Guiche de Gramont: Renowned for his earth-like spells and being an overall flirt of the academy. His prowess in combat is unknown but he's known to be a powerful golem-user. His iron maidens are nothing to shrug off and he's overly confident in his abilities as a mage… such a shame that I'll have to kill him because of that pride.
"Zero" – Regular Speech
'Zero' – Thoughts
"Zero" – Unknown Speech
"Zero" – Spell/Technique
"Place your bets! Place your bets! Will the Plebian be killed or will Guiche submit to defeat at the hands of the commoner!?" One of the students yelled out amongst the crowd as he held up a stack of money that consisted of the betting that was taking place.
You would think that in a place so refined for prestigious people that they would behave differently from common rabble at the arena but apparently not so easily. This was just what the academy wanted to see for the longest time ever since they started to learn how to use magic. The act of fighting itself was seen as barbaric to most people of this caliber but nevertheless, it intrigued them to watch as the two stood in the courtyard.
The courtyard was filled with the chatter of students gossiping amongst themselves as they watched Guiche de Gramont and Shiki the Plebian face off against one another. The taunting and the inconsistent insults to Shiki and praises to Guiche started to intertwine with one another as the energy that started to generate in the area started to become apparent. This event was becoming less of a duel amongst men and started to devolve into more of a form of entertainment in an arena by the second.
"Well, glad to see that you didn't run off like a scared little dog." The blonde-haired mage said with a smile as he was just dying to send one of his golems out to pummel the boy to a pulp.
"He who barks loudest is often the weakest of the lot." Shiki said with his arms crossed and his eyes closed as he wanted to conserve his eyesight so he wouldn't feel drained halfway through the fight.
Shiki wasn't expecting this fight to take that long as he was expecting to just dash through his golems, destroy whatever pride this kid had and then deliver the finishing blow if it came to that. It wasn't like Shiki was looking for blood as he was honestly a kind young man but if his hand was forced, he would be more than happy to deliver what someone clearly was asking for.
"You think you can just waltz into this Academy, act like you own the place and then humiliate whom you please?" Guiche said with a demeanor that made him seem superior to Shiki in every way.
"Yes. That's exactly what I think; especially when there's someone like you who thinks that they can 'own the place' and can do whatever they want." Shiki retorted. "Besides, all you're doing right now is ruining your image. You think you can do things in whatever way you want since you're a noble. In the end you're just a spoiled little kid who got beat at his own game." Shiki said, pissing off Guiche with every hanging word.
"You don't know anything Plebian! You think that you're special? You're wrong!" Guiche yelled out before swinging his rose about in a forceful manner, making pedals fall from it.
As the pedals hit the ground, a bright ray of light came forth as the golems came into animation. The Iron Maidens stood roughly 5' 6" tall. Their slender bodies were made of a composite of material that was coated in an iron finish. The elegance of the material that made up their bodies made it seem that they were fast on their feet and the durability of the metal made it seem that they could hit hard as well. These were going to be tough opponents… but nothing Shiki couldn't handle.
"I'm wrong eh? Well from the looks of it, you need the help of your Iron Maidens to assist you in taking on a 'Plebian'… or whatever it is that you address me as." Shiki said with his arms still crossed as he opened his eyes to the sound of the golems coming to life.
"Oh? You think I need my golems to kill you? Oh no, that's not the case here. I want my golems to kill you. You're not worthy enough to face me. Now repent for your actions with your blood!" He yelled out as his golems came sprinting forth.
As Shiki expected, the golems were fast and judging from how they moved, they were being controlled by Guiche as his wand was held in his hand with his arms extended forward. Granted, the golems had some form of autonomous movement as no one would be able to control three golems at once with just a single wand… so it was most likely a command spell that was being administered.
Before he could analyze the situation any further, the golems had already closed the gap and had begun to attack Shiki. The first golem who was within reach had swung out with its arm, hoping to punch Shiki in the gut as he was wide open. This wasn't going to be that easy though as Shiki quickly back-stepped and leaned backwards before leaping up and back to get a bit more distance.
