Since he learned that the duchess can respond to him he has been happy to share the experience of awareness of his father's presence ' I wonder if the other legend's souls are here too ' he thinks about both Claire and Louis ' How can you see a person's soul ? '
" There is magic that allows that however I don't have it " ' There could be one in the library but I need to show that I have a better magic potential '
There was no way he could show off that he has promised in magic by just improving what he already has if what he inherited was summon who was already the pinnacle of dark magic .
He didn't entertain the idea of magic either considering what he needed to do and the luck he needed ' Dad will probably give me a chance if he feels like it though ' he wondered when that kind of chance would appear and went to sleep for the next day .
" Ikuta you are going to school today " " Huh but my games ? " " Your dad wants you to start school today he says you can buy them on Sunday " " Okay "
Ikuta looks at the spinning wheel ' I wish I could use the thread for something ' he looks at the bag that carried the things he bought to school when he was invited .
' I'll just bring this just in case ' Ikuta grabbed the roll of dark thread stuffing it into his bag " Ikuta I'll be fetching you for lunch so you can eat outside the school won't have enough food for you " " Okay " Ikuta walked to the door with his bag and ran to school .
He sat in the classroom " Morning Ikuta " Nisse said after getting inside and getting behind Ikuta " What are you doing ? " " I'm learning how to braid hair girls do it with each other and you have very long hair so I can use it as practice " Nisse undoes Ikuta's ponytail and starts braiding .
" Ikuta you're here ? " " Yeah Dad said I have to go to school from now on " Ezio enters and looked at Nisse braiding his hair " Nisse what are you doing ? " " I'm braiding his hair , I had to spend more time doing girly things so this is just one of them "
She finished the braid " Hmm Not good enough " She grabbed a comb and fixed the braid " But if you are here aren't you just gonna do whatever you want during class ? " Ikuta remembers Nisse does the same too .
" I can do a lot of things since the teacher will be fine " He looks at his bag and checks for anything he can do " Maybe learn dark magic , just yesterday I learned how to use the seeing dark spell "
Ezio was curious about what it is " What does it do ? " " It lets me see in the dark by turning it into black and white , it can work even if the room is bright it just changes the color " " Cool it's like living your life through an old black and white movie "
" Since when did you know about that ? " Nisse asked " Of course I do , it's like turning the world's graphics setting to low quality making horror games scarier " " Huh that's nice " Ikuta wondered if he should try such a horror game with bad graphics .
" I have only been playing new ones " " What are you thinking about ? " Ezio asked taking a seat in front of Ikuta " I was just thinking about playing a scary horror game with low graphics " " Oh I know that they have very eerie monsters and because the graphics are so bad it becomes scarier "
Ikuta thinks about it " Maybe it's possible " he looks at the calendar ready to go to one tomorrow Sunday and can't wait for the day to end " FInished " Ikuta looks in the small mirror to see how much Nisse has done .
" Wow that's a new look but I think I should have a ponytail this one is so hard to make " he still appreciated the work Nisse put on his hair " Alright let me just take a picture " Ikuta showed the normal two-finger pose to Nisse while Ezio stared at the phone " Perfect I'll be sure to straighten your hair "
" Class will be introducing a new student he came here on thursday afternoon so some of you are already familiar with him " They look at Ikuta who bowed to greet " Now let's begin classes " Ikuta passes everything easily and reads a good portion of the duchess's book .
Ikuta left with Claire wondering if he could buy a game after finishing his lunch " You can but just one you were supposed to shop tomorrow not today " " Okay " Ikuta walked into the games store and headed to the sales manager .
" Sir do you have any retro horror games ? " the manager looks at Ikuta recognizing him " oh you are that kid that ate a lot of food in a hotpot " " Yeah can I get any retro horror game ? " Ikuta asked " Well there is one but you can't play it in just any kind of ... you know console "
" Really ? " " Yes " Ikuta looks at Claire " We'll buy that console this is his first time shopping for one " " Alright " his father looks around " These games are so inaccurate about their mythology Zeus didn't do that "
Ikuta wondered where his father had been and assumed he might soon take some kind of turn in his life ' It must be about those people hiding my identity ' the manager handed out a small console with buttons on the lower half and a screen on top .
And there was an empty slot under it " Oh this is an old model from almost half a century ago " Ikuta wondered about the game and was handed a chip .
" You can try this it's a fun game that becomes more difficult as you play and it has other game modes too which are randomly selected " he didn't hear his father say a word and followed Claire .
He sat on the car seat and looked at the chip's cover that said the game title }{AV# @ |-|4ER+" Have a heart ? " he looked at the tiny pixelated picture of a heart and wondered what this game had in store for him .
