I wrote this short story for school one morning. I figured it would be a waste to work on something that's only for school, so I decided to post it here. Uh, I guess it'd fit in the tragedy genre.
Protégé
by She-slime
"Was it really...all a waste?"
Ever since she was young, Kura could summon powers beyond the abilities of most humans. Her mother told her that these powers were known as 'conjuring' and that only a few gifted people could do such things. Her parents were very proud of her, especially when she was accepted into a conjuring academy at the age of five; the youngest student to study there since its establishment. She quickly progressed, as did her powers, and her grades were the highest in her grade.
On the day Kura received her A-filled report card for level five conjuring studies at the age of seven, a record setting feat, her parents celebrated with a small feast, the most lavish they could afford. As her father began to serve the first course, a blinding light flashed in the sky and quickly filled the room. Then black.
Kura awoke to see a devastated land that only faintly resembled the town which had stood there before. A strong burning smell hung in the air, but there was no sign of smoke. Kura's house, if it could really even be called a house any more, lay in a wreck around her. The only thing that kept her from harm was the barrier that she had erected around her at the last moment. As she let down the shield, she felt a warm drip on her forehead. Upon realizing it was blood, she looked up. Kura screamed at the sight of her dead mother and scrambled away from the woman that had, in her last moments, flung herself over her child and braced herself against the oncoming disaster.
Kura called out to her father. She desperately crawled over the rubble that was once her home. With a loud thud, she tripped and fell. Looking back at what she had tripped on, she saw her father's hand, recognizable by his wrist-watch protruding from a pile of bricks that had been a chimney only minutes before. Kura screamed and cried. She ran without a destination, desperately flew from that which could not chase, yet would not be left behind. She finally ran out of breath and lay distraught in the dead city.
A tall, lanky man gingerly stepped over the crumbling wall of the former conjuring academy. "No one?" he spoke to himself, "Not too many smart conjurers these days. A shame, really." Just as he was about to give up on finding any survivors, he heard a timid cry from amidst the rubble. Investigation produced a trembling, muddy Kura. The man knew that only an exceptional conjurer could have survived the devastation that he had witnessed, and invited Kura to study under him as his protégé, as she had no where else to go. Kura tightly grasped the man's hand as they circumnavigated the former town and headed towards the closest sign of civilization.
Eight years after the destruction of everything she knew, Kura was a powerful conjurer, second only to the man who taught her. However, Kura felt that there must be one other person on her world that was more powerful than her; The conjurer who had summoned the catastrophe and directed it at her town, for such a blast had never been seen in nature, was still somewhere, waiting for her to exact her vengeance. Even after winning an underground conjuring tournament, in which the loser's life was in the hands of the winner, Kura still felt she wasn't powerful enough. She begged her master, the man who had retrieved her from her town so long ago, to teach her the mana-blade technique, his most powerful ability. The man refused and told her to keep winning tournaments and silencing his adversaries.
In her twenty-first year, Kura attempted her sixth consecutive tournament win, only to be over-whelmed by a fan-favorite contender in the last round. She survived only by the whim of her opponent. Her master, who had not seemed to age a day in the past fourteen years, shunned her for her loss. She once again begged him to teach her the mana-blade technique, to which he lashed out at her and further scolded her. Despite the stinging pain in her cheek, she obediently followed him to their dwellings.
After following her master's order to the letter for another year, Kura was instructed to fight a girl who had, one way or another, displeased her master. Accompanied by the man to which she owed her life, Kura confronted the girl, a fellow conjurer. The girl used powerful defensive spells which repelled everything Kura could conjure. Seeing that Kura was in severe need of encouragement, her master told her that the girl was the one that had destroyed her town, that the girl was the only one standing in Kura's path to becoming the second most powerful conjurer in the world.
Enraged, Kura prepared to launch a final attack against the girl. The girl stood, stunned. She pleaded with Kura to stop. She told Kura that she didn't destroy the town, it was the man. Kura twitched in anger. To even suggest that her master, who had stood beside her all these years, was her ultimate rival was unforgivable. Unable to ignore such a sin against her master, she conjured an attack, one which, if aimed correctly, would render her opponent unable to tell a lie. The girl did not conjure the slightest defense against the attack, and practically stepped into its trajectory.
Kura told the girl to tell her the truth of the destruction of her city. However, the girl told Kura the exact same thing. "I did not destroy your town. Your master summoned the catastrophe upon that city. That's why I've come to fight him." The girl paused, teary-eyed, "You see, that city was my home as well."
Kura stood dumbfounded. Her master's voice came from behind her, "Even you can't mis-conjure a simple truth attack." A hot tear ran down Kura's cheek. She heard a metallic sound; a sound that could only come from her master's mana-blade. She gasped for air as the sword pierced her torso. She stared at the tip of the knife protruding from her chest, trying to fight the darkness enveloping her field of vision. She thought, "Was it really...all a waste?"
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