Day 1 Talking
“You know, I’m a bit amazed you’re still alive.” Rainel says as we ride out the city, mounted on horses.
“What can I say, I’m used to it by now.” The doctors found 15 different broken bones, internal bleeding coming from every inch of my body including the brain, torn muscles and ligaments, making me reconsider the positive sendoff I gave Celestia towards the end a bit.
It took more than three days to treat everything, because of this, Rainel ultimately had to write the lengthy report due to the downtime.
“The fact that you can’t use Sananku is a big issue, maybe we should assign someone to you to heal your injuries on the go?” Rainel suggests. His former hostile attitude towards me had long since faded away.
“That’s strange, you can’t do it for me?”
“If you want me to accidentally kill you I sure can. There’s such a knowledge barrier for treating other injuries that I’ll have no idea where to start. At best I’ll trigger something harmless, at worst I’ll trigger something that’ll make things worse.”
“It’ll be fine, I trust you!”
“It’s not about trust, I have no idea… Are you… Cracking a joke?.”
“Sure I am, can you throw me a banana?”
Rainel bends down from the side of his horse, grabbing a banana from out of the bag, tossing it over to me. The wind sucks up the banana and directs it straight to my hand.
“Whoa…” I sway a bit after catching the banana, before beginning to peel it.
Rainel looks over to me as I was peeling it.
“Did you really hate Celestia that much? That you’re in this good of a mood?”
“I don’t hate her, in fact I’m kinda going to miss traveling with someone so strong and… so beautiful.”
…
”That was kinda creepy, are you sure those doctors didn’t mess with your head?” Rainel has a concerned smile on his face.
I’m sincerely beginning to wonder that myself. “It’s just a bit of boys talk.” I flap my hand with a stupid expression on my face. “All I’m saying is that her face is great, but that figure though woOOoo!”
Rainel
I look at Cain with a pitiful expression as he rambles on like a horny teenager, with each passing second saying more and more obscene things.
I am never giving him alcohol ever again.
Cain
The clear skies soon became dotted with more and more clouds, casting deep shadows all over the landscape, till a light drizzle padded our heads.
I am never drinking alcohol ever again.
Rainel said it would make the ride back more relaxing, so we downed two shots before getting on the horses, but…
Ah! I scratch my head violently, writhing in mental pain.
”You know they do say that all alcohol does is make people more honest.” Rainel watches me with amusement.
“Can you do me a real big favor and never say anything about this ever again?”
“Oh, but I have to, can you imagine princess Yesenia’s reaction when she finds out that you like to—“
I blast a wall of empty air between us, muting anything that was coming out of his lips. However, incidentally creating a sudden wall of steam from the raindrops boiling at the low pressure.
“Neeeeigh!” My horse buckles and swings around wildly, unprepared. I let go of the reins and fall away into the wet grass below.
I extend a hand and break my fall with an airblast, but it wasn’t enough to prevent me from getting all dirty as I hit the ground.
Rainel appears from out of the cloud of steam, holding the reins to his horse tightly and looks down at me.
…
…
He snorts. ”So you like black stock—
Rainfall loudly soaks through our clothes till both of us were cold and miserable, making the trail muddy and slippery, slowing the horses down dramatically.
“Hey, Can’t you do something about this?” Rainel asks me, pointing towards the rainclouds.
“I don’t know how to.” I admit.
“Just blast the cloud with your fire or something, turn all the rain into steam.”
“That might start a tornado.”
”Eh?”
“The way you’re supposed to stop rain is incredibly complex and typically requires more than thirty people who all know what they’re doing working in unison, one wrong move and you could accidentally start a massive storm instead.” I explain to him.
”Well at least find a way to keep us dry. You use your fire and wind in such strange applications that I find it hard to believe you don’t know how to block the rain.” Rainel complains.
I look down. “Well, I rarely ever see the rain back at my home, so I’m not really used to all the weather conditions down here.”
“Does it not rain or something back there?”
“It does, it’s just… People can control it, so it usually happens during the night time when everyone is asleep instead of during busy hours. Oh, but sometimes we have festivals where we purposefully let the rain out during daytime hours.”
“Sounds interesting, if you can control the weather like that your farmlands must be quite prosperous then right?”
“You’re correct, compared to here we have an abundance of resources to go around, frankly a lot of the technology is superior as well. I feel like this world is almost a hundred years behind in terms of overall development.”
Rainel listens with interest, no longer concerned about the heavy rain.
“Tetsu is quite versatile isn’t it? Can you tell me some more?”
