"Kuro, you ready head out?" Kenny asked as he stood by the doorway, watching Kuro dye his hair black.

"Hold on, lemme just put 'permanency' on this shit."

"Hold up, you can already do that?"

"Well, yeah. My Null magic is level 9 after all." Kuro casually says as he cuts away his long hair.

"What the-?! How the heck, are you even 13?!"

"Don't mistake age for effort my boy. I always use Null magic, even now."

"And there you go again, speaking like an old man, and what do you mean by always?"

"You know, when I train, spar, eat, sleep, cook, hunt, this, when I'm standing, I basically always use it."

"Just how much mana do you have?"

Kuro then washes his head to rid of the excess black dye sticking to his head, "As I kept saying, more than you guys combined."

"Haa... Are we even needed anymore?"

"Look, I don't care if you guys promised my mother that you'd protect me. So long as you do you, and I do me, then we're good." Kuro then finishes up by drying his hair with his towel.

"How'd you--" Kenny was then interrupted by Kuro as he placed his hand on his lips, gesturing a quiet pose in front of him.

Kuro had a slender build and face, whose identity would be mistaken if not for his short, spiky masculine hair and his brutal way of fighting. Kuro still remembers his image from the mirror, 'Damn, I look like a fucking trap.' As they went outside the bathroom with their bags, Kuro let out a deep sigh.

*SSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH*

"Why Kuro?" Kuro looks at the source of the voice, to see Bea behind him.

"Well, I just saw how I really resembled my mother."

"Isn't that a good thing?"

"Yeah, if I was a girl that is."

Then, another voice came out, "Oh cheer up Kuro, at least when you get to spy on people, they'll think of you as a girl. Heck, you can even trap them and absorb their powers for your own." Kuro looked behind to see that it was Gran.

"Well Gran, wanna try sucking my powers for a test? Who knows, we might be able to finally discover if your head really is empty or not, it might overflow, it might not."

"Hey! Don't mistake my bottomless hunger for knowledge!"

"Wow jeesh bottomless, really bottomless, it's like I can't see your brain... Oh wait, it isn't there, it never really existed to begin with."

As Kuro and Gran annoyed each other on the hallway, Levy threw a knife on their head. Luckily, it was a blunt one.

"You guys are too annoying. MOVE." As soon as she said that, Kuro and Gran immediately knelt down with Kuro on the left and Gran on the right with both their heads down.

"Well, even if it's the arrogant Kuro, even he surrenders to Levy when she's mad huh..." Kenny whispers to Bea to which she nods.

Suddenly, they heard a loud clap.

"Alright kids, are you ready to go now?" Rai, along with a big gale wyvern was outside the house.

"""Yes!""" "Yep."

As the others struggled to straddle their things on the big wyvern's back, Kuro was looking at the shack that they have been living in for the past 6 years, which now looked poor and dim.

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"Cheer up kiddo, once you guys graduate, you can come back here whenever you want."

"I know... It's just that, even in my past life, I have a really hard time on letting stuff go. Heck, I can't even let go of my old ballpen. I think it was still in my bag before I died."

Rai laughed hard, "Well kid, there's a lot more you'll have to separate with."

"Yeah... I know."

As they looked behind, they saw Gran falling to the ground after trying to tie his stuff on to the wyvern's back, they laughed at him hard.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

RAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!

They flew amongst the clouds, As the others had tried to touch the clouds, Kuro tried to look at the mountains. They were protected by the Gale wyvern's protective wind shield so they won't have to brace themselves or try to protect themselves from the wind pressure too much.

Kuro never forgot his promise with Mina. To go to the promised location once she lets out a flare. However, even at that height, Kuro couldn't find the village. He couldn't find their mountain.

'Guide, do you know about this?'

'Query: According to your memories, you have been teleported through a portal. It is suggested that you have been transported to a location far away from there.'

'I see... Sorry Mina, but that promise will have to wait for a long while.'

Kuro then put his back against the wyvern's back and raised his arm.

'Damn... School huh...'

He covered his eyes with his arm and slept.

----------------------------------------

Kuro opened his eyes. However, instead of his friends greeting him, he was in a pitch black room instead.

