It all occurred to him now. Present tense.

Five years had passed and yet he was indifferent in his mind.

"Wan! Look out!" Takira aimed her sword, balancing it between both hands. "Behind you!"

A gâgun pounced out of the shadows, lethal claws and fangs ready to strike. Despite its element of surprise, Wan thrust his glaive at the feral beast.

He remembered a page from a bestiary book he had read a week ago.

"Gâguns," the author had stated, "are creatures born out of darkness. They take on the form of a shadow wolf. It is usually common to find them prowling around at night. Although they pose little risk to humans, their ethereal bodies can administer physical attacks. That means you'll feel the pain throbbing in your body even if you haven't actually been bitten or scratched."

The creature vanished out of view, transforming into a shapeless mass of plasmic shadows diffusing into the cool nocturnal breeze. Wan smiled proudly. Akaminé weapons were typically tipped with enchantments that are lethal to demonic entities. His glaive and Takira's sword were imbued with Light of the Unforgiven, capable of dispelling dark elemental forces with ease.

"Another one!" Takira alerted.

Wan swung the glaive in a 45-degree arc, chopping another gâgun in half, midair.

As retaliation to killing one of their brethren, a whole pack of gâguns were attracted by the noise.

"Where are these coming from?" Wan inquired, wrestling a third wolf, blade against claw. "Is it THAT common for them to spawn out of darkness?"

"Don't know," Takira answered, busy with swinging her sword at two more wolves. Her arms weren't trained to use heavy weapons, sadly. "Don't think so, either. We'll ask Master Hamadaw when we return back."

Takira blocked a blow from a gâgun that came gliding with the wind.

"Alright, Taki. This way!" Wan gestured to ask her to follow him.

He led her through the village, retracing their steps back to the marketplace – the same market where the ill incidents had originated half a decade ago. His vision was corrupt from the memories of his past flooding the environment randomly. All the houses were in shambles. Sakura trees reduced to stumps. Was this truly the world now?

His sweet childhood, his past, everyone's previous life then. It only seemed like he was there yesterday running free, playing around, not listening to his mother.

More and more shadowy gâguns donated themselves into the chase right behind him and Takira.

From the depths of the pocket of memories he stashed in his mind, he plucked a leaf of knowledge. He remembered a hiding spot.

'Before that, I need to get rid of these insects,' Wan thought to himself. Without hesitation, he stopped and massacred half the numbers of the wolf monsters. The remainders scattered and scrammed out of their instincts of survival.

They seemed easy prey for now, but he anticipated drawbacks to stick out soon. His attacks would grow weaker as the night progressed closer towards midnight. Soon, if he wasn't careful, their weapons' enchantments would be nullified by the gâguns completely.

He prioritized escaping out of Yafloria over asserting dominance over those wild monsters.

What he seeked was situated at the end of Yafloria Village, behind the last hamlet. A tree, still untouched by the blight.

"Wan! Where are you headed? That is a tree! How can we hide there?"

"Just remain calm…" Wan slowed down as he approached the forsaken tree. He revealed a wooden key from one of his robe's pockets. "And trust me."

The gâguns lost their trail. But not for long, he knew.

By the aid of the natural lunar illumination, he searched around for a hidden groove inset in the bark of the tree. He inserted the key once he found it. Within moments, a mechanism sprung to life and a section of the tree's bark opened outwards; a camouflaged door.

Takira simply stood there, too awed to comment anything.

"Here," Wan guided Takira. "Down there."

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Wan helped her climb down the trunk, before shutting the door behind him.

A world of darkness thrived under the tree's roots. One of the Akaminé agents previously built a base for their operations this far west from the Kingdom's center. By hollowing out a cavern beneath an especially resistant sakura tree, they had anchored a holding onto this village. Wan luckily remembered its exact location.

"It's too dark," Takira complained.

"Hold on! I know the spell for producing artificial light," Wan ordered his brain to remember. "Ignitus!"

