Getting out of their hiding place, Emmia led Luna to a stray table tucked into a deep corner of the library.
"Let's hope that they won't find us here," Emmia muttered while dusting off her academy uniform. It was a light blue shirt along with dark blue pants. It was plain yet sophisticated and screamed practicality. Both the boys and girls had the same uniform keeping a uniform standard in the academy.
Luna had sat down and was staring at Emmia. After a few moments of hesitation, she opened her mouth, "What are you going to do now?"
Finishing dusting off her shirt, Emmia mused, "Well, I need to do some research about a sketch that I need to make for my job. So I'm going to start reading books."
Luna nodded.
"What are you going to do?" Emmia asked curiously.
"...I'll study the recommended books for our classes," Luna answered, her voice returning to a soft tone.
"I'll bring the books for both of us!" Emmia exclaimed with a bright smile. Without giving Luna a chance to protest, Emmia turned and left to obtain the books for both of them.
Staring at her friend go, Luna lowered her half risen hand and sat quietly at the table alone.
To some, the silence would've been deafening, but to Luna, it was bliss. It meant that she didn't have to listen to them.....
Luna raised her hand once more, this time feeling no resistance like before.
'Just like I thought.' Luna confirmed. 'I can't express myself properly.....'
Luna's gift «Enchain» was powerful indeed as shown when she fought the wolves, but it had an unwarranted side effect on Luna as well. She had felt that her emotions were chained up as well.
It took much more stimulus to force Luna to give any sort of reaction and it was much harder for Luna to express herself. Every time she tried, she felt like she was wading through the bottom of the ocean, water pressing down around her, restricting her movements and actions to express herself.
Having nothing to do, Luna decided to practice controlling the universal energy around her. That was right, Luna had already learned how to control and use the universal energy around her. She had hidden it during the class so that she wouldn't stand out immediately. It was too much trouble if people surrounded her. After all, the only thing that they would find out was that Luna was an introvert of the highest order...
The universal energy flowed around Luna like a gust of air. Feeling it pass over her face, Luna closed her eyes to enjoy the sensation. Standing up straight, Luna's black hair started to sway in the current of Universal energy that was being controlled to flow over her.
Twisting the universal energy, Luna made it into rings that surrounded her. Molding the universal energy into different shapes, Luna continued her practice of universal energy while keeping an eye on the hallways for Emmia's appearance.
Halfway through the exercise, Luna felt a tremor through her body. Swiftly cutting off her connection to the universal energy, Luna opened her eyes....only to find herself in a completely dark place with no almost no light.
It was pitch black almost everywhere, in fact, she wasn't even in the library. One would wonder where Luna was, but she knew. It was her memory space. The memory space was something that existed inside people's memory, yet was something that nobody had ever actually gone through for them to remember. It was a space that had a person's name and their gift's name.
Glancing up, Luna saw two sets of floating words.
"Luna Kires"
"Enchain"
Her name and her gift floated in the dark space, their light was the only thing illuminating the place. But even their light was very dim.
Taking a deep breath, Luna braced herself for what was to come.
The black space, rippled and started to become turbulent.
'...destroy....'
'...kill...'
'....return everything to nothingness.....'
'....kill everyone.....'
'....Destroy...'
'Let loose..'
'Stop holding us back..'
'LET US FREE'
'KILL EVERYONE
'DESTROY EVERYTHING
'KILL EMM-'
The voices were suddenly cut off and Luna woke back up. The first thing she saw was a concerned Emmia looking straight at her.
"Are you alright? I've been calling you for a while now...." Emmia asked, she was kneeling down at Luna's eye level.
Luna didn't answer. The effect of the voices had yet to fade away. Her eyes wandered from Emmia's eyes down to her neck.
'.....kill...'
Luna slowly raised her hand and reached out. Confused, Emmia just watched Luna reach out her hand and brush it past her neck.
Pulling Emmia into a light hug, Luna muttered, "It was a bad dream.."
"Oh, it's ok.." Emmia comforted awkwardly. She wasn't the best at emotional support, but she was still willing to give it to the best of her ability.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Emmia asked after Luna pulled back.
"....no," Luna answered.
"...It's alright," Luna added after seeing that Emmia wasn't reassured.
Deciding to take her word, Emmia nodded and sat down in her chair.
Cracking a smile to lighten the mood, Emmia decided to tell Luna about how she nearly was caught by the fangirls while retrieving the books.
"So, you wouldn't believe how persistent those fangirls are. They were still searing every corner of the library....."
Luna listened quietly, her mood lightening up from the event that had transpired just a few moments ago.
-----
Icarth woke up to a white ceiling. Groaning, he checked to see what was wrong as his memories flowed back to him on what had happened.
Blinking slowly, Icarth felt the sting of frustration as he realised that he couldn't hold on for longer.
Right before he started to wallow in his self-hate, a voice spoke up.
"You're finally awake," Shui gazed at Icarth, her eyes slightly bleary. In all honestly, she had been sitting here for more than two hours, and it was very boring. So she had fallen asleep and was woken up by Icarth groaning.
"Mmm," Icarth responded. "What's the time?"
"7:30," Shui answered while stretching. "Ms. Sophia told me to take care of you while you were sleeping in case of any complications," Shui added abruptly.
"Mmm," Icarth nodded absentmindedly.
"What's up by the way?" Shui asked.
"What?"
"You seem out of it.."
"Mmm," Icarth started seeming like he wouldn't continue the topic when he saw Shui's face. Completely serious, only filled with worry and concern towards her friend.
"Why can't I get stronger?" Icarth relented and asked a question.
"Stronger?" Shui was confused. "You're already one of the strongest people in our class, heck even in our batch. How much stronger do you need to get?"
"A lot stronger," Icarth responded with a certainty that Shui couldn't question.
At a loss for words, Shui could only ask, "Why?" Shui could never understand Icarth's obsession with training to get more powerful. Even from when they were young...
Icarth paused. He did indeed want to get stronger, but for what reason exactly? To relieve his trauma of powerlessness in front of the powerful? Or to protect someone? Icarth truly didn't know the answer himself.
Keeping silent, Icarth didn't respond to Shui's question.
Laying there in silence, Shui decided to let it go. Pursing her lips she said, "You know, it's fine to want power. Power is helpful in a lot of cases. But I think that you should have your reason straight first."
Seeing that Icarth wasn't responding, Shui stood up, ready to leave.
"I'll be going now. I'll tell Dad, that you'll be missing your shift." Shui informed Icarth. "I'll cover for you today."
"Thanks.." Icarth started.
"No need. I'm always prepared to take over in case you're incapacitated for some reason." Shui rolled her eyes at the last point referring to some times when Icarth slept through his shift.
Nodding sagely, Icarth thanked her again before closing his eyes to go back to sleep.
Having closed his eyes, Icarth couldn't see Shui smile as she left.