Yenn's group walked through a large black gate, into a tunnel to the Colosseum. Walking out of that, there was a transparent wall that ran around the bottom of the battle arena in front of them. Treading along that wall, the group moved towards the stairs that would take them to free seats.
The inside of the Colosseum was like a stadium with seats lining up over and beside each other, so it was quite stuffy and crowded since many people had come to watch the ongoing battle. The audience was almost up to five hundred people, which included those who came to do battle and others who lived in the underwater city and wanted to just get some entertainment.
This place was an endless fighting ring after all.
As the group continued to ascend up the stairs, Ancy sighed in relief as nobody seemed to be looking their way. The sitting section of the arena was dark, so what most people could see were moving shadows.
Noticing her reaction as she unbuttoned her translucent overcoat to get some air, Yenn asked, "If you're that worried about your appearance, why don't you just tune down your suppressor a little lower?"
Since S-rankers had 'Sacred bodies', the matter of how they appeared to the public was crucial. To people below the 'Lords' Sanctum', S-rankers appeared like angels amongst men as their looks transcended the normal limits of the mortal visage. Some had bodies that literally glowed in the dark, while for others it was the hair on their heads. There were also other categories too, but whatever the case, they just didn't look normal, and if a lower rank division caught sight of the true form of an S-rank human, they would be bewitched and would need serious cure.
This was why 'suppressors' were made, to tune down the appearance of S-rankers to the level of normal human beings so they would be able to move freely amongst them.
Ancy pulled her hair back as she said with a tiny bit of pride, "I honestly don't know what to do anymore, as my suppressor is already at its limits, cutting down forty percent of my physical appearance." She gave a fake sigh of agony as she bragged.
"I'll let you have my other one then. This one can go as low as eighty percent." Pointing a white bracelet at her, Yenn showed Ancy the other one on her wrist.
However, Ancy scoffed in her mind as she heard Yenn's words. 'Eighty? Yeah right. I'm wearing my province's most advanced model. Why do you want to embarrass yourself so badly—"
Ancy's eyes suddenly opened wide as she stood on the stairs with surprise. She had put the bracelet on her wrist, and activated it. And true to her word, Yenn's bracelet had eight level of reduction, while hers had only had four. And what's worse was that the final level of Yenn's bracelet, which was an eighty percent reduction, turned its colour from white to black, just like the other one on Yenn's wrist.
'... You mean this is her at twenty percent of her true appearance?' Ancy started to cry in her heart as she stared at Yenn's slim body and smooth long legs.
Covering her mouth while looking away with invisible tears pouring down her cheeks, Ancy handed Yenn back her bracelet. "Don't worry. I don't want to trouble you by borrowing a precious possession of yours. These things are expensive after all."
"Don't worry. I've got more where that came from. Because I don't want to end up in a situation where I lose my suppressor without a spare one. Yenn said indifferently as she refused to take back the bracelet. " So you can keep this as your spare."
Ancy shook her head, insisting that she took it back anyway, "Thank you, but I'll be fine."
'Curse these tiny legs.' Ancy didn't know of her own special charms. Chibis are cute aren't they?
As they got to an open space, the seven of them took their seats. Yenn sat in the middle of Ancy and the troublesome sixteen year old girl from the group they had brought along, however, the girl herself stood up and went to sit at the end of the row.
Yenn chuckled at her childish behaviour and moved closer to the next person sitting near her, which was Sky.
Sky sat down straight and had his eyes pointing firmly forward as he wiped off the sweat that exposed his nervousness. A beautiful woman had just scooted towards him.
"So, can you tell me why you're here?" Amidst the chants and screams of the audience watching the ongoing battle, Yenn asked the thirty two year old man, bringing him out of his exhausting thoughts.
Sky shook his head. However, before he could utter a word of refusal, Yenn spoke again.
"I just want to know if what I'm doing is right." She decided to go straight to the main point. Guys like Sky were unyielding and faithful to their feelings of righteousness, so the best way to get through to him was to be honest.
"I want to know if I'll be making a mistake by setting you people free."
Hearing that, Sky's eyes opened wide with surprise. "Do you mean..." However, the man chose to kill hope as soon as it approached him. No one could save them where they were now. "I appreciate your thought but —"
Yenn's frustrated sigh interrupted him. "I'm trying to act humane here, because trust me, there are easier ways to make you talk."
Hearing the cold tone of her voice, Sky gulped nervously. "We..."