”Mmm, I think the biggest difference is the presence of electricity… I guess you don’t know what that is, mmmm.” I look at the sky. “It’s like—“
And so, the next couple of hours I talked about various scientific concepts and how we were able to harness them in order to build various inventions for daily use and how they were able to make our lives easier.
“I kinda wish I was born as a Tetsudo after all that. You said you rarely had wars right?” Rainel’s hair drips with water as the sunshine peaks through the clouds.
“Right, most wars stem from more ideological reasons than an actual desire to survive since we’re so plentiful… Well, definitely at least compared to you guys.” It was fascinating how differently our worlds evolved due to the different energies we possessed.
“We really got the short end of the stick huh?” Rainel smiles sadly.
“… I wouldn’t say that.” I overhear him. “There’s one thing which we haven’t solved, that you guys don’t have to worry about.”
”Hmm?” Rainel listens.
“Disease. I’ve read through so many of your history books, but never found a single mention of it. You’ve solved all bodily ailments haven’t you? Physical injuries, outbreaks, chronic conditions, not a single mention of it anywhere. Even the worst of injuries are treated within days. It’s amazing. You know how many of us die early from conditions out of our control, or are crippled for life after a single incident? Hell, I’d probably be crippled right now with all the stuff I went through recently.”
“Well, that is true.” We then glance at each other.
At that moment, I could tell that both of us had the same thought, but I left it unsaid. It’s just wishful thinking after all, nobody can cross that rift via normal means.
Day 2 Remnants
“I smell blood.” Rainel suddenly looks to his left, in the distance there was a small village.
”They’re probably slaughtering some livestock or something.” I say lazily.
“No, this is distinctly human blood. We have to check it out.” My ears immediately perk up upon hearing that, my lazy mood shattered in an instance.
It can’t be.
The two of us hop off our horses and quickly fly through the grass fields, Rainel in a full sprint and me riding on the wind. In a couple minutes we cover more than 5 times the distance our horses could run, leaving them behind on the grassy fields to graze.
“Hey! Is everyone here alright!” Rainel skids to a stop and draws his swords as we arrive into the village.
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A lone young girl sitting on a tree stump stares blankly at us with her mouth agape.
“AHHH!” She starts running with a shrill scream.
”Wa-Wait!” Rainel immediately unsheathes his swords trying to call out to her, but she doesn’t stop running.
”This place seems kinda peaceful no?” I look around idly.
Soon swaths of people from the village start to gather in front of us murmuring.
An old grumpy looking man with sunbaked wrinkles scattered through his skin steps up. ”What do you want? If you’re here to cause trouble we won’t show you any mercy.”
“No it’s not that, I just… I smelled some human blood and thought you guys might be in trouble.” Rainel tries to explain himself.
“Human blood? Ah you must mean that foul stench floating in from the forest behind me.” The old man sniffs the air again.
”Well, we were going to send a party to look into the source of that smell today, but if it’s blood… You look like you’d be good in a battle with all those fancy lookin swords strapped to yer back, if you two wanna join us.”
Rainel looks at me; I look back and nod. “Yes, we can do that.” Rainel says.
The two of us wait to the side as a bunch of village boys and men gather up their gear. Last minute plans had changed and they were now expecting some conflict.
“You did stop the fire prematurely, did you check if there were any survivors?” Rainel asks with a serious look on his face.
”No, I don’t know for sure. When I saw Celestia’s expression however I assumed that they’d all been killed off.” I respond truthfully.
“Hmm…” Rainel was in deep contemplation.
It was common for armies to pillage countryside villages for resources as they travel through enemy territory. If a couple of them had survived the fire, they’d surely attack some locations out of desperation…
“You two ready? Also, do you need a sword or spear or something? You’re traveling kinda light there.” A man directs the latter part to me.
“Uhh, yea sure. I‘ll take a spear.” I think for a couple seconds then say, I didn’t want to deal with the implications of random people in the countryside seeing Tetsu for the first time, but… The smell was so pungent that even I was able to smell it at this point. I close my eyes, the scent of blood, my hand wrapped around the wooden handle of a spear, hiding my true powers.
I hand the spear back. “Actually, I appreciate it, but I’ll be fine. I’m a Tetsudo.” This was triggering some memories I wanted to forget.
“Oi?” Rainel shoots me a confused look for revealing my identity so casually.
“…I don’t really know what a Tetsudo is, but you sound confident enough, so I’ll trust you.” The man gives me a toothy grin and turns back.
