Chapter 14 - Warnings
Akio finds himself in a dark room again, sighing. He knows that it is inside of his soul, and he walks around calmly, trying to see what he'll find this time. To his surprise, he finds nothing, or so he thinks.
A voice is heard behind him. Akio turns around, only to see a dark figure, though he remains calm, as the voice starts talking to him. "It's been years, aren't you happy to see me?" The figure asks Akio, who starts getting annoyed.
"Why would I be happy to see you, of all people? While we haven't met in years, you're still as much of a hindrance to me as ever." Akio nonchalantly tells the figure, who starts frowning. "Well, you know, I know that you've realized by now, I'm the spirit of your weapon!"
He says that he knows, but asks why does it have to do anything with their current meeting. The dark figure, who reveals himself to be called Roland, the spirit of Durandal, and the original wielder of the two swords, is here to inform Akio of two stuff:
1. A great evil is coming, and it's someone very close to him.
2. The Dark Wizard has already started his preparations to destroy the world, though it will take no less than one year, but no more than two.
The second thing confuses Akio a bit, as he's not that worried about this "great evil". He confronts Roland about the Wizard, and why does he know these stuff, with Roland not saying anything and disappearing, as Akio's eyesight goes blank and he sees himself somewhere unfamiliar.
He tries to look around him, though he sees nothing notable, except from something that is reminiscent to a sort of spaceship. He tries walking towards it, but he breathes heavily, as he looks down. Akio is heavily injured, but he decides to crawl towards this ship.
Before he even gets the chance to look inside, as soon as he touches it, Akio's eyesight goes blank again. As he opens his eyes, he is no more but a spirit, though he can make out that this time, he's in a forest.
Atleast.. it was a forest. In front of him he sees a dark figure with orange marks, growing more as the seconds pass, with lightning striking around and flames engulfing the area. Akio turns around to see a woman, but as soon as he lays eyes on her, his eyesight goes blank again.
Akio is now tired of this game and decides to see what the next scene will be. What he sees, however, is shocking. His lower part is gone, with corpses around, and next to him stands a very familiar staff.
"Apo.. theosis?" He asked, as he closed his eyes, and this time, his eyesight goes blank, as he wakes up. He turns to look at his phone, only to see that the time is.. 9 AM!? He turns to Kurayami's side, as he sees that she is in fact already up and was waiting for him.
"Good morning, Akio. I was starting to get worried that you wouldn't wake up." The young adult told Akio, who laughed it off, making sure not to accidentally say anything about what he had seen. He swiftly gets up, starting to get himself prepared, as he tells Kurayami to do the same.
He rushes down, only to see Hisako and Ruby waiting. Hisako, teasing her son, asks how was the night with Kurayami, to which he blushes and says that it was.. alright. Kurayami is quick to come down.
Hisako asks the couple what they'll do today, and Akio replies that first of all, they'll buy a house of their own, and right after, they'll go to a village, since they promised to help rebuild it and some of their damage was his and Eldric's fault.
Nodding, the woman waves the three goodbye though she is quite reluctant to say goodbye to Ruby. Soon, they leave, and Akio just realizes that Ruby's hair and eyes have turned light purple, asking hair if she has finally awakened her magic attribute.
Ruby says she thinks, but nobody knows what it is, since it's quite unique. This catches the attention of Akio, but he dismisses it for now. They go to a real estate agency, and the agent shows them a few houses. They stop at a certain one, since Akio is quite persistent about this house in certain, and both Kurayami and Ruby agree alongside him, since they believe that it looks beautiful.
The agent is actually a friend of Hisako and has known Akio ever since he was a child, so he offers to gift them the house, but Akio refuses and pays, something that satisfies him. The agent congratulates them on their new house, giving them their keys, as she leaves.
Akio is the first one to go in, but Kurayami asks why was he so persistent, with Akio smiling and heading towards a wall.
"This is why."
He places his hand on the wall and starts pouring magic, as a door opens, much to the surprise of the two women. Akio laughs, saying that this is quite interesting. They gaze upon a new room in the house, one that had never seen the light of day for decades. On the outside, it's not visible, so Akio believes it to be a separate space, though he doesn't care all that much.
Heading inside, however, he immediately fells very heavy. Apparently, not only is the space different, but the gravity is more intense too. This comes as a surprise to all three of them, but Akio says that it'll be a perfect training room.
That, though, was the only time that they could spend looking around. They leave their stuff there and go to the Generals' headquarters, where Hanami and Hunter both are, greeting the three. They know why they're there, and they lead them to the device.
Akio, Kurayami and Ruby step in, as they're teleported to the village, with Akio remembering that he didn't inform the others. Immediately, he calls Eldric, who is with Aurora currently, and they head towards the headquarters, alongside Apollo, Jack, Genkei, Aoi and Alexa, who heard of this and decided that they wanted to help as well.
