[Ascension]

Misa was still sleeping, resting her head against my chest. She hadn't lied that her outfit would look that much more amazing when I got to take it off.

Thinking about her voluptuous body sweating and panting made it hard not to attack the defenseless woman again, not to mention that her large mounds were currently placed just above my little guy.

However, I had other things to think about. Tomorrow I would return to class, and it was already the end of June. Almost a whole month had passed since my return to the academy and I hadn't managed to do much, mostly because I had been bedridden for two weeks.

The time to recover had been a lot faster than that time in Basilisk, thanks to the fact that the principal had sent a rize user named Tom once a week to heal me. Still, I couldn't help but feel stressed about not improving myself.

Although I had progressed quite a bit while sparring with the Gorilla, we only had time for three sessions before the duel.

My mana control was still lacking and I couldn't feel any significant improvement in my mana grade.

Needless to say, I still had a lot of work to do. There was also the essence I would get from the principal, as well as the mystery behind the broken artifact.

"Mmmmm... You're awake?"

Before I could conclude my thoughts and make some sort of priority list in my head, Misa had woken up. Her head came up to mine, planting a small peck on my lips, but her head continued to go upwards, and she buried my head in her chest.

Feeling the softness on and around my face made me finally lose myself.

And thus, we once again let ourselves become one.

****

"I will miss you..."

"I will miss you too..."

We both had some tears in our eyes when we released our arms from each other. It was painful to let Misa board the train, but it might have been for the best anyway. It would let me focus fully on myself, not getting distracted by worldly desires.

As the train started moving, I was thinking about what I would do for the rest of the day. With the time being just 14.45 in the afternoon, I had a lot of hours to spend before the day would end.

Sadly, I had promised my girl that I wouldn't train today, so that was already out of the picture.

Even if I could go into the time capsule or spend my time practicing my mana control without her ever knowing, it would be a breach of trust. If there was one thing I had learned while at Kirkegaard, then it was that trust was truly important.

I wanted her to know she could trust me, just as much as she wanted me to trust her. A relationship was just that, after all, mutual trust and understanding.

So in the end, I decided to reach out to Lindsey to see what she was up to.

*Hey, want to hang out? I promised Misa not to train today, so I don't have anything to do.*

It didn't take long before I got her answer.

*Good call. Miss Laise told me that if I saw you training today I should tell her right away anyway. But should we meet up at the café next to the library then?*

'So much for mutual understanding and trust, I guess...'

I did deserve it though. As much as I wanted to feel offended by the fact that she had made Lindsey into her spy, I had done too many stupid things to complain. While I was thinking about the unfairness of the world, my feet were taking me to the café where we decided to meet up.

Unfortunately, my legs didn't take me far before I got stopped by another person. This had become such a common occurrence that I wasn't even surprised anymore. What did surprise me though, was that the person in question was a tall, blonde young man adorned with dark blue eyes.

"Miren... do you... have some time?"

He wasn't acting like his usual self at all. Instead of his cheerful and confident demeanor, he was acting all meek and awkward. Even if I didn't have any reason to care, it pissed me off immensely seeing the hero of this world act like this. But it did make me interested in what he had to say,

A frown appeared on my face and I crossed my arms, "What do you want?"

Maybe as a result of my hard tone, maybe just because he felt embarrassed, his gaze lowered to the ground as he spoke, "I want to talk with you about everything that happened..."

It was a bit funny that the man I had beaten the shit out of wanted to talk about what happened, appearing not to be angry in the slightest; just exhausted and sad. Having already overreacted a tiny bit during our duel, I couldn't help but feel some slight guilt.

With a sigh, I gave up trying to hold my tough façade. "Haaa, fine. Let's talk. But I'll be the one to direct the conversation, okay?"

His eyes lit up a little as he probably didn't expect me to agree to have a conversation after all that went down, and he nodded energetically. We quickly found a table with two parallel benches to sit down at, which wasn't hard to do as the academy grounds were filled with them.

Clasping my hands, I thought about the best way to approach our discussion. It was obvious that the young man felt embarrassed and regretful about everything, but I had no intention to go back to how we used to be; that ship had already sailed. However, that didn't mean that it wouldn't be useful to at least keep a somewhat neutral relationship with the hero.

"Now, why did you approach me?"

His hands started fidgeting a bit, showing just how nervous he was to talk with me again after so long. "I just wanted to apologize for..."

"Stop!"

I could already feel my temper rising fast. There was not a single part of me that wanted to hear some pathetic excuse from him, nor would it serve any purpose.

"I don't want to hear you apologize. It's unnecessary and it's beneath us. You and I both chose to walk this path, so don't go acting all weak and pathetic just because you lost the match."

"Sorry..."

'This stupid kid...!"

Seeing my reaction to his instinctual apology, he took a breath and collected himself, letting a bit of his normal air return.

"If you don't want me to apologize, I won't. Instead, I want to talk about two things with you."

"Go on..."

"First, I wanted to ask you about what happened at the duel. Miren, did you also get the [Ascension] skill?"

My brows rose as I couldn't understand what he meant. It was a skill I had never heard about in my life, but as he used the word "also" I could deduce that that was the skill he had used when he started to shine and got stronger all of a sudden.

"No, I do not possess that skill. Why do you ask?"

There had to be another reason as to why he disclosed the name of his skill and, as it appeared to be quite powerful, a quite important one at that. No person would just reveal the name of their hidden ace without a goal in mind, even more so when thinking about our relationship.

"Because what you did was similar to what [Ascension] does, it forcefully breaks one's limits. In the case of my skill, it grants me power from an external source. You could say that I'm borrowing power from someone else. I just thought that you might have done the same..."

There were so many things to ask about when listening to his explanation. It wasn't all too far-fetched that the hero should have some sort of limit break, a way to power up when desperate. but there was something else that was much more important about his words.

"Who are you borrowing power from?"

This was the only urgent thing I needed to get an answer to. Even if I already had an idea in my head, I needed him to confirm it for me. It was something that might change my plans entirely.

His eyes deepened, and for some unknown reason, he chose to trust me with the information.

"[Ascension] lets me borrow power from the primordial god of light, Theia."

'God, or gods, why do you have to make everything so fucking complicated!'