To say Klaws had a hard life would be an understatement. His family was poor to the point that food had to be rationed between them. Once his family noticed that he had to eat more than them, Klaws had to leave his home. None of this was done out of malice. His family loved him just a much as he loved them but his mutation and special body needed way more food than normal to function. He was only 6 years old when he was asked to leave the house, at least when they were eating.
To combat that, Klaws began to hunt. And that was how his trauma came to be. Klaws hunted like an animal so he learned about nature like an animal. If you are prey, you are going to be eaten. The prospect of ever becoming prey, like the animals he hunted, haunted his dreams to this day.
Klaws was on the top of the food chain in the area he lived in before getting recruited to the academy but that wasn’t always the case. He had to get stronger and sometimes crafty to deal with other hunters coming into his territory or problematic prey. Luckily or unluckily.
Klaws never found something that he couldn’t eventually triumph over. Not that all his hunts were easy, but they stopped being hard after a while. But even with all that, the mindset that prey gets killed and eaten was stuck in his head and he never forgot where he came from.
Now, face to face with someone who was stronger than him in every metric and viewed him as prey, Klaws snapped. It was a mix of fear, anger and mixed logic. He feared death, was angry at himself for being weak and in his mind, the only way to not be prey was to hunt, so he had to hunt the hunter and become the new hunter.
He was trying his best. Going only after vital points but his opponent was very good in defending himself, even if he probably didn’t need it. But that gave the information that something would probably work, so he didn’t stop. When he saw his classmates join the fray he went harder.
Surgically, he began to see what his opponent was actually defending. Klaws, even in his current state, knew what he had to do. His opponent was playing with them. He probably could just kill all of them but he saw this as a game, not a fight to the death. This would be his biggest mistake.
Neck? No. Klaws saw that his opponent wasn’t really defending the place, more like putting his hands on the way. Ears? Not somewhere where damage would matter. Nose? A possibility, but it's already so flat, there isn’t probably much to be gained by attacking it. Mouth? Very protected but not as much as the target. Eyes. Nex was protecting his eyes way more than his mouth. Klaws managed to notice it and didn’t waste the opportunity,
“EYES! FOCUS ON IT!” Klaws shouted as he began to focus exclusively on attacking Nex’s eyes.
As for Nex himself, he was actually thinking about getting serious. He had the power to solidify himself with mana with the exception of his eyes and the inside of his head. Doing that would make him completely blind in every sense in the case of his eyes and not allow him to do anything besides channel mana in case of the rest of his head.
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Klaws grabbed Nex’s arms and held it as firmly and tightly as he could so he could give his classmate as much time as possible to do something.
Narrisa shouted something that Klaws didn’t have the time to hear and everyone attacked all at once.
Shishen used a spell on Klaws that gave him a little bit of energy.
Katia and Cassandra ran around Nex and positioned themselves behind his legs.
Using his psychic powers, Luminus threw two swords at Nex’s eyes but the man easily predicted the trajectory and just took the things in his face like they were sticks.
Kaki, following Luminus lead, tried to stab Nex in the eye but he only made Nex move his head a little more back so it would hit his cheek.
Moon sent a sphere of darkness at Nex's face that blocked his vision as he was jumping towards him along with Mathias, each one going after one of his eyes. Sadly Nex was a seasoned warrior and just making him somewhat blind didn’t do much. He saw them coming a mile away so he dropped back his head one more centimeter.
Once he blocked the last attack, he thought of finally getting serious but what came to his mind was a piece of information that caused a little panic. Where is the little blonde?
That single thread of thinking made him stop for a second. That second was what everyone was buying. Klaws put all his strength into pushing Nex back. Katia and Cassandra touched the back of his knees, making them bend just a little involuntarily.
All of that, along with how much he had to lean back to not get pierced in the eyes, made him begin to fall backwards. That wouldn’t be enough to cause any damage by itself but what he saw next, made him panic.
A flash of light was falling in his direction. It’s name was Mia and on her hands was a sword going straight to his eye at speeds a normal person wouldn’t even perceive.
He began the process of solidifying even his eyes and inside his head but it wasn’t fast enough. Mia suddenly dropped like a meteor and stabbed his right eye as it was in the middle of hardening and only stopped once it had pierced Nex skull and came back on the other side.
A small crater formed and everyone was sent flying, besides Mia and Onyx, who went to protect Katia and Cassandra from the actual impact.
Klaws was the first to get up. He walked towards Mia, ready to continue fighting if necessary.
“Is he dead?” He asked.
“No, but he is out. And I am out of a weapon now.” She answered.
“What should I do now?”
“First, don’t panic again. Second, let’s regroup, we must have at least a few minutes to take a breather.”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Also, Klaws…”
“What?”
“Good job. You are strong.” Mia said with a smile on her face. Mia didn’t know why she said what she said rationally but she felt like she needed to.
Klaws didn’t know how to really process what he was seeing but for the moment, he was happy, even if they were all in mortal danger.