DALNO: The Beginning

CHAPTER 8: Strong & Strongest

June 9, 3142, Lissclion clan residence. Blaze is standing, observing something at a window. He watches the situation outside in a hollow as a cry of a little boy kept louder in grunts.

As he watches the beating, he recalls the news he saw in the last month of the fourth. He then crunched both of his hands inside his pockets as he recalled every word the boy spoke at that specific news and aggressively gritted his teeth.

That guy,

His words annoy me,

Even just a syllable of it,

It makes me puke to myself.

But even so,

He is strong,

And his strength,

Interest’s me

A knocking sound came from the other side of his room and a woman clearing her throat followed. Blaze casually turned his head towards it, and calmly stomped his left foot twice.

“This is Maid Aeris, someone has come to meet you, Master Lissclion”

Blaze slowly walked to the door and stopped near it with a cold expression, and sighed.

“For seven dang years, Master Lissclion is nonexistent”

Without Maid Aeris’s answer, the door suddenly opens itself with great speed, and debris from the lock flies all over Blaze’s shooked front. A silhouette of a foot is sighted in front of the bright light sun, then disappears, unveiling a silhouette of a man staring in Blaze's direction.

As the silhouette clearance, it revealed a smiling silver-haired man in an HSMA uniform with a black mask in the left eye and a fist at the back of his right side. At that moment, Blaze realized that the man was actually charging at him with a positive expression. Before he could raise his guard, the man’s fist made a heavy blow to Blaze’s left cheek, making him grunt in pain.

“Wakey wakey, Sleepy Blazeeey! I Welcome Me”, said the man in a childish accent.

Before Blaze could fall face-flat to the ground, the man prevented it by consecutively throwing blows to Blaze’s weakened body with a childish laugh.

Blaze is in his killing instincts, but he couldn’t release an offensive movement as his body could not keep up with his Arcanae energy of speed. The man is ready to release the final blow, he aims his fist at Blaze’s limp head and swiftly throws it.

Suddenly, a cotton-soft arm has locked the man knocking Blaze, the man looked to its owner, it’s Maid Aeris, menacingly standing with an edgy expression.

“You thought the maids here could just run and call for help huh, punk?” said Maid Aeris in a manly impression.

The man smiles confidently, with eyes aiming directly towards Maid Aeris’s.

“A tomboy I see” replied the man in his original sexy accent. “Hot…”

Maid Aeris slightly opened her soft crimson lips and slowly exhaled, releasing foggy steam of lukewarm air that made contact with the man’s hard, woman-seductive skin.

“Tea… please?” The man continued with the same accent.

Maid Aeris gasps hop backward and raise the tray she’s holding with both hands to the same height as her face covering her mouth and making a girly eek in fluster.

“Tea coming right uuup” Maid Aeris said in a cutesy accent while rushing comically outside Blaze’s room while the man watches the maid run on a proudly smirk.

“What… the… frick?” Blaze said in confusion as a toolbox from above fell from his behind, destroying his bed with its weight. “What are you doing at this time in the early morning, Ren? Where’s Teacher Genzou''

Ren turns his gaze back to Blaze with positivity present on his bright face.

“Well, I came here as I have a bunch of news from him”

Blaze picks up the toolbox and fixes the bed as he listens to Ren stating the said news.

From a window in the distance, a familiar man is watching the situation from afar, then a maid comes behind him, and aims its lips near the man’s ear while covering it with her hands.

“About the man, sir... he’s awake”

The familiar man proceeds to walk just as Ren looks to the window he observed from in serious expression, then to an enraged gaze.

“Tch”

March 7, 3142, In a garage. Ren and a buffed figure are sitting to each other with a phone on the table in between. The phone kept ringing and stopped. Ren sighs then as he raises his head.

“What is he doing for damn’s sake” scowled the annoyed Ren. “When we finally got to tell him the most crucial information, he’s absent for the last damn days”

“I don’t know,” replied the buffed figure. “But I’m sure he’s doing his all at it... let’s just... call him again, shall we”

Ren gets the phone for redial, but before so, it rang.

“Finally” Ren yelled.

Ren puts back the phone and sets the call to “speaker on”.

“Hey, hey, hey, we have new information about his identity,” Ren said.

“I don’t have that much, but I think this information I recently got connects to him, too,” a familiar man on the phone replied.

“I’ll state ours first”

“Ok, ok, make it fast, I’m currently with the leader”

“Oh… about that”

“What”

“We recommend spilling this information as confidential as possible, even to him”

An incoherent baffling of a man is heard from the other side of the phone.

“Oi, what’s going on there?” asked the buffed figure.

“I, I gotta go, sorry guys”

The other side drops its call, Ren slams his hand to the table in annoyance as another meeting has ended incomplete.

“That damn bluehead”

Back in the Lissclion clan residence, Ren’s aggressive pupils shrunk even more to silent rage and within his pupils, reflecting the familiar man’s silhouette.

What are you hiding from us?

