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---FATE---(Old Version); The old version of FATE.
Topic Started: Jun 16 2012, 07:02 AM (220 Views)
Zodai
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Totally not a power freak!
The following is the preliminary version of FATE.

I'm working on rewriting it right now, but it should keep you busy while I do so. Keep in mind, this thing is almost 100 pages, so it is VERY LONG.

Side note: I have now confirmed that there is indeed a limit to how long a post can be.

So, yeah. Reeeeeaalllyyyy long.

If you're wondering, Chapter 1 was written around September of 2011.

Chapter 1


March 17th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


00:37




The night was dark, as it had always been. Most of the city had gone to sleep at least an hour ago, although a few select houses (Otherwise known as 10% of the city…) of rampant children, all-night gamers and people with way too much homework, had stayed lit, although there was an exception to this.


The Yageni Museum, in the sector 7 of the capital city, Akande, near the Gakuna Sea, as always, kept the lights on after dark. This would make it easier to spot any of the thieves who made an attempt to sneak in, as it was harder to camouflage in a shadowless building. It also prevented a panic in the event of an emergency, as if the lights were kept on, anyone would notice if they were turned on in case of an emergency. If the lights had been turned on during a break-in, the thief would be able to escape in the crowd of news reporters and civilians. It would be a dead giveaway of a robbery. Of course, this is all prevented because they keep the lights on at night.

“Hey! I think I saw him!”

As the reporters would have already been here if they hadn’t.

In that instant, a man had been seen dashing through the hallway. A cloaked figure, his outfit was set to camouflage against nighttime shadows, not the peach-colored walls of the museum. He was moving so fast no details of his clothing could be seen.


A local source of minor legend among elementary schooler s, the source being sons and daughters of security guards(These days; a lot of the older ones were transferred to lower-priority guarding areas)he was symbolized by the mysterious mask he wore on his heists. The man was kept a secret from most of the world, aside from the security guards of museums he stole from, due to the fact they would be too ashamed to see what they considered not only a “Mere Thief”, but a “Mere 17 year old” to have successfully stolen artifacts of high value, not even having so much as a whisper of realization of his first heist until it was completed.

No mysterious coded letters signifying the heist, no showoff entrance of epic proportions that thousands of people line up to see. No grand exit as he outwits thousands of guards at one time.

Mostly, because he couldn’t afford to mess up.

And his name…

“Thief”


Of course, this was given to him by the community. Since just about every other famous thief had a cool nickname, like, “Legendary mask” he ended up with a simplistic name due to the fact that he was the only famous thief that didn’t act overly arrogant on every single heist.


His target was, yet again, one of the things nobody expected anyone to steal. Walking past the most expensive exhibit in the museum on his way, a rare mineral, Twyranite, rumored to have been used in alien spacecraft blueprints amongst the people of the city, instead opting to take a sheathed sword rumored to have been used by a legendary hero a millennium ago, putting it in the same timeline as the Cataclysm.

Three security guards ran up to Thief in an attempt to capture him. Guns were only permitted against those suspected of murder and, while they also had tranquilizer guns on them, it was common knowledge that Thief drank antidotes to them in advance, and last time he was able to use one against them. There were more effective non-lethal ways of subduing him as well, but they had a chance to damage the exhibits.

Thief had grabbed the sword and ran for the exit, already knowing the cyberlock had already locked it the instant the sword was removed from the pedestal. He kicked off the transparent door, which was just as hard as the wall, flipping over and smacking a guard in the back of the head with the sheathe of the blade, then landing behind the guard, followed up by kicking the head of the second guard into the third.

He took a breather for a bit, and then was noticed by more guards. As they chased toward him, he sidestepped to his right, narrowly dodging the charge. As he into a nearby hallway, the guards, obviously, gave chase.

Thief sidestepped onto a wall of the narrow hallway, then jumped to the opposite wall to gain momentum, running on the wall in order to get behind the guards. This was actually quite easy at this time, as shoemakers had figured out how to design the bottom for maximum friction, although it was only possible for 30 seconds at the best friction quality, and that’s assuming you’re running fast enough.

Thief landed behind the guard on the back of the line, and kicked him into the two that were either in front of him or behind him; he wasn’t sure if the guards had turned around to react or not. He then pressed a concealed button, opening a door on the floor leading to a storage closet. Of course, all the buildings these days with any danger of someone falling, had an anti-gravity machine that activated whenever something falling from above was detected. This also activated a change in the floor mechanisms, making the floor material more like that of a trampoline. Of course, this does not affect the exhibits, but the sliding storage panels above exhibit rooms were carefully placed not to be above the exhibits.

Thief ran up to the elevator, knowing the guards still in the security room would be able to see the action. Of course, the guards acted immediately.

As the empty elevator opened up on the 23rd floor, Thief had ran up the walls onto the elevator door for the rooftop. He kicked open the elevator doors; they were made of an easily kickable material these days in case of an emergency, and made his way onto the rooftop. He used a security card he had gotten from a guard earlier, in order to shut down the plasma wall currently surrounding the building.

Thief had then pulled out a metal rod, and attached some form of a magnet to one end of it. As he jumped off the building, the side of the rod with the magnet on it stuck to the wall as he slid down, slowing his descent to a point where he would be able to land easily. He threw away the magnetic rod, and before he gained much more momentum, used a magnet of the same polarity as the wall in order to propel himself toward a nearby pier, landing with minor injuries.


Thief ran over to a nearby pseudo-alleyway, enclosed with blocks upon blocks of cargo. He took off his mask, his black hair now visible, and pulled out a small communication device.

“Hey, what took you so long? LM already got to the base! I’ve been waiting for you for the past hour, you know!” The man at the other end of the phone said.

“Heh. You know that LM prefers to do his heists in broad daylight, you know.”

Thief wasn’t sure if he was referring to Legendary mask or Lark Maverick, so he just said something relating to both of the overly-arrogant thieves. He decided to sit down, the red-hilted blade still in hand.

“You think the decoder division will be able to crack the cyberlock? The museum probably knew its lethality when used as a weapon.”

“Well, we had a specific crew just for dealing with these Cyberlocks. Just how you were a thief specifically for stuff relating to Operation Skybreak. At least, you are this time. Rumor has it you’ve jumped around a bunch of organization relating to the national government. Isn’t that right, Ikaru?”

Ikaru merely kept quiet relating to the question.

“Meh, I can tell if you’re a bit tired, I’ll just say it for you. Ikaru Yatsuna Madume. Previous experience…” There was a short pause in the middle of his sentence.

“…Anyway, should I come get you so we can get back to headquarters?”

“Yeah. I’m in between some cargo crates in the pier. Come get me soon, Kature.”

“Right, I’ll head over there.”

Ikaru sat down in silence. He deliberately didn’t tell his friend which Pier it was, he wanted some time to think.

“Heh. Tommorow’s the day, right? The day Operation Skybreak finally break out of preparation and gathering. The day his plans all get started.

And…” Ikaru paused for a moment, then exhaled.

“…The day I get my first glimpse into the truth of that day.”

About 15 minutes later, his phone rang again. Kature Hatenki was on the Caller ID.










Chapter 2




March 17th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


13:43



The Blond-Haired man walked through the long hallway, as the many doors and many branching pathways, as the average person would be confused by the sheer amount, this man was not.

For the most part, it was because he had been through this hall countless times before.

This was average for the royalty of Ikane, of course. Or, less commonly known as the Nakuri family.

The man walked through the hallway. He was dressed in slightly fancy-looking clothes, although they would not hinder his movement any more then regular clothing, mostly a light grey with a yellow lining, with more yellowing near the collar and the bottom edge of the pants, near the foot. After being here for his entire life, he had the entire layout of the main and branching halls mapped out, and naturally remembered it subconsciously. Bathroom 3rd door to the left and right from both sides, Library 2nd door to the right from staircase entrance. Dad’s room last door to the left on entrance opposite the throne, next to staircase. Mom’s room, opposite of Dad’s room…

His face saddened as he passed it.

He walked a bit further, to the main balcony which was stationed behind the staircase, which the walls surrounding it were full of child-like drawings stapled onto the walls. As he was walking, a young girl with green hair, still in her pajamas, had walked down the staircase.

“H-hey there, Brother…” The girl had said, her hair long bright-green hair looking fairly messy due to incredible drowsiness; she probably would’ve been mistaken for a drunk by the average person had she been older, although this was mostly because she just woke up.

“Hey there, Destiny” The man said, as he continued heading over to the balcony door. He had expected this; his sister always woke up around this time on the weekends.

“Y-you heading to the B-balcony?” Destiny said, her body leaning on the staircase railing.

“Yeah, just feeling like I need some air. There’s been a lot of work lately, and dad is trying to pile all the work on me, even though he probably won’t retire for another 30 years…”

“You wanna come up to the Balcony in my room? It’s a lot…”

Destiny Yawned Mid-sentence.

“A lot better up in my room…” Her eyes were still drooping, but at least she stopped slurring her sentences.

“No thanks Destiny, I’m good. You should probably get a bit more sleep though…”
“Come on Gedo, go up to her room with her”

A girl about the same age as Gedo, had appeared in one of the two hallways to the sides of the spiraling stairs, her long red hair blowing from a nearby window. She was dressed in the standard Red-and-blue uniform of the elite infantry division. The red gradually shaded into blue from top to bottom, which had been completely blue by the time it reached the skirt, which had been kept two inches above the knees, due to the fact that, in comparison to the normal infantry, who’s uniform was built to withstand hits, Elite infantry uniforms were built to allow for the mobility to not get hit in the first place.

Gedo let out a sigh.

“Fine, Fine. I’ll get going, Hatsune.”

While there were at least 30 lieutenant’s in the elite infantry division, Hastune was the only one that Gedo and Destiny knew personally.

“Destiny, you go back up, I’ll be there shortly.”

“Okay…” Destiny yawned again, and then drowsily walked back up the stairs.

“Say, Gedo. Destiny’s 9th birthday is coming up in about a month right? You got anything for her yet?”

“No, not yet. Speaking of which, isn’t your birthday coming up soon, too?”

“I wouldn’t say soon, but I turn 17 in august. Your
17th birthday was just last month, right?”

“December, not February.”

“Ah well, close enough”

The two continued to talk for a few more minutes. Snoring could be faintly heard from upstairs.

“By the way, wasn’t there a robbery at Yageni last night?” Gedo had said, staring over at the hallway, where another member of the elite infantry division sat bored near a crate.

“Yeah. That one red sword was stolen. You know, that one rumored to have been from the calamity? This makes Thief’s third heist since his debut. We’re actually bringing in the replica right now. Everyone’s already on edge, you know, with the high tensions with Zynkaru and all. There were actually two other heists on the other side of town, Lark Maverick was able to steal a turret from a pier over in sector 3, along with breaking the bones of most guards, and Hydrax stole 13 cargo boats. In sector 13.

Gedo wondered how anyone could even move something of that size.

“With the theft sites being so far away from each other like this, we might not even be able to finish until tomorrow, if you count the fact that we have to do tax collection on the way. Apparently, all the running around is supposed to improve our combat abilities, but at least none of the citizens try and sneak their way out of it, that makes it easier.

(“Another tax day, another pile of money that will probably become worthless after that.”) Gedo thought.

“Ah. Well, Destiny’s probably getting bored by now. See ya later!”

“Later!”

Gedo, walked up the spiraling staircase, finding his way to a door that looked as if it had been splash on with 5 different colors of paint at once, even in the abstractness of it.

He opened the door, leading to a room with a colorful carpet, walls with thousands upon thousands of crayon marks on them. A room obtained 3 years ago through repeated asking.

Destiny had changed into a bright-blue dress by then, which, guessing by the too-clean closet which had happened to be open, was simply picked at random from a fairly large selection. The collar of the dress was green, and the shade of blue had grown darker near the edge of the skirt.

“Gedo, what took you so long?” Destiny, who had previously been sitting on her bed, stood up, grabbed Gedo’s arm, and dragged him to the balcony.

Most of the west half of the city had been visible from the balcony. About 3 years ago, the queen had proposed a movement of all factories to the east side, as to make collection and shipment of products smoother and quicker, in order to increase total profits. The project was completed two years ago, shortly after the queen’s death. It was projected that the increased profits would pay for the project itself in about 5 more years.

“Hey, brother. When do you think Mom’s coming back?

Gedo stood silent for a moment.

“Don’t know. She’s working really hard on foreign affairs. She’s been setting up trade deals with other countries and companies to help everyone. Everyone appreciates it.”

“…Hey, you’ll always come help me if I ever get in trouble, right?”

Gedo crouched down to his sister’s height, and put his arm around her.

“Yeah, I’ll always be here for you.”

“Promise?”

“Yeah, promise”

“Thanks, brother.”

Gedo had a saddened look on his face.

“Hey, brother. Do you ever wish we just had a normal life?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“Heh. Quite often actually.”

“Why? I mean, we have all this stuff…”

“Heh. Sometimes, there are things I wished I never had to know. Although, since I was adopted, if we had a normal life, we might’ve never met.”

“Hm…I guess you’re right!”

Gedo went back to his own room shortly after.

After about 10 minutes, Destiny shouted something off the balcony.

“Hey!!! Would you guys stop planting listening devices up here!?!?”

At about the same time, There was a minor collision on a street, a waiter dropped a customer’s ice cream, and someone fell off a 10 story apartment rooftop.




The apartment had safety anti-gravity devices, though.




Chapter 3




March 17th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


15:30



Ikaru stood waiting for the meeting to begin. Lark Maverick sat down near him, his legs resting on the empty chair in front of him. He had specifically requested the chair in front of him be empty. Each member was allowed one request and one side-request pertaining to the mission. They would try and fit the requests, but the request was given more priority over the side request.

Ikaru’s requests: To be granted access into the Ikane castle, and to not be required to kill anyone on his mission.

Today would be the first actual step of the operation, and it would be completed within the next two months. Giving the leader total power. Ikaru didn’t know the leader’s name, nor did he even care for it. He had his own goals in mind.

As the meeting, there would be a number of roles, and whom they were assigned to. Jobs that would throw the countries into disarray, to prepare for the meat of the plan. Ikaru didn’t care much for it, but he listened in for his name so he would know whether or not he got a job within the Ikane castle.

Turns out, he did. Apparently, the rumors were right. He was being planned for a very specific job right from the beginning. Even if it did deny his side-request.

The job had been the assassination of Destiny. He had been given a dagger, and a bomb. He was given a set of simple instructions.

-Due to the numerous amounts of thefts last night, most of the guards are still setting up the replacements for them. As such, the guard count should be dwindled dramatically. It should be no trouble breaking in.

-Make it look like an accident during theft. We have already planted a rare jewel in the room.

-Set off the bomb after you are done. Hide the cause of death. Leave mask. Let them think you died in the blast.
Apparently, Kature had been right: They would use any ruthless means necessary in order to achieve their goals.

The job was going to have to be quick, but he had enough time to follow his own goals.

The entrance point listed on the paper was the balcony to her room, which was usually guarded by security cameras and army officials. Of course, a large amount of the guards were replacing stolen materials from across the city, meaning that the balcony was completely unguarded.

But, that left no route to his own goal. So, he decided to take the riskier route.

Otherwise known as the front door. He trusted his own abilities enough, and going directly to the balcony would only mean a reaction, and that would mean no escape except the way he came in – without reaching his goal.

The meeting was now over. The time was 18:00. Two hours until the time set for the assassination, all the other jobs of the night timed perfectly in sync with each other, set for pure chaos. A mere disorientation to prepare for the real thing.

Ikaru pondered the reaction. The head government would be too panicked, even the king would probably be too panicked to do anything. Even if the queen came back from some random country on some random continent she happened to be on, it would all be for naught. They would be completely unprepared for what was next.

This would be very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

Kature had appeared behind Ikaru.

“Well well! Look who got quite the important job. With an early job like that, you’ll get your pay a lot earlier. How much pay did they decide to give you anyway?”

Ikaru, while sitting down a bit before preparing, replied with a calm answer.

“Nothing.”

“Really, that’s quite a lot. It’s even more than mine!...”

“…”

“Wait. What? You’re not getting any pay?”

“Something wrong with it?”

“EVERYTHING!” Kature said, saying it so loud the author was so shocked by the volume that he accidently hit he caps lock key while typing it.

“If you’re not getting pay, why are you even doing this if it doesn’t have any benefit for you?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Well, why don’t you just get thousands upon thousands of Tenuburu’s with it!”

Ikaru sighed. For some unknown reason, the name of the currency in this country had thousands upon thousands of different names, so whenever someone heard a word they didn’t know, they just assumed it was money.

“You could eat them for a whole year!”

Tenuburu’s, on the other hand, were ketchup tacos. Not many people liked them. Ikaru got up and spoke.

“Anyway, I’m gonna get going. It’s about a 1 hour drive from here to the castle, and I really don’t want to be late. Someone’s gonna break all the stoplights and blow up sidewalks.”


Edited by Zodai, Jun 16 2012, 07:10 AM.
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CURRENT PROJECTS: FATE, God of Truth
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Zodai
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Totally not a power freak!

Chapter 4



March 17th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


19:50


Destiny had just finished watching the sunset through her balcony. She would sometimes try and wake up early enough in order to see the sunrise, but she would always be too tired to make it down the stairs, since her balcony only pointed west. Most of the more recent buildings had circular balconies that circled other cylindrical-shaped buildings, but the castle was fairly old.

She had recently changed into another outfit; apparently, her 5th of the day. This one was much simpler than her previous ones. She was wearing a green shirt that had fairly long sleeves with a brighter-shaded green skirt about the same shade as her hair, 2 inches above the knees, although this was shorter than Hatsune’s by size comparison.

“Alright, 5 inches to the right!”

Hastune was in the middle of replacing the 13 stolen cargo ships. They’d been trying to position the first one for the past 3 hours.

“D-Do you know how hard it is to drive this thing!?!?I don’t even have a driver’s license for a car yet! Said the man in the captain’s seat, a low-ranking elite infantry unit. Hatsune wondered how he even got into the division. He probably didn’t have the abilities to take advantage of the enhanced mobility from the uniforms, and probably would’ve been better as a normal infantry unit. Apparently, he got in due to the fact that elite infantry needed more people who were good with technology, in case something unexpected came up.

“…0.1 inches to the left!” Hastune said. She was feeling bored, and wanted to mess around with the cargo ship driver for a bit.

“…Alright, good enough!” She had been planning to let the other drivers get it on the first try.

“Ok, just back it up slowly!...Ok…And…Good! Move on to the next ship!”

All of a sudden, an explosion occurred on the second ship.

Hatsune’s, who’s eyes couldn’t believe what she had just seen, first thought was:

(“Wait. Now I’m going to look bad.”)

This thought was quickly erased, for there were three more explosions in the surrounding area, one sending the driver of the first ship into the sky.

He landed in an anti-gravity storage chamber, but he was too far away for anyone to hear him say he was ok.

Hatsune reactively grabbed her communication device, and tried to call the two other theft sites. The turret one over in sector 3 wasn’t responding, but the museum heist over in sector 7 was able to get something out about a fire and blocked entrances before a nearby explosion blew her communication device into the ocean.

