Chapter 3- Burning Wind
The green haired girl shoots her bow, Setsuna and Red move to different sides to avoid it. The attacker jumps down to join the fighters on the stage. Red lands between the girl and the sleeping Konoka. The mysterious attacker aims her bow at him once more, only this time the blades let out a green glow as well.
"Gale, master sharpshooter and wind specialist," Red commented. "Why are you here?"
"You already know don't you?" was her response.
She fires her weapon, the blades also launched their aura, breaking up and forming a few arrows on the way. Red swings his weapons valiantly, deflecting most of the arrows aside. Yet two of them made it past him and went towards the sleeping Konoka.
"Konoka ojou-sama!"
The arrows hit a barrier and pierce it, only to be held there by the said barrier. The force field cracks heavily as the arrows disappear. Red turns to see this and puts on an unpleasant look, he charges the green haired girl.
"Setsuna! Stay beside Konoka, I'll deal with this."
Setsuna did as he told and watched the battle from while standing over Konoka with her sword at the ready. The sword and the bow clashed in close combat. The girl pulls and arrow out of it and it was pointing at Red's heart. He moves off to the side and swings his sword once more. Again it's blocked by the blades, now Red tries to stab her with his sheath. The girl catches it easily.
Spiraling wind erupts from below Red, he was sent into the air. The boy easily recovers as the archer aims at the airborne target. Shooting several arrows at once as the red boy uses both weapons to deflect them, going higher with each hit. Bringing his sheath behind him as the sword keeps repelling. Fire engulfs the scabbard, swinging it Red launches a wave of fire at Gale.
She jumps back as it hits where she once stood, immediately the archer uses her palm to send a whirling ball of green energy towards her falling opponent. Red crosses his sword and sheath, ready for impact from the attack. The whirling ball crashes into the two weapons, from it great wind gush out, and a small explosion sending Red down to the ground.
Gale goes high into the air above him and shoots more arrows downward. Red rolls around as the green magic hits the stage, hitting and piercing the wooden boards. He bounces to his feet as Gale lands. Red sends a wave of fire at her as she swings her bow, sending a green swirling whirlwind to counter. The two attacks collide, negating each other.
Several arrows fly through the air for the boy, who swung his weapons once more to remain unharmed and untouched. Moving instantly Gale brings her bow behind her to block Red's attack, she creates another arrow at close range and misses as he twirls around. Trying another attack with both weapons, it ends up being blocked by the bladed bow once more. Gale smiles as the gems on her bow begin to glow, creating a wind out of nowhere that blows in Red's face.
The orbs on Red's sword glow as well and fire erupts from around him, fighting against the green wind. The two elements clash on the stage, Setsuna tries to keep her eyes open as she stands there being pounded on by the blowing wind. Red manages to call forth some fire and blast Gale back to the stands. As she flew she sends some arrows his way. He jumps up and puts his sword in its scabbard, now with the free hand, he calls on his fire to create big ball of flame.
Gale sees the attack coming for her and aims at it. Her bow gives off a much brighter glow then before. Firing, a green blade flies through the air instead of several green arrows. As the two attacks clash, Red drops down and goes after Gale. He sheath still has the sword but now it's on his side. The green haired girl twirls her bow around as Red's quick draw attacks make noise against it. A great sudden gust knocks him off balance and blows him away from her. The boy lands on his feet and takes out both weapons readying for whatever may come, he can feel that the wind has picked up and is blowing in his face. The archer continued to spin her bow around as the green orbs glowed once more.
The orbs leave balls of light into the air as the bow twirls. Those balls of light turn into arrows of magic and shoot off after their target. Once again, the red boy dances around hitting them away to keep himself unharmed. While deflecting the projectiles, some of the light just floats around, to surround him from all sides, even above. The arrows stop coming and Red looks around to see himself completely surrounded.
Gale stops her twirl and gives a smirk at the scene. Raising one hand up, she seems to have the advantage. She snaps her fingers and all the glowing spheres turn into arrows, slowly they aim for Red as he looks for a way out, only to find his search in vain. The arrows dived in on him.
Red hops and spins around really fast. With his flames he creates a small but fiery tornado that covers his entire body, the spin and the flames causes the arrows to bounce off of him. With all the arrows gone, the fire dies down and nothing is left, not even Red. All those watching were wide eyed and looked around to find him.
