Page 128 - NS 2024

rusted door at the end of the staircase. The door had an unreadable sign, worn down with time. The center of the door seemed to have the engraving of an eye but it too was rusted and showed a heavy coating of dust. ‘I suppose no one has been here in forever.’ Mizuki thought to herself. She attempted to pull the door open but it was rusted shut. She pulls again a little harder but it remains closed; slightly irritated, she pulls with all her strength breaking the rusted handle and the door opens with a loud creak. She walks in cautiously as more dust sways its way out making her cough a bit and fan around her face. When she can clearly see, she notices that it is a room filled head to toe with books, paper, and scrolls. There is a mahogany desk set at the center with an old chair and candles in various areas of the room, which Mizuki decides to light. Mizuki looks at a number of the scrolls strewn on the desk and sees that some of them have to deal with ancient spells and curses. Mizuki is mesmerized by her discovery and begins looking through quite a number of the stuff there, even trying out some of the spells for herself. Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours, upon realizing the time Mizuki was about to rush out to head home but was stopped in her tracks as she saw something draped over by a black cloth. She isn’t sure why but her instincts told her to look at it so, she did. She grabbed onto the cloth and pulled it off.
Hidden underneath it was a painting, sitting on a throne was a young male , one with jet black hair and red eyes much like Mizuki. She stared into the eyes of this painting almost like in a hypnotic state. She didn’t know why but she felt drawn to it. After a few seconds or minutes maybe; it was hard for Mizuki to tell what the time was, she felt as if a figure was standing behind her so she looked away from the painting. There was nothing there,
in a small state of confusion she hesitantly places the cloth back over the painting and leaves the hidden room, making a mental note to return there again.
When she had returned back to her castle, she had gotten yelled at for skipping classes but she didn’t care much. As days passed by she looked in her castle's archives to find any documentation of the person in the painting, as it was bothering her for quite some time. Anytime she went down to the old room she had a feeling that there was another presence but never saw much. However, the archives held no information and when Mizuki tried to ask servants or other knights about it they just looked at her confused.
One day Mizuki had snuck off again to the hidden archive and found a more powerful spell. It was one that could utilize all of the main elements in one go. Mizuki made space for herself and then gathered energy to begin the spell. She started with air and slowly built on the harder-to-control elements: water, earth, fire. “Good job, You improve fast” a low voice in a whisper sounds behind her. Mizuki gets distracted sending the elements out of whack, but instead of dispersing it whirls around her forming an almost like
tornado, with some of the papers being swept up with it. As Mizuki turns around she sees the guy from the painting standing there with an eerie smile. Her eyes widened in shock “h-how? Who are you?” she stumbles trying to find the right question to ask. The guy gives an unamused laugh but answers regardless “If you must know I am a great ancestor of yours.” Mizuki contemplates for a while before rebutting “impossible you were nowhere in the family archives, not a single document!”.
The guy gives an awkward laugh “I supposed they didn’t like me that much, keep unwanted