Chapter IV. XXIV (4.24) - Eye Ostrich

  After the excitement of that first match, the following fights steadily declined in their flamboyance. Still, Kizu, Harvey, and Harumi all remained alert. There was no telling when exactly Arclight would call them up. Unlike before, they didn’t go in an exact order of their rankings, instead contestants were grouped up with others Arclight believed to be good matches. A few put together were even hundreds of rankings apart.

  “Harvey, you mentioned the Battle Club earlier,” Harumi said as they watched. While still nervous, he’d calmed down after watching the difficulty of the fights decrease. “Do you like it?”

  Harvey glanced away from the projection that showed three girls fighting against an elemental creature made of quartz.

  “It’s fine. We just paired up and practiced closing distances on range targets for the first meeting. Not too much responsibility on me either. I’ll need to help Arclight with these fights but that’s on a rotating schedule. Since it’s one of the biggest clubs, I won’t have to do much.”

  “You didn’t join the Orchestra Club?” Kizu asked.

  “Haven’t had much time for my flute. It doesn’t seem like a real career path for me. Maybe if I had another couple years to study under Ignis…but as is, better to focus on fighting. Especially with everything going on back home.”

  “My dad says the time for arts has passed,” Harumi said softly. “He said now we need to prepare for invasion.”

  That was ominous. Harumi’s father was the constable down in the city. If he voiced concern about something on the horizon, then it might be best to keep an eye open.

  “What about you, Harumi?” Kizu asked. “Any club caught your eye?”

  “Yeah, Battle Club. But I don’t know if I’d be any good…I’m ranked low and I don’t really like violence.”

  “You could join the Drama Club. That’s what I’m in,” Kizu said. He’d promised Faible to advertise his membership to other students, now seemed like a good opportunity for that. “Faible, the gnome student, just started the club this semester. It’s brand new. We need new members,”

  “Really?” Harumi looked over from the screen showcasing the current fight. He chewed on his lip and considered. “I don’t know…I’ll need to ask my dad.”

  Kizu shrugged. He’d done his part. “It should be fun. Faible is really passionate about the subject. Think it over. And if you could let other first years in your dorm know the club exists, I’d appreciate it. We didn’t get a booth at the expo last week.”

  “Looks like I’m up,” Harvey said. “Wish me luck.”

  Harvey departed with another student. Kizu and Harumi watched the fight play out. Kizu couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed, there had been a part of him that hoped he and Harvey would get a chance to fight alongside one another.

  Instead, Harvey’s partner was a snobby fourth year boy with slicked black hair. The corner of his mouth was frozen in a perpetual upward sneer.

  When the fight commenced, Harvey’s partner immediately put himself in front of the Tainted boy and tried fending off the massive horned reptile with javelins of mud.

  The technique was interesting and more competent than Kizu first assumed. The mud splattered on the summoned creature’s thick hide, then rapidly solidified into stone casing. On a human opponent, it would probably require incredible strength to break free of an attack like that, but this creature was far from human. It charged forward, shrugging off the stoney prison. Rubble and shattered rocks scattered across the arena floor.

  The student continued to throw javelin after javelin, as if expecting a different result. If they slowed the monster, it wasn’t by any notable amount.

  “Is that the only move he knows?” Harumi asked.

  “He’s probably stunned and not thinking properly,” Kizu replied.

  Harvey stepped forward, arm pushing his partner back. His stance firmed and his eyes focused. The tattoos on Harvey’s arms began to glow as he prepared himself.

  As the reptilian monster jabbed forward with its horn right as it got close with its charge. Harvey swung.

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  He backhanded the monster. His knuckles met the side of its head with such force that the creature’s eyes bulged. The momentum of the creature carried it forward, but now redirected by Harvey’s hand, it slammed into the arena’s edge.

  “Now,” Harvey said. “Use your mud now.”

  Kizu thought Harvey’s partner might refuse out of pride. But, while the older boy's face looked like he’d swallowed lemons, he did as Harvey commanded.

  In seconds, the beast was covered entirely in mud that hardened into solid stone, sealing it into the arena’s wall.

