There were groups of soldiers from the Nation near the area where young Takeshi was fighting one of the apparent invaders. They had been assisting other people close to the blast zone. Now that they were done, they noticed a battle taking shape: someone with a katana in hand was fighting a mysterious man dressed in strange clothing.

All of them decide to lend a hand to that person who, apparently, is fighting alone. However, the companion of the man wearing the respirator—someone in unusual armor named Ashel—steps in and blocks their way. He stands before them with his arms crossed, cutting off their advance, and within seconds, through his own elemental manifestation of water, he unleashes a sudden attack that, without mercy, eliminates the group of soldiers who had come to offer help to the boy.

He releases immense waves that surge out from his own body, pouring forth an enormous volume of water that spreads aggressively from his silhouette through his personal energy. He releases so much water that it sweeps away the soldiers’ bodies, and even though they try to dodge at first, they do not manage to do it in time.

The water elemental manifestation is sudden and completely unexpected. Somehow, those two seem to know they are there “playing around” while waiting for the return of their leader, Doku. They were supposed to crash the dirigible into one of the Capital’s outer walls in order to escape through this sector, which means it is necessary for the Renegade to arrive here once he has done what he came to do.

Young Takeshi attacks with fierce determination, fully intending a lethal cut against his enemy. He can tell that his opponent is abnormal by the way he uses his left arm, which molds and changes shape as if it were water, while at the same time possessing the solidity and sharpness of a metallic material. With that same arm, he can form cutting shapes and use them to respond to the boy’s attacks.

The two of them repel attempts at slashes and thrusts, each searching for a way to enter the other’s space by breaking through defenses, but both keep their distance well. Tired of being unable to pierce his opponent’s guard, Takeshi decides to execute an elemental technique and fire it straight at his enemy.

The Wind elemental shot is prominent, swallowing the man’s entire figure in a verdish energetic current accompanied by violent gusts. The invader endures the impact with ease. His defense is his own left arm, which he enlarges by deforming the shape of his limb, then forms into a massive shield that covers his body completely.

When the elemental energy dissipates, the mysterious man’s arm returns to its ordinary form, in a way that resembles water settling back into shape.

“What the hell is this guy?” Takeshi wonders, seeing just how abnormal his enemy is because of that strange arm.

“Enough of this nonsense! You’ve lasted too long, peasant. You irritate me!” the man shouts, fed up.

Immediately afterward, Takeshi gathers more energy, letting it manifest from his body. He fuses it with his element and launches the same shot as before, triggering a second explosion far stronger than the first. This time his enemy is dragged back and thrown to the ground, carried by the wind currents even though he tries to raise the same defense again.

The explosion is so strong that even Ashel has to cover himself with a solid water barrier, raising a wall of water in front of him. This man has such control over his element that he can do it while still standing with his arms crossed.

“Solid water?!” the swordsman asks in shock as he watches that wall rise.

“Don’t you know that we Water Element users solidify its liquid state?” Ashel asks, surprised by the boy’s ignorance.

It is not that the boy had never thought about water being solidified. It is that, the moment he sees that element coming from this man, he immediately associates it with the enemy he is fighting. He still has not seen that enemy use his element for some strange reason. And the idea of attackers wielding Water disturbs him.

Why are there attackers manipulating the Water element? Is this some kind of attack from the other Nation?

All of this runs through the boy’s mind, and perhaps it is also the anxiety of being caught in a fight that could mean life or death.

Suddenly, the other man recovers from being knocked down. He rises and begins extending his left arm across the distance, and it seems his arm has no limit to the shapes it can take, nor any limit in how far it can reach. A struggle begins for Takeshi as he dodges the arm instinctively with acrobatics, rolling across the ground, while raising his sword to block the cutting attempts his enemy sends from afar.

However, that arm now forms countless thin needles. More than once, the swordsman is dangerously grazed, and cuts begin appearing all over his body whenever that arm passes close, even when he raises his blade to defend. There is always a lash-like scrape that slips through whenever he tries to repel the arm.

The boy, still inexperienced, begins to tire little by little and feels he cannot keep fighting alone for much longer. So he decides to raise his elemental energy in order to call for help. At the same time, he starts launching explosive elemental attacks impulsively, making loud noise so that more soldiers might hear the blasts, or see the elemental display and come to his aid. Because of those winds, the elemental surges push the fire in the background slightly—the flames that still burn from the earlier dirigible explosion.

“Keiji, finish him. More reinforcements could arrive soon!”

The terrain where the battle is taking place is a zone mixed with parks and local woods, along roads that lead to residences and supply shops. The cobblestone streets begin suffering large-scale damage. The ground is violently lifted by the energetic shockwaves that hit the area from the elemental blasts the swordsman fires. And no matter how much his enemy tries to close the distance to stop him, he cannot. Takeshi keeps his distance well and does not allow the long-range piercing attempts to strike him. That makes him a target that is not so easy to defeat.

The other man, dressed in strange armor, grows impatient and begins making water appear on the terrain little by little, emerging silently from the surface without the novice noticing.

Then, at a moment when the boy tries to move to widen the distance, he almost slips. He realizes that beneath his feet there is now mud, the ground increasingly soaked. That water does not come from an energetic manifestation being shown by the man with the strange arm he is fighting. It comes from someone else.

“If it isn’t him… then whose is it?!” he thinks to himself.

And immediately, he answers himself. Ashel, his enemy’s ally—the man in strange armor—is the one sending his energy, causing that water to rise.

