Oracion's POV

"Do...you think Xandier knew about that?" Requis asks while holding onto Ira for some sort of reassurance as we descend further along a staircase. Each step encased with what feels like a sticky moss, each step we take feels as if the floor doesn't want to let go.

"I-don't think he'd of sent us down here if he did." Ira comments, keeping his eyes up to the glowing vines that roughly identify the walls.

"I reported Ash missing after the Shadows overwhelmed us on the surface. I watched as it dragged him through the Veil and out of our reach. He wasn't screaming, he wasn't even fighting it." Freya adds, occasionally bumping into me from the close quarters. "What do you think, Oracion?" She asks me.

I let all their words linger around the room for a while as my brain tries to piece together the most logical answer, 'He didn't exactly know that I'd for sure invite these three' I think to myself while looking over at them with the brief lighting, 'But he does believe me to be strong' I finish, eventually coming to a half-assed conclusion.

"Maybe he wanted me to kill it?" I suggest.

Requis' the first to respond, "That would mean he knew it was there though, that he actually interacted with it...and made it back out? Alive?"

Ira immediately follows, "Doesn't he always place you in an area known for a high amount of Shadows? You're sure he isn't like...trying to kill you?"

The meaning behind his idea not exactly comforting me, and so I keep my mouth shut, praying that Freya had some kind of other thought. "Freya...and you?" I ask her.

"He had no motive, and has no motive to kill Oracion. Without him, we'd sort of...not be here. And I'm sure Xandier knows that." She answers, allowing me to release a breath I didn't realise I was holding in.

Thinking about it logically, "Xandier's been there a lot longer than anyone else I can remember. Us four are roughly the same age, he saw us as kids and kept looking over us even after." I recall, hopefully applying some sort of comfort to the situation.

"And Aeron?" Requis asks.

"I mean, yeah of course him too. He was always there for me, for as far as I can go back, Aeron was there." I feel myself smile as I look down into the dark, feeling warmth while remembering our time together. "Ever since our pa-"

A slight pressure on my stomach stops me just as Freya begins to speak, "Does anyone else see light?" I reach down, realising it was her arm against me and thankfully nothing else.

"All the way down here?" I question, looking ahead and sure enough catching the sight of a glimmer.

Even if not entirely visible, I felt us look between each other. Followed by our rushed steps towards the partial light. Stacks upon stacks of it, some shattered and some stretching to the top of the...Ruins? "Isn't there...meant to be rock?" Requis steps away from Ira, holding out her hand to touch the rays of light that beam from above.

"It's letting light in? Wait should it even be day!?" Ira shouts in confusion.

"It's moving" Freya points out, continuing to stare at the supposed ceiling that's instead choosing to appear like water. A scintillating view as if you were to be at the bottom of the ocean, encased in darkness with only that glimmer to stare up at.

While they draw their attention to the above, I rest my eyes on the ground. The dull grey stone that stretches outward onto the walls, a colour that's common, and quite frankly reassuring. "Oracion?" Requis asks but I hold out my hand to attempt to reassure her that I'm okay.

'Touch it' My brain calls out, approaching what appears to be an obsidian coloured metal sticking from the ground. In fact, it's growing throughout as some sort of living plantation. "You bringing it to Aeron?" Freya nudges me while I examine the light enthralling material as it mesmerises me with my own reflection.

I unsheathe my sword, swinging with what I seemed to be a good amount of strength. Clanking with the hexagonal shaped material and shattering my sword in a clean two. "Maybe...not your brightest idea." Freya comments, igniting something inside me.

"YOU SUGGESTED IT!" I shout at her.

"YOU FOLLOWED THROUGH WITH IT YOU IDIOT!" She shouts back, ridiculing me like I'm a child.

"You're both not exactly the smartest peas in the pod, how about we leave it at that." Requis jumps in to the argument.

I turn to her, "Shut up" Raising the sword and tossing the hilt at Ira's head.

"Why the fuck!?" He yells. "WHY NOT HER!?" He asks with an exaggerated enthusiasm towards Requis, who made the comment.

"Not sure, you had your back turned and just looked too vulnerable." I answer with honesty.

Without skipping a beat, both Freya and Requis gasp, "Woah"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"What about it?" I ask.

Ira backs me up, "Not too sure what they're surprised about either, we'd suit, right?" He walks up to me, putting an arm around my shoulder to enforce the thought.

"Course" I confirm.

"Ga-" Requis attempts to complete her sentence, only to be interrupted by Freya's short attention span.

"Guys come look at this" She gestures over at a large monument in the shape of a perfect rectangle along its side.

Images carved along the invulnerable metal, sprawled out and barely connected in terms of even beginning to make sense. "Oracion don't these look a lot like the ones Xandier showed us?" Requis points from the other side of the room at an entirely different one.

Stepping back, she makes a point. Humans, several of them, hundreds if anything. All bowing to something infamously inhumane, each slightly different but sharing some undeniable qualities. "And this one?" Ira calls from yet another one across the room, again referring to a similar depiction.

"Oracion can you read this?" Freya points to the luminous ground as the light creeps against it as if avoiding it until now.

"Sure?" I ask with a little bit of confusion, as the text was in complete english. "The past, the present and the future. What do they have in common?" It asks.

