Arion.
That was his name now.
He was still a baby, barely a year old now.
He had learnt a lot in this year.
First of all, he could not summon his Soul Runes or even feel an ounce of magic coursing through his body, that had practically put him in a frenzied state.
That was when, a month after he was born, he finally saw it—the hope. Magic, not his though. It was his mother using magic to cut vegetables.
He could not help but giggle only to snort hearing his childish voice. Seeing his mother for over a year, and more than once a week seeing her use her magic, he had a few guesses on what her bonus was.
It seemed to have to do something with manipulating inanimate objects—like telekinesis.
As much as he would like to dig deeper into his mother's powers—that was the last of his interests. He was more interested in his new family. He had already seen and met his mother and father, and from pieces of their conversations he was not their only child.
His mom looked like a doll—he didn't know if she wore make-up or not. Then again, he didn't even know if make-up existed in this world.
Her skin was smooth, a soft warm ivory that seemed almost flawless. She had long black hair tied behind her in a way he couldn't understand, and her eyes were black.
Not the lifeless, empty black of Ace's dead eyes—but black that reflected light. Somehow, they seemed to shine.
She had a slender body, a soothing, mesmerizing voice, and a presence that was both kind and gentle.
Just like his mother...
And soon—though reluctantly—he began to accept this new woman as his mother too.
And well, when he saw his father however, a dumbfounded expression made its way onto his face and the first thing he thought was..
'How....'
He was wondering how in the world that man—his dad had convinced his mother into marrying him.
His father was fairly handsome with short brown hair pointing at all directions and black eyes, his eyes however were full of a emotion he did not quite understand. The man was dark-skinned and always had a scowl on his face.
Always except when he saw his wife. When his father smiled however, Arion felt unimaginable sorrow, that smile for some reason seemed sad and sincere but lost. It almost seemed wrong for the man to smile but at the same time, seemed to make the world around him brighten.
His dad was muscular, and rarely came home—and some times, Arion could see him come back bloodied too, but both his dad and mom acted as if it was just another normal thing in life.
'Gods, have I been born into a criminal's family?'
Soon he found out that he was part of a triplets, and he had two siblings same age as him, they were born on the same day, year and place—separated only by hours. He was the eldest, and the next were his sisters.
Serene and Serina...
He was slightly envious of their names.
The name Serene was meaningful--calm, untroubled and peaceful.
Serina meaning was clear, tranquil.
Both names had one thing about them, both could be used to describe a noble and graceful woman.
And his own name...Arion.
Yes, Arion had meaning, or rather at least the mythical horse did.
Arion was a divine, immortal horse from Greek mythology, he did not know what had happened to the immortal horse, he remembered reading that some sailors had plotted to kill the horse, and then...well he did not know, and never would.
There was no Greek mythology in this world because there was never a place called Greece in this world, and probably never will. Needless, it meant that in this world the name Arion was only a name and not a mythical immortal horse.
Arion sighed, straining to remember more about the immortal horse. He remembered browsing about it in internet days before boarding the ships.
He once read that Arion was one of the most fastest creatures in existence, and could run on both land and water.
He seriously hoped that was true because he was suddenly quite interested in names all of a sudden.
He sighed, either ways in this world, he had a meaningless name.
'Naming a kid can't be that hard.' He thought a little bitterly, and went back to sleep. He was a baby after all.
"Damn it." Arion winced in pain as the wooden sword struck him in the right shoulder cutting off his momentum, the raven black-haired boy panted, his eyes full of fatigue and bitter annoyance.
The duel stopped.
"Arion loses." His teacher tells, the was a huge man, his voice cutting through the whispers of the students effortlessly.
This was the academy, the place future warriors trained, this academy in particular was not that prestigious but a good academy. Even then so, in this academy of mostly rich commoners, Arion was struggling to even lose properly.
Arion was a weak looking teenager.
