Shattering Earth

Nobody appeared with the voice as it echoed through the alley. It halted Yuki instantly, paralyzing his entire body. Even as unfamiliar, the malice laced through the words rang clear. Another assassin tracked him down. ‘Another so soon…and no Ayumi…’

Without hesitation or thought, Seiji charged straight into the alley. A natural first response, what other action could there be. He made it ten steps in before thought caught up to action. ‘Doesn’t sound like the punks we used to smash into the dirt. What’s he want with Yuki?’ The deeper he went in darkness blanketed everything.

A blink and Seiji already nearly disappeared from his sight. Yuki ran in after Seij asi dark, negative thoughts taunting him. It hurried his pace to push his legs hard. He needed to catch up. Seiji couldn’t go in alone. This wasn’t like they used to deal with. Seiji didn’t know.

“What the hell?” Yuki arrived just behind Seiji as he stopped in a large opening. The alley became almost like a chamber with multiple passages all leading to the same spot. And before them, a behemoth of a man towered over them. “Damn! Who the hell is he, Yuki?”

Chapter 28 – Shattering Earth

White pants with a draped robe-like style, it confirmed everything Yuki already expected. ‘It’s another one…I’ve got to get Seiji out of here!’ Yuki stepped out in front of Seiji hoping it would move attention away.

Moving past the shock, this foreigner came in a little shorter than Seiji, but broad like a mountain. Thick trunks for legs and tense beams of steel for arms pulled in by broad shoulders and chest. Their uniform on past assassins looked fit, but loose, while with him it looked ready to burst. Muscles bulged around fabric taut and formed. He nearly looked like he stepped out of one of Yuki’s manga panels.

Oddly silent now as though, he simply spoke just to draw them inside. The muscular stranger took a heavy step forward. He presented an openly aggressive posture without attacking, making them slide a step back in caution.

While his body sweated with the growing tension, Yuki looked over to Seiji with worry. His only relief was that Seiji wasn’t already throwing punches. “This is bad, Seiji. He’s way out of our league! We’ve gotta run!”

“What? Hell no! Guy’s a little unnerving, but damn if I’ll turn my back!”

“Dammit, Seiji! You don’t understand… You can’t take him!”

Seiji stepped forward in defiance of Yuki’s wishes. A quick tilt of his head delivered a satisfying soft pop. “No…” The tone of his voice changed, no longer the loud overbearing bass. Not quite soft, but a lighter rhythm carried through. “I get it. I know… I ran when I knew and I hate it every damn day!”

“Seiji?”

A wry smile came over him. “She knew and made the correct choice, no wonder she hates me, the coward.” Seiji stomped his foot down planting an answered posture to the brutish man. “I’ll handle this in her stead and maybe be a better man!”

“This is crazy, Seiji! He’s got…” The words disappeared as the assassin appeared to have accepted Seiji’s reply. He saw him sidelined once more. Darkness fell over his eyes.

Matching eyes with the man, Seiji fixed him with a grizzled steely stare. “My you’re the polite sort, ain’tcha?”

“You done talking?”

Seiji gave him a grin to show that he was ready for the fight. Fire burned in his muscles with vigor. Eagerness filled him for an unknown challenge. “Hell yeah! Ready whenever—“ Seiji was interrupted in his words by a heavy fist to his face. It knocked the saliva out of him and cut a little blood from his lip, sending Seiji to the ground with his eyes wide.

“Seiji!” Yuki began to run towards him, but stopped.

“Yuki!” He coughed a little, taken by surprise with power behind the fist, but he pushed himself back up. ‘Yuki’s no longer that sort of person. I’ve accepted that and now I have to hold myself to that!’ He brushed away the blood that dripped from his bruised and cut lip to stand even with the man once more. ‘He’s faster than I’d thought for his size. This’ll be harder than I thought… but now that I know…’

Another fist flew through the air for Seiji’s face again in a flash. Yuki was left uncertain what happened. Seiji leapt backwards after having evaded the fist narrowly. The man seemed to be a little surprised, but continued on the offensive taking swings at Seiji as he dodged out of the way. Seiji kept watching the man’s movements trying to read him, but struggled to size him up.

In the moments of swings Seiji had been trying to counterattack the man, but the thick muscles proved too difficult to penetrate. Even when he had tried a strike inside, the man’s defenses were solid, bringing in the other arm to block. ‘Dammit! I can’t get through… This guy’s built like a tank… But I’ll find away because… because…’

His thoughts faded back on old memories. ‘Yuki… I haven’t known you for long… Hell, I hardly knew you! Back then I loved to fight. I don’t know why. Damn stupid itch! But you changed things. You made me look forward to each day! Each bruise, each cut, I loved it all. You're the closest person I could call a friend, that probably would say it back to me!’

Seiji, thirteen years old, ran down the street as he did every afternoon to make his usual match with Yuki. However, as he charged through, a large arm reached out from the shadows knocking him to the sidewalk painfully.

