In just an instant, no more than a mere fraction of a second, the boy she was about to attack disappeared before Caitia's eyes.
'Huh?'
He immediately reappeared again. It happened so fast that no one should have been able to notice it. The sword that was about to slice his neck could only cut through the dark and thick smoke that emanated from the boy's body, after he dodged downwards at the last possible moment.
"You!"
It was barely noticeable, but Calitia's body shivered when she found herself before those blood red eyes that had for so long tormented her.
"I knew it, you…"
"How about you leave the way you came, and we call it a day?"
Calitia's body shivered again when she heard the strange, distorted voice that came out of the boy's mouth.
'What is this feeling? Is it fear? It can't be.'
Neither of them moved an inch. They simply stood motionless, staring at each other for a few seconds.
"So, what will it be?"
Calitia's body tensed. Every word the boy spoke resonated inside her body and made her very soul quiver.
"There's no way I can do that."
Calitia rose her sword once again, getting ready to attack without hesitation. Every fiber of her body was telling her that the boy she was facing was a formidable and dangerous opponent. It seemed that the nefarious premonition she'd had since the day she saw those eyes for the first time would turn out to be true.
"Is this what you choose?" the boy asked while resting on his shoulder the mysterious claw shaped sword that materialized on his hand.
"Don't you dare mock me!"
"I'd rather we didn't fight here."
The boy momentarily turned his head towards the wall of earth erected behind him.
"Let's relocate."
At that moment, the shadows emanating from his body seemed to grow restless and he simply vanished from her sight.
"Eh?"
Calitia immediately turned around. The boy had moved roughly 10 meters in the blink of an eye.
"Are you coming or what?"
As soon as he had finished his sentence he was once again on the run…
"Wait!"
… and she started giving chase… completely forgetting about Raidha….
They only ran for a few seconds, but it was enough to leave all traces of civilization many kilometers behind them.
"Stop running away!"
Even though the boy was fast, Calitia was even faster. And as soon as she got within striking distance, she unsheathed her sword and got ready to strike her target down. The boy stopped running and turned around in time to block the incoming attack. Calitia however, had no intention of giving him any time to think. She kept unleashing one attack after the other, slashing and stabbing from all directions, and the boy barely managed to hold his ground against the relentless onslaught. However, none of her attacks connected; the boy managed to block all incoming attacks, one way or the other, and Calitia was starting to lose her cool.
"Dammit!" Calitia stopped attacking and immediately put some distance between them "What kind of being are you? A Silphen? A human? What are you?!"
Those red eyes that made anyone they stared at feel like their soul could be devoured in an instant, narrowed at Calitia' s words.
'What the hell is up with those eyes! Not even the Silphen make me feel like that!' Calitia silently complained.
The boy, looking upset, lowered his sword and let out a barely audible groan.
"I don't know."
"What do you mean, you don't know? Are you perhaps…!"
The boy did not even give Calitia time to finish her sentence. He went on the offense and forced Caitia to use her own sword to block his claw shaped blade. The strength of the blow made her stagger and take a couple steps back while still blocking with her sword, leading to a temporary stalemate, their swords tangled and neither one of them wanting to give the other an inch, but rather attempting to push the other back with their weapon.
"When I say I don't know, I mean it. The only thing I do know that I know and I know that I care about is not letting you lay a finger on my comrades."
"Huh?"
Calitia was struggling to understand the words she just heard…
"So you don't deny being an ally of the Silphen!"
"I'm no ally of the Silphen, I'm simply an ally of those morons!"
As he uttered those words, his attacks became stronger and more violent.
"I don't give a damn if Raidha is a silphen, a katryde or just some brat. If anyone brings any harm to them, I will mercilessly rip them apart. I don't care whether you are another silphen, a katryde, human or even a god. I am allied to no one; I just protect those who are important to me!"
Those words took Calitia by surprise.
"That's not something I expected to hear from someone that seems to be fear incarnate" she muttered.
"I don't give a damn about what you or anyone else expects of me!"
And putting even more strength behind his attacks, the boy managed to push Calita back several meters.
'His strength is abnormal, and he seems to grow stronger by the minute... I can't beat him with raw strength, but I think I can best him if I use magic instead.'
Calitia pulled herself together and again rose her sword.
"Whatever the case, you are still allied to a Silphen. That makes you my enemy. I won't let someone evil roam freely and do as he pleases!"
Magical power flowed through Calitia's body, which started glowing faintly. He may have more raw strength, but Calitia's magic could make up for that and amplify her own strength hundreds of times.
She charged at him again, wielding her sword with both hands this time, and unleashed a mighty blow using all her power. The boy once again managed to block the incoming attack, just like he had before, but this time, the sheer strength behind the swing sent him backwards dozens of meters. He was still standing, but the groove he left in the ground indicated that he had taken a terrible blow.
