Clan Thief

Chapter 9

 Satomi skimmed over her information. "Well, we know she has your powers, Kari. What about you, Vortex? Was your village filled with only the dragon clan?"

I could feel a sense of despair as he looked down to his feet which were neighboring mine. His voice was silenced. The only thing that was making noise was his fingers tapping on the desk. His tongue quietly clicked, giving us a sign he was about to speak. "Not entirely, but mostly." He whimpers.

Satomi nods at him and looks back down at the book, Simultaneously, we all noticed it starting to gleam and smoke.

"Woah, what's happening?" I shoved Vortex behind my arm and took a leap backwards.

"I don't know!" She hurriedly trades glances between the steaming book and the both of us. She takes a step back with us.

"Well," Panicked, I pause. "Close it!" Satomi rushes over to the book, now covered in a pile of steamy white smoke, and flips it closed. The smoke bursts from the book and disperses in the room. Tiny streams of smoke still emerges from the book.

We all took a deep breath and steadied our voices from the chilling experience we just encountered. The three of us stayed silent, until I noticed how the book has stopped smoking. Hesitant, I walk toward the book and opened it back to the page we closed it on. I stopped. There was new writing under her 'abilities' tab.

"...Dragon." I slowly looked up from the engraved word and looked at their horrified faces. The atmosphere turns almost instantly. My heart sunk for Vortex. My blood felt like it was boiling. My heart was pounding hard against my ribcage. Vortex's breathing visibly got heavier. He clutched at his head and started pacing around the room.

"I'm the last one, I'm the last one, I'm the last one, I'm the last one..." He couldn't stop. His heavy breathing and the misuse of his voice weakened him. He sat down in the brown rocking chair in our living room, still clutching at his head, now shaking. Satomi thwacked me in the arm, telling me to calm him down.

"I'm sure he's having an anxiety attack, go calm him down while I get my potion." She talked quickly. Before I could say anything, she turned away to her garden. I rushed over to Vortex and held him up by his shoulders.

"Hey, hey, it's okay. Be calm, Vortex." his eyes were sealed shut. He was breathing heavily through his clenched teeth. I had to grip onto his shoulders harder in order to keep him constrained until Satomi came back.

She did in fact, with a potion in hand. She swept Vortex's hair back along with his head and stuck the potion in his mouth. He gurgled at first, but gave in soon after. His breathing relaxed, he stopped squirming, and his eyes opened slightly. The rim of the bottle departed from his lips and he exhaled deeply, yet softly.

He looked around curiously at us as if he just woke up. He straightened his posture and cleared his throat.

"Man, you have a potion for everything, don't you, gram?" Instead of seeing the snarl from last time he called her granny, she smiled sweetly.

"Hee-hee, well they don't call me the old healer for nothing." She sets down the empty glass on the side table next to the chair. Vortex rubs his chest, which should be calm by now.

"Whew, all that fussing's got me tired. Can I go to sleep already?" Satomi is already heading back to her desk to examine the book once more. She turns to him once she sits down.

"Go on ahead, but just remember once I find her location, the both of you are heading out as soon as possible. We can't risk letting her roam free when we don't need to." Vortex shadows me and follows me up the stairs. He and I wave back to Satomi until we're so far up the stairs she's no longer visible.

"Hey Vortex," I sat on my bed and watched him stretch.

"Yeah?" He finished his long sprawl and joined me on the other side of the bed.

"How do you feel training with each other?" He looked into his lap to consider my proposal. He tapped his fingers on the blanket, for a long enough time to finish thinking.

"I've always wanted to see what you're made of. That sounds like a great idea." He looked up at me with interested eyes. I was enlightened. "Well, it's settled then. We'll both train with Don tomorrow. Let's get a good night's sleep so we have a lot of energy tomorrow." He nods and gets himself comfortable in my blankets. He tosses and turns for a few minutes, then falls asleep.

I wake up in a world which is entirely empty and colorless. I look around for any sign of life. It's bright. It felt like I was walking endlessly into nowhere. "Is this..." After giving up on finding any sort of figures, I talk to myself. "Is this heaven?"

"No," I hear a voice behind me. I swing back around, but nobody was there. "This is your mind." I didn't give up on finding who this voice belonged to. "Who are you? Where am I? Show yourself!" The voice is coming from behind me again. I eagerly swung back around. I saw feathers. White feathers. They had some sort of glow to them; then there were more. Completely covering the area ahead of me. As the feathers brushed away, I saw a familiar blue light.

Kana.