The Awakening of a Soul Reaper

Chapter 15 Air-Training

Its Monday morning in Clarice is already up and ready for school, she grabs her backpack, locks the house behind her, Aunt Belle is already at the Bakery her morning started earlier because she has an order to fill and she needs to get everything ready for the morning rush.

Clarise walks down the street she sees James waving at her from across the street, 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” James comments when he joins them.  “Let me guess a certain short hair gentleman is the reason for your smile” Willow says while pushing Clarise playfully.

“It might be?” she says laughing.

The three of them walk off chatting on their way to school.  When they reach the gate of the school, they see Tyler there standing waiting for them.

“Well good morning beautiful!” he says.  Willow and James both pull their eyes really big.  “Ahem” Clarise clears he through, “Me and Tyler have decided to start dating” she says.  “I thought you already started dating when you were together at the diner” replies Willow.  The four of them walks together into the school yard.

The rest of the day is pretty ordinary after school Tyler makes an excuse; he has some work that he needs to go.  The other three walks together back to the point where they met the morning, and says their goodbyes.

Clarise goes home immediately after that, 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 knob 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 high by judging it would be a three-story building 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 explains.

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

He 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?” he 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 walking on air, you are going to jump and then compress the air between your body and floor to give you more momentum to slow the rate of your fall” 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.  Before you jump you already need to be ready and release it when you feel your body start to drop” he says to her while circling around her.

She tries, she gathers essence and jumps, she presses the air in-between her feet and the floor she can feel it pushing her but it pushes 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 falls flat on her back, “I’m so glad for these mats” she says to him, who is just watching her in patience. 

“You will need to work on your balance and on your momentum, 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, and it goes on like this for another twenty minutes, till he stops her.  “Take a break, and gather yourself, sometimes a plant grows faster when you wait to water it for a moment” 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.

“If you succeed with this training today, I will allow you to ask one question out of my life,” he suggests to her.

“That sounds like a, deal” she says with a huge smile on her face.

“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” he responds with a satisfied smile on his face. 

“No! I have a great teacher!” she responds smiling back at him.  After a while she looks at the time on her phone it’s almost six, she needs to get going, 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.

“Is there a certain hunk that is also helping with the class” her aunt wants to know.

“No, I promise, it’s not like that!” she tries and recovers.

“I trust you!” her aunt tells her.

The next morning after meeting up with her friends 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, you want me to join you asks Tyler.

“Not this time” she replies not really knowing what else to say to him, she wants him to know but she can’t.  “But how about tomorrow afternoon you join me for a milkshake at the diner?” she asks him.  “That would be awesome” he says. 

When the last bell rings of the day, she packs up her books very slowly she makes sure to be 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.