"I'm sure you all have seen clips of the battle between the greatest knight and wrath, haven't you?" Himitsu asked, from his position looking down on the training field. His voice was able to reach from his position so high up, due to an amplification spell that he combined with a wind spell, which allowed his voice to carry so far, without dropping in volume.
"Of course, it was everywhere. You couldn't miss it." Erika mumbled to herself. She was standing to the right of me, next to Nova. Masayoshi and Hikaru were aligned on my other sides. Hikaru was smiling as always, and Masayoshi wore the same blank, unreadable expression. In fact, I could beat that he was currently in deep contemplation.
"Well, the entire battle consisted of amazing usage of magic, as well as clever combat. However, what I want to talk about its probably the most popular part of the battle currently in circulation." Himitsu pushed himself off of the railing in a front flip, before flying down to the ground. Just before his legs hit, he activated a wind spell; which was mixed with an absorption; that mixed with a deceleration spell; in order to create a gravity spell; slowing his momentum and absorbing all of the shock that would have come with dropping nearly 60 feet.
He bounced back up energetically, showing off his seamlessly endless reserve of energy. He began to speak, and down here his voice was louder that it already was. I slid my hands over my ears.
Hikaru giggled.
"Julius's use of 'Wandenreich', the 1000 blades of light that are his ability. As you guys may know, the past few class periods that we have spent trying to develop an ability. As I've been watching you-"
"Yeah right." Erika muttered.
"I've noticed that you all seem to lack the sense of creativity that is necessary to actually develop an ability." He held out a hand, and a flame appeared, burning brightly.
"An ability is just using a magic spell, like a flame, water, or lightning spell." He closed his hand, snuffing out the flame completely. "Think of Julius's "Wandenreich." Light spell, that combines with incineration, sensory, and homing spells. It creates an infinite number of light blades. However, he only ever uses 1000 at once." Hikaru looked over the entire second year student body that had gathered inside of the training arena. "Does anyone know why?"
A hand shot up from across the field. A young boy. "Because all of the blades are being controlled by mana strings that draw a direct line from the blades to his brain. It's what allows him to have such accuracy and precision while controlling them."
"EXACTLY!" He shouted, and his voice boomed so loudly across the massive field that a few students did more than just jump.
Next to me, Masayoshi cradled his ear which had been so unexpectedly and brutally violated.
"There is a limit to the number of blades that Julius can control at once. Any more.m than that number of 1000, and not only will the blades lose their accuracy and strength, but his brain will also start to suffer consequences. Because the brain is the place where magic sequences are stored and processed, overuse of magic can literally fry your brain."
That tidbit of information was something that wasn't much talked about, considering the fact that it was common knowledge you shouldn't overuse mana. However, the truth was, overusing mana could fry the very nerves and even whole sections of the brain. A few students shuddered.
"Moving back on topic however, abilities consist of three key factors." Himitsu put up three fingers.
"First, they should have some sort of condition of activation. Condition doesn't need to be something as specific as an if then statement. For example, the condition could simply just be, 'I need to think of the ability to use it'. Something general like that could work, but you could also go for something more specific, if it's too you're liking. It could operate on an if then sequence as I mentioned before. For example, let's take the ability of one of the students here at theta. Let's see if you can guess who this ability belongs too."
Himitsu smiled darkly for a few seconds before continuing. "Lets say the condition for the activation of my ability is seeing a magic ability in action. A pretty broad condition, no?"
Himitsu paced around the field, not settling in one place.
"The second factor is that it must accomplish something. This is the part considering the actual functionality of the ability. What spells are you layering together and connecting. What outcome is it achieving? Let's say, in this case, as soon as I see an ability in action, I can immediately comprehend all of the layered and connected magic sequences that make up the ability and replicate it with 100 percent accuracy."
Silence. That was quite literally, and inhuman feat. It just wasn't possible for the brain to process anything that quickly. Even for me, I could not do it within a second of glancing at it, with 100% accuracy.
What kind of monster is capable of something like that?
Noticing the commotion, or rather, lack thereof, that was passing through the students, Himitsu smiled darkly. "This brings me back to the condition. In this case, the ability actually functions off of an if then sequence. As soon as the condition of seeing an ability is met, and I learn all of the components that make it up, the 'then' part of this statement is initiated."
Himitsu paused for a few seconds, for dramatic effect. Everyone inside of the training field held their breath for that few seconds.
"I can then kill the ability."
