Chapter 31: Meditation

*Souta*

"I brought Ava back, Dad!" I yelled, entering the 'chemical closet'.

"Woah. So the stories were true," Ava mumbled as she looked around.

I stopped and turned around. "Wait, you knew?"

"I've heard stories. There should be a path that leads to my house somewhere too."

"Eh? Why would there be one?"

"As an escape path. According to my clan's lore, the room and the equivalent at my place were formed to serve as bunkers."

"Do you know by who?"

"I'm not sure who they were apart from being ancestors. Although, I theorize they were formed before the Diamond clan decided to end the Era of War."

"I see."

Wait, did our ancestors know what they were plotting? It must've been so frightening that we decided to remain in secret. Unlike the Opal clan which helped fill the political void, or the Amethyst clan becoming an influential family in our eastern neighbor.

"Hey, Pa. I brought Ava with me! Let's start!" I yelled, jumping down the last couple of steps.

Pa punched the air rapidly before slicing the air with his left foot.

Ma clapped her hands.

"MA?"

"Eh?" she said, standing up with her basket. "I, uh. Wanted to check how your pa was doing. You took longer than I expected."

"He sure did. What held you up?" Pa asked.

"Ava got stuck babysitting her siblings. I told them to go play with my siblings upstairs."

"I better go check on them!" Ma said, rushing off.

Ava laughed. "Good thinking, Mrs. C."

Yeah, her brother could be quite a troublemaker.

Pa put his hands on his hips and smiled. "Ready to train with Sou, eh, Avachi?"

Ava nodded.

I grinned. "Prepare to have your butt kicked!" I said, grinning.

Pa laughed. "Ava's our demonstration buddy, not your sparring buddy."

I pouted.

Ava shook her head and chuckled. "My, how childish of you, Souta."

"Shut it!" I'm starting to regret asking her for help! Should've gotten Sayuri to help out instead!

"Alright, Ava. Form some petals and we can begin," Pa said, grinning.

She nodded. Pink crystalline petals flowed out of the sleeves of her white blouse. Her powers were so beautiful. If only her personality matched.

Father smirked. "Well then, let us begin! Ava. Attack me!"

"Huh? I thought you said you weren't going to spar," I said.

"I'm sure he has something in mind. He did say this is for demonstration purposes," Ava said as she spun. Her petals flew straight at him.

"You don't need to be hit to cancel out an attack," Pa said, smirking.

"Woah!" I said, my eyes widening as the petals vanished. It was like an invisible sphere of destruction.

Ava smiled. "So easily surprised."

I grumbled. There she went, treating me like some kid again.

"She has a point, son. This isn't even the most incredible technique. That said, one shouldn't dismiss its usefulness. There are head-on attacks that we can't completely absorb the energy of," Pa said.

I recalled my spar with the God of Dawn. When he punched me, I failed to absorb most of the energy. Who knew what would've happened if not for my void powers? Although, he likely would've taken the lack of them into account. Then again, did I even absorb any energy? He was a god. According to the angel that wanted to take Aya, our powers were useless against the gods who gave them to us in the first place.

"I see," I said, smiling slightly. "How do I use it?"

"Let me guess, it's similar to the chakra defusion aura you have around your bodies, but spread out, right?" Ava asked.

Pa clicked his tongue and smiled. "Sharp girl!"

She smiled proudly. Ugh, she could be such a know-it-all sometimes. Well, most of the time actually.

I tried to recall the basics father taught me. We could nullify attacks, whether they be energy-based like Ava's crystals or a punch like those the angel delivered to me back at the Opal estate. We did so by canceling them out with our special chakra. This chakra could also erase whatever we so desired, as long as it wasn't a divine being that was. It also depended on the strength of the thing one wanted to erase.

Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and tried to grasp my chakra. The God of Dawn said to visualize. Before long, I tapped into my anti-chakra and imagined it spreading outwardly. This energy was so different from Ava's and the others. Tapping into it felt as if I could lose myself to it. Pa said it was both nothingness and unlimited when I was little. What was the true nature of this paradoxical power? If the gods had something like this at their command, should they really have feared the Dark Lord? Or was this a power they normally couldn't use?

"Let's see if he has done it or not," Pa said. "Attack."

"On it!" Ava said.

I opened my eyes and stood calmly. It was strange. My usual hyperactiveness was gone.

Ava smiled as her petals vanished, hitting my invisible barrier.

"Hmm?" Pa said, looking me up and down. "Odd. What's this strange vibe I'm feeling?"

I stared at my hands. "So you can sense it too," I said, coolly. I smiled slightly. "My mind feels cleared."

Ava laughed. "So, you went ahead and meditated at last."

I blinked. Had I? All I was doing was trying to expand my energy outward.

She sighed. "You didn't mean to do that, did you?"

I shook my head. "No. I tried, but I couldn't calm my raging thoughts."

Pa rubbed his chin. "Wonder what was different? Oh, maybe it was because you tried to tap your power while doing it!"

That made sense. The other times I had tried to clear my mind but didn't think of drawing upon my chakra at the same time.

"I just did what the God of Dawn suggested when I met him, visualized."

