Who Is He, Really?

"Everything has gone according to plan, it should be better now..." A voice belonging to a young man could be heard from within a carriage.

'Maybe I just need to wait a bit longer.' The young man thought while mentally fighting with his current predicament. 

The carriage bumps

'BUT WHEN WILL IT!' He then slams the wall beside him with his arm repletely. 

*Thump*

*Thump*

*Thump*

The sound of something hitting the wall of the carriage can be heard as the horses dragged the fancy light blue carriage with gold rims along the paved gravel road within the capital of The Eversky Empire.

Outside of the carriage the coachman of the carriage seemed to be visibly terrified hearing the sound of hitting coming from within the carriage since the person he was escorting was a someone very important, he asked in a shaky voice.

"P-Prince is everything a-alright back there-re?"

.

.

.

The coachman started getting worried with the silence besides the galloping horses and the sound of nature, he turns around to open the carriage window to see if the person inside was okay.

Opening the little window door he sees a boy who seemed to be in his late teens with messy gray hair in a school uniform, the look on his face was one of extreme fury that he would think he would kill anyone his gaze lands upon.

The coachman was about to ask how he was again but hesitated seeing the state the boy was in. Before he even got the chance to ask he heard him speak in a voice that was restraining to yell at the coachman.

"I am fine. No need to worry about the noise." The boy stared at the coachman, as if asking to leave him be.

"O-okay sir." Seeing the look he was giving him, he quickly closed the window and went back to driving trying not to worry about the boy.

Inside the carriage the boy with messy gray hair slowly dropped his head back down as his hands held up his head. He quickly gets lost in his thoughts,

'What is happening, How did this even happen?' 

"Hahahahaaaaaaahaaaaa..... ha"

He questions himself internally before he starts laughing but the expression on his face was anything but joyful. 

'Everything will be back to normal before the tournament starts.' He tried to comfort himself but suddenly started to get angry at his current circumstance. 

He starts to feel the anger well up in him as he punches the cushion seat in the carriage. Slowly hitting it more with each hit gaining more power as he punches the cushion harder and harder after each hit.

His knuckles start to bleed slightly. Feeling the stinging pain on his fist he stops to glance at his hand and sees them a bit scratched up and bloodied. Not caring about the condition of his hands 

asks the coachman on the other side of the window who was still driving the carriage.

"How long till we reach the academy? I am getting pretty annoyed since it shouldn't take this long to get there at this time of day!"

He slammed open the window connecting the carriage and where the coachman was sitting. The boy stared angrily at the coachman.

The coachman felt a chill crawl down his spine as upon the impatience in the tone of the boy's question the coachman tries to hurriedly reply knowing he couldn't act discourteous towards the boy.

"It-t should only be 5 more minutes till we are at the gate sir."

Getting the response from the coachman, the messy gray hair boy closes the window and sits back down taping his foot impatiently.

The time quickly passes as he feels the carriage come to a halt. Without hearing anything the coachman was gonna say, he slams the door of the carriage open and jumps out.

The guards at the gate of the academy see the boy that came out of the carriage and didn't recognize him.

Once the boy got closer they instantly recognized him and saw the look on the gray haired youth's face that expressed 'Don't Stand in My Way' which was very apparent as they quickly got the message without him saying it. As they stepped out of the way, the boy waltz right past them not sparing them a glance.

The guards seeing the boy walking past angrily rushing past them without even giving them a glance was very unusual to the character that they interacted with in the morning.

"Did the prince look angry to you too?" A guard asked

"Are you a fool, didn't you see his face? Of course he was fucking pissed, can't believe the academy hired you to work here with a dumb fuckin question like that." The second guard standing opposite to him replied.

"I don't think I posed my question right. Has he ever shown that expression before? Cause I haven't in the 2 years i've been working here." The first guard quickly defended himself.

The second guard looked at him seemingly thinking before slowly nodding to what the first guard said.

"I think you're right, that is weird since he is always showing a dignified attitude. That was the first time I seen him look like that." 

----------------------------------------------

Walking down the hall of the academy, murmurs can be heard as the boy with messy gray hair could be seen heading towards the male dormitory. 

The sun of the late evening shinning down through the windows, as shadows casted of the boy flashed at a fast pace.

His face contorted into different emotions while heading towards his room while picking up speed with more people talking, as students start gossiping over his appearance in the academy.

"Isn't that the Prodigy Prince? I thought he already left for the Xetal Empire to participate in the Grand Alliance Tournament, What is he doing here?" 

One of the students whispered to their friend that was beside them. His tone was one of confusion.

"I thought so as well? He is our best chance to bring glory to the academy and our empire so it doesn't make much sense that he is still here?"

His friend replied, while looking at the back of the of the boy with gray hair.

"His ice magic is unparalleled in the history of the element! There is no way he isn't gonna go to the tournament to show-off. He will probably catch up and meet the rest at the tournament site."

A young student praised while looking at his idol.

"Why is his hair gray? It wasn't like this during the selection exam for the Grand Alliance Tournament's Captain position."

A student asked while observing the boy with messy gray hair.

"Maybe he dyed it?"

Another student said in a quiet voice.

Sounds of the students gossiping could be heard while the boy with gray hair was ignoring everything as his mind was in a chaotic state focused on something entirely unrelated to the topics of the gossip.

Upon opening the door of his personal dorm room and entering he slams it behind him as he jumps onto the bed. His sky blue eyes that looked as if they were diamonds well up with tears that threaten to break, while his face slowly turns from the one of anger and sorrow then turn to one of helplessness.

'How did this happen. How, How, How, I have never heard of something happening like this before!'

He lays down staring at the ceiling, he brainstorms ideas on what to do before he remembers

'The Book must have the answer to fix this!'

He tries to think of what led to this point as he picks out a book from his space bag. Staring at the title of the book, it was just a scribbling that looked to be a another language the only translated letters seemed to be the initials of L.M at the bottom corner of the book cover. The book looks like it has seen better days as there was signs of tear and seemed to be decrepit.

Opening the book he slowly starts flipping though the book, pages were written in a

different language unknown to him even though he searched everywhere and still never found the exact origin of it. The pages had the the foreign language and new words that seemed to be in a more recent ink.

Each page was either a long passage of words or drawings of items or ideas. Some of the drawings he saw in the book were things commonplace, but then there are things others that he has never seen before obtaining the book.

The boy flipped to a page that contained a lot letters he recognized as he read through the passage. Finding nothing relating to the problem he flips the pages again to another page that was readable. 'Weapon Theory' he grazed through it then saw with red ink 'Unreachable' reading though the rest of the page he decided it had nothing to with his issue, and continued flipping the pages of the old book.

'Where is it? I know I it's to be around here. It shouldn't have worked like that.'

He continues to flip through the pages as he lands on a page labeled 'Affinity ######'. His eyes start to glimmer,

'This is it! This has to be it.'

The page full of scribbles and blacked out text. Reading through the remaining text that he could read, he starts to look in disbelief as his eyes start to tear up reading the last paragraph.

When he finishes reading the page he throws the book against the door while dwelling on his past now that his life has turned upside down.

He turns his head to stare at the window thinking of what has transpired in the past few weeks. Staring out the window while the sun fall behind the school building

as his room turns darker under his listless eyes and as memories start to pass and the tears that were passing start drowning his cheeks.