I have a lot of explaining to do but I will mention them at the end of this chapter. Hope you guys enjoy.
*Same disclaimer as before*
It is now morning the next day as the students are just walking to the path of the main buildings for their classes with Shiro not too far behind. He was looking back to see where Hitoshi was and continued moving. A few seconds later, Hitoshi appears within the sea of people and walked next to his best friend while glaring at him. With a confused look, Shiro spoke to his friend. "Hitoshi what's wrong?" "Dude you did not wait for me at all. I mean really you could have just waited for at least a few more minutes. What was the rush?" spoke Hitoshi as he pointed at Shiro who was rubbing the back of his head nervously and closed his eyes.
"Sorry sorry. I thought that you were going to make it to class on your own. But I am sorry. I will wait next time." The other man could only glare at his friend, sighs and instead has his hands in his pockets to continue moving at a brisk pace with the students to enter the buildings. Now in the classroom, the two men along with the students walk to find their seats. However as Shiro and Hitoshi were walking to their desks Nanoha and Fate were already sitting on their desks waiting and talking to pass the time.
Nanoha spoke to Fate with her hand on her cheek. "Man who would have thought waiting for the professor would take so long? I am getting a bit bored here Fate." "Well all we can do is wait so be patient. Just take your time." replied the blond with a bright smile leaving Nanoha to sigh.
The two men proceed to walk pass the two women. Then the auburn haired woman smirks while Fate does the same as she spoke to Shiro but with a different method.
'Shiro we need to talk.' The very act caused Shiro to turn around and try to see where did the voice come from. "What was that? Who the hell was that? I know that was Nanoha's voice. But wait this happened before when they fought that robot." whispered the baffled young man still at a lost. Meanwhile Hitoshi just glanced at Shiro, turned around and asked his friend with a blank face. "You forgot something? Because you are spinning around like crazy." "Nope not a thing at all Hitoshi. Just thought I missed something that's all. False alarm." replied Shiro shaking his head with a nervous grin.
Hitoshi continued to stare at Shiro again but gave up and smiled back. "Fine. As long as it was something minor. Well I am going to sit on my desk. Don't stand too long or the professor will chew you out ok?"
Shiro just briefly nods at Hitoshi walked away while Fate spoke to him using telepathy as well. 'I am very sorry about this Shiro. This is the only way we can discuss about your training without raising suspicion. I hope you understand.' The young man just looks back and forth and was about to yell but covered his mouth and instead whispered softly.
"Ok then apart from freaking me out with the telepathy, what do you want to talk to me about for my training?" 'Well we will go to further your barrier training from the other day by one more level. It will be a bit more active then the first part yesterday. Don't forget to be at the training spot after your class ok?' told Nanoha with a small smile leaving Shiro to nod and walk to his desk with his head down, lightly touching Gaia on his arm.
During class, everyone was listening intently at the professor with some just sitting taking notes and others just asking questions. As this was going on, Hitoshi decided to take a brief look at Shiro and all he saw was him focusing on the board and taking notes. He sighed a heavy sigh and looked back on the board feeling a bit happy that his friend is fine at least in his eyes.
A few hours passed and Shirowas walking to the forest to began his training session with Nanoha just like before. He moved his arm to look at Gaia who not 'turned on' ever since they first met after the fight against the drone. While moving, Shiro asked one question. "Gaia talk to me. You talked to me once before but why not now?" However his device in question did not reply back causing the young man to sigh and walked deeper into the forest.
As he reached his destination, Nanoha and Fate were there as per usual only this time, Nanoha was in her barrier jacket already and Fate lightly waves. Shiro starts to walk to them, wondering what was the next step in training from today. Nanoha summons her familiar pink balls as Fate looks around the area to see if anyone else was there but shook her head. The brunette now stares at Shiro and began talking. "Great you are here on time as always. So about the training for today like I said before, we will further your barrier training only this time with a twist. That twist is you need move around, dodging my shots like yesterday but I want you to create that barrier like before." Shiro was nodding in agreement, getting himself prepared for the act. However before that he immediately stared at Nanoha and Fate to ask.
"Wait just a minute so you are telling me that I have to move around while maintaining a Shield?"
The only response he got from the two was a nod making the man to shake a fair amount and rub his left arm. "Uhh not to sound rude or anything but doesn't this feel a bit too unlikely? I mean making a barrier is already hard for me but doing that while moving around. I don't think..." Just before he was about to continue, Nanoha claps her hands to get his attention and Shiro looks up at her. He sees her with a smile like before only now the smile was very different.
"Shiro we know that this is hard but it is due to time and time is something we don't have. We just need you to prepare yourself for what will happen later on if you get into a fight. Understand? So just take a deep breath." She still smiles at Shiro who instead of shaking, moves his hand to his heart and softly blew some air out and stares at Nanoha with a new look of determination. "Ok I will try. So come at me Nanoha."
'He seems a bit more calm now doesn't he Nanoha?' spoke Fate while glancing at the two as Nanoha is about to start. 'Yes he does but it will matter if he can remember what he did yesterday and try to apply that with movement.' told the instructor as she sends the balls directly at Shiro, officially starting the training.
