The voice faded away as Houren regained his consciousness, having finally woken up from his long slumber. Although dreams tended to completely disappear from your mind a few minutes after waking up, the haunting image of the little boy entity continued to linger in the Fairy Tail mage's mind, demanding that he come to the river; at first, it was gentle and soothing, as though it were a simple, menial favor, but the more he spoke, the more worrying his voice got, and eventually, it was almost as though he was pleading with Houren, only resorting to yelling when it seemed like the Fairy Tail mage was ignoring him. As such, as soon as he awoke, Houren set out for the cafe where he had arranged a meeting with the good inspector who went by the name of Nilan. Strangely enough, the cafe where they met was the same one that Houren had been in when he accepted that job from Dex about shadowing him around for the day to learn the job that he did. They settled in their seats, ordered some drinks and Inspector Nilan began to ask the Fairy Tail some mages, consulting the notes that he probably got from Dacol Lubex after every answer. He spoke kind enough, but there was a certain vagueness in his voice that seemed to Houren that he was holding something back, perhaps a question that he really wanted to ask and was simply waiting for a better time to put it forward. He was reading Dacol's notes, pondering over them for a long time, only looking towards Houren once in a while as though he was confirming something in the man's face. After a while of this, he finally spoke, and he made the conscious decision to ask Houren to return to the riverside where he wanted to investigate things just once more.
The Fairy Tail mage had absolutely no reason to refuse, and as such, went along with the Inspector's whim of traveling down to the riverside to meet the entity. While going there, they continued their small talk, but in truth, they might as well have stayed silent as neither was truly invested in the conversation. Houren was thinking about the entity, and also about what kind of entity he would meet when he arrived at the riverside; the one that he had seen the first time around, the one that had been nothing but a shimmering ball in the distance, or would he see the young boy? The one that looked like a kid, but seemed wise beyond his years and who spoke with a strange sadness in his voice. The Inspector Nilan was probably thinking of something similar, Houren assumed, as his questions were short and generic, and his answers were incredibly vague, and also short. When they reached the river, Houren's question was answered as he found himself staring at the little boy from before in the distance, but this time something was just a little bit off. He was a lot more clear than before, and at first, Houren even thought for a second that it was just some random resident and not the entity that he knew. However, this assumption was proven wrong when the boy seemed to notice Houren and clearly beckoned him to come closer to him, something which the Fairy Tail mage obliged. The closer he got, the more he saw of the boy and he quickly noticed that he actually looked a lot younger than before; his eyes were a clear cyan but his clothes were anything but flattering as though he was some sort of malnourished bum. Houren's first instinct was to inquire as to the boy's health, and also about whether he was still the semi tangible entity he had been during their previous encounter, but before he could do any of that, the boy began to point at something else by the riverbank, and Houren diverted his attention towards it.
"He is the Tainted Sprit," and that was all the riverside entity would say before walking away but not disappearing at all, as it seemed like he now had a completely human form. Houren began to approach the Tainted Spirit, since judging by its name, it was probably someone who was evil and needed to be defeat for everyone to have their happily ever after. Before he could do anything though, including questioning the Tainted Spirit, it started to attack him, forcing Houren back with some sort of strange attack that the Fairy Tail mage wasn't able to figure out at first. The first entity saw the fighting had begun but didn't seem interested at all in interfering on either side. Detective Nilan, on the other hand, suddenly rushed into battle, telling Houren that he was going to support him during the fight, but only in a defensive manner since his class restriction meant that he didn't have any offensive spells. Houren wasn't really all that confident in his body's ability to defend him from a barely tangible ghost entity though, so having the good inspector back him up in this capacity made him happy enough. The spirit, whatever it was, still took the form of a little boy though which gave Houren confidence as he attempted his signature punching attack against it, only for his fist to completely pass through the entity's face. It looked like it was completely immune to physical attacks, and that was definitely information that Houren would have liked to know earlier.
The Tainted Spirit was completely enraged about Houren's lack of respect towards him and began to power up his own attack, and as he took the full brunt of the attack in the face, he could only curse himself for not having trained his speed. There was one silver lining in all of this though, and that was the fact that since the Tainted Spirit was only semi tangible, it could not touch Houren physically either, but it seemed to have an adept control over its magical ability and was incredibly fast to boot. He was a high ranking foe as well, it seemed, as if it wasn't for Inspector Nilan's defensive spell, Houren might have been down for the count. He wiped some blood from his mouth and stared down at the Tainted Entity, ready to tussle. An eager glint appeared in Houren's eyes as he clenched his fists, but refrained from activating the spell that allowed him to armament his strength; after all, physical attacks wouldn't work but who said Dragon Slaying magic wouldn't work on ghosts?
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