Growth

The effect of Yuki coming out unscathed left a deep and dramatic impact on everyone in the street. The sudden reversal soundly left a silent void. He already proved himself to be unharmed by Akihiro’s attacks and with Katsu’s invisible attack not even scratching Yuki the morale of the gang members fell apart.

Katsu wasn’t convinced of Yuki’s declaration as it only made him more frustrated to see Yuki trying to feint his way through the fight. “It’s just another one of your illusions!” Determined to prove Yuki wrong, Katsu raised both of his hands. Two green glowing crescent shaped forms materialized in front of his hands. The distortion around Katsu shifted into a pale green hue that swirled and twisted around his arms feeding into the creation of the crescents.

Yuki took a couple of steps forward even when Katsu launched the wind crescents at him. The visibility of the attacks made it significantly easier to dodge, but Yuki didn't even bother. They sped towards him with razor edged sharpness and swirling with rapidly folding gales. Yuki snapped his hand up vertically, slicing through one of the crescents. Its bound torrents of wind unleashed and blasted the area with an explosion of gusts. The second crescent he allowed to simply graze off his shoulder and fall apart in the air behind him.

“Understand now?”

Chapter 84 – Growth

A grim thinly pursed lip replaced the permanent smirk on Katsu’s face. Knowing that it wasn’t a trick made him start to run pale. “I understand that you’re a cocky bastard who’s seen too much anime! What did you do to my powers?”

The serious tone from Yuki hadn’t changed. He no longer acted carefree and cocky with the gang. “Once I understood your power it was simple enough to develop a countermeasure. Since wind is invisible I applied a Law stating that the wind you use will be colored. The rest is simply a matter of using equal and opposite force of wind to break apart your attacks before it can cause harm to me.”

“What the hell are—“ Katsu was unable to finish his question with Yuki having closed the distance. Yuki didn’t give Katsu a moment to react, forcing him to take a direct punch into his stomach. Katsu stumbled backwards coughing up blood as he lost his balance dropping to the dirt. Even though Yuki had only punched him it had felt like his insides were torn up and screaming in violent agony.

All of his boys ran forward to try to come to their boss’ aid, but Yuki stopped them all with a sharp glare. Katsu continued to cough hoarsely, spitting up bits of blood intermittently. Everything waited as the grave condition of Katsu became darkly acute.

Once he had managed to subdue much of the pain and involuntary coughing he turned his head up towards Yuki. His lips were coated with blood along with the sides of his chin. “W-what did you…do to me?!” Katsu received nothing but a deep stare that spoke of his defeat, but Katsu refused to give in.

He tried to form together his wind to mold into an attack with pale green threads appearing in mass. A faint shape of a crescent began to take form, but it suddenly shattered to pieces to his shock.

“At this proximity I can completely neutralize your wind with my own. It’s useless.”

Katsu glared back at him, feeling that defiant emotion that he had seen before from Haruo and Yuki. It was a bitter taste for him to accept. “What the hell are you?!”

Most of the gang members had already lost their will to stay. A few had fled from the scene while others were simply too paralyzed to react. Yuki took a hold of Katsu’s collar, lifting him back up to his feet. The piercing stare from Yuki leveled at Katsu trying to break him down. It looked like the mental contest would never end until Haruo broke them off by getting between them.

“I already told you this is my problem to deal with. Stay out of it.” Haruo and Yuki locked eyes for a moment. He turned back towards Katsu, struggling to keep his legs straight. “Back down or I’ll bring out my animals again.”

Katsu laughed, choking a little, even while he barely was able to keep himself together. “You’ve got pretty…full of yourself…kid!” Katsu tried to grin, but the pain made it difficult.

Akihiro had been waiting and took the moment to make his attack on Haruo, knowing that he could do nothing to Yuki. A large sword blade burst from the earth, but as it reached towards the target it turned horizontal with the ground. He stared confused at it for a moment only to realize that the ground that it had been attached from was bent over.

A sideways glance from Yuki jerked Akihiro back, making his blood run cold. It took him a second to pull himself back together. Thinking it would be different a second time another blade thin and jagged reached out for Haruo only to fail to reach.

Katsu took the momentary distraction to force down the pain and make an attack. The desperation he felt fed into his power drawing on more than he had been before turning streams of pale green compressed wind around his body. A struggle for strength of the gales ensued between Katsu and Yuki, but with Yuki’s concentration being divided the balance was upset.

