Chapter Twelve: At the Capital (Part 2)
Hey there readers, just want to let you know that the OC suggestion time has ended, it will open up again on December 1st, with that out of the way, enjoy the new chapter.
"An accident," the thought went through everyone's minds.
Kenos paused before continuing, he assumed the others present were shocked as well. "Yes, as I was growing up, the servants at my house have told me that my parents only planned to have two children, but one day, to my mother's surprise, she realized she was pregnant,"
"Surprised when she realized she was pregnant? How does that happen?" Zuka asked, clearly confused.
"Well, she wasn't-," Oxanna was about to reply due to her talkative reflexes, but Kenos turned around and glared at his sister nonchalantly, she met his glare and stopped talking.
The solar mage continued where she left off. "As she said, my mother, as well as the rest of my family, wasn't sure exactly how it happened, rumors began to quickly circulate among a few noble houses that my mother was in an affair with another man,"
Some of the people there slightly widened their eyes, they remembered a good few years back they overheard a rumor regarding the Rossiu house that had something to do with an affair, since the Rossiu family was such a prestigious house, they didn't pay it much mind, but could it be that they were true.
"No way, was your mother really in an affair?" Noelle asked.
Kenos shook his head, much to the relief of his squadmates and friends. "No, shortly after my birth, they had a mage who had DNA magic check us, and it was confirmed that I was their son, since they were still confused about what happened, they came to the consensus that they must have just forgotten to use protection one night, so my mysterious birth was labeled as an accident," he finished.
Everyone but his siblings were quite shocked at the revelation, Asta was the first to speak up. "That must be tough, but I understand, I don't really know much about my birth either. So is that the reason you've had a falling out, they don't really think of you as their brother?"
"It's not like that," Dante replied. "Not one day will pass when I doubt Kenos is my little brother, it was already proven that day by the mage, we may not see eye to eye, but he's still family,"
Noelle looked at them and bit her lip, she wished her siblings thought the same since they weren't on good terms either, Kenos might not see eye to eye with his brother and sister, but they could all acknowledge each other to the point where mutual respect existed among them.
"As for the reason for our falling out, his birth is by far the greatest reason, but there are others," Oxanna added. "Three in fact, the first one is his magical attribute,"
"His attribute?"
The phantom mage nodded. "As some of you may know right now, Kenos' magical attribute is Solar Magic, it's a very unique and synergistic attribute, but in fact, nobody in the Rossiu family possesses that attribute, or anything remotely similar,"
"What, wait?" Oliver butt in. "No one in your family has Solar Magic, or maybe even Light Magic?"
Dante shook his head. "When the family first learned of his attribute, we all assumed something was wrong with him, magic attributes are mostly hereditary, whatever attribute your parents had, you're bound to get either that attribute or some different form of it, but in the case of Kenos, he didn't get either," he finished. "Actually, after doing a long search 4 years after Kenos' birth, our family found out that no noble house in the kingdom had a mage who used Solar Magic,"
"Could it possibly be some kind of anomaly?" Shauna suggested. "Perhaps something unexpected happened that gave him that attribute?"
"We considered that possibility, and it makes the most sense out of everything else we discovered, it still confuses us, but we've come to live with it, there's nothing we can really do about it," Oxanna replied.
"So, what's the second reason?" Zuka asked.
"The second reason," Dante began, pointing at Kenos' satchel. "Is his grimoire,"
Noelle and Asta's eyes immediately tensed as they knew what he was referring to, the other mages there were seemingly in the dark. "What do you mean, what about his grimoire?" Klaus spoke up.
"Here, you can see for yourself," the solar mage replied as he slowly took his grimoire out, the others walked up and looked at its front cover, their eyes widened.
"What, your grimoire has five leaves?!" Zuka exclaimed. "We were teamed up in Rielzu for around two days, how did I not notice that,"
"The same with us," Mimosa added. "Kenos and I only met once at the banquet the Wizard King hosted for the Rossius and the Vermillions, he never showed his grimoire to me, and I didn't notice it in the dungeon either,"
"So, what exactly does the fifth leaf represent?" Oliver asked.
