The wind shuffled against the grass, filtering through the blades and dust. The cool night felt icy against Zack the Wind Minor's skin. The soft breezes crept throughout every inch of his body through his clothes as he watched the brown dust cloud finish clearing.
Above, the moon emitted its first rays of its pale light, calling upon the stars to awaken, to become the comrades of the crescent moon once again for another, cold, periwinkle night. Dark clouds dispersed, moving away from the scene and the surrounding trees' heads rustled softly in a graceful dance with the wind.
Zack felt sweat drops begin to fall down the side of his face. He swallowed hard and prepared himself, his body almost out of breath, taking small, unnoticeable breaths. He had to be watchful. The Wind Council, Madasora wouldn't let him off the hook so easily. So Zack continued to peer carefully into the dragging mist of dust, looking for any aspect of movement. Zack tapped the tip of his sky blue cap. It was a nervous habit he never learned to get rid of. The wind picked up horrendously as Zack something zoom out of the dust, dragging wisps of it along with its vindicated, golden brown wings.
Not this thing again! Zack thought, tired. He gritted his teeth in disgust as he prepared for another round of attacks. It's getting late… I need to find a way to win this battle. The large, medium sized unspecified bird zoomed towards Zack with a golden beak of piercing, as well as its beady, black eyes. Its wings fluttered in the air every now and then with the wind, its body gliding through midair easily, slicing the wind. It let out a horrid screech as it closed in on the confused Zack, who did not know what to do at this point.
"Stay away from me!" he cried out, putting out his arm which let out fluttering, churning winds in front of Zack like a moving shield. The bird squawked in resistance and elevated into the air, dodging the shuffling winds. It spread its wings out wide as Zack looked up hard, still wondering what to do, the hawk-like bird carrying the moon on its back. Its brown feathers seemed to glimmer with the rising crescent.
With a great, mounting speed, it zoomed down, as if dropping dead all of a sudden. Damn it! Zack thought. I need to get away! The bird headed straight for Zack, diving headfirst. With an amount of nervous, tense energy, Zack jumped backward, his feet lifting him high in the air, his body having not mastered the flight ability yet. The bird crashing into the grassy plains came soon after. The impact breathed more dust into the air, which seemed to fly up like a mushroom cloud. Forceful winds blew from contact, and rock and ground bits flew everywhere. The stones clattered to the floor, clinking with each other as if in toast. The dust flew up and the bird faded from sight.
Zack took a deep, panicky breath as he watched the dust fly up into the air, clearing only a second later. "Come back, Minasan, -Everyone-," Madasora's voice called out to the bird, a shadowy silhouette portrayed in the dust cloud zooming backward. A spinning wind blew by, clearing the dust from the area with an angry force, the winds whistling as they rotated in the grass.
Now, Zack and Madasora could see eye to eye, the two seeing each other as equals, even thought they truly weren't. Madasora had metro hair like Jeremy, the silver strands of hair dyed, which always seemed to flutter when he used wind attacks. His eyes were sometimes friendly and sometimes serious. He was a pretty normal person, and so was Zack. He always carried a pipe that poured out gray, winter smoke into the air, the curvy brown pipe always held between his teeth coolly, filling the air with the strong intolerable scent of tobacco. The thick smoke usually blocked one side of his face, the streaming cloud of gray blowing against him. The large, brown bird was now a white, tiny, chibi like bird you usually saw as cute little critters that roamed city streets with beaded black eyes. The pale, completely white bird was perched on Madasora's shoulder, and together with the pipe, it made him look sort of like a pirate. The tiny little bird seemed nothing like it was before, its bony feet clenching Madasora's skin. It chirped slightly and waited for command.
Madasora frowned in boredom. His white, dotted in eyes peered through his own cloud of smoke. "How long has it been?" he asked, peering to the crescent moon that hung high in the sky, as if a stage prop. "One hour? Two hours? The whole day?" he guessed continually.
