Arson once more followed Acu to a new section within Origin. He was becoming used to the man suddenly taking him to new destinations, but was excited about their next stop more and more the closer they came.
“So what is Master Rebellion a master of, hand to hand combat?”
Acu nodded.
“Yes, the maniac is a battle crazed loon, but he has perfected a style called Genocide, made to fight multiple enemies all at once. It's pretty useful when needing to disable many foes at once, and surprisingly enough he once fought Master Breaker to a standstill.”
The statement only made Arson that much more excited. Acu had originally wanted to take Arson to meet the Master known as Rebellion where he and his students trained underwater in another of the city’s dungeons, but was forced to wait because of how many other Masters now held claim to Arson’s time.
I need to stop being a scared brat and just ask Acu already…
He had begun to contemplate Acu’s reasons for helping him grow in the many ways he had over the last couple fortnights. The man’s face never gave away any emotions which would give Arson any insight into his reasoning; none ever came.
He’d only seen the man smile a handful of times, and the gesture normally came when the man had a new form of training to try to put Arson through. Or when Arson accomplished something seemingly difficult. So in a moment of summoned confidence, he asked.
“Master Acu, I know this is random but it's been bothering me for a while now.”
“Yes, child…?”
Acu glanced over his shoulder at Arson; the single look stealing some of his urge to push on.
“I um, was wondering why you are so willing to help me. It’s not like we are family or you're being paid to do so in any way, so I just wondered?”
“Is that all?”
Arson nodded; the man’s deadly stare still locked on him.
“Hmm, well as long as I have been a bowman I have never met anyone with as much talent with a bow as you, beside Merlin. In my own bout of selfishness, I determined that I would pass my legacy on to you, as I don’t have children of my own to do so with,” said Acu, turning his gaze back toward his path without another word.
“I didn’t know Merlin was skilled with a bow?”
The man’s face reddened slightly as he nodded, and Arson’s mind flitted about as to why, but Acu spoke up again, pulling his mind from his line of reasoning.
Does Master Acu have a thing for—
“When my father was alive he instructed only two with the bow, me and Merlin, but after he died, she distanced herself from my family, pursuing her love for magic instead. Even as long as it has been I doubt I have caught up to her genius with a bow if I am being honest with myself.”
“Wow, you wouldn’t mind if I asked her to show me a few things, would you?”
“I… no, child, I wouldn’t mind. Just be sensitive to her emotional state if you do, losing my father’s guidance was hard on her, and I believe she still harbors much grief over his loss.”
“Yes, sir.”
Finally they arrived and the large dome of a building was bursting with the sound of combat. Arson couldn’t help but look at Acu, hearing the wails of pain and misery coming from the inside through the open archways in front of them.
When the interior of the dojo of Genocide, as the sign above the opening proclaimed the grounds to be, came into view, Arson gasped.
Arson could only see chaos within. The massive area was filled with climbable obstacles that were multi tiered, reaching all the way to the roof. Flying platforms, and empty rooms that seemed to be in constant motion, forming a mini battleground of sorts.
In the center of the space was an area where a glowing dome of energy could be seen, where young men and woman seemed to be getting healed. Many of the injuries even from the distance that separated them from Arson could be seen to be rather gruesome. Yet those within rushed back out into the violence abroad the very moment they recovered enough to fight once more.
Arson had assumed that only hand to hand combat would be held in the dojo, only to find seemingly any kind of combat to be allowed. Magic, swordplay, ranged weaponry, and even stealth practices were being used inside, making Arson wonder what he’d been signed up for.
“What, what am I looking at, Master?”
“This is Genocide, Master Rebellion invites all his students to find any and all who want to test his style of combat against their own, drawing in many souls to tempt fate and try to prove that their own abilities, skills and techniques outclass his created style.”
Arson began to pick out a few within the combat using only their hands and feet to fight. At first struggling to find any matching styles, until a few key details started to stand out. He was able to pick out the Genocide users by their willingness or unidentifiable need to assault groups of combatants all at once. The fighting style seemed to thrive on having more enemies around them.
Wide kicks that struck multiple foes. Savagely precise punches, used only to break bones and knock opponents unconscious. As well as throws that made one enemy nothing but a weapon to stop the advance or strike of another.
“Come, child, we must meet Rebellion first, and his offices are around the back.”
Arson struggled to look away as Acu put a hand to his back to direct him away from the entrance, guiding them around the side of the large structure without entering.
They entered a smaller building around the back of the dome was connected to the dojo. A kind looking young woman stood at a desk as soon as they walked in smiling at them before she gave a pleasant greeting.
“Good morning, how may I help you both?”
“We have a testing session with Master Rebellion scheduled,” said Acu. The young woman looked down and checked a book on her desk and nodded, stepping around her desk with a bow in Acu’s direction.
“Follow me, please.”
They were quickly guided past many rooms and finally came to an open door, where a brown haired man with red irises sat looking through a book filled with martial art stances.
“Your\'re late,” said Rebellion, looking up at Acu.
“Normally I would agree with you, as I normally am always late, but we are indeed early, Rebel.”
“Ha, early today yes, but with what I hear about this young man’s talents, he should have been introduced to me long ago.”
“You were literally training at the bottom of the sea and you expected me to drop everything and bring him to you, why? He’s my student, I am only sharing him with the rest of the council as to not limit his own growth. I could have kept him to myself, and am starting to believe that I should have because of how much time you all want from him.”
“He doesn’t sleep, stop acting like you even have the energy to train him night and day perpetually…”
The back and forward continued between the men, and Arson felt his continued log of questions grow in his mind.
