Yujita and I train through simple sparring for about a week straight. It isn't until my body has actually started to gain a bit of muscle and I can use my magic more that I decide to start helping Yujita get stronger. As we're in the middle of sparring, I hold up my hand. "Pause."
He does so, his shroud armor fading away as well. "What's the matter?"
"Doesn't wearing all of that make you hot while you're moving around so much?" I tilt my head, commenting on the many black layers he wears.
"Well, I sweat a little bit, but it's getting closer to winter now. I feel like wearing layers isn't really a bad thing in this kind of weather." He doesn't look me in the eye when he says that.
"Yeah, but you wear it to hide your scars too, don't you? At that point, the weather doesn't matter so much, now does it?" He doesn't respond to my question, but the answer is obvious. "Alright then, instead of completely covering yourself in that shroud armor of yours, I want you to try something else." I swipe my light sword to the right and it vanishes. I then sit down and cross my arms.
"Alright then, what is it..?" It's clear he's hesitant, but I think he might like my idea.
"Alright, use your shroud armor, but only enough to cover your scars and your vital areas. After that, I want you to thicken your armor until you're only using about as much magic as you normally would to cover your entire body in shroud armor." I nod to his outfit. "And lose the layers too. This'll help us see how strong that armor of yours can really be."
"And you're sure that's a good idea..?" I simply nod, giving him a serious expression. "Okay..." He slowly takes off his jacket and the long sleeve shirt he wears under it, a black tank top underneath of the shirt. He also takes off his fingerless gloves. It's true that scars aren't the most attractive thing to look at, but with his athletic and toned build, many women would fall for this young man for sure. After all, what woman doesn't like a warrior with battle scars?
His scars aren't visible for long because soon there's shadows covering his skin. He also makes a face mask out of his shadows, covers his neck with them, makes a bandana out of darkness on his head, and even another pair of fingerless gloves. As for his bottom half, he only covers his knees, between his waist and thighs, and feet in the shroud armor. As I request, he thickens his armor and it becomes even darker the more he thickens it. He stops just as the armor has become a nice, jet black color.
"Alright, let's check how durable that armor is." While he's been concentrating on his armor, I've been charging light magic into my hands. I fire a strong beam of light magic at him without giving him much time to react. However, he expects this sort of thing from me now, so he quickly holds up his hands to catch the beam. He skids back against the dirt somewhat, but he stands strong and manages to deflect the beam.
"Wow... I'm impressed." I stand up. "Now, do the same for your katana. Instead of covering the whole thing, just cover the front half of the blade that's actually doing the cutting." Yujita does as I say, and to be honest, his katana looks quite cool with the blade half black and half silver. "Good, good..." I stand up and create another light sword, the two of us clashing, and his katana is already chipping through my blade after just the first swing.
"Not bad at all!" I jump back and smile. "Now, I want you to keep that up even after you leave here today, alright? Wear your clothes over your shroud armor of course, but I want you to keep it up as long as possible. This'll build up your magical endurance, and the more you build that up, the stronger you'll be able to make your shroud without breaking a sweat."
"I'm really thankful you're helping me and all Riku, really, but..." Yujita looks down somewhat.
"Aw, is he about to cry and thank me? How sweet." I smile a big smugly. It's good to have a student to train under me.
"I think it's about time for some payback..." He looks up at me with a devilish glare, smiling under that mask of his.
"E-Eh..? N-Now now Yujita, let's calm down-" I can't even finish my sentence before he launches himself at me and swings his sword. "Ahhhhhhh!" Touché young shadow mage. Touché.
YOU ARE READING
Cross Worlds
FantasíaRiku Fumiya, a 17 year old boy in high school. He's a loner, a geek, and somewhat of an otaku, and is bullied in school for it, just as any other kid with similar traits in high school would be. Originally, he didn't mind it because he always had vi...
