[Goldenboko]

Commentary: Whew, long, tough chapter to write, but easily my favorite by a lot thus far. Very important to the plot, yada, yada, yada. The chapter is a good 5 pages long, and will be much easier to read if you download the word document attached and might be longer when I go back and make more edits. After here I'm gonna leave you with a Cliffhanger so I can go back and fix parts of the past chapters, add more details, hell even maybe more content. Anyway since I know this is more or less what my readers really want, here's CHAPTER 8

Also, if anyone feels they have suggestions, things I should consider, mistakes, anything like that thus far, say it now! I'll be going back and fixing things so that'll be helpful. I wanted to give EoFF its own Novel from me, but I thought help from EoFF would make it all the more special (and probably a better novel). Oh and if you've bothered to read up to here, or you read this chapter, post something! Anything helps keep me goin'!

Chapter 8
Akio was pacing in his room. The past few weeks had been odd; Akio was finding it all suspicious. It all started with the fact he had not had a single assignment since his students graduated. He expected for Cortez to rush him into some mission, surely Akio’s absence has hurt the production from his barracks? Even with the success the Alliance has had, surely they still needed his blade to beat the Grippans further back into their land? Akio couldn’t understand it and it worried him. To make matters stranger, Kyto hadn’t shown up since his last run to the West. Naturally, Kyto had gone on such long trips before, but he always tells Akio how long he thought he would be gone and this time he had said, “I should be back in 3 to 4 days.” It had been 2 weeks, before this, the most Kyto had ever been off was 2 days.
Then a few days back, Cortez announced the Barracks was being relocated. Everyone was to be in temporary reassignment, except Akio. He was the only one who was told to stay in the Barracks till further orders. Suddenly there was a knock at his door. Akio rushed and opened it, he saw Rile, one of his former students holding a large sack of letters.
“Hello teacher,” he greeted and started rummaging through his letters.
“You don’t have to call me that anymore,” Akio told him. “What are you doing here?”
“I’ve been assigned to mail until a superior could figure out where my strengths would be most useful,” he explained.
“But what about Kyto?” Akio started to flare with anger, “they didn’t reassign him did they?”
“Oh…” Rile started. “I see you haven’t heard. Kyto died. He was afflicted with a Shade and didn’t tell anyone. The Shade took over on his last trip and made him kill himself.”
Suddenly Akio’s mind rushed. “That’s, that’s impossible.” Akio had learned a lot of Shades from Celia. Once Shades start to take over a human their life become bound to their host’s, so a Shade would never put the host in real danger. “Even still… Celia could’ve saved him, he knew that, why would he keep it a secret?”
“I have some mail for you,” Rile said and outstretched a letter to him. Akio grabbed it, and looked at the mail. It had Celia’s signature on it.
“I don’t want it,” he said, and handed it back to Rile. Rile shrugged and started to walk away, looking at the letter wondering what happened. When he reached the end of the corridor the letter abruptly began to glow blue. “A mana bomb!” Akio panicked, he could react fast enough Rile light on fire, let out a weak yelp, fell to the ground and died. Akio was stunned, he turned into his room and shut the door behind him. “That letter… was activated by my touch. They kept Akio in his room to make him an easy target and tire him. They emptied the barracks so that no one would witness my death. They killed Kyto because he would never have let a fake letter get snuck in.” Then one last epiphany came to Akio. “And who has the power to make all of this happen? Cortez.”
At that moment, something in Akio snapped. He moved toward his sword and picked it up. After looking at it for a moment, he quickly made up his mind. He abandoned logic and grabbed his sword. Quickly he rushed out his room and headed for Cortez’s office. There would be no straying from the path like there was a year ago. Tunnel vision set in and adrenaline set in, Akio felt a rush he had never gotten form his assassinations or battles before. This time it was different, his attack was fueled by pure hatred and anger. The walk to Cortez’s office was a blur, when he arrived there four guards quickly withdrew swords. One of them spoke up.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“This is it? He must’ve been confident that his assassination attempt would be successful, he knows these four won’t even buy him time.” Akio thought. He clenched his fist, and his Aura reacted all by itself, before he could even think what he wanted to do. Icicles flew at the guards and they were skewered without resistance. Akio walked up to the now unguarded door, he turned the knob; the door was locked. “How cute,” Akio laughed. He decided to use the door to test how the adrenaline was affecting his Aura. Akio outstretched his hand and pressed it against the door, with a push of his Aura physical Mana pushed out and blew the door off its hinges. Akio walked in, he caught Cortez’s assistant, Urala, in the corner of his eye reaching for a weapon. He pointed a fist at her, “Lightning Rod!” he exclaimed. His Aura formed a lightning bolt at his fist and as the name suggested the bolt struck Urala down as if she was a Lightning Rod. By now Cortez had tried to make his way to Akio to stop him, but barely got out from behind his desk before it was too late. “You aren’t leaving here alive Cortez!”
