Sun watches as the dark clouds smother out the already exhausted setting sun. As the clouds begin to rumble and toil above, he lowers his gaze, settling his eyes at the students. He watches as Dan utilizes his smarts to salvage Chunhua’s careless mistake, hoping that they would finish sooner than later. Although he wanted to leave before the valley got dark, he couldn’t bring himself to kill their excitement over the strange glowing root.
A drop of blood trickles down his nose, pausing just above his lip. Sun wipes the drop of blood away with his sleeve, noting how dirty his sleeve had gotten over the course of the excursion. With a heavy sigh, Sun withdraws his senses to the immediate surrounding to give himself a moment to recuperate from the exhausting amounts of aura he had expended to maintain the massive perimeter of his senses.
He watches impatiently as Xi and Anning work together to clear out the debris. Upon seeing Maoyi successfully extract the blue root, he breathes a sigh of relief knowing that the first day of the excursion will be over soon. As if on cue to ruin his relief, Sun hears a faint whistling approaching him from behind. Ignoring his splitting headache, Sun forces his senses outwards to try and identify the source of the sound.
As the object creating the whistling passes the perimeter of his senses, Sun’s brows furrow.
They’re here.
Sun quickly lowers himself to the ground, pressing an open palm into the dirt, creating an aura barrier to shield the students from the impending conflict. With their safety assured, Sun rises to confront the oncoming threat. His eyes emanate a crimson glow as he turns to intercept the incoming object, snatching it out of the air.
*Poof!*
In an instant, the round object explodes, enveloping him in an ashen cloud of smoke. As the smoke disperses, Sun's crimson eyes widen with realization. The echoing sound of countless faint whistles fills his ears as more smoke bombs fly toward him, exploding on impact and shrouding the area in a thick haze.
In one heartbeat, Sun's gaze shifts to the oblivious students engrossed in their harvest, and in the next, he feels his heart rate slowing as his vision blurs. Desperation sweeps over him as he reaches out, struggling to maintain the barrier. Although he knows that it will dissipate as soon as he loses consciousness, he doesn’t know what else to do but try.
Feeling his senses begin to shut down, Sun clenches his jaw and bites down on the corner of his tongue. The pain jolts him awake for an extra second, restoring his senses momentarily. In that singular second, as the barrier fades, Sun hears the voice of the only student enrolled in his class beyond the weakening barrier. Knowing that he doesn’t have time to explain, Sun opens his mouth to utter one word- a word that only Dan would understand.
“Again.”
As the blood from his tongue escapes the corner of his mouth, dripping down towards his chin, Sun begins to fall backwards. His senses begin to shut down once again as he watches the sky turn to black.
Upon hearing the word, Dan freezes for a split second. His pupils shrink as a feeling of unease washes over him. The hairs on the back of his neck stand straight upon detecting a minute change in the air pressure behind him. His left foot instinctively points outwards before sweeping backwards in a crescent motion. Following the movement of his foot, Dan twists his hip to move his torso out of the path of the projectile. As the rotation moves up his body, he suddenly digs his left foot into the dirt to stop his evasive maneuver.
Yuyu!
Realizing that dodging would put the little girl in front of him in danger, Dan kicks his feet against the dirt. Fighting against his initial momentum, Dan forces himself to move back into his original position. Upon repositioning between Yuyu and the unknown projectile, Dan clenches his jaw and braces himself to receive the blow.
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*Poof!*
Instead of the sharp pain he was prepared for, Dan only feels a stinging pain from a blunt impact. His eyes widen as the ashen cloud of smoke expands to consume the space around him, causing him to forget about the pain radiating from his shoulder blade. Time begins to feel slow as the smoke slowly creeps into his line of sight. His mind races as the smoke reaches out for Yuyu and the other students standing beside him. Although he wanted to avoid breathing in any of the smoke, Dan realizes that the smell lingering in his nose means that it was too late. Instead of holding his breath, he decides to inhale more.
