BEEP
Erza blinked. The chains that had tied her up loosened.
The ethernano started responding to her again.
"I know that you won't forgive me, nor do I seek forgiveness."
Erza frowned. She was confused. 'Is this another scheme? But why do that when he had us restrained?'
She glanced at Kazu, who was looking at her right in the eye.
Erza barely stopped herself from flinching. Her jaws tighten and her fingers twitched.
Gone were the lifeless eyes. What replaced them were calculating eyes that could, as if they could see your soul.
'How could somebody have such a change in their emotions so fast?' Erza felt half relieved and half uncomfortable.
She looked at him for a few seconds. Despite not talking, Erza understood what Kazu's gaze wanted to say.
'Remain cautious.' She turned back to Lucas.
The area was still dark, and Lucas couldn't see the change in Kazu's eyes unless he was near Kazu, like Erza.
'I don't sense much magic from him. He could be a threat at the level of Anne.' Erza bit her lip, raising her guard.
She was initially going to attack Lucas, but now, after some thinking, that was a foolish decision.
She doesn't know anything about the stoic man. He didn't look scared to be in the room with two of them, who now had access to magic.
It was an indirect statement—He didn't see them as a threat.
---
January, x776
"Where are we going?" Cana asked, looking at Kazu's back as she followed behind. Kazu had asked her to go on a stroll, and given that she was free, she agreed.
She was quite curious about what he wanted to do, as he rarely asked her out on something other than training.
"To get rid of your habit of freezing up mid-battle."
"Huh?" Cana stopped. "Wait, what?"
"Yup. Let's go. Master has called me in the evening, so I don't have much time." Kazu didn't stop.
Cana started walking again. "But...This...Too sudden." She found it hard to speak given the suddenity of the situation.
"It shouldn't take too long. I will just give you a guideline on how to deal with such situations. You will get better with more experience." Kazu stopped suddenly.
Cana, who was more focused on his words, didn't stop on time and collided with Kazu, causing both of them to fall.
"Ouch," Kazu grumbled, getting up.
"My bad." Cana got up and dusted her clothes.
Her eyes went to the surroundings.
They were in a forest. The same one where they had fought the boar last year.
"So... what are we going to do here?" Cana had a bad feeling about this.
Kazu didn't say anything and jumped.
In one motion, he reached the branch of a tree. He motioned with his hands at her.
Cana sighed. "Why are you acting so mysterious?"
She didn't jump but rather climbed the tree.
"So?" She asked while standing beside Kazu.
Kazu didn't say anything and took out a watch. He stared at it for a few seconds.
"What—"
"There." Kazu interrupted her, pointing in a direction.
The next second, a boar came out of a bush.
A magical boar.
It was looking around, sniffing as it moved.
'How did looking at his stopwatch tell him about this boar's arrival?'
Cana blinked. "Well... it hasn't seen us, so I don't feel anything. I could take it out." She said, taking out her cards.
Kazu held her wrist, stopping her. He took one card out and threw it towards the boar.
"Noob." Cana snorted as she looked at the card, which didn't even come 50 meters near the boar.
The boar snapped its neck towards the card before looking at them.
Cana felt her body freeze up entirely.
'???' Despite being more than a hundred metres away from the boar, she felt herself unable to move.
Her body started trembling slightly, her heartbeat increasing as she gazed at the boar, which charged at the tree they were on.
--
PRESENT DAY
Cana looked at the bear approaching.
THUMP THUMP THUMP
Her heart drummed inside her chest. It was the only sound she could hear as she looked at the bear in dread.
Another thing she noticed was that her breathing roughened. This wasn't due to the recent swimming, but due to the bear in front of her. It was—
Fear.
She felt fear due to the bloodlust that the bear released.
'This reminds me of that day.' Cana's mind thought as she recalled the memory of that day with Kazu.
--
"Do you feel it?" She turned her gaze towards Kazu, who was calmly looking at her.
"This is fear. I bet you have felt this emotion multiple times in your life." He continued nonchalantly, as if the boar didn't exist.
THUD
The boar collided with the tree, snapping it like a twig. Kazu and Cana, who were on a branch, were sent flying along with the tree.
