Chapter 5--Talent, escape.

'But how can it be?' exclaimed Natsuki, 'I saw sparks just now.'

'Ridiculous! How can sparks come out from your hand?' Aaron went forward to examine Natsuki's hand and touched it, but jerked his hand away when his hand is barely millimeters away from hers.

'It shocked me!' his face filled with bewilderment.

'I...It shocked you?' asked Tsi Inn and she too went forward to touch Natsuki's hand. Then, as if a three-year-old kid having her first encounter with a match, she said, 'Hey, it really shocks!'

‘How did you do that?’ asked Tsi Inn.

'Um…' Natsuki was thinking of a way to them, ‘I just focus hard on my hand, I guess.’

‘Do you think this is my talent?’

'It might be,' said Fuyuda, ‘We just don’t know what talent it is.’

‘Don’t you know what your talent root is?’ asked Yan.

Natsuki hesitated for a while, and said, ‘I’m not sure. They didn’t use their talent in front of me.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Fuyuda.

‘I’ve never seen them use their talent in front of me. But I’ve seen them used it while I’m sleeping…’

‘--how can you see them use their talent when you are sleeping?’ interrupted Aaron.

‘When they thought I had slept,’ said Natsuki, ‘I went downstairs to take a drink, when I saw my father.’

‘He was polishing a bow,’ Natsuki continued, ‘I’ve never seen the bow before, I wanted to ask him about it until…’

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Tsi Inn when she saw Natsuki’s troubled look.

‘Well, I think that there’s something wrong with my father’s talent and mine.’ said Natsuki, ‘After father polished the bow, the bow transformed into the handkerchief that father usually used.’

‘So, your father’s talent is to transform things. Whereas yours seemed nowhere near him.’ concluded Fuyuda.

‘Maybe you are dreaming, Natsuki.’ Aaron said, ‘There’s no way that a father and his daughter’s talent could be different.’

‘Maybe, maybe.’ said Natsuki, but she was not convinced.


***

A group of people were whispering at the garden at Mirage Island's hospital. They were discussing about a mission assigned to them by the leader of Mirage Island--Ye Shen, which is to murder the five outsiders. But while they were discussing ways to enter stealthily, someone, or something was eavesdropping on their discussion. When that "something" heard that those people were going to murder the "five outsiders", it quickly left those people and headed to the hospital. Fortunately, those people did not noticed the rustling noise made by the "something".

'Stop it! It's not even time to go to school...' mumbled Aaron and tried to push SyaoInn away.

'Aargh!' Aaron immediately jumped out from his bed, 'Cat spit!' and quickly rubbed away the cat saliva on his face. The others woke up after hearing Aaron's scream.

'What's wrong? Oh its you, SyaoInn. I'm here, not there, okay?' said Tsi Inn while pointing to Aaron's bed, 'What's the matter?'

SyaoInn meowed frantically, Tsi Inn's expression turned from sleepy, to bewildered, and then serious.

'Is there anything wrong, Tsi Inn?' asked Yan worriedly.

Tsi Inn looked solemn for a while, then said, 'Ying Yu's husband, he's sending people to murder us.'

The group of people consisting of five burst into the ward where the five were sleeping.

'Looked! The windows open.' said one of these people and looked out from the window, ‘They shouldn’t be far.’

'How did they know that someone’s gonna kill them?' wondered another person.

'Who cares? If we don't chase up to those outsiders, Ye sir would be furious.' said the third person of the group and they left the empty ward.

‘Are they gone?’ Natsuki asked Fuyuda, who was looking at the ceiling above them, where their ward was.

‘Yes.’

'Now what should we do?' asked Yan.

Fuyuda looked around the hospital with his talent for an escape route, 'We could escape through the back door.'

'Let's go.' said Fuyuda and they followed him to the hospital's back door. While going there, Fuyuda surveyed the surrounding area and spotted a temple not far away from the hospital.

'There's an ancient temple nearby, we could go there and hide while thinking of a way to escape from this nightmare.'

The others walk through the hospital as if walking through a labyrinth, thanks to Fuyuda ('You can't blame me, the nurses seem to be everywhere, I just lead you all to people-free paths.') After half an hour of walking, they finally reached the hospital's back door, which is actually not far from their ward (they only need to descend a flight of stairs to reach that door).

'Finally, we reached the back door!' cried Natsuki, 'where's the temple you said, Fuyuda?'

'We just need to go through that wall.'

'The wall?' Tsi Inn stared at the wall, 'How could the temple possibly be here?'

Natsuki put her hand on the wall, but nothing solid hit her hands. It was as if there is nothing in front of them despite the fact that the wall is just in front of them. Natsuki tried to push her hand further, and saw it going through her hand. Yan covered her mouth and gasped when Natsuki disappeared through the wall. Suddenly, Natsuki's head popped through the wall.

'The temple really is behind the wall!' Tsi Inn quickly went through the wall, followed by Fuyuda and Yan, then the doubtful Aaron.

The temple was in gold, and there were intricate carvings on the walls on the temple. In the middle of the temple, was a bronze statue.

Aaron, Natsuki and Yan sat on the golden floor and rested whereas Fuyuda and Tsi Inn explored the temple of gold.

‘Hey guys, come here!’ Tsi Inn gestured her friends to come to the statue, ‘The statue looks like Natsuki!’