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9th September 2058 - Morning
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*Beep* ..... *Beep* .... *Beep* ... *Beep* .. *Beep* . *Beep*
Sound flooded throughout the room as the mechanised clock alerted all those present that it was, in fact, seven thirty in the morning. The middle sized room consisted of a desk with a somewhat comfortable looking violet chair and a stack of books rested atop of the desk, one book skewed open on the table equipped with a pen next to it.
'Basic Chemistry' it read. Science, one of the core staples of the curriculum that high school students are expected to master. The book was opened to page 179 out of 247 and considering that the new school year had just started, the owner of this room, who is a freshman, was seemingly very dedicated to learning all that they could as fast as possible.
The book was opened to page 179 out of 247, considering that the new school year had just started, the owner of this room, who is a freshman, was seemingly very dedicated to learning all that they could as fast as possible. The sun was alert and the moon asleep after a long night shift , cars were trickling down the road nearby the house in question emitting a soft lullaby of sorts.
Darkness had enveloped the room for the past ten hours; the sound of shuffling arose as a hand reached out towards the alarm clock, *click* , the room became silent again. After a few minutes of shuffling around in their bed, the duvet of the bed was pushed aside and somewhat silent footfalls erupted, In a fruitful attempt to not awaken anyone else in the household up. *click* . Suddenly the room flooded with light as the violet coloured walls were illuminated.
The person then walked towards their wardrobe, opening it and then looking at the selection of clothes on display, pondering over what to wear, then proceeding to click their fingers deciding on a set of sports attire that they deemed suitable to wear.
After undressing from their pyjamas, they then equipped the sports wear, consisting of a sports bra and a pair of jogging bottoms. They then picked out a pair of socks, tugging on them as they impatiently pulled them onto their feet and then opened their bedroom door, turning off the lights in their room after picking up their phone and a pair of earbuds putting them in their pocket. Walking down the flight of stairs, they sat down on the steps located closest to the door and chose a pair of trainers to wear before putting them on. Taking a pair of keys from the furniture placed near the door, inserting the key to open the door.
Stepping outside, the cold, fresh, air assaulted their senses as they locked the door placing the pair of keys in the pocket of their jogging bottoms. Embracing the cold, they started to do warm-ups in order to raise their core body temperature and prepare themselves for the exercise they were about to do. Stretching their arms and legs they embarked on their mission after picking a song and placing their wireless earbuds in their ears; syncing their breaths to the beat of the song they jogged at a fairly fast pace as they completed their usual circuit that consisted of a four kilometre mile run. Three kilometres in, they slowly came to a stop in front of a grocery store, the green neon lights embraced by opaque plastic spelling the words 'Mark's Minimart' . The grocery store was held in high regard by all those who lived remotely close to the minimart; the owner Mark offered some of the lowest prices and highest quality groceries that one could buy in the area, thus resulting in the person frequenting 'Mark's Minimart'.
The glossy white walls glimmered in the morning sun as the person applied force to the door, resulting in a clean sounding *ding* due to the bell embedded into the door of the minimart. Mark looked up instinctively and smiled at the person, who in turn returned the act of politeness by bestowing Mark with a quaint grin before walking towards aisle three, the dairy aisle.
They grabbed a container full of milk, checking the expiry date to ensure they got the most long lasting product, and headed towards the till where Mark awaited them. Mark grabbed the container of milk and scanned it, the person looked up to the GUI where 200 yen was written in small red text. They nodded their head before Mark said, "Good Morning, That's 200 Yen for One litre of milk, cash or card please?" , they replied, "Card please" before grabbing out their pre-paid card from their phone case and scanning it on the card reader.
A pleasant sounding *ding* sound erupted from the machine as mark said with a smile, "Thanks for shopping at Mark's Minimart, have a nice day." . They then proceeded to grab the container and walk towards the door. In the corner of their eye they noticed a few missing person report posters which were placed on the see through window next to the door.
One such poster read, 'Aoi Hashimoto, freshman at Matsugaya High School, 15 years old, medium height, golden brown long hair, hazel brown eyes. Last seen, 06/09/58. Please call here if you have any information on this person: 09870 180932. Thank you for your aid.' .
The person felt surprised whilst reading the poster, 'Someone from my school...' they thought. Banishing their previous thoughts to the back of their mind, they continued their jog back to their house after re-equipping their earbuds.