A droplet of fire erupted from his finger and freely whizzed past his ears to land at a tiny chandelier behind him.

"You call THAT the spell of illumination?!" Takira giggled. "That's the wrong spell, Wan. But anyways, it worked."

"What do you mean it's the 'wrong' spell? I learnt it straight off the —"

"—wrong page of the Book of Alteration," she finished his sentence for him. "Oh, Wan, you sometimes behave so naïve."

"Hmm," the comment barely scratched his self-esteem. Besides, she was correct, he knew.

Wan took his time taking a look around the interior chamber of the tree. It was once an archive lockup for storing important documents between emissaries. It used to be. Now all that remained of it were some empty drawers engraved into the walls of hard-packed earth and wood.

Even the miniature chandelier held a limited number of candles.

'Wait… those candles,' Wan noticed something odd. He peered over the level of the chandelier. Something troubled him.

"What's wrong, Wan?" Takira bought the hint that he discovered something strange yet again.

"The candles…" this time, he spoke the words out rather than letting them echo in his mindscape.

"What about them?" Takira walked closer.

"I carefully check them everytime I enter this tree lodge," he counted them again, unsure if his eyes were being fooled. "As far as I remember, there were eighteen candles. Now there are only sixteen."

Takira blinked twice in silence, not getting any of this.

"What do you mean? What's the puzzling fact about it?"

Wan turned to face her, a fog od worry hovering over his face.

"Only a selected few knew about this hideout. Which means…"

Wan stepped back from the chandelier before chanting out a spell.

"Erv Vanglailis!"

A powdery burst of energy spawned into the chamber, creating an effect similar to a smoke bomb.

Wan and Takira coughed and waited for the smokescreen to fade away.

"Wan, you idiot! Wrong spell again!" Takira blamed him. "Just tell me what kind of spell you need."

"Clairvoyance," Wan coughed out the final remnants of the smoky substance. "Clairvoyance with identification, please."

"Alright," she sipped air in a deep breath. "Rasta Dekhao!"

A jet of electric-blue energy swirled about the enclosed space. Almost like a living being, it delicately flew across the chamber before navigating its path to the chandelier. It hovered and spun around it, orbiting while accelerating. It disappeared without displaying any further results.

"Huh?" Takira seemed confused about the outcome. "It… It was supposed to show the path of the last person who entered this place before us. I don't understand why the spell didn't work."

"But I do," Wan picked one of the candles up, noting the reduction in its wax body since the last time he had lit them. "Someone highly skilled had masked his footmarks really well," he faced Takira to know if she was picking up on the pace of understanding. "Or should I say, 'her' footsteps."

Takira gasped.

"No way!"

"I know it's unbelievable, but I think it's the case. No other explanation for it."

Takira's eyes sparkled with tears. Tears of joy.

"Miyumi Rakken… is alive?!"

Wan nodded.

Miyumi had been Takira's best friend since birth. So was she one of Wan's friends. Over the past handful of years, Miyumi had suddenly gone missing ever since she was assigned an expedition to spy on the Alkynes, another anti-demon faction like the Akaminé.

None knew her whereabouts save the elite few at the Akaminé headquarters. But they refused to spill the beans for some reason.

"Assuming it's her, Miyumi has left clues to follow and find her," Wan switched his focus and inspected the room. "So don't worry. We don't need magic to track her down. Or maybe she willingly doesn't want to be tracked."

Wan approached an empty deck of drawers and slid his hand inside, thrifting through cobwebs and dust. He expected to find nothing, but his hand grazed past a broken piece of a non-existent drawer. He pulled it out.

"We're seeing nothing because we aren't clearly looking," he turned the plank upside-down to reveal a paper attached to the side with wax. "So this is where the extra candles were expended, eh?"

"What's that?" Takira tilted her head to adjust with the angle at which Wan held the plank. It was an envelope.

"It's just a hunch but," Wan escorted his opinion. "This might actually be the key to not just locating Miyumi but also finding our parents."