Up on Mt. Sononcoly, Conon and Onyl just received a hellacious onslaught of strikes courtesy of their opponent, the old Sentar’i Tyru.

  Conon lost consciousness from the beating given to him. Onyl could only move while prone. She dragged herself away from her foe and on her way to her teammate.

  Tyru however, stayed where he was. He didn’t have to move anywhere so long as his [Cardinal Shift] technique brought enemies to him.

  Perhaps aware of the impending victory, he dropped his anger and looked up at the sky.

  Clouds took up more view than the blue, but the day still left a pleasantness on the heart and mind.

  If not for the battle, it would have been another typical summer afternoon. Tyru tilted his head back down to the field, and the one conscious Cosondere in no shape to continue.

  “A good day to die, wouldn’t you say?” he asked Onyl.

  She simply continued her slow crawl. Whatever her plans were, she at least needed to reach Conon first.

  So much for their “test”.

  Weeks spent in limbo after Coty’s death, they awaited their fate with no knowledge of what would happen. Then after all the uncertainty, they were given a chance out of the blue.

  That chance appeared in the form of a new Cosondere. The test given, an apparently harmless one.

  Instead of a foregone success, the test led to this. Ythan gone from the scene, Conon out on the grass, and Onyl barely intact herself. Whatever sort of test was given to them, it seemed like failure was the real conclusion.

  Onyl crawled no more as she watched Tyru approach her. She tried to put on a tough face, but it fooled no one. Tyru gave a mixed expression of disdain and pity as he looked with squinted eyes.

  He stopped beside Onyl and her breaths paced higher as she stared up at what may be the last thing she’ll see.

  But then something else jutted into her view and soon it took her whole attention. Tyru caught notice and his head shifted to spot whatever it was.

  Another Cosondere stood up on a small hill in line with the sun’s glare. White hair and an uneven black cloak, Quin stared down at the old Sentar’i.

  Tyru groaned before he uttered, “Where there’s one, there’s more. You cloaks are all like pests.”

  Onyl resumed her crawl toward Conon. For the time being, they were left alone as Tyru had a new target to bash.

  Quin took in every inch of what his eyes saw. The sight of his teammates in rough shape unnerved him, but he had to be strong.

  Moreover, he couldn’t find Ythan anywhere. In a way, it gave Quin a small relief; he rather see the brooding face of his opponent than his former boss.

  That said, he still had the brooding face of his opponent to deal with. He slid a foot forward on the hill with no intent to go back.

  “You think one extra cloak will be enough to tip the scales?” Tyru asked as he took a couple of steps toward the Tyroviv. “Your friends tried to fight me together and look at them. You think they’ll be any help? Do you think you can fight me alone?”

  Quin knew the answers but he had no plans to flee. Instead, he planned to keep his distance. His arm snapped forward and a [Gust] smacked up against Tyru.

  Only the clothes moved on the old Sentar’i, Tyru stayed exactly in place, seemingly unaffected.

  Quin wasn’t finished.

  He leaped off the hill and raced through the field. He unleashed more [Gust Attacks] as he circled around his opponent.

  Quin remembered what happened the last time he met Tyru. He had to keep on the move and keep from his foe’s reach.

  In addition to that, Tyru stood too close to Onyl and Conon. If nothing else, Quin wanted take Tyru’s attention and presence away from them.

  For his part, Tyru kept his eyes on Quin. Every time he took a step forward, he would be met with another [Gust].

  Eventually, yards separated the Sentar’i from the two Tyrovivs. In exchange, Tyru moved closer to Quin. One final [Gust] ruffled through his clothes before Tyru sported a small grin.

  “Nature can produce a stronger wind than you,” he declared. He began his fluid motions. “You can’t even knock me off balance. No real idea about the extent of wind arts. I’ll give you an understanding.”

  Quin instantly stopped in his tracks and charged his aura. Smoke formed out of him quickly as he readied himself for the next act.

  Tyru bent his forearm back and began his [Cardinal Shift]. Quin felt a sudden tug; he quickly turned the aura around him into wind.

  He bottled himself in his [Iron Wind] and his body never left the ground.

  Tyru continued the [Shift]. Each time his arm motioned to yank Quin over, the Tyroviv would charge more aura and produce a stronger wall of wind.

  Only the stones were snagged from their spots. Quin however, was lightly dragged across the grass.

  The Sentar’i eventually put an end to his movements and stood like a statue once more.

  Quin sensed a finish to the offense; his wall of wind dispersed as he stared at his foe. No matter what, he would do anything to avoid physical contact.

