Tales of a Lost Sword 94

Episode 94 Arai Mage
“This is the end, Arai Mage!” Kunai hollers, wrathfully spitting into Arai’s pale face. He raises the already bloody Myou closer to Arai’s face, his dark eyes contorted with grotesque rage.

However, footsteps suddenly ring out from behind Kunai. He rapidly lets go of Arai, and flips over in the air to kick away a clone. The clone Arai comes to a stop, thrown into the air by Kunai’s timely kick. As he comes down on the ground, Kunai throws a thunderous attack at the clone.

“Soul Combustion!”

With a rush of wind and energy, the wave caused by Kunai’s Soul Combustion completely wipes away Arai’s clone from the face of the earth. Panting, Kunai turns around again to face Arai.

Having taken the opportunity though, Arai has scuttled away to a safe distance away from Kunai. He breathes heavily, blood running down his shoulder but perfectly capable of continuing to fight.

“I refuse to acknowledge that you can defeat me, Kunai!” Arai taunts. “I will defeat you and Grendel as well! The entire world is depending on me!”

“There really is no reasoning with you,” Kunai pants. He points his sword at Arai once more. “The Arai I knew would have never been this stubborn. He was kind and understanding! He would have wanted our two dimensions to live peacefully side by side!”

“That Arai never existed, Kunai!” Arai reminds him.

“I won’t believe it!” Kunai screams back. “Maybe he’s not standing in front of me right now, but I know he still exists somewhere deep down in there! The real Arai is my friend, not the Fatalist standing before me now!”

Struck momentarily with surprise by Kunai’s words, Arai opens his mouth slightly. Then he closes it as he digests Kunai’s words. “Who are you to tell me who the real Arai is, Kunai?!” he hisses, a wild leer spreading across his face.

Abandoning all pretenses, Arai recklessly sprints into action, drawing his staff with quickness and ease. He teleports past Kunai and plants his staff deep into the ground. Teleporting again north of Kunai, he pounds his staff into the ground again with a thunderous thud. Finally, he darts back to the spot he’d started from and completes the triangle.

With a wave of his hand, Arai completes the spell. Immediately, magnificent threads of shining blue ice rise out of the ground at the points touched by Arai’s staff. Like ribbons, the threads of ice contort themselves in a strange dance, joining together in the triangle and surrounding Kunai.

From the center of the eerie triangle, Kunai watches, unmoving, but his eyes darting suspiciously for any sign of action. The dance of icy ribbons continues, and then with a distinct abruptness, they burst into icy plumes of foam, spinning furiously in place like a grand cyclone.

The icy cyclone surrounds Kunai from all sides, thundering furiously around him. Unfazed, Kunai remains calm at the center of the circle. He stands still with eyes closed in a meditative trance. Flashes of glassy mana come to life all around him, holding back the full fury of the ice cyclone.

At last, the cyclone dies down, and Kunai emerges from within its claws unscathed. He raises his sword, but Arai is already ready, having cast another spell during Kunai’s time within the cyclone.

Two Arais join the real Arai on either side, evil smirks on their faces. The real Arai himself draws back a sneer. “The more clones I summon the harder it is for me to control them at once, but I believe at this time I cannot hold back!”

The three of them surround Kunai at once, assailing him from all directions. The one coming from the left reaches Kunai first; he throws back his staff, aiming to fire a spell at Kunai. With ease, Kunai blows him away by using Soul Combustion. The crescent-shaped wave tears through the Arai clone, obliterating him in seconds.

Meanwhile, the other clone reaches Kunai. He fires a bullet of electricity at Kunai, who blocks it with a grunt. Kunai flips over in midair to prevent him from initiating a chain attack, but the real Arai now grabs him from behind, stabbing at him with a sword made of ice.

Unconsciously, Kunai blocks the attack with his newfound ability. The crystallized mana swallows the sword of ice, bending it out of shape until it snaps into a thousand tiny fragments. Arai watches with amazement as the shards of ice fly past his face in midair.

With a rush, Kunai sprints straight away from him. Arai watches as Kunai approaches his clone at a sprint, before cutting down the clone easily in one shot with his sword. The clone disappears in a fountain of golden mana particles.

Turning around, Kunai faces Arai again, airborne wisps of golden mana floating through the air like pollen in the wind. Kunai slowly approaches, his sword held aloft by his side. “I don’t believe it…” Arai mutters weakly, his voice wavering, along with the light of battle in his eyes.

“From the moment I bet you in Ellinia with Ryuu, that time long ago… I knew there was something special about you. I sensed the same kind of pain in our hearts…that same burden of loss… How is it then…how is it that you’ve grown stronger than me, Kunai?!”

