Anger 3

Icarth finally found Shui after a short search. It wasn't too hard for him with his extremely good nose.

Although for this, he didn't even need his nose. He could have found Shui just based on the danger that she was emitting.

Icarth's eyes glowed as he pushed universal energy into them. A familiar sensation washed over Icarth as his world bleached. In the black-and-white world, he could see red dots, of varying sizes, although the largest one by far was Shui's.

'She's just ahead.' Icarth thought.

'Why is she giving out such a huge danger....' Icarth stopped in his tracks as he finally saw the reason.

He gazed at Shui sitting on a bench overlooking a lake. In the soft street lights, this scene would've been quite picturesque, especially considering Shui's hair color, but Icarth wasn't focussing on that at all.

He stared at the ginormous cloud of red that hung around Shui like a ghost.

The thick red cloud swirled around and clashed against itself. Turmoil spread throughout, the cloud seemed more like a vengeful wraith to Icarth.

Peering closely, Icarth could see small sparks being created one second and fizzing out of life the next second.

'Shit....this doesn't look good,' Icarth thought with a cold sweat. If Shui even accidently activated her gift, all that universal energy would be used up to create a huge explosion.

'How do I diffuse this?'

'I guess I need to calm her down first...'

"Ahem," clearing his throat, Icarth stepped towards her and sat himself down on the bench.

Silence prevailed between the two as Icarth's senses were screaming at him. He had just walked right into the cloud of volatile universal energy and every fiber of his body was telling him to run away as fast as possible.

"So...why are you so mad?" Icarth asked straightforwardly, keeping an eye on the cloud.

'An increase in sparks,' Icarth noted.

"Do you really not know?" Shui asked after a pause.

"....I mean I know a little.." Icarth answered hesitantly. His attention was on the cloud that just seemed to grow more agitated each second.

'What? I didn't even say anything....wait,' Icarth studied Shui's face as she seemed to calm down as if she was going to make peace with him.

Shui started to say something when the red cloud turned into a small cyclone around Icarth.

'No... it's getting worse? But she's calm.....do I,' Icarth had a sudden intuition. Mustering up his courage, Icarth blurted out, "I mean, we're just friends why are you so mad at me for disappearing for a while? I'm fine anyway. And-"

It was a gamble. A mad gamble. But Icarth didn't want to just sit around waiting for the bomb to blow.

Bracing for an impact, Icarth gazed at Shui. Watching her facial expression crack, Shui snapped at him.

"Stop." At that word, a portion of the universal energy was sucked into Shui.

'That worked?' Icarth thought with shock.

The red cyclone around the pair slowed down, but not enough to completely stop.

"Just friends? Does the fact that we've known each other for 10 years not mean anything to you?" Shui snapped at Icarth.

'I need to continue this...'

"I mean, we've not been talking that much over the past few years.." Icarth started before he was cut off again. This time a bigger portion of the universal energy was sucked into Shui.

"And whose fault is that?"

Icarth was about to say something when he saw Shui's face. His words got stuck in his mouth. His mind was only starting to register the words that she had thrown at him.

"Heh," Shui gave an angry laugh. "You don't even think I'm that close of a friend to you, do you?" Another big chunk of the universal energy drained into Shui. Icarth watched, but this time with a detached feeling. He focused more on the words that Shui was practically throwing at him.

Icarth wanted to say something, to refute her, to tell her that he didn't think that at all. But he knew that it might aggravate the cloud more than calm it down. So he just silently observed Shui as he bore the accusations thrown at him.

"What happened? Can't even respond?" Shui asked angrily. Each word drained the red cloud more.

"You don't even talk to me properly anymore. No matter how hard I try nowadays, you just brush me off with an excuse like your sleepy, or you have to train?"

Icarth felt Shui's words stab deep. It was indeed true. And that's why it hurt more. He had been avoiding her for the past few years, ever since he started to train.

"I mean, am I not worth even talking to anymore?"

'No, that's not it..'

Icarth answered in his mind, unable to answer her out loud.

"Not worth your precious time?"

Icarth steeled himself, pushing his emotions away from this. He was doing this to help Shui. So he needed to help her vent.

"Not-" Shui suddenly stopped. Icarth gazed at her with slight confusion.

"Nevermind. It looks like I'm not," Shui muttered with resignation.

Icarth didn't say anything. Just like before, he stayed silent. The red cloud had reduced itself to a mist after all of Shui's outbursts.

"Just leave," Shui requested after a while. Nodding, Icarth stood up and decided to give Shui some space. After what had happened, he too needed some space.

Walking away, he unconsciously muttered, "....how troublesome..."

Sighing, Icarth slowly trudged away from the lake. He walked for a short while before he found himself in front of the Vari household. It turned out that Shui's house was very close to the lake, a small house that housed the three-member family. Judging from the lights inside the house, it looked like Feng hadn't returned home yet.

"Heh," Icarth gave a self-deprecating laugh. Training, training, and training. That was the only thing on Icarth's mind for the past few years. After that incident with Seril, Icarth vowed to get stronger.

'Brushing her off, huh?' Icarth thought sticking his hands into his pockets. In a way, Shui was right. Icarth was indeed avoiding talking to Shui. He needed to get stronger and talking to Shui would've distracted him too much. Or at least that was what he thought.

'I thought she understood...I guess she was just bottling it all up...' Icarth closed his eyes tiredly.

All the words that Shui had thrown at Icarth were like spears. Spears that had embedded themselves into a conscious that Icarth thought he didn't have.

'Maybe I should make up with her?' Icarth started to think before his senses exploded.

'DANGER,' Icarth thought wildly.

Eyes glowing, Icarth swiveled his head to locate the source.

'The lake? I thought I sorted it out?' Icarth thought with fright. A list of unfortunate events that might have happened to Shui flashed through his mind. Forcing all of them down, Icarth activated his partial transformation and in defiance of his instincts, Icarth took off towards the lake.

In a few seconds, Icarth reached the bench.

Shui was backed up against the edge of the bench while an older lady reached out to her.

'It's that lady!' Icarth concluded with narrow eyes. He could see the red mist, now back to a cloud, expanding once more. But this time it wasn't originating from Shui, it was coming from the creepy woman.

Acting fast, Icarth lunged forward and grabbed the woman's outstretched arm.

"Hey Shui, that's where you were," Icarth said out loud, hoping to distract the woman.

Hearing his voice, the woman turned her head to look at Icarth. Staring into the woman's eyes, Icarth felt a shiver run through his spine.

'Strong....' Icarth thought, his intuition told him that this woman was at least strong as the forest guardian if not more.

His refined senses were screaming at him at this point. Icarth focused all his willpower to fight against them and hold his ground against the woman.

The stare-off lasted only for a few seconds, ending when the woman smiled.

Icarth flinched, almost imperceptibly, but held onto her arm.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare the girl," the woman apologized suddenly, seeming as if she was a different person.

Easily tearing her arm away from Icarth's grip, the woman apologized once more, "I'm sorry if I scared you. But if you ever need help, just seek me out...Shui." With that last word, the woman walked away and into the darkness of the streets, all the previous insantity had all vanished.