Chapter 24: Chapter 24: It Was Not Their Fate

Jabari released the first veil over his core and moved. A bullet whizzed past his ear as he ducked to the side. He spun on his forward leg, crouching lower as he did to avoid another bullet. In such a manner he moved on, ever forward, ever dodging. None would live to tell the tale of tonight, but they would experience it, nonetheless. It was his gift to them.

The first man died as he crushed his head in a single blow. He did not allow the man fall. Instead, he took hold of his bloodied head, lifting him bodily as a shield against the remaining shots. The body shook from the weight of so many bullets as he stood at the edge of the deck.

No hesitation, he thought. The crew had deemed the man dead and continued on their onslaught.

Humans.

A shot pierced the ground beneath him and it erupted in an explosion of splintered wood. When the second shot bore another ragged hole, Jabari sent a trickle of reia into his feet. From there it spread into the wood beneath him, channeled into the ground around him, reinforcing it so that the next shot rebounded of it without a scratch.

The sound of gunshots tore the air with a dirge of explosions that blotted out even the sound of the rain. Thunder crackled not too far from them as the ship continued on its path, bathing the impending carnage in flashes of white light. The body in Jabari’s hand weighed close to nothing but it was only a matter of time before it became useless. When the first shot penetrated it, rebounding of his cassock at the shoulder, Jabari tossed it overboard and propelled himself forward.

He moved with purpose, his mind subconsciously cataloguing every man’s place on the ship, both above deck and below, and death followed in his wake.

Every spot he passed blood was spilled and one man died. He ripped a man’s head from his body with a single slap and darted away. The air exploded with a missed shot where he had been and he knew Nathan’s accuracy was worth complimenting.

He cut across the deck from point to point in single steps. Where he arrived, carnage came alive, a painting in the hands of an artist. The deck flowed with blood washed by the pouring rain. No one screamed. No one was given the gift of death throes. Each died in a single blow. Sudden and abrupt.

Jabari paused in his slaughter briefly and afforded the men a moment to think, a moment to come to terms with what was now their fate. Nathan used it for something else. Poised, he took aim, and fired. Jabari raised a simple hand. It blurred across his side, intercepting the path of Nathan’s bullet and he wondered why he had even thought to give them a moment. Judging by the looks on everyone’s face as they reloaded their weapons and took aim, one thing was clear. They did not need it. And Nathan would need a more expensive bullet than the ones in his gun if he wished to win this fight.

Sadly, Jabari knew he had none.

A pity, he thought as he dropped Nathan’s bullet.

……………………………….

It wasn’t long before the deck was littered with bodies flowing with blood. Each was strewn across it, broken or dismembered. Anyone would define their numbers as countless, but Jabari would not. He had been in enough wars to know what countless truly resembled. These bodies were a microcosm in comparison.

He stood before Nathan now, blood stained hands clasped behind his back.

“W…What are you?” the captain stammered.

Jabari cocked his head to the side in thought. What am I?

It was a strange question in a time of terror. But the captain had nothing else to worry about, so perhaps it was understandable.

His eyes drifted to the weapon in the man’s hand. The gun was empty now, all its bullets fired in the last minute. He’d been aware of it for a while but it was the first time he was paying it any attention. It was metal grey. A crude thing of creation, made as if its creator had no expectations of it. Its gunmetal grey glinted in the light of the lightning as it crackled, the storm ever so close now than it had been simple moments ago. From the weapon’s mouth he could still see the smoke rising. Fire reia rose with it, guided by a touch of whatever Baron’s reia had been infused into the bullets.

He sighed at the sight, the monstrosity of human creation, as he answered Nathan.

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you.”

He saw fear cloud the captain’s mind, drowning him into something akin to madness, but he saw hope too.

It seemed he had not crushed all of it. Yet.

“Didn’t I tell you, captain,” he said. “None of you will survive this.”

He raised a casual hand stained red with blood and slapped him.

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Nathan’s body dropped to the ground like a rag as his head flew overboard.

……………………………….

When Jabari returned below deck for Seth, another bout of bloodshed ensued. He killed with the casual ease of a man performing a task he no longer needed focus to carry out. Each man that approached him died as they reached him.

When he opened the door to Seth’s room, the boy was still seated where he’d left him, still breathing as he’d shown him. His heart rate was alarming but expected. As the child advanced his body would grow accustomed to it. And when he was strong enough to begin cycling, he would see results. Till then, he would have to live with the elevated heart rate.

Seth opened his eyes as Jabari walked in and his gaze went first to his hands, noting the blood as it dripped from them. He said nothing but Jabari saw the sadness in his eyes. He wondered if he shouldn’t have allowed the boy associate with the sailors so much. The skills he had learned from them had been needed. The knowledge of knots, how to cook. His decision to learn to swear like a sailor was useless, in truth, but everyone had useless skills so he had let it be. Even the inspirations the child had picked up without knowing had their uses. But this sadness he saw in the boy’s eyes was a threat. Still, the boy struggled with it as he had done with everything else for the past seven months. He had forced himself to accept the fate of the crew. If not for anything else, Jabari knew it was for the simple fact that the child knew he could do nothing about it.

Perhaps he was stronger than Jabari had given him credit for. He would have to be for what is to come, he thought.

Thirty minutes later found them on a small raft sailing into the thunder storm. Behind them was the ship in its grand size. It was devoid of life. From it, blood spilled into the sea, beckoning the attention of soul beasts and reia beasts of various kinds that had made a home for themselves of the sea.

Above it a ball of reia gathered in the sky. Its size was as wide as the ship. It was white in color with a hue of sky light blue and coalesced on itself so that the white was a deep shade of itself.

Seth watched it in annoyed awe while Jabari kept his attention on the storm before them. He knew it was there as every human knew they breathed to stay alive.

Slowly, with the grace of a prima in a ballet concert, the massive orb’s form changed. It morphed and bent, forging into a new form from nothing but will. In moments it was a massive sword of deep white hanging in the sky.

There it stayed, gargantuan in form, the height of a skyscraper, a sword of the ancient Damocles.

As they sailed into the madness of the storm, he noted a solemn acceptance in Seth as the boy removed his attention from the ship and what would become of it.

A pity, he thought. The boy could’ve learned a lot on the workings of reia if he watched till the end.

As the storm engulfed them, drops of rain pelting them with the violence of an angered god, he heard Seth mumble a quiet word as he huddled against the storm.

“Why?”

Though it was a question, the boy had asked it of no one. Still, Jabari answered. “It was not their fate to live past this day.”

Behind them, the sword dropped as if from a cut thread.

It pierced the ship in silence and left nothing of it. In the time it takes for a coin to drop, Nathan and his crew were gone as if having never existed.

There was neither quake nor tremor. The sea did not ripple from the impact. Vibrations did not herald their demise. They were simply gone.

Jabari stood straight in the storm and kept his eyes forward. One line on the path of fate had been walked, he knew.

He had closed another chapter in the boy’s life violently, just as well. The next chapter was one the boy would have to live without him. Its possible outcomes were endless and he refused to make any predictions.

Looking beyond the thunder and lightning, the rondo of complimenting reia of lightning and destruction and chaos and fear, he waited on the next path.

Next… he thought.

…The Seminary.

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