Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Well this chapter took a turn or two that I feel is going to make things very interesting going forward. A couple of slightly predictable turns and also one or two very surprising twists that I'm loving at the moment. Great start here to the fifteenth chapter. 
Anyway let's get right to it,
After Ilami left, Gael decided to spend the rest of the day in the ward. He wasn’t ready to get out again, to face the world he was familiar with. The life of a student didn’t entice him as it once did. What he felt right now was lost. He felt lost. A hole stretched wide inside him and he couldn’t do anything about it. So he did nothing. He laid on the bed, replaying the events unfolded last night.
The sight of Haka’s chest being stabbed repeatedly by the Master had haunted his sleep and forced him out of it a few times. He couldn’t believe it had happened - the sight of Haka being dead was even more absurd. He had always seen Haka as a formidable fighter and was sure he could survive anything. But he couldn’t.
Hmm, this is a nice moment here for Gael. It also shows the different ways that Ilami and Gael tackle. One could argue that Gael is maybe slighly weaker emotionally and also that Haka means more to him than Aleveri does to Ilami, but I think even in equal circumstances, Ilami is more a person that would try and go out there to deal with her problems, while Gael would want to hide away for a while and think. Its a good point to start this chapter off here.
Gael woke up this morning earlier than he used to - earlier than Ilami. He spent the time before the silence in the ward broke to continue dwell on the horrible things that happened.
Shedding a single tear, he wondered how he could be this sad and ponderous. He wasn’t this person. He wasn’t the type to think of sadness or things that attracted it, and even if he did during the rare moments, it was never this long. Perhaps his life had been good and shiny even after his lost of blessing and now was the only time bad stuffs started to happen.
Well, bad things have certainly started to happen here, and you can see some extra evidence here why he'd be this deeply affected cause it looks like situations like this are pretty new to Gael's life.
And it happened after he met Ilami. He didn’t want to think of her as the bad luck personification, not after what she’d done for him to the bullies, but she consistently encouraged the curious side of him. Not that it was controlled before - his lonely venture to the Restricted Area proved that spectacularly, but now it seemed easy for him to cross the line, to just seek for answers and truths without worrying about the consequences, the cost.
He rubbed his face. As someone who valued intelligence and knowledge, being curious wasn’t a bad thing. But he was also a human who treasured his life very much, so being careful should be chosen anytime it was paired with curiosity.
Haha...curiosity and the need to live on as a human being don't always end up going together, especially when you're in a magic school where more than one person has died before and death is supposed to be inevitable almost for those who aren't strong enough to fight.
Haka. He should worry about Haka right now, not himself. He didn’t have a life-threatening injury. Could they really help Haka when Aleveri was barely maintaining his life? When they separated Haka from her, wasn’t it too late for another treatment? Gael had doubts about the whole healing process as much as he had hopes for it to work. Haka was the most important person in the academy to him.
He was also the person Gael loved, and Gael made sure he know about it before they took him.
Hmm....Gael is having thoughts along the same lines as anyone would in a scenario like that, so no surprises there, just food for thought about what Jaxin might be playing at here....but then that little detail towards the very end is intriguing. We didn't actively here him say anything, but did this man just do a confession before Haka was taken away. It would make sense, a situation like that does tend to make you give up your secrets.
Gael closed his eyes. He had whispered his confession to Haka - and for what? Why did he do that when Haka was dying? It wasn’t like it would heal Haka. Maybe it would make him worse. What if Haka woke up and saw Gael under a negative light. What if he viewed what Gael had for him as disgusting, unnatural? Haka represented the toughness and seriousness that people ascribed as the perfect ideal of a man. And from what Gael had seen, those kind of people were the loudest when speaking against people like him.
Gael remembered the news about Danizen, a prominent politician who believed strongly about the concept of diverse love, the way romance wasn’t restricted to just being between a man and a woman. He was a fascinating man. And what had happened to him? Assassinated, done in public during one of his speeches. That was the fate of those who supported controversial beliefs.
Okayy...well so the whispered conversation technique certainly has happened and well, we're diving into some heavy topics about this world and Gael as he does quite a lot lately, doubts himself and imagines all the horrible ways that things could go for him here and how Haka might react should he survive. It adding quite a bit more depth to this part of the story and I love that.
Of those who practiced the beliefs? Gael shuddered. They would want to see him tortured, his life force bleeding away from him before giving the mercy of an ending.
But Haka also laughed at life. His eyes smiled mischief. He didn’t care about Gael being a loner, an overly studious person. He was impressed by Gael’s knowledge and didn’t take advantage of that. He didn’t mind if someone wore less than what was accepted - no matter if it was a boy or a girl. And he was ferociously protective of Gael. It frustrated Gael in occasions, but he had to admit, it was endearing. It showed how much Haka cared about him.
Hmm, well this is a nice little summary there of the moments that Gael seems to have sort of fallen in love there...its a lovely little compilation of the greatest moments in their friendship almost and that's another lovely paragraph here.
There is little time to dwell on unnecessary things, the voice whispered to him suddenly. We have more important things to do, so it is best to accept that boy is lost to you.