Hatsune ran for the castle.

(“Please…Please be okay, Destiny!”)

Ikaru had already taken out a large amount of the guards.

He had made it to the hallway with the staircase. Destiny’s room was just up those stairs. Had he not had his own goals in mind, he would’ve gone up, killed her, set off the bomb and be done with it.

Of course, he had his own plans in mind. He began kicking open the doors, trying to find one of the rooms. Once he made it to the fourth door on his left, he had found what he was looking for.

“Here we are…” Gedo had found his way into the library. He was hoping he could find any leads to that day. Surprisingly though, he didn’t even have to open a book to find it. On the right shelf, on the bindings of the books, was the symbol that had been etched into his mind all those years ago.

Gedo, whom had been waiting in a secret compartment inside the library, waiting for the man to pass by the room in order to take him down with the twin swords that were inside the library, which Gedo had trained with since he had been adopted. His target was either his father or his sister. If he was targeting him, he would’ve gone to his room. The public were merely told Gedo’s mother were in a different country, so they would investigate that and be elsewhere if she were their target. But he instead went in here.

(“What could he be planning?”) Gedo thought.

“B-blank…?” Ikaru had cracked open the farthest right book on the shelf of books with the symbol. It had been entirely blank. He had taken his mask off to ascertain his doubts.

While Ikaru’s back was turned towards Gedo’s hiding spot, the walls of the library had been fused with glass atoms. Essentially, it made the walls reflective, allowing someone within the cubicle full sight to everywhere within the library.

In other words, Gedo had seen Ikaru’s face. While his first thought was that his eyes looked more of determination than that of a killer, he knew he had to do something. However, Gedo’s eyes were taken off the opening for a moment, due to the fact that a nearby explosion had knocked him off balance. Ikaru had happened to take two symbols off the book bindings while Gedo was of balance, and had walked out of the room. Gedo had exited his hiding spot, via sliding the wall that revealed the compartment, and attempted to view Ikaru’s position through another sliding hole in the wall. Ikaru had passed his parent’s rooms. His fears were now confirmed.

Gedo was ready to strike. As he was ready to go, another explosion knocked down the bookshelf on top of him. Ikaru had made it to the steps of the spiraling staircase. Gedo knew he had to act fast. He really wasn’t having a very good day today.

On his way up the stairs, Ikaru had thought up a plan. It would go against orders, but the reason he put access into the castle before his own conscience was that he prioritized information into that day more important than anything else.

Ikaru had found his way to the paint-splashed door of Destiny’s room. Ikaru acted fast. He rushed into the room, to find Destiny trying to stand up again after the most recent explosion. He grabbed Destiny, and dropped the mask, one of the symbols from the book bindings, and the bomb, whom had grabbed onto the ground and activated its 5 second timer, as Ikaru jumped out the balcony.

Ikaru’s plan would be perfect. He would land safely outside the radius of the blast, interrogate Destiny about the meaning of the symbol, and then turn her over to the organization, claiming a public execution would be much better for the chaos. He didn’t want her to have to die, but it seemed as if it was the only way he could make it out alive with the information he needed.

Ikaru had one question though. Wouldn’t the government get suspicious if Thief’s corpse was never found?

At that exact moment, Ikaru noticed a red light near the bottom-right corner of his cape. At the time, Gedo had been halfway up the stairs to Destiny’s room, and Hatsune had been half a block away from the castle.

“Get down!!!” At that moment, Ikaru held on to Destiny tightly, and braced for impact, as the bomb in Destiny’s room, and the bomb on Ikaru’s cape, exploded at the same time.

The explosion in the room could be seen for miles. Articles of clothing from Destiny’s room could be seen burning as they fell from the place of the explosion. The cape explosion had been completely dwarfed out. At the same time, 3 people went deaf through their earphones. The earphones played back the explosion so loudly that everyone in the same block could hear it through the earphones.

Hatsune looked up in shock, and only hoped for the best.

Gedo held on to the edge of the floor tight, as the explosion had caused the stairway to fall down to the basement.

Ikaru, whom had been blasted away by the force of both explosions, had hit the wall of a 2 story apartment building nearby, and had landed in a nearby alleyway. Destiny, luckily, only had minor injuries from the blast, and all the dust from the explosions had been blown off during the flight, but Ikaru had more serious injuries, and his left shoulder had been heavily bleeding. While Destiny had still been in shock from the explosions, Ikaru was desperately looking for something to cover the wound with, possibly thinking of Tearing off one of Destiny’s sleeves; he would’ve used his cape, but it burned up in the explosions.

As if on cue, the top half of one of Destiny’s red dresses had fallen on top of Ikaru’s head.

As Ikaru was about to finish wrapping the dress around the wound, Destiny leapt up to him with a hug.

“Y-you saved me…T-thank you…” She said tears flowing down her eyes.

Ikaru could’ve simply gotten straight to the interrogation, but he felt an obligation to help her. Mostly, because she reminded him of himself on that day, all those years ago. Except that, he hadn’t had anyone at the time.

He couldn’t go back to the organization, they expected him to be dead. Going there would only lead to he and Destiny’s corpses being placed at the scene of the explosion. Had he really planned to kill everyone, and then keep all the power for himself? Of course, operatives like Lark Maverick and Legendary Mask would be able to escape, but Kature would be dead meat.

Well, he came here to get information. No turning back, so might as well go all the way. First and foremost, was the need of mobility. Ikaru was certain nobody had seen his face, although he couldn’t move around with such a large wound; even the dress covering it would be obvious. He could blend in with the other injured people, but if someone asked him which area he was in when the explosions happened, he might have given some wrong information and be made suspicious. Destiny could go out herself; it was common practice in Ikane that until officially made rulers, the heirs would only be seen as heirs from the inside of the castle; they were given a false identity so they could go to the public schools. Although, if someone tried to put her in an orphanage, since chances are someone thought she might’ve been an orphan, there were probably a lot now, they might find out here true identity. That would mean that Destiny would have to be with Ikaru when she as out in public at all times. Then – It hit him! Ikaru thought he might be able to say he was hit by rubble in the explosion near the castle. However, he couldn’t tell how much rubble had fallen, how far, and if Destiny were near, she would immediately debunk that lie, and people would get suspicious. He continued to think as the author accidentally stubbed his toe on his laptop charger in the dark.

Destiny seemed fairly calmed down now, she had stopped crying for the most part, although the tears were still there, they were at a much slower pace than before. He decided it was time to ask her about that day.

“Hey. Your name is Destiny, right?” Ikaru asked, hoping something simple would calm her down a bit.

“…Y-yeah…Destiny Nakuri…” Her sniffling was still in effect when she spoke, it seemed. Ikaru pulled out the second book binding; the piece that had the symbol on it. He reminisced back to the taking of the book bindings; he thought it would make a perfect memento of that day to the government. It hadn’t occurred to him at the time it might be used for different things.

“Do you know what this symbol is?” Destiny stared at it for a bit, then leaned on a nearby wall.

“…Hungry…”

Ikaru was shocked by Destiny’s reaction. Did she really just reply that she was hungry to one of the most important questions(In Ikaru’s opinion)she probably would’ve ever been asked? Or did the symbol actually mean hungry? Although, that would make no sense in the context it was used in, the author wouldn’t use something so stupid for such an importance piece of the plot…

“…Too…Hungry…To…Think…”

That settled it. She really was just hungry. It was rumor that the royal family always had their dinner at 20:00, which was now 3 hours overdue. It had seemed as if Ikaru’s wound had slowed down on bleeding by now. The dress hadn’t been wrapped around completely, but all that was left was to tie it, so there wasn’t any serious blood loss.

Ikaru wasn’t entirely sure what to say, so he just went with the best he could think of.

“Um…What do you want to eat?”

“…Yeguni.”

Yeguni. A fast food restaurant. Of course. Sadly, most of the fast food restaurants were either closed down or nonexistent in the area, and it would be too difficult to find one out of town; Ikaru was too severely injured. Ikaru had actually remembered Yeguni from when he was a kid, it had actually started up in his hometown, on the north coast of the country. He had known the son of the owner, Nakure, before that day. The owner had named the restaurant after Nakure’s younger sister.

Ikaru had noticed a burger swinging on a fishing line at the end of the alleyway.

He had two questions. First, why didn’t he notice it earlier, and second, why was it there in the first place. He remembered that there was a member in the organization named “Landshark, and assumed elementary schoolers. He “Walked” over, using his knees instead of his feet, grabbing the burger from the hook with his right, uninjured hand, “Walking” Back, and giving it to Destiny.

“…This isn’t Yeguni. Yeguni always had the order # on a piece of paper taped to the burger. There’s also an index number of every individual ingredient. Ever since they made it edible, it’s become the tastiest part” Destiny made an attempt to smile about it, but sadly, could not.

Ikaru, on the other hand, was thoroughly confused. He was, first and foremost, confused about why the heck a sticky strip of paper would be made edible. Second of all, who would put it on a burger? Much less on every single ingredient…

(“…What is this world coming to!?!?”) Ikaru thought, still confused. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get it now, but he tried to get destiny to eat this burger so she could help figure out what the symbol was about.

“I’ll get you a Yeguni burger when we can, but all the stores are closed now, and I really need to know this as soon as possible. Could you try and eat this instead?”

Destiny slowly reached for the burger, and slowly ate it. It was 01:00 by the time she finished. Apparently, the shock had slowed down her movements dramatically. Ikaru didn’t blame her; he was the same way then too.

Destiny finished, and then spoke.

“…I’m not quite…sure…” Ikaru had expected something like this. Of course, an 8 year old girl wouldn’t have been exposed to something related to that.

“Just tell me what you know. Anything would help.” He reminded himself of a police officer interrogating a witness, of course, one that wasn’t a suspect. He did his best to make sure he was calming to the girl. After all, it anyone were to talk to him during that, he would have wanted them to be calming as well. Anything to keep his mind off of it.

“Well…” Destiny had started to talk in complete sentences again. Looks like trying to get her mind of it while gathering information was working.

“I saw the books in the library. The ones with those symbols. Father told me the series was incomplete, and that most of them were merely placeholders for the future.”

Ikaru felt like a fool for not checking the leftmost book first.

“There was one other place where I saw the symbol. Back when I was little, about 4 years ago, I accidentally flushed one of Father’s important documents down the toilet. So, me and brother…” Destiny’s voice started to stop again. Ikaru seemed to be reminiscing on something while Destiny was attempting to remember. A few minutes later, she started again.

“…Me and brother went down there to look. My father always wrote all his documents in tracking ink, so we would know where to find it in case it was lost. When we found it, it was inside a giant room, separate from the main sewer system. The symbol was a giant engraving on the floor in that room.

“Ok, looks like we’re headed to the sewer. Don’t worry, I’ll get you some Yeguni afterwords.”

Ikaru started walking toward a nearby sewer hole, but Destiny had just sat there, staring blankly into space.

“Hey, Destiny. Are you ok?” Ikaru had tapped Destiny in the shoulder.

Destiny had made a surprised shriek, for a brief sliver of a moment, and a beam of energy had shot out of her finger.
(“E-nergy!?!?”) Ikaru was confused. He had thought that energy was only a myth. Well, not the type that was used to power tools and everything; as in the type of energy that had just shot out of Destiny’s finger.

“H-hey. What was that just now?” Ikaru had asked, wanting to confirm his suspicions.

“E-energy…”

Suspicions confirmed. Destiny continued, her voice slightly starting to sound better, although it was far from being normal again.

“It’s normal you wouldn’t know about it. Brother said that only a few people could use it, and that the public didn’t even know it existed. He said it would tip the balance of power too much; that gangs would be formed out of energy-only members.”

“Ah, I see.” Ikaru had seen the sense in making energy a secret.

“So, can we get going now?” Ikaru had said, as he walked over to the sewer hole again. Destiny attempted to stand up the walk to the sewer hole, but she had needed to put her hand on the wall to balance herself, her left hand simply hanging from her shoulder, as she fell down after three steps, breathing heavily.

While Destiny wasn’t weak physically, her emotional state had been injured by the prior events. Ikaru understood this completely, hoisted her up on his back, and proceeded to enter the sewer hole. Holding Destiny up with his left hand, via the arm draped over his shoulder, he used his right hand, grabbed his knife, and cut open the sewer hole.

“Hey…Mister, I never actually asked for your name…”

“You can call me Ikaru. Ikaru Madume.”

“Heh…Nice to meet you, Ikaru…” Destiny said, as she drifted off into sleep.

“Nice to meet you too, Destiny.” Ikaru lifted up the sewer hole, and the two jumped in.


Chapter 5



March 20th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


20:27



“Cancelled?!?! What do you mean it’s been cancelled!!?!?!?”

Gedo was having an argument with his father, in the national armory. 4th door to the left from what was the staircase entrance.

The explosion was big, yes. However, as Destiny’s room was originally a watch tower back from some 2367 BC, even though it had been modified out of pure stone, it was still far above most of the main castle, so only those things directly below it, such as the staircase, the balcony behind it, and about half of their parent’s rooms, had been damaged by the blast. All the rubble landed elsewhere, so there wasn’t any damage from that, except for directly below the staircase.

A fair amount of Gedo’s body was wrapped in bandages, although not too severe, they were all over his body nonetheless. He had been able to hang onto the crumbling floor to avoid falling to his death, but rubble from above had still fallen on him, giving him numerous scratches. He was somehow able to climb up the ledge onto the floor; specifically the part in front of the bathrooms, but not without sustaining the injuries.

“Yes. That is correct.”

Gedo’s father had looked fairly similar to him; you wouldn’t be able to guess they weren’t related by blood just by looking at them. He looked to be about 30 years old, having become the official king when he was 21, nine years ago. He was resting his hands on a desk from his room that survived the explosion, but the room was so dimly lit it was impossible to tell what he was wearing.

Now, as to what they were arguing about…

“The investigation into Destiny’s disappearance, has been cancelled.

“W-why?!?!?!?!” Gedo said, as if he didn’t already know the reason.

“I had just told you. Because that symbol was found at the scene of the explosion.”

Of course, he didn’t mean exactly at the castle; it had been blown away by the explosion, but it was still within the radius of being considered evidence.

“You know what that symbol means, and also why we must stop the investigation. And why we must not interfere. Besides, this way, we can transfer more forces to the borders of the country. Due to the fact that such a large event only had one symbol, we can take into account that only a little of this was related to that. This means that most of the destruction is viable for investigation. Although the radius was huge, the damage per area was small. In other words, they were aiming for chaos. They’re going to follow up soon. Get all the defenses we can set up.

Gedo felt terrible for not seeing him take the symbols off the book bindings. The books had not been injured in the fire, so the man took the symbol from the book. No matter where he got them, the symbol was still intentionally left at the scene. If he had seen him take the symbol, he could’ve removed it from the scene, and then…

Gedo could argue about evidence that it was just a coincidence; he could argue that that wasn’t on the back of his right hand. However, at this point, it would only be taken as an excuse. Besides; there were no fingerprints; so it would be said the man was wearing gloves. He had seen that in actuality, the gloves only covered the palm and fingers. It was an odd choice in clothing. He could get the guards to back up his story; but from the witness reports, the man was moving too fast for such a tiny detail to be seen.

Gedo had been at a loss of how to counter this, as he always was whenever this happened. He simply stormed out of the room.

“This is exactly how you acted when mom died! Except that now, there’s a chance that Destiny could still be alive!” He said as he slammed the door.

Shortly after Gedo left, a girl about 23 years old – Possibly a secretary –, with her blonde hair made into a ponytail, her glasses adjusting the light shining on her yellow eyes, walked in.

“King Yakeno, here are the status reports on the city you asked for.”

“Thank you, Yakuri”

Yakeno read through the reports. What he had just said was true, the damage per sector was minimal, although his estimations were off in a few areas.

“Put 25% of the army on recovery of losses. 65% on defense. 10% on a break, we’re going to need some reserves just in case.

“Yes, sir.” Yakuri walked out of the room. When she got to the computer room to change the army roster, Hatsune was the first one moved to the break roster.

“You’d better thank me for this, Gedo…”


Gedo had walked into his room; to find Hatsune sitting on one of the chairs waiting for him. It wasn’t very surprising; Hatsune had been living a few doors down ever since Gedo’s mother died…

“Yo, Hatsune” She had done this enough times for Gedo to get used to it.

“So, what was it your father wanted to talk to you about? New lead on Destiny’s disappearance?”

“The exact opposite. The investigation had been cancelled”

“Wait, you mean like, that time-“

“Yeah. Exactly like that time. That symbol was found near the explosion radius. And, just like last time, the case will be totally hidden from those who don’t already know about it. Just like last time…”

Gedo’s mind flashed back to that day, two years ago. He found it funny. If he hadn’t been the one to discover the crime, he probably would have never known about it, as well. He had also seen it; that symbol that had been the beginning of all of this. He had even had to lie to Hastune about what the symbol meant, and why it meant the investigation had to be halted. Afterwords, Hatsune, who had been living with us for at least a month at the time, had locked herself in her room for the remainder of the day.

After the investigation was halted, Gedo thought to start his own investigation. He only had three pieces of evidence: The symbol, the weapon, and Hatsune’s witness report. All he could gather, was that someone had pre-drugged Hatsune, whom had been assigned to lieutenant as of last week, due to his mother’s army policies, which based ranking solely on skill, not on experience or age or other trivial issues, and set today’s guard, walked into the room, threw the unconscious Hatsune at the wall, grabbed Hatsune’s sword, and then…

Gedo couldn’t dare remember. It was already scary enough imagining it as he pieced it together those 3 years ago. The man then set the symbol by the edge of the door and walked out of the room.

Gedo imagined Destiny crying for her mother, as he anticipated the situation she might be in.

(“If only she knew…”) Gedo thought, his face pointed downward. As of now, the only ones who knew about his mother were his father, himself, Hastune, and that group.

“Anyway, I had seen the culprit looking through those books before he went up to Destiny’s room.”

“Wait. You mean the one with-“

“Yeah. Those ones. Now that I think about it, Destiny knows about one place with that symbol besides those books. I’m not sure if she remembers it though, it was a long time ago…”

“Wait. You’re not thinking of going there, are you?”

“Of course I am.”

“H-hold on! Won’t you get in trouble if you try and investigate this like last time?”

“Actually, I’m just gonna go for a walk.” He said, obviously trying to make up an excuse to head there.

“Still, do you think that excuse will work on your Da-“

“You wanna come with? There was that rumor that you liked me going around the castle last week, after all.” He said, as he tore off his bandages, showing an uninjured body. The medicine was originally used for army units only, but that was before large amounts of Kanutare flowers had been found on a new continent up north.

Hastune stopped talking as her face turned red.

“J…Just let me get changed!”

Hastune walked out and went to her room a few doors down. Apparently, she didn’t like being seen in her army uniform in public. She wasn’t even sure where they were headed.







Chapter 6



March 20th, Year 1012 AC, Tarunde, Ikane


20:36



“Hey, Ikaaaaaru…Are we almost theeere?” Destiny had said, as she and Ikaru walked along the sidewalks of the highway known as the sewer system. They had popped up to look for some food and get some rest periodically, but it was hard to know when because there was no way to know what time it was down there. Destiny was feeling fairly tired, and bored, as words would sometimes sound like meaningless moans of utter boredom.

