Tullian reeled from the shockwave caused by the leviathan falling over. It fell to the side it was leaning the most to, which was where Rai was fighting it from. Tullian knew that Rai wouldn’t have been hit by such a slow falling behemoth, so he looked over at the opposite side of what was left of the reservoir.
Tullian saw that Rai was holding Sin up like a baby. They both stared at the fallen leviathan, almost in shock.
They... they did it... was there even any point for the rest of us to be here? No... we all contributed in some way. My arrow bought Sindyl space, and the others protected me and each other throughout the fight while I looked for angles... I just couldn’t find any other than the one that Rai pointed out! FUCK!
Tullian was furious with himself more than anything. From how he acted before, to how useless he felt.
For all I claim to be a great archer... I needed help from someone else...
“You all seem to be a little tired!” Sapphire yelled as she stared down at Tullian.
“Why don’t you rest a little while we explain the results!” Ruby said.
“We’ll also have a little chat about the grievances you all have. Perhaps that way, you won’t react like children in a heated situation again.” Kallad said. His voice boomed throughout the area.
Then, he snapped his fingers.
They’d all been teleported away from the leviathan, and back to the start of the island.
Tullian watched as everyone came to the realisation that they’d succeeded. They celebrated the kill with each other. On most of their faces, there was surprise. Surprise that they were able to do such an amazing thing. For Feris and Hiron, however, there wasn’t much but a gentle smugness.
I don’t know why he’s smiling... Hiron cut up like 2 tentacles and that was it!
*Clap. Clap. Clap.*
Kallad walked over to them as he clapped slowly.
“I will admit... I didn’t expect you all to actually kill it.” He said.
“Huh?! Why’d you put it there if you didn’t?...” Sin asked.
Kallad shook his head.
“That wasn’t up to me. That was decided by my ‘two gems’.”
“Wha... oh you psychos!” Sin shouted up at the two gems.
They stuck their tongues out at her.
Sin pouted.
“This whooole thing feels like something Kallad would do, and you’re telling me that those two were the ones to set ALL of this up?! That’s insane...” Rai said.
“First of all, yes it is insane. Second of all, I would have done this much better. Do you really think so little of me Rai?” Kallad asked.
“Yes. I do. Definitely.”
Sin laughed as Rai teased her father.
“Right. For the record, there were contingencies in place for if any of you came close to death, but we were fortunate that no one was close to that point.” Kallad said.
Amy was anxious about what happened earlier, but anger seeped into her spirit as Kallad spoke those words. Normally, Amy wouldn’t dare speak up to an Aspect, but now...
“What? What did you just say?! Maya was literally dying! Where was your contingency then?!”
Kallad stared at the girl. She was trembling. Anxious. But she was still standing up and asking the questions she thought mattered the most. Kallad mentally commended her for doing so, especially when it was up against an Aspect.
“Did her heart stop?” Kallad asked.
“... Huh?”
“I asked you, did her heart stop?”
Amy looked at Maya, searching for an answer. Maya shrugged.
“I... don’t know.”
“Of course not. You didn’t check before you healed her. Which is fine, but if you had done that, then you’d know that her heart was still beating. If you have a heartbeat, then you’re still alive. Our contingency activates when one of your hearts stops beating. On the off chance that you were beheaded or something stupid like that, then I could’ve easily saved you. I give you my word as an Aspect.”
Amy looked like she didn’t accept that answer, but she didn’t say anything further.
Tullian, however, was amazed. His understanding of Aspects was different. He knew that they were powerful, but most of that power he’d expected to come in the form of combat capability. Not in the form of healing, especially in Kallad’s case.
Kallad seemed to recognise Tullian’s amazement. He winked at Tullian.
“Aspect’s secret.”
Tullian audibly gulped.
Kallad then paced around a little while seeming to think about something. There were a lot of things that he clearly wanted to talk about.
“Okay. Before we talk about the results, I would like to address the elephant in the room.”
Everyone paid attention. Though, very few of them even knew what elephants were.
“Sin, Tullian.”
They listened.
“...”
What, he’s not gonna tell us what to do?
“What, you expected me to tell you what to do? Sort it out, like I said. Go on.” Kallad said with a shooing motion.
Oh. I see.
“There’s nothing to say.” Tullian said. He seemed resolute in his words.
Sin had nothing to say either. Now that Tullian knew, there was little she could do about it.
But the others...
“Will... will you tell us? Eventually, at least?” Amy asked.
