A Father's Duty

Noctis sat down on Mama Hawk's back. watching the scenery on their way. After Noctis' show of power, no one blocked their way anymore. Noctis also noticed that Mama Hawk altered its course and went up north from Bosco going to Sevens.

In Noctis' memory, Sevens, is quite a unique country. It is simply the land of the rich. Meaning there are lots of merchants in there. It is also said that there are seven ruling family in that country, consisting of mainly the ric.h.e.s.t, most powerful, and most influential merchants of them all.

No one is strong enough to make Sevens, an enemy, because they control so much goods that if, Sevens, issued a ban to you, merchants will refuse to sell anything to you.

Of course, Noctis doesn't give a crap about that. He had the system as his main supplier. He also believes that money is treated like a God in that place which he have lots in his storage.

The hours passed by and the kids finally woke up after having some quality sleep. Irene and the chipmunks joined their father on sightseeing, sitting with him. Pitou jumped and rode her father's nape while Kagura sat down on his father's l.a.p and Erza sat down on her mother's l.a.p.

Erza, wanted to be on her mother's side more often than her father because she had never experienced the childhood of having a mother. She had experienced years of living with only his father, acting the same role of being a mother and a father to Erza.

That's why when her real mother showed up, she wanted to spend the times she lost in her childhood to be with her mother. And Irene would gladly do so for her daughter.

They continued sightseeing on top of Mama Hawk with no one bothering them which made Noctis sigh with relief. It was night when they finally reached the outskirts of Sevens. Mama Hawk continued roaming around the outskirts, finding the perfect place to burrow herself.

Dimaria had come out of her hibernation due to her body having a hard time moving after taking a dip on the concoction. The moment her body made contact with the concoction, the Damage Knocking wore off and Dimaria felt the pain and immediately dipped herself in the concoction.

She came out of her hibernation when dinner is already served and Noctis called onto her.

"Looks like you had a nice 'sleep', huh." Noctis said which made Dimaria roll her eyes.

Dimaria's body is still aching all over the place and she knew she wouldn't be able to do another set of physical training. Thankfully, her master told her that its dinner.

Dimaria, when she first ate Noctis' dish was surprised. The reaction she got was different from the norm. Instead of an exciting and explosive reaction, what she felt was lukewarm. She felt like her mother was the one who made the dish. She ate the dish with tears running down her eyes as she remembered the last food her mother made for her.

The tears had died down after she devoured the dish. Noctis' food was like a new hope for her. She had eaten Noctis' food and every dish she ate contains different message being conveyed to her. She could feel her master lecturing her through food and she had taken to heart every message her master conveyed to her through cooking.

After eating their dinner, Noctis called out to all of them outside to watch. Mama Hawk seemed like she found a spot near the cliff and burrowed herself, leaving only the Boar's Hat above ground.

The chipmunks were amazed of seeing Mama Hawk burying herself down. Noctis then called out to Dimaria and let Irene handle the children while he teaches Dimaria.

"Sit wherever you feel comfortable." Noctis said and Dimaria found a little bump and sat down.

"What I'm going to teach you now, is a basic breathing technique to help you concentrate." Noctis said to Dimaria who seemed ready to intake the knowledge that Noctis will impart to her.

"So you might be asking yourself, why do you need a breathing technique to concentrate when you can just will yourself to do so, right? Well, you're not wrong but in a high-class battle, the one who can concentrate faster usually wins. I say usually because even if you can concentrate faster, if your move set is bad, then whatever you do, you can't win. Obviously you won't have a bad move set since you're going to be trained by me, but you wouldn't be able to unleash them at their full potential if you're concentration isn't up to par." Noctis said to Dimaria.

Noctis had thought of teaching Kagura the Thunder Breathing technique because she's his daughter and she could use it to her full potential. Dimaria is different. He won't impart any ridiculous techniques to outsiders because these techniques are his personal treasures. He wouldn't just share them just because she's his disciple. What Noctis did was he rearranged the breathing technique making it still strong but its not overly ridiculous compared to the thunder breathing technique.

Noctis then started teaching Dimaria his rearranged breathing technique to Dimaria. Dimaria then started breathing the same way her teacher told her to. In the first try, her breathing is in a disarray which is in Noctis' prediction as he guided her to get the flow of air right.

In her second try, Dimaria got it for a minute before her breathing went into disarray.

"Good, if you mastered the breathing technique, there's a technique where you will enter a state where everything about you is enhanced but it puts a toll on your body. You won't be reaching that state anywhere soon so be patient. Once you've achieved that you could safely say that you scratched the surface of the initial phase." Noctis said to Dimaria.

Dimaria was surprised that what her master is teaching her is basics of the basics and its already hard, but she promised not to let out any complaint. Her meeting with her master was an opportunity she wouldn't let go no matter what happened.

