Obsidian Sky (6 page)

“Oh, it’s impossible to get out of it once you’re inside.”

“Why would you –” Aidan stopped and slapped a palm onto his forehead. “How are you able to get me roped into these ridiculous conversations?”

“It’s because we’re best friends,” Isaac said, retrieving his dagger and throwing it from one hand to the other. “And the bitterest of rivals.”

“Says you,” Aidan muttered, looking around him. “We only hang out because Bailey requires us to. If it was up to me, I would spend my time on more important matters.”

“Like Leah?” Isaac flashed him a cheesy grin. As he smiled, he extended the dagger in his hand out towards Aidan and it began to grow. Slowly, the surface of the blade expanded until it was the size of a man’s torso in length. The hilt stretched out until it was nearly a foot long, and in seconds, the dagger had transformed into a massive sword. Aidan wasn’t impressed.

“Could you stop bringing her up?” he asked politely. “It’s annoying.”

“Why? Because she makes your heart ache? She gives you those butterflies?”

“Butterflies?” Aidan sighed, putting a palm on his forehead again.

“You know, that fluttering feeling you get in your stomach when you’re in love?”

“That’s not it –”

“But you do loooooooove her,” Isaac laughed, expanding his sword even further, until it was larger than his entire body. Still, he kept it outstretched as if it possessed the same weight of a dagger.

“Now that I think of it,” Aidan said through squinting eyes. “Bailey did say there were rumors about us being together. I wonder where she heard such things.”

“You’re not insinuating it was me, are you?” Isaac said with an appalled look on his face. “I mean, why would I spy on you? It’s not like you’re this hot-headed risk that needs to be babysat because one wrong move and everything we’ve worked for is unraveled.”

“No,” Aidan smiled. “Of course not. I’m as harmless as a newborn kitten.”

“I know,” Isaac smiled back. “That’s why this sparring session will end with your butt planted firmly on the ground.”

“You’ve never won a match between us.”

“Because I’ve held back.”

“You always say that,” Aidan said, letting a chuckle escape. He noticed that the other villagers in the field, young and old, had begun to back away, taking their manifestations and play to a safer distance. The last thing they wanted was the equivalent of having their sand castle kicked over.

“Does that mean you can’t beat me?” Isaac said, crouching low. He kept his sword close to his body now, forcing Aidan to stare back at himself in the blade’s reflective surface. “I’m ready for whatever you have to dish out.”

“If you’ve been holding back,” Aidan warned. “That means you won’t mind if I take this a little more seriously.”

“Of course not,” Isaac’s voice quavered. Aidan opened the palm of his right hand and the liquid fire began to leave the pores of his skin, seeping out in a concentrated mold until it had formed into a sword made of magma, about four feet in length. He cut off the flow abruptly, and the magma hardened, creating a black and red blade that was crude in design, but still sharp enough to heavily damage flesh. He glanced over at Isaac for his reaction.

“You’re really going to come at me with a sword?” Isaac laughed. “After what you know about me?”

“Just because you wished to become a master swordsman with a blade you could manipulate by your imagination, that doesn’t mean I can’t overcome you. You’re still a product of Lowsunn’s teachings.”

“You keep saying stuff like that as if it makes me weak. Perhaps survival training here isn’t as extensive as being out in the field, but I was taught tactics. Strategy. You had to go off your emotions, and that means you only know the situations you’ve actually experienced. You don’t know how to deal with a variety. Situations outside your personal life.”

“I’ve noticed that you’ve suddenly become serious,” Aidan observed, allowing more liquid fire to enter into his sword, refashioning it like a mystical blacksmith. He let the fire expand the sword’s surface outwards until it resembled a handheld folding fan in design, losing its previous shape entirely. Isaac’s eyes smiled as Aidan continued.

“Did I hit a soft spot? Insulting the village you love so much?”

“Perhaps I want to prove its worth,” Isaac replied. “That our experience and training here matter too.”

