Leaving.

The next day came with an atmosphere of the stalest depression for Rinn. Everything was done with empty emotion and internal conflict, angry and completely lacking any kind of resistance. He ignored the rest of the world, for the most part… constantly thinking of a way to change the minds of his parents, but to no avail. I can't even think of what kind of reason they have to withdraw me in the first place… since when is father this careful?

He seemed to project an aura around him for the entirety of the day that made others around him want to keep their distance… no one quite knew what to say. It was just like old times for Rinn, so he didn't exactly notice… he couldn't bring himself to face any of them anyway. In fact, his time at the academy seemed increasingly to be more of a dream than an actual period of his life… a few months that never really existed. It wasn't long before someone decided to break into the silence… with a very unusual form of a goodbye.

"So you're just going to leave? You're just going to roll over and take this?"

Rinn slammed his trunk closed and put the latches into place. It had been only a few hours after having woken up to the horrible reality in which he was no longer a student of the Hero Academy, and it was only a few more before he was no longer present on its boundaries. "I don't really have a choice, Trent… I'm not even legally a student here anymore…"

"Well you've already paid the tuition for the year, haven't you? Couldn't you just asked your family to let you stay here until the school year is over? Then you can spend the summer trying to convince them to let you come back!"

He cast a severely annoyed glare towards Trent, sincerely wishing that he would drop the act for at least a few minutes. He started towards the door to the hallway, furious at his parents' decision. This was probably what confused Trent the most… no matter how much anger Rinn exhibited, he remained non-defiant. "You know as well as I do how stupid that sounds, Trent… I'm really not in the mood."

Trent's expression became deeply annoyed; not even his antics could permeate through the smoky shroud that Rinn had thrown around his emotions. It was at this point that he came up with an idea. The Cedric family has a saying, after all, that "That which cannot be broken by the fist can be broken by the mind, and that which cannot be hindered by the mind can be hindered by the fist."

"Rinn," he began, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder, "can I just ask you one thing?"

Rinn sighed and turned towards him, figuring that he could humor him at least one last time. "What is it?"

"Can you take a punch?"

"Wha-OOF!" Rinn doubled over as Trent's fist met his stomach, falling onto his knees immediately afterwards. "What the heck was that for?" he asked weakly, clutching the injured area.

"Frankly, Rinn… you're angry."

"Well, yeah, you did just hit me for no reason, after all!" Rinn began to raise his voice as he spoke.

"There's a reason…" Trent picked Rinn up by his collar and leaned him up against the door. He then turned the knob and let it swing open, watching Rinn plummet to the ground as it did so. "We're fighting."

"…we're fighting?"

"Yup."

"Trent, why the hell would we- OOF!" Rinn started before Trent kicked him in the side, silencing him.

"Like I said, you're angry. You could deal with it the civilized way, but that takes forever, I know… the other way out would be to deal with your anger through aggression towards someone… and who better than the neigh-invincible me? I was just going to flat-out suggest it, but I knew you wouldn't because I hadn't done anything wrong… until now, that is." Trent finished up his miniature speech by putting a hefty boot on Rinn's chest and applying some pressure. "I'm only trying to help."

Rinn grabbed his ankle and threw him off of his chest, bringing himself back onto his feet as quickly as his body would allow and facing Trent. "So you're saying… that you just want me to beat you up?"

"God no, I'm going to fight back."

Rinn sighed, "Trent, I only have a few hours left at the academy and you want me to spend my time fighting you, one of my best friends? Surely you've got to have some other reason than 'you're angry'."

Trent shook his head with a distinct vigor. "Everyone's gotta vent sometime, buddy." He continued as he added to his cockiness with the gesture of brushing the bangs out of his face. He could tell that Rinn was toying with the idea internally… probably at the "on one hand, on the other hand" stage in his train of thought… I can always tip the scales a bit. The warrior walked straight up to Rinn and took his hand, curled it up into a fist for him, and put it to his chest. "I want you…" he said, staring the mage down, "to hit me as hard as you can."

For a brief moment, Rinn was silent. He looked in quiet contemplation to his fist, and then to Trent… fist, then Trent, then fist, then Trent… "No." he finally said, shaking his head. He let his hand relax and fall to his side again, turning around to walk back and leaving a disappointed Trent in the dust. "I'm not going to fight you, Trent… I just can't bring myself to do it."

Trent sighed and let his gaze fall to the ground. I tried… he thought. It was then that Trent felt a familiar heat in the air that just so happened to warm his soul as well as he looked up to find the sight he'd been wanting to see for quite some time. Rinn stood tall, both hands blazing with bright flames, with his gaze focuses solely on Trent. "I distinctly remember hearing you say that you couldn't bring yourself to fight me about two seconds ago…" he said with a smile.

