There she was, right in front of him, Karen of the Six Lords, the famous Shinigami, her eyes did not stop looking at each other, an extremely beautiful girl, her dark brown hair at the height of the neck, her dark gray eyes shine like a pair of lakes under the light of the full moon, white complexion skin that at first glance you can tell is soft like baby skin, everything in it makes her irresistible to the looks of both men and women around her,even her short stature makes her tender to look at. Tsubaki and Hanna are amazed at how beautiful she is, while Pierre and Guilian are totally mesmerized by her beauty.
—How beautiful that girl is, totally my type. —whispers Guilian hypnotized.
—Do you have a fetish for baby faces? —asks Tsubaki irritated by her partner's lack of decorum.
—Well, of course I wouldn't try anything, the Shinigami has a reputation for traveling the world to avoid being in her own nation receiving marriage proposals every day she spends there. —says Guilian still blushing and drooling a little—I heard that some did not accept a no for an answer and when they challenged her to a duel they ended up incinerated. There weren't even ashes left of them.
Chris, however, has an empty look, the silence is noticeably awkward as the seconds go by, they both have things to say, but no word comes out. After processing the presence of the person right in front of him, the first thing he thinks about is greeting her, but the words come out before he notices it:
—What are you doing here? —Chris’ question has a somewhat aggressive tone, putting tension in the environment.
—I saw the news of the tournament, knowing you would go here after such a great victory. —Karen knows Chris perfectly—Are they your friends?
—«What do you care? » —says Chris inside his head as he tries to keep his composure, but Hanna begins to notice how upset he's getting.
Chris immediately takes Karen with him to his room to talk alone, while the rest of the group were still stunned in the hallway. The room reserved for Chris, a single bed, in the dark, the two are sitting, silently, as they each formulate what to say. He returns to speak dominantly towards her, it was obvious that she wanted to talk to him, so he forces her to tell him her intentions, she does not put up resistance.
—Why are you here? Don't make me repeat myself. —Chris asks, holding back to how it happens.
—I just wanted to see you, I have so much to tell you, the things I've been through, surely you also have a lot to tell. —Karen's awkward smile betrays that the two of them have unresolved issues.
—You have no right to it; you were the one who left and did not come back at all. You abandoned us, you abandoned ME, and even if it was not the case, in these four years you and I have become very different people, haven’t you, Shinigami?, we have had our own lives. There is nothing to do. Chris’ words are blunt, affecting who was an old friend.
Her voice begins to break and agrees to him, but she asks, begs him to know if there is an opportunity to be on good terms. Not even he knows, it depends on what happens next, so she understands and withdraws silently and when she leaves the room everyone sees her walking with her eyes down, covering herself with her fringe to hide her crying eyes.
The whole group peeks out the door to see Chris and they keep wondering what kind of relationship the two have, as they remember his words with Lillian in Vodheim, "she's my childhood friend, but we part ways 4 years ago." They had never seen him that way, but Chris sends them to sleep and leave him alone for awhile, his gaze full of repressed feelings.
That night was difficult for everyone to fall asleep; Hanna decides to go for a night snack to relax and while exploring the reception she can hear some very familiar sounds, uncontrolled crying. It is new for her to hear it from someone else, so she has mixed feelings and decides to investigate who it comes from, so she checks the surroundings.
Leaving the inn, she finds the person responsible, Karen is crying out loud on a garden bench next to the pond. Hanna can clearly see how much she is suffering, but a doubt stops her, what should she do? As much as she wants to comfort and encourage her, it is not her business, because she is a very close person to Chris and the affair is with him.
Interfering would mean digging into Chris’ past, something he still doesn't trust her, his previous personal life, beyond his training. She decides to retire while still listening to the heartbroken cry, carrying a great regret in her chest.
We all have a past; it is our decision to make it a burden, discard it, face it or turn it into a source of motivation and inspiration.
While Karen cries uncontrollably, Chris can sense the scandal with the ki while lying on his bed. He closes his eyes and rests his left forearm on his head and his mind is clouded until he relives the past.