Sin shook her head. “This time, I can’t. There’s too much at stake for me to risk it. But I need you all to understand that just it’s not because I can’t trust you, it’s that me telling you would end up hurting you all more than not saying. It’s... complicated like that.”
“Then... it’s fine. Knowing that you’re doing this out of care for us makes up for it. But... it won’t change my curiosity, hehe.” Amy said.
“What about you guys?” Sin asked everyone else.
“Knowing you... you’re gonna work your prissy ass off to improve your control anyway, so I couldn’t give 2 shits about that technique.”
Sin smiled at Feris. He proved himself to be far more empathetic than she realised. Even taking care to buy her space when she was being clustered around.
“Don’t care.” Hiron said.
Maya shrugged. “Me neither. You saved us already. I don’t need to care what spell you used to do it.”
Lina took a deep breath. “I’m with M-m-m-maya. The spell was scary but... I think techniques should be private, no matter what happens.”
Rai shot Sin a soft smile without saying anything.
“Alright. That’ll do. You’re all so boring that I genuinely couldn’t care anymore.” Kallad yawned. “We’re going to talk about the results now. Right. Ruby, Sapphire, pull up the board please!” Kallad pointed to his left in a dramatic pose, waiting for the board to appear.
Ruby giggled. She looked at Sapphire, who shared the same expression.
They both clapped their hands twice together.
The board with the bunch of numbers appeared to Kallad’s right.
Leadership Points Duel Wins Kills Assists Rai 25 0/0 6 1 Sindyl 5 0/0 143 8 Tullian 2 1/1 5 5 Amy 5 0/0 3 3 Lina 3 0/0 2 137 Maya 0 0/0 8 1 Feris 0 1/1 4 6 Hiron 0 0/1 3 1
Kallad kept pointing to his left, wondering when the board would appear. In fact, he was certain that it would appear any moment now.
Aaaany moment.
*Pfft*
Kallad heard the snickers, but he refused to believe that the board wouldn’t have appeared yet. Maybe his daughters were just playing a-
“Uh... Sir... Pfft. Uhm-... it’s on the... oth-... PAHAHA! YOU LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT!” Ruby cried.
She burst out into laughter. Sapphire couldn’t stop giggling to herself. Sin leaned her face against Rai’s shoulder as she laughed, to avoid her face being seen. Rai couldn’t hold it in either.
The others, however, were far too cautious of angering an Aspect to laugh at him, which was Kallad’s only saving grace.
Kallad stood up and straightened his tie.
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“Ahem. So, as you can see, the results are here!” He pointed to his right. Kallad conveniently ignored everything that had just happened and swiftly moved on. “The stats that have the most weighting were your leadership points and your duels. If you duelled someone else, then it would’ve taken away from your leadership points. For each duel, you’d lose 2 leadership points, so Tullian you have, effectively, no L.P.”
Tullian stared at the board. Other than Sindyl, Maya had the second highest kill count, with Rai coming in at third. But Tullian had no idea what monsters Rai ended up killing, since he’d only joined the rest of the group towards the end. In fact, no one there knew what Rai had gone through to gain such an extraordinary amount of leadership points.
“H-... how do I have so many assists?” Lina asked.
“You healed Sin just before she ‘lost it’ and destroyed the treant forest.”
“Ah.”
“And how does Rai have so many leadership points?” Sin asked. She probably would’ve won if Rai didn’t have so many.
“Well... he uh... did a lot.”
“No shit dad. What did he do exactly?”
Rai wanted to explain for himself, but Kallad slightly shook his head at him upon realising Rai’s intention.
“Rai led a group of monsters against another group of monsters. That is all you will need to know.”
“He WHAT?!”
Sin was flabbergasted.
Everyone present was amazed. None of the society members could’ve imagined someone doing something so unbelievably stupid.
“The FUCK?! WHY?” Sin asked Rai, a little louder than one would normally speak.
“For life. That’s why.” He replied resolutely.
Sin felt like Rai had just dropped a massive fireball nuke on her with such a small amount of words.
“I... don’t get it... Can you explain a bit more?” Sin asked. She sounded surprised still, but she clearly wanted to know more.
Rai glanced at Kallad quickly, who seemed apprehensive at first, but eventually nodded in response.
“Basically, I didn’t like how they were being treated so I saved them. I even... lost some. I fought for my love of life, and that’s all I could’ve done in that situation.”
Sin looked at Rai with a kind of admiration that she hadn’t quite felt before. It was not just a shallow respect for his skills or his techniques, or even his beauty. This ran far deeper than that.
Rai loved life.
