"Chap!" the maniac roared, his psychopathic grin stretching ear to ear.
My body moved with an eerie, perfect precision. I didn't think; I just reacted. I exploded off the ground, tackling Tsume squarely in the chest just a fraction of a second before the maniac swung his blade down.
A deafening roar filled the courtyard. The vertical slash of white fire violently cleaved the space where we had just been sitting, melting the cobblestone into glowing slag and leaving a deep, burning trench in the earth.
Tsume and I hit the ground hard, rolling out of the devastating path of the flames.
The maniac's laughter abruptly died. He lowered his sword, his crazed eyes blinking in genuine shock as he caught sight of my gaze cutting through the smoke. "What...? How the hell did you dodge that? And what the hell is wrong with your eyes?!"
I didn't know what he was talking about.
I pushed myself up to a crouch, my breathing sharp. The ghostly echoes were still active. I could see the maniac's next moves mapping out in the air before he even twitched a muscle. Six, maybe eight seconds into the future.
"Don't just sit there!" I yelled at Tsume.
The maniac recovered from his shock, his grin twisting into something feral. "Lucky guess… huh? Let's see how many times you can do that."
He blurred forward with supersonic speed, sweeping his blade in a wide, horizontal arc. To Tsume, it must have looked like a blur of lethal fire. To me, through the swirling purple filter of my vision, I saw the transparent ghost of the blade sweeping through the air seconds before it actually happened.
I dropped flat onto my back, the blazing sword missing my nose by an inch. I shouldn't have been able to dodge that.
I saw the next echo—a downward stab aimed at my chest. I rolled sharply to the right.
The blade violently pierced the stone exactly where my heart had been. I kicked off the ground, spinning back to my feet and effortlessly swaying just out of reach of a reverse slash, the luminescent blue trails of my eyes tracking his every movement.
Tsume watched from the dirt, entirely paralyzed by a toxic mix of shock, disturbance, and bitter jealousy. Just an hour ago, he had convinced himself I was a weak peasant. Now, I was moving like a seasoned master, effortlessly weaving through lethal strikes.
His massive ego might have been fragile, but his tactical mind was razor-sharp. He realized instantly that my strange new speed was the only thing keeping us alive, but I had no weapon to actually fight back. If we didn't coordinate, we were going to die.
"Ryomen! Duck!" Tsume suddenly screamed, scrambling to his feet.
I saw the echo of Tsume's action in my vision. I immediately dropped into a low crouch.
Tsume had scooped up a handful of loose dirt and gravel from the scorched crater. He hurled it directly at the maniac's face just as I ducked. The grit hit the maniac right in the eyes, causing him to flinch and blindly swing his flaming sword in an arc.
"Left side! Go!" I shouted, seeing the opening in the echoes.
Swallowing his pride, he followed my command. He sprinted to the maniac's blind side, sliding low across the hot cobblestone. He drove his heavy boot squarely into the side of the maniac's knee with a sickening crunch.
The blonde man yelled in pain, his leg buckling. But he was resilient. He spun around, a wave of fire exploding from his body in a defensive burst. Tsume and I were forced to leap backward, creating distance as the flames licked at our uniforms
.
The mental strain of the ability was rapidly catching up to me. A nose-bleed began to slowly come down my nose. My vision flickered. I couldn't keep this up much longer.
The maniac stood up, popping his knee back into place with a grimace. He wasn't laughing anymore. He wiped a streak of soot from his cheek, looking at us with a cold, calculated glare that was entirely different from his earlier psychotic rage.
"Well, aren't you full of surprises," he sneered, the white fire along his blade slowly dimming back down to normal steel. "You know, the word around the street said you were just a couple of first-year brats. Guess our friends on the inside of the Academy missed a few details."
Tsume froze, his pale eyes widening. "Inside...? What.. are you talking about?"
The maniac let out a low, mocking chuckle. "Oh, didn't you know? This fortress isn't as impenetrable as your precious Sensei thinks it is. How do you think I bypassed the perimeter wards? We have eyes and ears everywhere in this school."
"Who are you?" I demanded, the blue outlines of my vision pulsing with my voice. "Yamata Clan?"
The blonde man spat on the scorched cobblestone. "Yamata? Please. They are just a minor asset to the real deal." He reached into his cloak, pulling out a small, silver-embossed card. Tenebras Superamus. "My allegiance is to the future." He said, flashing the card with a mocking smile.
A picture of him and his name – Takeru Kamishiro – were printed beneath the text.
I could then feel the same energy Sensei had unleashed when he first started to fight the Yamata at Nihon Village.
The others had finally realized what was happening, and they were coming to help.
He laughed again, colder this time.
"You brats still don't get it, do you? This isn't about some old clan grudge." His eyes gleamed with fanaticism. "We are Tenebras Superamus. And we're just getting started cleaning up this rotten world."
A massive burst of fiery energy exploded from his body. He vaulted straight up the stone wall in a blur of white flames and vanished over the roof.
Seconds later, the heavy iron gates burst open.
Sensei Ayashi stormed through, sword already drawn, with Saki and Ging right behind him.
But the courtyard was empty–save for the smoking trench and the smell of scorched stone.
I dropped to one knee, wiping blood from my nose with my sleeve. The ghostly echoes fading entirely as it took the blue outlines of my vision with it. The world returned to normal.
Tsume stood a few feet away, breathing heavily. He stared at me with a strange, disturbed expression.
"Ryomen…" he muttered, voice low. "Your eyes… they changed color."