Chapter 4: Chapter 4
Nico hummed happily as he skipped through the lush gardens surrounding the Silva estate. At five years old, he loved letting his imagination run wild while exploring the colorful flower beds and towering hedgerows. Butterflies danced on the warm breeze, their vibrant wings catching Nico's eye and instantly stealing his focus.
"Ooh, pretty!" he squealed, pudgy legs pumping as he wobbled after a particularly striking blue butterfly flitting just out of reach.
So intent on his pursuit, Nico failed to notice the toy soldier lying in his path until his foot struck it with a dull thunk. He tumbled forward in a tangle of flailing limbs and breathless giggles, landing face-first in the soft grass. When the jovial dust settled, Nico pushed himself upright with a disappointed pout. The butterfly had long since vanished, abandoning him to examine the crumpled remains of the plastic figurine now missing half its body.
Nico poked at the broken toy forlornly, his cherubic features scrunching in childlike concentration. Suddenly, faint ripples of mana began knitting the plastic and metal components back into their original pristine shape. Within seconds, the soldier looked freshly unboxed and ready for adventure once more.
Nico's bright blue eyes went wide with amazement, all traces of boyish whimsy replaced by a rare seriousness uncanny for someone his age. No matter how many times he replicated the feat of mending broken objects, it never ceased unsettling him to the core. He wasn't like other children - he possessed strange, inexplicable powers far beyond those of most nobles who took years developing their magic.
Over the following months, Nico devoted every spare moment to testing his still-expanding abilities in utmost secrecy. He learned to accelerate the ceaseless march of entropy itself, withering even the hardiest garden foliage into desiccated husks within a growing radius around his aura. Yet the process could just as easily be reversed, igniting vibrant life from mere handfuls of ash through sheer force of will.
One sweltering summer afternoon, Nico stood outside Nozel's study, stomach fluttering with nervous anticipation. He had decided to take the plunge, finally revealing his awakened talents to the eldest Silva heir - even if he dreaded his big brother's likely dismissive reaction. Nico took a deep, steadying breath before rapping his knuckles against the thick oaken door.
"Enter," came Nozel's gruff bark.
Nico grunted with effort as he pushed his way inside the plush study. The chamber's musty scents - old parchment and beeswax candles lingering in the stale air - washed over him, punctuated by the occasional crackle of flames in the hearth. Nozel's broad frame hunched over his desk, brow furrowed beneath a cascade of silver hair as he squinted through sheaves of paperwork.
"Brother Nozel?" Nico ventured, fidgeting from foot to foot with poorly disguised discomfort.
Nozel peered up with visible annoyance flickering across those striking features. "What is it?"
Nico swallowed hard against the suddenly dry lump in his throat. With his chin held high and shoulders squared, he summoned every ounce of poise a boy his age could muster. "I've unlocked my magic, brother. I want you to train me properly in its usage!"
Nozel's eyes narrowed skeptically. Over the years, he had witnessed Nico's precocious maturity and strange mannerisms firsthand. Unlike frail, timid Noelle, this younger brother of his evinced an eerie, almost otherworldly perception that both unnerved and intrigued Nozel in equal measure. If Nico claimed he had awakened some manner of ability, Nozel wasn't entirely surprised.
"You're far too young for any serious training regimen," he countered in a brusque tone. "Why this sudden urgency to unlock your talents? Idle curiosity and games will only prove distracting from your noble studies."
Nico's cheeks flushed with childish indignation, tiny fists clenching at his sides. Yet just as quickly, the fire dimmed from his eyes - replaced by a solemn, brittle vulnerability more akin to a wizened elder than the small boy before him.
"I had...a dream, brother," Nico murmured so softly Nozel almost missed it. "I saw our mother in terrible danger. And Noelle...she was going to..."
His voice hitched, eyes going glassy before furious blinking chased the vestiges of moisture away.
"I need to get stronger fast," Nico insisted with a quiet vehemence underscored by preternatural resolve. "Strong enough to keep my sister safe from any threats, no matter what might come for us. I-I can't lose her like we lost Mother..."
Nozel was no fool. While he couldn't discount nightmares haunting his baby brother's psyche, he suspected these 'visions' held more weight. Their mother's loss had brutally shaped the entire Silva family from the day of Nico and Noelle's births. A traumatic brand seared into their souls, fueling Nozel's own awakening of frightening prowess at an early age.
If his dreams hinted towards some future catastrophe imperiling his twin, it made a dreadful sort of sense for Nico to want to forge his own power. Though clearly a childish fantasy, Nozel couldn't fault the conviction and earnestness underpinning the boy's words.
