Dura did a full split the moment Xard approached and ducked under the attack entirely. Not only that, but he managed to wrap his scroll around one of Xard’s legs. The momentum of the flying attack only allowed Dura to unfurl the scroll that much faster, and before Xard knew it, he was wrapped up tight.
The scroll coiled around him from his shoulders down to his feet like a snake constricting its prey. Did Dura not realize that Xard could still blast energy from his head or did the monk trust that he wouldn’t? Well, that would be a last ditch effort if it came down to it, but he wanted to hide that card for now.
Really, the CP had done a thorough job in correlating Dura as Xard’s natural opponent. There certainly was no one better in the world suited to capture him except for maybe Phon. “That wasn’t so difficult was it!” Dura approached him with a smile and then sat down on the floor next to him. “Now we wait for the fighting to be over, and then I will escort you to the CP. We’ll have a great time. Road trip! It reminds me of this one—”
Xard tuned Dura out entirely, focusing on his hands. This situation was actually beneficial in the long run since it allowed time for Xard to test thoroughly. Just how much energy would be needed to break through Dura’s durability if it was even possible?
He’d need to be subtle about the tests since Dura had already reacted strongly when Xard went against his rules. If the monk caught on, it could only be an impediment. Xard started with the tip of one of his fingers, letting out a small stream of pressure. It had an odd result. Since the scroll was wrapped tightly, it didn’t bend at all, and the energy was dispersed around Xard’s body instead—an odd breezy feeling.
Next, Xard tried letting out as much energy as he could possibly concentrate through the tip of his finger. The scroll still didn’t tear even a single fiber. That completely removed the idea of blasting through it. Maybe with a slicing force could get better results, but that wouldn’t be easy in his current predicament.
The test produced an interesting side effect, though. The amount of energy with nowhere to go caused the scroll around him to bulge slightly for just a moment and shift a tiny amount before it tightened again. The rest of the energy shot out the top and bottom of the scroll cocoon, blasting his feet and face, making his hair stand up for a solid second.
Xard’s eyes drifted over to Dura to see if he’d noticed. The monk had been absorbed in his own story, but did stop briefly to comment, “Wow, oddly breezy down here,” and then immediately jumped back to his story.
This was Xard’s way out, though. He just needed to fine tune it. After adjusting his fingers so that they were at better angles, Xard started to let energy flow from all of them. From there, a few more slight corrections had to be made until the energy was flowing in two perfect spirals around the trapped Fiend. One spiral went up above his head and the other down to his feet. He needed it flowing both ways to escape.
Xard slowly started increasing the output, metering it out incrementally so there’d be no more bursts, just an increased flow. Soon, he’d created a vortex of energy swirling around him, using the scroll’s own durability to contain and guide the streams. As Xard added more pressure, he felt the restraints getting looser with each passing second.
He’d basically created a suit of energy around him, and was now expanding that suit to force the scroll to shift and loosen. Xard guessed that he’d only have a split second to escape before it tightened again, so he needed as much room as possible. Once he couldn’t feel the scroll touching his body at any point anymore, Xard surged the flow to its maximum—every ounce he could sustain.
The scroll suddenly ballooned, the wrapping flowing out in every direction like a hand suddenly losing grip and bursting open. Dura, who had been holding onto the other end of the scroll, was launched into the air from the force, banging into the ceiling. Xard took this opportunity to slip through the open strands and fly to the other side of the room.
As expected, Dura had managed to reel in the scroll during that time, showing how short the window really had been. One look at the monk and Xard could tell he was pissed—his patience lost completely.
“That was very uncouth of you, Mr. Xard,” Dura muttered, his voice stiff and unrecognizable. His playful rambling was gone, and every word was picked carefully and delivered with purpose. “I tried to make this easy. I tried to not harm you in any way and even take your own comfort into consideration.”
“I will no longer be granting those considerations. This time, when I tie you up, you will not escape. There will be no gaps, and countless knots will hold you in place. When I deliver you, they will need to cut you free from your unbreakable prison. It is a shame that we are not outside, because I can not tell you the next time you will see the light of day.”
Xard was expecting Dura to slowly approach him again, which he did, perhaps with even more caution than before. But what he didn’t expect was for the monk’s scroll to come rampaging towards him from across the room. The length was too far for it to fly in the air the entire way, so it had hit the ground but kept charging towards him as it unfurled. The most heart-stopping moment was when the scroll jumped at the last second, as if it had a mind of its own, and tried to wrap itself around Xard’s waist again.
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Thankfully, he was able to blast enough energy outwards to force the scroll away before Dura could pull it taught. After moving to another spot in the room, Xard held up his two pointer fingers as if they were pistols ready to fire. He started scouting around for the scroll again, worried since he wasn’t able to lay eyes on it.
