The first to greet the new cycle's dawn was none other than Hats himself. Because Sorbet was the one who was awake the longest, and Elegy was the one who exerted the most stamina, it only made sense that the guy who required the least amount of sleep would be the first to awaken. Looking around to scope the scene, he heard Sorbet's loud snoring and let out an annoyed sigh. As he got up, he accidentally threw the slumbering Elegy on the hardwood floor.
"Gack! What the hell!?"
"Oh, sorry about that, I-"
"Yikes! Y-You're that crazy guy we saw earlier!" Elegy immediately pointed a finger at him, "The hell's the matter with you!? Why are you following me?"
"...Sigh, let this guy explain." Hats rolled his Eyes.
Lifting Sorbet back into the conscious realm by the scruff of his collar, Hats let the man himself take the lead on explaining everything. Woozy as he was, however, Sorbet wasn't quite caught up to speed with everything.
"Whuh...? Gah, in a minute~" He wanted to go back to his snug hole.
"First explain why we're in this unfamiliar house together, dumbass." Hats groaned.
"Hm, mn... O-Oh, right! I gotta explain, yeah!" Sorbet shook the drowsiness off quickly so that they wouldn't leave, "Right, the three of us formed a party to get to the Shrine!"
This very brief explanation simply wasn't at all enough for Elegy.
"Shrine? Look dude, I was just fighting against the Gods with my own party."
"That happened cycles ago!" Sorbet corrected him, "You go by Elegy now, and you said your goal was to find them, who are waiting for you at the Shrine. Hats here is in the same boat."
"Hats..." Elegy glanced at the golden armed fellow, "H-Hold on, my name isn't-!"
"Elegy, listen to the guy." Hats calmed him down, "Ahem, I get we lost our memories from falling asleep, but how can you keep yours?"
The question was directly aimed at Sorbet's blunder. It was a mistake to not wake up before the other two, because as far as they know, he's just another angel like them.
"Oi, that's right. Your initials, your memory retention..." Elegy immediately recognized these aspects, "Could you perhaps be...?"
"No, you ask this every time. I'm not Sab or whatever his name is." Sorbet vehemently denied the allegation.
"Oh..."
Feigning offense at the posed question is always a surefire way to get the attention moved away from you. Unless the person is actively trying to get a confession out of you, most would stop so as to retain a neutral-to-positive opinion for themselves. This tactic saved him before, but as they say, don't fix what isn't broken.
"Yeah, so..." Sorbet was about to leave the house, but got stopped again by Hats.
"You didn't answer my question. How come you remember all this?"
"Hats..." Sorbet cursed him under his breath, "That's...! Look, that's what I wanna know too, okay!?"
"And you're sure you're not a seraphim?"
"What? No, can't you see the lack of wings, idiot?" Sab crossed his arms.
"A shopkeeper?" Elegy raised an Eyebrow.
"Just look at what we're wearing. Do you honestly believe I'd give even my worse enemy such horrible attire?"
Well, he did in fact do just that, but that doesn't mean Sorbet is a shopkeeper. Regardless, he did feel a tinge of pride well up within him as he silently mocked Elegy's fit with his gaze.
"...Tch, let's just continue." Hats grunted, begrudgingly leaving the house through the front door.
"Oi. Hold the fuck up." Sorbet realized a dire detail, "You... How do you know which direction we're headed if you don't have your memories?"
It was at that very moment that Sorbet realized who he was dealing with. The naive giant he thought Hats was turned out to be the biggest threat to his plans of revenge.
"..."
"Hey, answer me." Sorbet pointed the serrated blade at his back, "Even a scrawny kid can kill with a sword, much less me."
"The sword you're too afraid to give to Elegy?" Hats smirked back before swinging around to smack it away.
"Whoa, whoa! Guys, keep the peace!" Elegy stood in between them, but the damage was done.
The jig was up for both parties. Sorbet felt a livid rage unlike any other, he was made a fool of for not one but two entire cycles. Before him stood a man who could somehow retain his memories just like him, and yet he hid that fact away to snuff out Sorbet's true, unsavory motives.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
"Put that frown away, you're no better than I am." Hats ordered.
"Asshole! You were pretending to not remember this entire time!" Sorbet hissed, "What's your deal!?"
"To out you for the monster you are." He then glanced over at Elegy, "And to protect someone who doesn't deserve your bullshit."
Though he appreciated the gesture, Elegy was still left pretty much completely in the dark without any of the previous few chapters' context. For him, he just woke up in an unfamiliar room with two unfamiliar folks who are shouting at each other for an unknown reason. All he knew was what was told to him, and that was that he needed to reach this mysterious Shrine if he wanted to see Migu and the others again.
"Both of you, truce." Elegy picked up the sword with ease, putting it in between them to set some distance, "Settle your qualms on the road."
"The road? Ele-! No, Gale, this guy's a total liar. Your friends aren't at the Shrine!" Hats tried to warn him.
"They are, there's no way they're anywhere else!" Sorbet shot back.
"But how do you know that?" Elegy tilted his head.
"Tch, b-because...!"
Silence, a knock on the door. It was odd and unexpected, as they had already left the house and previously saw no one inside with them. Much weirder than that, why would anyone knock from the inside. It could only be that...
"A White Monster." Sorbet gulped.
