The Guardian (Final Version)

9th chapter: What are friends for?

Heart's PoV

Right before my eyes Mia got attacked once more and this time she was completely knocked out. My heart let out a loud thump and I felt both rage and sadness overtake me, once again I had allowed her to get hurt and it pained me to know I hadn't been capable of protecting Mia as the guardian spirit I was supposed to be. I had allowed myself to relax trusting the fact that she could fight back, unlike to what I was used to, and now I regretted it with my whole being, I wasn't fit for this position, I had already made a lot of mistakes once and I was going down that path again. Painful memories of the past came rushing to my head and I shook it violently preventing myself from remembering them.

Fully concentrated on the present I took my sword out of my sheath and slowly averting my gaze from Mia I placed it on Shade.

"Are you that mad that your little guardian was knocked out?" Shade spoke with a grin. "Or is it that you're seeing a repetition of the past?" he asked, slowly spitting out every word.

"Shut up!" the rage in me was growing more and more as I clenched my teeth and charged against Shade, however the one who fought back was Klaud instead.

"You are 10 000 years too early to be able to touch the prince." his voice showed a slight touch of anger but his eyes held no expression at all.

"Is his majesty too afraid to face me?" I threw at Shade.

I wasn't really hyper to fight him, I just wanted to finish this quickly and the quickest route was taking down the prince first, it always worked.

"Step back Klaud, this is my fight." Shade ordered as Klaud quietly obliged. "Let's see how much you can do with the little energy you have left." he uttered before attacking me.

"Same to you!"

For a while our match was equal in both strength and speed but I knew I wouldn't last long. I didn't know how Shade was pulling it off but for me fighting in the human world was tiresome and with Mia unconscious I couldn't receive the proper amount of energy I actually needed to fight off Shade.

We kept our pace for about five minutes but once those five minutes were up I couldn't keep my spirit form or else Mia would start to pay the price for it, so, even though it was a risk, I stepped back a few meters and returned to my human form only leaving my sword materialized.

"Giving up already?" Shade asked clearly disappointed.

"Unfortunately for you, no!" I answered confident.

"Oh so you actually think you can beat me like that? Bah, pathetic!"

"Pathetic or not it is only a matter of time before we find out." I concluded charging once more.

As a human my skills were reduced quite a bit but even so, my speed and strength were still far more greater than a normal human; giving my all I kept on attacking and defending Shade's attacks which were obviously stronger, I didn't know how he could fight like that in the human world, from where he got the energy, but the true was that wherever it came from it was clearly favouring him, still, I didn't give up. I had been thought how to fight in my human form and make the best of my human abilities in case I ever ended up in a situation which required my human form to be maintained; back then I didn't understand very well the purpose but right now I was extremely grateful since if it weren't for those lessons through the years I wouldn't have been able to keep up with Shade despite being clear I was on losing end. I was already full of bruises and cuts from his weapon, a dual sword linked by a chain on the tip of each handle, when someone disrupted us.