“What the—“ Seiji rubbed the back of his head before he looked up to see a hand grabbing him by his uniform and dragging him into the alley. The older student threw him up against the wall of the building knocking him back to his senses. Seiji rammed his knee into the kid’s stomach, getting him off of him. It gave him the moment to gather himself.

A minute or a second, he couldn’t tell anymore. The whole fight turned to a blur with the last punch draining everything that Seiji had left in him. He laid on the damp alley concrete getting his face pressed into the ground by the kid standing over him.

Stunned and confused by the unfamiliar feeling, Seiji felt rough concrete scrapping against him. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Only one person could beat him. So how did he lose?

Through blurry vision a figure appeared to interrupt the beat down. A new target pulled his attacker away, thinking the small boy would be a simple punch. Yet in two blinks, Seiji saw the guy he struggled with flat on his back locked in groans and shock.

“Just going to keep bleeding on the ground?” Yuki offered Seiji a hand to stand back up. Seiji gave Yuki a narrowed glare and then a smirk as he took the hand. Yuki gave him a shoulder for support and walked him back to the shrine to rest.

‘You changed me, Yuki… You did what no one else did. And how’d I repay you… Today and each day now will be different! I’ll walk into hell!’ Seiji evaded another close call from the assassin. He attempted a daring move to counter straight for the man’s face. He had read enough of his moves to get a feel for his style, but it was still a risk that could backfire.

He pushed around the thick arm of the man in the motion of swing and used the size for leverage to get inside the man’s defenses. Seiji spun around with his free arm going straight for the chest knowing that it would be blocked. Quickly, he followed through with a rotation on his body getting his leg extended to launch straight at the man’s head. The moments paused for Seiji as he saw his leg connect and suppress his excitement for the follow through, but the man grabbed his arm and swung him around into the wall.

“Seiji!” It happened once more. Yuki clenched his fists demanding his mind stop holding back. ‘Why can’t I use my power? Work dammit!’ Every attempt to use his training failed. Each punch he watched another hammer down of his lost effort.

Defenses broken, the impact against the wall knocked the wind out of him. Unconsciousness taunted his mind. ‘Yuki… I can’t give up for him.’ The assassin turned away, seeing Seiji lying on the ground unable to move anymore. He began walking towards Yuki, the real target of his intent.

“I’m…” However, Seiji wasn’t finished. Seiji slid back up to his feet with his vision starting to blur and his legs shaking from the last hit he took. Over the assassin’s shoulders, Seiji’s smirking look of determination stared down the man until he turned back to look at Seiji.

“That’s enough Seiji! You don’t have to fight anymore!”

Seiji could see the large shadow being cast over with the intention of putting him down for good. “Yuki… it’s alright. Fighting is all I’m good for and all I’ve ever known. Let me do this for you.”

“Seiji!” Yuki was forced to watch his friend get pummeled by the assassin dropping blood with every strike. Seiji refused to fall even though Yuki knew that he couldn’t take anymore or even defend himself. The assassin raised up a final arm to put Seiji down through his defiant grins. “Seiji!” Yuki ran to Seiji screaming in the seconds before the fist came down. In the brief moments before Yuki could see the grin still on Seiji’s face.

Seiji was laid out on the ground with blood dropped everywhere around him. Yuki came into Seiji’s side grabbing up his unconscious body screaming his name hoping that it would wake him up.

‘Seiji… We fought so many times. I hadn’t seen anyone more stubborn before that I had fought. I never knew why you stuck around me when everyone else abandoned me. It didn’t seem to matter to you how many times I beat you up, you just came for more. And then you started fighting with me. You enjoyed fighting as much as I did then.’

Yuki stared down at Seiji trying to keep from crying knowing that it would not do anything and Seiji would not want it. ‘Seiji…I changed and you disappeared… but you still even now… Why can’t I do anything?! Why must I keep watching my friends get hurt!? Why?!’

Yuki let Seiji rest on the ground and stood up looking at the assassin holding tears along the edge of his eyes. He blinked once to clear away the blur and narrowed his features. ‘I can still fight without my powers, even if it has been a long time… I can’t worry about promises when my friends are being hurt. I hope you can forgive me…’

“So you done mourn—,“ A sudden swift knee strike interrupted the assassin. Yuki delivered straight to the chest, breaking through his defense. Yuki leapt backwards before the man had closed his hold around him. The hit appeared to do little to the man. Built like a house, he came after Yuki with a heavy swing. The speed continued to surprise.

He missed.

Yuki lowered into an offensive stance with his arms out in front ready to move at a moment’s chance. “I’ve seen your moves already from your fight with Seiji. This isn’t going to be the same fight!” Yuki charged in, seeing a flinch in the man’s movements as a sign of attack. He evaded the swing and slid over to his flank with a wild look in his eye. His body threw everything into the punch at the man’s stomach.

