“Bastard!”
As Ariyama launched himself at Genichirou, the blonde's face shifted from confusion, to realization, then to pure glee.
“Took you long enough, moron! I've wanted to gut your ass ever since that night.”
He pulled a knife from his pocket and pointed it. The blade seemed to shimmer, then two copies split off from it, hovering above Genichirou's shoulders before shooting at Ariyama.
He gritted his teeth and moved to intercept. He dodged one knife and swung his sword to deflect the second.
“Oh, not bad! But without that Matsune bitch with you, you're a dead man!”
“Shut it!”
Ariyama was already close enough to slash Genichirou across the chest. One thing he noticed was that the blonde's reaction time was nothing to be proud of. A line of Ted opened across his chest, followed by Ariyama's knee crunching into his side. Genichirou barked in pain and rage, taking a few steps back before jumping away all together.
While in mid air, Genichirou summoned a half dozen knives and sent the glittering objects speeding at Ariyama, who was just now regaining his stance.
Crap.
Ariyama bared his teeth as he swung his whole body, bringing his sword around and up, catching three of the knives along his blade and sending them flying away. As he moved, he narrowly avoided another two, but with the last one, he wasn't so lucky.
Pain
Pain is what he felt as the last knife dug into his left thigh. At first, it felt weird, for his skin to be penetrated like that. As the knife embedded itself into his flesh, it stayed like that for a few moments before the proper pain set in.
But Ariyama couldn't focus on that, because Genichirou was already raising his knife and creating another torrent of knives. Shit. What was he going to do? Ariyama surveyed the scene and came to the obvious conclusion that the knife Genichirou held in his left hand must've been the main one, the Enchanted Tool itself, while everything else was just copies.
So, he needed to rip that knife out of his hands somehow–
“Focus on the fight, you brat!”
Genichirou screamed as he fired off the knives, but this time, only half of what he'd summoned, leaving the others still hovering over him. So he could control how many he fired too?
Just great…
Ariyama gasped as the pain flared red-hot down his left, and had to clumsily let himself collapse onto his knees to avoid the knives. The five or so sharp projectiles whizzed over his head, but Ariyama was stumbling to his feet before they even hit anything behind him.
He couldn't slow down. He just couldn't. Or else he'd be pierced every which way by those knives. As he ran to block the remaining objects, the pain flooding his leg began to spread upwards to his hip, as if it was an infection. Were those knives poisoned? He wouldn't be surprised, to be honest.
His arms burned with strain as he swung his clunky sword, left and right, blocking and smacking the oncoming knives. He was doing a lot better already than he had back during their first encounter, but that was solely thanks to his training.
Matsune had called him a ‘quick-learner’, after all.
“Come on now, ‘Saato-kun’! Wanna show off for your little girlfriend, huh?”
Ariyama glared at Genichirou, noticing the cowering Kazura still on the floor in his peripheral vision. Her face was a mask of shock, her jaw hanging.
He deflected the last knife, his hands shaking and going numb, just as Genichirou moved into him at break-neck speed and kicked him across the hallway. Ariyama skidded, then jammed his sword into the floor to stop his momentum. The force almost tore his arm out of its socket, but it succeeded in slowing him to a halt.
Ariyama spat blood and when he looked up, he saw the nasty snarl on Genichirou's face, contrasting the cocky, easy grin he had on not even a minute before.
Why?
Ariyama had been too busy engaged in the fight to ask the simple question: why?
Why was it Genichirou?
Ariyama didn't particularly like the guy, since he was always so confident that it got on his nerves. But still, why was it him? Why couldn't it have been some random student Ariyama had never interacted with?
But then the thoughts came rushing to Ariyama's mind. It all lined up too perfectly to be coincidental.
Even though he'd supposedly been a transfer student for weeks before, Ariyama had only first seen Genichirou after coming back on his first day after the incident. Was that planned? Was Genichirou only getting close to him so he could kill him, like he was trying to do now?
But what was Genichirou's plan at all? Matsune – and by extension, Ariyama – were only trailing him due to him being an unregistered Tribute. So, did being unregistered automatically mean he was up to something malicious, or was it that maybe he was just trying to live his life, free of the control of the Pilgrims’ Society?
Up until the point they found out the hooded man was seen snooping around the school after hours, Ariyama would've considered that. But by that point, he knew for sure that the man was up to something.
So what was Genichirou's plan?
He didn't have time to think, as he struggled to his feet and jumped back into the fray.
