Chapter 161 - Getting Familiar

"Really?" Shino blasted this time. "If this was how Irunmoles were, I would never have bothered to even take a look. Its not your fault. its my race I blame for hiding away from the rest of you arrogant folks!" Shino lost it, punching a little hole into the wall beside him.

His hand ached just a bit. It was not because of the fact that he had slammed into the wall, punching out a little crack about the size of his fist in there.

No, after all, he had been wearing gauntlet on his right hand. It was rather because he had been too busy earlier, slamming and punching into the Imps here and there. His body felt like it was going to need a rest at the moment. 

And he agreed with it. He had been trying to strain himself to push farther and better with each passing second. Now, he had seen a combat and had, reluctantly, joined the fight just so he could save an Irunmole who happened to be rather ungrateful and also so that he could get some sweet upskilling. 

The part where he had fought the Imps singlehandedly was the most interesting of the whole saga to him. Because he had learnt how to maximize the latent power that he had in his body which had bein lying fallow for as long as he had been born. 

However, one did not just wake up to strain himself over something one had never really done before. Perhaps, he reasoned, if it was only rooftop jumping, he might have still have been in better shape, without needing to rest or having aches in his fist but then he had done more. 

And he did not regret. 

The only thing regrettable was the way the Irunmole was sizing him. Initially, he had wanted to just stay away from the stink eye he had received the moment he noticed it. But then, the ingrate had the guts to call him as someone who had been assigned to finish a job? 

It was annoying. That he had been thought of like that. And at the moment, he was not intending to mince words with this ingrate. By the heavens, if it did come to having to face this ingrate in a fight, he was ready. The last thing he wanted was to have some blame or accusation thrust upon him as a reward for his help. 

Sunday's grip on the Ida Ino light technique softened as he breath in and out, trying to control himself. He lowered his head as he pondered what he had heard, briefly. 

The winged fellow said race?

"Race? What are you talking about? Aren't you just some mercenary?' Sunday asked, squinting at the winged fellow whose name happened to be Shino. 

"I am not." Shino barked out. "This is the last time I would tolerate that from you." Shino looked over his shoulders. The Imps had been silent but hey had been steadily creeping in on them, trying to take advantage of their argument to sneak in on them. 

"Tch! Those blasted things." He muttered, looking back over his shoulders. 

"What?" Sunday took this reaction as an indicator that he was hiding something. "What is that? Are you out of time already and you need to return with your mission completed?" He snarled at the Werehawk, raising his blade to the neck of him. 

"Don't be silly. Those Imps are creeping on us and.. ack!" Shino yelped out just at that time. 

His wings pulled taut as several clawed hands dragged and shredded out feathers, the ones that had a hold on the fleshy wing stretching it till they pulled down the WereHawk to the ground. 

"Ha! Help!" Shino called out, stretching a hand to Sunday. 

At his, Sunday looked away, closing his eyes. He was not sure about what this Shino guy was all about. And so far as the Imps were all concentrated on his struggling desperate mass underneath them, he did not find this as any of his business. 

He'd rather not have a part in it. 

He turned around, hearing the muffled cries of the WereHawk and the screeches and joyous yells of the Imps as they tried to strangle and bury the Imp from underneath them. 

'So, is that it?' Bane spoke to Sunday. 'The only person who seems nice enough to give us a lead to where you could get a cleansing orb is who you want to abandon?'

"Mind your business.!" He replied sharply. 

"Help me... I am not what you think. Help Meee..." Shino cried out the moment he got the chance to raise his head up. 

For now, the Imps were yet to go all out on him. Perhaps, it was because they thought they had him all in their grasps that they had not started to damage him in every way. Rather, they simply played and jumped and bruised him with the tip of their claws and fangs and of course, with the scaling of their tails. 

"Help Me...." All of that was enough to spread chills into the spine of Shin. 

He hated the fact that he had no minded his business back then but had charged into danger. All for what? 

To be fed off to the Imps? If this was how the world was then, he was sure to change that. He just had to live. "You ingrateeeeee... Aaaaahh!" 

SHHHNNNKKK!

"Aiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...." Imps screamed suddenly as light flashed. 

Shino gasped at this, closing his eyes from the sudden burst of light that flashed here and there, the stabs and appearances of it impaling and slashing Imps into their deaths.

Their bodies dissipated into grey dust that drifted away into the night, revealing the sprawled WereHawk on the ground. Having them all at the same place made it rather easy for Sunday to be able to strike all of them at once. The ones that had escaped the strike by a hairs breadth now scampered away, with fight all over their faces and tails shaking between their legs.

Shin just lay on the ground despite that Sunday extended his left hand to him. He did not know how to react to this. Why had the ingrate come back to save him now? He had had it under his own control. or at least, was going to have it under his control until the ingrate had to interfere. 

"Come on, take my hand." Sunday smirked at him. "I am not an ingrate, you see. Plus, I just could not leave you here. One idiot was trying to guilt trip me. So, I had to prove him wrong." 

Shin remained motionless for the next minute. But then after that, he took the hand and was hefted up to his feet by Sunday. 

"So, your life is based on the fact that you need to prove someone wrong, eh? That must be stressful!" Shino replied, looking at the shorter Irunmole in the face. 

"I didn't say that." Sunday ground his teeth, the light technique in his hand dissipating into nothingness as he deactivated it. 

"You just said that. Basically!" Shino shrugged, putting his right hand behind his neck. "I am guessing the Imps would not bother us. I should be going now."

"Yes, seems so." Sunday sighed. 

He rested his back against the wall and then allowed himself to slide down the wall till he squatted over, his head bent down to watch the ground. His hands at this time were hanging over the bend of his knees, just by the inner side of the elbow.

"What is your race, Shino? I don't what type you are."

Shino stopped himself from moving a step. He had turned to the side that faced the road and was prepared to start walking back into the never ending mix of humans out there. But then, hearing the question froze him.

He turned his head to the Irunmole, observing the gleaming white strips around the n.a.k.e.d arms the Irunmole had. 

"WereHawk!' Shino rubbed his lip with the back of his left palm. 

"What is that?" Sunday looked up. He was not familiar with that term.

"You don't know?" Shino was momentarily surprised. He shrugged soon after as he turned around now, completely. "WereHawks have the ability to turn into Hawks upon their full transformation. Basically, that is what is about us."

"You are a Changeling then." Sunday muttered as he returned to gaze upon the ground once more. 

"Eh? That would be WereHawk. I don't know what a Changeling is." Shino replied with quizzical eyes.

Sunday looked up now, surprise in his eyes. "You don't know what a Changeling is? But that is what you are. In Orun, the lot of you people reside in the Third Heavens which is the Middling World of Merchandise and your nation is called Changeling Unity. How can you pretend not to know this?" Sunday shrugged, standing up as he observed Shino carefully.

"I don't!" Shino crunched his fists. "But if you do, please, tell you everything." 

Sunday smirked.