No Longer

Chapter 2

Five Years Later . . .

Jason, now older, hadn't forgotten that day, not for even a second. The constant reminder was often painful, a brace quickly becoming necessary to be able to support his weight. His leg hadn't healed properly after a team of Guardians had found him and returned him home, the medical treatment too costly for his family. On a good day, he could walk perfectly fine with no trace of a limp, he didn't often have good days. They were so infrequent that Jason had constructed a cane for himself—a simple piece of wood that he had carved, no ornamentation or adornments on it—to help him walk easier. Pain killers were hardly an option, they stunted spirit Energy production by blocking the meridians, and his Energy was one of his only redeeming qualities, so said his father.

It didn't matter, Jason could tolerate a little pain if it meant he could bond with the Spirit of the Great Protector whom he had encountered what felt like a lifetime ago. He didn't know when he would be considered of age, but he knew when the time came, the Great Protector would be there, he had to trust that.

Until then, he worked at the Academy of Spirit Guardian Cultivation as a grounds keeper of the training fields, though he was often only referred to as 'cripple' or, at best, 'keeper'. Students often came onto the field looking down at the cripple and ordering him about, assuming themselves more powerful and more important than him. He didn't mind so much, working at the academy allowed him the opportunity to attend lectures outside of his duties and learn as much as he could about Spirit Guardian cultivation. His goal had once been to learn about the corruption he had seen, but he had never come across any accounts that verified his own. When he had asked, the professor had told him that there were no recorded instances of Attunements changing, they simply didn't, it was a law of nature, but what he had seen that day couldn't be denied. Something had infected that wolf and caused it to attack him, leaving him crippled physically but determined.

New students were admitted to the academy all the time, they came in batches of several dozen on such auspicious days. Even if they were never chosen by a Spirit, their high Energy levels from cultivating would make them a fortune, if harnessed properly. It happened that on such auspicious days was also when many Spirits chose their Hosts and so, on these days each student went through a ceremony to reveal if a Spirit had chosen them, and which Spirit.

Jason was not a student though he attended classes regularly, so he had never gone through the ceremony, though he had observed plenty in the three years he had been the academy's training field keeper. Students were asked to place their hand on an Attuned artifact to first measure their Energy level and Attunement, then the Headmaster would look upon them and declare the Spirit's title or shake his head. At first, he had thought the Headmaster had Mystic Eyes like he did, because Jason could see the Spirit in the Host just like he did with the Attunement auras, though these were given shape—somewhere halfway between their Constituent and Spirit forms which he called the Guardian aura—but he had realized that it was a temporary spell that ended after the ceremony.

This ceremony had been no different. It had been rather a bore to Jason after having witnessed so many of them, so he had decided to leave early. Unbeknownst to him, three students with Guardian auras got up and followed him out. Jason didn't realize they were there until they had already ambushed him, cornered between the library and mess hall, they were much too far from the ceremony for a professor to hear anything. Oh yes, they had chosen their location well.

Jason was quite familiar with these particular students. Kenshin Villanueva was their leader, a red haired blue eyed bully the same age as Jason bonded with the Spirit of the Storm Smith and Attuned with the sky and water Attunements. His two cronies were twins, the blond haired Hanna and Zyon who shared the Spirit of the Earth Shaker with Attunements to earth and flora, their power cut in half when they were separated but doubled when they entered their Guardian form together. These three were renown for picking on students who weren't Hosts to get what they wanted, and whatever they wanted today, Jason had become their target for them to get it.