Entering their house they removed their shoes and walked down the hallway into the kitchen where they placed down the container of milk on the counter, taking out a bowl from one of the many cupboards in the kitchen and filling it half way full with cereal taken from another cupboard. They then filled the bowl with milk, grabbed a spoon and started to eat it when they heard a voice, "Good morning, Akari." .
Akari promptly replied by saying "Good morning, Mom." and promptly returned back to eating her cereal. "Have you seen Takami this morning? I checked his bedroom to see if he was still sleeping after not eating dinner last night, but I didn't see him." Akari's mum asked. 'Strange, I woke up at six in the morning but didn't see him. He must have left early when I went out on my morning run.' Akari thought.
"No Mum, I haven't seen Takami this morning." replied Akari, "I see." replied Akari's mum. "I wonder where he has gone..." she added with a worried expression painted on her face.
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???
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Everything was as it was meant to be, darkness and nothing else, what else does one require? An incredibly large sphere inaudibly faded into existence. It was made of a semi-opaque material containing a dark, viscous, liquid which moved slowly around in the container like some kind of sludge. The sphere had many identical looking small tubes which connected to the sphere, almost like the veins and arteries connected to a human heart. These small tubes branched out into even smaller identical looking tubes which the black liquid seems to have been coming from, the semi-opaque material enabling all those who saw this phenomenon to see the pure black liquid flowing towards the sphere.
After a period of time the sphere started to crack. Once enough cracks had appeared the sphere shattered into many pieces. The black liquid flooded out of the sphere into the endless void, filling the space, slowly, consuming everything; leaving nothing untainted. The sphere looked somewhat repairable if one were to pick up the shards of the semi-opaque material, but someone would have to rebuild it. Who would risk being tainted to repair what appears to be irreparable?
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[Void Space]
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A pair of eyes slowly opened only to close and then reopen once again, this time tainted with dark energy. Takami still couldn't see much, using his pseudo [Void Eyes] technique in the [Void Space] did not yield much results. However, he found that he could now see farther into the void, a small sphere came into Takami's field of view as he looked around the void whilst maintaining his version of the [Void Eyes] technique. Due to the semi-opaque nature of the material that the sphere was made out of, he could see that it was filled with a moderate quantity of a non-viscous liquid. The sphere had many cracks resulting in some of the dark liquid leaking out of the it.
'So ... this must be my so called 'dark core' which I have been told so much about.' thought Takami, he analysed the sphere noticing tubes which extended from and connected to the sphere. The tubes which connected to the sphere were noticeably larger than those which extended from the sphere, containing the same non-viscous dark liquid which flowed into the small sphere.
After a few minutes of the same dark liquid slowly filling up the sphere, a new liquid appeared in the tubes which extended from the sphere. The purplish liquid was partially viscous and slowly moved towards the sphere. Takami, intrigued as to what may happen when the liquid were to reach the sphere, stood still watching the liquid slowly make its way towards the damaged sphere. When the sticky liquid finally made contact with the sphere Takami fell to the ground clutching his abdomen, writhing around in agony.
The dark liquid appeared to be fighting off the small quantity of the purple liquid with great difficulty, slowly forcing it back where it came from until there were no remnants of the dark purple liquid left. Time slowly passed and hours seemed to pass as Takami stared blankly at the void below him, unable to move, he wondered what he was lying on, sometimes he thought that he saw something moving about. Slowly, very slowly.
Whilst Takami was recovering on the 'floor', the tubes extending from the sphere seemed to have become enlarged in comparison to their previous state, 'most likely due to the appearance of the purple liquid' Takami pondered. 'Now that I think about it... How exactly did I enter the [Void Space] without my gramps headset?' he thought.
'Nevertheless, I should still be able to exit the [Void Space] through the same means...' Takami concluded, "Exit" he said causing the world around him to break apart, revealing a familiar obsidian coloured couch camouflaged within the dark surroundings. Unbeknownst to Takami, another unfamiliar entity watched as he exited the [Void Space].
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9th September 2058 - Evening
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Takami stared at the ceiling of the roof located twenty meters above him and sighed. All this stuff exhausted him, it had seemed like everything had changed in such a short amount of time, anyone who remotely understood Takami knew that he, for one, disliked rapid change. Dark entities that fed on the lifespan of humans, a war to decide who ruled over the universe, 'no thanks, I'll pass on this one.' thought Takami. 'Hell, it would probably be easier to get involved in one of those re-incarnation light novel plots than this... At least, on the bright side, I still have my family.' he concluded.
