"Hand me your knife.”
Yushia gave his pocket knife to Suzaku, and she proceeded to prick at her palm, letting it bleed a tiny amount. She asked for the boy’s hand and did the same.
“Will this work?” Yushia asked, nervous.
“You have dug a grave too deep to escape now,” Suzaku said. She held her bleeding hand up. “Ready?”
He gulped and raised his bleeding hand. “Ready.”
Suzaku had agreed to form a pact with the boy under the conditions that he helped retrieve her Mansions and former glory, and in exchange, she’d help him find his wife and change the image of his people. Together, the two sat beside the barrier and grasped each other’s hands with a clap that echoed off the cavern walls. If Suzaku remembered correctly, forming a pact could release enough ether to destroy the barrier.
“The world will surprise you more so than my greatness has,” Suzaku said. “Any moment now we will both feel it. The pact will form, and we must endure the trial.”
Yushia felt a sharp stinging in his chest as he held Suzaku’s hand. His eyes bulged out as the sting turned into burn, like metal scoring his skin.
Two intertwined rings formed a depression on Suzaku’s chest, channeling threads of ether. She advised the boy to look at his own intertwined rings.
Sliding off the one overall strap on his shoulder, Yushia lowered his gaze at his own intertwined rings on his chest.
Suzaku forced her eyes shut. “Brace yourself!”
Yushia let out a painful cry as he suddenly took a knee. He hadn’t been the one to command the act, and rather, it seemed instinctual. The burning sensation from the rings coursed through his body with his pulse.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Now!” Suzaku dragged the boy closer to the barrier and put the hand she wasn’t holding against it. “Keep it there!”
While Yushia’s hands pressed against the barrier, the Vermillion Bird’s blood inside him denied his entry. Blinding lights consumed his vision as he and Suzaku combusted into flames. The final trial was to endure Suzaku’s wrath. Releasing his grip meant freeing himself from the hellish torture, but he’d already made it this far. Failure was no longer an option!
The ether barrier, too overwhelmed by the flames, began melting like a wax candle.
Flames were never an issue for Suzaku, but the pact’s ether composition was like no other. Inanis was testing her judgement, and had she chosen a failure of a wielder, she would be punished greatly.
Shiashia. The power to carry on held on to a single thread. Yushia spoke the name of his love as his grip on Suzaku’s hand weakened, incapable of bearing with the struggle any longer.
But then it vanished. The fire flushed, and the pain fled as if never having existed.
“How was it, idiot?”
Suzaku stood above the boy. Her flat chest bore the brand of two intertwined rings.
Yushia didn't bother responding once he noticed he no longer held Suzaku’s hand. He must’ve failed. Then, he looked down at his chest: at two intertwined rings.
“You passed,” Suzaku said. “You did better than my greatness thought.”
How? Yushia didn’t know how to respond or feel, but his stomach sure did. Seconds after realizing he’d passed, he turned away from Suzaku and puked out the remnants of last night’s porridge.
Suzaku huffed, reminded of Siru’s similar reaction when he became her wielder.
Once his stomach emptied, Yushia pointed to the passage. “The barrier, is it broken?”
With the barrier gone, Suzaku’s hand passed through without any difficulty. Suddenly, her wielder took her hand. He stepped out of the cavern before pulling her out of it too.
“What...!?” Suzaku yelled, flustered by his abrupt action. “What do you think you are doing taking hold of my greatness? Where do you think you are taking me?”
Yushia turned around. “I’m taking you to do everything I said would.”
The look on his face said it all. His eyes, like the sky, showed no limits. Suzaku had never seen a being like him in all her years. She squeezed his hand and followed him. “Is that so?”
With the help of the Vermillion Bird, Shiashia became reachable now. Now, Yushia couldn’t imagine living another week without any effort toward finding her.