The last soldier fell and Aryu charged Izuku while bringing the Shi Kaze around, ready to cut his most hated enemy down.
Izuku didn’t move. He didn’t need to. He could feel the movement Aryu was making. He knew that whatever weak weapon it was he was swinging would slice through the sheathed blade of the Est Vacuus. He felt confident he had nothing to fear from this futile attack, and the boy would quickly learn a lesson in the Power and the things it can do.
That is, until Aryu hit him.
As if fired from a cannon, Izuku was tossed into a far wall by the force of the sword strike. He hit it unprepared for the impact and winded himself as he did so.
Aryu stood across from him, surprised at what his actions had done but more surprised it hadn’t cut him entirely in two. By this point Aryu was confident there was nothing the Shi Kaze could not get through. He felt the repulsive force as the two blades met, but he could still hold his ground and was unmoved by the action.
There was no smile in Izuku’s face now. No more games. He wanted Aryu alive but not if he was going to cause this kind of trouble. The Power built within the part of him that was still human, and the air filled with the heat of the fire and the electricity of the sudden buildup of otherworldly essence. The blade was out, allowing Aryu to see, or more to the point, not see, the shape of the thing. All Aryu could make out was a glimmer and nothing more. He felt no power or emptiness, though a part of him knew it was there. Perhaps it was the part of him linked to the Shi Kaze? He didn’t know.
“You,” growled the inhuman monster in front of him, “have run out of time, Aryu. A shame, really. You were supposed to open so many doors for me.”
Aryu, ready for the attack, raised the sword he carried, bringing it up to eye level. Tokugawa Izuku saw what he was up against and the realization was considerable.
Izuku’s eyes widened in an instant, recognition written all over his face. The ethereal blade he carried began to shake in his hand and suddenly the truth of his enemy dawned on him.
He knew this sword. He had carried it himself once. He knew its story. He knew its history. He knew its Power.
He knew that one good cut from it could kill him in an instant. And he had just let Aryu get in the first shot for free! What a fool! Why couldn’t he feel it? It was the Power given shape! How did the legendary blade of his father come back to the world again? Where had it been hiding? How did Aryu, of all people in the world, acquire it? If Aryu had just hit a few inches to the left or right…! It was staggering to suddenly realize how close he had just come to a crushing defeat. In fact, how close he still was now as Aryu challenged him. The downfall of his work, and even more so his life, was a few steps away in the hands of a child!
At a loss for what to do, he eventually decided the original course of action was the smartest, though perhaps a bit faster than originally planned.
“You and I aren’t done yet, Aryu. You’d better look after your friend.” He channeled a pulse of crushing nothingness into the air from the sword and the Est Vacuus it contained. The action brought a shrill scream to Crystal’s throat and she doubled over backwards as if struck, eyes wide and maddened, just as she had been when the Power had left her.
The noise made Aryu turn to her, and in that instant, summoning the Power within himself to aid his escape, Izuku was gone.
An older and more experienced man would have chased Izuku, knowing whatever evil he was attempting to unleash was worth the fragile sanity of just one woman. Aryu never even gave a moment of thought to following him. The safety and health of Crystal was paramount in his mind.
It was no secret he was drawn to her, but not in the ways it seemed. True, he was quite taken with her strange and otherworldly beauty and sharp, likeable personality, but there was nothing romantic in Aryu’s mind when he looked at her. She was something from a time before he could even imagine, and that alone tethered him to her in ways he’d never thought possible. She was a god, sitting here in front of him in a great amount of pain. He had to help her.
He went to her, taking care not to let his guard down in case she lashed out at him unexpectedly in her madness. Soon, he stood beside her, trying to devise a way to help her. Last time she said it had been her father, likely coupled with Nixon’s own gifts that had pulled her out of this craze. He had no way of doing what the phoenix could, so he did the only thing he could think of, using whatever Power it was he thought he possessed. As he knelt beside her, he drew the Shi Kaze in his hands and presented it to her, trying to tap the Power and what he had felt on the plane.
It never needed to get that far. Once the blade caught her eye, her yelling stopped instantly. Soon, the lost look was replaced with that of understanding. The two’s eyes met. Aryu was relieved to see recognition there. Did he save her, or