After Ace Paradial, the boy blessed by swords had perished by the hands of the Moon Goddess and the mysterious man, he had been reborn into this magical world of mysteries and dark secrets.
Logically, a person reincarnated would be really blessed by gods, and fate itself throwing all kinds of resources and powers at his feet for him to grow more powerful than them itself—Oh well, they were all in the countless novels he had read anyways.
Sadly though, he did not receive any overpowered world ending power yet...Heck, he did not even have any powers.
And so, like many people, he was not pretending to be weak—he was holding back a bit, but he had a reason for it, and if he did not hold back he would have no chance against winning against the Nobles attending the academy.
Well, Arion was weak, not too weak but was average. Arion grimaced.
If it was Ace, the Ace who had been trained by Ray for a week and the Ace who had fought the mysterious man, and the Ace right before his death—then none of the academy students, or even teachers stood a chance.
But oh, sadly it was not him, well it was him but not him. This was Arion and not Ace, he sighed reminiscing about his past.
The real problem for his current weakness however was the mere fact that he was one of the few lucky people who had magic in them but among those lucky people, he was one of the unlucky bastards whose magical energy would be unlocked late.
'At least I'm not a magicless human.'
He returned to his seat and sat down, a few of his classmates looked at him with an apologetic look. "You did good." A boy said, and Arion simply nodded.
"Thanks..." He replied.
He received a few more glances, of course he did.
He had indeed done well, he—a person who had not yet awakened his runes had survived for more than five minutes against a noble child of his age.
Arion winced a bit at pain, the guy he had fought now was tough, his bonus were something related to physical might, and sadly Arion was on the receiving end of his might today.
He had dodged a few and carefully deflected a few and created fake openings into fooling the other boy, the boy fell into the fake openings but without the Inhuman ability, he was comparatively slower than his opponent.
After five minutes of suck fighting while also holding a few of his skills back, je finally suffered a strike to his shoulder resulting in his loss.
"Such a showy bastard, who does he think he is?" A not so friendly voice commented from some seats behind him. "Oh well pretty sure that fake can't even touch us nobles."
"Well guys, at least even if fake—he is being something comparable to an ant to us."
"Pretty sure even his friends are just like him, oh wait—he doesn't have any." A huge laughter rose from behind, his teacher turned in their direction with a confused expression.
He had not heard anything but Arion did. Another duel was suddenly going on so all the teacher did was give a menacing glare at them and that seemed to silence them.
'At least that bum teacher is of some use.'
Soon enough, the classes were over, the duel was their last class of the day—and their last class of this academic year.
They were now awarded a month holiday, and after that, their last year would begin.
Arion sighed, he had been feeling bad ever since the morning, the duel had just made it worse, and the fact that he had to hold back did not make it much better anyway.
Arion particularly did not have much to hide, he had already earned a reputation of a great hand-to-hand combat student.
Many teachers believed that once he unlocked his Soul Runes, he would very well be hard to deal with, the thing he hid however was his true skills, his true combat prowess. He did not know why he was hiding it but he had a vague feeling that showing his true understanding of combat would bring unnecessary attention.
As he entered his dark rented room of an apartment, the bad feeling only grew—it was unbearable this time.
'Haven't felt this bad in a while.' The last time he felt this bad was when the disappearing sun had briefly shone on his body, that was probably the reason his Soul Runes awakened for the first time.
Suddenly his body shone in a bright white light illuminating his dark room, he suppressed a scream of pain as he clutched his heart and bent down on his knees. It pained...a lot.
'What the hell is happening to me?'
Was he dying? Again? Where would he go now, would he die for real this time or was all this life only an illusion by Moon Goddess and now he was being woken up or maybe he would die again and reincarnate somewhere else?
The pain slowly subsided, and thankfully the blinding light disappeared too, and fortunately he did not die like he thought. He stared around in confusion, nothing had changed except one thing.
His eyes widened in realization.
He had unlocked his Soul Rune...again.