One stormy night, a lone purple-haired child was lying in bed, trying to fall asleep.
*Rumble*
*Crackle*
She was scared of the dark as many children tend to be. Every now and then, a light shining through her window would illuminate her room for a moment, giving her some peace of mind as the dark figures in the dark she thought she saw all disappeared, only for her to jump at the sounds of the rumbling thunder that followed shortly after.
*Rumble*
*Crackle*
Eventually, she just hid herself beneath the covers so as to avoid having to witness the illusions conjured up by her own imagination. However, even though her sight was inhibited, she could still very much hear the sounds just outside her bed. She was currently sleeping inside an old inn, full of creaking floors and walls, with people moving about one or two rooms away, causing her to imagine that something was walking around her bed, just waiting for her to stick her head out.
*gasp*
Eventually, it became too hot to keep her head under the cover, and she poked her head out for a moment, and she saw another figure at the foot of her bed standing completely still and she was paralyzed with fear. Like a deer in headlights, she was too scared to move back under the covers as she just stared into the darkness not daring to turn her gaze away from it. Then suddenly…
*Rumble*
*Crackle*
*Smash*
A bolt of lightning struck down right outside her window, casting a bright light into her room. However, the figure did not vanish like it had before. There was a man she did not know, standing at the foot of her bed, looking down at her, and as the realization dawned on her, she could feel a stone sinking in her stomach.
"I finally found you!"
*high-pitched scream*
*Bang*
"AIKO!!!"
*Boom*
The moment she let out a terrified shriek, her grandfather came rushing into the room firing a bright energy projectile out of his mechanical prosthetic arm that pushed the figure reaching for her away.
The battle that followed was a blur, but when it finally came to an end, the unknown man was nowhere to be seen, and the elderly man was stuck underneath a pile of burning debris in a pool of his own blood as his granddaughter was struggling in vain to lift the wooden pillar atop the old man.
"*Cough* Aiko, it is no use!"
"No, I *Sob* I can still-!"
"There is no time! *Cough* Here! Take this! *Cough* I taught you how it works right? It should take you to *Cough*! Ugh! To a friend of mine! He'll take care of you!" He coughed out as he handed the little girl a spatial teleportation artifact.
"*Sob* But I don't want to leave!"
"Hehe! *Cough* Silly little girl! Do you remember this guy? *Cough* You used to call him, little Grandpa! *Huff* As long as you hold on to him, Grandpa will always be watching over you! Now go, and remember, gr-a, nd, pa. lov…!" He said, taking his last breaths as he handed the small girl a tiny mannequin golem.
Time passed and the little girl, though barely grown in size, was now amongst the top performing first years of Shiro magic academy. However, one day, after receiving full marks on a theoretical enchantment test, she was walking down a corridor when suddenly…
*Snip*
"Hey, I thought your hair was getting kind of long, so I improved it! Now be polite and thank me!"
Another student snuck up behind her, grabbed a lock of her purple hair and cut it off.
A year passed.
"YOU LITTLE BITCH!"
*SLAP*
In a secluded corner of the academy, the girl who had cut her hair a year prior alongside a gang of other girls were beating up and threatening the purple haired girl.
She was no longer amongst the most promising students of the academy, but part of the academy's trash bin for problematic and underperforming students. She had become the personal punching bag of this group of bullies.
Normally, she would just take it lying down, but she got scared when they pulled out the knife, and so, she called out to the teacher who happened to pass them by.
"Help!"
He took one look in her direction, only to turn his gaze away as he continued walking.
"You get it now? You class F's are just trash in the wind. Know your place and let us have some fun with that face of yours." The bully said, as she gleefully pressed a knife to her face.
"Haha!"
She never once did anything to them. She never did anything that would justify this treatment. So, why did they hurt her? Why did they ignore her plea for help? Why did they enjoy seeing her cry? These questions filled her head as she grew ever more frustrated with the unfair reality, she found herself living in. Then when she was about to give up on what little hope for a better future she had, like a bolt from the blue, he appeared.
"I see, so this is what kids find fun nowadays? Mind if I join in?"