"Not sure, we know the meaning of the first three leaves most grimoires have, which are faith, hope, and love," Shauna replied.
Yuno stepped forward. "Then there's the fourth leaf, which represents good luck, like mine," he showed his grimoire to them.
"But what about the fifth leaf?" Dante asked aloud, grabbing everyone's attention. "What could it possibly mean, and what could it possibly contain? The Clover Kingdom has no record of it, it's a total mystery,"
Kenos couldn't help but agree with his brother, there was still much he didn't know about his grimoire, even Julius didn't have much info on it, he remembered the first day he got it, at a grimoire tower, as he saw others obtain their grimoires, one came up to him, nothing special happened and nobody else saw it, but when he took a hold of it, he felt something, something different, yet something extraordinary.
"I'll find out what it means, one day," he thought to himself.
"His grimoire is quite the mystery, but what about the last reason?" Asta asked.
"The last reason..., well, no offense to you, but the last reason is joining your squad, the Black Bulls," Oxanna replied.
"Joining our squad?" Noelle and Asta asked together.
"Yes, while we must respect Kenos' choice for joining the squad of his choice, this has undoubtedly tarnished the reputation of the Rossiu House, especially when there were two other squads who wanted him, each being led by royalty," the eldest daughter replied again.
"While it's no secret to Kenos that we wouldn't be too happy if he were to join one of our squads, the reputation of our family comes first before our own disagreements, Oxanna and I might not mind too much, but it's a different story when it comes to our mother and father," Dante said stoically.
"So, those are the reasons for what's going on between you?" Asta asked, the three siblings nodded.
"That's it, no offense, but those aren't really the greatest reasons," Zuka said.
"That's true, but it goes a little deeper than that," Kenos said back as he walked to her. "Humans are flawed, as such, there are things that we just can't understand, within all of us exists the resentment or fear of the things we fail to understand or grasp, in the case of my siblings, there's no difference,"
"So, you're practically saying…," Yuno began.
Kenos nodded, knowing what he was going to say. "Yes, the reason for our falling out resides in the fact that there are things about me that they just don't understand, the exact reason of my birth, the things that were given to me, and the choices I've made, they don't understand those things, so they have a resentment of it, as such, they have a resentment of me," he finished.
"Wow, I never thought that things could get complicated like that," Noelle said.
"Complicated, so what?" a voice asked aloud, Noelle turned, her eyes widening in fear as she saw the voice had come from one of her siblings, standing next to him were the other two.
Solid, Noelle's older brother continued speaking. "I honestly don't get it, and I honestly don't care either, you're all missing the point, Kenos is a talented mage, who cares about his attribute and grimoire and all that other crap, I'd rather have him for a younger sibling than my worthless little sister,"
Noelle looked obviously hurt from his comment, bringing a smile to his face. "Oh, I'm sorry, did I hurt little Noelle's feelings?" he asked sarcastically.
"That's enough Solid," she said back quietly, not having the confidence to yell.
"Does the useless little wench have something to say," Nebra, her older sister added to her torment. "Or are you going to get mad and blast me with water, wait, what am I talking about, it wouldn't even hit me if you tried, you can't control your magic,"
"I'm...I'm getting better at it," Noelle said back, once again lacking any confidence.
Kenos looked at his squadmate, he was initially surprised at how quick the attention shifted from him to her, but then he remembered something she told him while they were on the dungeon mission.
"But I'm royalty, having trouble controlling my magic must make me an embarrassment," she had told him.
"I told her that what she needed was time, practice, and encouragement, but it seems she only got 2 out of 3, she was never given the most important thing of the 3, encouragement from her siblings, her lack of magic control partially stems from her low self-esteem, and they seem to be directly responsible for it," the solar mage deduced in his head.
