Eventide
Chapter XVIII
"Great, before we start, Soul and the others must already know about your absence, so I will be quick before they snap up on our souls." Hiro says while he pulls up a dagger from his steel boats. "In spiritual form, everything is based on your will and desire. If you want to run faster, then think and picture how you run faster. If you want to be stronger, then desire it. If you picture it and truly want to be stronger, then it will happen. The same goes with Soul Force. All you have to is want to kill them and the Soul Force will come to you." Hiro hands the dagger before he turns into his spiritual form, making his body glow a nice white color. "Now hurry up and switch. They will find us soon and we need to find a better place to fight these Kishins."
"Right!" Quickly I switch into my spiritual form and, jump out of the tree house, not bother to use the ladder. We land on the grass with a hard thud before we take off running in an inhuman speed. Hiro and I avoid the barriers of each house since now we are under the laws of spirits. Hiro dodges them expertly and he uses the shock of the barriers around the houses in order to gain more momentum.
Surprisingly, I don't need to use those since Hiro seems to have a hard time keeping up with me.
I'm forced to slow down in order for Hiro to be able to lead the way, but it doesn't take long before we cross a road with a car going right through us, before we reach an open area just by the woods.
"This is the best place to fight at, an open area far away from humans." Hiro says and he fish up a dagger from his waist band, but it doesn't stay as a dagger for long. With a quick whip of the dagger, it grows larger and turns into a very elegant sword.
Kishins roars loudly and red eyes light up inside of the woods. That's a lot of Kishins, how are we going to be able to take on all of them?
"Hiro," I back toward him, grips the dagger so hard I almost break my skin, "there are too many for us to take on. Aren't we supposed to run?"
Hiro chuckles as slowly the Kishins step out of the shadows of the woods. "Then I will teach you something. I'm going to teach you how to use Soul Perception. Close your eyes and think of seeing people's souls. Think of them as blue orbs and how you can see their presence when your normal eyes can't. When you have pictured it in your mind, open your eyes and you will see them."
I nod. "Right!" I close my eyes and everything turns dark. The wind caresses the grass and the Kishins growl lowly. It is quite difficult to actually picture those blue orbs that is supposed to be souls when I have never seen them, hopefully I manage to get it right by desiring to see them than actually picturing them.
When I open my eyes, I can't see the trees that surround us and the Kishins that slowly sneak toward us, everything is dark except for the blue soul that is right beside me. That is Hiro's soul. I freeze when I notice just how many Kishins that are around us. Red souls move toward us and more are concealed inside of the woods. There must be at least twenty Kishins here and I have a feeling more will tag along.
My eyes then catch the sight of a group of blue souls that move in an inhuman speed toward us. Seven souls move toward us and it is clear that they are Meisters and not Kishins. One soul moves faster than the others and will arrive here in less than half a minute, but why are they moving here? What do they want?
"A group of Meisters are moving toward us." I state and I close my eyes, wishing the Soul Perception to go away.
"Not just any group of Meisters, that is Soul, Black*Star, Harvar, Kilik, Tsubaki, Kid and Chrona." Hiro chuckles as I open my eyes and everything is back to normal. "I guess we will have to work more about the characterization with your Soul Perception."
The Kishins are far closer than I thought they were. The braver and more insane Kishins move faster toward us and they will leap at any given moment. "Another lesson, you are faster than us others and your reflexes are remarkable, use those in order to get behind them and use Soul Force. One scratch of their claws and you will be infected and if you are behind them, it is harder for them to actually hurt you."
The Kishin drool happily as they look at me, their claws clatter excitedly. One Kishin with a short nose and a dog tail roars loudly and leaps toward me.
"Get behind it and use Soul Force, you can do it." Hiro says as the Kishin leaps toward me and swings its mighty claws at me. The Kishin moves fast, I have to agree with that, but as its claws are just a foot away from me, everything seems to slow down. The Kishins seems to freeze in the air with its claws moving an inch at a time toward me.
Is this a Meister power or a Grigori thing?
As the claws are just about to touch my skin, my feet move faster than my mind can comprehend. I find myself behind the Kishin and it makes confusing sounds. I picture in my mind how my hand light up with the sparks as my mind fills with images of the Kishin that patrolled me for years, how I had seen it run away just to return with blood between its gums along with blood caked its body. All of those innocent people that I could have saved if I only knew about this curse― this gift. I'm not going to let anyone get killed on my watch ever again. I won't allow it.
I will kill every Kishin I come across!
My hand sparkles alive and my soul wavelength courses over my hand violently and roughly, lucky for me it doesn't hurt at all. I lay my hand on the Kishin's back. It hollers loudly and a second later it turns to ashes.
"Good Maka!" Hiro smirks toward me. "You got number two behind you!" Hiro then leap into fighting a Kishin, his sword blocking the Kishin's claws.
