Beginning
Where was it coming from? The laughter was ringing in his ears now. He was looking for the source even as he felt the heat from his opponent forcing him to back up further. The assailant was coming closer now, the heat from his flames searing the hairs on Toushiro's arm, illuminating a desperate scene. Toushiro spared a chance to look behind him to make sure that the woman was still safe, she was trembling with her back up against the brick wall, the stone in the back of her hand was dark, but otherwise she seemed fine. It looked like the assailant was content with focusing only on the new interloper, rather than his original target.
Figures this is how it would end and to a fire user of all people, he could see the enjoyment in the assailents eye as he kept slowly stalking forward. The flames in his hands seem to be reaching for him, licking the darkness in what looked like anticipation. Yet even now Toushiro kept scanning the area with his eyes looking for the source of the laughter. At first he tought it was the assailant, but as the laughter continued to get louder he could tell it was a woman's, not the man who now was within ten yards of him with a smile fixated on his face.
Anger started to rise in Toushiro, anger at himself for being powerless in this situation, anger at his assailant with his damned strong affinity, and even more anger at the woman who apparently was getting an unnatural enjoyment from his current predicament. As the anger overtook his fear he stared at the assailant. Seven yards now, and still slowly coming.
If this is my end then im damn sure gonna wipe that smile off his face first. Maybe if I can land a good hit before he can focus his flames then she can get away, he looked back at the woman behind him. "Get ready to run", he whispered. Though he knew it was in vain, the woman was terrified and her face looked as if she was caught in a silent scream.
Standing his ground Toushiro readied himself, a few more seconds and he would lunge forward. Left then right, have to make sure to stay ahead of his focus. Suddenly his heartbeat started slowing.
What the hell? His body which felt afire just a moment ago suddenly felt cold, even with the assailant still nearing. Is my body shutting down? Is the fear doing this? Shit, I can't let it end like this. Then his heart stopped. Dropping to one knee Toushiro grasped his chest with one hand. This sensation was like the silent scream of the woman behind him. He felt nothing but a numbness where once his heartbeat felt as if it would burst from his chest.
"Going to beg now are we!" yelled the assailant followed by a gutteral cackle. He had stopped his approach, and now the flames in his hands danced wildly as they grew. "To bad, my flames are already hungery, and when I'm done with you I'll deal with that sweet girl who apparently is to high and mighty for the likes of me" He stared at the girl frozen in fear, his eyes reflecting the dancing flames.
With another cackle he threw both arms back, and shot forth flames through the darkness towards Toushiro who was still clutching his chest. The woman screamed, but all of this was drowned out by the laughter echoing inside his skull. Then it stopped and he heard the woman's voice this time in a much more seductive tone.
"Is this how your life will end Shiro? Is that all that you are capable of?"
NO!
He opened his eyes, pushing himself forward and then suddenly stumbled. The scene infront of his eyes was beyond belief.
The flames were gone, and the assailant was pinned with his back to the wall, his face distorted in pain as blood gushed from his mouth. Pinning him where tendrils, dark tendrils that tore through his body in several points, writhling and coiling around themselves. The man let out a scream as more and more tendrils burst through his chest, small ones that seemed to expand and merge until they where as thick as a human arm. Actually it looked remarkably like a human arm. The arm receded slowly, taking with it the final death screams of the assailant.
Suddenly the arm emerged again, this time from the wall next to the man. First its hands, then the arm followed by a shoulder. Someone or something was coming out of the wall, but he had no features. Infact his skin, if you could call it that, was a black void. As soon as he completly emerged from the wall the body of the assailant landed with a lifeless thud. Blood smears staining his travel along the wall. The dark figure strode toward Toushiro who stood his ground, completly paralyzed by his pure astonishment of what he was justing seeing.
"Who...who are you?" He asked the man as he came closer. The man did not respond instead he stopped a foot infront of Toushiro. This close Toushiro noticed that the man had no features outside of his outline, and that he stood as tall as Toushiro himself.
"Who are you", He asked again, and this time he got his answer albeit not the way he expected it. "IM YOU" came a cold echoing voice in his head. Toushiro stood there staring at this void man, and slowly streched his right arm out. The man mimicked his motion, but when the two hands would have met instead the mans arm dissolved into Toushiro.