“What the hell do you think your doing?” Cortez exclaimed, anger seethed from his stare. “Do you honestly think you’ll be getting far?”
“If The Alliance wants me dead, why does it matter? I may as well make it so I can meet you in Hell. I just want to know, all this for me? What have I done?”
“I had my orders, ‘The Experiment must be terminated’,” Cortez quoted. “Personally I wish you could see the orders I’ve been given, I hate my job just as much as you, but hey, we’re all dogs of the military here.”
“Not anymore. And I’m taking you with me. You have no excuse for what you’ve done, you could’ve killed me without killing Kyto.”
“And you? You could’ve killed me without killing my assistant.” Cortez retorted in anger. Akio understood now, where the hate in Cortez’s eyes was stemming from.
“Fraternizing with subordinates isn’t tolerated,” Akio mocked him from they’re argument a year earlier.
“Not unless you know how to get away with it,” Cortez mocked back and smirked in pleasure knowing the blow the words would inflict. Akio clenched his sword, unable to hold in his rage any longer and lunged at Cortez. Cortez didn’t flinch he threw a small circular smoke bomb at Akio bursting concentrated smoke around him. Akio adjusted quickly and found his way out of but it bought Cortez the time that he needed to grab a Katana that was mounted on the wall.
Undaunted Akio charged Cortez without thought. He threw slashes every which way at him with no reserve. Cortez struggled to keep up. Akio continued his assault, but not yet with the intention to kill. He pressed his attack backing Cortez into a wall and the moment a safe opening arose Akio threw a punch straight at Cortez’s nose, then hit took the same hand and grabbed Cortez by the shoulder and threw him to the right. Cortez was unable to stabilize himself and he crashed onto his desk, breaking straight through it. Akio let Cortez stumble to his feet, before making another attack. This time Cortez, still in pain, was even slower. Akio took advantage of this and every few openings in Cortez’s defense he would give him a small cut. Cortez backed away, panting, his clothes becoming soaked with his blood.
“Too much time behind a desk?” Akio taunted.
“I see I’ll be receiving no mercy…” Cortez began, “Horse!” he yelled, he smacked his fists together then smacked them on his legs. “Strengthening!”
Akio laughed “Give me everything you got.” He thought. Cortez tried going on the offensive, his spell had increased his speed by at least 10 fold. He sped around Akio throwing in small jabs with his Katana, then continually sped away and lunged in throwing in small jabs. Akio blocked each blow by merely positioning his sword in front of the blurs of Cortez’s blade. Cortez’s spell provided him with the speed to fight, but there was still no muscle backing his it. But as the fight continued Cortez’s speed continued to multiply, Akio knew soon he would have to make a move, or he would be unable to keep up with Cortez. He waiting blocking the slashes biding his time, studying the way Cortez was fighting. Cortez continually flew forward to him, throwing a few strikes his way, then run past him out of range for attack. He’d wait, and then quickly make another flurry of attacks. But as Akio continued to dodge, block, and study Cortez’s attack, he noticed a slight backward movement that gave away when he was going to make his move. “This will be tricky to time,” Akio thought Akio positioned himself, Cortez made the slight backwards motion and Akio made his move. He clapped his hands together, “Bird!” Then he smashed his hands into the ground below him. Lightning outstretched from the ground that Cortez was charging from. Cortez dropped his weapon and spit out blood, he wheezed in pain. Cortez fell to the ground, and crawled for his weapon.
Akio walked up to him and stamped his foot on the Katana just as Cortez grabbed it, “I’ll be seeing you soon enough,” he said, and raised his sword, “Any last words.”
“Yeah, don’t count your chickens before they hatch,” he said with a smirk. Akio laughed and then tried to swing down his arm to kill Cortez, but something happened. His arm wouldn’t move. Something was wrong, Akio tried to move other parts of his body, but nothing would respond. Only his head was still in his control the rest of him was as if he was frozen in time. Akio looked down and saw Cortez’s fingers bent like a claw, grasping into his ankle. “Impossible… that’s a light spell, its only suppose to work on Shades…” Akio stuttered, stunned.
