Those In Need of a King[Training/Sloth]

Out of all the companions Yakuroro had met on his journey throughout the world, there were only two whom he'd spent more than a few short days with. The first was Zadi, a black magician from Balbadd whom mistook Yakuroro for an enemy at their first meeting but eventually came to be a reliable ally. The other was the Finalis swordsman, Dynatos, whom Yakuroro met while wandering through Zou. It was surprising that anyone could handle being around Yakuroro for quite so long a time, especially considering the trouble he'd gotten into along the way. Sure, it wasn't like the Finalis had much choice in the matter as it was safer to travel in a group. But Dynatos had the money to hire a caravan for transportation if he REALLY wanted to leave the Imuchakk's side.

For one who was used to traveling all alone, the company was appreciated. To show his thanks to Dynatos Yakuroro decided to offer some insight into the art of magoi manipulation. The magician was born with the talent to move his own magoi at will which made him poorly suited as a teacher. However he knew the sensations and basic theories behind the act which would likely help Dynatos get started on the right track. If the man was as skilled a study as he was a combatant then perhaps Dynatos would be able to figure out the rest on his own.

Planning to use the famous Shu-Fang River to assist in his "lesson" Yakuroro asked Dynatos to meet him at the bank of the flowing stream where the river turned and curved between the valleys of the Jade Dragon Mountains. The Blue Magician lied about the nature of their meeting in typical Yakuroro fashion stating that he wanted Dynatos' help in figuring out a magical theory. With the meeting set, Yakuroro left Akatetsu behind with Dyn's sister Amira before heading out early in the morning. The sun had only begun to rise by the time Yakuroro arrived at the river far earlier than the agreed upon time. The tall Imuchakk sat down in front of the flowing riving and smiled softly as his magician's eyes observed the fluttering blue rukh within the currents.

After two hours of waiting and thinking about how best to approach the subject, Yakuroro slipped into a near meditative state which would render him initially unresponsive to Dynatos once he finally arrived. Thankfully for the red headed finalis, there was a river right in front of Yakuroro. A sudden bath would surely get Yaku's attention! Then again, so would repeated words.

~432/1500~

Yakuroro's meditations were going well as his mind developed several theories regarding the flow of magoi and how this would be able to assist his own magic. The water currents in front of him were not much unlike the currents flowing through everyone be they currents of power, of blood, or of flesh. As his minds eyes was filled with the blue of the water rukh near by a sudden burst of green sound ruhk cascaded around him(as a result of Dynatos' snapping finger) in a beautiful display of color. A slight smile came upon the Imuchakk's lips as he enjoyed the pleasant peace found through his trance. Ah, everything was perfect! The flowing river, the sounds of life, the warm sun on his body and the pleasant smell of-...smoke? Yakuroro opened his eyes just in time to feel the flames on his clothing start to lick at his back. The Imuchakk looked around in a panic before realizing his robes were on fire. Instead of jumping into the river in front of him, Yaku's first reaction was to grab for his staff and shout, "Flood Domain!"

Suddenly water from the atmosphere and the river would rise into the air and gather around Yakuroro forming a 15m sphere around himself. The mischievous Dynatos and his canine friend would likely be caught in the ball of water as well due to their close proximity. While Yakuroro was at the center of the sphere where waters were still, Dyn and Ares would probably get swept up into the wild currents moving at 20m/s. Inside the water Yakuroro exhaled in a sigh as his Imuchakk lungs had air to spare. The blue magician was content to relax at the center of his spell when his mind pondered where the fire had come from in the first place. Just as he though this, he would see a Finalis and a Canine fly past him being dragged along by water currents. Oh, THAT's where the fire came from!

Not wishing to drown his friend, Yakuroro canceled the spell and allowed the water to fall to the ground, some of it landing back in the river. "I would apologize, but these robes are expensive." Yaku said with a smirk.

~807/1500~

Spoiler:

Yakuroro waved off Dynatos' concerns for Ares health with a hand gesture as he played off the danger as being minimal. "He breaths fire, that doesn't make him allergic to water. He could have used a bath anyways~" Perhaps if Yakuroro had maintained the spell for a while longer than things would have gotten dicey for the flame breathed canine, but he'd ended it before even a baby could have drowned. Dynatos was clearly overreacting. Still, Yakuroro bowed his head slightly in a silent apology that perhaps would not even be noticed. The blue magician was far more focused on the task at hand. "Ah yes, I wanted you to help me work out a magic theory, come, look at the stream. Do you see the way the currents of water move? Magoi flows through the body just like that. I am curious to know if it is possible to adjust the flow of magoi much like we can adjust the flow of the river." The Imuchakk then turned and pointed his staff to a nearby boulder before producing a stream of water which would push the large rock into the river blocking half of its width force the water to go around the boulder.

