Hakai woke up at the crack of dawn to a weird grunting sound, followed by a large rushing of water, then a frustrated restrained scream. He closed his eyes ignoring it. The sound repeated itself again, in the same pattern. He covered his ears with the blanket. The sound repeated once more. Hakai threw his blanket off, staring up at his ceiling upset. "Sweetie, I know he's family, but I will send him to you early. Do not test me." The sound stopped. He let out a sigh of relief closing his eyes. A loud roar shook the cabin, followed by a giant rushing of water, and then a frustrated roar. "OH COME ON!" Hakai shouted leaping out of bed. Looking out his window his jaw hit the ground, and he pressed his head against the window. Yamada stood in front of his hut, transformed surrounded in a giant pool of water. Hakai watched him create another Water gate. Yamada reeled back taking in a deep breath. Hakai leapt out of the window faster than the wind, leaping into the air and kicked Yamada into a cliff side.
"IT'S TOO EARLY! GO TO SLEEP!" Yamada reverted back, letting out an incomprehensible gurgling noise. "Stupid child. Training before the sun rises. Waking me up. Too old for this shit." He angrily mumbled, walking back into his hut. Hakai snuggled into his blanket with a satisfied smile across his face. Feeling himself fall back into the gentle lull and peacefulness, he took a gentle breath. Water crashed through his hut, destroying it instantly, and drenching him in a torrent of water. Hakai kept his same sleeping position as the water carried him. He calmly sat up looking at Yamada standing over him. "Get up. You're gonna train me properly, then you get to sle-EEEE-" Yamada went flying as Hakai leapt up punching him into the mountain. He summoned two Fire gates by his side, and dried himself off in an instant. Creating an Earth gate, he raised himself a dry slab of dirt, and snuggled up again.
He looked over his shoulder, seeing the crater that Yamada made. "Hmmm, maybe I should have healed him..." He looked up to the sun still barely cresting over the first mountain tip. He shook his head, nuzzling his makeshift pillow. Yamada pulled himself from the rubble, holding his dangling shattered jaw. Each breath a terrible and horrendous pain radiated out. Heaving and haggard, Yamada leapt into the air, hovering just above Hakai. He summoned his armour letting himself plummet down like a meteor. Hakai's eyes open bloodshot and filled with rage. He held his hand out, stopping Yamada instantly, with a giant flux of Arcane Energy. "AIN ME!" Yamada tried to shout, spitting and drooling on him. Hakai took Yamada by the ankle and spun him like a tornado, throwing him over the mountainside. Yamada clipped the tip spinning out of control. He waited a few seconds before hearing a thunderous crash. "There, that should keep you busy enough."
Opening an Earth gate, he turned made a small dome over it, and snuggled inside as if he was turtle. Yamada bloodied and bruised ripped himself out of the rubble. Looking over the mountain tip he crashed into. He created a Water gate, transforming it into a giant ball of water, and hurled it over the mountainside. Hakai felt himself slip into a deep relaxing slumber. His dome top caved in filling with a giant tidal wave of water. He sat up wiping his face, and clenching his fists. "Begron, I'm going to kill you for not finishing him off." Yamada crash landed in front of him tucking away his armour and wings. "AIN ME." "Fine. You want me to train you. Here's your first lesson." Hakai snatched Yamada by the face, slamming him into the ground. "Learn to rest." Yamada weakly clawed at Hakai's hand. He struck Yamada in the face again. His arms and legs flew into the air as a jerk reaction, as he fell limp. "Finally..." Hakai sighed in relief. "Hnngg...."
Hakai looked to the sky. "You remember when you asked, why I didn't want to stay and help raise him? This is why!" Hakai healed him, taking Yamada to a rock pool he had made, and dumped him inside. He cocked his head to the side, seeing the calm water swirl and bubble. Yamada found himself swirling standing atop a razor thin peninsula. To his left the raging Maelstrom and the other Oeo. To the north, Gwyneth stood waiting for him in a white silk dress, offering her hand out to him. Beside her stood; Jacara, Ul'lanna, Kahu, Kale, Miranda, Abaddon, the Grand Knights, Mages. The invited him to join them. Smiling he took a step towards them. "Run away." Osore whispered. Yamada spun around, staring into the darkness, the sky illuminated by a fiery hue. She was hoisted in the air, held tightly in Begron's grip. "Put her down..." He whimpered.
