Article 2 - Chapter 2 - Awakening and Second Chances
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガー
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A/N: I went ahead and put some background information at the beginning of chapter 1 to help people who are fans of World Trigger / Tales of Demons and Gods and want to have an idea of the things I've changed to alleviate some confusion. In the end, these things aren't necessary and will be addressed throughout the story. Thanks.
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(Last Chapter: Excerpt)
A throbbing pulsating sensation repeated in a loop where the left side of the head made contact with the wall. When Yuma pulled his hands back from his ears in a scramble for survival, in his wholehearted wish of retreat, they were warm and stained red.
Terrified he patted the left side of his head discovering a leaking hole no less than 3 fingers wide.
Energy sapped from his body, he collapsed to the ground like a puppet with their strings cut.
There's more than one answer. Things can be resolved in many ways. But on the contrary, there's no answer in some cases…
"There's nothing… S-sorry dad."
┬┴┬┴┤ Chapter 2 ├┬┴┬┴
┬┴┬┴┤ テイルズオブスピリッツとトリガー ├┬┴┬┴
A battalion of men back from the depths of the spiritual rift poured into the open space from beyond the passages bend. The one taking the lead had mid-length spiky black hair. The air of excitement and glory wafted from the lot of battle-tested veterans as they rushed this way and that looting the imprisonment crystals and alchemic reagents from the spirit beast carcasses and plant life.
"Spread out and collect the imprisonment crystals. Make sure to get them all!" Yugo commanded his men. "I'll go fetch my boy, He'll be getting impatient right about now."
Adoration leaked from the men. Their haul this time was pretty good so spirits were quite high.
"The general's drinks are on us when we get back! Right men?!" A man shouted. He had a badge on his uniform displaying the rank of lieutenant.
"I'll pitch in. A night of drinking can't break the bank after a haul like this!" A voice shouted.
"Yes. A celebration is in order and the commander will be the man of the hour if I have anything to say about it."
Everyone around murmured in agreement, Yugo's lips pulling apart revealing a charismatic smile.
"If my unit is treating me, I guess I'll just drink you all under the table! That's a promise boys."
As Yugo pulled away, he heard the hearty laughter and bullshitery.
Picking up his pace, he broke into a run zooming through the cleared cave at superhuman speed. His toes pushed off the floor thrusting him forward 15-20 meters at a time.
Hmm? This wasn't here before, was it?
His pace slowed as he gandered at all the fresh blue blood pooled along the cavern floor and dripping down the walls.
A wave of unease washed over Yugo.
Yuma...
He bolted onwards at heightened speeds, rounded a corner, and a loud crash rang out.
Yugo with an arm extended held out a Qi shield formed by his trigger. It caught a heavy strike from a camouflaged hostile before it could reach him.
Leaning and leveraging his power into his legs, he shoved the invisible monstrosity, pushing it back further and further until trapping it against the wall in an awe-inspiring display of force.
Blue ooze sprayed out splashing the shield and one of his feet.
Hsssssss.
Clutching the black weaponized tech in his palm, he channeled more of his Qi to the instrument.
The shield vanished dematerializing due to the swap between actively used triggers.
From Yugo's body burst numerous beams of solid pale yellow-tinted Qi extending and retracting in a controlled yet awe-inspiring onslaught.
Scaley severed arms, legs, and chunks of meat seemed to materialize mid-air robbed of their transparency.
The damage was too critical to continue upholding its camouflage, the beast phased into vision. The green scales of the chameleon appeared before Yugo only giving him an easier target. A final lash of his scorpion tore through the eyes and head of the creature vanquishing it.
The beast bent over collapsing to the damp stone ground lifelessly.
Glancing down, He noticed his foot being devoured from what must have been a spiritual toxin.
A line of pale yellow-tinted light flashed and disappeared so quickly it could cause people to question whether they imagined it.
His foot was severed from the body. A new foot spawned from Qi using the Scorpion trigger appearing in the lost appendages place. It acted both as a functional replacement to re-enable mobility as well as a way to prevent further soul force from being lost.
The man's heart sunk in his chest, it was as if his stomach swallowed it whole.
His trigger slipped from his grip falling to the floor.
Yugo's body reverted to flesh and blood, the uniform replaced by khaki pants held up by a belt paired with a grey sleeveless undershirt.
"No… Yuma, can you hear me?"
He fell to his knees before his son flipping him over and checking his vitals.
