"Woah!" Nagisa's body shot up when he opened his eyes and he was gasping for air. His head felt heavy and slightly dizzy when all the memory started to flush back into his brain.
- Ahh… right, I threw Kaede to the other side before falling down the cliff… Then how am I still…-
Nagisa held his left hand over his left eye as he slowly moved every part of his body separately, they were all intact. He then switched his attention to his surroundings, he was in a cave, that much was sure. He was also sitting on a pile of leaves while a small fire was burning a few meters away from him. Aside from that, the cave was completely empty.
- Someone brought me here… I wonder how long I've been out? –
Nagisa's thoughts were interrupted when a shadow of a person entered the cave and he quickly threw himself back onto the piles of leaves and closed his eyes leaving only a tiny slit open.
"Cut it out, kid. I know you're awake." A deep and slightly rusty voice echoed in Nagisa's ears, but he still forced himself to breathe evenly and to maintain his heartbeat.
"The idea is good, but your execution is terrible kid. Any person with a little bit of experience can see that you're faking it." The same voice sounded amused when it got closer. "Get up or I'm dropping a knife on your head." The voice got uncomfortably close when it started a countdown, "3… 2…"
Nagisa instantly snapped his eyes open and rolled to the side before the voice finished the countdown. But when he was laying on his back again, the knife he only caught a glimpse of before was still right in front of his forehead, "Ehhh…" Nagisa gulped silently while keeping his body completely still, a sweat drop rolled down his forehead.
"Not bad kid.", a man with back hair and dark blue eyes smirked down at him while dangling the knife above him with only two fingers holding it. "Good job on keeping yourself calm, the idea of pretending to still be unconscious and observe was good, but you haven't seen enough unconscious people to know how they breathe and you still lack the amount of self-control, while you did try to keep your breathing even and your body relaxed, you were still too nervous, just look, you're sweating."
"Why are you telling me this?" Nagisa asked slowly when the knife swung above his nose as his eyes warily followed the path of the knife before he saw the blue scale on the man's hand, "You're a dragon?"
"Just felt like it." The man shrugged and pulled his knife back, "You have potential kid, but you lack experience." The man smirked while getting back to the fire while putting a rabbit on a stick. "And yeah, I'm a water dragon just like you kid."
"What happened?" Nagisa asked warily after quickly getting back up and moving away from the man and the fire. If he hadn't been out for too long maybe he could still catch up with Kaede.
"I found you head-down in a river drowning and you've been out for a couple of days." The man said nonchalantly while putting the rabbit over the fire after skinning it.
"You're lying..." Nagisa shook his head and frowned as he stated calmly, "I'm still wearing the same clothes from before and they're not wet. My mana reserves are still exhausted, so my drop down the mountain can't be that long ago."
The man raised an eyebrow and eyed Nagisa a bit more interested this time, "Not bad. What else can you tell me?" The man asked while turning the rabbit and adding grounded herbs to it.
"I don't have a single scratch on me… so I'll assume I probably never landed. The cliff was about 600 meters deep, for you to have caught me mid-air, you've probably already been watching from before I started to fall. And you have to be a rather high ranked mage or combatant, otherwise, you wouldn't have made it. Of course, there's always the chance that you were just passing by underneath, saw me fall and caught me, but I highly doubt that." Nagisa guessed while running everything through his head, "And for you to actually catch me… I'd love to assume that you're just a nice person, but I'd rather say that you either know me or want something from me. But since I can't think of what a high-rank mage or combatant would want from me and considering that you're from my tribe I would guess that you know me."
"Heh… you grew up into quite an interesting kid, huh? I did catch you mid-air, and you've been out for about 4 hours." The man snickered slightly before looking at Nagisa with a rather complicated look in his eyes, "you're right, I know you. Or rather I knew your parents when your mother was pregnant with you."
"Hmm?" Nagisa eyed him suspiciously, obviously not taking his word for it. "That's odd… how come you never visited us then?" Nagisa questioned.
"Cheeky brat…" The man shook his head with a smirk, "You don' even know your parents."
"What are you talking about?" Nagisa was starting to believe him but continued to act, "They're probably looking for me right now!"
"I saw your mother die on the day you were born kid, just stop, it's better for both of us." The man spoke with a grieving tone while the look in his eyes darkened.
"…" Nagisa Just stared at him and didn't answer.
"… Aren't you a little bit too paranoid for your age? The glove on your left hand, the one covering the grey scale, I made that with your father." The man sighed when he realized that Nagisa wasn't going to talk.
"…" Nagisa still didn't talk but raised an eyebrow at him.
"Hehe… you're taking after your mother for sure." The man shook his head and continued, "Have you ever tried to take the glove off?"
Nagisa lightly shook his head while looking at his left hand.
"Wait seriously?" The man looked at him weirdly, "Never?"
"I was told not to." Nagisa answered in a deadpan while shrugging with his shoulders.
"And in all these 10 years you never got curious and tried to take it off?" The man asked raising his voice slightly for the first time.