Realization seemed to dawn on everyone inside of the arena, everyone except for me, that is.
"By kill, I literally mean, kill the ability. I can disable it whenever I please. My brain automatically comes up with the perfect spells to counter the effect of the ability. I can always dodge it, block it, or simply cancel it. This all happens automatically. Just by seeing an ability once, I become literally invincible to it. Just by looking at an ability once, I can see the points of weakness and trace its death."
A collective shudder moved through the entire mass of students. Even I shuddered at the implications of such a strong ability. To see the death of magic abilities. To strip a magician of the most unique thing to them, the thing they put the most effort in creating, in just a single glance.
"In this case, I would move on to the third factor, which is the weakness, but an ability such as this one doesn't possess a weakness." Himitsu then stopped, turning to face all of the students in the arena. He held out his hands to his side and spoke with a smile on his face.
"This ability, so utterly powerful and absolute, that its was given a code name. One that comes from the "Lunar Legend, Tsukihime.''
One final pause.
"It is dubbed: 'Mystic eyes of Death Perception.' And it belongs to none other than, 'The Prince.'"
Complete silence. There were many emotions woven into the stunned shock that everyone had been lapsed into. Awe, shock, revel. But there was a tinge of something else there.
Fear.
Fear. Not in the definition, like a literally fear that made you scared. It was a slight feeling of discomfort. Knowing that it was possible for somebody so strong, so monstrous, to even exist.
Himitsu clapped his hands together and spoke cheerfully, seemingly unaware of, or choosing not to notice, the atmosphere that he had created.
"Good Luck. Hopefully you can come up with these abilities before the end of the week."
※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※ ※
As soon as Himitsu let us off for the rest of the day, I broke away from the group. Erika and Nova were in deep conversation, and they didn't notice my departure. However, Masayoshi, and Hikaru, who surprisingly, were also talking to each other, had kept their eyes on me the entire time I walked over to a fairly secluded portion of the arena.
I unsheathed my wand and held it out in front of me. I began to think deeply. The development of my ability was something that I could not take lightly, because of how much of an impact it would have on my existence.
My goal, purpose, was to protect the princess.
Simply enough, I was a weapon.
A weapon, that's sole purpose was to slay anyone that threatened the life of Kami.
In order to do that, I would have to be able to compete with monsters like Julius, who could summon a thousand blades of light; Wrath, a man who could blow anything up with just a touch; Shindo, someone who was capable of literally killing abilities. And all of the other horrifying magical abilities that existed in the world.
Because of that fact, If I want to be able to complete my goal, my purpose, I must develop an ability that was capable holding it's on against all of those, and possibly worse.
Just like Nova, I need to create an S-Rank ability. No, something beyond even that.
Or else I would have no worth.
I clenched my wand tighter, as my brain worked rapidly, all of the cogs spinning in an attempt to try and develop something that was capable of defeating an ability that could kill abilities.
However, my train of thought was interrupted by a touch, a dot of warmth, on my shoulder. I turned around, to see Hikaru, standing behind me, the same warm smile on her face.
"Oh, Hikaru...." I let my voice trail off. I avoided her eyes, remembering my very first interaction with her. The way that she had completely managed to read through everything that I was thinking and feeling, able to sort through a mind that I couldn't even wade my way through.
"Hey Raiden! Sorry for interrupting you, I noticed that you had been in pretty deep contemplation."
I shook my head. "Don't apologize, in truth, I was just agonizing over the problem, instead of actually working towards a solution." The words were charged, filled with frustration for my own inability to figure this problem out.
"Well, I don't think that's anything to exactly be mad over. That's how all problems go. You first need to agonize over it, then you clear your mind, and work to a solution. The most important thing is, that if you can't seem to stop agonizing over it, and aren't making any significant progress, you should probably ask for help."
She said the words innocently, and the smile never left her face, but she leaned forward to meet my eyes, which were cast towards the ground, as if to say she was talking to me.
I laughed nervously.
"Yeah, well, I'd hate to burden other people with my own problems. If I can solve it m-"
"If you can solve it yourself, then you shouldn't needlessly burden others, is that what you were going to say."
She cut me off, saying the exact words that I had been planning to say. I sucked in a breath, before looking over at her in shock. For a split second we locked eyes, and she smiled sadly. Then, something else seemed to flicker behind her eyes.
"Raiden, would you mind if I asked you something?"
I nodded.
"Would you mind, going out with me?"