"Huh?"

Kuro looked around. He tried standing up, but fail to do so.

'Guide, help me out.'

...

"But there was none."

"Who's there?!"

Kuro looked around again, this time, he saw people. A lot of people.

"69,420. Castle. Window. Girl. Protect. Love, forever."

"What?"

"Go."

"Go."

"Go."

All the other people behind the leader spoke one by one. "Go." They all pointed at him, slowly getting closer and closer. Kuro felt it, the pressure. The heavy pressure made him feel as if he was in an ocean. They surround him, yelling "Go." at him. He couldn't see their faces, nor make out their figure. It was dark, they were dark, yet he could clearly see their fingers, their mouth uttering the same word repeatedly. He remembers his past. His family that shunned him for being a failure, even they pointed at him. Even they uttered the words, "Go." It was an unforgettable feeling. The pressure of society where he must go with haste without failure. All he could do was lay down in a fetus position, cover his ears and cry.

"Stop."

They continued.

"Stop!"

They continued.

----------------------------------------

"Fucking stop! -?!"

"Kuro, you good?"

Kuro looked around once more to see that they were on the ground... He was on the ground. Everyone else were trying to untie their stuff from the Gale wyvern's back.

"You were crying. You okay kid?"

"Haa... Nah, it's... It's good. Don't worry."

"You know you can NOT go to school right? If your past haunts you, I'm willing to let you stop you know?"

"It's not that. And besides, if I don't go, how about them? You do realize that they'll follow me wherever I go, right?"

"Guess so... But are you sure you're fine?"

"Don't worry about it. After all, I do love that one quote."

"Which is?"

"'Learn from your past, but never look back to it.'"

"Who'd you quote it from?"

"Meh, just made it up on the spot."

"That was lame."

"Indeed. Now, let's go. They're done with getting their stuff."

They all walked the rest of the journey towards the city through the road.

"Why can't we have a bag like Kuro's?" Kenny complains as he brings his stuff behind him.

"Unlike you guys, I created my bag and enchanted it with dimensional storage." Kuro dangles his dimensional bag in front of them.

Annoyed, they all look at each other and Kuro.

"Eh? Why are you guys looking at me like that? What are you thinking?"

"Kuro. Give." Levy reached out her hand towards Kuro.

"Levy, even if it's you, no. It's my hard work, and it's fair if I choose what I want to do with it." Kuro then increases his body enhancement.

"Oh now you're on." As Kenny prompts it, Gran takes out his rifle that Kuro and Rai specially and specifically created for him, Bea takes out her staff which they also made, Kenny, his gauntlets, and Levy, her daggers.

"OH HECK NAH!"

They ran straight through as Rai followed them laughing out loud. Kuro was fast, but as soon as Levy was buffed by Bea and she used her powers, Kuro was no match for her speed, but he was still superior in many aspects.

As Levy charged at him, Kuro took out the crossbow attached to his gauntlet and launched a shot upwards. As he did so, he created a small ember on his fingertips, and as Levy was about to touch him, he simply smiled as he looked at the ember and disappeared.

"Tch! He teleported to the fire up there!"

"Gosh dang it Kuro, that's unfair!"

"Nothing's unfair between love and war! At this case, it's war!" Kuro boasted as he stood on his barriers.

"Gran. Bea. Shoot."

"Roger Ma'am."

"Y-yes!"

*PHOO* *CRACKLE*

Lightning and wind shots came out of Bea's staff and Gran's gun respectively.

"Gosh dang it!" Kuro then extended his barrier as he noticed Levy talking to Kenny. He knew what was about to happen.

Kenny lowered his hands as Levy stepped on it. Then, Kenny threw her up to Kuro's direction. She then sliced through his barrier using her daggers, but before she could reach for Kuro's neck, he immediately released smoke. As she reached on to his neck, it was nowhere to be grabbed on. Rather, he was nowhere to be seen.

"What the?!"

She looked towards the direction of the town, to see Kuro... Near the line to the gate of the town.

"Bleehhh" Kuro laughed as he kept boasting at them.