“Alright, let’s get going.” The group of eight begin the small expedition with the two of us trailing at the back.
One of the men near the back glances back at us then glances back forward.
…
Another glance. We keep walking.
…
A small peak.
…
A fourth time.
”Do you have something to say to us?” I finally break the awkwardness.
“I can’t believe you two actually came.”
”?” Rainel and I glance at each other. “Do you know about us?”
“Not really, but some young woman came by a couple days ago, asking us to deliver a message for a man wielding six swords alongside his companion if they ever came to this village—”
“And what was that young woman doing over here?” Rainel immediately interrupts upon hearing that.
“Not really much of anything, she just asked for a shovel and disappeared after—”
”And what was the message about?” I interrupt this time.
“… I don’t really remember clearly, but it was something about forgetting to say goodbyes and that she’ll be traveling to Oliviand.”
Oh, that’s right. She did kinda just leave without saying anything. I look down and shake my head.
“Oh, but she did leave a letter! Once we get back I’ll find it for you.”
“My appreciations.” I nod upon hearing that.
“Cain, let’s move up ahead.” Rainel whispers to me. “If Celestia’s actually there then there’s a good chance we’re going to get into another fight again, and I don’t want to put any of these people in danger.” I nod in agreement, and we burst forward far faster than anybody around us were moving.
”Ah, Hey! Where do you~” Their voices fade behind us.
I know we parted on relatively good terms, but in all honesty if there was one face I wished to never see again, it was her, and by any stretch it’s way too soon! Why is she back again!?
Rainel’s eyes narrow beside me, soon however his mouth widens open agape.
”What?” I ask him.
“It’s The- The-“ He stammers uncharacteristically.
“What are you trying… to… say…” The two of us slow down at the empty field in front of us, now I could see what Rainel was talking about.
Dark brown stains could be seen covering everywhere, turning the grass tree trunks, plants brown, the air distinctly smelled of death as crows circled around the clearing, but…
A field of irregular stones, buried halfway into the ground, some tiny, some large, and not a single corpse or body in sight.
”Gravestones.” Rainel whispers.
The two of us stare at the sight, a cold lonely breeze weaving through the landscape.
I look at the soil below, loosely packed and a bit wet, indicating that it’d been disturbed only very recently.
Which means… Someone probably dug all these graves just a couple hours ago.
I kneel down and grab some of the dirt, letting it run through my fingers.
“Well, if she hadn't done that we’d probably be the ones fighting right now.” Rainel regains his composure first.
… I don’t respond, I just keep staring at the graveyard.
“Cain?”
”But why…?” I whisper to myself. She was so adamant on trying to save as many people as she could, yet she went over and killed the survivors herself. Was she ever serious about saving those soldiers? Frankly I felt betrayed, even though I was acting against her. After all, she knew! She knew what my true thoughts were, and she pulled a stunt like this, was she acting, just messing with us the entire time? We should have been the ones who had to do this!
“Cain!” Rainel jerks my shoulder, breaking me out of my descent. “That guy said she wrote a letter to us, remember? Let’s go back, see if we can find it.”
…
”Alright.”
“Her letter? Ah, she did leave one didn’t she? Hold on, let me get it out for you two.” The two of us were back in the small village having explained everything that was going on, of course minus our whole mission and the situation that happened between Celestia and I.
An oldish man returns from the inside of his house holding out a thin wooden plank.
“Here ya go. I know it’s archaic, but we don’t use a lot of parchment around these parts.”
”That’s fine.” I grab the board a little hurriedly and read intently, Rainel looking over my shoulder doing the same.
Hello friends and anyone who happens to be curious enough to read this. I left you with quite the mess, so I decided to fix it for you. I’m sure one of you is feeling quite hurt, but I can’t give you a satisfying reason as to why I did this. I just felt like I had to be the one to do it, nothing more, nothing less. I’m feeling confused right now and needed to try out some new things. We will probably meet again, just remember to keep your mind intact. Anyways, I’m off to Oliviand now to mess some things up over there, just in case you want to find me. Farewell.
“A lot simpler than I’d imagined it to be.” Rainel notes over my shoulder.
I chuckle a bit. She was right, it wasn’t satisfying in the slightest, but… It looks like she herself doesn’t even know the reason why she did it, so the next time we meet. I’ll ask her.
Day 3 Warmth
Our horses trot slowly, relaxing in the sun rays warming the top of their heads.
“What should we say about her when we get back?” I ask Rainel.
“That she betrayed us and shouldn’t be trusted. What else?”
