The Astral soul system-Chapter 139: Good luck

Even with his body actively healing him, Zyro still felt like he couldn’t keep up, and that was with Virgil openly dragging out the battle so he could enjoy it. He already knew that victory at this point wouldn’t be possible, but he still wanted to get one good hit in. He shakily gripped his weapons, the blades being chipped and broken in multiple places and doubled his stats and charged in for one last clash with Virgil. No tricks, no special abilities or elemental powers, just iron against iron.

The two closed in, winding up for one large clash as Zyro’s mind raced with dozens of possible outcomes and strategies.

The two grinned wildly as their blades were about to hit eac-

*BOOM!*

A huge dust cloud suddenly rose at the point of impact and there was suddenly a third person in the mix.

A giant greatsword stood in the middle of Virgil and Zyro, blocking both their attacks.

"That’s enough"

A calm voice suddenly said

Zyro blinked, still unsure of what had happened.

’How did she...? When did she...?’

"Oh, come on orie,do you have to ruin all my fun. It’s just a little sparring match "

"Little?"

Aurora gestured to the massive crowd that had gathered and only now did the two notice that things might have escalated a bit.

Zyro suddenly heard someone call his name and noticed his friends running towards him. He excitedly waved, ignoring his injuries.

"And look at what you did to him. He’s just a student for crying out loud"

Aurora said, scolding Virgil like a child.

"Uh, I’m fine" Zyro said, trying to play down his injuries but Aurora ignored him.

"I’m not hearing it. To the infirmary,now" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

"But-"

"And you. This is over. Next time you do something like this, I’m reporting you "

"But-"

Faster than Zyro could react, he suddenly felt someone grab his face.

He looked up into two piercing blue eyes

’Fast’ was all he thought

"Hey Sab-"

"What is wrong with you? I thought you were meant to be the normal one but you’re just as crazy as the other two"

Zyro laughed but didn’t retort

He looked behind her and saw the rest of his friends looking at him with varying expressions

Maximilian looked annoyed but not suprised, Jade and Zaria were worried, Diane honestly didn’t look very concerned and Neo and Xavier looked psyched.

"Epic,duel bro!" Xavier said, giving him a thumbs up and a pat on the back.

"Next round is you and me,okay?" He said, earning him a slap on the back of his head from Diane

"Battle junkies. You’ll end up killing yourselves" she muttered loud enough for them to hear.

"Make sure he meets Elaine specifically " Aurora said to them

"She knows how to deal with his antics"

*****************

The door to the infirmary opened and they walked in, Zyro at the front with Jade and Sable helping him walk despite him constantly saying he could walk himself just fine

Elaine looked at the door, taking in the sight of the bloody Zyro and sighed

"Why am i not suprised? Get him on a mattress,i can deal with it from here"

Zyro didn’t resist as they sat him down just looking around curiously.

"You kids can leave. I’m sure you still have stuff to do for the day. He’ll be fine"

Zyro waved as the others left and faced Elaine. He suddenly realized that most of his serious injuries were already closing up.

"You’re looking... different "

"Yeah, feeling different too"

Elaine moved closer and started examining his injuries

"Don’t worry, this won’t take long "

"I’m not worried,i heal fast"

"I know " Elaine chuckled

"So what was it this time? Fell off a building?" Elaine asked, joking

"Mmm no, that was yesterday. I just got into a sparring match with a teacher and got a bit carried away"

Elaine pulled back and looked at his face, shocked for different reasons.

"You fell off a building and didn’t come to me?"

"It wasn’t anything serious. Just an accident, and I landed okay so I was barely injured "

Elaine rolled her eyes and kept checking his body

"What teacher did you spar with, cuz it doesn’t look like it was very friendly "

"Virgil "

"Virgil?! That weirdo?. Well i can’t say I’m suprised, this looks like something he’d do"

Elaine sighed and kept checking him.

"Alright, let’s start. Don’t move "

Elaine said and started patching him up.