*SPLAT*
For the first time since her grandfather still drew breath, someone had stood up for her.
In an instant, a silver-haired professor showed up and flipped the whole world on its head. In front of him, be they teachers or students, nobody dared pick on her again, otherwise they would soon find themselves in a world of pain when her new professor had a word with them in private. Even when he savagely beat the vice-principal alongside an entire class of students, the end result was the vice-principal being fired instead of him.
She still got bullied by the professor though, but it was different when he did it. He may have been violent, but it was a fair, unbiased and never malicious. She was never treated any worse than her fellow classmates and was never punished for no reason, while at the same time, she would get the opportunity to learn knowledge and skills not taught in any other class.
Time passed and they were now on Walpurgis.
"Hey, kid! If you're going to pick a fight, then make sure it's one you can win." Nox said to Shinji.
She was now watching her classmate get scolded for almost getting into a fight with a 5th tier magician who had come to bully them.
"He started it!" Aiko spoke up, feeling the scolding was unjustified.
"And?"
"And what?" Shinji asked
"And what would have happened if you had launched that spell at that short-tempered guy?"
"…"
"He would have killed you both."
"What? No, he wouldn't! The rules of Walpurgis won't permit it! He wouldn't have dared!"
"Yes, he would! And you know why? Because you would have given him an excuse!"
The scene shifted forwards in time.
She and her classmate had been tripped and fallen to the ground in front of a gang of bullies from a rival academy.
"Oops! Looks like you Shiro trash need to watch your steps! We wouldn't want your pretty little faces getting damaged right?" One of the bullies said as he grabbed Aiko's chin to get a better look at her face.
*Smack*
Reminded of her old bullies, her past traumas began flashing before her eyes and she reflexively slapped the guy's hand off her face.
"Ouch! You just hit me!? You Bitch!"
*Bang*
That one action triggered a fistfight in which she spent most of her time curling up on the ground, unable to bring herself to do anything until she was knocked out by a head injury.
*BOOM*
The scene shifted once more.
She was now dawdling outside Kenji's room. She had heard the news. That her friend had lost the ability to walk as a result of the injuries he sustained by getting involved in a fight she triggered. The fight she had been completely useless in. Blaming his condition on her own cowardice, she couldn't bring herself to face him, to apologize.
Before long, day turned to night, and she began hearing sounds coming from Kenji's room and she began to eavesdrop.
Some more time passed.
*Roar*
*Thud*
She had now inherited her ancestors' knowledge and power and was now working with her fellow disciple Shinji, to protect the friend who she had once felt she had let down in the past as he underwent his advancement. However, …
*BANG*
"Hehe!"
Another gang of bullies had shown up and attacked them. She had frozen up, just like she had in the past, but seeing one of her other friends about to get killed, something powerful inside her stirred, releasing a pressure into her surroundings, halting them all in their tracks.
"STOP!!!"
She was tired of doing nothing while people she cared about were being hurt, so she raised her voice.
The scene shifted again.
She was now accompanying the gang of hoodlums while getting her ancestor golems to carry all their stuff away from the mountain they had previously been on.
She wasn't naïve. She knew from the start that they didn't just take her along as a porter. The only reason why they hadn't just killed them all and looted their corpses was because they had been shaken by that burst of power she had released earlier. She knew from experience that they were not the kinds of people who'd just stop after taking their possessions. They simply wanted to lead her towards a more advantageous location where they could trap her without the chance of being interrupted by magical beasts or other cultivators. However, they were not the only ones looking to switch to a more advantageous battle ground.
"Hehe! Hey, girly? Why don't you-!"
*Swoosh*
*Bang*
"Huh? …! AAAAH-!"
*Poof*
*Loud coughing*
Just as one of the seedy looking guys wrapped his arm around Aiko's shoulder, a glowing arrow shot out of a nearby bush, hitting him right in the eye, exploding into a thick smoke screen upon impact. She had then snuck away from the group to take cover.