  “So you have more aura after all,” Tyru spoke. He looked at his hands “That, or mine...no. Your aura is lacking. It’s no different from that of your allies, still inadequate.”

  A large amount of smoke circled around Tyru. More aura than he had ever seen, Quin instinctively placed a foot behind him. His eyes widened with concern. What would his foe do next, he asked himself.

  Tyru smirked. “Can your aura do this?…”

  In a flash, Tyru’s aura burst outward and hit Quin with utmost speed.

  Quin couldn’t move. Shock and fear suddenly filled his body.

  More troubling, he couldn’t sense his own aura. Instead, Tyru’s aura surrounded the Tyroviv. It felt as if he was kept still by his opponent’s smoke.

  “Another cloak utterly stunned by the strength of my aura,” Tyru told. “You’re all the same. So brave, so eager, so foolish. Yet you all show the same face when confronted with stronger aura.”

  The smoke faded away from Quin. He could move freely and felt his aura again. Tyru gave him no time to recover.

  “Too late!” Tyru shouted as he flew right up to Quin.

  The Tyroviv only had time to block one part of his body. He chose his face. Tyru chose the sternum.

  A knee rushed up straight to Quin’s gut. A sharp pain found his stomach and reached to his back. He shot out like lightning.

  Quin bounced off the ground multiple times before he skidded to a stop.

  Face against the dirt, his arms twitched before the rest of him could move. He had just finished one battle, but it already seemed like this one would finish him.

  “Done already?” Tyru asked with a chuckle. He slowly walked up to Quin. “Absolutely the same as all the other cloaks. One good attack, and you all crumble.”

  Quin whipped up his arm and projected another [Gust]. Once more it had little effect on the Sentar’i. Tyru stuck his arm out and sent a [Gust] of his own. It was especially effective.

  It forced Quin back, he tumbled a long length through the field some more. Now he neared the summit’s edge. He made it to his hands and knees when he struggled to rise any higher.

  “Once more, your aura is no mat-” Something caught Tyru’s attention and he immediately jumped off the grass.

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  He flipped over to a small hill. His eyes fixed themselves on the ground and the silhouette that nearly caught him.

  With the sun at her back, Onyl’s shadow arts were put to better use.

  Despite the faster movement, her puppet still couldn’t reach Tyru in time. She quickly retracted her silhouette. Conon lay unconscious beside her, a heightened concern befell her, and Tyru’s gaze besieged her.

  “You.” Tyru growled. “You lot have become such a nuisance. I’ve had e-” He punctuated with a [Gust Attack].

  Despite being on the other side of the field, Onyl and Conon were still swept back by the strong wind. The two rolled across the dirt until they stopped.

  Onyl slowly sat up in front of her downed teammate. Deep breaths were her only recourse.

  Tyru launched himself off the hill. More than a dozen feet in the air, he kept his eyes on Onyl. Massive smoke circled around his right arm. A roar presented itself to the ears.

  Quin knew something must be done right now. He tried to get up; his body had a hard time. This was not what he wanted. He didn’t want to see another friend die while he watched.

  He dug deep within himself. He needed more. More strength. More aura. A source of motivation, an idea, ANYTHING.

  Quin closed his eyes and tried to conjure any image he could think of. Whatever it was, he had to find it. A vague memory of red showed up.

  “Find it, you must,” Quin recalled. More red appeared.

  He remembered the woman in red and her message. To find his aura. He needed it. He dug deeper in his mind, deeper in his soul. He needed it. He needed it now.

  Tyru became a vortex in the sky. His [Howling Wave] ready to strike.

  “Perish! Damned cloa...”

  Out of Tyru’s peripheral view, he spotted traces of red smoke.

  More and more surrounded Quin as he slowly rose to his feet. The fatigue he felt, floated away.

  Tyru turned his [Wave] toward Quin and sicced it on the Tyroviv with red aura.

  A loud roar descended onto Quin. Deafening as it was, only one sound made it to his head.

  “Adapt aura, you can! Mend it, you must! Bend it, you must!”

  A perceptible rush of wind and aura barreled toward Quin. “Bend it,” he heard. Only one thing sprung to mind.

  Quin raised a hand, imbued with red smoke. Right at its apex came the collision of powers.

  A white light. A loud roar. A deep pressure. They all hit Quin’s senses at once. The result of a direct hit from the [Howling Wave].

  The attack sent a shock wave across the summit. Dust and debris filled the immediate air around impact.

  Onyl shielded over Conon while she concealed her face. Tyru reached the ground with a smug smile. His breaths paced like a clock.

