It was already dark outside, and so Epsilon decided it was time to leave. He did take the book about the dream realms history with him though. Even if there wasn't anything else helpful in them, he did enjoy reading about the different Nightmares people experienced.
The Academy was reasonably quiet and empty as one would expect during this time. Most of the staff had already gone home, and students were busy in the dorms doing whatever they usually did.
When Epsilon walked past the Dojo, Smile of Heaven and Sylas were sparring with each other as per usual. He took a quick glimpse at them, before leaving in a hurry. Not even two steps later though, he heard a voice shout,
"Your not going to run away again, are you?"
He froze.
Inching back, he peered his head through the door, before giving a rather nervous smile.
"Hey?"
**
A little while later, Epsilon found himself sitting down in the dojo, watching Sylas and smile of heaven spar with a much better view than before.
Their sword play seemed to have improved to an even greater degree than yesterday. Gracia still moved with incredible speed and aggression, but today it looked much more refined and focused, while Sylas' defence was as impregnable as ever, with his offense being discrete a subtle. The whole thing looked like a clash between an unstoppable force, and an immovable object.
And right now, the immovable object was winning.
Sylas's sword flashed forwards within the blink of an eye, aimed at destroying Smile Of Heavens sword like the countless amount of times before. But for the first time, she predicted it.
Her hand suddenly stretched out forwards, aiming to grab Sylas by the wrist. All she needed to do was force the sword out of his hand to win, the means didn't matter, right?
Sylas smirked, he knew she'd try something dirty inevitably, so he had already figured how to deal with it.
He ducked rapidly right beneath her outstretching arm, his free leg sweeping low in a blur. Smile Of Heaven barely registered the shift before her balance was ripped from under her.
Her feet flew up, and then her body followed as it twisted before crashing onto her back. Her sword clattered from her grasp, before the wooden tip of Sylas's own hovered inches away from her throat.
"Nice try."
"Your Aspect is a hack!"
Again, he'd heard her call it that before. What was it for it to be so unfair? Thinking about it now, he only knew the Aspects of one other student in the school, not including Emma.
Smile Of Heaven quickly got up, before giving Epsilon her usual cheerful look.
"So what do you think?"
"Huh?"
He almost forgot! He was here to learn from them. Sylas then commented.
"See! Nosey bastard wasn't even paying attention..."
"Hey! I'm the one who brought him here, so the only one who can nag at him is me!"
'Is that meant to be a good or bad thing!? These two are so confusing.'
It was hard to tell if these two were even friends or not.. one looked dignified(most of the time) and bright, while the other.. well... was much more rough and Apathetic. They were complete opposites, but somehow their chemistry was oddly compatible? It was hard to explain.
Epsilon sighed.
"Well.. it felt incomplete I guess."
Garcia's eyes widened.
"Continue?"
"Your swordsmanship was completely relying on offence like you normally did, while pushing the opponent back so badly that they couldn't attack, but at the last moment you swapped for a more cunning style, or is it less dignified? I don't know how to describe it... well, it felt like you were trying to be something that your not."
Her kind and innocent smile grew a little crude and forced. A hint of frustration could be heard in her voice, as she said,
"Is that so?"
'Did I say something wrong???'
She then turned back to Sylas, and he nodded quietly.
"Your not wrong. Me and Sylas here have been trying to create an adaptable sword style, that is the perfect fusion of both offence, and defence. We thought that if we split it in half, and worked on two sides separately, it would eventually come together on its own. But that looked to be the wrong approach, so I tried to deviate on my own a little, but that doesn't seem to work well as you pointed out."
She put both of her palms to her face, before letting out a quiet groan.
"It won't be completed until we return from the dream realm at this rate..."
"I didn't expect the daughter of Immortal Flame to be so miserable."
Epsilon froze.
'The d-daughter of... I-im-mortal flame????'
He knew her name sounded familiar somewhere! To think he was in the same room, giving advice to someone who was basically royalty? The daughter of the first master, someone he must surpass.
Then did that make Sylas the child of another legend that he just completely didn't connect? A Nightwalker, or even a clan working under Immortal Flames, perhaps??
Overthinking, Epsilons head began to steam as his face turned red from heat. Sylas grabbed him by the shoulder, and shook him hard while snapping his finger in front of his face.
With a generous smile Gracia then asked out of nowhere,
"Would you like to join our cohort?"
Epsilon quickly began to overheat again, but this time, Sylas instead argued with Gracia.
"Why are you inviting him!? He got his ass kicked by Galahad, he will just be dead weight in the dream realm!"
'Eh?'
It was a sensitive subject so not many talked about it, but in the case that a sleeper may find another in the dream realm, it wasn't completely unheard off to abandon them. This could be for a multitude of reasons, such as them being deadweight like Sylas described, or them not contributing to a cohorts survival.
Epsilon raised his voice to defend himself,
"I wouldn't've lost if he didn't cheat with his Aspect!"
Sylas looked at him with a confused look on his face, as if he was asking 'Are you serious!?', but then an uncontrollable laughter escaped from him.
"You think bending a pole is his Aspect!? Unbelievable! Hilarious even!"
Gracia then harshly elbowed him in the stomach, causing him to gag on his own breath.
"I'm really sorry about him, his ego is a bit too big, but he wasn't lying when he said that Galahad hadn't used his Aspect."
"So he did that with his own natural ability?"
"Yeah... the Wuxing clan were a weird bunch, even before the Nightmare spell came. My father told me that they used to live in the mountains somewhere down south, and that they were all bald and practiced an odd fighting style with a staff."
Immediately after, Epsilon tried to imagine a bald Galahad, but rather than finding it funny, it actually disturbed him quite a bit.
"Anyhow, father went there one time, and after some unlikely events they became completely loyal to him. Galahad was meant to be serving and protecting me in the dream realm... but I think you can see that for yourself... not like I need him anyway."
She extended her hand out, while carrying her usual radiant smile on her face.
"So will you accept my invitation?"
"Hang on! He doesn't have my approval ye—"
Gracia elbowed him in the stomach again, quickly shutting him up.
"I will join, but on one condition. You see, there's this girl I need to protect, so unless your gonna take her in, I don't think we can work together."
Garcia's face seemed to darken, she already knew whom he was talking about. He had seen Epsilon eat lunch with Emma a couple times already, but he didn't know the true extent of their relationship. She did a little digging into her, and saw that she was near last on the leader boards.
"Did I mention she could generate infinite water?"
Quickly grabbing his hand, she said with applause,
"Welcome to the team!"
Far in the distance though, Emma herself silently watched them through the window, with a dark determination in her eyes.