One of the things she had learned during her time in the inheritance site, was a way to create a specialized telepathic network between all the golem ancestors, using herself as a center, allowing them to perfectly coordinate their attacks and strategies on a dime, all without anyone needing to say a word. It requires a flesh and blood brain to process, organize, filter, and relay all the information to the relevant parties, hence why they need a living person at the center of their communication network to be able to move efficiently. That means if Aiko goes down, all the golems will become drastically worse combatants, making combat in an open area with few hiding spots like that mountain rather disadvantageous.
When the group of thugs appeared, one of her ancestors, who specialized in stealth, was lying in wait for the next foe to appear, so when she went with them, she ordered him to follow after in secret, while waiting for the right moment to strike.
There were two conditions they wanted to meet before making their move. First, they needed it to be far enough away so that they couldn't just return to kill her friends immediately, and second…
*Rumble*
*ROAR*
They had been moving along the ground because Aiko and most of her golems were unable to fly, making it more likely for them to suddenly run into some of the magic beasts heading towards Kenji. If possible, she wanted to wait until they were about to run into a large enough wave of beasts. That way, they would be able to pick them off from the side, and the beasts that they kill will serve to help ease the burden on Shinji who now had to protect Kenji by himself.
During all the chaos, Aiko would be hiding at a safer distance, watching as more and more died, either to the magic beasts or to a sneak attack by one of her ancestors who focused more on trying to kill the humans than the beasts. Fortunately, after the leader died, they managed to eek out a victory, as the thugs that didn't get killed, ran away. Unfortunately, they lost nearly every golem while taking down the remaining magical beasts.
However, 'lost' did not mean dead. It's just that their bodies broke completely. One of the other perks of the telepathic network is that it lets her preserve and store the souls of those who lost their bodies inside her body temporarily until a new vessel is prepared. However, it comes with some side effects. She will feel a pulsing headache, and her thoughts will start to get more and more scrambled with each soul she carries at any given time, as if a million different thoughts are running through her head simultaneously. If she is not careful and try to hold more than she can take, it might cause permanent damage.
After all the enemies were dealt with, there were only two golems left that were combat ready, one that was just barely able to move, and two of which were just regular golems, that she manually controlled.
*BOOM*
*Shlurp*
However, just as she was about to head back to her friends, she froze up as a familiar figure dropped from the sky and landed right in front of her, destroying all her golems in an instant and restraining her in some kind of muddy substance created from darkness.
*Sporadic breathing*
The memories flooded her mind, giving her a panic attack while even more souls were disturbing her mind. He wore an eyepatch, but she was sure of it. That man was the one who appeared that night her grandfather perished.
"It's **** a **** time, ******** ****! It's time you ******** home!" she heard him say, her state of mind making his words inaudible.
*Smack*
Suddenly, Aiko woke up from her dream as she felt a stinging sensation in her cheek.
She had lost consciousness shortly after being captured due to mental instability and a panic attack, and when she awoke, she was forced to kneel in front of a fancily dressed purple-haired stranger. However, she was too distracted by everything else to pay attention to the shouts of that guy increasingly red-faced man in front of her.
Her mind had acclimated to the pressure of the souls stored within her, causing it to operate much faster than it normally would. Everything from her thoughts to her senses seemed to be far more detailed and operating much smoother than before. Every breath taken, she heard. Every vibration in the ground, she felt. Every string woven of the carpet at her feet, she could make out in disturbing detail. Though, it might give the illusion that her senses had been enhanced, but that is not exactly right. Her range of vision, sense of smell, and touch, all of it was the exact same as before, but her processing speed and her attention to detail was on different level. Using a television screen as an analogy, the world Aiko perceived prior versus what she sees now, would be like the difference between viewing an image with low resolution and a much higher one. The experience could be both refreshing and bewildering.
"INSOLANT CHILD! ANSWER ME WHEN I SPEAK!"
*Smack*
"WHERE IS IT?!"
She was so overwhelmed, she barely even noticed the man who just slapped her in the face. Even the stinging sensation in her cheek, although more vivid than before, the pain itself faded almost instantly. This both amazed and terrified her, as if she had just stepped into a foreign world.
"Tsk! TAKE HER TO THE DUNGEON! MAYBE SOME PAIN WIILL LOOSEN UP HER TONGUE!"