Sweet… earthy… slight hint of nutty and floral… Poppy poison?
As he feels his senses grow dull and consciousness beginning to fade, images from the time he spent with his esteemed father begin to flash in his mind. Just seconds away from passing out, Dan forces himself to stay awake with sheer will.
He clenches his fists, leaving his thumbs extended and straight. His arms blurs as his fists fly towards his neck from both sides, jamming each thumb into mirrored positions on his neck just below the corners of his jaw. His fists blur again as they drop, stopping beside his navel and jabbing each thumb in between his abdomen muscles. Keeping contact with his body, Dan slides one thumb towards the top of his abdomen, moving at a slight diagonal towards the center on the way up. Dan stretches his other arm outwards, opening his palm, before slamming against the fist with the thumb at the center of his torso.
He coughs violently, sending blood flying from his mouth and splattering onto the ground. Without a moment to catch his breath, Dan stretches his arm out behind Yuyu as she collapses onto the ground. In one fluid motion, he redirects the momentum from her fall and sets her into the crevice beneath the elm tree. After hiding Yuyu’s unconscious body in the crevice, he turns to the girl standing closest to him. He balls up his fists once again, this time with his index fingers extended, and jabs at the same points on her body.
Maoyi coughs up a mouthful of blood, dying her silk sleeves a deep red and jolting her awake from a near comatose state. Before she could make sense of what just happened, Dan sends dirt and debris flying as he kicks off towards the other side of the crevice. His hands blur as he repeats the same actions on the rest of his classmates, whomever was closest first.
Xi and Anning gasp for air as their eyes snap open. They both take a step back upon regaining control of their senses, catching themselves in the middle of their fall. In the same split moment, they cough violently, staining their sleeves with blood. Dan kicks off again, sending his body sliding across the dirt towards Wei and Chunhua.
Wei, who remained standing for the few seconds it took Dan to assist Yuyu and the other girls, stumbles backward as he feels his consciousness slipping. Refusing to collapse before his turn, he bites his tongue to jolt himself awake. The thin stream of blood running from his mouth is completely washed away as he coughs violently upon receiving the last jab to the center of his torso.
Chunhua's brows furrow as he stands ready for Dan's arrival. He grips the pink and black threading on his blade's handle firmly, his gaze fixed on the approaching shadowy figures approaching from ahead. As his senses begin to numb, Chunhua presses his thumb just above the sheath's opening, drawing the sword out a few centimeters. The stinging sensation from the cut radiates up his arm, helping him maintain alertness.
Upon hearing Wei coughing, Chunhua smirks as he tightens his grip on the sword's handle in preparation to unsheathe it and unleash his rage. Shortly after Dan reaches him, a stinging sensation starts from the sides of his neck and moves downwards. Almost instantly, another stinging sensation travels from his lower abdomen upwards, meeting the first in the center of his torso. He winces as the two sensations converge. Just as Dan pulls back his fist to strike the last pressure point, the smirk on Chunhua's face vanishes.
Shit!
Chunhua loosens his grip on the sheath, sliding his hand back towards the tip before clenching it once more. With a swift motion, he pushes the end of the sheath forward, snapping the fastener that connects it to his sash. The sheath collides with Dan's shoulder just before he can deliver the final strike to expel the poppy poison, sending him flying to the side.
He feels his eyelids growing heavy as the sudden burst of activity had increased his heartbeat, further circulating the poppy poison throughout his body. With the last of his waking moments, Chunhua draws his blade and sends it flying in the same direction as Dan. Without a second to spare, he grabs the empty sheath with both hands, holding it horizontally in front of him and bracing for impact.
An ear-shattering ring fills the air as a blade smashes into Chunhua's sheath. The impact momentarily wakes all of his senses. Ignoring the pain from what feels like a fracture in his forearm, Chunhua takes advantage of this fleeting moment of clarity to turn toward his juniors, screaming out as the impact sends him flying through the air.
"PROTECT DAN! GET TO INSTRUCTOR SUN!!!"