The next day, Marc took his bus with Elie as he did every school day.
"You wield the sword well. "
Elie was standing next to him, waiting patiently for the bus, his hands behind her back occasionally bumping into a pebble.
"No, it's just that I've seen a lot of anime on it. There are always master swordsmen in them. All you have to do is copy them."
Marc held the strap of her bag in his left hand, while his other hand was tucked safely in his pocket.
"Ah well."
Elie thought about watching more fighting series.
The journey was no longer than usual. The world had changed in Marc's eyes. Almost everyone exuded a certain aura. The trees gave off more than the grass. The sky looked more imposing than usual. Air particles were clearly visible to him. Water reflected everything. Colors emitted waves. The people around him gave off a faint aura.
It was as if he were in another world. Different from their world, but in another nonetheless.
"Marc, are you seeing other stuff too?"
"Yeah."
This was their new world.
Arriving at the school, Marc noticed that it gave off a stronger aura than anything he'd seen on the way.
At the sight of this aura, Marc pulled a face.
"I'm not even surprised."
Nathanaël arrived to greet them. Marc and Elie couldn't get used to someone so bright. They both put their arms in front of their eyes.
"Oh, you're overdoing it. By the way, Marc, that's Jin, isn't it?"
Marc turned and found that Jin had been behind him the whole time. Elie gasped and slapped him.
"Bravo to you. You're the second man to have noticed me. The first is obvious, my master."
Marc looked at Jin. He hadn't noticed him at all.
"Yes, that's it, that's it."
"You noticed me from the start, didn't you, master?"
"Stop being so formal. When did you sign up here?"
"The day you beat Thierry at the dojo."
"Ah, I see."
Marc couldn't believe he'd been able to find his address, his school, and sign up in so few days.
Decidedly, Marc really didn't understand Jin...
The day passed quickly, like all the days of the week. Chris and Manon hadn't approached the group. They hadn't even wanted to talk to Nathanaël. As far as they were concerned, the whole thing was just a ridiculous dream.
But on Friday, Chris didn't come to school and Marc sensed this was not normal.
It was a strange new sensation, too. It was as if something had been nagging at him ever since Chris had been gone, preventing him from concentrating.
"Are you sure about this?"
Nathanaël didn't sense it, though. It seemed as if Marc was the only one who felt anything.
"Yes. It's like a sixth sense."
"Why don't I have that?
Elie didn't seem to sense it either.
"I don't know. Why don't you go ask the known guy?"
Nathanaël spoke up:
"That's enough. I don't think it's normal either."
And so did Jin:
"Master, teach me to have this sixth sense."
"You don't want to shut up for two minutes. I told you you had to go into the other world first."
Jin thought about it earnestly.
"Then I still haven't reached it."
He began to think about what he needed to do to catch up with his master.
Seeing that the combat genius was lost in thought, Nathanaël pulled a face and then asked:
"Do you think we should check out his place ?"
"Maybe? But he's not going to be happy to see us."
"We've got no choice. Maybe it'll teach us something else about this world."
On that note, the group of four prepared to go to Chris's house.
"But, does anyone know where he lives?"
The whole group stopped at Nathanaël's question. They all had this annoying habit of going to a place whose location they didn't know. Of course, they were on their way, but no one knew where to go.
But suddenly, Jin spoke.
"I know. I thought he was an enemy of my master. So I found his address, his full name, his date of birth, the key to his house..."
Marc interrupted him in a panic.
"It's okay, we get it. Just don't do that in the future."
Chris's house wasn't that far from the school. They could walk there without any problem.
The house was a nice mansion. Not as beautiful as Nathanaël, but it held its own next to it.
"Wow!"
"Don't worry master, yours is more beautiful."
"No."
Marc's house wasn't all that beautiful.
There was no car parked out front, but there was definitely a garage. However, as he approached it, no car seemed to be there.
The house seemed empty.
"Marc, you're seeing what I'm seeing."
