Posted by “Will I guess you’re not called the iron wall for no reason Ken? Remember when that name was given to you?” Sho quickly grabbed another arrow yet held off on firing. Instead, he wanted to see if a response would be given.
Ken pulled out his spear and kept inching closer, with the rest of the group closing off any escape routes. His eyes emitted pure killing intent, while his body showed no remorse. His fellow colleagues all held the same atmosphere, dyed red in blood, with the only intent of death before their eyes.
“Welp, I guess such tricks don’t work on you, Ken? I wonder what would happen if Hiroto and I didn’t exist? Would you still be here? Hahaha, would our class last this long?”
“Let me ask you one more thing. If Hiroto or I get serious, do you think your pity group could take us on!” A brief pause halted the group. Maybe it was their bodies telling them to stop from sheer fright, yet they kept advancing…
“Will, shall we see?” Sho’s stern voice held nothing from his original speech but rather the loss of humanity. The light in Sho’s eyes slowly started to phase away. The people who he called “family” at one point are now his enemy. Yet, deep down, he still couldn’t fully erase all feelings; perhaps it was the only way he could recognize himself.
Every arrow he released onto his class, every time, felt like glass. His heart has only left the choice to rot. He constantly felt the pain with every arrow, yet now was the time to wipe those emotions; if not, he and Hiroto would be in jeopardy. A tear slowly willowed along with his eye, perhaps the last light burning out, trying to keep its purpose going. Only to fall to earth, touching the branch that Sho was standing on.
With that, Sho’s eyes seemed like a spiral of despair. He stretched the arrow and was ready to send the onslaught. However, strangely enough, he didn’t point his arrow toward someone but rather in the air.
“Whooosh” The arrow cut through the air and met the roof of the large four-square room. Everyone watching down was surprised by such an action. Sho quickly grabbed another arrow once again, making the wooden bow bend to its cries.
“Whooosh” The arrowhead had only one direction pointing toward the nearest kid. So the boy met the green grass only to stain it with the color red, his new attachment located right on his forehead.
What did an archer need the most? Space between his enemy; without that, they can’t come close to showing their full potential. Knowing this, the sixteen people left didn’t show any sudden moves but kept their tempo quickly, filling in the gaps and leaving no room to escape.
A few people were staying in the trees, perhaps four from what Sho could tell, which made it inescapable to go through the trees.
“Whooosh”
Another arrow flies to the closest tree, getting stuck in the trunk about Sho height. Sho then pointed at another tree, shooting another arrow, then another, and kept repeating this process until 7 arrows were spread out across the forest located closely to Sho.
“13 that should be enough.” Sho counted the number of arrows surrounding his body. He didn’t have much movement in practicality, so he couldn’t do anything extravagant. But it wasn’t to the point where he couldn’t move around. His body was the perfect size for tucking them into his clothing, almost like body armor. Plus, from past experience and practice, he’s grown enough to stop from sudden movement of his body. He will adjust his body accordingly if he is about to get poked by the arrowhead.
Deep down, Sho couldn’t help but know that each arrow in his possession wouldn’t be enough for each person. This is accountable if he even has the chance to shoot each arrow. Ken was a perfect example of why that held true when he deflected the arrow.
12 out of the 16 kids stopped 20 feet away from Sho’s current position surrounding him while he shoots the arrows into the trees. 6 people from the 12 kept their distance from Sho creating an outer circle, four of which were Michio, Ken, Shijo, and Kiyoshi. Everyone in the outer circle had a variety of weapons swords, spears, shields, knives, axe, and katana.
The 4 kids in the trees stayed in their position, being the closest tree away from Sho’s branch; however, they had no form of attacking Sho unless they threw something. The only person who was notably dangerous was Sen. Sho looked at what weapons they were carrying; however, to his surprise, they seemed only to have combat knives and ropes in their hands.
Six kids kept moving forward inching closer to Sho making an inner circle. Starting to pick up their pace in unison still watching Sho shoot randomly in the forest in different directions.
Sho’s tiny hands reached into his shirt, pulling out an arrow while turning in directions while shooting; however, at separate times, his eyes would trail off from where he was shooting to see the situation.
“Now” By the time the sound was entirely out, one of the kids had thrown their sword into the tree trunk connected to Sho’s tree. Ai Sasaki was the one that said “now” and was following along where the sword was thrown.
“Whooosh”
An arrow came passing the sword, barely missing it but instead hitting the kid that threw it. The arrow showed no mercy giving a quick death. Sho thought briefly before shooting the arrow; however, he deduced that the sword was too heavy to significantly change the angle where it mattered; instead, going for the kill seemed more logical.
Sadly, however, this didn’t give Sho any attempts to escape; the hole where the kid died was already covered by someone else. Not to mention the second outer circle behind them, so Sho’s best bet was to fight to the death rather than look to escape.
“Blam”
Sho felt the vibration of the sword encounter with the tree; he pointed his bow over his head and shot another arrow.
Ai Sasaki watched all this transpire yet didn’t want to give Sho another chance to shoot. So instead, she firmly landed on the sword as if she was dancing; when her foot landed on the sword, under a breath, she leaped over to Sho’s standing branch.
