Hero's Return 7 Saved By A Furious Storm

"I only need a minute!" After making this statement Natu had begun laying down a barrier formation that he would eventually activate, to do this he had to manipulate many different types of magic essence in the environment then send that magic signal to where he wanted the barrier to go, usually this would take over an hour to lay but because Natu was so in tune with natural essence he only needed a minute. To do this he was fleeing in a circular pattern, making sure to stay in the area whilst buying himself enough time to lay down the formation, the demon was keeping up with him in speed and would try to kill him, naturally he could not focus. "I heard that your one of the weaker in the top 20 of the Legends! With my ability 'Quick adapt' you cannot damage me so you have chosen to run?!" The demon had provoked him but Natu didn't care, instead focusing on laying down his barrier formation. The others were relying on him so he was trying to finish it as fast as possible "d.a.m.n it, this demon is constantly chasing me so I can't focus - I've only finished half the formation and it's been a minute. Whilst he was running he had lost focus so he had to distance himself from this demon in any way possible. An idea flashed in his head as he flew straight up.

Whilst in this situation anyone would think to just go ahead, the demon knew how powerful this child in front of him was, if he even have him a little break, the child, whilst not being able to hurt him, would probably be able to bind him and hold him still in some way, and in this case, under the possible chance that the other Demonic Elite's had died, the other Legends would come and easily obliterate him. On his way up Natu had progressed to about 75% progress with the barrier then stopped and looked down at the demon chasing him, this was a sight that the demon grew very happy with as this meant that maybe the child had decided to fight with him once and for all, leading to his death. The demon clawed towards Natu, Natu seeing this whispered something under his breath "Wind, merge" Natu suddenly seemed to have turned into a ghost, pa.s.sing straight through the demon and falling to the ground - he did not focus on flying as him falling naturally was just as fast and he was putting all his focus into the formation. "Yes! I finished!" The demon had grown extremely frustrated now and flew down at an extreme speed. Natu currently had a ball of energy in his hand that contained in it a miniature storm, he willed it to fly towards the village and because it was made of natural energy it shot extremely quickly to the top of the village, instantly expanding to cover up the entire village.

X: "Natu? Was that you?"

N: "Yeah, I finally finished"

S: "What is it?"

N: "It's a visual impairing barrier, from the inside of the village they should feel like there is currently a ma.s.sive storm. The sounds coming from the thunder and rain inside the barrier should stop them from hearing anything whilst the actual thunder and rain should stop them from seeing anything, from their perspective it looks like the storm goes as far as the horizon. They can't hear or see anything outside the barrier. I set the magical essence forming the barrier to block any kind of magic waves too. We can go all out!"

I: "Finally! Thanks"

D: "Iona, let's go!"

S: "Finally! This guy's been provoking me for so long!"

X: "Thanks Natu."

N: "No problem Miss!"

Now that Natu knew the village was safe, he immediately began to control the surrounding natural essence to form a binding prison of wind slowing down the demon, the reason he had not done this before was that he was concerned about his allies and wanted to finish the formation quickly, casting and maintaining a spell would be too distracting. The demon used his special ability 'Quick adapt' to adapt to the wind to stop the wind from cutting and injuring him, he was still slowed though and by this time Natu had flown extremely far away. "Hey, demon, let me tell you something, I've encountered your ability before. It's not something hard to learn and I've fought and lost to it many times in the past, it truly is a counter to my abilities." The demon, hearing this, had grown more confident "Well human! What's going to be different this time?! If you've lost against it so many times before, naturally, you will lose now too!" Natu looked at the demon and didn't look worried at all - this caused the demon to grow nervous "Why does this human not look worried at all? Does he have some kind of trick up his sleeve? If so I can just adapt to it" Natu began to control the natural energy around him forming a hurricane in front of him "Wind again?! I thought you had a trick up your sleeve but you think that will damage me?! No matter how powerful a spell is it will be mostly nullified by my defense!" Natu looked back at him "Yeah... I know... It's only after I lost so many times to the strengths of that ability did I begin to think about how to fight against it... Notice how i said I fought and lost against it 'in the past'. After I found a way to fight it, it no longer poses a threat to me" The demon was skeptical "Talk all you want, until you damage me there's no way I will believe that!" The demon escaped the prison of wind Natu had created and charged towards him. As he prepared to defeat the demon, he thought of the past and how he got to where he is now.

In a tranquil lake, sitting on a rock was a young man who was currently deep in thought about something. He stood up and began to skip rocks across the lake, still seemingly deep in thought about something. From behind him, a black-haired boy approached and began to skip rocks too, but he was clearly inexperienced and couldn't get past 3 skips.

A: "Haha, Natu, you're not doing it right, look, it's all in the flick of your wrist."

He threw a rock across the surface of the water and it skipped 13 times across the lake.

A: "See?"

Natu attempted to copy the way 'Azu' had thrown the rock and it only skipped once before sinking. He looked at 'Azu' with an expectant look.

A: "Uh... Um... Maybe you just need a little more practice?"

N: "It's fine leader... I know I'm bad at skipping rocks. I just like looking at nature and when I saw that you were skipping rocks I wanted to try it myself."

A: "Oh. Well am I getting in the way of your nature walk?"

N: "Oh. No no no no no no don't worry your not interrupting anything! You can keep doing what you're doing!"

Natu began to walk away before 'Azu' grabbed his hand.