Nozel walked over to his little sister, glaring menacingly at her, she didn't even look his way. In his hand was a cup of water, he raised it over Noelle's head and poured it over her. "I don't know why you're here, and I really don't want to know, so get out, leave this place, go back to that pathetic little squad of yours,"
Dante and Oxanna watched the scene play out, and though no one noticed it, they silently gritted their teeth.
Noelle looked away as she slowly began walking, for her entire life, she had lived in fear of her older siblings, they would torment her, both physically and emotionally, she couldn't recall one nice thing they ever said about her, she didn't want to be near them. But as she moved a few inches from him, a hand grabbed her arm.
"Huh?" she muttered, turning to see Asta, a fierce look in his eyes.
"You don't have to go anywhere, stay right here," he told her before jumping onto a table, pointing at the Silvas. "You three are horrible siblings!" he then turned to Dante and Oxanna. "And you two need to accept Kenos, the five of you are older siblings, don't you care!"
"Asta," Kenos muttered.
"Despite their problem with Kenos, Dante and Oxanna are good people, but you three, apologize to Noelle right now, she isn't useless or pathetic, she's my friend!" Asta exclaimed.
The water mage's cheeks turned slightly rosy as her squadmate selflessly defended her.
Solid snickered. "What's this? A lowly commoner speaking like that to royalty? Just what makes you think we'd do what you say, you're below us?!"
"I might be below you, but just you wait, I'm going to pile up merit, through my results I'll get stronger and become the Wizard King, then I'll shut you up and-," he was saying before becoming quickly surrounded by a swirl of sand out of nowhere.
"Sand?" Klaus quietly wondered, he turned his head to see another Golden Dawn, he was tall and had green hair, his grimoire was out too, confirming the steel mage's suspicion. "Alecdora, what are you doing?"
The man called Alecdora didn't turn to face him, but his face had an annoyed expression. "Quieting the mice, a commoner like him can't be the Wizard King, in fact, he shouldn't even be allowed to utter the title, I'll put him down quickly with my Sand magic,"
"But sir, isn't that going too far?" Klaus asked with a reluctant tone for some reason.
"I don't remember asking for your opinion, I'm your superior, you are not to question me," Alecdora replied before hearing the sound of cutting, he turned and heard it coming from his spell, then suddenly, the sand dispersed and Asta was seen again, his large sword in hand.
"Don't interrupt me when I'm talking, I thought you nobles were supposed to have manners!" Asta exclaimed.
Alecdora sucked his teeth. "I guess he's the one, the Black Bull with the sword that can negate magic, this can be troublesome,"
"What the hell is going on?" Zuka asked, wondering why two Magic Knights were now fighting each other. "This was supposed to be a celebration right?"
Oliver and Shauna nodded. "This is what we call a noble acting like an idiot, right Oliver?" the illusion mage asked.
"Yup, I honestly can't believe I used to act like that towards Zuka, well at least I never got physical with my magic," the wood mage replied.
"I would've kicked your ass if you did," the sparkle mage muttered.
Solid smugly grinned. "It seems the famous Golden Dawn can't defeat a lowly commoner, I guess it's up to me," he said, taking out his grimoire. "I'm going to enjoy watching you squirm, Water Binding Magic: Sea Serpent's Coils!" he exclaimed as a snake made out of water appeared, its body moving towards Asta in a constricting motion.
As the watery spell approached him, he merely slashed at it, dispersing it immediately. "You better look again, because I'm not squirming!"
Solid gritted his teeth in frustration as Nebra walked up. "Okay, it's my turn, Mist Binding Magic: Mist Spider's Thread!" she exclaimed as a web made up of mist formed and raced towards Asta, hoping to succeed where the previous spell failed.
"If you think that that will stop me, think again!" the swordsman exclaimed as he slashed through the mist spell as well.
Nebra's face showed frustration as well, as for the other knights who had not joined in, they merely watched, and they were quite impressed with Asta, a commoner able to hold his own against two royals and a noble, such a thing was unheard of.
