Barak opened his eyes, his last memory being that of telling Aster to move and hitting head first into a wall, he swung his feet off of the bed and planted them on the cold concrete floor, he looked across at the bed, it was in disarray which meant he had been sleeping for a while, his view panned across the room, his gaze taking in everything, this was a room he had not been in for quite some time, his eyes landed on his clothes and sword sitting next to the closed bedroom door, he walked over to see that they had been washed and cleaned,

‘fuck how long have i been out for’, he thought to himself, he walked over to the dresser in the room,

“its a good thing i left some clothes here the last time”, he said to himself as he began picking out some clothes to wear,

After that he took a shower and got dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head down, his hands resting on his knees and his fingers locked together, images of the events of what had happened recently replayed in his mind, he felt a strong sensation in the pit of his stomach, it was a feeling of disappointment mixed with disgust, at Aluric and at himself, as he never thought he would have been beaten by anyone, his pride had been bruised and it did not sit right with him, he got up and took off the shirt he had just put on, he decided it was time to start his training over from scratch, he left the bedroom and went out front of the house, he was surprised at what he saw, Levant and Polaris were up and in a full sparring session, with Yumi standing off to the side with her hands folded with a serious expression on her face, barak walked over ,

“ I’m glad to see that you’re finally awake, you were asleep for three days”, yumi said, her eyes not diverting from the match taking place in front of her,

“Polaris Lacks in power when he attacks, I can tell from the gist of how they are fighting what positions the usually play when they are in combat for real”, Yumi said, picking up a white mug from next to her and putting it to her mouth,

“so what’s exactly going on here ?” Barak asked, placing his sword to rest against the wall of the house,

“Well in light of what happened four days ago, Aster said he wanted me to train him and then when these two woke up they decided to join in”, she explained, finally turning around to look at him, She had seen enough of what the other two boys had to offer,

“THAT’S ENOUGH YOU TWO”, yumi said,

“ speaking of which where is aster ?”, Barak asked looking around to see if he could spot him,

“he’s out running right now, so no need to worry about him”, yumi said,

“why running ?”, Barak asked,

“Aster effectively acts as a mid range tank whenever you guys enter a fight, using the fact that he has control over the earth, to defend and attack whenever in battle, but his stamina can’t keep up with continuously using his blessing, so that is why he switches to close range when fighting, I have him running laps around the island while using his blessing to keep a boulder above his head, in order to improve his stamina”, yumi said,

“hmm I never actually noticed that”, Barak said,

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“What I want to know is if you will be joining us are not”, Yumi stated, her eyes locked onto Barak scanning his body,

“nope, i know a guy that I’m gonna go to, plus I don’t think your kind of training is going to be what I’m looking for”, Barak calmly commented, his eyes fixating on Aster, who now got back from his run, dropping the large boulder from above his head and dropping down to the ground exhausted,

“ that’s quite the statement you made considering you don’t know how I’m going to be training them, fortunately I was thinking the same thing, you seek power, those three, each to their own extent need control and power”, Yumi replied, turning around to refocus on the boys all thee on the ground trying to catch their breath,

“well then if we were on the same page why did you even ask me to join ?”, Barak questioned, his gaze now sizing up the small figure standing in front of him,

“ I was being generous”, yumi said, her shrugging her shoulders,

“ so where did our mysterious intruder run off to ?”, barak asked, his train of thought began to shift to the person he decided to hold a grudge against,

“he took our hostage and left”, yumi abruptly answered, her tone shifting from normal to serious,

“hmm, is that all, though I only briefly met him, he doesn’t seem like the type to leave just like that”, Barak said,

“he isn’t, he simply considered your four too weak to be a threat, so he spared you four and basically told me I have three months to either whip you guys into shape and hope you can stop him, or return home and go out fighting alongside my comrades”, yumi said,

“but all that means is we have three months to get you guys up to par and go across there and kick his ass”, she said,

“Are you satisfied with that answer”, she asked him, she had become increasingly annoyed, at how perceptive Barak was, her tolerance for him was beginning to run low,

“hmm,so you decided to place your faith in us”, barak asked,

“Aster told me that you four have blessings, initially I thought you four were just naturally blessed, being born with the power you have, which would mean you would all have a hard limit to you powers and it would take extremely long for you four to push pass that limit, but being that you four are blessed means that there isn’t a hard limit to your powers”, yumi said,

“besides my faith has never been that strong, I rather place my bets on what I can see myself achieving rather than hoping and praying to any of the gods”, Yumi said

“okay I see, you see potential in us, while I do hate to admit it, the one thing I felt from him that seemed familiar is his love for battle, and now that you have told me that, I have to prove him wrong now”, Barak said,

“man I’m beat, we’ve been….going….at it….for hours now”, Polaris said, sitting on the ground, his head stretched back looking up towards the sky,

“tell me about it, this is the longest we’ve ever fought each other”, Levant stated, laying on the ground both his feet and arms stretched out, he turned his head, looking on at yumi and Barak, trying to make out what they are saying, Levant sprang up into a sitting position,

“how do you have the energy”, Polaris said, looking at Levant, who was on his feet now, he stretched out his hands towards Polaris,

“come on let’s see what she has in store for us”, Levant said, Polaris taking his hand in order to get up, both of them walking over to yumi and Barak,

“sure goes go on ahead, I’ll catch up”, Aster said, laying face first on the ground in between where Levant and Polaris were resting

“well I guess I’ll be leaving now”, Barak said,

“not even gonna say goodbye to your friends ?”, yumi, asked,

“trust me they know I’ll be back, it’s not like we can stay away from one another for too long anyways”, barak commented, he turned and walked off into the house, after a few moments the rumbling of thunder could be heard,CRACKLE, lightning shot down from the sky, landing at the front of the house,

Levant, Polaris and Aster made their way to where yumi was standing, she had looked pleased by what she had seen, though, what barak said just before he left stuck with her in the back of her mind, it felt as though he was alluding to something much deeper than a friendly bond, that connected these four boys together,

“where did he run off to ?”aster asked, holding over to catch his breath,

“I don’t know, he said he knows someone who can help him train and then ran off”, she replied, throughing her hands into the air, as she turned around and walked away

the three boys looked at one another and smirked, as they knew where he had disappeared to,