Sighing through his nose, Nozel pushed back from his desk and rose in one towering, elegant motion. "Very well, little brother. Demonstrate for me the talents you claim to possess. Any magic unleashed by House Silva should be duly cultivated...no matter how juvenile its foundations."
Emboldened by Nozel's grudging acceptance, Nico instantly perked up. He cast his eyes around the study before settling on a cracked glass inkwell long due for replacement. With a slight nod, Nico pointed towards the shattered container - his gaze intensifying into laser-focus as ethereal mana crackled around his fingertips.
Strands of scintillating energy began lashing outwards, greedily entrapping the inkwell within their coruscating spiral. As Nozel observed with mounting disquiet, the glass seemed to rapidly slough apart - fracturing from countless overlapping impact points as chunks disintegrated into acrid smoke. Within moments, only a fine black dust remained where the inkwell had been moments ago.
Yet that eerie display was merely prelude, for Nico inhaled deeply through his nose before sweeping his opposite hand in the reverse arc. The carbonized remnants instantly reversed their unraveling, ashen particulate reforming into pristine crystalline bonds with shocking alacrity. Inside of twenty seconds, the battered antique was restored to a flawless state - free of even the most microscopic imperfection.
Nozel watched the entire process with his jaw tightening in visible discomfort, fully cognizant of the sheer power playing out before him. Even the most gifted mages required years of dedicated refinement to produce even middling constructs from their magic. Yet Nico's warped abilities seemed to skip straight past the fundamentals and straight into the stuff of fable - shattering apart physical matter before piecing it back together from pure nothingness.
"Where did you awaken these talents?" Nozel demanded, struggling to keep the tension sublimated from his tone. "No child of House Silva has naturally produced abilities of this caliber in centuries past!"
To his mounting unease, Nico seemed utterly nonplussed by the implications - simply shrugging in a gesture far too nonchalant for the gravitas of the moment. "I'm not sure, brother. I've just always been able to instinctively control the state of things around me since infancy. It's always felt...natural. Easy. Like breathing."
Something about those understated words and Nico's earnest delivery sent an instinctive shiver racing up Nozel's spine. Perhaps Nebra and the others had been right all along - there was an eldritch, almost preternatural quality about their mysterious younger brother that far superseded mortal bounds. Whether by proclivity or malign influence, Nico possessed a connection to forces most were never meant to comprehend.
Nozel did not express these musings aloud. Instead, he drew himself to his full intimidating height, piercing gaze drilling into Nico's identical azure pools. When at last he spoke, the words seemed to reverberate with the wisdom and gravitas of House Silva's ancient bloodline.
"Walk with me, little brother. If these 'talents' of yours truly flow as innately as you claim, then you require far sterner foundations than books and lectures alone. From this day forth, you will learn the weight of your noble birthright firsthand...no matter how dauntingly you may bear its burdens."
There could be no further arguments as Nozel swept from the room. Though his words had been measured, his stormy countenance darkened with the thralls of furrowed disquiet. Nico watched him go, seeming to grasp the future forged by his sorceries whether by design or sheer instinct.
Then, unfurling a grin far too toothy for his cherubic visage, Nico set off after the eldest Silva scion. The first steps of a brand new odyssey awaited his footfalls...
Over the weeks and months that followed, Nozel proved as brutal a taskmaster as he was devoted mentor. No hour went unscrutinized, no regimen left incomplete in the face of his vast expectations. Even for someone of Nico's unfathomable talents, the true path of unlocking one's magic was fraught with adversity and pain.
Yet Nico never so much as whimpered a complaint. Simply squared his jaw, shouldered past each new grueling hurdle, and marched on with a dogged tenacity far beyond his years. His prodigious progress bordered on the scarcely believable, leaving Nozel both rattled and quietly envious. No shadow of strain ever seemed to cross the boy's features no matter the trial.
Over time, the secluded woodland groves surrounding the Silva estate became hallowed training grounds. Sections of forest sheared away by bizarre energies would magically regrow overnight, as if reset to a primal state. Charred scorches and crumbling debris in other sectors hinted at impossibly intense conflagrations. Sometimes the very air itself seemed to dilate and thrash like a living force of nature.
For the awakening of Nico's magic - dubbed Entropic Genesis in hushed whispers of the household staff - defied all known tenets of sorcery. It reached deep into the immutable tapestry of existence itself, shredding apart the fundamental reality of time and decay as easily as a scribe's pen across parchment. Where Nozel's mercury arts carved mercury into deadly armaments, Nico's entropy could seemingly will energy into being without prior expenditure or constraint.
[A/N: So, Nico's magic is all about messing with entropy, but I'm not sure if that term fits in the Black Clover world. Any ideas for a cool name for this magic?]
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