“I’m not even sure myself.” By now, Ikaru’s wound had been healed enough to take the dress off the wound, but it still hurt when under stress. Fortunately, Destiny was feeling well enough to not be carried everywhere.

“Destiny, do you think you can remember anything about when you and your brother came here?”

“I don’t remember much. All I remember was we walked for about two hours, and then we ended up in that giant room…”

After walking for so long, they had ended up in Tarunde, the town neighboring Akande, without even noticing the transition.

“And then we walked back, and…H-hey! Is that what I think it is?”

Destiny had walked up to a fairly shiny bracelet, which reflected off the torch Ikaru had made by lighting a piece of wood created from sparks from rubbing the dagger against the stone walls of the sewer.

‘N-now I remember! I lost this when we went down to look for the paper!” Destiny then started to look for something.

“There! I think we went this way! If I remember correctly, it was just beyond this hall!”

As soon as she said that, Ikaru started running for the hall, Destiny had followed suit, heading straight down the hallway, as they were running, Ikaru’s shoulder had started hurting, and Destiny had taken the lead.

“Come on, come on, its thi-“ Destiny had stopped talking.

As Ikaru walked closer with the torch, it had become clear what had happened. There was a split in the path, and Destiny’s face has planted itself into the wall separating the two. Destiny spoke as she freed her face from the wall.

“O-oh yeah. I forgot about this…H-hey, don’t look at me that way!”

Ikaru didn’t tell if her face was red from embarrassment or from being planted into the wall.

“Well, anyway. Do you remember anything about this, Destiny?”

“Y-yeah. I think I do. We weren’t sure which way to go, so me and Gedo each took one path. I ended up at a dead end shortly after, but Gedo had found the paper, in the room with the symbol. I Ran over to him, we found the paper, and we walked out through the stairs on the other end.

“The stairs on the other end? There’s another way in?”

“Supposedly. I fell asleep while climbing them though, and Gedo had to carry me up. We were already back in the castle when I woke up. I don’t think it was really that long…”

Ikaru thought there was a possibility the extra entrance was in the castle itself.

“And? Do you know which way the room was?”

“Erm, I think it was the right path…No, was it the left…Was there a concealed third path down the middle?” Apparently, Destiny had no idea which way the room was.

“Well, why don’t we do what you and your brother did four years ago. You go right, and I’ll go left, ok?”

“Ok. If one if us runs into a dead end, come over to the other path, ok?”

“Wait, we need a torch for you.”

“No, its ok.” Destiny emitted an energy light from the tip of her finger.

“I’ll see you later!” She said as she ran down the right path. Ikaru had ran, even faster, down the left path. He was determined to find the answers he was seeking out.

After a while, Ikaru had found a light source at the end of the tunnel.

Apparently, the left path was the one that led to the room.

Ikaru walked into the room, ready to finally find the answers he had been looking for. It really was true; the ground really did have that giant symbol on the ground. Engraved in high-detail, precise, directly onto the ground.

First and foremost, Ikaru scanned the symbol for any details different from the one he had studied time and time again in his mind after that day. When he verified that there were no differences to take note of, he turned his attention to the new pieces of information. Namely, the two giant carvings on the walls of the room.

He was about to walk over there, when he noticed there was no visible light source the light was coming out of. He stopped to think why it might be happening; it might give him a clue as to what the next step is. He remembered there was some rumor about energy being used to reflect even the smallest bits of light, allowing even a small spark to light up an entire room. After he solved that mystery, he went over to the first carving, on the right wall from the sewer entrance. On it, was depicted a towering mountain, along with some words inscribed on the base of the mountain. However, it had been worn down from years of being exposed to the magic light. Apparently, the source point was near the inscription. At least, that’s the only reason Ikaru could come up with at the time.



Ikaru then ran over to the opposite wall. On that one, there was a more abstract picture. Its shape undefinable; the whole of it could only be described by a sinlge word:

Chaos.

Again, something was inscribed at the bottom of the carving.

“In this darkness, who shall lead us to the light?”

“Well, well. Look at what I’ve found.”

Ikaru jumped back to the entrance he had used to get into the room from the sewer. In case of trouble, he needed an escape route. The man had walked in through the staircase entrance opposite the sewer Destiny had mentioned earlier.

“Now, let’s get right down to business…”

The Blonde-haired man brought out his twin swords, and readied a battle stance. The Red-haired girl behind him, wearing a dark green shirt with a dark blue skirt, simply stood back and watched.

“Tell me. Where is my sister!”

Ikaru understood his situation instantly, brought out his dagger, was able to prepare for the man’s charge before he even started it, just barely blocking the strike before it struck a fatal blow. After deflecting one blade with his dagger, and sidestepping the other to the right, he delivered a kick to the chest, after jumping back, getting ready for his next attack.

Ikaru was really wishing he had read the leftmost book first now. He wasn’t sure how, but this man had seen his face at that time.

Chapter 7



March 20th, Year 1012 AC, Tarunde, Ikane


20:56


Hatsune couldn’t believe her eyes. Apparently, Gedo’s guess was correct: The man had been here. Destiny, however, was nowhere to be seen. Hastune regretted not bringing her sword; it would have helped a lot in this situation. She had brought a camera though, but was too busy trying to see if Destiny might be concealed in the room somewhere. Even if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t use the camera; it was full of pictures from about two years ago when Gedo and Destiny went to a nearby theme park, about a month after Destiny’s constant asking got Hastune a permanent home in the castle. Destiny constantly asked Gedo to let her go with them; it was the first time she could remember she had any real fun with them.

After she was done looking around for any possibility that Destiny might be in the room, she held out her palm, and fired a ball of energy at the two. Her ability to use energy was one of the main reasons that she got lieutenant status at such an early age; it was rare the average person even knew about energy, yet this girl had been able to use it since she was 5 years old. It had gotten quite a lot of interest from the higher-ups when her application showed up.

Ikaru just narrowly avoided the blast, as he jumped back to avoid both the blast and Gedo’s blade at the same time. Fortunately, he had quickly noticed a light trail following the blade’s path.

He quickly ducked under the second energy wave that had come out of Gedo’s blade.

(“Tsk! Two energy users in an Energy lighted room. What could be worse?”) Another side effect of the energy lighting, was that it heightened the potency of energy by an exponential amount. Meaning that the attacks of the two would be that much more deadly in this environment.

Without any energy to use himself, he was unable to take advantage of the energy boost.

Hatsune, whom had been hoping to catch him off guard, and Gedo, who had thought the same way, knew that their situation had become worse. Now that his enemy was aware that they both had energy, or something else, depending on if he knew about it or not, and would be much more careful about his movements.

Ikaru jumped back in order to avoid a slash from Gedo’s sword. Gedo could have shot an energy wave from his sword, but he did not, for he had a better idea in mind. Gedo shot an energy wave from his other sword, in his left hand, before throwing the blade in his right hand at Ikaru. With the Energy wave to his left, which had the lethality to cut him directly in half with the boosted power of the energy lighting, and the blade to his right, spinning toward him, he would have to pick one or the other. If he tried to jump, he could fire another energy wave and seriously injure him. There was no escaping.

Ikaru, of course, didn’t think this way. He swerved to the right of the energy wave, dodging it easily. In this scenario, Gedo had expected him to get hit by the spinning sword, of course, however, Ikaru had made an attempt to duck under the sword.

This would’ve worked if he were a little shorter. However, he wasn’t. The sword grazed his left shoulder, which normally wouldn’t be too serious. However, it re-opened the wound he had gotten 3 days ago.

He grabbed his left shoulder, ready to move as soon as Gedo did.

Thinking the attack was over. That was his fatal mistake.

Surprisingly, as the sword had hit the ground and was now spinning horizontally on the ground, Gedo had shot an energy wave out of the spinning blade. As Ikaru was unaware of this fact, the wave grazed his left leg, not nearly enough to cut it off, but it was enough to render it difficult for him to move. Gedo had raised his blade up into the air, as the lighting in the room seemed to get dimmer and dimmer by the second. Ikaru understood the situation perfectly. Knowing that Ikaru was now unable to move, he was preparing a final blow.

(“Tch! Is this really the end?”) Ikaru had thought, hoping it wasn’t.

(“The sacred blade technique. One of the strongest energy techniques involving a sword known to the energy wielding community.”) Gedo had thought, reminiscing on the events prior to this. He imagined the near future, the gigantic energy wave reducing Ikaru to mere ashes.

(“No…I can’t die yet…I need to find out…That symbol…”) Ikaru had thought, trying to use the information he had to figure out the secret in his final moments.

(“This will end it. I will kill this vile criminal, and then I will be able to find Destiny and everything can go back to normal. If she’s already dead, this man deserves to die even more.”) Gedo thought, hoping that Destiny was still alive nonetheless.

(“No…If I die, Destiny will be brought back to the castle. The organization would know she were still alive…And then…”) Ikaru knew he had to get out of this situation, fast. Only problem was, he didn’t know how.

“H-hey! Ikaru, get over here, quick!”

All of a sudden, Destiny was running down the hallway into the room, which was right behind Ikaru.

Right in the range of Gedo’s Sacred blade technique.

Now, Ikaru and Gedo both had their own reactions to this.

Gedo, had realized that Destiny was within the range of the blast, was able to calm himself out of his Rage-induced frenzy.

Ikaru, on the other hand, didn’t think Gedo would do this.

“Get back!” Ikaru had shouted, putting his right arm between Gedo and Destiny.

All of a sudden, Ikaru had accidentally fired a blast of energy behind him. This had been, obviously, Ikaru’s first use of Energy. He had only heard of it 3 days ago, and thought he was incapable of using it itself. He was surprised, to say the least. Under normal circumstances, the blast would have been more of a medium sized tap on the forehead. However, under the influence of the energy lighting; although it was lowered by Gedo hogging all the light for his finishing move, Destiny was still injured with the effect of getting hit by a truck at 10MPH.

In other words, she was unconscious, and possibly injured. There was a small amount of blood visible on the spot where she fell. Ikaru had seen an opening to make it out with Destiny alive, so he went for it.

“Don’t move! Or it will be much more painful for her next time!” Ikaru said, standing up, trying to see if focusing on his leg injury would make the energy heal it. It seemed to be working, but not to the extent that he would be able to fight.

Ikaru’s plan was to pretend Destiny was his hostage. It would seem as the truth from Gedo’s perspective, although his actual intentions were far from her being a hostage. Right now, getting himself and Destiny out of this place alive and away from Gedo, whom would reveal to the Organization that she was still alive, was the most important thing. If Gedo had regarded her sister’s safety lowly enough that he would actually try and save her, then Ikaru would have lost the fight. He wouldn’t be able to keep true to his word of injuring her again if he had wanted to; it was a fluke that he fired in the first place, and he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to again.

Gedo was shocked at how the situation had been turned around so quickly. One second, he had his opponent in checkmate, and the next he was in danger of losing his sister. He was also at a disadvantage; he had thought of a way to get her out of this, but it would require both of his swords.

“Now. If you reveal any information about Destiny being held hostage, she will be killed.” This way, there was no chance of the organization discovering she was still alive. As time passed and she was not seen, everyone would assume she was dead. Ikaru didn’t know this, but nobody had seen the queen for a long time, and nobody assumed her dead yet.

Gedo simply walked out through the way he came in. Hatsune simply stood there, amazed that this man was able to use Destiny as a tool to best Gedo. She watched as Ikaru, who should have been wounded in the leg, was able to pick up Destiny, get her on his back, and simply walk out the way he came in. She thought even lowlier of him now.

Gedo had grabbed Hatsune’s camera from her pouch, and attempted to take a picture of this man. It wasn’t the face he was aiming for; but his hand. If he could prove that that thing wasn’t on the back of his right hand, it would prove that he wasn’t directly connected to that group, and the investigation could continue.

Ikaru had seen Gedo take out the camera. With the 3600p cameras they had these days, he would be able to pick out his face even from this distance. Ikaru covered his face with his right hand, the palm facing the camera, the backhand facing his face. He pulled out his knife as to intimidate them, and ran off, doing his best to ignore the pain in his leg.

Gedo was disappointed by the fact that he wasn’t able to get the criminal’s face or his backhand, but he thought there might be something important in the tape, so he decided to save the picture. However, Hatsune was against it, grabbed the camera from him, and chose against it.

Gedo asked why she had done that, and Hatsune had merely showed him a picture on the camera; one from the day they had went to the theme park together; that was all that was on there, as the camera’s film was entirely full.

Gedo had understood immediately. Right now, memories were all they had.

After about 5 minutes of standing in that place, Gedo had moved forward.

“Come on. We might be able to find some clues as to their next destination.”

Hastune followed suit on Gedo’s actions. She went to pick up Gedo’s sword, which was still on the ground, then followed Gedo down the hallway.

They walked down the hallway, each one using the Energy torch technique in order to maneuver their way through the dark passages. Eventually, they were met with the sound of rushing water.

“Hey, I think I remember this place. Me and Destiny came down here once to find one of Dad’s important papers. If this is right, then that means…”

Gedo turned around to find the splitting passage.

“Yeah. I remember this place. I have a feeling that guy was looking for the room we fought him in. He was examining the room very thoroughly, from what we could see.”

“Yeah. What do you think that Ikaru guy is planning anyway?”

“W-wait. How do you know his name?”

“Oh. Destiny said it when she came running down that hall earlier.” Gedo realized he didn’t hear a word of it. The waves of rage were all he could remember. Gedo spoke after a short pause.

“Anyway, I have a feeling he didn’t know which way that room was, so they split up. I’m guessing Ikaru didn’t expect us to walk in on his examination. Anyway, that means Destiny went down the path on the right.”

“Yeah. Now that you mention it, it sounded like she wanted Ikaru to get over there quickly. Do you think she might’ve found something?”

“Possibly. Let’s go down and check.”

What they had found, was quite scary, actually. At the end of the Dead-end hallway, was a skeleton dressed in fairly expensive clothing, with that symbol drawn on the wall behind it in blood. Hastune had merely fallen backwards and closed her eyes, not expecting this to be here in any form at all. Gedo was able to keep his calm for the most part; there was one other time where he had discovered an unexpected body.

Gedo had noticed a gold medallion on the skeleton’s neck. When Gedo had turned it over to see the front, he had noticed the royal crest embedded onto the medallion. When he opened up the medallion, there was a picture of a man and a boy about Destiny’s age, dated about 22 years ago. It had been taken before the first day of the thousandth year.

(“A thousand years have gone by since that fated day. And its repercussions are still echoing through this world…”) Gedo thought.

“Hey, Hastune. You know the story about how my father became king at such a young age, right?”

“I-I think so…”

“Well, let me remind you. It happened about a Month after my father got married. Apparently, his mother had died of a rare illness. About a month after that, his father vanished from the castle. The castle staff looked everywhere for him, but he wasn’t showing up. After 3 months of searching, the staff decided to have my parents succeed as the official rulers of Ikane. However, the public had been kept out in the dark about the previous ruler’s circumstances for 5 whole months, and then such a, according to witness interviews, “Young and foolish” man took the throne. The public was in an outrage, and people ended up dying in fights over people for and against my father’s rule.

“W-wait. You don’t mean that…”

“Yeah. There’s a very likely possibility that this man was the previous king. The medallion proves it. Not only is it dated from when my father was a child, but the royal emblem was discontinued once my father took the throne. It’s the only possible answer. We can verify it by comparing the blood on the wall with my blood. Since we’re related, we should be able to get a match on it.”

“W-wait. Weren’t you adopted?”

Gedo had forgotten to take that fact into account. He felt as if he wouldn’t make the same mistake if this were the current king.

“Well, we can go back to the room to find some evidence. Destiny probably left some blood in the room from when she fell over.”

Gedo and Hatsune had gathered the blood from where Destiny had collapsed, cutting out a small stone that had the blood on it. They had walked back to the place where the skeleton rested. Gedo pulled out a communication device, pulled out a DNA testing application, collected a second blood sample from the symbol on the wall.

They got a rating of “Highly similar”

“So, this means that, when your grandfather disappeared, he came down here and…”

“No, he didn’t kill himself. There’s no murder weapon in the area. There’s one other thing. 4 years ago, when Destiny came down this hall, she didn’t see a body. This means that, along with the fact that there’s no blood trail, yet the blood on the wall was my grandfather’s means that he was killed here less than 4 years ago.”

“Do you think that Ikaru guy is somehow related to this?”

“No, I don’t think so. It would mean he’d have been down here before, and would have already found that room. This also proves that Ikaru isn’t related to that group whatsoever.

Gedo’s reasoning was sound, but he knew it wouldn’t help at all. Even if it were the king’s father, that symbol was at the scene. There would be nothing he could do to catch whoever did it. His reasoning would be disregarded, and Destiny’s abduction would go uninvestigated longer and longer.




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Totally not a power freak!

Chapter 8



March 21th, Year 1012 AC, Tarunde, Ikane


05:37



Ikaru had lost his will to run a mere 5 minutes ago. He was currently trying to wake up Destiny, who had a head injury he didn’t notice earlier. He had known from his own experiences that head injuries tended to bleed more, making them seem more serious than they actually were, but he also knew that it had a higher chance of it actually being fatal. Ikaru was starting to get worried; he wasn’t sure of the exact boost the energy lighting gave to energy abilities, and he was worried that since it was by accident, he might have let it out stronger than he had thought. He could have checked for a pulse, but he didn’t actually know how to. He remembered wanting to ask a local about it; a long time ago before that day.

Destiny’s eye started twitching a few minutes later. Ikaru gave a sigh of relief. He took the dress that he had wrapped around the leg wound this time (He had kept a piece of it in his pocket in case of an emergency) and wrapped it around Destiny’s forehead, ignoring the fact that his wounds were probably more serious.

At about 06:30, Destiny had woken up. At the time, Ikaru was tying his leg in a piece of ragged cloth he had found in a nearby trash can.

“I-Ikaru?” Destiny was feeling fairly drowsy. It had occurred to Ikaru that it was about that rumors said she usually went to bed about half an hour after the time she went unconscious. It wasn’t a surprise she had fallen asleep.

“Hey. Wasn’t my brother around here somewhere? I thought I heard his voice…” Ikaru didn’t realize the possibility that Destiny had noticed her brother. If she had noticed that her brother was there; she might realize she had been brought away from him. If that happened, she might try and get back to the castle. After that, it was only a matter of time before the organization noticed it. And then…

Destiny ran up and hugged Ikaru, for reasons Ikaru was completely unaware of.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure you had your reasons. Someone who saved me like that wouldn’t be a bad guy, right?” She said, her face having a small smile on it.

Ikaru couldn’t remember if he would have been that trusting after that day or not.

“Hey, Ikaru. Do you think I’ll ever get to go back home?”

“Definitely, Destiny.” Ikaru said, without knowing whether or not he was telling the truth.

“So, where do we go next?” Destiny said, fairly curious. She didn’t have any more leads she could think of herself.

“I have a few guesses. But for now, there’s one thing that really comes to mind.

“In this darkness, who shall lead us to the light?”

