4 - Soul Combat

“Can’t believe someone like Hwang couldn’t put her down...oh well, it was a two-on-one from what he told us.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the other person in question was just his drunk delusion or something.”

“Still, if there’s someone who has to get work done, it should be me. Me and Luca are already getting shit on our plates from the psycho. If I get the kills, we’ll get our rep back. And eventually, we’ll be all people talk about.”

“We might even get a few days off so as to not see his unhinged face anymore.”

...

“Sakuto, you brought your weapon with you, right?” Ichika said, slowly taking a combat stance. “Just stay back and wait for an-”

The ground shook, as thick roots emerged from the ground - shattering it apart, launching Ichika into the sky. Sakuto turned around. He grabbed his blade, carefully looking for the source of the attack. Matteo, the tall soulful with dark brown curly hair and similarly colored eyes that was watching his prey, waiting for the prime opportunity to strike, stood on a platform made by said roots.

“Shit, it’s another one of those elementals...”

“If I’m not wrong, this guy’s ability was to-”

He noticed a root coming towards him and dodged to the side, he was somewhat surprised by his own speed. Instantly, he dashed in, and found himself leaping through a great distance in just an instant. Getting closer, he swung his blade and cut through some of the roots in his way. Matteo flicked his fingers and launched Sakuto away by conjuring more such roots.

The root structure slowly collapsed, and Matteo jumped down on the ground, chasing after Ichika. He launched a barrage of roots at her but Ichika successfully defended herself. Some parts of the roots were frozen and broken off, while others were slashed apart.

Matteo summoned his spear in his hand and went on the offensive. He swung it while Ichika weaved back, seeking the decisive piercing attack that would could end the fight prematurely. Ichika threw a kick, but Matteo appeared to be faster and was already up close. Just as he was about to deliver a heavy blow, he quickly ducked and turned around. That last maneuver had saved him from a lethal attack that Sakuto prepared.

“Shit, how did he read me?” Sakuto thought, regaining his composure and preparing to swing again. “I’d say I’m not doing too bad, for my first ever time holding a sword, but still...”

“Ichika said it was something to do with my soul presence...is it so bad that it renders sneak attacks useless?”

Ichika hit the ground with her kunai, freezing parts of it and launching a pair of ice spikes towards Matteo. He flung himself backwards, and Sakuto missed a chance to cut him off. Ichika quickly created a large spear made from ice in her hand and chucked threw it at Matteo. It pierced him in the leg, with the limb slowly decaying from frostbite. Matteo took his time for a moment, focusing on healing his wound.

“Ichika!” Sakuto exclaimed before running off. “Keep him busy.”

“Got it.” Ichika nodded. She seemed surprised by the fact that she trusted his strategy of retreating so easily, and that moment of confusion was utilized by Matteo. With his leg healed up, he quickly rushed at her. Small roots emerged from the ground, breaking the asphalt she was standing on...

Soulfuls of this caliber would often find themselves in such situations. Ichika was accustomed to fighting soulfuls - she had sharpened her fighting style and worked on her mastery over her soul expression for as long as she was a soulful. However, Hayk, her mentor and effectively her caretaker, was always displeased with her. Not only were there some oddities regarding her soul expression, but there was also a lack of imagination from Ichika herself. It felt like she wasn’t using her ability to its fullest.

“It’s fine, Ichika...”

“Focus on dealing a piercing atta-”

She took a stance, but Matteo got to her faster.

Ichika barely managed to dodge out of the way, but Matteo’s quick readjustment and his kicks and follow-up strikes dealt notable damage to her and knocked her back. A much faster pair of roots tried to pierce her in the air, but she managed to protect herself and properly land on the ground. More roots emerged from the ground, as Ichika dodged them and tried to look for an opening. She focused, and dashed through them - cutting as many of them with her blade as possible.

Matteo himself advanced, greeting Ichika with a jab. She ducked away from it, and swung her kunai - juking and landing slashing attacks and constantly switching between Mateo’s face and torso. Some cuts were already emerging, but that was before Matteo’s own attack. He swung his fist, and at the same time a series of roots wrapped themselves around her. She took the strike with full force, and another one after that, and she watched as Matteo prepared to deliver a killing blow...

Large amounts of ice crystals emerged on her body, and Ichika, exploding like a grenade, managed to free herself. The roots were broken off, but Ichika herself collapsed.

“What the hell?”

“Why was it so hard to break out of these things...and why do I feel so weak?”

Matteo took a few steps towards her, smirking. Ichika slowly tried to get up, the ice around her starting to melt and break apart. A shard of ice started forming in her palm, but it couldn’t be fully materialized into something useful. Matteo approached her.

“What happened to the other one? Did he leave you to die?”

