One stormy night, under the heavy rain, a hooded man knocked at the door of a house in the middle of nowhere.

"Who is it?" A female voice from within the house asked.

"Just a passerby that seeks shelter, please open for me," the hooded person replied in a voice, implying that the person was not a man but a woman.

After a moment of visible hesitation, the house door opened, but just as it did, the moment the woman from within saw the face of the hooded woman and, most importantly, the tall man behind her. The owner of the house tried to close the door on the woman but failed, for the hooded woman had already reacted in time to stop her from doing so.

"I apologize for trespassing," she said, jokingly. As she forcefully made her entrance into the house,

The woman, feeling threatened, retreated to a corner of the room and grabbed the first thing she thought she could use to defend herself, which turned out to be an ax.

"What do you want?!" the woman asked, pointing her ax at the hooded woman.

"There seems to be somewhat of a misunderstanding here, Madam."

"What misunderstanding are you? You broke into my house!"

"Well, I guess I’m faulty for that."

"What do you want from us?!"

Taking off hood, and revealing her face, the woman said, "I just want to meet the other one you refer to by "us". She looked at the door leading to the only other room the house had and said loudly, "You can come out, little one. I just want to see you."

What the woman did made the female owner of the house immediately dash toward the said door,

"You’re noble, aren’t you? You came to take him from me?! I won’t let you do that!" She said, bearing her ax, more threatening than ever.

"That’s a wild assumption that you’ve got there, Madam. We are not from the church... we are... " The woman interrupted herself mid sentence at the sight of the small silhouette that came out from the other room. "Hello, there little one."

The silhouette belonged to a little boy, no older than seven.

"Aryan, what are you doing? Stay in the other room as I asked!" the woman shouted at the little boy.

You don't have to be concerned, Madam; as I previously stated, we are not from the church, and we are not here to separate you from your son."

The woman, after a while, calmed herself down, but was still wary of the two strangers who broke in her house.

"If you’re not from the church, then who... are you?"

The woman didn’t answer, instead approaching the woman and the child without fear of what the woman was still firmly gripping on.

She went in front of them and crouched at the little boy's level, "I heard your mother calling you, Aryan. Is that your name?"

The boy innocently nodded.

"Aryan, what a beautiful sounding name... My name to me... is Barbara. "

"Barbara?"

"Yes, Aryan, Barbara and I have someone I would like you and your mother to meet."

"Someone? Who’s that? " The boy asked, curious.

" It’s someone that has been expecting to see you for some time now. After all, you are... the second of her last children... the second last child of light."

***

"Your left side is wide open," Shania remarked to Aryan, prompting him to immediately adjust his stance. "Now it’s your right." She pointed out, sending a kick to his side.

"Blergh." Aryan grunted as he fell to the ground from the shriveling pain he felt from the kick. "That hurt, Shania!"

"That was the concept behind that kick. Now grab that staff and get up!"

Shania and Aryan were training themselves in a large colosseum-like area.

"I don’t want to! I’m done with this!" Aryan complained.

"I said get up," Shania said in a threatening voice.

"No!" still protested Aryan.

"Oh, really, you won’t?"

It was then that a voice, watching them sparring from the sideline, shouted at them, "Come on, Aryan, how are you supposed to protect the little missy if you can’t even beat her to a spare fight?"

Aryan cast a glance in the direction of the voice and noticed two tall men, one in his thirties and the other in his fifties, with nothing but white hair on their heads, which was not due to their age, but because they were born with natural bleached white hair.

Aryan recognized the voice as belonging to Mr. Austen, the tall old man with white hair.

To the words of Mr. Austen, Aryan mumbled, "How?" then shouted, "like that!" while reaching for the wooden staff on the ground and teleporting himself just behind Shania.

Aryan thought he took her by surprise, but the acute pain he felt landing on his stomach made him realize he didn’t.

"You’re too previsible," Shania said, thrusting the end of her staff at Aryan while he was still processing the blow. She followed with a ground sweep that sent him to the ground, "Why would you shout your attack like that?"

As Aryan was still moaning in pain on the ground, she, with her wooden staff, lifted his chin, "and I don’t need to be protected, but you, you clearly do."

She removed her staff from his chin and offered her hand to him, which Aryan accepted.

As he finally managed to stand up, they heard clapping from the sidelines. They both approached where these claps came from.

"Don’t take it too much to heart, Aryan. Your teleportation magic is already great in itself. As long as you don’t run onto other nobles wielding teleporting-magic like you, you will most likely never be defeated. " Austen reassured.

Aryan nodded, for indeed, what Mr. Austen said was indeed true. Years have passed since he, that night, met Mother Barbara for the first time, and the first time for her and 'the Mother', he started using his magic, which is teleportation magic.

