KADAINA AND ITE eventually found their way out of the tunnel, going straight the entire way through. By the time they found their way out, the ceiling of the tunnel had grown tall enough that they no longer needed to crawl. Yet, they waited inside until they had reason to believe Kunshu and Shirei had left. Once they saw the two men head into a sleek black sedan as it left toward Aotoshi, they left the tunnel after it passed by them, knowing it was now safe to exit.
“I’m sorry, Ite,” Kadaina began. “That pit is bottomless as far as I’m aware. He’s gone. We’ll be dead too if we stay here forever waiting for him.”
“But I have to protect him!” Ite protested. “I can’t leave him, not like everyone else!”
“Wait, everyone else?” the mage interjected. “What do you mean ‘like everyone else’?”
Ite paused for a moment before drawing in a deep breath.
“I suppose you don’t know about this yet,” she began. “I’ve been under the care of my uncle for the past six years now. My parents were killed in a car accident and, if it weren’t for Uncle Kenzo, I would’ve probably been dropped off at some orphanage and left to my own devices. It probably wouldn’t have mattered much, to be honest. He really only seemed to look after me out of guilt about his sister rather than out of caring for me. But I know Yukan cares about me and I care about him. I know him well enough to know that he wouldn’t have dove into that darkness without good reason. That’s why we can’t just leave him behind.”
Kadaina stopped for a moment before sitting down on a tree stump beside Ite.
“You know, Ite,” he sighed. “I never knew much about my parents either. They dropped me off at Aunt Oba’s not too long after I was born. She always told me that they were worried they couldn’t give me a good life, so they left me with her so I could have a chance for something better. Mind you, I doubt they meant facing near-death experiences and grand quests of vengeance, but it’s something I guess.”
Ite and Kadaina laughed slightly to themselves, waiting for Yukan to re-emerge.
❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎❒︎
Yukan awoke from his shock to find himself in a large bed of roses, overgrown to the extent of nearly covering that entire side of the room. How long had he been unconscious? How did he get here? Last he could remember, he was falling into an abyss.
That’s right. This must have been where the hole in the exit led to. Why else would Kashikoi tell him to take this path?
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
“Ite!” he called out into the hole in the ceiling from which he presumed he fell. “Kadaina! Anybody!”
No response. He was alone.
Yukan began looking for some sort of exit, but to no avail. The only feasible exit other than the way he came in was a doorway that had since been blocked by stone.
Something else caught his eye during this search: a large sword, well over five feet long, with a pommel in the design of a rose and the guard wrapped in rose vines, seemingly coated in titanium. The sword was trapped in an anvil, tied down with even more rose vines as if it were caught in a trap.
Yukan arose from the bed of roses and began to approach the sword. The wind grew more intense as he approached the blade, as if the sword were beckoning him onward. It started as a whisper, but the whispering only grew louder as he grew closer to the sword. Eventually, the whispering had grown so much it now bordered upon a yell. When he finally grasped the sword’s hilt, vines wrapped themselves around his arm.
The last Kenshi yelped, fighting against the pain while focusing on removing the sword from the anvil. Once the tip of the blade escaped the cold steel of the anvil, the wind began to die down once more and the vines retracted themselves into the blade. Yukan looked at his right arm to check for any bleeding, only to see that his arm was clean, save a mark on the inside of his wrist. It looked very similar to a rose, attaching itself to his skin like a tattoo. Alas, it was certain now that Yukan was wielding the Omega Blade. Kashikoi had led him right to it.
“Thank you, Mr. Masuta,” Yukan said as he picked up the sheath beside the anvil. “Your last gift for me will not go neglected.”
Just then, the stones blocking the exit crumbled away, showing a stairway out of the room. Yukan went up the staircase, just as dark as the tunnel that led him to this room. Once he reached the top, he saw Ite and Kadaina waiting for him on separate tree stumps.
“Yukan!” Ite cried out as she ran toward Yukan, holding her boyfriend in a warm embrace, with Yukan holding onto her as she gently cried. “Thank God you’re alright. Don’t you ever do that again.”
“I guess I should have given you all a heads up,” Yukan remarked. “I’d thought that it was the way out since Kashikoi told me about it.”
“Wait, Kashikoi told you to jump into a bottomless pit?” Kadaina interjected as he went to grab their horses from the front of Kashikoi’s house, trying to avoid being seen by the guards posted at the tunnel.
“Well, his exact words were ‘Take an immediate right and brace yourself’,” the newfound wielder of the Omega Blade added as he mounted his house.
“So I guess that’s what you got the sword from,” Kadaina remarked as he removed the lead from his and Yukan’s horse.
“Yeah, what’s the story behind that?” Ite chimed in as she removed the lead from her own steed.
“It’s a bit of a long story,” Yukan replied as Kadaina got onto his mount. “Let’s move out first and I’ll tell you all on the way.”
The trio continued on their way to Acophis with a newfound hope in the form of the long-lost Omega Blade. Little did they know, this sword was what endangered them to begin with.