Ares sighed.

The following morning had welcomed him with a sudden downpour. The rain pitter pattered around, creating tiny rivers at the cracks within the floor.

Ares manipulated the water around with a hand, forcing the water to circle in on itself and then wiggled it around. He was trying to train his water manipulation skills that had come through from Levi. He gave his full concentration to the training as Saykkera watched out for him.

The other members of the Omni Nine had remained nearby as well, though gave the pair some space. Ezak was by himself, basking in the rain as it dropped over his body.

Ares smiled to himself and then lifted his fingers up. The water around Ezak stopped dropping onto him and instead curved around as though an invisible dome had appeared over him.

Ezak opened his eyes in alarm and then sat up, looking at the water as it curved around in confusion. Then Ares focused and combined the streams together before the water then dunked down over the Bitan.

Ares chuckled as he did so, before wincing. “Ah…” He sighed and reached down to rub his stomach which had begun to stung. What absolute misery, being unable to laugh without being stabbed by the pain of his wound. He would need to repay whichever Silents he saw since they seemed to be an organisation that was hell bent on being a bunch of pricks.

Ezak wiped the water across his face before he then walked over to Ares.

“Ares, how is your wound?”

“About the same as it was yesterday.”

Ezak nodded his head. “Is your ability not able to heal it?”

“No. Or at the very least it’s so slow that it basically is unnoticeable.”

“Does it hurt?”

“A little, sometimes.”

Ezak nodded again and then remained silent.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ares said. “It’s not like it was your fault. I let down my guard and they used some kind of…” Ares paused in thought. Didn’t he have the blade within his ring?

He raised a brow and then reached over a hand. Then he spent his thoughts trying to summon the blades onto the ground and the black blade appeared, spewing out tendrils of death.

Ezak leapt back away from the blade in utter fear and Saykkera stepped ahead of Ares, prepared to fight the sword.

Ares stared at the black blade, which seemed to have a life of it’s own. It seemed to call to him as the wound within his stomach grew warm and then pulsed. Yet he couldn’t tear away his eyes, not until Saykkera’s tail swayed ahead of his face, ready to whip at the blade.

Ares stood up and then wiped his brow. “Relax,” he said as he walked over to the sword. “It won’t hurt nobody.” He then reached down to grab the handle. His hand and wound grew hot.

He opened his eyes to see the dark sky ahead of him. The stars twinkled in the distance and Ares wondered what kind of life he could find there before he blinked.

He sat up and looked to see Saykkera staring back at him. He blinked a few times and then looked around.

Emerli grabbed onto his head and hugged him tight. She then rubbed the side of her head against his.

“… Did I pass out?” Ares asked.

“You did,” Azzo said. “Though no one was surprised.”

Ares looked to Azzo and raised his brows. “You’ve become rather talkative.”

“I have to talk with you when I get the chance since you have a habit of not being around often enough to speak with us,” Azzo took a long drag of his pipe.

Ares threw his head back and clutched at his stomach, which grew with hot pain as he bellowed out a laugh that sounded like an army of drums on the march. Tears formed in his eyes due to the lack of breath in his lungs as well as the pain in his gut.

“Damn it Azzo!” Ares gasped for air. “Just you wait.” Ares coughed as he rolled over onto his side and then placed a hand on his wound to put pressure onto it. He continued to gasp for air before he finally calmed down.

“I’m sure that’s woken you up,” Azzo said. He then sprinkled a few more leaves into the pipe and offered it to Ares. “Here. This will help.”

Ares reached over, wincing from Emerli’s slap against his hand, but he took the pipe and puffed on it. It indeed helped him, and quite quickly. He sighed out as the smoke flowed through his body and a wave of relaxation hit through him.

“At least you’ll be happy to know that the Reptai have decided to take you up on the offer of joining, or at least that’s what I heard,” Azzo said.

Teorn brought over some food. Ares reached over for the bowl and looked at his hand, which had blackness sprinkled across his palm like pepper. He wiped his hand against his pants and the blackness seemed to disappear. Then he looked around.

“Where’s the sword?” Ares asked.

“We have it,” Kask said. “Until the time comes where it won’t kill you.”

“You could touch it fine?”

“We used some cloth to carry it away.”

“Where is it?”

“We have it.” Kask said sternly for once.

“Right, right… fine.” Ares sighed. He couldn’t blame Kask. He had been quite reckless recently. Well… more than just recently. He was far too reckless recently. Ares ate the soup as Zika appeared.

“It is good to see you are finally well,” she said.

“Thank you,” Ares said. “I’m sorry if that inconvenienced you.”

Zika bowed her head. “It was no issue. We have discussed about your offer and we are willing to work for you as mercenaries.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful.” Ares said as he smiled wide. That was the probably the best outcome realistically since then people wouldn’t get too mad at him trying to integrate the Reptai.

“When you have healed, we shall make our way to Rivea.”

Ares threw a look to his allies. “I think we’ll continue West.”

Kask raised his brows. “It would be best to return to Rivea and heal up.”

Ares winced a little. “I’m fine. I can still go on.”

Emerli ran her fingers through his hair. “Home,” she said.

Ares tried to not look into her eyes, but even from his peripheral he could see the pout.

“Fine… fiiiiiine.” Ares threw his head back. ‘That’s what I get for being an idiot.’