But he could hear it unfurling, and that just unsettled him even more since he couldn’t locate it. From above?! Xard jerked his head to the ceiling at the last second, just barely in time to see the scroll spiraling towards his head. He blasted it away but was still suffering from panic for a few seconds. It had felt like a viper striking from a tree branch above. Did it have some weird adhesive or something that let it stick to surfaces or hold in the air like that?
Doesn’t know how to attack, my ass! The only other person Xard had ever seen with this much mastery and finesse over an unconventional weapon was Phon. A brief image flashed in his mind of the two of them duking it out. It’d certainly be a clash to witness, but he couldn’t dwell on it for too long. He’d need to refocus or he’d get caught for good.
“Did you just try to hit me with my own scroll, Mr. Xard?” Dura looked even less amused yet slightly more intrigued after the most recent attack was repelled. Xard had in fact shot the scroll so that it would ricochet towards Dura’s head. He was still getting a feel for it, so it had been off the mark, but Dura had adjusted its trajectory anyways so there was no chance of it actually hitting.
Drat. Xard’s next idea didn’t work either. He had tried hitting the scroll a few more times on the return flight to see if he could get it to wrap around Dura himself.
“That was an impressive idea, Mr. Xard.” It seemed the ingenuity had brought some whimsy back into the monk’s life. “I keep forgetting how not stupid you are. Silly me. But that would never work anyways. I would just make the scroll very weak and tear right through it. Do not mistake this for some ancient relic that I care about. It is just paper, and I can easily replace it.”
“Oh, what are you doing now, Mr. Xard?” Truthfully, Xard wasn’t quite sure what he was doing—practicing? He was blasting the scroll in random directions now, mostly just trying to prevent it from hitting walls. “You are like a kitty cat, Mr. Xard, playing with a string for your amusement. Tell you what, I will stop moving the scroll. Play to your contentment. It seems we still have plenty of time left. I will resume capture when we run out of time or when you get tired.”
Dura became lackadaisical immediately. He hadn’t sat on the floor, but his guard had dropped entirely, as if he no longer saw Xard as a threat. He even pulled out his phone again, like he’d stopped paying attention, but Xard knew not to trust it. As long as Dura had one hand on the scroll, it could turn on him at any moment.
Xard played around with the scroll a bit longer, blasting it to and fro, watching it bounce, looking at how it reacted and stiffened as it unfurled. Finally, something clicked in his brain and he began firing with purpose. The scroll bounced all over, leaving its fluttering trail in its wake, as if Xard was painting the room with paper.
“Tell me something, Dura,” Xard suddenly piped up, very slow with his words so he wouldn’t lose concentration. “Your Curse. How far can you radiate it?” He shot a quick glance over to the monk who seemed confused by the question. “Or is it touch only?” Dura pondered for a while longer, and by the time he picked up on why Xard would be asking such a thing, it was too late.
Xard released a bit of energy he’d planted earlier. It was on the scroll itself from when he was wrapped up. He’d placed it as close as possible to Dura’s hand that was holding the end of the scroll. The blast of energy forced Dura to drop the scroll entirely, removing it from his grasp.
Then he sent one last shot of energy at the scroll. He made sure to hit the opposite side, so instead of unfurling further, it would tighten. The mass of paper scrunched up immediately—the trap sprung—wrapping Dura up like a mummy before he could make a move.
Dura didn’t seem too nervous at first, but as the reality set in, he started to panic a bit and writhe in place, causing him to fall over onto the floor. “That’s why I asked you,” Xard came over and knelt down next to Dura, a smile on his face. “If you can’t touch the scroll, you can’t break free of it, just like anyone else.”
Hell, even Xard was amazed at himself for this feat. Through so much mental calculation of angles, trajectory, geometry, tension, and more that made his head hurt in retrospect, Xard had unfurled the scroll in such a way that when tightened, it only wrapped around Dura in places that touched his clothing. All of his limbs were fully restricted, but he couldn’t touch the scroll at all with his head or hands. At some point in the future, Xard would have to send a thank you letter to every math and science teacher who had gotten him to this point.
With the Fiend he’d been assigned to take down out of the way, Xard wanted to go join the rest of the fight. But first, he had to make sure Dura was really secure. He didn’t trust that the monk wouldn’t be able to loosen or touch the scroll with enough wiggling.
After picking up the excess lengths of scroll that were still lying around, Xard hopped up to the ceiling and fed the paper through one of the lights. He then gave it a good tug, hoisting Dura into the air. Once the monk was at a good height, Xard tied off the end to one of the support beams.
“Alright, Dura. I’m going to leave you now,” Xard explained after he checked to make sure there were no possible points of skin contact. “When this is over, regardless of who wins, we’ll make sure someone comes to free you. Don’t want the corpse of a starve-to-death monk stinking up the room.”
“You have quite literally hoisted me by my own hubris, Mr. Xard Randex Artillery,” Dura seemed to be in good spirits despite his loss. “I acknowledge my defeat, and will gladly accept any assistance with grace. Have fun out there.”