Chapter 2 -- The Letter and the Curse, Part 2
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Kali and Kaze arrived at the festival, and Kaze was actually pretty impressed by the size of the crowd, and the set-up that was there.
There were a bunch of rides, games, and concession stands, and Kaze looked around a bit, trying his hand at a baseball throwing game, which the goal of the game was to knock a bunch of bottles off a stand. He managed to knock them all down on his second throw, and won a prize that he made a note of to give to Kali later, since he figured she'd have more use of it than he did.
Kaze walked a little bit, and stopped as he noticed a band playing, and turned his head to watch for a little bit. It was an interesting song, very up-beat, and after it was finished, he walked on, trying to remember the words so he could sing it in his head, as Kali ran up, grabbed Kaze by his hand, and ran off towards one of the rides, as Kaze behind her, not exactly expecting that at the time.
After the two got off the ride, Kaze gave the prize he had won to Kali.
"Thank you Kaze, and what do you think, was I right, is this more exciting than doing nothing all day?" Kali asked, and Kaze had to admit that she was right, and then went off to look at the rest of the things.
As Kaze was walking, he noticed a tent that looked like a shop, and he walked up to it. All it had was blank cards... Or so he though at first. As Kaze was looking, he found a weird card that actually had stuff on it, but he couldn't make heads or tails of what it was all about.
"Ah... Is that to your liking...?" Said a voice that made Kaze jump, as a person walked out from the back of the tent.
"Who... Are you?" Kaze asked, as just something about him seemed to creep Kaze out, but he didn't know what.
"I... Well, I don't exactly have a permanent name. The wanderer is what a lot call me, but that'd probably just because I wander around the world a lot." The person said, and looked down at the card Kaze had been looking at, and raised an eye-brow. The guy muttered something under his breath, but Kaze couldn't hear him, though the guy seemed interested about it.
"Hmm, interesting you looked at this card in particular. Here, I'll let you have it. Just, so I can make a living, a buck. Cheap for most things these days." The stranger said, and Kaze shrugged and handed him a dollar, and the guy handed Kaze the card, and as Kaze walked away, the shopkeeper looked at him with a worried look... Which then turned to a grin.
After a little while, Kaze went to look for Kali again, while still wondering what the card was all about, and just what it said, or stood for, since he couldn't make heads or tails about what the picture nor the text was about, or was at all.
As he was walking with his one hand in his pocket, holding the card in his other, Kali came running up, and Kaze looked over, and pocketed the card.
"So, how are you liking the festival Kaze?" Kali asked, and Kaze put his hands behind his head.
"Eh, it's pretty good." He said, and Kali dug in her pocket for something, and pulled out a blank card, which caught Kaze's attention, and he looked shocked for a second.
"Where... Did you get that?" Kaze asked, and Kali looked up at Kaze.
"Oh, this? I got it from one of the stands, only a dollar, can you believe that?" Kali said, and Kaze remembered the guy again, the one who called himself 'The wanderer', and pulled out his own card.
"Oh, you've got one too Kaze?" Kali asked, and Kaze looked up from it.
"Yeah. Say, can you make anything from your card out?" Kaze asked Kali, who looked at it again and shook her head.
"Hmm... That's weird." Kaze said, and they started walking again, until the two were in the middle of the festival.
"So... I guess that is it." Kaze said more to himself than anyone else, and as he was looking at something, he suddenly got a very weird feeling... Like, everything around him was changing shape or something, but not him, and he looked down at the card, and saw that it's shape was moving quickly from a rectangle to a square or a rectangle with different measurements, and for a second, he felt like he was going to faint, and looked over at Kali, who looked just as surprised as he did, and Kaze looked back at his card, and his eyes widened, for the picture had become clearer, though he still didn't know what it meant, and the text actually resembled something legible, but wasn't in a language he recognized. As he looked up, people started yelling, and he saw why, for a weird... thing with six legs and four arms with at least six eyes and four horns on his head, that looked like it had black armour on it and a giant black jagged sword on it's back, had suddenly appeared with 3 smaller things with only four legs, two arms, four eyes, and two horns in the center of the square, not that far away from the shocked Kaze and Kali.
What... What the heck? Kaze thought, And wondered what he should do, since he probably couldn't fight the creatures, and if he ran away, would they follow? Or, would they stay and attack everyone else?
Oh... boy. Kaze thought, and closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before he pocketed the card and picked up a nearby pipe that was lying around on the ground, probably broken off by the creatures who were now getting used to their surroundings and breaking stuff.
"Yaah!" Kaze yelled out, and ran at the creatures, and one of which looked at him, and turned to Kaze, sending a punch to him stomach, sending him back, and rolling when he hit the ground.
