The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 14. Training Starts

Its Monday morning in Clarice is already up and ready for school, she grabs her backpack and lock the house behind her, Aunt Belle is already at the Bakery her mornings start even earlier because she needs to get everything ready for the morning rush.

Clarise walks down the street and see James waving at her, she stands on the sidewalk waiting for him, someone says “Boo!” while plugging her shoulders to scare her, its Willow “Morning, morning” she says while laughing. “Good morning” replies Clarise with a smile, “Well people won’t think it’s a Monday morning the way you two are smiling” says James when he joins them.

The three of them walk off chatting on their way to school. The rest of the day is pretty ordinary and later the three of them walk together back to the point where they met the morning.

Clarise goes home immediately after school, she needs to get in some training, but first she needs to finish her chores, she packs away the dishes, cleans the counter tops, sweeps the floors and then she goes up to her room. She grabs hold of her pendant and conjures Ignus, “And I thought you forgot about me” he laughs looking at her, “I thought one day is merely a second when you are in the pendant?” she says confused.

“I know, I made a joke!” he says laughing. Both of them starting to laugh because of the seriousness on Clarisse’s face. He looks at the room, this room is a bit too small for what I have intendant for us to do today, do you know of a place where we can practice some other techniques, it would be better if there’s no one in the vicinity he says with a smirk on his face.

“I really don’t know the city that well” she says and goes and sits on the side of her bed, putting her index finger in front of her mouth while she sits and think. “Well, the school is closed, I wonder of the school gymnasium center is still open” she says to herself. She recalls Ignus and runs down the stairs, out the door and down the street to the school.

Walking through the halls at school is creepy she thought to herself as she walks through the buildings, she goes and stand in front of a big wooden double door, she turns the know and the door opens up, “yes” she utters while making a fist and pulling it in.

On the floors of the gymnasium there is blue floor mats in one part of the hall and on the other side there is other equipment like weights and stationary bicycles, the walls go up very high and at the top there is a row of windows.

She conjures Ignus again, “Will this do?” she asks him while looking impresses with herself with her hands on her hips and a big smile on her face.

“This will suffice!” he says while looking around in the air almost not impressed, and then back at her, “Only kidding, you did well” he says with a big smile, not wanting to break down her mood.

“You are full of mischief, today? She says to him while shaking her head in slow short movements from left to right.

“It’s partially your fault” he says to her still while smiling “our souls are linked now, when you are happy then it makes my mood also lighter” he replies

“Oh, I didn’t know that” she replies surprised.

Ignus starts to float over to the blue mats and goes and hovers in the middle of them, “come over here” he orders her. She jogs over to him and stands in front of him. “Listen very carefully now, since you have put on the pendant, I don’t know if you noticed that if you hurt yourself, you heal much faster than you would normally?”

“I was wondering about that” she says to him.

“Well, your essence of your soul is activated and tougher with my essence it will protect you and try to compensate for injuries, so if you get hurt your essence will jumpstart the healing process and your body will follow afterwards, do you understand?” he asks her.

“Loud and clear!” She replies. “Good because for the following you need to know so we can limit your amount of fear inside of you, because fear is your enemy, fear will make you lose concentration, fear can cause you to lose a battle, and fear can cause you, your life!” he says now in a more serious manner. “Okay, I understand,” she says.

“You remembered when you used your essence to let your hand float in the air?” Ignus asks.

“Yes, I do!” she says thinking back, while also thinking at the night with the weeping lady ghost.

“Well, we are going to take it to the next step, you are going to use air to increase your movement so it will seem that you are flying but in fact you will not use it constantly, you are going to jump and then compress the air between your body and floor to give you more momentum” he says looking at her.

She goes and stand on the mat she jumps and tries to compress the air but she is to slow, she tries a couple of times, this is harder than I thought, she thought to herself.

“You need to get your timing right, already get your essence ready before you jump and release it when you feel your body start to drop” he says to her while circling around her.

She gathers essence and jumps, she presses the air in-between her feet and the floor she can feel it pushing her but it troughs her to the side of the mat, wow luckily, I haven’t used a lot of power on that one else I would have been a coffee mug she thought. She stands up walks over to center and tries again, this time it swooped her legs from underneath her and she fell on her back, “I’m so glad for these mats” she says to Ignus, who is just watching her in patience.

“You will either need to get balance or momentum but both of these actions you will need to master to be able to be faster than a Vanus” he explains to her.

She stands up gets herself ready and tries again, she falls again, it goes on like this for another 20 minutes, till Ignus stops her. “Take a break, and gather yourself, sometimes a plant grows faster when you wait to water it for one day” he says to her. She goes and sits flat on the mat, “What do you remember out of your past?” she asks him.

He looks over to her and says, “I remember everything but I don’t let it define what I’m going to be for you” he says. “Well, that is very vague,” she replies.

“I want you to try again but this time, I don’t want you to jump, I want you to push yourself into the air with one push” he says trying to turn the conversation to the training again.

