Dark Clover

4. The First Mission

Throughout the day, the squad wanted to cheer up Yami and Yachio, but they were unbelievably restless. Yami drank so much that he ended up sleeping on the couch in dormitory. Yachio never came out of her room. She blamed herself for hurting Yami, as according to her, hurting good people was a sin that even God cannot forgive.
Asta told Yami to go to her and ease her. Yami was egoistic. He told that she was all to blame, not because of hurting him, but because of hiding her capability. He's her squad captain, and he has the rights to know about her powers. Finral added fuel to the fire by accidentally saying she knows 30+ spells.
Yami didn't move. He drank. He passed out. It was maybe dawn when his eyes opened by a long thud on the main door.
"Fuck you, I'm not going to open", he snapped.
Someone yelled from outside door, "You have a mission".
Yami went out from the sofa lazily and opened the door. His eyes were swollen from tiredness and his hair was messy like bird nest.
He saw a guy with long face-covering robe. He said, "Sorry but this mission is confidential, we cannot communicate by letters".
He handed him a parchment envelop and vanished in air.
Yami sloppily went inside holding it in his hands. Suddenly his stomach growled. He ate nothing last night. He went to the counter to find some leftovers from last night and found nothing. He thought of waking up charmy, but then one plate came in front of him from nowhere, having fried bacon and eggs on it. The owner of the hand was no one else than Yachio. She wasn't looking at Yami. She said in a lower tone, "You didn't eat anything last night, so I thought you must be hungry. I can cook well."
Yami took the plate and groaned, "Don't pretend to be that soft, when you became that thing, that samurai thing, your voice was as chilly as mountain ice."
"I am not pretending anything. I'm a different person when I'm in combat. At that moment, this Yachio dies."
Yami wanted to know more.
"How? How do you manage to pull off mana zone for that much time?"
"Practice". She smiled, looking at the ground.
"Oi, you are hiding something, tell me. I promise I'll not tell anyone." he added, "I need to know, so that I can help you control this".
Yachio answered spontaneously, "What made you think I cannot control my samurai form?"
Yami didn't expect this from her. He said, "Look, you just said you are a totally different person when you get into samurai mode, so I'll teach you, to control and channel your emotions evenly in all situations."
"I am very well aware of that Sukehiro-san."
Yami was surprised that she called by his last name.
Something inside him was saying him to prove himself superior than her, even so in at least one term, but he also knew that this girl is something else.
Yachio added, "There are lot more things you can do with dark magic. I've heard about your dimension slash, I don't know why you didn't do that yesterday to break my mana zone."
"I told you, it was only to check how far you can go."
Yachio was quiet. She said, "Even so, that was only one of the 11 forms I can make."
Yami chocked on a piece of bacon and Yachio helped him with water. He told her, "See, we make a deal. Today you're going to a mission, only if you tell your all secrets to me after coming back. If you don't, then Magna gets the mission."
Yachio was sweating. She was visibly confused as she decided to tell him everything, after all, he wasn't a bad guy. She nodded and Yami handed her a parchment. Inside it was a drawing of a cave, and one map. Yami described the mission." You, Asta and Noelle are going there. Finral will help you to reach. There is one terrorist gang, who are robbing the village on the other side of this cave. Be careful. The cave is full of magical forces as the village is not directly under our supervision. For many years, clover kingdom has tried to aquire the village, as well as diamond kingdom. But failed. This is a golden chance to do this. "
Yachio understood that this is a very important mission and was confused that why is it being given to her. In her utmost shock, Yami grabbed her hand and said,"Good luck shorty".

She couldn't deny. She decided even if she dies, she'll make this mission a success.

On the mission :

Asta is quite a kid! He's always there to make everyone happy with his shouting and jumping. Noelle is somewhat reserved, but she's good from heart. After yesterday's incident, Noelle was maintaining distance from Yachio. She spoke up, "Hi Noelle chan, is there something bothering you?"
She didn't answer. Asta came and said, "She thinks that you lied to us. That you have hidden your powers all the time and pretended to be a weakling."
Noelle was embarrassed at this and said, "The hell I did think that." She strode off with a frown. Asta continued, "She was telling she'll discuss with Yami dancho, that if you are a spy." Asta laughed frantically.
Yachio stopped walking and 2 drops of tears fell from her eyes. Asta became nervous, "I m so sorry Yachio san, I.... I didn't mean to hurt you, you see! You are totally different in combat and real life, people think, they think, well I don't think anything like that..." before he finished, Yachio started walking, and smiled at him. She said,"The fruits can only tell how good is the tree". Asta couldn't get it totally, but he was genuinely concerned about how Yachio was going to be treated further.
He knew that this woman is not bad at heart. Unable to sense mana, Asta was trained by Yami to sense ki, and therefore he could sense malice too. For Yachio, there was only deep, motionless sadness inside her.

"Are you angry on Noelle?" Yachio nodded both side to say "No".
The cave appeared. Yachio could sense a strong magical power, but wait, there was something else too. Not only the natural mana-divider, but something more. A human, with tremendous amount of magic, and wait, where did Noelle go?
Asta yelled her name, but his voice echoed through the cave.
Yachio's magic couldn't generate light, so it wasn't useful at that moment. Yachio asked Asta if he could sense her ki, Asta denied. Suddenly Yachio stepped on something slimy. She smelled it, it was blood. Wait... Was it Noelle's?

For next few moments, many things happened. The moment she touched the blood, she was pulled up, tied on her hands and legs, wide apart, before even she could say Asta to not touch the blood, her mouth was covered with strings.
Asta flew from nowhere and severed the strings with his anti-magic sword, Yachio got on her guard opening her grimoire.

"It was a trap. Some blood-mage is here." Asta said.
Well, it's another rare magic attribute that only few people have.
One part of her mind wanted to call Yami. His presence was so assuring. While walking in darkness, Yachio activated one more spell.
"Dark magic: Dark eyes". This magic was to see in the dark. Asta looked at her and she said, "Hold my hand". Asta followed her and the moment he touched her hand, he could see everything clearly in the cave. He shouted, "Awesome Yachio san, you're genius".
Yachio smiled, finding a way out of the cave, she could feel and see a strong pool of energy on their left. She shouted Noelle's name and suddenly one thin, tall man appeared before them, holding unconscious Noelle in one hand, A diamond mark grimoire in other.

Asta shouted to leave Noelle, but it was futile. The blood mage tied Asta up with his blood strings and when he moved around to see Yachio, there was only a pile of darkness.
When he again moved to see Asta, there was nothing but darkness too.
Yachio whispered in Asta's ears, "I cleared my debt of last time, brother."

The blood mage kept Noelle's body on the ground and his grimoire flew opened in front of him.
Yachio said to Asta, they were in front of the mage, but hidden beneath a dark cocoon. She lowered her tone to the least point and said," When I say 'go', you go and strike him with your sword. Gotcha?"
Asta nodded.
Yachio said, "Dark magic: Dark times, Static freeze! Go Asta"
Asta managed to divide the cocoon in two parts and flew to the diamond mage, striking on his shoulder with his demon dweller sword. The guy was stiff there because of Yachio's dark time magic. The magic can freeze time for a person for some moments. Asta managed to made him unconscious by one blow, and with him being unconscious, Noelle woke up. Asta hugged her, and she was as red as an apple. She threw off Asta to another corner of the cave and said, "I am royalty".

All of them laughed.
It was a piece of cake for Asta to deny all the magical forces after Yachio looked for traps, and Noelle looked for way out from the cave-tunnel.
Their teamwork made them successful as a ball of sunshine was getting nearer with each step. The sunshine was coming from the village outside. The mission just started.