“Eat shit...” Ichika said, before being kicked in the stomach. She coughed up some blood.

“Undisciplined brat...” Matteo sighed, before aiming his spear at her throat. “You should’ve joined us when you had the chance.”

[KLING]

Sakuto’s soul presence was always being tracked by Matteo. The experienced soulful, and one of the group’s most renowned fighters, was no stranger to surprise attacks. Sakuto swung his blade, but Matteo’s quick reflexes helped him parry the attack with his spear.

“And who the fuck are you?” Matteo yelled in anger. With his free hand, he made sure to restrain Ichika on the ground, paralyzing all her limbs. He swung the spear, carving a deep wound on Sakuto’s chest. He dashed back.

“This weapon feels so weird right now. I’m much better off with just my hands.”

He sheathed his blade back, taking a combat stance. Matteo seemed bemused. Who the hell would bring their hands to a sword fight? He quickly dashed in, but instead of Sakuto playing it safe, he dashed forward as well. He swung his fist, landing a nasty right uppercut to his stomach, paired with a right elbow strike. Matteo took the hits, the discomfort could be seen in his eyes. He dashed back, and chucked his spear forward - missing.

Sakuto was lacking experience. He closed the distance again, thinking that Matteo was disarmed. It took him a while to realize that the weapon was once again summoned to his hands. It pierced his stomach, but Sakuto continued his assault.

“My only chance...”

“Ichika, I trust you to help me here...”

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Sakuto was caught off guard by his own thoughts. He quickly shook his head.

“Not now...please, just focus!”

Matteo grunted in surprise, trying to break free. Sakuto’s presence had shifted to a different level. He continued wrestling his target, pushing him forward and back. The spear had pierced him even deeper, stirring his intestines around. He let out a distorted, bloody and painful scream, which somewhat sounded like Ichika’s name.

Ichika was unable to utilize her soul expression while restrained by the roots. Or so she thought. Hearing the scream, she tried to free herself from the roots again, but...

“No, no, no, no, no!” She screamed internally. “The roots are messing up my soul expression...”

“Ichika, what’s taking you so long? Are you...?” Sakuto asked himself, before turning Matteo around in their wrestling match. Sakuto’s stomach wound was bleeding profusely. Matteo was harassing Sakuto’s legs with constant low kicks, but Sakuto's superior wrestling skills and his newly acquired soul prowess reinforcement helped him keep up. During the brief moment he and Ichika exchanged eye contact...he spat on the ground.

“I get it!!!” Ichika lifted her neck. A second later, she spat out a sharp icicle, launching it at Matteo. The shard pierced his back, momentarily distracting. Sakuto used this to land more strikes, decorating Matteo’s face with blood and blue marks. Sakuto unsheathed his sword, but this time, his target wasn’t Matteo. He sprinted towards the roots and cut them up, freeing Ichika.

“How did you-” Ichika asked, slowly getting up. “You’re bleeding!”

“I can pull through.” Sakuto said, bowing a little from the pain. He held his wound, but held onto his blade with his other hand. “He can regenerate his wounds, right? How long does it take him?!”

“We have to kill him now.” Ichika said, before hitting the ground with her kunai.

“Ice Blast!”

A mountainous blast of ice emerged from the ground, attacking Matteo. He blocked it with his roots, but by that time Sakuto flanked around him and started applying pressure with his blade. He was still getting bested in weapon combat, but his main objective was just being a distraction. Matteo found himself in the middle of two dangerous fighters, who, to his greatest misfortune, started to develop a type of synergy.

“Is this what fighting soulfuls is like?” Sakuto asked himself amidst the exchanges. His own melee attacks were synchronizing very well with limited ice blasts and Ichika’s own weapon strikes.

“What is it, Sakuto?”

“Are you...enjoying this? This is pathetic. You might’ve died already and this is all just a delusion.”

“You’re so weird. You’re not even a soulful. You think you’re allowed to enjoy yourself like this? Just because you found some little friends? Can you even call them friends? You can’t, right?”

“Which means you’re still a loner. And you’ll never find anything worthwhile. Ever.”

“You’re worthless”

Sakuto was slowed down by these thoughts. Matteo caught him off guard and knocked him away, and could now focus on utilizing both his striking and his soul expression against Ichika.

“Huh? Why’d he zone out?!” Ichika thought, barely blocking a heavy spear swing. “His soul prowess...”

Matteo juked his swings and used his striking, creating a window to attack. A powerful jab stunned her, and the spear was close to piercing her body...

Sakuto’s blade pierced Matteo faster than he could counter it. He forced the blade out, cutting through his now exposed abdomen. Ichika quickly dashed back, and as Matteo turned around, she struck him in the back - slamming shards of ice into his lungs. Sakuto, almost purely functioning on fighting instinct, delivered the final strike and cut Matteo’s head off.

