Chapter 30: Sparring

All of Kira's thinking had caused a problem. In the crowded streets of Ostermark, you needed to keep their wits about yourself just to keep track of who they were beside and sometimes, even when concentrating, they could be lost. Having been far from holding his wits about himself, Kira had successfully lost Aura in a crowd and now, looking around himself, he couldn't tell where she had gone.

The great density that people were packed together with meant that he couldn't see more than a few feet in any direction, and the occasional passersby bumping into him and jostling him around did not help his situation. To try and shout to find her would be useless not just because he lacked the confidence to shout in between so many people but also because of the crowd's noise filled with merchants selling their wares and screaming mothers keeping a close and controlling eye on their charges.

There was nothing for it, he told himself, he would have to head back to stand beside the colosseum, where it was slightly less busy, and when Aura realized that he wasn't by her side, she would most likely head back to the place where they were last together. This journey was not as easy as he had expected.

Before he had taken one full step, his vision had failed him again.

It came upon him quickly, seemingly with no trigger, warping his vision as before so that everything collapsed around him and distances seemed wrong; changed. Buildings that previously had been further away now clustered around him intermixed with the crowds, and the noises all joined into one continuous siren that blasted through his ears. Struggling to stay on his feet, he pushed against the crowd that seemed to have merged all into one tidal wave of water pushing against him and practically had to fight for every inch of progress.

The ground changed too; it rose up against him so that what had been a flat courtyard became a steep cliff that demanded he climb it to maintain his course and taunted him with murderous eyes forming in puddles and triumphant smirks hidden in the troughs gouged out by the wheels of carts.

One such cart he now had a close call with as it, pulled by horses that seemed to be taken from the depths of the shadow realm pitch black and with wild red eyes, rushed towards him along the sheer wall of the cliff. It towered over him, the horse's hooves coming down with a terrible, clattering intent and slamming into the earth around him, making it shake as though it was trembling with him. Once the horses had passed, all that was left to escape were several mighty wheels. They were as tall as two men and lined with iron warped into a great triangular blade to cleave through anything unfortunate enough to be below them. They seemed to switch direction, just in time, and they missed him as the horses' screams pierced through the sky, swapping the positions of the heavens and the earth.

And he was certain then that, as he rose, he had not risen as himself, but instead as a soul standing above his twitching body to observe the hell that he had now arrived in. Panic set in because, whilst his mind could not even start to rationalize or comprehend what he saw or even think or talk rationally to him anymore, some part of it remembered how everyone had their own aura and what it meant to lose it. Death, this had to be death, he lamented, forgetting any of his resolved purposes or what it meant to be alive.

Suddenly, a wind hit him from behind, and a shadow engulfed his own, lying before him, to remind him of his own pathetic nature. Trying to turn, he didn't make it the full way around because behind him was a giant creature.

Like a moth, its wings spread out and around its skeletal body supported by bones visible through the stretched, black flesh that covered them. Balancing atop a long and snaking neck was a head that was too small for the body in a manner that may have been comical had the situation been changed, and a beaked mouth that dripped with a grey liquid. He didn't stay staring for long and so didn't make out many more details except for the clawed hands that sat at the end of its wings and now reached towards him, seeking to pick him up and take him towards its mouth. Deciding that his only chance was to run, he took off away from it as quickly as his legs would take him, thinking that he was running for his life.

Had he been in a more stable state of mind, he might have realized how similar this all was to his earlier experiences and that, like them, it probably would turn out to not be real, but he only thought this retrospectively and after he had already escaped, bursting out from the crowd and into a space before the colosseum. The monster and the strange land was gone and a cart, drawn by two horses, was slowly making its way through the crowd some way behind him.

Taking a moment to gather himself, whilst leant against the stout, stone wall, he tried to think where Aura might have got to during his episode. It didn't take him long to find her because, when looking around, he saw her out of the corner of his eye sat on a wall at the end of an alleyway and watching the people passing by.

Besides her, and talking animatedly to her, was Cat. He had found her before Kira, but this was good, Kira thought, as it saved him a job and now all that he needed to do was get the boy on his own. Starting towards them, he was spotted almost as soon as he left the shadows by the colosseum by Cat, who waved to him. As a result of how they were sitting, with a building being on Aura's right, the only space available to him was on Cat's left. Then, when he placed himself down on this precariously thin perch, his position was made even more sensitive by Cat jumping from his seat and sitting sideways across Kira's legs, smiling broadly up at him.

"So you two are definitely friends then?" asked Aura watching amusedly as Kira attempted to push Cat off to no avail.

"Yeah," replied Kira, "He's a little touchy, though…."

"He's also a little criminal, sneaking into the palace at night and all."

"He's a thief too," added Kira, ignoring any protests from the demi-human that seemed insistent on irritating him.

"Hey, Cat, is Cat even your name?" Aura questioned the boy directly.

"Yup, Kira gave it to me…."

"When we first met, he told me that he didn't have a name," interrupted Kira.