And Sin so deeply respected that part of him that her love for him ever grew.
“... I see... that’s really cool.” Sin said. She blushed slightly.
“OKAY! Now let’s talk shop.”
Kallad was about to snap his fingers, when Rai shouted “WAIT!”
“Huh? What now Rai?”
“The leviathan... what are you going to do with its body?”
Kallad stared at Rai.
“I planned to leave it there.”
“Can I have it?”
“What?”
“Can I have it?”
“No, I heard you the first time... I’m just amazed that you’d even ask that. You didn’t kill it Rai, Sin did.”
“Can Sin have it then?”
“Eh? Why am I being dragged into this? I don’t want it!” Sin said.
“Cool, can I have it then?”
“Why do you want it so bad?” She asked.
“Because of what Aunt Elly taught me.”
“Right... then Rai can have it, dad.” Sin said to her father.
“...”
“...”
“Can I have it?”
“... Okay fine you can have it.”
“Thanks!”
Rai had been in Stormflow this entire time without realising it and no one present had the heart to tell him.
His mastery over his technique had grown to the point that he could instinctively slow down his perception back to normal in the moments someone talked, and sped it back up once the conversation was done. In fact, Rai did it so naturally that he didn’t even realise it.
Rai took two steps in the direction of the reservoir before a force raised him into the air and stopped him.
“You can have it after I’m done speaking, Rai.” Kallad said.
“Ah. Right. Sorry.”
Kallad set Rai back down where he was before. The others all didn’t care much for the monster’s corpse, which Kallad thought was a waste. Well, it’s not like they deserved the loot anyway. Rai and Sin clearly did the most work to kill the damn thing.
“Alright. The winner of your tournament is Rai. He’s your leader now.”
They all stared at Kallad.
The general vibe of the group told Kallad that they all found his announcement to be rather anticlimactic, and very poorly timed considering everything that’d happened up until now. He didn’t even build it up, he just said it like that.
Due to all of these compounding factors, the reaction of the group was relatively lukewarm.
Normally, they would’ve protested the decision, but since the tournament made it clear who could take charge in moments of extreme pressure, none of the group really disagreed with it.
Sin really wanted to win, but even she had to admit that Rai played a pivotal part in bringing them all together to fight in the end.
“What does that mean for me?” Rai asked Kallad.
Kallad stared at Rai, deadpan.
“No clue. It’s your school, your society. Figure it out yourself.”
“Eh? That’s not very helpful.”
Kallad smiled wide at Rai. He looked smug.
“It’s not meant to be.” He said. He turned to the rest of the group. “For the rest of you, as much as this wasn’t what any of you expected, this was probably the best way to decide who should lead. You were thrown into a high pressure situation where you had to work as a team to increase your odds of surviving. Now, I’ll send you back. You can make your way home from the Secret.”
Kallad snapped his fingers, opening a portal where they stood. Unlike many other portals that they’d all seen before, this one had a clear view of the other side. It was different to the one Kallad used before the tournament began.
Through the portal, they saw the training ground in the Secret’s basement. Mr. Guard stood beside the lift, waiting for them.
The group looked at each other, and then back at Rai and Sin.
“We’ll... see you in school.” Tullian said. He walked through the portal.
Amy gave them a soft smile. “Please just... remember that we’re still friends! Just because we didn’t see eye to eye on that one issue... doesn’t mean... uh... yeah... I hope you get what I mean!” She floundered for a second, then went through the portal.
Maya gently fist bumped Sin’s shoulder. “We’re good, me and you, Princess. Thanks for saving me, twice!”
Sin nodded as she watched Maya turn and leave through the portal.
Lina looked around awkwardly. She noticed that everyone said something before leaving and now she wanted to say something, but she didn’t really know what to say.
Instead, she just bowed. “Thank you.” Then the words just flowed naturally. “I wasn’t happy that you hurt us, but I understand why you can’t say anything. I hope you can learn to control it all the time, then we won’t have to worry!” She quickly hugged Sin and left before her mind told her off for doing so.
“Whew. Alright Princess. I’ll admit that you’re strong. And you, lightning freak! You’re both good enough to be a part of my society! Take that as a blessing, pissants!” Feris yelled. He grumpily stomped his way through the portal.
Hiron walked up to the portal, but he looked back for a second. He made eye contact with both Rai and Sin, then left silently. He didn’t care for this whole thing to begin with, but he’d taken part now and if Hiron was honest with himself... he had fun. He’d never gotten to see a monster as large as the leviathan before in his life, and now he’d gained the experience of facing even a young leviathan. Though, he still didn’t do much.
