Falling in the Forest

Glancing down at the blade, Miltiades swallowed slowly. He didn’t expect anyone else to find them. An image of the shadowed figure he saw before trying to kill the two of them appeared in his mind. ‘Is it them? The one from before…they wanted to kill, but why?’

The metal let out another click as it moved closer to his neck. His skin felt the sharp edge of the blade. It felt like it would cut him if he breathed too heavy. They spoke again to him. “What do you think you’re doing?” The same words, but they spoke with greater intent than before.

Hearing the voice again made his eyes widen for a second. ‘There’s something familiar about them…’ Miltiades ran his brain through everything to try to figure out why the voice seemed familiar to him. Nothing came back to him in the hurried search he made. It didn’t seem so familiar that he knew them, but he heard them before recently. ‘Who is it? Do I risk an attack? Or wait to see who it is?’

He preferred caution in his situation as his eyes stared down at Nerine. Any move he made put her at risk. ‘She needs more time…’ Miltiades raised his hands up to show his intention not to struggle to the stranger. “I’m standing up.” He waited a moment before acting to gauge the response. They didn’t oppose him. “So who are you?” he asked, keeping his back to them.

The weapon rested on his shoulder with the intent still unchanged. “What were you doing?”

Miltiades refrained from responding immediately. He judged the stranger trying to get a read on his situation. The blade rubbed against his skin as a constant reminder. ‘The blade’s angled down now, a lot…they’re short…’ Their voice still echoed as something he knew he should remember. ‘They sound young almost like a child…a child…’ A soft rattle grazed the edge across his neck. They wanted an answer. “I was healing their injuries.”

“Were you the one that fought them?”

‘Definitely not the one I chased off? Who is it?’ Questions kept piling up for him. He felt he narrowed his options, but he still didn’t know who spoke to him. His memory failed him. “No, I arrived after it was already settled.”

“I see.”

Silence ran between them for seconds as no more questions came. Miltiades thought that it settled everything and it meant they reached an understanding. The blade disappeared from his shoulder. A sigh of relief came from him. However, it was too soon as pain struck him like lightning in his head. Everything went blurry for him in an instant. ‘My Field! Nerine!’

Miltiades collapsed to the ground. His Field disappeared as his mind went blank. Darkness consumed his eyes. A stretched out hand reached for Nerine before he dropped it. His body stopped moving.

“Such a pain. But now I don’t have to deal with another fight,” commented Chiharu. She returned her tanto back to her sheath. Her eyes slid down to stare at the unmoving body of Seiji. ‘Doubt the idiot’s dead, but I need to check anyway…’ Chiharu knelt down next to him, putting her hand to his neck. After a quick check, she stood up. “Figured as much. You’re too dumb to actually die.” She nudged him with her foot to get him awake, but nothing happened.

Chiharu crossed her arms thinking about the possibilities. The thoughts made her kick him again. It did no better the second time for her. She managed a grunt from him, but it was only reactionary from her foot. He remained still. Sighing softly, she leaned down grabbing his arm to start lifting him up. Her hand slipped and lost him. ‘I used too much of my strength up in the last fight…my strength still isn’t back…I’m not going to be able to carry him…’

Left with the only remaining option, Chiharu started to drag Seiji along the ground. It was slow, but it was her only method until her strength recovered. ‘I’ve got to get him out of here and regroup with the others…’ However, her retreat wasn’t so easy. A steel pole shot up in front of her, knocking her free from Seiji as she dodged away. She turned her head back towards the two she left to see the man standing determined to stop her. ‘Damn, thought I knocked him out harder…my strength really is annoying right now…’

Chapter 167 – Falling in the Forest

Miltiades lurched forward still working off the splitting headache he received. His eyelid lowered, letting him focus a little. “I remember you now. You’re the one from before.”

“I know you can’t understand me, but I think my intention should be clear. Retreat now.” Chiharu stood on the very same pole as Miltiades, her back to his. Barely enough room for air to pass through was all the gap she gave.

He felt a cold chill down his neck, the likes which only his Captain and drill instructor managed to instill. His eyes didn’t dare to turn or his head to confirm what he already knew. All stared forward where he knew the two to be, at least he thought. ‘So fast! I didn’t even see the movement! What Law are they using?!’

He understood why her voice was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. ‘I’m not used to hearing her in Atlantean, I heard her speak in a foreign language before…if I realized it sooner…’ A silent curse muttered under his breath. She let him retreat the last they met, but the impression she left on him lingered. He spent his hours resting trying to understand her.

Chiharu narrowed her eyes to adjust to the new situation. ‘I can’t deal with another fight…’ She took a firm stance to cover up her weaknesses. “If you remember me, you already know how this will turn out. I’ve no interest in repeating past events.” After her statement, she moved to pick up Seiji. Another pole erupted between them forcing her back. Her eyes slid around towards Miltiades.

“I was exhausted from the other fight last time. It’s different this time. You don’t know how it’ll turn out.” A ripple expanded from his feet bringing his Field out in full. No longer held back, a dozen poles ripped out of the ground.

Continuing her bluff, Chiharu walked around next to Seiji. “You’ve already seen how fast I am. I can end this in a second if I wanted. This is pointless.”

Leaping up to a rising pole, Miltiades moved himself out of her reach. He crossed his arms and looked down at her. “If you could, you would have already. But I don’t think you have it in you. If you had, you would have carried him off already as I saw you do before. No, you’re weaker right now.”

Chiharu ground her teeth as her plan failed. ‘He’s not buying it and I haven’t nearly recovered enough, not that I have a choice…’ She glanced over at Seiji taking a final consideration of her situation. ‘One last bluff…if it doesn’t work I’m going to have to fight…’ A hand stretched out for Seiji and a pole came out in response, as she expected. She swiftly dodged around and reached the opposite side of Seiji to haul him up to her shoulder. “I’m not as weak as you think. Best not to underestimate me, lest you wish to suffer for it.”

A bit of sweat began to form along his neck making him uncomfortable. He felt his confidence slip a little, but he already started. ‘I won’t let them run free!’ Miltiades jumped over closer to Chiharu, keeping to his poles. “You can try to escape, but I’ll stop you each time.”

“Tch!” Her last chance to escape evaporated quickly. Glancing around, she measured Miltiades' Field. She was going to have to deal with him directly. However, she felt a little better about the fight, as she knew what to expect from him. ‘I’ve seen enough from his fight with the idiot…at least I won’t get any surprises…’ Still carrying Seiji with her, Chiharu made a run for the edge of his Field.

“Still trying to flee?” Several of the steel poles burst from the ground aimed directly at the weighed down Chiharu. In her condition, she couldn’t avoid a direct hit. Chiharu made a good effort evading the two first, but it only put her into position for the third to knock her over and then the fourth scored a solid hit. A fifth took Seiji out of her hands, sending far out of the range of the Field.

The aftermath of the attack left Chiharu on the ground amongst the rubble of his Field and a small cloud of dust spread thin around her. “It was a bad idea to try to flee with him. Now I have you cornered.” Several more poles rose to cut off her path.

Unaffected by the imposing heights, Chiharu stood up and turned around to face Miltiades. “On the contrary, you actually helped me.” Chiharu jumped up kicking off from the poles to get her height to match with the upper canopy.

Chiharu’s effortless work annoyed Miltiades. He knew her to be more skilled than Seiji, but she didn’t look as weak. ‘What’s with her? She wasn’t moving that easily before!’ Miltiades removed a few of the poles between them as a precaution. “What are you talking about helping you?”

“You got the idiot out of the area. Something I was planning to do, but you made it easier. All I had to do was line it up while you thought you had me off guard.”

His eyes widened a little as her explanation soaked in for him. ‘She planned all of that?! Even letting herself be hit?’

“It’s much easier to do with someone so straightforward,” added Chiharu, as she leapt forward to the next pole. It disappeared from underneath her, but she was already moving keeping pace with him. ‘I don’t understand it, but it feels like my body’s responding better now…’ She released a small thin grin while she moved on.

Lowering and striking out with his poles made no progress against Chiharu. She read all of his moves so easily. As she closed in reach of him, he jumped away and removed everything in range of her. With nothing to hold, he forced Chiharu to fall. He used the opening to his advantage. More than a dozen poles came up for her, launching a staggered attack on Chiharu. It buried her in steel out of his sight. ‘Did I get a hit?’

The answer came soon as a shadowed figure stood up on the angled pole. Chiharu looked unharmed and a little bored. “If this is all you got, I’m leaving. I only stayed around to see if you’re worth my time.”

Shock disappeared from Miltiades’ face quickly as anger bubbled through the cracks. ‘Underestimating me… You’re going to regret that…’ Poles behind him started to fade away.

Chiharu narrowed the features in her face reading a change. She felt the winds shift and warn her of something coming. It made her curious. ‘Looks like I got him riled up…this should be interesting…’

Suddenly, the surface altered with Chiharu’s boots no longer getting any grip. She slid down, unable to get any traction. If it ended there for Chiharu, it wouldn’t have felt as dangerous. It surprised her a little, but not as much as what came next.

Breaking free, a pole rammed at Chiharu from a near horizontal angle. The angle seemed impossible with what she observed from him that it caught her off guard. Her reflexes saved her, but it blew only a centimeter over her head nearly taking off her nose. ‘That was close!’ She narrowed her eyes, staring at the pole above her. Turning destroyed any controlled balance she had on the frictionless surface knocking her on her back to keep sliding.

The assault didn’t end. She caught sight of another pole screaming at her at a horizontal angle in a new direction. Chiharu sprung off the pole and flipped through the air backward to escape the threat, but her eyes found another even closer to her. It whizzed over her cheek as she awkwardly turned her course in the air. She felt her skin get a little warm. ‘He’s getting faster with his attacks…it’s becoming more difficult to dodge…’ Her thoughts ceased as two more came in only seconds after horizontal lines of attack again.

She nearly lost her head in the last two as she wedged between them. Chiharu dropped down to a pole below her that kept moving after its failed attack. She spun around to the bottom letting her legs take hold and speed her away from the attack zone. ‘Something’s wrong…’ Suspicions rose in her mind only to die sharply.

A heavy force crashed into her stomach, ripping her free from the pole. The force sent her plummeting to the ground. She slammed into the ground carving out a crater in the earth and coughing up a cloud around her.

Out of the cloud, a solitary pole surfaced connected above. However, it wasn’t alone for long. More than twenty poles charged in from above pounding into the ground with no mercy. The clouds surrounding Chiharu grew thicker. Only the quaking of the pained earth made it out of the scraping metal.

Miltiades leapt around to get a clearer view of the site. He couldn’t see anything, but didn’t feel like waiting for the cloud to disperse. Another round of attacks went in to make sure he finished his target. “It’s all over! You didn’t stand any chance against me when I get serious!”

Wind blew away the clouds covering up the area around Chiharu. The mass of metal covered up almost everything. However, near the edges of the earth some blood marked the only sign remaining of Chiharu.