(It was morning. A new day. Kazu was the first to wake up. He always was. He walked downstairs to get a cup of coffee but he was surprised because someone was already there. Selene.)
Selene: "Oh, good morning Kazu."
(She was cooking and looked way too happy.)
Kazu: "G-goodmorning, Selene. How are you doing?"
Selene: "I'm doing great. Just thought I'd make some breakfast for everyone."
Kazu: "Oh ok, well that's nice of you. You're just up early and a little happier than I thought you'd be."
Selene: "Well I can't let things hold me back. You have to move forward in life you know. "
Kazu: "Yeah, that's true. I just thought you'd be upset by... You know."
(Selene kind of froze in her tracks for a moment. She looked down for a second.)
Selene: "Yeah, I know, but I-I just don't know what to do."
(Selene put her face in her hands crying.)
Selene: "I-I just don't know what to do without her."
(Kazu walked over to her and hugged her. He didn't even think about it. He just did it.)
Selene: "I feel like nothing without her. She was the only family I had left. What should I do?"
Kazu: "I'm sorry Selene. I don't know what to say, but I know you're strong. I know you can make it through this."
Selene: "But how?"
(Selene looked up at him. Tears were falling down her cheeks. Kazu decided it was time to tell her.)
Kazu: "Selene, you are strong. Not just with power, but with intelligence and leadership. Selene, if I had to leave like I was going to, then you would've been the leader."
Selene: *sniffle* "Wait, what?"
Kazu: "You were my choice. I was gonna say you."
Selene: "B-but why."
Kazu: "I just told you. You're a leader, Selene. I could maybe learn a few things from you.
(Selene looked into his eyes as he looked down at her. He gave her a warm smile and squeezed her a tiny bit tighter. Not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to feel safe. He let go of her and she wiped her tears away.)
Selene: *sniffle* "Thank you."
Kazu: "Hey, not a problem. Now I'm gonna go back to my room and pretend I didn't see the surprise. Right now it is 6:46. Dai wakes up at 7, Yui at 7:15, Sara at 7:20, Taku at 7:30, and finally Reo at around 8. Just thought you should know how fast you should go."
(Kazu walked off, but Selene was very surprised by how he knew all this. Her mind trailed to the moment they just shared then she blushed. She quickly moved her mind back to the food where she focused until everyone was up.)
(It was early in the morning. Everyone was still asleep. Kage was looking over all his teammates while they slept. After that battle he has lost lots of trust for everyone. He had to be careful for now on. One slip up and things can go bad quickly. He walked over to his office, but he saw someone standing by the door. It was Diva.)
Kage: "What do you want?"
Diva: "Just wanted to check on my favorite boss."
Kage: "Piss off or die, I'm busy."
Diva: "With what, looking over everyone?"
Kage: "You wanna end up like the princess? I feel like I could kill again."
Diva: "I know you could and you would, but you need to think, you're losing people fast. We lost two people at the battle, and you killed one too. We're down to only nine people."
Kage: "Soon we'll have an army, now move."
(Kage pushed Diva out of the way, but she wasn't done talking.)
Diva: "What do you mean we'll have an army?"
Kage: "Shut up and follow blindly like the rest. I've done the rankings and if I get too mad you're next to die."
(Without another word, Kage went through his door and closed it behind her. Diva had to step up her game or she would be next on the chopping block. Literally. Kage closed and locked the door behind him. He knew something was up with her and he didn't like it. She was right though, they were losing people. Kage would have to find more main villain's to help with his plan, but before he could look he saw someone at his desk. The back of the chair was facing Kage with the person sitting in it. Kage couldn't see who it was, but he knew they would die no matter what. The person looked back, but Kage couldn't make out a face. Al he could see was a hole where the person's eye should be. The person then put his arm on the desk, but there was no hand at the end of it. Kage knew who this was and he immediately threw his blade at the chair and it stuck into the back of the chair. He looked again, but no one was there. It was in his head… or was it?)
