"Gasp!"
Kairen took a deep breath.
"Gasp!"
He took another one.
His sight was dark and blurry. For a few seconds, he couldn't move his body. He felt as if he was having a dream that he wanted to see the rest of it. Kairen wanted to go back to sleep, maybe he could see the rest of his dream.
SLAP
"Kairen!"
Someone was calling his name.
'Ah... Kain...'
He now remembered. He was in the middle of a fight.
As he realized that fact, the darkness surrounding him vanished and he was faced with bright colorful lights.
'What was that?'
What just happened? What were those images? Where was he now?
SLAP
He felt pain on his cheek.
"...."
"Kairen? Can you hear me?"
SLAP
SLAP
"Kairen?"
Kairen blinked a few times.
"Can you please stop slapping me my cheeks are numb!"
"Oh!"
With a gasp, Kain retreated his hand that was about to hit Kairen's face once again.
"A-are you back to your senses?"
"...."
Kairen glanced at Kain for a moment before looking up at the surroundings.
Everything was a mess. The ground was shattered, the pillars were destroyed, the stone benches had turned to sand. He looked at the man that was barely breathing while bleeding all over. The ground was wet with his blood and some broken pieces of the sword were also seen.
'Was I the one who did it?'
Judging from the look on Kain and The First's faces, that seemed to be the answer.'
"You damned..."
The First mumbled as he staggered towards them. He clenched his fist, a small golden blade appeared on his hand. The dagger was smaller and not as bright as before, but it was still an aura blade.
The fact that he held that much power even after being beaten to that state showed just how strong he was as a swordmaster.
"...Little rat..."
He ran towards the two of them but he could never reach them.
BANGG
A huge explosion sent him into the air. He hit the water barrier and dropped down to the ground.
"Argh! Cough!"
He raised his upper body and leaned against the barrier. His whole body was shaking.
'How the hell did I do that?'
Kairen looked at the cracks. How did he use that power? Kairen only thought that he had to defend against the man's attack, and the next second an explosion sent him back.
"Cough cough."
The First curled up and coughed up blood. His body slumped down to the ground and he started to gasp for air.
Even after seeing his miserable state, Kairen didn't feel bad. He didn't feel that he had to sympathize with that bastard. If he could, he wanted to beat him up even more.
But Kairen didn't do that.
'Was he Reyan's uncle?'
For a moment Kairen was reminded of the dream he had.
Were those memories? Memories of the previous Kairen?
Those pictures and scenes were too vivid and clear to be called some memories that belonged to someone else. Kairen felt that he had experienced them himself. As if he had seen them all himself.
Kairen could remember everything he saw clearly. He could still feel those emotions. His chest was still heavy with guilt and the feeling of helplessness burning his throat.
Ah, those emotions were really... hurtful. Kairen didn't want to admit it but he felt really bad for the previous crazy Kairen.
'But... could he really see the future?'
Thinking about it made his head hurt.
"Sigh!"
Kairen shook his head. Now was not the time to contemplate those memories. There were a lot of other things for him to think about. For example,
"Why does it look like cracks..."
Kairen looked at the cracks all around him with a frown. He could sense a foreign, yet familiar power from them. He could sense that they were related to his power. They weren't the power itself, but some kind of side product? Or something like that.
Out of everything, his power had to do something with some freaking cracks? Why the thing he hated so much? Well, the cracks were kind of beautiful but still, they were cracks!
First of all, how come he could use his power?
"Um... Kairen? Can you let go of me?"
Oh, the power of love, family, and friendship.
But Kairen was not ashamed. He was happy that he could use his stupid power just on time and was able to save this fool man.
Kairen lowered his head to look at Kain, but something else caught his eyes.
'This bracelet...'
He could feel a familiar aura from the bracelet that was slowly turning blue. Kain said there was some kind of power inside the bracelet. Was it the power he was talking about? Why was its power so similar to Kairen's stupid power?
