Limiter

Saint is sparring with Prince early in the morning out in the yard,

"You can't hit harder than that?" Prince asks as he effortlessly parries all of Saint's strikes,

Saint jumps back,

"I thought we were sparring?"

Prince chuckles,

"Dude, you can't ever damage me like that, really. Go all out, I need to see where your level is at."

Saint is caught off guard, he has never really gone all out on his own.

"Really?"

Prince takes a deep breath and gets in a combat stance.

"Yes, now hurry."

Saint gets in position and quickly lunges at Prince head first,

'I'll fake my first punch!'

Saint revs up his punch mid-lunge but stops at the last second to instead throw a spinning heel kick to Prince's body,

Prince responds, "Sloppy."

He catches Saint's leg and jabs him repeatedly, Saint's head flies back with each punch, Prince's hold on his leg is too strong to break free,

"Adapt, don't just take it,"

Saint continues to get jabbed,

'Adapt? That's right, I have to find a way out of this!'

With new-found determination, Saint dodges a jab and jumps with his free leg, revs it up and goes for a flying head kick!

Prince chuckles, "Nice try," As he blocks Saint's kick,

But that was enough for Saint's body to rotate out of his locked up leg, he jumps back,

"I almost got you…" Saint says boldly,

"Not even close," Prince responds confidently,

By the time they continue to spar, their ruckus has woken up the rest of the crew, Jane and Mari step outside to the yard,

"What the hell are they doing so early?" Mari says sleepily,

"Training, apparently." Jane responds warmly,

Mari takes a deep breath as she sees Saint getting rag dolled around by Prince,

"Let's leave them be, we'll check in later."

Jane nods,

They continue to spar, Prince not taking it serious while Saint is trying his hardest,

"Hey, did you see that? Your lady was watching." Prince teases, while blocking Saint's strikes,

"My lady?" Saint stops for a moment,

"Don't stop!" Prince punches Saint straight in the mouth and sends him back flying,

'Whoops… I might've overdone it…'

Dust clears, and Saint steps out bruised,

"I don't think I want to train anymore…" He says sarcastically,

Prince laughs, "I think that's enough, I can see where you stand. Do you have an ability?"

Saint steps up, holding his arm,

"An ability? No, I don't think so…"

Prince tilts his head,

"Do you understand how Mana works?" He asks,

"Yeah, I mean… kind of, I know about limiter break and stuff…"

Prince nods his head slowly,

"Well, let me reiterate, since the teachers at Sangre De Reyes teachers never fully explain anything, sit."

Prince and Saint sit themselves at a bench,

"Mana and the Limiter, so… the limiter is like a safeguard built into every Mana user. It acts like a safety net designed to prevent the user from, well, dying."

Prince continues,

"The limiter adapts, I'm sure you've heard some teacher use the 1000 apple theory,"

Saint's eyes widen, Taiho had mentioned that exact apple theory in class.

"When a person pushes their mana to the limit, draining their reserves over and over again, the body realizes it cannot afford to teeter so close to death. It builds the limiter stronger. Each time the body nears that breaking point, it forms a new boundary, a higher threshold, a more refined limit, ensuring that the user won't slip so close to death again."

Saint listens intently, eager to learn more about Mana and how his now friends became so strong.

"But here's the most significant safeguard: if a person were to run out of mana completely, they would die. And that's why, to prevent this, the body has an internal safety mechanism: the limiter."

Saint is shocked at how educated Prince is at this,

'Wow, no wonder he's so strong.'

"So you tell me, Saint, how do YOU become stronger?"

Prince holds up 3 of his fingers,

"1. Do I only train you in hand-to-hand combat?

2. Do I train you to control the Mana you currently have?

Or 3. Do we try to break your limiter as many times as possible before the auction?"

…

Back to Ana, she had been on a journey. She managed to get to Chuq City by herself, the scriptures her father secretly left had pointed her in the right direction.

'This is the place, that school has to be close here somewhere…" She thinks,

Ana spends the entire day searching the city in an attempt to locate the school or any symbol that resembles the ones in her father's scriptures,

'No luck, I can't find anything here…'

She turns a corner near the outskirts of the city, she's ready to give up,

She suddenly sets eyes on a church, a church that bears the same symbol as the one in her father's scriptures.

'This… this is it! My first lead!' She thinks excitedly, she eagerly walks to the entrance of the church, but then she stops, she hears a male voice,

"Where is my son? I'm gonna give you two one more chance to answer." He says coldly, Ana takes a peek inside, and it's Carmelo, and two men in white suits.

'What? What is he doing here? Is he looking for Saint? Oh, god…'

The two Carmelo are interrogating are Alma and Brian, the same people that were assigned to protect Father Antonio.

"I told you already, old man! WE don't know! Piss off!" Brain exclaims,

Carmelo looks at the two instructors he forced to come with him,

"Sir, I can assure you that at least the ones who kidnapped your son have been here, our radar picked up the same shadow technique from the one used the day he disappeared." One of the instructors say,

Carmelo steps up coldly,

"And how 'accurate' is this radar of yours?" He says coldly,

"W-well it's my ability…" The instructor responds nervously,

…

Ari just woke up from resting, he's feeling refreshed, he gets up and looks at the clock in his cell.

'Perfect, 10 minutes until nighttime.'

Ari notices the prison is way emptier now, a lot of people did get eliminated on night 1.

This time, Ari stretches before the cell doors unlock, preparing himself to get the next tags from his targets.

…