Fireball

“Ta da!” Arien announced with pride once they entered a strange room on the fourth floor. “I fashioned this unused training room into a little practice battlefield.”

The room was spacious and mostly empty minus the few stone practice targets she had set up. The floor was filled with dirt, and the only source of the light in the room came from the sunlight peeking in through the horizontal windows at the top.

Arien let out a loud yawn as she tossed her bag off to the side.

“I was a little worried about where I was going to build this, but this estate really is big huh,” she said. “Your mom found me a spare room like it was nothing. Must be nice being from a Noble Family.”

She then raised her white staff and pointed at a rock, and a sudden gust of wind blew through her blonde hair, causing it to flutter behind her magnificently.

“Now watch closely, kiddo,” she said with confidence.

The wind continuously swirled around the tip of her staff where the blue crystal was located, until it concentrated at a single point. When everything seemed to calm down, she fired the concentrated energy like a projectile, smashing it into a rock and causing it to pop.

She then flipped back towards Yoruhi and asked, “did ya see what happened?”

“The wind gathered at the tip of your staff before firing off,” Yoruhi said, watching in awe.

“Exactly,” Arien said with a yawn. “And that’s the basis for the Casting magic style. You concentrate the magicules into one point before firing off the gathered energy. Most people use a staff or wand to help them with their point of concentration, but you don’t really need one.”

She gave the staff to Yoruhi.

“Here, take this. Let me show you something.”

She walked towards a group of rocks piled around in a semi-circle and extended her arms out.

A large gust of wind appeared in the room once more and began to swirl around in various directions, causing her hair and ribbons to flutter violently. One by one, small balls of wind began to form around her, seemingly sucking in everything, and when it finally quieted down, she fired off each ball, causing multiple tiny blasts of wind to rain down on the rocks in front of her, shattering them into pieces.

“As you can see,” she said, turning back to Yoruhi, “you can also create points of concentration in the air, and if you’re skilled enough, you can even create more than one. Pulling off something like this requires you to have a good sense of the 3D space around you though. If you can’t comprehend the exact point of concentration in the air in front of you, you might misplace it somewhere else.”

She pointed to the staff she gave to Yoruhi.

“Now you give it a try.”

He looked around nervously, not knowing what to do.

“Umm, miss?” He said.“I don’t know how to detect magicules yet…”

She stared at him with a lazy eye.

“Mhm, yeah, I almost forgot about that, kiddo,” she said.

She sat down in the dirt and gestured him to sit in front of her, before taking the staff back from him.

“So, what is it that’s making it hard for you to see them?” she asked. “You’ve been at it for a few weeks now haven’t you?”

He nodded.

“I can kind of feel them in the air when I stretch my hands out,” he said, “but I can’t see them at all unless the magicule volume in the room is high enough, and even then I can’t sense it past what’s in front of me.”

She nodded up and down with each explanation he gave.

“Mhm, mhm. I see. Okay, that makes sense,” she said. “What you’re suffering from is a lack of spatial awareness. Otherwise known as being an idiot.”

“I see,” he said. “I guess I’ll just stop being an idiot.”

She laughed.

“I’m only half kidding,” she said. “But seriously. If you’re able to feel magicules but not see them, that typically means that you’re an ‘open’ magic style user who’s too focused on yourself. You just need to expand your mindset and stop being self-centered. Being a selfish person makes you a great enhancer, but Ezekiel told me that you aren’t good at that sort of stuff. I don’t know what inhibitions you have, but you need to be able to let go of them.”

She stood up and walked towards her bag that she tossed earlier and picked up a few incense sticks and a pot. She slowly fashioned them inside, snapping her fingers to create a quick spark of fire just enough to light them up, before walking back.

“As a short lesson, that’s a quicker application of Casting magic,” Arien said, “I grouped a small amount of magicules at my fingertips and ‘fired’ them off, but since they lacked power, it didn’t go too far, and instead created a quick spark.”

