Okumura Syndicate

Chapter 22: Built for crime

On hearing Rou's instructions, each soldier went into their designated pairs ready to spar with one another. In the centre of the room, Rou watched with the eye of a hawk. If any fight got out of hand, he had full rights to freeze them on the spot.

"So Aster, you think you can take my destruction?", Demitris said teasingly. "Bring it on!", replied Aster. The two circled the small space they had, and Aster prepared to draw his claymore. Suddenly, Demitris began charging towards his left side, where he was unarmed.

Aster leaped with almost superhuman levels of height on top of Demitris's back, knocking him to the ground in the process. "You don't have much physical strength I see...", Aster declares in order to provoke him. "I'm not letting a minor slip up get in my way. I just need one touch and you'll be done for." Demitris lifts his back in an effort to get Aster off it, but he won't budge.

"Steel Forme!", yells Aster as his claymore turns to pure steel. He thinks for a moment, wondering how to knock him out. However, this let his guard down, which allowed Demitris to get up. "Hey Aster, take this!". He flips forward, hands out to make contact in Aster's general direction.

Aster manages to grab Demitris arm, but that's where his mistake lies. Demitris's ring finger makes contact with Aster's wrist, making it crumble slightly. As small of an injury it was, Aster felt as if his wrist was burning in the fiery pit of hell at that moment.

Demitris began to laugh at the pathetic nature of the injury he gave Aster. He knew he had to start preparing his finishing move. Rou glared at the two teenage boys, carefully assessing their fight more than the others. He intentionally didn't inform Aster of anyone's ability, part of his punishment for not paying attention to the person he was killing in his contract killing.

Aster grit his teeth in an attempt to ease the pain in his right hand, gripping his claymore in his non-dominant left hand. He approached Demitris with as much force as he could and tried to tackle him once more with his presumably superior physical strength.

However, the decay in Aster's hand began to spread, his injury was now the size of a tennis ball and took up the entire palm of his hand. The agony this caused resulted in a weaker jump than anticipated. "WHAT IS THIS?!", Aster shouted in response to his wound getting increasingly debilitating.

Demitris simply stood there, not needing to do anything. "Remember when Rou said I couldn't control my powers. Yeah, I can't stop this. You'll just have to sit there and decay, hopefully I won't cause any collateral damage this time...".

Rou noticed as Aster hit the floor and rushed toward their part of the training room. "DEMITRIS, STOP! THIS FIGHT HAS GONE TO FAR!". Before it could get out of control, Rou freezes the both of them, stopping the decay, but causing Aster to lose consciousness. "Demitris, you shouldn't use your ability like that during training. We are comrades, I may have asked to spar to the best of your ability, but this isn't a fight to the death.".

Demitris broke out of this ice and put his head down. "Please, teach me how to control the destruction. I joined the syndicate because I was built for crime, but I even seem like a criminal here...". Rou almost pulled Demitris into an embrace due to his sincerity, but he remained professional and gave him advice instead. "Try controlling your emotions, I know when I'm not in my right mind, I can freeze people to death...".

The room grew quiet, fighting on pause as Rou and Demitris carried Aster in a stretcher to the mansion infirmary. As far as they knew, Aster would be overcome with rage as soon as he woke up, so the two of them stayed, anticipating the opening of his eyes.