Zen woke up early in the morning his mind clearer than ever however he woke up and realized he had fallen asleep on the floor where he had crashed into the wall last night. He rubbed his eyes wondering how he had managed to get to sleep despite the chaos in his mind caused by the voices. He tried hard to remember but he quickly noticed that immediately after crashing into the wall everything else was either blank or fuzzy.
Zen got up while dusting the sand and rock fragments off his body and suddenly remembered something, he had a dream last night and for some reason he felt there was something important about it but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't recall anything. Zen looked at his body and decided to freshen up as he was covered in dust and sand.
Zen took off his clothes and got into the bathroom and was quickly reminded of what happened here by the mirror fragments on the floor. Zen went to the bathtub careful not to step on any fragments and took a cold shower. Few minutes later he left the bathroom looking refreshed. He quickly put on his previous clothes. He had noticed that the room had clothes his size and all in black too,revealing Murphy might have taken notice of his style however Zen didn't want to take these clothes as he didn't feel safe in his surroundings.
Zen suddenly had a strange feeling like a chill went down his spine and his mind suddenly started blaring in alarm. The very next second he heard a knock on the door followed by Celia's voice as she let herself in. Celia looked at zen and smiled but zen suddenly thought
"Not this again" . His thoughts of complaint weren't due to annoyance or frustration with celia but with the way he saw her
As zen looked at her smiling face what he saw a mass of black formless matter which consumed her and and made her look like something predatory and purely malicious. Zen looked at her and although his face was still expressionless his mind was greatly affected. The more he looked at what she currently looked like to him the more he could feel his bloodlust rising intensely and uncontrollably. Zen was confused. The only other time this had happened in such an out of control manner was during that incident in his childhood. And the only other reason he would be seeing this as would be if celia had an unthinkable amount of malice or even an aura similar to.... theirs and either of both seemed either impossible or highly improbable. Zen was still wondering when suddenly the black mass enveloping celia in his eyes suddenly disappeared and she appeared normal.
"What are you staring at?" Asked celia in a seemingly confused tone but inwardly she was panicking. As soon as she saw Zen She had once again began fantasising about how she would torture him and had slightly slipped up and lost a bit of her grip on her aura and immediately she did she regretted it as she suddenly felt Zen's extreme bloodlust which felt like it would swallow her up. She was sure that he had concealed most of it however the little she had been unfortunate enough to detect was just too sharp, like a blade that had been tempered and sharpened over and over again. She internally hissed as she thought with despise
"As expected from the bastard ward of those from that place his mind is just too bloody". However on the outside she revealed a bright smile as she greeted him warmly . She was finally beginning to understand why her master had said they couldn't torture the information they needed out of him. Simply put, anyone with that much malice had little or no limits to what they could do or handle whatever limits there once were had been However that wasn't what worried her the most. Although she didn't know how it was possible it seemed whatever her master had done to dull Zen's mind was beginning to wear off. Her time was running out and she knew she had to pick up the pace. She couldn't help but realize how ridiculous the current scenario was . Neither of them knew much or infact anything about the other. Almost Everything anyone who wasn't like her knew about her was most likely lie and whenever she asked Zen about his past he either kept silent or replied saying he couldn't for her own good. Although he said this celia suspected that he just didn't trust her and thought she was trying to get information out of him for her father and on some degree this was actually true. However that alone wasn't the cause for his silence.
Celia greeted Zen and it seemed whatever spell had been placed on him did it's job as he forgot completely about what had happened and acted as if none of it had happened. The two of them spent the day as they usually would, eating food together and keeping each other company despite a few shady practices by celia behind the scenes. At the end of the day she left after once again surprising zen with a kiss on the cheek before she hurriedly left not wanting him to see what happened afterward. Zen seeing her leave sighed a bit tense. Throughout the entire day he felt like there was a knife at his throat and he didn't know how to get rid of it. He was constantly being plagued by this Sense of danger and didn't know what to make of it.
Zen laid on his bed wanting to go straight to sleep however this time it wasn't just the voices that kept him awake but this new feeling of danger all around him was added to the mix making sleeping seem like an impossibility. Zen groaned as his strange sense of exhaustion was still present and he realized this was going to be a long night .
