Chapter 03: A Job Well Done

*"I have to meetup with them as fast as possible"*- Nine thought as he casted a healing spell to stop the bleeding from his hand. *"This isn't good. I'll run out of stamina if the bleeding doesn't stop."* He was hoping that his wound wasn't cursed, but when the bleeding didn't stop even after casting healing spell, Nine became a bit worried. He got up, tore a piece of his shirt from underneath his jacket and tied up the wounded area. *"But where did they go after we got separated? I haven't even heard anything in last half an hour or so. They should be safe if they're together. Only if I was a bit more alert......"*- He looked at his wound again in regret.

*"Tch....no point in sneaking around."*- Nine made up his mind to go find the other two. This facility is relatively smaller compared to the main branch, and it researches on lesser Emory creatures, who are considerably weak and isn't considered life threatening.

*"There's no way in hell a freaking gatekeeper was kept here for research purposes, let alone an alive one."*- Nine tried to clear up his mind and think what was actually going on. That was when he heard scratching sounds coming from behind him. Instinctively, Nine turned his head and jumped away a few feet. He's lucky that he moved away, because right at that moment, five sharp, dagger like nails almost sliced through the wall he was standing next to with extreme speed. Nine looked at the aggressor, and cursed. It was a hideous looking creature, about 7 feel tall, sharp large claws that can be compared to short scimitars, doesn't look like it has any eyes, and has open wound like several marks on it's whole body, which are radiating some sort of weak vibration frequency, which is causing Nine to feel nauseous, making his movements slower and making him unable to think clearly.

*"This isn't funny even as a joke"*

Nine is a spirit arts user, but a very special kind. He overflows his mana vessel with mana which he can harden at will and use it to create spirit weapons. This unique technique is called mana crystallization and was developed by 3rd generation knight Rosario Senetile, and perfected by Nine himself. It's impossible for anyone other than himself to block his spirit swords, which makes him a formidable opponent for even a blessed class 5. Currently only two people are known to use this technique, Sir Rosario and Nine himself. While his ability is exceptionally good for frontal battles, the current situation is one of the very few possible disadvantageous situation for him. Creating a spirit weapon takes a lot of mana and even more concentration. Right now, Nine is badly hurt, the curse inflicted on his wound is draining all the mana out of him, and even if he can manage to make a weapon anyway, he can't concentrate enough right now to make one because of the vibrations the gatekeeper kept emitting.

*"This really is bad. I could really use some help right about now"*, Nine moved his whole body to the left avoiding another fatal blow, then tried to directly strike a aura blast to it's body but failed due to nauseous feeling. Failing to attack successfully, Nine again had to get away from the huge monstrous figure.

*"This won't work. Aura blast doesn't seem to work on that thing and running around in this condition only drains away my mana and stamina. Which means..."* Nine jumped away to create some distance between them. This way, the weak vibration frequencies can't reach Nine at this distance. Nine casted a basic strength enhancement spell on his body, not even nearly as strong as an enhancers ability, but it does give him a little more than average strength and speed boost. He then prepares for attack.

- "I'm pretty sure this is an maze spell. My mana trace can't pick up any sign of Nines mana vessel, I can't even pick up on his heat signature with my pyro kinesis. A simple illusion spell wouldn't be able to do this much." Mirai said as she and Yami kept finding a way out of this mess.

- "To break out of this spell I have to find the place where it's been casted. Otherwise, there's nothing I can do."

Mirai started to think back on what happened after they reached the facility.

Right after they reached the research facility, they split up to cover the whole area and finish their work as soon as possible. The goal was to collect information on at least 10 different kinds of Emory shards altogether and then meet up at the front gate of the building. But soon after they split up, Mirai noticed something odd about the institution. There wasn't any researchers present in there, she couldn't hear anyone talk, or any sound at all. Even when you work, you're constantly making sounds, talking to your assistants, walking around and things like that. That's how a workplace, no matter how serious that may be, stays lively. But in her case, Mirai was experiencing unnerving dead silence, which indicated that something was definitely wrong. She scanned for possible Human heat signatures, but couldn't find any. Mirai then decided to investigate the place and head towards the laboratory. On her way there she heard a sound coming from the left so she took cover behind a wall to check it out, only to find Yami heading towards the same direction, his eyes slightly narrowed, movements cautious, and facial expression similar to that of Mirai's. Which confirmed that Yami was also sensing trouble. Mirai called Yami and joined up with him. Since then, they've been walking for nearly 40 minutes but to no avail. It seems as though they keep circling around the same place over and over, but each time some details get changed. They're now fully aware that this is a trap set up by someone to prevent anyone from getting in the lab.

