Another three days pass with no sign of Carie or Lera. At this point in time, all the male members of the investigation group are sitting at the benches in Unimori's courtyard, chatting with each other. “When do you guys think they'll be back?” Jian says, looking a little worried.
“Man, I hope it's real soon....” Boz says, sharing Jian's worry.
Sin huffs. “Although I am worried about the girls, I'm even more worried about what Raphael said the Sigil heads are planning.... If he takes too long, we might just have to find out their plans on our own!”
Unbeknownst and unseen by the group, a female figure in a Unimori uniform has just vaulted over the Unimori wall near the dormitories with a handstand and a drop right after.
Not a single one of them hears her running to them, her step's quiet. She launches up into the air when she is only about fifteen feet away from Boz and lands on top of him screaming “Boz!”
This catches everyone by surprise. Sin leaps up when he sees Boz slammed into the ground, while Jian has a look of complete shock on his face. Sin goes over to the girl and picks her up off of Boz. “What the hell are you-”
Sin stops himself short when he sees the girl's face. The person who had leaped onto Boz's back without him noticing in the slightest was none other than Lera Fuin, the recently trained ninja “Sorry about that!” Lera says, being half held in the air. “I was just so excited to be back that I couldn't help but sneak up on all of you!”
Sin lowers Lera, seeing as she didn't cause any harm to Boz. After he has let go of her, Sin says “If you're done your training, then that means....”
“Yeah, Carie is done too. She's on her way right now.” Lera says, patting the dust off of her uniform.
Sin looks around and doesn't see any sign of Carie. When he is certain that Carie isn't around, he says “Well, where is she?”
“Oh, right there....” Lera says, pointing behind Sin.
Suddenly, an uproar of fire envelopes the location where Lera was pointing to. The fire leaps up to the size of a human being, and then a human outline appears within the fire. The fire breaks away moments later and Carie appears from the center of where the fire once was. Carie does a bow before saying “Hello, my friends!”
Everyone, except for Lera stares at Carie, all of them not exactly sure what just occured. “D-Did you just.... What the hell was that!?” Jian says, clueless about what had just happened.
“It is actually a little technical.” Carie says, giving Jian a wink. “It has something to do with projecting your inner fire to a certain area and then enveloping yourself in your own fire.... Well, either way, me and Lera are now officially apprentices! I am a fire mage, while she is a ninja. Both of our trainer's said that we have incredible potential. Anyway, we need to get to business! Come on, we should talk somewhere private....”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Everyone is now inside of Jian's dorm room. Carie shuts the door behind her and then sits down next to Sin. Carie then begins to speak “Listen, along with Raphael showing and training us in our respective arts, he also told us that there is a single element left that needs to show up before Raphael's plan can come to fruition! There is a single person that needs to show up to our group. Raphael told me and Lera that we shouldn't be searching him out, but that he will instead find him for us and point him in our direction.”
“So, you're a fire mage now, huh?” Sin says, giving Carie a slight quirk of his brow. “We've seen that you can basically teleport by fire, but what else can you do?”
Without saying a word, Carie raises her right hand into the air, palm pointing upward, and a small geyser of shifting flames in the form of an infinity sign appears over top of her palm. “This is just a manifestation of the power I wield... there are many more things I can do with my abilities as a fire mage. I cannot show you here, unfortunately. If I did try to show you something else, I would probably light the dormitory on fire, so that will have to wait.”
“As for me...” says Lera, standing up from Boz's bed. She bends down and goes into a handstand on one hand. While in the handstand, she flicks her free hand and a shuriken comes out of a hidden compartment in her sleeve. “I have been trained in the art of ninjitsu, but the form I have been trained in is good for standard fighting and for stealth tactics.” Lera shifts her shuriken in-between her index and middle finger and throws it into the center of the dart board that Jian has situated on his door. “I have also been trained in how to throw shurikens accurately and how to conceal weapons correctly without showing any jolts in my clothing from where the weapons are concealed at.”
Lera flips herself back onto her feet and sits back on Boz's bed. “How have you guy's been while we were gone?”
Jian coughs before speaking. “Well, you two obviously have gotten some good training, which is great. Anyway, not much has really happened while you were gone. Me and Quib... well, it got better to say the least. Sin and Boz were attacked by what they call 'gray men with black swords' and just barely made it out alive, but other than that, we've mainly just been anticipating your return.”
“Yeah, now tell us what Raphael's plans are!” Sin says, gritting his teeth.
“He didn't tell us, unfortunately. Although, we did hear some muttering from the soldiers in his group. They were saying something about some big operation coming up related to a someplace called Sliar, that something about a king's quest was going on? Beats me what that's about. Probably some other operation their group is doing.” Carie responds.
“Wait, you did say something earlier about someone else coming before the operation can get started, do you know who that is?” Boz says, hoping that Carie might have been informed of this.
“Actually, Raphael did tell me who it is, although he barely knows anything about the guy himself. According to Raphael, he should be here in a couple of days, and after that, Raphael will contact us and we can start getting ready for the mission!” Carie says, happy that she can help.
“And who might that be?” says Jian.
Carie remains quiet for a second. When she speaks, the group is surprised by her answer.
“The Dusk Avenger....”