Calm returned. Tension disappeared. Everyone prepared, but unneeded. The distant rumbling ceased. A little uncertainty still existed; the silence meant it was over. But it didn’t last for long.
Chiharu appeared back with the group, who all waited on news of Seiji and Nerine’s battle. “They won. They’ll be heading back soon,” she reported. She could see relief passing through everyone. Chatter already started up. None of it interested her. She turned to look in the direction of Seiji’s battlefield. ‘Were you able to overcome your fear?’
A few minutes' wait was all they had before Seiji and Nerine appeared through the night haze. Despite his fully healed appearance, the fatigue was clear in his eyes. The fight exhausted him in a way none of the other fights had. “I’m back!” he shouted, nonchalantly brushing the whole experience off as if it was nothing.
Yumi ran out along with Saki to check on them. “Are you badly hurt?” Yumi asked, trying to look over his body with only the moonlight.
“Made it back in one piece, I see,” commented Saki, covering up her relief. She worked hard to maintain her annoyed expression to keep up the façade.
Laughing a little out of awkwardness, Seiji remembered all of the things that happened to him during the fight. “Well there might be a piece of me back there still, but Nerine fixed me up good!” He patted her on the back lightly.
Unfortunately, Nerine’s injuries were still not recovered like Seiji’s. She staggered forward from his hit, only to collapse to the ground immediately. Blood splattered out from her countless wounds.
Seiji was the first to act. “Nerine!” He grabbed her up to check on her. She breathed heavily, having trouble keeping focused. “Why didn’t you tell me dammit?!” The closer view of her made him see how many wounds she took from the fight. Her uniforms torn to shreds barely seemed to be holding together. Blood soaked through the majority of the white appearing as if she wore a red uniform.
The longer he stared at her the more he cursed his blindness. ‘I forgot that she wasn’t like the rest of us. She has a normal body. Damn, why was I so blind!’ He turned up to look for Yuki. He knew that he would be able to fix her up, but naturally, Yuki wasn’t with them. Anyone, someone in their group had to be able to do something for her.
He stood up carrying Nerine with him. Without Yuki, his eyes searched through the group. “Fumiko, you!” He immediately charged in front of her. “You’ve got magical powers or something, right!”
Fumiko stared at Seiji for a moment, as she already knew what he wanted from her. “I have offensive magic. I don’t have healing magic.”
“What the hell use are you?! You’re supposed to be one of those mage-thingies from those RPGs right!”
Her face immediately went flat in disbelief and some annoyance. “I’m not some video game character!”
“Why the hell not? She needs healing!”
She needed some distance. Seiji kept pushing in closer with more of a demanding look in each step. “Seiji!” Fumiko slapped him hard to try to snap him out of his hysterics, however it still felt more painful for her. ‘Damn his tough body.’ It seemed to work a little as it stopped Seiji from pressing closer. “None of us here have that ability, but I don’t think she looks to be in a life-threatening condition. All of the adrenaline finally wore off and caught up to her. We’ll patch her up, she’ll just have to recover until we find someone that can help her.”
“But—“
Nerine lifted her head up. She tried to speak, but it only came out in Atlantean. Enough shouting by her forced them all to look at her. Unfortunately, speaking in Atlantean left them all confused.
Seiji looked over at Yumi. “What’s she saying?”
Surprise caught Yumi’s face. “I don’t know, I don’t speak her language.”
“Sure you do! You were before!”
“Huh? When?”
“Don’t both of you, Seiji,” interrupted Fumiko. “She’s not going to be of help.”
“Eh?”
“English?” asked Simonides in English. He saw how the language barrier blocked any hopes of communication. Unfortunately, he didn’t know Japanese. It wasn’t one of the languages for the South Gate recommendations.
Yori stepped forward, finally feeling like he had something useful to do. “I can speak a little English,” he replied in rough English as well.
A quick conversation played out between the two men. Even in English, neither being perfect, finding the necessary words made them struggle. Yori had words he didn’t understand from Simonides. Simonides seemed to be also finding it difficult to pick English words to explain him. Only a rough primitive dialogue seemed possible. A lot of gesturing went on between them explaining the more complex ideas that their vocabulary lacked.
