"Hey, Kiddo! We're here." I stop meditating.
I looked around the familiar surrounding. I'm back, I thought. It's only been three months since I departed.
Three people waiting at the front door, the smallest of them, run towards me. Even though I saw the girl running in front of me, her presence keeps, on flickering like a broken light. Weird, but I smiled.
"Hi, Neo." she hugged me, so I hugged her back, then someone hugged me from the back. "So what's this about Em?"
"Tch, You still noticed me after all that training." I pat Emerald's head instead because she likes head pat better.
"You almost got me. I did not even notice how you get closer to me." I said, praising her skill. If not for Sensei randomly hit my head for no reason, which trains my awareness, I may not notice Emeraldbe able to.
"Did I got here earlier than Aiden?" Suddenly, I felt the urge to dodge, so I carried Emerald and Neo as I, step aside.
Whoosh!
Aiden, with both hands and feet in front of him pass by where I was standing a second ago. It's not that I did not notice him. It's just that his presence feels like it moves slower than he is, and it feels similar to Emerald's presence. I thought its Emerald's new technique.
"Hey! What's that about?—" before I could continue, I saw Emerald gave Aiden a low roundhouse kick while Aiden was about to stand up from his lunge, making his bottom hit the ground again.
"Do you plan on breaking our bones leaping at that speed, Huh!" Emerald irritatingly complained.
"I just want to give a hug like you guys." Aiden tried to explain but only made Emerald more irritated.
"Do they always act like that?" I asked Neo.
She took out her scroll then typed, [Physical conflict? No. Verbal conflict? Yes. But not so much in public, unless Aiden-kun did something stupid.] Neo explained.
"Ok...Aiden-kun?" I asked.
[I'm older than Aiden-kun by a few months.] She stood there proudly.
"Really?! I did not know that. How did you know?"I asked.
"Emerald nee-chan told me." She types from her scroll.
Come to think of it. I don't know Emerald's age... If she's older... Nii-san... Ohh, that's weird. Please, let me be older.
"Sigh... Well anyway," I walk closer to Aiden and Emerald. "Since when did you guys get this close?"
"Hmph, you never ask anyway," Emerald said softly. It hurts, but it's true.
"Sora-bro! Long time no see." Aiden said with a smile. He gave me a brotherly hug.
"I didn't know your two years younger. I thought we're at the same age because of your height... Did you grow taller?" I realized my height is about his chin now. I do not know how tall I am, but I did grow taller, with my tanto feels like a long knife now than a short sword. Even though it's just three months, maybe it's the side effect of the nerve rearrangement and eating organic food with proper nutrition.
"Maybe? I did not notice. Emy just told me." He said with a stupid look.
"Emy?" Aiden blushed. I shook my head.
"Bro, I know you like Emerald, but not activating your Aura when you got sweep kick. Don't tell me she got you by surprise. You were able to activate it before you hit the ground. Don't tell me you're..." I looked at him suspiciously.
"Of course not! I'm not M. It's due to my Semblance. I recently activated it, and can't I control it yet. I thought her kick was not that strong because she did not seem serious when she did it." Aidan looks away, a bit ashamed.
"Ok, if you say so." Aidan insisted not, but I dismissed it. Now that I stalled time, as much as I can, time to face mom. I walk toward my mom, who, for some reason, I make me unable to say anything. Standing in front of mom, she smiled at me. "Hi, mom..." is all I can say.
"How are you?" mom kneels and looks at me, maybe searching for injuries?
"I'm ok, mom. We just talked yesterday over the scroll." I tried to reassure her. She did not reply until she finished inspecting me.
"Good," she looks at me lovingly.
"Welcome home." Maybe she noticed that I was a bit shy about kissing her, so she hugged me instead.
I kissed her on the cheek. Her eyes glimmer as she stands.
"You guys can rest for the day. Your group training will start tomorrow. We grow-ups need to talk, don't eavesdrop, Ok?"
"Hai!" we all replied.
"Remember not to train today, meaning no sparring among you guys, understand?" she continued. We all nodded. She gave me some lien then they went towards dad's old study that is now my mom's office.
"It's not like we could eavesdrop even if we wanted to," Emerald said, and Neo nodded nervously.
