Creation began on 01-24-21
Creation ended on 04-25-21
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Grimoire of Evangelion: Family Dinner
A/N: Just because they're Magic Knights now doesn't mean they have to be away from home all the time.
It had been quite some time since the five of them had been together just to have dinner together. Maybe not three months, but it was long enough for Rika to feel like her children and grandson had changed significantly in the time spent in their respective Magic Knight squads.
"You four are definitely different now," she told them as she set down her cup.
"Different in what way?" Suki questioned as she looked from her plate of pasta.
"Some of you look like you've changed a little joining your squads," Rika explained. "I mean, you're quite adept with change and doing what you can to fit in. How is the Black Bull?"
"Oh, they're not all that different from regular people. They're mismatched, clueless, bright, creepy, funny, tenacious, even arrogant at times, but they're cool. I don't understand how any of the people would see the Black Bull as a problem squad."
"I researched the Black Bull's past acts," said Tenshi to her, "and it's mainly due to a series of reckless behavior. Several of its members exhibited a varying range of destruction that made certain situations they were involved in worse. But I've been hearing from other members of other squads that have reviewed the last few missions the Black Bull has taken part in, and they're wondering what happened to change the squad."
"We haven't seen much reckless behavior except for at the hideout," Shinji revealed; he and Suki had seen some of the careless, childish and off-putting acts that were mostly due to Luck, Magna, Gauche and Vanessa. "Fortunately, that has been reduced to a degree."
"Really?" Yui asked.
"There's more reckless behavior with people that prefer madness over solutions."
"Heh-heh…that is true."
"What about you and Tenshi, Mother? How is life with the Golden Dawn?"
"That is…" Yui found such a question difficult to answer, due to her own lack of personal progress of fitting in with the squad. "I spend as much of my time as possible just trying to advance my ranking."
"So…no friends within the squad?" Suki asked her.
"It's not easy for me."
"Yui," went Tenshi, "you've taken on more than seventeen lesser missions for the Golden Dawn that were either at the bottom of the list of duties to the Clover Kingdom or were being ignored for the better part of a year, and each one of them was done solo. How is that easy for you and trying to befriend people within the squad difficult?"
"Seventeen missions?" Rika spoke up. "All solo? That's not bad, Yui, but you could stand to work with others."
"That's…not easy for me."
"It's only as difficult as you yourself allow it to be, Mother," Shinji told her. "How hard is it just to speak with other Magic Knights?"
Yui could've said that it was very difficult, and not for any of the reasons he was probably thinking. Each and every one of these Magic Knights just…didn't get her…and she couldn't see how they were able to ignore or overlook the unending obvious of their current state of society. This was a primitive culture, barely in a rut, and nothing anyone seemed to be doing was helping it advance any further. But if she said anything of this sort, she'd be making any attempt on her part to change this to be in jeopardy.
"What of you, Shinji?" Rika spoke up again. "Any friends in the Black Bull?"
"Asta, Noelle, Gordon, Grey, Charmy and Luck," he answered. "They're pretty much knuckleheads in their own way, but they're all good. I wouldn't change a thing about them."
"How are they knuckleheads?" Tenshi asked.
"Asta isn't too bright, more brawns than brains. Noelle is…somewhat bossy, but she's not as arrogant as she used to be when we first met. Gordon was hard to understand because he didn't speak up in the beginning, but he's learned to raise his voice in conversations. Grey doesn't hide her face as much and has confided in the squad that she's from a broken home that she had to leave a few years ago. I don't judge people based on their past issues; every once in a while, there's always a reason for someone to up and leave. Charmy is…heh-heh…she's become, somewhat, a rival of Suki and I when it comes to cooking, and she's not a chef or able to reach a table without a stepstool. And Luck is… Luck enjoys fighting…even when it's against people he doesn't really stand a chance against."
"A combat lover?" Tenshi suspected.
"He just likes to fight too much. I fought with him four times during practice…and he didn't have enough. He either has a condition for whatever it is that's wrong with him or he's just a maniac addicted to fighting."
"Probably some mild case of sociopathy."
