Eiswind

October 6th - Kimura Kiyomi

Even though we ran a considerable amount of time, we still arrived late for school and everyone else had already entered the building so when we arrived on the schoolyard, it was completely empty.

We both had to rest and catch our breath for a while. I was surprised that Suzuki also seemed out of breath, his demeanor and looks gave him an almost ethereal aura that made me believe he could easily run a marathon and not break a sweat, but he seemed just as winded as I was and I wasn't a great athlete by any means. It seemed he noticed something about this himself and when I looked at him he made an effort to look unfazed, but it was pretty obvious that he was sweating profusely and was clearly out of breath.

“You don't have to pretend.” I Managed to squeeze out.

“I fail to see what you are trying to imply.” At least his stilted way of talking was not affected.

“We are both beat from running. Sorry, I don't know why I did that.” I mean I did know, but I wouldn't tell him the reason.

“We were late for school, so it's good you made an effort to reduce the time lost.” Where did he even learn to talk like this?

“Stop mimicking like a robot. Your smile already gave away that you are human.”

This time I seemed to get through to him. At least he made the same head tilting gesture he did before and seemed to consider my words. Which still looked beyond cute I might add.

“You do doubt my anatomic make up Kimura?”

“Please stop this.” I was beyond frustrated with him again. It didn't seem possible to hold a normal conversation. “Let's just go into class.” I decided to give up for now an d deal with it later. Whatever it was. When we reached classroom I was thinking about entering at separate times to not make it seem like we were together the whole time we weren't in class, but I decided that Suzuki probably would act like he didn't understand what I mean anyway so we entered class together, asked for forgiveness and sat down. Reiko turned around and did first look at me, then at Suzuki and then at me again and whore the biggest, most mischievous smile I had ever seen on her.

“Oh, did it go so well,” she whispered to me. I shot her an angry look, but that just seemed to spur her on. “You need to tell me all about it later.” Then she turned back and payed attention to class again. This was hell incarnate. Suzuki meanwhile seemed unfazed as ever and acted his part as the new model student. I still had no real idea what was going on in that brain of his. But I was determined to find it out. I would dig until I found the human that was hiding there. I saw a glimpse of it already. At lunch I didn't wait for Suzuki to say anything, but instead dragged Reiko out of the classroom and into a quite place so we could talk. Which happened to be the roof. Not the same part I met with Suzuki the day before, but a different one that was actually accessible for students. Surprisingly we were the only ones here today. I knew she wanted to know everything anyway and I needed someone to talk to as well. As soon as we sat down she looked at me with great anticipation. “So, what happened? Are you a lovey dovey couple now?”

“No,” was my very blunt answer.

“Oh, how boring.” She seemed genuinely disappointed. “But something happened, right? You came to school together today and you dragged me out here, which you never did before.” I sighed before I continued. For once I felt like the main character.

“I don't know how much I can tell you, but he wants to work together with me. And it's something important,” I said cryptically. Reiko understandably was not very satisfied.

“Now what it that supposed to mean? Work together on what? Your relationship? A model kit? Or what?” she said, moving her face closer to mine, trying to gauge my reaction.

“I can't tell you. But he even came back to my house after I left my bag on the roof and my mother saw him and it was a whole thing...” I suddenly stopped as I realized that I was saying something that wasn't very easily explained, unless I told the truth or made it seem like it was about Suzuki and I being in a relationship after all. What a headache. Reiko now just stared at me in disbelieve.

“Wow, that was very quick. Did you do it or what?” Now I was staring. That wasn't what I was trying to imply at all.

“No, of course not. My mother didn't let him enter the house even. And it's not about a relationship. But I can't tell you. Sorry.” I hung my head and stared at the ground beneath me.

“Okay, I will be merciful for once,” Reiko said, “But be careful, okay? No matter what you will end up doing with him, keep in mind you don't know him yet.” She sounded very concerned when she said that. I couldn't help but give her a hug. After that we started eating our lunch and for a while everything was silent. As it was early May, the weather was really pleasant and the sun was out as well. A beautiful early summer day. But after we spent a couple minutes eating in silence I felt like there was a very cold breeze starting to blow over the roof and the sky seemed to change colour rapidly from a beautiful, bright blue to an almost violet black. When I noticed the color of the sky I couldn't believe it. And the temperature was dropping even more now. It felt like it was starting to freeze almost. I looked at Reiko and she seemed as confused as I way. What was going on here?

