I was finally able to comprehend the unique skill that Man told me about and finally understood the epithet Witch Of The Gates, so that was from where the name came to be, a dark art that actually opened gates .
I was completely engrossed in the spell that i just saw the Principal used, i felt my heart clench at the last part of the incantation, but then that feeling disappeared at the voice of the Captain and him putting his hand on my shoulders, i'm pretty sure that i heard him just now asking about me being ready for the assessment which should have been already over, what was going on ? .
" Captain Isuragi, shouldn't the assessment be already over, since Kamekichi-senpai collapsed just now .
He nodded his head at my logic, but then said while massaging his forehead :
That was him just trying to teach you the so-called manners, i guess there was no helping it, but i hope he will learn from his lesson and refrained from doing such things any more in the future .
I certainly doubt that, but i continued to listen to what the captain was saying :
As i said before, him challenging you won't be productive whether he won or you did, but he just didn't listen .
The assessment will continue to carry on, due to us still having no clue about your combat prowess and how much you will fare in fighting against Metaphysicals, is there any issues with you, want to have some time to recover your spent Mana before we continue with the assessment .
I understood his logic, but i still don't like it much, i checked my body and after not feeling a problem with my body or Mana, the latter was a bit vague to sense, but i reckoned that i should still have enough Mana to spare, after making sure of this i told him that again i was ready .
He looked at me weirdly for like 10 seconds and he took me by surprise when he suddenly said :
You really are a weird guy .
" Huh, how was i weird, i think i'm quite normal at least our kind of normal .
Normally from what i heard from my vice captain Kanzaki Tokiko it took sometime to regain the Mana spent, even longer time is needed in case if the person being experienced or even trying Dark Arts for the first time like yourself, but you don't seem to feel bothered, so that was another weird thing about you .
" I see, huh, wait a minute, senpai, you just said another, what were the other weird things you believe i have .
At my frustrated expression the Captain smiled a little as if finally he was able to get a win or a point over me and said resolutely and without even a hint of hesitation :
Are you kidding, you haven't done one thing normal from the moment you appeared in the training grounds, i was beginning to believe some of the words said by that idiot Kamekichi, thinking too that you might be deploying a huge illusion on the arena .
I was shocked to hear that, i don't understand what are those weird things that he was talking about, i felt that everything i did was actually pretty normal, was what i did really that shocking to the captain and the others .
Anyway, the captain without missing a beat, continued to say :
I still also have a lot of questions that i wanted to ask you, but they can wait to be answered after the assessment, let's go join the others first .
With that he finished his words and i nodded a bit weakly due to still wondering about the weird things he said that i did, we began walking towards the other Saviors on the other side of the room .
The moment we came close to the other Saviors, the captain first reprimanded the blonde haired playful girl from before and criticized her use of Light Arts to do irresponsible things like that, i get the chance to know that the name of that girl was Sophia, now i saw her up close i was beginning to believe that she was a foreign .
The girl being berated just kept nodding with a smile on her face and with no shred of apologetic on her face, i was somewhat certain that she might not have even listen keenly to what Captain Isuragi seemed to say, from the looks on the faces of the other people, i was able to understand that this happening was somewhat a common thing and from the looks of it, they were all aware of the meaning behind the girl reactiony .
After 5 minutes, the berating of the captain finally stopped and once again he asked who was going to be my sparring partner, this time he was picking my sparring partner from the Shirogane Saviors .
Most of the guys looked at each other and wondered whether they wanted to step forward, i was able to tell that they were a bit hesitant, this continued to go in for 2 to 3 minutes then just as someone had finally regained his fighting spirit and was about to step forward .
The playful girl named Sophia put a hand on her waist and volunteered, but then another person volunteered in the exact same moment as her, another girl volunteered and i was surprised to see that the other girl was none other than the senpai that i kept stumbling upon, Momochi Haruka, who was currently looking at me with eagerness and competitiveness for some reason .
I thought that the captain will be the one to decide, but then Sophia-senpai withdrew willingly, saying :
Woah , i'm surprised to see that you want to have a spar with him Momoshi, i will leave it to you then, surly i will get a chance to do so as well later on .
I didn't understand what was going on first, but everything got cleared up when i began to hear the words of the surrounding Saviors, boasting about how fast was she and that she will finish me off without even getting a chance to use my Dark Art and all sort of things, so they all thought that she was a quite suitable opponent for me .
The Captain then turned to look at me and once again confirmed that i have no problem with the opponent, i nodded and said that i have no problem .
But i was surprised from the handicap that the captain put on me before we start, he asked me not to use my dark art to directly affect Momochi-senpai body .
This handicap was quite logical one to add, but i found it weird due to the fact that it was actually pretty meaningless, since i can't affect the bodies of others using that spell of mine, i can only affect inanimate things, if i'm not wrong the Captain believed that the current spell i used was the one i used to heal my mom in that incident back at the mall, but i can tell that the spell i used before may also be a Time attribute based spell, but it isn't the same one, anyway his worries were unfounded, but i still nodded approvingly to this .
Seeing that everything was set, he motioned for us to go ahead and stand in position, we both began to walk towards the center of the training grounds .
When we stood in position opposite to each other,the senpai made a polite gesture and introduced herself formally to me, saying in a bit timid voice :
I'm Momochi Haruka a second year student and a C Rank Savior and member of the Strikers, please take care of me .