- "Do you think Nine has any Idea about what's going on? If this keeps up and Nine finishes his job, he won't be able to find us."

Yami's words snapped her back to reality.

- "We need to get out of here before that. Got any ideas?"

- "I've already told you once, can't help till we find the location of the spell."

Yami then stops to think about the current situation. He then started observing his surroundings. They're currently walking through a corridor. The walls are extremely smooth. They've searched for the cast location on the walls, but it didn't help. He looked at the ceiling. It's quite higher than average apartment ceilings, which is not surprising since this isn't an average residential apartment. If the spell has been casted somewhere on the ceiling, it'd be impossible to reach it without somekind of a support item, like a ladder of some sort. The absurdly smooth walls make it impossible to climb up. Yami then looks at Mirai, and keeps staring at her. After a few moments Mirai notices and becomes a bit embarrassed.

- "What are you staring at?"

- "You know, there is one way we could get out of this mess", Yami said with a smug look on his face. Mirai looked at him with curiosity in her eyes.

- "Wanna blast the walls?"

- "I could, if it was an ordinary wall. I already thought about doing that, but it actually won't work. Don't forget were dealing with a spell here, without destroying the spell or casting a counter spell we can't do anything to it. And even if we find the location, destroying a spell this potent requires a specialist."

- "I'm not forgetting anything, and leave the spell negation to me. I just need you to hit the wall with your ability."

Mirai's eyes widened, "Wait a minute, That could actually work. Let's try and see what happens", hot, blue flames started forming around her hand.

If someone tries to break a powerful barrier spell without dispelling it or casting a counter spell it'd be impossible for them to actually break it unless they possess a tremendous mana vessel, for example, maybe just a handful of knights from the last 3 gens could actually pull it off. But, trying to break the spell in the wrong way triggers a mana surge for just a moment. Someone with enough skills can locate the casting area by tracing the mana surge. Mirai here, is skilled enough to do it.

Mirai covered he whole arm with blue flames, making it hot enough to melt everything down. Then she punched the wall as hard as she could. Funnily enough, she couldn't sense any mana surge around her.

- "Nothing here. Let's move forward and try again."

- "Yeah."

But before they could move, they heard a sound that froze them on the spot. It's the sound of someone, or rather, something, howling. This blood chilling howl is something Yami was familiar with.

- "Mirai! Get away from the wall! It's a gatekeeper!"

In a fraction of a moment, something broke out of the wall, throwing Mirai several metres away on the floor.

- "Mirai!"

Yami instantly rushed to Mirai, picked her up and went away from the gatekeeper. The whole process took him about a couple of seconds.

- "Tch.....to think that a live gatekeeper specimen was kept here in this small research facility without any countermeasures, what were they thinking?" He looked at Mirai," You ok there?"

- "Yeah. Don't worry about me, how do we deal with that thing?"

Yami looked at the huge figure approaching them.

Yami once was sent on an execution mission with a group of professionals. He only started his highschool first year at Nightfall after finishing his middle school from the same academy, and was excited to see how hunting missions actually work. The gatekeepers are the Emories who guard the portal and prevent anyone from entering from the outside. It's actually extremely hard to go from a world to another by an inter dimensional portal, it requires a strong soul, pure mana vessel and an extremely strong mana barrier. But if you try to enter the portal anyway, the gatekeeper finally comes out to terminate it's enemies. It's fairly hard to take down a gatekeeper, and it takes a team of at least 4 4th class Sirius or a 5th class Sirius with at least one support class mage.

