The Village Disciples

Tanjo crashed into the middle of a forest in less than half a minute, his body puncturing every tree in his path. Tanjo had enough of his Aura Amalgamation bubbling within him to endure the violent collisions but gasped as he eventually slammed into the grassy earth. The Disruption of Reality continued to cackle around his body, albeit quite sedate compared to his previous state when fighting Regashi. The teenager dug his hands into the dirt beneath him as he gathered his equilibrium, rising to his feet.
'He wiped the floor with me...' Tanjo reflected on the recent events, closing his eyes.
Tanjo steadily let his magic sweep over his body, diverting his focus to any alarming bruises or abrasions that would pose a problem. The process went quickly, as he just had minor lacerations and bruises.
'The Disruption of Reality seems to have a hold on him to a certain point. I'm almost certain that if they were more potent, the rifts would affect him to a greater degree.' The boy opened his eyes with a questioning mentality, glancing at the blue rifts that revolved around his frame.
Tanjo clenched his teeth as the terrible memories of Kaminari Nozomu and the other Tansu vessels reappeared unexpectedly, sending shivers down his spine. Regashi Ketsueki was as merciless as he was powerful, and Tanjo would almost certainly face a dark fate if he were to get defeated by the maniac. The first time Regashi tortured him was mentally conflicting enough, scarring Tanjo permanently.
It was only Yuso who remained by his side; the redhead had agreed to face Regashi alongside Tanjo. Speaking of the youngest Takuetsu, was he facing Regashi all by his lonesome while Tanjo was collecting his thoughts in a random forest? It is highly unlikely that Yuso could subdue Regashi with his might.
*CRUNCH!*
Tanjo blinked. Immediately, he shifted his entire body and let his Disruption of Reality flare, an entire wall of blue rifts twirling in the air around the teenager. It had to be Regashi sneaking up on him, especially since Tanjo was entirely incapable of detecting anybody's presence in the vicinity. With both of his hands outstretched, encompassed with an amalgamation of the four Aura Senses, Tanjo prepared himself for battle.
"Tanjo!?"
A familiar voice that shook Tanjo to his core. After the familiar voice came the arrival of multiple people who emerged from the depths of the forest while garbed in chalkboard-gray armor. Tanjo's blue eyes flitted between each of the unexpected guests, his heart thumping.
It was Class 1-AB. Tanjo failed to spot Mr. Oshieru, but he did recognize the presence of Chief Haishi and Lieutenant Kou, who were leading the class throughout the woodland area. Akogare was the one who had called out to his long-lost friend, a sword in his hand as he waved at the jet-black-haired teenager. A smile graced the blonde student's face.
"What the hell are those spiky things!?" Akogare continued to yell out at his friend, stepping forward.
Haishi clamped his hand down on Akogare's armored shoulder, halting the blonde boy in his tracks.
"Hold on! Does he look very friendly right now?" The Chief inquired rhetorically, glaring at Tanjo cautiously.
The group stared at Tanjo dubiously, eyeing the multi-colored magic emanating from his hands and the blue rifts that warped the space they inhabited. Tanjo's face alone instilled worry in his previous classmates. Haishi and Kou could tell that the teenager was roughed up and troubled mentally. He was perturbed greatly, and with the potentially lethal power that Tanjo currently held, engaging with him could be problematic.
"Tanjo? I need you to release your magic right now! We're not going to hurt you. I know you went missing quite some time ago, but I need you to understand that a war is going on!" Chief Haishi boldly raised his voice, pushing Akogare behind him.
The rogue teenager shook his head frantically as he said, "No! You guys need to get out of here, now! None of you are safe in this forest! Go back to Buraun!"
Lieutenant Kou stepped forward. "Neither are you, Tanjo! We have troops lingering in the area! Just come with us!"
The dark red sky of the night only added to the suspense that ruminated in the forest. With Tanjo refusing to stand down, Class 1-AB, Haishi, and Kou remained still. The leaves swayed wildly as the wind picked up. Suddenly, fear spread throughout Tanjo's body as a familiar presence rattled him to his core. Tanjo threw his head around, his eyes darting to various corners of the forest he and the others stood in.
Then he saw it. Emerald green eyes. Regashi was here.
"Please! Run, damnit!" Tanjo cried out, redirecting his body to his left to face the green eyes that shimmered in the shadows of the forest.
Haishi, Kou, and the students glanced in the direction that Tanjo faced, apprehension affecting every movement they made.
They, too, saw the eyes.
Brandishing their weapons swiftly, Haishi and Kou glowered at the green eyes indignantly. Whoever the eyes belonged to, they ostensibly disturbed Tanjo to no end. Haishi would have preferred fleeing with the students and Tanjo, wishing that no more bloodshed would be required—but nothing in life truly goes as planned for the Chief.