"Well… what's the point? I can feel that there's another scale underneath, it's not like looking at it will give me any more answers." Nagisa shrugged again.
"Weird kid..." The man commented, "Well at least you're talking now, try to take your glove off." The man commanded.
"Why?" Nagisa asked.
"Because you won't be able to." The man deadpanned, "the glove is sealed, only those who are granted permission can use or take it off you, in short, your father and me."
"How long have you been watching me?" Nagisa pulled on his glove and it really wasn't coming off, when he tried it suddenly felt like it was connected to his skin! Nagisa finally sighed and dropped his façade.
"Every now and then since you were 5." The man answered while adding a few blocks of wood into the fire. "Your parents asked me to watch over you."
"Then why didn't you help me when I was caught?!" Nagisa's brain was starting to overload with new information and he had so many questions.
"I promised to watch over not babysit you kid." The man rolled his eyes while taking a sip from a flask he had on his belt, "I saved you when you were going to die, I consider my job done kid."
"What about the other girl?" Nagisa finally asked the question that was bugging him the most. He was ready to get back to the prison if Kaede got caught.
"Don't worry she got out." The man answered after taking another sip, "she's probably back in her tribe by now."
"So she made it." Nagisa had a complicated smile on his face. While he was glad and relieved that Kaede managed to escape, but it also meant that he probably won't see her again.
"Don't make that face, she got picked up by someone she knew." The man said, "She was begging him to look for you but he just forcefully took her with him."
"How do you know?" Nagisa asked. Hearing that still made him feel a lot better.
"I was eavesdropping." The man admitted with no sign of shame at all, "She seems to really like you."
"I guess." Nagisa sighed while putting this matter aside for now, he had more questions, "You said you saw my mother die? How did she die?".
"She was killed after forcefully giving birth to you 3 months early." The man sighed while taking a big gulp from his flask, "We were traveling in a group of three, your father, your mother, and me. Your parents were good friends of mine, best friends even. We were being hunted by a huge group of people for months already when it happened. It was getting hard for your mother to keep running with you getting bigger and bigger. On that day we were ambushed and were having a hard time to get away. Your mother knew that she wouldn't be able to escape anymore, she'd only drag us down with her. Maybe you've heard from your aunt, but your mother was an excellent mage and excelled in healing spells. So using almost all of her mana, she managed to give birth to you, created and cast a spell on you that would imitate a mother's womb to keep you alive for another 3 months until you have grown enough to be exposed to the outside world. She barely got a glimpse of you before we were found again. She handed you to your father before heading straight into our pursuers to buy us time to escape with the little amount of mana she had left."
"You're terrible at storytelling…" Nagisa grimaced, it was supposed to be quite an emotional story but the monotone way it was told just killed the mood.
"Well excuse me that I don't like to be reminded." The man groaned irritatedly while putting his flask back onto his belt.
"What about my father?"
"He left for revenge after being sure that you'd survive, leaving you with your aunt and asking me to watch over you. He's never been seen ever since…".
"..." Nagisa gulped while taking a deep breath to ease the pain he was feeling in his chest, he wasn't sure about his father, but his mother had loved him… even before he had been born. And even though he didn't really know her, it still hurt to hear about her death and everything she had done to keep him safe, even if the story was told in a rather cold way, "Sorry for bringing that up…"
"Your parents died and you're sorry for me?" The man asked while letting out a huff and raising an eyebrow.
"Well, I barely know them, you seemed to be really close to them for them to allow you to travel with them while my mother was pregnant. It's probably harder on you than it will ever be on me." Nagisa answered while pointing at his flask.
"He… now you're acting like your idiot of a father." The man laughed and shook his hand while ripping off a leg of the rabbit, "here you go kid, bet you haven't had a decent meal in a while."
"Thanks… so what do you want from me?" Nagisa asked while accepting the rabbit leg and biting into it.
"I thought your conclusion was either I knew you OR I wanted something from you?" The man wondered.
"You've watched me for years now and only interfered when you absolutely had, so I can safely assume that you either didn't want me to know of your existence or were trying not to interfere with my life." Nagisa explained while taking another bite of the meat, the flavor of an actually decently cooked meal was melting his mistreated tastebuds, "But now you've not only revealed yourself to me but also took the time to answer my questions and you are even feeding me right now. So something I did just now or before changed your mind or made you decide on something?"
"You're a fascinating kid you know that?" The man smiled and nodded, "You're mostly right, but I wasn't trying to hide my existence or trying to stay out of your life, I was waiting for you to be old enough." The man explained and Nagisa nodded after thinking about it. "But even though you're only 10, you're a lot more mature than I thought you were. You handled the information I just gave you fairly well and didn't instantly seek revenge like your father." The man complimented him.
"Don't misunderstand… I will try to avenge my parents and I will ask you to tell me who these people hunting you were, but I'll let you judge if I'm ready or not. Before that, I'd rather not know before I do something stupid…" Nagisa grit his teeth while finally showing some of his bottled-up anger he had been hiding.
