Chapter 178: The Second Lesson

The pungent smell of fresh paint still lingered plenty on the halls of the fourth floor… the moment we got off the stairway, just one whiff was like a noxious gas that immediately got me feeling light-headed.

As always, my nose had a zero-tolerance policy against anything that smelled like an affront to God, and so the journey to the venue of my second lesson was packed to the brim with wrinkling and snorting. 

It amazed me how both Irene and Amanda could walk their strides with barely even a cough… then again, I suppose hours spent with a paintbrush in hand had them building up a strong immunity to the toxic fumes that hung in the air.

I decided to refrain from speaking anymore until we actually reached the room itself. Trust it, it really wasn't worth the risk of compromising my lungs just to get Irene to get even more ambiguous about her words, prompting for more questions to be asked.

Just walk, I told myself. You'll see for yourself soon enough, and then not even a minute later, I did. 

The room. 

I remembered Irene just yesterday, large paint buckets in either hand, coordinating search party on every level of the building. Find the perfect room, she barked.

Look for the perfect symmetry, the perfect size… and it had to be very precise, otherwise, she couldn't even be bothered to take a glance at it - as she said herself, there isn't wasn't room for any compromises, pun definitely intended.

Ash would eventually turn out to be the hero of the afternoon for finding the aforementioned perfect place, and after a pat on the head from me, and an offhanded 'Good job' from the detective herself… they got to work at once painting the fading, greying concrete while Ash and I settled ourselves onto the sixth floor, carrying a bulging paper bag filled with balls.

I only ever had brief glimpses of the work in the progress, a half-finished mishmash of black and white… the overpowering stench along with Irene shooing me away averted my approach always.

Now here I was, pinching my nose tight, standing awestruck between the threshold of in and out. The moment I wheeled myself around the doorway, it was like night and day compared to the dreariness of the outside halls… 

The entire room itself was a hypnosis video come to life, the rings, the stripes… vertically, diagonally, horizontally… a black and white optical illusion to the senses, particularly the eyes… stepping in felt like a violent case of vertigo. I actually had to concentrate to keep my footing balanced.

But despite the brutal whiplash that I received on three out of five of my senses, it pretty much paled in comparison to what next would find itself in the scouring of my wide-open eyes.

Embers, dissipating in the air like the dying flames of a campfire. It kept drifting, kept swaying, detaching from the smoldering pulsating dim glow of Ria's hair.

There she was right there, lying atop a thin piece of blanket like the centerpiece attraction to a circus act. I didn't like seeing her lying there, lying here… cause the last time I saw her in this building with eyes shut firmly tight, I just got done slicing her throat open with a shard of broken glass. 

Seriously, this entire place was like a one-way attraction ride of horrible memories that I couldn't disembark. Gotta get myself together…

I veered my eyes a little left, and Ash was there, on her knees, gently unfurling the blanket further so that Ria's legs rested nicely atop of it. Mr. Black in my hands squirmed himself free and made a beeline for Ash, pouncing onto her lap, saying his hello's with the side of his face against hers.

"Master!" Ash exclaimed, looking up at me with a smile in greeting. "Look here, we've scoured the shops and found some nourishments for the Neplim! See?"

From behind her joyful, cheery exterior, Ash pulled out a small aluminum can with a tabby ginger cat plastered across its surface.

"Tuna," I read out the words in front of me. "For cats. Well, 'least you got it right this time."

I was finding it hard to smile along with her despite how much I really wanted to, when there was this big giant elephant in the room that needed addressing… sorry, phoenix.

"Is Ria the heavy load she needed you to carry?" I asked.

Ash placed the tuna can back down, and began stroking the purring, snoring fuzzball resting on her thighs.

Lucky bastard.

"Among other things, yes" Ash replied. "There's a room on the third floor that resembles greatly the restaurant we went to for our date… there, I've stashed everything else."

"Food too?" Amanda's voice suddenly interjected, her head poking out the doorway with eyes wide. "Ash?"

The light chuckling from Ash nearly skyrocket blood pressure to dangerous levels.

"Yes," Ash said, nodding at her. "Food too."

"Kay, thanks, bye." With that, the last and final glimpse I had of Amanda was her blonde hair whipping away from sight, her footsteps fading into the distance.

I shook my head, turning back to the whimsical hummings of Ash's closed lips. 

"But you kept the tuna," I tilted my head, frowning. "Why not the tuna?"

Her ears wriggled some more. "Why, I wanted to show it to you first, Master."

This was… unusual. Cute, but very unusual. She's acting very suspicious, right now. 

