"My attack didn't even faze him. What's that armor thing he's wearing?"
"Some kind of hardened substance." He groaned catching his breath. "This has gone beyond what we thought we would be dealing with."
"Honcho… It's hard to believe… even if he's lost control… I don't even understand what is going on. This isn't him at all..."
"It may not be…" Yegan responded.
"A few days ago… we were talking and..."
"And?"
"He sounded off… it was so unlike him to be scared or unsure, he wasn't making any sense either, talking about how he felt something was coming for him."
"Honcho… he really was struggling all this while…"
"Yeah... but now is not the time for sentiments. Whatever it is now, we can't let him hurt anyone else. The people before anything else."
"That's right." Kai faintly replied.
Their surroundings demanded their attention as the ground beneath them began to shake subtly and before both of them could raise their concerns, a large pillar of fire burst open through the floor boards and blew out the room Kai and Yegan found themselves in. The pillar of fire cleaved its way through the roofs and out and came falling through the mansion and smashing through everything in its way.
Chunks of falling debris hit the ground, with large wooden logs amidst the smokescreen that had formed all around the Hoffers mansion. The ruckus soon settled, showing the devastating scene; there was residues of fire around and about. Unconscious bodies of students laid around and Kaina stood within the mist, his eye gleaming with pleasure as it scanned around. The building had suffered burns and damages and flames still danced around certain parts that bore the full brunt of the attack. His eyes fell on an unconscious Hodgard and Ranfa and paid them no heed and glanced through and over.
"What!" he thought to himself as he quickly dragged his vision back. Quarter moon and on the ground stood Yegan and Kai.
"I have to say, you guys are more resilient than these two big babies." Yegan and Kai gave no response. On closer look, their clothes had been charred; Yegan had both arms held out and over the hilt of his sword and Kai stood beside him, hands stretched out.
"Ahh that's right, I do recall seeing something quite fancy in the midst of it all, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. Cos, from memory… You" he pointed fingers at Kai "don't have any special ability. Don't tell me you happened to have awakened one out of the blue." And yet, there was no response.
And, he went on monologue-ing. "Yeah, you totally did. Truly impressive. Quite the calculative one, man bun guy." He pointed at Yegan. "To think you'd be able to react to my attack in time with that weapon of yours and absorb my attack. And you, Kai. You reduced the intensity of my attack, I could feel it. And I would commend you common lot for such leaf fluttering feats… but it doesn't seem like you survived it all too well." And like an ending applause to his insight, the two of them hit the hot hard ground, their bodies marred in black.
"Are you watching, Kaina?" he whispered underneath his breath. "THIS is just the tip of what we can do! Isn't it amazing?" he broke out into laughter like a maniac.
His laughter was cut short as Khay came running and slammed the sole of his feet at him. Though he was able to block, the force of the attack was sure to send him flying meters away from the unconscious Yegan and Kai. He starred on at Khay with a wonder as Khay starred at him intensively with anger in his eyes.
"This boy…" Dumbfounded, his eyes wondered at Khay, who was still starring hard enough to burn a hole through him. Then came Amine and Trilith descending from the skies and landing besides Khay. The once Hoffers mansion had been reduced to rubbles and flames, half of it cleaved away, showing its interior, from the ground to the last floor, the ground, made bare –where once was the floor of the building.
A few seconds later, another person came descending. Kaina's eyes tracked, and the rest present followed and looked above them.
"Lilith!" they said in unison.
"Sis, how come you're here?" Trilith inquired of his twin.
She subtly landed down on one knee and…"I heard some kind of explosion, it kind of rocked the building through the passage we were in and I couldn't help but be concerned."
5 minutes ago, The Escaping Students.
In the secret passage to the outside of the Hoffers mansion; Lilith was at the front with Evy in her arms and Ingrid to her side, leading the students steadily to safety, suddenly, the passageway walls trembled as debris fell and caused the students to panic.
"I wonder what's happening out there." Ingrid inquired. Then, as if overcome by a sudden revelation, her eyes widened. "Ingrid." Lilith called out. "I don't have a good feeling about this." She sighed. "I think, I may have to go and check, just to be safe." She left Evy in Ingrid's care as she weaved her way through the oncoming students in the passage way, past Kiriku in the middle and she quickly took off running, anxious and fearing for the worst; her mind raced.
"I'm supposed to have seen Mira and the rest of the students by now, they were supposed to be right behind us, what happened?" And as her mind raced, she suddenly popped out of the secret passage that bled into the balcony of the hall; her eyes widened in shock. Amine kneeling on the ground with Mira in her arms, then Khay, and her brother by his side. She looked up and around and about, there were students displaced on the opposite balcony and the halls floor, unconscious.