Rinn returned the grin as he readied himself for assault, taking his stance. "Not with just my bare hands, I couldn't."

"Glad to hear it!" Trent rushed directly at Rinn, back-handing the first fireball flung in his direction. He veered off of his bee line to the right as he came within striking range, using the right wall as a platform to jump off of in order to get the advantage of attacking from above as well as dodging the second fireball in the confusion of the maneuver. Rinn dove out of the way as Trent's fist connected with the ground, disturbing the stones set into the flooring as it did so.

Rinn somersaulted back onto his feet as he completed the dive, whirling around and tossing another small fireball in Trent's direction as he did so, this one striking him square in the chest with a contained explosion. The force sent him staggering backwards quite quickly towards the window at the end of the hallway, which was really only six or so feet to the left once you walk out of the dormitory entrance. And Trent, being the natural exaggerator that he is, intentionally ran his back into it with enough force to shatter the window, falling backwards through it as he did. "Trent!" Rinn cried out in worry, fearing that he'd more than overdone his response to Trent's request to fight as he ran to the window.

The grabbed the windowsill and stuck out his head, looking down to see where Trent had fallen. For a split second, Rinn experienced a mixture of confusion and terror that he'd never felt before when he noticed that there was no body to see at all. His fear was doused, however, once Trent poked his head from the window of the floor below the one Rinn was on and looked up to him, waving. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"You almost gave me a heart attack, you idiot! Don't do that again!" Rinn shouted down to his friend.

"Oh no, it's great fun! Here, try it!" and without warning, Trent climbed onto the windowsill and leapt up to Rinn as quick as a wink, grabbing him by the collar of his robes and pulling him from the building into the open air. Of course, knowing Trent, there was no fall-back plan… literally. This was realized by both students after about two seconds of free falling down the side of the building. Rinn could only slap himself for agreeing to Trent's ridiculous request.

"It's things like this…" Rinn began rather loudly to be heard over the rushing wind, "that make me regret befriending you."

"You know you love it." Trent responded with confidence.

About halfway down the total height of the academy, Rinn made up his mind on how to escape the imminent ground issue. "Feather fall!" he roared against the wind, holding his staff up high as both he and Trent immediately began to slow down to a pace nearing that of being stopped altogether. Rinn, still hanging limply in the air, let out a great sigh of relief as he looked up to Trent, whom, to his surprise, was standing as though he were on solid ground. His eyes widened. "All right… how?"

Trent lifted a foot and tapped the sole of his shoe. "You gotta love Dieh's inventions sometimes." He drew his sword from its sheath and began to walk towards his Rinn, smiling ever-so-slightly. "We're still fighting, by the way." He lifted up his leaf blade sword for a great vertical cleave as he said this, taking his time so as to give Rinn time to register what he'd just said.

"What?!" Rinn leapt backwards and skidded across the same invisible ground that Trent was standing on, skidding slightly from the sudden movement. "I was hanging there waiting to hit the ground, that's not fair!"

Trent smiled more broadly this time. "You seem to have made it out okay…" he said, pointing down to Rinn's feet. "My turn this time… how?"

"I manipulate all kinds of elements; you don't think I can walk on air?" Rinn responded smartly, adjusting the brim of his hat. Because I sure as hell didn't think I could… or, I mean, I've never been able to successfully. He looked up at Trent, then down to his feet, then back to Trent. Is it because I'm fighting someone who matches my level perfectly? Someone who doesn't force me to play defensively? Or is it because I don't have to worry about anyone but myself in this kind of fight? Then Rinn realized something… he could feel his heart beating… and fast. His adrenaline was running, his mind was racing, and his body was surprisingly relaxed, considering the previous two conditions. Have I become some kind of fight-aholic or something? He fixed his gaze onto Trent. Or… have I just wanted fight you… without realizing it this whole time?

"Guess I never thought about it. Cool trick, though." Trent felt similarly to his adversary… he had every symptom he could think of that was connected to a fight of cold, gritty survival… without any of the fear and worry. It was a relieving experience for the both of them. Sure I'll fight anybody once… or twice. It's natural for guys to want to fight, and more so a Cedric, it's in our blood. But when I'm here presented with the chance to fight against someone who's my best friend and polar opposite at the same time… I'm not sure how to feel. He re-evaluated himself quickly before changing his mind. Scratch that, I feel great!

