Chapter 1. A memory...

Dream, period of unconsciousness during which the brain remains highly active; Events or images that are represented in someone's fantasy while sleeping...

I open my eyes. I look at the window and see the sunlight slipping through the curtains. I turn my head and look up at the clock on the wall, 16:27 PM read 16:27 PM. My memories were fuzzy and my head hurt like a migraine.

-Buzz!

A ringing sound was heard in my ears, I held my head with my hands as I tried to relax my head from the throbbing pain. Looking all around, I couldn't find the source of the buzzing, good thing the buzzing only lingered for a few moments, but they still felt eternal with the migraine I was having.

--Drip.... drip....

Suddenly I felt something drip from my nose, bringing my fingers to my nose, I felt something warm and when I looked at my fingers, I noticed it was blood.

I quickly got up dizzy, but without stopping I reached for a cloth on the old desk and began to wipe it off, to my luck the bleeding only lasted a few moments before it stopped.

"Why does my head hurt so much?" I questioned. Only now noticing with my blurry vision that my glasses had broken and I would have to buy new ones.

My train of thought was interrupted when a flurry of memories about the events and happenings moments before I passed out hit me.

The more I remembered the more confused and relieved I felt, but there was one thing that caught my attention in my memories, the black book.

"Wait where's the book?" I shouted in a gasp. My eyes roaming like crazy around the small room, but despite looking everywhere I found nothing. It had just disappeared.

Seeing that I couldn't find it I tried to think of what had happened moments before I fell unconscious, that's when I remembered the book turning into motes of light and the words I saw before I was knocked out of me.

...

Moments ago.

It was a cold afternoon, the sky was overcast and rain threatened to fall even though it was only noon. Through the bustling corridors of the school a young man was walking when.

"Don't go falling on your own eyes, scum" rant another boy as he bumped into the young man maliciously.

Ciel turned around and adjusted his glasses as he looked in the direction the boy was walking away from. He had grown accustomed to the harassment from everyone. But that didn't change the fact that she didn't want to do anything.

Deciding to ignore the comment ciel went on his own way, but the memories of the harassment awakened something and slowly his steps stopped, he pushed up his glasses in one motion and pulling his middle finger out he shouted in the direction of the boy.

"Fuck you motherfucker" her scream so loud it came out in a hoarse tone.

When the boy heard the insult he clenched his fist and charged towards ciel. "you're just a scumbag, how dare you call me that" the boy rant with an angry face.

The boy clasped his hands together and a ball of white light formed between them. Only a few meters away from Ciel the boy stretched out his hands and like a bullet the ball shot out in a bolt of lightning.

Ciel had nowhere to dodge and even if he had he couldn't dodge the attack, he was too slow, knowing this he could only endure the pain. When the lightning struck his body, it shot through the air and slammed into the wall at the other end of the hallway.

A commotion was formed by the students attracted by the fight, several looked at what was happening and thought to help the boy by mediating, but when they saw who it was they just ignored it and just watched.

Gradually the dust settled and the bruised body of Ciel could be seen covered with dust on the wall. This one stood up and picked up his glasses, now seeing how they were in worse shape than before.

"Damn!" muttered ciel as he picked up the glasses and noticed that the frame had been broken for who knows which time, so he resigned himself to wearing the worn glasses and preferred to walk around with his blurred vision which would be the same as with the pair on.

With the glasses now in her hands ciel walked out of the school. When she arrived outside the center she could see the boys saying goodbye to their groups of friends. Ciel didn't like them and didn't want to belong to those groups, though by the same token they wouldn't let him join either.

Today was the last day of school, so he hoped no one would be looking for trouble with him, but in the end it was not the case. Ciel was sick and tired of the harassment he was receiving, but unlike those who just put their heads down and put up with it, he stood up for himself, which only made the harassment stronger.

Several minutes later, Ciel arrived at his house, if it could be called that, since it was only one room. In this room he could see a bed, an old wooden closet and desk, an old-fashioned flat screen television and a bathroom.

The apartment was given to him by the government after his parents passed away, so he lived there alone. Ciel was not in the best of moods, so he turned on the television and let it make background noise while he went about his business.

Ciel walked over to the desk, then pulled out two items from one of the drawers, one was an old black book, from its cover to its pages, but it was striking because of the chains wrapped around it and the lock.

On the lock a symbol or writing? It could be seen, it was some kind of lines or runes that formed some kind of seal. The symbol would perhaps be unfamiliar to others, but ciel knew it, she had seen it before and would always remember it, this was noticeable by the smooth stroke of her fingers all over the symbol.