"What do you think would happen if we interrupted that flow?" The result in the river was a change in the currents which made the waters more choppy. A small whirl pool also began to form before the river reached the boulder where water was forced to churn around the blockage. How much application this really had on magoi manipulation didn't matter. Yakuroro just wanted the finalis to be thinking about it for now.

~1086/1500~

Yakuroro listened to Dynatos' response carefully and then looked at the river before replying, "Does it look like the rock has killed the river? Perhaps if the blockage were large enough it could stop its flow entirely, but as it is now the water is forced through a smaller opening. When it does so, the currents become faster on the other end and power builds behind the block in the form of whirlpools. I suspect that similar phenomenon could be..induced...inside the body...
Yakuroro's voice trailed off as his eyes looked back in Dynatos' direction. However instead of looking at the Finalis his gaze would stare past the man. The Imuchak had locked his view on a large amount of smoke that was rising in the distance. There was far too much too quickly to be a simple forest fire...something was going on.

Yakuroro didn't say anything as he watched the smoke rise as he didn't want to interrupt whatever was going with Dynatos' mind. They had come here for a reason after all, but after the man was done showing off the fruits of his efforts Yakuroro would finally point towards the signs of chaos. "What do you make of that?" It was Yaku's first impulse to go see if anyone needed help and he would likely do so regardless of Dyn's response. However the Imuchakk waited for his reply nevertheless.

~1320/1500~

Yakuroro did indeed follow behind Dynatos, however not in the fashion he was expecting. The blue haired Imuchakk would not appear by the Finalis' side nor would he be addressed by the Zou soldier whom was leading the barbaric tax collection. Once Dynatos mounted Ares and took off in dramatic fashion the blue magician simply sighed as he watched the smoke rise in the distance. "This could spell trouble...O' Djinn of Mischief and Deceit! Let my will bend reality and grant me the power to fool even the wise! Dwell in my body and let your power be unleashed!" With Dynatos long gone and no witnesses, Yakuroro cloaked his body in magoi and drew upon the power of Marax to perform a full djinn equip. As light and sound magic condensed around his being the king candidate took flight as he activated Marx Vanish to render himself invisible.

He would catch up with his companion in time to see the soldiers setting even more houses aflame as the situation began to escalate. There were 12 soldiers in the village itself and a few dozen in formation just outside the gates as both an intimidating show of force as well as potential back up if the victims were brave enough to fight back. Dynatos would be able to take care of the soldiers inside so Yakuroro turned his attention to the group of nearly 40 soldiers waiting outside. He needed to ensure that they did not back up their allies and overwhelm Dynatos. With that goal in mind Yakuroro decided to try out a new spell which had been born from the earlier discussion of magic theory. First he flew over head and positioned himself so he was facing the space between the gates and the ranks of Zou military. Yakuroro then held the greatsword of Marax at the ready and gathered a large amount of magoi while simultaneously constricting its flow to increase the pressure with which it was being released. The concept was similar to performing djinn equip itself and as Yaku manipulated the rukh it spoke to him revealing the name of the spell born from Marax's power.

"Marx Divide!"

Yakuroro shouted as he rose the great sword light and sound magic condensed and extended into a great blade of heat and vibration. The invisibility of Marx Vanish ended just in time for the soldiers to witness the blinding blade of light come crashing down into the ground in front of them. The earth was cleaved in two and shattered under the force of the blow. Since the temple was built on a mountain the attack would cause the side of the cliff the soldiers were on to break off and fall into a devastating rock slide. For the most part, the soldiers would probably survive albeit with heavy injuries but more importantly they would all be sent back down to the bottom of the mountain hurt too badly to make the climb once more.

Yakuroro's demonic looking form slowly lowered from the sky and landed on top of the village gates as he turned to look how Dynatos was fairing.

~1500+/1500~

Spoiler:

Not wanting to step on Dynatos' pride Yakuroro simply watched at first, his six glowing eyes of baleflame gleaming down over the village. The human soldiers seemed to have been facing a finalis for the first time as they foolishly attempted to overwhelming simply by surrounding him. But no cage of human might could contain such a wild beast. Perhaps it was due to the Djinn that Yakuroro that he found himself thinking of mischief. "Marx Canvas!" Yakuroro rose his sword into the air as he flew towards the epicenter of  the battlefield Dynatos was fighting on. Everything withing 15m would suddenly be covered in darkness save for spotlights shining down on each of the soldiers leaving Dynatos in utter black darkness.