Aston

Ren changes his expression to casual as he turns his gaze back to Blaze.

“You done there, kid?”

“Ya, ya, I’m done I suppose”

“Now get out of your room so I can tell you the big news”

Blaze scratches his head as he gets out of his room which appears to be a shed beside his family’s mansion.

“Why you can’t just tell it while I’m inside, bruh”

Ren starts to walk, and Blaze follows. A while later, the walk was still in question of destination and no words were released. As they walked, Blaze watched his surroundings. Even though the Ashite law is gone, some still beat up kid Ashites whenever their orders are ignored.

Blaze continue his observations, then his foot got contact with a mysterious mass, he turned his sight towards it and it appears to be a beat-up Ashite who lost consciousness, he turned the kid up, the moment he saw its face, rushed mixed up flashbacks to a piece of specific news bombarded his brain and falls to the ground with shrunken pupils in heavy breathing. Ren coldly looked back, vice versa, and continued to walk.

Blaze gets his stead back and continues to walk while silently gazing at the Ashite. Later on, they’ve reached a grassland in the middle of the woods, Ren stopped walking, and Blaze does too.

Silence enveloped the scenario, with only the communication between the breeze towards clothes, hair, and leaves can be coherently heard.

“So what’s the news?” asked Blaze.

Ren raises his head and the gentle wind makes his silver hair fly like it is flowing.

“Genzouphabuos…he…”

The wind slowly stops, alarming Blaze’s instincts, he drags his right foot to the back forming a stance, and starts to focus. Then, Ren smirks and vigorously brings his sight to Blaze revealing a hysteric expression.

“HEE HAS LEFT YOU TO MEE FOR YOUR DISPOSAL”

Before Blaze could react, a same-faced Ren is already near him with an incoming veiny fist.

With calmness, Blaze suddenly dispersed with a whooshing sound. Ren slightly wonders, the moment he sees several Arcanae hexagons, he grins again and continues the hook.

Despite Blaze’s absence, a blow has gone intact with familiar hands from Ren’s back, he looked back, it’s Blaze who’s attempted to hit him got hit by the right cheek.

“How…the frick?” Blaze whispered while distracted by the heavy blow.

By the impact, Blaze flew towards the grass. As he slowly landed, he looked at Ren. In a surprise, Ren’s face is again already near him. He sped up his legs to gain strength in a nearby tree and jumped to Ren’s back. Blaze smirks and starts to aim his attack, and again, Ren continues to punch in his last position and still gets hit, now to his chin.

As he flew upwards, Blaze became desperate and sped himself to the ground, he aimed his rageful face towards Ren and breathed out. Cyan Arcanae hexagons start to float and move in a circular motion as it fades going up, then some rapidly get condensed into Blaze glowing his dandelion pupils and lightning-ahoge cyan hair, then physically blurred acutely as he stores speed.

Store more… dang speed

The unabsorbed hexagons rushed reverse downward and all condensed and stored to Blaze’s feet. He then goes to a running stance with excess Cyan Arcanae hexagons floating all around his body. He closed his eyes and his left foot started to penetrate the ground with the whooshing sound of the pressured wind and rustling grass.

Speed Type: Accelerate Phase

Blaze rushed towards Ren, he barely dodged the attack but it made him off guard. Blaze rushes back in front of Ren and charges his speed with his right fist. Finally, he landed a blow finally to Ren’s face and flew away.

In midair, Ren’s blank stare aims toward the serious Blaze. As his face reminded him of a certain person, Ren grins bigger with shrunken pupils which shooks Blaze. Blaze hits the ground below him, giving him height, after so, he speeds up and raises his right leg straight waiting to hit Ren’s spinal cord from its backhead.

The moment has come, Blaze speeds his right leg down in an instant, hitting Ren just as planned smashing its hysterical face to the ground. A second after, Blaze hears a heavy sound of wind from his right side, he sights at it, and shockingly notices a mass from someone’s foot and gets flown by the delayed impact with a grunt.

I swear,

When did he…

Blaze continues to attack Ren, Ren keeps attacking back, and if Ren still misses, Blaze still gets hit, In such inhumane speeds Blaze’s form has gone, but Ren’s eye can still keep up his position in great detail.

In a train station, a figure with a black coat is carrying a case containing the usual clothes it used. It then looks towards the time above on the big television, wonders, and slowly rubs its chin with two fingers. The figure then looks around and walks toward a counter.

“How can I help you, sir?” casually said the female station staff at the said counter.

“Has train #HE-R5 already departed?” questioned the figure.

[HE: Homura to Ethermoor (Location of travel), R5: Route 5]

“Sorry to inform you sir, but the train you meant will still have to arrive later on around the next four hours”

“Sorry for the inconvenience ma'am, thanks”

The man then sighs and sits down on the nearest bench which is connected to the station’s central pillars. There he took a deep breath and picked up something inside his luggage. It then revealed a paper that seems to be a delightful image of both him and a wounded younger Blaze.

He then looks at it and smiles while recalling the scenario behind the image.