"Tsk!" the Reman general clicked his tongue, but Nayavu had no idea why, and instead of asking, he took the chance and made the ground beneath the man's feet tremble, trying to take away his balance and deliver a quick blow.
"Pathetic."
But Aurelio wasn't fazed, because instead of ground, the man stood on a thin disk made of water—a disk that kept his feet unmoved while the ground beneath was crumbling. It was a clever strategy, and Nayavu was shocked that he had never thought of using the element like this. However the boy's mind should have been touched by something else instead of admiration, for he'd forgotten to calm down the animal he was riding.
"Tahu! Wow!"
It was too late. The stag's body slowly turned to electricity, and Nayavu could do nothing but follow suit, both of them forming a bolt aimed at the Reman general.
"Hot-headed."
With words meant to mock them, Aurelio only lifted a finger, and a ball of water surrounded him. Lightning struck that ball from the front and came out the back just as quick, now heading for a girl with tanned skin. That girl had also been baited by the water magic, and thinking she could freeze Aurelio, the rushed blindly towards the general.
"Woaaaaaah!" Nayavu screamed, he and Tahu barely managing to regain their form before the boy collided with Tiva. The sound made resembled two emptied coconuts, and the two youngsters tumbled on the grass, holding their heads from both sides as if they were eggs about to part open.
"Ahhh— This again? I thought you'd given up on trying to give me a concussion…" Tiva whined, rubbing her forehead with both of her hands.
Next to her, Nayavu wanted to return the girl's words, but the splitting headache was too much for him to think of an answer, so they both took a second whimper instead, hoping it would ease the pain..
"Call yourself lucky it wasn't Tahu with his horns who bumped into you," Nayavu finally spoke, getting back on his feet and offering his older sister a hand.
In front of them, Tahu puffed displeased and turned his body so that all three could face the two Remans who weirdly enough gave them enough time to regroup, almost as if they were too busy holding back a laugh.
At last, the fun was over, and the battle-ready glances soon replaced the silly moments. In this exchange, it became clear who was interested in whom, even if they were trying to hide it.
Nayavu looked straight at Giovanni, his heart being set on taking the man down. On the other side, the lieutenant reciprocated the hate, and it was then for the first time in a while that his expression fit the man's intentions.
The same should have been the direction Aurelio's gaze was being shot on, as Nayavu expected both of them to target the biggest threat first, yet that wasn't the case, and to the boy's surprise, he saw the general staring at the girl next to him, making her uncomfortable.
"Nayavu… I think I've gotten some unwanted attention…" Tiva said, shivers running down her back. She tried to avoid Aurelio's obsessive stares, but her attempt at feigning ignorance failed once the man pointed his rapier at her and called the girl to him.
"Son of a caged savage, don't forget where you belong!" the man ordered, calling Tiva to his side.
It was then that the girl's eyes opened wide and words caught in her throat.
"Tiva, don't listen to that asshole! You stay back! Let me and Tahu take care of those guys!"
But it was then that the next stage of the Reman attack began, and were it not for Nayavu's quick reaction, Inyankarans would have fallen to their knees all at once, paralyzed by a group of sound users who came as reinforcement.
Nayavu was quick enough to stop the sound waves from disrupting the fight the moment he'd heard them, but such a feat required focus, and he didn't have any to spare.
"Girl!" Aurelio screamed once again, swinging his sword to deflect a bolt Tahu had launched out of frustration.
While this was happening, Tiva sat motionless, her once bright expression now clouded by the words spoken by Aurelio.
"Do you… do you know anything about my family?"
"Tiva—"
"Of course I do. You're the daughter of one of our slaves, are you not? I would never mistreat any of our precious Inyankarans," Aurelio answered, cutting off Nayavu, who tried to intervene.
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"Now, if you behave and take care of the savage next to you, we can look into where your mother is being kept, and we can help you two reunite."
It was not that she hadn't noticed, but she wasn't sure what the cause of Nayavu's struggle was. Yet, with just one glance, Tiva understood that the boy next to her was not feeling his best. If she wanted to, she could have switched sides, and she could have delivered the blow that would decide the outcome of this war.
"Hehe~"
But she giggled instead, poking fun at the one next to her.
"I can't have my little brother struggle all by himself now, can I?"
After patting Nayavu on the back, the young woman stepped forth, ready to announce a decision that took but a mere half a second.
"You seem convinced that it's my mother who is Inyankaran. 'Being kept,' you said?"
His look darkened by confusion, Aurelio, who had been informed that someone had seen Tiva as a child together with an Inyankaran woman, opened his eyes wide.
"I'll have you know, Mother was a pretty important woman in your country. That's why she barely had time to sneak in and see me."
"Your… mother…" Aurelio repeated, but Tiva wasn't done talking.