"What's that mean?"
"He just can't see the difference yet between what's right and wrong in what he does a little. Heh. Battle tendency."
"You fought him four times during practice?" Yui questioned her son.
"Shinji won each time because he either had Guardian of the Void, a sword…or because he used a spell that immobilized Luck," Suki explained. "Mostly because of Guardian of the Void. He's not so much an ace in the hole as he is the protective enforcer."
"Guardian of the Void," Rika uttered. "If our family's ancestral records weren't so scattered, I'd be able to know more about what may be our family's oldest associate."
"Guardian has been in the custody of at least twenty-five other members of our family that had my grimoire before me," Shinji told her.
"Which means your grimoire isn't an ordinary hand-me-down. In the end, you may need to rely on Guardian when faced with inescapable danger."
"Yeah…he mentioned that to me."
"How often does he talk with you?" Tenshi questioned his nephew.
"He's, uh, almost as talkative with me as you, Suki and Grandmother have been over the years."
"He's that intelligent?" Yui asked her son.
"Very."
Yui wanted to say more about this Guardian of the Void, but refrained from doing so because it didn't feel right to ask Shinji about something that made it seem like she was more interested in that part of him instead of just himself.
The less any of them know, the better things will be for everyone, she thought.
"What about you, Tenshi?" Suki asked their brother. "Have you made any other friends beside the three you mentioned to Shinji and I the last time we met in the Royal Capital?"
"Unfortunately, my other friends made have been outside the Golden Dawn. It's mostly commoner villages. The last village I visited was Tiulyu, where I met an elder by the name of Maggie and a young woman by the name of Dazu Tayak."
"What were you doing in Tiulyu?" Rika asked.
"I was following up on a report of suspicious activity. It was just a family of five trying to grow vegetables faster in order to feed eighteen other families that live in the village. I stayed and helped them for a week. That gave me the opportunity help around the village and see if there were any other problems that needed resolving. I still have respect for what the Magic Knights stand for in the Clover Kingdom, but when the system that employs them is comprised of men and women that look the other way regarding the commonfolk when a situation occurs, and it festers around for a prolonged period, they lose their credibility among the common people. Both individually and as a whole."
"And you're among the few Magic Knights that travel to these villages that you're not assigned to investigate?" Suki wanted to know.
"I must be among at least six other Magic Knights that spend their days off looking for overlooked problems that would be simple enough to resolve instead of simply ignoring them."
"They should be promoting you for your services to these villages, Tenshi," Shinji gave his opinion. "Are you still Fifth Class Junior?"
"Actually, in the last three weeks, my actions have been getting me compliments from villagers that spoke about me when they sent letters to the Royal Capital. If I'm fortunate, I might end up just behind you two."
"First Class Junior or Fifth Class Intermediate?" Rika asked.
"Fifth Class Intermediate."
"That's where I currently stand," Suki revealed. "Shinji reached Third Class Intermediate alongside Noelle, Asta, Charmy and Magna."
Yui, who was drinking her lemonade, turned her head and spat it out upon hearing this.
"You reached the Intermediate class already?" She asked them.
"You're not the only one that's been busy, Mother," Shinji told her. "While you've been doing solo missions, I've been training my squad to tap into greater feats of magic power. Not everybody can or should do it all on their own."
"You've been bringing out your squad's potential," Rika praised Shinji. "That's impressive. You'll go far in the Black Bull."
"What can I say? Ever since I joined the Black Bull, each member of the squad has impressed me…and they still do."
"In what way?" Yui asked.
"None of them are perfect. They're…ridiculous…crazy…weird…and probably have secrets that they don't want to divulge to even their closest friends…but I respect their flaws and find grace in their instability."
But Yui… She couldn't understand this at all. Her son fitting in with people that were flawed…and she couldn't understand how he was able to when she couldn't connect with anyone within the Golden Dawn. It was like he was able to adapt too well to this foreign place that, once upon a time, was nothing more than a ridiculous fairytale her mother and brother couldn't stop spinning to them.
"You see the best in people, Shinji," Suki praised her nephew. "You see in them what others either can't see or don't want to see."
