Deep within the confines of his azuregate, Temperance patiently stood still with his eyes closed and meticulously sensed his surroundings as the ever-rising blue shapes rose from the surface of the watery ground. Four beach-ball-sized spheres made of cyan and dark green mana formed before instantly accelerating towards Temperance from different directions. Temperance sensed the movements of the mana spheres and began to slowly exhale from his mouth as the mana spheres drew near.
Temperance slightly adjusted his foot and coated his hands in sparkly gold and silver mana before creating two small magic barriers on the back of his hands. One of the mana spheres sped up and rocketed for Temperance as he flexed his right arm before he blocked the mana sphere. The mana sphere pressed against the magic barrier and pushed Temperance slightly to the left. Temperance's body buckled under the force of the mana sphere for a split second before he regained his composure and pushed back against the mana sphere.
Temperance ducked downwards while sliding his arm under the mana sphere before he catapulted the mana sphere over himself and off into the distance. He watched the mana sphere he had countered as it began to slow down before it circled around and raced towards him, along with the other mana spheres. Temperance adjusted his stance and continued to deflect the mana spheres, as a young girl-sized six-tailed kitsune made of sparkling gold mana, and an adult male sized, male nine-tailed kitsune made of cyan and dark green mana watched Temperance train.
Temperance sighed and complained about how tedious this training was, right before all the mana spheres froze in place and the small kitsune mana silhouette disappointedly pouted.
"So, you find my training recommendation insufficient?" the adult mana silhouette asked with a slight distortion in his voice as he spoke. The adult mana silhouette snapped his fingers and all of the mana spheres around Temperance disappeared.
"Yeah, do you?!" the younger mana silhouette asked with a sassy tone in her echoey voice. Temperance clicked his neck as he dispelled his magic barriers and the mana around his hands.
"No-no, you're training has been really helpful, Teach, ... but it's just...," Temperance muttered aloud as he started to walk over to the others.
"Just...?" the adult mana silhouette said as his left ear twitched in anticipation.
"Well... it's just sometimes I wished I had a sparring partner, who couldn't knock me out at any moment," Temperance explained. Teach nodded his head as he pondered Temperance's words with a smug smile on his face while recalling multiple times he defeated Temperance in all of their sparing sessions.
"That's true... it would be more effective for you to train with someone on a similar level of power as yourself, but there isn't much I can do unless one of your egos awakens and turns out to be a more conventional fighter than Nakamai here," Teach remarked as Nakamai's defeatedly slumped her head downwards while sadly saying she wishes she had a simpler Azure Ability. Temperance agreed that Nakamai's Azure Ability was definitely something else and would even give professional mathematicians a hard time. Nakamai was a little annoyed at Temperance's remark since she had no idea what a mathematician was but got distracted when a thought entered her mind.
"Say, Temperance?" Nakamai said as she climbed up onto Teach's back.
"Yeah...?" Temperance asked with a hint of apprehension.
"Why are you going by your title-name-thing you got instead of your name sister-," Nakamai managed to say before Teach loudly cleared his throat.
"It's because he's going through his edgy emo phase like all fantasy MCs do, where they go solo and temporarily forsake their name so they can't be tracked by those who know them," Teach smugly explained to which he was greeted by the annoyed glares of Temperance and Nakamai. Teach lightly chuckled as he crossed his arms and sighed, with Temperance eventually sighing as well.
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"But he's not wrong about the-," Temperance started to say before stopping when he noticed Teach was staring up into the dark hights of Temperance's Azuregate. Teach's expression became an odd mix of multiple concerned ones before he put on a forced smile.
"It seems we'll have to cut your training short for now, you seem to have a visitor," Teach mentioned as he uncrossed his arms. Temperance tried to ask Teach who it was but was only greeted by Teach's hand as it had its ring finger loaded behind its thumb.
"Let's just say, it looks like you'll be getting that sparring partner you wanted sooner than expected," Teach remarked, and before Temperance could ask what Teach meant he was flicked on the forehead and was instantly snapped awake.
Temperance blinked a few times as he sat on top of the flat bolder with his legs crossed. He rubbed his eyes before, a split second later, remembering what Teach had said and instantly activated his mana sense. Temperance immediately sensed a source of mana he didn't recognise and glanced in the source's direction only to be greeted by a golden-coloured left eye and a crystal blue right eye, both with narrow cat-like pupils and black sclera mere inches away from his face. The person the eyes belonged to blinked a few times as she continued to mindlessly stare into Temperance's eyes.
"Can I help?" Temperance asked, which caused the person's eyes to snap out of their trance state and their pupils to widen into a circular shape. The person hopped away from Temperance and onto the adjacent rock, allowing Temperance to get a better look at them; they were a short, young-looking, girl kitsune: she has obnoxiously long curly bone-white hair with pale green and pale cyan tips, a golden coloured left eye and a crystally blue right eye with a five-pointed star shape pupil, covered head-to-toe in a thin pale snow white fur, four snow textured kitsune tails and two kitsune ears with pale green and pale cyan tips.
The girl inquisitively stared at Temperance before she glanced down at his legs; she quickly mimicked the way Temperance was sitting before she look back at Temperance. The two silently stared at each other as Temperance wondered if the girl was going to say anything or was just going to stare at him.
"..., I forgor...," the girl mutter as her tails wrapped around her waist. Temperance blinked a few times in disbelief at what the girl just muttered.
"You... forgor?" Temperance said in response. The girl nodded her head and brushed her tails with a hairbrush that had a bone-like appearance.
"Yeah... I forgor what I was going to say," the girl said as she brush her tails. Temperance slowly rubbed his eyes and yawned.
"Since you don't seem to remember what you wanted to ask, why don't we introduce ourselves and talk until you remember?" Temperance offered while stating his name. The girl froze before facepalming and muttered about how rude it was for her not to introduce herself the moment Temperance had woken up.
"Y-yeah ok, ... I'm Skullnaia but if that's too long you can call me something else," Skullnaia shyly muttered as she increased the frequency of her tail brushing.
"Ok..., I'll call you Skull and you can call me... whatever you like as well, " Temperance stated. Skull paused for a second before she stored her hairbrush into her body and pulled a notepad out from her abdomen area.
"So, all the fur on her body can be used to enter her tail pocket dimension," Temperance muttered, as Skull swiftly wrote in the notepad until she came to a stop.
"How about sparkles?" Skull asked, to which Temperance unamusedly blinked in response. Skull quietly giggled and said it was a joke. Temperance asked if Skull had any other nicknames in her notepad. Skull nodded and recited the many nicknames she thought of until eventually finishing on TemTem and Tempster.
"How come only the last two had any sort of semblance to my name?" Temperance asked as he rested his chin on his hand. Skull stated she thought the last two were too obvious and boring.
"So, which one are you ok with?" Skull asked. Temperance said either was fine and Skull stated she'll switch between the two. Temperance sighed before his and Skull's ears perked up as they sensed a high concentration of mana gathering nearby. Skull sporadically spun around and her fur stood up as she loudly hissed. Temperance sighed as he stood up, which made Skull peek back at him as her fur lowered.
"Seems like a Magic Dungeon is about to form nearby; I think it's in a nearby cave," Temperance stated as he created multiple dome-shaped magic shields around Crystal's opaque mana door. He clicked his neck and began to walk in a straight line towards the forest.
"Can I come with?" Skull asked. Temperance continued to walk which made Skull sadly exhale thinking Temperance's lack of words was a no.
"What are you waiting for; you don't need my permission, it's not like I'm your dad am I?" Temperance stated. Skull's tails happily wagged before she ran on all fours after Temperance.