His breath was coming out in ragged bursts, his limbs were on fire, and he was moments away from hurling his guts up, but still Ariyama pressed on. He didn’t know what Genichirou was even doing at this school, not really. He didn’t know his plans in the slightest, just as he barely knew his own plans. He was unconfident, inadequate, incompetent.
But kept fighting.
Because Genichirou wasn’t going to lay a hand on Kazura.
And he needed some payback for the damage he inflicted on Matsune too.
Genichirou spat on the floor as another three knives were deflected. Once each one got knocked away, they skittered across the ground before eventually dissipating into smoke. Did that indicate there was a limit to how many knives he could have deployed at once?
If so, Ariyama could use that to his advantage.
“Dammit, don’t you ever quit?”
Genichirou threw his hand up, but Ariyama was ready this time, and tensed his whole body. He wasn’t too sure about the properties of the mana that circulated around his body, but he imagined it was like he was a massive, weirdly-shaped pipe, and his mana was water flooding his insides. He focused the water into his legs, and willed the dam to burst. He wasn’t sure if it actually did anything, but he felt as if power bloomed through his legs, giving him a monetary boost.
Genichirou still had his knife raised, about to split it into copies.
Ariyama had to reach him first, he had to. He had to get there. He had to get there. He had to get the–
He got there.
Genichirou audibly gasped as Ariyama reached him just as his knife began to shimmer. Bringing his sword up, Ariyama knocked the knife – the proper Enchanted Tool – from the blonde’s hands, and couldn’t stop the grin spreading across his face.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I wanna show off.”
Ariyama dipped his left shoulder as he reeled his right fist back and hit Genichirou in the face like a freight train. Even the impact and weight behind that punch made Ariyama’s own bones shudder. He felt Genichirou’s nose burst beneath his knuckles, but he knew that wasn’t enough. He was riding on a high now, and wouldn’t quit until Genichirou was out of the picture. Ariyama wouldn’t kill him, but he could do plenty worse.
His dark thoughts scared him, but he executed his idea regardless.
His fist still pressed into Genichirou’s nose, Ariyama stuck out his thumb and twisted his hand, jamming his thumb into Genichirou’s right eye. Genichioru screamed as his eyeball popped, and Ariyama screamed as he felt it happen. He felt even more sick, disgusted as he felt the wet surface of the eye, then the gushing flow of it bursting.
Ariyama pulled back and let Genichirou stagger back, hands at his face, screaming bloody murder.
“YOU… ARGH, YOU SON OF A–”
Genichirou didn’t even finish his sentence, and dipped low and launched himself at Ariyama.
What? Huh?
Ariyama was staring at the blood covering his knuckles and thumb, trying not to vomit over the memories of the feeling of the eye exploding, when a knife was slid into his side.
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Genichirou stumbled away, falling to his knees, shaking but not screaming anymore. No, it was Ariyama’s turn now.
“AAAGGHH!”
What? How the hell had Genichirou made another knife, if the Enchanted Tool was out of his grasp?
His question was answered when he fell back onto his ass, looking to his side and seeing a knife clutched in Genichirou’s hand. It had a royal blue handle, while all the others had black, including the one Ariyama had knocked away, and the one sticking out of him.
It was a dummy. It wasn’t the proper knife.
Shit.
Ariyama’s vision darkened in the corners as the fact he’d just been stabbed set it. Shaking with pain and slowly-dying anger, he looked down at the knife in his side, watching in slow-motion as red seeped out of the wound and stained his dark hoodie.
God. Oh, God, no,
Not now. Please. If he died now, Kazura would be at Genichirou’s mercy. Maybe before, he would’ve let her leave, but since she’d witness the fight, she was now disposable.
Shit, shit, SHIT!
Ariyama gasped as the pain faded for just a moment, and in that moment, he looked up.
Just as Genichirou, swaying on his two feet, spoke something Ariyama couldn’t hear and fired a knife.
Kazura was sitting against the lockers.
And that knife, dug into her arm.
This wasn’t like the slash she received from the Shrine’s arrow trap.
The knife pierced her and she shrieked as blood pumped out.
Ariyama roared as he watched Genichirou struggling towards Kazura, clearly intent on finishing the job.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Somebody, please!
Give me control.
What? Idolseus?
Just for a moment. Unless you want the girl to die?
“I… No, I don’t want her to die…”
Then give me control. For a split second so I can save her.
“I don’t trust y–”
Then you leave Kazura Machi to die. Your choice, boy.
“But… Shit, fine, OK. Take control.”
Ariyama felt the Pilgrim’s smile echo through his consciousness, and then he was enveloped in black.
When the boy rose, he wasn’t Ariyama. It was his body, but there was another mind in control. His hair flowed with glowing light. His eyes were like exploding suns.
