Nathan was caught in the crash as well. When he came to, he was stuck in the debris below ground. There was nothing to see. Everything was foggy as the dust enveloped the environment. Nathan wasn’t sure if he had lost his ability to hear from the blast or if everything became quiet all of sudden. The dragooun’s roar was gone. Its rumbling steps had no effect anymore.
Was the storm finally over?
To escape from all this dust, Nathan used the ruins around him to elevate over these clouds of dirt. He looked around the other blocks, the dragooun was nowhere to be found. It was as if everything, all the rampage, came to a halt at that very crosswalk.
“What happened?”
Right behind him came Yuno on the back of her owl. After witnessing the blast from afar, she feared that something might have happened to Nathan. But aside from a few scratches here and there, he was fine.
Yuno couldn’t wait for an answer — Nathan was in a world of his own from the shock. Thoughts of the dragooun’s whereabouts didn’t cross her mind at all. All she wanted to know was the source of that blast. She quickly aimed her pen at the clouds of dust below, before writing a spell of her own.
As the dust cleared from her spell, the result before them wasn’t that shocking.
Shogo was still standing.
With the drink in his hand and the wry smile still plastered on his face, Shogo was standing and the dragooun lied on the ground, knocked out from the blast.
No, Yuno and Nathan weren’t hallucinating. The image before them was as clear as day and as true as every fact that ever existed.
But it all made sense. There was nothing in this world that could stop an unstoppable force than an immovable object. And that was Shogo.
It wasn’t all out of nothing, however.
Right in front of him, glowing as bright as a neon sign, was the Japanese symbol (盾), floating there in the air. That symbol was the catalyst for the blast. A powerful protective aura that protected the user’s surroundings, was what the symbol did, the symbol that stood for “Shield,” the character that was one of many belonging to the Art of Gen-Kotaba, the Japanese style of writing.
Shogo Kuroiwa was an Author.
[Literary Technique Activated: Shield (盾)]
This technique of his had created an invisible wall. That wall, coupled with the dragooun’s impact, resulted in the blast from earlier.
“Right then,” he spoke in his usual friendly tone while flipping his pen through his fingers. “Pretty rude of you to slam into me, little guy. I could’ve dropped my chocolate crunch.”
Shogo stood there in the middle of the debris, talking to the unconscious dragooun, the very same dangerous dragooun that could potentially wake up at any minute.
Nathan and Yuno both looked at each other in disbelief, before descending to get to a closer level to Shogo. He was their aforementioned leader — who had gone off somewhere without even discussing the details of the plan with them.
“Oh hey!” Shogo noticed them and waved. “Have you tried the Chocolate Crunch? I thought it was going to taste weird, or perhaps like Hot Chocolate. It’s got a blend of chocolate sauce — plenty of chocolate sauce, really — crushed biscotti, cacao nibs—”
“What the hell is wrong with you!” Nathan shouted, “I’m out here losing my breakfast, trying to contain a rampaging monster because someone forgot to discipline her owl and you’re sipping coffee like you didn’t just nuke the neighbourhood!”
Shogo was left speechless looking at Nathan. “Iced coffee.”
As he went on rambling about his obsession, the dragooun regained consciousness. It wasn’t hard to notice it slowly get back on its feet.
Nathan and Yuno quickly backed away, but Shogo was as oblivious as ever — that was what a normal person would think.
However, nothing gets past Shogo.
“I won’t deny, though,” he glanced at his drink, checking it from all angles. “It does taste quite familiar in some aspects.”
Not only was the dragooun up and ready for action, but Shogo’s shield was starting to wear off. His concentration was elsewhere, after all, so its power started to deteriorate on its own. The dragooun breathed out audibly and stared Shogo down like a bull preparing to dive head-first into its target. It was no mystery that the giant creature was tempted by him, a mere human, the size of an insect to it, who managed to hold it off without effort. But it wasn’t smart to that extent, it was more so angered by the impact that knocked it out.
“Can’t you whip something out to take it out?” Nathan asked Yuno.
“Scripts against dragons require them to meet the conditions depending on their elemental capabilities,” Yuno answered, maintaining her cold composure.
“We already know what it is. Didn’t you see the ice shield?”
“Yeah, I know, I’m working on it.” She scooped the pages of her book for elemental scripts.
There were many scripts that dealt with the ice element, and there were even more that dealt with each type of elemental dragon. Yuno still had a doubt in her mind that any of these scripts would work, she was dealing with a hybrid of a Paragon-Grade threat for the first time. Yes, she might have read about it before, but that was all it was for her then, a bunch of incomplete text in a book. Now, it was a full-fledged creature with a roar enough to drop the birds in the sky dead.