Zack gave a slight chuckle. "Looks like it," he told him. "And neither of us are tired at all."
"You're right. Looks like I've been going easy on you all this time," Madasora said, looking to below the moon and eye to eye with Zack. "That's about to change though," he said in his groaning voice. "Go! Minasan!" he called upon the bird's command. "Taka Tsubame! –Hawk Swallow-!"
The bird reacted with loud chirps that evolved into screeches as they progressed. It ducked its head as if in same and fluttered its wings wildly, its body and color changing and growing in shape. It grew a large mane behind its head that discolored to dark navy blue. Its wings spread out and the size of Madasora's head ten times over, they spread like angelic, pure white wings, only hiding the darkness of the navy blue behind them. Its beak turned golden and its eyes narrowed and straightened.
Damn it… again? Zack thought, becoming tired of the constant use of the bird. As long as he has the bird to fight for him, I'm the one getting tired, not him. That's basically the point of using "Minasan," Zack analyzed. But this form… Taka Tsubame… I haven't seen it yet, so I don't know what it can do. All right then, let's give it a go.
The bird lifted itself into the air, rising only a few inches from its place on Madasora's arm, the half navy blue, half white bird zooming towards Zack with bigger wings than the last. "Go!" Madasora cried out as it shuffled towards Zack. Zack shifted his weight in reply, preparing for a close range attack. "Tsubame Jiten! –Swallow Spin-!"
The bird began to whirl in the air as it rocketed towards Zack. It carried air and wind in, making a sort of tornado blanket that layered its body, the whistling winds becoming visible white. So that's it! Zack realized, feeling a rush of air out of nowhere.
He moved to one side, dodging the Hawk Swallow that rocketed past him, zooming at an almost blinding speed. He looked back and found it turning its direction, redirecting it at Zack again. It's spinning in a clockwise direction, Zack noted. So in that case… Zack breathed in a large amount of air, filling his lungs and stomach and chest, and then his cheeks. "Shippuu Toshin! –Hurricane Rush-!" he cried out as he let the deep breath out in an intense, swirling tornado stream that expanded like a vacuum.
The attack made humid air disperse and swirl into the dance, the silver whipping cone colliding into the Hawk Swallow's rotation. The tornado took over it, spinning wildly like roulette. The Hawk Swallow was overtaken and lost inside the tornado as it continued to zoom like a missile inside the hurling winds.
Outside the gyrating winds, Madasora looked at the scene from far away, breathing his gray smoke into the air. So he learned how to use a more advanced technique, but he can't fly… this guy is completely… unexpected, he thought as the hoary gas pooled the night air, the coldness creeping more powerful, surrounding everything with its icy touch of hate.
Back at the intense scene, the rolling winds began to slump down and die out, letting the bird free from its cone-like cage. The overtaking winds revealed the hawk swallow that had stopped spinning violently, releasing it like it had put a godly grip on it.
The bird glided through the air smoothly now, as if ready to surface like an airplane.
"So you've figured it out," Madasora mumbled loudly, loud enough for Zack to hear.
"Yeah," Zack replied, turning one side of his face back to Madasora. "It wasn't hard. The only thing I know that can stop a clockwise rotation is a counterclockwise rotation. It's the only reason I had for the swirling wind attack," Zack explained.
The bird flew past Zack and deformed back into the tiny, white, cute bird. It perched itself on Madasora's shoulder again and waited for further command. "So then, let's try this one for size," Madasora declared, stating that another attack was going to happen. Zack gritted his teeth in despair, not wanting to deal with the bird, Minasan, any longer. "Don't worry," Madasora told him, noticing his reluctant. "This'll be fun, I swear," he promised, one that Zack was sure he wasn't willing to keep. "Go! Taka Tsubame!"
The bird flew up again and formed into the swallow, this time flying high into the sky, about five feet up from Madasora.
Zack sighed. "What now?" he anguished.
"Didn't I say this was going to be fun?" Madasora chuckled. "Just wait and see. Mittsu Rendan! –Triple Combo-!"
