Hunted (A rank exam)

It had taken Nao a really strong effort to try and find himself in all of this. After the situation with Ashe in the Wakusei portals he had been beginning to see visions of the past. They were almost like glitches in his memory, trying to weed their way into his mind. Was he really as young as he thought he was? Or were these memories of him actually true, and these people of the past were actually part of his life that he had somehow forgotten? Was the memory of changing his magic actually his memory of something that had been implanted into him? Whatever it was, he was beginning to think that none of this was real.

So he had left his team for sometime, taking only Charlie with him towards anywhere that he could go. The gryphon he was riding on seemed a little on edge as of late, and probably because of how his master and best friend was beginning to feel. Nao couldn’t exactly put his finger on it, but something seemed a little off with him as well. After all, the two of them had been best friends for as long as he could remember, not that memories really meant anything at this point.

”So what am I, huh? he mumbled to himself as the pair of them landed from the air to the floor for a small break. ”Am I who I think I am? Or did I suffer some kind of amnesia? Am I an immortal and somehow lost my memories? I mean I don’t feel old, and these seem less real to me, and more as if I were someone else.” But as he constantly felt thoughts flood into his mind from times before he was born, he still heard them use his name. Of course, his name wasn’t anything special, but this just seemed way too peculiar.

”Say… Charlie.” Nao would watch the gryphon look up at him. ”I know you can shift your form, but are you also able to live for long periods of time because of it? I mean I’m having all these really strange thoughts and memories about us, and it’s becoming kind of strange that I can see you from a time that seems more like it was five hundred years ago.” The gryphon paused in a gaze, before shrugging and turning into his little baby form, forcing Nao off of him.

”Oof!” he sounded out as he hit his coccyx onto the floor. ”Y-yeah you’re right. I just don’t see why I’m remembering all these odd situations. Do you think I have lived this long? Or maybe I’m just living someone else’s life and I don’t know about it.”

He sighed softly, wondering why he was beginning to see such strange thoughts, and then one final memory hit him.

He could picture himself, his eyes slowly opening in some kind of stasis tube, with thousands of others just like him. Numbers and data was all over the screens in a lab full of people who looked exactly like him. They all seemed to be working for a giant computer in a lab, with other people in these tubes being monitored and prepared for a life on the planet above. He could even see how the last one seemed to die, hunted down by the lab for some reason. It seemed that his life was cut so very short.

Nao would return to consciousness, lying on the floor with his young gryphon looking over him, yet somewhat in a nervous disposition, before he would fly off.

”C-Charlie! Where are you going?” Nao called out, before the rains began to fall, and soon enough he would be greeted with three figures descending upon his position.

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The three figures looked down at him, before drawing their swords and proceeded to attempt to stab Nao again and again. Luckily the water mage had noticed the large metal blades, and proceeded  to turn into water away from them, flowing down the side of the hillside, and to the bottom of the hill. He turned back to his normal form before seeing that the masked men had already began to descend on him, each donning a different kind of plain white mask. How this was a thing he wasn’t so sure.

Nao began to feel a familiarity in the movements, a hauntingly familiar movement as he began to use a simple water blast at one of them. It seemed to do nothing as they took it to the chest, staggering back slightly before descending upon him with the other two figures who were now ahead of him.

”Charlie!” Nao called out, trying to get some help from his loyal pet. ”Come back! I need your assistance right now!” But it seemed that the creature was out of any kind of verbal reach. And this was a real pain to the water mage as he began to feel the hopelessness rise up in his stomach into nausea.

”Damn it” Nao murmured to himself before he began to try and cast a wave of water to knock them back. While sort of effective, the mage only knocked them back a couple of metres, and it didn’t even look like they were even feeling the effects of taking any kind of damage. No, in fact it looked like the water was actually healing them from the effects. How was that even possible?

Nao decided that instead of just staying around, he would head to the nearest sea and began to run across it, crashing through the waves on the beach. It seemed that this wasn’t a good idea because upon turning to look where they had gone, the group of three had began to running, jumping onto the waters behind him and running along the waves just like him. Who the hell were these guys that were following him right now?