'I don't understand how these dark entities can take over the bodies of innocent people, some of these people provide for their families, who without them will not be able to survive. They're like... like parasites...' thought Takami with a frown painted on his face.
Sitting upright Takami attempted to activate his pseudo [Void Eyes] technique only to find activating it much easier. Beforehand he would usually have to wait about 10 to 20 seconds in order for the dark energy within his body to reach his eyes from his dark core without manually guiding the dark energy from his dark core to his eyes. However, now it seemed as if new routes had opened up that transported dark energy more efficiently than before. His dark energy appeared to be consciously taking the best route possible in order to reach its destination quicker. Takami had thought that the best way to describe it, in terms of efficiency, would be : 'It's like walking a mountain and taking a water slide down a mountain.' .
Walking towards the previous gathering spot where Tobias and Markus where consuming this so called 'dark essence', he was unable to locate anyone. Calling for Yuki in his mind, the familiar black entity popped out of his body with what appeared to be a grin of some sorts.
'It seems as though you have finally awakened, Kid.' exclaimed Yuki, 'How long was I out for?' Takami enquired. 'About a day or two. You seemed to be writhing in pain for the first twelve hours or so, Tobias and Markus have gone out to investigate a meeting between the rouge dark entities. It seems like they are finally moving, they've been too quite as of recent...' replied Yuki.
'You call that quiet? In a short span of time I saw one person being attacked and two more that were probably going to attack someone soon!' exclaimed Takami with a frustrated tone. 'No, that's pretty normal. In fact I'd say that was a quiet period, the past you had not formed a proper dark core so you weren't even challenged by power hungry dark entities.' Yuki informed nonchalantly as if this were a normal occurrence.
' "The past you" you said? Shall I take it that now I've formed a 'proper' dark core? What does that mean?' queried Takami inquisitively. 'Well, your body had always had the innate ability to absorb a small amount of dark energy and expel it over a long period of time. Normally one must have a functional dark core to do so, but your body didn't have a 'functional' one, it didn't really have the ability to absorb and expel large quantities of dark energy, not to mention how you can't perform a large quantity of dark energy techniques without a proper 'functional' dark core. That's why I call your version of the [Void Eyes] technique a 'pseudo' version.' explained Yuki.
'In this Universe there is a power ranking system based on the density of your dark energy and thus the viscosity of your dark energy and finally the size of your dark core. It is as follows: Baron, Viscount, Earl, Marquis, Duke, King, Emperor etc. In each of the ranks there are four different sub-ranks: Pseudo, Lower, Middle, Upper. Two ways one can increase their rank is by:
- A: Absorbing the dark essence of defeated dark entities in order to increase the size of your dark core. This will result in any dark particles absorbed from the environment becoming amplified via becoming more dense, resulting in the user's techniques becoming more powerful as a result of the user's dark energy being denser and higher quality.
-B: Absorbing the dark particles from the environment until your dark core is full, and then go through the process of increasing the density of your dark energy which will eventually lead to an increase in the size of your dark core.
Option A is a more efficient method, but comes with more risks such as death. Option B is slow but practically has no risks apart from being vulnerable when absorbing dark energy.' explained Yuki.
'Right now you are of the pseudo Baron level, your dark core has only been recently synthesised and thus is weak and has cracks, resulting in a loss of dark energy. The dark essence you consumed from the lower Baron ranked entities resulted in your dark energy being more denser than normal, for someone at the pseudo Baron rank, so now you must absorb dark energy from the environment to further compress your dark energy in order to fix your dark core and thus become a lower Baron ranked entity.' proclaimed Yuki.
Takami nodded, taking in all of the information that had just been dumped on him, coming to the conclusion that he would follow Yuki's tips to fix his dark core. 'One can absorb dark particles by clearing one's mind and focusing on the dark energy in their surroundings; keep in mind that some environments are more rich in dark energy than others. However, this process will only work for some people, those with innate talent such as yourself usually have a hard time using this method and thus will need to find another method to use. Good luck, Kid.' said Yuki.