"What about you, Grandmother?" Shinji then asked Rika. "Anything else you've done over the months we've been away?"
"Oh, I've been…" Rika started, but was unsure of what exactly to say to her grandson, but decided to keep it simple. "I recently started to attend appointments at the Magic Parliament, expressing my opinions among the other members of the nobility that don't see the law as clearly as they should."
"The Magic Parliament?" Tenshi spoke up. "I thought you weren't going to get involved in that due to their politics being too biased to consider the impartiality of justice."
"The fact that I can be impartial is why I was asked by the current Wizard King himself to get involved in the Magic Parliament; my unprejudiced views and inability to succumb to pressure by the other members is what keeps the entire group from carrying out cruel and unusual punishments to people from lesser beginnings."
"You were asked to join the Magic Parliament…by the Wizard King himself?" Suki questioned. "That's incredible, Mother. And you get to keep the people in line by having your voice heard."
Yui hadn't read about the Magic Parliament yet, but would do so later on. If this group was some kind of political enforcement within the Clover Kingdom, the order to the Magic Knights' law, she would have to verse herself in what their powers were.
"Hey, Tenshi, how come you didn't join the Magic Parliament with Mother?" Suki asked their brother. "You also have an unbiased perception towards people being accused of something."
"Believe me when I say that listening to other members of this parliament make claims of how their way of life is being threatened by commoners is just an endless series of hearing the same bull that I've heard them say ever since I was ten." He expresses his opinion about the group. "Plus, if I did join and something happened while I was aiding the Golden Dawn, I'd be split between my priorities."
"Sometime after Gauche Adlai and his sister reclaimed their family fortune and home, he was asked to join the Magic Parliament," Shinji revealed. "He only joined on the condition that he'd be able to exact strict punishment on anyone that was involved in the murder of his and Marie's parents. It turns out that not everyone is quick to forgive if the reasons behind the crimes were more than simple greed."
"If someone from the here and now killed all of you because they wanted money or something else that we had, I'd wouldn't be as forgiving, either," Rika confessed.
"I believe you," Suki told her. "What about you, Shinji? Would you be like that if we got hurt by greedy people of the here and now?"
"Honestly…I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to any of you," Shinji told his aunt. "I don't think I'd recognize myself if I felt unforgiving towards others."
"Nothing wrong with honesty, Shinji," Tenshi told him. "Besides, vengeance warps people's perception and alters their way of thinking. Let it consume you…and it's a path you can't always return from and pretend that you didn't go down it."
"Where'd you learn that from?" Suki asked her brother.
"Personal experience and films that deal with topics of revenge and redemption."
"Is there anything you've learned that doesn't have a source in comics and films?" Yui questioned, just wanting to hear him say at least thing that isn't sourced from what he versed himself in over the years he had been forced to adapt and survive in a magic-less world.
"Everything has to be sourced from somewhere, Yui, even places that don't make sense."
Yui sighed and resumed eating her meal.
-x-
"I miss these dinners of ours, Shinji," Suki expressed as her nephew helped her into her room for the night. "I understand that we're Magic Knights and everything, but we had these periods of merriment before we took the oath to protect the people of the Clover Kingdom from any that would threaten to harm them."
"Yeah," he agreed with her, setting her down on the bed. "Personally, I want to think that it's because we're Magic Knights that we can enjoy these meals together."
"The small rewards are the best rewards."
"Yeah…exactly."
Shinji then vacated his aunt's room and walked down to his own.
"Small rewards, huh?" He heard Tenshi say to him down the hall.
"Yes," he answered him.
"It really depends upon the view of the person in question. Sometimes, a small reward isn't necessarily always small."
"What do you mean?"
"Sometimes…what is achieved or obtained…is more than what one usually underestimates it to be. Since you're still learning, it's okay if you don't know just yet. When I first used that sword spell, Katana of the Void, the same spell that's in your grimoire, I didn't think much of it at the time, that it was just a simple sword. Until I realized how powerful it could be when used against other forms of magic. People that think Anti Magic is next to useless underestimate its true power. Have you underestimated something in your possession before as of late, Shinji?"
