[Celina's POV]
"Gramps, why did you do that?"
"Celi... you knew I didn't have a choice..." William replied, his voice strained with exhaustion.
However, she was not satisfied with the answer, so she shot back, irritated, "You are the 24th most powerful Awakened in the world, yet you couldn't tell off a few pansies?"
"Celi, I know you are angry, but I give you my word, I won't be using that boy. In fact, I am impressed by his talents. What better way was there to keep him here other than promising protection?"
The moment she heard that, her brows furrowed, and she tugged at her waist, pulling out a pair of daggers—daggers she had received from her father.
However, as she thought of him, hate stirred within her, causing the daggers to emit a faint crimson glow that quickly subsided.
But William noticed it, letting out a deep sigh. "Celina." As his words fell, her hands began shaking, and finally, she dropped the daggers onto the ground.
You... Celina thought, misplacing her hatred onto her grandfather, but upon seeing his pained expression, she began calming down.
"His... stunt, it was a tough pill to swallow. Because of it, we lost a few cities... I almost lost Zeri and you too."
"But..." She tried to speak but couldn't get the words out.
"Celina, his betrayal came as a surprise to us all. Even I, who had practically trained the boy, did not expect him to join up with the monsters."
"But... Mom was injured..." Celina let out a voice that was barely a whisper.
On that fateful day, like any other, the three of them were eating at a restaurant. However, everything suddenly changed when her father got up from his seat and unveiled his jacket.
His body had been turned into miniature rifts, ones that could let out monsters of similar size, but due to the sheer number of them being present on him, it was enough to cause great mayhem.
Celina, along with her mother, ran away—or so they hoped—but one of the insect-type monsters bit her mother, causing her to become paralyzed.
She managed to kill it and hide long enough for backup to arrive—William among them. But even with his abilities, he was unable to cure the paralysis, simply because her mother was a normal human—an Unawakened.
To this day, she could not understand what her father's intentions were or why, a couple of weeks prior, on her birthday, he had given her a pair of daggers.
For a moment, she thought he was dead—hoped, in fact—but a few months later, he reappeared on the news, terrorizing another city with his group of monsters.
Unsurprisingly, she came to hate him. All she wanted to do was meet him face-to-face and kill him for what he had done to both the people and her mother.
"Celina?" William's soft voice rang out, startling her out of her thoughts.
"I'm fine." She quickly replied and sheathed the daggers at her waist, her aloof expression masking her inner feelings.
The two continued walking until they reached William's office and went inside.
It was separated into a few parts: the office space and Celina's favorite part, the training room.
Without sparing him another glance, she ran toward it.
The style was pretty old school, with wooden floor tiles that seemed like they would break at any of her movements, as well as the mana-enhanced dummies, which she had begun cutting through as of late.
However, there was also a nearby holographic console, adding a bit of technology to this seemingly ancient training room.
Celina went up to it and began pressing buttons, and soon the tiles started moving around. Each individual tile was moving in an opposite direction, making anyone standing on top of it disoriented.
But she was used to it. If she didn't constantly train with unfavorable circumstances, how would she improve?
As she was about to get into it, William approached, a tray filled to the brim with food in his hands.
"Celi, please eat," he said with a sigh and created a table from the Ice element before placing each dish down on it.
She hesitantly stared, trying to steer clear of it. However, before she knew it, her feet started moving toward the table and she picked up a piece of steak, stuffing it into her mouth.
"Orange juice?" William suddenly inquired, to which she responded with a shake of her head.
"Just get me water. I will be training for a bit longer today."
He raised a brow and conjured a cup made of ice before filling it with the Water element and passing it to her.
Celina accepted it and gulped it down. However, William's sudden words caused her to spit the water out.
"Why are you so fond of that boy?"
"W-What?" she stuttered, her demeanor a stark contrast to how she usually acted.
"You know what I mean... Ever since the practical exam, you've been awfully attached to him," he stated.
Stupid... she thought. The only thing she had been doing so far was acting nice. In no way was she attached to him.
But even if I was... No, I'm not. Celina fought with herself inwardly, her cheeks growing redder by the second.
This did not go unnoticed by William, who had been watching the entire spectacle of her changing colors unfold with amusement.
"Why didn't you go talk to him?" he asked, to which she immediately replied,
"Obviously because I have to train. I already wasted a lot of time roaming around."
Just as William was about to make a snarky remark, she interrupted him. "On that note! What are you planning on doing with him? He's strong, sure, but his skill looks weak. The Special Class is only for those who have incredible skills."
"Didn't I already explain? I was impressed by his talents, so I—"
Celina cut him off, "So you say. But what's the actual reason, grandpa?"
Up until that moment, he was relatively unbothered, but upon hearing the word "grandpa," he froze.
"What's wrong, grandpa?" she asked persistently in a teasing tone. However, her thoughts were completely different.
Spill your secrets already, old man.
He seemed to budge every time she called him "grandpa," so she kept doing it until he finally broke.
"Fine!" He slammed his hands down onto the Ice table before standing up and looking at Celina.
"His skill is not what he had displayed back in the first entrance exam. Originally, it was Hell Scythe, a skill that, according to all the data I've gathered, is relatively weak. It would have at most landed him in C class," William said before raising a single finger in the air dramatically.
"However! There are no similarities between the skill he used then and now, and from what I can tell, it can weaken and slow down your opponent. And then the most important: the ability to seemingly kill anything in an instant."
Kill anything instantly...? Celina stared at William, doubt clear in her eyes.
"Look." He suddenly said and brought over a laptop, replaying the footage of Neraxis fighting the monsters, specifically, the mini-boss.
He skipped to the very end of the fight, to the part where the monster collapsed and exploded without him even touching it.
"See? It was alive, and then it suddenly just died. Do you know how rare of a skill that is? It's unheard of!" William shouted in excitement.
Oh god... he's going to start his skill ranting again... Celina inwardly facepalmed. She had nearly forgotten how annoying he could be when skills were involved.
Though... does a skill like that really exist? She though with a small frown.
"So that begs the question: What kind of skill does he have, and how did it change in the first place?" He continued ranting about minor statistics, replaying the fight over and over again.
By this point, she began to completely ignore him and focus on the food as well as her own thoughts.
But despite Celina trying her hardest to shove them to the back of her mind, they kept resurfacing, causing a small blush to appear on her face.
I am just being nice to him... that's all.