As Ikaru’s mind wandered back to that phrase, he thought about what it might be able to mean. Darkness may refer to a certain event; past or current. Then, light should refer to the end of this event. If so; then the event hasn’t ended yet; depending on when the inscription was written.

“The calamity. That’s where we start. It’s the only thing I’m certain of.”

Ikaru’s reasoning was sound. The inscription would have to be recent; the pictures that went along with it were far too detailed to be made with anything from at least a decade ago; and most of the pre-calamity technology was lost.

He remembered the calamity clearly; they had just finished covering it in school before that day.

About a millennium ago, a disastrous event shook the world to the core. Massive civilizations, homes…Gone in an instant. This led to the fight over what was left, otherwise known as the first calamatic war. After the remaining countries had come up with a compromise, a dark being, with a right arm full of dark power, whom had lost his family in the first war, went over to the enemy kingdom, disguised as a solider of his own country. This set off the second calamatic war, an even greater war of more calamatic proportions. Eventually, this war was settled as well, and the world was once again set on the right track. 900 years later, a country claiming to have been the rightful heir to the world before the calamity, set off the third calamatic war. After this, rebellions from across the world had claimed to be the heirs of the country that, before the calamity, had conquered the world, and was setting its sights to the lands beyond. These were extremely common until a decade ago. People still don’t know if our technology is anywhere near that of the civilization from before the calamity.

“It’s the only possibility.” Ikaru spoke.

“So, then, whatever that symbol means is related to the calamity?”

“Yeah.”

So, Ikaru and Destiny, having found a starting point onto the unknown, set off to find the meaning of this symbol. Right now, what lay ahead at the end of this road was shrouded in the cloaks of an event which has shaken the core of the earth to this day.



Chapter 9



March 25th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


09:24



Gedo walked through the bare-wood hallway; the bare layout of the damaged hallways had just been finished; wallpapers and reinforcements had been delayed until next month. He walked onto the balcony, as the wooden floor creaked with each step, the reinforcements here had been placed before everything else, as the balcony itself wouldn’t be able to stand without them, although the railings had not been installed yet. Gedo looked back at the castle, where, at this time, the tower Destiny’s room were in would be shining brightly against the sun.

Destiny’s room was being rebuilt last; without the foundation first, the tower would merely collapse and cause more damage. Right now, it was a reminder of what his goal was.

As Gedo had told Hatsune earlier, the investigation of the skeleton in the sewers never happened. After buying new film, and taking the pictures of the scene, his father still did not authorize the investigation, even though one of the pictures was a close-up of the medallion with the royal crest on it.

As Gedo turned the corner, he had seen Hatsune, whom was wearing the same clothes as on the day they met Ikaru, talking to a girl of about 29 years old – A girl of about six years old hanging on her shoulder. They looked fairly similar, having the same green hair, a fairly similar shade when compared to Destiny’s.

“Ah, Gedo. Long time no see.”

“Hey there, Kateri”

Kateri Yakune was the head of the science division, having been hired last year and having been promoted as of last month. She originally wasn’t going to be hired, but Destiny had become friends with her daughter in the waiting room during the interview. Destiny had seen her around her school, where she had been known as “Destiny Skystreak” there, as well as anywhere outside the castle. Gedo had ended up using his last name from before he had been adopted so he was known as “Gedo Tadeni”.

“Hi, Gedo!”

The girl on Kateri’s shoulder was her daughter, Yakari Yakune. Among the students at Akande city School (While the students were still sorted as Elementary, Middle High and College, all the students went to the same school) She was the only one who knew about Destiny and Gedo, aside from Kazuni, Kateri’s younger sister and Yakari’s aunt, who was in her 5th year of college at Akande.

“Hey there, Yakari. Destiny went over to-“

Gedo’s mind stopped cold for an instant. If they had already asked Hatsune about Destiny’s whereabouts, then their answers would contradict, and it would be obvious that they were lying. They would investigate, find out the truth. And Ikaru’s demands would be broken. And then-

“To visit her mom over in another country? Yeah, Hatsune just told us that.”

Yakari interrupted Gedo’s train of thought. Suprisingly, that was the excuse he was going to use.

“(Heh. Covering up one crime with lies about another…)” The thought passed through Gedo’s mind for an instant, but quickly passed. He thought it lucky that Gedo and Hatsune both thought up the same excuse for Destiny’s absence.

“So, Kateri. What are you working on currently in the science department?”

“Better armor, better weapons, better citywide security. Ever since that event last week, we’ve been creating stuff like that.”

“(Yeah. More weapons for war…)”

Kateri played out the scene in her head, but she never got a chance to say it. After Hatsune had finished her question, an explosion was heard on the borders of the city wall.

“W-what was that!?!?!?”

A girl whom was still in her pajamas, about 23 years old, ran down the hallway as her blonde hair had been horribly done, and her glasses were full of fog from putting them on in such a hurry after hearing the blast.

“Don’t worry, Yakuri. Probably just an accident during repair; the anti-gravity machines will take care of any casualties.”

Gedo was surprised she could even tell it was the secretary.

Hatsune’s deduction was wrong, however. For a second explosion was heard shortly after, followed by a third, and a fourth.

The locations were the four support beams holding the wall together. A large chunk of the wall – Mostly the gate leading to the main street; the one that led directly to the castle.

Once it crumbled, a large group of people, along with an assortment of tanks at the rear – Was visible on a nearby hill. The man in front, seemed to be holding a megaphone.

“Attention people of Ikane!” It seemed as if the megaphone was wirelessly connected to the citywide emergency speakers.

“We are the Skybreak Rebels! Following the events of the past week, we have decided to take over this city, and form a new government upon the country of Ikane!” The man brought up a red blade, it’s red sheathe shining in reflection with the sun.

With the power of the descendants of the Phoenix King on our side, we shall not lose!”

“(Fools, at least get the name of the legend right. It’s the Phoenix Queen, not king.)” Gedo’s thoughts had drifted to the subject for a moment, before Hatsune had spoken.

“H-hey, Gedo. Isn’t that…” Gedo had paid attention to Hatsune’s words, but only for a short time, as he had already gotten the message. The blade inside of the man’s hand had been the one from the Yageni Museum.

The exact same one that Ikaru stole the night before the day Destiny vanished.

Gedo immediately pieced together the pieces of information. If he had the blade, that meant that Ikaru was in league with them. Which means that Destiny-

Gedo didn’t even finish the thought before he had come to be aware of what was going on. It had bothered him that there was no motive for Ikaru’s actions on kidnapping Destiny, as he would have asked for a ransom if it were simple. Now he knew.

“Rule #3: All former royal family members and all high-ranking members of society, including the army, and their descendants, must wear a cat mask for their entire life.” The man was explaining the rules of the kingdom under the new rule.

“No way in heck!” Apparently, all 3 of the girls were opposed to the idea; Yakari was sort of confused about the long words the man had used; she just started making meowing noises. Gedo had just noticed, but at some point, Yakuri had done her hair, changed out of her pajamas and cleaned her glasses. He decided to just not bother about it and continue on.

Gedo had turned his head, and seen his father running toward the command center near the back of the castle. Gedo stopped to tell him what he had discovered, but when he started running, some tank artillery had damaged the hallway to the king’s location.

“Tsk! What kind of genius knows how to block the way to the command center!?!?” Gedo continued ranting about how he must have needed to know the layout of the castle, the wind direction, and the weight of the missile…

It was just Kature mashing the control panel.

If you had Binoculars at the time, you could see the awkward look on the Megaphone-man’s face. He had been stunned about the shots fired; he had heard that the army was given orders to not fire until he gave the signal.

“Ah, screw this.” The man threw the megaphone off the hill.

“Attack!!!” The command was so loud, it was still audible through the megaphone. Most of the city had ran toward the back, with the exception of 3 deaf men; a waiter, a man watching television in his apartment, and a man waiting for his psychiatrist in a hospital.

Kateri and Yakuri ran toward the back entrance to the castle, while Hatsune ran over to her room, a few doors down from where they were now.

“Hey, Hatsune! What are you doing!?!?” Yakuri yelled at Hatsune, whom had just slammed the door on her room.

“I’m changing into my uniform and grabbing my weapon, what else!?!?”

“But you’re on the reserves list, you’re not qualified to fight right now!”

“You think that matters now!?!?”

Yakuri had taken the point from Hatsune’s words. She took a detour to the computer room in order to change the roster; without it, she wouldn’t be able to get spare equipment. Not that she ever used it anyway.

Gedo merely stood there. He had known that Hatsune knew about Destiny’s position as a Hostage in this situation, so why was she going out to battle? She knew that Destiny could be killed if they fought back, so why –

“Hey, catch.”

Hatsune had thrown Gedo the sheathed twin swords she had grabbed from his room.

“Your father’s probably already given the orders. We couldn’t turn back if we wanted to.”

Gedo’s face had sagged downward a bit. He thought it odd that they couldn’t turn back even though they weren’t the ones who walked forward. Even on that day when Destiny was kidnapped…


“Give me a status report, Now! I need a scan of the immediate area and specs on those tanks!” King Yakeno, whom had just entered the command center, was shouting orders at the staff.

Up on the wall, showed a screen of the army outside of the walls of the city. On the screen, a set of countless tubes had been seen connecting to the tanks and running out of the scan’s radius.

“Supply tubes.” Yakeno had said.

Supply tubes were a common aspect in current warfare. Invented around 812 AC, they were used to transport limitless amounts of ammunition to a tank from a nearby outpost. They used to be unconventional, but after they had invented tank treads that covered up the holes in the ground the tubes made back in 897, they had seen a large boost in usage. While scans now negate this advantage by a fair amount, through the use of using rubber for the tubes to increase length, inner lubricant, automatic reloading and wind manipulation, they have become the most efficient way to transport ammo directly to the tanks without having to leave the front lines.

“Their base must be nearby. Get all of the solders scan goggles and tell them to aim for the supply tubes! And fix that typo in the last sentence! We don’t want the readers seeing it!

As you can see, you never saw it.

By now, most of the other tanks began to follow Kature’s example. Soon enough, the city walls were being bombarded by explosions.

Hatsune, whom was standing by one of the open windows facing the approaching army, readied her blade. These days, weaponry scientists tried to fit everything they could into such a small space. In this case, the longswords Elite infantry were equipped with doubled as sniper rifles.

Hatsune fired the sniper rifle behind one of the tanks in the front. Most Elite infantry would need scan goggles, but her energy abilities allowed her to zoom in and notice the lumps behind the tanks as the ammunition passed through.

Hatsune had hit the tube, as she was hoping. She had assumed that the tube’s wind would blow out, creating a condensed sandstorm, which would completely derail the enemy’s accuracy.

Of course, there was a bonus even she wasn’t expecting.

The artillery ammunition the bullet hit had exploded, causing an even larger hole in the tube, creating an even larger sandstorm. These days, normal bullets won’t usually work; it usually took 5 or 6 shots in the same place to fracture the flexi-platinum plating. But Hatsune had gotten in the habit of subconsciously infusing her bullets with energy, which meant they could puncture the tube.

Kature had seen the sparks from the bullet which had pierced the tube of the tank to his left, and sent him flying across the air. The pseudo-gravity plates installed on the tank’s interior allowed them not to get injured during flight, but he knew he had to take out something that dangerous. His tube was disconnected in the blast, so he only had one shot at this.

He took the game controller(All the tanks came with multiple methods of control for maximum efficiency per cannon controller) as he used his knowledge on the subject gained over the course of five years, controlled the angle of targeting of the tank. After shooting off 5 explosive artillery shots, he shifted his right thumb to the Square button, and shot off many, many, MANY bullets from the turret on the tip of the artillery cannon.

Hatsune had seen the artillery coming, and knew she would have to dodge, fast. Something like this would be easily defendable with minimal injuries for someone of the Guardna infantry, which was the exact opposite of the Elite infantry in terms of uniform design and weaponry, but she was in the elite infantry, and would probably be injured by it.

However, she was so attentive to the explosives, that she didn’t notice the bullets until it was too late. A large amount of the bullets missed, but one had hit her in the right arm, and another in her right leg.

(“N-not good!”)

Hatsune had taken a direct hit from the explosives, as she was blown into the air, and finally stopped at a nearby wall, landing roughly on the floor. She was clinging to her wounded right arm with her left, and tore off a piece of her skirt to stop the bleeding from the leg wound. The injury was pretty bad, but she was still alive, fortunately.

Gedo had ran out to the streets of the city; some infantry units were starting to get in. While he deflected the incoming bullets with his blades, he knew there were too many to keep this up forever. He shot out a wave of energy in order to set off the wind pressure, hoping the bullets would be affected enough for him to find an opening. Fortunately, he did, and he shot off a wave of energy wide enough to take out the infantry that had been getting in.

He couldn’t prevent more infantry from getting in himself, but the Elite infantry had set up sniping positions around the area. His job in this area was done; now it was off to make sure none of them got into the castle.

Yakuri was busy evacuating the residents of a nearby hospital; there were quite a few injured from last week’s disaster. Near one of the lines of patients, wheelchairs, and wheelchairs on top of patients feet, was a girl about 5 years old, injured on the floor.

“Hey! Are you ok?” Yakuri yelled from about two yards away, running toward the girl.

“Y-yeah…” She said in a weak voice. She had obviously been fairly sick before this; her sickness must’ve been what caused her to collapse.

Yakuri had seen her hospital ID badge. Nikiri Hatenki was inscribed on it.
“So, Nikiri. Lets get out of here, alright?”

Nikiri didn’t open her mouth, but made a humming sound while shaking her head up and down to show her approval.

Kateri had made it to the Command Center after dropping off Yakari in the safe room, which had been stabilized to withstand most attacks underground. She had attempted to find Yakeno in order to get information on the situation; as the head of the science division, she could easily readjust the new laser weaponry for a new field test; they had just finished the first prototype.

She didn’t have the time to ask though; as soon as she started, an enemy unit with a knife had broken in through the window, which was hit by 3 sniper shots only seconds before.

Kateri understood their plan immediately. While everyone was distracted by the frontal attack, they would weaken the window with bullets, have an assassin sneak in, and kill the king, whom had been commanding the troops. The fight will have ended, and they will have won. She and her daughter would be doomed to wearing a cat mask the rest of their lives.

Fortunately, Yakeno reacted. He had kicked the knife out of the assassin’s hand, and quickly continued. He let the man get past him, land on his chair, as he kicked the man’s head into one of the pseudo-wall-borders surrounding the left, right and back of his commanders chair. The man fell unconscious, and landed on a squeaky teddy bear(Destiny always used to spin around in the chair before the Zynkarian war)

People like Kateri, which included at least 75% of the people in the room, excluding Yakeno himself, stood wide-eyed at the king’s amazing feat. To the other 25% who had seen his abilities during the Zynkarian war 6 years ago, it was no surprise at all. They had known of his abilities.

Kature had been walking back to the main base. After their tank had been flipped upside-down, the tank’s crew had been ordered to take their severed supply tube back down to the base. Kature never really liked using the supply tube for human transport, and since they were one transport suit short(The twins, Nakuni and Zetari, had said they would just go in one suit, but then they realized they wouldn’t both fit in it.) he decided to walk back on his own.

“Hello there. Kature Hatenki.”

Lark Maverick, one of the head operatives of the organization, had appeared in front of him.

“Hey there, Lark. I take it you’ve been sent to take me back to headquarters? Don’t worry, I’m not skipping out or anything; I’ve yet to get my pay.”

Normally, there would be time to display some sort of actions as to what they were doing. There’s no time for this now, as Lark instantly brought out a gun and started firing at Kature.

“E-E-EH!!?!?!?” Kature said, dodging back and forth to narrowly avoid getting killed by the dozens upon dozens of bullets raining down on him; these days even the average pistol could hold upwards of 30 bullets per magazine, so people didn’t have to reload very often.

“H-Hey! I’m sorry to inform you, but it’s not time for me to die yet!” Kature had heard the rumors before; high-ranking operatives were killing off those below them to keep the power to themselves once everything was said and done. Kature had seen that Lark was reloading. While he was known as one of the quickest reloaders in the organization, it was an opening; and he probably couldn’t dodge that many bullets a second time. He brought out a small bomb; each member had been given one bomb in case of an emergency; mostly in case an enemy infantry was able to get inside their tank. He threw it at the ground in front of Lark with precise accuracy, and it exploded, making Lark collapse and throw his weapon into the air. Kature caught the gun, fired off two shots at Lark’s legs, and ran off.

“W-why you little…” Lark had been lucky; Kature didn’t notice that his gun was out of bullets; his legs hadn’t been shot. He was too injured from the bomb to catch up to the uninjured – Albeit a bit tired – Kature. On closer observation, it seemed Kature had thrown his gun into the air, landing somewhere in the wasteland outskirts of the city. Lark assumed he didn’t check to make sure the gun had bullets; otherwise he would’ve started running faster. Lark wouldn’t be able to catch up with him, though.

Kature ran behind a nearby rock, holding his injury. His right shoulder had been struck by a bullet at one point of the shooting. He had done such a good job hiding it that even you didn’t notice, but he wasn’t sure if he would be so lucky if Lark had caught up with him.

Kature had taken this as a reason he hadn’t seen Ikaru in a week, since the day of Destiny’s assassination.

“Heh, Ikaru…”

As he reminisced on his apparently lost friend, whom he had previously assumed left the organization after he had assassinated the princess, Kature pulled out a small medallion, the medallion was made of copper, and it had a sliding mechanism for storing small pictures inside it.

“Tell me…”

Kature slid open the medallion’s cover.

“What is it that you fight for?”

Inside the medallion, was a picture of Kature and a girl about 3 years old, dated about 2 years ago. The Zynkarian tower; a calamitarian artifact that had survived the calamity all those years ago, had been visible in the background.






Chapter 10



April 4th, Year 1012 AC, Itarene, Ikane


11:32



Destiny and Ikaru walked down the stone sidewalk, Destiny’s head swerved side to side drowsily as she held Ikaru’s hand to keep balance, as the semi-technological buildings started to crumble; this section of the country apparently had not been sustained in a while. Destiny’s swaying appearance had good reason, looking for information for such a long time would likely make anyone feel drowsy. This had a substantially weaker effect on Ikaru; he had ended up doing it an uncountable amount of times himself after that day, and his body had apparently gotten used to it. Their efforts were not in vain, however, as they were able to confirm Ikaru’s previous suspicion that the symbol and the calamity were related.. Apparently, the castle had a secondary underground library for the books that couldn’t fit in the main library above-ground. A few years ago, as Destiny was searching for some book Gedo needed for his school studies amongst its 2-yard tall bookshelves, she had found a secret area behind a bookshelf that seemed to be concealed with wallpaper. The bookshelves were apparently covered with books that had that symbol, all across the towering (At least from her height) shelves. She didn’t stay for long, as she was too scared of the dark to be in an eerily unlit hallway for long, and the darkness made the hallway seemingly go on forever.

“(If the hallway goes on for that long, it’s likely the books reach back to the calamity timeline…)” Ikaru thought again to see if there were any other possibilities that matched up with his current deductions.

