“Z-Zara...” Eman’s voice was a mere murmur, scarcely audible amid the suffocating silence that had settled over the room like a pall.
His eyes grew wide, transfixed upon Zara’s hand, the very hand that had just intercepted a death blow with no more than a single finger.
A chill coursed through him. His breath faltered, stuttering in shallow bursts as his chest heaved with mounting dread.
“Y-You... You’ve harnessed inner force? Since when...?” he stammered, his voice brittle with disbelief. “I never taught you such things…”
Zara turned her head slowly, with a grace that belied the storm gathering in the air.
Her gaze was gentle, yet laced with unflinching resolve.
“My beloved taught me, sensei,” she replied, her tone serene, but each syllable landed like a whip crack across Eman’s ears.
His head snapped towards Doctor Zein.
And in that instant, the last vestiges of his confidence dissolved into ash.
It was not only his limbs that began to tremble. It was something far deeper, his very core unravelled.
His face turned ashen. His eyes dulled, losing all semblance of focus.
His breath hitched, caught somewhere between disbelief and dawning horror.
And then came the fear pure, unvarnished, and absolute laying claim to him with merciless finality.
Dadan, the senior disciple, stood slack-jawed.
His mouth agape, jaw nearly touching the dojo floor, eyes widened in utter disbelief.
The other karateka, both men and women, were no less stunned.
They were frozen in place, their faces painted with the same expression: sheer, unadulterated awe.
"Oi! Hit me!" cried one male karateka in a panic. "Did I just dream that Senior Zara blocked sensei’s ultimate strike with a single finger?!"
WHACK!!!
Without hesitation, the karateka beside him slapped him square across the face.
"ARGHH!! That bloody hurt, you lunatic! Why’d you hit so hard?!" the slapped one shouted, clutching his cheek.
"That means you’re fully awake! And yes, you’re not dreaming!" the other barked back, nearly hysterical. "Senior Zara actually blocked sensei’s deadly strike with just one finger!"
Meanwhile, the female karateka, who had stood silently in awe, began to squeal with excitement, unable to contain their delight after witnessing such an astonishing feat.
"Did you see that? That handsome lad’s incredible! Looks like sensei’s been outmatched!" one of them exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with admiration. "I’ve got to make him my boyfriend!"
"Are you mad?! He’s Senior Zara’s partner! Didn’t you see how she blocked sensei’s strike with a single finger?!" her friend snapped sharply.
"You’ll end up getting pulverised by Senior Zara! Don’t go looking for trouble!" another added, eyes wide with horror.
"I was just trying my luck," she huffed, arms crossed.
"A foolish try!" her friend shot back, prompting the others to burst into laughter, breaking the tension at last.
Back to Eman who still stunned and swathed in dread, he rose with laboured care, as though the very ground beneath him might betray his footing.
A tremor ran through his limbs. His eyes, once sharp with pride, now flickered with cautious unease.
His voice, barely more than a whisper, trembled in the stillness, “W-Who are you truly?”
Doctor Zein stepped forward, no more than a single measured stride, but the atmosphere shifted at once, as if frost had crept into the room.
His gaze, calm and unwavering, carried the weight of an unspoken threat.
“Well then, Master Eman,” he spoke, quiet but immovable, each syllable precise. “Will you now tell us what you know... about King Aramia?”
Eman’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, “Mr Zein… I admit it! You’re extraordinary. And you, Zara… I never realised you possessed such prowess.”
He inhaled deeply, summoning the last of his faltering pride, and raised his chin in fragile defiance.
“But understand this… the name King Aramia is not one to be...”
The sentence shattered.
His mouth hung open, his eyes stretched wide with a sudden, visceral alarm.
Dadan, too, reeled back. His breath caught in his throat, his gaze fixed on the same dreadful sight.
Around them, every karateka man and woman alike, stood rooted in place. Expressions of awe had drained into panic.
All eyes turned towards a single point.
Zara stood with regal poise, her frame composed, yet resonating with a silent strength.
Then, with the grace of one accustomed to reverence, she inclined her head ever so slightly.
In that very moment, a surge of crimson light erupted from within her, enveloping her slender form in a cloak of living flame subtle in its motion, yet seething with lethal potential.
The aura did not simply shimmer in the air. It pulsed into the ground beneath, threading itself into the earth like veins of fire.
The ground quivered. A tremor, scarcely perceptible at first, grew steadily into a low, resonant rumble, just enough to set the pebbles skittering, the dust to rise in a whisper.
Every gaze turned to her.
From beneath the veil that framed her countenance, a soft luminescence began to bloom, delicate at first, then steadily gathering in brilliance.
Slowly, above her head, the light coalesced into a shape unmistakable in its symbolism: a crown.
But this was no ordinary diadem.
It bore the markings of antiquity, its surface etched with symbols lost to time, sigils of a realm long faded into legend.
At its centre blazed a gemstone the colour of molten embers, pulsing with a life all its own.
Dadan staggered back, breath caught in his throat, a cold sweat tracing down his temples.
“A… Queen?” he whispered, scarcely aware the words had left his lips.
The crown grew brighter, its light mingling with the blood-red aura that now enveloped Zara like a mantle of dominion.
Hairline fractures split the earth in a slow, deliberate pattern.
The leaves above stirred restlessly, and the sky itself dimmed, as though nature, too, recognised the resurgence of a force once thought buried.
Zara’s eyes opened.
Gone was the determined glint of a disciple; what remained was something far older, far greater.
Her gaze now held the weight of dynasties, of judgements long delayed and reckonings long overdue.
She was no longer merely a disciple. No longer merely a girl. She was sovereign.
“What in Heaven’s name?!” Eman cried out.
His eyes widened grotesquely, as if reality itself had turned upon him.
His breath came shallow and hoarse, his throat as dry as scorched stone.
“This aura… this strength… and that crown! It... it cannot be!” his thoughts clamoured in disarray. “This is one of the Queens… one of the royal vessels of King Aramia himself!”
Terror seized him. His feet faltered, knees trembling under the weight of revelation, “Could it be Zara is…” His mind trailed off into a blackened void of dread.
Slowly, almost fearfully, he turned to Doctor Zein, seeking clarity, absolution, perhaps even denial.
Yet what he found was a man calm as the eye of a storm, his gaze sharpened with inscrutable resolve.
“And Mr Zein… could he be…” The words refused to form.
The air grew heavier. A pressure invisible, yet inescapable, bore down upon them.
And beneath the trembling skin of the world, a long-buried truth stirred.
A forgotten epoch clawing its way back into the light.