Be Ready

After learning how to use negative mana, I wasted no time getting back to training. I kept converting it over and over, relearning every spell from scratch until the feeling became familiar. At first, it was awkward, sluggish, like trying to write with the wrong hand, but after a few hours, I could manage something close to rhythm. It still wasn’t as fast as normal mana, but I was improving.

While I focused on control, Akiko continued her suppression training. Every so often, she’d stand in front of me and tell me to fire a blast of negative mana at her so she could acclimate to its feel. If she was going to nullify it in real combat, she needed to understand it firsthand. We repeated that cycle for hours until the final bell rang, and Tsubaki finally arrived with her friends.

“Have you guys been here all day?” she asked.

“Yeah. We’ve been at it since, like, eight this morning.”

“It’s four right now…”

“You trained for eight hours straight?!” an unfamiliar voice blurted. I turned toward it. A girl with blue hair and round glasses was staring at us like we were lab specimens.

“You guys are insane,” Yuno said.

“You’re one to talk,” I shot back.

There’s no way this fight-crazed person is calling me crazy.

Another voice chimed in, his voice was deep and steady. “I’m surprised you even have enough mana left to keep going that long.” The speaker was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself like someone who’d been in real battle before.

“The type of training we’re doing isn’t heavy on mana,” I explained. “It’s just control and suppression.”

“And… what does that do for you?” the girl with glasses asked.

“Suppression helps you control your man, which makes you more efficient at mana usage, and makes it easier to do more complex spells. On top of that, if you suppress it into your limbs, it’s the same as working them out, therefore making you physically stronger.”

“Huh. Interesting,” the tall guy muttered.

“I hope you’re getting strong enough to give me a good fight. I totally kicked your ass last time.”

“You ambushed me when I was already injured!”

“A loss is a loss.”

“Enough with the small talk!” Tsubaki’s voice cut in, “Let me introduce them to you so we can get into the important stuff. The tall guy that you were just talking to is Kenta, and the girl with his glasses is Hinabi, and you already know Yuno.”

“Hey, I'm Yakusei, and my friend here is Akiko.”

“H-Hey,” Akiko said, bowing slightly. “Nice to meet you all.”

“Hey there!” Yuno waved, “Nice to meet you too!”

I glanced at Tsubaki, “Can’t believe you’re friends with that crazy guy.”

“That’s pretty mean, man,” Yuno said.

“Attacking me out of the blue was pretty ‘mean’!” I shot back.

…

“Oops, my bad. You just seemed so interesting after that fight with that dragon kid.”

“Yuno,” Kenta cut him off, “focus.” He turned to me. “Tsubaki said you had something urgent to tell us.”

“Right.” I exhaled. “You might find this hard to believe, but…”

I told them about the Demon Worshippers, most of it, anyway. I skipped the part where the deity warned us of them. I couldn’t tell them everything, not yet at least. Tsubaki noticed and gave me a look, but I shook my head. Dumping everything on them now would be reckless. Haruki and Tsubaki were one thing; I wasn’t ready to extend that trust further.

“So,” Yuno said, “you’re telling me that there is a group of people out there hunting us?’’

“Something like that, yeah.”

His eyes lit up. “That sounds… exciting.”

“What?” everyone said in unison.

“Think about all the enemies we could end up fighting. Isn’t that so exciting?” He had this twisted smirk on his face; I could tell that he was a hundred percent serious.

This guy is actually insane.

Hinabi hugged her arms around herself. “All of this seems kind of scary…”

“So with all of this information,“ Kenta said, “What can we do?”

“For now, stay alert. We don’t know their numbers or how to track them. And they can self-destruct, so interrogating them is basically impossible.”

“So what exactly do you want from us?” Kenta pressed.

“Like I said, be aware. If there is anyone shady, if any of your classmates disappear, just anything that could help us find out about them.”

“DON’T SAY HIS NAME!” Tsubaki, Akiko, and I snapped at once.

“DON’T SAY HIS NAME!” Tsubaki, Akiko, and I screamed.

Hinabi froze. “W-What? Why?”

“He may be linked ot them and we don’t want to have him knowing that we know.”

“You didn’t think to tell us that earlier?” Kenta asked. “And how does it connect to not saying his name?”

“His name is like a chant, so saying it could make him stronger, or even listen in on our conversation. I’m not entirely sure if he has the power to do that, but I don’t want to take any risks.”

“How do you know all of this?” he asked.

“I… can’t tell you. Sorry.”

“What?”

“You’re really going to expect us to believe—”

“Here,” I reached out my hand.

“What?”

“I promise that I’m not lying.”

“A promise won’t do much.”

“It will when it’s a contract. With this contract, I’ll put my life on the line. If I’m lying, then I’ll die; if not, then you have to listen to me.”

“Are you insane?”

“No, just desperate for some allies. So, what do you say? Do you trust me?”

“Let’s see if I can.”

He stared at my hand for a long moment before gripping it. A magic circle flared between our palms. Then, it vanished.

“Looks like I’m alive.”

“…Guess you are.”

Akiko lightly punched my arm. “That was really reckless, you know. Magical contracts are still a dangerous thing, so you shouldn’t make them so carelessly.”

“Okay, sorry for making you worried.”

Hinabi cleared her throat. “So… is that everything?”

“Almost everything. They seem to prefer attacking at night, especially when someone’s alone. That’s how they got us. And if they start absorbing each other, you have to run. The more time you stall out, the weaker they get. I’m assuming that they absorb each other using a spell that requires negative mana, but their bodies aren’t able to handle the mana within.”

“So if we wander at night, then we’ll get ambushed?” Yuno asked.

“Yes. So don’t wander alone. Or at the very least, be ready.”

“Good to know.” He grinned.

“We can meet up every once in a while to talk about if anything bad has happened.”

“Let’s all exchange our contact information,” Tsubaki suggested

Once that was done, they left. The talk went a lot better than I thought. None of them really panicked or freaked out, and they didn’t have a problem believing me. That was probably because of the contract I made, though.

“Do you think they can handle it?” I asked quietly.

“I believe they are,” Akiko said. “By looking at the flow of their mana, I can tell each one of them is a very capable warrior. Also, none of them seemed too frightened by what you said. I’m sure that each one of them knows how powerful they are, even the girl in the glasses.”

“Yeah, but I just can’t help but worry about them.”

“I know what you mean. Everything about this situation is worrying.”

“Yeah…”

“Do you think we resumed training until nightfall, then healed up with potions and headed back to the dorms. Luckily, we didn’t get ambushed that night and for the next few days as well. Even when nothing was happening, my nerves grew by the day. Maybe because, as the days passed, I was getting closer and closer to my fight with Gareth. Or that I was worried that since we haven’t spotted any of the Demon Worshippers, they were currently up to something.

Still, I knew that being anxious would do me no good. All that was to do was train and get used to this negative mana. I’d relearned all my attacks with negative mana, but they still felt slower. Sure, I was happy with my improvement, but was this enough to beat Gareth? This worry kept gnawing at me, but on the bright side, everything seemed to be peaceful.

Until the night before the duel. A wave of negative mana flooded the air.

“Akiko,” I said, “you feel that?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes narrowed. “They’re attacking again.”

“Then let’s go.”