"-overcome by hubris, the boy flew higher and higher with this newfound power of his. Higher and higher he went, past the clouds, past the sky, past the gods themselves, until he could almost touch the sun. However, almost was all he could ever achieve. For the might of the sun burnt the boy to a crisp, banishing him back down to the earth; past the gods, past the sky, past the clouds, past even the earth itself; until the boy was no more."

-Fables of the Old World, by Ethan Smith

As the blade struck down for a second time, the screeching sound of scraping metal rang out from the conflict, among the heavy clouds of dust and wind emanating from Daniel's strikes. When the dust had cleared, many assumed to lay their eyes upon the sight of Esther split into two by Daniel's blade. Instead, the second strike had been blocked by a crouching figure who intercepted the attack, the figure's dagger blocking and holding back Daniel's katana. Esther fell back to the ground, paralysed by fear and with a steady stream of yellowish liquid pooling around him. And the man who intervened? One of the teachers. His teacher. The two locked into a confrontation, met each-other's murderous gaze, staring down one-another to see who would make the next move.

"Lightning doesn't strike twice, boy." Lanyon uttered, strangely calm, "Put your weapon down, or you'll get hurt!"

"..."

"Now, Boy !"

"Fine..." Daniel shamefully complied, dragging his weapon away from the confrontation and back into the scabbard that sat at his right side.

"Don't do that again, Daniel. Not ever again, if you value your life at all."

The sight of victory that would be usually rewarded with congratulations and an applause was soured by one of the opponent's actions; the fact that Daniel almost killed Esther. The Esther. And for that, the audience could only treat the victor with a disappointed glare, but making sure not to stare for too long, in fear that they would be struck down just the same. For Daniel, he could only march stiffly away and into a corner of the courtyard, sit down, and watch the other participants, both parties in awe of what the artless fool just did. Shortly after, a group of medics began to escort Esther out of the courtyard, bracing his broken hands. There was blood.

Time crawled forwards, porcelains starting to challenge each other and spar with Daniel staring into nothingness by his lonesome. The shouts and war-cry's of Daniel's fellow porcelains were drowned out by the intense void of all-consuming thought. Daniel's thought, whatever left of it there may be, was no non-existent. Yet one thing remained. A single idea; a single word. Kill. From the moment he had begun to swing his blade Daniel thought nothing but that. Kill. Even the relinquishing of his blade was not of realising his wrongs but instinct, an urge to do one thing. Kill. The realisation that he could not win against that opponent forced him onto one path. Kill. All the porcelains beside him had been reduced to nothing but objects to overcome, nothing in front of the thing piloting Daniel's instincts. Kill. Rather than fellow classmates, they seemed not very different from what Daniel considered monsters. Kill. Yes... a monster. To kill.

"Hey!"

"...”

"Ya there, Daniel?"

"K-w-what?"

The void of thought froze and a whirlpool inside of Daniel's mind formed, sucking it away in a violent fight against his own conscience. The intolerable, dark, horrid urge had disappeared. And looking up at who called his name, with the sun glaring behind them, stood a young girl only barely taller than him even sitting down; Nynae.

"Oh, it's you Nyn." Daniel recollected.

"Who else would it be! It's kinda sad, ain't it."

"What's sad?"

"That you're just pouting over here like you've just made a fool out of yourself in front of the entire Academy!" shouted Nyn, before realising that what she said was exactly what had happened, "Oh... That did- Anyway! Shall I sit before you, milord?" she said, accompanied with an over-courteous bow.

"Of course you can! What's that all about?"

Nyn left out a hefty laugh, "Just trying to cheer you up..." she admitted, sitting down next to Daniel.

Without the sun obscuring Nyn, Daniel could finally see Nyn properly. Rather than the mostly smart and kempt-looking girl he had met yesterday, he was met with the true Nyn; not the one who tried to make a good impression the day before. Instead, a frivolous and joking girl had appeared today, wearing a pair of borrowed leggings and slightly dirtied blouse, with a smile too large for her small face. Yet, the parts where her frail skin was revealed, were covered in bruises both small and large, with the occasional cuts.

"What on Alium happened to you!"

"Nothing much," Nyn shrugged, her gaze pointing downwards, "I may have bitten off more than I could chew, challenging that guy with the fancy spear."

"Who were they?" said Daniel, trying to remember who he had seen with the spear beforehand.

"I don't know their name, or might have even forgotten it, but everyone was afraid of him... He was very pretty though! That white hair could make any respectable maiden, much like myself, very jealous."

"Sun."

"Huh?"

"His name is Sun," Daniel stated, "I met him on my way to the Guild this morning since I don't live in the dorms."

