Emerald Hunt

 Chapter 4

 Emerald Hunt

 “Well, I guess you two should continue hunting for those emeralds.” Mothero said.

 “What?!” Kochishimaru exclaimed. “Demons can be anywhere!”

 “I’m in the forest, so I can fight them; plus I sent a message to elite Theronian soldiers to patrol this area. Don’t worry.”

 “He’s right Kochishimaru,” Vithiriod said. “We should continue the competition.”

 “Okay!” Kochishimaru replied.

 The 2 ran deeper into the forest.

 Again, Vithiriod gestured Kochishimaru to stop. Two students were having a battle for Emeralds. It was Oroseno and Senko.

 The two charged towards each other with swords, but no blow landed. Whenever one tried to slash, the other parried. After 20 seconds, Senko jumped up and tried to kick Oroseno with both feet, but Oroseno blocked his feet with his sword. Senko jumped back and shouted: “Breathing Dragon!”

 He breathed out fire from his mouth. Vithiriod and Kochishimaru were stunned by a child knowing a magical technique like that!

 Oroseno slammed his hands to the ground and sat down. “Geyser Pillars!” He shouted.

 Blasts of water rose from the ground with lightning speed and extinguished all the flames.

 “Incredible!” Vithiriod said. “These guys have probably learned magic last year.”

 “So we’re probably going to learn it too!” Kochishimaru said. “I’m so glad I registered for this academy.”

 The forest was surrounded by steam. Then all of a sudden another guy appeared and was going to slash Sonku. Then, even another appeared and blocked the sword. The misted cleared a little bit, and it appeared that the Oroseno and Sonku’s teammates had arrived: Thesukio and Oroku.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Let me end this fight!” Thesukio said, and clapped his two hands.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Lightning bolts surrounded him right when he did so.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “What?!” Vithiriod said. “Don’t tell this guy is….”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Lightning?!” Senko, Oroku, and Oroseno exclaimed.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Lightning is not one of the four elements!” Senko stated. “How come he can use lightning?”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Because I can use 3 of the four elements: Wind, Water, and Fire.” Thesukio replied.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “And how does that allow you to use lightning?” Oroku asked, not getting what was going on at all.”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Fire and Water make steam. So using the magical power of Fire and Water, you get the power of steam. Using wind, I can make the steam turn into I cloud by thickening it. Lightning is naturally formed when 2 clouds rub against each other. The friction creates a heat that causes the clouds to create electricity, which turns into a lightning bolt. So using Wind Power, I make the power of rubbing clouds created by the power of steam, and it creates lightning. Using the fire power, I can increase the heat, and make more bolts and increase the electricity.”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “He definitely is the son of Uremshimaru of the Clouds,” Vithiriod muttered. “The man who was able to create huge amount of lightning to fight with or to protect himself with when an enemy is about to attack. He was considered one of Theronia’s greatest soldiers.”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Lightning Energy: Charging Bolts!” Thesukio shouted.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Huge amount of electricity hit the land that Oroku and Senko. They fell to the ground and the emeralds flew out of their pockets and were lying on the ground.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Backward Push!” Thesukio shouted. The wind behind the emeralds pushed them towards Thesukio. He grabbed them and put them into his pocket.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Oroku quickly stood up and breathed out flames, while backing it up with wind. “Then you leave me no choice but to back up my lightning with water!”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> He used even greater electricity and it clashed with the flames. “I should back his lightning up too with my skill of creating huge waves of water!” Oroseno thought.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> The two teammates were busy trying to get rid of the fire. Senko saw his chance to defeat them. “Earth sneaking technique!” He muttered to himself.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> He went through the ground and came out behind Oroseno and Thesukio. “Blazing Palms!” He shouted.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> At the moment the flames hit the two, Thesukio shot out a bolt towards Senko, and had defeated Oroku at that exact moment as well. All four students had fallen, and their emeralds had fallen in the middle of their battlefield.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Vithiriod and Kochishimaru looked at each other with eyebrows raised. They quickly ran towards the fallen emeralds and Vithiriod put them in his pocket; they quickly ran away.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> While they were running, Vithiriod said: “It was a good thing we decided to watch that battle, we got ourselves 9 emeralds. We also found one already. Let’s look for more!”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> They stopped. “Yeah!” Kochishimaru said.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Vithiriod felt something under his left foot, and looked to see what it was. 6 emeralds were lying on the floor! “And how did those come here?” Vithiriod and Kochishimaru asked.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Hey, kid,” A man’s voice came from above. Vithiriod and Kochishimaru raised their heads, 3 men were on a tree branch. “Give us those valuables.”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Those guys are bandits!” Vithiriod said.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Then I’ll take care of them!” Another man’s voice came from behind. It was Misheku, a elite soldier of Theronia, who was from the Miruki Clan, a clan of great skill in using swords.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Let’s kill him!” The bandit in the middle shouted.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> The 3 bandits jumped down from the tree branch, all of them having spears in their right hand in order to pierce Misheku once they landed.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Misheku deflected all 3 spears with his thin sword one by one, but he did it so fast that he couldn’t let one of the spears scratch him.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Then he immediately paced forward and slashed one of them in the chest.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> One of the other bandits was going to slash Misheku, but Misheku parried and killed the bandit that didn’t attack him.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> Then the last remaining bandit was going to slash Misheku’s back, but Misheku stabbed his belly from behind.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Well done,” Another voice came from above. “But those were my 3 weaklings.”

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> “Who are you?” Misheku asked.

<p style="text-justify: inter-ideograph; text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt"> ‘My name is Goshou,” The man replied. “A leader of zounds of bandits; come everybody!”