The burning heat of the light alerted Genichirou, and he half-turned as he fired another knife at Kazura Machi’s skull.
But the boy moved faster. He brandished his sword of crackling heat, burning bright white, and swung it sharply. There was an ear-splitting sound that shattered the atmosphere and gouged a line in the floor, also cleaving the flying knife in two.
Genichirou cursed under his breath in disbelief, taking a step back, raising his proper Enchanted Tool, ready to summon another dozen knives to–
The line burned in the floor exploded, and the whole section of titles shattered like glass. Genichirou yelled as he fell through the gap in the floor and disappeared in a cloud of plaster and dust, falling straight down to the first floor.
But by that time, the boy was back in his body, standing up straight and wondering why the knife and wound in his side were gone.
The pain. It was gone.
Completely gone.
Ariyama wiped away some blood still sticking to his hoodie, but sure enough, the only hole in him was the one through the fabric – the wound was thoroughly healed, without leaving even a scar.
Was that… Idolseus’s power? Ariyama surveyed the damage, seeing the dust still rising from the big gap in the floor now. But when he saw the barely-conscious Kazura laying just beyond the rubble, his attention switched to her. He sprinted along the perimeter of the hole, reaching her beside the lockers and falling to his knees, instinctively checking her wound. Luckily, the knife hadn’t hit her in the heart or brain, but blood was still leaking profusely from the gash in her shoulder. The knife itself must have someone fallen out, or she had ripped it out on instinct herself, or even the heat from Ideolseus’s attack – which Ariyama only vaguely remembered – had burned it to ash.
And what even were his powers exactly? Had he actually swapped consciousnesses with Ariyama and taken control of his body, even if it was only for a few seconds. Regardless, Ariyama felt a chill in his skull afterwards.
But no. Kazura was the main priority right now.
Ariyama had already failed to save one of his best friends, and he was not going to watch the other die in front of him.
No, goddammit. He wouldn’t let it happen, not now. Never again.
His mind racing, he forced himself to calm down. If he didn’t steady himself, Kazura would bleed out before his very eyes.
“S-Saato~”
Kazura mumbled as she reached up to grasp at space. Ariyama took hold of her hand and pressed it to her chest.
“Shush, just save your strength. Don’t talk, OK?”
His mind free of obstacles now, a clear idea came to Ariyama. He quickly placed his sword on the ground, then peeled his sweat-drenched hoodie off. Grabbing his sword again, he drew the shattered blade across the hoodie and sliced off the sleeve. Taking hold of Kazura’s frail arm, he lifted it and quickly applied the torn-off sleeve, wrapping it around the wound in her bicep, tying it to staunch the bleeding. She still needed the hospital, but at least now, she wasn’t going to bleed out any moment.
Ariyama wiped sweat from his forehead, sitting back and breathing out a long sigh of relief.
She was safe. For now.
“ARIYAMA!”
The distant scream made Ariyama jump, and he was on his feet instantly. The swift movement made him momentarily light-headed, and by the time he shook the blurriness off, he looked up and saw Genichirou limping towards him, stopping on the opposite side of the hole in the floor. Through the blue mist that still wafted through the whole school and gave it an atmospheric feeling, Ariyama saw Genichirou with his one untouched eye, glaring, with a deep scarlet-pink iris, at him.
If he wasn’t planning on killing him before, he for sure was now.
In that moment of stillness, where nothing was moving except for the shifting mist, Ariyama took the opportunity to voice his previous question.
“Why… What do you even get from this? I thought… I thought we were friends! Why are you doing this? Why are you sneaking around the school at night? What–”
He cursed as he avoided a knife that shot for him. He looked back at Genichirou with a look that expressed his hurt.
Genichirou, on the other hand, had his teeth clenched and looked about ready to explode.
“You shut your FUCKING mouth! I’m going to kill the hell out of you, and right now, I’m gonna enjoy the shit out of it. So, quit trying to figure out ‘why’, and focus on not dying, you sack of–”
Genichirou’s eye widened as he dodged out of the way of a cut of blazing heat that came from Ariyama’s blade. The one strike, which drew from the power of the Pilgrim within him, drained Ariyama more than he’d like to admit, but he stood defiant.
“You should heed your own words, Genichirou. Come on, then…”
The blonde smirked, and that smirk turned to a cackling laugh. Then, he took a step back, and leapt over the five-meter-wide hole in one jump.
Ariyama shifted back, Genichirou slamming down on the spot he was just standing on. The blonde’s ruined face gazed up at him, before he darted forwards, knives hovering up above him.