A few minutes later he was okay but Elaine wanted him to wait a few hours to rest, not wanting to make her unhappy, he complied and laid on the mattress. This time there were a few others in the infirmary so she couldn’t talk to him personally and had to attend to the others.

Once she noticed it was getting a bit late, Elaine permitted him to go, sticking another lollipop into his mouth before sending him off.

"Nice lady" Zyro said to no one in particular while walking out.

He quickly headed to Aurora’s office, since she told him to report there immediately after Elaine let him go. He was a bit nervous as he went, wondering if she was still upset.

Quickly opening the door, he surprisingly found her outside the secret room and in her actual office.

"Zyro"

She called out his actual name

"You made quite a ruckus today"

"Um... yeah"

Aurora sighed and stared at him for a few seconds

"You’re okay?"

Zyro nodded

"Virgil might be a battle hardened warrior but he’s also an idiot who let’s his sword think for him. He meant no harm"

"It’s fine, I actually kinda like him"

"He could have killed you, he SHOULD have killed you, no student should be able to withstand that. I’m not going to ask about how you managed to match him but be lucky you did "

The two talked for a few minutes, mostly about Zyro but he eventually left.

"Wow, she was really worried about me. This feels... nice!" Zyro said,a slight kick in his step.

He suddenly remembered something and ran back to Aurora’s office

"Hey,teach! Do you know where I can get beast crystals before the next planetary expedition?"

"Hmm? What do you need beast crystals for?"

Zyro scratched his head nervously

"It’s nothing serious, just need to pay off a debt"

Aurora stared at his expression, trying to see if he was lying but eventually answered.

"You could go to one of the dungeons around the school where you could hunt beasts, but most of them are closed off to first years, and the ones that aren’t are almost completely empty."

"Seriously? Well that’s too bad"

Looking at Zyro’s disappointed expression, Aurora let out an exaggerated sigh and said

"I’ll see what I can do to get you higher access. Until then don’t do anything stupid "

Zyro’s face visibly brightened up and he ran up and hugged her

"Thanks teach!"

Aurora’s eyes widened and she froze up as Zyro wrapped his arms around her and before she could even respond he’d dashed out of the office.

Calming down from the unexpected hug, she sighed

"Kids. Never calm down "

"So what do you really need those crystals for?"

Theia asked, sitting on his head again.

"I was serious. I destroyed Ben’s tonfas and i want to get him new better ones using the system, maybe we can even be friends"

Hearing that,Theia retreated into the system,her voice ringing in his ears

"In that case, I’ll start looking for low cost, powerful tonfas so you can know what kind of crystals to get"

"Thanks "

Now that that was all done with, Zyro headed back to his room. Classes were already over and he was pretty sure the guys were waiting for him.

He was about to start running when someone suddenly walked in front of him

"Hello,Zen. I saw your fight, it was... impressive, but out of character"

Zyro tilted his head curiously. Did he know this person? They called him Zen so they must be familiar with him

"Your deception is even better than I thought. You have these people completely fooled"

Deception?

Zyro smiled nervously, seeing that the person didn’t seem hostile, he calmed down, but he still couldn’t remember them

"Um, nice to meet you...um..."

"Oh? Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten my name already, especially with how close we were,i thought you really did love me"

Celia said,a sadistic smile creeping on her face

Inside, Zyro’s mind, Freya was going crazy, spewing all the soft curses she could think of at the girl.

Celia suddenly reached out to touch Zyro’s shoulder, but was stopped when he grabbed her hand in mid-air.

"Sorry miss, but I don’t know you"

"Hmm? What are you talking about? You’ve forgotten all our sweet memories together?"

Love? Sweet memories? The more Zyro heard, the more he knew she wasn’t talking about Zen,or at least the Zen he knew, and he knew Zen as well as he knew himself.

Zyro’s soul eyes suddenly picked up something strange, his nose twitched as an uncomfortable smell assaulted it.

She suddenly leaned in closer,her breath touching his as her eyes started glowing.