“Experience,” Aidan repeated calmly, looking down at the magma fan in his hand. “Training…Isaac, all your training means nothing against an enemy who’s been in the thick of battle. Sometimes, logic doesn’t give you the power you need to get the job done. Sometimes the feeling, the instinct of having faced impossible odds, is all that it will take for you to reach the next morning. On the outside, in the real world - we don’t look at it as victory when we defeat an enemy or kill another humin – we look at it as survival. We break down and weep and march forward on shaking, wobbling legs, just grateful – that we made it through another day. It’s not a game like it is here. It’s our reality.”

“But I’m not your enemy,” Isaac replied. “Not one bit.”

“And that’s why I’ve won every round, even those in which you stopped playing around and tried a crippling blow or two. You still don’t get it. Every blow has to be a killing one, or there’s no point to this. If you die here in this field, then you were never ready for the real thing. You’re actually better off. At least here, you won’t be tortured. You won’t be subjected to the dark imaginations of others. You won’t have to witness firsthand what sick minds can truly do with the Yen they possess.”

“If that’s true, then why am I not dead? Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

“Because I never considered this real sparring. I’ve thought of you as a child…coming at me with a painfully dull wooden sword. If I had engaged you as I should have, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Isaac dropped his head and meditated on Aidan’s words. Finally, he lifted his eyes and stared at him with a smile of victory on his face. Aidan shook his head. Why was he amused? There was nothing funny.

“I’m glad you’ve opened up to me for the first time,” Isaac said to Aidan’s surprise. “I was wondering when you would. All the small talk, all those little snide remarks you made on our walks from class – they weren’t you. That was an Aidan on his best behavior, appeasing my banter and dealing with my presence for Bailey’s sake. I see the way the two of you interact. You don’t mince words with her, so I knew you weren’t taking me seriously…I can’t tell you how happy I am right now.”

“I just insulted you,” Aidan stated.

“You just showed me how much you cared. You could have let this ruse continue until the day I died, probably on a scouting mission…but instead, you’ve finally given me the knowledge I needed to improve. I can prepare now. Deep down, you don’t want to see me killed.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” Aidan said thoughtfully. “Though I have no clue why.”

“It’s because we’re growing on you. No matter what you’ve seen on the outside and what you’ve endured, even you realize that you don’t have be so hardened while you’re here. You have the freedom to turn into the man you would have become under different circumstances.”

“And what if that man is even worse than what you see now?” Aidan asked. “What if all that hardship merely kept my true nature at bay? What if I’m a villain whose nature is being shackled down? What about that?”

“You’re not evil,” Isaac said quickly. “Bailey wouldn’t have brought you here otherwise.”

“Or maybe she’s brought home exactly what she needed. A weapon. Just waiting to be used.”

“Well, then I’m telling you, from my perspective, it’s not true. Are you lacking in tact? Yes. Violent? Yes. Angry? Of course. But you haven’t been here long enough, even though it’s already been years. You’re still grappling with the pain of the outside world. Once you understand that you have friends now, you can start to relax. You’ll realize that we’re on your side – that we’re not the enemy…and if that doesn’t persuade you, all I have to think about is the way you look at Leah. Then I know that deep down, you’re just a big old softy with a hardened shell.”

Aidan scowled and closed his eyes.

“Alright, Isaac. Time to prepare yourself.”

“You’re not going to try to kill me just because I called you a softy, are you?”

“Just get ready.”

“You make fun of me all the time. It’s only fair I get to do it to you too.”

“You brought up Leah again.”

“Only because I know it gets you all gooey on the inside,” Isaac grinned. “You melt like chocolate.”

“Go ahead. Keep it up. See what happens.”

“I’m not the one getting butterflies whenever someone mentions her name.”

“I don’t get butterflies!” Aidan screamed. Isaac just laughed at him.

