8 Chapter 8 - New Members

"Yes!New member." "Itsuki?" Chris asked "Well~he is one of the people I want to invite. Will you join our team?" "Hey Sky! Are you cra..." said Seito. "After that incident in the cafeteria I think I should join the team." said Itsuki "*smile* And another one, Ai-chan you can get in now." "What?" "Hi! Hope we can work together." "You two, welcome to the team!"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Dismiss!...take a short break, come back in half an hour." "Roger!" So, they all get out of the small wooden cabin which is used for the meeting purpose. However there is one person that didn't get out of the cabin... "Yes, I have successfully get into the team and gain their trust... no, I haven't forgotten of my job... just need a good timing... okay I see...*click*..."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Chapter8-New Members!

15 minutes later... "Bravo! You all came back so early!" "Seriously? Sky, I thought you are the one that calls us back, you said something like an emergency!" "I did? I only phoned you Chris. Never thought you will actually nice enough to get others back here." "For what?" "Since we all are here... Let's have some ice cream!" "What?" said Chris. "I want rock melon flavor. You know the shop that sells almost any flavor of soft-serve ice cream?" Sky's saying this while pulling out Seito's wallet "Hey! You should at least warn me!" "Sorry~ *open the wallet* looks like far enough for all of us...would you mind, Seito-kun?" Chris thinks: "Whenever he adds a 'kun' behind someone's name, he is up for no good..." "Okay~ I want chocolate flavor then." "How about you two?" "Green tea." said Ai. Itsuki: "I don't think I..." "Original milk flavor... too shy to say it huh?" said Seito. "Okay! Fine! I'll go buy it since I'm in a good mood today. Hey Itsuki, come with me. I need someone to help me with the ice creams." "Okay." So Chris and Itsuki leave to buy ice cream.

A few minutes later... "What takes them so long?" said Seito. "Hmm...sakura..." "What?" "Chris's ice cream..." "Sky... *think* he is weird.." "Yeah! He's back! My ice cream!!!" "Ah?" "I'm back! Here! Rock melon, matcha(green tea) and chocolate." "Thanks Chris! You are really helpful... hmm... sakura flavor again, you surely behave like a girl." "Shush... who said a boy can't have sakura ice cream, it's nice and seasonal limited." "Yeah! I know... Okay! We will continue after having ice cream."

After that... "Looks like you all had a good break, let's get in the important matter, as you all can see, there are lots of incidents happen recently which might indicate that the Gospelers are taking actions again, with the limited number of members in the group which some are still untrained, this might be a problem if the Gospeler decided to do an all-out operation, even we can work together with Black Cross but our number are still limited if compare with Gospeler. So we need to maintain… Nope! Level up our ability which means..." "No!!! Intense training!!!" "Hell yeah! Wow, you are sure so excited about this Seito-kun, so today you are with me." "What?! I want to be with Chris..." "He got two new members to handle." "Oh crap..." "So~Let's go to the 'basement'... Well, not really a basement though..." saying this, Sky places his right hand to the wall, a whirlpool appear. "Seito, let's go!" they get in the whirlpool and the whirlpool closed. "And we will have our own 'training base as well...*stomp on the floor once* be careful, this is not a quicksand." the floor they stand on suddenly melt and they slowly get 'engulf by the floor'. Itsuki looks a bit scared while those two behave really calm and soon they reached an unknown place...

"Welcome to the 'Grave'. This is where all the things that been engulf by my star-technique been send to, where they will be 'digest' slowly in this 'Grave'. I love slow torture... Since myself the one that will get into this place so I make a 'weak spot' in the cabin where it will melt when reacting with my magic as I can't use the star technique on myself." "A grave huh? Nice place." "You are finally talking now Ai-chan... Hey! Itsuki! Are you okay?" "Yeah..." "This place is a bit scary though, since the 'digesting mechanism is always working while some of the 'not fully digested creature' might attack you out of nowhere because of long term torturing and frustration, but you will be okay as I'm here. Only weak creature will get kill by the digester..." "That sounds really 'safe'..." said Ai. "I wonder why Sky want me to take you two. my training style is a bit dangerous. So I'll be leaving you two here and see how long you can survive...Bye! I will be watching you up there!" "Hey wait!" "He's gone... *smile*... Are you scared? Let's just wait here and see what happens." said Ai. Chris's voice: "Too bad you can't wait, the digester has started taking action again."

Ai noticed her shoes are 'melting'. "Watch out!*grab Itsuki and jump to a higher place*..." Chris's voice: "Hmm...good move, the digester is not available in higher area, but...*laugh out a bit*..." suddenly the floor on the higher area crack... "Damn it... *grab Itsuki and go to another 'platform'*..." Chris's voice again: "And there are even more, since you know that you need to stay at the higher area so are the other creature..." A zombie-like thing(which I will just call as a zombie) slowly approach... "Crap..." "Are you going to run again? With Itsuki-kun? It's quite useless, these things appear everywhere, and the 'platform' you are standing now will crack as well." "Tsk..." then Ai took out a dagger.