Truth be told, the finalis likely didn't even need the aid of the spot lights to detect his prey as his senses were just as inhuman as their techniques. However Yakuroro was unaware of just how advanced they were and provided Dynatos with this powerful handicap. Yakuroro himself remained floating 5m above the ground relatively out of both sight and harms way, obscured withing the darkness of his sinister technique.

Spoiler:

All of the villagers still within 30m of the slaughter would also find themselves engulfed in the darkness of Marax's illusion. With darkness all around save for the spot lit stage Yakuroro had given Dynatos, they would have no choice but to see the crimson dance the Finalis performed. Each time he pulled a soldier into the darkness illusory red flowers would bloom giving brief flashes of red light showing a single frame of Dynatos' silhouette attacking the shadow of the opponent. The gore of the acts were kept obscured in darkness this way, yet the monstrous brutality of Dyn's attacks were accented to further highlight his strength. Each illusion was carefully crafted to add style and grace to an otherwise barbaric performance lest the beastly finalis scare his audience. Who was the show being produced for with such care you might ask? Those villagers looking on in awe of course.

They were people without the strength to protect themselves from the over whelming military might of the Zou empire. Normally there would be no one there to save them. Even if the elder and his best students had been here, the most the would have been capable of would have hardly delayed the small army that had been dispatched to deal with the village. With Yakuroro hiding behind invisibility spells and illusory darkness, the only person the remaining villagers saw fighting for their side was Dynatos. If he were to become their champion, then Yakuroro might as well lend a hand in making it flashy. Despite the wild and ferocious beat down Dynatos was performing, Yakuroro knew that he would rather the people see him as a hero than fear him as a demon.

And so the show continued with men of the Zou military being pulled into the darkness one by one. Flash, flash, flash, the red flowers bloomed and their petals fell to the floor before fading. As each target was scratched off, the spot light that had been illuminating them shut off without sound or warning. The number of lights slowly dwindled until there was only one left. The poor man was just a foot soldier. A grunt. He was only following the absolute orders of the emperor. To go against the most powerful man in his country was simply not an option for the warrior even if he was personally against the act of pillaging a town out in the middle of no where like this. But it was too late for regrets as the menacing figure of Dynatos stepped to the edge of the final beam of light. This soldier still had a torch in his hand, albeit burnt out by now, which implicated him as being just as guilty as all the rest of his comrades.

"Please! I Beg of you, forgive me! I was only following orders!" The soldier shamefully bowed before Dynatos prostrating himself at the finalis' mercy with tears streaming down his face. At first it seemed as though the conflict was over, however things would not end so easily...

Yakuroro was rather enjoying himself as he watched from above with the perfect seat for the show while he conducted the flower bloom illusions and controlled the spot lights. He felt like an orchestrator guiding musicians at a play, but now an unexpected sound had appeared. New bodies were entering the darkness of the illusion and while Yakuroro could sense their presence, he could not see them through his own wall of shadow. Before Yakuroro could do anything about the intruders a voice shouted out, loud and commanding, Just following orders indeed! And you shall continue to follow orders until death or face life imprisonment in the imperial cells! The price of treason is heavy!" The shouts were coming from the commanding officer of the entire detachment whom had been accompanying another unit of soldiers as they burned down all the other key buildings the people here needed to survive such as their food storage.

The shouts of his superior were enough to rouse the soldier before Dynatos into action, however his heart was not truly in it. "Whaaaaaaaaagh!" Tears steaming down his face, the soldier drew his sword and leapt towards Dynatos with a desperate swing knowing full well that it would only end badly for himself.

With the pacing of Yakuroro's show now distorted, he would need to change the setting to react. The darkness faded to give way to a blinding bright light almost as brilliant as the sun. Yakuroro made himself the center of this light and rose into the air so it would seem as though god himself were shining diven intervention down onto the village. "Enough!" The loud shout would cause the soldier about to attack Dyn to freeze in his tracks as everyone turned to look at the light hanging overhead. "Any man who takes a life when he knows he is wrong will suffer an eternity imprisonment in his own heart for the guilt will bind you in ways the emperor never can. Accept the light of god and lay your weapons down before my champion!" While Yakuroro never particularly liked the idea of being god, he found the title rather useful for this particular role.

The soldier that had hesitated dropped his blade and fell to his knees in tears in front of Dynatos, it was up to him whether or not to show mercy, but the rest of the soldiers were not given the change to change their minds before their leader shouted, "Don't give in to tricks of the enemy! We have light magicians capable of similar flasehoods! The only god we serve is the emperor! CHARGE!