Nao would turn around quickly fire off a scalding blast of water at one of the figures chasing him, causing him to fall back into the water with burns, only to pull himself back up on top of the waves after a few seconds.

Nao frowned and sucked up a load of air, causing his chest and stomach to rise slightly. He looked like he was about ready to burst, before firing off a large blast of bubbles at all three figures running at him. The bubbles would move quickly and effortlessly in the air, popping upon impact on his hunters.

The hunters would fall back after taking the brunt of the spell, dipping into the ocean for a second before returning with almost full revitalisation in their movements. Whatever these things were, they were beginning to really scare Nao.

And if he couldn’t fight them, then his only other option would to keep running away. But he knew that on these seas, that the further he went out, the closer he would be to the cursed lands. And in the cursed lands all he would be able to meet is death. Death seemed to be pretty imminent, between the cursed creatures, and his hunters who were now beginning to run after him again.

Nao would turn around and begin to flee into the ocean, not trying to stop to cast spells, and would hope that he would eventually outpace the people behind him, leaving him to being safe from what was happening. It didn’t help that all these weird thoughts and glitch memories kept appearing in his head, and seeing people in labs and the thoughts of expired… hims? All he could do was just keep running, and sort out that problem later.

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The waves began to become titantic sized while the mage was being chased by his three hunters. Jumping from wave to wave became more of a challenge and each one had a potential misstep that would cause him to land belly flopped into the drink. His footsteps would become a little slower paced as he tried to jump from wave to wave, catching the sides of them with his hands and picking himself up onto the wave that was bringing him back closer to the group that he was running away from.

”Ah screw this,” Nao began to thought as he turned and blasted a large wave of water, joining with the wave that he was on, and falling into the seas below him with a large splash. His shark tattoo would glow to show it was working and would allow him to start swimming quickly away from the fools who thought they would be able to match a water mage in his own domain. His doggy paddle could out speed the fastest speedboats in all the land, and he once even boasted about being faster than light in water, which was sort of the case since water refracted and fragmented in water. At least he thought he was safe for now. But he didn’t think of them chasing after him in the waters.

He would keep swimming down lower and lower, feeling the pressure rise as the water began to crush his body, or it would do if it wasn’t for his water form. His body would be perfectly fine in this pressure, unlike theirs. For now he would be safe until he needed to be back up for air. That was until he noticed the familiar glow that his own tattoo produced. They were hunting him down, and they had their own shark tattoos that would protect them. And this was what made Nao begin to think of what was actually happening to him, and why he was being chased.

The dreams and memories he kept getting, they were actually memories of him and maybe many of him from before. He wasn’t the original Nao. He was just a clone of another one with implanted memories and told to create more to make a new Nao. These ones were other Nao’s who had been augmented and programmed to become a hunter-killer team. They had the exact same abilities as him, with the same physiology and markings that he had. The only other difference was that they didn’t have his items, or a Charlie who could back him up. On the other hand… he didn’t have a Charlie that could back him up. It all began to make some sort of illogical sense.

”Well I’m not going down without a fight,” he murmured to himself as he swam closer to the coral reefs and hid there, before trying to formulate some sort of plan in his head. He had some plans in his head, like hiding there until they were gone, or luring them down low enough to cause them to drown in the depths, or to lure them to become fish food for some sharks. But none of those plans guaranteed to work. What he needed to do was to pick them off one at a time, and to lure them all into different ambushes.

All he had on him was his survivors vest (now drenched in the water), his pitchers mitt (also drenched), and his magic and ingenuity to help him through all of this. He could try throwing one of them, but he didn’t really want to try and get up close to them just in case they had some trick up their sleeves. But maybe he could try and get rid of at least one of them.

When he finally decided on a plan, he decided to keep low and in the cover of the coral reef. His watery glove would cover his tattoo and the glow suppressed for just a little while, as he waiting for the group of him to hunt him to this point of the coral reef. That way if he could get the jump then he could try and find an angle that would take one of them out before escaping again. If he knew himself, which he did very well, was that he didn’t like being up close and personal. Maybe they also didn’t like such a thing? He could at least try and use that to his advantage when it came to fighting them.