"Let me remind you, I’ll clear up everything really soon, even about that idiot you sent to the hospital"

She was about to kiss him when Zyro held her back, his expression purely curious as her attempt at seduction failed completely.

"Itchy" he muttered

The minute she got close, his destroyer’s eye started burning and a strange itching sensation appeared in his chest.

The threads Zen saw at the fight with Gary suddenly reappeared around her and Celia herself started glowing in his vision.

A pink and yellow string appeared, signifying lust and greed respectively and Zyro attempted to use soul bridge but it immediately failed, surprising Zyro since this was the first time that had happened.

A look of confusion appeared on Celia’s face before being replaced by a scheming smile

"As expected, it’s much harder without that seal and him helping me"

"What?"

Celia suddenly chuckled

"You’re mine, I’m going to take all of you, and then, you’re going to help me find it"

The next second she was gone, like she was never there in the first place.

"That was... what just happened?" Zyro thought out loud, looking all around for her but she was really gone.

"Freya? Do you know what’s going on? Who was she?"

"A bitch and a slut, that’s who"

Zyro sighed, that didn’t help him much but he couldn’t just stand here thinking about it. He continued on his path to his dorm, Celia’s sudden appearance and disappearance leaving him stumped.

He opened the door and as he expected,all his friends were there waiting for him.

"And he finally shows up"

"Sorry, sorry guys. I got held up"

Maximilian honestly didn’t care and gestured for Zyro to sit which he did.

"Alright,start talking"

Zyro sighed and looked around a bit

"I don’t know what to tell you guys. Zen, Zaine and i have been together since we were kids"

"Then why were you two not.... around, and why did it look like Zaine had a grudge against Zen?"

Zaria asked, using her words carefully, recognizing how delicate the situation was.

Zyro’s smile suddenly dropped

"Oh, that. Well i honestly think he had his reasons so I’m not too upset but I think to Zaine it seemed like he put us away because he just.... thought he didn’t need us anymore"

Hearing that, everyone went silent, not knowing how to react to that.

"Okay,i think that’s enough prying into his personal life for one ni-"

"Wait, one last thing"

Xavier suddenly said

"You guys were made like this because of some strange ability or power,right?"

Zyro scratched his head

"Eh... something like that...i think. We’re actually not completely sure"

"Great,so are you guys three people stuck in one body or one guy who was split in three?"

"Xavier!" Diane and the others scolded him for his insensitive questioning but Zyro just laughed

"Actually....."

*************

Zyro’s eyes opened immediately, looking more like he was just closing his eyes than sleeping,which was somewhat true.

He quickly freshened up and went to the drawer, shuffling through all the black hoodies.

"Not my style" he muttered, pushing back the red leather jackets that Zen must have gotten put in before he left.

He finally reached the extreme edge and smiled as he saw the bright yellow blazer with the letter Z written boldly at the back. Pulling it out, he noticed the receipt was still on and when he looked closer,he saw the words "Good luck" written in a familiar handwriting.

Zyro chuckled and could only keep smiling

************

Looking around at the trees and rocks littering everywhere, Zyro couldn’t help but note how large this forest behind the school was, he was a bit late for his meeting but he wasn’t too worried. He looked upward, smiling at the raven flying overhead and keeping watch.

He looked down, noticing his watch blinking and muttered

"I know,i know, I’m coming" and kept running, ignoring the call.

He quickly spotted the person he was meant to meet, slowing to a stop as Jade glared at him, looking wronged

"I was waiting for almost an hour"

She complained

"I know, I’m sorry. Just had to check up on a few things. I promised we’d continue your training where you and Zen left off, i don’t break promises"

Black slowly descended, dropping a relatively large box and flying onto Zyro’s shoulder

"What are these?"

Zyro bent down, opening the box

"Training arrows, Zen ordered them a while back and forgot to pick them up. I had to go collect them this morning. I thought it was about time we started weapons training too"

"Really?"

"Definitely. You’re ready"

Jade nodded,a bright smile on her face as she held her new bow,it was a regular wooden one that she had ordered since Zyro told her to.

"Let’s get started"