Along with confirmation, they had found another lead. Destiny was looking through and Atlas when Ikaru had gotten the idea. From the mountain in the wall opposite of the one representing the calamity and calamatic wars, there were 17 mountains that could possibly have something to do with that symbol at this point; all of them being either the grounds of famous battles or locations of secret bases from the calamatic wars.

Fortunately, they had been able to keep from getting too dirty that it collected attention; most clothes-washing stores had private washers for those who had only brought one pair,(As in the one they were wearing.) and some showers for public use; Ikaru knew that if he or Destiny caught anyone’s attention, one of them might be recognized. Even he didn’t know how far the organization’s reach spread.

On a nearby TV playing from the window of an electronic store, who’s already-outdated quality was made worse by the poorly cleaned windows it shone through, a news channel was making a report on the aftermath of the rebellion back in Akande. Hatsune, whom Destiny had told him about earlier, was on the ‘badly injured’ list.

Although that was nowhere near a chance of death, Ikaru knew if anything got Destiny to want to head back home, it would let the organization know she were alive. Ikaru made an attempt to start a conversation, although it was short lived; it stopped as soon as they were out of hearing range of the television.

First on their Mountain-touring list, was Nagendaru caves. “

“This cave system, which had been situated near the base of a mountain, had been home to numerous r-r…refugees, and sometimes, spies who were collecting information for anti-Ikanian forces.” Destiny spoke as she read from the pamphlet collected from one of the few tourist headquarters in the city.

Ikaru walked down the streets of this city; which had been on the outskirts of the country; near the country of Yatugane. Ikaru’s mind reflected on what information they had so far, mentally searching for any clues. Ever since the calamity, large amounts of small countries had been made; they had all collected weaponry from the remains of the previous worldwide country, so each country was fairly strong. Even after all the fighting, no land gains were made, so everyone just gave up. Even the second calamatic war had little gain ratio of army size to gains. The world was fairly peaceful now; and since the borders had been established for the most part, there really wasn’t any more fighting.

The most recent war was about 8 years ago; it had been started by mere rumors. It had been said that the former king, Yakeno’s father, disappeared while on business in Zynkaru. While these were nothing to start a war alone, shortly after Yakeno became king Zynkaru wished to renegotiate their trade and peace terms. These had been much more restrictive than before and Yakeno, whom at the time had only been king for 3 months, out of pure inexperience, started to believe the rumor that his father vanished then; and when coupled with the new terms, led him to believe that Zynkaru was responsible for his father’s disappearance. The war lasted two years, and Yakeno’s strongest field had been shown. He had flown through many enemy armies despite the army sizes(Many people were reluctant to join the army of a new commander) and showed prowess as a tactical commander. While eventually it was all understood as a misunderstanding; Yakeno had done his best to keep times peaceful for as long as possible.

Ikaru stared at the mountain they were headed to. It was said that Nagendaru mountain was on the exact opposite side of the world than the Zynkarian tower; one of the last pre-calamatic buildings that still stood.

Ikaru walked up to the mountain; it looked even more intimidating from here. Destiny seemed to get dizzy from staring at the top too long.

The two walked inside the mountain, as the stalactites from the ceiling of the cave dripped water from higher up. It was common knowledge there was a spring here, although arguments about the stability of the mountains had left everyone too scared to collect from it. Ikaru and Destiny needed to make sure they checked every inch for anything that could support them in their search. Eventually, they came up to find a dark, closed-off pathway that had yellow tape barring the entrance. Ikaru knew when you were searching for something secret, go where you shouldn’t. He had known this all too well even in the months succeeding that day. He had even tried searching for secret entrances in the walls around the area. When he actually found one, it always ended up being something unrelated.

They had kept walking for a long time now; they hadn’t seen any entrances or splitting pathways, so they knew that weren’t lost; there was only one way back. Eventually, they came to a large chamber.

On the floor of the cave, was a Symbol; one that encompassed a majority of the floor, its seemingly randomized pattern of lines covering a radius of at least 50 yards from the center of the room. Ikaru thought it might be that symbol. However, they didn’t actually have time to check.

“Hey! You’re not supposed to be down here!”

A fairly large man, whom had been dressed as if he were already prepared for the high amounts of hot steam that evaporated itself in here from the water dripping from above, had been standing behind them. Ikaru didn’t know the situation, so he just said what he needed.

“Sorry, but could we get a drawing of that symbol?”

“No! This excavation site is property of…Erm…Ah…”

The man had apparently forgotten who’s excavation site it was.

“…Fine! Here’s the drawing. Its not much though; the symbol had been found elsewhere quite a while ago.”

Ikaru had looked at the piece of paper. Sadly, it wasn’t the same as that symbol.

As Ikaru walked away from the cave; he had been thinking on something. Inside the chamber, there was something that looked like steel; metal pipes placed in seemingly random locations. He had been able to map out all the one he had seen; although he was starting to forget some of it.

Ikaru and Destiny had made it to a nearby library. Destiny had found a book relating to the symbol there; Ikaru had charted out the pipes he had found. While it was possible this was a dead end; Ikaru had already run through all the easy leads as a kid. He was trying everything he could find.

The book Destiny had found was fairly new; although it was based on ancient times past, the brown cover even made of a material made to mimic how books were made back then.. “The five factions” explained all that was known about the world government before the calamity(Aside from things people speculated were being held from the public for some conspiracy theory reason…). Apparently, there were five factions in the map at that time; Yakuna; which had been stationed around present-day Yatugane. There was also Zaiden, stationed around current Zynkaru – who’s symbol was the one they had found inside the cave. Daizande was stationed near Dakudane, Garzynda, which was near Gaizyno, and lastly; Itodina. Stationed around present day Itadume.

Ikaru realized there was no faction in correlation to Ikane; on the ancient map stating the factions land; the territory Ikane was on didn’t even exist; it was just more of the already endless sea. Out of five factions, six countries rose from chaos…

“(Heh. Even with one world power, war still wages…)” It was said that even before the calamity; the factions within the country were always fighting amongst each other for dominance.

The book said the reason the calamity destroyed the government so easily was because without their leader; whom had died in the calamity, the factions, whom were already under heavy political tensions with each other, had split up, and declared war on each other. Eventually, the war settled, but then the second war started. Fortunately, the offsprings of the faction leaders were more sensible than the original leaders, so peace reigned for most of the time.

“Hey! I think I recognize this!” Destiny was referring to the pipe outline on the drawings Ikaru had made.

“My brother said they were used for maximum efficiency. By combining them with gravity, they could focus energy at a single point in the ground.”

“(Energy Momentum machines.)” Ikaru had then noticed that all the symbols had a sort of circular shape in the center. By using this mechanism, they could focus energy in the center of the symbol, and the energy running through it would light up the symbol.

Ikaru was confused though. What was a Zaiden symbol doing on the other side of the world of Zaiden Territory?

Ikaru then figured out the meaning of all this. By using the energy and centering it to the ground, they could drop it directly through. It would gather energy at the center of the earth as it passed through, go out the other end, where it would be collected by the Zynkarian tower. And then, it would head into the sky.

“…A Zaidenian spacecraft…” Ikaru had figured out the meaning. Apparently, this was how the ancient people planned to get into the stars. However; he had his questions. The fact that the symbol was here meant that the people knew about this land chunk. If so, then why wasn’t it on the map?

Ikaru and Destiny left the library.

While along the way they would check through more of the possible mountains; their goal was clear.

The answers they were seeking lay on the other side of the world.



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Totally not a power freak!

Chapter 11



April 20th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


15:27


Hatsune walked down the castle’s interior hallway; The bare wooden foundation of the hallways had just been finished. Again. A large amount of workers were injured in the rebel attack, which had slowed down repairs by a large amount.

It felt good to be out of the hospital again. She walked down the hallway, mentally cursing whichever foe ended up knocking a boulder onto her head while she was immobile.

Hatsune could see hear Nikiri running down the hall; the odd pace of the footsteps that seemed trapped in the endless space between running and walking was a dead giveaway. Yakuri had let her stay in the castle; apparently she had been orphaned a few years ago and was unable to pay medical bills; even her brother had gone missing last month. It was no surprise they were hard to afford; they were just barely affordable on the standard income given to registered orphans; everyone knew hospitals raised their rates dramatically during wartimes. Naturally, including rebellions. While fortunately she was able to have a better type of medicine now, she was still recovering.

She was going to go over and say hi to Nikiri. Suddenly, some sort of a weight had hit her in the head and pushed her over.

“Hey, Hatsune. Do you know when Destiny is gonna get back?”

Yakari, whom had been staying in the castle ever since the first battle with the Skybreak rebels had asked her. She fiddled with Hatsune’s ponytail; since Hatsune had to keep her bandages on; she might as well use them for something important, Hatsune already considered herself fully healed. Although, Yakari’s pounce did give her a slight headache.

“Sorry, Yakari. I’m really not sure.” This was more or less the truth; Hatsune didn’t even know if she were coming back at all.

Hatsune had started off to take Yakari to her mother; she had gotten her legs injured in the attack and was still in the hospital.

Again; a heavy weight had knocked Hatsune over.

“Hey, Nikiri! You starting to feel better?” Yakari spoke to the girl, whom was currently laying down on Hatsune’s collapsed body.

Hatsune merely dragged the two over to Yakuri and Kateri; not listening to their conversation at all. She kept wary of any other elementary schoolers that might have happened to be in the castle. A small part of her mind was assuming Destiny would do the same as these two.

Gedo sat down in his room and stared into the new almost-finished skylight; which had started out as an explosion hole, as the sun shone down through onto a nearby picture from Destiny’s 3rd birthday. The picture couldn’t be any more reminding than it was now; especially considering that Destiny’s 9th birthday had come and gone without so much as a sound; especially compared to what it would’ve been if she were still here.

Gedo kept his eye out for any information across the country pertaining to Ikaru and Destiny; if he could catch them off guard, he might be able to bring back Destiny with minimal injuries. He knew that he would be at even more of a disadvantage here. He knew that a rescue attempt could result in Destiny being more of a liability during the rescue attempt; he knew she couldn’t run very fast. Trying to take out Ikaru first would be tough; he probably kept Destiny with him at all times, to be able to threaten her life in case of an attack.

Regardless, he kept his eye on the news, and on multiple country-wide security cameras at a time; they had been kept at high-traffic areas and recorded in case they needed to be used for court evidence. While he had already programmed the cameras to bring up recordings where someone matching Destiny’s description was spotted, it wasn’t always 100% accurate; and even if he found her; he didn’t have the information to program it to find Ikaru when he was away from Destiny. For now, it seemed like all hope was lost.

Suddenly, a match came up on the live feeds. Gedo had hoped for the best, however, with so many mismatches having come up in such a short period of time, he couldn’t help but subconsciously realize it was another mismatch.

Destiny’s profile could be seen clearly on the camera screen, the 2400p security camera’s bought by the airport to cut losses were apparently enough to make a match. And beside her, was Ikaru, the evil man whom had started it all. While his head was turned away from the camera, meaning he couldn’t siphon scanning information from the camera, it was undoubtedly him. Gedo checked the gate code on the feed.

Gate ZY37. Destination, Zynkaru. A place outside of the reach of the Ikane empire. Unless they came back to Ikane for some reason, almost all hope would be lost if they got on that flight. Gedo knew that although they were neutral; Zynkaru would definitely not accept their pleas for help on the situation; knowing it was a possibility that Zynkaru had hired Ikaru. Gedo grabbed his communication device, started to dial Hatsune’s number, and dashed out the door.

Shortly afterwards, Hatsune felt another kid pouncing onto her head. Or, at least that war her first assumption.

Yakeno stared out the windows of the castle; there had actually been some whom had been undamaged by both attacks; the windows reflecting the sun as beautifully as ever; the windows of the castle were built to reflect sun in a specific manner.

The king had noticed a group of people running out the exit. On closer inspection, it was revealed that Gedo and Hatsune, whom was wearing her hair in a manner that she rarely used, especially in conjunction with her army uniform. Yakeno could hear Yakari talking on the floor below due to the echoing walls of the castle; apparently she and Nikiri had gotten lost while following those two.

Gedo jumped into a nearby Taxi, only waiting the briefest of moments before Hatsune entered as well to tell the driver their destination. Despite the fact that Kagurone airport was halfway across the country, the man decided to set the course anyway. Gedo told the man he needed to be there within the next 30 minutes. With the fact that most expensive Taxi’s like this came with a “Hyperdrive” mode, and that they came with an automatic system for putting traffic lights in their favor, when combined with the semi-small size of the country, it would actually be possible.

It would probably cost a fortune, the actual numbers unknown due to the fact that they only ever revealed normal rates to the public, but this was an emergency.

Ikaru continued to sit down in the plane seat, wondering how much longer the wait would be. Destiny had been bouncing up and down in her seat for 10 minutes, she was probably getting anxious to get going. They had already scouted out all the mountains in Ikane that they thought might be related; their food count had suffered due to spending so much time walking between destinations, but they had cleared all the immediate possibilities.

Ikaru started to wonder. Was there a possibility that Gedo had decided to take the risk of taking Destiny back? He knew it was a possibility; although he knew he probably wouldn’t try and do it here. Ikaru was just glad that he was able to get his knife through security; apparently Destiny knew of a secret passage chute used to transfer confidential files without letting security guards know of their existence. To his surprise, that symbol was visible on the inside of the chute when he got his knife, but all that proved was that the government was somehow related to the symbol, which was information that was already known. He knew that running headfirst into the castle again would be suicide; Gedo had seen his face, meaning that he could be instantly identified by him, and with the actions of the organization – acting under the name of the Skybreak rebellion – the king, whom probably had the most information, was probably heavily guarded. All the written information was probably destroyed or hidden at another location. For now, the castle held no information of large enough importance.

Ikaru had looked out the surrounding windows. He had known the layout of the planes beforehand, and he knew that blowing up one of the engines from the inside would make a hole large enough to escape from. Unbeknownst to him though, there wouldn’t be time to carry out this escape plan.

A man about 6 rows in front of him had a beeping sound from one of his communication devices. After a few moments. He suddenly stood up, went up to the front of the plane, and pointed a knife at all the passengers that could see him – Which, according to the way the plane’s architecture was set up, was everyone but the pilots – Doing this all within the timespan of half a second.

“Don’t move! The Skybreak rebellion has taken over this airport! Those responsible for the events of March 17th shall not get away!” The man said, obviously sticking to a script made to keep the support of the people. If they were acting in a way that was besides their false motive; then they would lose the support of the 25% of the country already trying to help their false cause.

Ikaru could hear gunshots from a few of the nearby planes. Apparently, there was one of those in every plane. Ikaru knew he had to act fast. Jumping out of his seat and dashing over to the man, he quickly ducked under the arm the dagger was in, kicked the dagger up into the air, grabbed it, and then stabbed the man in the right chest. He knew using his own dagger would draw suspicion, so he avoided doing it.

Ikaru knew that they didn’t keep security cameras inside of the planes; they wouldn’t be able to send a feed from so far away without being connected to a national feed web; but the organization probably had some way to check on the status of the troops they went in. More would probably be coming soon, possibly with a weapon able to penetrate the shell of the plane. He knew that they would probably be coming eventually, so there was only one way out he could think of.

Ikaru rushed to the cockpit of the plane, telling them to lift off, hoping he would be able to get them off before any reinforcements could get here.

(This is going to take some time…) Ikaru thought.

As the pilots started to take off, Ikaru laid the enemy operative down on the floor. He knew taking the knife out would merely leave more blood on the floor and increase his chances of death, and because it was highly likely the police could interrogate him after this, he felt it was best to keep him alive. Ikaru noticed a small piece of paper sticking out of the man’s pocket. Ikaru had found a set of cue cards, with an apparently pre-made script of lines written on them; Ikaru was starting to recall him looking at them outside the plane. As Ikaru looked through the cards, the word bomb caught his eye, as he quickly looked through the flash cards.

Ikaru rushed to find the flash card that would go before and after this one, in order to confirm his fears. He could not find them fast enough, however, because as soon as the plane engine hit a specific speed, a bomb inside the right engine exploded. Ikaru knew this would probably grab the attention of nearby forces.

Once they had arrived at the airport, Gedo quietly stepped out of the Taxi car. The cameras he were watching went out about halfway to the airport; he was assuming there was something bad going on. He was thinking it might be Skybreak; they were the only rebel group in the country at this time, and any army troops from a foreign country would have been noticed. Normally, he would be rushing in to ask all planes in class ZY37 to fly around in circles until they could think up a plan to rescue everyone and arrest Ikaru with minimal injuries. However, as the airport was completely empty, staff and customers alike, further worrying his fears that the security camera malfunction was no mere accident.

While from the outside, Gedo could tell that the place had quite a few hidden foes, which fully confirmed his fears. While they were hidden in places that were not normally visible from most vantage points, most of the royalty and associated staff knew that all the major buildings had light-reflection modifying windows; while they were simply used for ascetics in most places, in places like this airport or the windows fused into the former-library’s walls, they were used to gain view of a normally invisible location. Gedo grabbed a Binocular app from his communication device, as the back slid open, revealing a panel of some sorts, acting as the magnification for the device. As the screen zoomed in on the windows lining the top of the airport walls, he could see three enemy forces hiding in spots they believed were not visible from the entrance. It was obvious they weren’t trying to let anyone know they were taking over the airport; possibly to use it as a base for a surprise attack on a nearby weapon factory.

Gedo and Hatsune knew there was probably only one way to achieve their goals, which was to go straight for the docking bay for the planes; specifically, wherever Destiny was. Once her safety was assured, it would be simple to subdue the remaining forces; Destiny was likely the only “High-ranking” person on any of these planes; the high-ranking ones used planes in a separate docking bay; although the general public isn’t actually aware of this. Gedo knew that either they would end up letting everyone go who wasn’t of a high-rank (He wasn’t even sure if they knew Destiny’s identity) or they would end up keeping them hostage; which could be used as propaganda against the rebellion. Although; this wouldn’t be able to work unless Destiny was saved.

Ikaru had been in some trouble. The plane was only a few yards off the ground, and was being plowed into by a multitude of enemy bullets. These days, the engines of planes could be pointed downward and used to hover, in case of an emergency or if no takeoff road was available. The explosion gained the attention of nearby hidden forces, as Ikaru had expected, one of which was armed with a rocket launcher, although he was seemingly having a hard time figuring out the loading mechanism, so he would not likely be a main threat.

Ikaru knew that they wouldn’t have the time to make it out normally, so he asked Destiny to release a wave of energy from the bottom of the plane to increase lift. It would be able to get out of the docking zone easily enough; although it would still be difficult to prevent the bullets from disturbing the air currents; Ikaru could tell that the bullets were mostly being directed below the plane, specifically the surviving engine, where the air current would be disturbed enough to slow the rise of the plane, and as a side effect, the energy lift was also disrupted. There was also a large majority of bullets being fired into the door; although it was closed, it would be able to seriously wound anyone who opened it; probably in case they decided to use a gun stolen from the operative (Ikaru assumed they didn’t know which operatives had what weapons) whom was holding down this specific plane. Ikaru could tell from the sound that the guns were all equipped with anti-recoil tools, which when added with the bullets they were using that decreased the volume of the sound they made when they rebounded(Although there was no bullet that could mute it to an inaudible standard; aside from the bullet types that turned to dust when they hit; which was in turn the first Non-lethal bullet created), also acted as a silencer.