He was getting cold to the touch. Yuma's lips were already blue.
…...thump…
He still has a pulse. It's weak. He could die any minute.
"You fool. Defeated so easily?" The father said, pulling his son into his embrace with a smile. "I'll save you son, Don't worry."
A scroll popped into the man's hand from his inter-spatial ring.
Yugo's smile widened. His heart was at ease knowing that Yuma could still be saved. A deep conviction flowed through him as he activated the scroll in his grasp.
"[Inscription array: Infusion of Life]"
Lifeforce poured from father to scroll and then to the boy.
Yugo's skin became paler over mere seconds.
Yuma's wounds on his body began vanishing while the color returned to his skin. It was as if the damage he sustained was never reality but a mirage all along.
Yugo's hair shifted from black… to grey… and then to white.
"Never say I didn't love you, Yuma."
A single teardrop slipped out as the father watched his son's health return, his smile widening all the while.
Yugo's body was robbed of all of its color. He was ashen white while still propped up on his knees.
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"Never say I didn't love you, Yuma."
Hmm? Who would accuse you of that you old geezer?
A vibrant warmth spread through his entire body.
A wave of memories crashed over him. They woke him from his dream-like state.
His eyes' flicked open, the nostalgic form of his father leaned before him.
"Dad?"
Despite his tragic appearance, he still had a smile carved onto his face.
Yugo's body fell apart. The scattering and collapsing remains of the man fell through the air.
"No!" Yuma cried out.
Desperately he reached for the falling white dust in denial that his father could leave him so suddenly.
The dust slipped through his fingers and arms forming a heaping pile in Yuma's lap along with Yugo's clothing and accessories which stayed perfectly intact.
"Why did you save me? It was my fault you should have-" He struggled folding over on top of the pile. "I didn't mean to… I'm so sorry."
A burning pain appeared in his head like both of his temples were being pressed by a red hot branding iron.
"Aaghhhh!" Yuma shrieked. His fingertips drove into his forehead.
The tidal wave of memories loomed over and eclipsed his consciousness. He lost all control and sensibility trapped within the inner confines of his mind. It was as if an entire lifetime flashed before his eyes while the feelings and context were still all in place.
"Who's memories… are these?!"
He pulled his hair while his mind burned like a fire.
But what hurts the worst is they'll probably scrub me from the history books and give my accomplishments to my fucking apprentice.
Trapped in his mind no longer aware of his surroundings, he experienced a memory as if it were reality.
Yuma struggled to control this tree-like body that appeared to have been merged with some sort of spirit beast. The body was unresponsive.
Gravity instead forced him to his hands and knees. His head tilted to the sky.
Why?
The voice felt familiar and foreign all at once.
A flash of black tore from the peripheral of his vision, before everything cut to black.
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"Kid? Are you good?!"
Yuma was shaken vigorously causing him to jolt awake.
Gaining his bearings, Yuma stared blankly at the man waiting for the gears of his mind to kick on.
"You alright kid? Where's the command-"
He recognized Lieutenant Zhao's gaze moved from himself to the pile of dust and clothing.
"I'm sorry…" Yuma said not knowing what else he could say. Nothing could suffice, but an apology still felt better than nothing.
"So...He's gone huh…" The man said seemingly understanding with a harrowing and solemn countenance. "I found this lying next to you."
He shoved Yugo's trigger into Yuma's hands.
"I… don't deserve this. You take it." Yuma struggled to push it to the man against Zhao's efforts to push it back.
"Nope. It's all your's kid. General Yugo wouldn't have wanted it any other way, I'm certain."
The Lieutenant stood up and faltered for a second. "So much for that promise commander," he whispered.
"What's going on?" One of the many spiritualists asked.
Zhao's fist clenched the trigger in his hand tighter.
"General Yugo has perished. Let us all take a moment of silence in remembrance of him."
Zhao struck his chest in a salute, and swiftly every comrade in arms followed suit. The area fell quiet as they all held their salutes filled to the brim with their respect. A few men even shed tears while the rest fought to hold their composure.
"Make sure you grab everything of value from the rift before we leave. This marks the end of our expedition, we'll start heading back to Calvaria City within the hour."
Yuma stared at the trigger casing in his hands while guilt smothered him making it difficult to breathe.
He must have used a top tier Inscription pattern or array to bring me back… He transferred all of his lifeforce to me so I could live. Wait, how do I even know that?
