I might be a bit late uploading because I am working on another story and my exams are coming up. Hopefully, I get full marks on the creative writing like usual.
Can't believe it's chapter 14 already, Woah! For some reason whenever I write fight scenes they remind me of Naruto or Avatar...
Chapter 14: Breakthroughs In Plenty...
Natsu first class was in the morning. This was when the wind blew the strongest, and could easily be used to train in - it was the most efficient way to breakthrough, and as much as Natsu wanted to stay on par with his friends, that he had met almost two months ago, he needed to get stronger. He pursued his fifth breakthrough as a warrior and his fourth in his three elements; he also pursued his second breakthrough in destruction magic.
Lucy had broken through in her air element when she had sat on the balcony of her room at night, which was where Natsu would meet her every evening to train and talk. And, she also had felt very close to breaking through into the third rank of her light element.
Gray had a breakthrough as a Ninja, now making his a fourth rank, and also he had broken through as a water mage of the third level. He loved to shove it in Natsu's face that he was now on par with Natsu; this usually resulted in the two mages fighting with their fists, which Natsu won because he was a warrior of the fourth rank.
Even Erza had surpassed him as a warrior, now reaching the fifth rank after two months. She broke through once when the group were training together, and a second time by herself when she was training with a boy from her school.
Natsu looked up at the sky, which was now a dark orange that faded into blue. He sat on the ground, ignoring the chatter of the thirty or so kids around him, taking a deep breath in as the wind caressed his face and bare arms. He then brought his head down to stare at the two girls, whose backs were towards him.
Lucy and Lisanna. On the contrary to what he had thought, the two girls got along well - they had found some common ground a month ago; now they tried to talk as much as possible, which stopped the constant bickering the two used to do before they had found their similarity.
"I know you two get along well, but I really want to break through," Natsu smiled from behind them, which caused them both to snap his head in his direction, giving him a befuddled look.
"When do you ever come to lessons? You privately train all the time?" Lisanna questioned, she hadn't bothered keeping up with Natsu, although she did occasionally confess to him in front of everyone every-so-often.
"He wasn't training he was either, annoying me, or playing with Happy," Lucy chimed, causing Natsu to shrug with a broad smile.
"I gave you a spiritual field to work in, that helped you," He playfully scolded her, and then sat with his legs crossed, "I'll be training now."
The two girls turned away, and Natsu closed his eyes.
He saw gradually moving blue particles; they swayed gently as they bobbed along like they were on the water. He had heard that the air element could be used as a defence and attack magic, much like the earth element. So far he had only used the wind element as an attack element, but was going to try to use it as a defence - he thought it might help him break through.
He started to bring the blue dots closer to him, but he didn't completely take them towards him. Instead, he kept them a small distance away, which made a circle of air around him.
It took awhile to get the particles to the right place, but after ten minutes he had them stable in a circle. He kept his concentration on the dots as he made a spiritual field around himself, which instantly increased the difficulty of what he was doing - which was difficult in the first place.
The dots began to falter as his composure did, but he slowly gained it back, and the dots became a solid circle again. But, he didn't think this was enough.
'People can easily break through that; it's a weak defence. Maybe if I can get them to move vigorously.' Natsu thought to himself, and then the idea struck him.
He started moving the particles, his palms sweating, and his forehead was sweating too. This used a lot of willpower, but he felt a bubble rise in him, and suddenly the particles were easier to move, and they move with more power and ferocity than before.
A breakthrough.
He didn't notice that everyone, including the tutor, looked at him. To them, he looked like he was controlling the wind with rage. His hair flowed upwards, and the air around him had a white tint; they could easily make out the sharp edges of the wind that sliced through the air like a hot knife through butter.
Lisanna was about to try and go through the barrier, to shake Natsu out of his trance, but Lucy grabbed her hands and pulled her away, "Are you stupid?!" Lucy scolded, taking one hand off Lisanna's wrist to point at the barrier made of wind, "You'll lose your hands! We need to disrupt him by crashing into the barrier with something."
Lucy stood in front of the wall of wind, while she looked at Happy plodding around inside the barrier, then she sent a slice of the wind to the barrier. This clashed with the barrier which, caused Natsu eyes to jolt open and the barrier fell.
Lucy stepped forward, and then her fist connected with the top of Natsu's head.
"That was a mighty barrier, maybe of the fourth rank?" The tutor question Natsu, flicking his hair back a little, "Very powerful indeed."
"Sir, you're saying Natsu should move up to the next set of classes?" A kid named Bora asked, he was sixteen and had recently started dating a water mage in Gray's class, "How is that possible I've worked hard for years, and I can't surpass the third rank!"
The only reason Natsu knew Bora was because of Gray. The girl he trained with was Bora girlfriend, and Bora had recently become jealous of Gray and Juvia's work. This was only because the two went into the small woods on campus and trained there near the waterfall at night, which usually ended with Gray stripping by accident.
Bora stomped away, and the class ended, and for some odd reason, Natsu didn't like the dirty glare and smirk Bora had shot at him before he left.