"I think I do."
Marc and Nathanaël could see the aura escaping from the house.
Marc immediately recognized the aura of the known guy. It blended with others to form a strange mixture, escaping like smoke rising from a fire.
"Elie, you recognize it."
"Yes, it's that man's aura, but in very small quantities."
The aura escaping from the house was faint. Really weaker than that day. So much so, you'd have thought it wasn't the same.
But there it was, nonetheless, in the midst of all the others, and the whole thing formed a rather uniform blend.
It was the first time Marc had seen the different shades of a single aura. It was as if, in the end, it were nothing more than a mixture of many others. And in the middle was an aura he recognized and could perceive very clearly.
"Ringing?"
Marc headed for the doorbell, but Nathanaël interrupted him, saying he'd better go ahead. He rang twice before he heard someone come downstairs.
Chris opened the door.
"Nath? What are you doing here?"
Chris looked sick. His face was turning slightly blue, and his nose was red.
"I came to see if you were okay."
"Are you serious? Nice all the way. I'm fine don't worry."
Marc was hidden behind the wall. He knew Chris was going to be a lot less cooperative if he showed himself.
But like Nathanaël, he could tell something wasn't right with his condition. Something more than just an illness.
"Are you sure? You don't look well."
Auras could be seen blending on Chris, forming a particular aura. Marc felt the "known guy" aura gradually diminish. Instead came an aura that seemed to be gaining in strength, little by little, taking the place of all the others.
Marc thought:
"He's not in there. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so weak and it wouldn't be diminishing. Either he's just dropped his host, or he's never been here. Known guy? Chris is knwon, but not famous enough. He's only known here."
For his part, Nathanaël was about to leave.
"Very well, then. I'll leave you to it then."
"Hey, Nath?"
"Hm."
"Is it just me, or are you glowing?"
At these words, Marc's heart began to speed up.
It was impossible for Chris to see the auras, unless he'd been in the other world.
Elie tried as best she could to remain impassive, but you could see her face gradually changing.
"I get that a lot now."
"Say, wouldn't that have something to do with this case?"
Nathanaël opened his eyes wide.
"Don't tell me you came here for that?"
Marc began to sweat...
The aura Chris exuded was growing.
"Marc's here too, I guess."
Marc began to move.
But before things got out of hand, Nathanaël tried to intervene, holding out his arms in front of Chris to stop him from leaving.
"He came to see if you were okay. That's all."
But Chris pushed him away without hesitation, with a force that even surprised Nathanaël.
"And I just don't want to see him. So if he's here, let me put one on him."
"No."
Chris rushed out and saw Marc glued to the wall.
"Damn!"
Chris ran at him at full speed. Marc knew it was useless.
The short time he'd spent there had made him a monster without equal in his world. Chris didn't stand a chance against him. Even so, he didn't try to stop him just yet. In the back of his mind, he felt a hint of vengeance. Something that drove him to fight that day.
He couldn't see it...but a snow-white smile appeared on his gloomy, dark aura right behind him.
"Chris, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Chris tried to stick his point on Marc's face, but Marc dodged easily. He then dodged three of his fists to the face.
"Chris calm down."
"Stop moving!"
Chris tried again, but Marc caught his fist. He twisted his arm to put it behind his back like the policemen who subdue thieves. Seeing that Chris still hadn't given in, he released him before kicking him in the stomach.
Chris collapsed to the floor.
The group leaned over Chris and stared at him for a few minutes. Elie spoke first.
"I guess he deserved it."
They all nodded before Nathanaël put him back in his bed.
After Nathanaël returned, the group went their separate ways.
In the end, they couldn't find anything particularly strange about Chris—except for his aura.
But Marc's intuition still wouldn't let him let it go. He had a strong feeling that he was missing something in this case....
Marc, Elie and Jin took the bus as usual.
When they arrived at the bus stop in their village, they saw children playing in the street where they lived. Marc walked home greeting the children, and Elie said goodbye to the boys.