- "With two of us class 5s, it shouldn't take long to deal with that thing."

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- "Well, I'm going to charge in, Yami support me if anything goes south."

Mirai blasted her way to gatekeeper's face. The beast, using it's dagger like claws slashed at Mirai, but she changed her trajectory with an explosion and evaded the attack, then she blasted the gatekeeper right in its face at point blank range. The massive shockwave caused her to move back a bit.

- "Get back, it's not enough to take that thing down." Yami shouted at Mirai. Mirai jumped away to create some distance with the huge figure.

When the smoke disappeared, it didn't seem like the gatekeeper took any damage at all.

- "What the heck? That blast had enough firepower to take down a fully grown wild elephant. It should at least have taken some damage?!"

- "I'm not sure. There's a lot of odd things going around here right now."

*"How did it actually break a wall that's been created with a spell?"*- Yami thought, *"Now that I think about it, how did it make its way here through the spell? I'm even having trouble believing that there was a gatekeeper kept here at this small facility for research purpose. Even if they did capture and keep one of those here, it shouldn't be able to escape, let alone find us trapped in a maze spell.....unless..."*

- "Mirai, I'm going to find you an opening, when that thing is distracted, get closer and hit it with your best shot. Make sure it doesn't survive." Yami started running towards the gatekeeper, "A lot of things are depending on how hard you hit it, because you'll get only one shot at this."

- "Understood".

With inhuman speed, Yami closed the distance between himself and the gatekeeper, and punched hard in its abdomens. His fist hit the beast like a sledgehammer, showing Yami's incredible physical strength. Unbelievably, the same gatekeeper that didn't budge an inch with Mirai's tremendous explosion, was forced to skid away a few steps.

*"Hmm, my predictions were right. I think I figured it out. It has a high magic resistance, but against brute strength it's weak."*- he then took a step back and landed a hook kick on it's head, causing it to flinch. *"I think this is a good chance"* Just when Yami decided to create an opening for Mirai, he started feeling a bit nauseous.

*"Crap, I ignored the vibration frequency for too long"* Yami tried to get back, but it was too late. The monster was already back on it's feet. It quickly grabbed his left arm and burrowed him in the wall. Mirai was about to rush in when Yami shouted at her not to get any closer yet.

- "Don't! Not yet!"

Yami got himself out of the wall, stood up and in the blink of an eye, he appeared behind the gatekeeper and placed his hand on its back. Suddenly, the gatekeeper became almost powerless and fell down on its knees. The vibrations stopped.

- "Now Mirai!"- he shouted.

Mirai closed the distance between them within a few moments and placed her hand on the beasts chest. She took a deep breath and concentrated all her mana in a certain point of her palm. Her light brown short hair started to float around her neck, and her normally emerald green eyes turned deep sapphire blue for a moment. She exhaled, and blasted the gatekeeper with all the firepower she had left. Concentrated blue flames burned right through its body like a laser beam, hitting Yami, who was standing behind the gatekeeper. There was no smoke, only the smell of burned flesh filled the space. The huge monstrous figure fell down as it started to turn to ashes and disappear slowly, leaving a deep black, granite like hard crystal on the floor.

Mirai collapsed on the ground and sighed. She kept staring at Yami with a relaxed expression in her eyes. She looks glad yet somehow a bit disappointed.

- "Hmm? What are you thinking about?"- Yami asked as he picked up the crystal from the floor.

- "You. Quite frankly, I'm a bit disappointed with myself. That was my full power, you know? You took a direct blast of 100% of my power, yet look at yourself, walking around, unscathed, like nothing happened."

- "So you're saying, you'd actually be happy to see me get burned to death?"

- "No you idiot. I'm thinking that although we both are labeled class 5s, I don't think I can ever beat you in a fair fight. That's how impressive your abilities are."

- "Now now, don't look down on yourself. With enough training you'll surpass me in no time, I just know it", Yami smiled, "And there is always the option of unfair fight, which is actually tactical, or strategical fight. People who can't win just call it unfair cuz they can't accept losing to a superior strategy."- Yami extended his hand- "Get up." Mirai took his hand and got up from the floor.