"I can also tell if you're lying." She thought she'd warn him before he got himself into trouble.
Choosing to comply, Sky collected his words first and then spoke. "The five of us are fashion designers, but our company makes clothes especially for super humans. So one day, we were brought here by the manager of our branch in the name of 'learning more about our consumers'. He told us that we needed the experience so we could make better clothes than we already did, but, looking back now, I'm sure he just wanted to get rid of us." Sky clenched his fists in anger.
"How'd you know?" Yenn urged him to finish his story.
Taking a deep breath to calm the rising anger he was feeling, he continued, "Our branch has gotten awards for making the best designs for five years in a row, and the manager always took credit for our work, but last year... When we weren't able to finish our work due to some... difficulties, we lost, so he threatened us. But... I just couldn't take it anymore." He clenched his teeth once more. "I... stood up to him, and reported him to the higher ups. So the next week, he came to our team with a promotion letter, and said that we would need this experience. Since then we've—"
"Okay." Yenn had heard enough. "If you've been here since last year, then that girl's parents must be worried sick about her." She glanced over at the sixteen year old.
"Yeah." Sky sighed with regret.
'So basically they got in trouble because of that girl, and got sold here by their lazy boss.' Yenn picked out the summarized truth out of Sky's words. How did she come to this conclusion? Well for Yenn, it was easy.
Since Sky said they had been winning awards since five years ago, then obviously, the girl mustn't have been with them for that long since, even if the team had come together exactly five years ago, she was eleven years old then. This was less than the allowed vocational trainee age of 15. And with her hot temper, it wasn't really trouble guessing she was the cause and not Sky who was an enduring person. But due to the girl being somehow related to him, Sky took the credit for her own mistake, so as to not spoil the girl's image in front of a stranger.
"Fashion designing for super humans huh? Oh yeah, Ashie's going to need a lot of new clothes. He has some, but his fashion sense his really hopeless." She shook her head.
"Hey senior." Yenn called, her sudden smile putting the man in a short daze.
"Ye... Yes?" Sky answered.
"To make up for the little lies in your words, mind if I put in a harsh order for nine hundred custom wears for a really hot guy?" She jumped off her seat.
*Wha...* The people around Yenn looked up at her as she was acting weird.
*Hey! Sit down!*
The people behind her started yelling as she was blocking the view, however Yenn wasn't listening.
Ancy who had been eavesdropping on Yenn and Sky's conversation figured out what Yenn was going to do. "You wanna get out of here by force? How? By beating everyone up?"
Yenn looked below her. "Nah. It'll be a hassle to deal with murder charges for five hundred people." She was in a good mood, imagining Asher in different kinds of cool clothes. He might only choose to wear black though, but Yenn thought that was still cool.
'She should be done by now right?' Yenn jumped from her seat, directly into the arena.
*BOOM*
*What!* *Who is that?*
*Interrupting a battle between warriors? That's not the warrior way!*
*Shut up you! Do you think this place goes by those rules anymore? It's all about the stakes and the money now.*
The crowd went wild again.
The two people on the battlefield stared ahead with confusion as Yenn stood between them. "Who—"
"Listen up folks!" Yenn yelled loudly, interrupting one of the fighters words.
Activating the skill, [Seize The Orb], of her ability, [Aima De Anima], she commanded,
"Everyone, get up!"
Ancy stared at Yenn curiously, but soon her curious eyes turned into mindless ones as her body rose up on its own. But it wasn't just her, as everyone else who could hear her voice in the Colosseum and out stood up straight.
"Walk through the port after the person before you." She pointed to one person on the bottom seat and ordered him to go through the port first.
Soon, about five hundred mindless humans were walking slowly through the exit port on a wall just outside the arena.
'Hm.' Yenn glanced over at the portal as the young girl from her group twitched with every movement she made towards the exit. Although it wasn't completely, the teenager was actually resisting.
Yenn smiled, "She really is a strong-willed cutey." The skill Yenn was using affected the souls/ wills of the individuals and had nothing to do with their power level. So the stronger the soul/ will of whoever she wanted to control, the harder it was to control them. So in those terms, the teenage girl was even stronger than Ancy who was bouncing towards the exit.
Yenn grabbed her pink haired head and pulled her out of the line. She released Ancy from the skill as it didn't feel too good to her to mind control the person who had been helping her all this time.
"Wah... What happened?" Ancy rubbed her head as she regained control of her own will. "Wait! You! I knew it! You're evil!" She suddenly started blabbering. Yenn had taken control over her will, not her brain, so she could remember everything that had happened to her clearly.