This didn't go the way he had planned as one of the golems was already in the air, coming at him from underneath with a strike aimed at his gut. To counter, Shiki instantly focused on the point of death which could be seen on the arm of the construct. Holding his knife out in a reverse grip, Shiki hardened his body as he felt the strike hit him in his stomach. During this time, he quickly jabbed his blade into the appendage of the golem before it disintegrated into nothingness.
The fight didn't end there though. Shiki was still airborne and the other two golems were lying in wait for him as he had made his descent. One was already jumping at him with both arms retracted back as it was about to unleash both arms into his torso. Using what little momentum he had stored, Shiki adjusted himself before using the arms of the golem to glide past the two hits to his torso. This prompted an immediate return from Shiki as he jabbed his knife into the side of the golem, hitting the point of death and destroying his foe with one strike. He ended his final descent by stabbing the final golem in the head, making it fall just like the rest.
"H-How is this possible?!" Guiche yelled out in frustration as he saw all three of his golems go up in smoke as if they were nothing.
"Like I said… you need to study more." Shiki retorted with the taunt as it sent his opponent over the edge.
"That's it! You're dead!" He yelled out in a rage as he started to cast yet another spell, this time it seemed to enchant his remaining golems as the pedals that started to fall were glowing a strange yellow and orange hue.
"Festinatio… Vires… Duro! Augment Summon!" Guiche spoke the magical words of power as the pedals shaped the new and improved golems to a refined state.
These golems were slightly bigger, roughly 6 feet tall. What Shiki didn't notice was that they were now much stronger, a hell of a lot faster and more durable than ever before. This was soon to be as the five golems quickly surrounded Shiki before he could react. The pummeling commenced as the first golem went in for a gut check but was quickly dodged by the ever-elusive boy as he vaulted over the golem. This time, Shiki couldn't exactly hit the point of death upon the golem as it was now much smaller than it was before.
'This is going to be a bit difficult…' Shiki thought before noticing the jab from another golem too late.
"Shi-!" he couldn't even say a word before being punched right in the face, sending him flying back as his head went into a jarred state. He flew a good 15 feet before smacking across the ground like a ragdoll.
Using the momentum he had gained from the launch, Shiki quickly rolled across the ground before getting one foot on the ground, using it to leap into the air to stop the incessant battery across the rough earth. This was a mistake on his part though as two of the golems had already closed in on him. Their speed was extraordinary and it was already too late to move from his position.
A moment of clarity hit Shiki as his mind moved faster than his body could. Seeing the line of death that arced across one of the golem's arms was more than wide enough for him to trace his finger along. The other golem had a point of death centered in the middle of the left arm which was aimed at Shiki's mid-torso.
With a quick calculating movement of his arms, Shiki stabbed the point of death on one of the golems before tracing his finger along the other golem as it struck his finger. This would have normally broken his finger as it was iron against flesh but as the iron arm hit his finger, the iron caved in around his finger through the iron golem and across the line of death. His finger glided through it with ease, almost as if the matter in the iron had quaked and bended around the fleshy finger.
Bending his arm around so as to support his pinpoint precision placement of his finger, Shiki removed his hand from the line of death. As he did so; the arm, including part of the torso, reverted into iron dust before it started to crumble away. Now with the upper hand, Shiki placed his hand upon the golem's head had pushed it down into the ground, using it as a cushion to break his fall as it impacted the ground. Placing both of his fingers into the center of the chest, Shiki 'killed' the golem and it crumbled into a pile of iron ash.
Looking up, Shiki noticed the other three golems had stayed behind, covering for his master as Guiche was unsure of how to proceed from here. This Plebian had already destroyed three of his ordinary golems, now he had completely eroded away two of his best golems that he could make. This was no ordinary person, this he was sure of. Now all he had left was three golems which didn't seem to grant him any form of sanctuary.
"Who the hell are you?!" Guiche yelled out from behind his golems as he knew this could now go either way. "You're no goddamn Plebian that much is certain! There's no way a normal commoner could stand up against my golems!" Guiche accused the boy yet again of treachery as he couldn't fathom how this was possible.