Dammit, was he ever going to quit? Probably not.
Ariyama knew he wasn’t going to cease his efforts till he buried him.
And if Ariyama wanted to protect Kazura, like he had been planning on doing the whole time, it might come to the situation where he had to do the same to Genichirou.
As the two clashed, both extremely lacking in finesse and skill with their attacks due to their injuries, Ariyama pondered the question. Would he be willing to take a life to save Kazura?
No, was he ready now to take a life?
When he had first survived the Shrine, he didn’t think he deserved to live instead of the others. But now, if he was going to fulfill his promise and protect the friends he had left, no matter what, then he’d have to be ready to do it.
“Don’t think about anything other than this fight right now!”
Genichirou yelled, having must have seen Ariyama’s face and recognized his internal conflict. But then again, he was right. One wrong move on Ariyama’s part and he’d be a pincushion of knives before he could even draw a breath. When he had attacked Genichirou with Matsune at his side, they were able to work together and overwhelm it with some semblance of easiness. Now, however, Ariyama was sweating, bloodied, tired, sick and many more things. He had half the mind to just quit. To just lower his sword and let one of Genichirou’s knives pierce his throat.
That’d end his suffering without worry, and only a little more pain.
It would be… so… easy…
No.
It couldn’t go out like that; like a wuss. If he died, that meant Kazura died. Then, once she returned, Matsune would have no way of knowing the culprit was actually Genichirou. So, everything settled on Ariyama keeping himself alive and holding out for as long as he could.
Because Matsune wasn’t coming
No one was coming to help.
So he needed to step up and do the protecting on his own for once. He wouldn’t let this bastard touch his friends ever again. Ariyama thought back to the scene of Kazura bleeding badly from her wound, weakly calling out his name. He thought further back an image of Kazura as a child, looking so much more innocent and even more cheeky.
If he died, that girl would be dead.
And Matsune would probably never get over another two deaths on her conscience.
Ariyama blew out a breath as he knocked away a glinting knife and stared at Genichirou with deadly glare. He let the anger that had been building up in him since that night out in a wave of crashing emotions, feeling his veins flow with lava, an annoying itch in the back of his brain growing into an invisible hand that grasped his whole skull and poured every ounce of anger into his thoughts. He needed to use everything he had to protect them. All of them.
It was a miracle that Genichirou seemed inexperienced enough that Ariyama, who only started his training two weeks prior, could keep up.
Now, for Ariyama to actually beat him, he’d need nothing short of a blessing.
Genichirou held two knives in his hands and stabbed at Ariyama, who brought up his sword and blocked the strike. As their blades struggled against each other for a moment, Ariyama spoke.
“I’m taking you down. You’re about to pay for what you did to Machi!”
At that, Genichirou giggled maniacally. The blood was still running down his face from his ruined eye, and it seemed to be starting to affect his brain.
“That’s cute, Saato-kun. Hey, you're gonna take me down, yeah? I’m gonna pay for what I did to that bitch? Well, can you protect her, even now?”
Genichirou ducked his head and dove past Ariyama, throwing a knife at him. Ariyama gripped the sword in his bleeding hands and smashed the knife away, then screamed as he realized what Genichirou was doing.
He had to get there before.
No, it would be too much to block.
But if he didnt, Kazura…
Genichirou snarled ferally as he pointed his Enchanted Tool and launched a dozen knives right at Kazura, who was still semi-conscious, sitting against the dented lockers. Ariyama yelled in protest and moved past Genichirou, using his previous technique of overflowing the water in his legs to burst out, but even still, he knew he couldn’t reach Kazura, turn to face the onslaught, and knock all twelve blades away.
No. No, please.
After everything he said…
He still wasn’t going to let it happen.
HE WASN’T GOING TO LET IT HAPPEN!!
Even if it killed him…
Ariyama raced across the cracked floor, his feet burning with tears in his shoes. He got there. He got in front of Kazura. He saw up-close that she was actually rousing from her unconsciousness. He would’ve preferred she didn’t see this. But that didn’t matter.
He turned.
The wave of knives came from him.
Kazura must have fully awoken, as he heard her cry out his name in alarm.
That was OK.
Everything would be OK.
You fool! You’ll die! Let me take control again, even just for a second. I can save you and the girl, and heal your wounds again–
“No.”
What…?
“This is my fight. So piss off, cause I’m gonna kill this bastard myself.”
Ariyama swung his sword – on his own, with just the remaining strength he had in him –and hit maybe two or three knives, redirecting them to stab into the floor or the wall, while the remainder of them pierced his body relentlessly.