#5: [人間のマナ] Human Mana

Days went by and Shiro locked himself in his room once again…

"We need to do something, something that will make Shiro go out of his room" Ryuu suggested "He still goes to school, but he hasn't talked to us since his reunion with his ex" Hikaru said "We are to blame, we didn't let him escape when he saw her. There is a possibility that he may be avoiding her on purpose, while she looks for him" Himari explained "Like an extended game of hide-and-seek" Mai described.

[Shiro on the other hand, "What the hell is up with that mana surge of yours?" he said while panting "It's something that you can learn while I'm training you" King said "You are smart, if you trace back my concepts behind my surging mana, you can learn it too." King explained "I already saw through your mana surge, but the problem is, I don't know how to do it, hiding your mana is hard to do, even though it's a basic principle, your kind of mana surge is more complex that it seems" Shiro then answers "You figured it out, all you need to do now, is to make use of that principle and shed your own mana"

Shiro was more focused in his training than ever…]

A few more days go by, and Shiro is still locking himself up in his room, Ryuu and Himari planned to break the door down and force him out "Are you sure that this is a good idea?" Hikaru asked "If this is the only humane way there is, why not?" Himari answered. They broke the door and to their surprise, Shiro isn't there, so they search for him. They searched Hell, but to no avail, they searched the area where Shiro's house is but no use. "We are looking everywhere we could, but there is no sign of him" said Hikaru "There is one more place we could look into" Ryuu said.

They went to the karaoke box where they met Miyanagi Tomoe, and as expected, there was no sign of him "Wait, Shiro's missing?" Tomoe asked in confusion "Yeah, it's been a few days, but we just found out this afternoon" Himari said. Hikaru was motionless and emotionless, none of the other three knows why though "Get your heads off the clouds Hikaru, we're looking for Shiro" Mai said with suspicion in her eyes looking at Hikaru.

Tomoe joins the four to look for Shiro but still to no avail. They withdrew from the search and went back to Shiro's home when they felt a sudden surge of mana. Feeling the pressure, they go in to see but the pressure was gone. "What are you guys doing here this late?" Shiro said behind them, they looked but he vanished "What's the matter?" he said, the four are still looking for him while hearing his voice, they are looking for him through his voice, Shiro led them to his room where they found him lying on his bed with a dagger in his heart. In panic, they took him to hell, to Hanzo "uncle, can you take a look at this" Ryuu said "The dagger struck his heart but mana is still surging" Hanzo said. Himari remembered a technique that stabs the heart to send the soul to a personal realm "Could it be |Reset|?" Himari asked "That's the spell, there are only two things that is sure. First is that he has discovered the secrets behind Reset, and two, he can bring himself back without help from an outside force" Hanzo said "Can't you guys at the council bring yourselves back from Reset?" Ryuu asked "We can't, no. we need an outside force to do so" Hanzo explained "But that still leaves his body in danger, right?" Hikaru asked "It does, but, the time there is way faster than here, for instance, it's been a minute since he performed Reset, to us, it's a minute, but to him, it's an hour" Hanzo explained "60 times over" Ryuu said. Shiro began to show signs of rising, Hanzo prepares himself to pull the dagger when his hand moved and pulled the dagger by himself.

Shiro woke up shortly after pulling the dagger from his heart by himself…

"Son, you really should stop experimenting by yourself, especially with this kind of magic" Hanzo said "Dad, I'm fine, besides, I didn't do |Reset| without knowing fully that I can break the seal on my own" Shiro explained. Himari goes to a corner and sits down. Almost bursting into tears, Himari used her voice to scold Shiro "You know if something happens to you, my father will take your corpse to the royal cemetery" she said "Calm down, besides, while my body was there lying, I was able to get new skills to train, that includes destructive forces" he says with a smug face. Hikaru froze for a moment and asked Shiro about the diamond mark he has below his left eye "This? While I was training, it popped there somehow" he said. In despair, Hikaru ran to the human realm and into her home muttering "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…" over and over again. Hanzo noticed it too, and had an uneasy feeling, Shiro covered the diamond below his eye as everyone in the room heard chains attaching each other to them.

"What was that?" Ryuu asked "What?" Shiro replied "You didn't hear the chains?" Himari questioned Shiro in shock. Shiro denies their questions about the chains. In fact, Shiro can't hear the chains…

Hanzo's eyes, filled with fear, took off and told them to go back. Once in the human realm, Shiro got a call from the school once more. "Sorry guys, I got to go, the school wants an audience with me" Shiro told them and took off. "So, until when do you plan on hiding?" Ryuu said while glancing on a shadow "Since when?" she answered "Right before we took off" "Then I can't really hide anymore can't I?" she said then vanished "Who was that?" Himari asked "I don't really know, but I do know that it's a she" "Why is she here then?" Mai asked "Probably because of Shiro" Ryuu then explained to them what's happening since they went inside Shiro's house "So the mana surge was from her?" Himari spoke "I don't think so, maybe it is, and maybe it isn't" he answered in confusion.

"I'm hone" Shiro spoke to an empty house all exhausted "Welcome home" The three greeted him "Hikaru's still upset or something?" Shiro speculated "Maybe, maybe not" Ryuu spoke "So, what happened at the school?" Mai asked "Mana is surging from the ground and the skies" he spoke then explained…

"We called you here because you might know something about the pressure that we can call mana" Itsuo spoke "Mana? Since when did mana surge on the ground? And what is mana?" Shiro asked "Mana is like magic power, creatures can collect mana from either the ground or the skies based on their aptitude, as of now, Adults who inherited mana are in isolation, learning about it, the schools are choosing students to go with them based on the adult's senses" Itsuo further explained.