Little time left

it was the usual day, except it was not, every maid was in a hurry, Eris was acting weird, and even training with Ghislaine lasted longer.

this confused Rudeus, but Alex didn't mind, he knew what was going on, soon it would be their tenth birthday, three days were left, and then the displacement incident would happen.

"your progress is staggering," remarked Ghislaine as she looked at her student working on a new technique, she had no idea what it was or how to do it.

Alex was coating his Excalibur with wind magic, his eyes were Narrowed but he heard her comment.

He swung the sword and cut off the connecting between the sword and magic.

the wind slid off the sword and cut the dummy that was at the other end of the clearing.

"you ware saying?" Alex asked with a raised eyebrow, Ghislaine just looked back at him.

"tricks" Alex deadpanned at her comment and started testing other magic.

water magic just covered it with water, unsatisfied he froze it, but that also showed little results, Earth magic as you could guess, covered it with rocks...

fire magic though.

"I wonder if I could stop one of those regenerating demons with this?" he thought out loud, and this confused Ghislaine.

"what do you mean?" she questioned and tilted her head, seeing her confusion Alex elaborated.

"When you lose an arm, you use healing magic to close the wound, and if the spell is strong enough then it can even regenerate the arm, even if it has been lost for a year or so, however, Regeneration works differently" he sheathed his sword, and liked up in thought, thinking about how to explain it.

"when it comes to regeneration, it doesn't close the wound the arm grows back, imagine cells deciding at a faster rate, like a lizard's tail" he tried to simplify it but it was fruitless.

"cells?" with a sigh, he tried again.

"if you burn the wound it won't regenerate, or it would take longer to do so if it doesn't you would need to use at least king class healing magic to regenerate it" she still looked confused but nodded.

"so do you know what's the fuss is about?" Alex questioned, knowing full well what was happening.

Ghislaine started sweating, her ears strengthened and her tail stopped its slow waggling, she couldn't make eye contact.

"I don't know what you mean" by far the worst lier he had ever seen, but he didn't push it.

___

right now Alex was starting at Rudeus, who was acting like a damn movie star.

"why is he crying?" asked Ghislaine, with a raised eyebrow, he couldn't just tell her that his brother was acting so he just went with it.

"he's glad that he could be helpful, he didn't think he was doing well" she nodded to the explanation.

___

"Why did we agree to this?" Alex asked his brother, both of them were outside the city and were about to perform a Saint-level spell.

"because I wanted to test the staff," Rudeus pointed out while pointing his staff and making a bigger than usual waterball.

"stupid staff" Alex grumbled displeased.

"oh please, we had to hold you down so you would attend your own birthday party instead of training the basics of the 'longsword of light' Ghislaine taught you for the birthday present, so I don't want to hear your complaining," said Eris, with a huff, crossing her arms and turning away.

"you're still mad that I'm a higher rank swordsman aren't you?" questioned Alex with a smirk, watching as she blushed in embarrassment.

suddenly the wind blew and I looked over at the darkening clouds, Ghislaine walked closer and lifted her dispatch revealing a green eye with four triangles pointing to the middle of the eyeris, the demon eye.

"that's a lot of man-Rudeus Get down!" she suddenly yelled, as Rudeus, reacting to her voice ducked.

Unsheathing her sword she chairs the light that went over the magician's head, as it disappeared, a figure became visible, he had short blonde hair and wore white attire, holding a short sword in his right hand.

Alex quickly grabbed his own blade and enhanced his body as well as tuki, dashing after the two, he sent out ice magic, trying to freeze the man's feet, but he jumped back avoiding it.

with a burst of wind, Alex launched himself at the blonde who readied his shortsword and deflected the attack, sending Alex past himself.

as he turned back he could see Ghislaine talking while showing her sword in confirmation of her identity.

as he was about to get closer, he heard a weird sound, looking back he saw the light pillar expanding, coming closer and closer.

(...well let's hope everything will be alright)

he thought as he turned back to run towards the others, the blonde man was gone, and Ghislaine... was running towards him?

(what the hell woman?)

she extended her hand and he did the same, thinking he would have enough time to throw her forward, but he was wrong, as soon as he grabbed her hand the light consumed both of them.