"That's still good enough, you know your limits, unlike your father." The man nodded approvingly. "Here's the deal, I'm going to train you."
"In what?" Nagisa wondered.
"I'm going to train you as a combatant." The man offered.
"I'm already a mage, I was told doing both was a bad idea." Nagisa shook his head, he had taken quite a liking in magic ever since he had started so he was planning to stay as one instead of switching over to a combatant like he wanted to in the beginning.
"That's correct for most people, but you have that." The man said while grabbing Nagisa's left wrist and pulling off his glove with ease after a dark blue aura flashed out of it, "Do you know why your father and I made this glove to conceal it?"
"No, not really." Nagisa shook his head, "I never really thought about it this way." Nagisa admitted.
"Kid, that's the mark of a shadow dragon." The man told him in a serious tone, "There were only five noted in our history before you. And all of then changed the world in one way or another."
"What makes them so special?" Nagisa raised his eyebrow not really convinced, it sounded rather absurd really.
"There's always only one. For the next one to be born, the older one has to die first." The man continued.
"Ok… and how does that have anything to do with me being able to be a combatant?" Nagisa questioned still rather unimpressed. All that legend talk didn't really rile him up at the moment. Maybe he would find it fascinating if he hadn't just survived a 600-meter free fall, lost his little sister and was told how his parents had died within a few hours!
"Lame kid… do you know why it's not suggested to try to be both a mage and a combatant at the same time?" The man rolled his eyes and asked.
"Because people end up being mediocre in both." Nagisa gave the answer he had learned from Kaede.
"That's correct but do you know why?" The man asked and Nagisa shook his head.
"It's because no man or dragon can have more than one element." The man explained, "It might sound surprising, but even the aura of combatants need elements, the same ones that mages absorb to increase their mana. People end up only mediocre in both because they have to share the elements they absorb between their mana and aura pool, therefore, limiting the growth of both."
"I see, that makes sense." Nagisa nodded, that part finally made more sense to him. While Kaede was quite a good teacher, her knowledge was still being limited by her age.
"But you're different, you have TWO affinities. Shadow and water." The man told him. "And with a little work, you'll be able to absorb both elements at the same time. So you don't have to worry about sharing your element."
"There are no other people with two affinities?" Nagisa frowned and questioned.
"No, there are also exceptions, but they are extremely rare. That's why it's only suggested not to train yourself in both and not forbidden. But you're still a different case." The man answered. "So, what's your answer?"
"Can you also teach me magic?" Nagisa asked instead while nagging the last piece of meat from the rabbit leg before throwing it back into the fire.
"Unfortunately, no. But I assume you already know how to meditate. Just keep increasing your mana, we'll find a way after I've taught you all the basics of being a combatant."
"Alright, what do I call you?" Nagisa thought about it for a while and finally agreed.
"Hmm… I guess you can call me Kagero."
"One last thing… is there any way to tell that girl I was with that I'm still alive?" Nagisa hesitated for a second but decided to ask.
"I'm afraid no, I would deliver a message for you, but since she's probably already back in wind dragon territory and I'm from the water tribe, I won't be able to reach her without being taken down as an invader." Kagero shook his head.
"Kaede…" Nagisa muttered her name while letting out a silent sigh. "I hope she'll be fine…"
"She was a high-level stage 2 mage right?" Kagero asked just to be sure.
"Yeah, but she had suppressed her progress for more than half a year already." Nagisa answered with a weirdly proud smile on his face.
"Hmm? Don't worry kid, then I'm sure you'll meet her again." Kagero assured him.
"Why is that?" Nagisa wondered.
"If what you said is true, then she's a prodigy. People like her won't stay in their tribe forever, as long as she doesn't die too young, she'll make a name for herself." Kagero explained.
"I see… guess I'll have to work hard so I don't fall behind too much when I see her again. What kind of combatant do you want me to be, Shisho?" Nagisa asked with newly found determination and motivation.
"I'm a spear master so I'll teach you how to handle one. But I want you to find a second weapon." Kagero said
"Why?" Nagisa wondered.
"As a cover, lances aren't very popular so there aren't many spear users. But because of that, the moves of the few spear masters that exist are also known by quite a few. You don't want your mother's murderers to know of your connection with me before you're ready to face them."
"Hmm, do you have any suggestions?" Nagisa nodded in agreement before asking.
"I'd say we'll wait until we see what the first two Unique Skills of your other scale are." Kagero suggested.
"Understood, Shisho." Nagisa nodded after taking a deep breath, "When do we start?"
Time skip incoming in one or two chapters! And here's also my first important OC in this chapter Nagisa's teacher Kagero! How did you like the first look into Nagisa's background story? If you think it's rather shallow don't be too quick to judge yet, there's a lot more to it :D! But just like Nagisa, you guys will have to wait until he's ready for more details.
What do you think of this chapter? How did you like Kagero? Please tell me in the reviews :D I will have a lot of OC's in this story so I need all the feedback I can get!
And as always, thank you very much for your support and I'll see you in the next chapter ;)!