"So, Kira gave me this one based on…."

"The fact that you're a little thieving rascal with some excitable ears and a tail," finished Kira, "What are you doing with Aura anyway?"

"Looking for you."

"You have to have something to do that doesn't involve me or…" Kira prompted, stopping himself before mentioning Gretyl's concoctions.

"Not really."

Leaving Kira to struggle to reply, Cat then jumped up and took Aura's hand, who asked him, "Want to go get some lunch?" looking down towards him.

Not left with much choice, Kira followed behind the two of them as they both talked on their way over towards the bakery that he had visited last week. Feeling slightly left out, he was reduced to being the third wheel of the group, as Cat stole the conversation away from, him but he didn't mind that much because at least he had the boy where he needed him. When waiting in line, he found himself speaking again as Cat seemed to run out of things to say quite quickly – he evidently didn't have as exciting of a life as he made out – and stood looking around at the people beside him as though suspicious that anyone of the innocent pedestrians could be about to cause him bodily harm.

When Aura produced money to pay with, just as she had last week, Cat immediately became adamant that she would not have to pay for anything for him and, when they reached the front of the line, still arguing, Aura gave up trying to convince him otherwise and ordered only for herself and Kira. This turned out to be quite a bad idea because, feeling guilty that the demi-human wasn't eating but instead was staring up at him longingly with eyes ironically like a puppy's, he ended up sharing his lunch and missing out on the last few mouthfuls of what had been an excellent pasty.

Early that afternoon, as they explored the various shops around Ostermark's bustling streets, Kira got the sense that the interior environments of clothes shops presented themselves as far more formidable to Cat than any gambling den. From the way he moved around, keeping close by Kira's side, it was as though he was afraid to damage any of the products just by being near to them, and he attracted many disapproving looks from the well-dressed and uptight store owners. In fact, he seemed to be getting far too many looks from just about everyone around him, here Cat was a fish out of water, so to speak, and the stigma against demi-humans certainly wasn't helping him. Everyone seemed to expect him to cause some trouble and wondered what he was doing with people from the palace as they kept a careful, but not discrete, eye on him.

Getting Cat alone, away from prying eyes, and where they could talk freely about manipulations would not be as easy as he had hoped, thought Kira, as he came to regret allowing Aura to lead them to a higher class area of the city. These thoughts would be short-lived as they soon came across another group of people from the palace. Kira recognized at least one of them as Aura's friend and decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to get away from her.

As she walked ahead of them and around one of the high tiered shelves within the shop that they were looking around, Kira grabbed Cat by his shirt's collar and pulled him back. The boy looked up at him disapprovingly but understanding his intention, and the two moved off together, not bothering to look back, assuming that Aura would be fine with the others. Once outside, Cat led Kira deep within the city, never losing his way despite the confusing array of passages and how nearly every junction looked the same. He seemed to be well known in these parts because a few people, leaning menacingly against walls, nodded to him as they passed, but it was still difficult to be at ease in such an environment.

Eventually, they arrived outside of what seemed to be their destination, but it looked to Kira like any other street. It only became apparent that this was where their journey would end when Cat ducked under a low, brick archway and behind a recently erected wall. Following him, Kira found himself within a closed-off courtyard with no windows facing into it from the surrounding buildings whose roofs leaned into it, so water ran off them to turn the floor from dirt to a muddy mess. But, even with its shortcoming, he could hardly imagine a more private place in the whole city.

"Like it?" asked Cat.

"Yeah, but what are we actually meant to be doing here? Just talking?"

"Nope," the demi-human smiled, "You'll learn better by doing. Ever tried to fight a manipulator?"

Great, Kira internally moaned. His only experience in this regard was getting beaten by Sadis, but he supposed that his friend was right and that the only way to learn would be to do; so he replied, "No, but I have practised moving my aura around my body, so I guess that…."

"Wonderful, we won't be disturbed in here, so let's get started!" and he moved across from Kira, ready to start.

Kira tried to mirror him but ended up slipping on the mud, which reminded him of the terrain that he was fighting in as he would have to be careful not to mess up. To ensure that his opponent wouldn't take advantage of this early blunder, he posed another question, although he thought that he already knew the answer, "You're going to fight me as a child?"

"I can change my own appearance and size, to some extent, but I can't change the size of my clothes."

Thinking that this might be one of his only opportunities and aware of his own lack of experience when it came to hand to hand combat, Kira quickly stepped forwards, hitting towards Cat's head which was at quite the convenient height for him to strike. Unfortunately, he was not facing a stationary target, and Cat simply stepped to the side whilst telling him, "I didn't think that you would be that aggressive, aren't you scared of hurting me?" and grabbing Kira's arm pulling it forwards to force him to overbalance on the slippery ground. He was then just about able to recover by bracing his arms against the wall in front of him. By the time he had properly righted himself, Cat stood waiting for him by the wall that he had started by.

"So, you're confident that I can hit you without hurting you?" Cat said.