“I feel like that’ll put Yesenia’s credibility on the line though. She’s the one vouching for us you know? Since she vouched for Celestia, stating it bluntly like that might cause a stir against us.” I’ve had this worry for a while, only now choosing to verbalize it.
“Then what do you want to say?”
”I don’t know, maybe something like she decided to leave after helping us defeat the Oliviand army because she wanted to play a more active role closer to enemy territory.” This was technically true.
“You know, these people aren’t stupid. Suspicious sounding half-truths are only going to cause problems later down the line. We’re either going to completely make something up or tell the full truth.” Rainel says in response.
“The full truth is that she completely screwed our plan over, nearly killed both of us as a result, but we still left on good terms. That’s a tad outrageous, don’t you think?”
“…” Rainel thinks about it for a couple of seconds. “Yea, you’re probably right.” He admits. “Yesenia will be able to smooth things out though, she’s a good talker, don’t underestimate her.”
I sigh but close my mouth. Rainel was right, but I couldn’t help being a bit worried.
The two of us camp out, nestled underneath a rock overhang, ambient sounds of nocturnal animals skittering around the dark while an amber glow basked our faces. We were only a couple hours away from the capital, but unfortunately the sun came down before we’d reached it.
”Your entire schtick is about fire, but we still have to make these by hand.” Rainel grumbles as he warms his hands.
“I’m not going to shiver away while you enjoy my fire.” I say. “Think about bringing a firestarter next time.” In reality, I probably could have provided some warmth for Rainel while he helped out starting a real fire.
This night was particularly windy and cold, so we couldn’t get away with just a blanket.
“I’m curious, how is it that your body is capable of literally turning into fire, but you say you can’t be affected by your own Tetsu?” Naturally, Rainel’s analytical mind would connect these two dots together.
“It’s…” I hesitate on revealing the secrets behind it. It was the only tool I had to survive in close ranged fights against Ankudo. Plus, the complex theory behind it I suspect would put him to sleep.
Celestia figured it out back there as well though.
“Well, it’s not like I physically disappear or turn into fire when I do that. My clothes still stay on, it’s more like… I’m able to ignore it?” I decide to give a simplified answer.
“That’s not much of an explanation.”
“Like, there are certain rules to everything, cold things will make things cold, hot things make things hot, sharp things are capable of cutting other things, and people have figured out ways to counter or nullify these rules through decades of research into their causes.”
Rainel nods along.
“The rule that I nullified was that physical things collide with each other.” Well, it’s not like I discovered it by myself. I was one of the very few people with the knowledge set and Tetsu capacity to bring theory into reality, so when I was presented some of the preliminary research I happily hopped onto the project, the results were basically concluded when… Well, everything happened.
”Sounds like you were a researcher back at home, not a prince?”
“Everyone had to study and do research.” Who was wealthy, I neglected to add. “Most of your strength comes from how well you understand the world around you. I would never be able to create fire if I didn’t understand how it burned, why it’s hot, how it changes the air around it. Royalty especially couldn’t neglect their studies. Would you be half as strong if you never learned how to use a sword?” I ask Rainel.
“Well, I mostly get it. It’s like if I tried to teach you some of my sword skills or Anku specific techniques, it’s just an entirely foreign world.” Rainel leans back to watch the night sky. He looks down at his hand and fidgets with his fingers. Soon afterwards he was holding a ring, in his palm, showing it to me.
”What’s that?” It was extraordinarily plain, a very dull metal ornamented with some shiny characters in a language I wasn’t familiar with.
“It’s a tradition from Zlitia, entrusting people with possessions like this shows that you’re willing to expose your back to them.” He responds, still holding the ring for me.
…
“You… trust me?”
“Idiot, you practically told me everything about your past and answered every single question I threw at you. I think a better question would be why you trust me so much.” Rainel sighs. “Come on, this is getting embarrassing.” He shakes his fingers a couple times.
I quickly grab it and look down at it.
“Thinking about it, isn’t that just going to melt the second you throw out any fire?” Rainel murmurs to himself, trying to act like he was having second thoughts.
I hold up my hand and engulf it in flame.
”Hey what the hell are you-“
I open my palm to the ring being completely unaltered. ”One of the first things we learn is how not to destroy our clothes or accouterments. Please give me a little bit more credit.”
“A-“ Rainel stammers a bit before closing his mouth. ”Whatever, see you in the morning.” He turns his back to me and lies down.
I snort, loudly enough to ensure that he could hear it, before I similarly close my eyes to rest.
How warm.