(Suko was laying in his bed at the hotel. He was staring at the ceiling. Que was taking a shower in the bathroom and she was taking forever. She was angry after the day of the tournament. She didn't even get a chance to sneak in, there was too much commotion and Kai made all of the students leave in a hurry. They are gonna go back home later today so Suko was trying to get ready, but the rest of his stuff was in the bathroom, where Que is in. At this point Suko would just walk in and grab what he wanted and not care about her yelling at him after, but she seemed so angry he didn't wanna risk it. There was someone at the tournament she wanted to talk to, but Suko didn't know who. She said they were part of a popular team and she went to the tournament, so it had to be Portaru's hero team, but who. All of them were all fairly new heroes so how would she know any of them? The only popular one is Portaru himself, but why would she want him? It was all confusing, but Suko didn't wanna think about it any longer. Que walked out of the bathroom in her usual clothes while drying her hair. Suko got up and headed to the bathroom.)
Que: "Hurry up and grab you stuff. I wanna get out of here as soon as we can."
(Suko got irritated by this. She's the reason he couldn't hurry and they couldn't leave even if he got his stuff set up. They had to go when Kai said so and that can be anytime today. Suko went into the bathroom and grabbed the rest of his stuff. He put it in his bag as Que was getting ready to go. She was gonna leave through the window like she entered.)
Que: "Ok, I'm leaving. I'll be under the bus when it starts driving."
Suko: "I know."
(That's how she got here. She didn't wanna use her core to get here since it's tiring and she'll get noticed easily. She simply holds onto the bottom of the bus as we drive. It's a 30 minute drive so it must be hard. Que opened up the window and jumped out. She would be ok, she knew what she was doing. Suko was now alone in his hotel room, which he was fine with. He was used to being alone and preferred it, but it was short lived. A few minutes later Kai walked in.)
Kai: "We're leaving in five minutes. Bring your stuff or get left behind."
(Suko nodded and grabbed his stuff. Time to go back home.)
(Everyone was awake. They were thankful for Selene's breakfast and were all talking and hanging out. Almost as nothing had happened. They were in the training dorm. Selene thought they should all do some training and even have fun with it by naming their moves. Everyone agreed except for Reo who was watching tv in the living room. Everyone else was training and coming up with moves.)
Selene: "Storm combo!"
(She flew up in the air with her wind and shot lightning everywhere as she yelled that.)
Dai: "Nice one, but can it beat this? Drill barrage!"
(Dai made a bunch of drills come out of him and slam into the ground.)
Taku: "Nice bro, but not as nice as this. Disco laser!"
(Taku spined around in a circle shooting lasers at random. Kazu had to make portals everywhere and catch them all before someone got hurt.)
Kazu: "Jesus Taku. Calm down on the random firing. Aim for the enemy, not your allies."
Taku: "Oops, my bad."
(They were all laughing and having a great time. Things seemed back to normal, almost. Yui ran over and thought she'd use her special move. She ran over and jumped into the air.)
Yui: "Body slam!"
(Kazu looked up and moved out of the way quickly, but Taku wasn't fast enough.)
Taku: "AHHHHH!!!!"
(Yui slammed right onto Taku. She immediately jumped up very apologetic.)
Yui: "Oh sorry, I didn't mean to land on anyone."
Taku: "I-it's ok. A least I got a faceful of-"
Dai: "Taku!"
Selene: "Only Taku could make everyone hate him after he gets hurt."
(They all laughed except for Taku. Sara made some ice for him to put on the spots that hurt and they continued their move making and having fun. Reo was in the living room with the news on. He didn't go to the training thing with them because he wanted to find out more on how Kage escaped. They didn't tell Selene that Kage escaped yet. They didn't know how she would react so Reo had to do this research in secret. The news lady was talking on the screen about what happened last night.)