"I know I can't beat you in a fight, but I also can't just sit still while you take all these people hostage."
"Calm down girl." Yenn said with a yawn.
"I just want to get the innocent people out of here. Those guys were being held here like slaves, remember?"
"That..." Ancy's brain started to spin the wheel of impressions she had of Yenn in her mind as she stared at the open portal. But before it could fully label her as a good person, Ancy suddenly remembered.
"But those people, you tried to strangle that young girl and even insulted that man, how can you explain that, huh?" She pointed at Yenn thinking, 'I've caught you.'
However, Yenn's next words just made her feel stupid. "Do you think those people would have followed us if they knew we were new here and hadn't paid their, 'rent'? If we had acted out of character, they would have probably just run away or brought unnecessary attention to us, and caused us problems."
"But... We could have just told them we were S-rank humans who had come to save them." Ancy still didn't want to give up. She had her own virtues, even if she had been told they were immature, it was still hers. There was always a nice way to do things for others.
Yenn looked at her and smiled. She once knew a little girl who thought the same way as Ancy, but that girl had grown up now. She was still pure in heart, but had gained the strength and wisdom to protect that purity.
"If we really wanted them to believe we were S-ranks, we'd either have to take off our suppressors, or go on a rampage to prove our strengths. And I don't think you would have liked to walk out of here with a couple of people who've mindlessly sworn themselves to your beauty or with the conscience of having destroyed this beautiful place."
Ancy stared at the ground as she started to rethink her life choices. All this time, she had been looking at Yenn with malice, while the woman was actually doing the right and sensible things. Yenn had even given them food earlier without knowing about their situation, and asked them to come along personally when she could have just controlled them to do her bidding
"I... I'm sorry." She stared at the ground with tears welling up in her eyes.
"Don't worr—"
However, before Yenn could complete her sentence, a booming voice suddenly rang throughout the Colosseum.
"Don't cry Ancy! Your heart is the purest thing in this world! And it doesn't matter if it's soft or not, because I'll be there to protect it. So just do what you think is right!"
Ancy looked to the sky, as the edifice they were in had no roof. "Captain?" She would recognize that voice any day.
A man descended down to the arena softly and gave Ancy a thumbs up. "You're a great member of our team!"
Ancy smiled as she nodded her head rapidly, letting a few drops of tears fly away from her cute baby face. "Hm!"
Behind them, Nova and Yenn watched the two with their teeth clenched in disgust.
"Who is that 'cringe-bin'?" Yenn asked.
"That's the weirdo that pulled me down here."
"Hm..." Yenn squinted her eyes as she looked at the boy. "... For some reason, Mama wants to kill him."
***
[A/N: In Yenn's ability, Aima De Anima; 'Aima' means 'blood' in Greek, while 'De Anima' means 'on the soul'. So the ability's name in English words is, 'Blood On The Soul'.
Aima apparently also means, 'leader' in Arabic. Although this is a coincidence, it fits the leadership aura she has around other people.]
{Status Screen:
Name: Yennifer
Level: 74 (S-rank)
Stats Average: 100, 000 ( +Sealed Stats)
Ability: Aima De Anima (Blood On The Soul)
•Seize The Orb: The ability to seize people's will, and control them with speech commands.
•Soul Puppeteering: Make strings from each finger to control living beings more efficiently. Strings can be used for fighting, and can come in contact with, or attack souls. Limits to five individual controlled at a time.
•Soul Crafting: Ability to craft beings out of looming souls or pour them into inanimate objects to bring them to life.
•Soul Link: Creates a temporary or permanent link between the users.
(Temporary: thoughts of linked individuals can be transferred.)
(Permanent(5): forms a permanent symbiotic relationship between two souls that have perfect trust in each other. These souls can share emotions, ability passives or skills (1 per time) and deeper bonds with each other than the temporary soul link.
•Soul Manipulation (Special): [SEALED]
*Bend souls and make objects with souls from living or non-living things.
*Matter Manipulation. i.e by controlling the souls of objects.
And gain the ability to absorb souls to gain stat increase temporarily}
[Passive:
•Blessed Soul: gain resistance to soul type attacks or adverse skills.
•Blood And Soul Duality: Every skill, including special, has a blood counterpart. e.g. Soul Manipulation - Blood Manipulation.
The user can choose between using either a blood counterpart, or a soul counterpart after every 168 hours.
]