She stands up she puts her hands forward almost like a frog and pushes, she goes into the air maybe knee high and falls back to the place where she stood. “Well done!” Ignus replies, “Again!” she does these another ten times successfully. “Okay now I want you to try and jump again like before, and try it, let your muscles in your body remember what they should do, don’t try to override them” he orders. She goes and stand in the same manner, she jumps and pusses the air in between her and the floor and she shoot up with approximately the same length that she jumped, she falls back to the place where she stood, “That was amazing!” she screams, her voice echoing thought the gymnasium, she covers her mouth with both hands while laughing.

She does it again, and again and again, each time doing it better. “You are a fast study” Ignus respond with a satisfied smile on his face. “No! I have a great teacher!” she responds smiling back at him. She runs to a drinking bowl at the side of the wall and drink some water, afterword’s she goes back to where she left her things and looked at the time on her phone, it's almost 6, “I will need to get going” she says, she says good bye to Ignus as he returns to the pendant and then she runs out of the gymnasium, and start to make her way home.

That night she tells her aunt that she will need to go for an afterschool class for one of her subjects, so she will not be coming home directly.

The next morning after meeting up with James and Willow she tells them that her aunt have send her on a private matter to go and do something for her in the city so she will not be joining them to walk home after school.

When the last bell rings to say that it’s the end of the school day, she packs up her books very slowly and she is the last one to leave the class. She drags her feet and when she thinks it’s clear she goes to the gymnasium, “it’s empty again” she says as she walks through the doors. She goes to the toilets and change into more comfortable clothes and after that while she walks over to the mat, she conjures Ignus. “Oh, we are here!” he says while turning around and floating after Clarise.

She goes and stand on the mat and looks over to Ignus, “so what are we going to do today; same as yesterday?” she asks him.

“We can start with that as a warm-up!” he replies.

She goes and does a couple of the exercises correctly in a row. Ignus stops her and says “what I want you to do now is before you hit the ground lift yourself one more time to break your fall, this will teach you to use your essence power as a reflex tool. The first time she tries she gets it right she lands like a professional gymnast lightly on her feet. “Again!” he orders.

This goes on for another half an hour. “I want you to go get that chair that is standing against the wall, and place it here” he shows with his index finger. After the chair is in place he explains "What I want you to do now is, stand in front of the chair jump straight up into the air and, then push yourself over the chair and land on the other side”.

She stands and tries it, the first time she doesn’t push enough and she lands with her one foot on the seat and the other on the mat, the second try goes a bit better but she is still not able to push herself hard enough. She continues to practice, finally she manages to force herself over the char.

“I did it!” she says excited, making fist and punching the air.

Ignus looks at her, “You need to practice that some more. You need to work on your landing” her replies

The rest of the afternoon she practices till she drops flat on her back on the mat, hear hair wet from sweat “Can I rest now for a bit?” she asks out of breath. “Collect yourself, and then you can go on home we can practice tomorrow again” replies Ignus who realizes that she has really been pushing herself, keeping him manifested while practicing her air movement, she really is really something to push herself this way he thinks.

The rest of the week Clarice’s routine changed, every day she makes a new excuse to be home late with her aunt and each day she makes excuses not to walk home with James and Willow.

And by Friday Clarise can jump and push herself over multiple chairs, she can even start to change direction while in the air. The next part was to train her ability to cast the cloak while also forging a scythe. Ignus was impressed with her progress, “remember controlling your movement can control the movement of your enemy, if you force them to adapt and, they can’t do it in time then you have the upper hand. We first train defense before we train offence,” he explains with a deep forceful voice. Also, by Friday James and Willow started to realize that something is going on with Clarise, but what? The thought, maybe she is sneaking of her to her grandparents, or maybe she met a guy and is seeing him secretly where some of the thoughts they had.

After practice that Friday Clarise took a different route home, the sun was already painting the sky with pink and purple colors. She walked and stopped for a moment, looking over at the bus stop she passed the other day, no one was waiting at the stop since its next scheduled stop was only at 6 PM and it was now just before 5 PM. She stood there for a while and then went and sit on the old metal and wooden bench, the weather has clearly been beating on those seats for a while, the red paint that once covered the wooden bars that is layer on a metal frame is hardly visible, and when you move you can see the metal bolds holding it tougher moving with the motion almost like its dancing.

She sat there for a while her hands folded on her lap staring at the cracked concrete sidewalk, she can feel as the essence of a soul vibrates in the air next to her, without looking she says softly “have you been waiting long?” The soul of an elderly man replies “I thought you would never talk to me, I have seen you before noticing me but, I thought the sight of me must have scared you off” he replies with sorrow in his voice. “May I ask who you are waiting for?” she asks him.

“I don’t know, I must have forgotten” he replies after sitting there quiet for about a minute.

“Do you want to go rest?”

The man looks up into the sky, “I don’t know where or how?”

“Will you allow me to help you?” she asks while slowly turning to him.

“Y-yes”

She takes her school uniform jacket and throws it over her right arm as she moves facing him, she, she takes hold of her pendant and Ignus appears beside her. He sees the calmness in her, he is in disbelief it’s the same girl that was so shook up the first time she saw a soul. She looks around, no one is noticing her. She stretches her right arm out, feeling her essence encapsulating her arm right down to her palm. She puts her hand into his chest, she can feel his energy resonating against her. With her palm against his core, she feels how her energy shoots the core forward into a tear that just appeared in front of her in flash of light the core disappeared and the tear closed up.