Ikaru started to use his own energy to lift the plane. Originally, he thought that an uneven energy release may unbalance it; that was before one of the pilots (The one who wasn’t unconscious and talking about giant robots in his sleep) told him that the Gyroscope technology would help the plane even out even if they were only getting lift from the left engine. Eventually, they were able to get the plane off the ground to a high enough point where they would be able to fly off.

Gedo could see it clearly from the tube-like walkways covering the ceilings of this section of the airport: out there; on one of the docking bays; was a plane with a single engine; making an attempt to rise up from above, the code ZY37-13 clearly visible painted onto the Artificial Platinum (The type made in Ikanian and Itadumian factories; not the cheap carbonized plastic with similar qualities made in Dakudane.) frame of the plane. Out of the 15 possible ZY37 planes at this airport; that was the only one planning to make an escape. Gedo noticed that with one engine; they wouldn’t be able to rise as quickly; he had known the normal speeds of this class of plane when he was being taught the escape routes of different situations – Gedo knew his importance in correlation to that symbol was probably the cause.

Gedo started to run towards the area. He stopped, however, when he noticed a majority of bullets – the light reflected from their polished, aerial friction-reducing bodies easily visible through the windows of the airport – flying toward the plane. With the fact that the plane was rising faster than normal as well; is was probable that Destiny and Ikaru – Or at least someone with some way to raise the plane at a faster rate – was on it and rebelling against the rebels who were rebelling against – Gedo confused his mind with the accidental tongue twister he had created. He couldn’t confirm if it were energy or not from here – While he would usually be able to notice the atmospheric disturbance the type of subtle energy being used left behind; the light shining off the bullets was coming too quickly and too repeatedly for him to get a good look. Whomever it was though; was making an attempt to escape, which could be good or bad depending on who it was. He knew that either way, it would be best to include himself in the situation in one way or another.

Gedo found Hatsune; whom was busy subduing currently unconscious (In some cases a footprint had been imprinted into their face) hidden operatives in collapsible handcuffs stored in her sword – which went from a small metal rod to handcuffs for both hands and legs – as they headed over to the area where the plane was taking off.

Ikaru attempted to figure out the locations of the enemy forces – If this had failed, which was fairly likely, he would need to get to a place where the bullets wouldn’t be able to reach him; but where he would also be able to take out a majority of the enemy forces without too much difficulty. As the second pilot seemed to wake up; they agreed that the plane was at a good enough altitude to start flying off to a safe location. They started changing the settings and getting ready for takeoff; the hover engines keeping the plane at a fairly stable altitude; although it was falling; it was falling fairly slowly. The second pilot (The one who was talking about giant robots) shouted the individual steps on getting the plane into flight mode as they did them; which ended up adding more tension for the other passengers; as they attempted to take off.

“(40…50…60…70…Ok, 80 yards.)” Ikaru mentally counted the yards away from the airport they had flown in his head. As far away as they were now, none of the enemy weapons would be able to strike the plane from here. They had successfully escaped from the rebel attack on the airport. Ikaru let out a sigh of relief, as Destiny could be heard sleeping next to him.

Ikaru’s rested fears were awoken once more when he heard a explosion-like sound coming from the airport; which was just loud enough to be audible from the plane. Ikaru dashed over to the door of the airplane, and opened it (Planes were equipped with wind channeling systems these days, which helped regulate the wind around the plane even at high speeds) to see a missile coming towards them. Ikaru had forgotten the official name of this missile, but its distinct design was distinguishable enough to be told apart from other missiles. Its nickname was created by the Zynkarian soldiers that had met its might time and time against in the previous war. It was known as the Sharkburst weapon, which was thus nicknamed by Zynkarian troops due to the sharkfin-like acceleration amplifiers on it, which was further emphasized by Ikanian troops who painted them like sharks for amusement after the nickname had been set in place.

Ikaru knew he would only have one shot at this. He grabbed the knife from the unconscious operative’s body – it had been kept there in order to stop the wound from bleeding more – and threw it at the missile.

Fortunately, the knife had hit the missile, being able to throw it off course enough to not score a direct hit. The missile did explode however, releasing out an explosive sphere of light that enveloped the plane’s rear and a majority of the leftover engine. By the time the sphere had evaporated from the air, the parts of the plane that were enveloped in the light had been teleported off to who-knows-where, leaving the plane to fly off on mere acceleration. Ikaru was able to stay calm though. He knew that all that was ahead was a flat surface, and they would be able to land without too many injuries, although the injured operative – whom was currently sliding across the airplane floor - would probably go into a coma for a few days, and although the frame would probably get damaged, everything would be fine. The landing gear would have no trouble in this area.

That was, however, until he noticed a black box nailed to the ceiling of the plane. Bits of information Ikaru seamlessly overheard and took in over the years gathered, as he remembered a small detail that changed the situation.

Gedo had taken out an estimated half of the enemy operatives in the surrounding area; he couldn’t be sure due to the fact that he had no way to track the enemy army size by individual units like he would in a normal war. As the echoing sound of Hatsune’s sniper rifle blasted out from seemingly everywhere; she had hooked a microphone up to the loudspeaker from the roof she was on, in order to mask her location, Gedo’s blades sliced through the enemy forces, the sun reflecting off his blades with each slash. When coupled with his high speed of movement; it made his blades seem as if there were an aura of light surrounding it.

Or, at least it would, if there weren’t already an aura of light surrounding it. Gedo was using energy in order to increase the sharpness of the blades, allowing him to move through the air resistance and strike through enemy forces with incredible speed. There was a fairly small amount of blood compared to how many times Gedo had actually swung his sword – Apparently, the suits of the operatives were made with a material that automatically sealed itself when torn; which not only re-armored the area but also plugged the bleeding from the wounds. Gedo and Hatsune – Whom was on the roof of one of the airport buildings sniping down enemy units – were hoping they could clear the enemy forces out of the area before the auto-return system activated on the plane Destiny was on. Considering the state the plane was in when it took off, the system would no doubt activate at one point or another.

Gedo moved in to take down yet another enemy. As he had taken down a large amount fairly easily, he was surprised at the low abilities of these forces; apparently, there were barely any who had ever held a gun in their life; he had even noticed some who were holding theirs upside-down.

Apparently, Gedo’s mid-battle thought had distracted himself enough that his target had been able to dodge his attack. He was making an attempt to counter-attack, as the man’s fist came up, Gedo easily stepped back to dodge the attack. As he looked down, however, he noticed that the man had a gun in his right hand, held in one of the weirdest positions he had ever seen, however, it was one that would be efficient, especially for firing straight up without the room to adjust the hand positioning.

Hatsune had noticed Gedo’s predicament, and decided to make an attempt to subdue the man. Her attempts were responded to a simple ammo-less ‘click’ from her rifle.

As the man was readying to pull the trigger, a cloud of dust blew over a decent sector of the airport. Shortly after, a flash of white appeared behind the man, whom was subdued almost immediately after the flash vanished. Gedo could not see it very well, as his vision was degraded by the dust cloud that was all around him, but there was – Barely visible – the faint outline of a man within the cloud.

“Yo! Long time no see!”

Ikaru walked across the rocky wasteland landscape, carrying Destiny across his shoulder. He was lucky the plane had dropped low enough for him to jump off. When the black box sensed the vibrations of a possible crash-in-progress, along with when the sensors on the inside and outside of the plane examining the situation came up with information matching pre-set requirements, then the auto-return system would activate. Shortly after he had jumped off, gripping onto Destiny tightly and tightening his own body, bracing for impact as to hopefully reduce the injuries of the jump, the auto-return system activated, sending all the people within the boundary of the bubble-like force field, back to the usually good-interest centered, currently overrun by armed foes, airport. Ikaru set Destiny down, whom was halfway between sleep and wake, under the shade of a rock outcropping about 5 yards high.

“Hey…Ikaru…” Destiny was making an attempt to speak in her tired state; she was probably feeling a bit fatigued from lifting the plane up with energy; Ikaru wasn’t yet sure what either of their energy limits were.

“Do you think..I’ll ever be able to…go home?” Ikaru wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she would be able to, so he just went with the best thing that came to mind.

“Ah, certainly. I’m not sure when, but certainly. Probably after we find what we’re looking for.”

“Well…What about your family?” Destiny’s voice was getting sleepier and sleepier by the minute. Ikaru truly wasn’t sure how to answer this question. His face sagged downward for a bit as he tried to think of a response, and while thinking; he had noticed Destiny had fallen asleep, and probably forgotten their conversation.

Ikaru decided to stay there a bit longer.


Chapter 12



April 25th, Year 1012 AC, Outskirts of Sengyn.


09:32



The man laid down on the hard, half steel, half plastic loading area stationed on the back of the truck. His half-asleep mumblings would make him indistinguishable from being either drunk or extremely drowsy to a bystander; although a moving truck probably wouldn’t have any bystanders.

Kature had been hopping into the back of trucks for transportation for a while; at least until he could find his way to some sort of a shelter. His wounds were starting to heal, although he felt he should keep moving until he felt he was safe enough. He currently did feel safe for the most part; he’d been going for a month now. It seemed they had stopped.

He sat up to stretch; his eyelids having a difficult time opening. This was the first time in a while one of the car owners of trucks he jumped into actually let him stay in (Only counting the ones who noticed him, obviously) for a while now; he was hoping he could find a map of some sort when this guy got to his destination; he wasn’t even sure where he was, but he needed to try and find some form of an income.

All he could see was an endless rocky wasteland; it was likely they were in the neutral zone between Ikane and Itadume; but he wasn’t certain.

Kature wiped the dust out of his eyes; there was quite a lot in the wind. When he was able to get most of it out; he was astounded to see what was on the Horizon; a set of large towers that were rising higher and higher as they got closer and closer, which seemed to be hundreds of years old. As they got closer; Kature could see everything in a much better detail. While he didn’t know what type of stone the towers were made out of, it mimicked the color of the brown wasteland surrounding the ancient place. Apparently; there were people living there too, trading some sort of a currency for what looked like could be food.

As Kature was taking in the sights of this city; the truck came to a stop, and Kature’s face plastered against its back window.

“O-ow! T-that hurt…” Kature said, intentionally turning part of that sentence into an emoticon.

The driver apparently had not heard him, as he had walked into what appeared to be his home. Kature decided to walk around and ask someone where he was. Eventually, he ran into a man who had an answer. He had brown hair, his black pants covered in a fair amount of sand as his shirt and shoes camouflaged the sand of the same color. And he definitely did not have a moustache.



“Ah. Right now, your current location is the Sengyn ruins.” Question said, his voice having a business-like official tone to it. “1000 years ago, this city was a minor town to the great nation that reigned over this world before the tragic disaster we know as the calamity…” He paused for about 10 seconds, then, released all the “Dramatic Tension”(In his own words) attained by his pause, and released it in one big word.

“…THE KATAGANE! This city; once stood up with the bright lights of elevators and light-beam streets. That was until, however, the CALAMITY” The man said it with such emotion that is broke the surface if the earth(Again, in his own words.)

“Had struck. While a lot of the cities got re-populated in a need for shelter; ones like this one, which were not repopulated, got stripped of what technology remained, leaving only this desert brown stone frame.” The man said, the pace of his voice constantly increasing in speed.

‘The architecture really is amazing though; a mere stone tower such as this standing for a whole millennium; even surviving the calamity by a large amount. Maybe its technology may have been saved if it were closer to a food source… Anyway, as of recently; due to the fact that Zynkaru had been low on food due to the recent war; little over half a decade ago; people started living here. Now; it is the bustling ruin, now re-full of life you see today. It is amazing about what people can do when-“

The man was interrupted by Kature; whom had a quick question about his explanation.

“Um, you said ‘Zynkaru.’ Where is this place located, exactly?”

“Oh, a few miles outside the nation capital. When the country was founded; this area was considered unsuitable for food production; so it was left as a neutral state. Now, however; we have been able to grow genetically-altered natural plants that can grow in these harsh conditions.”

“So, um for reference; about how far away are we from Ikane…?”

“Well, I can’t say I know. In order to know the exact distance; I would have to know the diametrical spherical measure of the earth in miles; and I can’t say I know that by heart. So, I can only give you a rough estimate.”

The man creepily crept his face up to Kature and spoke.

“A damn hell far away.” He said, in a voice which, although really normal, kind of creeped Kature out when said it to his face.

Kature, his head hanging down in sadness, walked toward the capital of the country. He was wondering if maybe he could beg the king to give him some airplane tickets.













Chapter 13



May 4th, Year 1012 AC, Akande, Ikane


13:37




The brown-haired man walked down the Akande apartment district, his blue vest moving in the wind as he stood waiting for the stoplights to allow him to travel through the route to his current destination. His white shoes made a much subtler sound than those of the people around him, as he walked to his destination over at the Akande airport.

The man got a phone call, the smooth orchestrated ringtone coming from the pocket of his blue pants.

“Yo. Who is it?” The man’s voice calm and somewhat passive voice spoke through the phone as he continued toward his destination.

“Hakunade are you almost at the destination? You can’t be late; we don’t want to delay the operation any further.”

“I know that, the other operatives will get impatient if there’s another delay. Especially when you realize I’m most likely the only one trained in using those within the group; most of the other rebels will probably need my support in the next phase. Don’t worry; unexpected things come up every once in a while, they’re not very common.”

“Well, just make sure something doesn’t come up again.” The man on the other end hung up.

Hakunade had been irritated the past few days; they had finally found the easiest way to get to the destination, and some of the operatives had to act without orders and raid the airport he was going on. Although being transferred to the main Akande hospital to accommodate for the more seriously injured that didn’t have time to be transferred could be considered somewhat of a good thing, along with the raid itself; nobody would suspect a Skybreak rebellion member to be caught on the receiving end of a Skybreak rebellion raid.

Hakunade sighed as he approached his destination. 6 years ago, when he was 14, his father’s first plan at a government overthrow had failed, and had only succeeded at severely weakening the Ikane army; and even then it had required heavy manipulation of the king, whom was far too experienced at being king for that to work at this point. His father had, unexpectedly, come up with another plan, and this one was surprisingly looking to work.

Hakunade arrived at the gates of the airport; the computerized gates scanning through the population database, matching the faces that passed through with every criminal record from the past 10 years. This was the capital city; it would be standard for such a high-profile living area to have such tense security. He had nothing to fear, however; as this was the first time his father had actually requested him to go on a mission himself. He passed through the belongings checkpoint without any trouble; the necessary weapons were going to be smuggled into the destination through another route.

He sat down while he waited for his flight; and reminisced on the events that transpired on that day. He was lucky he recognized the man from the organization; or he might have gotten to realize what happened.

He remembered the details of the events vividly; the man standing up, pointing his knife to the people on the plane…

And that man, whom was supposed to have been dead, easily subduing the operative.

He easily remembered his face; someone assigned to such an important job as his would get quite a lot of attention around the base. Under normal circumstances, he may have thought it was a mere look-alike, however, the swift movements were far too complex for a mere civilian; and a girl whom matched the description of the one he was assigned to kill sitting next to where he was, across from his own seat, was far too much to be called a coincidence. While he would report it as soon as he could; the others were already getting angry about the delays.

“Plane ZR21 will be departing for the capital city of Zynkaru shortly. All passengers, please proceed to the entrance gate.” Suprisingly, the Zynkarian capital actually had the same name as the nation itself, so outside of Zynkaru it was mostly referred to “The capital of Zynkaru”.

Hakunade stood up, and began walking toward the entrance gate. He could not remember the man’s name, but would be able to check it as soon as he returned. He boarded the plane with ease, and the engines started up as the plane took off into the cloudless sky.

“(Listen. Whatever your name is, I don’t care what it may be, however…)”

Hakunade looked out the window of the plane.

“(…You’d better be glad with what you’ve got so far. Because you and that girl’s days are numbered.)” He stared out the window; the cold stare directed at the city in general; as he watched the citizens whom continued with their bland lives despite his father’s recent actions to take over this land.



“Man; when are they going to get here?” Hatsune was starting to get tired of waiting. The people she and Gedo were meeting here decided on 13:30, and at this point, they were already 10 minutes late. The small outdoor restaurant’s tarp-like object which hung over the outdoor tables provided some form of shade; although Hatsune’s patience was not made any longer than it usually was.

“Don’t worry, they’ll be here soon. Those two are usually late anyway. Don’t be too angry with them when they arrive.”

“Still; I at least wish we could have ordered before they got here. I mean, isn’t that just going to waste more-“

“U-um…” A boy about 13 years old had been standing behind Hatsune, his white hair camouflaged inside a nearby cloud from Gedo’s perspective.

“Eh? And who might you be?” Hatsune said, in her still fairly irritated state.

“Um, my name is Y-Yakuze. Yakuze S-Sadame.” He said, his shyness very apparent to Hatsune.

“Yakuze? Does that mean you’re the one who was supposed to meet us here? You really don’t look like the person who would’ve saved Gedo from getting shot.”

“Um, well Hataku said if I acted like I usually did it wouldn’t be very intimidating, and um…” Hatsune seemed not to hear his reply.

“And besides, didn’t Gedo say another person would be coming with you?”

“That would be me.” A girl of about 20 years old, had suddenly appeared behind Hatsune.

Hatsune’s reaction to the girl’s seemingly out-of-nowhere appearance, was fairly surprised, to say the least. After a few minutes, everyone had calmed down, and they could begin with the introductions.

“So, tell me.” Hatsune started. “Who the heck are you, and how to do know Gedo?” Hatsune’s said, in a fairly pressuring tone.

“Um, sis, I think you had better handle this…” Yakuze said, as he hid behind the girl next to him.

“Alright, fine.” The girl replied. As she moved her brown hair out from under Yakuze’s black shirt.

“We were in the same adoption center as him before he got adopted.”

There was an odd silence amongst the group.

“…And?” Hatsune asked.

“That’s really just it. I was only in there for a month before Gedo left. If you want more information, it’s best to ask him; he was there much longer than I was.”

Hatsune directed her stare to Yakuze.

“Um…How about we order first?” Yakuze said, apparently attempting to buy himself some time for Gedo to intervene in this girl’s constant barrage of questions.

“So, I will ask you again. How exactly do you know Gedo?” Hatsune asked after they had ordered, making it obvious that she wanted a more detailed answer than last time.

“Well, um, he entered the adoption agency when I was about 3, so about 10 years ago, I guess…He stayed there for about two years, and then he got adopted. We were friends, but that’s about it…”

Hatsune apparently didn’t think that was enough information. “Gedo, maybe you can clear this up.”

“Ah, ok. While I didn’t know Hataku for long, Yakuze was really about the closest thing to a friend I had. People were always bugging him because everyone thought he was the son of some high-ranking army officer. What was his name again?...”

“Z-Zatene. Zatene Kad-dani.”

“Ah, right. Since he was apparently brought to the adoption center on the same day his death was announced to the public, everyone speculated he was his son. I guess he became so shy because people were always bugging him about it.”


