Labyrinth Expedition #7

Akiro and Ayama briskly traversed the store to the magicians in charge of testing them, the same ones the desk clerk had pointed out. They first headed to the mage in charge of the grey section of the store, the wind mage.

"Hello, are you perhaps going to test your affinities?" She said, her blonde hair bobbing as she looked up.

"That's right," Ayama smiled at her, "My name's Ayama and this guy is Akiro. We're interested in knowing our magical Affinities."

The mage smiled appreciative of his manners. "Eastern names! Are you two from Scavia?"

Ayama opened his mouth to answer, but Akiro cut him off before he could begin. "That's right, I'm guessing you're from Earlshide?"

The lady beamed, "How did you know! Oh wait, it's from the hair! isn't it?" she jokingly pouted, to which Akiro just shrugged.

"I mean, immigrants from other nations are pretty rare. Considering the two countries' diplomatic standing, it's only obvious."

The desk lady was shocked at his intellect, more so that she looked at him speechless. The pause was too long for Ayama so he cut in.

"Sharp, ain't he?" He joked, "Now, how do we test out our affinities?"

The magician snapped out of it, and she turned to the blonde, "Oh, of course! Do you know how to gather magic? You need to be able to do that before the test can actually be done."

Ayama nodded, "We do know, what's the next step?" he beamed, making the lady chuckle.

"So excited, how cute," She thought, "Now, please hold out your palm like this," She said, demonstrating with her own hand, placing a small sheet atop of that. "Now, if we channel a decent amount of Magic power into our palm–"

Swish!

The paper flew into the air, before sliding side to side as it descended back down to the ground. "–It launches up in the air, just like that." She finished, taking two more sheets. "Do you want to try?"

"Of course!" Ayama smiled.

Following the lady's instructions to the letter, Ayama held it in his palm and channeled magic power to his palm, but it did not budge at his power.

"Aw," The lady said, "Unfortunate, but the wind is not for you."

"Bummer," Ayama pouted, "How about you, Akiro?"

Akiro received the paper and repeated the exercise, only to fail too. The clerk just sighed, her head slightly lowered apologetically. "I'm sorry, I guess you two are not capable of doing wind magic. But don't worry! There are other elements to try out."

With a sad, but respectful bow, Ayama left with Akiro at his heel.

"Did you figure it out?" he whispered so softly that Akiro could only hear, to which the assassin just nodded,

"Yeah, it's simple, but I need to see the others before being sure." Akiro huffed as they walked to the earth-element. "I'll explain later, so let's hurry up."

The test of the earth element was the same as the wind's, except for holding paper, you were supposed to crush rock underneath your palm. Ayama and Akiro failed the test, with the rock left unscathed.

"There's nothing special about it, but when magic power is gathered on a part of the body, it escapes. The escaping magic power then reacts to reveal the potential affinity only outside of the body." Akiro summarizes the phenomena. "With this logic in mind, Masashi's red magic power can be explained as his tremendous magic capacity for the fire element."

Akiro watched as the fire mage instructed Ayama to dip his hand in oil and channel his magic power.

"Based on the light attack from the previous floor, the heavy scorching left by his attack could only mean–"

Fwoosh!

"Whoa!" Ayama gasped, "Akiro look at this!"

" –That Ayama would be greatly inclined into fire magic," Akiro smiled, "Congratulations, now you go browse for the magic spells," he said, pointing at the shelves of beat-up books and scrolls. "I-I know I'm not suited for fire, so I'll head to the water section,"

Ayama's shoulders dropped slightly. "S-Sure! let's meet up at the exit."

"Actually, I just realized— since when could he use light magic? Was he hiding it? If so for how long? And how did I act like it was normal? Is this the result of the creed?" Akiro thought, only to banish the question to the back of his mind. 

"Okay, see you there."A kiro may have cooly replied, but the sight of those flames awoke troublesome memories he had thought were buried.

"Dad! Don't go! Please don't go! The fire is too strange! You can't fight it!"

"Don't worry about me, 'kiro! Your daddy's the best fireman!"

Like the thought, the memory was banished to, and Akiro hurriedly crossed the distance between the red section to the blue section. The Mage in charge of the station was by far the most uninterested, as he was in his chair, reading a book.

"I'm here to test my affinity," Akiro said to the man dressed in blue, to which the man replied with a lay motion to the bowl of water on the table.

"Magic in hand. Bowl." he lazily said.

"Quick and concise, I'll take it," Akiro sighed.

Following the four-word instruction, Akiro gathered the magic power in his hand and dipped it into the bowl. There was a slight reaction, the water slowly swirling before it picked up speed.

"Water, huh?" Akiro huffed, amused by himself, "I can work with that."

the mage looked up from his book and looked at Akiro, "congratulations, go pick out anything that you can afford," he said.

"Sure thing."

Akiro maneuvered around the mage and worked his way through the shelves and rummages through the scrolls so hastily put on, a few even falling off that he had been forced to put them back and rearrange himself.

"Screw this," Akiro huffed, irritated from the repetitive motion of bending down to reach for things.

Unfortunately this time, Akiro had to hold a few longer than others as it was more efficient to gather the fallen scrolls as a group than one by one. Akiro had almost lost his patience as he successfully pushed in the scrolls in an orderly manner, only for him to get hit in the head with a thick book.