The bird flew up about a foot higher, and then zoomed down like a missile at Zack. It split up into three birds in midair mystically, as if cloning itself, each one the same. Shit! Zack thought loudly in rushed panic. He jumped away, succeeding in flight this time, then landing back to the floor a second after. The three birds crashed into the ground, making more stones clatter, clinking each other for another toast. Smoke and dust rushed into the air together like accomplices, shrouding Zack's sight with gray and dust brown.
From the middle of the fog, a strong wind rotation spread out, brushing the wind away easily. In the middle of it all hovered one bird that created the winds with its wings, fluttering in the air in a suspenseful way as if waiting for something.
Wait… that's not right, Zack noted. That's only one bird! The other two… Zack wondered where they went as he heard a sharp whistling above him. N-No way! He took in a sharp breath. He looked up with a widened stare and found the two other birds in a Tsubame Jiten – a Swallow Spin locked together, another blanket of rushing wind layering them like a soft, thin bedspread.
Two hawk swallows doing a clockwise rotation spinning together with locked arms in a counterclockwise motion. No matter what, I can't stop it. If I either use counter or regular clockwise wind, it'll just end up making the attack stronger. I have to dodge! Now! Zack's feet clicked away from the floor, commanding the brain's demand for safety. He the inches away attack crash into the ground and create more dust and smoke.
Damn! Madasora thought privately. He didn't get hit with the first two. And I doubt that he'll get hurt at all with the last one. We'll just wait and see… shall we?
Zack's eyes followed the last bird as it zoomed out of the smoke, a long wisp of it trailing it like a tail. The bird zoomed away high in the sky, and then began to zoom back down, its feet first.
Wha- What is it trying to do? Kill itself? Zack thought. He jumped into the air and flew, his back facing the ground, his body hovering in midair casually, not disturbed at all. What's it going to do?
The bird crashed into the ground, its cragged fingers seeping deep into it, applying great amounts of pressure, creating a forceful, wide ranged spiraling wind all around like a short tornado.
The wind tried to push Zack away, as if dusting him away with blurring winds so high that Zack had to protect his eyes from it. It blew him even farther away from Madasora and shuffled away his sky blue cap, revealing his disheveled, uncombed and messy brown hair as the birds formed back together into one, as if folding into one blade like a fan. The bird slowly turned itself back into the original Minasan, the cutesy white bird that was always perched on Madasora's right shoulder.
"Pretty good," Madasora graded. "But now, let's give Minasan a break. This time, I'll be more serious…"
"Good… I've been waiting for that," Zack commented, standing up back on his feet as he picked up his sky blue cap, patting it on his knees to clean the dust off of it. "I say, bring it," he told Madasora, challenging him as the cap replaced itself on top of Zack's head.
"Hmph, you're going to wish you never provoked me like you did just now," Madasora informed. He picked up the smoking pipe from his mouth and blew the smoke away, putting the flaming tobacco out. He carefully placed it into his robe pockets, and began to look serious. The bird by his side, Minasan, seemed to tense up, chirping its panic away, but never succeeding.
What…What's with this tremendous amount of sudden air pressure? Zack thought, feeling the temperature rise and the creeping cool air diminishing. The air pressure murdered the cold and moist air in the surrounding area, and the sky night suddenly began to look clearer. This much dry air… the clouds moving… amazing… there are no other words for it, but amazing.
White glowing energy began to surround Madasora like an aura of Free Spirit energy, his eyes turning whitish gray with his rising powers. Zack gulped as he immediately regret provoking him.
To be able to add so much air pressure and actually change the weather… this guy really is… something else, Zack thought in his mind as the dry air began to consume him, the white energy pouring out of Madasora even more.
Above, even the moon gave dispersed and misery drenched cries, calling out even more for the stars to reappear as the night ornaments that sprinkled the sky, to prevent the always known crescent sphere of being lonely and afraid.