She placed the pot right in front of them.

“This is an incense burner,” she explained, “the sticks are made out of a special kind of wood from the forests of where I come from. When it burns, it releases magicules into the air instead of smoke. This will only slightly increase the volume of magicules in here, which should hopefully make it easier for you to gather them. Now then, I want you to close your eyes. Try expanding your mindset, and then feel around for the magicules.”

Yoruhi did what he was told and closed his eyes, however, he didn’t know what she meant by expanding his mind.

Release my inhibitions? What inhibitions do I have? He wondered.

He thought for a while, thinking up anything and everything that was troubling him.

I’m worried about Altair, because of her condition. I’m worried about Tatsuko, because she can get hurt during her training. I’m worried about Ryuji, because he’s too protective of everyone. But these aren’t selfish worries aren’t they? He wondered. Is it so wrong to worry about them? They’re good kids, and most importantly they’re good friends to have. They’re the type of people I want to grow up together with.

Ryuji is such a nice kid. His family is poor but he’s still a good hearted person. Same with Altair. She has a disease that makes her unable to do a lot of things, but she still cares about and loves her dad, regardless of how flawed he is. There’s also Tatsuko. She has everything I’ve ever wanted and she still chooses to help those around. And then there’s me. I… I am…

He froze for a moment.

I am… selfish. A kid who hated everything about his life. A kid who was ungrateful for having his parents by him. A kid who was angry just because he was poor. A kid who always wanted but never gave.

Yoruhi began to think: what if he had talked to his parents about his struggles? Why couldn’t he have just told his mom that he didn’t want to move cities? Why hasn’t he ever tried to make time for them on Christmas? They worked so hard all day and we were busy doing things. Why couldn’t he be like Altair and attempt to reduce their struggles? He could’ve at least helped his mom out.

I see… that’s my selfishness. Yoruhi thought. It was me. It was my fault that I was so bitter. It was my fault that I was so unhappy. I could’ve at least tried to see and accept the happiness I did have in my life before hating everything. Like Ryuji. Or Altair. And maybe even Tatsuko too. I am a selfish person… but… I want to do better. I want to do better in this life.

For my crimes of being ungrateful in my past life, I shall appreciate everything about this one.

Slowly, he began to feel tiny orbs of energy suspended in the air around him. They drifted and twirled, spontaneously becoming apparent to his senses like countless bubbles being set loose from a wand. Though each was no larger than a speck of dust, together they filled the air with a quiet, pulsing presence like the feeling of a thousand fireflies lighting up around him.

He began to feel a warm sensation coursing through his veins, one that was steady and consistent. He always knew that mana coursed through his body but it was another experience actually being to feel it—to fully realize it. It left him breathless and he felt a sudden certainty that the tiny molecules he could sense floating around him could finally be harnessed.

He outstretched his hand, using the mana coursing through his veins to gather the tiny magicules into a single area in front of his palms.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

The magicules continued pouring in like an infinite stream, only stopping once Yoruhi felt satisfied.

“Yoruhi…?”

Once they were concentrated he issued a single command to them: combust.

“Yoruhi? Yoruhi!”

“YORUHI!!!” Arien shouted, causing him to open his eyes.

His breath hitched in awestruck horror at the sight before him.

There, at the tips of his palm, was a massive ball of fire.

“YORUHI PUT IT OUT!” she shouted from the other side of the room.

“I-I can’t!” he stammered not knowing what to do with it. The amount of control he felt earlier had suddenly all become lost. “Why can’t you put it out!”

“My elements are Fire, Wind, and Life! And I am NOT a weaver. What do you think is going to happen if I put any of these elements into that thing!”

Great. Oxygen, plants, and even more fire, Yoruhi thought.

Suddenly, his head began to feel dizzy, and the last bits of control he had over the ball of fire crumbled, causing it to launch from his hands.

“YORUHI DON’T YOU DA—”

KABOOM!

And then he fainted.