Chapter 15: Cherubim Training

(Authors note: as long as I hit 100 power stones this week. I will upload 1 extra chapter. Keep in mind, my update schedule is 3 times a week. If I hit 100, you'll get 4 this week. I'll set more goals if we hit 100. Happy readings ;))))))

(POV Mathew)

Kira and Mr Nakamura were quickly escorted away from my house, and as soon as they left, Noshiko explained what had happened.

"They are under your influence." She explained.

"Now, let's start training. I already know how to train your Cherubim and Tritons side," she said, as she picked up a Ukulele of mine from the side and passed it to me.

Then, she moved the pool table to the side, emptying up a space in the center of the floor.

"Mediate." She said, as she switched off all the lights and lit up a candle.

"Meow." Archer said in slight fear as the lights were suddenly turned off.

"Your bond needs to leave for a while." She said as she continued setting up candles around me.

"Archer," I said and he understood my intentions and left to another part of the house without saying anything.

"You need to concentrate. Listen to your surroundings. Feel the environment. It should be fairly easy for you to get into a meditative state." Noriko told me.

As Noriko's words echoed in the room, I took a deep breath and tried to clear my mind.

The only light came from the flickering candles, casting eerie shadows on the walls and ceiling.

The air was thick with the scent of burning wax, and a sense of stillness hung heavy in the room. I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, trying to calm my racing thoughts.

Gradually, I began to hear faint whispers that seemed to be coming from all around me. The sounds grew louder, and I realized that they were the voices of people, speaking in hushed tones.

As I listened more closely, I could feel their emotions, a mixture of fear, hope, and desperation. The emotions were overwhelming, and I struggled to keep my focus.

But then, as if sensing my struggle, Noriko's aura radiated with a powerful intensity, enveloping me in a cocoon of superiority.

The sensation was like a sudden burst of light, illuminating everything around me. I felt my mind clear, and my senses sharpened.

I could hear the voices more clearly now, and their emotions no longer overwhelmed me. Instead, I felt a sense of detachment, as if I were an observer rather than a participant.

I opened my eyes, and the room was no longer dark. The candles burned brighter, and the voices were now crystal clear.

I felt a sense of peace wash over me as I listened to them, and I knew that I had entered a meditative state. All thanks to Noriko's guidance and the power of her aura.

I saw the golden hue of a Celestial Kitsune surrounding her and I couldn't help but be drawn to the pure confidence coming from it.

"You have connected to your Cherubim side," she explained, as her Aura slowly started to thin down, but I still heard the whispers around me.

"What do you hear?" She asked me.

"I hear faint whispers. Whispers filled with fear, arrogance, disgust and anger." I told her honestly, as I focused on the whispers.

"How do you feel?"

"I feel…detached, like I am reading a story that I did not care about." I told her, as the voices slowly started to die down.

"Those are the past Human Cherubim's," She revealed.

"Their emotions before they die is what you feel. This was when they lost their ability to detach in the face of death. These are classified as 'Failures,'" She told me.

I felt the pure anger radiating from the whispers at being called failures. They were disgusted to be associated with that term and tried to affect Noriko.

"How are a mere Kitsune!" I heard a whisper say, as Noriko's Kitsune spirit covered her body, and her tails slashed in the air.

I didn't feel the voice again.

"A Celestial!"

"Wow, those are rare." Some of the whispers said.

"Now what you have to do is simple." Noriko explained.

"Ignore them and try to control their emotions." She told me.

I was confused but she soon elaborated.

"Controlling human emotions is easy, however these were previous users. This is how a Pathokinesis awakened Human Cherubim trains." She explained to me.

"This will forever be how you train. I suggest focusing on 1, then moving on to multiple. The day you sway all of their emotions is the day you are done with your training. You should be able to feel how strong one of their emotions is. The stronger their emotions, the worse of a failure they were. Even in death, Cherubim follow their duty to help God's angels. The ones with the littlest emotional fluctuations understand that." She explained to me.

Understanding her explanation, I picked a random, weakly radiating whisper, and it immediately moved toward me and stood in front of me.

When it reached me, it felt disgusted, not at life but at himself.

Noriko couldn't tell what I was doing, but she simply stayed there watching me train.