- "See? That's why the Emory shards have such high demands. Even that tremendous blast of yours couldn't scratch it. Yeah, this one gatekeeper shard will make up for all of our assignments. I wonder if I can get my hands on a shard embedded weapon someday. Well. Enough with that. Mirai, tell me, do you see anything different around you?"

Mirai looked around, and with a great surprise she realised that there wasn't any corridor to begin with. They are already in the lab, which seems to have been evacuated. A wall on a side is kind of broken, it's clear that this was the wall Yami got burrowed in.

- "But how? We couldn't find the spell location, let alone destroy it. So how.....wait....you don't mean....but that's impossible."- Mirai looked at Yami with disbelief in her eyes.

- "Yeah. The spell was casted on the gatekeeper. When I touched its back, the spell was broken, I saw it. Which means there's someone here who deliberately casted the spell and let the gatekeeper escape. He can still be around. It's already been over an hour, we must find Nine immediately."

Nine wasn't in good shape. He took some heavy hits having to deal with the gatekeeper alone. He's wise to have taken the right decision to cast enhancement spell on himself. The slight boost in speed and strength he gained made up for the stamina and mana he lost so far. But now, the balance isn't even anymore. He has lost way too much blood, he's almost drained of stamina, and his body is aching for overusing his mana vessel.

* "This is it. If this doesn't work, I'm probably finished."*- Nine wiped the blood off his lips, got up again, and started charging up his duel wielding spirit short swords. He mustered all his strength, and rushed towards the gatekeeper. He thrusted the swords right through the monster. The gatekeeper flinched and fell on its knees. Nine was completely drained out. He let go of the swords, which disappeared the next moment. He collapsed on the ground. *"I don't think I can move for the next few hours."*

Just when Nine thought that everything was over, the gatekeeper started moving again. It was still alive. It grabbed Nine's face and threw him in a wall. Nine couldn't move, he just sat there in the pile of rubbles. He knew this was it for him. *"A gatekeeper, huh? That's how I'm going to die then?"*

The gatekeeper was now furious, leaning towards Nine, it lift up it's claws to slash him. Nine looked at its face.

- "Oy, don't you look down on me you ugly basterd."- Suddenly, he extended one of his hands and grabbed its face. The vibrations didn't let him concentrate his mana, so he started overflowing the gatekeeper whole body with all his mana instead. Overusing mana causes the vessel to crack. Too much of this and one can easily lose their ability, or in many cases, die. Nine knew he was going to die, but he decided to deny that.

- "I'm not the one dying here today, you are." After overflowing mana throughout its body, Nine immediately crystallised his mana. Sound of muscles being torn can be heard. Dark blackish red blood splattered all over Nine's face. Nine removed his hand from its face. The distorted body of the gatekeeper fell on the ground and started turning into ashes. As the blood on Nine's face turned to ashes and disappeared, Nine lost his consciousness due to heavy burning sensation throughout his whole body. Before he fell unconscious, he could hear faint footsteps coming from far away.

When Nine finally opened his eyes again, he found himself in what seemed like a hospital bed, with bandages all over his body. There's a omamori stuck to his left hand where the curse was inflicted. Lisa Sensei was sitting on a chair next to his bed, her face looks like she was worried sick, her eyes still kind of watery. When she saw him open his eyes, she just exclaimed an awkward "Wahh!" and immediately got up and went out to call the doctor without letting Nine say anything. *"What time is it, I wonder..."*

An old man wearing a doctors apron entered the room, Lisa Sensei walked in behind him.

- "How are you feeling, young man?" The awkwardly happy looking doctor asked.

- "I can't even see my body through all these bandages, let alone feel anything."- Nine replied with a dry voice.

- "Looks like he'll be fine", the doctor said looking at Lisa Sensei. "He should be able to leave the hospital in two more days." He looked at Nine, "You're quite lucky to not have broken any bones. Don't worry. The injuries have been treated and the bandages aren't really needed anymore, you're actually healed. We'll take them off today and depending on how you feel you can leave in two days. Well, I'm off. Press this button here if you need anything, a nurse will come to check on you." The doctor left the room.

