A loud earth shaking howl from somewhere makes me shiver as I continue to run inside of this forest while the sun was setting. Weaving left and right through the trees and thick foliage, and forcing my legs and feet to move faster towards a safer place away from it. I was tightly clutching onto the small tattered book in my sweaty hand, not letting it go, as it was the only thing that I can use to fend it off.

I hear another howl and trees breaking down from a few hundred meters behind me while its loud steps where apparent that it was nearing to where I was. I thought I had made quite a bit of distance between me and my pursuer since I started running, but I was wrong. Dead wrong.

I thought to myself ‘How did I end up in this sort of thing again?’. But when I really think about it, it’s kind of my own fault. If I hadn’t gotten too excited, I wouldn’t be in this kind of mess in the first place. Not like regretting would do me any good right now. What I should be doing instead, is trying to survive until I find my way out. Which is in that directio-... I'm lost.

"Uhmm, I wouldn't advice you to look back, but... you should look back"

I definitely didn't like how Al worded that. But, I just couldn't resist and had to look back. And what I saw was the colors of the surrounding trees were fading, and the orange tint of the sunset and everything else around me were now in gray and black. It felt like I was in an old black and white movie, but this one was much worse. The fading colors meant one thing, and one thing only.

IT was right behind me.

To explain how I got into this sticky situation, I need to go back a week prior. When Worth was just starting to teach me the basics. And everything was all just an exciting learning experience. At least, most of it was.

~•~

“So, did you bring anything with you?” Worth asked, as I take out the small tattered book from my pocket and showed it to him.

He grabs it from my hand and inspected the cover. He then opens the book, and scanned through the drawings that were on each page. I’m somewhat embarrassed that he saw that, but I should just tell him that it wasn’t me when he asks why.

“I gotta say, I thought you’d be bringing something a little less… boring. I thought kids of your age would be all over the swords and guns fever” He said, as he tossed the book back towards me.

I flimsily grabbed it in the air, while trying not to drop it on the floor. A sword and a gun? Well, I wouldn’t say that both those things wouldn’t look ‘cool’. But realistically speaking, it’s not practical to be carrying those things around in the daylight, especially the sword. And where would I even get one in the first place?

Sure, a gun is more easily obtainable than a sword, and can be stashed away somewhere were it can’t be seen, but it’s not something I would probably want to keep around with me. What if someone suddenly inspects my bag or something, and find out about it? I’d get into a lot of trouble that I wouldn’t necessarily want.

“Take a sit” He said. “I’ll start with the basics first”

He said to take a sit, but there’s only the ground here. There wasn’t any logs or stumps that were close by to sit on. So… the ground it is then.

“Ah, I forgot something to write on” After I sat down, Worth went deeper into the forest, and moments later, he came back while carrying a few pieces of roughly chopped wooden planks.

“Okay, so, you know what Souls are and what it does to the body, right?”

I nod my head.

“Did that big oaf explain what the Gaia cycle is, too?”

I nod my head again.

“How about eye insignias, Soul capacity, and Soul affinity?”

This time I shake my head from side to side.

“Ah, great, he can’t even explain until that part? What a fucking guy” He sighs, a little bit exasperated. “Let's start off with insignias and how it affects the output”

Okay, I need to listen carefully and remember everything that he has to say… Al is listening in too, right? I hope he is because if I do forget something, then I could just ask him about it.

“So, each person has an insignia, in other words, the color of your iris” He said, while pointing at his amber colored eye. “Each has its own purpose, or maybe ‘specialty' is the right term to use for it”

Oh, so my eye color isn’t just a mutation of sorts. I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel special right after he said that, but I should just keep that to myself. It’s a good thing Al can’t read my mind.

“The are three primary colors that are considered as the basis for the others, which are yellow, blue and red. Yellow symbolizes fluid control, blue symbolizes activation speed, and red symbolizes power increments”

“Uh… okay?”

He sighs, as he saw my questioning look. His finger then emits an electrical current, and he uses his finger tip to write on the planks by scorching the surface, but not burning it completely.

“?” He wrote the words yellow, blue, and red on each plank, and then some poorly drawn images bellow each word.