Fifteen more opponents now rushed towards Dynatos and this time the darkness was not there to hide him. Yakuroro needed to maintain the bright light around himself to hide his demonic form so that he might appear to be a holy phenomenon. Instead, Yakuroro smirked as he performed a different spell, "Marx Replication." From within the golden orb of light, Yakuroro pointed his great sword at Dynatos. Suddenly the man would find himself side to side with half a dozen copies of himself. Three Dyn's on either side took a fighting pose ready to face down the oncoming forces with him. Each could only deal D-tier damage and were weak enough to be dispatched with the same degree of effort. But even these fragile illusions would be enough to distract most of the soldiers from the real Dynatos' position.

~1110/1500~

Spoiler:

As Dynatos incapacitated the enemy commander and the remaining soldier's morale shattered, Yakuroro saw the perfect opportunity. As above, so below, and as the Zou military's vigor dropped it was an excellent chance to raise the villager's spirits! But how could Yakuroro do so without revealing himself? Playing the god card again was risky and a bit too direct of a manipulation. Even if it were for a relatively good cause, Yakuroro wasn't going to use lies to lift their morale as they needed real hope his personal brand of deception wasn't well suited for. Instead, it would need to come from Dynatos, their current hero and champion. But there were still a number of soldiers around and even if the loss of their leader had caused a panic, they had yet to lay down their arms as instructed and some may still have the will to fight. There was no time for Yakuroro to tell the finalis to make a spirited speech or to otherwise rouse the remaining villagers. At least not without blowing his own cover which would ruin everything.

Instead, Yakuroro would need a way for them to speak without speaking. A method of communicating using sound magic would be useful but at the moment Yakuroro was in his djinn equip form so using any sound magic spells he knew was out of the question and few of them were well suited to this kind of task anyways. His own djinn possessed the power of light and sound, but the spells this form could cast were not Yakuroro's own, but rather Marax's magic. In all honesty Yakuroro was simply a medium through which the Djinn's magic could be cast, so unless Marax had a spell in reserve that suited the situation, the Imuchakk was out of luck. Despite the odds, Yaku tried to implore Marax to help him anyways, "The Djinn of mischief should have at least something up his sleeve that can let people speak to each other without speaking, right? Come on Marax, I need you to show me just how tricky you can be..." There was no response from the djinn, just as there had been no response every other time he tried to speak with the great spirit. But within the metal vessel Marax was laughing.

It amused the being of magoi that Yakuroro thought it could be lured into sharing more of it's power with honeyed words. Deceiving the djinn of deceit was a vain task, yet this did not mean doing so ruined Yakuroro's chances of being helped. Rather, Marax rather liked the way Yakuroro carefully used his words. "Very well my king, but only because you managed to pull out one of my spells on your own. Consider this a reward for your efforts." Then djinn's voice would never by heard by Yakuroro or anyone else present, but the feelings were conveyed as Yakuroro suddenly felt himself filled with confidence. The rukh were telling him that everything would work out, all he needed to do was give them the magoi needed to do their job. Still within the glowing ball of light, Yakuroro poured magoi into this great sword causing the seal of solomon to glow brightly, "Marx Communication!" The name of the spell simply rolled off Yakuroro's lips as an invisible burst of light and sound magic washer over everyone nearby. The light entered their brain through the eyes and began recording the signals in the brain regarding conscious thoughts and then relayed that information translated into sound to others near by.

Yakuroro linked Dynatos and the villagers so they could hear each other's "spoken" thoughts. The mental voice inside the head that is. The finalis would suddenly be bombarded with the hopes and wishes of the villagers one by one. People asking to be saved, people praising his name, people shouting for his victory with every fiber of their being. There was nothing but support from them. How would he respond to their wishes?

~1500+/1500~

Spoiler:

With the Zou soldiers broken and defeated, Yakuroro used Marax's magic to vanish into invisibility once more while allowing the golden ball of light and any other remaining illusions to fade away into the nothingness from whence they had come. Obscured from view from all but the best of light magicians, of which none were present, Yakuroro silently descended through the air to ground level before flying behind a burning building where he wouldn't be seen. There, the Imuchakk waited for Dynatos to finish speaking to the villagers until Marax's communication spell was no longer needed. With that, Yaku disengaged his djinn equip returning to his usual form with staff in hand.

Stepping out from the burning building Yakuroro raised his staff and began using water magic to douse the flames. He could not save most of the houses which had already burned beyond repair, but at least the villagers didn't have to watch EVERYTHING be reduced to ash.