Shiro began to run at the balls and raises his hands to make a shield like before only there was a problem. "Huh my shield won't come out? But why?" As he said this, the balls all came at the young man and much like his first day, he guards his body from the incoming blasts and he takes the full wave. Once the blasts were gone, Shiro was on one knee, trying his hardest to remember what went wrong. However, Nanoha would not let up as she creates more spheres and launched them back at Shiro who did not see them in time. In a panic, he jumps up and tries to dodge the spheres left and right but tries to use his hands again and in the process of doing so, he closes his eyes. Nanoha saw this act and yells "Shiro don't close your eyes. Just take a deep breath, relax and focus." "I am trying. I am trying!" yelling back the an at the instructor as without knowing his hands glowed green and he stares at the spheres heading towards and he moves away from the spheres. When one was in front of him, he moves his hands in front of him to block it and as the others came at him Shiro twists his arms to block as many of the shots as he could all while moving and trying to be careful of his surroundings in the forest.
While this was happening, the two mages were observing the training at that point and were impressed with Fate being in awe that Shiro is still going despite what happened earlier and Nanoha saying to herself. "He is doing ok but he just needs one more push." Then she summons even more spheres then before and points them at Shiro who was still dodging the shots and guarding them while still on the move. Shiro pants and pants with each step as he looks at Nanoha until more spheres show up on the horizon forcing him to groan and whisper. "Oh man not more of them. How many of them does this make? 10 maybe even 20?" But then he turns to see Nanoha and Fate on the other side of the training area and he felt something ignite in his heart as now he looks directly at the two and spoke.
"Come on Shiro you are almost there. Keep going, don't let Nanoha down. Not after all of this training. Come on!"
Now with determination in his heart, Shiro rushes at the barrage of spheres and dodges along with blocking them each with a beat of his feet. Each time a sphere would appear, he moves to the left or right depending on the direction of the sphere and if a sphere was in front of him, Shiro lifts his hands to block the spheres and move on with the rest. The cycle was repeated over and over as each sphere was slowly disappearing as the session went on and slowly but surely, all that was left was Shiro still moving but very barely as he was getting very tired. Once the last sphere was coming at Shiro, he took a step back, moved away and while the sphere was about to turn and hit Shiro, he made his shield appear and blocked the attack which blew up a bit in front of him. The dust clears and Shiro is standing with his hands out as then he puts them down and falls on the ground, completely tired and drained of the rest of his energy.
Nanoha then changes back and walks with Fate to Shiro's resting spot. When they got there, his arms are spread apart and eyes were closed shut. Nanoha smiled a bit as she kneed next to him. "He really did try his hardest."
"I would agree especially since you did not let up at all. You were really ruthless this time Nanoha. You just kept on summoning more spheres and sending them at him." spoke Fate while looking at the brunette.
Nanoha only smiled back and spoke with a calm tone. "Well like I told him, time is not on our side and we can't have him learn everything bit by bit. He needs to be prepared for any battle ahead. At least that is what I believe given his potential. Right Fate?" In response, Fate spoke while staring at Shiro. "Right. He needs to be prepared now that Gaia belongs to him. In any case..." Just as she was about to say more, Shiro slowly gets up and sat down rubbing his arm. "Oww. My arms and legs feel like butter. Man this training is only going to be harder right?"
"Yep. It will so like always be ready for it Shiro." replied Fate making Shiro sigh and Nanoha laughs. "But I do have good news for you Shiro." The young man looked at Nanoha as she says this to him. "Well do you feel any different in you body at all. Like anything?" Shiro moves his hands a bit at his face to see any difference in himself and found nothing apart from one thing. He looks back at Nanoha and Fate and responds in kind. "Well nothing big except now I feel something deep in my heart or something like it's waking up. It is small, very small but I can feel it. Almost like an alarm clock in my heart was waking up. Although I don't what it is."
"That is your mana coming from your linker core. You are slowly getting your magic Shiro thanks to Nanoha's training. It is small now but you can master it with practice. So just keep going at it." spoke Fate with a smile as Shiro looks down and smiles a bit. However, Nanoha smirks and said "However Shiro don't be so happy yet. I will keep training you until you get even stronger then this. We will keep going but for now, you are getting there." With that, Shiro lies on the ground very happy to have completed the training until the brunette said something else,
"However I want you to do something for me." Shiro turns his head to Nanoha's direction as he asks. "What is it?" "Oh I just want you to do the same thing we did today but on your own. Now that your mana is slowly awake as it is, I want you to practice control on it with the shield. Just to get a better feel for it. Do you think you can do a small practice like that? Not anything too dangerous ok?" She says this while staring at Shiro who bopped his head a little bit and closed his eyes. As the young man relaxed his entire body, Nanoha then smiled to ask her new student somethings.