As the group approached, he made the movement of sighing out loud, and proceeded to prepare his plan just a little more. He did have a good idea on what he was going to do to one of them. But he would just wait for a few more moments as they began to swim closer to the coral reef since he needed to get his water spell in range for him to hit his first target.

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As soon as they began to approach closer to the coral reef, Nao ducked for cover and kept low to the ground, his water form was going to run out soon, and until then he would wait until they began to split up to attack one of them. He would pick the one that would get closest to his position, the one that would make it easier to get hit by a blast of water filled with nitro-glycerine. That way he could blow up one of them, and make it easier to pick off the rest. The only problem was that it would draw a lot of attention to the location, and he would need to get out of the area as fast as possible. He knew that from the get go that he would have to begin moving away from the area as soon as he killed one of them. Something told him inside that they would know as soon as the hunter had expired. . He didn’t really want to do this, but they were not going to stop until he was dead, so it was just easier to make them die first.

Okay then Nao, they’re almost on you, just have to throw any attack and you’re going to win the first fight, he thought to himself as the hunters landed on the sea floor and indeed decided to split up. One immediately moved to near his position, trying the coral reefs with severe caution, but not expecting the watery Nao to be right underneath him, lying on the floor and ready to strike. Instead the hunter would look down as a torrent of water blasted his body, followed by another one that would activate the nitro-glycerine, causing the hunter to explode, losing his arms in the process. A loud bubbly scream was heard, alerting the rest of them to him. He didn’t have time for this, so instead would just use another wave of water to knock the armless man over before pushing up and trying to escape. His breath was running out from being underwater for so long that he was beginning to feel weird in his lungs. He needed to breath, but his movements were getting slower in the water.

He could see the three of them were chasing still, despite one of them having no arms to really do anything with. It was at that point that the third one lost too much blood and began to sink once more, leaving it to just him and two angry hunters. There were not going to be happy about him taking out of their own kin… who was also one of his own kin, dammit all! He didn’t have the time to wonder if it was murder or suicide, and instead would keep swimming to the top of the water, before grabbing onto the dark waves of the cursed waters. Depsite the joy he felt for taking out one of these things, he didn’t feel good that he was only able to do it through ambushes, and he knew they were not going to fall for that again. So he would just have to keep running away from them all, trying to find a place where he could take out another one.

He didn’t really know where they were as he kept running on the waves, looking behind him to see if they were there or not, and instead finding nothing at all. Not a single trace of them was behind him, and he figured that they had just given up. He slowed down to catch his breath, popping a small mana crystal to help him restore his fatigue after all that running away. However he felt uneasy about the situation, and suddenly he felt an arm pull on his leg, dragging him back into the ocean. It seemed that instead of running after him, they were the ones who were going ambush him instead, by swimming faster underneath him and pulling him back under.

He would keep struggling while being held by one of them while the other pulled out his sword and began to attack. All he could do was kick away put up a barrier before trying to swim off again, not before realising he did get hid in the shoulder. He winced in pain as the salt water surrounded the wound, feeling the blood leave a trail for the two hunters to chase him down once more. He didn’t feel safe, and he felt woozy as he swam away, using the waves to catch some air like a dolphin, and to use it to get oxygen back into his body. He would need to find somewhere to stop and patch his wounds up soon, but he knew that if he tried to stop now that they would do the same trick they had just done previously. And he in no way was going to allow them the pleasure of getting him a second time. Instead he would just have to brace the injure that he had for now, and find somewhere that he could rest and heal up just a little bit more, before planning his next option of attacking these hunters. But for now he just needed to keep fleeing.

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Diving further lower before creating a tonic of water and swimming up to jump in the air to drink it quickly, before doing a sick spin and dropping back into the water as quickly as he left the waves. The wound began to close up and he felt a lot better. It looked like he wasn’t going to have any luck running away. Instead he knew he would have to just fight them head on. It looked like he was going to have an advantage since all he would have to do is just consume the ocean and he would be able to use all of his spells.

