The Magician of Sound

Ding!

"We are departing in five minutes. Please sit down on your seat to prevent tripping over when the train starts accelerating," a train attendant came over and said before turning around to inform the others. Kai looked out the window and watched the crowd of people wandering around outside.

"We're going to arrive in three hours by train, then take a taxi for thirty minutes before we can arrive at Professor Ria's house," Michelle briefly explained while looking at the pamphlet about the train.

Kai turned his head to the side and nodded at Michelle before glancing over at the person in his front and diagonally.

"Well, this might be the first time for me to meet such a person. I've never seen her or known about her, so I am a little curious," Tasha, who was in front of him, said with a smile, wondering what kind of person could instill such deep fear inside Kai.

On the other hand, Ayaka was playing with her hands, specifically her nails. It was easy enough to learn how bothered she was with this. Even so, she was still going to visit her because it was Kai's request.

"Don't get your hopes too high. She's a psycho." After responding to Tasha, he turned around and continued watching the people outside. Michelle and Tasha understood how he actually didn't want to meet her. In fact, if she hadn't threatened him, it might take him a few more years before he would meet her face to face. After all, texting her or chatting on call was different from meeting face-to-face.

That's right. It had been almost two months since Nathan visited him.

December came in an instant. It would seem that Nathan was truly busy with the preparation. Kai's birthday was supposed to be on December 2, but Nathan visited him before that and even congratulated him. When his birthday came, there wasn't a single word from Nathan. Even Michelle's messages had no reply.

At first, the way he congratulated Kai was confusing, but they could somehow understand it after learning about his situation.

Kai asked Michelle's father, Michael, to come to his house for his birthday. Unfortunately, he only congratulated him through text and said he couldn't come. Only Michelle and the others could come to his birthday. Surprisingly, Evan also came to celebrate it together, saying he just didn't have a good time at home.

It couldn't really be called a party since they only ate some home-cooking and then went their separate ways.

After the birthday celebration, there was nothing important in particular. Ayaka had good progress in her new fighting style. It would seem that in close combat alone, she could already defeat Becca completely. She still had a lot she could improve, but the general issue had been solved, and she could balance both speed and power.

Her father and mother also asked her to spar to check her power. At first, they never expected that Ayaka would become a Zodiac. They were clueless about it. When Ayaka said it was a fusion between human blood and magical beast blood, their expressions distorted with their mixed feelings.

However, it was easily solved when Ayaka mentioned Kai's Zodiac power and identity as the first Zodiac ever created. They couldn't help but feel relieved that Kai was actually the first. The sole reason was that they were unsure whether their only daughter had become a monster or not. In the end, they decided to leave it to Kai after seeing how attached their daughter was to Kai.

Besides, Kai wasn't actually against the idea.

Of course, the sparring was still ongoing. They fought a few times, and as expected from experts like them, even though Ayaka had superior physical abilities, they could easily pick up flaws in her fighting style.

This made Ayaka fired up and caused her to improve by leaps and bounds. As her parents, they were certainly happy with this and tried to spend more time with her before eventually sparring against her with magic.

In the end, they told her that if she accumulated enough experience, perfected her fighting style, tactics, and other things, she would easily surpass them and even her grandfather. Kudo Yoshihiro, Ayaka's father, wanted to say that it would be soon, but he wished to see her aim even further, so he refrained himself… especially from saying how proud he was.

He didn't want Ayaka to be proud of this and wanted Ayaka to keep feeling the need to improve. Despite his restraint in front of his daughter, he couldn't keep himself from grinning whenever he talked about it with Kudo Chiyo, his wife.

On the other hand, Tasha and Kai didn't have anything to do other than making a few plans for the raid mission. Tasha's was Kai's last trump card, so she needed to be present in this planning session to let her know about her role.

Tasha was fine with it and quickly put down her research. She attentively listened to Kai and gave a few suggestions based on the plans, creating a better plan than they expected.

They continued brainstorming for ideas while asking Shirotsuka Sanae for inputs. She was astonished to see the high-level plan they were asking for, especially with the requirement of its timing and various other things. It would be hard to pull this plan off without coordination from each group, but it was highly likely that they would succeed.

The only question she had in mind was how to explain this complicated plan by only using a simple command. This was the homework that Sanae gave to them. Kai and Tasha understood why she asked them such a thing. If they used a complicated explanation, misunderstandings might occur in the execution, so they started working in that area.

Evan didn't have any change. He was always busy with his computer while Kai and the others didn't want to disturb him.

Meanwhile, Michelle flew back home once to ask her grandfather for more explanation about the raid mission. Unfortunately, she couldn't find her grandfather, and her two uncles couldn't help her much with it. She ended up going to Michael, but to no avail. The latter kept saying he didn't know anything and asked her to wait until an official order was issued.

Michelle kept complaining out of frustration and blaming Nathan and Michael the whole time. She just wanted to play her part as the girl of the strategist of this mission. Unfortunately, she couldn't help with anything.

Kai said it was fine, but she still blamed herself. In the end, Michelle decided to go back to practicing with her shadow, gradually forgetting about this problem.

And before long, the New Year finally arrived. They each celebrated the New Year with their own families. All of them, except Michelle, who was left behind by her family because of this reason. Because of that, Kai asked her to celebrate it with his family instead. Of course, she agreed without a second thought. His mother was thrilled with this and had a great time with Michelle and Tasha.

Two weeks after the New Year, Kai needed to visit his teacher. Reluctant as he may be, he could only drag his ass over because there was no telling what kind of absurd thing she would do if he didn't come. Knowing Ria Ross's personality, it would only be a matter of time to blow the matter up.

Kai let out a long sigh while watching the people outside. He felt a slight backward pull as the train started moving. The scenery started to move as the train left the station.

"Kai, your teacher wants to give you something, right? What do you think about it? What kind of item does she want to give you?" Michelle asked while glancing at him, observing his expression.

"I don't know. Knowing her personality, there are unlimited possibilities to be considered." Kai shrugged.

"Really? Maybe she wants to give you the Vibration Sword? After perfecting the design, she should be able to give the perfect Vibration Sword for you." Michelle said with a smile.

"That's good then. With the Vibration Sword, I would have higher confidence in the raid mission. Besides, asking her about the plan will also give us a greater chance of survival." Kai nodded in agreement.

"Still, do you really think it's really a Vibration Sword? I mean, she gave it to me a few months ago so I could deliver it to you. If it's only a Vibration Sword, why doesn't she just give it to me like before?" Michelle looked up while crossing her arms, trying to figure out Ria's reason.

"Oh, right. She said he'll regret it if he doesn't come. I wonder what kind of item she's going to give, for her to say that." Tasha was also curious.

"When I stayed at Professor's place, she often smiled weirdly whenever she talked about you. Maybe it's related to that," Ayaka said while recalling the scene back then.

Kai sweatdropped while staring at her with a dumbfounded face. "Don't say such scary things."

"It's not really a scary thing though…" Ayaka muttered. Even so, she understood where he was coming from.

Three hours later, they arrived and quickly searched for a taxi.

After half an hour, Kai arrived at the rundown house Ayaka visited a few months ago. In fact, he received her address from Ayaka, not Ria Ross herself. Although he was a bit reluctant, he gritted his teeth and opened the taxi door.

The others followed him from behind as he walked toward the house's bell and pressed the button.

Surprisingly, unlike Ayaka's case, it only took her a second to open the door.

Clack!

A woman opened the door with a happy expression. It was indeed the same woman that Ayaka met a few months ago, but this time, she had a brighter expression. She made a little smile and put her hands inside the white laboratory robe's pockets and said, "Yo, my beloved student. You're finally here."