And just when she thought she found the right spell, the dragooun pulled another trick it had under its wings.
“Oh right!” Shogo exclaimed, “You should try the Goma back at my home—”
Smoke came out of the dragooun’s nose. Not too long after, its neck started throbbing from bottom to top until it reached its mouth. In an instant, a channel of flames engulfed the street ahead in all its entirety.
It was a staggering surprise. Yuno was in disbelief.
The dragooun possessed not only two elemental sources but ones that were in contrast to one another. Normally, if this could be called “normal,” a dragon would die if it possessed two such elements, but no dragon in the world ever had more than one element.
“Ah man, the ice is melting.” Shogo, who was now standing (still with his drink in hand) on top of the debris beside Nathan, commented. Knowing him, it was a breeze to dodge the flames in that instant. “He’s really short-tempered, huh.”
Done with its attack, the dragooun quickly returned back to its rampage.
The three students did nothing to stop it.
Both Nathan and Yuno were now sure that they couldn’t terminate that creature, it was of the rarest and strangest kind. A hybrid dragon that can not only shift its size but bend elements of opposite nature at will? That was going to make headlines in the newspaper soon — so long as they had that creature contained.
“(So, how’s that date going?)” Shogo, who was in another world to himself, whispered to Nathan.
“W-What?” Nathan narrowed his eyes.
Shogo glanced over to Juno, who was engrossed in her book effortlessly looking for a solution to stop that creature of unknown nature. He chuckled.
“Will you knock it off? It’s really not the time.” Nathan regained his composure, “Are you gonna help us, or do you still need your caffeine fix?”
“I can do anything, my friend — the impossible even. So if I do anything, would I really be doing anything?”
Nathan cocked his head and sighed, Shogo’s words were as strange as ever. “Again with the bullshit philosophy.”
“It’s not, really. More of a life code, if you really look into it.”
“I think I got it!” Yuno called out to them, breaking off their conversation. She jumped off her owl and onto the debris to show the two what she had uncovered in her book, “From what we know, this dragooun can use both ice and fire, which is unprecedented for a creature of this type. Since the corresponding elemental scripts are unlikely to work against it when it counters them with another, I thought we had run out of options to conceal it. But then I remembered one element that works against both…”
“Metal?!” Shogo sipped the last of his drink, making an irritating sound.
“No…” she gave him a look of dismay, “It’s Earth…”
“(Ouch… almost close, though.)”
She opened back her book and presented it to them, “Earth can break through ice and put out fire. It’s the perfect counter to this combination. Thing is… I’m not particularly sure Earth spells can hold down the dragooun.”
“Then what do we do?” Nathan asked.
“I could use a summoning circle, and utilize the power of Earth through a spirit. But we’ll need to corner the dragooun, hold it in its place. Activating the chant takes a while — especially after the Vishnu chant almost knocked me out.”
“Leave it to us, then,” Shogo shook his drink.
“Oh, so you’re actually going to help?” Nathan wondered.
“I’ll just make sure it doesn’t run off.”
“Whatever you do, do it fast!” Yuno exclaimed, “We need to move, and contact the others. It’s now or never.”
Yuno called for her owl and hopped on top of it. Nathan once again used the debris below him as a way to traverse. This time, Shogo accompanied him. The three hurried off to chase after the dragooun.
If everyone in the team played their cards right, then their success was guaranteed. Zoe was a non-combatant, all she was good for was providing intel and the “pages” that the others needed. Erina had already more than enough to hold herself against the dragooun with her skill. Nathan just needed to use his old tricks once again to distract the dragooun and he would be all set. Keeping the dragooun at bay was going to be a breeze for Shogo, so there was no worry on his part. All their efforts combined should leave Yuno to deliver the final blow and contain that beast.
However, there still remained a missing member.
“Does anyone know where Lloyd is yet?” Yuno realized.
“That idiot stayed up all night watching movies again, I doubt he’d be any help now,” Nathan answered.
“So he’s really keen on getting suspended, I see,” Yuno expressed her disappointment.
“Oh, he’s coming, don’t worry about that,” Shogo cheerfully responded.
“He better be,” Nathan said.
“Well, if he’s not… He and I are going to have a very serious talk.”
Even though Shogo still maintained his uplifting tone, the words he spouted had this threatening aura surrounding them.
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