He decided to play the game ' How bad would it be after all I had been around a person who can deny the very existence of a soul ' he started the game muting it and saw a heart at the top " game with lives is that why it's called have a heart ? "
He finds some pixelated screen appear with some colors making him happy to see the kind of game he is playing , soon a car appears on the screen making Ikuta wonder what kind of gameplay he has to do .
He finds some interactive traffic lights , the car stops at a red light and Claire tells him " Ikuta make sure to wear those glasses " Ikuta grabs a glass with four circles and liquid inside each to keep him from feeling nauseous .
He played with the game helping the car move hitting every traffic light and watched his scores increase by one in the number of cars that were blocked in traffic .
He understood the game's gimmick , seeing that a car with a four-seater gave him 4 points and a bus gave him twenty . He played the game joyfully but then wondered if the store manager had given him a boring game . However, he didn't hold a big grudge considering his age .
He was glad that the game had other modes according to the store clerk or he might get bored just switching traffic lights on and off ' Claire stops at an ambulance whose sirens are very loud , Ikuta looks outside losing focus to see what kind of disaster the ambulance had to go to .
" that must've been a fire " Claire said and Ikuta looked at his score go down because he let some car pass through other than the car that had the Big P at the side " Hey highscore " the screen stopped following his car tallying up all the scores .
He pockets his new game and leaves wondering what else it has " Hey Ikuta we are having basketball today " Ezio said " Oh don't worry I'll just be outside " Ikuta excused himself and opened his game .
' Hmm ? ' The screen appears and a text appears " Choose " he was wondering what that means and looks at the screen that shows one heart but in another corner with a black color and a slime that appears .
"Left or right ?" he wonders if he was meant to control the slime and chose the door with no monsters getting one point " Oh it's a dungeon crawler game " "Loot or no loot ?" " Might be a mimic " he proceeds to the next choice getting another point .
"apple or chili" " Chili is small but it might hurt , on the other hand , apple is worse because of the seeds " He gains 5 for the chili and wonders what's the point system supposed to be proceeding to the next choice .
"cow or farm" he looks at the cow and the farm wondering which one would bring him better points and presses the menu button "Quit y/n" the menu opens and he looks at the old games button .
"Choose : Play as a slime and traverse through a dungeon"
"Traffic light : Bring your car to the destination the fastest"
He tries to look at the other games but is hit with a lock button he goes back to the menu and hovers over the new game button ' I don't get this game at all ' he wonders if there is a way to skip all the new game .
" Ikuta what are you playing ? " He turned to see Ezio who came to the classroom and walked to his bag " An old game it was fun at first but it gets boring unlike the games I bought this one doesn't have any stories so I'm kinda tired of it " " So you want to know more about the game's story ? "
Ikuta nodded " Then what can you do in this old game ? " " The store manager said I can play different kinds of games but it changes every time I select a new game " " Can you choose which one you want ? " " Yeah with this one "
Ikuta showed Ezio " I'm stuck I don't know how to go anywhere else from here " Ezio said " It's okay it's an old game too bad it's not horror " " Okay I'll see you later " Ikuta looked at the schedule to see that the next one was arts and crafts .
' I remember bringing a yarn maybe I can use it ' he thinks it's a little wasteful to use yarn made from darkness for the arts and crafts class but takes it out and sets it at the table " What can I use this for anyways ? "
He grabs the end of the thread and thinks of how to use it ' I don't really know how to use yarn and I don't have my laptop to search for how to use it ' he looks at the thread and looks at the ends .
" Some people burn this but I don't want to burn it " he looked at his game and wondered which of these two was more boring ' there was someone on the internet who liked collecting retro games '
" I guess it's fine if I collect some retro games they say that it's a hobby that some people have maybe I can try it out it'll be fun for me if I can do the same " Ikuta checks out the console starting it .
He starts a new game and quickly quits it , he repeats the process again and again loading more games into the old games files and finally checks all the games " None of these are good "
He stared at the menu seeing a new button appear with a heart at the center and hovers over it , a "start" text appears above the box , so he selects it . As soon as he did he disappeared and saw himself in a pixelated world .
" Huh ? " he sees screens remembering that they were the ones that he played , he looks at the console screen showing "FINAL BOSS" he looks around and sees all the screens of every game mode turn to pixels and converge into his console .
" The heck ? " He threw the console away and looked around for a weapon " Uh nothing " He looked at the thread but didn't know how to use it " ARE YOU READY " a loud voice asked and an ambulance appears .
Ikuta dodged it and looked at the giant console to see a score " Huh ? " he watched it decrease and got it " So I'm supposed to hit the ambulance " he found some pixelated figures appearing recognizing them .