“So, yeah. Hataku continued after Gedo had stopped. “I essentially ended up being family to Yakuze, so I decided to adopt him and take him with me after I became old enough to leave two years ago. So, essentially, that’s how we ended up here.”

“Y-yeah. That’s pretty much it.” Yakuze said. He had hoped this was enough for Hatsune.

“So, yeah. Now, I take it your name is Hataku, right?” Hatsune said, inferring from what Gedo had called her earlier.

“Yeah. And yours?”

“Hatsune. Also, are you sure you should be carrying that thing around?” Hatsune was referring to the collapsible scythe strapped to Yakuze’s back.

“Um…” Yakuze’s attempt to reply was quickly stopped by Hatsune, whom in turn was stopped by Hataku.

“He ended up being forced into it by the people who thought he was Zatene’s kid. Eventually it grew on him, and now he carries it around everywhere.”

“Well, carrying a weapon around everywhere you go is bound to get some attention…” Hatsune replied, noticing some eyes directed toward their direction every once in a while. “Oh, and wasn’t it Zatene who invented those scythe techniques that controlled wind direction? I vaguely remember some people saying that it would help scythes with their recent decline in use. The technique’s called…Wind Blitz, right?”

“Erm, actually...” Yakuze was once again interrupted by Hataku.

“It was called Gale Blaze. These days, it’s all just classified as multiple techniques, since so many other tactics have been modified from it.”

“Ah, I guess that makes sense.”

It was at about this time their food had arrived, so the conversation had halted for the time being. About halfway in, Hataku and Hatsune somehow ended up in an eating contest. Gedo was moreover surprised, while Yakuze was simply acting as he had been all day.

“So, Gedo. What’s your adopted family like?” Yakuze said, he was starting to feel less tense around Hatsune.

“Its…fine.” Gedo said.

“So, you’re secretly the prince of the country, right?” Hataku said, the statement having a confident tone despite being seemingly completely out of the blue.

“Um, I’m really not sure what you’re talking about…” Gedo said, his nervousness being a dead giveaway that Hataku was right.

“Oh, come on. The clothes you were wearing back during the attack on the airport are far too different from the ones you’re wearing now. The only reason you would do that is if you wanted to hide it. And besides, how else could you get a girl from the army to be your girlfr-“

Hatsune immediately halted Hataku’s voice.

“You don’t want to finish that sentence.” Hatsune’s voice had a fairly annoyed tone to it.

“Oh? It looked pretty obvious to me.”

“W-well, we’re not like that!” Hatsune’s words were beginning to stutter. A smirk appeared across Hataku’s face.

“Well then, why is your face so red?” Hataku’s smirk had gone into a slight smile from here on.

“N-no its not!” Hatsune’s face had only turned red after Hataku had said that.

“Oh, look. It’s even redder now.” Yakuze’s head was sinking lower and lower under the table.

“I told you, it’s not! The pasta sauce must just be making the atmosphere red or something!” By this point, Gedo’s face was slightly red as well.

“I’m fairly certain that’s scientifically impossible. That would require the temperature of the sauce to be enough to turn it into a gas, which is highly…”

At this point, Hatsune was merely growling as she dragged Gedo back towards the castle.

“…Sigh. Can’t that girl see how obvious it is?”

“Um, sis, you actually have a tendency to over-think things…”

“Not that much! And besides, we were right to think something was up when Kadare’s phone lost its signal over at the airport.”

“Y-yeah, but still…”

“Hey, I always think things through! There’s no possible downside to my exceptional powers of observa-“

“Um, miss, are you going to pay your bill now?” The waiter had apparently noticed her. Hataku’s arrogant rant was quickly stopped as she pulled out her wallet.
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Totally not a power freak!



Chapter 14



May 10th, Year 1012 AC, Rakunade, Itadume


14:19


Rakunade was a fairly quiet town, the green grass fields could be seen all around. People had said that Itadume was perfectly split between the industrial cities and the peaceful towns whom preferred a simpler setting. This was not to say opportunities were at a low however, as there were many high-ranking school systems even within the nature-heavy zones as well.

Ikaru strode through the sidewalks on one of the parks in Rakunade, Destiny following closely behind. The sun reflected off the green grass around, through the coudless sky above. As a few children, whom likely lived nearby, could be seen playing off about 10 yards away under a nearby tree, which seemed much taller than the trees in the forest further down, although that was likely because it was on a higher elevation than the forest itself, as the nearby buildings and apartments had risen fairly high, and most of the balconies had at least some form of plant life on it, be it plants in a variety of pots or the vines that grew up from the ground, most of which seemed to have some sort of a pink flower growing on most of them.

“Hey, Ikaru, how much longer ‘til you think we get there?”

Destiny, whom was currently full of energy, had been trying to get Ikaru’s attention, apparently really curious as to when they would reach their destination. Ikaru continued his leisurely pace, as he thought over the information yet again to search for any missing leads. He knew he could have made it to Zynkaru by foot now, although he wasn’t sure of Destiny’s limits, and decided not to push them.

“Hey, Ikaru. Do you know what day it is?”

“No, I don’t.” Ikaru gave a fairly simple answer; something such as the date hadn’t seemed very important since that day.

“Well, do you know where I can check? It’s been a while, and I’m wondering how much longer until my birthday.”

“Your birthday?” Ikaru had noticed that the birthday of the royal family members was apparently not very well known.

“Yeah. Last time I had checked it was pretty soon. I’m wondering if it might be in the next few days. Who’s knows, it might even be tomorrow!” Destiny had said. “I think I remember something about this country having the date and time in one of the corners on the TV. Maybe we can figure it out from there.”

A few minutes later, they had found an oversized two-story television on the wall of a nearby high-class apartment. Ikaru recalled that about 10 years ago, people would line up on the park opposite of it to watch special events, although he was not sure of the current use. Currently, it was showing some news, although most of it was political propaganda for some election for the new “monarch” of the nation-wide currency division.

“Let’s see…” Destiny said as she searched the corners for the date. The top-left corner had the publisher of the material. (In this case, Kankutsuze News.) Bottom-left listed the channel name and number. (Kankutsuze News again.) Top-left listed the author of the material (Which was simply labeled with “Other” at this time.) And on the bottom right…

“Aha, here it is!” Destiny looked toward the bottom-right corner of the screen.

“Let’s see…Its about 14:23, and the date is May…”

Destiny’s expression quickly changed dramatically.

----------

“Come on, Ikaru! Why can’t we go somewhere?”

Destiny’s voice had been getting louder and louder by the minute.

“My birthday is a whole month overdue! We have to do something!”

She was apparently ticked off at the fact that she missed her birthday by a whole month.

“Ikaru! Listen to me! My birthday is a whole month late!

She had been running circles around Ikaru attempting to get his attention. Ikaru thought she would get tired after half an hour, but apparently she did not.

“Now that I think about it, you never took me to Yeguni, didn’t you?”

Destiny stopped in front of Ikaru and attempted to make a face to show she was angry at this fact, although most people would call it a child-like cuteness or innocence, mostly due to how her effort made her cheeks fairly red.

Ikaru had been starting to regret taking this route. He had his doubts about going through this down, but he had decided to take it anyway, despite the fact it would take a few extra days. He knew Destiny’s ramblings were going to get attention at one point or another, so he decided to say something in an attempt to get her to calm down.

“Destiny, we don’t have any of this country’s currency. I don’t think we would be able to-”

As he said this, Destiny happened to pull out about 10 paper slips of Itadumian currency, which added up to about 50,000 in Itadumian currency. Ikaru was merely wondering where she got it.

“Um, where exactly did you get that?”

“Oh, it was mixed in with a pile of leaves in that alleyway a few blocks back.”

Ikaru recalled something of a rumor going around this area 10 years ago similar to this; although since the industrial cities always had a fair amount of crime, everyone was too scared to check the alleyways for any of it. He felt somewhat fortunate they had found some at least, although he thought it best not to search for more.

“Ok, so the new airplane tickets are going to cost about 40,000, which means we have about 10,000 left over. Looks like we can actually get equipment today…”

Destiny was leaning over Ikaru’s shoulder expecting him to say a certain thing. Ikaru sighed as he headed off toward the nearest Yeguni he knew of.

Destiny merely stared when they were inside, surprisingly drooling a small amount at the sheer size of the place. She spoke again once she recovered.

“Wow! It’s so much bigger than back home!” Ikaru did not share Destiny’s amazement, as he did not have one to compare it to. He had admitted it had improved since he had last been here, however.

It seemed as if this specific Yeguni was fairly crowded, for whatever reason. There were at least 5 different ordering counters, although since the lunch rush had likely just ended, it wasn’t as full as it probably was otherwise. Apparently, Destiny was feeling quite hungry, as she decided to spend 2,600 of the money they had found. Ikaru just spent some 200 on a drink.

As he had expected, Destiny was very hungry. She was eating her food at breakneck pace,(After she was finished drooling at it as Ikaru carried it to the table, that is.) much faster than the stuff gathered from piles of donated food in just about every single one of the nature cities, or the noodle cups they bought with change found on the street back in Ikane…

“Hey. You’re gonna end up choking if you eat that fast, kid.”

A girl who looked to be about 17 or 18 had walked past them. Destiny did not head her advice, and continued to remove the food in front of her from existance. Ikaru decided it would be better not to interrupt her.

“Hey, kid! Are you listening to me?” The girl was apparently annoyed by the fact that it appeared Destiny was ignoring her.

“Hey! Will you listen to-“

At about that moment, the girl dropped the container of fries she was carrying, which was caught mid-air by Ikaru only a moment later.

“T-thanks…”

After sitting down across from Destiny and Ikaru, the girl gave them a card that appeared to be some form of identification.

“Naruhna Saedu…Um…” Destiny was apparently having a difficult time reading the font on the card.

“Naruna Saida.” Ikaru decided to assist Destiny in the reading of the card.

“Ah, thanks, Ikaru. The letters on this card are kind of weird looking…”

“It’s Itadume Font. I’m surprised a foreigner could read it so easily. After the Calamity, Itadumian writing evolved slightly differently from elsewhere. Although a foreigner would be able to read it so easily. I’m going to assume you looked it up before coming here with your…relative?” The short pause assumed that Naruna didn’t know which term would be appropriate, as she didn’t know the actual relation.

Ikaru seemed as if he were about to say something, possibly relating to the Itadumian Font, although Destiny was able to say something first.

“Wait, how did you know we weren’t from Itadume?”

“Well, that’s obvious. Its beca-“ Naruna was quickly interrupted by Destiny.

“Are you a telepath or something?!” There was an awkward silence all of a sudden.

“Erm…No.” Naruna said, mentally questioning the girl’s sanity, although it was shortly dismissed as a mere childish imaginatory idea. As she regained her thoughts, she held up the right shoulder part of her clothing.

“This is the Ukari High uniform. Anyone from the country would recognize the uniform of one of the most prestigious schools in a natural district.”

Her uniform was mostly black, with a red necktie below the throat. While it wasn’t visible from Ikaru and Destiny’s viewpoint, her skirt was also black and extended to about two inches below the knees. The black of the uniform seemed to match the faint black streaks in her otherwise brown hair, while somehow contrasting with her white skin.

“Wait, why are you wearing it outside of school?” Destiny continued with yet another question.

“Oh, I just grew attached to it during my first year, so I just wear it quite o-“

“Aren’t you just showing off?” And, as before, Destiny followed her question with yet another statement which seemed completely out of the blue.

“Hey…I would appreciate it if you stopped with those statements…” Naruna said in a seemingly annoyed and angry tone.

“Um, could you repeat that?” Naruna had fortunately been able to restrict her voice enough that the muttering was inaudible to the others.

“N-no. It was nothing. Anyway, you two are from out of country, right? The stock market has been out of sorts lately, so how was the currency transfer?” Naruna’s point with this question was mostly to change the subject.

“Oh, we’re just travelling to Zynkaru, so we didn’t need to-”

“We found a whole ton of money in an alleyway” Destiny easily overshadowed Ikaru’s statement.

“Oh really? That was quite lucky of you. Not many people head into the alleyways, so it’s not too hard to believe that you were able to find-”

“We even found this cool shiny thing!” Destiny said that as she pulled out a metal with a certain symbol on it.

(“You should really tell me about these things…”)

“Hey, isn’t that…?” Naruna seemed intrigued by the amulet. She grabbed it with extreme speed, as her hand was barely visible as the amulet seemed to phase out of Destiny’s hand as if her hand were not even a solid substance. By the time Destiny and Ikaru noticed, Naruna already had the amulet in her hand.

“H-hey, isn’t this symbol…?” Naruna immediately pulled out a small paper that had been tucked inside her skirt pocket. She showed the paper to Ikaru and Destiny, which had a picture of the symbol on the amulet with a lot of letters in Itadumian font.

“See, look. The amulet was lost about 10 years ago along with a large amount of money. It was apparently dropped from an airplane one day and reported missing. Since a tenth of the money was considered a reward for finding it, a lot of kids, including myself at the time, went all over looking for it.”

(“We’re really lucky that case expired five years ago…)” Ikaru thought. He had recalled that a missing item case expired after 5 years, and that afterwords it was up for grabs by anyone.

“Wait, why did you just happen to have a paper on that case in your pocket?” Destiny said in a fairly suspicious tone as Naruna’s expression changed slightly.

“Um…no.” The paper in Naruna’s hand quickly changed to another image.

“You didn’t tell the future before you came here, did you!?!?” Destiny said, appearing not to even notice the change of the paper. Naruna’s expression changed slightly before continuing on with her explanation.

“It’s a prototype from the tech lab. My dad was a high-ranking officer in the police force, so I ended up getting all the test prototypes like this.”

Ikaru had felt as if the word was felt differently from the rest of the sentence.

“H-hey! The paper changed!” Destiny had apparently just noticed the change.

“Um, yes. That would be correct.” Naruna was once again questioning the girl’s mental state, this time based on how long it took for her to react.

“That’s quite some rare technology. Your father must have been quite the high-ranking officer.”

“I-it’s really nothing special, apparently it’s going to be released to the public next year, especially since they changed the power source.” Destiny was currently preoccupied staring and drooling at a platter of what was apparently a very expensive item from the menu headed to a nearby table.

“Really? I’m curious as to what the power source is now.”

“Well, I don’t have the authority to disclose the details of the current version, but there’s a few bugs with the new power source; it isn’t as powerful as the previous one.”

“Well, then what was the previous one?” Ikaru said, noting that according to what she said, she was allowed to give information on the previous versions.”

“Nuclear power.”

There was an eerie si-

“Ok, so where were we?”




The would-be eerie silence was interrupted by Destiny coming back into reality. Ikaru wondered how in the world they could fit a nuclear reactor in a piece of paper…

“But really, this medallion brings back memories.” Naruna said, in an attempt to change the subject from something so close to government information.

“Really?” Ikaru said as Destiny had noticed the remainder of her food, and continued to eat it.

“Yeah, it reminded me of…” Naruna’s expression took a fairly lowered tone from what it were a mere few seconds ago.

“Of what?” There was a short pause between Ikaru’s question and Naruna’s reply.

“…Hey, you know that forest off by the edge of that park?” Ikaru realized she must have been talking about the park he and Destiny were in earlier.

“Yeah. What of it?”

“…It was about 10 years ago. Heh, hard to believe so much time has passed…” Destiny continued to eat, seemingly oblivious of the conversation.

“About that time, there were two kids about my age living in some houses built in the forest. We had met during the first few years of Elementary School, and we had even attempted to find the ‘treasure’, or so we called it, that you two apparently found on your trip here. They were both alike in many ways, the cheerful mood they always brought into the surrounding atmosphere, and the shining smiles that they usually had…”

Ikaru’s expression was changing little by little throughout the story.


“…Ah, sorry. I got off topic. No, use reminiscing on a past that had ended long ago…”

Naruna’s face started to sadden.

“…They’re gone now. No use dwelling on it. Even if their death’s haven’t been confirmed yet, chances are they won’t ever return here. There’s no use dwelling on the-.”

“You shouldn’t think like that!” Destiny had interrupted Naruna’s statement, apparently having finished her food.

“It’s wrong to think there’s no hope. If they don’t return, it will be simply because you haven’t believed they will. You have to believe in them if you want them to return.”

“…Ah, I guess you’re right.”

“Yeah, we can’t give up any hope. If we do, then people won’t be able to accomplish anythi-Ack!”

Destiny’s apparent inspirational speech was interrupted by an accidental tip of Naruna’s water as Destiny stood up and shook the table. Fortunately, Ikaru had been able to keep the water from falling over very much, as only a few drops had gotten onto the table. Destiny merely stopped for a bit before sitting back down.

“T-thanks…Again.” Naruna picked up some form of a napkin from her paper – Which Ikaru decided not to question – And wiped up what had been dropped, including a single drop which had somehow made it onto Ikaru’s side of the table.


“Well, the truth is, I actually have a picture of them in a safety deposit box over in the local bank. I’d go get it myself, but I’m a bit busy, so can you do it for me?”

“Ah, sure. I just need a temporary access code.” Ikaru remembered the Temporary access code system, which allowed managing of accounts by another in the event the owner could not, as Itadume does not allow managing of accounts via internet or phone. These were managed by the use of Temporary Access codes, or TAC, which needed to be renewed at pre-determined time intervals, as stated in the 112th bank system modification in the year 973.

“Let’s meet back here at about 20:00. Just so you know, the code expires at midnight, so don’t try anything funny. I can track the actions of individual codes, as most foreigners usually don’t know about the TAC in the first place.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be here at the time.”

Ikaru then got up and set off toward the bank, Destiny following closely behind.






Chapter 15



May 10th, Year 1012 AC, Rakunade, Itadume


14:43


Ikaru walked across the Rakunade sidewalks, headed toward the bank which Naruna kept her safety deposit box in. Destiny followed closely behind, although she seemed a bit more odd than usual, perhaps due to the fact she ate such a large amount of food.

The bank was fairly well decorated, although Ikaru felt as if most of it was just for show. The concrete halls were lined with bushes grown elsewhere in the town, and then transplanted into the ground, while the building itself had two pillars lined in synthetic gold, as the rest of the building was. Ikaru knew that it was a common strategy to design buildings like this, as to intimidate thieves, but Ikaru knew from the rumors around the organization that these actually attracted them, instead of intimidating them.

Destiny held Ikaru’s hand as the two walked into the bank, likely because Destiny was looking for a way to balance her footing. The inside of the bank had the same general design – the tile floors were processed aluminum, with a coating of synthetic platinum. This was due to the difference in processed materials and synthetic ones – processed ones were much harder, while synthetic ones were softer, but less brittle and could support a tougher impact. Placing a synthetic material on top of a processed one was a common strategy to cut damages.

In between the tiles were more of the synthetic gold from earlier – Which also lined the edges of the synthesized platinum desks from which the bank employees stood behind as they managed the accounts of the lines of customers; Ikaru noticed TAC cards in at least 3 of them, although they were contained in purple leather slips to make certain nobody could collect the card number from it. Ikaru noted the possibility that a large amount of the people had some form of TAC cards, but that they had likely memorized the cards after multiple uses. Ikaru also noticed small aragonite traces inside the linings of the purple card slips. These were likely to prevent the use of card scanners, which had gained widespread use during 978, which then led to the temporary government Embargo on yarium, which was a key material used in the production of the scanners. Some of the walls were also lined with faintly visible Jairinite, a material which blocked sound waves. Ikaru knew these were used in emergency, as on the other side of the walls were likely some form of a safe box in case the bank was attacked.