"I don't really care what you do with my teaching, or where you choose to go after I trained you, but never, ever doubt your training. If you do, never call yourself my disciple." Noctis said with a stern voice. His training might be hard and slow but when his student bloomed, he/she will be, without a doubt, become strong.

"Yes, master!" Noctis nodded at Dimaria's little vow.

"Good, go practice on your own. Ask me if you have any questions." Noctis said but Dimaria had a question.

"But Master, there are only two rooms in the house, where will I sleep?" She asked.

"You can go and sleep with the kids, the bed is big and you four will be more than enough to occupy that bed even if you turn around a lot in sleep." Noctis said.

"But-" Noctis cut her off before she continued.

"In that room, you will meet the three future strongest you'll ever meet." Noctis said and Dimaria was confused but she really had no choice but to follow her master's orders and she is curious about the trio as well.

When Dimaria left and went to their room, Noctis called out to the little chipmunk peeking on the door that Dimaria passed by.

"Kagura, why are you hiding over there? Come here." Noctis said which made Kagura reveal herself and came towards her father.

"So? Why is our chipmunk eavesdropping, huh?" Noctis stood up and caught Kagura before he pinched her cheeks.

"Ouchieeee! Father, let me go! Forgive me, okay?!" Kagura tried to escape from her father's claws.

Noctis then let go and picked her up and he sat down and placed Kagura on his l.a.p and hugged Kagura from the back.

"So? Why are you here? Did you escape from your mother again? Taking a leak as your excuse?" Noctis said to Kagura and she is silent meaning that Noctis got it right.

"I... Father, why did you take Dimaria and teach her?" Kagura asked her father.

"Well, she's a ticking disaster. If I let her loose, she'll cause a lot of destruction. She would cause trouble for your mother if I let her be." Noctis patiently explained to Kagura.

"Why? Why would she make trouble for mother? Mother didn't do anything to her, right?" She asked with her face full of confusion.

"Well, technically that's true. But your mother is working for a kingdom that Dimaria is living before I met her. If she let loose on the place that your mother is working for, then she'll have to go to work." Noctis said but Kagura only understood a little.

"So, Dimaria is dangerous?" Asked Kagura.

"For now, she's not, that's why I'm training her to control her powers. If she could fully control her power then her causing a rampage will be low. Remember Kagura, if you have full control over your powers and played theough your strengths whilst avoiding weaknesses, no one will be able to beat you." Noctis said.

"Oh... okaaaaay..." Kagura nodded her head.

"Does she want to control her powers?" Asked Kagura.

"Yes, she wants to become strong." Noctis replied.

"Why does she want to become strong?" Kagura asked.

"Because, you see, Dimaria is just like you. She had seen her mother die in front of her eyes just like how your brother protected you so you could escape. She wants to become strong because she doesn't want that to happen again to herself and prevent someone from suffering the same fate she did." Noctis said which made Kagura emotional and felt a little mutual with Dimaria.

Its been so long since she hadn't seen her brother. If not for her father, she knows that she wouldn't be alive because of the man chasing her back in the forest. If not for her current parents' love, she wouldn't be able to pick herself back up. That's when Noctis patted her head.

"Kagura, let's say, if your brother is alive, do you want to see him?" Noctis asked and Kagura teared up and she nodded her head.

"Do you want to save your brother?" Noctis asked as she nodded her head once more.

"I see. Then Father is going to save him, I promise. But its going to take a while, okay?" Noctis heard all he wanted to hear and is going to fulfill his promise. He then hugged Kagura tightly as Kagura sobbed on her father's c.h.e.s.t as she nodded.

'Looks like I have to meet the shadows.' Noctis thought.

Shadows mainly focused on protecting Lucis in the dark. Since he is the leader of the shadows now, he would split the organization into two. One protecting Lucis in the dark and the other would focus on gathering information on the lands outside of Lucis. Meaning, the shadows would become an international organization as a whole.

'This is going to take a while, I will make sure to gather any info about the kingdoms, empires, and rising powers of this world.' Noctis thought as a grand plan slowly formed in his mind.

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Welp, I'm busted. My girlfriend now knew that I'm writing this novel XD. I once shared the idea to her since she's also writing in her spare time, though hers is mostly domestic novels meaning her novel is written in our native language.

The reason why I also wrote novels in the first place other than writing for fun is because I'm giving her suggestions while I tried imagining the same idea but with anime characters in it and I couldn't stop fiddling if I wouldn't be able to write down such an idea.

She caught me writing this novel while we're drinking with our friends last night. She was surprised that I wrote this novel because I suggested to her to write a slice of life family genre idea and when she found out. I said it was a spur of the moment novel XD

She suggested to me after reading the book that our MC should have someone like a bestfriend that he could confide to. Just like Shikamaru to Naruto, a drinking buddy type of guy. Well, the idea's not bad so maybe i'll try it.

Well, I'm still learning a lot while writing and I can't say that actually learning at this point in life could actually be fun.

Also because I told you guys about this, I'm sleeping on the couch later on. Mamba out! XD