“Should we go inside?” asked Reiko. I didn't give an answer. What my mother told me yesterday was coming back to me. Kälte. That was what my mother called whatever she was fighting all this time ago. And it was starting to look quite cold and quite dark out here. I wasn't ready for this.

Suddenly the door to the roof swung open and that with such force that it hit the wall with quite a punch. The person responsible was no other than Suzuki. He stood in the door and stared at the sky the same way we did. What scared me was that Suzuki didn't sport his usual facial expression. The opposite in fact. He seemed very distressed. His black eyes were wide open and so was his mouth. He breathed heavily, most likely he had ran up the stairs from our classroom once he realized what was happening.

In this moment something else appeared. It was some kind of mist that at first looked like it had no concrete shape, but then it turned into something vaguely shaped like a fist that clung to the balustrade.

“Reiko,” shouted Suzuki. “Run away as far as you can. Now.” Reiko stood next to the bench we had sat on and after a couple seconds she did as she was told and ran through the door and down the stairs. Suzuki smashed the door closed behind her and that very moment a small part of the mist that looked like a smoke tentacle shot in the direction of the door and when it hit the door, the door froze completely shut. We were trapped. But why did Suzuki close the door?

“What is happening Suzuki?”

“We are attacked by the Kälte. This is a very low level monster, called an Eiswind. It can only detect heat signatures, that's why it reacted when Reiko ran down the stairs. I'm currently suppressing both out heat signatures, but I can only keep that up for a little while longer, so we have to do something quickly.” He sounded as serious as ever, but this time I could feel the distress in his voice. This must be a really bad situation.

“So what's the plan?”

“I can attack it on my own, but I'm so weak I won't do much even to such a weak monster.” He looked at me.

“We have to take cover over there and try to transfer some Mana from you to me so I can use a stronger attack.” He pointed to a big climate unit on the roof.

“And how do we do this? I've never done anything like this.” I realised I sounded panicked, but I couldn't help it. I was scared.

“Me neither. But I know the very basic form is by shaking hands basically. I'm just hoping it will work on its own somehow.” This didn't sound very reassuring, but I had no other ideas.

“I'm going to count to three and then we run. It will sense us when we run, so we have to be quick. When we have reached our cover we will grab each others hands and hope for a miracle.”

This all didn't sound like a solid plan, but at least it was a plan. I heard him count to three and we took off. The climate unite was maybe ten meters away, so it only took a couple seconds to get there, but the monster took notice of us and darted in our direction but we made it behind the climate unit just in time so the monster bounced off it when it hit the structure. The unit itself immediately froze like the door before it.

“Now, your hand.” shouted Suzuki as he stretched out his and and I grabbed it out of reflex. At first nothing seemed to be happening and I was scared we were done for, when suddenly our hands started to glow in a bright yellow color and I felt something leaving my body. Like I was transferring energy directly to Suzuki.

“It's working.” I shouted enthusiastically as I looked at Suzuki and his eyes started to glow as he looked at me. “Yes, I didn't believe it would to be honest.”

“So how long do we do this?” I asked him. It felt like it already was taking a toll on me and the monster was just about to launch another attack on us.

“I don't know, but I think it should be enough now. We just have to let go of each others hands I suppose,” said Suzuki and we tried, but it seemed like our hands were glued together. Now I was feeling like I was already close to fainting and we still couldn't let go of each others hands.

Then with one final push Suzuki and I Managed to separate our hands. I sank to my knees and was breathing heavily.

“Sorry Kimura, I didn't know this would happen. But I can fight now. I can feel it.” I didn't answer him as my body didn't seem to be willing to obey me and so I could just watch as Suzuki went out in the open to face the Eiswind. I had to admit that he looked pretty cool as he positioned himself legs apart stretching out his right hand with all his fingers spread spart, holding his wrist with his left hand. I didn't know what to expect next as I suddenly heard him scream “Feuersturm” and the biggest flame I had ever seen in my life erupted from his and and struck the monster. With a sound of breaking ice and boiling water, combined with a demonic screeching the monster dissolved into thin air. At the same time all the cold was gone and the sky turned back into its normal blue color. Moments after that I saw Suzuki collapse to the floor. I wanted to scream and run to him, but finally my own body gave out as well and I lost consciousness.