Chapter 72: Fated Burn (28)

Sometime before Nozomi went to sleep, at Yoshino's house

After Yoshino closed the door to her room, having thankfully arrived home before her mom noticed she had left. She later ate dinner with the rest of her family while pretending everything was alright. She rested her back against the door to her room. The combination of her training, encounter with Mukarramma, comforting her best friend, and still playing along with the lie that she was ignorant of everything involving darkspawns finally took its toll on her mind.

Yoshino groaned.

The day to get rid of that Great Master cannot come sooner. Although...

Yoshino's mind wandered off to after Rudabaugh had caught the former jumping out from the window. Thankfully for Yoshino, one of the advantages of having magic power so low and a family with magic power so high was that the latter needed to be actively searching for her using her power. Or at least that's what Henry had told her through the phone.

Rudabaugh immediately carried Yoshino on his back to catch up with Nozomi in time. During the travel, Yoshino confirmed one of the questions Mukarramma's existence presented.

"Wait, so, let me get this straight, even if we defeat the Grand Master...darkspawns will keep popping up all the same?" Yoshino asked.

Rudabaugh nodded while in mid-jump from one building to another.

"Unfortunately, yes. Even with his defeat, strays will keep appearing. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later, sometimes weak, sometimes strong. But inevitably, they will appear and cause problems for the general populace."

"And I suppose that there's no way to stop that?" Yoshino guessed, her tone resigned.

It took a couple of seconds for her professor to answer, validating Yoshino's feelings about the matter.

"There technically is, but I don't think they are valid options. Since darkspawns need humanity's negative energy that's caused by negative emotions to be born and to continue existing...it would take humanity itself to either go extinct or somehow become incapable of having any bad thoughts. Which would then lead to the eventual death of all stray darkspawns and stop any more from being born."

Rudabaugh jumped to another building.

"Obviously, the first one is a no-go, and the second is virtually impossible unless the plan is to make humanity, somehow, incapable of feeling anything negative. Which," Rudabaugh jumped to another building before continuing. "Might just be me, but I personally don't think it would be a good idea in the long run."

"...Great, just...great." Yoshino spat sarcastically.

"Wait, then, how come it's just now we're having to deal with this? I mean, surely it can't just be a coincidence that I've never met a darkspawn until just now besides you and my uncles for fourteen years, right?"

The cowboy jumped to the next building.

"Yes, you are correct. It wasn't just sheer luck that you never had an encounter with a darkspawn besides Henry and your uncles for so long. It was actually because of your mother."

Yoshino tilted her head at that.

"How?"

"Her aura. Although the time before Kurai met the Grand Master could be attributed to luck, AFTER she awakened, her dark magic was big enough to scare away any strays. Add the equally strong aura of your brother...and you got yourself a stray repellent that encompasses the entire city and screams at their survival instincts to run in the opposite direction." Rudabaugh explained.

Yoshino slowly nodded.

"Ok...then what changed?"

The silence that followed from Rudabaugh made Yoshino grow concerned.

"Professor?"

Rudabaugh bit his lip as he jumped to the next building.

"Henry...has a theory. A theory that we have yet to find out if it's one-hundred percent true...but it's the most likely scenario..."

A nervous sweat drop fell by Yoshino's cheek as her eyebrow twitched in annoyance at the stalling from her uncle's friend.

"Spit it out already!" Yoshino demanded, not able to wait any longer.

Rudabaugh sighed in resignation.

"Henry...thinks it's because of Nozomi."

Yoshino blinked a few times as she processed what Rudabaugh told her.

"What?" The brunette finally said in disbelief.

Thankfully for Yoshino, Rudabaugh didn't waste time in elaborating.

"Again, we haven't confirmed it yet, but it is suspicious that after fourteen years of zero strays in this city...a stray appears just a week after Nozomi becomes a magical girl."

"But...why? How would this benefit Nozomi?" Yoshino asked. The thought of hordes of darkspawns running straight to Nozomi, who was unaware that she was attracting their attention, sank her heart.

"That's the thing, we don't know. That's why it's only a theory for now." Rudabaugh soon added.

"This brings me to my next point: you should probably not bring this up to her, or at least, not until we are certain that she has, indeed, become a magnet for stray darkspawns. The last thing we need is for her to stress over nothing."

Yoshino slowly nodded.

"I'll...keep that in mind." Was the only answer she gave before their conversation ended there.

Back to the present, Yoshino sighed before pulling out the pair of pink gloves Outsider gave out of her school bag.

In the end, I didn't even consider using them... Yoshino thought as she scrutinized the gloves.

When she thought about why, the first, and obvious question that came to her mind was: What am I missing?

The brunette tried to devise a solution to this question, searching her memories for anything that could help her. Her eyes soon grew wide as an idea crossed her mind, remembering the conversation with Rudabaugh about her unique magic and how all of it went to her knife instead of simply sharing it as her professor instructed.

"Wait, surely that couldn't work...right?" She asked herself.

There was only one way for Yoshino to know as she got up, put on her gloves, and sat at her computer's desk before pulling out the white plastic ball Outsider had let her borrow it.

Just as Yoshino was about to attempt copying it, she hesitated, reconsidering for a moment if she should do this without her teacher's supervision. Imagining the consequences if she were to mess up made her nervous.