Natsu was going to skip his fire element class and train by himself; he felt like it was the best thing to do as he was going to shoot fire at the side of rocks.
He brought a bag with him to the small cliff face, but something was wrong. He had been here every day for the past two months, and it had never had this much magical energy - it never had this much wind power.
He dropped the bag at his side and ignited his fist in a bright, fierce fire. His onyx eyes darted around the area, using the wind to try and scope out the person that tried to hide. But, there was more than one, in fact, there were three. All of them were air element wielders, which wasn't the best thing when Natsu had sworn to use fire at this time of day.
"Kid," Dezeus began, "I think it's time I taught you a little destruction magic to help you with your predicament here. Fire is considered one of the most powerful destruction elements, thus ties in significantly with my magic. Take your fist, and chant the word 'Ignis', then thrust it forward towards your enemy. You'll breakthrough using this because of its sheer power, and you won't be able to use it again till tomorrow because of how much spiritual energy it takes, I trust after taking one of them out you can use your fire magic to take out the other two."
Natsu listened, but he came up with a different plan and instead shot an average amount of burning, red light towards two of the unsuspecting; this caused two of them to curse loudly and fall out of the tree, clutching the nasty burn marks that began to bubble on their chests.
Bora dropped in front of Natsu, laughing as his two cronies ran away in fear, "They were cowards anyways, I'll take you on myself," Bora said cockily, readying his wind magic, which swirled around him like a spiral.
Natsu didn't miss a beat as he controlled the fire element around him and wrapped it around himself like a cocoon, "You messed with the wrong kid, Bora. My father was a fire mage who taught me everything I know." Natsu charged forward, using his warrior speed to sidestep as he charged forward.
He got close to Bora, pulling back his fiery fist to punch Bora; Bora jumped. But, he had completely misread Natsu's movements, who sent a string of fire upwards which hit Bora in the leg. He watched as Bora fell to the ground, and watched as the boy gave a grave look.
"You burnt my pants," Bora smirked, removing the small wind barrier that protected his skin. He put it up in the last few seconds before Natsu fire connected.
"Could've been worse," Natsu replied monotonously, getting back into a fighting position.
Bora was now the first to lunge forward, moving his hands in slicing movement as he hurled knives of the wind at Natsu. Natsu used the fire that surrounded his fist as a shield, bringing his hand upwards to make a wall of fire. Bora was now jumping in front of Natsu, and a fist came straight for Natsu's face. The fist was cover in a moving wind that would cut Natsu if he came into contact with him.
Natsu quickly dispersed his fire and rolled to the side, causing Bora to punch the green ground. Not missing a beat, Natsu chanted, "Heed my call, fireball!" and fired a massive fireball at Bora, which connected with Bora's side.
Bora groaned in agony while thanking his quick reflexes. But he wasn't fast enough to dodge Natsu's fiery knee that connected with his stomach. He spat up blood and saliva.
The knee to the stomach Natsu had delivered had so much power to it, that it caused Bora to fly up into the air a little. The Natsu ignited his hand and punched Bora in the face, slamming him into the ground - the ground cracked from the impact.
Natsu jumped back, dodging the fist that Bora was about to shoot at him, but then the air continued moving and came into contact with Natsu gut. Luckily, he had put up a small sheet of fire to stop into from cutting his skin. He felt a new energy bubble up inside him, and he smirked.
"Thanks for being a great training partner, but I've broken through now," Natsu set his hands on fire, then outstretched one. And, with his fingers spread apart, he chanted, "Ignis."
A great ball of golden destruction burst from the palm of Natsu hand. It cut through the air, and like a battering ram, it charged a full power. The ball of pure, golden fire jolted a little from its extreme speed, and within a second connected with Bora's stomach - it sent him tumbling backwards and rolling like a fool on the ground. It would have killed him if he hadn't of put up that wind barrier, but now he was just unconscious.
Now an even greater feeling of power overflowed within him, and he clenched his fist; a broad smile plastered its way onto his face. He picked up his bag and walked over Bora, making sure to step into the boys gut.
"I guess I've only got to get a breakthrough in the earth element and as a warrior today too," He then groaned, "This means it's going to take ages to reach the fifth rank on all my elements!"
He began to jog towards his earth element classes, which were based in a very rocky area of the school. He wiped away the small amount of blood that had come from being hit in the gut by Bora's wind and dusted off his pants that had become dirty during the fight.
He remembered that Lucy was going to come and watch his earth element classes as they were going to find out who was the strongest in the class. Natsu was fairly confident in his abilities.
He soon arrived at the class, only to see Gray, Lucy, Gajeel, Lisanna and Gajeel's teammate Levy there. They were sat in some stands, where a few others sat to watch their friends.
He ran up to the grey stone and climbed it, handing his bag to Lucy, who took it and wore it, "Do you guys know if we can use our magical beast in this?"
"Yeah," Gray said, "As long as they're a rank lower than you are."