"My name is Shiki Tohno. I'm not a Plebian, I'm a human being!" The boy yelled out from his corner of the courtyard as he spun his knife around in his hand before bringing it up into a reverse grip once more.
Leaning forward, Shiki brought his arms up into an 'X' formation before sprinting forward. With his knife in his right hand, the boy quickly closed the gap between him and his opponent as he knew that he now had the upper hand in this situation. With a few more steps and a couple more well-placed attacks, he would end the boy and end this foolish fight.
"Stay the hell away from me!" Guiche yelled in terror as he sent his three golems out, making them clash headlong into Shiki.
Jumping over the three at the last second, Shiki impaled his knife into the top of one of the golems before it shattered instantly. Using his quick maneuvering speed he then dealt a finishing blow to another by jabbing his finger into its gut. Spinning around in a tempest-like fashion, Shiki dodged the overhead swipe at his cranium before finishing off the third and final golem by throwing his knife into the under arm, making it splinter and crack before disintegrating like all the rest.
Breathing heavily, Shiki retrieved his knife from the pile of dust before looking over at Guiche. His eyes were bloodshot as he hadn't used them this much in such a long time. His head was killing him and the fact that the crowd was cheering and booing at the same time had only made it worse. The colliding voices as well as the incessant pounding sensation inside his skull were getting to him. If he didn't finish this soon it would become a serious problem.
Using a last ditch method to try and restrain Shiki, Guiche decided to try his levitation spell once more as he knew it would work… at least he hoped it would as Shiki was now sprinting at him. Waving his wand up into the air and focusing his eyes upon his target, Guiche channeled the energy from his body and focused it into his wand, sending out the wave of energy with a simple command word.
"Levitrae!" Guiche commanded the spell to come forth as the invisible strand of energy came forth to try and ensnare Shiki.
As he saw the spoiled noble move his wand, Shiki quickly brought his blade up as he started to see what looked like a concentrated strand of the lines of death coming at him. From this he ascertained that it could only be the same spell that he saw before on his first night.
"Not going to work this time!" Shiki yelled at his opponent as he quickly side-stepped the strand of energy before slicing it along the several lines of death that made it visible.
Completely eradicating what magical force had bound itself to this plane of existence, the magical strand of energy backfired as it was interrupted in its cast, sending untamed magical power back at Guiche. This in turn sent the blonde mage tumbling backwards as he rolled across the ground from the feedback. Abruptly impacting against the ground, the mage groaned in pain as his insides felt like they had been turned over and cooked for a solid 30 minutes.
Coughing up his lungs and destroying what little air he had in them, Guiche started to vomit up blood. His eyes were delirious. His mind was faded. His hair was… oddly still the same. Regardless, he was in loads of pain. With it all being internal, the proud blonde mage could do nothing but crunch up into a fetal position as he clutched his stomach.
"W-What did you-" Guiche couldn't even finish his sentence as he started to cough up even more blood. "What did you do to me…?" Guiche asked the figment of horror before him as he couldn't comprehend what had just transpired.
"What, you expect an explanation after that shit you just pulled?" Shiki taunted the blonde noble as he stood above him with knife in hand. "I think you should be begging for your life by now." Shiki said before spinning the blade in his hand, making sure to not miss his mark as he found the large point of existence that portrayed itself on Guiche's body.
If it was one thing that Shiki understood, it was this: The more a person got hurt or the closer a person was to dying, the larger the point got on their body. This one was so large that he could just step on him and it would kill him. He contemplated exactly what he should do in this instance as he had already won the fight. He wondered if he truly was worth the kill… then again he had already insulted his 'master' and he would provide a good example to his classmates on what happened when they challenged him.
Just as he was about to finish off his prey, Shiki was interrupted in his finisher when Louise literally tackled him in his side, sending his knife into the air as he lost his grip. The blade flung through the air before landing into the ground next to Guiche's head. This in turn made him practically piss his pants as he passed out from nearly getting pierced in the face.
"You idiot!" Louise yelled at Shiki as she was almost in tears on top of him. "Why did you run off!? Do you know how worried I was?!" Louise yelled at the boy as she started to punch at his arms like a little child.
