Training with Snakes 3

*CRACK*

With the crackling of the whip, a stinging pain rang out throughout Alex's body. His mouth released a whimper as a near exhausted Alex raised his hand for Shamoji to stop the game play.

Damn holographic women were testing his limits with each whip, hitting him for every wrong move or jerk when his hand-eye-body coordination went awry.

Clenching his fist and glaring at the holographic projections of the smug looking skimpily dressed women, Alex felt something untangling in his mind, certain memories and surges of an almost violent, bloodthirsty tendency which he had never experienced.

For the first time, Alex felt like grabbing and wringing the neck of the holographic women. Or perhaps even better. His eyes scanned the screen for any hint of the machinery that created them. Destroy the roots of his problem and Alex won't have a problem.

He must have trained for at least an hour or more. At the first basic level, he had passed following along, but as the levels increased in the game; he faced more difficulties keeping up with the on-screen projection.

All his hard work poured into a messy tangle of unnatural, uncoordinated movements, which led to tripping and even falling on his own face.

The sadistic Mishakuji stood by watching him, whipped like a performing ape with mistakes in a circus, and laughing at his expense.

Then Alex halted. Why was he thinking of them like that? Nothing made sense anymore.

"The Mishakuji are trying to help me", he reminded himself, trying to calm the anger flowing through his body as he glanced at the smiles of contempt and despise still stuck on their faces from soaking in the reverie of his suffering.

Alex shook his head, trying to shake off the negative thoughts appearing in his head.

"Show them," a voice whispered into Alex's mind as his fists clenched hard while his own body, coated as aches and even the remnant of stinging pain from the repeated flogging at every wrong dance move made.

"Show them what we can do," the voice consoled him as a wave of darkness coated his very waves of energy which made up his body and wrapped around his bitterness like a python strangulating his good nature, shading his vision into a sea of negativity.

"We?" Alex muttered as he looked at the faces of the Mishakuji.

"Yes, we…" the voice trailed off as Alex looked around for the speaker. It almost felt so real, like someone standing next to him.

Then Alex's mind… went black.

"What did you say?" Shamoji asked, hearing Alex's odd question, which made little sense.

"Maybe he gave up," a Mishakuji said from the back.

Shamoji shook his head and held up his hand to stop them from speaking further. Something didn't look right. Alex bore a weak aura, but now he could sense a surge of energy firing up, strengthening it.

This isn't normal, Shamoji thought. Then he remembered the incident in the mountain with Orochi while the color of Alex's aura deepened into a deep reddish yellow, radiant yet menacing glow.

The elemental fire! Shamoji recognized the signature of the energy wave.

Shamoji recoiled when Alex looked up and muttered, "oh shit."

Alex's eyes were cold, not like their former soft, naïve look. Did he push Alex too hard to trigger something within the lad?

Shamoji's eyes drifted down to Alex's clenched fists, with tiny flames flickering around, a sign of a dangerous decline which might endanger all in the room.

"Hey, Alex?" Shamoji called out, hesitant to touch him.

No response.

"He has flames on him," a Mishakuji mumbled as the rest followed his retreat to the corner near the entrance for safety.

"WHAT THE HELL DID YOU BRING IN?" another yelled.

"FUCK. JUST SHUT UP," Shamoji snapped as he tried to figure out what was going on.

A hand gripped him and yanked him back into their safety in numbers, just in time to avoid a swipe by Alex.

"Not good."

"Very strong elemental fire."

"The commentary isn't helping."

Shamoji snarled for all of them to shut up.

"We need Ōmonossshi down here!" A few of the serpents immediately slithered out of the entrance as quickly for help.

Alex looked at each one of them in the room as though studying their reactions as he cracked his neck and straightened himself in his stance, with his eyes closely fixed on Shamoji.

"Fear," Alex sniffed around and whispered in a low threatening tone, "The sweetest smell."

Something has taken over Alex. Shamoji knew it wasn't the actual Alex speaking.

With a glance up and down at an unsure looking Shamoji, still trying to make sense of the sudden change, Alex strode silently toward the corner, moving with the sure-footed grace of a predator, ready to lunge.

An alert Saburo jumped between Shamoji and Alex, and created a shimmery round shield to stop Alex from advancing towards Shamoji.

"His energy wave… overwhelmed the others," Saburo muttered. "Ordinary human souls rarely hold this kind of wave."

Alex isn't normal - that much Shamoji knew. No ordinary soul would attract so much attention, like Alex.

Shamoji rummaged through his pocket and drew two soul stones to gobble. To deal with such an aura, or rather to contain it, he will have to consume more energy to power up.

"We will rotate," Saburo said. "Can't let him out of the room."

"Agreed. We'll wait for Ōmononushi to come," Shamoji nodded his head.

No choice. Both of them signalled to the others to evacuate as quickly as they could. None hesitated to run or slither out of the room.

"Alex, can you hear us?" Saburo called out again in a desperate attempt to draw out the real Alex.

Whatever was in Alex acted like a cornered animal waiting to unleash its prowess to escape.

As he slowed his advance towards Shamoji, Alex's eyes slowly moved to his hand, which opened revealing a reddish heated orb in his hand.

"Short distance, cornered with no way to run," Alex said gleefully with his eyes turning reddish as the aura was slowly transforming into an inferno.

"If he is anything like Kagatsuchi, we are kinda screwed," Saburo whispered to Shamoji, who inspected the room to see if any of the Mishakuji remained in the room.

"We need to contain him here in the room until Ōmononushi arrive," Shamoji said.

"Take over NOW!" Saburo yelled as his shield started flickering from the aura radiating from an advancing Alex.