Below yellow, a drawing of a stick figure of a man with lines coming out of his body and then going towards a group of smaller stick people. Below blue, a stick figure of man with a line that extends out from his hand towards a round object from the opposite corner. And then another stick figure of a man where there’s a big spiky bubble thing that was covering his entire body below red. What I understood from what he just drew, was that Worth wasn’t good at drawing. Not at all.

“To explain it more clearly for you to understand, yellow means your control over the Soul inside of you, where you can make it do more operations with ease or with little effort than a normal person could. Blue means your speed at which you can make your Soul travel and alter whatever it is you want to. Depending on some other factors too, though. And finally, red means you get big bursts of Soul conversion when you’re really pumped up”

“Ahhh!” Now I got it. So, that means those small people are easier to control for the yellow one. Blue is like how he could manipulate the Soul thing to somewhere or something faster, and then… changing it? Not too sure if that was correct, but I think it’s close enough. And the red one is like a sudden power up.

“You have red irises, so that means when you get really emotional about something, your rate of converting Souls for your own use goes into overdrive”

Emotional? Well, I don’t think I’m the emotional type in the first place. I’m more of a keep it all under wraps and then I’d just sort it out on my own. Not that I have a problem in expressing myself, but… yeah, I do. Lying to myself isn’t a great way to stop the problem.

“The primary colors are the basis, but there are others, too, like the secondary and tertiaries. Those incorporate some of the attributes from the three primary’s to form other types, and so on and so fort. And then there’s the normal and abnormal eye insignias, but we won’t delve into that. It would just be a complete waste of time for us if we did. Instead, let’s move on to the capacity”

Capacity?

“Uhmm, it’s about that container thing that holds the Souls, right?” I reluctantly said.

If I remember correctly, the container holds the Souls where it’s converted. So maybe, the amount that it can store inside of it is called the capacity. If going by commonsense, that is.

“Ah, yeah, that’s it. Did he explain that to you already?”

I nod my head. “Mr. Cobalt, uhmm, he explained it to me when he told me about my heart”

“Ah, good. At least that big oaf took care to explain one thing. On to the next then” He said while he threw the planks that he wrote on to the side. “And this one is important, so listen closely”

I nod my head and leaned a little bit forward. Concentrating real hard, as if I was about to react to something that would come flying real fast in front of me.

“The Soul affinity, or just affinity for short, is what makes or breaks someone’s progress in this world. Because, it’s the deciding factor on how well you can use your Soul to alter reality”

“Ah, okay” I nod.

“Do you know why people like us are called Enforcers in the first place?”

“Because you.. enforce things?”

“That’s close enough, I guess, but to explain it more clearly” He said, as he puts his hand on his chin and starts to scratch it. “What we really do is break the current laws of reality for a small duration of time, or bending them to go by our will, so that we could do something like this”

His body then started to emit large electric currents while he puts his arm that he used to scratch his chin up towards a tree that was twenty meters in front of him. Something flashes and a loud crackling boom soon followed it.

“!” I use both of my arms to shield my eyes. The next moment, after everything returned to normal, the first thing that I saw was a trail of ash and charred black trees that went on towards a stream about four hundred meters away. Some of them to the side were still burning with a black trunk without any branches, but most of them were gone, only leaving a trail of ash.

“Waaa…” My jaw drops when I saw that, but there’s something that came to mind after I did so.

“Uhmm…” I raise my hand to ask him a question.

“What is it?”

“Why didn’t you, uh, do that back then?” I think he did something similar when Mr. Cobalt was fighting that boy for the first time, and then the three of them had to intervene. But this one was stronger. It was clearly on a different league.

“Back when? Back in that cave against that child monstrosity?”

“Uhmm, n-… yes?”

He shrugs. “I tried to, but I got thrown into the lake before I could even fire it off. And I can only use it while on land, otherwise, I’d electrocute everyone else in the water”

“But you hit him with a ‘zap’ when you were swimming” Zap? Really? I can’t think of a better term to describe it other than zap? Ah…

“Zap?” See? Even Al’s questioning it.