Most of the buildup had gone unnoticed by Yuki or Haruo. It wasn't until it was too late that Yuki was alerted to the already developing attack. Unlike before, Katsu wasn’t creating a crescent with the wind, but rather a sphere. When it reached dangerous proportions Yuki had little options available to him.

In the final moments of the wind sphere being formed Yuki grabbed Haruo to shield him while throwing themselves away from the attack. Using a reckless thrust from his own wind, Yuki tossed them out of the immediate blast radius of the sphere.

Upon impact, it released all of the confined wind mini-crescents shot out from the center in a wide spray covering everything except for behind, leaving Katsu and his gang safe. The blades of wind careened around them and bounced off of Yuki’s wind. Despite the wind though, there were too many for him to stop leaving them to be cut up several places over his body with shallow wounds.

Yuki ignored the pain keeping Haruo protected from harm. The two slid over the dirt coming to a slow and painful rest. Between Yuki’s wind and the force from Katsu, they were sent a surprising distance away from Katsu. ‘Ugh…I knew I was going to regret that… my body wasn’t meant for such crazy stunts…’ He struggled to get his body back under his control.

Numerous screams and murmurs echoed around the empty Field from residents left in terror. They were already too afraid to do anything about the gangs outside of their homes, but there was no longer any protection for them. Some had even gathered together for strength and support in numbers.

“You…in one piece…still?” Yuki looked down to Haruo, who he was still laid over top of.

A pensive pause from Haruo delayed his response to Yuki. His back had taken the brunt of the force during the slid, but despite that he didn’t feel that he was injured. ‘What happened? Why did he protect me? What does he have to gain?’ Haruo pulled himself up from under Yuki. “Why did you do that?”

Yuki coughed as he tried to laugh. “I guess…I shouldn’t be surprised at this point…” He hesitated for a moment, uncertain if he wanted to tempt his body again. The spare seconds had given him enough to push himself over to lie on his back. “I think Katsu’s got a point about you…”

“What did you say?” Haruo leaned in, nearly breaking his flat tone.

“Guess there’s still some emotion buried under there after all. You really are quite naïve…”

“I had all of that burned out of me a long time ago. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I may not have known you for years, but I’ve seen enough of you today to understand.” Yuki tested out his arms and legs while he talked, trying to make the most of his time. Even with Katsu as badly injured, they weren’t going to stop. “You’ve seen so much of the bad side of human nature that you’ve gone to the complete opposite end. You’ve gone so far to that end that you found your naivety in a new form.”

Haruo’s eye twitched a little feeling cornered by Yuki. He had seen Yuki as a simpleminded kid that was too inexperienced about the world to understand. However, Haruo could feel him piercing through all of his walls. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know me.”

“You’re cornered and just repeated the same defensive lines.” The pain came in full force and he struggled to keep it from overcoming him. “I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising that you don't understand when someone wants to help you. You gave me that same look earlier.”

Haruo had found him curious before for saying the same thing as Mr. Asanuma. He didn't like the feeling that he was sensing. “I think the fall must have scrambled your head.”

“No, I’m thinking clearly!” He locked his eyes sternly on Haruo. “You don’t understand do you? You think you have to be alone and even now everything happening is reinforcing that idea, isn’t?!” Harou didn’t reply to him. He almost looked like he had been pushed back a few centimeters. “You just don’t get it! You’re not alone! When you can’t do something alone your friends support you! True friends forgive and accept you! And they protect each other! You can’t do everything alone! You don’t need to be anymore!”

Haruo stared back at Yuki in silence, questioning him. ‘Perhaps he really is simpleminded…’ He had heard enough of the ranting from Yuki and stood up. ‘Support…friends… This is my way…’ Into his palms light grew suddenly responding to him. Once more white spirit-like animals materialized at his side.

A hound stood at his right with a primal stare prepared to leap into action. Taking position on his left was a cougar exposing its teeth like it was ready for a meal. Haruo stepped forward feeling reassured by the company of his pets. It was a strange power, but their connection made him certain.

Katsu collapsed to one knee after trying to make it over in range of the two. The remaining gang members were surprisingly moved by their boss’s resolve and rediscovered their own fortitude. They stepped up around Katsu, getting between Harou and him.