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***
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Behind the door, inside the house they were just in was a White Monster. It was an odd assumption to make at first glance, but after he gave his reasoning, Sorbet's theory proved much more believable.
"Or it's just, y'know, the house owner?" Hats rolled his Eyes.
"Don't be ridiculous, why would any sane person knock on the door from the inside?" Sorbet pushed their heads down to look at the ground, "Close your Eyes, hold my hands and run."
Confusion, refusal and rebellion were the first reactions of the two. Hats refused to trust Sorbet, and Elegy could only see him as crazy after all he's been told. That being said, Sorbet's hunch was right, because in the next moment, the doors slammed open, sending the three booking it in the opposite direction.
"T-The hell was that sound!?" Elegy yelped.
"Don't let go of my hand, and whatever you do—DON'T open your Eyes!" Sorbet instructed, "Locking Eyes with one of those goat skulls means an instant game over, so for now, run as fast as you can!"
The two had their Eyes tightly shut so as to avoid getting put to sleep by the Monster, whilst Sorbet took on the riskiest position by leading them in the right direction. To do this, he had to just barely creak his Eyes open every so often just to get a sense of direction. They ran like this until they could hear sounds again, indicating the beast wasn't near them anymore.
"What was that?" Elegy asked, slowing down a bit.
"Keep moving." Sorbet sighed, "Gods, I guess this is our last warning..."
"Sorbet, explain what's going on." Hats frowned, "Why was that... thing in there?"
It was confusing the other two, but for Sorbet it only made sense. It all started yestercycle, when they got caught bending the bars as they were leaving the previous district.
"Remember those vibrations you experienced whilst bending the bars? What am I saying, of course you do." Sorbet explained, "That was our sign that we're being targeted."
"But I was expecting guards, not the damned Slumber Monster itself!"
Hats was quite shaken, and for good reason. If they were just being chased last night it'd be one thing, but now they know there's no escape. The White Monster is constantly chasing them, and it won't stop until it catches them.
"So that's the situation, huh? I think I get the basic gist."
"Elegy?" The other two turned to him.
"So what you're saying is—We just gotta keep moving until we reach the Shrine." He smiled, "Doesn't really change much, does it?"
Alas, this refreshingly optimistic view on the situation wasn't enough to deter Sorbet's nasty thoughts from leaking out. For all intents and purposes, they were dead men walking, only being allowed to slightly extend their lifetime by trying to run for as long as possible. It was a marathon where stopping meant sleeping, and sleeping meant being sent back to the beginning.
"To think we were this close to saying goodbye to this journey altogether..." Hats gulped, "Had the Monster shown up just a few minutes earlier, we wouldn't be able to escape."
"Grrr...! Who gives a damn!" Sorbet cussed, "Why am I even running anymore!? Once a White Monster starts going after you, there's nothing you can do to stop it! Screw this, I might as well quit!"
"Quit? But we gotta reach the Shrine, that's what you said!" Elegy strongly dissuaded him.
"Heh, you moron, me quitting is good for you." Sorbet shamelessly admitted.
"I don't care."
"Huh?"
These strong words left a lasting impact on Hats and Sorbet alike. Elegy was smart enough to already assume he was being tricked. Just from this brief conversation they were holding, he learned from Hats that Sorbet was quite the nasty individual. His goals were beyond his understanding, but he knew they weren't aimed to help him one bit. Regardless, no one likes a quitter, especially not Elegy.
"Come again?" Sorbet gulped.
"I don't know how sinister your goals are." Elegy said with a serious tone, "I don't know what you want, who you're up against, or even if I should trust you at all. But at the end of the day, you want to reach the Shrine, right?"
"Y-Yeah, if you put it like that."
"Then it's settled." Elegy nodded, "You don't have to explain yourself, I'll help you reach the Shrine if that's what you want."
"No, Elegy! You don't understand, he's planning to harm you once we get there!" Hats pleaded, "Run away now, while you have this knowledge!"
"And what then?" Elegy figured, "He'll just trick me into following him to the Shrine again in a future cycle. It's better to satisfy his needs now and be done with it so I can continue to search for my friends."
"Idiot, and what if what Hats said was true?" Sorbet cackled.
"What about it? I've seen how you hold a blade." Elegy smirked, brandishing the sword even with just one hand, "Go toe-to-toe with me, let's see who comes out on top."
Sorbet could only hold back his anger as Hats loudly laughed at the comeback. Of course, in a fair fight, there was absolutely no way that Elegy would ever lose against Sorbet. Regardless of this, Sorbet isn't exactly known for his fairness and just nature. This is pure skill versus cheating, and if it did come down to it, Elegy had only stated that he will face the fight head on and accept the outcome regardless of how it ends. Some would call it noble, others brave, but if you asked him, Elegy would call it...
"I just wanna move things along, honestly." He sighed, "The pacing for this mini-arc is just horrendous from the get-go."
"...Ah, I get it." Sorbet realized finally, "It's not that we drove you to insanity yestercycle, you were just always crazy by default."
"I gotta admit, the things you say that I don't understand far outweigh the ones I do." Hats agreed with Sorbet for once.
They couldn't understand his fourth wall breaking jab at the author's poor writing skills, but that works out for me because I get to save face. Seriously, does he know I can erase him from the story at any moment? The nerve...