Each of these figures had a red heart in their respective places , he looked up at the console for no heart to appear and looked at his chest to see a visible red light " Have a heart ... so I'm supposed to take ? "
A slime appears before him and he reaches for their heart turning back to the console that shows melting slime . He thinks back about the game he played when he was in the car " So this game can change reality ? "
" Yes " hearing the duchess confirm the truth he quickly got to work , running to the console , he dodged the people with hearts and grabbed the black hearts of the monsters he watched his score fall and reached a zero seeing a heartbreak losing the number of hearts and increased the score by a hundred .
" So that's what it is " he summoned his sword hoping it would work and see people without hearts appear . He avoided them just to be sure watching his points fall and finally reached the console .
He finished it off with a slash " Congratulations dark mage " the surroundings returned to normal and he found himself in the classroom again with everything where it was including the console ' What was that ? ' " Dark magic of the heart " ' So is that heart thing supposed to be related ? '
" Yes , this is a method of how dark mages of the past gain their power , using a sacrifice and granting it the most painful death to harvest more magic from a person's pain , there once was a noble who fell in ruin and turned to this black magic to regain their position but lost their power because they lacked the pain to supply their magic "
Ikuta looks at the console that shows an envelope , he hovers over it wondering what the boring game does and thinks about the store clerk " announcement , there has been a sudden accident in the store cyberzone please be careful when you go home "
' That must've been dad ' he reads the invitation remembering the video that said that dark magic is constantly confused with black magic ' Maybe the store clerk knew about me and decided to send this game to give me an invitation maybe that video was right about dark magic being confused as black magic '
Ikuta's suspicions will be confirmed but for now , he quickly reads the invitation and checks if the game has reset all the old games opening a few and taking the chip out so that it will cool a little " Hello Ikuta "
The classes continued normally and so did the magic practice " So did you enjoy school ? " Ikuta nodded " Too bad I can't join you , my cousins are staying over " " Can I join ? " Druk asked out of nowhere .
Ikuta looks at his eyebags wondering why he looked like that " Sure ? " " But tell your mom to bring some clothes we are having a sleepover " Ezio said " What ? " " Yep " Ezio was excited and Druk looked at Ikuta waiting for him to confirm .
" Of course , you can join " " Alright let's go " Ezio hopped on Ikuta's back " What are you doing ? " Druk asked confused " We can get their faster by foot right ? " Ikuta nodded " Got your googles " Yep "
Ikuta dashed home with his backpack and Ezio at his back " Woohoo " Druk was amazed by Ikuta's speed and wondered if there were some training videos he didn't see . They arrive and Ikuta puts Ezio done .
" Are you okay ? " " Yeah I'm okay " Ezio wasn't feeling fine from the speed Ikuta put his body into " It's just stomach pain " Ezio used the wall to balance himself and took a few deep breathes .
" Here I bought something to help the pain " Ezio walked in and fell on the couch " It wasn't like this before " Because before I was much weaker " Ezio felt worse than finishing a rollercoaster ride .
" Oh I feel so tired even though I didn't run today " Claire noticed Ezio's pain and let some air in " Ikuta are you done with that game ? " Claire asked " Not really I got so bored of it after a few games " " Then we try to ask for a refund "
" But I wanna collect more of these retro games " Ikuta already saw through her intention " Alright Louis will take you to the mall tomorrow " You're going out tomorrow ? " Ezio asked" Yeah what about you ? " " Can I join ? " Ikuta nods " Hooray , I'm away from my cousins again "
Ezio called his parents and Ikuta took the console to his room remembering the message ' I need to find out more about this dad is probably on his way to destroy whoever made this game '
" Are you really not going to play the game ? " Ikuta nodded at Claire who likely knows all about what the game does " It's nothing fun but I'll at least get some games just to stare at , I also like how they use different symbols to name it but I don't like it because it doesn't have a story or nice worldbuilding compared to the games I play at the newer consoles "
Ikuta goes down and opens the TV to watch some cartoons and thinks about what the invitation had written to him "You have successfully won the trial of black magic , mage with future potential you are invited to join the cult of the black suns"
"We have been hiding from a society that has been taking all of the black magic potential , all the petty and insignificant darkness from the heart but you have great darkness inside you , is it fear ? Or is it pain ?"
He knew that the darkness in his heart was all about his father he was fearful of what his father would do at the end of his life so he had to quickly work harder and harder to be able to survive .
"It doesn't matter as long as this darkness can fuel your potential we would like to seize this chance" he remembers the box that has contained suffering and wonders if there was a way to store the chip inside it or better use it one way or another .
' It might be possible to do that , if the box contains suffering that I put inside it might be able to be used for black magic but it also works on dark magic that harms others or any kind of suffering ' Ikuta knew that the idea of using black magic is terrible just as much as white magic could mess with his mind if he uses it .