"All of you will die! Go! Go!" Tanjo continued to pressure the group, screaming at the top of his lungs.
"Your father would kill me if I let you die here!" Haishi asserted, narrowing his eyes at the green eyes.
The green eyes gradually became closer, but no humanoid body was visible. Regashi's head was all that came into view; a wicked grin stretched across his face. From the neck down, his form was shrouded by darkness.
"Look at those two trees!" Shizen Utsukushi cried out fearfully, recoiling back.
Large, animalistic hands wrapped themselves around two different trees, their claw-like nails splintering the wood with ease. The hands were veiny and far bigger than a normal human's own.
"Is this a demon!?" Ninki Meisei queried frightfully, his eyes wide.
*KRSHH!*
Tanjo took matters into his own hands and launched a wave of blue rifts toward Regashi, hoping to land a direct hit. The move made Regashi's grin deepen as he lunged back into the shadows of the forest, dodging the incoming rifts completely. The veiny claws retract as well, indicating that they were, in fact, Regashi's hands. Both Tanjo and the group vaguely saw a silhouette jumping from tree to tree, surrounding them as if they were prey.
'Come on... You said you would disregard collateral damage, so I should just let the Disruption of Reality destroy everything here.' Tanjo battled with his mind, contemplating what to do.
He should simply let the Disruption of Reality fracture into every direction, which would potentially capture Regashi during his act—but the thought of consequently killing his own class made him hesitate.
*WHOOSH!*
Haishi had no time to react as a claw stretched out from among the trees and impaled him through the chest, pinning the Chief against a tree that happened to be behind him. The claw was attached to an arm that seemingly had no body, extending for much more than a couple dozen feet in length.
"What the hell is this!?" Haishi spat out, blood trickling down his chin.
With his sword still in his hand, Haishi deftly sliced the elongated arm that the claw was connected to, instantly removing the weight that kept him pressed up against the bark of the tree.
"Haishi! Look out!" Lieutenant Kou hollered, her eyes widened as she rushed toward the Chief.
As Haishi looked back at Kou, he realized that two claws were in front of his face, quickly slamming into his head and pulling him through the tree that was behind him, dragging his body into the dark forest. Kou leaped into the forest after Haishi—*BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!*—while repeatedly discharging purple beams of light.
"You guys need to go while he's distracted!" Tanjo called out to his previous classmates, exasperation yielded behind his eyes.
Naderamu glared at Tanjo, gritting her teeth. "And why should we listen to you!? You left us without as much as a goodbye! We need Chief Haishi and Lieutenant Kou to get back, anyway—!"
"They're both already dead, Naderamu! You're all next when he comes back!" Tanjo interrupted the blonde girl, huffing.
Everybody was silent. Millions of questions ran through each student's mind, hoping their only saviors were not truly dead out in the forest. After a moment of silence, Senko Sukudo quietly inhaled, his brown eyes glued to Tanjo.
"Who is that, Tanjo? That person." The student with red face paint queried apprehensively.
Tanjo looked at Sukudo, their eyes meeting.
"He's—!"
*PLOP!*
Before Tanjo could speak, a body flopped onto the ground between them. The students realized who the body belonged to the moment they spotted it. It was Haishi, and his head was missing. On Haishi's back, 'Nyx' was spelled out in blood. Tanjo's eye twitched at the sight.
'Nyx?' Tanjo inquired silently.
"Who's next?"
Class 1-AB and Tanjo steered themselves toward the source of the new voice, with surprise and shock overwhelming them all. It was Regashi, and he was standing in the open with Chief Haishi's head in his right hand, holding it by the man's ponytail. Regashi swung the decapitated head around playfully, grinning at the students with a malevolent visage.
Tanjo instinctively jumped off the ground and surged toward Regashi, reeling his right hand back as he released a blue rift at Regashi. The brown-haired man skillfully maneuvered around Tanjo's attack, kicking the teenager away.
"Wait your turn, Brother." Regashi reprimanded Tanjo with faux anger, waving his index finger around.
The word 'brother' rang through everyone's ears, setting off mental alarms and brewing mass confusion. None of the students were aware of who this evil man was or why he was trying to slaughter them so coldly. Haishi was confirmed to be dead, his headless corpse serving as a grim reminder of the instant loss.
Naderamu, however, was eager to find out where Kou had gone. She had not returned, but the brown-haired man did.
"Where's Lieutenant Kou, you prick!?" The blonde-haired girl shouted at the top of her lungs, her armor clanking as she assumed a new fighting stance.
Regashi tilted his head at the student, his green eyes glinting with amusement. A dastardly grin stretched across his face, instilling monumental fear into not just Naderamu but the rest of Class 1-AB.
"Why would I know?" Regashi queried, his voice going quiet. "You're the one who's tasting her."
