Cyrus's golen blade came in fast and aimed to slice my chest open. I just barely raised my Khopesh in time and blocked his strike. I stumbled back and had to catch my footing. For a freakin twelve year old he's powerful!
"You're leaving every part of you exposed." Cyrus said.
He changed his hand positioning and poked at me, which was extremely hard to block now. His sharp sword poked my chest, sliced my leg, and poked my arm. Clearly he was focused on proving a point.
"Come on, actually put up a fight!" Nick yelled.
"Shut up! I need to focus!" I complained.
Only to barely dodge a stab at the side of my neck. Cyrus was fast, unpredictable and calm. However, I could tell he was semi distracted. His eyes kept panning out toward the rest of the group. Like he was nervous about something.
We went back and forth like this over and over again. My clothes got holes poked in all over them, and my legs had plenty of stinging scars. Right before he aimed to give my neck another cut, an alarm went off from his pocket. He came to an abrupt stop right next to my neck.
"U-ummm, you okay?" I asked.
He took a step back and glanced around the area again.
"Would you mind? If we change sceneries a bit?" He mumbled.
I nodded.
"Yeah, sure. Whatever works best for you."
…
I followed behind Cyrus as we walked deeper into the woods. Slowly disappearing from everyone's sight. I was only slightly nervous, yeah we were brother's. But that doesn't mean he won't go chainsaw massacre on me. This time around Thomas decided to come. Happily resting himself on my shoulder.
As we walked, I watched Cyrus take a white pill bottle from his pocket. I quickened my pace and tried to sneak in a better look. However, the labels were completely torn off. Which only granted me more curiosity. He took a few pills and swallowed them. While his familiar happily bounced on his head.
Maybe if I question him he'll tell me…
"So, umm, those pills. Is that something from the curse?" I asked.
He jumped a bit and nodded.
"Yeah." He replied.
"Do you mind me asking what it is?"
"I'd rather not talk about it." He said quickly.
I gave a nod and decided to drop the subject. It wasn't too long before we came out to an open area in the forest. There was an ordinary lake in the distance and a few purple flowers scattered about. He walked over to a tree and leaned back against it. Taking a heavy breath.
"Don't handle people well?" I asked.
"Yeah, I have a bit of social anxiety." He replied.
Clearly he doesn't take meds for that then. Which sucks that he has that on top of something else.
"I see, that bites. I don't really have social anxiety or anything. But I seriously don't like people."
Cyrus nodded and walked over to me.
"Okay, so your swordsmanship is ummm."
"You can just say I'm just trash. I'll understand."
"Well.." he mumbled and looked away. "Not everyone is meant to be a swordsman. Hizuki took awhile to master her weapon of choice. She ended up liking machetes a lot more."No way my sister uses a machete as her weapon of choice. That's freaking awesome!"We can practice a lot more, but if it seems like it's just not for you. You may consider molding a different weapon."
I nodded.
"Gotcha, I appreciate it."
"So, we can move on to shadow manipulation then."
He held his hand out and dangled it over the shadow between his legs. As he did, his shadow slowly became darker, until it was just pitch black.
"Our shadows are colder than the average person's. So if you put your hand in your shadow, you should feel it. Focus on that chill, embrace it. That'll open the gate."
Cyrus held his blade out and dropped it onto his shadow, and his blade soon vanished into it. Like he dropped it into a lake. I stared wide eyed for a bit, Casey's brain would probably break trying to understand this.
"A-alright…" I said and took a breath.
I reached down toward my shadow, and the cool air entangled itself around my fingers. Sending a shiver up my arm. No way, it was really cold. I closed my eyes and focused on the icy sensation, letting it crawl up my arm and fill my body. Once the cold feeling blanketed me, I grabbed my blade and dropped it down. My eyes grew wide as I watched it slowly sink into the mud like shadow underneath me. Until it was gone.
"Woah! Oh my gosh that was crazy!" I cheered.
Upon breaking my concentration the sword spat back out and decked me in the nose. I groaned and dropped back onto my butt.
"Ah- Dammit!" I yelled and grabbed my face.
While I cried, I heard Cyrus laughing. I groaned and looked over to him. It honestly eased my heart a bit to see him smiling for once. But pissed me off that it was about me.
"Yes, ha ha, very funny." I groaned and pushed myself back up.
"It takes time to master, but once you do it enough. It'll be second nature." He said.
"Right, how much stuff can fit in it?" I asked.
