity as the lights flicker, and Vanguard Kobayashi falls to the ground.