"Great because Happy needs to breakthrough, and then he should be able to communicate as Makarov told me," Natsu grinned then dropped off the wall and walked over to the instructor, "I'll be using Happy in my matches."
The blue cat popped out, landing beside Natsu and weaving in between Natsu's legs. The instructor nodded, and Natsu joined the class group, he watched as many of the students pumped themselves up, or meditated to gain their confidence.
Natsu knew he was low on spiritual energy, and he also knew if he won his first match he'd have almost an hour to relax and gain some back. Then he'd have half an hour. If he managed to stockpile most of his energy from each match he might have half, which would be more than enough for the last game.
"First up, Natsu and his Magical Beast vs. Gin and his Magical Beast." Natsu headed towards the left side of the side, laughing to himself as he decided to trash talk his opponent.
"Is that a mouse?" He asked, smirking one-sidedly, the boy, Gin, nodded as he walked onto the combat stage, "Great! Happy love mice."
The tutor signalled for the match to start and Natsu broke some of the rock to his side with his foot, then he brought it around his clenched fist. It completely covers it, and with a punch outwards he signalled Happy to attack the Magical Beast, while small shards of rock flew like daggers at Gin.
Gin, put up his tan arms to deflect the small shards of rock, but this only caused them to sink into his arms. He made a sound of annoyance, and pain, and then tried to gain his composure, but he was too slow, and Natsu had already begun his second attack.
Natsu raised a circular pillar behind Gin, which smacked into the boys back full force, sending him upwards into the air and forwards towards Natsu. He flailed in the air, as saliva shot from his mouth. Natsu's fist was once again coated in small rocks, but this time he jumped upwards, higher than he had hit Gin with the pillar, and then punched Gin in the gut, shooting him back down to the floor. Gin was out.
But, he could still be in if the large mouse, that was his Magical Beast, beat Happy and Natsu. Natsu sat down on the ground, then cheered, "Go Happy!"
The small blue cat pounced towards the mouse, which scurried out of the way of the blue cat's sharp claws. Happy was much faster though, he was actually faster than Natsu.
The blue cat turned quickly and hit the mouse with its claws, causing it to sprawl next to its owner.
"Natsu and Happy win!"
It was now the last match.
Natsu had stockpiled more than half his spiritual energy, which was more than enough to win the match. If he had learnt anything from watching the other boys matches was that he had no combat experience, like the rest of the students, and had won by pure luck.
Compared to Natsu's innate ability to fight, and the ruthless training Igneel, Gildarts and Dezeus had put him through - none of the students could compare to him. He had also been in many fights and had good control over his element, unlike some of the students.
Natsu looked at Happy, who stared at the Magical Beast that the other boy had. It was a bird, and happy was a cat, so it made sense why the cat looked so hungry.
"Battle start!" The tutor called for the final time today.
"I've been watching you Natsu; I know what you will do." The boy said eerily.
Natsu laughed, then rose the ground the boy stood on, who looked on in shock, "Like giving you an advantage point?"
The other boy decided it was finally time to fight and hurled a massive boulder at Natsu, which look like it took a lot of mental strain. It was too slow, and Natsu quickly created a wall of rock that blocked the bolder, he then shot the small pieces that were left behind from the shattered boulder at the boy, who was still on the elevated platform.
Natsu simply used these as a distraction, and he raised his hands to his side. He then begins chanting as the boulder shards kept flying at the boy on the pillar, he was merely copying what Dezeus told him to chant.
As the was happening Happy was using the pillar as a running wall as he ran up it and then jumped off it to land on the bird, this caused the bird to dive viciously towards the ground. Happy jumped off the bird as it collided with the solid floor. Happy pulled out his claws and started a fury of swipes on the bird, who couldn't escape.
Natsu had just finished chanting, then he yelled the last word, "Enclose!"
Everyone was startled, it was sudden and uncalled. Soon the pillar began rumbling and quickly closed around the boy. He vanished from the sights of Natsu and everyone else's. The Natsu created a rectangular strip of rock and punched it towards the pillar.
He felt a sudden burst of new found energy and then yelled, causing the rock to move faster through the air, ploughing through the pillar and taking the boy out with it. Natsu began to run, making a strip of rock appear and climbing it. He jumped off it then small bits of rock created a circle in the palm of his hand.
He rose higher than the other boy, who fired bits of rock at Natsu which cut his cheek, ear, arms and chest, and fired the circular ball of rock into the boy's stomach.
Natsu fell onto the pillar panting and bleeding as the other boy crashed into the ground, the instructor announced Natsu as the winner.
"We did it Happy!" He said as the small cat jumped onto Natsu's shoulder.
"Aye, sir!" A squeaky little voice said in his head. He looked back at the cat a grinned.
"Freaking awesome!" He said back to the cat, speaking to it mentally through their bond.
He jumped down, being congratulated by the class and his friends. Lucy began healing his cuts and bruises, and Natsu knew she had found his damaged ribs from Bora's attack when he saw her confused face.
He would tell her when they went back to the student halls, but for now he was just going to hang out with his friends for awhile.