"Depends on the person. Mines can hold alot, I pretty much have an entire room down here."
"What? Can I see!?"
He chuckled and nodded.
"Sure, but we'll need to get into an external shadow now."
"What do you mean?"
"We can't ride in our own shadows unless we start from an external shadow. Like the ones from the trees."
"Interesting, can we ride in other people's shadows?"
He started to walk toward the tree line again and shook his head.
"No, humans and things like us are a no for some reason."
He touched a tree and I watched his arms slowly start to sink into its shadow.
"So for this it's the same concept as before, the only difference is, external shadows are like water. Don't try to move your body like you'd normally do. Just use your mind to direct where you wanna go. If you panic you'll be spat out. It takes full concentration."
With that, he'd fully disappeared into the tree's shadow, leaving me semi alone. I glanced over at Thomas who seemed to read my mind and hopped off.
"Alright, here goes nothing…"
I rested my hand against the tree and focused on the cool air. As I did, my hand started to sink. A cold rush of water ran over my fingers, and my body trembled. An image of the black sea came to mind, that dream I had the night mom was attacked. I moved my hand back and glared at the tree's shadow.
"Come-on Nyx…" I mumbled.
I reached out again, but my body froze. My heart started to race and I couldn't move another inch. I didn't want to go back, maybe if Casey was here…
"What's the matter?"
I jumped as I heard Cyrus' voice from below. I looked down and just saw his head poking out from the shadows. A ripple forming around the shadow he was in, like it really was water.
I looked away and scratched the back of my head.
"I just….can't do it." I mumbled.
Cyrus slowly climbed out of the black puddle and eyed me. Then he slowly took his hood off. His familiar jumped onto his shoulder as he did.
"I know, it's scary. I actually had a panic attack when I tried it for the first time." He said.
My eyes glanced from him, then back to the tree.
"So, how did you overcome it?"
He held out his hand to me.
"I didn't do it alone." He said.
I took a breath and stared at his hand. That monster could be back any day. Next time it could take Casey, it could take me. Then I have to stop Face Changer too. If I can't do this, can I ever hope to overcome them?
"Okay, I'll do it." I said and reached out, wrapping my hand around his.
His rough calluses caressed my palm, and I could tell just how hard he must've worked for his skills. This kid, I need to take a note from his book.
"Ready?" He asked.
I nodded.
"Let's do it."
With that, we stepped into the shadows. Honestly, it was more terrifying than before. Letting my legs sink into the black lake. It was like I was sinking into a cool pool, but I didn't feel soaked. Like the water was just caressing my skin. Soon it was time for my head to go under. I squeezed his hand a bit harder and the water soon rushed over me.
When I finally opened my eyes, I was speechless. Above me was the normal world, the trees, the sight of the river. It was like I was seeing through the lense of every shadow. I glanced over to Cyrus and he gave a nodd. Then carried me off. We zoomed like fish though the gray sea, my heart raced and I was scared I'd sink into the nothingness. But Cyrus never once let me go.
Eventually he came to a stop and let go of my hand, I panicked at first. But soon, I realized I wasn't falling. In fact, I was floating just fine. Cyrus pointed toward a huge cube nearby. We both swam toward it, and as soon as we made contact. We just popped through its walls and landed in an all black room.
There was a single lamp off in the distance. It illuminated a huge hangout area, there were comics and manga, game boys and D.S's and even a small box that I suspected had food.
"Oh my gosh, is that a chill area?"
"Yeah, to date I have the biggest shadow domain. It takes a good amount of negative energy to keep me inside here. So I can't live here. But it's a cool way to get away."
He walked over to his hangout area, and I nearly leaped out of my skin as we passed a pile of bones.
"What the hell…" I mumbled.
"Oh, right. We could technically practice that down here too if you wanted."
"What? Voodoo?" I asked.
"Close, we have the ability to reanimate the dead. Sorta. We can control skeletons and corpses. However, it's more fruitful to use skeletons in my opinion. So I keep a stash of them here."
"Huh, that's, huh.."
On one hand, a twelve year old who carries skeleton's around is insane. But also really clever. I wonder how big my domain is?
"Before we get back into training though, do you wanna play in a game first?"
Cyrus asked and picked up both of his D.S's.
"I've got guilty gear dust strikers."
"How old are you again?"
"Oh, fourteen." He said. "Why?"
"Just curious, but I'm down to play a round. Just tell me how it works. I could really use a break."