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CHAPTER ONE
🕑 Added 2024-12-05 04:16:56 +0000 UTCCountless hours had been spent studying his movements, analysing his patterns, and trying to predict where he might go next—and that frustration showed now in the way hurried footsteps dogged his, hardened leather soles tapping their frenzied dance against the stone-laid streets of the village, Ravenwood. Elusive Tatsuya might be, his luck had finally caught up to him as—though the bastard of a lord, Kuro, sent his attack dogs here to investigate sightings of the Wind Blades—some had noticed him and were were determined to catch and bring him to justice, their own special brand of justice. Tatsuya’s father had not survived it, and he had no doubt that should he be caught, this day would be among his last.
They were highly trained, each with their own unique sets of skills and specialties, but so was he; even as he stumbled amongst tables and chairs in his way, tumbling wares in his desperate fleeing—certain that, sooner rather than later, his legs would be unable to hold up his torso, exhausted from exertion— he was still able to keep ahead of them while avoiding the rotten produce thrown at him by disgruntled marketers seeking compensation. His body was not too nimble but, aided by his control over the element of air, he was able to leap from side to side, dodging (from wall to wall) over people’s heads and scaling outstretched poles to swing past windowsills, his tattered and dirty cloak billowing with every motion.
Tatsuya scurried onwards, sometimes on all fours, smarting fingers scrambling to find purchase at whatever sill passing by him, air currents manipulated by his bare, bloody feet an extra springboard to launch himself further from his pursuers.
He knew he was increasing the distance between them but, simultaenously, also knew every second he remained in the open was a second they could use to recover, set up surveillance, and prepare an ambush. He couldn't allow that; though his kind, other elementals, was not built for endurance, lacking sturdy limbs in favour of gangly ones, he was built differently and only had to make it to where the fighting was—as that way led to the Wind Blades, his freedom from his pursuers, and more importantly, a chance at fulfilling his promise and life‘s purpose. As such, passing scenes of fears and frightful cries, lobbying shouts, and pointing fingers faded into any easily forgettable drone as he made haste over rooftops lit by the sun above.
Intense.
At that moment, he felt the true extent of his injuries: from the cuts on his face to the wicked bruises that dotted his flank, and the burning agony in his side and calf. His adrenaline was the only thing keeping him going and it was almost depleted—he knew he wouldn't be able to keep up with such a pace for much longer as his steps grew heavier and heavier.
Yet, he kept running. He couldn't stop—he would run through the pain.
Listening past his stomping feet and harsh pants, the sounds of fighting drew closer; the frustration of not being able to catch him and the fear of returning empty-handed had reached its peak. They would soon resort to using their element’s long- ranged attack, uncaring about the poor saps milling about in the wrong place at the wrong time, and if asked why they did so in such a crowded area, they would simply blame him. Sad, poor saps, cowed by Kuro’s iron-clad authority, would not say otherwise. They dared not.
He knew he could stop and play hero, stop the impending massacre before it even occurred, but one among the many had brought this onto themselves—had, somehow, sighted the Wind Blades and snitched—and so, he didn't look back. He shook his head, steeled his nerves, and aimed upwards.
Within himself, he reached for his control over air and fed it power, feeling the currents around him grow in might. A rush of compressed air slid down his legs, and with a mental compulsion, he was pushed away from the thatched roofs and sent airborne.
His arms were a stabilising force in his short-term flight, and though he was focused on the sensation of the air around, rushing around his form with an intense, horrible sound—like the wail of a widowed wife—he was also aware of the figures cutting through the space behind him. He didn't have the concentration needed to manipulate the air to impede their efforts as he escaped, but his passive ability, an instinctual awareness of the currents within his control range, allowed him to know the exact moment they stopped and got into a familiar stance.
His scars itched from behind the bandages wrapped around his form in memory, but he was able to force the past, the baggage of loathing and pain, to the back of his mind and spun mid-air to face them. His mind worked in overdrive; his eyes tracked every individual jaw clench and tick in that split second, each extended arm and tightened muscle; his nose smelled the unmistakable scent of ozone, and his mouth tasted something metallic within.
Lightning.
Unfortunately, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, the element was generated between them and, with minimal movement, shot simultaneously in such a way as to combine into one larger, more powerful bolt—and though it was only charged for a short time, there was no doubt of its lethal capability, and so, he couldn't afford the attack landing.
In theory, air could affect the direction of lightning—a concentration of the currents could draw the charges away from his person—but, in practice, before he could even widen his eyes, he was struck by it, and a loud boom followed in its wake.
It was only his passive that allowed him to surround himself with, hopefully, enough compressed air as he fell back on ingrained skills—relaxing his muscles as much as possible—so, instead of dying immediately from a simultaneous cardiac and respiratory arrest, he only suffered from the other bodily damages. If Tatsuya could, he would have delivered a sardonic chuckle at that; as it was, however, his vision went blind, and he cried out as his body seized up in tight contraction before letting it draw to a quiet pain-filled hiss.