A wave of bewilderment crashed into Naderamu as she contemplated the man's strange words, unable to reach any particular answer as to why Regashi said such a thing. Without warning, Naderamu felt the need to vomit. Curling over, gripping her stomach with one hand and covering her mouth with the other, the student was incapable of holding back the puke spilling out of her mouth.
Then a finger shot out of Naderamu's mouth.
"Poor Kou; digested by a disciple of her own village." Regashi heaved sarcastically, waving Haishi's head around dramatically.
Naderamu's face contorted in terror as she learned who the finger belonged to. The blonde-haired girl's legs weakened as she felt the want to puke a thousand times over. Her classmates stared in terror, slowly backing up. Comforting Naderamu would be exceptional but that would mean allowing Regashi to approach closer.
"H-how did he do that!?" Akogare hollered, goosebumps forming along his skin.
Tanjo bit his tongue, glaring at Regashi. The man was playing with them—it was as if everything was a game. Regashi knew he had an edge over every single person alive, and he chose to derive all of the possible enjoyment from it. It was impossible for Tanjo to completely wrap his head around how cruel Regashi truly was, for he seemed to eclipse every previous method of torture with the subsequent victim.
"Brother, I want you to watch closely what happens to those who choose to be sheep." Regashi called out to Tanjo, looking at the jet-black-haired teenager in the corner of his eyes.
"No!" Tanjo howled, pushing himself off of the ground and lunging at Regashi once again.
*KRSHH!*
With a fist coated in the Disruption of Reality, Tanjo attempted to strike the brown-haired man down permanently. Obviously, Regashi would have a way to dodge or simply block, but Tanjo had no time to let the man act out whatever he had planned for Class 1-AB. His feelings ultimately controlled his body, which was exactly what Regashi wanted.
*BLIP*
*CRISHK!*
Silence filled the forest. Tanjo's blue rifts had successfully torn through flesh, neutralizing the one that stood before him, and it was Apiru Naderamu.
"Whoops." Regashi said as he put a hand up to his mouth.
Tanjo immediately retracted his fist, his mouth agape. He had just impaled Naderamu through the chest using the Disruption of Reality. The girl was frozen, but no blood seemed to seep out of her body. The entire time Tanjo was using the blue rifts, he still commanded them to erase his opponent—and Naderamu was unfortunate enough to be subjected to it.
"I-I'm sorry..." Tanjo murmured an apology, tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
Slowly, Naderamu's form began to disappear, with her limbs becoming transparent. There was no pain, except for the pain that accompanied the idea of being erased forever—soul and body. Naderamu finally vanished entirely after thirty seconds, her melancholic eyes being the last to fizzle away.
She was not granted any last words.
"She was starting to like you, ya know?" Regashi revealed, his cloak swaying in the breeze. "I thought the worst they could say was 'no'."
Tanjo glowered at Regashi hatefully, gritting his teeth. His Disruption of Reality continued to revolve around his body, while the four Aura Senses flowed throughout his system. Purely out of ire, Tanjo swung at Regashi, only to miss when the man leaped out of the way. The teenager instantly chased after Regashi, unleashing a barrage of attacks that all missed.
"Back to what I was saying, Brother! Watch what happens when you decide to not take things into your own hands!" Regashi yelled, constantly evading Tanjo's attacks.
As Regashi raised his right hand, so did the students of Class 1-AB. Their bodies were seemingly alienated, mirroring Regashi's movement. Tanjo acknowledged it, prompting him to growl and increase his speed.
"You're crossing yourself, Brother! Because of you, your friends have to give this war everything, including their hearts!"
*SQUELCH!*
Regashi tore into his own chest, ripping his heart out brutally. Class 1-AB did as instructed.
Tanjo refused to look at his friends as they died, knowing what had just occurred. The teenager kept swinging, and swinging, and swinging. No matter how close Tanjo got, Regashi would always be just out of reach. Life itself was embodied in this fight, resembling the fact that anything could be taken away, and there were still facets of reality that could not be reached by sheer force.
"You're still being this naive?" Regashi asked rhetorically, grinning sadistically. "The human spirit is nothing! Stop relying on it to drive you further!"
"Shut up!" Tanjo yelled, analyzing Regashi's movements and attempting to predict where he would end up.
Regashi slid his feet against the ground, holding his hands close together. Tanjo had no clue what the stance could entail, but he could only pursue the man tenaciously.
"Maybe you need one final trip!"
Regashi clapped, and the forest was gone.
XXX
I'm really wanting to stretch out these Abnormal Regashi chapters because this is the first time I'm actually stretching out his character in a consecutive fashion. I also have many underlying purposes for these chapters, so please bear with me throughout the length and continue to enjoy! Stay tuned for more!
Have a Great Day!
Peace - Cr1ticalz_