"Well, this 'Sun' guy or whatever his name was, was a little piece of... he was a little bugger!"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I chose a staff for my weapon of choice, since they don't have the weapons my tribe had so I went with something simple. Next thing I know, I was facing off with him. Who in their right mind puts someone with a large weapon like that against a bloody wooden pole!" exclaimed Nyn, releasing her pent-up annoyance, "Anyway, when we started he lunged forward; I took that as him closing the distance so I fought back, trying to hit his face with the bottom of that pole. Instead, I found myself being dragged closer! That little bugger and yanked me forward with that thing jutting out of the side of his weapon's blade. Then, he went like ‘wop’! Knocked me straight in the face with the handle of his weapon; gave me a nasty nose-bleed that did. And then - And then! This... this... guy had the audacity to try and slice my head off! My bloody head! Clean off! Lucky for me it was stopped just before by the teacher, but still!"

"Thats-"

"Terrible! I know!" interrupted Nyn, strutting back and forth, "The nerve of that guy!"

"Y-yeah..."

"Anyway, I'm gonna go and watch the mock battles, and hope that 'Sun' guy gets a good kickin' in the ass. Wanna join?"

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"No, I'm probably going to return my weapon and just wander around the academy for a bit."

"Well then, see you later!" said Nyn, waving goodbye, as she excitedly ran off towards the main crowd, muttering curses and profanities under her breath.

Other than the jeers and shouts of Daniel's peers, the courtyard was overall quiet, in his little corner of it at least. The void that had consumed his mind earlier was gone, with no trace of it left in his conscience, as if it was a part of himself all along, and simply came out to play. And with its vanishing, a strange calmness descended upon Daniel, no thought or emotion or conversation cluttering his mind. There are no birds in Alandriel; I mean I haven't seen any but you would think you would see a crow or two at least. What happened? Both to me and the birds. They were there in the countryside, where I could watch them fly and make patterns in the sky all day long, where other children were running around playing hide and seek or tag. And now the birds are gone. Everything has changed since I've come to Alandriel; I have entered the Guild and got sorted into Class 1-B of all things! I've met some interesting people and here I am. Sitting down in the back of a courtyard, after overpowering this person who is said to have killed someone. And, of course, I learned that the entire reason I came to Alandriel in the first place is void. After all, my father is-

"What're you doing over here?" a familiar voice rang out from behind Daniel, making him recoil in shock and turn around to see his teacher sitting on the fence next to him.

"N-nothing really," Daniel retorted, shaken, "I thought you were doing the mock battles?"

"Victor seems to be handling it pretty well and I wanted to return to my sleep that I was broken out of earlier. What happened back there, Daniel?"

"W-what do you mean?" pouted Daniel, fidgeting with his fingers.

"You know exactly what I meant. What you did back there wasn't something an artless countryside dunce could do."

"Y-you know I'm artless?"

"Of course I know! Other than the fact the entire Academy at this point knows one of the porcelains expected to be Platinum of a high Gold rank is artless, I know everything about my students. Nynae was a special case, since she came from outside Alandriel's domain so we don't have records of her, and she didn't take the exam so we can't get any information from that.

“Let's take that girl Sid Johnson, for example, she is 15 years old and has the Scholar Arts which allows her to store any sort of concept, even an art, amplify it and release it; a very versatile Art indeed but it does have its limitations. One of these limitations is a variable storage limit on how many concepts she can store, with the more bigger and complex the concept, the larger space it takes up. She has only ever practised on very simple concepts such as healing or attacking. By the time she leaves the Academy I want her to be able to store high level concepts such as one or two powerful arts from those in the Platinum ranks, and eventually create completely new Arts based on her own Art. It has a lot of potential and I would love to see her flourish into something amazing. But just because she hasn't flourished yet, she was put in the B class. With that in mind, I wonder what you will flourish into, Daniel?" explained Lanyon, with a constant smile across his face and a distant glare. And unlike his previous expressions, this was not a façade; but an earnest hope for a teacher, who was now looking at Daniel.

"I don't know sir. I have no Art so I don't have the same promise as someone like Sid. What I just did then with Esther has never happened before. I can't even remember what I did for Elase's sake!" Daniel moaned, clearly upset, "And... well I'm sorry to disappoint you sir- I mean Lanyon but I don't think I can ever flourish like Sid. I just-"

"What on Alium are you saying?" interrupted Lanyon, glaring at Daniel in what seemed like anger, "What you just did was overpower someone in Class 1-A, someone with the potential to become as powerful as the legendary Platinum ranked themselves. God, anyone who is even slightly versed in the subject of the arts, could tell that he was actually using an Art in that fight! You keep on undermining yourself because you're oblivious to how powerful you really are! I don't care what happened back in your hometown, whether you were discriminated against and beaten to the extent where you wanted to end your own life, your life is worth something. Even if you didn't beat Esther or weren't even powerful to get into this class, your life in itself is something powerful. Life is too beautiful to throw away simply because you couldn't be bothered to better yourself or even look at yourself properly! Don't fuck with me like that! Don't fuck with anyone who even slightly cares for you like that! You are David Raigeki's son. But most importantly, you are Daniel Raigeki. Not your father. You are... Well, you! So, get the fuck up from your little crying corner, stop acting like a little piece of shit someone happened to step on in the street, and-"

"I won't..." Daniel cut-in, shouting, tears forming in the corner of his eyes as he stood up, straight, looking his teacher right in the eyes, "I won't fuck with anyone anymore, sir!"

