“Nice to meet you Kaya,” Ogana said shaking his head and getting up. He yawned out loud as he stretched his massive hands in the air. Ogana was acting rational again, no longer crying or whining like before. I guess he was back to his normal self unlike Dashe who had been knocked out cold. First it was Ogana and now Dashe! Our problems didn’t seem to end. I walked slowly to where Dashe was lying and examined him, while leaving Ogana and Kaya to their conversation. He was clearly out cold and miraculously okay. I tried to wake him up, but he didn’t budge despite my rough attempts. It puzzled me though how many people hit him and yet he always sustained minor injuries. Just what was his body made from?
“You just never learn do you idiot?” I laughed out in silence shaking my head.
The metal men were getting closer with each second. There were two dozen of them to be precise. Kind of looked different from the ones we had seen before. We didn’t have enough fighting power to counterattack them and the only way seemed to be right through them.
“Metal men are coming,” I yelled towards Ogana and Kaya alerting them a few seconds before they appeared. They looked puzzled, but understood what I was implying. Quickly, they made a hasty dash and hid next to me beneath a metal walled table. We were definitely in trouble, no way out of this building. The walls were made of metal meaning we couldn’t break them with our brute strength alone. I tensed my body with fear as I grabbed the hilt of my sword firmly.
“This won’t fool them,” I chuckled realizing that we weren’t exactly hidden out of sight. I extended my arm and lifted Dashe up onto my shoulder, “we might as well fight.”
They knew I was right and yet they didn’t move from their hiding positions. None of us could come up with a plan that didn’t involve sacrifices or risky maneuvers. The walls were quiet as if asleep, silently howling a soft unheard wind.
“Both of you be silent okay,” Kaya said rudely. “I have a plan.”
Well, this was going to be good. A kid making plans…? I just hoped though that whatever he was planning would get us out alive to the surface. What am I saying? I couldn’t pin my hopes up on a child’s plan. They were almost here and we weren’t prepared to face them just yet. If Saza was this frightening I highly doubted I wanted to know what Danyen was like. Within a few seconds, the metal men bashed in onto the floor. Separating randomly, they moved swiftly through the floor searching through everything loudly for us. In their hands, were these strange weapons that glowed with terrible light. We hid quietly not ushering any sound. Suddenly, I felt Kaya move besides me as he made a few small steps out towards our adversaries. His dark black eyes had a look of a determined man, the eyes of a truly brave man.
“What the blazes!”
Kaya dismembered his right arm without warning. Were my eyes deceiving me? I could not believe what I was seeing at all. He then proceeded to throw his dismembered arm towards the metal men. The arm made a loud thump noise causing all of the metal men to turn towards it. One by one, they walked towards it and looked down at it. What had Kaya just done? This went beyond anything reckless I thought a child like him could ever do. But he was smiling like this was all part of this mastermind plan. While the metal men observed the arm with their giant red eyes, it exploded violently like a miniature dynamite. All I saw after that were vanishing blue light from where the explosion took place. Tiny particles came back towards him and reformed his right arm. What was this child? What kind of enchantment was this? It was truly a terrible power he had indeed. If he wanted he could have wiped us all a long time ago. Question was why didn’t he? Ogana and I were stunned that we barely blinked or made any sudden movements. In our eyes, the kid was like a ticking time bomb just waiting to go off.
“This is the curse granted to me by the white water mist,” Kaya said getting up with a sad look. “I can make my whole body explode and reform again. For some reason I couldn’t use it when I was tied up by those metal monsters. I got this power just before I left Rigudaya. The strange mist I breathed did this to me just like it did to you.”
He was pointing to me and Dashe. I looked at him completely and utterly surprised. I had a hunch that he had also come in contact with that terrible mist too, but I didn’t assume it also granted him powers too. What was astonishing is how much he knew about us. I hadn’t told him a lot about me and yet he already knew this much.
“Wait what?” Ogana interrupted. “You all came from Rigudaya? And you came in contact with the mist.”
Ogana’s eyes widened like he had come in contact with treasure. He walked right towards us and examined us one at a time. It felt uncomfortable, but I didn’t argue because I figured he had a reason to do it.
“That explains you unusual pupils and the orange color of your eye,” he said speaking to me. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
I didn’t know exactly how to answer his question. I hardly felt I needed to tell him to begin with.
“It’s complicated,” I replied him not staring him in the eye. “I didn’t know you very well so I didn’t want to say stuff to a stranger.”
He laughed loud and said, “true enough, you are right and I barely know you too; however, do you know anything about the white water mist?”
I didn’t, but I doubted he was just going to let this issue go. I felt tempted to ask for a brief history, however, knowledge was not always a good thing. Such a power always came with a price. I got back to my feet, observing the debris of Kaya’s wrath. The destruction was far much more powerful than what I had thought possible. Everything was completely destroyed, burned down to ash.
“Well I’ll tell you,” Ogana said without hearing my answer. “The white water mist is a natural disaster from nature. There have been fools like the Rainku who sought to control the mists by opening the seal only to fail again and cause problems. You see the white water mists can grant you great power but at the same it takes a great portion of your life too. Many succumb to the mists and die after a few short hours and there are some like you who survive only to fall victim later. I’m sorry guys, but these powers you now both possess are nothing short of a nightmare.”
He finished and got up to scout around the smoke. I really wanted to punch him in the face at that moment. This was the last thing I wanted to know at this moment. But it was true after all, no great power came without a cost. I had no idea how much time I had left. Although, I knew what I had to do with the remainder of my life. My friends were waiting for me, I had wasted enough time as it was. Kaya looked frightened after what he heard. He came and sat beside me crying at the horrible news. I could only imagine that he had family still in Rigudaya who had also fallen victim to the mist.
“We’ll get through this somehow,” I comforted him patting him on the back. “Is there a way to cure and stop the mist?”
He laughed and nodded, “just ask Ebi.”
I didn’t get his humor and so did Kaya, clearly this wasn’t time for horrible jokes. After all no one knew what happened to that mage. We were stuck in enemy territory and now we had learned some terrible news of our own demise. This truly wasn’t our day. I told Kaya and Ogana not to tell Dashe, knowing that he would freak out and go berserk at a critical time as this.
“Let’s keep moving,” I said seeing as the smoke had cleared up and the path ahead now looked visible.
It was stunning and amazing what a little of Kaya’s power had done to the walls. They were once white and now they had been turned pitch black. To make matters worse we were now traveling with him. Kids his age usually had terrible meltdowns, if he had one we would probably be blown to bits. However, for now he was calm and had a bit control over his power. Ogana carried Dashe while Kaya and I walked beside them. From what I could see it was a clear path to the bottom, soon we would come to contact with whatever was doing all this.
“So did you ever go down there before?” I asked Kaya as we walked beside each other.
He nodded in a frightened way and didn’t answer. I felt bad for taking
him with us, but there seemed to be no other way except forward for all of us.