Ava smiled. "Like always, you made things harder on yourself than they had to be."

My eyes twitched as the calm vibe disappeared. "S-shut up! You were the one who wrote those notes! If you knew how to make it easier for me, you should've said so! Ugh, now you went ahead and ruined it!"

She bit her lips. "Oops."

I sighed.

Pa laughed. "That's okay. But you still need to try it a few more times. I want you to perfectly master this technique before we move on to the next. If you do, the others will be easy."

I smiled.

"Well, more accurately, manipulating your chakra," Ava said, smiling slightly. She really liked giving her two cents on every topic, didn't she?

"Think I get it," I said, crossing my arms.

"Let's see if you have," Ava said, stepping back.

I smiled. "Just try to get past me!"

"Oh, a challenge. This is gonna be interesting," Pa said, chuckling as he gave us space.

Ava threw her petals at me, causing me to stumble and fall on my behind.

"Hey! I still need time!" I said, holding my hand out.

She laughed. "You didn't even erase most of them with your usual aura."

I turned away. "Well, they were pretty well put together," I mumbled.

Ava leaned closer. "What was that? I didn't hear."

"You heard!" I jumped to my feet and took a deep breath. "Now be quiet. I need to focus."

"Seems using these techniques in battle will take a while," Pa said, sighing.

"I'll get there, don't worry." I won't lose to the likes of Ava!

"Make it quick, before I get bored," Ava said, smirking as she made crystal petals dance around her index finger.

I gritted my teeth. "You can't rush this stuff."

"You both make decent points. Sou needs time to get used to it. But you also can't take too long either, son."

I nodded. "I'll try to speed up a bit." I closed my eyes and tried to visualize my aura again. The energy spread outward.

Ava yelled.

I opened my eyes and watched as her petals were destroyed one by one. Father stepped in and formed a barrier of his own, canceling mine out.

"This is why I said not to rush!" Pa yelled, fury in his eyes.

"S-sorry. I didn't mean to," I said.

He put a hand over his face and sighed. "It's okay. Just be a bit more careful." He turned to look at Ava. "That is if she still wishes to continue."

Ava pushed herself off the floor and dusted her skirt off. "Let's continue. Take it slowly this time, Sou."

My hands trembled. "O-okay..." I took a deep breath as my legs shook. I've joked about erasing Ava before, but having come this close to actually doing it was scary. She might've been annoying, but she was still my childhood friend.

"Ya alright, son?" Pa asked, rushing over and putting a hand behind my back.

I took several more breaths. "Yeah. Don't worry. I'll be fine."

He frowned. "It's best to be honest, Souta. Our emotional state has a big impact on our control. If you're shaken, you could hurt yourself."

I turned toward Ava again. Hurting someone else was higher on my list of concerns.

Ava lowered her head. "Seems I overdid it again with my taunting."

"It's okay," I said, taking a deep forward. "Let's try it again."

"You sure?" Pa asked.

I closed my eyes. "Yeah." I dropped to the floor and crossed my legs. Ava's notes mentioned meditating like this. Maybe doing it this way would make it easier to get into that calm state of mind again.

The energy expanded outward, but its shape was erratic like me. Steady, Sou. No need to rush through things.

I opened my eyes as I felt Ava's petals flying at me. Yet again, no warning. I smiled. Not that I needed it this time. Her petals vanished within a three feet radius of me.

"Hmm, there's that weird vibe again," Pa said, looking down at me.

I stood up and felt the aura coursing through my body. This sensation felt so familiar.

My eyes widened as the scenery around me shifted to the top of a tower. A pale orange aura covered my body as the God of Dawn floated in the sky along with several others gods.

'Master these powers as much as you may in what's left your mortal lives and pass on what you learn to your children in writing,' the God of Dawn said with a sad smile.

"Sou?" Ava said, stepping toward me slowly.

I shook my head. Was that another memory from him? From my past life?

"I saw a vision," I said, staring at my hands. "Of when the God of Dawn and the others gave the sages their powers. Dyeing the quartz of the Sage of Citrine its lemon-orange color.

"Wait, how can that be? Wait, Sou, are you-"

I nodded. "I am. I'm the reborn sage."

Ava gasped.

"Why are you surprised? You already knew."

"Not that. It hit me that if you can access your past life's memories, you could learn new stuff."

"That is a good idea at face value, but it was the later generations that helped polish what he learned," Pa said, smiling. "Sou here would only learn a handful of things from him."

I scoffed. "How rude. I set the floor plan!" I blinked. Eh?

Ava laughed. "Seems you're in tune with him as we speak."

I sighed. "Yeah." I smiled. "Well, let's see what you can do, old friend."

Her eyes widened before her lips curled upward. "Alright. I need to grow stronger too!"

Pa chuckled. "That's the spirit. Let's continue training then."

We continued our training, with me now having a new understanding of my past life and the powers that came with it. Ava and I pushed each other to our limits, determined to grow stronger and become better fighters. It was going to be a long and difficult journey, but with the support of my family and friends, I knew we could overcome any obstacle that came our way. Or so I thought...