Nao opened his mouth and began to drink the salt water he was swimming through, cringing at the taste of it while swimming. He began to feel less fatigued and more ready to fight against his two hunters who were right on his soon-to-be dragon tail. He felt his mana restored and more, and with his magic just about ready off of cool down. He would just need to find a place to stop, and make sure that they would come up with him instead of trying to attack him from underneath.

He pulled himself back up onto the surface as he ate the waves that approached him, calming the seasons around him and making it easier to see where these two were. It was still dark and awful, but at least the waves were no longer larger than him, and he didn’t have to jump from one to another. This meant he could hear the movements as they began to get closer. He could see them finally reaching him, getting ready to pull him back under as he would then pull them up using his dragon spout. This would spend them both into the air and out onto their newly made watery arena.

The hunters would stop, before taking off their masks to reveal his suspicion was correct. They were both exactly like him, just another clones of whatever this person was. They were the same in every detail, besides a few individual markings such as no scar on their eyes. It looked like they did not need to prepare themselves at all. He would just frown, before grabbing some more water to drink before he looked at the two.

”Alright since it’s two verses one I think I need a little advantage on my side. I had the chance to eat the ocean while you were chasing me, so get ready for-“ And he paused as he saw the two of the hunters growing scales. It looked like that while not only did they have the training of being a slayer, they also had lacrimas implanted. ”Ah shit you’re third gen huh?” he said before seeing them nod in compliance.

”Well fine I won’t worry about it then. I’ll just use this time to use all my moves against you!” He would start by launching the classic draagon’s roar, sending out bubbles against his opponents. They would begin to run around them so he would strafe the shots to follow one of them. He would then follow this up with targeting one with the rupture, causing them to feel their innards expand and rupture slightly. Though it would slow down one of the hunters, it wouldn’t stop them at all from firing blasts of water at Nao.

”Shit!” he said as he dived underneath, pulling himself back out before finding that one was right on him, launching sword strike after sword strike at his torso. His body would try and dodge the attacks before feeling one hit his shoulder again. In response he would use his pitchers mitt to throw them back at the other hunter, hitting them both away before he used his weak time heal to restore the injury that had just befell him. This would make him feel a little better as one of the hunters fired off a series of water attacks.

Nao would make a barrier around himself, taking the attack as the other hunter began running at him again, dodging the water wave Nao would make before trying to run him through. The hunter would move away as Nao then would instead create a searing stream to fire at the hunter. It seemed they were on equal matching despite there being two of them.

”Lets put this into my domain,” he said as he created the raining needles, the choking fog and the water prison at once, leaving him with so few spells left under his belt. He would have to begin relying on his weaker spells to take on these targets. But as long at the two of them stayed in range of his spells then they would begin to start taking more damage over time, eventually wearing them down so that they can be knocked out or killed. It would be good to leave them alive for Ana to study. But they were dangerous, ruthless killers that wanted him dead at any cost and he would not allow this to happen.

While he smirked at the mists and fogs being created, the two of them would begin eating his spells, reducing their effects to nothing.

”Hey! You can’t eat my spells! That’s not fair!” he called out as he slowed down time briefly, running quickly before the timer on the time slow ran out. It was… hard to comprehend, but he got it. He would grab the ranged hunter and throw him up into the air, before grabbing some water, and turning it into an explosive watery grenade thanks to his pitchers mitt. He would keep throwing water up until the swordsman began attacking him with his sword. Nao would push him back with a water wave full of acid, before stepping back.