Calitia took advantage of this and pressed the offense before he could recover from the attack. The boy barely had time to jump to one side and roll on the floor to dodge the incoming swing. He was left crouching, one hand resting on the floor and the other wielding his weird blade pointed at Calitia and staring at her with murderous intent.
Calitia got ready to attack once again before he could regain his footing, but at that moment she felt a shiver going down her spine and something inside her told her that it was best to keep her distance. The boy closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, looking outraged. A drop of cold sweat started running down her forehead as a dark smoke, even more sinister than his blade, started to furiously emanate from the boy's body.
"Good, bad, evil, righteous… What are you, a moron?!"
He yelled, as the ground around him started cracking. A gust of wind so strong she had to back a few steps, dishevelled her hair.
'How is he still growing stronger!'
"What the hell did those two do to deserve being labeled as evil? Did you even know Raidha hadn't set a foot outside her home until the day you two met?!"
"What does that have to do with anything? She's a Silphen, they are all the same! Even worse, she's the daughter of Arkin. That demon has killed countless Katryde. My parents died by his hand! Silphen are nothing but trash who will attack us as soon as they lay eyes on us. If we let them live they will exterminate us!"
"Just like you kill them whenever you get the chance. Raidha's mother was killed by the Katryde. You are just as evil as you say they are. What a bunch of morons the Silphen and Katryde are. You kill each other simply because you've always done that, yet you have no idea why you even fight each other in the first place."
"Of course we know why we fight each other!"
"Oh really, let's hear it then."
"We… we kill them… because if we don't they will kill us…"
"What kind of bullshit answer is that? You just kept spouting the same nonsense other clueless morons before you have been repeating for generations. Answer me this, how did this stupid war begin?"
"How did it start... well, let's see…" Calitia was unable to answer that "does that even matter?"
"Of course it matters you moron!"
His scream shook the ground around them. His blade was shaking, and so was his entire body. Not with fear, but with pure rage.
"Raidha hasn't ever killed a single Katryde. She doesn't care about this stupid war; all she cares about is enjoying her life without having anyone constantly tell her what she can and can't do. Does that make her evil? What makes your crusade so righteous? Who on his right mind would chase after a defenseless little girl and a human who has nothing to do with your stupid war? They wanted no part in this conflict, yet they were dragged into it against their will and now everyone wants them dead. To me, you are the evil ones here… No, everyone involved in this is a huge moron!"
Calitia tried to come up with an answer for that… but she couldn't. It's not that she'd never thought about such things. She actually had, many times, but she always ended up burying her doubts deep inside when the image of what happened to her family inevitably came to her mind.
' But he killed them all, every one of them…'
When she was a child, she was unable to understand why those black winged people attacked them. What had they done to them? She wanted the fighting to come to an end… until the day when she found herself face to face with him, the most terrifying demon she'd even laid eyes on: Arkin.
She was unable to understand what they'd done to that Silphen to cause him to slaughter every one unfortunate enough to cross paths with him, her parents included.
'I was the only one he spared.'
The vivid images of the day when her parents met their untimely demise flooded her mind. She could see, clear as day, how Arkin killed them, and how he looked at her after cutting their lives short, the hint of sadness on his eyes. Calitia could clearly feel it, how that monster took pity on her.
'Was I so insignificant that he thought I wasn't worth killing?'
She could never comprehend why he had let her live. But she understood it wasn't fair. Why did her parents have to die? What had they done to deserve it? Her parents weren't bad people, so why did they have to die while she got to live on?
'Were we simply dragged into this war against our will?'
While she could understand what the boy meant, the memories from her past still haunted her.
'This is so unfair. He is the one that deserved to die, not my parents!'
Calitia had chosen to fight out of her free will, in pursuit of justice and retribution, to put an end to those demons that mercilessly killed innocent people…
'He has a point though. How does me killing Arkin's innocent daughter bring justice? She's done nothing to deserve being hunted. However, she is Arkin's daughter, and he killed my parents. I want him to pay for what he did and to feel the same pain and despair that I felt when I lost my loved ones. But she… she has nothing to do with this…. But… '
… but that was back when she was still just a child.
"So what if you are right? Will you do something about it? Do you actually think words can change anything? Don't make me laugh! Try as you may, you won't be able to change anyone's mind. I can assure you, our thirst for revenge will not be quenched by anything short of total extermination of the Silphen. And the same goes for them. This only ends once one side has completely wiped out the other!"
Rage quickly consumed Calitia as she was confronted with that dilemma.
"How moronic of me to reason with you. Very well then, you can kill each other to your heart's content as far as I am concerned. And if it comes to that, I will end you all myself. The Katryde are as much of an enemy to me as the Silphen!"
No further words were spoken. They both went on the offense and clashed with each other with all their might, lighting up the battlefield with white and black flashes.