*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 and informed the others. Kai looked out the window and watched many people outside, wandering around.

"We are 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 said while looking at the pamphlet about the train.

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

"Well, this might be the first time I meet such a person. I never see her and know about her, so I am a little curious." Tasha, in his front, said with a smile, wondering what kind of person that could instill a 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 Kai asked them.

"Don't put your hope too high. She is psycho." After replying to Tasha, he turned around and watched the people outside. Michelle and Tasha understood how he actually didn't want to meet her. In fact, if she didn't threaten him, it might be a few more years before he could 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 2nd December, 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 message had no reply.

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

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

It couldn't be said as Party since they only ate some home-cooking and then went their separate ways.

After the birthday, 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 many areas for improvement, but the general issue had been solved, and she could balance both speed and power.

Her father and mother also asked her for sparring to see her power. At first, they never expected that Ayaka decided to become a Zodiac. They were clueless about it. When Ayaka said it was a fusion between Human Blood and Magical Beast Blood, their expression distorted, having many thoughts about this.

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 because 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 going on. They fought a few times, but as expected from an expert like them. Even though Ayaka had superior physical abilities, they could easily pick up any flaws in her fighting style.

This made Ayaka fired up and improved by leaps and bounds. As a parent, they were certainly happy with this and tried to spend more time with her before eventually fighting her with magic.

In the end, they said if she had 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 it would be soon. Unfortunately, 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 kept having the need to improve. He kept grinning though 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 this 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 listened to Kai and gave a few suggestions based on the plans, creating a better plan than they expected.

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

The only question she had in mind was how to explain this complicated plan by using a simple command. This was the homework that Sanae gave to them. Kai and Tasha could understand that if they used a complicated explanation, there might be some misunderstanding 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 once flew back home 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 no avail. The latter kept saying he didn't know anything and asked her to wait until the official order.

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 did some practice with her shadow again, forgetting about this problem.

And before long, the New Year finally arrived. They celebrated the new year with their family, except Michelle, who was left behind by her family because of this reason. Kai asked her to celebrate it with his family instead and she agreed. 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, he could only drag his ass over because there was no telling what kind of absurd thing she would do in case 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 push to the back 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 this Raid Mission. Besides, asking her some questions about the plan will also give us a greater chance of survival." Kai nodded in agreement.

"Still, do you think it's really only Vibration Sword? I mean, she gave it to me a few months ago so I could deliver it to you. If this time she only has a Vibration Sword, why doesn't she give it to me like the previous time?" Michelle looked up while crossing her arms, thinking of the real reason.

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

"When I stayed at Professor's place, she often smiled weirdly when talking 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 tell a scary story."

"It's not a scary story though…" Ayaka muttered but 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 her. 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. This was 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 have finally come."