Barak opened his eyes, his last memory being that of telling Aster to move and hitting head first into a wall, he swung his feet off of the bed and planted them on the cold concrete floor, he looked across at the bed, it was in disarray which meant he had been sleeping for a while, his view panned across the room, his gaze taking in everything, this was a room he had not been in for quite some time, his eyes landed on his clothes and sword sitting next to the closed bedroom door, he walked over to see that they had been washed and cleaned,

‘fuck how long have i been out for’, he thought to himself, he walked over to the dresser in the room,

“its a good thing i left some clothes here the last time”, he said to himself as he began picking out some clothes to wear,

After that he took a shower and got dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed, his head down, his hands resting on his knees and his fingers locked together, images of the events of what had happened recently replayed in his mind, he felt a strong sensation in the pit of his stomach, it was a feeling of disappointment mixed with disgust, at Aluric and at himself, as he never thought he would have been beaten by anyone, his pride had been bruised and it did not sit right with him, he got up and took back off the shirt he had now put on, he decided it was time to start his training over from scratch,

he left the bedroom and went out front of the house, he was surprised at what he saw, Levant and Polaris were up and in a full sparring session, with Yumi standing off to the side with her hands folded with a serious expression on her face, barak walked over ,

“ I’m glad to see that you’re finally awake, you were asleep for an entirety of three days”, yumi said, her eyes not diverting from the match taking place in front of her,

“Polaris lacks the necessary fire power behind his attacks to cause some serious damage, and that whne he’s using his ice or his sword”, yumi said,

“so what’s exactly going on here ?” Barak asked,

“Well in light of what happened four days ago, Aster said he wanted me to train him and then when these two woke up they decided to join in”, she explained, finally turning around to look at him, She had seen enough of what the other two boys had to offer,

“THAT’S ENOUGH YOU TWO”, yumi said,

“ speaking of which where is aster ?”, Barak asked looking around to see if he could spot him,

“he’s out running right now, so no need to worry about him”, yumi said,

“why running ?”, Barak asked,

“Aster effectively acts as a mid range tank whenever you guys enter a fight, using the fact that he has control over the earth, to defend and attack whenever in battle, but his stamina can’t keep up with continuously using his blessing, so that is why he switches to close range when fighting, I have him running laps around the island while using his blessing to keep a boulder above his head, in order to improve his stamina”, yumi said,

“hmm I never actually noticed that”, Barak said,

“What I want to know is if you will be joining us are not”, Yumi stated, her eyes locked onto Barak scanning his body,

“nope, i know a guy that I’m gonna go to, plus I don’t think your kind of training is going to be what I’m looking for”, Barak calmly commented, his eyes fixating on Aster, who now got back from his run, dropping the large boulder from above his head and dropping down to the ground exhausted,

“ that’s quite the statement you made considering you don’t know how I’m going to be training them, fortunately I was thinking the same thing, you seek power, those three, each to their own extent need control and power”, Yumi replied, turning around to refocus on the sparring match,

“well then if we were on the same page why did you even ask me to join ?”, Barak questioned, his gaze now sizing up the small figure standing in front of him,

“ I was being generous”, yumi said, her shrugging her shoulders,

“ so where did our mysterious intruder run off to ?”, barak asked, his train of thought began to shift to the person he decided to hold a grudge against,

“he took our hostage and left”, yumi abruptly answered, her tone shifting from normal to serious,

“hmm, is that all, though I only briefly met him, he doesn’t seem like the type to leave just like that”, Barak said,

“he isn’t, he simply considered your four too weak to be a threat, so he spared you four and basically told me I have three months to return home and surrender with the other rebels”, yumi said,

“but all that means is we have three months to get you guys up to par and go across there and kick his ass”, she said,

“Are you satisfied with that answer”, she asked him, she had become increasingly annoyed, at how perceptive Barak was, her tolerance for him was beginning to run low,

“hmm, so you disagree with him, and are training the three of them why”, barak asked,

“Aster told me that you four have blessings, initially I thought you four were just naturally blessed, being born with the power you have, which would mean you would all have a hard limit to you powers and it would take extremely long for you four to push pass that limit, but being that you four are blessed means that there isn’t a hard limit to your powers”, yumi said,

“okay I see, you see potential in us, while I do hate to admit it, the one thing I felt from him that seemed familiar is his love for battle, and now that you have told me that, I have to prove him wrong now”, Barak said,

Levant and Polaris were finished sparring and were walking over,

“well I guess I’ll be leaving now”, Barak said,

“not even gonna say goodbye to your friends ?”, yumi, asked,

“trust me they know I’ll be back, it’s not like we can stay away from one another for too long”, barak commented, he turned and walked off into the house, after a few moments the rumbling of thunder could be heard,CRACKLE, lightning shot down from the sky, landing at the front of the house,

Levant, Polaris and Aster made their way to where yumi was standing, she had looked pleased by what she had seen, though, what barak said just before he left stuck with her in the back of her mind, it felt as though he was alluding to something much deeper than a friendly bond, that connected these four boys together,

“where did he run off to ?”aster asked, holding over to catch his breath,

“I don’t know, he said he knows someone who can help him train and then ran off”, she replied, throughing her hands into the air, as she turned around and walked away

the three boys looked at one another and smirked, as they knew where he had disappeared to,