Katana 76 - Chapter 8. Conversation

 "Come on Shikata, it's surrender time already, so be a good boy and come out."

Kiran held the handle of his katana against his injured shoulder and pushed hard, injecting energy in it while trying to get the pain from escaping through his mouth.

Amikael came to a sudden stop, and with a wicked smile he started to inscribe on his sceptre.

"Ok ok, I'm going to count to three, if you surrender before that I promise you I'll reduce your suffering as much as I can..."

Amikael aimed at his prey's hideout.

"~One~"

He slowly slid the point of his weapon until it aimed at a tree further away. The angel didn't intend to count up to three, his prey knew it, but he didn't expect that the count wouldn't even reach two, and with a confident smile the angel shoot.

The shot impacted against the tree, and to the prey's surprise it didn't get absorbed, bouncing right towards his face instead.

Amikael knew that cool guys weren't supposed to look at explosions, but he just couldn't miss a single instant of this one, in fact, he was so focused on it that he didn't realize his prey had escaped to the top of the tree until he landed on the floor.

"Tsk- You just had to evade it, didn't you?"

"If you wanted to hit me that badly you shouldn't have held back that last blast."

Pure hate oozed from their faces.

His sceptre transformed into a sword once as again as the angel started to walk.

The white dragon firmly held his katana by the handle as he started to walk.

For the first time since the start of their confrontation did the dragon understand how insulted the angel must have felt. They were both simple persons, they didn't have any need for words in order to understand each other, and in this situation holding back was as good as severing their connection.

The dragon stopped pretending, the arm that just moments ago seemed unusable revealed the bandages that surrounded its shoulder, the same ones he unravelled and hid while Rikan went to get him some water, the same ones he had just busted with energy to accelerate the regeneration and the same ones I've been avoiding to address without lying to you so that it could be a surprise later on the fight.

He ripped away the bandage that was now nothing more than a piece of cloth and threw it to the wind.

The two fighters adopted their most natural, most comfortable position, their fighting position, and then they waited.

The bandage the dragon had thrown was blown by the wind back towards him, and it got caught by the sheth of the katana he held with both of his hands...

Neither of them moved, neither of them blinked, neither of them breathed... No, not just them... everything had stoped around them, anyone that had witnessed them would have been unable to fight the stasis the clash between their souls- their very cores- was causing. Only the bandage, that untangled itself bit by bit with the help of the wind moved.

Kiran and Amikael looked at each other, they had already calculated exactly when the bandage would untangle itself, they knew exactly when their combat would begin, and then as they had both predicted, the wind changed directions and the bandage flew away, starting the fight.

Amikael launched himself towards Kiran, sharing his strength equally between a vertical slice and a scream, determined to split his body and soul in two. Kiran blocked the attack with a thrust powered by all his body, the edge of Amikael's blade rested perfectly in the centre of the sheth's tip. Amikael, expecting this, was already turning his sceptre back to its original form, shooting him at point blank.

Kiran spun his whole body, grazing by the shot multiple times with his white hair, and used the energy from the spin to strike at Amikael's weapon before the shot had time to hit the ground. Amikael didn't try to resist the blow, focusing instead on kicking Kiran's defenceless face.

The shot finally hit the ground, and the dragon's body followed, quickly reading itself to burst towards his rival without even wiping out the blood from his lips so he wouldn't make him wait too long. They looked at each other, with a smile they hadn't seen for too long on the other's face.

Kiran thrust himself towards his still airbrone rival. Amikael aimed at him with his weapon, but that wasn't enough to avoid one of his frontal attacks. Two shots sought Kiran's head, it was less than a meter away, and yet they missed. Kiran, who moved faster than the blasts, advanced with his katana against his waist, and once he was well past the point of his rival's weapon struck against his abdomen with a direct, clean strike of his katana's handle.

Amikael, channelling his intense pain, lunged with his teeth at Kiran, but his rival closed his mouth with a hook to the jaw. Amikael grabbed the now free handle of his rival's katana and pulled from it, and taking advantage of his shock he struck against his head with his own, opening a fountain of blood in both's forehead, but only one of them was ready for the impact.

Amikael kicked Kiran towards the ground and sent him three shots that advanced towards him faster than he advanced towards the ground. Kiran aimed at them with the handle of his katana and waited until they were as close as possible.

After an agonizingly long and tense instant, the first shot finally touched the tip of the handle. Kiran lunged at the three shots, absorbing them in his katana, and then spun it around putting the handle over his shoulder before the shots got out from the tip of the sheth, now in Amikael's direction.

Amikael used all the energy left in his weapon to burst himself out of his own shot's way, even tho he knew his rival wouldn't allow him the time needed to recharge it, but that didn't matter anymore. Amikael fell against a tree and blasted off towards Kiran, who did the same. Amikael's weapon now was nothing more than a really resistant rod, but the same could be said of his rival's.

Each weapon crushed the other's unprotected side. Holding in the pain they both grabbed the other's weapon and started to pull with all the force and might they had left. After two incredibly long seconds, they both changed the direction of their force, clashing their already open foreheads and splashing blood all over their sight.

They both pulled as hard as they could while pushing at each other's heads, their weapons making a cross between them. After a scream that came out of their very soul, they kicked each other's stomachs, finally separating.

Each one was launched apart with their own weapon in hand, maybe it was an obvious result since they were holding their own weapon from the side it's meant to be held, but they both saw this as a defeat.

Without even stopping to clean off the bloodfalls that covered their faces they launched at each other once more.

Their instincts took control of their bodies, fixated on ending each other's lives, it was only natural, they were natural enemies after all.

From Amikael's back two gorgeous shining wings appeared, shooting energy to propel him faster towards his enemy, and in his bloody forehead two stars appeared, letting his slipt halo appear as if they were horns. From within Kiran's bloody red hair two pure white horns appeared, and from his back two majestic wings that he used as claws to launch himself.

from within the bloody faces golden glowing eyes appeared looking right at their enemy

Something tried to stop their conversation, but neither their ears, nor their eyes, nor their minds could check what it was before their instincts gave the order of eliminating the inconvenience.

When Kiran reason acted it was already too late, even if he stopped Amikael was already shooting at Rikan at point-blank. Kiran Ran as fast as reality allowed it between the two, obstructing the tip of his enemy's weapon, absorbing the shot. Instead of deviating it like his reason told him to his instinct made the body channel that energy into a blade in front of his sheath and cut down his friend with it.

Time resumed its natural course, both his friend and the girl he tried to protect fell with their backs to the ground, luckily, it seemed that at least one of them was safe.

The swordsman stood still. The rain fell, washing away the blood and the girl he had just protected banged her fist against his back where his wings had once been as she cursed and cried, but only one sound reached his ears, the ringing of the locks dangling from his katana.