The Shadow Dragon

"All that talk about you being the strongest Shorai. Now look at you, you can barely stand."

"It doesn't matter, I'll defeat Raffles."

"Yeah about that. There's one more enemy we need to worry about. Have you ever heard of a Shadow Disciple?"

"What?"

"My exact reaction. Me and Sky were told that there's a Shadow Disciple that works for Raffles. Apparently they're artificially made by a group of scientist. They kidnap kids and turn them into strong Shadow Disciples. Scary right?"

"Yeah. I'll beat him though."

"Of course. Anyways we need to get Cherry to heal you. She's a Nature Disciple so I assume she will know what she's doing."

"Ok."

Sasaki picks up Kuragami and they make their way to Cherry and Homura. He notices the cold air coming out of Kuragami's body.

"By the way, did you beat the other guy?"

"I thought I did. But Sky said he wasn't done."

"Forest Emerge."

Scorpion gets wrapped by growing trees. But his tail is still free.

"Fire Blast!"

Homura releases a big Fire Blast at Scorpion. Scorpion cuts the trees with his tail. He dodged the Fire Blast and dashes in front of Homura. Instantaneously, Scorpion swings his tail and slaps it at him. But Homura reacts swiftly and burns the middle part of his tail.

"His tail will function slower now. This is our time to beat him Cherry."

Cherry raises her aura.

"Sharpened Branches!"

Several branches grow from the floor. They have sharp ends that are sharp enough to pierce through a gorilla. It's directed at Scorpion. Scorpions movements become slower since if his robotic scorpion tail is one with his body.

The branches pierce through his body leaving several holes. He falls to floor bleeding out.

"I done it. Seems like you giants are just for show."

Scorpion is hanging on to his life right now. But he still chuckles at what Cherry just said.

He struggles to stand up but still manages.

"What do you kids know about this technique?"

"Huh?"

The pressure of Scorpions aura rises and thickens, causing Cherry to fall on her knees.

She's barely stable.

Homura is affected by it too but not so much. It's making him sick to his stomach. It seems as if they are both unable to move from the pressure.

Cherry looks petrified and she doesn't know why.

"This power, this release of aura feels similar. I've felt it before."

"So have I. But I-"

Homura faints. Cherry becomes uneasy that she has to fight Scorpion by herself while protecting Homura while he's unconscious.

"I'm gonna die. I can't believe it. After all I've done, everything I've been through, I die here. It's my first mission. I'm sorry everyone."

Tears start dripping down from her eyes. Scorpion dashes and gives a aura filled punch to her head. It leaves her unconscious.

He then walks over to Homura.

"What the hell."

He hears Homura mumbling something. He also sees him twitching. He reaches for him and as soon as he is about to make contact, Homura jumps up high in the air and lets off a Fire Blast 3x the size of his first one. There's a more sharp look in Homura's eyes.

"There's only one explanation for that. I sense bloodlust in the kid. Maybe these kids are able to take down Raffles. The evil bastard."

The fire blast flies down to Scorpion. He does nothing but cross his arms and let's the Fire Blast hit him. A tear comes down his eye but gets burnt to smoke instantly. The fire blast forms a massive explosion leaving smoke everywhere.

"You see that Kuragami, that must be Homura."

"Yeah. Let's go."

Kuragami and Sasaki both see the explosion of smoke nearby. Kuragami is not resting on Sasaki anymore. Somehow he is healed. They both start running to the smoke to see if Cherry and Homura are ok.

Homura is lying down on the floor seeking for some rest. Most of his aura is drained. Cherry gains conscious again but her head is in pain.

"What happend?"

"I'm not sure. I think I defeated Scorpion though."

The smoke clears and they both see Scorpion standing, burnt to a crisp.

"Is he dead?"

"I think so."

"Hey you too, are you ok?"

Kuragami and Sasaki finally reach them. They both see Scorpion burnt to a crisp.

"Did you defeat the other guy Kuragami?"

"No. I lost against him. Sasaki came to the rescue."

"It doesn't matter what I done. We're all here and the enemies are defeated."

"Meaning that we can go the circus."

They are all excited. They all run to the direction of the circus.

Kuragami feels a strange aura lingering around them while they're running. So he decides to stop.

"Hey, you guys go on ahead. I'll stay here. There's someone watching us."

"But Sky said we shouldn't go the circus without you."

"That was only for you and Homura. You have Sasaki with you now. Plus the guy watching us seems strong. Just go on without me."

"And how do we know you won't lose again."

Kuragami smiles.

"Just go on ahead."

"Okay Kura, we're trusting you."

Sasaki, Cherry and Homura leave Kuragami.

"Impressive, you were able to sense me while I was hiding my presence."

A kid about the same age as Kuragami appears from the shadows.

"I'm guessing your the Shadow Disciple."

"Your correct. I've got to say, you guys got past Scorpion, Bear and Rhino. I'm amazed. But your dying here. After I kill you, I'm going to go for your friends."

The Shadow Disicple charges up his shadow aura in his fist. Kuragami charges up his ice aura in his fist.

"What's your name? Mines Kuragami."

"Just call me, Drogo."

They both charge at each other with their powered up fists. Their attacks collide creating a massive aura outburst all around them. They're both equal in terms of aura strength. The aura clash concludes to no winner.

"Not bad."

"Your not so bad yourself, Shadow Boy."

"Shadow Blitz!"

Drogo's whole body is surrounded by his dark aura. He blitz behind Kuragami but he instantly reacts and turns around. He uses his ice to freeze both of Drogo's legs to the floor.

