Nocturnio (27.06.9981 AS)

‘You know she’s right.’ Tristan heard a familiar crackling voice, he hadn’t heard for months, say.

‘So, you now decide to break your silence? You were so quiet for the past months I thought, you had died that cursed night.’ Tristan answered with a poker face.

‘As if something like that would harm me, you know I’m tougher than I look. And next time you want to pull a stunt like that, tell me beforehand! I barely managed to keep you alive there.’ Schattenklinge answered annoyed.

‘As usual, you don’t care about what I have to say… Now, why did you stop talking to me for so long? It’s been like six months since we last talked to each other.’

‘I wanted to let you have your time to grief, but then you went full retard and I didn’t want to talk to you anymore.’

‘Retard? Like hell I went full retard, I just did why I thought was the best for me to do. You see I’m not even fourteen yet and I have like thousands of years ahead of me! Why should I waste all my time training and fighting against the so called evil God if I can just relax and fool around with the people I love?’

‘People you love? You almost killed one of your best friends and you are lucky if Abigail doesn’t hate you after you being an ass towards her.’

‘Well, it’s not my fault they are annoying… They should be more like Ai; they should try and understand me and try to support my decisions a little more often and not always nag about everything I do… And if they have to say something they should be nicer and not go like “Fors, Trist you changed totally! You should be more like you used to be before your mom died. You should try to act like nothing happened!” I think I’m gonna explode if I hear one of that kind of sentences form them!’

Tristan had left the Mitternacht and was now once again walking on school grounds.

‘Are you stupid or what? I have been listening to everything they said to you by now and all they ever wanted is to help you to become yourself again and not some sissy who doesn’t want to do anything he used to do just because it might remind him of her.’

‘Like I said, I was just trying to take it slow… And what’s wrong with trying to live an ordinary life for once?’

‘You know no matter how much you try you won’t be able to live an ordinary life like other demons do. You were special from the moment of your birth, like it or not. And by now you are way too strong to live like a normal demon would. You can’t change the fact, that you already surpassed the strength most of the Demons dream of having! You’ll be fourteen next month and you’re already King level and you even have some spells beyond Emperor level!’ Schattenklinge took a deep breath.

‘Gotta admit most of it came through talent, but you also put quite the work there. So much you even impressed me! And believe me I’m not easily impressed and it’s not like I just agreed to be your sword master for nothing. I saw your potential and your will to become the strongest! That’s why I entered your body and not to see you flirt around with a Demihuman, no less with a descendant of a seraph.’

‘What does her race have to do with it? Ai is Ai and it’s not her fault her dad was an evil seraph! Also, how can you call me strong if I’m so weak I couldn’t even protect Nana? I wasn’t able to protect one, one single person! So how can you call me strong? Over half of my life I spend training to fight them and on the first encounter I already fail miserably! My whole purpose was to become as strong as possible and to complete whatever Bella wants me to do, but I go and fail on the first hurdle.’ Tristan dropped his shoulders and stopped walking.

‘My whole essence of being was: train to beat them, and then… Then everything falls apart! During the short exchange of blows there was one think I realized; I have no chance of achieving that strength she showed me when she entered the fight. In my despair trying to escape, I almost killed myself… I never felt as helpless as during that fight… She singlehandedly stopped my maelstrom! And you tell me that I will have to fight them again?’

‘Don’t be like that, you beat two of her minions, that’s a feat by itself already! They were trained for hundreds of years to get on that level you already are! And don’t get me started with that woman; she was already here before the Continental Separation! It’s obvious she is stronger than you by now. Also she was taught by a god and has become immortal just like Dunkler.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

But you see that’s just the hard work people put in to get where they are! And how can someone who has been blessed with so much talent think of wasting it by playing family with some girl, just because he lost that once?’ Schattenklinge stopped for a moment before continuing with his speech.

‘You know, now that I think about it I’m getting the feeling that you don’t even care for Nana’s death as much as you want the people to think! You just care about having lost to someone who is not a God after all that training you went through.’ Schattenklinge finally concluded.

“What!” Tristan shouted out loud. ‘Why would you say something so despicable? If you say something like that, then you really don’t know me.’

‘I know you better than you think, so I can say something like that easily without doubt.’