If I had a penny for every time I saw Ash being giddy and overall acting very jovial, then I'd be broke shaking an empty mug out on the streets cause it's a myth, alright? It's a myth. Fake news.

Like unicorns, like leprechauns, or whatever other tall tale out there. A happy carefree Ash is a combination of every single one of those things, amalgamating into the most elusive, downright mythical creature of all. 

Something like that is a sight only reserved for happy dreams and wishful thinking. What reason could she possibly have for being so jolly all of a sudden?

Well, I certainly couldn't tell you.

Not that I'm complaining, though. Seeing the glow of her smile was more than enough to rid me of all my fatigue. 

But not my confusion, unfortunately. 

I whirled myself around, searching through the disorienting spirals of black and white only to find the Succubus kneeling in front of Ria's body… with her hand hovering mere inches from her sleeping face.

With indecipherable whispers and mutters sounding faintly from her narrowed lips, I didn't have to wonder too much just what exactly she was up to.

"Second lesson preparations?" I asked.

Irene's mumbled came to a dead stop at once. 

"Just a precaution," She answered, slowly standing back up. "Protection."

I frowned. "From what?"

"From you."

"Excuse me?"

"You'll be alone with her here. Amanda, the Elf, Me… we'll stay clear away from the fourth floor entirely. It's nearing nine in the morning, you got till about tomorrow's sunrise before we - "

I whipped both my hands out in a five-finger spread, effectively hushing her rapid-fire elaboration in an instant. 

"First things first," I said, staring straight into her eyes. "If we needed Ria for the second lesson, why didn't we bring her in the first place when we first came over?"

"Because before the second lesson was about apples, instead of tennis balls," She explained. "I have a whole bag ready… and what I wanted you to do  with them originally, from dawn till dusk, was make them disappear here on the fourth floor and then make them reappear elsewhere on the other floors." 

Okay, alright, great… I'm following so far, a step up from green round things to red not-so round things, I can kinda get the tier one, tier two logic that's behind that, my question is...

"Where did Ria come from?"

Irene simply shrugged her shoulders. "I changed my mind."

Just like that, huh? I thought my lessons were set in stone, not ones that could be changed on a dime, it's a little concerning, actually.

'And how about my last lesson?" I asked. "Will it end up being just as impromptu too, or is it still what you originally had in mind?"

I think Irene must have sensed my qualms on the matter, for the tone in her voice had all the sudden lost its edge.

"You don't have to worry, alright? I know it's last minute… but all of this training is going to pay off… even this one, especially this one. If you can do this… and if you can do it well, then you might not even need the final lesson after all."

"Why's that?" I asked, looking briefly towards Ash only to find her kneeling to the side just as clueless as I. "What are you having me do now instead of disappearing apples?"

"Pretty much the same thing, really," Irene replied back. "You're gonna un-summon her from here."

I felt my jaw swing loose. "What? That's a huge step up from apples."

"Yes, now you're using your magic against a real, living, being," She nodded her head. "A totally different beast altogether. It's the reverse of summoning. Instead of conjuring something from nothing… you're just placing something into a place that has nothing, and If you can understand the concept backwards, you'll have no problem doing it forwards. "

I was getting really, really lost here. "So I'm just teleporting her, then… where the hell am I un-summoning her to?"

"It's simpler than it sounds," Irene said, then raising her hand, held a single finger up high. "You stayed on the sixth floor long enough to remember how it looks like. Just picture that room, then picture her being there… now, I don't expect a full manifestation, but if I'm able to catch just the tiniest glimpse of her up there, even if it's just for a second… then you pass the test." 

Questions. I had plenty of them. For every sentence she gave me, I can fire back with like ten different inquires. I didn't know what to ask first... so I went random.

"And the protection? What's that for?"

It was faint, it briefly showed, but it was there... Irene gave a grimace. "Well... if you're only half-successful, if only half of her shows up there, and half of her stays... if the manifestation fully formed then..."

She trailed away.

"The incantation I uttered acts like an emergency stop," She continued. "It'll dispel every spell here, but at some point, it'll render this entire room unfit for magic, and we can't have that... at some point, I can't use the incantation anymore.

"So there's a chance, if you can't use it," I felt my stomach churn. "I'd slice her?"

"It's been known to occur," Irene explained. "Even the Magi sometimes have trouble focusing well. Dying... it's not out of the question, really."

"And you want me to do something so high-risk with her?"

"Even then, even if the incantation can't be used... you know already..." She glanced at her, and I did too... unmoving, faintly breathing, lifeless, but not really. "She can't die."