Chapter 13- Time Castle III

Everyone being so quiet made the whole situation more nerve racking, The sounds of the clock ticking was clear to everyone. Nozomi then decides to break the silence by introducing the second Task. She says that in the second Task they'll be looking for his physical strength. "You are required to bring me this key." and with saying that she brings forward her palm and opens it revealing a key inside it. The key slowly starts to move and levitates right about her palm, she controls the key placing it above her Index finer without even touching it. Levitation is accomplished by providing an upward force that contracts the pull of gravity, same techniques can be done with invisible dark energy which will be controlling the position of the objects. Nozomi then continues not even bothering to address the confused looks on both Kiyoshi and Officer Luke's faces. She then goes forward to tell him more about the task, "It'll be really simple. You are asked to bring me back this key from the Daffodils hands." Kiyoshi looks confused with the term " Daffodils" and looks at Yuki but then Harumi interrupts explaining the meaning of the term Daffodil.

"Daffodils are referred to movable models of wooden dolls and them being of real human sizes allows them to create more physical strength and has more impact on the opponent. These are hollow from the inside and are merely just dolls created from nothingness, They are created using Dark energy which requires strong emotion and the amount of emotion required is directly proportional to the size that of Daffodils. Them being just lifeless dolls are controlled by the creator or the person who created them using his or her how Dark energy, It even allows the person to create tons of Daffodils at the same time and yet being able to control all of them differently. Daffodils is merely just a name given for reference or for them to be referred as. In short puppet's which looks like our traditional dolls. Japanese traditional dolls, having nothing added differently their whole appearance other than their usual fit. Although the creator can change that according to their imagination and making them deadly puppet's by giving them weapons and it's mostly done for assassination."

Kiyoshi and Officer Luke being new to this term can just let their brain process everything, which Officer Luke seems to have understood everything but on the other hand Kiyoshi still looked confused, Nozomi not wasting any time speaks, "Dark Energy is generated from strong emotion such as rage, anger and grief. Dark energy is the basic foundation to strengthening your Cursed ability, it also allows the ability users to carry out certain functions and one of which is creating matter from nothingness using your Dark energy. Proper control over one's mental strength and emotional is the basic thing needed to enhance your Dark energy and indirectly strengthen your Cursed ability. You can later learn to shape your Dark energy which releasing it from your hand or palms, In my case I have such a high degree of Dark energy that I can discharge it in form of large scale blast waves but controlling it and releasing in smaller quantities is because of the control over the energy." As she speaks she even shows it by releasing some Dark energy from her palm and Changing its shapes to show it as of an example. After this brief explanation, She then returns to the second Task which was bringing back her the key, Nozomi seeing its the perfect time to show what exactly a Daffodil are makes one using her Dark energy and slowly releasing it with her palm creating a Daffodil.

Kiyoshi looks taken aback from this revelation and looks frozen for a second but Nozomi again breaking him from this delusional thinking says, "Also the Daffodil will be attacking you continously." with that she places the key in the Daffodils hand and closes it before wishing him good luck. The Daffodil comes down and look at Kiyoshi with its empty eyes. Kiyoshi looks around thinking about how to get the key when he feels a sharp pain through his whole body, turns out it was the Daffodil who punched him, "Oh my ALREADY?!" He exclaims with confusion as he's flying away from the impact of the punch. The Daffodil without wasting any second charges towards Kiyoshi again, Kiyoshi who was lying on the ground quickly gets up, his cursed ability mark again glows a faint peridot shade, "Wait, why can I hear disturbances in the sound waves?" He thinks to himself. The Daffodil who was just behind him was going to attack when suddenly Kiyoshi exclaims "Behind!" and ducking just in time to avoid the attack leaving everyone in the room surprised. As soon as the attack ends, Nozomi moves her fingers and sudden there are the same old antique watches floating in the air making it even more hard for him to move freely. Everyone looks with their serious expression as to what'll happen next, Yuki and Officer Luke looking at it with their full attention. The Daffodil continues to attract Kiyoshi with great speed also giving him no time to recover from the previous attacks, "At this rate I won't be able to bring her the key." He thinks to himself before the Daffodil once again kicks him, sending him flying and crashing into a tree. As he getting up from the fall he notices a wooden stick floating above his reach point, He looks at the doll and notices it coming towards him and right there he deduces a plan to get the wooden stick to defend him. As soon as the Daffodil reaches him, he uses the speed and the power of that Daffodil to be thrown in the air and then he grabs one of the old antique watches floating near the wooden stick, The watch keeping him in air gives Kiyoshi the time to reach for the stick. Nozomi again makes the watches dissappear leaving kiyoshi no choice but the jump for the stick and at that same time the Daffodil also comes from behind to attack Kiyoshi. He grabs the stick and now falling down he turns towards the Daffodil and is successful in landing a blow in its head and the Daffodil falls on the ground. Kiyoshi throws the stick and grabs the Daffodils clothes as to keep him near it so that he has enough time to get the key. Nozomi makes that Daffodil get up and makes it go in great speed in different directions. This makes Kiyoshi very dizzy and almost makes him loose him balance.

Kiyoshi then gathers himself and managed to grabs the Daffodils hand in which the the key is present but his mind being tricked by his body makes him motion sick and he is forced to let go of the Daffodil. He falls to the ground and after a brief minute of gathering himself up he notices two trees which are really close to each other almost leaving very little gap in between them, This gives Kiyoshi an idea and he turns to look for the wooden stick. The Daffodil again attacks him continously leaving him no time to look for the stick so to find it, He deliberately stands and does nothing further encouraging the doll to attract Kiyoshi. He is finally attack and throw backwards where he suspected the stick to be and he was correct about it. He quickly grabs it uses it to defend himself from the attacks which are landed on him further. Finally not being able to stop the doll he deduces that it'll be impossible for him to defeat the Daffodil with any techniques so at last he goes through with his plan.

He takes the stick and runs towards the two trees with his full speed and the Daffodil following him and being just behind him, Nozomi who was watching understood what he was planning to do but before she could change the direction of the Daffodil, Kiyoshi throws his stick towards the doll and the doll reacts with throwing it somewhere randomly which turns to be towards Nozomi, The stick coming towards Nozomi with an incredible speed was ready to be taken down by Harumi but Nozomi stops the stick before anyone could do anything and in return throws it with much more speed towards the two trees and the path Kiyoshi was running at, The way she threw the stick was guaranteed to hit Kiyoshi till the time it reaches there. Both Kiyoshi and the Daffodil being close to the tree makes everyone and everything more nerve racking. Kiyoshi then looks behind and jumps just in time. Fooling the Daffodil and also instead of him its the doll who gets roughed up by the stick and now the Daffodil being infront is the one who got hit by the stick and it goes straight through its head making the Daffodil fall instantly. Everyone watches in surprise and Nozomi couldn't have been happier than these turns of outcomes. Officer Luke could feel his body get all tingly because of such result. Kiyoshi walks towards the Daffodil and blends down to take the key from its hand before turning and looking towards all of them.