A small burst of flame appears behind Gale and she quickly turns around to fire arrows as she jumps back. The flames dissolve into the air revealing nothing. Gale senses something and looks down, she sees a ring of red below her. Immediately after noticing the danger, the ring bursts upwards into a pillar of fire. Gale was inside for a split moment before she is sent flying out of it. Red shows up where the fire had erupted.
"That's enough," he told her. "This fight is over."
A mysterious voice boomed throughout the stage, "It's far from over."
A big man jumps down to join Gale, he was very muscular and had short brown hair and a short beard. He was wearing light armor on his chest, arms and legs.
"Father," Gale spoke lightly.
"General Gaia, this is what it takes to get what you want?" Red asks.
"Now we're taking, more extreme measures," the general said as he raises his hand.
Many people with black wings fly out of the horizon. They just float in the air as if waiting for an order. Red doesn't seem to happy about his.
"Get Konoka out of here!" he yelled to Setsuna. "That's what they're after, hurry!"
"But those are the half-bird tribe! I thought we-"
"I'll get into the details later! Your teacher should be able to undo the sleeping spell. GO! I'll stay here and hold them off!" Red points his finger like a gun at Konoka and 'fires' it too. The barrier shatters and Setsuna kneels next to her.
Hesitating, she takes out her card and attempts to contact Negi, to no avail. Something was blocking the telepathic communication. No other choice she carries ojou-sama and leaves in a hurry.
Gale aimed her bow at the escaping duo until Gaia put his hand on her shoulder, "That won't be necessary, we don't want to anger the headmaster now do we?"
"How did you get virtually the whole clan here?" Red asked in a dark tone of voice.
"All we did was ask some very helpful magicians, because we have good relations it was very easy."
"So they're only summoned, meaning I don't have to hold back."
"They may be summoned, but we aren't," Gale butted in.
Gaia points at Red and all the floating birds begin their dive.
Setsuna races through the land to get as far away from the stage as possible. What is going on? Aren't the academy and the half-bird tribe in good terms? Why would they be after Konoka?
"Hey, Setsuna!" a boy yelled from behind.
She turns around to see Kotaro and Kaede chasing after her.
"What's going on?" Kaede asked.
"I don't know, but all I do know is that we have to protect Konoka ojou-sama."
The three of them quickly rush through, Kotaro looks back to see several of the half-birds flying around. In time they meet up with Negi and Asuna.
"What happened?" they ask simultaneously.
"I don't know myself. But Negi-sensei, can you please undo the sleeping spell on Konoka-sama?"
"No problem."
Setsuna looks back at where she came from, "What is happening around here?"
"HEY!"
They turn to see Evangaline, Chachamaru, Mana carrying a big shuriken and Ku Fei.
"Eva!" Asuna greeted in surprise.
"We have a problem, I just felt a large number of demons coming form the world stage. I got Mana and Ku Fei to help out but I didn't expect you here."
"Catch," Mana tosses the shuriken and Kaede easily caught it.
"Tell me what happened."
"Some guy with red hair and red clothes challenged Setsuna to a fight," Kotaro started. "Then all these other guys with black wing start showing up and-"
"Did you say black wings? That's the half-bird tribe," Eva stated. "What are they doing here?"
"We don't know, all we were told was that they were after Konoka," Set answered.
"What did that guy look like? Red hair and clothes?"
"Yeah, he can use fire too," Kotaro explained.
"That's the prince of the bird tribe!"
"WHAT?"
"The prince of the tribe has been missing for some time now. They weren't after Konoka, they were after him!"
"You mean he tricked us?" Kotaro cried out.
Setsuna drops her sword in a stunned position, she has a dazed look upon her face. Everyone just stares at her, not knowing what is happening. Tears begin to flow from her eyes as she sounds like she's going to start crying. Set quickly holds her head and screams out loud, dropping to her knees her tears start falling to the ground below her.
A very young girl on a swing slowly goes back and forth, her hair flows down from her head. All the other kids had friends, she was the only that didn't, she was all alone and she doesn't even know why. Tears started filling her eyes as she sat on the swing, alone. Some of her tears dropped to her knee, why was she all alone?
"Hey, are you alright?"
Looking up, the girl sees a boy only a tad older then she is, he had red hair and wears red clothes. He handed out a small napkin and she took it to wipe her eyes.
"Do you want to play with us?" the boy asked quite happily.
Without even knowing it, even more water filled her eyes and she wiped them off too.
"Come on!" the boy grabbed her hand and dragged her across the playground.
This is, this is the very first time she ever felt happiness.
Author: Next up, Setsuna's past before meeting Konoka! As well as the mystery behind Red, what is his real name?