“I think I understand the gist of it,” began Yori, returning to the group. “He said that Nerine should be able to use her power to make some medical supplies to help with the injuries, but her strength is weak. She’s only got enough in her for one more attempt to use her powers.”
The news excited Seiji. He immediately jumped over to Yori ignoring everyone else. “Really?! That’s what she said?”
“Best that I can tell from talking with him.”
“Well let’s get started!” Seiji looked around at everyone and then Nerine. He didn’t know what he needed to do. He just stood there holding Nerine waiting for something to happen.
Yumi stepped in, poking his shoulder. “You should probably set her down first.”
Chapter 238 – Arrival
Quiet. Unnaturally so. Something had to be wrong. It just had to be wrong. It only made sense. It couldn’t possibly be. The same thoughts ran through on repeat like a tape stuck with the rewind button held down.
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It was how it was. Yuki just had to accept the fact that it was actually going to be easier. The struggle they had with escaping the Omega soldiers made it seem like they walked into a trap. However, Ayumi seemed very confident. He trusted her, but it just didn’t seem like it should be like this. Honestly, if it was following proper story development, there should be a massive showdown with all of the opposing forces all spread out in front of the city’s walls. The heroes should be struggling and crawling to reach the city and only after a long, hard won battle make it to their destination. It was just too easy.
Such a terrible story.
Yuki could see the Capital staring at them. For hours now, he watched it grow larger and larger. Previously, he only saw a massive spire and then a couple of other larger structures. One of them looked grand, even from a distance it seemed to shine with a special sort of beauty that shouldn’t be able to exist in the world yet it still did. The impossible beauty of it made him only want to stare longer at it. Yuki realized the more he saw of the Atlantean Capital how much their power had to have shaped it.
In the last couple of hours, he saw a massive pale white, maybe off-white, maybe gray, maybe dirty white (Yuki was still uncertain what sort of white it was, it was not dark or pure, but it was not average either). The white he realized in the last few minutes belonged to a wall. Then he realized all the white he saw before seemed to go on forever as that wall. The size of the city quickly became something too large for his head to really get wrapped around it.
He always imagined it being some fantasy city out of the books he read. A great city stretching up to the sky built out of a mountain. Maybe a massive lake sat at the center of the city with beautiful marble structures played out around it. It could be a multi-tier city built up on a wide hill. The castle sat at the top overlooking everything and even from outside could be seen. It would be fantastic and beyond imagining, but still small. He didn’t know why he thought it, but he just assumed the Capital to be small. It had maybe a few thousands or tens of thousands, nothing more. Maybe his hobby ruined his expectations.
None of the expectations could equal what he saw. It was the Capital, but it was no town or village. The village of Skoupa would have fit on top of the wall it seemed. No, even to call it a city seemed not to do it an accurate justice. It was a metropolis, a massive ancient city kilometers and kilometers in length. Millions of Atlanteans had to live inside.
The true read of the size came to him when he discovered from Ayumi that they were still an hour walk away. “Unbelievable…” he said, staring still.
“Hey, focus!” snapped Ayumi, grabbing his wrist to get his attention.
“Oh, right! I’m sorry.” He had to maintain his concentration. Using his powers certainly was a lot easier for him now that they felt more like an extension of him rather than something added on to him like some mysterious technology that activated an ancient power from a long dead civilization that needed a full series to truly understand its potential. The reason he needed to focus was because he kept them hidden.
Using his power, he made a bubble around them that allowed them to keep talking, but their voices would never leave beyond. The more important part was that it made them invisible to the outside. Anyone too close would have discovered them, but at a distance nothing would have been off. None of the scouts would be able to find them.
It bothered him that they just walked up to the front door and walked in. It didn’t feel right, even though he knew why. “So we’re just going through the front?”
“No, that’s the reason I have you keeping us hidden.” Ayumi suddenly changed their course away from the straight-line path to the Capital’s wall. She motioned over to him to follow.
Now curious, Yuki followed Ayumi wondering what she had planned for them. “I just thought it was another test you were giving me to keep myself flexible with my powers.”
“What?” She looked back at him for a moment. Shaking her head, she kept moving forward. “No, your powers are already more than enough.”
“Ok.” But it didn’t answer his curiosity. He hurried a little to catch up to her. “So why are we not moving towards the Capital anymore?”