11 years ago, in the temple of Yamamoto, Chris wakes up very sleepy and while recovering his senses he notices a figure above him. One face is right on his:
—Good morning, Chris, it's dawn. —Karen greets her good friend with great energy and enthusiasm.
—You know how to make your own breakfast, let me sleep. —Chris doesn't want to get up despite his youth.
—Come on, today is the big day, we will finally start training. —Karen is excited to the point that her smile dazzles Chris and ends up ruining his sleep.
Already up, Chris is semi-awake as he tries to stay aligned with the line of orphans who will start training. Yamamoto appears and inspects the children by putting his hand on top of their heads, without touching them. In a matter of seconds, the teacher identifies the element to which the student is related, which he has done every year for many years.
Some children murmur about his looks, how his bald head is not shiny because of how old he is, his long beard that flows like a waterfall past his waist and the mustache and eyebrows that are so long that they hang from his face. His trembling hand passes over them, and they close their mouths so that he does not reject them.
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When the old master arrives at Chris, he is a little puzzled, even the children notice that he is having some difficulty. After some awkward silence, Yamamoto instead of continuing with the other children remains thoughtful in front of Chris until he comes to a conclusion:
—Interesting, we'd better be careful while instructing you. —Yamamoto's words leave everyone confused, especially Chris.
Of the 19 orphans only 13 were accepted in the course of adepts, as their latent powers are high enough to begin at such a young age. The remaining 6 have the option of training the spiritual arts to one day have a "container" large enough to activate the elemental powers.
—This year has been the most fruitful for Master Hama, she has brought so many children with good potential. —the monks mention seeing that the number is more than double that year.
At the end of the inspection Karen runs to Chris impressed with what happened and asks him what Yamamoto meant by what he said, but Chris knows as much as she does. Although he doesn't really care much about the training, it was Karen's idea to take the course after all.
—By the way, what element are you related to? —Karen asks very curiously.
—Ah, I think he forgot to mention it to me. With what tires me to address someone, now I have to ask him. —Chris says as he begins to search for an answer.
The first class was an introduction to the fundamentals of elemental power:
—The power of an adept depends on three factors: container capacity, purity of elemental power, and affinity to the element.
An adept harbor the elemental power of nature in their soul, so the size of the container is the first trait to take into account. The larger the size, the greater the amount of elemental power. Like the muscles of our bodies, as we use our powers our container will be strengthened, and we will be able to house more elemental power.
As the soul of an adept is equal to that of any human, depending on the current state of the individual, their elemental power will have as much purity as their soul. A soul in balance does not ensure purity, but the fidelity of desires. If your will coincides with your deepest desires, the elemental power will have more purity and therefore greater capacities. An adept with a small container with high-purity elemental power can easily match the capabilities of another adept with a large container of low-purity elemental power.
Elements are capricious, no one can fully understand their true nature, as happens between people, so your affinity to an element depends largely on the essence of your soul. Two water adepts will not be equally related to their element because of the differences in their essences. One of them will be more so because it coincides more with the Water element.
Affinity to the element is the great difference between adepts and humans, they came into the world without the ability to connect with the force of nature, although that does not mean that they do not have a chance and does not mean that your path is so narrow.
The element to which you are related is called the 'Main Element', because it is the one with which you have the greatest affinity and therefore it is the easiest to awaken. As you gain experience throughout your lives, expand your horizons and points of view, there is a possibility that the essence of your soul will change, and you can connect with a second element that is called the 'Secondary Element'.
Normally when an adept awakens a Secondary Element it is usually an element adjacent to its Main Element: an earth adept will be more likely to awaken the Element Water or Fire than to do so with Air. Although it is very rare that it happens, because carrying two elements already makes you belong to a very small circle of people in the world and even smaller if they have opposite elements."
Over the next few weeks, the monks set the children to activate their powers, getting only splashes of the water in buckets, disturbing the flames of candles, spinning a pinwheel inside a room or moving the fine sand of a Zen Garden. Chris has no motivation but sees Karen struggle with the candle she was given.
