Inheritance

Unlocked

The sky was still filled with the clouds that had rained down last night. As the morning progressed, the sun slowly began to break through the clouds and shine down on the bright green grass, making the morning dew shine like diamonds. It was a beautiful sight and the man who just appeared had to take a second to appreciate the beauty of the scene before him. He shook his head and forced himself to move on. This was not the reason that he came to this school. He came to kill.

He was a tall man, with short spiky black hair. One of his eyes was shut, as if it was unable to open, but there was no visible damage. He wore black amour that looked as if it came from some medieval battle. One of his arms was missing, replaced by a black metal arm. Across his chest was a sash that had a multitude of throwing knives on it. Above his cape you could see the hilt of a large sword, but the blade was not visible under the cape that completed the mysterious aura that surrounded him. He was known by many names, but the most famous was "The Black Swordsman"

He lifted his hand up and touched his neck. When he brought his hand back down, his fingers were covered in blood. He was close to his target. As he kept walking forward, he saw in the distance a group of students, or what looked like students playing a game on the walk way that he was heading down. When the boys say him, they were not afraid of him like most would be. Instead, they gathered around him blocking his path.

"Looks like someone thinks he's a tough guy" said the one who was their leader.

The rest of the cronies laughed on cue, like they had done this before. Slowly, they all pulled out a various knives. Some of them were hunting knives, some were kitchen knives, and the tougher looking ones pulled switchblades, which they proceeded to twirl like the stupid cronies that they were.

"Well? Are you a tough guy?" the leader asked the man who was standing and watching all of them. "I asked if you were a tough guy, 'Mister Swordsman'" he said again, this time pulling out a long and deadly hunting knife of his own.

"Get out of my way"

"What did you say?" the leader asked, confused. He was not used to the victims, talking back to him like this. His cronies also backed up, unsure of what to do.

"I said; get out of my way", the man said again, this time proceeding to walk forward, past the circle of boys

"Hey where do you think you're going? I said WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE GOING YOU BASTARD!!!" The leader of their group lost control, and lunged forward with the knife, aiming for the man's spine.

The swordsman looked back at the kid, and shook his head

The knife hit the amour, and snapped in half the second it made contact. The man turned around, and instantly pulled out his sword.

The sword was huge. It was as long as the wielder was tall and as wide as the boys who had foolishly tried to attack him. As the man lifted it up into the air, they all stared in wonder at the sword that the man was wielding. It wasn't even a sword. It was more like a heap of iron.

Just as the man was about to show these fools what a real sword was like. The world seemed to collapse around him. In less than a second, everything had faded to white, including him.

For now.

"Ian, would you be as kind to not sleep in my class?" The teacher walked up to him and smacked her ruler into the table on which Ian was laying his head. He jerked up and was awake in seconds. He had been dreaming again.

"Sorry, Ma'am". He apologized quickly. If you were caught sleeping in this lady's class, it never ended well. There were stories. One time she threw a paper clip at a student's mouth when he was sleeping, and he almost died from choking on it. So in Ian told himself not to sleep in this class. But he always ended up doing it. Students had a theory about it. It was a mixture of her boring voice and the boring subject that she teaches: Comparative governments. All together, she was not a bad lady, but years of being a teacher has done something to her. Something weird.

The bell rung, signifying the end of class, but she kept on teaching, as if the only thing that mattered in the world was how the Japanese form of democratic monarchy was different from the British form. Most of the class wouldn't have gotten up anyway, they were all asleep anyway. Ian just left. He had had enough of this lady for today. Unfortunately it was the end of the day, so he now had to go home, which is the one place that he hated more than he hated school. Go figure.

On the bus ride home, Ian thought about the dream that he had during class. It wasn't the first time that he had a dream like that. It was always the same thing. Attacked by a group of guys, delinquents who were bigger then he was. Being a 5'7" 17-year old, that wasn't saying much. But he wasn't in his regular body. He was always in a different body. That was the only thing factor that was different in every dream. Each time the person that he was different. The only thing that these people had was their choice of weapon. Every single one of them carried a type of blade. Knives, katanas, great swords, daggers. Any kind of weapon that was pointy was there. Not only that, but some of them had powers other than that. One could control water; one seemed to be made mostly out of machinery. They all differed. There was one more thing, just one more detail.

All of them seemed to want to make some kind of deal with him. Ian didn't understand it though. It didn't matter anyways, because it was just a weird dream.

The bus reached Ian's stop and he got off. It was still a 20 minute walk and during that time he pretended to listen to music while he walked. He didn't live in the best part of town and he needed to make sure that the gangs that hung out here didn't think that he was listening to their business. There was a reason that he didn't actually listen to music, and that was because it was dangerous to not have his set of senses alert, especially for a small white boy like himself.

As he walked he passed an old man who was begging on the streets. Normally this guy would just sit around and wait for people to drop money into his cup, but today he was awake. He was shaking, and looking around, almost like he was impatiently waiting for someone. Ian felt a weird draw to him and started to walk towards him. The man focused on him, like he was the one person who he was looking for all his life. The old man then said two words that sent chills down his back.

"Free them"

The sound of those words resonated deep within Ian. Suddenly, everyone who had ever appeared in his dreams was crammed into his head. There was barely any space left in his mind for him to think. His vision blurred until all he could see was the old beggar and his little cup, which had a bunch of coins in it. Everything else was coved up the sound of the people in his mind, all of whom were saying one thing.

"Free us"

Ian stumbled towards the beggar, who was watching him with profound interest. The beggar chuckled as Ian almost fell into a puddle.

"Hard isn't it? The Bladeworks doesn't like to be restrained, so you better do something quick."

The words hardly registered in Ian's brain as he moved closer and closer to the man. The voices in his head grew louder and louder, repeating the same words over and over again.

"FREE US! FREE US! FREE US!"

Ian moved closer and closer as the world around him faded slowly to black. Soon all he could see was the beggar's cup. Soon he was standing right in front of the man. He fumbled inside his pocket, and found a dollar. He collapsed to his knees reaching, straining towards the cup with was now fading into black along with everything else. His hand found the rim of the beggar's cup, and the dollar dropped in it. The second that happened, the voices in his mind disappeared, and his vision returned to normal.

He was lying on the ground in front of a homeless man. This just must be one of those days. He looked up and the homeless man was replaced by a group of guys who didn't look very friendly.

It was definitely one of those days