The palace, Sebastian's POV:
"This is the newest thing, your highness" I heard a voice coming from the prince's room. The hallway was dark and only a thin ray of light from the barley open door was seen.
I was carrying the laundry and had a long list of housework left to do, but I still had to stop in my track for two reasons. The first one is that it was kind of late and way past the prince's bedtime. And second, the voice had a tone that I totally didn't like. Or trust. Specially when it mentioned the 'thing'.
So of course, I had to walk closer and eavesdrop. I leaned slightly on the door while I still held the laundry basket.
"And? What are the results this time? More failures are not acceptable! You hear me?!"
Ah! The usual angry voice of the young prince, unmistakable.
"Y-young prince, it's- it's complicated. We can't help that nearly no progress was made since we lost our subject" The other voice of a middle aged man said.
"Bullshit! Then what is this sample you brought today? Huh?!" The prince said while he picked a beautiful strange-looking necklace from the table in front of him as he sat in his usual corner with his usual scowl and his usual unsatisfied body language.
"That was a thing we were working on from before losing the sample. We weren't able to check its functional or run any tests since we made sure it won't react to anyone but you, young prince, just as you ordered" The man said smirking with a sneaky attitude that I didn't like.
Prince Taro glared at the man with suspicion for a while before he put on the necklace.
The prince suddenly stood up and smiled wildly. He glared at his hands moving them side to side before looking up as he stretched his right hand in the air.
All of a sudden, a spoon and a glass of water started floating in the air, but they were shaking a bit. If I didn't know better, I would say prince Taro was using actual magic!
"Now that's what I call progress! Good job professor, you really surpassed yourself this time! Be positive that you will be generously rewarded!"
"Uhm, your highness, I appreciate that but you have to know that its power is so limited, I don't believe it will work on anything bigger than an apple" The one that have been mentioned as 'professor' said.
"W-what! Why?!" The angry prince reacted as he tried to lift the whole table up with his 'magic' but failed.
"My prince, you know that we can't improve the effect without the sample, and since he r-" the professor stopped midsentence when he heard a low crack coming from the door.
I panicked a bit when I realized I had leaned too much to cause the door to move a little, I tried to cover the mess up.
I opened the door steadily and pretended I never heard or saw a thing. The prince dropped everything to the floor immediately so that nothing was floating anymore. I put my cold and stern usual face and walked in with the laundry basket.
"My lord, I'm here for the laundry" I said as a cold sweat drop creeped down my cheek while I tried my best to behold my poker face.
Prince Taro stared at me for some minutes with an unbearable silence in the air. He placed his fingers on my chin and made me look him directly in the eyes.
"Is there anything that's bothering you, ouji-sama?(prince)" I asked and smiled my most believable innocent smile.
"Hmm"
A long painful silence again.
"No, just get out already, there's no laundry" He frowned and let go of my chin harshly before turning around and sitting back on his luxurious chair.
Ah, that was a close one!
*********
Downtown area, Youya's POV:
Finally!
We finally snatched Ayane-san from her depression, thanks to Rin's careless attitude.
I watched from behind as Ayane-san and Rin continued to fight over something I didn't care about while Rin gave his best at teasing Ayane-san.
Hina-san walked beside me as happy as I was to see Ayane-san so energic again.
A rain drop came from above and landed on my nose. I looked up and gave a sigh of relief that everything was at least doing better than before. More drops landed on my face, but the rain was not so heavy that we needed any umbrellas or anything, so we just continued our walk.
"You know that's not true! I have a slim sexy waist. Don't go tell me this shit about your grandma having a prettier body than me!" Ayane-san screamed. "Right, Hina?!" She looked back at me and Hina-san with that I-dare-you-to-say-no terrifying face.
"Uh, well, we don't know how his grandmother looks like, right? We can't just.... assume things?" Hina-san said, more like questioned, after feeling cornered and raising her hands defensively in front of her.
"What!" Ayane-san scowled. "Not you too, Hina! Is that what you think too? Youya?!" She asked, technically threatened, me.
I backed a few steps. Ready to run for my life.
"Uhhh, um, well...." I stuttered, trying to think of a way to evade death. "Wait, you don't even have a grandmother, Rin!" I realized.