- "Where are the other two?"

- "They're fine. They are the ones that found you." Lisa Sensei proudly looked at Nine, "I can't believe you defeated a gatekeeper all by yourself. You really outdid yourself. There's a chance that you'll be re evaluated for class promotion, depending on your next few weeks of performance." She gently caressed Nine's forehead, "Did it hurt too much? Why do my students have to be so reckless all the times? Do you have any idea how worried sensei was?"

Before Nine could say anything, the door opened, Letting Mirai and Yami in.

- "You really did it you son of a gun. You defeated a gatekeeper all by yourself and lived to see another day", Yami put a bag of fruits beside his bed. Mirai also brought some flowers and what looked like a box of cookies which she put down at the same place as the fruits bag. She seems angry. "Idiot. In critical situations like these you need to retreat and wait for backup. We were already on our way to find you. Why'd you have to go and get yourself hurt?"

- "Hey hey, cool it. Cut my man some slack here, will ya?" Yami smiled, and then turned to Nine, "Hey, Nine, I'm curious. How did you get that wound?" He pointed at the curse removing omamori.

- "About that, there was someone else at the facility. I was ambushed, and got a knife wound. If I had to guess it was infused with a curse spell."

Yami looked at Mirai. Nine narrowed his eyes, "Why are you asking?"

- "We got stuck in a stupid maze spell casted by someone else. And also, there was another gatekeeper there that attacked us."- Mirai replied.

- "Two gatekeepers? That's impossible, like, literally impossible."

- "Unless someone from the outside summons two different gates that is. Well, don't worry about that. Get plenty of rest and come back to the academy soon. And don't worry about the assignment", Yami smiled, "We passed with flying colours, thanks to the invaluable keeper shards. Nobody expected two keeper shards in one night. Students are already talking about it. Cheer up, you're now a celebrity."

Nine looked at Lisa Sensei with an exhausted look, "Does Jirou know anything about this?"

- "No, she's been told that you've been sent to training camp. She's living at Mirai's place for now."

Nine looked Mirai, "Thanks, I owe you one for this. I hope my sister didn't cause you much trouble."

- "Don't mention it. She's a sweet little kid and fun to hang around. In fact, I hope you don't get well, that way I can keep her all to myself."- Mirai said with a almost serious tone and facial expression.

Yami looked at his teacher and asked in a lower voice, "Sensei, did you check his reports?"

- "Yes, the mana traces match the ones found on the knife you submitted at the office."- Lisa Akane whispered back. They are trying to keep the clocktower assault a secret in order to find if the culprit is one of the members of the academy.

- "well, anyway," sensei said to Mirai and Yami, "enough chatter. Let Nine rest a bit more. I have a work for you guys", she took a piece of paper out of her bag. "I met a student last night who applied for changing his student course. I offered him to move to the dorms but he refused. We don't have his present address registered, so I'd like the both of you to go to this address that he provided and confirm the location. His name is Elric and he'll be joining the second years with you guys, so try to make a good first impression", she handed the address to Yami, "since you guys are done with your assignments, I figured you wouldn't mind doing this little favour of mine?"

- "No, not at all." Yami looked at the piece of paper, "woah, this location is quite far from here. That guy is willing to come to the academy from way there, but he refused to move to the dorms?"

- "Yeah. Maybe he lives with his family and doesn't want to get separated. I didn't ask him. So, are you up for it?"

- "Yeah. I'll be heading there this evening along with Mirai." He turned to Nine, "Get well and come back. Don't slack off."

- "Nope. I prefer to stay here in peace and quiet. You guys are too noisy."

- "Yeah, we miss you too", Yami and Nine both laughed, and the Yami headed out.

- "I'll head back too, your sister is alone at home. Take care."

After they went out, Lisa Akane also got up, "I'll have to leave now too. I'll be back in the evening to check on you, so don't worry. And Nine", sensei looked genuinely sad, "Don't take risks like this ever again, okay? There are people who worry about you. You have to support your sister too, right?"

- "Yeah", Nine muttered as he closed his eyes.