“Yeah, I can. If I use it like this, of course” He then points his index finger towards the sky, and a small ball of electrical energy formed a few feet up from where his finger tip was. It then crackled and burst, releasing a bolt of lightning that headed towards a nearby tree.

“If I can make a conductor a few feet away from me, where I can funnel my Soul into, then I can do it. But the corruption while I transfer and charge it decreases my control over the thing, so I can’t maximize the output”

“Ahhh, okay. Got it” I said. “But how do you know if, uhmm… if you’re good or not at this affinity thing?”

“It’s not that anyone’s really ‘bad' at it. Everyone’s bad when they don’t have someone competent enough to teach them… but there are naturally gifted fuckers out there that self taught themselves” He said with disdain. He must not like those kinds of people, I guess? Wait, what if I was a natural at this? Would he get mad at me, too?

…

Hah! Something like that isn’t likely to happen… but I can dream, right?

“Your affinity will be really low, as in abysmal low when you first start learning, but it would naturally increase as time goes on. Only, it wouldn’t be at a good enough rate that you could comfortably use your Soul to manipulate anything if you don’t nurture it. That’s why the children of distinguished families and people tend to start their training at a younger age”

“Ahhh, so, uhmm, what’s that training about?”

“It’s mental training” He said. “It could be any sort of mental training. Meditation to get a clearer picture of what you want, building a foundation of beliefs through lessons of philosophy or theology, creative problem solving, building confidence by using a reward system, adaptation to circumstances, leadership and communication exercises, and others. Basically, it’s forging your mindset and character with which you’ll influence the Soul that you'll transform. That’s why the Soul that’s produced by the body is unique to each individual person”

“Uhmm… what?” I got the last part, but I got confused by the rest of the stuff that he said.

“Okay, so let’s use an office scenario as an example, where two new office workers with the same educational background were just employed. There's a socially inept hard worker that get’s things done by himself, but doesn’t have any aspirations what so ever, and then there’s the charismatic one who’s aiming to get promoted in a year by befriending everyone else including the boss. Using gifts, bribes, and other things to get what he wants, but he’s so-so when it comes to working. Now, who do you think would get promoted first?”

“Uhmm… the latter?”

“Bingo, and do you know why?”

“Because he’s friendly and stuff?” I answered.

“No” He shakes his head. “It’s because he’s set his sights on getting promoted, and using the resources that he has to befriend those people that he deems necessary for it, while the first person wasn’t even aiming for a promotion in the first place. You understand? Because he's GOAL was to get promoted”

“Ahhh”

“You can’t get far in life when you don’t even know where you’re going, remember that. It’s one of the fundamental things that you need to know if you want to progress in this shitty world. And the same goes for us” He said while pointing at himself and me. “If you want something to change, then you have to WANT it. You WILL it to go as you want it to”

“Okay, got it”

“That’s why I told you to do some meditation for the entire month. It’s to get your creative mind working, so that we could get your affinity up by even a little . But, about your character and self goals… you’ll just have to figure it out on your own”

Oh, well, I think I have a few goals in mind, but they aren’t that grand or anything. And about my character… I’m fine as is… I think? Is there something else wrong with me besides my social problems? Uhmm… I don’t know… This is harder than I thought.

“Now, you already know the necessary things, and since you’ve already been influenced by the Chaos Waters back then, let’s move on to the more practical part. So, hold your book out”

I held the small tattered book with one hand, and held it in front of me.

“I told you to bring something today because it would serve as your medium. And if you’re wondering what that is, it’s a tool that’s used to increase your affinity while also making your channeling easier and smoother, depending on how attached you are to it, though. And also, if something goes wrong while you’re trying to alter something, then most of the backlash would just be done to your medium, instead”

“Okay, what do I do next?” I wont lie, I’m super excited right now. So much so, that the hand which I was holding the book with was shaking.

“Its something easy, since we’re going to use your insignia’s attribute to get you started. You just have to desire something, and then grab hold of it’s essence. I want you to want it so bad, that you couldn’t sleep tonight without getting it. Or better yet, make it your raison d'être”

“Uhmm… okay” I think Mr. Cobalt said something similar back then, and I clearly remember the result of it. But still, I have to try, or else I won’t know if it would or wouldn’t work this time around.