Takami closed his eyes and attempted to clear his mind, he created a mental image of the dark particles emitted from his hands when he rearranged the dark energy from the arrow into a sword. The pain from the memory made it especially easy to remember the whole scene. Opening his eyes, Takami was once again in the [Void Space], he could see what seemed to be an unlimited amount of dark particles all around him, they were floating around, some in clusters, whilst others floating around all alone.
Takami moved his eyes to a lone dark particle, focusing on it as if he were beckoning for it to come towards him. Ten seconds turned into twenty, thirty and then forty before Takami concluded that this method was ineffective. Takami sat cross-legged on the 'floor' in the [Void Space] thinking about various methods which may be effective, standing up he pictured a sharp dagger in order to synthesise it. A unfamiliar feeling occurred, it felt as if the dark energy which previously required Takami to focus very hard to move was flowing smoothly throughout his body through new routes. Subsequently, a black mist was emitted from his hand.
In a panic, Takami stopped the materialisation process midway, resulting in half of a dagger made of a bundle of fused black particles. Out of the corner of his eye, Takami witnessed multiple dark particles moving, slowly, towards the dagger, as if on a mission to complete the materialisation process. The dark particles from inside the [Void Space] flew towards the dagger, swarming around the half finished dagger and started to finish the materialisation process.
Takami stared at the dagger in awe before waving his right arm in multiple directions, giving it a whirl, only to find that the weapon was lighter than normal and looked quite sharp in comparison to the other dark daggers he had seen, even Tobias's daggers didn't look this sharp. Furthermore, the top half of the dagger was a deep shade of black in comparison to the clearly diluted latter half of the blade, which was darker purplish colour. 'It looks like the same colour as the void in the [Void Space]....' Takami contemplated.
'The dark energy inside the [Void Space] must be of a higher quality than that of the areas which I have previously visited... How can I use this to my advantage.... maybe I could attempt to materialise something near my body and then absorb the dark energy?' pondered Takami.
Takami's first plan of action was to attempt to create a set of gloves around his arms and then absorb the dark energy when it was close enough to his skin. A black mist formed around his arms, only enough to finish half of the desired product, resulting in a cloud of black particles inhabiting the [Void Space] to fly towards Takami's arms.
When the black particles got close to his arms, Takami focused on the black energy particles in an attempt to force them to be absorbed into his body, only to find that nothing happened. A pair of firm, shiny, gloves materialised on his arms, causing a frown to appear on Takami's face.
Obviously, this plan of action was not going to work.... 'What if I were to send out dark energy from my dark core to envelop the dark energy from the [Void Space] and then absorb it into my body...' Takami thought.
Takami willed his dark energy inside the gloves to form a ball around the dark energy from the atmosphere in the [Void Space], this caused the dark energy which was a lighter shade of black to envelop the pure black purplish dark particles. Takami quickly willed the ball of dark energy to be absorbed back into his body, resulting in all of the dark particles that made up the gloves to fly into his hands, including those from the [Void Space], to disappear from his view.
Takami visualised his dark core, a small sphere with a inadequate quantity of clear pipes connecting to and synthesising from the sphere appearing in tow. He peered towards the pipes which were extended from the sphere, a pure black liquid being pushed, forcefully, by a larger volume of what seemed to be an impure black liquid appeared. The liquids slowly flowed towards Takami's dark core, until the pure black liquid entered his dark core. Takami immediately felt a sensation of being full, the dark purplish liquid seemed to be in the process of decompressing into a similar looking impure black liquid resulting in a mass of the impure dark energy filling up the dark core.
Once his dark core had became full, it shone two or three times before the dark liquid inside the core started to diminish. The once present cracks in Takami's dark core started to fix themselves, two minutes later, all the dark energy in his dark core had vanished but only a few cracks were fixed. It was obvious that Takami's dark core had experienced a small 'level up', recalling Yuki's advice it would seem that Takami's dark core now had gained the ability to compress the dark energy within it, to some degree that is.
It was quite obvious that Takami would have to go through this process many times before his dark core would become completely fixed. However, despite Takami's enthusiasm, an extreme sensation of exhaustion enveloped Takami before he could repeat the process of absorption!
This seemed to be a result of Takami's core being sucked dry of all the dark energy within it. Takami tumbled onto the floor in exhaustion and slowly closed his eyes, eventually being sucked into a deep sleep after staring into the endless black void present in the [Void Space].
The entity present in the [Void Space] chuckled with interest, it seemed as though it thought that the future would be more enthralling than it had previously expected.