
POV: Alicia
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The breakup with him came so suddenly.
"Our training will end today."
"Huh?" The boy stood there in shock at the sudden announcement.
"Why, why!? I haven't killed you yet!"
"You have become strong. There's nothing more I can teach you." The black haired girl was smiling calmly. His twilight colored eyes were filled with sorrow.
"I hate this."
"Kaizo?"
"I hate this! You must stay by my side! Forever on the side..." In the middle of the road, Kaizo suddenly stopped his sentence.
"Ja-so, umm, I..." Stammering, his face turned red.
"You can now make an expression like this. Back when we first met, all you had was a stiff poker face," the dark spirit girl gently caressed the boy's head and said, "you're almost as tall as I am now."
"Don't play me!" Kaizo shook his head angrily. Before he met her, the feeling of the boy had never experienced such upheaval.
"Second story?"
"What?"
"I still haven't heard the rest of the story."
He was referring to the bedtime story he was telling. The continuation of the bedtime story somehow became the child's greatest pleasure.
"Sorry."
"Why, why are you apologizing?"
As if to shut the boy's mouth, the girl kissed him. The boy's eyes widened in surprise. Separating her lips from him lightly, she smiled shyly.
"Your first kiss?"
The boy nodded in a daze. His mind was completely blank, he could not think properly.
"Remember, this is our contract kiss." The tip of the girl's finger, gently caressing her cheek, disappeared into the air as particles of light.
"Should there be a time in the future when I have changed so much that I am no longer 'my self'?"
'Kill me.'
****
POV: Kirigaya Kaizo
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"Ah, this is very refreshing."
Under the starry sky, Kaizo was enjoying a soak in the open air bath alone. It is not a hot spring but a pond made by stacking ring-shaped stones and using fire spirits to boil water for bathing.
Since the water in place of the Wind Palace brought fatigue recovery properties, soaking his wound in the clear water felt very comfortable.
Under the moonlight, Kaizo saw the spirit seal on his left hand. Blood slightly seeped out from the crescent-shaped peak.
(Recently, it seems like I've been dreaming about it all the time. What's he doing now?)
It was Kaizo's memory before he became the Strongest Sword Style Holder. On that day, Alicia was sealed once again. Because he had taught the boy what he should not know, 'The human emotion'.
After that, through the re-education efforts of the elders in the Instructional School, the boy lost his emotions once again. However, her longing for him, that alone was never forgotten.
Then four years ago, on the day when the fire demon god attacked and destroyed the Instructional School, he took the ring where he was sealed and the two of them began their journey. Short but beautiful days.
(Allen.).
As if trying to capture the night sky that reminded him of his beautiful black hair, Kaizo stretched out her hand. The spirit seal on his left hand throbbed painfully.
Soon, he had to solve the problem with her. That was what his intuition predicted. If this matter dragged on, it would definitely harm his comrades.
Suddenly, he heard a soft voice in the water behind him. Frantically turning around, he saw a small figure in the shadow of the steam-covered rocks.
"Kaizo?"
"Is that you, Karmila?"
"Yes." Yeah."
Kaizo could hear Karmila's voice. He then said, "This is the men's bath that was provided for me. The women's bath is located right there by the cliff."
"I don't know."
"Sorry, it's pretty easy to mix up. Anyway, I'm done so just enjoy yourself here." Kaizo hurriedly prepared to leave.
"Wait!" Call Karmila to stop him. "I have something to say to you."
"Here?"
"If it's here, the others won't come."
(That's it. Indeed, Victoria and the girls probably won't come to this guy's bath. Something he didn't want others to hear, what was it?)
Kaizo immersed himself in the bathtub again. On the other side of the thin fog, Karmila appeared, wrapped in a white towel. His body looks small and slender.
As her damp dark brown hair clung onto her face, there was a sense of charm that did not seem to belong to a thirteen year old girl.
As he walked to the side, Kaizo turned his gaze as his heart started racing, and asked, "Ja-so, what do you want to tell me?"
"About my eyes. I just want you to know."
Karmila's yellow left eye glitters at night.
"This is the value of my existence. The reason I was raised as a tool."
"The Demon Sealing Eye, right?"
"Do you know?" Karmila exclaimed in shock.
"No, I don't really know. But I can guess."
The devil sealing eyes. These are special eyes that are born by the descendants of the Spirit Contractor lineage in rare cases. A kind of extremely rare spirit crystal.
Due to the many cases of sealing the demon's eyes with powerful spirits sealed within them, the owner was considered dangerous in most situations and was persecuted, be it used as a weapon by those in authority, that was how it was.
Whatever the reason, this thirteen-year-old girl was burdened with a cruel and harsh fate.
The reason why Kaizo knew of the demon sealing eyes that most people did not know about, was because there was another girl in the Instructional School who also had the same kind of eyes. The girl had been used as a weapon and died at an early age.
"When I was young, my parents were afraid of these eyes and sold me to the knights of Rossvale Kingdom, to be trained as a necessary weapon to win the Sword Style Festival." Karmila looked at Kaizo expressionlessly and continued, "to control the sealed spirit with stability, anger, sadness, joy. All emotions that need not be eliminated."
"Those lunatics, they're everywhere." Kaizo groaned in pain. Given how his own emotions were killed and the orphans in the Instructional School were used and spent like tools.
(If I never met Alicia, my fate would be the same as theirs.)
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Because I tricked you, Kaizo." Karmila uttered this sentence in great pain.
"What do you mean?"
"The seal inside my eyes is the spirit of the conquering army of 'The Crusaders', the military spirit of the tactical class."
"Tactical-class military spirit?"
Military Spirits «Tactis» class, among military spirits, this is a type of spirit that is very difficult to control. Other than for exceptional cases like Mia Vialine, it is a rare case.
...
*Connected.....
*Note: This story is fictitious. If there is a similarity in the name of the character, the scene, or the story, it is a mere coincidence and there is no element of intentionality.