"Kaze!" Kali called out, worried as she ran over to him, kneeling beside Kaze as he sat up, groaning and panting.
Kaze stood up, and closed his eyes again, and opened them, and took out that card, wondering just what it did, and held it in the palm of his hand, and when it just kept changing shapes and sizes, Kaze put his head down and closed his eyes, resolved to the fact that this might just have to happen this way, but... Kaze was confused when he could see a light through his eyelids, a whitish kind of light, and opened them up a bit, to see the card starting to react weirdly.
Kaze watched the card for a minutes, and wondered what it did.
Gaaah, I don't need a weird card, I need something that could attack that correctly... I need a sword, maybe armour to protect from their attacks... But I don't have any of that! Kaze thought, and strangely, the card started to form into light.
"What...?" Kaze thought out loud, as Kali was obviously frightened now, of the morphing card, of the monsters...
The light engulfed Kaze, who closed his eyes so he wouldn't be blinded by the light, and felt... heavier almost. When he opened his eyes, he looked down, and saw his body covered in dark green and silver armour, minus his head, who obviously hadn't been made a helmet. Not exactly caring
how this all happened, Kaze looked around to see if he had a sword, and looked on his back and smiled as he saw a longsword with a green hilt, and grabbed it with his hands and smiled, and ran towards the strange creatures, and slashed out with his sword at the small creature who had hit him backwards earlier, which jumped aside quickly, obviously shocked at what happened, even if it's face couldn't show it.
As the creature aimed a slash with it's sword, Kaze turned his sword on the side and blocked with the flat of the blade, and disengaged, before stabbing at the creature, who grabbed the sword, and Kaze let go with one of his hands, trying to force his sword out of it's grip as he lunged forward with his other hand, trying to punch it away, to which it let go and seemingly disappeared, but a blow a second later to Kaze's back proved differently, as Kaze fell forward and rolled a bit, then slid to a stop as he got his feet and hands on the ground and jumped towards the creature, and slashed at the creature's armour, hitting the sword edge on edge, but tried to parry the sword away from the area he was attacking, slashing with the flat of his blade at the creature's chest armour, actually successfully denting it, sending the creature down at least temporarily as Kaze smirked and turned to the other three creatures, who now had their attentions set on Kaze, and Kaze ran towards the creatures as they ran towards him.
Kaze jumped up, and aimed a kick at the small creature on the right's head, and sent a punch at the creature on the left's head, while he raised his sword to block a slash from the large creature's sword, who he assumed was the boss.
Kaze landed on the ground, and jumped back as the two smaller creatures he had hit had jumped up and sent punches towards Kaze's general direction, which now happened to be their heads. Sent to the ground by their own attacks, Kaze no longer had to worry about those two, and ran at the boss creature, who slashed at Kaze, who slashed at him at the same time, blocking the attacks that way, keeping the swords together at one point, causing sparks to fly off, and they jumped back, the creature landing quickly, while Kaze, who had no previous combat training, barely landed, stumbling a bit, and barely brought his sword up in time, and decided to kick the creature in the chest, denting the armour from the force of the kick a bit, but not enough to send this guy down.
Kaze rolled out of the way as the creature slammed the ground with it's sword, as Kaze jumped towards the guy, who decided to just end this and stabbed towards Kaze, who smiled and pushed the sword out of the way, and stabbed at the creature himself, hitting through the armour into the creature itself as the creature roared as the sword was taken out of it, and looked at the rest of it's fallen comrades and roared again, creating a portal beneath it and the other three creatures, as they descended into it, and the portal closed behind it.
Kaze sighed, and fell forward, the fight having taken a lot out of him.
Later, Kaze woke up, and found him at home on his bed with what he had had on, and Kali sitting beside him.
"Kaze!" She exclaimed as he opened his eyes and shook his head.
"What... Happened?" Kaze asked, and Kali frowned.
"You fought four creatures with some strange sword and armour set, and then fainted after that, and I brought you back here. What happened out there? Where did that sword and armour come from? How did you learn to fight so well?" Kali asked, and all Kaze could do was sit up, which was kinda hard from the injuries he had suffered in the fight, and pulled out that mysterious card, which was now back to it's jumble of the picture and words.
"I... Have no clue for the first two questions, and for the last, I'm guessing all my days of watching anime and such came in handy." Kaze said with a weak smile, as he looked back at the card, and then dropped it as he leaped out of bed, wincing, and ran down the stairs, jumping when he felt he was gonna fall, and found that piece of paper, and unwrapped it again... All was the same mostly, except for the addition of a line...
"...? What is that supposed to mean...? The destiny is set...? What is going on here?" Kaze said out loud, as he read the final line of the note...
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Chapter 2 End
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