"No…but I might be overestimating Guardian of the Void. I know he's strong, but I don't know how strong he truly is."
"He may not be all that different from a weapon or living creature that takes sanctuary within a grimoire; their true strength depends upon the strength of the mage's conviction. If your conviction is strong, then Guardian will be just as strong."
"Thank you. Good night."
Shinji then turned in for the night.
-x-
Yui had to own up to it, which wasn't something she wanted to do, but she couldn't see herself sharing a moment with her family so long as they were adjusted like this…and as long as they were in this world where magic was everything. Magic might've been their heritage (and for most of them, their legacy), but for her, it wasn't going to be anything more than a means to an end, which was to change the view of others. As she lay in her bed, she looked at her grimoire on her desk, locked up by an additional feature she had installed on it not too long ago: A simple book lock, after she learned that people from the past here could modify their books to be locked so that nobody could see what was hidden in them if they were used to hide small things. While dinner was filled with conversing, she couldn't understand Shinji, anymore. He had become…too adjusted to what was happening here…and maybe too convinced that he could have a life here.
Magic, she thought, mildly resentful of how her son found life here. People that use broomsticks and carpets to fly around, create golems or sentinels made of rock or water to fight or intimidate their enemies, families that come from money or have social statuses that are comparable to those that are related to kings and queens… This is nothing more than a fairytale made out of control. There is no comprehension, no one willing to question how anything can be without getting their hands dirty. This is a ridiculous way to live. People weren't meant to live like this…and yet they do. And yet, he chooses to live like this. I can't accept this. I will not accept this. To ensure a real future, the magic establishment must go down.
Meanwhile, within her grimoire, Harbinger had the same idea, but for a different reason; to elevate the balance within the universe, this was just another world that needed to be…cleansed. It was just another world that needed to have its present slate wiped clean.
How much longer? He wondered as he slumbered within the expanding pocket dimension that was his mistress' personal lab where she was creating these strange behemoths that were no bigger than humans right now. How much longer…until we can pick up where we left off?
-x-
In the night, in the darkness, Shinji found himself face-to-face with none other than Guardian, who looked bothered by something.
"Guardian?" He asked him. "What is it?"
"I don't know," the beast responded, looking around the forest-like setting. "Something has happened, but I don't know what or why yet."
A path in the forest lit up in front of them, leading towards something from afar. They followed the path and stood in front of a large castle that was unlike any Shinji had seen in stories or films. It was about the size of a Japanese castle, but was made of metal and glass, somewhat modern to a degree like the buildings of Japan, but there was something off about the entire structure. It was as though the place was a recent build, but it lacked something to give it a sense of positivity.
"What is this place?" Shinji questioned.
"A forgotten relic," Guardian told him. "A building that could've been, but isn't due to factors beyond the usual sense needed to create."
"It looks like something that could've existed in Tokyo-3, but…it's not very welcoming to me."
"Not every building in the Void is welcoming to anyone."
They turned away from the building and left.
"Is there any sort of creature here that I should be concerned about?" Shinji asked Guardian.
"There are creatures of the elemental magic powers, beings that embody Bone Magic, Eye Magic, Steel Magic, Spatial Magic, even forms of magic that people don't have any memory of, like Gold Magic or Ceramic Magic. There's also…my nemesis."
"Your…your nemesis?"
Guardian looked at him and sighed. He had been around for a long time and has had to ensure order within the Void with every individual magic creature that was a resident due to their negativity or behaviors toward others that got them where they are. But the one reason he was who and what he was in the Void was also the very reason he had to make sure the dark powers that were remained in check to protect the innocent. This included an age-old enemy he had the longest history with.
"He's called Harbinger," he revealed to Shinji. "The Harbinger of Death and Destruction. Of every person I've had to contend with, he is the only one that has absolutely no trace of redeeming qualities within him. He's a black hole that threatens to swallow up everything and everyone around him. We go back a long time, back to before the ancestors of humans crawled from the primordial waters and began to evolve into the first primates. Wherever there is light, he brings darkness. Wherever there is life and prosperity, he brings death and ruination. He is the chaos to the order…and has to be locked away for all time."