Drogo's aura breaks the ice but delays his movements leaving Kuragami enough time to attack first.

"Ice Bullet."

Aura charges up in his had and releases creating a ice beam. It's a direct hit. The beam leaves Drogo airborne soaring through all the trees behind him. Until one tree stops his flight.

Drogo knows after that attack, it's inevitable that Kuragami would beat him. He back on his feet and wipes the blood off his mouth.

"We will finish this fight later. Kuragami."

He vanishes into the shadows.

Kuragami screams of excitement.

"I won! He's the first Shadow Disciple I fought and I won! But I probably should catch up with the other guys."

Kuragami then makes his way to the Circus.

Rhino and Sky are still fighting. It's been a equal fight for a while now.

"It seems like they beat all of them. It's now time for me to finish this."

"Then die."

"Sylph's Soul."

Sky start transforming. Aura starts to form around him giving him aura armour and some tattoos on his neck, body and arms. A sword also forms in his hands.

"Sylph Flash."

Sky flashes at 5x the speed before to Rhino piercing a whole where his heart is. All it took was one strike to defeat the enemy who was going toe to toe with a Kizoku.

The whole town cheers. Rhino has finally been killed.

"Thank you Sky!"

Yua hugs sky. Solomon walks off.

"Now I must go the circus. My teams is waiting for me there."

"Okay. Come back safely I'll give all of you a feast."

Sky smiles.

"But first. Solomon let's talk in private for a bit."

"We're finally here. Raffles Circus."

Sasaki, Cherry and Homura are face to face with the entrance of Raffles Circus. There's a lot of people getting ready to watch the show.

"This is it guys. This is where the mission really starts."

"Yeah. What should we do."

"We keep a low profile, we find intel and try find Raffles. And from there, we kill him."

Both Cherry and Homura nod in unison. So they walk in blending in with the crowd.

Raffles Circus is a place where anyone can go for free for entertainment. It's built on a cliff where you can see the sea.

As Kuragami is running to the Circus he sees something flying in the air above him. It starts flying towards him and the closer it gets, the more visible it is.

"Sky?"

It's Sky in his Sylph Form.

Sky grabs Kuragami and starts flying ahead.

"Hey Sky, what are you doing?!"

"I'm taking you to the Circus. But first, I need to tell you something."

They both talk about something while making their way to the Circus. They circus is now in sight.

"Hey Kuragami, I'm going to drop you in the middle of the circus and you just freeze everything. Causing chaos will make everyone see Raffles true colours. He's not just a performer. He's a kidnapper who sends kids and what not to a arena of death."

"What the hell. But what about the civilians?"

"Leave them to me."

"And the other three?"

Sky flies all the way up to the middle of the Circus and drops Kuragami.

"Wait what?"

Kuragami screams as he suddenly drops.

"Okay let me just relax."

He concentrates his aura. As soon as he's about to land he sticks out his right hand so that when he lands, it'll be touching wherever he lands on.

"Glacial Eruption."

"Hey you three, help with clearing the civilians before Kuragami lands."

Sasaki, Cherry and Homura are absolutely puzzled but they don't hesitate to listen. They all clear the circus leaving no one there.

Kuragami lands and releases his aura covering the whole Circus with his ice.

"I done it! Sky I done it!"

Homura and Cherry claps for him. Sky smiles.

"My Circus destroyed by mere Shorai!"

A voice filled with rage is being heard from the cliff. That same voice screams. Wind emerges from the cliff and blows everywhere.

20,000 soldiers float up from the cliff, including one significant clown.

"Kids, that's Raffles. The strongest enemy we are going to encounter this mission, if we're lucky."

"Raffles Tornado Trick."

5 massive tornados appear surrounding the team leading everything to fly high in the sky.

All the tornados close in on the team and merges, creating a deadly tornado. The tornado makes the team fly high in the sky and gives them no control of how high they go.

It's forcing the trees to go come, the civilians are going up in the tornado as well.

"Hey guys. What the hell. There's nothing we can do."

"No there is, it's time for me to use my Meishu Kyanseru."

"Your what?"

Sky releases a power that the kids have seen before, but hasn't noticed. It causes half of the soldiers to faint and the tornado to slowly die so that everyone can land safely.

Sky flies to Raffles to see what's behind the cliff. He attempts a kick to the face but Raffles blocks. Raffles uses his wind to push him away but Sky is too fast.

"I knew it."

Sky sees a train system similar to the bullet train.

"So this is how you send your soldiers to Hell Arena. So if I followed this railway, Hell Arena would be there."

"Who told you about Hell Arena?"

"The traitor of Furendori Town did."

"Impressive, you found out straight away that that useless old man works for me."

"And he told you we were coming so I made Kuragami destroy everything. The question is why?"

"Do you really want to know why? Really? Well, you have to beat me."

Sky gets angry. Everyone falls down safely.

"The towns people are nice. And you just kidnap their kids to grow them into soldiers who will die anyways. Their future is inevitable death thanks to you."

"You know what. I was never shown sympathy so why should I show it to the weak people in our world? You say their future is to die, but their future was death anyways since they're weak. I make them stronger to give them a opportunity to survive. Once they get sent to the Arena, their future is in their hands. I'm giving them a future better than anyone ever can give them!"

Cherry shouts.

"That's just cruel. Your pure evil Raffles."

"Well let me welcome you to Raffles Circus! The Circus where I chose if you come out alive or not! Your future is in my hands Disciples!"