Rise of the Spiritualist: Entry 14

Rise of the Spiritualist: Entry 14

Rise of the Spiritualist: The Personal Accounts from the Events of Shiro-Ryu High School from the Memories of Leonardo Yarafen Krilangi

Fourteenth Entry.

"Rage," Forte repeated to himself, staring at my floating armored form with an expression of complete vexation. "What foolish pride you must have, to give this power such a fearsome name...Still, you did manage to kill Joachim; I suppose I should give you some credit for that. What interests me is that I definitely didn't sense this power in you when you first confronted my servant...You must have gained this power only recently..."

What he said was not entirely true; although I had only recently realized the power of Rage, it had always resided in me. The potential to use Rage was locked away, untapped, somewhere deep within my spirit. Only with Ryden's aid was I able to unlock that power...

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For a while, it seemed like Joachim had won. I was falling into some dark abyss deep beneath the earth, in a place where no one could save me, while Forte stole from my people the greatest destructive secret in our society. All hope seemed lost.

Then I heard a familiar voice.

It was Ryden's.

Kril.

As he called out to me, the world slowed down around me, until finally I stopped falling in midair, suspended in the darkness. I didn't see any activity on the platform above me, so I assumed that Chaos-Joachim was also frozen in place. As I looked around for the source of the master Elementalist's voice, a bright light shone before me, and I was forced to use my hands to shield my eyes from the blinding flare. As my vision adjusted, I lowered my hands, and my eyes went wide in awe. There, standing in the center of the prominence in all his greatness, stood the Red Ace, carrying his knightsword on his back.

Are you giving up already, Kril, he asked, smiling. I thought you were better than that. Don't let this little slip kill your hope.

"What can I do, though," I asked him in return. "None of my chakra can lift me back up to that platform..."

Then don't use your chakra, Ryden replied plainly. You still haven't used any of your Elementalist powers. There's still hope, and it lies in your Rage form.

"Rage...? What do you mean, Ryden? I don't have any powers like that-"

Of course you do, he interrupted calmly. Your chakra is just another form of Elemental power; you're an Elementalist, just like me. And you have a Rage form, a higher level of Elemental power.

"Then...why didn't I know about this...?"

Not every Elementalist can draw on their Rage form; you need to search within yourself and find the ability for yourself. As a Spiritualist, you have an edge over other Elementalists: you have the gift of spirit vision, the ability to view the spiritual plane with human eyes. By searching your own spirit for your Rage power, you can draw on your full potential.

Although I had never thought of using my ability in that way, it made sense when Ryden said it. If I looked inward with spirit vision, it would be entirely possibly to see my own spirit, and it would only be a matter of time before I found the ability my senior spoke of.

I've done all that I can for you, Ryden said, his smile fading. Unfortunately, I can't help you fight this enemy; all I can do is teach you how to fight by yourself. But, then again, it's you we're talking about; I'm sure you'll have no trouble once you find your Rage power.

His work in the living world finished, Ryden faded back into the glaring light from whence he had come, vanishing into the higher plane. With his words serving as guidance, I closed my eyes and focuses my senses on myself. When I opened my eyes again, I saw the spiritual realm before me, the level on which the spirits of the living and the dead resided. Even those spirits were locked in place; they, too, who were never naturally at rest, remained still in the darkness of the pit. I removed the petrified spirits from my focus and delved deep into my conscious mind, and I was finally able to see my own spirit.

Strangely enough, my spirit did not look human at all; instead, it had the appearance of a great avian, its majestic wings flaring out behind it as it stood frozen in time and space. Every feather on its body, from its sharp-looking crown to its long tail, was coursing with the element of lightning, and its eyes shone a dazzling turquoise in the shadows.

I stared at the avian for several seconds, which turned to several minutes, searching for the power of Rage that Ryden had spoken of. Still, though I looked with all my might, I could not distinguish that power from any other part of my spirit. It was at this point that I looked back into my memories for some kind of clue that would point me in the right direction, and I immediately recalled the words of my grandfather, Sylas.

"Leonardo," he had said to me, "as warrior monks, we are bound to this world by our spirits. We draw from the power of the spirits, and they subsist on our very existence. Therefore, you must realize that the scope of a warrior monk's spirit is far greater than a human's. Because we interact so freely with the spirits on their level, our spirits are entwined with them, forever flowing through the universe as a single entity."

At that point, I finally realized the truth of my Rage power. The avian I saw before me was not my spirit; the entire spiritual plane itself was one with my spirit, and this majestic bird was the avatar of my true powers. As I opened my eyes to the truth, the avian began to move; it let out a great cry and dove head-first straight into my body, merging with me. At that moment, the stasis surrounding me in the cavern was broken, and the flow of time was restored.

Chaos-Joachim stared down into the pit, searching for any sign of me. He knew not how deep the abyss would fall, so he knew not how long it would take for me to reach the bottom. As the flow of time returned, a powerful shockwave shot up from the pit, throwing him off-balance. As he struggled to determine the cause of the sudden blast, my voice echoed through the chamber.

"You called yourself 'superior', did you not," I asked rhetorically as I hovered in mid-air. "You told me that the power of Chaos had granted you evolution...that you had become a higher being."

A ray of light shot to the ceiling of the chamber as I rose up to Chaos-Joachim's level, surrounded by the powers of wind and lightning. I closed my eyes to the spiritual world and re-opened them to my world, the world where Chaos-Joachim and his master waited to do battle with me.

"You are mistaken, you poor lost soul," I said, raising my arms slightly and focusing the power of metal around me. "You have been warped by the power of Chaos in a desperate attempt to retain your life and your strength...and in being distorted, you have lost both. You have lost your way, Joachim; you have been deceived by Forte and his promises of power and glory. By my power as a warrior monk, I will exorcise this power from you and redeem your soul!!"

As I declared the last few words, the elemental power around me exploded outward, and my Rage form finally took shape. Metal armor covered in spikes had appeared around me, and from it, a pair of steel wings erupted from my back. The power of wind kept me aloft, and the power of lightning coursed through my armor, electrifying it.

"Behold, Joachim!! This is the power that will be your downfall, known only as Rage Form. With this power, I pledge to use any means necessary to return your humanity to you, even if I must kill you to do it!!"