The other object was less striking, but at the same time equally or more precious than the book, it was a ring. This ring was simple and its only peculiarity was that it appeared to be made of gold. Ciel placed the ring on his left pinky and then turned back to the book.

Burning, cutting, corrosion and multiple other adversities the book had survived, all caused by ciel in an attempt to open it, but it proved futile.

Ciel decided to clear his mind and took the book up to the bed and started watching television, there a news program presented the same thing as every day for years.

"What do you think about the recent fights endangering the treaty, Mars?" asked a man in a suit to another uniformed man on the screen. "Well, I couldn't tell you much, the truth is we all already know that the treaty with the Nova is..."

Nova. An alien race that appeared on earth over thirty years ago.

On a certain day thirty years ago. The human race was visited by those who called themselves Novas. They had the physical appearance of humans, except for the protuberances coming out of their heads, their so-called horns, the scales on their bodies and the skin tones between light, gray and completely black as darkness.

No one knew where they had come from, it was only known that they had a goal, and that was to colonize us, they immediately claimed our resources and that we would serve them as slaves. Humanity of course would not accept such a fact, so they decided to defend themselves against this race.

But sooner rather than later they discovered that their modern and advanced technology was useless against them, bullets could not penetrate their tough skins, heavy machinery, tanks, was completely useless against the airships they possessed, whether in physical, ground or in the sky, the novae surpassed humans in everything.

Humanity that had previously been injured by the star shower was now faced with such a threat, so, every individual, regardless of gender, was asked to fight for their planet and... their survival.

Among those individuals were also asciel's parents. The war dragged on for years, which led to him growing up without knowing his parents, only having vague memories of them.

When the humans were on the verge of defeat, a select group of people came forward: these people had special abilities. They began to share their knowledge of how they gained such power in the hope of turning the tide of the war and, fortunately, it worked.

Because they now knew that skills could be learned, they began to be written down in books and given to everyone to defend their world, marking the first generation of skill books and skill users.

Even so, humanity was still inferior to the novas, but even with their disadvantages, a stalemate was reached between the two forces, which led to a peace treaty a few years ago.

The Human-Nova treaty established that the war would stop and that both sides would be left in peace, of course this was not entirely so, as even with the treaty small scale fights were still going on in the shadows.

But, even so, thanks to the treaty the humans managed to recover and began to become stronger in anticipation of the possible outbreak of war again. But greed is one of the biggest flaws of mankind.

After the war stopped the authorities stopped giving the public the abilities for free and now they would be sold, but the worst part of this was that they kept the strongest ones and only left the leftovers to the public.

Also, now with people with powers, crime increased, which led to the creation of several security forces and a new unspoken social system, this was, the strong are on top and the weak are on the bottom.

The lower class was the one that suffered the most after this, since not having to pay for skill books were the stepping stones for the strongest to the top.

Asciel belonged to this group, being an orphan and having no money he had to subsist with the support of the government, he still remembered that day five years ago when a government agent knocked on his door.

The agent had told him the same words they told all orphans, but the agent added that his parents had left him no inheritance, but that they would give him his only belongings. Her only belongings were the ring and book.

Although ciel tried to keep her frustration, bitterness and anger inside, she still ended up clenching her fists so hard that her nails dug into the palm of her hands and blood dripped.

Ignoring this, Ciel clenched the book and slowly fell asleep, not noticing that the book was now covered in her blood.

The blood dripped off the book and fell on the lock causing it to react. The carved lines that formed the symbol were filling with drops of blood before they lost their color and became indistinguishable with a drop of water.

Soon ciel felt her breathing stop, her eyes snapped open and contracted when she saw the black book, now hovering at eye level.

Instinctively ciel stepped back, but what she felt was the wall behind her back, only now noticing that she wasn't breathing, and when she did her lungs ached, but that was the last thing she thought of as she almost screamed she said.

"What the hell is going on!"

Instantly the book began to glow, with the sound of metal clashing with metal the chains began to loosen, the lock turned to dust and the book transformed into motes of glowing light.

The book then opened and the pages began to turn at incredible speed.

- Flip, flip, flip!

The pages turned noisily and soon he reached the last one, then another change occurred, the pages began to fall out of the book, then they surrounded ciel, the leaves lit up a vibrant black color, the chains that seemed to be gone began to come out of the leaves, ciel could not defend himself when they held him and the remaining leaves turned into motes of light and entered his body.

His body began to feel weak, the chains turned into light and suddenly the room became silent, with only the sound of the television in the background. Asciel who was already weak began to fall to the floor.

But just before his consciousness left his body he seemed to hear a message.

"... [Congratulations on logging in, you have obtained the sis...]...."

Unable to keep his mind afloat any longer asciel fell to the ground.