Chapter 21- Training V

(Last day of Kiyoshi's practice.)

The morning was like any other morning but it was probably an important day for Kiyoshi, as it was the day of his practice till now deciding whether he'll continue to practice or he passes. "Okay, let's see if you'll be able to get the flower now as you've already completed your Dark energy practice." Yuki says before Kiyoshi replies, "We'll see about that." he waits there patiently for Yuki to start the timmer. "Okay, You've got twenty minutes. Go!" he exclaims and Kiyoshi makes a run for it, Thinking to himself that this time he has to make it and bring him back the flower. "I just need to focus on the goal and if I've practiced for it then the troubles within the path to my goal will cause me nothing." These words flash in his mind as he frantically looks around for the flower. After running for almost five minutes he finally finds the flower but once again in some twisted situation as always.

This time it was in between a burnt-out land surrounded by weird-looking creatures made out of ashes of the trees. There were simply too many of them to be taken down at once, "Let's see if I can make it." he says before checking his watch which showed him the remaining time as "15 Minutes." He sets the timer to alert him after every five minutes, As he looks around for something to hold on to the creatures with supposedly no face but a human body started to notice his presence there and they started to turn towards him. He smiles with a soft chuckle before one of the weird-looking creatures attacks him leaving him no choice but to execute his plan, He easily dodged the attack and instead used the height of the creature to reach the tree for which he was aiming to get the wooden stick attached to the tree. His body weight makes the stick crack and Kiyoshi falls down with the stick, in this process of falling he manages to land two blows at the creature's head, He stands behind the creature not facing it, and notices that his attack had no effect on it and it regenerated as it was merely just ashes. "You aren't the one to give up easily. Too bad for you-" He says while he changes his hand position which was holding the stick which ended in stabbing the heart of the creature from behind and killing it on the spot. This gained him more attention from the weird creatures which began to come at him and attack him continuously. "Let's go!" He exclaims with a half smile before ruthlessly stabbing their heart one by one turning them back to their original form "Into ashes."

Soon the time going up and the creature's number going down makes Kiyoshi one step closer to victory, The watch on his hand alarms him that he only has ten minutes left to complete the task. Kiyoshi sighed before saying "Already?" and again with him doing a small trick which involved the wooden stick rotating in his palm and changing the position of the stick, The fight again continues but he has the upper hand as he knew the shortest way to kill them for good.

One by one he stabbed each one of the weird-looking creatures made out of dust surrounding the flower. Surprisingly the closer he got to defeating the creatures became harder as their durability increases also the flower not even once changed its position. Giving himself the benefit of the doubt that the flower wouldn't change its position even if he's close to it. He takes down each and every creature with great speed and techniques which were taught to him by both Yuki and Tofu, At last, its only one creature between him and the flower just then the watch again starts to beep, alerting him that he now has five minutes left to complete his task. "Let's get this done with." as he says this he runs towards the weird creature, The creature attacks him from the front but Kiyoshi who changed his position using the speed he has helped him reach behind the creature but before he could hit the creature, It punches him which sends Kiyoshi flying and ended with his crashing into a tree. "I see, You sure are strong my guy." He chuckles before getting up and using his incredible speed he was able to land a blow at the creature's head, He tries a few more times to reach within the range of the creature where he could attack it but the weird creature didn't give him any chances to do so.

Some of the time Kiyoshi is the one who faces the consequences of the attacks but the majority of the time it's his techniques that help him the most. At last, when he looks at his watch noticing the time left to be three minutes, He takes the stick and runs towards the creature but just as he reached. He changed his position to confuse the creature, appearing behind it using his speed but knowing that the creature would be ready for that attack as it was the same as his first attack on the creature he once again changes his position to his initial position which was in front of the creature. Catching it off guard gives him the perfect opportunity to shoot his attack and so he does, Stabbing the creature's heart ended his life once and for all.

From all the fighting he had some dust on his face and his clothes were all messy but he couldn't care less as he just finished the takes that he'd been practicing for the last two weeks. He stands up and slowly walks towards the flower which as he'd expected didn't change its position, Rubbing dust on the side of his lips with his hand couldn't have prepared him for what was going to happen next. He reaches the flower, and for the first time he touches it, the memory of him holding it for the first time just a few weeks ago made him smile and tear up a little. The flower in his hand slowly begins to move its leaves and that's when he notices for the first time that the creature wasn't dead after all, Suddenly being pulled by his legs and being thrown backward, the flower still tight in his hand as he refused to let it go and when he looks at the creature he notices it turning into something deadly and now the creature had grown a sharp blade in his hand.

Making him more anxious and look around for the stick but before he could even turn the creature jumps on him and the blade is just inches away from his head Kiyoshi vanishes and falls down in front of Yuki, Just then the watch also alerts him about his time now is zero.

"Oh, I see that this time is finally different from all the other times we've tried." Yuki says while admiring the flower which he was holding but instead of getting happy Kiyoshi makes a skeptical face and says, "You could have framed it in a better way." he ends this reply with a chuckle, Yuki also laughs and congratulates him on finally getting the flower after weeks of practicing and Kiyoshi also seems very happy. "This calls for a treat." Yuki says and he exclaims "Yes!" With joy before Yuki helps Kiyoshi get up and takes the flower from Kiyoshi.

The flower becomes ashes and fades away as soon as it touches Yuki's hands. On the way to the dining area, Kiyoshi runs into Saski who was running around The Agency Tech, He stops to greet him, and knowing that Kiyoshi just passed both of his practices makes Saski very excited and he says, "That's mean we both can now have our awakening process sooner than I thought." Kiyoshi asks him to repeat what he said which makes Yuki interfere then and explain what Saski exactly meant when he said, "The Agency's board decided to have the awakening process for both of you on the same day, That was the reason why Saski didn't have his awakening done as he'd already completed both the practices." Kiyoshi nodded while he was trying to understand the depth of the situation.

Kiyoshi smiles after a brief second and they all make their way to The Agency's dining area. Yuki notices that Zack is the one who's on duty at that time and even called him to celebrate together. Zack hesitated for a bit but then he also finally gave in to the requests also Yuki called for the whole staff who was present in the dining area for duty to come and celebrate with them. The so-called small treat was now a whole celebration. All of the people present there happily enjoy their time. Yuki was the happiest person among all of them, Nozomi who just happened to cross by smiled when she saw how happy people could be, Yuki smiled the brightest making everyone around him also happy. Something about how he enjoyed his time besides teaching made her feel all fuzzy inside as she chuckled.