"H-Hey, what's all this about?" Shiki asked, almost confused on what she was trying to do.
Shiki had never seen this side of her before. She was always either a stuck-up princess or a stuck-up aristocrat with no regards for those of 'lower birth'. Yet here she was now, crying for that same commoner who seemed to have caught her interest. Something was off… Shiki didn't understand what was wrong and was completely stunned by this act.
"Don't ever run off again you stupid dog!" She started to cry on his shoulder as she was truly frightened by his actions.
"W-what do you mean 'run off'? I told you where I went and as it turned out I just won!" Shiki replied in a slightly louder tone as he was trying to show her what had transpired.
"I know you won you idiot! You're just not…" She trailed off as she looked at his eyes, a little frightened at what she had seen.
"I'm not… what?" Shiki asked, a little shocked at what type of reaction Louise was showing to him once more.
'This is just like this morning… is she really that scared of me?' Shiki thought as he looked at her with a concerned look.
"N-Nothing… stupid dog…" She said before getting off of him and walking up to Guiche. "Hey, you're not dead are you?" Louise asked as she was hoping she wouldn't have the blood of a noble on her hands. When he didn't answer her at first, Louise simply slapped him across the face, making the blonde-haired flirt immediately jolt up from the violent response.
"W-What the hell was that for?!" Guiche yelled at the girl before keeling over again at the pain in his side.
"Good you're not dead then." Louise said with a small sigh of relief.
"N-No… just barely though…" Guiche replied from his coughing.
He was no longer throwing up blood, that was the good part… instead he was just out of breath and could barely stand due to his lack of strength that he had remaining. Staying there on the ground, Guiche warily eyed his opponent as he wondered if he was truly safe from his wrath or not.
"Alright… that seems to be the end of it." A voice said from the crowd.
Walking through the group of students, the old headmaster of the school came forth as he seemed to have been watching the whole thing from a place unseen by most eyes. He had a serious look on his face; almost as if he were Judge, Jury and Executioner. Walking up to the gray haired youth, the old mage simply sighed as he looked over at the blonde noble who seemed to have nearly shit himself as he noticed the headmaster's presence.
"S-Sir!" Guiche said in reaction as he tried to get up to address the headmaster.
"Save your words Guiche de Gramont…" The Academy principal said as he held his hand up. "…You've done quite enough today I reckon." He said as he looked towards Shiki.
"And you young man… you too have done quite enough for today." He said as he held two fingers out before two yellow shackles of magic appeared, latching themselves onto Shiki's legs and feet.
Instantly falling to the ground, Shiki couldn't move as he tried to squirm from his restraints. These magical bindings didn't seem to have any sort of lines of death that he could see either so they were either something he didn't understand or they were just so strong that they couldn't have lines of death. This shocked Shiki as he knew that just based off of this, this old man was someone he didn't want on his bad side. Laying there, slightly shaken at the mere presence of the Principal, Shiki held his eyes centered on the old man as he looked down upon him.
"W-what the hell! Let me go-"
"Louise Françoise Le Blanc de La Vallière…" The headmaster addressed his student as he maintained eye contact with Shiki.
"Y-Yes sir?" Louise replied in a respectful tone as she knew where this was going.
"You know the consequences of hurting another academy student, don't you?" The old mage said as he stood there, not breaking eye contact with the youth responsible for the actions.
"Y-Yes sir… I do…" Louise responded, a little shaken as per what her punishment might be.
"Good… then see to it that you are present in the conference chamber within the hour." He said with a stern voice as he walked away from the crowd of students. "Miss Longueville… if you could please send Shiki to my office, it would be much appreciated." The old mage asked his green-haired assistant.
"Yes Headmaster Osmund…" The woman replied as she flicked her wand a few times before casting a spell upon the boy. "Tele Arcadis" the woman said before a bright light shined upon the boy, whisking him off to his destination.
As the old man and his assistant walked away, almost out of earshot, the crowd of students that had been completely silent started to whisper amongst themselves.
"You think Louise is going to get expelled?" One of them whispered to his friend as he cupped his hand around his mouth so he couldn't be heard that well.