“It’s over...”

He stood still. There was no shaking in his hands, no troublesome fever-like illusions, and not an ounce of hesitation or regret. Matteo’s head rolled on the ground, blood squirting out of his neck, and a second later his body fell down.

“Holy shit...”

“I actually just...killed this guy...a member of the elemental group...”

“Oi, you’re losing blood!” Ichika said, pushing Matteo's lifeless body away. Sakuto seemed like didn’t even care about his potentially fatal wound. She quickly ripped a piece of cloth from Matteo’s uniform and started to bandage Sakuto’s wound with it.

“Kouta told you about soul regeneration, right? Can you do it?!” Ichika asked him, putting his arm around her neck and attempting to drag him back home.

“I just...killed someone.”

"That's a pretty big deal, right?"

“But...it's a normal thing for soulfuls, right?”

“Hey, Ichika...” Sakuto asked, somewhat whispering. “Do you...often have to kill people?”

“Come on, tomorrow I’ll take you to Rin, and Hayk, and everyone else...”

Sakuto’s breath slowed down, but not because of life dangers, but because of a sense of calm slowly enveloping and holding him. His soul presence jumped onto another level, and his blade was with him that time. But he felt strangely calm, too strangely calm in fact for someone who had just taken a life. His eyes were wide open, his face didn’t change its expression too much.

“This was the right thing to do, right?” He thought, looking at Ichika whom he imagined dead. And that thought scared him quite a bit.

...

“I killed someone.”

“Here, it should seal the wound off. If you discover something like soul regeneration overnight, use it at full throttle, okay?” Ichika said, applying some more bandages. Sakuto was on his bed, with Ichika watching over him, worry blooming in her eyes.

“Fuck...I actually killed someone....”

“And my weapon...”

“I think I figured it out...” Sakuto said. He raised his hand, and within a second his blade materialized. He held it with a light smile on his face.“I don’t actually know how it works, I just saw you do it in battle...and I felt that I could do it too.”

“You keep surprising me.” Ichika laughed it off. “It’s called a soul-bound weapon. Weapons can be imbued with a person’s soul if they experience an awakening event with it. Usually it involves killing another soulful or something like that. Looks like you did just that.”

“I see...”

“A soul-bound weapon can use the soul expression and sometimes gets its own abilities too...that’s the textbook description that Hayk made me learn.” Ichika said, before a long pause. "I can do ice stuff better when I have my own weapon out."

“Gonna have to think of a name for it.” Sakuto said.

“You want to... name it something?” Ichika asked, curious. “I don’t think calling its name increases its power or something...”

“Well, it’s bound to my soul, right?” Sakuto wondered. “It only makes sense to give it a name. Besides, it’d just be cool in general.”

“Hah, right...” Ichika chuckled. “So, what are you gonna name it?” She asked. Sakuto looked at his weapon, and a few moments later, answered.

“Withering Strelitzia.”

“Oh?”

“That’s what I’ll call it. Maybe it’s corny, but...I like it. I was into flowers for a small part of my life, and it was the flower I got for...nevermind.” Sakuto said, his voice dreamy.

“I don’t think it’s corny at all. I like flowers too.” Ichika replied, walking towards the couch. “It’s pretty nice. Anyways...get better, alright?”

Ichika left the room. The thoughtful clouds were constantly ringing inside Sakuto’s head, even chasing him into the night. Alone, in bed and relative safety, he still felt troubled. He held his hands by his mouth, feeling slightly nauseous.

“It’s fine.”

“It was technically self defense, right? Yeah. It was self defense. Kill or be killed.”

“This is what soldiers do, right? They don’t kill to have fun, at least most of them don’t. They kill because the enemy is gonna kill them if they don’t. Which is stupid itself, why kill if no one wants to kill each other...”

“God damn it, what the fuck am I thinking about? There’s a bigger issue at hand.”

“Let me guess, I’m not just a waste of life now, I’m also a felon...even though I didn’t even do a crime...fuck, how do soldiers cope with this type of stuff? Maybe there’s some things they tell themselves to calm down, maybe there’s something like meditation...”

He took a deep breath.

“Whatever, I’ll just use the method I always use to get my shit together. Just gotta hope she doesn’t find out about this, it would be pretty embarrassing...”

He reached for not just his phone, but also his earphones. It hurt him to do that, he was concerned about worsening his injury that was somehow not getting worse, but it worked out fine. He put his earphones in, searched up and played a video on his phone, and closed his eyes. A moment later, his ears were blessed by what appeared to be a female voice saying strangely sweet and comforting things to him.