"Time?" Freya answers without hesitation. The light again traces down as if following a script. She looks to it, then back up to me as if waiting for me to translate again.

"A river flows from a cloud, through the earth and into a tunnel, what does it do next?" It asks.

"Uh...-" Ira hums out loud as we all pause alongside him.

"It continues?" Requis answers, waiting for the beam to seemingly confirm.

And that it does. Rolling down this large tablet and along what seems to be the final set of phrases for me to read out loud. "You're not the first, you're not the second, you're not the third, you're not the fourth or fifth and you're not the last, but you are one of these, which are you?"

"A number?" I try to answer.

But the light doesn't respond, in fact, it got dimmer.

"A placement?" Ira tries, again causing the light to dimmer again.

Freya backs up a bit as if trying to get a better view on it, "A-Who's there!?" She flinches, jumping forward and back towards us.

We all stand closer, barely able to follow the figure's movement through the dark as it sways in every which direction. Eventually its face touches the light, displaying it just enough for us to all recognise a piece of him. It was Akira. "Why are you down here!?" Requis shouts at him in annoyance.

"Oracion..." Freya tugs my shirt down to get my attention.

"Akira speak! I know it's you!" She shouts louder to hopefully get his attention this time.

"Yeah Freya?" I ask her, trying to not take my eyes off of him.

"He was cold..." She comments.

"It's cold down here, I don't expect much of a human, Freya" I answer to her, taking her hands off my shirt so I can approach him but she re-grabs my shirt while catching up to me.

"He's within your group, right?" Ira asks as I nod to confirm.

"Come out of there!" Requis begins to stomp up to him, walking up to the pillars that shape the doorway. 'Pillars' My head chimes to repeat myself.

'They look like the ones above, connecting to the edge of the Veil, don't they?' My mind begins to wander as my eyes scan their design, noticing an uncanny resemblance between the two.

Freya tugs on me harder, "I've felt dead bodies Oracion, I've carried their weight and buried them with their families. He's...too cold." She answers, turning my view of the environment into a temporary vertigo as my mind spirals my vision into slowed motion.

'Pillars...Akira...the Veil...there was something there.' My head tries to picture the environment I stepped out to when saving Indura. 'The Shadow was taking him somewhere...there was something else I saw, wasn't there?' I slowly puzzle together until I focus back onto the unnatural guise of the pillars, "He's outside of the Veil" I call out loud, forcing Requis to pause as she looks back at us.

"What." She asks.

"He's...outside the Veil, we're underneath it, Requis." I repeat.

"And what? That's not a bad thing is it? It's not like he can't just walk back in, right?" Ira panics a little bit.

"Considering what we saw before...and that he's not responded a single time..." Freya walks ahead of me to grab Requis back, again meeting back up with me and Ira.

"Akira." I call out as he stops just before the pillars

"I-you...why are...is someone here, can't b-here-why?" He questions with a delirious slur.

I walk up to him, not even feeling a threat from him as his body appears frail and discoloured. He reaches the edge, sticking his hand through the dark and into the light's boarder within our large room. Colour from within his eyes fade back in as his facial expression turns into one of worry when looking between us, "Or-" he tries to speak, nearly dropping to his knees from weakness but I catch him just in time.

My own body shivers from meeting contact to his, "Why are you here!?" I ask with haste.

"...Where?" He responds with a question.

"You got down here without permission from Xandier didn't you? Are there others with you?" I pick him up, leaning most of his weight to me as I walk towards Ira.

"But where...even are we?" He questions with legitimate confusion.

Freya and Ira come towards me with their arms open to hold him, "Oracion, hand him to me" She advises.

"Shouldn't w-" Requis' voice turns into a mutter as she backs even further from the dark space.

"What's wrong?" I extend my hand towards her but she jumps in reaction, even to me.

Two glimmers of red, tracing from within the dark. "Oracion?" Its hair-raising voice reaches us.

None of us answer the thing.

"That's what I heard, right?" He speaks fluently, ever so slowly making his way towards the edge of the dark. Once again, we don't respond to him. "You're keeping them all for your own, aren't you?" His mouth spits like seething venom.

"Ira, sword." I stick out my hand behind me, hoping for him to place it in my grasp.

"Oracion, there's something wrong with his neck." Freya points out just as Ira hands it to me. She pulls back Akira's clothes, showing his skin growing a dark purple throughout his throat.

The thing's eyes shut a little bit with glee, "They left me down here...I had to live somehow, is there something wrong with that!? He won't even remember!" He laughs contently.

The light within the room dims further unexpectantly, "Wait why!?" Requis panics, holding her own sword up in defence of the other three.

"The riddle, someone fucking answer it!" Freya shouts.

My eyes trace the floor, still able to make out points in the room from the remaining spots of light. "I'm sorry, but I lack the morality needed to not kill you here." I speak to the figure as he proudly comes into the darkened room. I extend my sword towards him, creating a level of distance I feel comfortable with.

"You're going to hurt me, with this?" He holds the blade with a worrying amount of strength, drawing his own blood with his tensed grip before letting go. Showing me his injured hand before licking it off and swatting the rest against the floor. "You've made my life a lot more harder than it needs to be, oh dear Oracion."