As Arai speaks, the two of them continue to exchange furious blows. Their weapons clash against each other, neither giving way to the other. Sparks fly as sword and staff come to blows for the third time in the sequence.

“Answer me this first, Arai!” shouts back Kunai angrily, pulling back his sword. “Who is the real Arai?! The Arai I knew would know the answer to your question without having to ask!”

Eyes widening, Arai continues to battle silently, unable to come up with a retort. He fires a flash of ice at Kunai, who dodges the attack easily. ‘Yes indeed…who is the real Arai?’

Kunai darts in front of Arai after evading three more blasts of ice consecutively. He leans back with his sword, swinging wildly. Arai teleports out of the way just in time, flying in the opposite direction as Kunai chases after him.

Desperately, Arai flings another burst of ice back at his pursuer. Kunai skids to a halt momentarily, forced to draw his sword to cut down the blast of ice. ‘Am I the Arai who is the King of this world and of the Fatalists?’

Sliding to a halt, Arai breathes heavily, drawing his staff once more. Lightning brims dangerously around it. “Die, Kunai!” he screeches with an ugly grimace, firing a bolt of lightning at Kunai.

Kunai leaps into the air out of the way, double jumping to propel himself straight for Arai. The two’s weapons clash once again, as Arai holds up his staff both as a weapon and as a shield, weakly hanging on in an attempt to repulse Kunai’s fury. ‘Or am I the Arai who is friends with Ryuu and Kunai?’

With a roar, Kunai draws back his sword, gathering white-hot mana around Myou. The mana electrifies the sky explosively, screeching loudly in anticipation of a furious attack.

‘Which is it? Am I a Fatalist or a friend?’ Arai asks himself desperately, taking flight immediately as Kunai finishes preparing his attack. He frantically teleports away, through a maze of marble pillars as Kunai chases after him, flitting expertly from pillar to pillar. ‘Or is it…?’

Memories of Arai playing, laughing, and fighting with Kunai, Ryuu, and Ivy drift by in a rush of images. They coalesce with Arai’s memories as a child in the Fatalists’ castle, of his mother, of Grendel, of Shirley, and of the Fatalists. The two diametrically opposed sets of memories interweave with each other into one single, continuous fabric.

“ARAI!” Kunai’s voice rents the air. The rays of starlight fall upon him as he stands alone in front of Arai, his weapon drawn. For just the briefest of split seconds, Kunai and Arai stare at each other from afar, their eyes poring into each other’s souls.

Then, Kunai raises his black sword. “Soul Combustion!”

The wave of energy crashes into Arai with reckless abandon. The white-hot mana simply washes over Arai, obliterating everything in its path. Pushed back, Arai is thrown into the wall behind him; the wall collapses entirely, as Arai sinks to the ground amid its rubble.

A haze of smoke and debris gathers low in the air over Arai. He lies weakly on the floor, not yet dead but nearly. Next to him, his staff lies on the ground broken into pieces. Blood runs down from every opening in his body, as he remains weakly still, pain and grief clearly etched into his pale face. The look of abject defeat penetrates his every feature.

Kunai steps silently up to Arai, only his footsteps making noise against the ice-covered marble ground. He holds tightly onto Myou by his side, its black blade still brimming with energy.

Standing over Arai, Kunai raises his sword once again, a dark look in his eyes. The hungry flames of mana in his sword flicker dangerously, as if sensing the moment. Kunai points his sword at Arai, who looks up wonderingly, his yellow eyes tracing the line from Kunai’s blade all the way to his black eyes.

“I’m going to kill you, Arai Mage.”

Suddenly, footsteps disturb the eerily calm silence that has fallen upon the roof of the Fatalists’ world. With a rush, Cynthia bursts into the marble rooftop, gazing frantically out into the void of destruction left behind by Kunai and Arai’s battle.

Fayvard stares with amazement as Cynthia runs straight past him. “What the—?!” he cries, craning his head after her.

“Kunai!” she shouts. Cynthia comes to a stop just past Fayvard. Holding in a gasp, she stares as Kunai bears down upon the fallen Arai, his sword clearly drawn.

“This is the end, Arai,” Kunai hisses, “the very end. You resisted us until the very end, refused to see your mistakes, while pushing away all your friends. It’s over for you and the Fatalists, Arai!”

With that, Kunai pulls back his sword for the finishing blow as Arai braces for his death at last.
—END NINETY-FOUR—
Future chapters beyond this one may or may not be delayed. Yes, it’s my fault. I’ve been procrastinating on the major revising that needs to be done on the last several chapters.