"So Shiro did you have any more questions?" Shiro, still closing his eyes spoke up a bit. "Well...how come Gaia has not spoken anything to me after a few days during the first battle? I tried talking to it today but it would not respond back like last time. Am I doing something wrong?" Nanoha and Fate just looked at each other and had an idea of what was wrong. Due to the fact that Shiro's linker core was not fully awake until that one battle and he never was fully aware of magic after the fight, it would make sense that Gaia would not respond. However this time it should and the two women nodded at each other and returned their attention to Shiro. "Shiro why don't you try talking to Gaia now?" spoke Nanoha leaving Shiro to shrug and stare at his arm which housed his device. "Gaia can you hear me? If you can, say something." The young man, along with the two women were waiting with bathed breath, wondering what would happen now. Within a few seconds, the jewel glowed and spoke.
'Hello my Lord.'
Shiro was smiling and jumping for joy. He then decides to ask. "You can talk to me. Great! Now I have a question well a few I would like to ask you. First why didn't you talk to me at all?"
'My Lord, your mana levels as well as your linker core levels were too low making it impossible to communicate with you. Waited until levels were satisfactory.' replied the device allowing Shiro to get an ok understanding but was still confused. "Now that you can talk, you will help me a bit right?" 'We will learn together my Lord.' inquired the device leaving Shiro to stand up and grin a bit.
Walking to Nanoha, Fate then told the young man. "So does that answer your question Shiro? Or do you have another question?" Remembering that he had another question lined up, he slapped his forehead and laughed a bit. "Right right I did. So about that whole talking through my mind thing. How do you do that?" "Oh using telepathy. That should not take too long to teach. First off, now that Gaia is active I want you to close your eyes and focus your mind." told Nanoha, closing her eyes as an example. Shiro followed suit and closed his eyes to try and concentrate while Fate does the same. A few seconds pass as Shiro still tries to focus his mind on making a connection with Nanoha and Fate. "Come on Shiro. Come on." whispers the man as he kept going as he grabs his hands and think. Within a minute, he hears a voice from deep inside his head. 'Shiro can you hear me?' Shiro is started but continued to focus on the voice.
'Yeah I can hear you right now. Loud and clear...Uhh Nanoha is it?'
'Wrong Shiro. This is Fate but you are hearing someone meaning you are getting the grasp of it.' spoke Fate with a laugh letting Nanoha to continue onward.
'We use this to speak in secret to relay orders, discuss plans or what Fate and I did in class today with you.' 'However, we can only do this with our devices by us, so as long as you have Gaia with you, you can relay something to us and we will come over right away or as fast as we can. Does that make sense?' Fate finished with what she said as Nanoha asked the young man. 'Well Shiro?' 'Yeah it does. So if it is for something very important, we will talk like this in secret?'
The two women nodded leaving Shiro to nod back, fully understanding the use of telepathy. Nanoha, Fate and Shiro each opened their eyes as the instructor clapped her hands to get Shiro's attention. On impulse, he stood up and waited to hear what his teacher wanted to say. With a serious look on her face, Nanoha cleared her throat and began to speak. "Now that you are relaxed with your mana and your linker core, tomorrow we will extend your training to use your device. I will go into more details but for now, keep it in mind. Next we will go very deep into your training, much deeper then ever once you learn more about your device. Finally I wish for you to practice your shield training a bit more on your own. Do you understand Shiro?" "Yes Ma'am!" responded the man with a salute, in an stone like stance.
Nanoha sighs and smiles at Shiro to respond in kind by walking to him and patting his left shoulder. "Ok with that Shiro, you are dismissed so just go back to the dorms and relax. We have a big day tomorrow so be prepared." And with that, Shiro waved good bye to Nanoha and Fate who waved back in earnest and ran back to the boys dorm leaving the two girls alone. With the man gone, Nanoha turns to Fate and crosses her arms.
"So any luck on the remaining drones?"
"No. They have not come to attack at all apart from the first one. But it makes no sense. It is like they are waiting." Fate puts her finger on her chin and tried to think of something but sadly nothing else came up. Nanoha just looked at the nighttime sky above and spoke. "No word on anything about the base or even Ixia himself?" Fate could only shake her head leaving the brunette to sigh a bit. "All we can do is by on guard and wait. If Shiro does get attacked, my training should be enough to prepare him." Then Fate holds Nanoha's hand with a worried look on her face and spoke to the instructor. "Please be more careful Nanoha. Even when you are training someone, you might overexert yourself. I am asking you this because you do that a lot." The auburn haired woman cracks a smile at Fate. "I know I know. I promise I will be more careful. Although my training has never failed anyone so he will be fine. And I will be fine too." "Yes but you forget that he is a civilian who just became a mage, is being rushed into using magic and that you may be in danger. However, if anyone can help him use magic it's you." Nanoha rubs her nose with her finger and smiles as the two walk back to their dorm to further prepare for the rest of Shiro's training.
So yeah somethings happened over the past few weeks I was sick, my beta reader was busy and babysitting all ate up my time. But I am back and the reason why this is chapter 4 now instead of the other one is that chapter 4 is an update on if I am busy, if I will stop writing or things like that you know updates. Once I complete a chapter, I will replace the updated chapter with the real one but only if I am busy or caught up with something. Either way, I will see you guys next chapter and feel free to give me some help if you can.