I can tell that she was timid as she squeezed those words out of her mouth with difficulty, his voice sounded almost like a mosquito voice, almost inaudible .
" My name is Komurasaki Ryuu, a first year student here in the school, A C Rank Savior, please take care of me as well .
I introduced myself in the same way as she did, but since this was an assessment to decide whether i will join the corps or not, i didn't introduced myself as a member .
" I'm really sorry for what happened this morning, so i hope you let go of it as well at the expense of what happened before .
I saw that it was a good chance for apologizing about what happened in the morning, using the fact that she did do the same to me back in the tunnel and we both coincidentally being under the same circumstances, but i never expected her answer to be just a hmph .
I was not sure why was she like this, when she was also at the wrong that time, but for some reason, she was still holding a grudge against me .
We both got into a fighting stance, then the captain gave the signal to began the assessment .
Momochi-senpai body began to flash with blue light, she was clad in a blueish Prana, i blinked and then felt as if countless alarms suddenly rang in my mind, the moment i opened my eyes, i saw that Momochi-senpai appeared in front of me almost instantly and she was stabbing with the sword in her hand which i had no clue when it appeared at my chest .
I was so amazed at how fast she moved, i only blinked and she was almost upon me, but being amazed didn't stop me from parring the incoming sword attack, i held the sword horizontally in front of my chest, i was able to parry the sword attack, but their was one thing i didn't calculate, the fact that the strength of the attack being much more than i could handle .
So the sword was knocked off my hand and i myself began to flew backward, only then did i understand why was she the perfect match for me with her speed she can always be able to disturb my spellcasting, a Kuroma unable to use dark art is a dead meat .
As i crashed on the ground i didn't have any intention to get up, i began once again trying to inscribe glyphs in hope of being able to summon my dark art .
The moment i finally was about to write the last syllables, i was surprised to see Momochi-senpai appearing in front of me who was still crouching on the ground and she was continuing her assault aiming at my chest once again with a look that i interpreted as her saying "like i would let you do this " .
The girl had that much ferocity during battle that i was confused about how can she balance between being both timid and ferocious like this, but i soon discarded this thought, no it is much accurate to say it was kicked out of my mind by another powerful thought that completely occupied its place .
( Recalling of past life memories ) :
My conscious then found that the scenery around me shifted, i was in the process of reliving and recalling some of my previous life memories, but unlike every time this had happened, this time i found that i was in the body of a child 5 or 6 years old, i was in a quite an ancient hall together with 6 others standing in a horizontal line and in front of us was an orbs of glass that shimmered with light and behind us was a crowd of people who were all wearing extravagant clothes, i was in an Affinity Test Hall, that name suddenly burst into my brain .
Then an old man passed me a needle and ordered me coldly to prick my finger with the needle, then drop a droplet of blood on the glass orb in front of me .
This was a place where the Battle Mages were testing what kind of affinities did they have, it normally were done at 3 years of old, but i didn't do it until i was 5 due to being an orphan and penniless, the other around me were nobles sons and people of much more high class than me, the only thing that i noted about the me in the memory was that his eyes shone brightly with a indomitable will and grand determination, even with the scornful gazes of those that were around of him
The moment my blood droplet fell on the glass, it shimmered with a brilliant green light, at first the people around me didn't know what that even meant, all of them looked at each other and then the one who solved this confusion was none other than the old man responsible for overseeing the test, his voice was loud when he declared that i have affinity to Time magic, making all the onlookers stunned at first, but then they all burst out laughing and began to mercilessly ridicule me .
A battle mage with a time magic is nothing short of a handicap on the battlefield, his ability are inclined to healing and to even achieve that level he will need to study for a long, long time and spend a lot of precious resources, so it wasn't productive to sponsor him, on the battlefield there was no other uses for a Time battle mage .
Even in the face and the ridicule of all these people, the young kid stood steady like a rock facing all their scornful gazes with a blank expression and just got out of the hall .
The moment he stepped out of the hall, the old man from before appeard before him and actually took him as a student, but he told him that he will give him what he needed, but will never make him being his pupil public, so he will have to navigate the waves that will come to drown him on his own .
The boy didn't ask for anything other than two things, a sword and a Time related spell, the old man gave him those two things without much of a problem, the scene shifted once again to when the boy grow a bit older reaching the age of 8 .
He was sent to the battlefield due to him being an orphan and a burden by the laws of the kingdom, the one leading the corps he was assigned to, was a noble that witnessed what happened back at the Test Hall, he tried to humiliate the kid, but failed due to the lack of reaction from the kid .
So him being narrow-minded, he put the boy in the harm way by assigning him to be in the front line on the battlefield, after he gave that order, that leader was killed by the boy in the same night .
No one suspected him to be the culprit, but he was still forced to be in the front line, another sudden shift in scene happened once more, this time the scene showed him fighting on the battlefield at the age of 9, using a spell he created on his own, it was the spell Paradox .
He used Swordsmanship together with the only time related spell he knew of to massacre entire legions, time after time over and over, till he earned the title Blood Storm, that was a befitting name, a meaningful one too, it was how the battlefield looked like each time he appeared on it, dyeing the place completely red .
( End of the recalling )
Even though, the sword of Momochi-senpai was already upon me, i no longer felt the same as before, I REMEMBERED .