"Good," replied Lanyon, stepping up from sitting down on the fence and matching his stare, "Now go and join your friend over there, who's all on her own, and promise her you won't be that little piece of shit on the street!"

"Yes, sir!" responded Daniel, walking stiffly over to Nyn and shouting his promise at her, where she, in response, simply burst out laughing.

"What a kid, what a kid," chuckled Lanyon, upon seeing what just happened, "I wonder how you guys are all doing, Cindy and El-… no. I'm sorry. I- I wish I could have been there for you... David."

* * *

By the time the lesson in the courtyard had finished, class was already dismissed, after all it was well past noon and all the porcelains were barely able to write a word. Outside of the Guild, Daniel waited and waited, for over an hour in fact, but Sun never came. In the end, Daniel assumed Sun had left before he began to wait, and caved in, finally going home to the Birch Estate. It was weird for Daniel, thinking of Igo's estate as 'home' when he only recently ventured from his hometown, Saint Evans, for the first time. Daniel had always thought it strange that his town was named after a person. Saint Evans supposedly saved the entire south coast of Alium from the very first redcap invasion, over a thousand years ago, making headquarters where the town sat. And there, Saint Evans is said to have even slew a strange creature the size of a giant which is said to have had a thousand eyes, its body apparently falling into a nearby lake and sank deep into it, giving the Lake of Eyes its name. But Saint Evans is also said to have founded Alandriel and many other things that happened hundreds of years before his birth. Because of that, it is hard to say whether Saint Evans actually did these things, or at least some of them, or he was just the founder of a small town that he named after himself, and the passing of time twisted the true story. Stepping through the door, the sweet smell of a fragrant dish boiling in the kitchen engulfed the entire downstairs. The servants were rushing around preparing the meal, while Igo sat next to the fire, a soft expression on his face as he stared into the dancing flames.

"You’re back!" exclaimed Igo, relieved and rushing over to Daniel, "I was starting to get worried that you lost your way! Why were you so late?"

"I was just waiting for a friend..."

"Thank Elase," muttered Igo, finally able to relax after a stress filled hour of waiting for Daniel, "Anyway, it's good to see that you've made some friends."

"Yeah!"

"I won't ask you about them yet, since dinner is going to be ready soon, but how was your day? I heard it was hard."

"Nothing I couldn't handle," claimed Daniel, almost proudly, "We got to do some training with weapons and... and..."

"And-?" Igo queried, confused.

"Never mind. Lets go get ready for dinner," said Daniel, his proud exterior suddenly deflating into that sad, lonely form, or in the words of his teacher, 'a little shit'.

"Wait." stopped Igo, putting his arm in front of him where he was about to walk off, "What's wrong Daniel? Take a seat with me." asked Igo, leading him towards the set of chairs next to the alight fireplace.

"I-It's nothing" dismissed Daniel, sitting down uncomfortably on one of the chairs, "It's just..."

"It's alright, just tell me what's on your mind, Daniel."

"The only reason I came to Alandriel, the only reason I was mad enough to enter the Guild in the first place was because of my father. This 'father' who disappeared out of my life, never to come back, and supposedly into the Guild." uttered Daniel, grimly, with Igo shifting in his chair awkwardly as if he knew what was coming, "But, guess what; my father is dead."

"... So you know?"

"Yet, I don't even think that's what I'm so upset about," whimpered Daniel, tears beginning to form in the corners of his eyes and falling to the floor, "Is it wrong Igo, to believe that my father should have stayed home?"

"..."

"Is it selfish of me to think he shouldn't have gone out to scout for that raid?"

"..."

"Is it selfish of me..." cried Daniel, streams of tears cascading down his cheeks, "to believe that he should of chose his own son over all those people, is it selfish-"

"No," interrupted Igo, a heartfelt expression on his face, "No, I don't think it is."

"...-ou..." lamented Daniel, "...thank you..."

"Come here," offered Igo, outstretching his arms for a hug. And Daniel eagerly accepted that offer, as he lunged into Igo's arms, wailing and moaning, tears rushing down his face like a waterfall, with no end in sight, as he clawed and scratched and tore Igo's back.

At last, after over 10 long years, Daniel could finally mourn.