"Agh! Damn this place!" Akiro growled, turning to the lazy man on the table, "Hey asshole! Keep your shelves in order, prick."

Akiro picked up the fallen book, ready to throw it haphazardly into the shelves, but a symbol caught his attention. It was faded, but it was–

"The Insignia!" Akiro gasped, opening the pages, skipping the introduction and into the first spell of the grimoire. His eyes ran down the pages filled with Japanese kanji with speed, absorbing the information like a sponge– unknowingly making use of a dormant passive skill. "Water-Spell Catalogue, written by… it's all worn out, so I can't read who the author is."

"[ Water Bullet ], the first spell of the offensive catalog for Water Mages. It is the conjuring of a small bead of water at the tip of one's wand or reaches. This bead, or bullet, can be used offensively as the bead can traverse long distances to strike the vitals. We have discovered that the size of the bullet also corresponds to the weight and the cost of inner energy." Akiro stopped, raising an eyebrow, "Are they calling mana, inner energy? That's probably a translational thing, but they're not entirely incorrect." he thought, "Side note: It has also been discovered that when more inner energy is infused into the bullet, the water produced becomes sweeter.

[ Through the Passive Skill: [Weapon Master], You have successfully learned: [ Water Bullet ]. ]

"Whoa! So that's what that does! Hold on a minute, can I use [ Appraisal ] on myself? rather the skills in my window? I technically can see it." Akiro thought. "[ Appraisal ]"

"[ Weapon Master ], Passive skill. When the user touches, wields or learns a weapon. Information on the proper technique of welding that weapon will be subconsciously learned and skills are automatically ingrained into muscle memory. Probability of occurring, the level does apply, 1/10"

"Of course, the skill is not omnipotent, but it certainly would explain a lot of things." Akiro grins. "I can learn just from reading. It's high level, but the probability is still low– still, I can't complain."

"Say, how much would this go for?"

Akiro sits on the stairs of the shop, waiting patiently for Ayama to appear, and was certainly surprised to see the man in question with a lady attached to his arm– the wind lady from earlier.

"Oh come on~" she hummed, "Let's go for a drink! Just you and me."

Akiro looked at Ayama, clearly losing his patience. "For the last time, I have someone I like. Leave me alone."

He smirks but he still approaches him to help. "He has his heart set on someone so let him go."

The wind lady was about to refute if it weren't for Akiro's plain, angry glare. "F-Fine!"

"Phew." Ayama sighed a breath of relief. "Thanks for the assist."

"No problem, she's mediocre anyway."

"Okay now, make fun of her after we get out of here." Ayama smiled.

In the largest inn in the city, the size of two blocks, Kaiser and Olivia watched the entrance of the inn as their students slowly gathered in after exploring. Ironically, when it came down to the inn, those two boys were always last to come.

"You're late." Olivia frowned, "We agreed."

"Sorry." Ayama sheepishly apologized. "It took longer to gather supplies than we thought."

Akiro nodded with Ayama's apology. "Yeah, the lines in stores are longer than we thought," he added.

Olivia frowned and opened her mouth but Kaiser sighed, placing a hand on her shoulder. "That's okay dear, at last everyone is complete. We can trust those boys."

"Fine," She huffed, "Eat dinner and sleep early. We're going to beat the boss of this floor and earn passage to the next floor." Olivia instructed, passing them keys to their room. "6:00 am sharp."

Respectfully bowing, Akiro and Ayama proceeded to the tavern keeper to quickly eat. With their keys, they entered their lodgings, which was a simple bathroom-less room with a table and two beds.

Ayama sighed internally, "It's my fault… I made him remember that day. God, I'm so stupid, but knowing him– he's going to bounce back in no time."

Akiro took the bed nearest to the window while Ayama took the one closest to the exit. Since they had entered the inn, they had not exchanged words, thus, it was a silent night for the usually rowdy boys. The silence was palpable, but both managed to sleep, only for one to sleep soundly and the other cursed with recurring memories.

The smell of burning wood, steel, and concrete was almost impossible to breathe. It was a typical sunny day until a fire broke out in one of the upperclassmen's classrooms.

It was a fire like no other, almost like fire and brimstone raining from the heavens like in Christianity's Sodom and Gomorrah. A tall pillar of unidentifiable power was concentrated in one classroom on the third floor.

Akiro and Ayama were no older than middle schoolers, with Ayama being the class president and Akiro his vice president.

There were dozens of firetrucks surrounding the school, with news reporters capturing the scene, and the cowering students being nursed and helped by ambulances.

"Dad! Don't go! Please don't go! The fire is too strange! You can't fight it!" Akiro yelled to his father, who was the commissioner of the city.

"Don't worry about me, 'kiro! Your daddy's the best fireman!" he said, from afar, with a bright smile. "Daddy and his friends will save the day."

His colleagues just gave hurrahs in unison at the commissioner's sheer determination and confidence.

Akira's older self was watching the scene unfold, knowing how it all ends, but that did not stop him from screaming the same words his past self did.

"Please! Dad! Don't go! It's not normal!" Akiro pleaded like his younger self, watching as dozens of firemen rushed into the burning building.

Boom!

Only a minute had passed just as the firemen entered, and the building collapsed with a mighty sound–

–And Akiro woke up, his eyes wet, and the sky still dark. "...fuck. That dream again." he sobbed into his arm because it was that day that everything started falling apart.