Chapter 12 - Three years later

Akio and Eldric get closer and closer to their destination, making jokes along the way. Minutes later, they arrive just in time to get the party started. A soldier is shown, ready to kill an elderly woman, but he hears a voice.

"Durandal!"

As he swings down his sword to cut the woman in half, the blade is stopped by none other than Durandal, which Akio wields, as he breaks the blade of the soldier's sword. The soldier steps back, amazed to see Akio here, but as he does not know anything about Akio's activity ever since he left two years ago, he rushes in blindly.

Laughing, Akio takes out his second Durandal and activates Burning Sense, which has gotten far stronger within these two years. With just a simple swing, he cuts the soldier in four, and then he turns to the woman, extending his hand, so as to help her.

"Are you okay, miss?" He asked, having a smile on his face. The woman confirms that she is in fact okay, and Akio helps her up, telling her to get in a safe spot for now. Before leaving, the woman tells Akio that her daughter-in-law and grandchildren are in danger, to which Akio reassures her that he'll save them.

She runs away, and Akio turns back to the burning house. For now, he manages to manipulate the fire that envelops the house to some extent, allowing him to pass through freely and stopping it from burning down further, so everyone inside has higher chances of survival.

Akio rushes in, and as he expected, two soldiers await with the elderly woman's family, ready to kill them, beginning from the grandchildren. Before their weapons could make contact with the children, though, Akio grabs and shatters them with his bare hands, smiling.

"You should pick on someone your own size, don't you agree?"

Laughing, he grabs the hilts of their weapons and stabs them, asking the mother of the children to close their eyes. When she does so, Akio tears them open and burns them down, controlling his fire so only their bodies are what is destroyed.

When they finally turn to ashes, he turns around and gives everyone a lending hand, asking them follow him. Akio then feels the elderly woman's presence and goes to it in secrecy, alongside the mother and her children, and he has the family reunite, as they thank Akio, who nods, saying that it was his honor, and leaves.

He meets up with Eldric, who is in a kind of tough spot, because he is surrounded by a huge amount of soldiers. When Akio, comes, though, he instantly halves that very amount, and Eldric feels more confident, knowing that his friend has his back.

The two fight in near-perfect unison, the one attacking after the other. Moments later, they clear out the normal soldiers, but now, they see their general. Akio and Eldric prepare to fight, but the general gives them three options: One, they join him. Two, they get taken to Lord Gawain (The Dark Wizard), or three, they perish, along with this miserable village.

Eldric and Akio look at each other and nod, with Eldric starting to yell: "We pick four, your death!" The two friends jump in the air and fly towards the general, who avoids their attacks at the beginning.

Summoning the power of Durandal, Akio enters what he calls his 'cursed' state, in which he uses Burning Sense and the power of Durandal together. Eldric, on the other hand, simply boosts his power, since he has no weapons, and reaches Akio's strength.

They attack together, with the general being seemingly pushed into a corner, though he powers up to his true power, knocking both Akio and Eldric back. Eldric hits the ground hard, creating a huge crater, but Akio manages to regain his composure at the last second, as he lands on the ground normally.

Akio runs towards Eldric and tells him that they need to try that. Eldric nods, as Akio injects him with the healing fluid, allowing him to get up. The general looks past the smoke that clears, as he sees Akio and Eldric pouring all their energy into one big ball.

They both know that this is far too dangerous, since this has not been attempted ever before. The general rushes towards them, knowing that he'll have to stop their attack, but he's too late. Akio and Eldric release their attack, whose sheer power causes an earthquake. The soldier is caught up in the blast and is seemingly obliterated.

As the attack disperses into magic and back into the atmosphere, they see something falling off of where the ball was originally, and they go there, as they see some parts of the general having somehow survived, though they don't make a big deal out of them and leave, wanting to ensure the safety of the villagers.

They make their way back, and to their relief, nobody has died, though few are injured. Akio takes out his healing injections and tells everyone that they're safe, and they reluctantly trust him, since they're still shaken from the prior attack.

After everyone is healed, Akio and Eldric tell them that they can take refuge in a near city, as they'll start the reconstruction of the village tomorrow. The two lead everyone to that city, as soldiers appear, going to where the limbs of the general remained.

For some reason, they retrieved them and got them to one of the bases of The Dark Wizard, where his body would be reconstructed. The general wakes up, and in front of him, he sees the door to the healing station open, and someone comes out.

The general gets up and bows. "Welcome, Lord Kizayo!" The man, who is revealed to be The Shadow Commander known as Kizayo (since it's the only thing closest to a name that he remembers after his reawakening), dismisses the greeting, and orders the general to give him every bit of information he has about Akio and Eldric.

Back to our heroes, Akio and Eldric take the villagers to a refugee shelter, where they will surely be safe until they can return back to their village. Leaving, they fist bump, laughing about their first success in their first joint mission.