While protecting Itsuki as the frustrated 'zombie' approaching, Ai slowly draws the dagger out of its golden sheath(wow!). And suddenly, without any warning the zombie run toward Ai and Itsuki at a lightning speed. Ai just stand at that spot like nothing happen. However the zombie falls onto the ground as it getting really near to Ai, with a slit on the neck and blood strain on Ai's dagger, Itsuki is a bit shock but tries his best to calm down, then, the platform cracks. "I see...1 minute..."

Now Ai-chan has given up from keep escaping to the higher area but letting herself landed to the 'base' along with Itsuki. Now on the base there are a big number of zombies like thingy trying to escape from a 'moving-mud' like thing that will melt their body whenever it gets intact with the body, that's the digester. "So this is what he wants... Hey! Itsuki-kun, if you want to survive from the digester and zombies, stay at my side. If not you will get devoured by the digester in no time, your magic level is too low to press it down. Time for some 'slaughtering'... " Ai grabbed Itsuki and run to a direction where there are crowded with zombies. "Follow my speed!" "...*nod*..." With a really fast movement, Ai-chan kills the zombies with a really fast method by slitting their neck or just pierced through their core(heart) and it is amazing that Itsuki can actually follow Ai-chan's speed. As Ai-chan continues with the 'slaughtering'...

Suddenly, Chris's voice: "Itsuki-kun, Itsuki-kun.... don't you feel ashamed for letting a girl to fight and protect you?" Itsuki:"...(!)..."

While looking at all those zombie-like things and Ai-chan is working so hard to fight them, Itsuki found that he needs to protect his pride as a man. However, in this situation, only one thing he can do, the thing he always does. He stares at the big group of zombies, and the zombies suddenly stop moving...

"Ai-chan!" "..(?)...I see...thanks for that, now I can use that technique..."... Ai-chan places her hands near the ground, focus her magic on the ground... Ai-chan: "Environment control..." "What?" "*Smile*..." Suddenly a big mud(digester) wave formed and 'engulf' a whole group of zombies. "The environment controlling technique needs a few seconds to launch but with all the zombies, I have almost no time to do so, but thanks to you for paralyzing the zombie..."

At the other place, outside the 'Grave'...Chris is watching them... "Hmm...that's more like it."...

​

At the same time, in another training room... "Shit you! Stop hiding! Come and face me like a man!" "The task- find Sky and defeat him...so easy~" "Easy your axx!? Come out now...you win! You ou know it's no way for me to defeat you!" "You just gonna try~"....uh-huh...

Back to Ai-chan and Itsuki... "Looks like he wants us to 'clean' the 'rubbish' in his 'Grave', so we will do what he wants." "...*nod*..." Ai-chan continues with the controlling technique until she sensed an unusual presence. Among all the zombie-like creatures, there is one however with an almost perfect figure that's hardly been damage by the digester, except some part on the face have been slightly burned. That 'thing' has pointed ears in which one of it is slightly deformed by the digester and several short horns on the forehead. "Ah...That's a Horned-Elf!" "What Elf?" "No time to explain, but with his Magic level now and my Magic been pressed down in this 'Grave', we will probably get killed by him anytime if we didn't keep cautious..." "..." Itsuki sensed fear and tense from Ai-chan's eyes...

Despite of the whole swarm of the zombies, Ai-chan stop her attack and staring hard on the Horned-Elf while slowly step back, watching every movement of the Elf, Ai realizes that it's better for her to not doing anything without knowing the enemy's ability, she never really fight with a Horned-Elf before. As she is watching, Ai is wondering whether she should use the binding technique on this thing, will the binding techniques work? But without waiting for Ai-chan to make her decision, the Elf took his move, he started to run towards Ai and Itsuki's direction despite of the digester that eating him alive. Without any hesitation, Ai-chan starts her binding technique but before she can bind him, someone else appeared. Now the Horned-Elf is nothing but an empty lifeless body, his neck had been pierced through by a silver rod... it's Chris!

"Ah...Totally forgot about this fellow, luckily I'm here in time, for your information, that binding technique wouldn't work on him, neither does the Eye of Psycho. An Elf is totally different from a Demon, like what we fought the other day. Yes, you can bind a low demon easily, like what you did the other day, it's because they are really dumb, but an Elf is a totally different case, moreover, this is a Horned-Elf!!! Aww... rare species, I thought I could keep it... but... never mind... Well~ I think you two have enough, let's get out of here shall we?"...

Out there, in the cabin... "Hey! Not bad! You just need 20 seconds to find me!" "20 seconds your ass! It's like more than a year!!!" Chris: "Haha... for your information, that training room is specially created by Sky and the time in there is totally different from normal time, 1 second here is like 1 month in there, so that means Kenji spent 20 months to find Sky. "You got improve a lot, get defeated after 30 seconds." said Sky. Chris: "This 30 seconds really means 30 seconds. Now... *look at Itsuki* You really need to get your own fighting technique, but no rush, as for Ai... Not bad, although still have a big space of improvement... *whispered to Ai* Your master did not train you well huh?" These words from Chris put Ai in a rather confused silent state. Sky: "Now let's call it a day, shall we?" "Yeah !I'm hell tired..."...

At somewhere, Ai: "Yes... I know... I'll kill him when I got a chance... *click*..." Ai-chan put her phone on a table and there is a Hexagram icon on her phone decoration...