Where Winter Meets Summer (Rusame Countryhumans)

Washing Salt From a Wound

My first job was to test his close combat abilities. I advanced forward and threw a quick strike at his side but he reacted quickly and made a counter strike, turning to protect his backside while throwing a considerable amount of force behind the punch.

Not too shabby, smart move, I thought to myself as I twisted around his vision to avoid his attacks. This fight was going to be one that kept me on my toes. As we exchanged blows, I could tell that he was well trained in self defense and key opportunities for offence. Pretty nice but I have to admit it was a bit too rigid for my liking. Unlike my style or Russia's style, which could fluently adapt at a moment's notice but it was probably something that would improve with experience. Still, it was working well for him at the moment.

He locked his arm around mine to secure a solid hit but I whipped my wrist out of the hold, grabbed onto his wrist and flung us apart.

"Not bad, not bad at all," I grinned as I wiped a bit of sweat off my chin. I rolled up my sleeves and as my hand touched my arm, a prickly burning sensation began to itch at my arms.

At first, everything looked normal but upon closer inspection, I could see a thin crystalline layer crumbling over my skin and it was starting to sting a bit.

I glanced up at Netherlands where a pressed smile played on his lips. He held up his hand where he let a small trickle of the same tiny white crystals slip through his fingers.

"Tch-," I hissed as I confronted him again but as time went on, my hands, my arms and my leg started to flare even more. It began to feel so bad that I stumbled away from offence to defense. The white crystal shell was now clearly visible and it looked like it was growing.

"What the hell is this?" I growled as I tried to scrape the crust off but to no avail. This was most likely the work of his Awakening but exactly what was it? Netherlands pulled off his coat and flung it to the side, the insides dusted with white. His blue skinned arms were also covered in patches of the same crystal but it did not seem to bother him at all.

It itched, it burned, it was starting to hurt as it rubbed against my skin. All I wanted to do was to get rid of whatever the fuck this was. With a bit of concentration, the skin under the crystal began to glow, as I poured my energy into specific areas to burn it away. To my surprise, it did nothing at all and the crystal crust continued to spread.

"Salt," Netherlands explained as he stepped forward as small white waves rolled next to his feet like the dunes of a desert, "I has a very high heat tolerance and can put out fires if you have enough of it."

He walked over to a fallen pillar that sat just by the sidelines and placed his fingers on it. Slowly, the marble pillar crumbled and fell into the waves, turning into salt.

"Holy shit," I exclaimed as I took a couple steps back. Now I was getting a bit unnerved and stared at the patches of salt on my skin. Was I going to crumble into salt now? How the hell did such a dangerous Awakening go unnoticed? Or were there more restrictions he wasn't telling me?

I didn't have time to ask because the tide of white surged towards me to swallow me whole. I leapt into the air and with a burst of energy concentrated in my legs, I propelled myself out of the way just as more waves came. I ran around, dodging as sending occasional attacks towards the other country but a curtain of salt would always rush in and block. Of course, I could never stay in one area for long with the tides of salt coming for my ass. Meanwhile, even my Partial Awakening was at the mercy of the stupid clasp and my Awakening would flicker, causing me to stumble on multiple occasions. The wind that slowly began to pick up did not help either. It just helped blow the salt into my face.