Ikaru turned his attention away from the bank itself and toward the 5 people in front of him. He wanted to get this through rather quickly, as he knew it wouldn’t be good to waste much time here.

“Hey…Ikaru…” Ikaru’s attention was diverted to Destiny, whom looked fairly tired at the moment.

“I’m gonna go to the bathroom really quick, ok?”

“Yeah. I can see it over by that far wall.” Ikaru motioned his head toward a door that was near the entrance as Destiny walked over. Ikaru assumed she had probably eaten too much.

Ikaru turned his attention to the line after the door closed behind Destiny. There were about 5 or 6 people in front of him, so he anticipated at least a 10 minute wait.

He reflected on what had happened in the past two months. They had been able to evade the organization and the Ikanian government thus far, but he wasn’t sure if they would be able to for much longer. For all he knew, they could’ve already been found, and the enemy is just waiting for the right moment to-

“(What…)” Ikaru noticed a sudden change in the atmosphere. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, but he could sense it. While there were no huge changes in the area physically, the atmosphere had definitely changed. Ikaru felt as if he had felt this before, he wasn’t sure where he was recalling it from.

“(W-wait…)”

At that moment, Ikaru remembered.

The exact same feeling he got mere minutes before the events of that day played out before his eyes.

He knew something was going to happen, but he didn’t know what. This was a public place – It would not be so hidden to society as the events of that day. Whatever happened here would be visible to the world, although he was not sure if the damages would be as severe as back-

Ikaru’s thought process was interrupted by the sound of the bank door ringing. The man who walked in seemed fairly large, his brown coat matching the color of his hair, while the coat also gave him a dark atmosphere – the black fingerless gloves merely added to the attitude that was present in his atmosphere. Ikaru was being fairly over-cautious, slightly panicked, as he searched the area looking for whatever might happen, and it’s cause. The man made a sudden movement as Ikaru’s attention was drawn to him.

He threw off his long coat, tossing it into the air, revealing a long-sleeved grey shirt, as he pulled a small knife out of the inner coat pocket. The coat was apparently thicker than Ikaru had originally thought, as he was revealed to be much thinner after the coat was discarded – The extra thickness was likely to hide the bulge of the knife, although the thought had come and gone through Ikaru’s mind so quickly it had gone unnoticed.

“Everyone down!” The man shouted, as everyone was quickly ducking for cover before he had given his statement; they had easily understood the situation.

All except for Ikaru, that is. He knew this man was likely no more than a common thief – Most people usually come prepared with some form of a mask. Ikaru seemed surprised at the unpreparedness of this man, although he dismissed it – Something so amateur-like couldn’t possibly be related to that symbol, could it?

“Hey! I told everyone to get down!” The man pointed his blade at Ikaru, at which point Ikaru had dashed toward the man, he looked like a black and blue blur to some of the onlookers, as he quickly dashed directly in front of the man, whom was currently wide open due to his outstretched arm. Ikaru first redirected his arm toward the left to make him lose his grip of the knife, which was then sent flying over the bank counter. Then, he launched his left foot at the man’s chin from directly below him, launching him about half a foot into the air. Lastly, using energy to boost his movements, kicked the man’s chin with a midair roundhouse. Or, at least he had intended to, although the man was able to block the kick while in mid-air with his left hand.

Ikaru had apparently underestimated the man’s preparation, as he procured another blade from the sleeve of his right arm – Which he then thrust toward Ikaru. Ikaru again used energy to increase his movements – He had been getting better at it, and was starting to use it in his subconscious, although it still wasn’t at its full potential, as although his arm was able to stop the movement of his foes, the blade came close enough that the gap would need a microscope to be spotted. Ikaru then jumped back, and sprang forward to kick the man toward the wall. Ikaru knew he was at a disadvantage – He had left his knife hidden in a nearby bush in order to avoid getting arrested for bringing it into a bank in case something happened - But it looked as if fortunately he easily outmatched this man. He knew that luckily, he would be able to wi-

“Hey, Ikaru! I’m back!” Destiny said this in the way people would expect a child of her age to say under normal conditions. Apparently, Destiny hadn’t noticed the noise from the fight through the soundproof walls of the building. To make things worse, Ikaru had just knocked the man on the wall next to the bathroom, which Destiny was just walking out of.

There was one thing Ikaru never understood about hostage situations - the police-like hero people who end up saving the day always have to put the hostage’s life as a high priority, right? However, wouldn’t the criminal be wide open while trying to take the hostage? If the hero takes down the criminal before he gets into a position to injure a hostage on a single reaction, wouldn’t the hostage be saved before ever getting into a serious place of danger?

Ikaru took this method to heart as he charged toward the robber as he reached for Destiny. He was halfway there by the time the robber had grasped Destiny’s arm. As Ikaru dashed forward, getting into a position where he could easily kick the man into the air, the man kicked his coat up between them with his foot. Ikaru slowed his momentum as he heard a sound coming from the other side of the coat, as he blocked the kick coming to his left. He was taking a decent risk there – He had known that he was right footed due to the fact that he used that foot to kick the coat up, and his arms were busy subduing Destiny, but the chance that he was ambidextrous with his feet – Ikaru didn’t know the exact term – was a risk that he had to take, which fortunately paid off. Ikaru could hear the hilt of his foe’s blade colliding with something – Likely Destiny’s head, as the noises she were making prior had seemed to have stopped,

At this point, the coat was falling down onto the ground, but when it landed Ikaru saw the man was no longer behind it; instead, he was halfway down the hallway leading to the exit, his back facing it, showing the knife near an unconscious Destiny – Or rather asleep, as Ikaru could clearly hear her snoring.

“S-stay back…” The man said as he walked closer and closer toward the exit – Likely to retreat until he could get away for long enough.

Ikaru knew he couldn’t let that happen though – He couldn’t get too involved in an event like this that would likely grant public attention; in this situation, it would likely get the attention of the organization’s Itadume division. He was already taking a large risk doing this, and was already thinking of another plan to-

“Hey, catch!” A man from behind the bank counter had spoken, as the knife from earlier, which had some blood on it in relation to before, was sent flying through the air toward Ikaru. He disregarded the fact that it could actually put him at a disadvantage if he weren’t skilled enough to catch it, a clear showing of the haste in the man’s decision, but fortunately he was able to. He grabbed the knife, and, making an attempt to make an attack without giving the man time to harm Destiny, tossed it at the ground in front of him. The man stuttered back, at which point Ikaru charged toward him.

Ikaru swiftly caught the knife as it recoiled off the ground, dashing toward the man with great speed.

“S…stay…back…” The man would have said this if he had the time to, but Ikaru had already been mere inches away from him. Ikaru dashed through, slashing the back of the fingerless glove on his right hand; the man dropped his knife shortly afterwards. Ikaru took his chance to strike then and there, as he swept his foot under the man, as he fell over and Ikaru quickly grabbed Destiny after his grip loosened from the impact.

Ikaru thought of how to go from here – His maneuver was incredibly risky, as he would be wide open until after he set down Destiny. Apparently, there wasn’t a need to worry, as the man had fallen unconscious from the fall.

“Hey, everyone! He’s unconscious!” Ikaru wasn’t really sure what else to say – After relieving him of his weapon, he needed to make sure everyone was ready in case he woke back up. Ikaru had something nagging at him in the back of his mind, but he chose to ignore it. He decided to walk up to the counter to finish what he came for in the first place – He knew staying here until the inevitable press arrival was a bad idea; it was very likely the organization; and most likely the Ikanian government, would end up seeing the press footage.


19:00


Naruna put her shoes on as she started out the door – Her train left at 20:30, and it was important she was able to get the box as soon as they had gotten there – She knew it was probably a bit rushed to ask them, but she knew it would be difficult to get everything sorted out alone, so she decided to ask them for some help. She grabbed her suitcase as well – It would be troublesome to go back and grab it after getting the box, so she had decided to take it with her at this time. She knew it might be a fairly long wait, an hour at most – assuming her newfound friends weren’t late; which she hoped they weren’t, so she brought a sketchpad for something to do while she waited, putting it into a fairly large pocket on top of the suitcase – The white background and pink stripe running through it, matching the design on the suitcase itself – Made it stand out fairly easily at night; especially with the semi-luminescent coating on the bright green edge linings. Naruna walked out the door, walked down the steps, of her house, which was on an elevated platform about two feet above ground level…

Then tripped and fell. Naruna fell face-first onto the cold, hard, asphalt. While that section of road, along with many other, had been fused with 5.3 rubber as a precaution against thunderstorms, it still hurt just the same as any piece of normal asphalt.

Naruna’s first reaction was to get up before anyone noticed, but most people were already at home at this time, fortunately, there wasn’t anyone around. Next, she looked around for whatever it was she tripped on – The likeliness of having tripped over her own foot was fairly low; although higher than usual due to the fact that she had been busy sorting out the rest of her things before the left. Eventually, she spotted something out of the ordinary, although it took her eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness to figure out what it was.

To her surprise; it had been the box that she had asked the people at Yeguni to deliver to her. She decided not to question some of the reasons it may be here – More so how the two knew where she lived, but she would leave that for another time. She picked up the dark green box; glad that the black ribbon had prevented the top from falling off when it tipped over as it halted Naruna’s own movement.

She assumed this meant the two didn’t have time to meet them at Yeguni – Her own schedule was tight in itself, so she had been perfectly fine with that. She headed over to the train station on the other side of town; admiring the landscape she had known for so long for the last time in what would probably seem like forever. She passed by the forest near the park; stopping for a few seconds as her eyes were directed towards the long-abandoned pathway that led deeper into the forest. It had been closed off ever since that day.

By 19:45; she had successfully made it to the train station; luggage and all; she had scheduled the meeting so she would have enough time to get to the train even assuming the other party was 10 minutes late. Needing something to do, Naruna opened up the box. Under the better lighting; it was revealed that the black ribbon covered all 4 sides of the box; creating another convergence at the bottom. As Naruna undid the ribbon, and stuck it inside an outer storage area on her suitcase, it was revealed that under the ribbon; a much paler shade of green was on the box itself; making it look like the stripes had somehow been left out in the sun, drying out the color after years of exposure, then finally covering it with an unknown darkness.

There were a number of items within the box. First and foremost were the three books stored within. The one on the leftmost from Naruna’s view was Pure white in color; engraved with the numbers 5-8 on it’s binding.. Next to the right was a Red one with 8-11; and then finally, The Bright green – A shade similar to the stripes outside the box; again engraved in a yellowish golden color; this time stating 11-14. Naruna took a fourth book, which was as white as the luminescent moon across the night sky. The binding of this one was labeled, again in the same golden color as the others, 14-17, although the front of the book was now visible as well. The bottom half of the book read Diary, years 14-17, while the top half was made of a simplistic design made up of numerous symbols; likely on the cover of the other books as well. She stuck it inside the box; which most likely wouldn’t have room for a 5th one in that ordering system. Naruna then pulled out a 5th book – This one had the engraving of 17-20; and the Dark blue cover was this time covered with a fluffier surface – Seemingly reminiscent of the waves flowing through the boundless, unknown, vast sea. The price tag was still attached to it as well – Apparently she had gotten it for a cheap cost as well.

”Attention! The train for Ikande, Akane, will be leaving the station in five minutes!”

Naruna started to walk toward the station as the announcer corrected himself. She had heard a friend of hers from Junior High would be getting a job here today – It was suprising how much his voice had changed. An argument between the announcer and his superior could be heard throughout the speakers, although Naruna wasn’t paying much attention to it. Her mind was more focused on the matter at hand – She wasn’t sure how long it would be until she returned, or how much it will have changed since then.

She entered the train with the reserved ticket she had bought earlier in the month – Train tickets on International railways were usually both expensive and usually overbooked, so it was important to get one in advance.

She sat down on a nearby seat – She had only been the second or third one in the train. On a normal day, the train would be much more packed, but due to the recent rebellion – Or terrorist, depending on which countries news reports you listen to, travel to Ikane has been severely lowered. It’s even led the Interail corporation to lower the fare to Ikane, which was one of the reasons Naruna decided to select it as the destination.

By the time the train started moving; it was still fairly empty. The current passenger count was far lower than usual, and the train had a large amount of Passenger Containment Units, as the average was usually much higher. Naruna’s mind drifted for a bit as to why Interail insisted on calling them PCU’s – But the thought quickly passed her mind. It was probably just an acronym made to be easier for statistical charts.

Naruna opened the Green-shaded box again – This time she was met with the front cover of the 5th book, which covered the engraved bindings of the other 4 books. Her eyes directed themselves towards the right of the box – A small silk container, about a 5h of an inch thick, was attached to the side of the box, the same shade as the pale green strips on the sides of the box. Naruna pulled out one of the 4 books inside the box, giving the silk enough slack to slide out, revealing that something was within. Naruna pulled the item out of the slip, revealing a small photo about an inch smaller than one of the sides of the box. Naruna pulled out the Experimental Operational Systematical Paper as she thought how her father always used to use acronyms of exactly 4 letters for just about everything he could think of.

She pressed her fingertips on the paper a few times, and placed it over the picture, changing the picture into that of a sepia outlook. The picture itself was in a very good condition despite it being at least 10 years old, so she felt it was more appropriate considering its age.

The picture itself was taken on a wide, grassy field – A stone pathway could be seen in the background, along with a fairly large building, although the sepia effect made it difficult to ascertain it’s color. In front of the building was a plaque, and while there was writing visible on it, it was too far away from the location of the picture. Naruna’s eyes went from the building on the left to the right, which showed a large amount of children, most of them 6 or 7 years old, playing on the endless fields of grass, at least 4 of them climbing the 15 foot tree in the background.

Naruna’s eyes then went to what she had been subconsciously avoiding while looking at the picture. There were three children in the picture, looking to be about the same age, each as simple and innocent as the countless others in the picture.

If one’s eyes were directed to the far left, what he would see was a black-haired child of about seven years of age. His shirt was reminiscent of a bright blue crystal in its design, and the short sleeves revealed a yellow bandage on his right arm, which blended in with the sunset colored sky behind him.

By contrast, looking to the right first would bring your eyes to a girl of the same age. The shining sky in the background was not dulled by the sepia tone of the picture, as a reflection of the sun on the building’s window could still be seen shining through the girl’s brown hair. The girl’s shirt was a dark tone; somewhere between black and a dark blue. A small white shirt was barely visible under the main one; it camouflaged into her skin tone quite easily. Apparently, she was also at a higher elevation than the other members of the picture; as a bright green skirt was seen around her waist; although the length was not identifiable through the picture.

Naruna’s eyes, on the other hand, headed for the center. His body seemed almost parallel with the lines of the building and the tree; although his head was tilted toward the tree in a way that negated that thought. His black hair layered itself upon one of the lower branches of the tree, which made it seem as if the leaves were much more plentiful on that branch then they were in reality. His black shirt kept his arms covered up to his elbows; and his black pants reached up to a few inches below his knees – this detail wasn’t necessarily available on the picture itself, as it cut off at his waist, but Naruna remembered this detail easily enough. The most prevalent thing about him – Or perhaps, in the entire picture, was the smile he wore on his face, in which a slight reflection of the sun could be seen. Facing the sun also had its disadvantages – the child’s eyes could clearly be seen squinting; and the shadow of the pedestal the camera was situated on clearly covered part of boys in the middle and to the left – a few minutes earlier and the shadow would have covered part of the middle child’s smile.

Naruna took a look at the clock on the train for a bit; apparently she had stared at the picture for some 30 minutes. It looked like for the most part, the train was still empty – most of the passengers were likely in some of the cars higher up. Naruna stretched her feet out, as her mind wandered into what she had called “Infinite nothingness” which was just a fancy way of saying that your mind is just thinking up whatever it wants.

Naruna’s mind buzzed through itself at a fairly normal rate; as it tried to find something to think of as the train came closer and closer to its destination.

“Time seems to go by so quickly, doesn’t it?” Before Naruna herself noticed it; her mind had already settled on a topic. Sometimes, she wished she would be able to go back to a time long, long ago. Of course, she knew it wasn’t likely. Time won’t just go back at will…

“Well, they’re bound to make a time machine someday.” The thought quickly passed Naruna’s mind.

“If time won’t turn back for us; then all we have to do is bring those days to our future, right?” Naruna’s solution was essentially made up in a time span of half a second; but it seemed somewhat logical; although there’s also the fact that Naruna was at the point where she could fall asleep at any second.

She opened her eyes for a brief moment – She hadn’t actually remembered closing them, and took another look at the picture. She turned it over, revealing a detail that hadn’t been seen earlier.

On the back of the picture; was a set of letters glued onto the back. The letters seemed fairly old, but the glue was still sticking – Perhaps they had been re-fitted onto the picture a number of times.

On the far left; there were two letters in a bright yellow; reminiscent of the sun shining through the windows of the train. The letters were labeled RT; it was fairly easy to identify as a set of initials. On the far right, a pair of red letters labeled NS could be seen; Naruna took pride in the glue detail set in those letters.

Centered in the middle; the black letters were labeled IM; which reminded Naruna of the night sky outside the train window; with the small stars representing the small dots of hope of the future.

Naruna noticed something odd about her mental statement – she had apparently mistaken a train light for the sun when thinking about the letters on the left.

She set the picture back into it’s spot in the green-clad box; and decided to rest,

Her mind, however; kept itself on the future. The girl from Yeguni – Naruna never really learned her name, was right. It wasn’t good to lose hope. For all she knew; her friends from those times were alright. She wouldn’t lose hope on something without certainty. She would keep going on; until she found her friends, and found the truth of the day they disappeared.

The truth of that day.



21:00

Ikaru walked down the Rakunade sidewalks, on the way to the airport the store clerk had directed them to. In his left hand; he held a fist full of dreams for the future; that his goals may finally be completed someday.

In his right, however, he held something a bit more tangible. His right hand was wrapped around the handle of a red plastic wagon; a sleeping Destiny was placed within; along with a small amount of edible items; Ikaru couldn’t see how Destiny could still be hungry after eating so much Yeguni…

Ikaru continued to walk, until the airport came into view. His mind was stuck on something, at the moment.

He wasn’t sure of it, but he felt he had seen it.

When he cut through the man’s fingerless glove.

It had just been for a second, if it was really there…

But, he could not ignore the possibility.

For the first split second the glove was cut; he had seen the faint outline of that symbol.

Ikaru wasn’t entirely certain of what the reality was, but if it were true, it would explain the dark feeling he held shortly before the attack.

“If it is true, then…” Ikaru’s thoughts took a tangible form through his mouth.

“…What does that mean?”

As Ikaru continued to walk down the long, long road to a final destination, premonitions of the beginning of the end rose in the world.

As a lone man walked the dirt path to Zynkaru; his cold smile faintly visible under the dark cloak he wore.
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