Yuki couldn’t help but look a little bewildered by what he was seeing. ‘I guess they aren’t as cliché as I said…it’s a little weird seeing the bad guys acting brave and heroic…guess the world really has changed completely!’ He stumbled to his feet attempting to shrug off his pain. The effort was starting to work, but he still had a long way to go. Yuki thwarted another attempt by Akihiro. ‘My mind’s still sharp…’

Haruo sent the two animals out ahead of him to clash with the group of six gang members that still remained. Among them Takaoka had elected to try to take the hound on while another two tried to do something about the cougar. The rest decided to fall back into familiar tactics and charged for Haruo.

The awkward fight between the hound and Takaoka was left with the dog having the advantage. It had managed to score a few bites on Takaoka’s leg leaving him bleeding, but still willing to challenge the beast. Takaoka breathed heavily, sliding his foot back after the last exchange. The uncertainty of surviving began to rise in his head as another growl from the hound ran his body cold for a moment. ‘I’ve gotta protect tha boss! I can’t let this stupid dawg beat me!’

The pause broke with the dog leaping forward at Takaoka. He dodged the first attempt and took a swipe at it, but missed as it quickly turned and countered. Takaoka put up his forearm in defense, taking the full force of the fangs from the spirit beast. He fell to the earth holding his bleeding arm as the dog slid around recovering for a final strike. “Damn! This can’t be it!”

Everything afterward for him seemed a blur. It wasn’t until he heard a bit of a whimper that he opened his eyes. At his feet was the white dog surrounded by a flame that worked towards its core. He widened his eyes in surprise and caught a glimpse of a few traces of embers from his hand. “I did that?!”

Yuki stared with narrowed eyes, not pleased with the arrival of a third power. ‘Fire, can you be any more cliché?’ He saw the kid throwing another fireball at the animal finishing it off. It had all seemed to be instinct. ‘Cliché or not, it still can’t be taken lightly!’ His time for remaining still came to a sudden end.

Takaoka turned his new found power on the cougar and managed to catch it in his flames with the first shot. He soon turned his hand on Haruo trying to keep his focus together. “I’ll end this!” Another fireball grew in his palm for an unprepared Haruo.

It wasn’t until there was a red glow that lit up his eyes that pulled him away. ‘Fire? I can’t…’ There was no time to move for him as he was forced to accept it, but at the last second the burning cougar leapt forward taking the fireball for him and vaporized instantly. ‘It protected me. Again…’

The sight of the animal giving its life for him forced Yuki’s words back into his mind. He tried to forget them and focus on standing on his own, but the echo only got louder. ‘I-I can’t… support… help… friends… No.’

Haruo struggled to hold himself against the three boys. They seemed to be getting even stronger than before. ‘The animal was a creation of mine. It only makes sense that it would protect me.’ It gave him a small sense of peace allowing him to deflect an incoming punch. The next kick was a different story though as Haruo was knocked off his feet and sent into the dirt. He had barely seen the opportunist fireball coming in at him as he lay defenseless. ‘Am I so helpless?’

The fireball roared towards him covering him in its fiery glow. It threw away loose dirt in its wake, appearing even more intense than any of the previous attempts. Adaptive had proven to be a deadly ally for Takaoka already figuring out his power. There was nothing left.

“Giving up already?!” shouted Yuki over the roar of the impending fireball. He stood between the fallen Haruo and the fire attack that sped towards him. It had only been a few seconds to spare, but it was enough for him to give Haruo a quick grin before being engulfed in the explosion as the fireball ignited upon impact.

Haruo watched stunned seeing Yuki disappear from sight. He didn’t know what to think. Everything was spinning around in his head so quickly for him to be able to react. ‘Why? Why did he do that?’ Smoke from the fire’s blast blanketed the area blocking out sight. ‘He seemed…almost happy… It doesn’t make any sense.’ Through all the clouds he tried to look for a sign of Yuki. He needed to know if he was alive still.

Inside Haruo’s head Yuki’s words replayed for him as though to answer his own confusion. ‘You just don’t get it! You’re not alone! When you can’t do something alone your friends support you! True friends forgive and accept you! And they protect each other! You can’t do everything alone! You don’t need to be anymore!’

As the smoke slowly began to clear Haruo stood up slowly. ‘Friends support, huh? Protect… I don’t…’ He emerged from the blast straightening himself out. All of the gang members stared on at him looking ready to strike once more. However, Haruo turned his head up towards them, locking eyes with them.

The stare he returned made them all step back uneasy having never seen such a fierce look of determination and strength from him before. “I don’t have to be alone anymore… I don’t have to stand by myself…” He threw out his hands, tossing dirt into the air that suddenly burst with light. A moment later six massive tigers appeared in a circle around him shining with a divine light brighter than before.