Suddenly, a tree that had previously been damaged at the trunk began to fall. Jin had seen the beginning of the fall and tried to move towards the children to deflect it, but Marc was quicker. He grabbed the tree as if it were a feather and threw it back up, all in front of the children.
The frightened children looked at Marc. Eventually, the tree fell back to the other side.
"Are you all right?"
None of the children replied. So Marc stood up as if nothing had happened, realizing that it was a bit too much, and then left without saying another word to them.
Jin couldn't believe it. His master was certainly strong, but he had never imagined he was that good.
Marc, for his part, decided to avoid showing off his strength left and right while children were watching.
When they got back to Marc's place, he and Jin traded a few blows until night fell.
Jin returned the latest.
He couldn't understand how his master could be so strong.
He then tried to match his speed, but to no avail; then he tried to lift the tree outside—the one that had fallen on the children—and although he succeeded, it wasn't nearly as easy as it had been for his master.
Jin was a genius; he had seen and observed everything there was to know about combat in the world. But his master was completely beyond his expectations. Everything he did left Jin more and more in awe, as he found himself trying time and again to catch up to him.
He couldn't understand how such strength was possible, so he stayed there to try to figure it out and didn't return until late, still without answers to his questions.
Meanwhile, Marc had been watching Jin fight. He could clearly see that Jin's movements were much better than his own. He watched the genius move from left to right with ease and knew that the only reason he was stronger than him was because he'd been in that strange world.
Marc lay down in his bed,staring at the ceiling. There was no decoration on this ceiling. At night, it looked like a dark sky, nothing more.
Marc heard Jin come up to his room.
"Good night, master."
"Good night, Jin. And don't call me that."
Jin returned to his room without a sound.
Marc stared at the ceiling in silence for a long time before falling asleep. As he drifted off to sleep, he noticed a faint flow in the air, as if it too had an aura.
The next day, Marc took his bus with Elie as he did every school day.
"You wield the sword well. "
Elie was standing next to him, waiting patiently for the bus, his hands behind her back occasionally bumping into a pebble.
"No, it's just that I've seen a lot of anime on it. There are always master swordsmen in them. All you have to do is copy them."
Marc held the strap of her bag in his left hand, while his other hand was tucked safely in his pocket.
"Ah well."
Elie thought about watching more fighting series.
The journey was no longer than usual. The world had changed in Marc's eyes. Almost everyone exuded a certain aura. The trees gave off more than the grass. The sky looked more imposing than usual. Air particles were clearly visible to him. Water reflected everything. Colors emitted waves. The people around him gave off a faint aura.
It was as if he were in another world. Different from their world, but in another nonetheless.
"Marc, are you seeing other stuff too?"
"Yeah."
This was their new world.
Arriving at the school, Marc noticed that it gave off a stronger aura than anything he'd seen on the way.
At the sight of this aura, Marc pulled a face.
"I'm not even surprised."
Nathanaël arrived to greet them. Marc and Elie couldn't get used to someone so bright. They both put their arms in front of their eyes.
"Oh, you're overdoing it. By the way, Marc, that's Jin, isn't it?"
Marc turned and found that Jin had been behind him the whole time. Elie gasped and slapped him.
"Bravo to you. You're the second man to have noticed me. The first is obvious, my master."
Marc looked at Jin. He hadn't noticed him at all.
"Yes, that's it, that's it."
"You noticed me from the start, didn't you, master?"
"Stop being so formal. When did you sign up here?"
"The day you beat Thierry at the dojo."
"Ah, I see."
Marc couldn't believe he'd been able to find his address, his school, and sign up in so few days.
Decidedly, Marc really didn't understand Jin...
The day passed quickly, like all the days of the week. Chris and Manon hadn't approached the group. They hadn't even wanted to talk to Nathanaël. As far as they were concerned, the whole thing was just a ridiculous dream.
