The Darkness Awakening

Forming Roses (Chapter #9)

Why? Why!! I wish I never got this power goddarnit! I've been training all morning ever since 7:00 with only breaks for breakfast and to use the washroom. It's absolute torture, even worse than the combat training from yesterday. Like for heaven's sake! How the hell am I supposed to shape my darkness into a flower? A single thought of releasing it can unleash enough darkness to engulf the whole of the training room and he wants me to make a rose. Of all the things I could possibly make. I tapped into my magical power, which I could do rather easily now after around 7 or so hours of training, but we don't talk about that.... I tried releasing as little magical power as I thought possible outside me. I see the darkness gushing outside me like a fountain and I tried imagining it coming together to form a rose. I ended up making a weird rectangular prism shape thing that was the size of a car instead.

"You're getting better! Keep on going. You'll eventually get there!" I hear the old man calling out to me from the table where he was sitting and drinking tea. While also reading a news paper, who even reads those anymore?

"Easy for you to say from just sitting over there sipping your tea!" I called out back to him. Frankly, it was frustrating. Not being able to achieve your goal after so much hard work and time, it's sure to wear anyone out, and I was definitely sick and tired of it. "Hey old man! Can't I take a break now?" 

The old man just stared at me and shook his head. "You're not going anywhere till you manage to make a rose. You're getting better, at least you can make something car sized now compared to your previous attempts.... which made..."

"Yeah no. Stop right there. I don't need a reminder on how unskilled I am and how I'm unworthy. I get it, and I'm trying, so let's just forget that and move on."

A small smile cracked from his lips from under the newspaper, "Don't lose hope in yourself yet. The day is still young, we can wait for as long as we need to." The old man said as he went back to reading his news paper.

I sighed to myself out of desperation and tried doing it again. After a few more failed attempts, I realized that I had gotten better at choosing and limiting where I sent the darkness out from. I tried putting this into work and focused on my hand and summoned my darkness to come out. The darkness kept pouring out and started swirling around my hand. I played around with it, fascinated with the way that it moved around. It was like it almost had a mind of it's own, moving around like it was alive and I could feel the connection with it at a level too deep to describe. I moved it around so that it covered my whole arm. It looked like black mist and felt cold to the touch, and was much cooler than whatever was ever portrayed in movies. It felt surreal and beautiful. I noticed that my control over my power was much more efficient, probably because of the lower amount of magic that I was using. I moved and shaped the magic as I wanted to in my palm, eventually forming a rose. I admit that the details were very bad and that it was a very rough look, but I had finally done it! After so much time and energy that I spent on this I finally got something, and something is always better than nothing. I was filled with joy and a sense of accomplishment as I shouted out to the old man, "I DID IT! I MADE A ROSE! FINALLY!" 

I took a sigh of relief as I moved the rose in the view of the old man. He looked up and placed the news paper down on the antique looking table besides him. As he walked up to me, he looked at the rose in my hands and had a little smile on his face. "You do know what a rose looks like right? This is more of a daisy than a rose. But I'll take it, it usually takes weeks for a beginner to perfect this but you've done a decent job for the time."

I stared at him giving him a death glare. "So you're telling me that you gave me an assignment that would take WEEKS to do, and expected me to finish in a day?!"

"Yes actually.  Your power is much stronger than others. I just wanted to see your learning potential as well. You haven't disappointed me yet." The old man replied with an expression on his face like he was satisfied with what he saw.

"You know what? You've never disappointed in pissing me off as well. Congratulations! Hope you got what you wanted. If there's anything else, you can find me in the library." I said feeling mad that he's expecting so much from me and didn't even bother explaining at all. I stormed off to the library hoping not to see him for the rest of the day.

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"He doesn't understand does he? He has no clue as to how important his role is and how much danger his life is in. He's an idiot, and no. Don't tell me I'm wrong because you know it too!"

"I understand your concerns Nocturne, but he was just introduced to this world. I would say he is coping quite well with all these sudden changes. Most people would have had an emotional breakdown, or worse. What's even more surprising is that he survived the assimilation of the Shadow's Chronicle. Should've been impossible for a magicless human to do. Maybe it's better to wait and see how it'll work out."

"Invictus! Do you know what you're saying? I get that you like him and I agree that he's not normal. But he's not going to survive long at this rate, and you know that too! It's not like I want him to die or anything either. We're going to need to train him at a much faster rate. We can't have him throwing tantrums like a child and do whatever he wants!"

"He's a human teen. Impulsive and impatient is how he will be. We can't change his character over a few days, we'll just have to deal with him without forcing him to do anything."

"You know this is not going to work! Our survival depends on him you know! You need to restrict his freedom somewhat at least!"

"How would you feel if I did that to you Nocturne? Don't give me that look! You know as well as I do that you would probably try to kill me. So cut him some slack. You and him are not very dissimilar you know. You both think and work the same exact way."

"We are NOT similar in any way. I'm going to go find him. It's almost time for his combat training. Stop being nice and train him properly."

"Oh and before you leave! Go a little easier on him, I mean at least don't break all of his bones!"

"You think I'll go easier on him? You're getting senile old man!"