At the very moment he realizes it, hands of water seize his feet and immobilize him. Because of that, Keiji’s long-range attacks now strike the swordsman directly. The boy tries to repel them at all costs, but his thin sword does not provide a strong enough defense to avoid the frontal cutting damage.

The pain from the impacts is unbearable, but he endures as much as he can.

The man named Keiji has severely injured the young fighter, who still remains standing. Even in pain, he is held in place by the water arms gripping his feet.

With a clear opening, the enemy decides to end the fight once and for all. He launches his arm again across the distance, this time forming a fine tip that resembles a spear. He sends it straight in, aiming for a decisive thrust meant to pierce the boy through the chest.

From the constant cuts and the strain of blocking, the swordsman’s endurance has been worn down. He will not be able to repel this piercing attempt, lacking the strength in his limbs to divert the strike.

But then the ground explodes again from an external force. The earth lifts in an instant, and a drier surface suddenly covers the mud that had formed across the battlefield. The outside strike forces Keiji’s arm to recoil and return to its original form and position.

The wind shockwave also forces Ashel to raise another solid wall of water, which makes it clear that someone else has arrived.

It is Jin Ryūsuke, the boy with the red bandana on his forehead. He has come to help his friend in trouble. The shot he fired as assistance is strong enough to destroy the water hands that had trapped his compatriot’s feet. Jin grabs Takeshi and pulls him away from the combat zone, placing him in safety.

“I made it in time,” Jin says with great relief, having saved his friend.

The other boy had felt his friend’s energy. He happened to be in the Capital City when all of this occurred. At first, he tried to help, but people were running everywhere and did not necessarily need his assistance. The moment he saw the emanation of a familiar Element-Energy, he rushed toward it, arriving in time to save the other boy.

He had left his house after training to buy a few things his grandfather had asked him to bring, but he had seen everything from the moment the dirigible exploded. Many others had felt the Element-Energy coming from this same young man, yet none of them dared to help. Apparently, only Ryūsuke—his classmate—understood that he was in trouble.

“W-what?! Only you came?! Out of everyone in the Capital, you’re the only one who came?… It can’t be,” Takeshi says, disappointed.

“Well, are you going to thank me or not?!”

“Thank you!” his friend shouts, genuinely grateful to Jin even if he arrived alone.

“I don’t like the look of these guys… and I don’t even have the elemental stamina to face both of them at the same time,” Jin thinks to himself, nervous as well, aware of the danger this represents.

“Ashel, leave this one to me. Don’t interfere again like before,” the man with the strange left arm declares.

“All right… but if I see you getting butchered, I’ll help,” Ashel replies.

The boy with the red bandana takes a fighting stance and then becomes the first to attack. The beginning of the fight is fast. The man with the respirator receives a direct kick to the face.

The newcomer now uses speed in his martial strikes, stunning his opponent with heavy blows from every direction while using the elemental movement technique known as “Wind Step.” Keiji tries to counterattack, but he is far too slow compared to the other boy’s rapid movement. Jin circles him, striking from different angles and directions each time, sending him to the ground over and over again. Keiji rises every time, more furious than before.

“Keiji looks like nothing next to this brat. He’s already been knocked down several times,” Ashel comments while watching the battle, arms crossed, expectant. He seems interested in seeing what the boy who just arrived is capable of.

The midday sun over the Nation becomes covered by dark clouds, so dense they make it seem like heavy rain will fall in just a few minutes.

The man with the strange arm rises again and again in frustration. Unable to land a clean hit, he forms a defense by thickening his left arm until it covers his entire body, wrapping him completely from head to toe.

Jin keeps his distance each time those shields form. He understands that the arm is extremely strange: malleable, capable of taking any shape as if it were water.

When Keiji sees that his opponent keeps a safe distance and refuses to get close, he decides to attack differently. He begins launching his arm outward, forming enormous shapes with great thickness, trying to crush Jin. After the beating he has taken, he seems nervous and reckless, raising giant hammer-like and club-like forms in an attempt to strike. But by doing so, he creates openings in his defense—openings that a Wind Element-Energy user can easily exploit.

Jin takes advantage of one of those moments. He appears directly in front of him, now less than a meter away thanks to his usual elemental movement technique, and raises his palm to the height of his opponent’s chest.

“Wind Explosion!” Ryūsuke shouts at the top of his lungs.

The blast strikes the enemy violently. His chest twists as the impact lands, and at once a powerful explosion of Element-Energy erupts, sending the man rolling several meters until he finally stops facedown on the ground, his body thrown by the force of the detonation.

That opponent will not be getting back up so easily after taking such a direct energy strike.

Now Ashel, the man in strange armor, remains with his arms crossed, waiting for a move from the new boy who arrived. He has shown himself to be talented, and capable.

“If only I had more elemental stamina, I could face this man with more confidence… but after dodging so much with Wind Step, I feel exhausted,” Jin thinks, realizing he is at a major disadvantage if a new fight begins.

“Then… will you fight me?” Ashel asks with a challenging tone, yet also with caution toward the boy who arrived. After winning that clash, he would not stop the youngster from retreating and choosing not to fight. In a way, that would be the most sensible option right now.

Jin, despite having won his match against the man with the strange arm, feels uncertain about fighting Ashel. Even so, he takes a combat stance, making it clear that he intends to face him, even if he is not sure he can win.

What will happen?