Chapter 11: Old Friend

Taki

"Taki, are you still asleep? Wake up. You are late."

'Where am I?' I looked around, with my vision still blurry out of sleep. 'Am I home?'

"Taki, Wake up already!"

'This voice, it is my mother's voice. And I'm home.' I got up and immediately ran downstairs. It was my mother and my whole family. She was occupied making breakfast, and without looking at me, she said: "Hurry up, you are late." I jumped towards her, gently hugged her from behind, and said: "I missed you." She was surprised. She put down the kitchen utensils she had, placed her hands on top of mine, and said once again: "Taki, wake up."

"What?"

"Stand back up on your feet and show them that my daughter is special." I opened my eyes to see Ray in front of me, and the others waiting for me.

Waves of extreme pain were coming from my arm. I endured the pain and tried to push myself with my other hand from the ground. The grass was painted with my red blood. And I remembered that I needed to stop the bleeding when I looked at it. I gathered what's left of my mana to stop the bleeding with water. I lost my stability and my precision, and also my curse started affecting me. The water I make loses its stability and even starts boiling when I use my ability to mush, that was my curse. But I successfully was able to control the bubble I made on my left arm. I was consistently feeling dizzy. 'Just a little bit more, I still need to stand up.' I started moving my body to stand back up. I never felt this heavy. Flashbacks of my previous life were what gave me enough strength to finally stand up. Ray stood to face me saying: "You finally did it, congratulations." He immediately took the bag he brought with him last time and emptied whatever was inside of it in front of me. It was a living human body. All its toes and fingers were cut, except for the left hand, the one that I'm missing. Ray said: "I found him when I was away last time, I tried to get information out of him, but he was useless. Now kill him and get your left hand back. And also, get some food from Selia to keep your mana always up, we never know when we might get attacked." And he walked away.

I got physically healed after killing that half-dead human, but my mind wasn't stable. Selia and the others tried their best to help me out. I even felt that Akira and Maki now think of me as a good future fighter that you can rely on.

The night has fallen. We were laying down on the grass, looking at the stars in the sky. Except for Ray, who was still meditating. Benjiro interrupted the silence: "I still don't quite understand the reasons behind Ray being this hard on you."

"Ray's intentions were pretty clear to me, from the beginning," Akira answered with a calm voice. And then he added: "First of all he pushed you to use your power to its extreme limits and to achieve this you need to be as close as possible to death. Now you have a better idea of your blessing and your curse. And also, you had to experience using your power in the most unusual and unstable state you can be in. Do you remember how Maki fought the two attackers from the Lion Cub organization? She lost both her arms, and she kept fighting. If It was you, you would've blacked out and died." And then Selia said: "Ray sometimes might look fearsome and evil, but in reality, he is not. He is the kindest person I know. He would never let you die like that."

Benjiro said: "What about you Maki? What do you think of Ray?"

We waited for some seconds, but she didn't reply. Selia looked at her and said: "Maki?" She smiled and completed: "She is already asleep." After that, we all slept.

Selia

After a long trip, we finally arrived at Elthias's capital city. From far away we could see that the city was surrounded by a steel wall and protected by a spell shielding it from the air. The only way in was the main gate entrance. We got in easily, pretending to be merchants, and using all the furniture we gathered as goods or products to sell. The city with the size of a large country from our previous world was fascinating. Ray also compared it with the Lion Cub city saying: "I wouldn't be able to wipe out this city that easily if they teleported me here. If I had to compare the two, I would say that this one is up hundreds of years of development."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

We were lost in the city not knowing where to go and avoiding anyone that has a strong aura or a solder uniform. Until Ray and another man crossed each other. After a few steps, they both stopped. I didn't get to have a good look at his face. And he said: "Could you please follow me." and started walking. Then Ray turned back and started walking behind him without saying anything, but if you looked closely at his face, you would've seen a glimpse of joy and excitement. And without saying anything, we trusted Ray's decision and followed them. He brought us to an abandoned large battle arena, far away from downtown. Maki said: "Why did we follow him. He is probably leading us to a trap." The man stopped and turned back to face us. I recognized him. Ray said, with a large smile on his face: "Show me what you've got!" And they dashed towards each other. Ray was faster and dominating the fight. He was attacking from all directions, and the mysterious man was on the defense. Ray kept attacking more and more for a long time, using the enhanced body blessing to increase his speed and strength. However, the man wasn't getting affected at all by his attacks. When we noticed that, the others started getting worried. I looked at them to try and tell them the identity of that man, but a blast caught my attention back to the fight. It was Ray, he got kicked to the wall, making clouds of dust around him. Maki stepped to join the fight, but I put my hand in front of her stopping her, meaning that she shouldn't go. She took my arm, put it down, and started walking again towards the fight while completely ignoring me. Thankfully Benjiro stopped her saying: "I can sense that he is alright. He doesn't need our help. You know he is stronger than that. Let's first try to figure out the enemy's blessing." I responded saying: "He is not our ene..." But I got interrupted again. Ray started talking, and they all looked at him while the dust started fading away.

"Interesting blessing. Strong for defense, and even stronger on the offense."

"I knew you would like it."

Ray looked towards us and said: "Hey, Taki come here."

She gave us the face of 'Did he call me?' We gave her a nod as a confirmation, and she started walking to the battlefield. On her way, I saw her new haircut from behind; A long but diagonal black hair, cut by Ray's attack on their last flight. She decided to keep it, saying that she liked it. She stood beside Ray confused and also looking for injuries on his body, but she found none. And he shocked all of us saying: "You will be fighting him." And he jumped out to let them face each other. He walked to me and said: "You told them?"

I said: "No."

Taki attacked first. This time her fighting style changed. She was fighting with long strings of water with sharp edges, preserving the precision, augmenting the range, and increasing the quantity. She was attacking like an octopus; she was the head, and the strings were its tentacles. The mysterious man wasn't as fast as Ray is, he wasn't dodging all the attacks, but he was untouchable. And when he figured, he doesn’t even need to dodge the attacks, he stood still and got hit from everywhere. But as expected, nothing affected him. Then Ray spoke up: "Taki, think of other ways to use water. Sharpness isn't always the way to go. And do not confuse it with precession." She started thinking about it, and she also seemed distracted. The mysterious man raised his hand towards a rock nearby, with his palm facing it. And the rock started moving. Then it flew to his hand. Ray said: "Do you now understand his blessing?" Then the man threw that huge rock targeting Taki with it. To stop it, she closed her eyes, she put her hand in front of her, and a current of water started firing out. With the current's power, she was able to destroy most of it to stop it. And then she looked at the mysterious man and aimed with her hand towards him. She fired a stronger attack towards him, but he made an 'X' posture with his hands, and as expected again, the attack didn't affect him. The current kept going for a couple of minutes, while her opponent was not moving and holding the same posture. When she stopped, she was gasping and looking tired, but the man lowered his hands and looked at her, and he showed a victorious smile on his face. But she wasn't done, she surprised all of us with her next attack. She activated her Blessing again to move all the water she sent towards the mysterious man, and imprison him inside a giant bubble of water. "Water element: Detention." She said after she locked him up.

Ray

I was proud that she progressed, and was able to do something against an enemy with a blessing like his. Gravity is indeed an interesting one. I wasn't expecting her to win, I just wanted to push her more to progress.

While everyone was applauding and unfortunately for her, her moment of joy ended quickly. Her attack popped like a balloon, and her opponent was intact. He said: "Not a bad attack, I had to push harder to stop it."

I jumped between them, and I said: "The fight is over! ... Everyone, this is Theodore, someone I and Selia knew very well before we die."