Broken Artifact

After I got back at the mansion, it was night. So, I decided to call it a day and went to my room to get some quick rest.

I sat down to the bed and rested my back to the wall, thinking about the things that happened not for awhile ago when Cossette and I went to the town.

As I was thinking, I couldn't help but let out a long sigh in contempt.

"Just what the hell are those visions all about...? No, the real question is, why the heck am I feeling a bit familiar with those? As if the visions that was shown are somewhat like my memories."

"Is it the memories of the Athan's past life? Or was it really mine?"

Pinching the middle of my brows, I once again let out a sigh before lifting my head to look up.

"I should probably think of a good plan to progress the story to the next level for now..."

Though, it didn't take too long to process a new plan inside my mind.

"Sigh, doing this again is just too troublesome... Not just that, I wish she wouldn't hate me if she ever found out I did this to her."

I stood up and walked towards the door.

Stopping my hands midway from the doorknob, I gently looked back at a certain artifact from my room.

"Guess I'll be needing you tomorrow."

...

A day later, I got out from my room after I finished bathing. Arriving at the training room, I put on some protection or small armor that fit enough for my body, and took out my sword from the scabbard before making my way towards the training ground.

Swoosh! Swoosh!

Lightly swinging my sword a couple of times I nodded in satisfaction.

'This should help me relieve some of my thoughts for now.'

As I was continuously slashing the dummies on the arena, I suddenly felt a small presence appeared from the entrance of the training room.

"Sister...? What are you doing in here?"

"I just came here to give you this."

Taking out a small box-shaped from her pockets, Cossette threw it lightly up in the air, which I caught easily.

Immediately, after I caught it on the air, I opened it up to see what she chose as the accessory design of the storage artifact.

"A ring?"

Inside was a small golden ring, with different shaped patterns that somehow looks like a good combination for the ring.

"What? Didn't you just said yesterday that you wanted me to buy you a storage ring?"

"No, it's nothing..."

Putting the ring on to my finger, I raised my hands up and stared at the ring for a couple of seconds before turning my attention back to Cossette.

"Than-"

Before I could even finish my sentence, she cut me short and started speaking.

"Anyway, I also bought you new clothes that you can use when heading inside the dungeon. It's in your room if your asking me where I put it."

"...new clothes?"

I said, looking at her in confusion. I don't know why but I'm having a bad thoughts when I asked this because she started averting her eyes, still, out of curiosity I asked anyway.

"How did you know my size...? Don't tell me."

I covered my under immediately, as I glared at her with a flustered expression.

"You didn't entered my room without my permission when I was sleeping right?... RIGHT?!"

"Uhh... No...I asked the maid and your butler."

Even though I knew it was a lie, I decided to not say anything more because I know that if we continue this baseless argument, it'll probably end up pretty badly for me.

Staring at her for a few seconds, I let out a long sigh before changing the subject.

"So...what are you even doing here in the first place?

"Oh right! Almost forgot about it, thanks for reminding me."

Cossette took out a bracelet from her pocket, and decided to put it on to her left wrist. After she finished, Cossette clicked the button from the bracelet's bottom, and immediately, a broadsword appeared.

"Let's duel."

***

Swoosh!

Clang!

Turning his heals to the side, Athan dodge the incoming slashes before following up diagonally slash.

Vuaam!

Immediately, it was blocked by an dark barrier Cossette conjured.

"You'll have to do better than that."

Cossette taunted, but was ignored by Athan. Seeing this, Cossette clicked her tongue in frustration, as she later summoned a dark spear behind her back.

Athan smiled when he saw this, as he also summoned a dark ball that was double the number than Cossette's dark spear.

Bang!

Soon their magic crashed onto each other, causing a huge explosion, and covering the whole arena with dust.

Athan tried to use this as an advantage, so he focused his mana towards his eyes to see where the aura of Cossette are.

Running around the arena in circles, Athan conjured a web-like barrier all around the arena before tightening it, turning into a small cage.

[Web Cage]

A few seconds later, the dust began to clear up. Not long after, Athan started greeting his teeth when he saw that the barrier he created was immediately disintegrated by the dark flame Cossette conjured.

There are two main concept of a dark crest user.

The first one is copy. As long as they have enough mana, they can keep creating something similar from the other crest they have seen.

By this, this is how Cossette was able to create a black flame which should be impossible for the other crest user could create.

"I'll finish this."

Cossette mumbled with a smirk. Aiming her hands towards Athan, she released the dark flame.

[Flame Buster]

The flame she conjured turned into beam, that was shot towards Athan. Although Athan might've successfully dodged this by turning his body to the side, the huge anti-magical barrier that was set on the training arena was immediately disintegrated by the beam.

'Fuck! That was dangerous... Is she trying to kill me?'

Athan thought while looking to where the beam had hit.

A few seconds later, the whole barrier was finally disintegrated. Seeing this, Athan tried to sneak out of the arena to escape, but was caught on spot by Cossette.

"Where do you think your going, Athan? We're still not finish, ya know."

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Athan tried to remove her grasp from his arm. In the end, he failed.

Athan struggled his shoulder. Then, feeling something strange from Cossette's wrist, he stopped.

"Sister, wait."

Lightly taking Cossette's arm, he glanced at the bracelet on her right wrist.

'This is...an artifact... A broken artifact.'

Soon after he saw this, he paled. At first glance, this artifact seemed nothing, but to people who had used this, they would immediately understand the main reason why Athan paled.

It was an artifact to suppress her strength when fighting Athan in a battle.

Taking the artifact from Cossette's wrist, Athan focused his mana to his arm and threw the bracelet away from the sky.

Soon after, the bracelet design artifact exploded on the sky.

Bang!

For a split seconds, it released an strong invisible shockwaves that eventually made Athan's body to crash to the wall at an extreme speed, and strong enough to make huge cracks.

-Screech!

Then, after his body fell to the ground, Athan began to spill out lots of blood. Cossette, who saw this began to look grim as she quickly made her way towards Athan.

"Ugh..."

Athan let out a painful groan while grasping his chest tightly, as if he was trying his best to not stop breathing.

Due to the impact of him being crashed on the wall, his immature body was pretty much covered in severe injuries.

Crouching down, Cossette looked at Athan's severe body covered in blood in panicked.

"I'm sor-"

"Athan!"

Before Cossette could even apologize, a feminine voice cut her off. The voice came from the entrance and when Cossette took a quick glanced at them, she saw that it was Athan's mother, Celestia.

"Don't just stare at him and bring him a healer!'

Cossette said to the maid, while continuing to run forward towards Athan.

...

"What happened to him?"

Celestia stared at Cossette indifferently in her eyes. And then, Cossette opened her mouth to speak as she also began to tell Celestia the full backstory of what happened.

"It was..."

A few minutes later, Cossette finally finished her story. While her head faced down, Cossette slightly raised her eyes up to see Celestia's expression.

"I see..."

Celestia let out a sigh.

"I'm sorry..."

Cossette continued to face down when saying that. Staring at Cossette, Celestia said.

"I'm not angry."

"I'm sorry. I'm really really sorry. I'll leave if you-"

Cossette's sentence was immediately halted. Taken aback from what Celestia just said, Cossette finally raised her head to look at her in confusion.

"Your not angry?"

"Yes."

"Why...?

Letting out a long sigh once again, Celestia said.

"What happened right now wasn't on purpose. You didn't know that this incident would happen in the first place, so I can't really blame you for that."

"Besides, I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

Slowly turning her head towards the sleeping Athan, Celestia spoke once again.

Nodding her head, Cossette also turned her head towards Athan.

"Thank you..."

She muttered out loud.