“Purifying Light!” Cortez exclaimed. Bright visible mana spun all around Akio’s body, burning him. Akio screamed it felt as if his body was on fire. His legs gave out and he fell to the ground. Cortez stumbled to his feet.
“How, how did those spells work?” Akio coughed. “They… they…”
“Only work on Shades?” Cortez finished his sentence for him. “Let me tell you a story. Years ago, a town had a massive outbreak of Shade attacks. Everyone at the town at the time was afflicted. Eventually the military investigated why there was no communication from the town and when they arrived, they found it was too late for the entire town. Except for one boy, who was yelling in enormous pain. The military took him to experiment with him and see how he had survived. The military figured out that the boy had his soul fused with the Shade’s. The boy, was half human… and half Shade. Can you guess who the boy is?” Akio’s pulse rapidly increased. He was overcome with pain, but not the type that he had experienced before. His head pounded. He looked up at Cortez, who was still talking, but Akio couldn’t hear any of the words coming out of his mouth. That’s when he heard it, the screams from his dreams. “Stop, stop yelling!” Only now it was different his eyes fell blind to the world in front of him and he saw a boy, that looked much like him, but different. “The screams, stop!” He had Silver hair, and light hazel eyes. He watched the boy scream, and wail. Slowly, his eyes died and darkened to blue. “I can’t… help me!” His hair looked as if it was being tainted with Coal, and the silver locks of hair turned darkened to grey, and then black. “No, no, stop crying, STOP!” That’s when it became clear, Akio was looking at himself, from years ago, to a time in his memory that he couldn’t remember, he was a Shade, an abomination that he despised.
Akio’s head pounded harder, the screaming go louder, and the pain intensified. Akio screamed out in pain and fainted.

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Cortez stared down at Akio. He had fainted on the ground, most likely from the pain that was imprinted onto his face. “Have I sunken this low?” A voice in his head asked himself. “I have my orders.” He answered himself. “I have my orders.” He ensured himself. “I have my orders.” He justified himself, and raised his blade. He looked at the blade for a minute, and winced away from what he was about to do, but suddenly his arm went stiff. It felt as if the air was ripped from his lungs, and a blinding pain ripped through his stomach. Cortez looked down and he saw a spearhead thrust through his abdomen his read blood drenched on it. Cortez coughed, blood spilled out of his mouth and Cortez’s legs went numb and crumbled beneath his weight. He tried to catch himself, but merely stabbed his sword into the ground and collapsed to his left. Time slowed down, life became blurry. This time he knew, he would be getting up by his own strength.
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Celia ran through the corridor of her old barracks frantically, “I better not be too late!” she thought and picked up the pace. She headed straight for Akio’s dorm. When she arrived she found the door open and no Akio inside. Panic arose; Celia quickly quelled it. She took two deep breaths and heard clangs of the sword in the background and she knew where it was coming from. She made a spot turn out of Akio’s room, and ran toward Cortez’s office spear in hand. The clanging stopped. She pushed herself and ran as fast as she possible could. “I have to make it! I have to make it!” she repeatedly thought hysterically, her long hair was blowing into her eyes. The run of just a minute seemed to take hours, plaguing Celia’s terrified mind. When she reached Cortez’s office she ran past the four dead guards as if they weren’t there. She saw Cortez raising his arm to deliver the final blow to Akio. Rushed at Cortez who had his back turned to her, and thrust her spear through his stomach.
She let go of her spear, running past Cortez before he even fell and dropped to Akio’s side, “AKIO!” she yelled, beginning to cry. She heard Cortez fall to with a large thump. Celia’s mind was reaching its breaking point, “I’ll get you out of here, we’ll be okay. You’ll be okay,” she said, primarily soothing herself, embracing the unconscious Akio. She heard someone grunt her name behind her and she turned to the dying Cortez.
“…Thank you, for stopping me…” he muttered. Celia saw the life drain from his eyes; his hand drop to the ground, Cortez was dead. Celia grabbed onto Akio and took out a small stone from her pocket. She smashed it on the ground breaking it. The world around them shifted. Celia’s nightmare was over, she got there in time… Akio was alive. Unfortunately, from her nightmare would stem reality, something always far more frightening then any dream.