The assassin stepped back a half of a step from the blow, but seemed largely unaffected still. Yuki pulled back seeing that it was only a feint by bruiser. It was meant to have Yuki drop his guard with the foreigner’s arms coming in to grab for him. He was able to retreat to a safe distance as he shook his hand feeling the sting from the impact. ‘It was like…I was hitting steel…’

The next attack came in taking Yuki to the defensive for several strung together attacks that he hadn’t seen previously. The spinning backhand took him off guard forcing him to block and jump to make the weight behind it send him back without knocking him down. Yuki slid to the ground ignoring the stinging bruises on the sides of his forearms. ‘I still have it… I thought being buried would have dulled it, but I can’t let it control me… I’m fighting for someone and not myself… Seiji…’

“Seems I won’t settle this without Meso Prosecho,” the behemoth said as he began to glow brown, issuing forth waves from his feet. Dust, dirt and debris from the unkempt alley kicked up and blew away as the man’s Field expanded to Yuki and beyond. When the dust settled the man stood looking unchanged, but a little larger, if it was actually possible.

Surrounding the man, all of the concrete changed to rock or earth like something from a desert mountainside. The earth Field affected all of the building’s walls as well turning to solid stone with distant echoes of people screaming. “You can’t hold back any more.”

‘He wants a fight with powers...I would have done so already if I could. Dammit, I don’t know what Law he’s using. It’s like Ayumi said, I’ve got to learn in the fight and find a counter. But without a power…’

Yuki was suddenly reminded of something that Ayumi had told him the night before as he stared down the hulking mass. ‘Even with his powers he’s still as vulnerable as before. She said they’re just normal humans. Saki and her beat that plant guy.’ Yuki returned to his previous attacking stance waiting for a move from the assassin. He wasn’t willing to go blindly into the lion’s den not knowing how sharp his fangs were.

“You think you can beat me without your Field?” The man charged towards Yuki taking a swing at him that seemed to be a little slower than before. Yuki was able to dodge it, but the man followed through with his other fist with Yuki already against the wall from the last. He evaded, but the man’s fist continued through pounding into the stone wall of the building making it crack and crater a little.

Yuki rolled out of the way, but was assaulted from a hail of stones. When the storm cleared Yuki stared in shock at the crater left in the building. ‘What’s going on? How can he have that sort of strength? Ayumi said it’s not possible to increase strength, but then how did he leave that crater!?’

The foreigner slowly recovered, giving Yuki an opening. Focusing himself, he took the chance to strike while he was wide open. He threw his body into the punch aimed straight for the man’s face hearing a crack from the impact. The sound pleased him, striking through his defenses.

However, he suddenly felt a sharp pain through his entire hand. He jumped back holding his hand to look at it. Purple and red, his hand barely moved, bloodied and bruised. ‘What?! I know I hit him, but… Damn!! My hand! It’s like I was hitting stone! I think it might be broken…’

The assassin stood towering over Yuki looking down at him. “You see the difference now? Now use your Field before I grow tired of humoring you.”

Yuki stood up and ripped open his school uniform pulling his dress shirt free. He tore a long strip from his dress shirt and wrapped it around his broken hand. When he finished he stared back at the assassin giving him his silent answer.

“I see…” The man threw his fist again with Yuki dodging it, but surprised Yuki when his knee came up in mid-movement, knocking the wind out of Yuki and spraying saliva from his mouth. The assassin grabbed Yuki by the leg and swung him around against the building walls as they changed in form to spiked points of rock that pierced through his back and chest dripping blood in lines on the wall.

Pealed off the wall, they dropped Yuki to the ground. Yuki slid roughly bloodied and torn up. His body bumped into Seiji finally stopping. His uniform in tatters and coughing up blood, the sensation felt too familiar again. Yuki tried to find the strength to get his legs to move. ‘I’ve got to protect him. He protected me!’

He pushed himself up to one knee in front of Seiji. Short of breath and throbbing in pain, Yuki balled his fists up to focus with whatever he had left. ‘It takes me back… Just the two of us… I would have liked to have done that one more time. Seiji…’

Dust suddenly kicked up around Yuki as he began to glow green pulsing waves from his body as he looked around in surprise. The waves pushed back the stone cracking it as grass pierced through blowing a wide field of grasslands over all of the ground, but leaving the buildings as they were.

Yuki stood up with a determined look in his eyes as a simple white keikogi, the traditional clothes he wore at the dojo, replaced his school uniform. A haze surrounded him, slightly distorting the environment behind him. “I’ll protect him with my life!”

“I thought that was my line, Yuki.”

“Seiji?” Yuki turned with shock to see Seiji standing once more. Like him, Seiji no longer wore his common black school uniform. In place of his uniform, long traditional robes of the Shinto Priest draped his body. Flowing forms of white over a soft blue like Yuki saw from Seiji’s Grandfather. “Seiji?!”