Icarth's eyes twitched as he slowly opened them.
'Where am I?' Icarth thought to himself groggily as a large expanse of stars filled his bleary vision. Sitting up a large amount of leaves and flowers tumbled down from his body.
Icarth then checked his surroundings warily, still unsure of where he was. Finding his master right behind him, Icarth relaxed his guard.
Slumping down, Icarth took some time to gather himself up.
'I was training in the leaf dome....then I almost got to master...' Icarth thought to himself trying to recollect the events that had happened.
'Then I failed...I lost my temper.....and then....and then what?' Icarth scrunched his forehead trying to remember what he had done in frustration.
Icarth remembered up till the point where he charged right into the leaf dome and from that point onwards he was drawing a blank.
"...master, what did I do?" Icarth finally asked, having a bad feeling that he had done something terrible that he couldn't remember at all.
"You lost yourself in your rage," Acacia said with her gravelly scraping voice.
Icarth fell silent, ashamed and astonished that he lost his mind just over training.
"Tell me, child. Is there anything bothering you?" Acacia asked gently. She did not reprimand Icarth for what he had done. She felt that Icarth would reflect enough on his own, and it was pretty unnecessary to scold him for something that he already knew.
"....nothing," Icarth said after thinking for a while.
To that Acacia said nothing.
'Child, one does not lose their mind over some training just over nothing,' But Acacia kept that thought to herself.
Instead, she stayed silent and waited for Icarth to sort out his own thoughts.
'I'm not strong enough.' Icarth thought grimly.
It had been almost two weeks since he had started to train under Acacia, and while he was starting to see improvements, it wasn't nearly enough.
Not nearly enough to even run away from that cloaked man.
Unconsciously, Icarth's heart skipped a beat as the cloaked man surfaced in his head.
Icarth grit his teeth to drive away the uneasy feeling that had engulfed him.
'Stronger...I just need to get stronger.....'
"...stronger..." Icarth muttered the last word out loud by accident.
Picking up on the word, Acacia softly said, "Child why do you seek strength?"
Icarth turned to stare at his master. It was a question that she had asked him just before taking him in as a student.
Just like before, Icarth's answer didnt change in the slightest.
"I just want to be free. And I want to protect the people close to me."
Acacia accepted his answer once more and returned to being silent.
"Child you should go back to the city now, it's getting late," Acacia told her student.
"Mmm," Icarth didn't argue, getting up, Icarth went to get a decent change of clothes from his buried clothes package before heading back to his dorm, his mind was elsewhere the entire time, particularly to the dreams he had been having recently...
--------------------------------------------
Seril turned off the faded light from the lamp star on Emmia's desk. Slowly easing Emmia out of her chair, Seril carried her to the bed. Laying a blanket over Emmia, Seril took one last look at Emmia's peaceful visage before closing the door slowly behind her.
Emmia had been up late like usual, studying something from the books that she had gotten from the library.
'Whatever that is,' Seril thought about some of the topics that she saw in those books.
'These humans are really building forest transportation machines huh?' Seril thought to herself as she made her way to her drawer.
Taking out the medallion, Seril pushed her universal energy into it, and a barrier formed around the house.
"Haah," Seril sighed softly, her red eyes flashing with universal energy as she gathered it inside her.
'It's time to question that nurse now.' Seril thought to herself as she exited the house and sped towards Spectrum Hospital. The nurse in question was currently asleep on a bench in one of the many hallways. Ari was sleeping, completely unaware of the danger speeding towards her.
Seril had spent the first day scouting out the hospital and making sure that there weren't any threats too much for her to handle.
'If only I had all my power back...' Seril fell deep into thought, sorting through all her memories, new and old.
Slipping into the hospital undetected, Seril followed that nurse's unique scent and finally found her sleeping peacefully on the bench.
Standing in front of Ari, Seril snapped her fingers to mask the cameras with her gift.
Letting her claws extend from her hand, Seril's eyes glowed and she shook awake Ari.
Ari, slowly waking up, opened her eyes to see Seril towering over her with glowing red eyes and sharp and long claws. Just at the sight of Seril, Ari started to lose her composure.
Flustered, Ari asked, "M-m-m-ms S-s-seril, Why a-are you - uh - h-he-"
Before she could finish, Seril cut off Ari, "I came here to get answers. Now tell me, what exactly was wrong with my sister?"
"I-I'm afraid that re-requires form-al - uh - procedure-EEEK!" Ari bravely tried to tell Seril the procedure for such things when she was cut off by the two claws placed at her throat.
"I asked a question. Answer it," Seril commanded, the glow in her eyes getting brighter.
Ari gulped, she had witnessed firsthand what would happen when Seril activated her gift.
"I-I-" Ari started out. Seril increased the buildup of her gift as her eyes started to get even brighter.
"Please wait!" Ari shrieked. "I-I'll talk!"
"Speak," Seril ordered.
"I- uh- it was found that nothing truly wrong with your sister-"
"Then why was she in a coma?!" Seril growled, pressing her claws against Ari's frail neck.
"I-I was just getting t-there! I tweaked my scan based on the information provided by the patient's friend and then I ran it on the patient and found that there were traces of someone's gift on the patient's body." Ari spoke rapidly, afraid that if she stopped, Seril would decide to end her there.
"Whose gift?"
"I-I don't know, the traces were too f-faint for me to pick anything up," Ari's heart skipped a beat as she watched Seril's eyes narrow.
"How was someone able to use their gift on my sister when the only interaction she had was with the hospital staff?" Seril growled softly.
"T-thats..." Ari petered off. A slow realization dawned on her that if Emmia was infected with a parasite from some gift, then that person that to be one of the medical staff who were treating Emmia.
Seril fell into thought, 'I'll need to tear this place apart if I want to try to find each and every nurse who interacted with Mia....I think it's best to just go directly to the top.'
Making up her mind, Seril gazed into Ari's terrified eyes. Letting her hand fall away, Seril ordered, "You won't remember anything that happened here today."
Ari nodded vigorously, thinking it was just a command to never open her mouth.
Seril didn't bother to correct her. Quickly, Seril extended one of her clawed fingers to touch Ari's forehead and activated her gift.
Suddenly Ari's eyes rolled back into her head and she lost balance.
Catching the poor nurse, Seril laid her down on the bench once more.
Snapping her fingers, the cover masking the camera's fall away as she disappeared out of the window to go somewhere more important. To force answers out of the director of Spectrum Hospital.