Manipulated

Chapter 2 • Truth and Lies

Asta slowly walks around a field of flowers, his clothes dirty, him looking to the sky, both disappointed and hurt with himself

"Why did things have to be this way..... DAMMIT!" Asta yells into the sky, his aura and magic exploding around him, causing a small crater to appear and all the flowers either being destroyed or withering away from his dark magic

It's their fault, they chose to do this when they accepted you..... they knew what they were doing!

"But, but, maybe Captain Yami thought different, maybe he actually saw something in m-" Asta says as the voice in his head cuts him off again

They don't care for you, you know who cares for you, and him or that fucking phony of a wizard king doesn't either!

"I don't know.... i don't know" Asta says as he sits down in the field, his hands covered in blood, him laying on his back as he looks to the sky

"Did i make the right choice back then....?" Asta thinks to himself as he closes his eyes, thinking back to what could've been, maybe if he made the right choice, he wouldn't have been here today.

Flashback, 2 weeks after the robber incident.

it has been 2 weeks since Astas killing of the robber and his subsequent disappearance, him flying off and not making any contact with the either the Black Bulls, Sister Lily or anyone.... he's gone completely off the map

Noelle sits at the Bulls base, laying in her bed as she cry's to herself softly, the boy she loved has seemingly disappeared, not wanting to be associated with them.... why would he do this? Would he come back?

"Noelle?" A knock at the door interrupts her from her desperessed state, her wiping her tears and looking up and going to the door, opening it to see Captain Yami

"Hey Noelle, i'm going off to a meeting between all the captains.... Make sure these guys don't do anything stupid" Yami says as Noelle nods slowly

"Will.... will we be looking for Asta? I mean he's our friend, we can't just not look for hi-" Noelle says as Yami cuts her off with a sigh

"We will be discussing Asta at our meeting, i'll tell you what's gonna happen after...." Yami says as he walks off, leaving Noelle in her room again, alone with her thoughts

Yami walks into the conference room of the giant castle that Julius lives in, him seeing every captain there, looking at him, Marx and Julius at the front of the table, Julius still in his younger form

Yami takes a seat next to Charlotte, her blushing slightly at how close she was to Yami, them having grown slightly closer after the war

"Now that we have everyone here, we are ready to discuss the important matter at hand" Julius says as he takes a deep breathe

"With the recent disappearance of one of, if not our strongest mage, Asta, we have been thinking about what kind of choice to make to handle this" Julius says as everyone nods slowly, looking at him

"We've interviewed and viewed the memories of every mage who was with him that day, all finding the same thing.... he felt uneasy, and something has come over him, it was noted that he acted more rashly, he was even going to threaten innocent people of a village to find out answers to a recent string of robberies, this all hitting a boiling point, Asta killing a robber who had provoked him with his past crimes related to the devil trials, and even threatening Magna Swing of the Black Bulls after he attempted to calm him down" Julius says as all of the captains are both confused and shocked by his actions, the kind Asta, one who always tried to talk things out and find a peaceful way out.... would do this?