The portal closed.
Relief washed over Rai and Sin.
Sin crashed to the floor. She flopped over and laid down on the grass.
“You stink of leviathan blood.” Rai said as he fell beside her.
“And you stink of piss.” Sin teased.
They laughed together.
Rai’d finally withdrawn Stormflow. It wasn’t a conscious decision for him to have held it that long in the first place, but given the circumstances... Rai had been in Stormflow for hours.
His body was now completely sore. Rai’s muscles felt strained, and he was very very tired.
Kallad crouched beside Rai. “You’ve got one more thing to do before you can rest, Rai.”
“Wh-... Wh-at w...ould that b-be Kallad?” Rai struggled to speak, since he was drifting in between passing out and forcing himself to stay awake.
Kallad waved his hand above Rai’s body. A warm red enveloping light surrounded him. He did the same for Sin.
They both felt their fatigue getting siphoned into a globule of tiredness, which momentarily kept itself off to the side while Rai and Sin rapidly gained energy again.
“It’ll last for about an hour. Let’s go see what kind of spoils you can get from that leviathan.”
Rai and Sin nodded. They pushed themselves back up to their feet with ease.
Kallad snapped his fingers, teleporting them all to the area beside the leviathan’s corpse.
Naam and Lilly had ditched their gem-like attire in favour of their standard uniforms. They followed behind quietly.
Rai and Sin looked at the behemoth before them.
Kallad smacked the side of the leviathan’s carapace.
“This was probably the smallest one I’ve ever seen, personally.”
Rai was shocked. “That’s the smallest? That thing?!”
Kallad looked at Rai blankly. He then stifled a giggle.
“You haven’t experienced much of the world Rai, so I wouldn’t expect you to have seen anything bigger than this.”
Rai stood in awe.
“Besides, the leviathan isn’t even the biggest sea creature. I haven’t seen many of the others myself, but I’ve read about them in some historical texts. Ahem. ANYWAY! Let’s get onto this. What exactly did you want from it?”
Rai shook his head to break free from his awe.
“Uh. Hmm. I noticed that the shell of the monster was insanely strong, so I was thinking about carving out a lot of it and storing it to be made into armour later.”
“Eh? Remind me, when did your aunt tell you about doing all this?”
“When I was 10.”
“She told you to loot monsters... when you were 10?”
“Yeah. She said that whenever I fight against a monster with an interesting body, or ability, that I should take it and use it for myself.”
Kallad’s jaw dropped. Naam and Lilly were just as stunned.
Sin just looked at them all funny.
“What’s so weird about that?” She asked them. Rai was just as confused. To him, this was basically second nature.
“Well... it’s not weird per se... in fact I think it’s impressive that you’re thinking resourcefully like that. I was just surprised to hear it come out of your mouth, to be completely honest. In that case, you can gather the spoils yourself.”
Rai grinned as he called Ghost forth.
He hopped up the leviathan’s body to find a large part of its carapace-like shell. Upon finding a large enough part of it to carve out, Rai did so.
Only... he was surprised at how easy it was to take apart.
Why is it so weak now?
Rai decided on a whim, to imbue a little bit of mana into the shell. He tried stabbing into the shell again, and this time Ghost bounced off the shell completely.
It responds to mana?! Wow... this’ll be really damn useful for me later then.
Rai spent some time carving out pieces of the shell and storing them in his seals.
Overall, he’d gathered enough to create a few sets of armour, if needs be.
Aunt Elly always said to get as much as you can and then a little bit more, just in case. My seals can carry a whole carriage’s worth of stuff, so I’ve got enough room for sure!
With a flash of lightning, Rai stored the piled up leviathan shell in his seals.
He hopped back down looking all satisfied.
“I think that’s about all I needed so I’m good to go!” Rai said.
“Alright, then le-”
“Wait...” Sin said, interrupting Kallad.
She noticed something. Something that would probably help her a lot.
Sin ran over to the mouth of the leviathan.
Rai and Kallad looked at each other, then shrugged. They followed her.
“What’d you find?” Rai asked her.
“Look... The teeth are really sharp right?”
“Yeah... what about it?”
“Hit one with Ghost please.”
“Eh? Sure, I guess...”
Rai obliged.
He swung Ghost as hard as he could at a nearby tooth.
*Chip*
“It... didn’t go all the way through?” Rai was amazed. The tooth chipped, but Ghost couldn’t slice through it so easily.
Sin smirked.