No, not disolved, instead it wrapped around his skin, like a coating. The sensation was much like what he felt when his heart stopped, actually his heart was beating again he realized. Then he heard a trash can fall behind him.
The woman, I nearly forgot! Turning around he saw the woman slowly getting up. "Its okay, he won't be able to hurt you anymore" He said, trying to sound calm. His words seem to have no effect on the woman who kept staring at him, her eyes frantically searching left to right.
"Over there officer, thats where I heard the screams from"
Toushiro let out a sigh of relief, about time that someone came to help, albeit it seemed late, the dark man had already taken care of the problem.
"Time to go"
"What?" asked Toushiro turning around to face the dark man again. Then it all happened at once. The woman screamed as if she had been holding it all in this entire time, and as the dark man entered Toushiro's view it was no longer a man. Tendrils whipping around its figure the dark man had now grown larger and menacing. Toushiro tried to back up, but his hand was still coated with the dark man's arm. The dark man leaped forward as Toushiro fell back.
Shit, I survived all that just to die?
The dark man engulfed him, and Toushiro fell, but not onto the cement floor, but instead through it. He felt himself falling through a syrupy substance, that kept engulfing him as he tried to struggle through it. Everything around him was darkness, except for...
What was that? He turned his head frantically trying to find something within this infinate darkness, and was greeted by a white mask. Smooth and rounded it seemed to have a painted mouth and eyes, but seamed to have nothing behind it, just an immense darkness.
"Lets see what you are made of Shiro.."
The woman, the one who was laughing!
But before he could gasp out he could feel gravity once more and landed hard on wooden floors. As his vision started to get fuzzy he tried to see where he was, and caught a glimps of a backpack hanging next to a door. Home?
Then he lost consciences.
Welcome to Earth. Its oceans, lands, and sky all the familiar views of our own Earth, but this is not our world. In this world technology is not the defining art or the degree to measure each country or civilization. In this world the arcane rules. Every child is tested when it is born to find its innate affinities. Most children have an affinity to only one of the 86 established schools of magic, while some extraordinary humans are born with an affinity to two schools. Even rarer still are those born with three affinities. Yet the rarest of all is a child born with no affinities, an oddity that hasn't happened in over seven centuries. Obviously this made Toushiro a highly debated test subject when young. Many scientist wanted to continue studying him as he grew, but his parents had put a stop to that. Both of his parents where of the Elite caste in the United States and both high end Wind users.
Having no affinaties made Toushiro quite the stand out at his highschool, since while he was outstanding in his studies of art, history, math and the sciences he stood out like a sore thumb in his classes that focused on students magicks. When the time for college came Toushiro attempted to join the same University that his best friend Toya, and excellent user of both Fire and Gravity, was accepted to, but while his grades in most classes were equal or better than Toya's his lack of magick made him fail his entrance exams. Having set himself to finding a way on his own without relying on his parent's influence he decided to not tell his parents and find a part-time job in Boston. His mother had paid for his share of the apartment with Henry, a technopath, and Toya, so at the very least he had a place to stay. It was coming home from his part time job that he had come accross a woman being harrassed by a tall man. Toushiro had rushed the man, and used a trash can lid to knock him away from the woman, only to find out that the man was also a powerful Fire user.
That night Toushiro found out why he wasn't classified under the 86 established schools of magic, that night he found he was a user of an 87th and yet unknown school of magic. He could control shadows as easily as a human can control their own limbs. He could control their shapes, sizes, and even tangibility. He could even use them to travel, and to extend his senses (vision, hearing and even touch). On that night Toushiro found his place in the world, and while during the day he would continue working his part-time job, and living with his friends as a college dropout with no apparent magic, the night and the darkness it brought with it was his playground. Muggers, thieves, rapists all where his prey as he made his rounds through the dark shadows of Boston in search of those who abused their gifts. But while he embraced his newfound power he taxed himself with finding the answers to many questions, among those are:
Who was that woman?
Are there others like him? Others with mastery of elements outside of the 86 establish schools?
and most importantly...
what exactly are the extent of his powers?