"Yamada." Gwyneth called out. Her gentle voice called to him. He spun back wanting to take a step towards her. As he took a step towards her, he heard the sound of his mother's flesh tear. Yamada sprinted towards Begron. "PUT HER DOWN!" As Yamada touched her, she was torn into two. Yamada froze being covered in her blood. The sound of her flesh tearing, bones separating and guts splattering rung in his ears again. Yamada cocked his fist back screaming as he threw his punch. His fist connected with Begron's armour, he awoke to the world disappearing and found himself in front of Hakai, with his fist caught. "Quite the nightmare you were having." Yamada pulled his fist away. "Train me." "I thought you hated me? Why would you-" "I do hate you. You should have killed Begron and destroyed Kal'Nar the moment you heard about the attack. But you won't do it. I don't care about that anymore. So you'll teach me how to do it." "Or what? You can't even find your way out of the mountains." "Which means, until I leave. You'll never sleep properly again."
"I could just kill you." "You would have already done that. No, you can't bring yourself to do it. So you can either train me or, I can make this noise every day." Yamada filled his mouth with water, and begun to gargle violently, mixing in the occasional snort. Hakai winced in disgust. "You really think-" Yamada added in clapping and stomping. "I have lived for decades, and can destroy you in a heartbeat. You think a bunch of noise-" Yamada snorted and spat the water at his feet, repeating the process again. "Iarghhhdothisarghhhhallday." Hakai looked at him disgusted, seeing the water froth and pool in his mouth. "Fine, then I'll just teach you in riddles." Yamada pulled his pants down. "Hey...what are you doing..." Hakai said scared as Yamada closed his eyes. Relieving himself, he manipulated his warm piss and threw it at Hakai.
He leapt out of the way, looking at Yamada furious and terrified. "Did you just throw your fucking piss at me!?" He snapped. Yamada held his hand over the remnants of his urine forming another ball. "Your choice. Train me without riddles, or spend the day dodging piss balls." "That's disgusting. You wouldn't even-" He stopped seeing the piss ball double in size, to the size of a small boulder. "I'm gonna call this Magnum Opus, Piss Storm." "Stop what you're doing, and throw that into river right now!" Yamada held his hand over the ball increasing its size and throwing it into the air. "Alright...You made your point, put the ball down." "No, promise me, you'll train me without riddles." "Fine!" He growled. The ball grew in size once more, now casting a shadow over them. "I agreed!" "You'll also help Gwyneth, and the Citadel from the war." "That was not apart-" Yamada split the sphere into two. "Okay! One week, I'll help you create your Magnum Opus, then leave to help the Citadel. Deal?" "You also help me get to Artaraxus."
"Is there anything else you need me to do for you? Your majesty!?" Yamada frowned at him. Hakai scoffed at him. "HA! You really think, I'm gonna get extorted by two giant-" He stopped feeling a giant warm ball hit him in the face. "One giant piss-" Hakai pummelled Yamada into the ground, before leaping into the river, letting out a disgusted cry. He scrubbed himself furiously, cringing and dying on the inside. Yamada sat up with a shattered nose and several teeth swimming in his mouth. He spotted Hakai with blurred vision dunking himself into the rock pool. Yamada created another piss ball and waited patiently. Hakai surfaced taking a deep gasp of air, before feeling another warm ball of piss hit him. He slowly turned to Yamada, who gave him a bloodied and twisted smirk. "You little shit!" He leapt after Yamada.
