In a lightless room in a void, seven figures are seating across each other on a table while there is a empty 8th seat. Their bodies are nothing but smoke except the grimoires floating beside them.
"So how have the eighth been doing? We have been sitting around for centuries now, even the oldest of us is barely holding on." A burly and bulky shadow towering at 8 feet says as he leans back, a shadow missing and arm looks at him and scoffs "Better than expected, he managed to create a anti-magic grimoire, I guess giving him the memories of the original first helped alot. What can we remanents even do except stay here until he finds us"
"You say as if we are all seperate from each other, we all are nothing but memories shadows of him left behind during all those 'journeys'. We have only one duty and that is hold the memories until he is ready." A old voice with extreme amount of determination says as he cleans the surface of grimoire acting as it's vessel.
"Still can't believe one of us was some senile geezer like you. I wonder how we managed to get that lame lifestyle of yours, Sage" The one armed says as the grimoire with gears on it spins in air because of boredom.
"I spent 90% of my life in solitude because there was no one to talk to, most of the humans who were reborn were either idiotic and barbaric.. i literally had to teach them from the very basics of society. You would have understood if you lived a little longer, Guardian." The sage says while he again reads through.. the five leafed forever dusty grimoire. "I wish we could return to the soul we belong to." He complains as the grimoire closes and he falls into slumber again.
"Take care of original while we sleep, we don't want to wait for another lifetime now that we have prepared enough." The bulky one says as he also follows the others into slumber in the grimoire which seems to made of bones and teeths. The others nod at guardian and also leave.
Soon only he remained awake while he looks at the 6 other grimoires sitting beside the five leafed one. "Always leaving the work to newbies, I wish you would do the work yourself sometimes Bravery. Through I will do it, I have quite a promise to fulfill unlike you dense geezers." He says as his conscious wanders out of the void.
-second day of the academy, morning-
Asta wakes up earlier than the assembly and did his workout for an hour before returning and having bath, he wears the uniform he was given by Sol yesterday and leaves for the main building.
As he makes his way atop the Goliath towards the campus, a weird sense of something entering his mind hit him but he quickly dismissed it as he had experienced this feeling a lot since the day he regained him past memories.
Just as he arrives at the assembly and returned Goliath to the grimoire, a hand came from behind and grabbed his hand like a pineapple. He lightly laughs and turns around to find Yami staring at him with a cigrette in mouth.
"How you been Captain? Remember everything yet?" He asks as yami lets go of his head. "You grown few inches taller brat. Did you take some steroids or something?" Yami bluntly said as threw away the half burned cigrette and gestures for asta to follow him. Yami led him to a room behind the stage where he met people even he was surprised to see.
"Captain Charlotte? Licht? What are they doing here?" He whispers to yami in bafflement but Yami just stood there bringing out ear wax with his finger.
"I have also recovered our memories and about him *points at licht* He heard our story and decided to join in as well." Charlotte says as she skims through her grimoire again."Even if I have no memories of the past, I can't just sit still while our enemies are hiding in the dark." Licht says and hands asta a badge of sorts.
"That is a memory graph, it recreates a projection based on what memories you want it to show. Should help with convincing your other friends." Licht says as he explains the ability of the badge which causes Asta's mood to get a lot better, just as he was about thank him licht asks "Can you create a sort of image that atleast shows us our enemies's face?", Asta thinks through and decides to show a image of how lucius looked when he first took over julius.
A image video of the paladin lucius with his soul grimoire and astaroth appears as the badge radiates a white light, just as asta was about to move on licht stopped him.
"Did he just create a sort of domain? Judging by his strength, he is sixth tier but mana domain is supposed to be seventh tier's ability only, jus-" "That's called a mana zone, even if I am not the scholar type I still have basic knowledge, mana zone is like specialised early version of a domain." Yami interrupts licht and explains what he knows about his mana zone.
He continues his explanation " it's like a weaker version of domain where you basically control mana in surrounding to cast spells while only using minimum mana of your own, you get no special buffs like one yours have where you basically transform into light and phase through physical stuff." And then with a clap he ends the explanation.
Asta meanwhile is completely zoned out at new behaviour of yami as if he has seen a criminal change from a mastermind to a cop. "When did you become so talkative captain? You would beat us up if we asked for a explanation before." Asta asks out of amusement and curiosity but much to his surprise, Yami replies "It's habit now, i basically have been feeded knowledge to stupid brain dead brats like you for past 6 years here."
"So what are planning on doing now? Gather the others first or just focus on getting stronger?" Charlotte suggests a choice while she inwardly controls herself from confessing to yami.
"Yo.. BIG SIS!!" Sol opens the door and jumps in, she lunges and hugs Charlotte who seems to be embarrassed but didn't try to put her away. Sol notices Yami just staring at them and said "Sis did you confess yet? I remember how much you cried when captain yami and yelled 'i wish I had confessed to him.' jus-" she paused mid sentence as Charlotte gives her a death stare.
Yami is just standing there looking out the window and asks asta "Isn't charmy over there?*turns to others* ... What?" He looks at them in confusion and asks why they are staring at him. Charlotte sighs in relief and went out of the room while grabbing sol as she begs for forgiveness.
"You really didn't hear anything?" Asta asks yami in amusement and Yami just replies with a simple "hear what?", At this point asta is questioning if the world itself is causing this."
