"I see it's taken to you more than me. Hah, talk about ungrateful!"
"Ungrateful? Aren't you the one taking away her power? I don't see that as being too likeable~"
"That… That doesn't mean I didn't release her from her duties."
"How can you be so sure? You don't even know what those duties are."
"Even so! She wouldn't have come with me were she to hate me!"
It had been many days since the last attack on Reman forces. The Inyankarans had settled down, and they were content—for the moment—with the lands they had taken back.
"Still… to think she would become small enough to sit on my forearm like this…" Nayavu said, looking at the blue bird that emanated ferocious energy even at a size comparable to that of a bald eagle.
Tahu also got in closer to smell the bird. Maybe it was because they were both animals, but Tahu seemed to understand the thunderbird better and got sad whenever they would have a moment to themselves.
"It's not weird that you feel like this, pal," Nayavu added, patting him on the head.
Overall, the atmosphere when talking about the thunderbird was gloomy. Maybe some weeks ago, the bird would have also noticed, and she would have zapped whoever dared take pity on her, but that was not the case anymore. As time went by, the elemental beast started acting less like a higher being, and more like a normal bird. With time, it stopped responding to human speech, and it was not long before instinct took over rationality.
In otherwise peaceful times, this was the one constant that brought down the mood of the three lightning wielders.
*Screech*
However, there was one thing that stuck to the thunderbird, and that was her loyalty. Even now, as she sensed danger in every direction, she didn't fly away. Instead, she puffed up her feathers, looking in the same direction as everyone else. They looked at a violent explosion that more than surely had wiped out a whole village.
"Already…huh…"
"What do you mean already? A bit more and the cold weather would have frozen the water they need. I'm sure they'll waste no time now that autumn is in full swing," Ayanda commented on the boy's remark, grabbing a falling leaf and shoving it in his face as if she was a teacher, annoyed at the student who didn't think before speaking.
Pushing the leaf out of the way, Nayavu sighed first and got up on his feet next. He knew the Remans would be back even stronger.
"Maybe they called that Aurelio back to knock him down a few pegs. Haha!"
He joked around, but in reality he felt saddened. Even for a little while, things seemed to have calmed down in Inyankara. Even if naive, he dared to think that maybe he managed to change history. He dared imagine a world in which his actions would bring peace—a world where Inyankara wasn't completely destroyed.
"Are you going?" the woman asked, to which the boy answered with a nod, ready to hop on the stag standing proud next to him.
Even if it was bound to happen, it still hurt. Expecting disaster didn't mean he was prepared for it, and when the time came, Nayavu's chest felt tight regardless.
"Here," the young lad said, letting the thunderbird jump from his arm to Ayanda's shoulder.
"Oh? I thought you'd need me there for the grand finale," said the thunder representative, her gaze curiously sizing up the boy as she waited to see what his answer would be.
"That would certainly tip the scales in our favor," Nayavu acknowledged. "But I know well enough you've already overstepped. You couldn't help even if you wanted to, so don't try and get me complacent like that."
With only a thundering laugh for an answer, Ayanda threw the boy something he caught with little effort.
"Another 'fruit of my perseverance'?"
"I say you deserve it. Now go out there and show them what training with a representative gets you! I'm not taking sides, but I'm throwing you in the ocean if you fail!" she said with a wink, sending the disciple she took pride in to bloody battle.
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*****
How could a rapier stop lightning? That was something nobody understood, but before questioning the way he defied physics, Nayavu had another question for the man he was trying to strike down.
"What the hell are you even saying?" the boy asked, his fist made of electricity still pushing into the sword.
"Yes! Starting with you will help release some steam!" the man in front of him—a lieutenant called Giovanni—shouted, swinging his beautifully decorated sword even harder to try and cut Nayavu.
For all that training, Nayavu's first strike had failed. It was an unexpected turn of events, as he would often clear Reman outposts with a quick couple of strikes. Yet, the one in front of him stopped the boy with only a swing and a crazed look in his eyes, leaving them facing one another in the middle of the glade surrounded by a dwarf forest.
After making sure to let out a loud "Tsk," Nayavu backed down, jumping at a safe distance from the armed lieutenant.
"All by yourself? Didn't you have a general—sorry, master—to protect?"
This time, it was Giovanni's turn to click his tongue.
"I think you have other things to worry about, you savage boy!"