Creating a dome of piss, Hakai reeled back in disgust, care to not touch it. Yamada spat his blood into it, and threw the grotesque ball of fluids onto him. Taking a deep breath, trying his hardest to compose himself. Hakai opened his eyes. "Fuck it." He summoned transformed and struck Yamada through several mountains. Barely conscious, Yamada's last sight was of Hakai charging at him, with a furious stare. Yamada woke up staring at the night sky. He tried to look around, feeling a chain collar, and shackles around his limbs. "Good you're awake. Eat." He growled shoving a entire slab of meat down Yamada's gullet. He gagged and choked feeling his jaw almost unhinge, before it slid into his stomach. "You won't kill me. You won't train me. I'm glad mum never let me see you." "Be glad she never saw you fight using piss." "Train me then."
"Here is the arrangement. I will not teach you. You're smarter than you look....at least in a fight. I will help you create a Magnum Opus, or something that could at least be considered one. After I will help you reach Artaraxus and go meet with Gwyneth." Yamada gave him an doubtful glance. "What's the catch?" "You will never throw piss, shit or blood at me. Or I will cut your balls off with this." Hakai said holding a blunt rock. Yamada nodded. "Secondly, you will do everything you're told, without question or complaints. Deal?" Yamada nodded. Hakai broke his chains. "Good, your first task is making me a new bath, not filled with your piss. Then you'll build me a new hut." Yamada sat up rubbing his wrists, and quickly got to work. He manipulated all the water out of the old rock pool and threw it out, replacing it with new water.
Hakai watched as Yamada cut several large trees, stacking the pillars haphazardly on each other, making a rickety cover. "There. New bath and hut." He looked at Hakai with a smug and satisfied look. "That's terrible." "You didn't say make a good one. You said make a hut." Hakai sighed. "I should have specified. That's on me." He crawled in with Yamada following after him. "Hang on. What do you think you're doing?" "Sleeping inside the hut I made." "No, no, no. This is to fix the one you destroyed. You make your own." "But! I used all the trees making your one." "That's not my problem. Now good night."
Yamada grumbled walking away, finding a flat spot, he summoned his gauntlets digging himself a small ditch. Hakai watched him from the corner of his eye, climb into his small burial ground. "We start training at noon. If you wake me up before then, I'll drag you back to Yamata myself. Am I clear?" Yamada stuck a thumb up. The crack of dawn came, and Yamada woke up like clockwork. He sat up looking at Hakai snore away without a care in the world. 'How can he be sleeping? There's so much that we can do in this time.' He grunted leaving his ditch, if he could no longer train with Harbinger, he could always train as he did. Finding a solid trunk of Kaioni wood, near their campsite, Yamada took a deep breath readying himself. Throwing a simple punch, he shattered the trunk, sending the rest of the large tree crashing down. Panicking Yamada quickly sprinted into his ditch, pretending to sleep.
Hakai sat up grumpy and annoyed. Yamada heard his grumbling and mumbling come closer, his footsteps coming closer. He felt Hakai squatting over him. "Oi. What did I say about waking me up?" "It wasn't me..." Yamada whimpered. Hakai hoisted Yamada out of his ditch by his nape, like a cub. "Why did you break that stupid tree?" "I didn't think it would break so easy." "Of course it would break easy. It's fucking wood." It's Kaioni wood. I could spend days breaking one with my fists." "Did...did you actually have trouble breaking those before?" "Kapuna told me it's the strongest wood in all of Jux. And. And. And the other guardians always had trouble cutting them down." Hakai dropped Yamada. "What has happened to our people. Next thing you're gonna tell me is that all the men are either fat or skinny." Yamada's eyes darted away. "Well...."
Hakai face palmed. "I'm gone for two generations and the whole island goes to shit. Eughh.....Fine, faster I get you trained, the faster I get to fixing this." "Wait so we're gonna train now?" "Yes, because I want to sleep, and you're a selfish asshole child. Now get some of that wood you made and make a fire." Yamada shrugged and obliged stacking the splinters under some logs and clashed his gauntlets together making sparks. Hakai returned with a pot filled with water, hanging it over the fire. "Watch that pot, make sure it's always filled with water. I'll be back with breakfast." Hakai transformed leaping into the air. Yamada sat patiently staring at the water boil. He returned a few hours with a live mountain goat. "You know how to prepare one of these?" "Ul'lanna showed us. First you have to get rid of the blood." Yamada slit the goat's throat, and manipulated all the blood out .
