Snippet #2137126

Shadow listened to Sereinia's words and smiled.

The night air was cool and relaxed, and his senses, though on high alert at all times, were very much relaxed as well. He could not sense anything in the immediate area and it made little difference since Taira was present in the city to help out as well. Being his most trusted friend and pupil, Taira was easily capable of taking care of any problems without Shadow having to get his hands dirty.

Suddenly, Shadow could sense movement and when he opened his left eye Mayumi was on the roof staring at Sereinia.

“What are you doing?” She asked.

Shadow closed his eyes and his smile grew just a tiny bit.

Mayumi was growing more and more curious about the world around her and that was a fantastic first sign that her link to humanity was beginning to form roots. If this were to keep up for even just one year Mayumi would find herself continuing to ask questions and experimenting with what she saw as Shadow had done tonight. With any luck, this would continue unhindered. However, Shadow was prepared to keep his guard up no matter the circumstances so that she would indeed have her chance. If Kiiro dared show his face to her again, Shadow was prepared to kill him.

When the thought of Kiiro entered his mind, Shadow's insides began to boil and his smile slowly changed to a frown and his eyebrows furrowed a little bit as the muscles in his face tightened.

The history of the two was long, bloody and beyond a simple hate for one another. Though they held a silent respect as opponents, they both held a raw and seething hatred that went far beyond the intensity of what most mortals could feel for each other. When Shadow and Kiiro were in the same area and were within a line of sight, the air between them would literally grow thicker and warmer because of the amount of energy their bodies were beginning to produce as their temperatures rose and their focused energies began to gather. The heat of their bodies would rise to the point where their bodies would both begin to release steam in lower temperature environments, even when they weren't yet fighting. When they were fighting the air around them would steam as well, not just their bodies.

From the perspective of onlookers in the past their confrontations were viewed as a battle between two Demigods due to how violent and destructive they were despite how easily they were able to get back up and continue on. The two of them had actually destroyed half of a small village on the outskirts of Cre' Est a number of years ago during one of their earlier confrontations when they were both younger and less in control of their hatred for each other. While Mayumi and Sereinia had seen how destructive a fight between Shadow and other members of Te'i Sai such as the Wraiths could be, it was nothing compared to how destructive he and Kiiro were when they squared off.

This extreme hatred ensured that every encounter drew greater and greater levels of blood and damage for each subsequent confrontation. Their first encounter saw no blood drawn except for a bloody lip on Shadow's part and a bloody nose on Kiiro's while their second saw both receive a one inch gash to their upper torso. Such a consistent increase in blood drawn would ensure that one of their next few encounters would see one of them die. However, neither combatant had any intention of dying anytime soon. They both had goals to fulfill and plans for the future, and the only real question was which of them would see theirs fulfilled first.

Since their first encounter Shadow and Kiiro had traded the upper hand in both combat and tactics. Typically Shadow emerged victorious, though he payed a heavy price for it each time. The main difference between Shadow and Kiiro's tactics was that Kiiro didn't hold the morals which Shadow had since picked up. Shadow wouldn't bring innocent lives into a fight, but Kiiro would and often did. His recent attack on Mayumi was a clear example in Shadow's eyes. Mayumi, though Shadow's new pupil, was not a part of their confrontation and he had no right to bring her into it with such violence. The thought made Shadow's blood boil even further and his eyes began to glow brighter as his anger rose.

It was an odd "mutation", as the Grandmasters had labeled it, that Shadow's eyes would glow and change the intensity of their coloration depending on his mood. The angrier he got the brighter his eyes glowed and the more red they became, especially at night. The calmer he was, the more relaxed and stable and lighter in coloration they seemed to become. During Roda I'l Lousta, however, his pupils nearly vanished and his eyes would be at their brightest and their most deep blood red coloration to the point where you could see them beneath closed eyelids, even during the day. They were almost like two red candles inside behind his eyelids with how brightly they shone during Roda I'l Lousta.

Right now Shadow's eyes were indeed glowing but not to the point where the difference was all that noticeable and they didn't shine through his currently closed eyelids. However it didn't take long for Shadow to open them and looked to the sky, wondering where Kiiro was right now and what he was planning.