As Giovanni retorted, tens—no, thousands of Reman soldiers gathered around the lone Inyankaran, their guns ready and pointed at the boy who recklessly jumped right in their middle of the formation. In return, Nayavu looked at them unimpressed.
"It's not them I care about," the boy said, grabbing the ivory knife that was waiting at his waist and pointing it at the Reman lieutenant.
As he did so, a whimper resounded from the Roman ranks. With it, a soldier fell to the ground, his mouth smoking and his legs twitching, with some purple traces of electricity still lingering on.
Before anyone could say anything, a tall buck appeared next to the fallen soldier. The animal stood tall, his antlers reaching for the sky.
Looking at it, not even Giovanni could tell it was the same animal that fled when he snuck up on Nayavu all those months ago. The deer was now much bigger, and the crown it wore seemed to have been given by Mother Nature herself, putting to shame the next-proudest stag wandering the plains—no, the whole world.
Between those antlers, purple bolts danced energetically, and when the next soldier pointed his gun at the animal, the jolly bolt jumped right towards his heart, stopping it and leaving the man dead on with Tahu left unbothered.
With a smug smile, Nayavu turned his face to Giovanni.
"How about it? Don't you think you should bring more men?"
But Giovanni didn't back down from the fight.
"Hah! Like I give a damn about those guys! They are here to follow my orders, and my orders are for them to keep that animal at bay while I take care of you!"
"Oh? Have you remembered something?" Nayavu asked, poking at the past that waited in the future.
"Remember? What is there to remember? All I know is that you're one of the reasons I get treated the way I do. I'll just take you out and then clean the rest of Inyankara!"
Together with his warped grin, Giovanni lifted his hands to the sky, his newfound ugliness reaching the heavens, as his now cracked mind could only think about one thing.
"And after I do that, I'll take care of that damn snake! I won't stop until everyone who has wronged me leaves me alone!"
"Damn. You almost made me think the next step was to take over the army…"
Nayavu meant what he said as a joke, but as Giovanni dropped his gaze back upon him, the angry, sad, distorted face he wore made the boy shudder. Maybe he was actually on the mark.
Maybe the Inyankaran would have liked to ask more, but the Reman didn't give him the chance.
Placing the hilt of his rapier close to his chest, Giovanni lunged forward, stretching his hand to pierce Nayavu in one swift strike. It was a move easy to read, and the boy had no trouble dodging it, but Giovanni made sure to follow up.
Once next to the boy, he twisted the blade and tried to cut his head clean off. If it weren't for the boy's training in lightning arts, he would have managed to do so. Instead, Nayavu transmuted his body, and the attack passed through him.
Even so, the boy couldn't help but acknowledge Giovanni's sword skills. The speed, power, and precision in his strikes were enough to cut down most Inyankarans. If push came to shove, he wouldn't have put it past Giovanni's ability to fight even against Tatanka.
But that wasn't only because of how he wielded his blade. Soon after swinging his blade, Giovanni called in water jets from seemingly nowhere.
In truth, it was all the way at the nearest outpost that the water reserves were being depleted. That outpost was kilometers away, showing as a small dot on the edge of the horizon, but that was more than enough for the lieutenant. With just a flick of his wrist, he grabbed what he needed, and was now keeping the candidate for a representative's title busy.
It was hard to admit, but Nayavu was struggling. The control Giovanni had over small amounts of water was unlike anything 'he' had seen in all of 'his' years. Reading the patterns the water would take was impossible, so he merely kept dodging what was coming right at him, grateful to the speed of electric currents for keeping him able to run through atoms. Yet, the fight came to a standstill.
Nayavu felt the need to do something, so with the risk of having his hand lopped off, he materialized his body just enough to throw his ivory knife at the one who had forgotten how to use his face.
The knife flew through the air, and as the boy could spend little power on winds to help it accelerate, Giovanni had plenty of time to react and dodge the attack, letting the knife bury itself in the ground.
Or so he thought, but the weapon flew right back when he wasn't looking and pierced the lieutenant's palm that he used as a last means of defense. This created a lapse in concentration that stopped his water attacks and gave Nayavu much-needed room to breathe.
"Stone magic is our specialty. How could you forget about that?" the sole Inyankaran present taunted the Reman.
"Stone? Isn't this Ivo—" Giovanni tried to speak, but he was soon interrupted.
"Don't sweat the details too much!"
After but a short break, the two resumed their fight.