"That's useful." Hakai said obliterating the goat's tough hide revealing it's flesh. He hung the goat off his makeshift hut, and sat beside Yamada. The boiling water had become calm over the fire. "Alright time to begin your lesson. This pot of water is you." Yamada frowned at him. "I thought we weren't doing riddles." He slapped the back of Yamada's head. "I'm not. Let me finish. You rely on your anger for strength, and can't be calm, which means you have no control." "I can be calm like that water." "This water is not calm, it is boiling with rage." Hakai extinguished the flame. Yamada watched as the water went from calm to boiling. "All the yelling and screaming in the world will not bring them back. Letting that anger go, does not mean forgetting the past."
"What if I can't let it go? It was the only reason I've come this far." "Then you will die, clinging to the past in the hopes of reaching a future, you can never see." Yamada bowed his head. "I've been at my strongest, when I'm angry." "Then why do you breathe before performing an affinity strike? Why not scream and suffocate yourself? You are that water. Boiling and wasting away from your own blustering and screaming. When pushed beyond your limits, you get angry and become calm for a second, only to boil again. It makes you predicatable." Yamada clenched his fists. Hakai took his hand. "Stop. Anger is the enemy. A Magnum Opus is one's artwork with their Magic. How do you intend to mould anything with a fist?" Yamada unfurled his fist. "What do you do for fun." "Tr-" "Other than train?" Yamada cocked his head to the side, scratching it awkwardly. "Dance?" "Really?" "No, but Gwyneth liked it." "Come on, think back to a happy memory, was there anything that made you happy to play?"
"I...I liked to play tag." "There you go. Alright let's play." "How is this training?" "Because I say it is." Hakai pricked the bottom of the pot, letting the water drip out slowly. "Now you can do anything you want, but if you can't tag me until that pot runs empty, you lose." Yamada lunged at him, Hakai swatted his hand out of the way, and slapped him into the ground. "You need to try harder than that." "You're not meant to hit me." Yamada pouted rubbing his head. "Also, if you get angry I hit you." "This is not training." "Awww, is the little baby too scared?" Yamada grunted throwing a punch. Hakai caught his wrist throwing him to the ground. "See? Predictable." Yamada took a deep breath. "See isn't that better?" Yamada transformed into the Serpent Knight, with Hakai transforming as well. He soared into the air with Yamada flying after him.
Nimbly evading and effortlessly floating in the air. Yamada's efforts were all in vain, every swipe and swoop missed Hakai by a hair's width. Hakai was toying with him. He hovered in the air as if lying on a bed. "See, pretending to be calm and being calm are two different things. You let yourself see one option before jumping on it. Try thinking more." Yamada flew in the opposite direction disappearing into the clouds. "There we go." Hakai smirked. Yamada came soaring through the clouds. Hakai spun out of the way. "Good! Disengage the fight to pick up speed. Hide yourself in the clouds. Keep going you're running out of time." Yamada flew into another cloud filling it with his Arcane energy. The cloud grew in size turning grey and then pitch black. It dropped a torrential down pour on the camp below. Hakai looked down at the pot filling with water. "Filling the pot with more water, to buy yourself more time. "Great thinking! What else can do you, when you're calm?"
"I just have to touch you right?" "Yep and you win." A bullet of water flew from the cloud. Hakai swayed out of the way, hearing it whizz past him. "That was faster than an arrow, what's your plan?" He watched as several hundred tiny swirls formed in the cloud. Thousands of bullets shot out. Hakai weaved out the way, spotting some of them were weaker than others, that pinged off his tough scales. Yamada came flying out with them. "Making me dodge, till I have no option. Brilliant!" Hakai cheered, before throwing a punch and obliterating Yamada's attack and blowing him back. "But you didn't think I'd let you touch me that easily did you?" He smirked. "What will you do now?" Hakai asked smiling. Yamada was puffed, but wore a smile on his face, he held his hand out, banishing the rain beneath him. "Not going to give yourself more time?" "I accept your challenge." "Good! Let's begin for real!"