Some small, silvery golden cracks were moving around the bracelet. Every time his cracks touched it, the bracelet changed colors and shone more and more.
For some reason, Kairen was sure that the water barrier around them was created by this bracelet. Why was he so sure? He didn't know.
If it wasn't for this water barrier then everybody around them must've been dead or seriously injured after that explosive burst of Kairen's power.
That shows how strong this barrier is to withstand the power that nearly killed a swordmaster. This kind of thing couldn't have been created by Kain. This was too strong for him.
Was it also because of his power? Did his power do something to the bracelet?
Kairen couldn't be sure. It was his first time, no, second time using his stupid power so his knowledge about it was zero. Still, a feeling was telling him that he could do something about this bracelet if he used his power on it.
"Kain, can't you remove this barrier?"
Kain shook his head almost immediately.
"I can't control the water that has created it. The water seems not to be normal."
Kairen slowly let go of Kain and asked while looking at his wound. He was bleeding badly and the wounds looked deep. Seeing it, Kairen felt even more guilty... and even more like shit. He was wounded because he protected him. It must hurt a lot.
Asa probably wouldn't be able to treat him fully as there were a lot of wounded. Also, they were currently inside the water barrier and were separated from the others. Kairen thought he had to at least do something about the bleeding.
"I'm fine."
Seeing the look on Kairen's face made Kain smile.
"This much is nothing."
"...."
Pat Pat
He was patted on the shoulder.
Kairen frowned even more and looked away from the wounded Kain, turning to the one responsible for the wound.
The First was sprawled on the ground and was not moving at all. Kairen wondered if he was dead or unconscious, or was just acting to escape getting attacked again. Kairen walked past The First and stood in front of the water barrier.
'What should I do?'
He had to get rid of this barrier if he wanted Kain to be treated, but on the other hand, if the barrier was gone The First would most probably run away.
Thinking about The First and the soil dude's words, Kairen could assume that Claire was also somewhere around here. If that was the case, the three of them could run away without the injured team being able to do anything.
Of course, with his power, Kairen could beat the shit out of those two as well if he didn't faint like last time, but he didn't want to. He didn't want to attack or harm that soil dude until he could have a proper conversation with him.
"Hmm..."
'How should I use this power? Should I try casting spells and use it like it's mana... or should I just shoot the pure thing around? Ah, how should I even shoot it around?'
Kairen looked at the cracks that were all around him but he didn't know how he was supposed to control them, get rid of them, or create them.
'Please, sir power, isn't there a guide?'
"...."
Sir power didn't answer.
"What are you doing?"
Kain stood up and staggered to where Kairen was standing while looking at The First with a complicated gaze.
"Kain, give me your hand."
"...Yes?"
Kain leaned against the barrier with a puzzled face.
"That bracelet. I might be able to do something about it."
Kain's eyes slightly widened.
"You can? How?"
"I... don't know..."
Kairen lowered his head.
'But there is probably someone I can ask about it from...'
Alan. He must talk to Alan as soon as he leaves this place.
Kain looked at Kairen for a few seconds before raising his hand and holding it in front of Kairen's face.
Normally, Kairen wouldn't do anything about a mysterious sticky thingie that had popped out of a freaking red light and then started to do all weird stuff and change colors every five minutes. He would move far away from it so that he wouldn't get hurt.
However, he couldn't just let that mysterious sticky thingie freak Kain out every single second!
Also, he thought that he might really be able to do something about it with that stupid power of his.
Again, if it was a normal situation, he would be too scared to use some freaking cracky power on a mysterious sticky thingie that was attached to a fool injured man's wrist. What if he accidentally... like... killed that fool injured man?? He had killed some people the first time he used his freaking cracky power!
But Kairen somehow felt that everything would be fine. He didn't know where this confidence was coming from but he somehow liked it. He had never felt this confident before.
"I don't know what am I doing so expect anything to happen."
"...."
Kain nodded his head and Kairen grabbed the bracelet.