‘Can you please shut up?’ Gael snapped, causing Ms. Yera who was passing to turn her head and raise her eyebrow. He smiled apologetically. ‘Just got a bad dream, Miss.’
‘Perhaps you might want to return to your dorm,’ she said, looking around. ‘This ward can make you feel peaceful, but too long here and you’d get bored or uncomfortable.’
OOooh the mysterious voice makes a comeback. I was wondering when it was going to try and interfere with the Restricted Area situation, but that didn't quite happen, and now here we see it finally appear now that he's confessed his feelings when the voice explicitly warned him against that.
He wanted to tell her it was fine, but on second thought, he wouldn’t be able to interact with the voice as freely as he could here. For Serra’s sake. He nodded. ‘Maybe you’re right.’ He rose and exited the place.
Once he arrived at his dorm, he hoped his roommate, Renal, wasn’t in it. He wasn’t disappointed; Renal rarely came back to their room on weekends. He was a game maniac, so he usually went out to the field or other places to play games.
Gael sat on his bed. ‘Alright,’ he said, folding his arms as if there was someone in front of him, ‘what did you mean when you say that?’
OKayyy...that was a smart decision by Gael there to go someplace he could actually talk with the voice freely and not get strange looks. I have a feeling that does mean a very interesting conversation with this voice is coming rather soon here and I don't know if it will be good or bad.
About the boy? the voice said. He’s gone. He’ll never want to speak to you again.
Even when it was speaking inside of him, it stung. The chance for what it said to be true was high. He shook his head. ‘No, I wasn’t asking about him.’ He paused. ‘I was asking about what you said in the Restricted Area. It must be done. I’ve seen all of them and you survive in each one. What did you mean?’
Wow, that was a brutal moment, just straight up it appears that Haka is lost to Gael forever. I think possibly its a lie, but still that was quite a powerful statement. And then also we have something that sounds very prophetic and so the voice did say something inside the restricted area. Well this just got even more interesting here.
Silence took hold before the voice spoke up again. ‘I can read the drops of the future. I foresaw the importance of investigating the Restricted Area and your survival in there.’
Gael shivered. Having a strange voice inside of him was creepy enough; to know it could predict the future was more. ‘Just who- or what - are you?’
Should you have not suspected by now? the voice asked. When did I first speak to you?
‘Three years ago, when I was ten.’ Gael paused. ‘At that time, I thought you were just something playing in my mind as a side effect of me losing my blessing.’ He shook his head and laid on the bed, his hands intertwined on his stomach. ‘After everything you’ve said, not anymore.’
Okayy...so it almost seems like this voice is some pretty powerful being that took an interesting in Gael for some reason and then maybe my theory is somewhat true here. I'm gonna just bit it here before its revealed, but I think the woman who took his blessing away and this voice in the head are both the same and both are this Serra deity they keep referring to...well let's see.
‘I don’t know!’ He sighed. ‘It’s just - you’re another weird part of my life. A random woman erased my blessing and then you started whispering things to me. Things that only I could hear. If I’m not so much a studious person, I would get myself mad thinking about you - how did you enter my mind? Who and what are you? If you can choose whom to share your mind with, why me? I won’t have peace until I get all the answers.’
There is a reason why I did not reveal my identity to you when you were so young. I feared you would not understand, and if you told someone else about me, you would be considered insane. I also could not make sure you would arrive to the academy - like I said, I read the drops of the future. Some drops fall faster than the others, and yet some have glimmers on them. I cannot figure out the right drop that tells your future, but I can choose the one that is most logical.
OKayy...well this certainly is someone that really knows what they are doing if they took precautions that extended that many years into the future and was conducting a plan at such a length...it's got to be a goddess at least if it isn't Serra.
When Venaria went to Siras and found you, it was a stroke of luck for my part. I did not need to instruct you on how to expose Lio’s scheme - she led you to this academy, a place that is ultimately his. However, I was not sure if the academy truly hid something that I feared, so I continued to keep my identity to my self, until yesterday. I knew now his trepidation had been stretched to the extreme and we must stop him.
Gael frowned. ‘Lio’s scheme? Are you talking about the God of Justice, the Master of Earth? But - but that’s impossible. You can’t possibly know him personally.’ The scene of the woman kissing his forehead flashed in his mind as if it was a clue. He took a sharp breath. ‘Unless - unless you’re -’
Yes, the voice said. I am Serra, the Goddess of Wisdom and Mistress of Water. And Lio is not the God of Justice.
Yay!! Well we have no confirmation about whoever took away poor Gael's powers, but the voice in his head is confirmed as Serra....well I suspected that for some time now, and its great to see that it is in fact true. This is a pretty nicely done reveal here I think. It certainly opens up a lot and know this declaration of how something very bad is definitely happening inside this academy is also going to make this plot very interesting indeed.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, I think a pretty solid start here to this chapter, with lots of very interesting points getting tossed about and I am very excited to get to the remaining half of this chapter and see how this news ends up being received here.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
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