Quickly I turn on my heel and Hiro is right, there a Kishin comes running toward me in full speed, but to my eyes, he doesn't run that fast. I hold the dagger tightly in my hand, preparing myself for blocking the Kishin while I keep the Soul Force alive in my left hand. The thing is it wasn't my dagger that blocks the Kishin's claws. It is Soul's.
"Maka." Soul clenchs teeth. "Are you stupid? You got to run. You are in danger here." Soul pushes the Kishin away with the dagger and leaps toward it. "Go. Get away right now."
"No. I'm not going anywhere." I follow Soul and get in front of him, blocking the Kishin's claws. "I'm not going to let you keep me locked up. I only agreed to be a Meister in order to save people from the Kishins. I'm here to kill Kishins." I push the Kishin's claw away and use the opportunity to rush toward the Kishin's stomach and I hit it with my Soul Force. As the other Kishin, it roars loudly before its ashes slowly meet the grass. I turn back to Soul and I glare at him. "I won't let you take me away from the front lines. I may not be the best fighter or the strongest there is, but I'm going to work hard and I'm going to save as many people as I can because no one deserves to lose someone they love because of a Kishin."
Soul growls as he moves closer to me. "You have no clue what you are getting yourself into."
We are standing at the center of the battlefield, the other Meisters including Hiro are all fighting Kishins.
"I do know. I'm at the battlefield right now. I know I will see some horrible things but I'm ready to meet that." I straighten my back as much as I can in order to look larger and more dangerous.
Soul bares his teeth and snarls at me. He drops the dagger and grabs my shoulders. "No, you don't know. I'm trying to protect y―"
"I don't want your protection!" I yell in his face. "What I want is to fight." I slap his hand off my shoulders and backs away. "You aren't going to keep me away from the Kishins."
He must have been able to read my intentions since when I turn around and about to leap to help the other Meisters, Soul grabs my wrist and turns me toward him. "I get you want to be of use, but you don't understand. This is way larger than you can ever imagine." Soul's hand gently releases my wrist and he entwines our fingers. "You have to trust me on this one. You can't go out fighting."
"How am I supposed to trust you when you keep a bunch of secrets from me?"
Soul sighs and runs his free hand through his hair. "I can't tell you everything because if I do, you will freak out and get scared and I can't have that happen to you. Just trust me, you are better off not fighting."
"No Soul." I rip my hand from his. "I won't ever be better off not fighting. I can't trust you. I would rather deal with the fear than having an important person lying and keeping secrets from me."
Okay, I slipped. I wasn't supposed to say that part, especially not to Soul! He is an important person, but I don't want to admit it to him, not after what Hiro told me about Kim. There is no way I could compete with her. WAIT! I'm not competing with anybody over him! If someone wants him, then I would rather step back and let them have him because things between Soul and I never seemed to be good. There were always communication problems, lies, secrets and no time for us. To summary everything, everything was wrong with our relationship and it should never have happened.
Soul sighs. "I know I have lied to you in the past, I get it, but every time I lied, it was for a good reason. I'm not telling you a bunch of stuff because you are better off without them. You are safer without them."
I growl and roll my eyes. "Is that what you said to Jaqueline and all of your other ex-girlfriends? That you wanted to keep them safe and that is why you are so shitty at communicating?" I turn on my heel and this time, Soul let me go. I run toward Hiro who is fighting a Kishin, he doesn't seem to have any problem with it, but he is the one I know the most aside from Soul. There aren't many Kishins left, the last Kishins are the ones that we are fighting.
When I arrive beside Hiro, the battle is already over, I'm surprised that they don't kill the Kishins the way I do. I simply touch them and they turned to ashes, but Hiro, he cuts off their heads and their heel tendons before he puts his hand on their back, and it doesn't turn into ashes until nearly half a minute has gone by.
"Hiro." I say while Hiro stands beside the pile of Kishin ashes. "How come it took you so long to kill it?"
He turns toward me with a gentle smile. "You know everybody can't be as amazing as you are. Fighters might have a strong purifying wavelength, but it still takes a while for us to kill them since Kishins' madness is so dense."
"It is? But they are gone just when I touch them."
"That is because your wavelength is so strong when it comes to purifying madness."
"Hiro?" I know if there is someone who will tell me the truth, then it is Hiro. "Soul won't tell me something, he says I'm better off not fighting, do you know why that is?"
Hiro tilts his head in confusion. "Huh? Isn't that just because of overprotectiveness because you are a Grigori? I'm sorry, but that is the only reason I can come up with." I see it in his eyes, he is lying as well. He knows something and he refuses to tell me. What is it they are hiding?
My eyes abandon Hiro and I look toward the others. Their Kishins are dead and the field litters with the ashes of the Kishins. Harvar lies on the ground with Tsubaki sitting beside him, he must have gotten hit by a Kishin, but he seems fine. Tsubaki must have taken good care of him.
"How come, I get the feeling that everybody is hiding something from me?"
"You must be paranoid then. You know I tell you everything I know."
Not this time, Hiro. Not this time.