  Harvey dashed forward, brought his fist back, and rammed a punch right between the monster's eyes. With a sickening crunch, his fist broke through the hardened hide. The monster began deteriorating around his fist. It struggled, trying to gouge him with its horn, but Harvey kept his wits about him and moved alongside the beast. He twisted his hand in the monster’s head. A few seconds later, the entire summon fell apart. There was a bit of applause from the crowd. While a respectable performance, Harvey’s opponent had been far from the most scary beast summoned today.

  But the fight replayed itself in Kizu’s mind. Harvey had mentioned new abilities, but he’d shown nothing new in that fight. It had played out roughly the same as any other Kizu might have witnessed from the boy last semester. He was still pondering about Harvey’s potential new spells when his turn finally came up.

  He didn’t realize his partner for this fight until he stood in the area across from her.

  Stina tipped her wide brimmed hat at him.

  “Fate has seen fit to weave our paths together once again, Kaga Kizu!”

  “Oh. Hey, Stina,” Kizu replied.

  “Let us take a moment to strategize the means in which to maximize the symphony of bloodshed of our enemies!”

  Professor Oasaji was already sketching out a summoning circle. They had very little time before they’d be plunged into combat.

  “What can you do?” he asked the witch.

  “You are of course familiar with the standard array of hexes. I believe if we perform a temporary coven circle, the amplification of our skills will curse the strongest of opponents down to their knees! We need not even take a single step forward.”

  “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “You don’t….” For the first time, Stina’s persona slipped. She blinked at him. Then she cackled, a smile returning to her face. “Lies! Ahh, I see through you, Kaga Kizu! Very well, hold your secrets close. Even blind, our skills will overwhelm this sad excuse for an enemy! Its doom is foretold by the strings of fate!”

  “I really don’t—” Kizu started but was cut off by the glow of the summoning circle and Arclight’s announcement.

  A two legged creature crawled out of the summoning circle.

  “An ostrich?” Kizu said at first. But no. While the general structure was the same, this creature was definitely not a bird. And was definitely a bit more magical than the average ostrich.

  Instead of feathers over a meaty body, the center mass of the summoned creature was replaced by a single massive eyeball with a gooey film over it. Several long necks formed of elongated optic nerves that sprouted from the central eyeball, each leading to a fist sized eye and a metal beak.

  Kizu jumped over to the grotesque creature, planning to finish it off quickly with a hand transported into its central eye. But it moved, completely sidestepping him, then it rapidly wrapped one of its necks around his extended arm. Swathed tightly by the nerve, the beak at the end of the neck finished wrapping him by burying itself into his forearm.

  It all took less than a second.

  “Those who dare threaten us with pain, will find that to be their own bane. At times we find that the best protection, is a simple reflection!”

  Stina finished her chant and the pain in his arm evaporated. Then the creature writhed, the sinewy nerve loosening its grip around Kizu’s arm.

  Kizu raised his monster leg up and pressed it against the main eyeball. But instead of squirming out of its grasp, Kizu grabbed a hold of the nerve and enhanced his grip with magic. Then he kicked back with the monster leg and pulled.

  The nerve eye split out of the main eyeball body with a squelch.

  One of the other beaks spun around and pierced through Kizu’s shoulder. He grunted in pain and a patch of his uniform jacket soaked red with blood. But unlike the competitions before, this was no longer a contest to first blood.

  The next beak that attempted to spear him met a solid barrier of force instead. He noted with some satisfaction that the blow’s force cracked the beak.

  “Eyes that see through lies, rot and ruin and never again revitalize!”

  Kizu jumped a little ways back. The eye ostrich creature’s eyes started to turn a milky white as Stina’s hex took hold of the monster. It struggled forward but Kizu batted it back with a barrier of force. He and the witch watched as their enemy flailed about in its prison. It only took a few more seconds of struggling before the summoned creature succumbed to its wounds and disintegrated into flakes black.

  “Triumph,” Stina said proudly. Her voice no longer echoed with the sound of magic, it had reverted back to her usual melodrama. “Such a creature deserves not to stand before us. That meager power holds no jurisdiction over witches.”

  “I’m not a witch,” Kizu said absently. Arclight was announcing their victory. He wondered how they’d rank that victory. Was it more or less impressive than Harvey’s? He definitely had better teamwork than Harvey’s partner. And Stina’s grandstanding certainly got the crowd cheering for them. She could definitely put on a performance. Then another thought popped into his mind.

  “Hey, Stina. Have you considered joining the Drama Club?”

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