"Hahaha, fools" Rin laughed mockingly and started running away as Ayane-san followed with a stick in hand, ready to attack. The light rain continued to fall as Ayane-san and Rin splashed around some of the forming water ponds. I gave Hina-san a look and we both giggled.
Suddenly Hina-san's face changed, the smile on her face vanished and she snatched her head to the back looking defensive all of a sudden.
I took a look at were she was staring and saw a normal crowded street behind us.
"What's the matter, Hina-san?" I said worriedly.
"Shhh" she said as she placed her forefinger on my lips. Not taking her eyes off of the crowd.
Ayane-san ran suddenly toward the crowd with Rin right after her as he had this devilish teeth-showing smirk.
"Hikaru!" Ayane-san shouted to the crowd. A few people gave her suspicious looks, but most of them just continued their way.
Ayane-san pulled a necklace with a purple stone attached to it. The stone was glowing brightly. It was so beautiful to watch. The stone's shine was mixing with the falling raindrops smoothingly. It felt as if one could just dive in the cristal stone and never come back.
I snatched myself out of it when I saw a cloaked man staring at me. Then he looked at Ayane-san and kept staring at her with one of his eyes, the other hidden with a black hoodie.
I then concentrated my senses to feel his aura. And it was, strangely, the same aura as Ayane-san's! I knew from before that Ayane-san is not a magician and that I'm not supposed to sense anything from her, but her's was so oddly faint and gloomy. But this person, he had a too sharp and even painful aura to sense.
I realized that I had sensed the exact same aura once before! It was him. The black magician. Kuro!
At that moment, Ayane-san turned her head to see him. He turned away directly trying not to make any eye contact with her and started walking.
Ayane-san ran as fast as she could to follow him, but just when I thought he was about to blend in with the crowd and make Ayane-san lose him, he freezed in the spot and stopped moving.
At the same moment when the magician stopped walking, an ear piercing scream was heard from behind. I looked frightfully back behind me to see Hina-san down on her knees, hyperventilating.
I ran to her side sitting on the ground beside her and started to pat her back gently. I was panicking too, wondering about what happened to her so suddenly.
I looked up for a second and the cloaked boy was staring at us. Surprise was seen in his eye as he tried to react as fast as he could.
He ran to us and started talking to Hina-san.
"Stop! What do you think you're doing?!" The boy said as he was breathing heavily as well for some reason. He was scowling a bit but in general his features seemed emotionless and cold.
I came to my right mind for a moment to recognize a thin thread of Hina-san's blue aura connected to the boy's black one.
Hina-san squeezed her eyes shut and seemed to be in too much pain to hear or process what she was told.
The boy, kuro, had realized that. So instead, he quickly made a blade of his black aura that framed his fingers and cut the blue thread.
Hina-san seemed to relax instantly, but sweat kept crawling down her face. She was not hyperventilating anymore but her breath was still a bit uneven. Her eyes were still closed but they weren't squeezed in pain now.
The boy's expressions returned to his neutral emotionless face as he was about to stand up ready to dash out of there. But Ayane-san was squatted down by our side by now.
Ayane-san held tightly to the boy's arm with both her hands as a few tears ran down her cheek.
"I've finally found you!" She whispered in a very happy tone. She took a glance at Hina-san who had her eyes half opened now, looking at the boy in both shock and disbelief.
A loud yell snatched all of us to look above.
"Ha!! It's you again! It's time to get my revenge!" Rin said excitedly as he started charging at kuro.
Kuro hadn't moved an inch. He actually never looked up either, as if there wasn't any crazy fight-lover teen about to attack him at the moment.
An oddly fast movement was made before anyone could progress anything when we saw Hina-san standing infront of kuro in a defensive way. One arm stretched to the side and the other clutching her chest that apparently was still hurting her a bit.
"Baka! Stop!" She said as her aura surrounded Rin's, stopping his movment in the spot. He started to struggle and whine about fair fights and revenge but Hina-san had clearly the upper hand, even in that state.
I was a bit surprised to see that the one defending the black magician kuro was Hina-san, rather that Ayane-san who just sat there helplessly clutching kuro's hand tighter.
"Why are you even defending him?! Let me fight!" Rin screamed at Hina-san, still trying to move his hand that held a dagger, but to no avail.
"You idiot! He can't fight right now! He can barely stand!" She said, startling everyone.
But no one had the time to progress what she said or to answer before we all heared a loud thud.....
つずく
To be continued.....