In an attempt to recall how he knew, a memory of a man named Zenith holed up in a library studying a vast collection of written resources was retrieved.
"What? Why do I have these memories? Are they fathers?"
Memory after memory swiped by, he was searching for any type of link between Zenith and Yugo, but nothing was found.
"Kid… I know this has to be hard for you, but we're about to head out. You should get ready."
Yuma scooped up the inter-spatial ring from the pile of white dust slipping it onto a finger.
He grabbed his father's possessions and stored them inside the ring for safekeeping.
If I ever die, I want you to visit one of my friends at Border defense agency in Mikado City.
These words were repeated often by Yugo hence why they were engraved in his heart.
Yuma stood up swallowing down his feelings of negativity.
I guess I'll be going back to your hometown after I finish up here dad.
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Gossip among active and post duty militants could rival the cliques of most women. With questions posed from the members of Yugo's beloved private spiritualist battalion, many people were interested in discovering what had happened to Yugo.
It was rare for hunting parties to be clean from any of the regulations of attachment to nobility or Border. The freedom these men experienced underneath him while still providing upper tier to top-class management and personnel was precious. People would rightfully be afraid the loss of the commander would be the start of the decline of their unit so tensions were rising.
The news was bound to come, it didn't take long for him to see the coldness some eyes held.
Yuma was after all only adopted. Nevertheless, their resemblance was very uncanny.
Upon the last stretch of the journey, a group of men flexing in aggression walked past at a crawling speed. The three officers radiated a threatening atmosphere around them infecting the surroundings with their negativity.
"Shame."
"Shame…" Another said bending down and spitting a yellow-brown mucus loogie on Yuma's shoe.
"Great general died for this trash? Adopted bronze scum."
Even if the battalion answered only to themselves, the men inside couldn't all be moral idealistic gentlemen. In fact, it could be said that most were not.
Yuma struggled internally having lost his only parent and the mind-boggling prospect of having access to a lifetime of someone else's memories.
Asking himself, he came to the conclusion that he was doubtlessly still Yuma Kuga, but with the understanding that he was now forever changed by this lifetime of experience.
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias where people expect their cognitive ability is higher than it actually is. In order to mend this disjoint in perspective and reality, there was no substitute for experience.
Youth by their nature lack a true scope of experience. With an abundance of experience now, Yuma's eyes lost their sparkling innocence. Any sentiments of heroism were lost.
To show oneself mercy, you must destroy one's enemy completely.
People were fickle and with the taste of betrayal freshly on his mind processing through all of these memories he would be willing to trust only after labored and extensive validation.
It was ironic how the nobles across most mega-domiciles accepted and perpetuated The growth of Border defense agency offices.
Father always said that Border's first intention was a united peaceful front of these 'Mega-domes' in a plan called: 'Project: United Nations'.
The increase of Border office fronts meant more positions for officers and decision-makers giving the opportunity to invite greater corruption.
In today's age, most Border offices had long since succumbed to declaring themselves an existing or new branch. Each branch of Border had its own agenda and as such became the primary way to identify and distinguish each mega-dome's political alignment.
These branches fought against each other in open warfare to seize that illustrious and corrupting power.
Noble families are always trying to keep themselves ahead of the curve. They purposely held their information tightly not allowing it to be utilized by the masses even after the invention of the internet.
Some old-school families decided to shift to the more convenient storage medium that the digital age brought us to file and catalog their monstrous indexes of knowledge, but after several hackers gained access to nobility owned databases, and with the release of that data freely public online, most noble clans avoided digitizing their data.
This was really a case of forgoing convenience to eliminate potential intel leakage.
The appeal of Border offices to nobility was not only a firmer hand in military affairs but a way to censor entire mega-domes access to the internet to ensure their secrets if ever released could be purged from their local citizens.
The nobility could keep their civilians nice and ignorant to the world around them while they ruled with an iron fist.
Yuma was astonished at all the specs of information he overheard in the years of shadowing Yugo that snapped into place like a puzzle close to completion.
He came to realize that his conscious mind might have been unaffected, but his unconscious mind that was home to his instincts and ingrained experiences was as if it was overwritten entirely.
The three officers sneered at Yuma their entire way off.
With disgust, He flicked around his shoe slinging the loogie off his foot. It finally flew off but it shot up and stuck to the ceiling. Feeling mischievous, he folded his arms behind his head grinning. He meandered away from his awkward situation with a profound casualness to him.