But that Friday, Chris didn't come to school and Marc sensed this was not normal.
It was a strange new sensation, too. It was as if something had been nagging at him ever since Chris had been gone, preventing him from concentrating.
"Are you sure about this?"
Nathanaël didn't sense it, though. It seemed as if Marc was the only one who felt anything.
"Yes. It's like a sixth sense."
"Why don't I have that?
Elie didn't seem to sense it either.
"I don't know. Why don't you go ask the known guy?"
Nathanaël spoke up:
"That's enough. I don't think it's normal either."
And so did Jin:
"Master, teach me to have this sixth sense."
"You don't want to shut up for two minutes. I told you you had to go into the other world first."
Jin thought about it earnestly.
"Then I still haven't reached it."
He began to think about what he needed to do to catch up with his master.
Seeing that the combat genius was lost in thought, Nathanaël pulled a face and then asked:
"Do you think we should check out his place ?"
"Maybe? But he's not going to be happy to see us."
"We've got no choice. Maybe it'll teach us something else about this world."
On that note, the group of four prepared to go to Chris's house.
"But, does anyone know where he lives?"
The whole group stopped at Nathanaël's question. They all had this annoying habit of going to a place whose location they didn't know. Of course, they were on their way, but no one knew where to go.
But suddenly, Jin spoke.
"I know. I thought he was an enemy of my master. So I found his address, his full name, his date of birth, the key to his house..."
Marc interrupted him in a panic.
"It's okay, we get it. Just don't do that in the future."
Chris's house wasn't that far from the school. They could walk there without any problem.
The house was a nice mansion. Not as beautiful as Nathanaël, but it held its own next to it.
"Wow!"
"Don't worry master, yours is more beautiful."
"No."
Marc's house wasn't all that beautiful.
There was no car parked out front, but there was definitely a garage. However, as he approached it, no car seemed to be there.
The house seemed empty.
"Marc, you're seeing what I'm seeing."
"I think I do."
Marc and Nathanaël could see the aura escaping from the house.
Marc immediately recognized the aura of the known guy. It blended with others to form a strange mixture, escaping like smoke rising from a fire.
"Elie, you recognize it."
"Yes, it's that man's aura, but in very small quantities."
The aura escaping from the house was faint. Really weaker than that day. So much so, you'd have thought it wasn't the same.
But there it was, nonetheless, in the midst of all the others, and the whole thing formed a rather uniform blend.
It was the first time Marc had seen the different shades of a single aura. It was as if, in the end, it were nothing more than a mixture of many others. And in the middle was an aura he recognized and could perceive very clearly.
"Ringing?"
Marc headed for the doorbell, but Nathanaël interrupted him, saying he'd better go ahead. He rang twice before he heard someone come downstairs.
Chris opened the door.
"Nath? What are you doing here?"
Chris looked sick. His face was turning slightly blue, and his nose was red.
"I came to see if you were okay."
"Are you serious? Nice all the way. I'm fine don't worry."
Marc was hidden behind the wall. He knew Chris was going to be a lot less cooperative if he showed himself.
But like Nathanaël, he could tell something wasn't right with his condition. Something more than just an illness.
"Are you sure? You don't look well."
Auras could be seen blending on Chris, forming a particular aura. Marc felt the "known guy" aura gradually diminish. Instead came an aura that seemed to be gaining in strength, little by little, taking the place of all the others.
Marc thought:
"He's not in there. Otherwise, it wouldn't be so weak and it wouldn't be diminishing. Either he's just dropped his host, or he's never been here. Known guy? Chris is knwon, but not famous enough. He's only known here."
For his part, Nathanaël was about to leave.
"Very well, then. I'll leave you to it then."
"Hey, Nath?"
"Hm."
"Is it just me, or are you glowing?"
At these words, Marc's heart began to speed up.
It was impossible for Chris to see the auras, unless he'd been in the other world.