He smiled as the hunter began to plummet back to the sea, though tried to fire a barrage of water bullets as Nao began to step back and try to dodge them. He felt the water bullets hit him and pierce him slightly, wincing as he would heal himself with his water balm. He realised that by going into dragon force, he found that he spammed spells more and was beginning to run out of spells to actually use. This wasn’t going to end very well for the Water mage now that he had nothing up his sleeves to actually use against two hunters who had just been using their basic spells. He needed an extra spell that was spammable and usable each and every time, and he needed to find better ways of combatting multiple people. And he found that the area of effect spells that followed him around? Yeah they weren’t good anymore. He needed to find a new spell to replace them too…

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This was it then, as soon as the ranged clone hunter landed on his feet among the waves then he knew that he had used up the majority of spells. In spamming them all at once in this form, he had conclusively left himself open to all attacks that could be made possible by them. Instead of having any tricks left up his sleeve, they had eaten all his powerful spells in the process of fighting them. Using these power damage over time attacks had led him to be completely useless now. This was it for him. It looked like the cloning facility had managed to catch up with him and beat him.

They approached closer and closer to his position, both wielding their swords they had used in their previous encounter against him. It looked like they wanted to make sure that they took out the heart to make sure there would be no other second chance of escaping. He had already fled for hours over vast oceans and now he was finally theirs.

He sighed and looked down, before realising he still had his pitcher’s mitt on. He was never out of ammo when he had that on. All he had to do with it was just simply defy physics and beat them at their own game.

”Alright then, how about I move to my next plan?” he said to them with confidence, before scooping water up and throwing it fast like a curveball. He would begin pelting them with constant water balls, turning the ocean into his infinite source of ammo as they began to duck, dodge, dip, dive and duck their way around the shots. The ranged hunter would begin to fire back bullets but they would get caught up and match his own attacks. The swordsman would try and find his way around only to be repelled by the water balls that Nao was making. But it looked like they weren’t going to let up. This was only going to buy him a little bit more time as he tried to think of another strategy.

”Alright then! Time for my next plan against you both!” he said, grabbing his hair and closing his tight. He would then motion a throwing action, throwing himself high into the air and far away from the current battlefield he was in. This way he wasn’t going to be able to be chased that quickly. At the same time he could sort of see them looking at each other confused before chasing after the flying Nao. It looked like he needed a boost, and that boost would be to throw himself while being thrown to try and double the distance that he was going to get. While this may have risked him going bald due to pulling at his hair, this was only a small sacrifice to living and surviving the battle.

As he eventually landed he found himself back on land, safe from the clone hunters that were attacking him. He would have to live out his life in fear in case they came back, or tell his team and go hunt down this clone lab, but at least now he could escape. He even realised that he might be able to call for Charlie now that he was free of what looked to be his fate of death.

”Charlie!” Nao called out. ”Charlie?! I need you here now!” And with that he began to hear his best friend descend on him, looking a little concerned about something. ”Okay Charlie lets get out of here before some bad men come after-“ That’s when he realised it was too late, he could see them swimming in the water and landing on the shore in front of him.

”Okay then Charlie, there’s only two of them and I’m ready to take them on with you. I have no mana, however. Used it all on fighting them earlier and going into Dragon Force. So I just need you to cover me while I recover and use my pitcher’s mitt, got it?” He would turn to face the two hunters, only to then feel the familiar gust attack on his back, launching him in the air as he turned to see what had really happened. It couldn’t be!

”Charlie! You damn traitor! How could you betray me like th- oof!” An with a thud he hit the floor as his body as ascended on by the last two clones to finish him off. With his last thoughts he thought of everyone he cared about, hoping that even for a clone like him there was a heaven he could finally get to.

After being expired, the clones took his body for processing, and to assimilate the thoughts and experiences into the lab so that a new clone could be made and sent out into the world to live and gather information on the world around them. The lab wasn’t ready to show the world its findings yet, but only to send stronger and more durable clones of the first Nao that existed hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile in the Phoenix Mountains Nao would wake up from “passing out” and look around. Confused on how he got there he began to search the place to help him find someone who could help him. Instead he found a baby gryphon all lost and all alone. He had no clue how he got there, and how he managed to survive as a baby all by himself.

”Hi there little one, aren’t you all alone? Have you got a name?” The gryphon would look confused for a second before shaking his head.

”Well then… how about I call you…”



”Charlie!”

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