Chapter 4 - Testing

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It was early in the morning, the birds were chirping happily and the sun was shining a beautiful ray down onto the slowly awakening town of Valey. It was to the sounds of these beautiful bird songs that Torus awoke with a snap, his figure shooting up as his head vigilantly swiveled this way and that, scanning his surroundings with his newly enhanced senses, looking for anything amiss. 

As he spotted the hospital room however, Torus slowly remembered the events of the previous day, his mind calming out of its vigilant state.

It was at this point that Torus discovered something rather strange - it appeared that his Aspect had some capabilities to work independently of him considering he now found himself having far longer fangs protruding from his mouth that somehow didn't interfere with him closing it, instead seeming to comfortably rest atop his lips.

After noticing this sudden change however, Torus watched with eyes glinting as the fangs slowly retracted back into his normal canines, his senses slowly returning to a normal state as he stopped paying attention to everything going on in his surroundings. 

As he sat back down on his bed, Torus couldn't help but to cup his chin, mind deep in thought, 'That's strange, while I've been trained in scanning my surroundings for danger upon waking up, I've never felt myself do so on such an instinctual level.' Here, Torus' mind went into overdrive, connecting all the strange changes he had overgone over the past two days and connecting them to his Master's previous words.

Sitting in thought for a moment, Torus began to contemplate to himself, "It seems like Master wasn't wrong in saying that my God Seed is rather dangerous. Even without bringing out any of its active effects, it still seems capable of causing me to act differently on an instinctual level." Here, a slight flush appeared on Torus' face as he thought of just how differently he had been acting, remembering the words of his Master from the previous night and what he had done after she left.

Shaking his head of these thoughts, Torus began thinking to himself, making a mental list of all the different changes he had gone through that seemed relevant, hoping to piece them together to come to an at least basic understanding of what his Aspect is.

However, it was at this point that Torus gained a wide-eyed look, remembering his Master stating that she wanted to start training him in his Aspect. While she hadn't given an exact time for when this training would be started, Torus would rather not risk inviting his Master's wrath by being late. 

As he thought of this, Torus rushed to the door, hoping he could make it to the Martial Hall by the time his Master would usually start their training.

As he reached the door however, Torus' eyes widened as he nearly bowled over the tiny figure of a nurse that suddenly appeared there, the door slowly sliding open.

Coming face-to-face with Torus' much larger figure rushing straight at her, the nurse's eyes widened as she let out a little squeak noise that wouldn't be out of place coming from a mouse, her eyes clamping shut as she awaited the sure-to-come impact. 

However, instead of the expected feeling of the force of Torus' much larger frame bowling into her, the nurse heard a loud smacking noise of skin coming into contact with something, causing her to open her eyes in surprise.

Looking up, she noticed that the young man who was previously about to slam directly into her, was now less than a foot away from her with his arms extended outwards, palms slamming into the wall above her head. As she stared up at him however, the young nurse couldn't help but to glow a bright red as she watched the rather attractive young man stare down at her, an intense look in his eyes.

Truthfully, Torus wasn't really even looking at her, his mind lost in thought, 'How could I have almost ran into somebody? With how enhanced my senses were yesterday, it should be impossible for me to even be surprised by anybody within this building, not even Master being able to sneak up on me.' However, just as Torus was about to get lost in thought once more, his mind was brought out of its musings by the sound of a barely audible voice,

"Excuse me, could you please move out of the way? You're currently blocking the doorway and I need to check on my patient's condition," the feminine voice said in a rather stern tone, pausing Torus in his internal musings.

Gaze focusing out of their previously dazed state, Torus looked down at the nurse he was currently standing before, finally noticing the rather awkward position the two were in. Taking two hurried steps back, Torus quickly opened his mouth to apologize, a look of panic appearing in his eyes. 

However, right as he was about to speak up, his mind stuttered as the words the young nurse had said finally registered. 'Wait, she's here to check up on the condition of the patient in this room? Isn't that me?' he thought to himself, an amused twitch flashing on his lip for a brief moment.

Subconsciously taking a step to the side to no longer block the nurse's path to the bed, Torus watched as the nurse walked into the room before looking at the bed, her eyes widening as she noticed nobody was within it.

Turning back toward Torus, her eyes narrowed with suspicion as she seemed to give him a once-over, "Excuse me Mister, but you look very similar to the young man who is supposed to be in this room. I was wondering if you knew where he went, he definitely wasn't in the condition to be moving around yet!" The nurse's tone turned a bit suspicious toward the end, looking at Torus as if he were responsible for his disappearance - little did she know, she was implying he had hidden himself!

Torus didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the young nurse's words, the expression on his face being a clear indicator of his thoughts being something along the lines of, 'Mister? Excuse me Miss, but I'm definitely too young to be called so respectfully by you. You may be young but you're most certainly older than me.'

Looking at the queer expression on the man's face, the nurse's expression seemed to shift as she realized something about the man appeared off. Giving the young man a closer inspection, her eyes widened as she noticed a couple key details. 

These details being, the man was wearing a hospital gown, and his appearance in truth wasn't similar to the young man's but rather he looked exactly like an older version of him.

As she pieced these together, the nurse's eyes continued to widen before eventually she rushed forward, her hands grabbing at the Torus' body, looking him over for any identifying features that could confirm who he was.

Torus looked on bemusedly as the nurse reached out and grabbed his arm, flipping it over to reveal marks on his wrist that appeared similar to burn marks, the skin a darker shade in the area and appearing in a pattern similar to that of fire.

While some might assume these marks to be from some form of burning, the truth was that these marks were actually birthmarks, something that had been on Torus' body since he was born. 

Examining the marks, this nearly confirmed to the young nurse that this man before her was somehow her patient, causing her to open her mouth and speak out with an urgency, "Come with me, we need to do some testing ASAP! This sudden change in your body could easily be caused by some kind of mutation within your God Seed, we need to make sure that nothing is wrong with you!" Reaching out and grabbing Torus' hand, she rushed out of the room before Torus could even fully register her words.

With this, Torus was dragged throughout the hospital and forced to undergo a number of tests, leaving his eyebrow twitching with barely suppressed annoyance, feeling helpless at his current situation.

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