"Hmm? What happened?" I asked.
"Neo and I tried to surprise mom two months ago when we got back after aunt Summer got out of ICU. Mom looks restless like she hasn't slept for days." Neo nodded in response to what Emerald said.
"How come I did not notice the week after when I called." Surprised, although I can't say I understood girls, I should notice something wrong, especially when it's my mom.
"We solve it before your next call. Like I said earlier, we tried to sneak up to mom's office. Suddenly, we noticed the wind slightly shifted behind us, and mom was already behind us before we could start. She asks us what we're about to do. We answered that we're worried about her and we might worry you too because you're not here and hinder your training. After that, she apologized to us then said thank you. The next day she's back to normal." Emerald said without looking at me. I gave both of them a hug.
"Thank you, both of you. I'm lucky to be your brother." I said, a bit emotional.
"So, what are we gonna do?" Aidan said, resulting in Emerald staring at him.
The next morning.
"So we're going to start your group training. First, you guys need to know each other." Uncle Kiyoshi, standing in front of us in a dojo.
I didn't know we were this rich. I mean, we have neighbors across our house. Their land is also bigger than an above-average household. I could see it because of their fences. True, we don't have one, but I thought we have the same plot size as theirs. It's just that nobody bought the plot besides ours, that's why there are no houses besides ours. It turns out I'm wrong, very wrong. The new dojo beside our house is ours, and the small mountain behind our house, it's also within our land property.
"But we already know each other," Aiden said.
"That's why they gave us a whole day yesterday, stupid." Emerald scolded. "You should be more speculative to your actions and surroundings so that you won't run blindly." She continued.
"Ohh...Ok," Aiden listened seriously.
"Yes, your correct, but the main reason for it is still for you guys to rest. You guys know each other as friends or siblings but do you guys fully know each other's fighting style?" We all shook our heads.
"Today, you guys will know each other's fighting style, and the best person to know somebody is mostly your enemy. So, we will have a match like in a tournament with a few slight changes in the rules. 1st instead of 1v1, it will be free for all. 2nd you will be considered defeated if you only have enough Aura to be alive or until we stop you, so even if your Aura shield break, you can continue fighting. 3rd, If you guys went over the line, you are considered defeated. 4th rule is you guys have a time limit of 15 min. Lastly, the 5th rule is that there's a grading system if you guys did not pass. You won't be trained by us anymore. Whether someone wins or not in this fight, it won't mean that you passed. You can pick any weapons you can carry. Unfortunately, there are no guns yet," Uncle Kiyoshi said.
We choose our weapons on the rack. I noticed Aiden picked up a large pointed shield and a sword around 2/3 of his height. Neo chooses a rapier with a bit thicker blade, and Emerald picks a twin kama like her weapons before. Although I don't know their fighting style, I know they trained and polished their fighting styles, unlike me. I choose to use a two-handed sword to test whether these far-off memories are real or not. Maybe they are just some scattered dreams. I still have two Vale combat knives inspired by tanto because I can't find a tanto. I hanged one on each thigh because I can't just forget the skills that dad taught me even though it's might not be as good as theirs. We all stood in each corner. The ring was a square shape with a length of 10 meters on each side.
"START!!!"
All three of them decide to target me for some reason. No, I know why because even if my skills are the worst among us 4. I have an advantage in reaction speed, which makes me dangerous. I noticed Neo closing in the fastest.
Among the three of them, only Aiden was the person I some knowledge on how he fights. I still decided to target Emerald, although I don't know how Emerald and Neo fight. At least it's easier reacting to slashing like her kama's basic attacks than quick stabs from a rapier.
I engaged first by thrusting my sword.
Emerald evaded and attacked simultaneously by doing a spinning horizontal slash.
I barely evaded the lethal attack from Emerald's perfectly timed counter-attack by dodge rolling. She was able to damage my Aura a bit.
Before I was able to stabilize myself, Neo's already delivered multiple thrusts. Again I was barely able to guard with my sword. To my surprise, I manage to block the majority of her attacks.
I did an overhead slash hitting Neo, then followed by a horizontal slash to fend off both Neo and Emerald away. Due to my rigid shift, from an overhead slash to a horizontal slash, giving them time to react to block my attack.
Swoosh!