"He's like a demon, then? The Void is his prison."
"He's not a demon. He isn't affiliated with any creature of the underworld…but he is worse than the demons that have names synonymous with every act of cruelty there's a name for. Nobody is for certain what he is, only that he has tried to bring about the end of all things mortal and finite."
Shinji felt like he needed to ask him more, but refrained from doing so; if Harbinger was locked away in the Void, then he wasn't a threat to the world they lived in. If Harbinger was trapped within this realm that Guardian kept watch over, then…as much as he actually hated the latter part of the slogan he had to look at back in Tokyo-3, all was right with the world. Because Guardian was here, still protecting the people from creatures that were either dangerous or couldn't be allowed to roam free like before.
"You keep the monsters away, Guardian," he told the Anti Magic creature. "You take the darkness from the night."
"Much appreciated, Shinji," Guardian replied.
-x-
"…So," went Mimosa to Tenshi as he and Yui returned to the Golden Dawn Headquarters, "how was your family dinner date?"
"It was…quite the get-together," he expressed to the young woman. "It turns out that individually, we all had something to share."
Mimosa then looked down the hall at Yui as she turned a corner.
"What about Yui?" She had to ask?
"She's another story altogether, keeping to herself. She didn't have much to talk about, even when we wanted to hear more about her days. It's like she's purposely trying to be boring and overlooked because she can't bring herself to admit that she's in need of a friend in this world."
"If…if she needs a friend, why can't she just admit it?"
Tenshi sighed again and uttered, "I don't know why she can't own up to it. But if she doesn't, then her life here will be an empty one. A life without any number of people to talk to or lean on…is one of the most miserable of lives for anyone to live."
-x-
Slip! Shinji had jammed his sword into the ground in front of Asta, Noelle and Gordon, panting as he caught his breath during another practice battle against them.
"You're getting stronger, Noelle!" He yelled at her. "Gordon, your poison spell stung my nose! And Asta…you could probably throw a boulder if you wanted to!"
Suki, watching from the sidelines with Vanessa, Grey and Charmy, was impressed that Shinji was also getting stronger in the session with their squad mates. Her nephew was bound to get better than he had been on the previous mission they had taken. If they all gave it their all, they could probably achieve the rank of Grand Magic Knight in due time, and that was the class just under the mantle of the Wizard King himself.
"I take it your family dinner date last night was fine?" Vanessa asked her as they watched Noelle use her latest spell, Valkyrie Dress, to attack Shinji with her attack spell, Sea Dragon's Roar, managing to put him on the defensive with Guardian of the Void.
"In a way, it was," she answered her, "but in another way…it wasn't. My sister barely said anything about her involvement as a Magic Knight."
"And that's bad?" Grey questioned.
"She isn't very…talkative. At least not with us. If she's in touch with someone to talk to, it's probably someone that can relate with her."
"How can anyone relate with your sister?" Charmy wanted to know, just as Shinji was now getting back into the offensive against Noelle, now using a strange form of magic called Armor Magic, wearing a suit of black armor with a wolf theme. "Isn't she supposed to be some kind of…witch?"
"It's not that kind of witchcraft you're asking of, Charmy. Yui is more into science and technology, not witchcraft and wizardry, which is the culture and history of this place. If you call what you understand as magic, she will try to prove that it is just a form of science that has been around for a long time. But to do that is akin to…taking the fun out of what we do for fun."
"That's awful," Grey admitted. "If I was ever told that my form of magic was just some kind of…science, I'd feel angry."
"It's only in some places that magic would be called science, but not here. What's more, that's just how Yui is; what she thinks and feels isn't reflected or carried by the rest of us. Science and technology, it's all Yui understands and has spent most of her life following. I believe in magic, in the impossible and unbelievable, and while I do enjoy simple pieces of science and technology, things that help people get through the days, like wheelchairs, hearing aids, radios, television, scooters and trains, not everything can be embraced completely by a race of people that have never been exposed to such things."