News Lady: "Last night something unexpected happened to our city. The villain's leader, Kage has escaped from jail. Detectives are still trying to find out exactly what happened, but no one knows. The entire station was burned to the ground by a black fire. Everyone survived without injury except Officer Amy Lopez who was saved after being knocked out by what we believe was Kage. She is now at the hospital in a coma, all we can do now is hope she makes it. That's all we have for today. I'm Sam Sykaro, and this is-"
(Reo switched the channel to something else. He got all he needed. He was sitting there thinking about everything, but his thought was cut off by someone.)
Shurui: "Oh, hey Reo."
(Reo turned around to see Shurui and Kiriena with lots of bags.)
Reo: "Huh, what are you two doing here?"
(As soon as he asked, Kazu walked in.)
Kazu: "Oh, Kiriena. Shurui. Looks like you got the rest of your stuff. Go on and put it up in your
rooms."
(They nodded and headed up to their rooms.)
Reo: "Huh? The tournaments over. Why are they still living here?"
Kazu: "Well they really did help us out with the tournament and everything that happened. We were talking about it and they're officially a part of the team."
Reo: "Really. We have more people."
Kazu: "Well we could always use the extra help."
Reo: "Whatever, how can you pay for all these people?"
Kazu: "Welllll, technically Kiriena offered to pay for a lot of stuff while I'm a little short on cash."
Reo: "So they bribed you."
Kazu: "I didn't get bribed. Just kind of like rent. Kind of."
Reo: "You say what you want."
(Reo continued watching what was on which was nothing important. Kazu went back to the training area to tell everyone the good news.)
(Jiko was walking down the street. He was questioned on everything he saw at a police station.
Luckily he wasn't at the one that burned down. Not only did it catch fire but Kage was there and he did not wanna be close to him. There were lots of inventions made in the stations to prevent people from using their cores, so Jiko felt extremely powerless there. He made his arm catch on fire and looked at it. He smiled, but it quickly changed to a frown when he looked ahead and saw someone.)
Fire arm: "Hey son."
(Jiko stood there in fear. He thought he was just seeing things at the tournament, but this felt too real. He was done running from his past. He was gonna stand up to it. He ran right at his dad and punched, but he went right through him. He fell to the ground behind where his dad still stood. His dad turned around and looked down at him.)
Fire arm: "Hahaha, trying to fight me. Idiot, you can't hit me. I'm dead, remember. I thought you'd know, since you had a front row seat."
Jiko: "H-h-how?"
Fire arm: "Well I figured it out after I died."
Jiko: "Figured what out?"
Fire arm: "Your downfall. It isn't killing for power. It's dealing with the kill afterward."
Jiko: "I don't understand."
Fire arm: "Of course you don't, idiot. Let me dumb it down for you. When you suck up that mist your sucking up their core, but with that core is their soul."
Jiko: "Wait, I… ate you?"
Fire arm: "You ate my soul. So here I am. torturing you till the day you die."
Jiko: "I-I didn't want this to happen."
Fire arm: "But it did."
Jiko: "I-I take it back."
Fire arm: "But you can't. You're doomed for life and I'll make every second a living hell for you."
Jiko: "N-no. No!"
(Jiko was crawling backwards as Fire arm walked closer and closer to him. Fire arm was laughing with every step he took.)
Jiko: "P-please, go! Go away!"
(Fire arm ignored him and walked closer. Jiko had enough.)
Jiko: "I said go!"
(Jiko threw his hand in front of him causing a gust of wind to happen. Jiko was in shock from what he just did. His father was nowhere to be seen. Wind? He didn't have wind cores. Unless…)
Ruri: "H-hello?"
(Jiko turned around to see the girl he saw die at the tournament standing behind him. She was in shock and so was Jiko.
*Artist note*: Thank you guys to making it to the end of book 2!! Book 3 will begin sterilizing probably in a month from the end of this chapter. ( I will make a note if it changes).