I could feel some of the whispers form a barrier before the others, isolating me with 1 previous user.

"Make me feel happy. That is your task." He told me as he waited.

'How do I do that?' I thought and surprisingly he answered.

"You have to detach yourself of emotions, including your own ones. So think of happy times, but feel nothing about it. That will cause me to be influenced by you but not you by yourself." He told me.

"The first step is always the hardest. It becomes fairly easy from there."

I mentally nodded, as I thought of one of my happiest memories.

My dad, teaching me the guitar.

However no matter what I did, I could not not feel respect for my dad.

He was the one who gave me my life to music and I couldn't find a way to not feel happy when I thought about him.

So I decided to pick something more…or less happy.

I thought of the time I talked to Mike, for the first time. When I ran into him and he asked me if I was okay.

…

I remember walking out of the toilet of Pearson Hardman's toilet, and I couldn't find my guard anywhere.

One of the only times I left the house, and I don't even remember why. All I remember was that that day changed my life.

I bumped into Mike, who was eating a bagel, and he saw me.

"You lost, kid?" He asked me.

I just nodded slightly, as he smiled and passed me a sweet inside of his pocket and said, "Technically I am 'lost,' from my boss too. But I will give you this as long as you don't tell anyone." He said as he treated me like a kid.

Mainly because at this point, I looked like I was 12, even though I was 16. Something my mother tried to do, since being younger gave me more fans.

However I didn't move my hands from my pockets at all. People weren't allowed to see my hands.

Seeing this, Mike was a little confused, and tried to slip the sweet into my hand, so he grabbed it.

However when he did, he could feel that I was wearing 3 layers of clothing, to hide my malnourished body, but he felt the bones.

This was when my life had changed.

At this point, my memories from my new life were still joining my head, so I didn't recognise Pearson Hardman or Mike, but as he asked me what happened, I recognised him and told him in a crying tone to save me.

In my mind, this day was a happy day, since someone tried to save me.

…

When I thought about that, I tried to rationalize the entire event.

However I couldn't. Every single time I felt happy, I felt happy for a reason.

"You are trying too hard." The whisper told me.

"It doesn't have to be an extremely happy time. You are underestimating how little your emotions have to be, to severely impact us." He told me.

So I decided to switch tactics.

I thought of my first A in an extremely difficult assignment in my past life. The relief I felt washed over me as I did well.

Then, I rationalized it.

I thought about it as my cold-blooded mother would.

'The only reason I scored an A was because of my team.'

'I did nothing.'

'Even if I wasn't there, they probably would have scored the A.'

'Even if they didn't, it's not like any of them showed me appreciation.'

'Also, there's no reason to be happy for 1 A. I didn't do well for the rest of my assignments after all. I just watched anime like a depressed loser.'

As I harshly critiqued myself, I could feel a happy moment inside of me dying, but I instantly felt the whisper in front of me go from disgust, to pure, extremely radiating happiness.

"Well done." Noriko told me,

My trance broke, as I couldn't hear the whispers anymore.

However I could see her Kitsune Aura extremely brightly, and without even gaining complete concentration, I felt the happy environment around the room.

As Noriko spoke, I could feel her aura pulsating with an energy that was different from before, due to me.

This time, it was a warm and inviting energy that seemed to fill the room with an almost palpable happiness.

I noticed that the dimly-lit room was becoming brighter, and a sense of joy began to permeate the air.

I decided to meditate again, to truly understand the effects of my power.

Suddenly, the flickering candles seemed to dance with excitement, their flames growing taller and brighter.

The emotions in the air shifted from fear and desperation to pure happiness and celebration.

I could feel Noriko's presence next to me, and her aura was no longer one of superiority, but rather a contagious happiness that radiated throughout the entire room.

My power had transformed the atmosphere, and I could feel everything but my own spirit being lifted.

I opened my eyes to see that the room was now awash with color and light.

The candles had multiplied, casting a rainbow of hues across the walls and ceiling.

The air was alive.

In that moment, I realized my power affected reality itself, but I felt a part of me inside of me had died.

While everything around me seemed happy, I didn't feel the same joy.

Was this power really worth it, if I was going to feel dead inside?

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