Alecdora sucked his teeth. "His strength lies in his sword, once I remove its usage, he's no threat, he'll stop any attack from the front, but what about from behind," he muttered. "Sand Creation Magic: Sand-Armored Guard!"
Hearing the declaration of the spell, Asta prepared himself for the spell to approach him, but to his surprise, he felt something strong grab him from behind, he saw that the spell restraining him was sand shaped like a suit of armor.
"Oh no, Asta!" Noelle exclaimed. Yuno and Kenos slowly began to take out their grimoires, just in case things got too far and Asta needed assistance.
Solid walked over to the sand mage. "Not bad, you managed to catch him after all, this commoner needs to learn his place," he raised his hand.
Noelle caught on to what he was doing. "Solid, please don't, you'll hurt him!"
"Shut up or I'm making you my next target," he turned around and threatened her.
"This isn't going to take me down," Asta muttered as he struggled and freed one hand, his grimoire coming to him as he pulled out his short sword.
Solid turned around to look at Asta. "Water Magic: Holy Water Bullet!" he exclaimed as a large bullet of water appeared and he launched it at him.
"Ah!" Asta exclaimed as he cut through the sand armor, causing it to disappear, but he wasn't able to react in time to the bullet quickly approaching him.
Yuno and Kenos took out their grimoires, ready to cast a spell, but stopped as a loud voice interrupted them, they turned and saw Dante, his grimoire out, it was gray and had a blue aura, with two pairs of swords crossing on the top and bottom, in the center was a three-leaf clover.
"That's enough, Steel Creation Magic: Thousand Knives!" he exclaimed as a multitude of steel knives appeared and zoomed towards the water bullet, each one hit, weakening the attack until it was nothing more than a puddle on the ground, unable to hurt anyone.
Solid was taken aback that his own squadmate stopped his attack. "Dante, what are you doing?!"
"He's not the only one you have to worry about," another voice said, he turned to see Oxanna, her grimoire out as well, it was teal with ghostly designs and was surrounded in a purple aura, in the center like most other grimoires lied the three-leaf clover. "Phantom Magic: Ghoul Chaser!" she exclaimed as a phantom appeared and slammed into the royal, sending him to the ground.
Yuno was impressed. "Even though Kenos and I were slowly taking out our grimoires to intercede as quickly as possible, those two were still able to react faster, they're no joke," he thought to himself.
"Thanks for that one, Dante, Oxanna," Asta thanked them.
"No problem," Dante replied stoically before turning to his fallen squadmate. "Solid, I don't know what problem do you honestly have with commoners, Asta is a guess, invited by the Wizard King, regardless of status, he is to be treated with respect, especially since he was right about you three, you are horrible siblings,"
"Huh?" the mage asked.
Oxanna was the one to reply this time, her face was serious. "You all treat your little sister like garbage for something so menial as magic control?! That's an easy problem to understand and solve, but instead of doing that, you make her feel bad, Dante and I might not see eye to eye with Kenos, but we'll never treat him like that," she explained at a surprisingly normal rate.
Solid grit his teeth. "We're royals, we're born strong, we don't ever need to worry about magic control, but she has to, she's a failure!"
"No, she isn't," Oxanna immediately responded. "All mages have the potential to be great, just because you're weak now, doesn't mean you'll be weak forever,"
"I must say Oxanna, I'm impressed, you managed to not blabber and actually took your time," Dante noted as Oxanna smiled and playfully stuck out her tongue.
"I won't let you get away with this," Solid muttered as he got up, but stopped as he felt a large wave of mana, everyone else felt it too before the sound of footsteps were heard, they all turned to see Nozel slowly walking towards them.
Asta was the only one who couldn't feel the overwhelming wave of mana, but that didn't stop a drop of sweat from falling down the side of his forehead. "I can't even detect magic, but this guy is giving me a bad feeling,"
"Dante," Nozel said, approaching him, the steel mage turned to face his captain, the two faces were equally stoic. "You called me a horrible sibling?"