  Dust settled and a calm began to fill the scene. Onyl turned back to see the damage. Tyru stared and waited to admire it. Then everything became clear.

  Surrounded by dirt and destruction, Quin remained exactly in place. Hand up to the sky. Red smoke floated high.

  Tyru dropped both his smirk and jaw.

  “What?” he muttered. “What sort of madness...”

  Quin lowered his arm and peered at the red aura around him.

  Onyl froze in shock. Eventually she blurted, “There it is.”

  “Limited, this is,” Quin heard. “Proceed with haste!”

  He snapped his sights on Tyru. The Sentar’i snapped out of his shock and prepared himself in response. He crouched down for any sudden movement. Then Quin raised a palm at his foe.

  An explosion of wind followed right after. More of the ground kicked up in the air. Unfortunately, it missed.

  Tyru barely avoided the blast as he leaped aside. Before he landed, he noticed the Tyroviv right next to him.

  Tyru nearly stumbled but his offense wavered none. He struck with rapidity. Quin deflected them all.

  Every part of him moved faster. His arms zipped in unison with his opponent’s.

  Onyl watched in mystification, a spectator of the incredible.

  Tyru sensed a fruitless endeavor and backed away from Quin. Not finished with his offense, the Sentar’i swung out a leg and released a thick strand of wind.

  It never touched Quin.

  Tyru’s wind kick fractured to specks before his widened eyes. Upon contact with the red aura, it disintegrated to nothing. As if Quin sliced his aura in two.

  Undoubtedly, alarm filled Tyru’s face. He made a short gasp then growled in fury.

  “You’re not anythin-”

  Quin sent a wind kick of his own. Straight to the mid-section, a stream of red wind rammed against Tyru. It took his breath away.

  The old Sentar’i bounced off the dirt hard, his body battered itself with each collision. His momentum stopped when he smashed onto a hill.

  Tyru slowly picked himself back up. His shirt, tattered off. A mixture of awe, disbelief, and a dash of fear took over his face. When he saw Quin right beside him, it became just the fear.

  Tyru sprang away, or at least he would have. Quin clasped on to the Sentar’i’s wrist before he could distance himself.

  A twist and a snap was all it took to have Tyru wail at the sky. His knees nearly touched the ground as he clutched Quin’s arm. While he pried away from the Cosondere’s grip, it left his face wide open.

  Quin sent a jab that nearly caved Tyru’s face in. The Sentar’i fell back before Quin pulled him into another fierce whomp to the head.

  Distance finally separated the two, but only to allow Quin another wind kick to the chest.

  Tyru flew and rolled back across the field. For the first time, he was the one knocked around, a remarkable turn of events.

  Once more, the Sentar’i got up with difficulty. Quin simply walked over to his foe.

  The time to finish this had arrived. He thought about what could put Tyru away for good. Different ideas swam in his head when an urgent warning took over.

  “Hurry, you must! Before aura exhausts!”

  Those words forced a decision on Quin. He ran up to the Sentar’i just as he knelt up, and uncorked the best punch in the face his strength could muster.

  Only, it merely pushed Tyru back down.

  Quin’s face widened in disbelief. He quickly charged his aura, only small traces of red smoke swirled with the rest. He had ran out of juice.

  Suddenly, the scene began to spin around. Quin’s chest tightened, and his body felt slightly limp. Tyru noticed the change in body language when he sat up with a snarl.

  Unwilling to lose his momentum, Quin rose a leg toward his seated opponent. It was blocked with ease.

  He stumbled back with panted breaths. The voice in his head had no suggestions.

  “I once heard stories about a Sentar’i with red aura,” Tyru mentioned as he stood up. “None of the storytellers saw it with their own two eyes, so I believed it all to be a fantasy.

  “To think there was truth to their words. About the power. The strength. And from a kid. A cloak. There’s no way I can realize my dreams with something like that in their hands.”

  Tyru without warning thrust out a kick and despite its sluggishness, Quin couldn’t react in time.

  He was struck in the head and flew a few yards to the ground. By no means sent across the field, Quin nonetheless struggled to sit up.

  “That man in Sirqu should not have a pawn like that at his disposal. We’ll never be rid of them in such an event.”

  Quin could only crawl back from his foe who slowly approached.

  “You have to go. For the sake of the future. For the sake of my family’s future.”

  Tyru pounced. Quin flinched. A barrier stood between them. Tyru bounced off of nothing before he hit the ground.

  “What?!” he uttered in surprise. His head turned everywhere when he looked at the sky behind him.