A: "Hey... Natu... I've begun to notice something about you... You're really scared of the world huh? I feel like the only people you can somewhat speak to is us. Even then you kind of just let everyone do what they want, you never voice your opinion and you never stop to think about yourself. Why?"

Natu stayed quiet when asked the question whilst 'Azu' didn't let go of his hand. He wanted an answer to his question.

N: "Well... I just... think that everyone's choice is better than a choice i could make. So i just let everyone decide for me, and... I don't want anyone to not like me so if they're doing something by themselves I might as well leave them alone. My attention was just caught by you skipping rocks this one time so i decided to try..."

'Azu' looked at the boy in front of him and began to shake his head. He let go of his hand and looked towards the lake.

A: "That isn't a way to live Natu. Don't let other people decide for you, otherwise... if the team ever splits up, for any reason. You'll find it hard to live on."

N: "Split up? The team will never split up. We're friends."

A: "Yeah but... Ugh... Natu. This is just in case... But. Oh I have an idea!"

'Azu' ran towards the lake and beckoned Natu to stand next to him, whilst hesitant at first Natu followed him and stood by him on the edge of the lake.

A: "See this lake?"

N: "Yeah?"

A: "Well. It's what you should aspire to be."

N: "Eh? I can't be a lake, leader..."

A: "No no not physically, its all about symbolism!"

N: "Symbolism? What exactly does this lake symbolise?"

A: "An independent force."

'Azu' looked down on Natu smiling.

N: "What?"

A: "Think about it this way. This lake, will always flow forward, it's never gonna change, seasons change, the world may change and the people can run through it or build a bridge over it. But it will always flow forward. Do you think it changes when something else does? No. It continually flows forward, following it's own path. This is what you should aspire to be. I know you enjoy nature walks and I know about how introverted you are, so I thought this would be the best a.n.a.logy... Is it good or not?"

Natu began to think about what his leader had said and had also wanted to live the type of life his leader had described. He was always in tune with nature and had grew away from people because of this, after having this lifestyle explained to him in an a.n.a.logy he could understand, he naturally desired to be able to live that way.

N: "Yeah, it's a good a.n.a.logy, I think I understand what you mean now, thanks leader!"

Natu turned to leave before looking back at his leader once again skipping rocks.

N: "Whilst a lake will always flow forward, the ripples made by a rock can effect the surface temporarily, I'll take this temporary information and change my route. Freedom! I wonder what it's like, guess I'll have to learn..."

From here on out Natu took a while to voice his opinion in a matter, but when he did everyone was surprised and they had all chosen to do what he wanted to do as this was his first time saying something, none of them rebuked him like he thought but they all welcomed his idea. This would lead to Natu slowly gaining more and more confidence in himself - leading to his current free-spirited nature. When his leader died, the reason for the freedom he enjoyed so much being born, he was naturally torn and decided to erase his memories of the event. But he had still remembered that time at the lake, and how it changed the way he lived forever. His 'free-spirit' had been given to him by his leader, and he never gave anything back. This was his chance to prove that he had grown stronger since then - so he went all out. Snapping out of his memories he looked forward at the demon charging towards him.

"Fine then... let me show you the biggest weakness of that ability..." Natu sent the hurricane forward and merged with the wind, disappearing form sight. The demon was struck by the hurricane but quickly adapted to the extremely strong and sharp winds, he looked around for the child that had just disappeared, desperately trying to sense his aura. Even with the powerful sense of aura demon's possessed, in this state of merging with the wind, Natu would completely change his own form to that of the wind's, to a natural energy, naturally his aura would be covered by natural energy. Natu appeared behind him and sent a furious bolt of lightning towards the demon's back and disappeared again, the demon had taken some damage from this lightning strike as they couldn't register and adapt to it in time, after being struck they had also adapted to lightning, Natu appeared below him and shot a ball of fire, then above him shooting multiple sharp icicles at him, then to the left of him with more shard winds, then to his right with another bolt of lightning. "Your 'Quick Adapt' isn't instantaneous! As long as i keep attacking you faster than you can adapt, you will get hurt! It can also only hold in 3 adaptions at once! Being struck by so many individuals things will harm you but not kill you! My natural atunement with nature allows me to use all the elements not only individually but all at the same time!" Every time he had sent an attack towards the demon he had let a little bit of the essence diffuse into the hurricane around the demon, with these elements already part of the hurricane all he had to do was activate it. The demon now knew the situation he was in and was filled with fear "No! It can't be!"

"This hurricane is my most powerful ability... It contains the power of a storm in the skies, an eruption on the land and a whirlpool of the sea - It contains every natural disaster in one attack..." He lifted his hand in the air. "Your 'Quick Adapt'... won't let you live through this..." With a click of his fingers the dormant natural essence left by the previous attacks all activated at once, this was a hurricane that twisted with flame, thunder, ice, earth, wind, water and many more natural elements. The temperature constantly s.h.i.+fted inside but it always kept to a level that was deadly for anyone to try and survive in. "h.e.l.lstorm: Variant: Hurricane" Natu watched as the demon inside was shredded by the savage elements until there was nothing left. "Disperse" The powerful elemental hurricane in front of him slowly disappeared and he looked towards the forest beneath him, seeing a lake, calmly flowing even after he had caused such a terrifying disaster. "Calm and Free, never binded by others." As he said this he spread his aura to where his teammates were fighting to find that they had already won their battles. He had flown over to all of the aftereffects of the battles and restored the land to what it looked like before the battles had happened and returned to the village. "There's no way we'll fail, this is the first and only request given to us by the leader. We will make sure he comes back!"