"That's right sir," Dante replied, no fear was in his voice. "I respect you as my captain, but mistreating a younger sibling over that is unacceptable, as a captain, it's your responsibility to encourage and guide others, that goes double for your sister,"
"Don't think that just because you're a Rossiu, you can say whatever you want to me, I'm royalty, no matter how friendly your family is with the Wizard King, don't forget you're below me," Nozel fired back. "Just like with you and Kenos, my reasoning goes deeper,"
Dante raised a brow. "Deeper? How much deeper?"
A memory flashed in Nozel's head, it was of a woman sitting on a chair by a balcony, she had long silver hair and held her stomach, the captain's mind then returned to the present. "Deeper than you'll ever know," he replied as the large wave of mana vanished.
"I hope you're finally done," a voice said, everyone turned to see Fuegoleon walking forward. "While I understand exactly why some of you were fighting, we are all Magic Knights, we mustn't battle among each other,"
"My apologies Captain," Oxanna said, putting her grimoire in her satchel.
Fuegoleon walked over to her and ruffled her hair, she looked up to see a small smile on his face. "It's alright, just make sure it doesn't happen again,"
Asta breathed a sigh of relief. "It's finally over, I can get back to my food," he said, putting his swords away, but as he turned around he came face to face with a boy who was a bit taller than him, he had spiky ginger hair while the back of his hair was braided.
"Ah!" the swordsman exclaimed, backing up and tripping.
"Oh, my bad, didn't mean to scare you there," the boy said, extending his hand to help Asta up, he took the hand gratefully. "Just wanted to say that you were awesome, taking on three opponents,"
"Thanks, my name's Asta," he introduced himself.
"Good to know, I'm Leopold Vermillion," the boy said back.
"Vermillion? You're related to Mimosa?" Asta asked.
Leopold nodded. "Yeah, she's my cousin, and Captain Fuegoleon is my older brother,"
"Wow, that's your brother, you must be strong,"
"I am, but you are too, which makes you my rival," he said.
Asta was confused. "Huh?"
"Sorry Leo, but Asta already has a rival," Kenos said, walking over to them.
"Hey there Kenos, how have you been," Leopold greeted him.
"All good," he replied as they fist-bumped. "Asta's rival is over there, the tall Golden Dawn with the black hair,"
Leopold turned and looked at Yuno, inspecting him. "He looks pretty strong too, but you can never have too many rivals now, so what do you say, Asta?"
"Um, sure, I guess," the mage reluctantly replied.
"Awesome!" he exclaimed.
The tense atmosphere had finally died down, though some people were scarred emotionally or mentally, there was no more fighting, everyone was going back to enjoying the banquet, Kenos was especially happy that no more problems were to appear for the remainder of the day.
Or so he thought.
The door suddenly burst open and a cloaked capital mage ran inside, he bowed down on the ground. "Wizard King!"
Fuegoleon was the first to react. "The Wizard King isn't here, what's the emergency?" he asked.
"The capital…," he began, stopping midway to catch his breath. "The capital is under attack!"
The eyes of every single person in that room tensed.
"The capital is under attack, by whom?" the vermillion-haired captain asked once more.
"Not by who, by what, we're being attacked by zombies!" the mage replied.
"Zombies, you mean dead corpses being reanimated?" Kenos wondered aloud. "That sounds like some type of magic,"
"Then what are we waiting for, let's get out there," Asta said.
"Just wait a moment boy," Charlotte said, the female captain of the Blue Rose Knights walked up. "We need to know exactly where these zombies are,"
"I can help with that," a Golden Dawn said, stepping forward.
"Ah, Siren, you can use your magic to locate them, correct?" Klaus asked.
Siren nodded. "Yes, Stone Creation Magic: Stone Model of the World," he said as a stone formation manifested, it was in the shape of the entire capital.
"Wow, impressive," Kenos said. "So we can see what's happening outside on this spell?"