“Your legs are probably all wobbly now. Knees knocking. Stomach just filled up with all of those fluttery little butter-”

Aidan threw the fan directly at Isaac’s head.

Isaac pivoted and thrust his sword upward, cutting the fan in half, but as soon as it was split, it exploded. Shards of the fan burst out like fireworks in all directions at once, so fast that even Isaac couldn’t block all of them. He grunted as he was hit all over, the tiny hot shards piercing his legs and arms. As soon as Aidan saw that he was momentarily distracted, he concentrated on the shards that were stuck in Isaac’s body, and they all exploded simultaneously, creating deep gashes in his arms and legs. Before he could recover from the attack, Aidan then shot out a beam of fire from the palm of his extended left hand. The flames were just about to consume the swordsman when the trajectory was abruptly altered. It curved just as it was about to hit Isaac’s face and then shot up into the sky, the heat barely licking up against the swordsman’s nose. Aidan cut off the beam from his hand and let the fight continue no further.

Isaac fell backwards onto his back and dabbed at his wounds with trembling fingers as Aidan approached him.

“Aren’t you going to help me up?” Isaac groaned, examining the blood on his fingers. Aidan stared at him like he was a foreign object.

“Depends on if this session is complete. I wouldn’t dare get too close if it’s not.”

“It’s done,” Isaac said as he mentally told the gigantic sword at his side to turn back into a dagger. He placed it back into its scabbard and offered a clean hand to Aidan. Aidan lifted him to his feet.

“Can’t say I’ve seen you use those tactics before,” Isaac winced, limping on his left leg. “Usually it’s just the burst of flames you shoot out from your hands.”

“What you, no…wha
t
w
e
must remember, is that battle is far different now than it was in the past. Previously, humins had limitations. If it was hand to hand combat, no matter how innovative one was in their attack, there were still a finite number of moves and combinations an individual could perform. Given that we all had the same composition, there were also a finite number of sensitive places that one could hit or have damaged. If someone brought a knife or a gun to a fight, even a child would understand the limitations of those objects. Bottom line, there were ways to get around each and every situation involving an opponent. You just had to understand what tactic to use in each particular instance. Back then, training – even militaristic training – was vital.

“But this is not the past. We have no idea what a person can do until they reveal the full extent of their abilities, and even then, it might be too late for us to react. Where once we would have killed someone by hitting their heart, they may have now turned it into living steel. Where once we could have focused on the weaknesses found in the humin body, they may no longer be available. I’ve seen people wish to become their own devised creations – creating whole new species, whole new anatomies to explore and understand. In the outside world, there is no structure and there are no rules. It is a sandbox. A free space. An all play. Imagination and creativity run wilder than ever before and that means it’s also the most dangerous place to be. There are an infinite number of scenarios to encounter. Have you faced an immortal? Have you fought against a humin who still has three Yen and isn’t afraid to use all three against you? No, you haven’t. And neither have I, because everyone I’ve known who has is now dead. If you want even a chance of surviving, you can’t just rely on your training. We don’t have that luxury. You must react. Have your complete strategy already in place and ready to be implemented or altered in half a second. Then maybe you’ll have a chance to see the next sunrise.”

“Sheesh,” Isaac said, brushing his hands on his clothes. “Now I see what you’re talking about…you and Bailey were really out there?”

“Unfortunately,” Aidan said, letting his eyes fall to the grass. “That’s why it’s hard to just – go with the status quo here. Our mentors and teachers claim to know what life is and how to prepare for it – but their advice doesn’t match the reality I’ve seen.”

“Well, this was a very eye-opening session,” Isaac said, with no smile this time. “I’ll be considering everything you’ve said. I’ll do better next time. I promise you that.”

“It’s up to you. Sometimes I feel like I don’t even know what I’m talking about, to be honest.”

“No, good advice is good advice. So I’ll consider it. It’s when we can’t even listen to one another that we truly lose ourselves. With that being said, may I offer you some?”