Unknown to him he wasn't the only one unable to sleep tonight.
Somewhere else far far away
A young man similar in age to Zen walked into a dark room. He had a small smile on his face despite feeling somewhat disappointed. A voice suddenly spoke from the shadows that covered the room
"Judging by the look on your face I'm guessing you didn't find him"
" No,by the time I got to the amusement park he was either gone or never there in the first place"
From the dark room a person suddenly smirked slightly and asked
"Hey you don't think old Zen's avoiding us do you Crowley?". Crowley simply waved off the idea and replied
"If he was we wouldn't have been able to spot him "
"Yeah I guess you're right, The guy's practically a ghost for crying out loud.... even if he's a weak piece of shit.". Crowley quickly noticed that there was a shift in his sister's tone as she said that last part.
" What's up?" He asked curiously
" It's nothing it's just, what if he's been captured, he may be weak but he's still useful.... and he's still one of us "
Crowley suddenly started giggling as he looked at his sister like she just told a joke and said
" If some idiot is unlucky enough to capture Zen I'd actually feel pretty bad for them, i mean it's Zen were talking about here ,besides don't forget, there's more than one Z".
"Heh , I guess you're right, him getting captured is actually one of the better things that could happen....what if one of the other Zs woke up, it was so annoying dealing with those guys back then ".
Crowley kept quiet for a while before he asked something peculiar
"You think he's killed anyone on the outside yet" . Raven thought about it for a while before replying
"Were talking about the highest rank student the agency has created,the star of our class. plus he's always been pretty unpredictable, even more so due to his condition. However he's always kept a calm head no matter what happened, what you, me and the others put him through being a good example of that.he'll want to lay low for a while , leave as few traces as possible ,that's what they trained us to do so I don't think he'll spill blood unnecessarily....yet.
"Well said , truth is i was thinking the exact same thing " replied Crowley after listening for a while.
Raven suddenly remembered something and said
"Hey guess what I found?" And brought out a few items which she placed on the floor. They were A pitch black katana, a pair of bracers,a regular sword with a red hilt, two matching daggers, two fairly large wooden boxes small enough to be carried with unknown contents, and a shield which looked like it was made of pure gold.
Crowley's eyes widened slightly as he saw these items
" These were his?"
Raven shook her head and replied
"Not all". Crowley suddenly realized and said smiling
"These were theirs too right?"
"Yes, unfortunately they haven't been able to use them for a while so they got a bit dusty"
Crowley chuckled a little and asked with genuine curiousity
"Where did you even find these, did Zen let you keep them after the others.....you know what?"
"No,i found them hidden at his old place. To be honest i think he knew I'd search and kept them where he knew I'd find them. I guess he still cared more than he showed. About the others... maybe even about....". Crowley noticed his sister's voice getting lower and lower. He knew what she wanted but couldn't say. He sighed and said with slight annoyance in his tone
"Zen never cared about anything or anyone not even himself, it's just who he is, it's just how he's always been.
That's the whole reason he was the damn top student, because he was the closest example of what they wanted to mould us into....at least he was at the time.....before they...The point is If he did care he'd be out there slaying those...".
Before he could continue Raven suddenly interrupted him
"Rule number three: No revenge, hate is your enemy. Besides we both know he has no ability, he's weak.
Crowley, hearing that couldn't help but smile amusedly
"Their physical characteristics are the pinnacle of anything the organization has ever seen. He was supposed to be the strongest here without question. However the very fact that he couldn't awaken or gain an ability brought him down to the level of a mere worm, so utterly insignificant and worthless, simply an eyesore and a waste of good space. Do you still remember all the nicknames they gave him?" I remember some of them being quite inventive "
Raven nodded her head and couldn't help giggling as she recalled all the names those people made up just to bring him down and bully him. She suddenly spoke with a bit of nostalgia
"You know, it's crazy to think that all those names they called him were part of what made him into a legend among us, everyone in the organization knew the name Zen, the name of the strongest and most skilled weakling trash, even the little kids, all those kids just wouldn't stop bugging him. And although everyone knew the name he was given only a few actually knew his.... their name " raven went on as she said with a hint of fondness in her tone
"I wonder what Azzy's doing right now?"