"That's right," Siren nodded before he pointed to five fires on the stone model. "Those places appear to be where most destruction has happened, the north, south, east and west parts of the capital, as for the fifth one, it's not too far from us,"
"Okay, we know where the problems are, everybody split up into one of those sections, the safety of the people are our top priority," Fuegoleon said.
"Yes!" they all exclaimed as they ran out of the hall, bursting outside, they were taken aback by all the smoke and chaos.
"I'm going this way!" Asta exclaimed, running in a direction.
"Asta, wait!" Kenos exclaimed, about to run after him, but was stopped by a horde of zombies. "Damn it, Solar Creation Magic: Solar Construct - Twin Gauntlets!" he exclaimed as the gauntlets materialized, he then went loose on every zombie in his way.
The other knights then began to split up too, just leaving Kenos, Zuka, Oliver, Shauna, Klaus, and Hamon, another Golden Dawn at that spot.
"Sparkle Magic: Glittering Star Shower!" Zuka exclaimed as the stars rained on the zombies, exploding on contact, but to her surprise, they got back up, despite having no arms. "These zombies can't be stopped easily, they just get back up,"
"Then we'll just have to hit them so hard that they can't get up," the solar mage replied before hearing a loud scream come from around him. "That scream, I'd recognize it anywhere, it's Asta, he's in trouble, I have to find him!" he said, running in the direction of the scream.
"Kenos!" Zuka exclaimed as she turned around, but didn't notice the zombie behind her.
"Look out! Wood Creation Magic: Wood Hammer!" Oliver exclaimed as he jumped into the air and slammed into the zombies about to attack his squadmate.
"Thanks," Zuka said.
"No problem. Listen Zuka, you need to go and back Kenos up," he told her.
"But what about you and Shauna, will you be alright?" she asked with concern.
"Don't worry about us, we can handle ourselves, and we have backup too, just go, before you lose him," he replied.
"Okay then, good luck, Sparkle Creation Magic: Glittering Lance!" she exclaimed as she ran toward the solar mage, using her lance to impale any zombies that got close. "Kenos!"
Kenos turned his head to see her and slowed down his pace to let her catch up. "Are you joining me?"
She nodded. "You better believe it, there's no way I'd let my friend go into danger all on his own, my squadmates can handle things back there,"
"Good, but this won't be easy, Asta has no magic, so I can't detect him," Kenos informed her before hearing another loud scream.
"But thankfully, we can track the sound of his voice, let's just hope we can make it in time," Zuka said back as they increased their pace.
"You're going to pay for this!" the two knights heard Asta exclaim, they were getting closer.
"He seems to be fighting someone, do you think they're the ones responsible for the attack?" Zuka asked.
Kenos turned to her before turning back. "Only one way to find out," he replied as Asta was finally in their view.
"Asta!" they exclaimed, running to him.
"Kenos, Zuka, you're here," Asta said as they caught up to him.
"We tracked your voice to find you," Zuka told him.
"Well well, it seems we have some company," a voice said, the two turned to see a man with long light purple hair, he wore a tattered cape over black trousers and long pants, and a patch was over his right eye.
"Who is this guy?" Kenos asked.
Asta angrily grit his teeth. "Say hello to the mage responsible for the attack," he replied as their eyes widened.
"That's right, the name's Rades Spirito," he introduced himself.
Zuka looked at him, or more specifically, his eye patch, her eyes widened again when she noticed the design on it. "That's the exact same eye design on the cloak of that spark mage," she realized.
"Why are you doing this?!" Kenos asked. "What could some rogue mage hope to accomplish by doing this?!"
"That's where you're wrong boy, I'm no rogue mage," Rades replied. "I act on behalf of a group,"
"A group, what kind of group?!" It was Asta who asked this time.
"We call ourselves the Eye of the Midnight Sun," he replied. "Our goal is to bathe this kingdom in destruction and chaos, and I think I'll begin by killing the three of you!"