Although it was hard to focus his thoughts, this wasn't his first time dealing with lightning; he had enough presence in his mind to react appropriately. Air was expelled violently beneath him to, literally, fling himself in a random direction, hopefully far away from the attack dogs, to guarantee his safety.
He wouldn't have attempted such before, but now, with the other option being falling unconscious where he could easily be captured, again, broken bones and rent flesh—hell, even landing in a trash heap and having his wounds infected—was highly preferable. However, because he could do nothing to soften his landing, he blacked out after the first impact against a rooftop.
Although he still had the characteristic grey eyes of an air elemental, as those were indicative of the elements they manipulated and constant, Tatsuya was different from the norm; where others were usually lithe and flexible, shaped by his ordeals, his muscles were pronounced; he was of average height and tawny in contrast to their tall, pale figures; and deeply scarred (hence the need for bandages) where most of his kind could go their entire life without receiving major injuries—and, so, when his mind came to full awareness, and he blinked his eyes open, he knew he had not been unconscious for long. The sounds of fighting, closer now than it was before, supported that assumption.
For a moment, as he lay motionless on the ground, he tried to regain his composure—the fallen roof of the building he crashed into creating a mosaic of fractured wood and shattered tiles around and beneath him, an intricate jigsaw puzzle of destruction. However, that proved harder than expected as despite his hardier constitution, his injuries were debilitating enough that every haggard breath he took accompanied a pained hiss. Salty tears, mixed with the bitterness of iron, fell from his torn, weathered face—which hinted at a life filled with hardships—in minute drops, spurred on by the blood drumming to the ferocious beat of his heart.
Though less of a concern at the moment, he couldn't help but note his lips were parched, his thirst made worse by the golden glow of the sun and the dust-choked air.
Yet, regardless of his body’s wishes, he knew he could not remain where he was forever. To do so would be to accept death, and until he fulfilled his promise (achieved his life’s purpose), it was unlike him to be compliant.
One step, his mind whispered in tandem with each shift of his tortured muscles, urging himself to stand—a simple task that, ironically, took all he had to accomplish—until he rose to a kneeling position and from it to his feet. Throbbing pain from the dozen wounds barely registered, drowned out by the single- minded focus of his mind, heightened by the unacceptable possibility of failure. Nothing else mattered as he soldiered on; not his exhaustion, the guilt he bore at his actions, nor his legs, shattered from the rough landing, could temper his tunnel vision. He simply dragged the limb behind him.
Outside the dilapidated building (isolated, it seemed, from the rest of the village and amidst a scene of collateral damage), he could smell, above the acrid concoction of sweat and unwashed bodies, the pervasive scent of death carrying through the air from broken and mangled bodies pinned underneath large chunks of debris, their frantic cries growing increasingly weak with each passing second—and even above that, the cries of men amidst a sticky sea of red; the odd ring of sharpened steel; the meaty thwack of harsh impacts from crashing and twisting figures; and most importantly, the arcane howls of the elements, the very powers of nature themselves brought to bear by both sides.
All around Tatsuya was nothing but a whirlwind of violence and suffering, a clash of ideals, of the ever-romantic view of right and wrong, born from the wills of a megalomaniac king and the desperate yet organised (and some might say, righteous) gamble of a group seeking to end the tyranny.
He didn't like them—destruction unfailingly dogged the Wind Blades—but he didn't need to like them or truthfully pledge allegiance to their cause (whatever it was) to use them. While they focused on the king—foolish, really, as no sane person wanted the royal family’s attention on them—he would go after the owner of the attack dogs, Kuro. He would kill, no, murder the bastard; he had promised himself, and until he satiated that particular thirst, he would not rest.
But how would he integrate himself with the group?
A hand shakily came up to keep himself from falling as he stumbled upon a scene, a man in a battered uniform standing over the kneeling form of a woman hidden in the shadows of an artificial outcrop—pale, greatly injured and, most importantly, unintentionally separated from her allies—and a grimace worked its way to his lips as the answer to the question dawned on him.
He would save one of the members from certain death, and that life debt, plus his present state, would ensure they take him with them when they eventually escaped the confines of Ravenwood. He would deal with gaining their trust when he reached that bridge.
One last attack was all Tatsuya was capable of now, but it should serve as a sufficient distraction.
Positioned so that only the woman could see him, he reached for the last of his strength as her eyes locked on his. Even as the man freed a weapon from its holster and raised it with both hands, lightning coating the short blade for the extra fuck you, her gaze remained fixed in an admirable display of control, despite the visible fear, a plea for help, written in the lines on her face.
One deep breath and he obliged her silent request; his shredded cloak fluttered around the debris-littered ground. A summoned gust lifted one particular slab, and a jerk of his hand (compulsory due to his state) sent it flying to the man’s head.
The weapon fell from the man’s grasp, but he didn't remain awake long enough to see what happened next as his body was unable to resist his exhaustion any longer. However, the sudden characteristic swoosh of flames and the subsequent smell of char and scream, masculine and high-pitched, painted a macabre picture he easily understood.