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Hostilities toward Yuma was rising. Despite wanting to help his late fathers battalion in their trying time, the apparentness that he was no longer welcome by his comrades left him resigning from the group.
"Are you sure? Don't mind those idiots out there, they are only butthurt Yugo is gone, it'll fade after a while." Lieutenant Zhao said.
"My father left me with something I still have to do. Perhaps one day I'll come back when I'm stronger."
"Your welcome to come back whenever if you need. Although we've both taken a heavy loss, I'm glad that if either of you could make it back it was you." The lieutenant said.
Yuma suddenly had a foul taste in the back of his throat. He couldn't be sure how he knew, but something inside was certain that both things the lieutenant said were blatant lies.
"I'm sure Yugo would feel the same way. He was like a dad to me too, so that would make you like a brother."
Again Zhao's last sentence left Yuga nearly gagging.
Side-effect? Somehow dad's side-effect was transferred to me before he died?
Yuma had lost focus on the conversation now that he realized the other side was providing him only half-hearted lip service.
He knew that Yugo's legacy didn't reside in this unit's prosperity, but in the mission that he inherited since Yugo was deceased.
"Since your Yugo's next of kin, his cut from the expedition will also be paid to you. Here, let's see…" He said pulling a clipboard from his desk to his face.
He swiftly rose to make his way over to a wall safe. The dial was fooled with; several clicks could be heard before it finally popped open. Zhao grabbed numerous stacks of currency from inside tossing them into an inconspicuous leather bag until it was nearly crammed full.
"Here." The man said passing off the bag to the youth settling their affairs.
Yuma was glad to be parting ways with Zhao after discovering how superficial he was. His choice of departure from the unit he felt bittersweet about earlier changed to complete confidence. He understood it was eventual, that it was in-fact unavoidable.
I won't trust my back to these wolves barely pretending to be my brothers.
The leather bag disappeared from his hand, sucked into the inter-spacial ring.
Yuma retreated after the conclusive meeting to his and his late father's favorite place to relax and cultivate at.
He sat on the concrete ledge on the park fountain pumping water up falling in a heavy mist to the three different leveled reservoir's separated by height into the lower, middle, and upper reservoir.
The bottom was filled with coins. These were the dreams of people left behind. Dreams left to the hands of fate rather than carried with conviction by the wisher.
Closing his eyes, he adopted a veteran cultivation stance and posture pushing his knee's out from him and bringing his hands together near his lap in front of the location of his dantian.
The energy surrounding him pulled into him easier than ever before. To his surprise, the level of his soul force evolved significantly. Comparing it to Zenith's experiences, he came to the conclusion that his Qi reserves were now at the level of a gold expert spiritualist despite only having been a 3-star bronze expert before. His innate awakening was only bronze 1-star signifying to this world a lack of talent for the cultivation arts, but now it was as if he was born an innate gold expert all along.
Innate gold experts were incomprehensibly rare. They were more often than not super-children birthed between cultivator powerhouses from the nobility. The likelihood of a child being an innate gold talent and the offspring of humble origins was the same as finding a fat golden nugget laying on the dirt. It was equivalent to winning the lottery only buying a single ticket, it only happened to people smiled on by the heavens.
Somehow my body must have swallowed a significant portion of dad's soul force forcibly ranking me up. I'll strive to never forget your sacrifice and everything you've taught me.
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Reviewer Question: - If you could choose your own spirit beast for yourself as a spiritualist, which species would it be?
Personally, my favorite ideas are: Pheonix, Dragon, Snake, Unicorn, etc... As for what I would actually pick? Probably none of these! Find out in the next chapter!
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**SPECIAL THANKS and COMMENTS to the great people below who left me a review, It means a lot!**
-Guest - "Yeah, I think Yuma, Jhin, Kageura, and Kirie are my favorite characters from WT, Yuma topping that list. Thanks for your compliments and words of encouragement."
-VoidEmperor - "I don't claim to have perfect knowledge of the TODG world, but I have at least read the web novel all the way through. I clearly stated at the beginning of chapter 1 that this story is alternate universe with several changes. Also as far as cultivation caps go, IK that there are ranks past legend, but they are not available to people inside the tiny world and there won't be any ascension to higher realms in this fic, so it's capped at 5-star legend."
-Ninja6345 - "Glad you seem to like what you've read so far! Your comment got me working to wrap this chapter up and do the final proofs so thank you! I hope you enjoyed this chapter too."