Excursion 12: An unexpected Awakening

"So, what's the difference between this guy we're after and the other members of the gang?" Asked Fyky to Doc.

"Well there are many differences. Talent, strategic thinking, physical prowess, but only one thing truly matters in battles between gifted people, experience," said Doc, "often times, the gifted with more experienced many more battles with their gift. This way they can build intricate synergies with other gifts they have, or even understand the capacities of their gifts way better than their opponent can expect to learn from a single battle. However, the ultimate reward of experience isn't just a new bag of a thousand tricks. It's something called a gift's awakened form."

"What's that?" Inquired Fyky.

"Well… how do I explain it? When you learn to read sheet music, and play the piano, then you'll have the proficiency of a concert pianist in playing whilst sight reading if you just keep practicing. Well imagine your gift is the piano and the sheet music is your bag of techniques. Eventually, somehow, something will click inside you. You realize in an intimate way the way your gift functions, and with that, you awaken the full potential of a gift, expanding your bag of techniques ten fold."

"Woah… Can you do that to Doc?"

"Of course, every shadow Hunter in the org has at least one awakening. I haven't had to show you mine, but maybe one day."

"How about Black Hawk does he have one?"

"Oh definitely…"

*** At the basement ***

Black Hawk is face to face with a terrifying four armed monster born from the soul of Weaponsmith. It had complete control over the blob.

Black Hawk noticed something interesting however, the blob was about the same size as when it was with his original body, so that armor schtick would be way less effective in this expanded form, but that meant he had a different plan.

"What do you think Black Hawk? This is the body of the beast that will kill you!" Said Weaponsmith, as the blob turned into four great swords. The great swords were massive and were capable of slicing the maze dividers.

Black Hawk realized that the entire blod was being used to create these four swords, thus he attempted to slice apart the monster. He successfully placed deep slashes on both of the arms, and detonated them, chopping of two of the arms.

Suddenly it threw two swords in the air and Black Hawk watched as they morphed into a scythe, then a hand from behind grabbed. This caused Black Hawk to look back at the monster only to see that it's eyes were blank.

Behind Black Hawk was the new form of Weaponsmith, a six-legged man fitted with chitin armor. It had two arms, both of which were gripped along the handle of the scythe, and it started swinging manically.

Black Hawk moved behind him using his Judicious Equality and slashed him once more on the back, but it only penetrated through the chitin slightly.

Black Hawk then placed slashes on each of its unarmored legs, and sliding underneath the beast, back to a position in front of him, and detonated the slices, destroying its legs.

But again, the beast's eyes went blank. From the wall emerged a man of normal size, with minimal alterations from Weaponsmith's original body, and from adjacent handprints emerged two eagles.

"Black Hawk, you've been a great opponent. It seems my new power has reached its limit. Let's see if you can withstand my final technique!"

Black Hawk smiled excitedly. For the past few years, no fight had really challenged him quite like this. Black Hawk too had developed the awakened form of his gift, he thought he'd save it in case a bigger threat comes along because he can only use his awakening once every three days. But out of respect for this great opponent he fought, he would unleash the awakened form of Judicious Equality, the Five Dragons of Shadow.

"I enjoyed our fight. I should give you the honor of losing to my greatest technique." Said Black Hawk.

"I can't wait," said Weaponsmith his new body excitedly smiling. Suddenly one hundred eagles came out of the divider. This was Weaponsmith's ultimate awakened technique, Kamikaze Eagle Squadron, where he used the Soul Sculpter's Chisel to morph fragments of his soul into exploding eagles.

The eagles began flying towards Black Hawk ready to explode. But Black Hawk yelled, "Five Dragon's Domain!"

The whole room went dark. Every eagles and even Weaponsmith were face to face with five massive eastern dragons. The eagle's were stopped in midair. Black Hawk and Weaponsmith were frozen but conscious for a second.

In that second, Weaponsmith was told about the five dragons, as the Five Dragons' Domain had the condition where all things are frozen for the first second to accommodate for equal distribution of information. Weaponsmith was told that the five dragons were servants to their user, however all dragons are damaged equally. The space disintegrates after two minutes, or if the dragons are incapacitated.

With this information learnt, and the second up, Weaponsmith divides the kamakaze eagles into three squads of thirty three, one is left behind to distract Black Hawk. He slices the eagle in half, but it explodes. Weaponsmith commits the blob to an AK-47 and ten magazines, and starts firing at one dragon. The dragon starts getting cut up as five eagles explode along it. Five eagles however are sent flying back towards Weaponsmith as two dragons make their way towards him to attack. The eagles explode once they reach him, and Weaponsmith is blown backwards.

Black Hawk also begins placing cuts on ten eagles, detonating the cuts and blowing them up before they can deal damage to the dragons.

Weaponsmith starts shooting into the mouth of an oncoming dragon, but as the dragon approaches, it takes a sharp left and uses its body to launch Weaponsmith five meters away, where his velocity is interrupted by the body of another dragon.

A third dragon is about to eat the upper half of Weaponsmith, but he sends five eagles towards the dragon's head, redirecting it. As it lands it bites the other dragon causing all of the dragons to feel pain, and ten eagles explode on the temporarily distracted dragons.

The distraction was enough. Black Hawk took down another forty eagles. And with less than a single squad of eagles left, Weaponsmith has all of the eagles converge into a single point along a dragon. They land and they explode. However, it was just short of dispelling the space. Black Hawk detonates a cut from behind Weaponsmith and destroys his new body. Two minutes are up.

The space is gone, and Weaponsmith returns to his original body, barely conscious. Black Hawk can also barely move, and shortly after passes out from exhaustion, as he was unprepared to use his Shadow Dragons.

With Black Hawk unconscious, a man clad with a black hood and a formal suit appears, standing over the barely conscious Weaponsmith.

"So it seems you weren't able to finish your end of the deal."

"Please I just need some more time—"

The hooded man summons a golden, floating spirit which stabs Weaponsmith with a silver rod, and it begins to inflate as if sucking something from Weaponsmith's body.

"Goodbye Kai, your other vow still holds so be careful from here on out."

… To be continued.