Some of Orin’s attacks are very close to hitting Ajax, a few in areas that would be fatal for a normal person.
However, the burning man smirks. He backs away from Ajax and starts running down the hallway. As he runs, he raises his right hand and throws fire all around him. He aims for the apartment unit doors specifically. The farther away he gets from Ajax, the more purchase his flames have on his surroundings.
"Wait!" Ajax shouts in anger, taken off guard by Orin's shift towards attacking the building's residents. He runs as fast as he can manage without overusing his energy reserves. If Ajax overextends himself, he knows instinctively that there will be moments of diminished reflex and agility where he would leave himself vulnerable to a counter attack.
From this opponent, he wouldn't be able to see such attacks coming, let alone manage to dodge.
Fuck, just like in the last group, he has no problem with targeting innocent people!
As Ajax runs through the hallway after Orin, the flames on the doors are snuffed out. As he runs past and holds his arms out to the doors, the fire is extinguished by him continuously absorbing heat energy from the air through his hands. He tries to reach out with his right hand to a fleeing Orin without thinking about anything except stopping him from killing the people on this floor.
However, Orin wanted exactly this. In a fluid motion, he turns his body to face Ajax and lunges forward, closing the distance between the two of them too quickly. Ajax can see a deranged smile as the burning man in front of him raises his bluish green sword and slashes downward. Ajax tries to back away hastily, but Orin's sword is still in range.
He raises his right hand to try and block the blade with his only current defense, his superhuman body. Without even thinking about it, a half-inch layer of frozen air condenses on his right hand, an instinctive defense mechanism. However, his mind can see what's coming.
"Kgh!"
The sharp blade slices through Ajax's right palm, cutting off four fingers of his right hand. Ajax retreats quickly as he clutches his right hand in agony. It takes a full seven seconds for his body to regenerate his appendages and while in a state of slowed perception, the pain lasts longer. The sensation of his bones, muscle and skin layering itself into new fingers on his right hand is painless, though still unsettling. However, the indescribable pain of having lost such sensitive extremities doesn't go away so easily. He feels like gasping for breath even though he has no real need to breathe.
His mind screams at him to get away from this area unless he wishes to face more pain of that level. However, anger rises within him, flooding his body with adrenaline. The thought of his pain leaves him, while thoughts of inflicting pain on the person who caused his agony overflow.
Meanwhile, Orin stares at his enemy’s blood left on his sword and smiles. He appreciates how sturdy his magic weapon is, how it cuts through quite solid ice with not a scratch.
Wonderful. A truly beautiful, powerful weapon… How blessed am I to properly wield this blade… Ah, if only you could see me kill him, Karise… Loman… One day I will greet you all in the true heaven. But not today.
Orin looks over at Ajax. The boy isn't backing away. He looks as if this is the first real pain he's ever felt in his life. The burning man licks his lips, the action just barely perceived by Ajax.
"Will you stop now, boy? You really do seem so inexperienced in this arena. I mean, look at you, you've only lost a few fingers and you're nearly breaking down in tears already… You even healed it all back too! Pussy… You can still run now, boy! You can still go home to suckle at your mother's tits…"
Orin laughs heartily. However, while he's laughing, Ajax's face looks towards him with a growing indignation. Around his feet, a layer of frost grows on the floor in a circle around him. The air grows colder and colder and colder. Orin stops laughing as he notices his white flames starting to retreat closer towards his skin, his layer of flame becoming thinner.
Wait… What? With only his thoughts? His emotions? Magic is bloodless, without emotion, only mastery! This doesn’t make any sense. How is he… What kind of power…
Ajax doesn’t notice the subtle dread in his opponent’s face. Orin mentioning his mother in that manner makes him see only red. It makes him see so much red that he realizes he is moving too emotionally once again.
He was too easily falling for Orin's taunting. He can only face facts. He's nowhere near his mother, his father, or his sister Rita. They're not here right now. He might never reach them again, but it doesn’t matter. The only people here right now are him, the burning man in front of him, and the people in this building he's trying to protect.
The only way he will ever see them again is if he lives through this fight.
Ajax takes out the pouch of silver coins still in his pockets. He opens the pouch and touches the coins. They seem too aerodynamically flawed to be used as buckshot, though admittedly he’s not an expert on shotgun pellets to begin with.
Aren’t shotgun pellets pretty light anyways? These coins seem heavy enough anyways. They’re a lot heavier than pennies or nickels back home too.
In the worst case, he can just throw the coin pouch itself. He tries as hard as he can to push energy into his right arm, shoulder and back, specifically the muscles, tendons and bones, in order to increase his strength even further than when he had used his “railgun” earlier. This takes less than one second.
He can somewhat fathom the nerves of his arms as well and tries to "enhance" them so that they can more easily respond to his hand-eye coordination sense.
Orin isn't stupid however.