Something happened between Rinn and Trent in that setting. To one side was the cold stone wall of the academy, otherwise seen as establishment where rules were enforced and boundaries put into play… "The man". To the other side, though, was open air… a body of water far off in the distance, below the lightly cloudy sky and above the dew-coated grass, with rich, evergreen trees on either side of the plain that led down to it. Somewhere in between those two was where Rinn and Trent were caught: 15 stories above the ground and lodged into a stare down. Every smug comment made by Rinn, every offensive joke told by Trent… every wound caused by the mage, every friendly injury brought on by the warrior… every small quirk and annoyance that each boy held for the other was suddenly piled up in their minds. Has everything that we've done… let up to a conflict? They both thought in unison. This conflict?

"Rinn." Trent finally broke the silence, letting his blade fall to his side.

"Hm?"

"I can hold my own against anyone… even you. So don't hold back at all, you got me?"

Rinn smirked coolly. "I was about to say the same thing. I can take whatever you've got, too. A sword is easy enough to dodge."

"Oh really?" Trent asked, cocking his head to one side. "Care to test that theory?"

"Prove me wrong."

Trent pushed himself forward with his ox-like strength in a mad dash to his opponent, lugging his hefty blade behind him as he ran. He threw a horizontal slash at Rinn as quickly as the weight of his weapon would allow, which was easily dodged by the mage as he jumped out of the way. Trent spun with the momentum of his swing all 270 degrees of the way through to face Rinn again, just in time to raise his sword in defense against a simple, though powerful, fireball. It bounced off of the side of the blade as Trent angled it, and then lowered it only to see yet another flaming sphere coming right towards him, this one significantly larger.

He quickly jammed the point of his sword into the ground-like layer of air that the two were standing upon to brace it, gripping the hilt with his right hand to keep it in place and bracing the flat of the blade with his left. The great fireball struck Trent's makeshift shield dead-on, and with no angle to slide off of, he took the full force of it. The fighter was sent flying back from the magnitude of the hit, sword in hand weighing him down, and crashed quite roughly on the ground, starting with the back of his head. He skidded to a stop in due time, groaning as he lifted himself up and rubbing the back of his head.

Rinn smirked. "Again, a sword is easy enough to dodge."

Trent heaved himself up, inspired and determined to put Rinn in his place. He braced himself and charged once again with a great horizontal cleave, which was again easily avoided by the mage as he ducked under it. Trent let his strength falter so that the blade hit the ground and brought it back up again, using his momentum from the first strike, in a fierce uppercut slash. Rinn, still low to the ground, quickly dove out of the way as it brushed past him, somersaulting back to his feet immediately to see that Trent had anticipated it and was already halfway through a downward cleave. He quickly sidestepped out of the way of the strike, this one being the closest of all to him, and threw his palm up in front of Trent's aggravated face. "Aero!"

The harsh, concentrated blast of air hit Trent dead-on, blowing him both up about twenty feet and away from Rinn about thirty. Characteristic of the uncontrolled flailing in mid-air that Trent presented as he flew back, he landed sloppily, though soundly, on his back with a resounding "smack". Resilient as always, however, he pulled himself up onto his feet and shook his head rigorously to shake off the shock. He put a hand to his back and gently rubbed it, grimacing in pain, before snapping it back into place, looking to Rinn again afterwards. "Alright, so you're good at dodging… I'll give you that much."

Rinn chuckled at this for a second. "Don't blame me for showing you up; you're the one who wanted to fight."

"Yeah, yeah," he responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. "And you're the one who needed it… so I'm not going to disappoint." Trent took his left hand off of the hilt of his sword and exhaled slowly, seeming to concentrate on something intensely. His muscles tensed as he struggled to pick the blade up again with only one hand, a vein near his forehead showing clear definition from the stress. Quickly Trent took a deep breath in and gripped the hilt with all of his might, wrenching it high above his head in triumph. "Pay attention, Rinn… this is a little trick that I came up with a few weeks ago that I've been dying to show off. You see, as a Cedric, I can shift my combined muscle strength throughout my body. For instance, I can strengthen my upper body temporarily to lift heavy objects or I can fortify my lower body to run and jump faster and higher. However, when I focus every bit of it into one arm, I get this! Giant's Grasp!"

Trent slammed the blade down into the invisible ground with tremendous force, causing Rinn to sink down a foot or two as he briefly lost his focus in the tremor. He watched as Trent pulled his great weapon up again and slash through the air diagonally in the blink of an eye, as though he were running through the motions holding nothing at all, much less a two-handed sword. He stopped the weapon on a dime, with only the smallest shred of effort, and cut back down in the same diagonal pattern with a quick transition into a stab mid-way, as swiftly as though he were using Jiece's rapier instead of his own blade. "Think you can dodge this so easily?" he asked smugly.