With that said, I closed my eyes and imagined something that I wanted. Something… something… nothing, but, ah! I could just use what I’ve been using every time when I meditate at night to start this off.

I then started to replay the events from a month ago. Imagining everything as how I remembered it to be. Most of them weren’t fond memories, though. Heck, ninety-five percent of them were straight up horrible. Being used by others as bait, my stolen heart, the death, blood, and screams that came along with it, the constant running because it was the only thing that I could do to survive, my missing dad.

…

...

I want...

...

...

“Well… that’s interesting”

I open my eyes slowly and looked in amazement at what was in front of me. The book was nowhere in my hands anymore, instead, it was lying open on the ground a few feet away.

“!” And then there was me… a second me was standing atop of it. I was waving at myself with a large smile plastered across my face. It’s so surreal, that I wanted to laugh, but I don’t think that it would be appropriate right now, though.

“Hey, what the fucking hell did you even think about?” Worth asked.

“Uhmm…” Do I have to say it? It’s very embarrassing and if possible, I wouldn’t want to let anyone else know.

“Spit it out, boy. I won’t know what it is until you tell me what you thought of”

“Uh… it’s…” Huh… I’m getting tired all of a sudden. Because of a lack of sleep, maybe? “I…”

“Ah, shit. You’re burning up way too much gas. You need to cut it off?

Cut it off? How?

The second me was looking at where I was, his smile was now replaced with a worried expression. He then made an ‘Ah!’ expression, as if he suddenly realized something, and then he disappeared, or more like, slowly faded away while waving goodbye at me.

After that, my fatigue slowly vanished and a few minutes later, I was fine again.

“So, tell me what it is that you thought of” Worth said, as he picked up my book from the ground.

“I, uhmm, … I...” I said the last part quietly. Only loud enough for me to hear.

“It’s what? Speak up, boy. I can’t hear you”

“I-I wanted a heroic f-figure of m-myselp… to save the day” I bit my tongue again while there was a whole lot of stuttering. I can feel the redness of my face right now, too. Ah…

“Oh…” Al was at a loss for words when he heard me say that.

“That’s… I see. Okay” Worth, too, was speechless.

Is it bad if I wanted to do the impossible things that I couldn't do while rescuing other people in need? With the way I am, that’s just fantasy, a star that shines in the dark sky that I can't grasp even if I reached out to it. But… the chance to change was now in front of me. So, I thought of myself, as a hero that can do the impossible, as a better, stronger, faste-… is that too childish?

“I can’t say that it’s not good, but it’s too broad of a concept to start with. You need to narrow it down and look for a more concrete goal or view... however” Worth began talking again after a while of speechlessness, but he soon stopped again.

“Uhmm, yes?” I asked, worried because his tone suddenly changed before he stopped and looked up at the sky.

“A broad and ambitious outlook is also a good starting point for a young man such as yourself, I guess” He said. “You’re still about to begin your journey on this road, and I can’t be the one to tell you to follow this or to follow that, or if this is the right way to do everything or not. It’s all up for you to decide. It’s your life in the first place, and I can only offer advice on these kinds of things”

He’s like a school counselor right now, that was only giving truthful words on his students career path in the future. I’m not saying that that was a bad thing. I was just caught off guard because of the sudden change in how he spoke.

“If you wanted to be a ‘hero’ for yourself or for other people, then fine, go be that person. But remember this, for good or for worse, the things that you’d experience in this godforsaken place will definitely change you someday. It might not be that drastic of a change, but it will still influence you to some extent"

"Listen carefully to what he's saying right now, Rei. And put it to mind"

...

"If you aren't prepared for when it happens, then you’d start to doubt the very foundation that you've built everything upon. And when it does come to that point…” He looks at me straight in the eye. He had this look on his face that I could only call as… empathic.

“You might just find yourself to be powerless when it matters the most”

…

This somehow got real way too fast. I sometimes forget that Worth was older than Mr. Cobalt because of his teenage appearance and attire. But…

Damn.