Tristan stopped walking and wiped the tears from his eyes. ‘It’s not like I don’t care for her death. It’s just that it sucks so hard that I couldn’t protect her even though I’m supposed to be a genius who put so much work into getting stronger, and still I wasn’t able to protect the only person that had always been there for me…’

‘Doesn’t it feel good to speak it out of your soul for once?’ Schattenklige smiled at Tristan.

Tristan continued wiping the tears from his cheeks as he finally continued to his destination.

“What do you want here?” Ernesti asked as Tristan reached the infirmary.

“Well,… I came to apologize.” Tristan answered with a small voice not showing his face.

“Please leave for now, she said she wanted to be alone.” Ernesti answered with a serious tone.

“I don’t care, I came to apologize and I won’t give in so easily.” Tristan answered with a serious tone, finally showing his face to Ernesti.

“Those eyes… Have you been crying?” Ernesti asked baffled.

“Who knows, now can I please get to speak Laura?”

“Yes…” Ernesti answered still startled by Tristan’s appearance.

Tristan closed the door behind him as he entered the big room. Next to the bed Laura was resting on, there were many empty beds in the infirmary.

“Busy as usual.” Tristan said with a surfcasting tone, remembering the last time he had been here after collapsing in class.

“Can’t complain about it, one is enough to spoil my day anyways.” Maddie said in a honest tone from behind the papers she was reading. “She’s fine by the way, that Leo boy did a great job in patching her up again.”

“Good to hear.” Tristan answered in an honest tone.

“Did she cheat on you?”

“What?!”

“No, I was just wondering about what she did to deserve to be beaten up like that.” Maddie answered in a curious tone.

“No, of course not, she was just … She was just unlucky to fight me today… I wasn’t feeling alright and so I went overbroad.”

“Yeah, sure kiddo, did she cheat on you with that guy who brought her here?” Maddie answered in a teasing tone. “I hope you don’t mind me staying here and listening to the two of you, just to make sure you don’t try to kill her again.”

Tristan nodded and was finally able to walk forwards to the bed Laura was lying on. Even though, Laura was wide awake she still pretended to be asleep, just to not have to interact with Tristan.

“You are so pathetic.” Tristan said in an icy tone. “You are weak and pathetic, just like me…” Tristan stopped for a moment to see if he got a reaction from Laura.

“Thank you for helping me realize how weak I am.” Tristan said in a low voice. “Almost killing you got me thinking quite a lot… And one think I can say for sure, I can’t keep up with the same behavior I have shown this half year… For that I wanted to thank you.” Tristan said and turned around ready to leave the room.

“Oh, and I won’t apologize for almost killing you, you deserved it. If you can’t beat someone in a real fight, you won’t be able to survive.” Tristan said bitter.

“I know.” Laura said tears welling up her eyes. “It’s just so frustrating to train so much and still not being able to keep with you.” She finally wiped the tears from her cheek.

“I feel you, if you want to train like we used to, just hit me up.”

“Young love, so exiting!” Tristan could hear Maddie say from behind her books she had hidden herself behind.

***

“WHAT-?” Abigail couldn’t believe her eyes as she walked into Tristan’s laboratory.

“Hey there.” Tristan waved his hands towards her sitting on his place holding a gauntlet on his hands.

“Did… Didn’t you have a date with that woman today?”

“Yes, and no. I just came here from seeing her. I know you always come here after your parents have gone to bed so I didn’t even have to show up that early here to be here before you.” Tristan said with a warm smile.

“But why?

“Why not? This is my lab after all. Any ways this guy here has a lot of potential, don’t you think so too?”

“What?”

“I mean this little thing here has a lot of potential.” Tristan showed towards the gauntlet in his hands.

“Yes, but…”

“You know, I thought we could use it as our next new big project trying to make this think less deadly for the attacker.”

“Ok.” Abigail answered with a bright smile.

“I’m sorry for today and everything I did the past few months I was acting a little too spoiled. Sorry for trying to run away from all this.”

“So, you are coming back?”

“Yes and no. I will start my training again and that also means spending some of my time here in the labs, but I will only do it to reach the point where I can survive whatever might come. My goal is no longer to defeat a God, but to be able to run if he ever show up.”

“So you’ll be spending more time with me?”

“Yes.”

“Yay, the dream team is back!” Abigail jumped and hugged Tristan.

*slap*

“You deserved that one, because you made me worry so much and being so mean to me.” She said after having slapped Tristan.

“Yup, I totally deserved that one.” Tristan said with a sad voice.