He found himself back in the training room, lying on the floor. The ground shook and he looked up just in time to see Sir Gorou reach down to grab him by the arm, lifting him into the air. What just happened? Was he hallucinating? But he was fighting Sir Gorou wasn't he? When did the hallucination start?

Sir Gorou's face filled with elation, he was enjoying the mind games and his face looked more evil and distorted every time.

"Confused?" He smiled from ear to ear. "While you were distracted with the fight, I was building the wall around you, and it kicked in as soon as you guessed right. You were right, when we were fighting it was real. All it took was for your guard to drop for that millisecond, and the last brick for the hallucination kicked in."

Like deja vu, Sir Gorou proceeded to drag Tsugi up The Dead Hill, Sir Gorou broke his opposite arm this time before chaining him. Learning from the hallucination, he broke the wrist of his broken arm first. With the cracking of his free broken hand, his arm swung in front of him. It dangled, flopping back and forth on the fractured bone, causing him to tense and scream in pain.

Lightening coursed through his body as he tensed in agony. He could see his swollen arm swinging in front of him. It turned into a swollen green bruise. He cocked his head in confusion. Why is it green?

He woke back up in the training room, back on the floor. Sweating buckets, his clothes were drenched as if he really was stuck in the rain. Sir Gorou picked him up by the arm again. The same sinister look on his face.

Again and again the hallucination occurred, draining the life from Tsugi, and erased all his hope.

"Why?" He managed to squeeze out.

Sir Gorou just shrugged. "I wanted to personally show you how powerful this magic is, once it is mastered, and…” He grins from ear to ear. “...to show you I don't need an actual storm." His eyes are full of evil mischief. Tsugi's hope all disappeared at that moment. He could end up in this never ending torturous treatment. Seeing that his fun is gone, Sir Gorou chained him to the iron pole and left.

Sir Gorou didn't break his arm this time. There were also no strong winds or dark clouds rolling in, just a cool breeze through the night air. The crescent moon being his only light source to the cruel world below. Exhaustion took over and his vision faded into darkness.

***

Tsugi was walking through a wide open field of green grass. The sun was high in the sky above a grassy hill in the distance. Villagers were all standing around, it looked like they were hosting a festival with a deep sound of a flute playing, followed by singing, chanting and light chattering filling the air.

As Tsugi approached, they stopped and stared at him. He found it strange that the villagers had no faces. Their faces were blurry and he couldn't make out any features, not the eyes, the nose nor the mouth.

As he strolled through, one by one they turned and gazed at him, their heads turned and they slowly started to follow him. He saw a big red door in the distance, he took off toward it and the villagers chased after him. He jumped in and shut the door behind him.

He was now in a dark room. The door had disappeared and became a solid wall behind him instead. The room was huge and had a creepy feeling to it. There were staircases and doors everywhere. Like an optical illusion, there were stairs and doors that were upside down, sideways, floating in midair, even open archways that lead to nowhere.

Tsugi stood on a platform that had two paths, one was stairs that led to the lower level, and the other side of the platform led to a pitch black hallway.

"Hello?" Tsugi saw something from the corner of his eye go down the stairs. He followed it. When he reached the bottom, he saw prison cells lined against the far wall. There were people inside, screaming and wailing, reaching to him to help. Their arms were dirty, covered in dried blood. They were scratching and scraping at the floor.

He turned to the left and saw the person quickly dart into a pair of double doors. He approached the end of the corridor and there was a pig faced person in the far corner chopping and cutting up chunks of what looked like meat.

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'It must be a butcher.' Tsugi thought. The pig-faced person hooked up the chunk of meat and Tsugi’s eyes widened. It was an arm…a human arm. Terror filled him as his eyes wandered the room. The arm was hooked on to a giant meat hook and pushed down the line of all the other body parts hanging across the room.

He went through the double doors and he could see an old man with gray frizzy hair pacing back and forth and mumbling like a mad man.

"Sir?" Tsugi said, but the man didn't acknowledge him.

"Go down the hall, make a left, up the stairs, through the door on the right, across the room, down the stairs, door on the left..." He kept mumbling directions over and over again.

Tsugi slowly backed out of the room and to where the butcher was. The butcher didn't notice him either. Then he had this dark inkling from the door just beyond the butcher.

‘I'm not supposed to be here.’ And at that moment of realization, everything froze. The butcher froze with its arm raised over its head, all the screaming stopped and there was no more noise. In the blink of an eye, they all disappeared. Tsugi was left alone in the empty cage filled corridor and bloody hanging arms.

The directions kept ringing in his ears.

"Go." Mare's voice started repeating the directions in his ear. He ran down the hall and followed the directions.

As he walked through each door, he appeared somewhere else. The whispers and wailings were getting louder again. He ended up outside, but it was dark and the moon was his only source of light. There were dark portals here and there. Creepy shadowy figures loomed the place and sent chills up his spine. He continued to run going through the doors, up and down stairs. He pushed through a final door.

***

He smelled sage and chamomile. He opened his heavy eyelids and saw two pairs of big eyes staring at him.

"Mother! Tsugi is awake!"

"Rygo? Ryna?" Tsugi said weakly. Yahni came running and wiped his face with a warm towel.

"How are you feeling, young master?"

"Better. Thank you." He smiled. He couldn't have been any happier to finally be able to see their faces again. Only then did he know, he was back to reality.

"I...I'm sorry Young Master Tsugi." Yahni cried. "I should've told you the truth." Tears dripped to the wooden floor boards.

"Told me what?"

After calming down, she wiped her face with her sleeve. "I will teach you how to use your magic." His eyes widened. Does he have a magic affinity?

"I...but I thought you said I didn't have any m-magic affinity?"

"I lied."

"So what kind do I have?" He secretly hoped for fire, since it's the most powerful one used for offensive magic. He wanted to be able to use it against his father.

"It's dark magic." She says. Tsugi furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. He doesn't remember reading about this type of magic. "I've only known of one person with this power and experienced the power first handed." Her wistful smile told Tsugi everything. It was her abusive husband. "That's why when I felt it, I was scared, but...I can't let you suffer anymore. No matter what it costs me, I will be sure to teach you."

"What's dark magic?"

"It's only acquired by those who have come to near death experiences. Every time they cross that threshold, they get a little stronger each time. Almost like absorbing the energy from the underworld."

"So...does that mean..." His eyes filled with excitement.

"Don't get too excited, young master." Yahni warned. "The more you absorb, the more death will come looking for you. Almost like a light in the darkness, your light will get brighter and it will make it easier for them to find you. Most people with this power want to get stronger just like in your case."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever told yourself that you will get stronger no matter the cost?" Tsugi nodded in response. "For most people, that ‘want’ consumes them and they start to search for death. When you've consumed enough darkness, you start to become like the darkness and you are able to kill to become stronger. No one wants to die again and again, so the easiest solution to get stronger is to kill to get stronger instead. Like a powerful addiction, it's hard to break."

"If I can take it, can't I also give it back?"

"I don't know, but chances of you being able to control yourself, will probably be long gone by the time the darkness finds you. Almost like a disease, right now you are still very small, so the symptoms go unnoticed, but when it becomes too overgrown, it starts to pollute the body and there's no going back."

"It's okay, I know I can control it. I just want to be strong enough to defeat him. That's it, and then if they find me afterwards, I will give it back."

"I can only hope you don't get consumed by it. The darkness has its way of working into you."