Elie tried as best she could to remain impassive, but you could see her face gradually changing.
"I get that a lot now."
"Say, wouldn't that have something to do with this case?"
Nathanaël opened his eyes wide.
"Don't tell me you came here for that?"
Marc began to sweat...
The aura Chris exuded was growing.
"Marc's here too, I guess."
Marc began to move.
But before things got out of hand, Nathanaël tried to intervene, holding out his arms in front of Chris to stop him from leaving.
"He came to see if you were okay. That's all."
But Chris pushed him away without hesitation, with a force that even surprised Nathanaël.
"And I just don't want to see him. So if he's here, let me put one on him."
"No."
Chris rushed out and saw Marc glued to the wall.
"Damn!"
Chris ran at him at full speed. Marc knew it was useless.
The short time he'd spent there had made him a monster without equal in his world. Chris didn't stand a chance against him. Even so, he didn't try to stop him just yet. In the back of his mind, he felt a hint of vengeance. Something that drove him to fight that day.
He couldn't see it...but a snow-white smile appeared on his gloomy, dark aura right behind him.
"Chris, I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Chris tried to stick his point on Marc's face, but Marc dodged easily. He then dodged three of his fists to the face.
"Chris calm down."
"Stop moving!"
Chris tried again, but Marc caught his fist. He twisted his arm to put it behind his back like the policemen who subdue thieves. Seeing that Chris still hadn't given in, he released him before kicking him in the stomach.
Chris collapsed to the floor.
The group leaned over Chris and stared at him for a few minutes. Elie spoke first.
"I guess he deserved it."
They all nodded before Nathanaël put him back in his bed.
After Nathanaël returned, the group went their separate ways.
In the end, they couldn't find anything particularly strange about Chris—except for his aura.
But Marc's intuition still wouldn't let him let it go. He had a strong feeling that he was missing something in this case....
Marc, Elie and Jin took the bus as usual.
When they arrived at the bus stop in their village, they saw children playing in the street where they lived. Marc walked home greeting the children, and Elie said goodbye to the boys.
Suddenly, a tree that had previously been damaged at the trunk began to fall. Jin had seen the beginning of the fall and tried to move towards the children to deflect it, but Marc was quicker. He grabbed the tree as if it were a feather and threw it back up, all in front of the children.
The frightened children looked at Marc. Eventually, the tree fell back to the other side.
"Are you all right?"
None of the children replied. So Marc stood up as if nothing had happened, realizing that it was a bit too much, and then left without saying another word to them.
Jin couldn't believe it. His master was certainly strong, but he had never imagined he was that good.
Marc, for his part, decided to avoid showing off his strength left and right while children were watching.
When they got back to Marc's place, he and Jin traded a few blows until night fell.
Jin returned the latest.
He couldn't understand how his master could be so strong.
He then tried to match his speed, but to no avail; then he tried to lift the tree outside—the one that had fallen on the children—and although he succeeded, it wasn't nearly as easy as it had been for his master.
Jin was a genius; he had seen and observed everything there was to know about combat in the world. But his master was completely beyond his expectations. Everything he did left Jin more and more in awe, as he found himself trying time and again to catch up to him.
He couldn't understand how such strength was possible, so he stayed there to try to figure it out and didn't return until late, still without answers to his questions.
Meanwhile, Marc had been watching Jin fight. He could clearly see that Jin's movements were much better than his own. He watched the genius move from left to right with ease and knew that the only reason he was stronger than him was because he'd been in that strange world.
Marc lay down in his bed,staring at the ceiling. There was no decoration on this ceiling. At night, it looked like a dark sky, nothing more.
Marc heard Jin come up to his room.
"Good night, master."
"Good night, Jin. And don't call me that."
Jin returned to his room without a sound.
Marc stared at the ceiling in silence for a long time before falling asleep. As he drifted off to sleep, he noticed a faint flow in the air, as if it too had an aura.
An aura... that feels strangely familiar...