They return to the building, where Alex and Valeria await them, congratulating them on a perfect success. They also reveal that the training that had begun two years ago will be coming to an end very soon.

Akio's eyes brighten up, as he realizes what this means. He asks when is it training, and the two reply with something that comes to Akio as wonderful news: it'll end in less than three days. Akio laughs and thanks them.

"First, though, we will have you fight again, just to see where you stand now, compared to your older selves." Alex had said, with Akio knowing that seeing everyone again will be the reward for asserting his dominance one last time.

Eldric nods, as the two students go back to their dorms. Akio lies down and gets on his phone, thinking that he hasn't opened it in quite a while. Actually, he hasn't even touched it ever since he got here, so it's been two whole years!

He charges it and opens it up. His first thought was to open the messaging up, which now has a plethora of updates to download, but he does not want to ruin the surprise for his friends. First of all, he almost opens Magicgram, a popular social media application at the time, though he uninstalls it first.

Reinstalling it, Akio makes a new account and goes through the accounts of his friends, trying to see what they're up to. Apparently, Jack and Harumi have gotten engaged, which didn't surprise him much, knowing that they had a closer friendship than the others.

Furthermore, he sees that now Genkei is in a relationship with Alexa, and he erupts with laughter, seeing as his eternal rival (and cousin) has found a girlfriend before him. Sighing, he lays down again, looking at some of his favorite accounts.

As he does so, he goes to sleep and wakes up to the sound of heavy banging coming from his dorm's door. He immediately gets up and goes to open the door, but as he does so, Blaze falls on top of him, as he was charging at the door for a last resort.

"Blaze.. get off of me.. please." Akio nonchalantly remains on the floor, as Blaze gets up. Behind him was Aurora, who was a bit worried about Akio, since he was late. Akio asks them what time it is, and they tell him that it's 11:30 AM, which has him realize how late he is.

Akio tells them to go back to the training area, and that he'll be there in three minutes. Blaze starts a counter on his phone, since he is interested to see if Akio will actually be ready in three minutes. Akio rushes to grab his watch and equip his battle suit, as he does his hair and brushes his teeth.

At the very three-minute mark, Akio appears in the training area, making Blaze laugh and tell him that he is a very interesting man. "Or, at least, that's what I've realized over two years after meeting you."

Akio laughs and tells him that he always keeps his word. Everyone scolds him for being late, but he scratches the back of his head and says sorry. Alex informs him that he is the last one they waited on, and that all the others have fought, except from Kurayami, who asked to be his rival.

He turns to Kurayami for a second, and she nodded, smiling. "Alright, then. Can we begin now?" Alex is now genuinely confused and quite annoyed, thinking that Akio can't have just asked that question.

"Of course, you idiot!" He yelled at Akio, who silently took Kurayami and they went onto the field, each going to their respective sides, just as it had happened over two years ago. This time, they go all-out from the beginning.

Kurayami and Akio were the only ones to know how to let their weapons' power flow through them, since the others weren't interested in that path of mastery over their weapons, and so they begin. Akio's hair gets a purple and somewhat red tint, while Kurayami's hair remains the same, though her eyes become darker.

They rush at each other and clash fists, with Akio subconsciously activating Burning Sense, and for some reason, he is able to see Kurayami's body through her clothing. Instantly, he closes his eyes, being far too embarrassed, though it doesn't work, and he notices that he can actually only see her scars, which slowly fade away as she fights him.

Getting an Idea, Akio punches Kurayami in the stomach and appears behind her, ready to hit her in the back, though she turns around and kicks him in the jaw, sending him flying. Looking down, Akio focuses on Kurayami again, while noticing that her magic energy has increased and more of her scars are disappearing.

He smiles and jumps down at Kurayami with the most speed he can muster using his fire magic, kicking her in the stomach and creating a really big crater. Kurayami spits blood, but she smiles and gets up swiftly, punching Akio.

Akio once again notices that her scars are disappearing more and more, and he thinks that one final push is what she needs to unlock her true power. He raises his power to the maximum, which alarms Kurayami, though she understands that it's a signal.

She also raises it to the maximum, and they clash fists once again, outputting as much energy as possible. Alex and Grace, being alarmed by this, create a barrier, since it could mean trouble. Akio sees that all of Kurayami's scars have faded away.. but.. they reappeared, and this time, she has even more than before.

Kurayami falls unconscious, and Alex, alongside Grace, deactivates the barrier, allowing the latter to rush to Kurayami. Akio falls on one foot and checks on Kurayami again, trying to see if she is okay. Grace asked Akio what's going on, and he tells her everything that he has noticed, though this simply amazes Grace.

Her scars slowly disappeared... until finally.. they reappeared. Grace tries to process it, while looking at Akio in amazement, because this would help Grace understand Kurayami more. She thanks him, as she takes Kurayami to the medical station.

Alex comes to Akio's side, telling him to get ready. Akio is confused, but Alex tells him the big news: They'll be leaving for the capital tomorrow.