The Fire Stanza

Mom and I stopped at a restaurant eating hot and tasty food.

“We must go as soon as possible; I cannot leave them alone to fight Elvira.”

“But what about Reikokuna Takai? We can’t leave him here! His dad is as bad as mine! My old one, I mean; the new one is perfect”

“This is not ideal, but we can’t take him without his consent. And even if we kidnapped him… I know I can defeat Reikokuna Atsu, but facing all the Flame Swordsfolk would be a lot even for me.”

“We just need to show him we don’t need him to be different to be with us.”

“We don’t have time for that, Nina.”

“But he is my brother!”

“Are you talking about Takai?”

A young girl approached us. She worked at the restaurant and had half of her face and her right arm covered in burned scars.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

“The whole village knows the son of Atsu. I heard him returned… but do you know why he left in the first place?

During my whole time with Markus Terracota, my brother didn’t share much. Noticing my expression, she started the tale with sadness in her voice.

“I guess it both starts and ends with the Fire Stanza.”

The Fire Stanza was one of the shortest ones, direct and to the point.

Embers

Starts the fire

That is my passion

Burning flames protect

And make me follow my heart

Lovers, victory, all that I deserve

Until everything becomes obsession

Violence, rage, war, I can seek it all

So watch out for what you want

Maybe nothing to protect

Just a burned family

Smoke in the sky

And coal

“When Takai started his training under Atsu he was a prodigy. He fought with such passion that his Stanza was stronger than most of the adults. But he liked it so much… he enjoyed the violence and that was why he was so powerful. Until that day… It was not on purpose, but he was so uncontrollable with his power that he hurt his sister. And he hurt her badly. After that he didn’t want to use the Fire Stanza anymore. Of course, Atsu didn’t like that; Takai was the perfect heir. Takai felt so traumatized that he learned how to restrain himself, so much that he formed the connection with the Ice Stanza.”

“That’s terrible.”

“Yeah… he ran after that because Atsu might even have killed him. I just don’t understand why he returned…”

I looked at Ember Lascander making the cutest face I could.

“Okay, you have another chance to talk to him, but just one more!”

“Yippee!” I jumped, ready to leave the restaurant even though I hadn’t finished my food yet. But then the whole ground started to shake. “An earthquake?”

“No, this is different, it’s coming from the temple!”

We both ran the fastest we could, leaving the girl behind.

Once we were there, we could feel cold gusts of wind coming from inside. The guards tried to stop us, but they were also confused with the tremor, and Ember Lascander summoned two fireballs that opened the way for us.

Inside, more people with swords attacked us. I could vanish their flames with my own powers, but I left the sword attacks to Ember Lascander to deal with. She was fast and could dodge the attackers, kicking them so hard in retaliation that they were thrown back.

“Should I start using a katana as well?”

“Focus, Nina!”

Still there were a lot of them and we didn’t know where my brother or his father was. The source of the tremor was below us and we didn’t know how to reach it.

“Something is clearly wrong here. I will send you below to deal with it while I take on these guys, ok?”

“Wait, how are you going to…” I didn’t have the time to finish my question. With one hand, she grabbed me and throwed me to the ground. Before I could hit the wooden floor, she summoned flames ahead of me that completely obliterated the underground floors of the temple.

I fell more stories than I could count, but a bunch of snow broke my fall. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The Cyan Demon was uncontrollable while Reikokuna Takai tried to dodge their attacks. It was clear that was the source of all the rumbling.

“Father, put your chains back! I can’t do this!”

“This will only end when you control the Cyan Demon!”

“The entire town will be destroyed!”

“If that is the price for power, so be it!”

I could see in my brother’s hand aa strange floating orb, but he wasn’t doing anything with it. He was actually trying to use his Stanza, but the small amount of cold that came from his sword did nothing to the Demon’s skin.

“Reikokuna Takai!” I screamed and ran at him, knowing that my powers would end this quickly.

“You will not stop me!” Atsu used his Fire Stanza in a way I had never seen before. There were a lot of iron chains in this basement and Atsu could heat them up, melting the metal and then changing its form.

It came to me like a wave of hot metal. I used my Void Bubbles, which could absorb the heat, but the metal was ordinary and I had to dodge it or I would be crushed.

“Nina Nune!” my brother wanted to help me, but he couldn’t stop paying attention to the monster before him.

It was then that I felt a familiar connection, and I could swear I saw a blue thread, but Rita Fiori was not there. Even so, I could feel what Reikokuna Takai was feeling. Of course, that was fear and worry, but there was something deeper.

I could feel how strong he was when using his Fire Stanza, it was like a self-combusting flame, he got stronger as he enjoyed what he was doing and the stronger he was, the more he enjoyed doing it. But there was still something stopping him. I saw the eyes of the girl he burned in the past and what the violence that he enjoyed did all that.

I got up trying to help him again, but this time Atsu used his signature on his own sword making a flaming metal snake that came at me hitting my shoulder. I wouldn’t be able to reach him, so the only one who could help my brother was Takai himself.

“Takai!” I screamed just one name because I hadn’t the time to say the whole thing. “I know how hard it is to know who you are, but I think you actually do know. You do like to fight and win and that’s okay, especially now that you know how to restrain yourself! You can do both! You can follow your passion!”

I knew that, just like I could feel his feelings, he could feel mine. He was still too unsure of doing it.

“Takai, please just do it!” The one who said that was the girl from the restaurant, now in the basement with us.

“Samu?” he asked surprised.

“You changed since you hurt me, and I know you can do it!” Reikokuna Samu was the person we needed to make it work.

Our brother took a deep breath and put his sword back on the sheath.

“You must use the Original Poem; it’s the only way!” his father was still obsessed with it, but I already knew what his answer was.

The Demon tried to crush Reikokuna Takai who just stepped out of the way, dodging it.

“I feel for you Cyan Demon, you could have faced anyone this day, but the destiny decided it would be me.”

He took his sword out, and now it didn’t emit wind, but a cyan flame. With a simple upward movement of the sword and the power was enough to cut the the Demon’s arm. When the arm fell to the ground once again everything shook and I feared that the entire temple might collapse.

Reikokuna Takai left the cyan orb behind and jumped, reaching the height of the Demon’s head.

“Oh, how I missed this.”

A lot of cyan flames came from the slash of his katana, cutting the Demon in half. Despite the destruction, his flames did not spread, they only hit their target and returned to his sword.

“No! You know how perfect this was? The Original Poem of Ice, the Cyan Demon, and my good-for-nothing son! This was supposed to be my moment!”

Atsu had his sword in hands, making the red-hot metal snake again, ready to attack his own son.

“Do you know how much I have restrained myself from hit you back?” said Reikokuna Takai. “My whole damn life!”

In a single flash of cyan light, the battle was over.