"Reasonably," replied Kira, but he still had plenty of an incentive to move out of the way as Cat started towards him.

First, Cat hit towards him, and Kira blocked with his left hand, but the force from the impact surprised him, and he had to dig into the uneven surface with his feet to stop sliding into the wall behind him. While balancing on his right leg, the demi-human then deftly twisted to sweep out Kira's from beneath him with his left. On his way down, Kira's head was bashed against the bricks making up the structure behind him, and during all of this time, he had hardly had enough forewarning to defend himself with his own aura.

Fighting like this was different from anything that he had done before because when fighting with a sword or some other weapon, there was only one main thing to think about: fighting with that weapon. Now, not only did he have to think about how to fight against Cat with his hands, something that he was decidedly unfamiliar with, but he also had to block attacks or impacts using his aura's energy as a kind of cushion.

With how quickly Cat had come upon him, he hadn't had the time to really think about anything except gathering his aura to stop the attack. Counters, then, were firmly off the table of possibilities. With this in mind, he rose again now with the objective of at least learning to defend himself disappointed that he wasn't as proficient with manipulations as he had thought that he was.

Fortunately, his opponent seemed to have realized this too because the next time he approached more cautiously, allowing Kira more time to decide how to respond. During this time, Cat launched a few strikes towards Kira, testing him, but they all fell short just like his arms did by comparison. Supposing this was like keeping him out of measure during a duel, an idea came into his head, and he used his left hand to grab Cat's outstretched right pulling it towards himself. Hoping to punch the falling boy in his chest with his right, he was stopped by Cat's left hand, and again he was surprised by the child's strength because he seemed to be able to overpower him when they were pushing on each other.

Kira had previously been able to punch dents into stone with minimal damage to himself, but Cat was a tougher opponent, and it seemed that he had left the shape-shifter too close as he launched his knee up into Kira's crotch area. Hurriedly guarding against this distracted him enough to allow Cat to detach himself from Kira's hands and move back again, "You have legs too, you know, right?"

"Yeah, it's just hard to keep track of everything."

"You should try bringing abilities into it – that makes it twice as hard – manipulators with abilities will almost always win against those without."

"Why don't you use yours then?" snapped Kira before immediately regretting the provocation because, should Cat respond, he had no idea how to guard against his ability.

"Sure," responded Cat, making Kira's heart sink lower than he could ever remember it being as he readied himself. Besides, what could a shapeshifting ability really do when the shape-shifter was afraid of damaging his clothes?

This almost led him to a terrible realization as Cat's shirt was missing its sleeves, but he hadn't the time to think it out before they had clashed again. When Kira tried to punch Cat, his opponent ducked below his strike before jumping up towards his neck, hand-stretched out before him, faster than Kira had assumed possible. Fortunately, the strike was retracted before it had landed and, as he slunk back, Cat commented, "Dead!" cheerfully leaving Kira to realize that he wouldn't have been able to respond fast enough to stop him had he carried it through.

"Dead?" exclaimed Kira, as whilst he knew that that the hit would have landed, he was confident of being able to stop it.

In response, Cat held his hand out before himself, indicating for Kira to watch, and warped his fingers into a single blade-like structure that extended from his hand and seemed to be made from a laminate of bone. "This would'a skewered you," he explained happily.

"Really?" Kira murmured sceptically as there seemed to be no particular reason as to why that would pierce what a fist or even a sword couldn't.

"Come on then if you're so confident," Cat said, walking over to him and looking expectantly at Kira.

Not sure what was expected of him, he held out his hand and allowed Cat to move his distorted hand over it and stab downwards. Blocking took a lot more effort than he thought it would have because of the large amount of Cat's aura that hung over it, making a blade of aura sit atop the blade of bone.

"See?" demanded Cat as he moved away, allowing Kira to regain his breath and composure as stopping it had taken a lot of effort even if he wasn't going to admit that openly, given that Cat had hardly seemed to be trying.

After that display, they fought without introducing abilities to make the session last as long as possible, and it ended with a short lecture in which Cat went over some basic techniques such as the one that he had used to warp his own aura into a cutting shape.

This did make him doubt the potency of Cat's ability because he could achieve the same penetrating effect with his own hand if he was serious about killing his opponent. But, he guessed that it also had many other uses, such as scouting or covering distances in short periods by transforming into a bird, naturally assuming that the shapeshifter didn't mind going through a lot of clothes. Most of what was said was repeating what Kira had previously learnt, travelling with the two Krinestadt manipulators, but he was still thankful that Cat was talking so openly again.

Parting ways later that afternoon was something that Kira did not look forward to, but the time came, and he decided that he probably would have had to stop anyway, being exhausted having completed so many manipulations. Making his way back to the palace was a painfully slow exercise, and he just about summed up the energy to get changed and get into bed once he got there, falling asleep almost immediately. That meant that he missed Aura, who arrived back later that evening and did not have to explain his and Cat's sudden disappearance.