But when Yoshino was about to stop herself from going through with this, her eyes landed on a portrait of her and Nozomi as kids when they were both nine years old. It had been only a week since their days of playing around and not knowing any better ended, but for the brunette, it felt like more.

Yoshino frowned as the memory of her staring at the dark abyss of Nozomi's empty eyesockets came to the forefront. The troubled girl bit her lip in frustration at herself as she remembered how even though Nozomi was a crying mess, she still wanted to fight, even if she knew she could end up dying because of it. Now that she thought about it, her best friend never backed down from a fight until now, always giving it her all when she could.

What would this say about Yoshino, if she were to give up now when Nozomi hadn't? That Yoshino is not only physically, but also mentally weaker than everyone else? What would even be the point of her training, then? Does Yoshino even have the luxury of waiting when not only is she strapped for time for her inevitable fight against the grand master, someone who's leagues above her in power but also for the fights she will have against strays that can happen at any time and place?

Yoshino shook her head as the answer to what she needed to do became obvious.

No...no more hesitation. If this goes right, it goes right. If it doesn't...I'll manage somehow. She thought with renewed resolve.

Yoshino would very soon want to kick herself for such a reckless decision.

Yoshino closed her eyes and took a deep breath, focusing all of her magic so it would go to her brain. Her magic, although weak in its regular form, can be concentrated and applied to anything to become significantly stronger and better than it normally would be. The power of such concentrated magic gets stronger the more focused it is. For example: When she used it on that knife, it got sharper, but when Yoshino focused only on the knife's blade, it became sharp enough that she was able to cut down a nearby tree's trunk in one swing.

The brunette had no idea what effects her magic would have on her brain, but the fact it hadn't yet shown any negative side effects on anything she applied had been enough for her.

Of course, such concentration of Yoshino's magic had the obvious weakness of leaving the rest of her body vulnerable to any attacks that would harm or kill a regular person. Thankfully for Yoshino, right now it wasn't one of those instances where such a weak point would matter.

Yoshino would have preferred focusing on the specific parts of her brain responsible for her gloves to work, but since she didn't know which parts were the right ones, she was forced to play it safe and spread her magic evenly to her entire brain.

The slowdown effect Nozomi suffered when using her magic had been the morbid inspiration for it, as much as she wished it would've been anything else. From what Yoshino deduced from her best friend's explanation, her magic didn't necessarily slow things down as much as it accelerated Nozomi's brain to such a degree her mind could keep with the speed of light.

Although Yoshino hadn't gotten crazy enough to the point where she believed such extreme speed was not only achievable for her but also a good idea, she HAD gotten crazy enough to think that accelerating her brain at all was a good idea from her perspective.

When Yoshino opened her eyes...she noticed nothing different, or at least, initially. When Yoshino tried to test if nothing, truly, changed by focusing her attention on the plastic ball in her hand, she was pleasantly surprised and in awe at all the small details she just noticed and the speed at which she processed every speck of it.

The high of it was so great, that Yoshino sat there in her chair blinking blankly at the plastic sphere for a few seconds before the need for air made her gasp and snap her out of it. The dark magic inside her brain vanished along with her concentration.

That...was... Yoshino's mind went blank again, unable to describe the experience she just went through.

Yoshino shook her head.

"It doesn't matter." The brunette told herself, as she now believed there was a way for her to use these gloves or at least, get better results than before.

Closing her eyes, taking a deep breath, and concentrating, Yoshino applied her magic once again to her brain, but this time, using Outsider's teachings.

After a solid minute of concentration, Yoshino opened her eyes. What welcomed her was that same weird goop coming out of the opposite hand holding the plastic ball that only barely resembled a sphere after squinting her eyes and tilting her head to see from a different angle.

It was far from a success, but still better progress than all the attempts in her training with Outsider. Yoshino sighed, placing the ball and the weird good on the table before clapping her hands twice. The goop soon returned to her glove, leaving no trace on the paper.

Again. Yoshino told herself.

Yoshino tried again, and this time the result wasn't much better.

Again. Another failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. Again. Failure. 

How long has it been since Yoshino started? She had no idea, having long since lost track of time.

Finally, when Yoshino's vision started to become blurry, her palms sweaty and sore from repeatedly clapping, her breathing exhausted, and her head felt like it would explode at any moment, she finally did it. On her desk, there was now another plastic sphere, an imperfect one. The lower half was a splitting image of the original, and the upper half was a white goo-y mess.

Yoshino couldn't help but smile weakly and cry as she took the newly formed imperfect ball of plastic to her chest. Yoshino felt like her heart was about to burst from her chest at any moment, but she didn't care. She cared even less about the white goo that got into her clothes.

I did it...I...finally...

Yoshino flinched as the sunlight coming from her window hit her face.

"Uh? sunlight?" She mumbled after a full second protecting her face with her trembling hand.

Ah...it's morning. Yoshino thought as she saw the sun from her window as it rose on the horizon. I...should probably...get some sleep... Yoshino thought as she got up and slowly went to bed, almost tripping on the way.

When Yoshino was about to close her eyes, she heard the last noise she wanted to hear.

BEEP BEEP BEEP

When Yoshino turned her head slightly to the noise's source she saw the number 7:01 displayed on her alarm clock.

It was time for Yoshino to wake up.

Yoshino stared blankly at her alarm clock for a few seconds before using her pillow to muffle the sound of her voice as she groaned in frustration.