Holding two curved swords, an x-formation was ready to cut Sho’s head; however, right when she was about to reach Sho, it was almost like he was falling backward while smiling.
A chill ran through her body ‘something is wrong?’
Ai Sasaki quickly looked up and saw an arrow approaching over her head; she brought her left sword up to deflect the arrow while keeping her right sword to meet Sho.
“Pinggg” Metal meeting metal filled the void of sound.
Ai Sasaki fell, laying over dead where Sho had initially been standing, dropping both swords to the ground in addition to the arrow that met her left sword.
When Sho shot his first arrow at the roof, he counted the number of seconds it took to reach while also applying the amount of force for it to barely dig into the roof. This time when he shot the arrow, he slightly put less pressure on his release, following the same trail the first arrow went. It was slight touch as the arrow met with the first one; however, that was all that was needed to be released from the grasp of the roof to follow the ark of the arrow down to Sho’s standing position.
Using the gravity force formula as gravitational is constant with the added seconds Ai Sasaki to reach him allowed for the exact time to jump backward. The only way that Sho could arrive at this conclusion was because Ai Sasaki always goes headfirst with her attacks, which is why she loved the dual swords. When the first arrow made contact with her left sword, she lowered her gourd and shifted the sword forward to the next attack. In that gap, the second arrow that was attached to the roof met flesh.
Sho hanging onto the branch’s end with his left hand and his right still holding his wooden bow. The branch bent into a slope, barely able to sustain the two bodies. Luckily Sho and Ai Sasaki’s body weights were both under 100 pounds.
Sho shifted his eyes to Toyo Hirano, expecting to see some type of response. Ai Sasaki and Toyo Hirano practically grew up with each other in this hell of a place called home. The only reason why Toyo Hirano also uses the double sword is to be like Ai Sasaki. Toyo Hirano before would follow Ai Sasaki around and would be treated like her little sister, even though everyone believed Toyo Hirano was older.
Yet before Toyo Hirano’s eyes, Ai Sasaki’s lifeless corpse lay on top of a branch over her head, and even still, Toyo Hirano’s facial expression looked the same as if she was a doll. The same expression unless told otherwise.
‘Isn’t natural for human emotion to escape away in the face of constant resentment.’ Sho couldn’t help to hold any resentment over this response. How could he?
Even now, Sho was no different from Toyo Hirano; he was the one to take the life. Of course, the resolve was to keep his life with Hiroto, but he couldn’t help to wonder what their resolution was?
Sho didn’t get the pleasure to further think about it; Toyo Hirano was already following Ai Sasaki’s same exact moment. This will be the last time she will ever do so. Yet, Sho hasn’t found the time to recover himself from the branch. Beneath Sho, three people were rushing in, one holding a spear and the two others holding heavy swords.
If an ordinary person were to see this bizarre scene, they would be shocked to see kids holding heavy weapons met for adults. The heavy swords were more extensive than their frames, but the more shocking thing was that they kept the heavy swords in a steady stance while running to Sho.
‘Will, if I can’t go up, I guess the only option is to go down.’ Sho released his hand, holding onto the branch, landing firmly on his feet. Digging into his shirt, he grabbed an arrow with his left hand, pointing the steel tip at the three rushing him.
If he were to shoot this arrow to grab another, he wouldn’t have sufficient time to do so. Instead, he kept the arrow close to his hand and was ready to use the wooden bow as a melee weapon.
The scrawny kid with the short spear was the first to reach Sho. Being located in the middle of the two other kids, he was missing a shoe, and his shirt was ripped to nothing, yet his stance seemed firm. The scrawny kid pointed his steel tip spear at Sho while twisting the end of the wooden shaft to trace Sho’s movements. Sho quickly grabbed onto the wooden bow with both of his hands located at the ends, the arrow now laid horizontal, still being held by his left hand and bow.
“Whoosh”
The spear went between the bowstring and the body in a swift moment. Sho pushed his bow upwards toward the sky, making the string touch the wooden shaft of the spear and then twisting his body in reply. The string acted like a snake tethering itself, having a firm grasp on the wooden shaft and stopping it within its tracks. The spear’s 8 feet long shaft was now anchored down, holding it by Sho crossing arms a few inches away from his head.
“Whoosh”
“Whoosh”
Two lengthy swords cut through the wind, both targeting the opposite sides of Sho’s waist. Giving no chance for Sho to make another move against the spear person. In the midst of this also included Toyo Hirano right above Sho only momentarily before she reached Sho with her two angled double swords.
‘When there is no room to move, then go forward!’ Sho couldn’t help but think of something Hiroto told long ago.
Taking two steps forward, the spear was located right above Sho’s head while the steel tip was barely behind him. He uncrossed his arms with enough force for the wooden bow to release its restrain away from the wooden shaft; the scrawny kid couldn’t help but follow the direction of the wooden shaft into the sky. The scrawny kid bent his back and planted the bottom of the shaft into the floor to relieve force, trying to gain control again.