Seeing her face turning red from such concentration, Chris mentions that "those things are done in the bathroom", a joke that makes Karen embarrassed and the outburst of anger just after causes the flame to fan so much that it consumes half of the candle. The spontaneous flame was so great that everyone was shocked, and a monk extinguishes the embers left on the ceiling and floor with the water from the buckets.
The session ends prematurely, and everyone looks at Chris angrily, if it weren't for him everyone would continue training. But Karen jumps on Chris, hugging him with great excitement to discover that she has so much power to make such a big flame. Her joy protects Chris from receiving hatred, but neither of them realizes it, they are immersed in their exclusive world.
In a matter of months Karen gained enough skill to generate flames from her small hands and since then she was at the top of the adept course and her enthusiasm led her to be popular with the orphans. Meanwhile, Chris did not give everything in training, so he could hardly move the sand with great difficulty, being him completely oblivious to the words hard work and effort.
Karen's popular life distanced herself from Chris, who had no friends or sought any attention. But he couldn't help but feel the emptiness in his life, those outrageous mornings where she woke him up began to miss them. It was then that something lit up inside Chris, something as unnatural as finding fish in a volcano, motivation.
After starting to take the instructors' teachings seriously, Chris realized the long and rough road Karen traveled. To even manipulate freshly flattened land required so much concentration that Chris’ head almost exploded.
—Why don't you try the spiritual arts? —Yamamoto asks when he sees Chris exhausted on the garden floor—Sometimes it's better to leave something for a while to develop other skills.
—Do you think I won't get it? —Chris tries to keep his motivation alive.
—Certainly, being so young your container is not so large, and even if you have a good degree of purity in your elemental power you will not be able to use your powers properly. —Yamamoto's words are like knives sticking into Chris—That's why I recommend the spiritual arts, the more you know about your own soul, the easier you can advance on the path of the elements.
The next day, Karen noticed a void in her life, Chris was not in the elementary training session. Meanwhile, he was learning about the soul of humans, how it manifests itself in the world of the living, the very meaning of life and death.
Over the next year learning daily from ancient scrolls in the temple, studying while the other orphans of the spiritual course mocked Chris behind his back for leaving the elemental course, spending much of the time meditating, introspecting, he came to a revelation: his soul is broken.
Chris remembers Yamamoto's words, that care had to be taken when training him, that no matter how much he trains, he will not be able to use his elemental powers properly. So much effort, so much motivation, none of that matters if the soul with which he controls the element is broken.
—Master, how can a soul be broken? —Chris asks Yamamoto as he approaches him in the Zen Garden.
—You can't say it would be broken at all. —the old monk replies trying to make the child understand something that even adults often do not understand—A soul is not only a container of elemental power, but it also has a nucleus, a center that keeps our being complete.
—«Complete? Will there be a way to repair me? » —thinks Chris with Yamamoto's information.
—It is normal to think that the soul is like a vessel, if we receive a sufficiently deep damage our soul fragments. As the energies of the fragments are exactly the same even after the damage, they are kept together inside our container. —Yamamoto explains by showing a teapot that is about to break —The fragments remain united, despite being completely separated. Most people would think that's what heart is meant.
—«Broken heart? Like when I came to this temple. » —Chris tries to understand his situation.
—That you try to become an adept with a fragmented soul is as if you dedicate yourself to learning to run a marathon with crippled legs. —Yamamoto finishes destroying Chris’ motivation"—But that doesn't mean it's all over for you, I propose you this: Until you finish the advanced course of the spiritual arts, you're not going to use your elemental powers.
With that, Chris put the elemental training aside flatly and went even deeper into his own soul. Receiving direct teaching from Yamamoto, something that even experienced monks did not have the honor of receiving, even though the temple itself is detached from civilization, Chris isolated himself from everyone he knew.
Meanwhile, Karen had managed to reach new heights with her elemental power, though she misses spending time with Chris. Before she would pick him up in the mornings, but with her popularity growing and him isolating himself in his spiritual training the two have become too far apart.
—«Where are you? » —asks Karen as she lies on the bed where he slept in the middle of the night, inevitably hugging his pillow.