"Now, you might wonder, why do you freeze up? This hasn't been the first time you have felt fear, yet this is different from other times." Kazu continued speaking while they were mid-air.
Cana felt herself calm down a bit due to his nonchalance.
'Right. It will be fine as Kazu is here. He is unaffected.' Cana looked at the ground quickly approaching.
Her fingers twitched. Before she could even think, her hand moved.
It reached out towards her bag. She took out a card and threw it on the ground.
Whoosh
A wind current was released from the card, towards them, slowing their fall as they safely landed on the ground.
Next, Cana quickly threw multiple cards at the boar before she could freeze again.
Whoosh
Before the boar could charge at them, it was cut into two.
Cana took a deep breath as she looked at the boar's corpse.
She then slowly turned towards Kazu, who was smiling at her.
"H—How?" How was she able to move now?
"Bloodlust. What the boar was releasing was bloodlust." Kazu slowly spoke.
"Blood...lust?" 'I have heard the term thrown inside the guild multiple times.'
"Yup. You might have wondered sometimes what people mean by 'this beast's bloodlust was so strong'. It's this... the feeling you felt now. Despite being quite weaker than you, it was successfully able to instil fear in you. This is blood lust."
Cana pursed her lips. She thought about how previous instances of where she had felt blood lust.
"Wait! Is this similar to how the master sometimes releases some pressure to stop a brawl?" Cana remembered Makarov doing something similar.
Kazu raised an eyebrow. Impressed. "Yeah, what he is doing is releasing his aura, or more specifically, his intent. Strong Mages could do this instinctively when they feel strong emotions. Blood lust is also a kind of aura. It's specifically killing intent—Desire to kill somebody."
"Wait, but this boar is super weak compared to the master. How can he do it? You said strong mages could do it. I didn't sense anybody other than the master doing this kind of thing."
Kazu looked at her for a few seconds, pondering. "Hmm... Well, a main reason for this is that the boar had likely killed a lot of things. Irrespective of your strength, if you are constantly living in an environment where you have to regularly kill, then you can release it too.
Mages rarely kill something, especially our guild's mages. So, you probably haven't sensed anybody. Moreover, killing intent is released when you want to kill somebody. I bet a lot of people in our guild could release it, but you never got a chance to see them do it, as brawls are just harmless fights."
Cana frowned, digesting his words. "I see...So anybody could release killing intent... How does this all relate to trying to stop myself from getting affected by it?"
Kazu nodded. "I wanted to explain to you the principle behind it so that you understand the next steps. Basically, the preventive measures are to move while acknowledging that fear. It's more of a mental battle."
"Mental battle...?" Cana tilted her head, clearly confused. 'So... I have to somehow convince myself to move despite the fear...?'
"Hey!"
Cana flinched.
Suddenly, she felt a huge amount of killing intent focused on her. It was several times stronger than what the boar had released at her.
She looked at the source.
Kazu.
He was looking at her with an icy expression.
He lifted his one hand and then slowly moved it towards her neck.
Cana felt her heartbeat rising suddenly. Her body started trembling slightly, along with her breathing becoming rough.
She could already see herself getting choked by Kazu or worse—her neck broken like a twig.
She finally understood what Kazu meant by a mental battle.
One side of her mind told her that it was a demonstration, yet that side was muffled by the other side, which was blaring—this is not an example. It's a threat.
Her body wasn't spared either. Her mind was still trying to fight back, but her body? It had forsaken that possibility entirely.
Her heart drummed, her breathing roughened, heck, her body was affecting her mind too.
'WAIT, my BODY IS AFFECTING my mind.' She finally reached a solution.
Kazu's hands almost reached her neck, just before—
CRUNCH
"FUCK", Kazu cursed.
He looked at his palm, which now Cana was biting.
"It seems you found the answer," Kazu said with a wry expression. He hadn't put a barrier around his palm, so the bite hurt.
'I think I went too far.' Looking at Cana's trembling form, Kazu felt a pang of sympathy.
"Tis for messing with mew", Kazu heard her saying before feeling another sting of pain in his palm.
"HEY...IT hurts... I am sorry..."
***
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