What council? And why does Master Acu seem to be subject to their power? I’ll have to remember to ask him later.
“Whatever, you simpleton! Can we test him now or is this just an introduction?”
“I’m sure I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t let you test him now, and I’m sure what he saw inside your dojo has him chomping at the bit to join…”
“Ah, good, then let us go to a testing station.”
Master Rebellion stood, his resplendent chi displayed in full as he stepped around his desk, striding confidently toward a door in the nearby hall to his office.
The flat surface had no handle, simply sliding open at Master Rebellion’s presence and the man finally turned to Arson speaking to him for the first time.
“Are you ready… I guess that doesn’t really matter all that much. Just go in here, and survive as long as you can. Oh, and combos get you extra points, as well as using anything that is used against you correctly as well. Got that all? Good, and good luck, child,” said Rebellion patting Arson on the back softly with a huge smile on his face before he shoved him inside the room. The door sliding shut behind him.
Okay… survive as long as I can… wait does that mean I can die in here?
Arson got no time to wonder about how much trouble he may be in, as a voice entered the space of the large open room he’d been left in, pulling his mind toward what was to come and away from the tingle of fear and anxiety that pushed to rise to the surface of his mind.
“Hello, Tested. You have entered a runic simulation chamber set to the highest difficulty and will be forced to defend yourself with only hand to hand combat, all mana suppression runes have been activated, and access to spatial inventories have been temporarily shut down.”
“Ha, yeah right… you can use whatever you want from your inventory, boy. If it wasn’t for the fact that I may have gotten you in trouble I would have shut this whole bloody place down for trying to hack my systems,” said Anastasia.
“What, this place has technology built—“
“The longer you survive, the more points you score, the more summoned warriors you can defeat at once, the more points you score, the more of the selected style, Genocide, you learn and use, the more points you will score,” said the voice cutting Arson’s response off.
“Beginning in ten, nine, eight…”
Arson prepared himself, as the walls began to show various martial forms titled Genocide, followed by a number that he assumed was the stances within the style he would be learning. He did his best to slowly rotate while the countdown continued, memorizing the motions performed by the faceless figures being displayed on the walls.
The timer finished, and without a blink of time between its conclusion, four people were suddenly summoned into the room all at once. A woman in a samurai’s armor, a barbarian in nothing but a leather skirt that wielded a club, a masked man holding a chainsaw, and a robed young woman who held two fireballs, one in each hand.
Uhhh…
Pandemonium erupted in the room as Arson was charged on all four sides of himself at once. The directness of all the attacks being aimed at him instantly letting him know that the projections, or summons brought into the room were trying to kill him.
“Son of a—“
Arson by this point in his training within Origin had become more confident when closing his eyes to use his Closed Eye Dominion, so immediately did so. The symbols of tribal suns flickering to life across his face, centered on his eyelids.
He turned to back the woman in the samurai armor as she drew her katana, slashing toward him; the other three combatants charging toward him to close the distance.
He ducked the Katana, reaching overhead and wrapping a hand around the wrist that held the sword, crushing the woman’s limb as if it were brittle and soft. Grabbing the falling sword out of the air with his other hand, he thrusted it point first into the woman’s stomach, causing the summon to vanish instantly.
Fireballs were thrown in his direction, as a club came descending toward his half-crouched body. The chainsaw wielder cocking back his weapon in a two handed cleave; the razor sharp links threatening to shred through Arson’s neck, in an attempt to cut him down like that of a young sapling.
Arson lifted the katana he still held, pushing the blades tip toward the center of the chainsaw, redirecting the roaring weapon to intercept the club of the barbarian. The weapons all collided into one another and Arson followed through with a strike toward the fireballs soaring toward him, slashing them cleanly from the air just before the sword disappeared.
Guess this is a hand to hand challenge…
The Katana left the flame wielder wide eyed and flailing in a frantic backpedal, running from a weapon that no longer existed. However, Arson was glad to see the summons he fought could and did have natural reactions when facing death, as the blade had been inches from their cornea, the moment of fear giving Arson enough time to move.
He tried the first technique he’d seen on the wall. A powerful sweeping kick, that he aimed toward the necklines of all three still standing opponents.
In one smooth motion he bent his knees, before jumping. A 360 degree spin with an accompanied heel extended out as far as Arson could manage, and the sounds of bones breaking followed one after two of the three had their windpipes crushed, while the chainsaw wielder managed to dodge, leaving his weapon imbedded in the club of the slowly dying barbarian that had fallen after being kicked.
The flame wielder had at first been odd to Arson for charging into melee, but after he’d landed and felt his ankle grabbed, he felt he knew the woman’s intentions.
A burst of flame rushed up her arm, setting Arson’s pants aflame.
Scared to die… but vindictive, got it.
Arson stomped so powerfully that the flames were both snuffed out, and the woman’s neck crushed in a single step. Without pause he flipped, yanking the chainsaw out of the giant club on the ground, landing on his feet before he tossed the tool end over end at its masked wielder.
Before the man was impaled by his own weapon, more summons stepped free of the walls, another four enemies with varied appearances ready to take his life as the saw ripped into its owners torso, spraying blood about the area in a misting burst.
Eyes still closed, he spun slowly, taking in his enemies, noting that he’d only scored two points with the previous four enemies he’d defeated. The notion that only those he’d ended with his own strikes had been counted filling his mind.
This might be harder than I thought…
More weapons were drawn and Arson felt the next round begin even before his enemies moved. Exhilaration filling him with power as he readied himself.
“Bring it on!”