It was at that moment that the second tall man added, "But still, you must understand that your magic alone does not make you unattainable. Teleportation-magic wielders can be obstructed, impeded, they can be killed. "

Raziel's words made Aryan remember the fate of that one teleportation-magic user. She, who with his help had her teleportation-magic obstructed, was completely and utterly helpless in the face of them, and especially these two men.

"-especially when a non-aina user like Shania can already overpower you."

The man, Raziel, was right. Shania was neither a noble nor a magic user, yet she managed to beat him in a fair fight.

"Well, Raziel, wouldn’t it be an unfair comparison to compare the two of them, especially on this field?"

"It is not. They both started training at the same age under your and your brother's supervision. The only difference would be that one understands her shortcoming and the other does not and does not seem to put enough effort into it.” Raziel said, throwing a stare at Aryan before suddenly, out of nowhere, announcing, "Mother is summoning me. I’m taking my leave. "

As abruptly as he announced these words, in a burst of light, Raziel was gone. From the looks of it, it was similar to teleportation, but Aryan knew very well it was not.

"Brother Raziel..."

"Come on, boy, take him too literally." What your brother meant is that there will be times when you will be unable to rely on your magic, which is why you, like the Little Missy, must know how to defend yourself, to survive without it, as the Little Missy and I have done so far. " Austen intervened.

Aryan looked at Shania and, agreeing with Mr. Austen's words, she nodded.

"-you are left with no other choice but to confront those born with it with nothing but underhanded tricks and cheap tactics, no matter how unhonorable it might look."

Though this was supposed to be a mock battle, this kick carried a force Aryan would never dare direct at a girl.

"For there is no place for pride in a fight; you can cheat, you can gang up on your opponent. In the end, the only thing that matters is who, last, survives. "

It was at that moment, just as Aryan was about to run at Shania, he saw her standing up.

"So, Aryan, what are you going to do?"Mr. Austen inquired.

Aryan looked at Shania, who clearly was coming at him again, so he quickly made up his mind.

He teleported to where the wooden staff were stacked, grabbed one and teleported himself, already swinging at Mr. Austen.

***

"Anyway, I think that’s enough training for the day. Let’s call this a day." Mr. Austen finally announced, putting an end to their long training.

They left the large, colosseum-like room to head to their next destination. They were walking through a long corridor when Aryan saw coming toward them, from the other end, a man whose appearance was awfully similar to Mr. Austen's, with the only difference being that this one’s face came across as more intimidating than the former, especially with the expression he was currently harboring.

"Master," Shania mumbled.

"What happened?" Mr. Austen asked, stepping forward toward the man, noticing the ill mood he was obviously in.

"She expects us to do nothing," the man said. One could feel he was trying to hide his anger, but it was from his voice, clearly seeping through. "That woman..." he seethed, but a glance toward allowed him to gather himself up to continue what he was about to say.

"Shlain, please calm down."

"Yeah? I should calm down. Do you, brother, expect me to remain holed inside this wall when, because of damn traitors, two of my men, our brothers didn’t come back?"

"No, I’ve never said that. I’m just telling you to calm down."

"For years, they shed blood. They fought at our side. The right to retribution should be ours. "

"And it will be. But for God’s fucking sake, calm down. You think you’re the only one who wants retribution? Look around yourself. " Both men threw a short glance at Shania and Aryan. "Get yourself together!" Austen ordered

"Master?"

At both Shania's and her brother's words, the man whom Shania referred to as "Master" finally calmed down. Though he still looked clearly angry, he was, this time, at least no longer giving the impression that he would pluck your head off for saying a word wrong.

He went past his brother, past Shania and Aryan, landing a gentle tap on both their shoulders before continuing to walk down the corridor.

Once he was gone, Mr. Austen announced, "I’m sorry you two had to witness this. He’s not himself lately. I’ll go talk to him. I’m taking my leave. " Before that, he followed Mr. Shlain wherever he went, leaving Shania and Aryan on their own.

"He looked really angry,

"Of course he was; these two were like brothers to Master." Aryan noticed both anger and sorrow in her voice, "They were like uncles to me. It was by sticking to them that the Master was eventually allowed to train and eventually go on missions with them."

It has been seven years since that night Aryan first met Mrs. Barbara, Raziel, and the one they all call Mother, and from the moment he first met Shania for the first time, she was already, just like she had said, sticking around Mr. Shlain, Mr. Austen, and the two others whom Aryan initially thought to be scary people, but as the years passed, he, though not as close as Shania to them, grew fond of them and they of him.

"Do you want to avenge their death?" Aryan asked upon reaching a door.

"Of course, I do. But …" She stopped mid sentence and both she and Aryan stared at the door in front of them.

Nodding, "I see," announced Aryan as he opened, leading to the room where the one they call the Mother was.