Spark in Darkness: Unworldy encounter/Prototype

Spark 18: The curtains rise to a new war

It had been four days since their encounter with Shiro. The mystery of her Japanese-like name solved, Haruki felt she was a nice girl deep down. She had spent most of the time hanging out with Shinesh, and Haruki decided to leave them to be.

They were now at town at the bottom of the hill where the Zaki Taiyou School once stood. For some reason, only the dojo was attacked. The town remained unscathed, but there was great mourning over the passing of Headmaster Geniya. It seems like he was a respectful figure himself.

"For a person like him to be killed....it seems that there is only one person who can do it." Shiro had said thoughtfully.

"Who is it?" Shinesh immediately snapped towards her.

"He goes by the name of Liraie Nightblade. The commander of the Nayshards, the most powerful Nayshard in existence."

"Nightblade? Did you just say Nightblade?" The name was all too familiar to Haruki.

"Uh-huh. What about it?" Shiro tilted her head in puzzlement.

"Ah, no. Nothing. I heard of that name somewhere before." Haruki quickly swallowed what he was about to say. Given the situation, it was not wise for him to mention a Nayshard's name.

Shiro nodded gravely. "It's only natural that you might have heard of him, since he's the leader. He was the one who hired me to attack the two of you."

"According to Shinesh's story, you were kidnapped by the Nayshards, right? Then why aren't you working for them but as a mercenary instead?" Haruki asked.

"I escaped. But then I realised I had nothing. My village was wiped out. I couldn't locate those who escaped. I was neither a Spark nor a Nayshard. I...I was alone. I didn't have any place I could belong to." Shiro's lip trembled ever so slightly.

"So I decided to work as a mercenary, but I swore not to take up jobs that involved killing people. Until I met Liraie Nightblade. He had this cool demeanour, and his face and build were that of a perfect man. Or so I had thought back then. His red eyes were piercing, and they seemed to calm my turbulent heart down. His voice ever so soothing, when he asked me to kill the two of you. It...it was scary. At that time, I was in a trance, and accepted his request immediately. His charisma had caused me to go against my own words, to have shaken the very beliefs I have. God knows what Darkness power this man possess. I'm ashamed to have been cast under his spell."

"But...but after I recognised Shinesh, that he was still alive, the charm just broke." Shiro sent Shinesh a soft smile, and he nodded with a grin. They squeezed each other's hand in comfort.

Haruki realised they were about to go into their own world, but he had this burning question he wanted to ask.

Giving a lough cough, and laughing internally at the flustered couple who hurriedly distanced themselves, Haruki voiced what was in his mind. "I want to ask, isn't it strange for the two of you to possess both Darkness and Light at once? I read before that it would have destroyed your body."

Shinesh scratched his cheek. "Truthfully, I have no idea too. But ever since the incident in my village, my Spark would give off faint traces of Darkness when I get very angry or when the Light output is at the maximum."

"Me too. My body hurt like hell for the first few days after I was experimented on, but after a while I've acquired this power." Shiro flexed her right arm and added, "I'll make sure to control this power one day and take revenge on the one who made me this way."

These two had experienced hell when they were younger. Haruki thought back to his happy childhood and considered himself pretty lucky.

"To me, what's more surprising is that you managed to awaken the power in the Sun Gloves. You're the first one in the Zaki Taiyo's school history to awaken our Sun Torch. So the actual power is to summon a bow, huh." Shiro said.