"No idea… I mean really since when does Plebian overcome a noble? It was Guiche de Gramont too… no way this is going to be dismissed so easily…" The other responded before gossiping amongst his peers.
"Who is that kid anyways? A familiar? Isn't he Louise's summon?" Another female asked to her friend as she looked over at Louise.
"Yeah, at least that's what I heard… such a failure. Then again didn't you see how he moved? He's seriously fast!" Her friend responded as she recalled the images in her head of the Plebian jumping through the air and slicing to pieces the golems as if they were just butter.
"Alright… that's enough everyone. The show's over. Someone get Guiche to the infirmary. He's going to need medical attention." Kirche said with a commanding presence as she disrupted the gossip and the comments springing forth through the crowd.
A majority of the students complied with the red-haired woman, seeing as how there was nothing else to look at, and started to depart while two more students hoisted up Guiche by his arms. Slowly, they transited to the infirmary with a water-affiliated mage placing emergency healing magic upon his internal wounds.
After another few minutes of movement and departures of nearly all of the students, Louise was left with only Kirche and Tabitha in the courtyard. Louise was still in a daze, wondering what she could have done different to have stopped this from happening. She was still confused on what exactly had transpired in this very area where she stood. She was there the whole time as well. She saw what had happened and it didn't even register in her mind that something was different about Shiki. He wasn't just a normal Plebian… he was something more than that, at least his actions and his abilities showed that he was something more. She was interrupted in her train of thought when Kirche started to address the situation.
"He's really something isn't he?" Kirche said from the left field as Louise immediately snapped back to reality.
"E-Eh?" Louise responded, too lost in thought to have heard what her classmate said.
"Shiki… he's really something isn't he? I mean did you see how he took down Guiche's golems? That's not something a normal Plebian would be capable of. Isn't that right Tabitha?" Kirche asked her wind mage classmate who was too busy reading her book to care.
"He's… not normal…" Tabitha said, not looking up from her book as per her usual routine.
"Y-Yes… as I was saying, he's not something that's of this world, that much is certain from what we just saw… so who is he Louise?" Kirche asked, almost as if she were interested in the background history of the boy.
"W-What's it to you? He's just some commoner that I summoned up. Nothing special." Louise said, trying to not admit to that fact.
"Oh come now. You really expect me to believe something like that? After what we just saw, I'd wager that he's some sort of noble… either that or he's just a very skilled assassin who knows how to combat mages." Kirche deduced as she had only seen such movements and destructive power from the most deadliest of mercenaries.
"So what's it going to be? Are you going to tell me the truth or are you just going to avoid it altogether like you usually do?" Kirche started to pester Louise as she started to notice the small pink-haired girl grit her teeth.
"It's none of your business Kirche…" Louise simply responded, trying to keep her reserve with the utmost capability on her part.
Dismissing herself, the pink-haired heroine quickly gathered her bearings before making her way to the conference chamber, as per what the Headmaster had ordered. Her mind was now focused on the task at hand but, in the depths of her thoughts she wondered…
'What were those eyes of his…?' Louise thought to herself as she entered into the main academy building.
And with that, I give you Chapter 7. Hope you enjoyed it. I like writing fight scenes personally and I thought this gave a good prime example of what Shiki is capable of, at least at the moment. I haven't delved into any of Gandalfr's abilities just yet as I'm still wondering how powerful I want to make Shiki. Give me your opinions, write your reviews or send me a PM… either way, let me know what you think so I can make this a better piece of literature. I'm writing this for you guys so I want your opinions… granted, I may not always take them on board but it doesn't mean they're not wanted.
P.S.: I am still allowing OC's into the storyline since this isn't going to follow the main arc at all. It's going to have a lot of the elements that the ZnT world went off of but because this is a cross-over I'm giving myself a little leeway room when it comes to OC's, the nasuverse and free-hand ideas that just come to me when I write. If you have an idea for an OC, simply send me a PM with their name, age, gender, what element they're affiliated with, a quick bio and a detailed appearance. Anyways, that's all. Hope to see you next chapter.