“I’ll take some of the shell, and some of these teeth as well.” She said.
Sin had a plan. She’d figured out a new way for her to fight from what happened during the battle. The way that Sin pushed the Queen’s Domain gave her some inspiration for a kind of... Dance of her own. She’d have to ask Jin for help though.
Rai smiled at her.
“You’ve got that look on your face.” He said.
“... Huh? What look?”
“That look you get when you’ve got an idea. Whenever that happens... you look a little bit crazy, like you’re really excited to try it out.”
“Hey! I’m not crazy!”
Rai got close, and whispered in her ear.
“I think it’s hot.”
Sin’s face immediately turned into a tomato. Or at least, it did so figuratively.
Kallad rolled his eyes. He didn’t know what Rai said, but now really wasn’t the time to be flirting. Their clock was ticking.
“Alright alright lovebirds, hurry up and gather what you want and let’s get going. It’ll be midnight when we get back, so I want you two in bed as soon as possible!”
“Yeah sure, dad.”
Kallad was definitely Sin’s dad, so he didn’t quite get why she put such an emphasis on the word.
Lilly and Naam giggled from behind him.
Kallad was stumped.
Wisely, however, he decided that investing any more mental energy on trying to figure it out was probably not the best investment choice he could make for the time being.
Sin quickly gathered what she wanted with the use of her Domain and her daggers, which she’d found thanks to the markers that she’d placed on them before and pried out of the leviathan’s side while Rai was gathering his stuff.
After about 20 minutes, they were both done gathering the stuff that they wanted, and were now ready to go home.
Kallad smiled at the two of them.
“Don’t forget to shower before you sleep. You both stink. And Sin you got blood all over you.”
Rai and Sin both blew raspberries at him as he opened another portal.
“I’ll be out in the evening tomorrow, so don’t look for me.” Kallad said.
“Wasn’t going to anyway.” Sin replied.
“Bit hurtful, but understandable. Sleep well.”
“Thanks Kallad!” Rai said.
They both walked through the portal after waving Kallad, Naam, and Lilly goodbye.
Kallad waited a minute for them to get into the lift and leave.
“So, what’d you think of our work?” Naam asked from behind him.
Kallad turned around to see his oldest daughters doing the silliest pose he could possibly imagine.
“It was... much better than whatever the hell that is.”
“Well... I wouldn’t disagree. Lilly we’ve gotta work on that.”
“Just like my goofy smile... I’ll add it to the list.” Lilly said seriously.
Kallad smiled at his daughters.
“... I’m leaving their growth to them now, by the way.” He said. There was a hint of sadness in his voice.
“Huh? But you just helped them here, so what does that even mean?” Naam asked.
“It means that I don’t have the ability to help them grow any more than I already have. The summit’s coming up, and I need contingencies... You two, will you be my main contingency?”
Lilly and Naam looked at each other before turning back to Kallad and agreeing to his proposition.
“Then... listen carefully...”
Naam and Lilly listened to their father’s plan.
It was a plan to save the light, in case night fell early.
----------------------------------------
“Kallad said that spell will last about an hour right?” Rai asked Sin.
“Yeah... we should shower and get in bed before it runs out. I think we have about half an hour left.”
“... Alright.”
*Ding*
Rai and Sin were exhausted.
Sin had dried leviathan’s blood all over her, on top of the fact that she was a complete mess. Rai was the same, just without the leviathan blood.
They were both in a torrid state.
Hence why they practically ran to their showers to clean themselves off once they got into the penthouse.
Once they’d showered, Rai and Sin met back up in the lounge area. They found each other in an embrace. They fell onto the sofa together. Rai kissed Sin.
There was only warmth exchanged between the two until they released their lips from the other’s.
“H-... How long left?” Rai asked.
“About a minute...”
“Not enough time for you to get back to bed upstairs right?”
Sin’s face warmed up.
“No... not enough time at all.”
“Then sleep with me.” Rai whispered.
“... You took your damn time to ask me.” Sin teased him with a giggle.
Rai and Sin went to Rai’s room, and got onto the bed together.
They hadn’t changed out of their comfort lounge clothes, but it didn’t change a thing.
Sin found comfort on Rai’s chest, and they laid together.
Time was ticking.
Sin looked up at him with a warm smile and a blushing face.
“Goodnight, sleep well.” She whispered.
Rai looked back at her with nothing but love in his heart. He kissed her forehead.
“You too.” He whispered back.
The spell wore off.
They both instantly fell unconscious in each other’s embrace.