As he was wondering a rather innocent Voice enters their ears, " Umm.. Did I come in too early?" Mimosa says as she peeks from behind the door, Klaus is standing beside her and raises his glasses to full cover his eyes as walks in and bows to the elder licht.
"It has been years four-eyes, did you stop being based against newbies and peasants yet. Why are you just stand-" Asta says as he gives Klaus a smack on the back while turning to mimosa.
Before he could realise it, from behind something came crashing down through the window and next second he slumped onto the floor.
" somebody Help me" A dwarf riding a white cloud says as she devours a whole bunch of pastries. she jumps off the cloud and lands beside asta as she quickly stuffs the remaining pastries in her mouth.
Yami quickly blurs in and grabs her by the coat, he stares into her eyes and warns her "I told you for the tenth time that no eating before lunch. Empty your pockets.", yami shakes her and hundred of candies fall from her clothes, she begins crying and replies "I wess Hanegry." (Note- she has stuffed her mouth.)
"This voice... Is that charmy?" Asta stands up as he cleans the dust on his body while he stares at the sniffing small dwarf silently munching on Pastries, he looks at Yami and says "Why are you so tough on her? She literally feed us for years back then." And helps her get away from Yami.
"She borrowed a lot of my money saying she will deliver me a bunch of food but she ate before I could even taste it and refused to pay me back saying she is broke... It has happened 7 times this month." Yami bluntly states and grabs in his signature pineapple grip, He looks to the side and finds mimosa looking in. "Aren't ya mimosa? Get in."
Mimosa was then forced to check Charmy's bag and to no one's surprise, there was actually a mini space storage in it which was filled to brim with food. Yami just crouches down in the corner as he thinks of all the money he just lost that he could have used to strike big at the casino.
"Asta! Have you been well." Mimosa gives asta a small hug and then pulls away as she hides her shyness behind her neutral expression but her constantly flapping cat like ears gave no help in hiding it
Asta like always had the urge to touch the ears but years of solitude have atleast given him enough control to stop himself but the constant twitching did not help him or charmy in the slightest.
Charlotte comes in with sol who is quite bruised in her arms and sits down again as she lets Sol fall to the ground with a thud. Mimosa and Klaus greet Charlotte.
"Have you regained your memories captain Charlotte?,Did you also have to experience the dark void?, as mimosa was talking to Charlotte, her ears begin flapping out of happiness again and charmy decided to lunge for a opportunity.
Asta also couldn't resist the temptation but, "Don't try it, she will not forgive your for that." A voice stops him as a headache and a bunch of images flash past his eyes, a regular symptom he had during his village years.
As the headache slowly subsides he watches as Mimosa panicks and fur appears around her arms,legs,neck and some part of her face, her eyes also hint at a raging wave of fury and next second she did something even asta could not dream about.
"DONT TOUCH ME!!" as if like a wild beast mimosa attacks charmy, Klaus and Charlotte quickly restrain her with iron chains and veins filled with flowers of different colours and thorns but mimosa as if possessed kept charging towards Charmy, her hands limbs bleeding.
Asta swoops in and locks her in place while bringing out Goliath and activating it's barrier over them, despite her feral berserker behaviour asta managed to keep her pinned down but the anti-magic removed Both Charlotte and Klaus's magic, making asta barely able to restrain her.
Licht slowly stands up and gestures for Asta to pull on the other ear too. Through confused asta nods and pulls mimosa's other year as well, her eyes regain her intelligence and she looks around in embarrassment and says "You can let go of me now.. Asta."
She reverted to her previous form and scolds charmy, "Beastmen go berserk when their sensitive parts get touched or grabbed recklessly.. Even more so for youngsters like me who haven't learnt to control it yet." She explains while she kneels and asks for forgiveness from others.
"Why are you apologising for? Friends never say sorry to each other. Cheers up." " ... Thanks asta." Asta comes closer and tries to cheer her up, her mood lightens a little as she thanked him. Then everyone turns to charmy and nods at eachother which gives charmy a ominous feeling.
"You can't do this to me" was the last line she said sobbing as Licht lifted her up and took off as he takes her to the detention center for scaming people for personal benefit.
"Well she will also gain her memories Tommorow if Mr. licht helps her food centred brain to remember our names atleast." Yami says as decided to split the food in bag, he gives the bag filled with sweets and snacks to Charlotte, Asta decided to give his share to Mimosa and Sol while Klaus decided to ask asta something.
"Asta. I heard you learnt runesmithing." " Yup, I am good at it too." "Then can you help me with something? I will pay." "What pay? Friends are supposed to help each other, I will do it for free." Klaus requests asta to do something for him but asta decided to help for free which didn't fit well with Klaus.
After a bunch of bickering asta accepts Klaus's share of Charmy's loot as payment and gave them to the girls, he received a small hug from both in return before they left to indulge themselves in pastries and cakes.
"I need you to make a bracelet for me.. something that prevents mana from entering the body." Klaus says as only he and Asta were left in the room.
"For what?" Asta asks curiously as he remembers no such problem that Klaus had.
"I have a brother you see, he-" just as he was talking, the assembly bell rings at 9 am and both decided to delay the conversation for the evening and left for their own places.