"I don't think I could get into anything like that," Charmy expressed.
"I wouldn't expect any of you to. Stay in your comfort zone and expand upon it however you choose. Nobody should be made to convert to one form of history if they can't accept it for themselves or draw any measure of passion upon it. I'm only halfway into what is the norm of this place. I'm not an elitist person or someone that believes that the royals and nobles are more important than commoners when I lived among commoners for decades. I'm all for one and one for all, meaning everyone matters and nobody, not even a peasant overlooked by the nobility, is cast aside."
"Seems like you and Shinji think alike," Vanessa told her, noticing that Guardian had sprouted large wings and took flight with Shinji, who had grabbed onto his tail. "It looks like every time he's up against something he's unfamiliar with, he taps into something just as unfamiliar because it's been forgotten about for so long."
"Yeah," Suki agreed with her. "I should've asked my mother how many types of magic existed back before we had to leave when I was born."
"There are probably more forms of magic than what exists in the Clover Kingdom."
Then, Shinji let go of Guardian and dove towards the ground.
"Earth Slash Magic," he called out a new spell, "Stone Guillotine's Execution!"
He struck the ground and caused a tremor to occur, making Asta, Noelle and Gordon fall and become trapped in large guillotines made of stone.
"And that…ends the battle in my favor," Shinji expressed, out of breath, and his armor evaporated off his body, leaving him in his regular clothes as Guardian touched down behind him. "Anyone got cut in those?"
"I think you cut my legs in here!" Noelle yelled.
"I can't feel my hands in here!" Gordon expressed.
"Gaaurgh!" Asta gurgled, looking like something was wrong.
The spell evaporated, revealing that Noelle got minor cuts on her legs, Gordon had two holes in his hands, and Asta had a large hole in his abdomen.
"Ah, crud," Shinji groaned, looking in his grimoire for a Healing Magic spell. "Okay, okay… Blood Healing Magic: Clot the Wound."
The three glowed red as their blood acted up and closed their wounds. It was about a minute or so, but then their wounds disappeared.
"No offense, Shinji," went Asta, "but that spell…hurt."
"Yeah, I figured when you got the worst of it," he responded. "But it seems to take a lot to actually hurt you. I've noticed how certain spells don't seem to affect you like they would other mages. Just how durable are you?"
"I've been like this ever since I was little, always training to be able to do magic. Not everyone is committed like I was back when I was wanting to get my grimoire."
"And again, not everyone except for my grandmother and uncle were even versed in the fact that Anti Magic was a form of magic that could cancel out other forms of magic, believing that it was just something unusual."
It was only a subtle reminder to Asta that, while his Anti Magic was a rare attribute, he did possess actual magic, and that it was because of his conviction and unwillingness to give up, he would become stronger, able to do greater feats of Anti Magic.
"Say, Guardian, are you capable of other feats of Anti Magic, as well?" Asta asked the creature.
"Sorry, but that's a question that'll remain unanswered until every one of you is stronger than you are right now," Guardian expressed, being mysterious. "But one day…you will see. One day…you shall see the total power of Anti Magic…and you may one day harness that same power, Asta of the Black Clover."
"Alright, who's next?" Suki asked as she and the other ladies came closer. "Who else wants to train with Shinji?"
-x-
Rika grabbed her broomstick and set out to explore the Clover Kingdom again. What she didn't share with her family last night was that she was looking for remedies to free the first Wizard King from his suspended state atop the demon skull in Hage. So far, she had found a few, but she wanted to find other methods that could work, as well. There were the magic stones of the Elf Tribe, but she would've needed to find most of them, and the Eye of the Midnight Sun was after them, too, so they weren't so much of an option as they were a target, meaning she would have to depend on whatever other methods she could find.
"Where there's a will to find a solution, there's a way to achieve the solution," she told herself, seeing Sister Lily flying on her broomstick.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Ikari!" She greeted the matriarch.
"Good afternoon, Sister Lily!" Rika greeted back, and mounted her broom, taking to the sky.