' But it doesn't matter if it isn't darkness from my heart right ' " Hey Ikuta what do you wanna be in the future ? " Ezio asked " I don't know , I'm just learning as much as I can that I don't what I should be "
" Maybe a personal trainer ? " " Because I exercise a lot ? " " Yeah the science teacher knows a lot about science so they teach " " Then what do you wanna be in the future ? " " I'm gonna be an astronaut I wanna float on the moon "
Ikuta remembers the dark spell and shoots down Ezio's motivation " Astronauts have to do a lot of training to go to the moon , they also have to be careful or else they float to the infinite void and become lost forever "
Ezio shivered at the idea " I don't wanna be an astronaut anymore " " You can always try to be a streamer " " But that job is so terrible even an adventurer is much better " " Then you better study hard Ezio "
" Ahh but I don't wanna " Ezio looks at Ikuta " How do you homeschool Ikuta ? " " It's mostly sitting in the room and watching videos , reading books " " But you get to do it on your own time " " And because it's my own time I have to manage it , can you even sit on the table and study for a long time ? "
" No I'll probably go down and play " " That's right and you still need to arrange your lessons properly , it's hard to tell how much you need to learn so Dad arranged for my lessons so that I can start by counting then to addition and subtraction and then so on "
Ezio started not liking the idea of homeschooling " But you finished so easily " " Because I wanted to learn , I don't know what you were learning at school so I didn't want to go behind , I learned as much as I could because I didn't know "
Ezio remembered being stumped by the lessons Ikuta was taking " Wait why did you wanna go to school then ? " " My dad enrolled me , I thought it would be fun to go , even if I was just sitting around it still feels better with people around "
They hear a doorbell " Oh that must be Druk , I'll " Ezio tries to get up but felt his legs " Ugh " Ikuta helps him up " I'll get it " Ikuta goes to the door and opens it " I'm here to pick you up , litt "
Ikuta punched the lady making her drop her handbag and quickly summoned the darkness tying her up . He thinks about the spells he used the dark flame that sends her into the midnight mansion .
" It wasn't Druk but someone did give me a delivery " " What's in it ? " " I don't know I'll put it away for now " ' It's the Black Suns they must've known I got in , I'll ask her later for now I have to put this purse away '
" I'll be at the toilet for a while " " What about Druk ? " " The door has a remote to unlock just tell him with the remote " " Cool " Ezio tries to figure out the controls of the remote while Ikuta hides the lady's purse and checks his emails .
" Claire is Dad going to be busy ? " " Yes he will be so if you want to talk you won't be able to " " It's okay " ' That means I will be able to do things in private ' he already knows about Claire and Louis's psychology or commands and orders .
Both are puppets who report to his father , his past observations have allowed him to know what he has to be careful about when he is working ' As long as dad doesn't know I can see him I'll be fine , most people who do will die if that happens '
Ikuta checks the purse finds a letter and opens it "From the leader of the black suns we send you this letter to hope that you can come to us and reach your true potential" the letters were meant to bait Ikuta to go to the cult so that they could increase their power in secret even giving him details of each member .
' It will be useful to know more about Dad but not everyone knows him like the legends but if I do join I can have some benefits ' he liked the idea of the black market deals that he will get into ' I can find ways to increase magic potential although I have to make sure it doesn't ruin my future '
He plans to visit the cult but right now he needs to prepare to go to the cult " Hello Druk " Ezio said and they all play a few games , talking about magic during dinner and Ikuta's plans for tommorow .
" You finished so many games ? " Druk complimented " How do you get good grades by playing all these ? " " I just really liked studying and didn't want to stay behind , because my dad wasn't around I had plenty of me time which I used for training and studying , it was fun because the lessons are easy to understand "
" Oh " " I kinda wanna join too " " But you said you didn't like it " " I did but I want to laze around at Class like Nisse and you but I have to pay attention because my grades are not good " Ezio complains how hard school was after they were on Ikuta's giant bed .
" You have a lot of nice things " Druk said " Because I finished my lessons , dad said I could play as many games as I wanted only if I could keep up with my learning and get good grades so I got more pillows and benefits every day"
Druk lays his side of the bed feeling the comfort wondering about the rewards he gets " I can't even get a reward for doing a good job " Ezio said " Maybe because you have too many people in the house ? " Ikuta mentioned .
" Yeah the house is nice but it's too small for my family , your house is so big but you only have three people living in it " Ezio said " I know but that also means I have to do more chores because it's bigger "
" Like what ? " " I have to wipe every part of the house and now I even have to do the roofs " " Scary "
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