The older Generals would also come, but with a joint decision from everyone, they decided to stay, since nobody would be left to protect the city. Eldric goes to call the villagers from the city nearby, as Akio and the others go to the construction workers, all of whom being ecstatic to see them.
"Ah, Mr. Akio! It's great to see you. We'd like to thank you once again about your service." The head of the construction workers says, to which Akio once again says that it is nothing and that he has brought some help.
Noticing them, the worker bows, with the others following suit, as they've heard of The Shining Generals. They're told that it's alright, and they once again stand up, asking if everyone is ready to start the construction process.
Kurayami leaves Ruby in the shade, since she is too young to help, and she agrees. Akio and the others instantly get to work, as they start rebuilding the houses. It's a fun process, since everyone can catch up while working, and the new Generals can get to know the successors and vice versa.
Soon after, Eldric arrives with the villagers, with most of whom wanting to help in the reconstruction process simply to give back to the two brave men that gave their all to save them. Akio notices the elderly woman and her family, deciding to go down and have a chat with them.
All four of them thank Akio again for risking his own life to save them, but Akio tells them to not mention it again, as he only did what was right. He helps the elder woman sit down, as her daughter-in-law and grandchildren sit beside her.
Akio leads the villagers here too, as all that can work have already started, though these unable ones are saddened, since they cannot contribute for their own personal reasons. Akio, not wanting them to feel like this, tells them that there's one thing they can do: Notify them if any danger is coming.
The villagers are ecstatic, knowing that even though they cannot help in the reconstruction, they can at least do this, especially if The Shining General Akio himself asks them to. After everything gets settled, Akio goes back to work, now motivated to work even harder then before.
By the time that the night falls, and due to the amount of hands that are there, the village is reconstructed and it's in an even better condition than before. Jack, as the new Lightning General, promises to bring the latest technology to the village, to which everyone is grateful.
The construction workers and the Generals go home, as Akio and Kurayami decide to stay up, decorating their new house. Hanami had also upgraded Akio's watch with the feature to teleport small distances, similar to the machine in the headquarters.
Using this, their work was swifter than it would be, and the two go to sleep, deciding to take the next day off, presumably to get accustomed to the city. A house is nice, but Kurayami has taken more to villages, so it'll be a bit hard for her to make this leap.
This does not let Akio down, though. They wake up and Ruby is taken to Hisako's house to play, as Akio remembered that some more progress on Kurayami could be down with the state-of-the-art technology in the headquarters, so they go.
At the healing station, everyone relevant is there. Grace and Sarah would naturally be awaiting, and Sarah had actually heard something about Kurayami's scars from Grace, so she's excited. Alongside them are Hunter, Hanami and Jack, who also want to play their part in helping Kurayami.
She lies in a X-ray machine, as Akio activates Burning Sense and shares his magic energy with the machine, allowing it to give a more detailed examination on Kurayami. They make little progress, though it's still helpful. Apparently, the scars signify the magic energy that she has, which is quite a lot, but when they disappear, according to Akio's information, it means that she's getting closer to controlling it.
However, at random times, she regains more scars, which does not help them at all. They'll have to look into Kurayami's soul, since it's related to her magic, but their current technology will not allow them to do it. It'll take a few months to make such machines, but they can do it, and so, Akio and Kurayami leave, thanking the five Generals for everything.
Exiting the headquarters, Akio tells Kurayami about what The Dark Wizard is planning, since he's afraid that they won't have the chance to help her. Kurayami nods and tells him that they should train.
Akio laughs, nodding. In actuality, Akio stopped trying to work with his Fire magic a while back, so he also wants to show Kurayami something new, calling Genkei and Jack to this. Akio powers down, but then, he focuses all of his magic energy on another part in his body, and somehow, his hair and eyes turn light blue.
Everyone recognizes the magic to be Lightning magic, since it's the only one to have such a color. Akio, in turn, confirms, but says that he acquired it recently, so he can't have it activated for long. This shouldn't be a problem, however, since he could train with it more in the headquarters.
Jack confirms this to be the case, as he had upgraded the training room more ever since the incident with Griffin. Genkei, however, reveals that he has also been working on something. Powering up, his hair and eyes turn from mostly light gray to dark blue with a light gray tint.
The other three do not know what magic that is, but Genkei reveals that it's called "Vortex magic", an evolution of wind magic. Somehow, though, he can also use his wind magic like normal, but he doesn't question it.
This motivates Jack and Kurayami to train in their own regard, as Akio and Kurayami still continue to make as much use of their day off as possible, waving Jack and Genkei goodbye, and thus, their new training begins.