I looked back and noticed Aiden's sword coming. I could only block the attack. He did a double slash, knocking me off the ground towards Neo.
I did aerial recovery, then a counter-attack to Neo that caught her off guard. We traded blow a few times, letting me get more used to her attacks.
Emerald, use this opportunity to attack Aiden when he's wide open after knocking me away.
Aiden intercepts her with a shield thrust. Aiden misses, maybe due to Emerald's Semblance.
Em was able to deliver a vertical Spinning slash.
Btooom!
Upon impact causes an explosion damaging Emerald's Aura and knocking her back.
Aiden did a forward slash hitting Emerald, followed by a rising slash barely parried by her, then ended by a spinning slash that completely misses due to Emerald's Semblance.
Emerald decided to retreat and join my battle with Neo instead, knowing that she could not beat Aiden 1v1, but she did not clash with us directly to regain a bit of her Aura.
Aiden, the slowest among us, can't prevent Emerald from retreating. The explosion of Aura a while ago was Aiden's Semblance, and it took him a lot of Aura.
Just like Emerald, he decides to harass us instead when an opportunity shows itself so that he could recover some Aura too. Their main target was still me, now that they notice that I'm starting to gain an advantage over Neo just after a few minutes.
I don't understand how to do the floaty combat from my fragmented memories. It just doesn't make sense. So I decided to use the fitting style from my younger version of my fragmented memories, where the actions are hard to replicate but possible to replicate. With this style, It allows me to be... snappier for the lack of better terms.
I need to defeat either Emerald or Aiden else I will lose. I don't want to use my Semblance by removing their Aura shield. I might not be the hardest hitter, but I know my attacks are lethal enough if they received it without the protection of Aura. I still can't wait any longer. I decided to target Emerald because her attacks are wide enough to keep the others away. Even if her attacks are faster than Aiden, I can still predict it, and she's slower than Neo.
Emerald noticed my plan when I dashed towards her. She tried to keep her distance away from me, but I stayed close to her like glue. Neo sneaks some attacks to both of us, but Emerald prevents her from landing good hits.
Aiden wasn't able to participate much, but I make sure to be aware of where he is, either with my eyes or my occasional use of my Heart Pulse. I need to be more aggressive now.
Ting!
"What!?" Emerald was surprised our blade connected. She used her Semblance to fool my senses. Too bad it can't fool my Heart Pulse.
I slashed Emerald multiple times. Each slash is faster than the last. Emerald was able to blocked and even parried some of the first few slashes. When Emerald got staggered, I ended my combo with three overhead slashes, using the previews slash to deliver heavier attacks.
Due to my miscalculation, maybe due to the heat of the battle, Emerald's Aura shield got destroyed before I could deliver my last attack.
Aiden pulled Emerald then received the attack instead with his shield even though he didn't need to.
I might not be able to stop my attack. I could still alter my attack's direction, although it would leave an opening to me due to an awkward finisher. Thankful to Aidan, both for him protecting Emerald and helping me finished my combo.
Crack!
Surprisingly, Aiden didn't augment his shield with Aura. My blade breaks through his shield easily. Due to my Aura causing the attack to be blunt and heavy instead of a sharp one.
As my weapon hit his Aura shield...
Btooom!
"What the?!" The explosion knocks me away and hurts me physically because I can't activate my Aura shield while doing that combo. I decided to sacrifice my defense for speed and repeated usage of Heart Pulse to save stamina and reduce mental strain. I did not get hurt too bad because I managed to activate my Aura Shield in time. Although, my reflexes or the signal of my brain to both soul and body is almost instantaneous. My Aura isn't instantaneous in all scenarios.
Almost simultaneous to the explosion, I got hit from my back. Neo used me to block the explosion's blast, preventing her from being pushed away. My Aura shield barely sustaining itself, I was able to block her attack and use it to propel me away from the confrontation.
"Pant...pant... I barely made it out." I tried to catch my breath.
Swoosh!
I saw Aiden attacking me. Out of instinct, I was able to slide around him almost instantly, but unlike in my memory. It did not look like I teleported because you could still see my blurred silhouette as I moved with my Vision. I used the momentum to deliver a horizontal slash to Aiden before passed out due to exhaustion.