"You though that Inyankaran woman who'd given her life for me was my mother? The lady you've done unspeakable things to after catching her? I love her just as much, but were you to truly care about us, you would have known who my mother is."
With her chest puffed forth, Tiva pointed at the two Remans.
"Daughter of Reman nobility, and now proud Inyankaran. Tiva will stay next to her new family from now and forever, because those were the people who took a mixed blood like me in, and raised me into the beautiful, sharp, modest lady I am today!"
Even more confused than Aurelio, Nayavu looked at Tiva with words caught in his throat. The girl glanced back and smiled brighter than ever, light shining on her face and reflecting in her white teeth, almost blinding the boy.
"Now I think I've angered him~ Nayavu, can you take care of the crazy guy?"
The boy scoffed.
"Aren't both of them crazy?'
"You've got that right, but one of them seems to like you more~"
Glancing at Giovanni, Nayavu nodded.
"Make him suffer a bit," he told the girl, but she shook her head to him.
"You know that's not my style."
With this, Tiva lunged at the general who looked eager to welcome her.
*****
Maybe if they got to know one another, they would have understood that neither wanted to be there.
Maybe if they got to live their own lives as they wanted, they would have never met.
Maybe if this world wasn't so twisted, they wouldn't have to hate each other.
"Giovanni Giorgio," the lieutenant presented himself.
"Nayavu," the boy followed suit.
Such dilemmas had troubled 'him' many times. Were 'he' to have only lived once, who knows where 'he' might have been? Who knows what that life would have been like? In any case, it would have been unrelated to this current life.
However, that was not a right given to 'him.' Instead, 'he' had to meet many more people, 'he' had to make enemies, 'he' had to face loss, and 'he' had to bring about destruction wherever 'he' opened his eyes.
"No," Nayavu shook his head. "Better call me Leonard. Leonard Leopold."
Yet this time something was different. While Giovanni may not know it yet, those two knew one another. This was a fight fated through time, not the usual consequence of a curse. There was no "maybe" here, as it had been proven already: no matter the time, these two would come at odds.
For a moment, Nayavu—no, Leo hoped that dropping his name like that would trigger something in Giovanni. If not a memory, then at least confusion at hearing the Reman name. For a second, it seemed to work as the lieutenant shook his head firmly.
"Now die."
But that didn't happen. Instead, the man tried to take the boy out from behind, gathering water droplets behind Leo for a simple attack.
"Tahu?"
The lieutenant's words turned out to be in vain, and before the attack could even be launched, Tahu used his own magic to break the water marbles.
"Haha, thanks, pal," the boy said, patting the animal on the nose. "But this fight is mine to handle. Look, Tiva is fighting the strongest guy around. Shouldn't you give her a hand instead?"
The stag puffed his nose, his body turning purple. Under the form of a flash, Tahu went from one battlefield to the other, leaving the two rivals to decide each other's fate.
"You know, the first time I saw you, I was pretty bummed out," said Leo, facing Giovanni.
"Oh?"
"I thought since I know you'll make it past 100, there's no way you would die here. So my attack was doomed to fail."
"And it did, didn't it? So what is it you're trying to say?"
Although he was called out for making little sense, the boy was already aware of that.
"But this is the first time something like this has happened. I think," Leo continued.
"You think?"
"So who's to say how this time travel thing will turn out?"
"Time travel?"
"And even if it is hopeless, I at least want to try taking destiny into my own hands!"
Those were words Giovanni subconsciously wanted to hear. The boy's determination having rubbed off on him from far away, Giovanni was now itching for a fight just as much as Nayavu—or Leo.
In Reman fashion, they both bowed with a hand held to the chest—a sign that they were looking for an honorable fight.
"By the way," Leo felt like adding something. "Your face, it's not doing that weird thing anymore."
With a surprised expression that actually fit what he was feeling, Giovanni put a hand on his cheek, and as if he had never forgotten how to do it, he smiled.
"That doesn't mean I'm not going to cut down all of you who have done me wrong," the lieutenant felt the need to clarify.
"For some reason, I didn't doubt that."
Leo took a weird fighting stance just because it felt like the right moment, and Giovanni playfully followed suit.
"Whenever you're ready," the boy said.
Thus, the battle between two fated souls started. If such a battle had been one-sided back in Rema, the playing field was now even, and that was thanks to one more man.
Oh? It stopped.
What Leo was wasting his focus on—the sound magic from the Reman flanks—had gone silent, and the boy only needed a glance to see why.
Among his fellow Inyankarans, a man already big in stature stood tall, smashing the heads of two Remans together. He then looked at the boy, and in uncharacteristic fashion, Tatanka gave Nayavu a thumbs up.
In response, Nayavu sighed and shook his head.
This old man never gets tired, he thought.
"Thank you, Tatanka!"
After that shout, the tattoo on the boy started glowing, and he soon turned his body to energy, taking advantage of his mind that felt clearer than ever before.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR