The Hidden World

Though Yuki already knew who the man was, he still grew cold when he heard the word that Moyasu had said. This man was part of Shikaku, the people that killed his parents.

 

Moyasu didn’t ask any more questions.

 

In a flash, he rushed toward the grinning man, his sword swinging. The assassin dodged it, still smiling, and hurled the fireball at him. Moyasu’s eyes widened and he contorted his body, the blazing sphere barely missing.

 

His eyes narrowed and a fiery aura formed around the sword in his hand. With a roar, he charged the man and swung again. And again. And again. But the result never changed, the smile still on the man’s face.

 

Yuki watched this with intense focus. The assassin was toying with Moyasu. None of the movements from the man were wasted; stepping neatly to avoid all of Moyasu’s swings and lobbing fireballs with no apparent urgency. From what Yuki could see, the man’s only possible weakness was his overflowing confidence.

 

Confidence that was, in this case, warranted. The conclusion of this battle was clear to Yuki.

 

At last it seemed the man had gotten bored. The next time Moyasu charged, the man’s hand flashed and a blazing chord of fire shot out. Moyasu desperately tried to dodge but the flame chased him, twisting and contorting until it found its target.

 

With a silent scream, he collapsed to the ground covered in a blaze, the fire sucking the air out of his lungs. Yuki heard gasps of horror from the first years as he watched with unwavering eyes.

 

‘He’s not burning,’ Yuki observed.

 

Indeed, as Moyasu was writhing on the floor, his body was not blackening despite the ferocious blaze whose heat Yuki could feel from where he was standing. Moyasu stayed like that for minutes before all movements stopped. Whether he was dead or had fainted, Yuki couldn’t tell.

 

“Ah, that took too long,” the man said in disappointment, looking down on Moyasu’s unrecognizable body. “I wished he wasn’t a fire elementalist. His heat resistance made this boring.”

 

The assassin turned his head toward the Yuki and the other teenagers who were shivering and whimpering. The grin reappeared.

 

“Don’t worry,” he said with a wink, “your deaths will be much quicker.”

 

Yuki reassessed his image of the man. He wasn’t confident, he was a insane sadist.

 

The man shot a bolt of fire at kids, laughing. Screams and whimpers followed it and the bolt exploded. But it never hit.

 

When the smoke cleared, Yuki was standing there, arm outstretched. He had countered the fireball with his own and stood there looking at the man with cold eyes.

 

“Oh ho, so we have another fire user,” the man laughed. “And she seems to have some fight in her.”

 

The man paused and looked at Yuki more closely.

 

“Or he? Ah, whatever. You’ll be the first to die~!” the man exclaimed cheerfully, his eyes dancing with maniacal energy.

 

The assassin clapped his hands and wave of heat exploded out toward Yuki. Grinning, the man threw another fireball. Yuki ducked quickly and rolled to dodge the follow up.

 

Yuki was tired from the last fight with the monsters. His arms felt stiff and his legs protested his every action. And he knew that he didn’t have the necessary skills to defeat the man. But this smiling man was still an enemy. And one that had to be eliminated, otherwise Yuki will be the one that dies.

 

He rushed in, sword out, and tried to stab the assassin. The man bent sideways and gave Yuki a hard shove in the back that sent him flying. Yuki crashed into a wall, his head banging the concrete.

 

“Yuki!” the voice of Sayuri screamed. Yuki could hear the man laughing in the background.

 

His head ringing, Yuki forced himself up. Stumbling, he tried to raise his sword again but threw himself to the side, flopping painfully as a fireball flew past his head.

 

“Yuki?” the man said contemplatively. “Where do I remember that name?”

 

The man’s expression brightened.

 

“Ah, the kid whose aunt we killed,” the assassin laughed. “We had a lot of fun with that job. She didn’t make it easy to stab her.”

 

Yuki froze at the words the flowed from the man’s mouth. The man seemed to notice. The grin grew wider.

 

“Yup, it was you wasn’t it,” he said, eyes shining with joy. “I didn’t think that I would find you here. With all of these pathetic people.”

 

Yuki ignored the man’s jabbing words and painfully tried to push himself back up. He still had a fight to finish.

 

“Oh, yeah! And your parents!” the assassin exclaimed.

 

Again Yuki stopped. Then he turned his head to look at the chattering man.

 

“I heard what happened from the big man himself,” he boasted proudly. “About that weak-ass swordsman. And his bitch of a wife.”

 

These words caught Yuki’s attention and he stared at the grinning man.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I remember now,” the assassin said. “How did your father look with a sword sticking out of him?”

 

Yuki saw his father gasping for air, a bloody blade through his chest.

 

“And your mother. Your poor poor mother. Bleeding out to death.”

 

His mother, laying on the floor of their destroyed house as tears and blood flowed from her.

 

“All to protect you, their weak little brat of a child. How horrible must they feel that they saved you when they could have just abandoned you. You, a little kid that can’t even protect the one thing his parents trusted him with.”

 

“What do you know about my parents?” Yuki asked as he picked himself off the ground. “Who killed them?”

 

“Oh? And what do you know about them?” the man mocked, his eyes dancing with pleasure. “You were just a frightened little baby that couldn’t save his parents.”

 

Deep within Yuki, a foreign yet familiar fire ignited. A fire that grew and pushed against Yuki’s will.

 

“You will regret this,” Yuki said quietly, his eyes drilling into still smiling man in front of him.

 

“Ha!” the man laughed. “You think you can beat me? You who couldn’t even help your family? You who was just sprawling on the floor like a newborn?”

 

The fire intensified and pounded against Yuki’s mental barriers at the provocations.

 

“I said shut up,” Yuki said, louder. He threw his sword to the side.

 

“Then make me,” the man hissed, the smile gone. “I’ll burn you just like how your house was burned.”

 

Yuki’s eyes narrowed and at that moment the fire broke through, burning through all of Yuki’s reason. And all of the pain and suffering that he had ever experienced burst out with it.

 

A violent surge of mana exploded outward from Yuki and his eyes began to shine a golden brown. He looked at the man. A look filled with unfiltered rage and hatred. And with a scream, charged toward the assassin, daggers drawn.

 

Fireballs flew toward Yuki, but he didn’t care. He sliced them mercilessly, each swing of the daggers punctuated with a growl of anger. Around him, a golden aura surrounded him, and he raced forward at an inhumane speed.

 

The man’s eyes widened, the smile dropped, and for the first time he seemed serious. He drew a dagger from his waist and it clashed noisily against the double blades of Yuki.

 

The assassin separated himself and blasted a tornado of fire toward him. With a roar Yuki summoned an earthen barricade to block it and continued his frenzied assault. Every strike of the blade came with a stone spike following it. The assassin desperately shot flames to destroy them but they were eaten mercilessly by a raging stream of sand.

 

Growling, Yuki slipped back and slammed his foot on the ground with a resounding crash. The earth shook and the assassin fumbled. A stone spike tore out of the ground striking and crippling the man’s leg. At once, Yuki pounced. He stabbed and sliced furiously, each attack aiming to kill.

 

The assassin panicked and still tried to resist but it was nothing against the tidal wave of clawing metal. The arm slashed, then the stomach stabbed. Elbow severed. The back now filled with gaping holes.

 

Finally Yuki’s anger began to cool, the fire dying, and so too did the attacks. When Yuki stopped, the man was nothing more than a dismembered bloody corpse that still hung onto a thread of life..

 

“I underestimated you,” he coughed, the smile reforming with blood pouring out of his mouth. “But this isn’t over.”

 

“It will be,” Yuki replied coldly. And with his knives, he slashed the assassin’s throat and stabbed his heart.