"You bet I can!" Rinn shouted, jumping back onto the higher ground and rushing at Trent, right hand blazing. Let's see how you feel about fighting fire with fire!

The sparks flew as Trent's blade connected with Rinn's, and a power struggle between the two ensued, both attempting to push the other back with all of their might. Trent couldn't help but smile as he strained himself. "You brought out the fiery scimitar just for me? I'm touched."

"I told you I wasn't going to hold back, right?" Rinn said through his gritted teeth. "I'm not a lying man, Trent." He sent a burst of flame from his hand to the tip of his curved blade, throwing Trent off while he was caught off guard by the flare. Rinn slashed to the side through the air, a similar kick of flame separating itself from the edge of the blade as he did so, flung towards Trent with an edge matching that of the sword it came from. Trent cut the flame in two with a quick, upward slash to find a second just behind it, and a third.

Rinn cut through the air from side to side, from top to bottom, and every way in between, sending the projectile edges of flame towards his opponent in rapid succession. Trent, on the other end of the attack and equally uninhibited by weight, cut through each and every one of them, including those that would have missed him anyway, slowly advancing on Rinn as he weaved through the inferno. The two grew ever closer as each hacked and slashed their way through the air as though walking through a thick jungle with machetes, one slowly working his way past the obstacles, and one putting them up as fast as possible, finally meeting with another fantastic clash of steel and solid flame. The resulting flares the sprung from Rinn's blade danced about the atmosphere, singeing both fighters left and right as they struggled to overcome one another. Rinn let out a thin smile as his strength began to falter, Trent's blade coming all the closer to his face. "Inferno!" he shouted out as he jumped out of the range of Trent's weapon, letting it smash into the ground.

Trent found out all too soon what the spell did… a quick scan of his environment let him know. To his horror, every stream of fire that he'd cut down just moments ago had been split apart instead of destroyed; leaving twice as many flaming blades hanging in the air around them in a perfect sphere, all pointed directly at him. All at once they struck; hundreds and hundreds of white-hot, razor-sharp edges flew in from all different directions, leaving no exit between them. They closed in within the second that Rinn released his spell, and as quick as a bolt lightning, they transformed Trent into a great, jagged sphere of flame hanging in mid-air.

After two or three seconds of delay, the sphere tightened in on the warrior slightly and erupted into massive explosion that sent blades in all directions, disintegrating shortly after they were thrown. Trent, however, was shot straight down the fifteen stories of distance between the ground and him with reckless force. Dieh's boot modification destroyed, Trent helplessly collided with the trunk of an old oak tree far below, boring a hole straight through it, bringing it down with a resounding crack and moan of splintering wood, and leaving a deep impression in the earth as he skidded to a halt upon his collision, tearing up the soil with the momentum of his limp form.

Trent weakly brought his arm up and clawed at the ground in front of him, inching himself out of the ditch that he'd unwillingly dug. For a while he struggled to bring his upper body back onto the grassy terrain, and found it easier to bring the rest of himself out once he was able to do so. He rolled onto his back and looked up into the sky, dazed and awed by the sheer power behind Rinn's attack.

"Had enough?" Rinn taunted Trent from above as he casually strolled down towards him, supported by an invisible staircase of air as he walked. Only about two or three stories above the ground at this point, Rinn took his time descending, wanting to give Trent a chance to get back on his feet.

"After that wussy flamer fest you just pulled? You've got to be kidding." Trent stood up and brushed himself off, unscathed as always. He picked the hilt of his sword up from the ground, finding there to be no blade attached, and threw it back on the ground promptly afterwards. "And now I have no weapon…"

"So what, you're giving up?" Rinn asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

As expected, Trent laughed heartily at the question. "What, are you serious? Just when it's getting fun? These hands were made for more than baking!" He pounded his fists together thrice to prove his point, sporting a wicked grin.

Rinn stomped firmly onto the ground, charring the earth around his foot as it landed, and again conjured his signature flaming hands as he took his stance. "You know, I was skeptical at first…" he began, never taking his eyes off of Trent, "but I actually do feel a lot better. So I figure I should take this time to thank you before I beat you to a pulp."

Trent took his own battle stance as they began to circle one another, always keeping a direct line of sight. "I hate to disappoint, but it'll be me who does the beatings around here, thank you very much."

"Prove it, then!" Rinn rushed his opponent, fists blazing brightly.

"You're on!" Trent charged at his target, a new fire in his eyes.

'.'.'

Well, I planned to write more, but the school thinks it's funny to pile up summer homework… so I was a bit distracted. The new school year starts tomorrow for me, which means that I'll be a couple of weeks before starting a new chapter… needing time to get back in the flow of things and all that jazz. Other than that, I hope you enjoyed!