She decided to head to the neutral zone between here and the Spade Kingdom where a Grand Magic Zone resided. Once she got there, she would channel a large portion of the magic there into herself to use as a foundation for reviving Lemiel from his statue state. If she was to encounter a mage from Spade, she would deal with them as best she could without lethality.
Grand Magic Zones always have plenty of magic to spare to mages that know how to use it, she thought as she flew faster.
-x-
Defeated…again. He was used to this by now, but this new defeat was unlike the previous one from last year. Even without his grimoire, Rades Spirito had a degree of mana within him that was unheard of in commoners, but even that didn't give him an edge against Shinji Ikari, the young man that was now in charge of every one of his actions or inactions.
"Mister Spirito," he heard Shinji say to him as he got up again, "are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he answered him. "You're stronger than I had expected you to be."
"Practice makes perfect…or at least it makes one able to do more than what they thought they could do. But you're getting better, too. Your basic skills with your Soul Corpse Magic can be expanded upon."
"How can you be so certain of that?" Rades wanted to know.
"I had to do a background check on you after I was informed I would be supervising you," Shinji explained. "Your Soul Corpse Magic can affect people temporary, but in the way that it affects them is based on your emotions; when you get angry, you turn people into zombies until you stop feeling angry, and when you're happy, your victims become tame and start to regain control of themselves. Even the people originally believed to have been killed by you were found later in varying states of recuperation. This form of magic is only permanent on people that have been dead for a long time, so when you need to create actual corpses, you just use the soil or stones around you, since animated corpses and golems made of dirt or rocks aren't too different from each other. And your mana reserves play a greater role in your magic, too. The deeper your reserves are, the greater feats of magic you can perform. Maybe one day, you'll even be able to revive the dead completely."
This was the first time Rades had ever been suggested to one day be able to perform such a level of magic.
"You…really believe that?" He asked Shinji.
"Yeah," he answered back. "It's a possibility, but since you're the only mage with such an attribute, only time and practice will tell. People don't know what they're truly capable of…unless they keep testing their limitations and finding ways to get around them."
Behind Shinji, Rades could see Guardian nodding his head in support of Shinji's belief that he may one day be able to bring people back to life fully, but only if he put in the effort.
"Have you learned anything from seeing them interact with each other?" Guardian heard Yami ask him from behind a tree; he wanted to know exactly what was going with Rades Spirito.
"Other than Spirito trusting and respecting Shinji," he told him, "he wants to prove his worth, that he's capable of change and redemption. If any can't see past his previous actions from when he was affiliated with the Eye of the Midnight Sun, which only stemmed from his condemnation by the Purple Orca squad of the Magic Knights, he will always be looked down upon with suspicion by those waiting for him to do something that can be misinterpreted as a form of treason. But Shinji is willing to put his faith in Spirito being able to redeem himself."
"Have you seen anything to indicate that he is capable of change?"
"He hasn't crossed any moral or ethical lines if that's where you're going. All he seeks is to prove his worth to the Magic Knights once more. The previous squad he was affiliated with couldn't see his value. Who better than the Black Bull to help him on his road to better days?"
"He's still Ikari's responsibility if he goes rogue again."
"Except he won't go rogue. Not unless he's suspected by people that can't let go of his previous actions and believe him capable of atonement. What is it that you tell your squad of chaotic and unpredictable individuals? 'Push past your limits'? Put your faith in Shinji's ability to prove that Spirito can atone for his past crimes…and you will see."
Yami then looked at Shinji continue to spar with Rades, noticing that while the boy was going easy on him, he wasn't exactly letting up, either with his spells, improving the mage's endurance since he didn't have his grimoire to use against anyone, something he had noticed back when Shinji was trying out for the Magic Knights and Rades had surrendered his grimoire to him.
"Whatever happened to his grimoire?" He asked Guardian.
"Safely hidden away," he revealed, "until the day comes when it's needed once again."
To be continued…
A/N: I hope that by the time I get to work on the next chapter, there will be problems that weren't anticipated upon. But I'd like to know what everyone's opinion is on the members of the Ikari family.