"And just when I was about to call out to Khay, fire came out of nowhere, I almost couldn't avoid it in time. It grazed me and blew me through the sky." She lifted her arms, showing the subtle burn marks she sustained. "How's Mira?" she asked.
"She'll live. We managed to get her and a few students to safety. A handful at least." Khay softly sighed, looking around; behind, to his left and right and to Kaina, the cause of the havoc. He had begun walking gallantly towards them. Fire crackled as embers flickered through the wind, the presence of the burning flames cast a dimly lit yellow light around them under the moonlight.
"How could you do this?" Lilith softly inquired. And her question was met with a confused "Huh" respond from Kaina that caused him enough confusion to stop him from taking his next step. Her gaze fell on the charred Yegan and Kai that laid right in-front of them.
Following a deafening silence where everyone waited for him to respond, he broke out in laughter, loud and wide. "How you say? Hahaha!! You're one funny girl Lilith. Have you ever known me to be patient with scum like yourself or to even give a care?! To think that I, Hikami Kaina would come to apologize to you lot about everything, what was I even thinking? You're all mice, little roaches beneath me. You had the gall to even make me waver, have me beg to be accepted, when I was the one doing you all a favor. How could I stoop so low?!"
"Really?" his now nonchalant voice blended with his footsteps. "So tell me, how do you plan to live in Dolrea after this display?" Khay knelt besides Yegan and Kai. Or will you have your father make this too go away? Kaina."
"Yeah." He excited replied. "Just that train of thought, but what fun would it be just staying in this dump? The world is vast."
"Hikami Kaina, leaving Vavel? I never thought I'd see the day." Amine coldly replier.
"Why would I stay with the likes of you? I'm sick of it, all this associations. You all are a great bother to me. You've outlived your role in my existence." He grinned, ecstatic.
"Ahhhhhh. This boy really seems to have lost his mind, hasn't he?" Trilith sighed.
"Even Yegan? And Us?"
"No exceptions."
"That's why you did this to your own friends?" he scooped up Yegan and put him at his back.
"Trilith, give me a hand here." And at Khay's call, Trilith went over and took Kai at his back.
"You know, I really think he's lost his mind." He replied as he held unto Kai.
"Not a bad proposal." Khay softly responded as he turned his back to Kaina and starred on fiercely.
"This boy, it's that thing again. It's almost as if he can see beyond this lump of flesh." A sinister and rather ominous energy went their way as a wild grin crept up Kaina's face.
"At this point I really can't tell if it's the takeover or something else. But… Stay right there." Khay fiercely glared stopping Kaina in his tracks, taken by surprise and wonder, he stood, locked under the gaze of the dark haired young boy.
"I'll show you… what it means to care about your friends." And like the wind, he disappeared along with Trilith. Under the moon, Lilith grazed her palm at the sides of dress and tug at it. Almost too hard as the fabric could be heard screaming under her grip.
"Lilith." Amine called out. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I just don't feel too good all of a sudden. I think I'm coming down with a headache."
His footsteps paced up and down as he walked about.
What's this! What's this! Why am I heeding to the words of the young boy? There is something about him I can't quite put a finger on. Me. Compelled by a boy, a human of all things. But this feeling. I don't hate it at all!! Where is he?!
Before he could realize, Amine was suddenly on guard and Lilith was panting profusely.
"Ooops!" Can't have my bloodlust oozing out all over the place. My presence here is as evident as the wind. Yeah, let's just do what we came here do. Better yet, we can play a little with that boy and his friends while we're at it. YES! Right. But this is all poor Kaina though." He chuckled.
The tension in the air suddenly died down as Amine instinctively lowered his guard when he perceived there was no threat, all the while looking fiercely at Kaina.
At the whiff of the wind, Khay and Trilith were back and Amine and Lilith walked to join them.
"Khay." Lilith pressed her head against Khay's back. "That's strange. I was having a splitting headache just right now."
"Are you okay?" He whispered to her, yet his eyes on Kaina.
"Yeah."
"This guy…" Amine exhaled. "I have the feeling there's more to this than we're seeing. A soul crushing blood lust came from… I have a hard time believing that is the same Kaina we grew up with, takeover or not."
"Yeah. We could pick it up all the way from where we took Evy and the rest."
"How's she holding up?"
"Good. Better than before."
"Look." Trilith cracked his knuckles. "How about we pick up where Yousef and Kai left off? It wouldn't be fair to not heed a promise"
Khay slammed his fist into the palm of his left hand. "We can start from there."
"Hmph" Amine scoffed. "I've been raring to sling him a solid ever since." Amine cracked his knuckles.
"Alright!" Khay exclaimed. "Hit him enough to knock him out. Something feels fishy about all of this." Khay instructed.
"Os!" Trilith cried out.