  There, on his way down via invisible steps, marched Ythan. His eyes kept on the old Sentar’i as scorn covered his face. Quin watched with both shock and relief.

  The blue cloak reached solid earth just as Tyru returned to his feet. The Neraviv flapped back his half torn blue cloak and stood at the ready.

  “Your opponent is me now,” he spoke. “Your goals. Your dreams. Your cause. It ends now.”

  “D’AAHAAHHHHH!! Damn you! Damn all you cloaks! This only ends when one of us stops breathing!”

  Tyru shot out a [Gust] at the blue cloak. Ythan only moved an inch.

  “What? No! Now?!” Tyru blurted.

  “Now who has the weaker aura?” Ythan posed as blue circles appeared on top of his hands.

  He vanished in thin air before he reemerged with a flurry of punches.

  Fast action and fast motion, Tyru stood no chance. The Sentar’i was batted back and forth as Ythan appeared on every side with simultaneous strikes.

  Onyl watched intently, her eyes tried to follow the movements. Quin looked on with awe while he recovered.

  Ythan took his relentless pummeling to the sky as he launched his foe well above the ground with a kick.

  The Neraviv zipped up in the air after him and reached a higher vertex. High above Tyru, gravity started to take hold of Ythan when the circles on his hands turned red.

  Suddenly, he plunged like a comet. His foot dove into Tyru’s sternum and the two of them plummeted in a blink and smashed into the ground with a loud wham.

  Both Quin and Onyl covered their faces as dust propelled their way. Rocks rained down before an eerie silence filled the air. Everything seemed to freeze, even the two conscious Tyrovivs kept still. Neither knew what to expect next.

  After countless seconds, a hand emerged from the rubble. Ythan climbed out from the hole and crawled out with coughs and deep breaths.

  Quin and Onyl stared ahead in startlement at their boss. At a certain point, the Tyrovivs tried to rise on their feet. Onyl had an easier time.

  Ythan himself rose up and he briefly looked behind him before he turned to his subordinates. He first looked at Quin to his left. No words were spoken before he faced Onyl on his right.

  “Is Conon okay?” the blue cloak asked as he stepped away from the crater. “How’s he doing?”

  “He is breathing,” Onyl projected. “A mender needs to tend to him though.”

  Ythan looked on sternly, then he stopped to face Quin.

  “I thought I told you to go home.”

  Quin made it to a knee as he looked at the Neraviv. “We’re a team, boss. I wanted to help.”

  Ythan groaned before he took more steps forward.

  “Well, no matter. No one’s dead so at least there’s that. Do either of you have a smoke Ocer? We need to inform leader-”

  Tyru popped out of the crater with a maniacal scream. Whatever aura he had left circled his arm. Ythan dropped his expression, frozen in shock.

  “SCREW THE COSON-DERA!!!” the Sentar’i yelled.

  Quin felt an urge to act. He said he wanted to help, that’s what he intended to do. With his boss in harm’s way, he summoned all the aura he had left and released the full extent of his wind arts.

  The red aura wasn’t completely gone.

  An explosive, thunderous, continuous boom filled the entire area. With both hands, Quin directed a massive [Galestorm] point blank at Tyru.

  The ground. The hills. His opponent. None could withstand such a force. Tyru’s screams faded in the distance as he and everything in its path were wiped off the mountain.

  The mounds turned into a series of boulders. They were fired out of the summit like projectiles and smashed onto other mountains below.

  A massive amount of smoke and debris trajected in a curve all the way down. Somewhere among the rubble was Tyru.

  The loud noise carried itself down and left the Cosondera above to themselves.

  Ythan lay parallel with the ground, arms over his head. Onyl covered over Conon. She needed a moment before she could pick her head up.

  When the worst of the rumble subsided, Ythan turned his frightened gaze on Quin.

  He lay flat on his stomach with his arms still protruded out. Immediately before him was a wide path of destruction that lined all the way out to the edge.

  His senses were shot. Everything sounded like one loud hum. Nothing stayed still in his eyes. He couldn’t feel a single limb. Despite it all, he knew for sure, it was over.

  Ythan turned his head away and recomposed himself somewhat. He turned back to Quin and the aftermath. His eyes and jaw dipped, it still left him stunned.

  “Uh...thank you,” the Neraviv let out. “That...should let them know.”

  The breeze returned with a much calmer sweep. Clouds filled up more of the sky as the sun inched closer to the horizon.

  Late summer air wrapped everything in a blanket of warmth. As the Cosondera on the summit pointed their eyes upward, their afternoon and their battle came to a close.