Chapter II-A: Purpose

1

“Damn. The kid actually survived that, you gotta be kidding me…” A lazy voice yawned.

“I can’t help but feel sorry for this criminal, his magic has made him even more inhuman than the rest of us.” A soft yet commanding, feminine voice replied with disdain.

“Iiiiii disagree Gemini. It is quite an incredible power, in fact, I’m not even sure if it’s even magic!” A whimsical voice pronounced.

Jonah could hear them, although not clearly, the sound of their discussion echoed through his ears. His eyes slowly fluttered open. Where the hell am I…?

He had gone unconscious earlier, his mind refusing to stay conscious through the blistering neverending torrent of fiery pain and agony. Granting him the mercy of a painless restoration. But now he sat strapped to a chair, arms tied behind him and mouth covered with tape. Bound, naked and helpless in an empty parking lot, unable to do anything but submit to his capturers.

I deserve this. I’ve killed so many, taken so many lives. Even if they were gangsters, they had friends and family, and didn’t deserve to die. So if this is my penance, then…

“Ohhhhh! You're finally awake, should’ve told me.” The whimsical voice said it mockingly, knowing that Jonah couldn’t speak even if he wanted to.

Jonah simply dropped his shoulders, there was no point taking his words seriously. “Iiiii was joking.” The man lifted Jonah's chin towards him, getting uncomfortably close, he could feel the man’s breath on his skin by now. 

It was at this point that the mysterious man’s face came into full view, he was best described as a handsome jester. Pale clown makeup adorned his face, highlighting his purple lipstick and glowing emerald eyes. His jawline was sharp, his nose long and pointed, his tie an ugly green.

After a moment, the man let go of Jonah’s face and stood further back, giving the refined bow of a noble before finally introducing himself. “You, my dear Nife, may call me Roa, Roa von Zeke. And this…..”

He motioned to the gorgeous red haired girl, who looked upon Jonah with the utmost disgust and enmity. “Is my assistant, Gemini. And to my left…”

He motioned to the lazy platinum blonde haired young man spread across the floor with nothing but a pillow. “Is Angel, a freelancer we’ve partnered with.”

Angel simply gave a peace sign, completely unbothered by any sense of formalities or social expectations. Jonah realised quickly. That’s the guy that gave me the mission to begin with. Which means… He had been royally set up from the very beginning. At this point it wasn’t hard for him to believe that both the money and the messages were fake.

“If you're wondering whether the money or message was fake, rest assured, that was a real job we had set up with your employers and that was real money we gave you.” Roa made sure to add insult to injury with that one, if he had just run away with the money as soon as he had the chance, he wouldn't have been in this predicament. 

No, they would have chased him down anyway, he was sure of it. It was a lose-lose situation the second they intended to capture him.

Roa pulled the tape of his mouth, causing him to yelp in pain as his lips remained sore. At least they had enough decency to cover the lil’ guy downstairs. A simple white towel was all that kept him from feeling like he was about to be violated, allowing him to at least preserve some dignity.

He analysed his situation carefully, he couldn’t spare any words. That look on that girl, Gemini was it, yes, Gemini’s face shows nothing but pure hostility and I can’t forget that she blew my organs out of my body three times and not in a good way. I can’t hate her too much though, if she did know my power that means she wasn’t attempting to kill me, so I can forgive her. This Angel guy doesn’t seem to care much about me so he’s not too much of a concern either, my real concern, and the biggest threat is…

He looked at the smirking jester, his gaze sharpening with anger. “Roa.”

“Yeeeeeeessssss Nife…?”

“Who and what are you?” Jonah quickly got to the point, not wanting to waste a moment on playful dialogue. He had never seen someone burst scorching fire from their hands and he had certainly never met anyone with the guile to do something like that as a simple ‘test’.

This Roa von Zeke was certainly a sly and cunning man, he could tell off instinct that despite his strange appearance — he was not a man to be trifled with. 

As long as this man was a threat, he stood no chance of winning. All his experience and training had taught him that much at least.

“A straight shooter aren’t you, Nife. I will try to make this simple, Gemini get me a chair!”

She quickly did as told, bringing him a chair similar to Jonah’s which he sat on backwards, as if trying to seem casual and approachable.

“You, and me, my boy. Are what we, i.e. the government, call a mage. A descendant of a time on this planet where ‘magic’ was abundant, now mostly lost to time. All that remains is what we call the ‘magic gene’, a hidden and dormant gene amongst humanity that if activated allows the user to manipulate the state of this world via a supernatural force known as manna. Are you with me so far?”

Jonah nodded, he could catch the gist, magical mutants like in some type of manga or comic book series.

“Rooooouuuughly one percent of mankind have that gene dormant inside of them, and far fewer are able to even activate it, but those that can are considered threats by the world government.”

“The UN?”

“Behind the UN. These figures of the shadows are far more powerful than any public power, but to keep things simple, we…” He motioned his finger in a circle, encompassing everyone in the room. “Are considered global teeeerrrrrrrrorists at birth.”

His playful, theatrical voice betrayed the intensity in his eyes. Jonah could tell there was no falsehoods in his words, either he was telling the truth or he was clinically insane, he would guess a mix of both were true.

“So what you're saying is that I’m a mage?”

“Maybe?”

“What do you mean ‘maybe’.”

“Your power is quite unique, unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”

“.....” The entire room looked at Roa in curiosity, waiting to see his explanation.

“A typical mage manipulates manna subconsciously and uses it proactively. For example; if you were a normal mage, you would have been shot in the head and unable to regenerate, same with being burned alive, as your neurons would have been too fried to consciously or even subconsciously reproduce what was lost.”

Roa explained this like a teacher, using hand signs to mimic what he was trying to teach.

“But you are completely different, when you were shot you healed without full awareness, now, while unlikely that my assistant had a bad aim. It still may have been possible that the bullet strayed of course for none other than pure luck or that you rearranged the very structure of your brain on impact, soooooo I decided to ‘test’ it again.”

Jonah gulped, his memory reciting the inhuman pain of that torrent of hellfire that burned him alive like a sacrifice at an altar. The clown continued with a knowing smile. “Iiiii will spare the details but I effectively burned you to ash and cinder, nothing remained of you but somehow you regenerated back to full form, as if it was some type of miracle of biblical proportions. I was flabbergasted to witness it. Where you should have been unable to regenerate consciously, the manna in the air itself rebuilt your body from scratch.” Roa’s eyes gleamed with pure and utter fascination, as if his next words were supposed to be earth-shattering to mortal men. “Meaning that you, Nife or Jonah Ajayi, if you prefer, are not the one self-regenerating! No. It is the world itself that refuses to let you die. The world, no, reality itself, has deemed you worthy of immortality.”

The room paused in shock and awe. The weight of his words carried an immeasurable sense of grandiose. The wish of many men, the dreams and pleas and desperations of countless hearts, the failures of all who tried to gain immortality. All the great men of history shuddered and envied at the feet of the lone boy who had it, and that boy was none other than himself, the ‘blessed’ one. The cursed one.