“Because we aren’t going through the Main Gate. They have security measures in place to identify anyone going through, even hidden like we are.” Ayumi came to a stop. She turned around as though in search of something. It took her a few moments to scan the area before she moved on.
Immediately, Yuki’s mind started stirring up ideas. The first to jump to him came out of his mouth. “A secret passage!”
“Corre—“
“All castles and royal families have secret passages. I bet they run through the whole city. Some ancient labyrinth underneath the city from a long forgotten civilization. If you stray from the correct path you’ll become lost and never able to find your way out as there are secret powers at work to keep unwanted guests from passing through. I bet there are even monsters down there, giant minotaur’s and dragons, maybe even—“
“Will you shut up!” she yelled, breaking her normally characteristically stoic controlled voice.
“Sorry.” Yuki looked away, not wanting to see her staring at him. The daggers from her eyes were painful enough. It felt like she wanted to punch him for speaking.
Silence returned for Ayumi, something she greatly enjoyed. She finished her search after another moment, finally able to think straight. It was all she needed to find what she sought. A few minutes of following a strange path through a forest put them at the destination. “We’re here.”
“Huh?” It was nothing. He jumped around all over the place in search of the secret passage. He made use of all of his knowledge (from his light novels, manga and anime) for the switch that would open up the entrance to the stairs. It had to be obvious and hidden. He knew he could find it. It would be something that should stand out to him. Yet there was nothing. It was just a forest, completely random with no markers or any signs that anyone traveled through it.
Yuki realized it could be even a switch. It had to be just a chain or handle to pull up. He scrambled over the grass with a fine precision. His hands ran through the grass and dirt. Time had to have buried it. It was just under the surface. It had to be. It only made sense.
Ayumi allowed him his time. He seemed heavily engrossed in it. Even when she did try to say something, he just waved her off. So she waited until he seemed less focused. “What are you doing?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” He stared over at Ayumi with excitement glowing brightly in his eyes. However, his enthusiasm didn’t seem to transfer to her. Yuki didn’t really see her looking completely blank faced at him. “It’s a secret passage, so there must be a switch or lever or handle, something that opens it up! I’ve always wanted to find something like this! So don’t tell me the secret! I want to figure it out on my own!”
Crossing her arms, she couldn’t believe what she heard from him. He looked like a kid hyped up on sugar and just finished watching his favorite super sentai show feeling the need to go act out the whole thing in the front yard (oddly specific, especially for Ayumi). The longer she watched him the more painful it became. Her hand rolled over her face in exasperation. A sigh soon followed, naturally. “Yuki—“
“No, hints!”
“You’re wasting time. It’s—“
His hand went up again to stop her. “I’ll figure this out!”
“I need to use my power—“
“Of course!” Yuki jumped up at his epiphany. “I was approaching this from the completely wrong angle! You would use your powers to open it! You wouldn’t want just anyone using it. It all makes sense!” He kept nodding to him in agreement. Any idea popped in his head on how to solve the puzzle.
Ayumi immediately recognized the look in his eyes. She leapt off to him, quickly slapping him. “Stop now! If you turn off your power you’ll expose us!”
“Ow, Ayumi that hurt.” He stepped back a step catching the deadly serious glare she leveled at him. “You know if you hit me too hard it’d do that same thing.” The comment he slid earned him another even more menacing glare.
Finally, she seemed to have his attention. “Yes, you’re right that it can only be opened through our power. Which is why I’m going to do it. I know where it is. So when I give you the signal, drop your Field. Do you understand?”
He nodded to her. “Yes.” Ayumi’s look cut through all of the excitement and antics of Yuki. He quickly understood he had to be serious again. Following her lead, he waited for the signal. Once she was ready, she activated her Field and his dropped soon after. It might have been brief, but they shouldn’t have been visible for long.
The difference in their Fields was that Ayumi’s cut into the earth. A perfect sphere carved out the ground below them. An anti-gravity Addendum kept them from falling endlessly through the earth. She lowered them down slowly until dirt and earth changed to stone. The stone soon appeared as smoothly polished and carved, a manmade structure.
Ayumi dropped her Field once they cleared the ceiling. They fell the rest of the distance of half a meter to the floor. “We’re inside the Capital now.”
It was just a tunnel to Yuki. He looked behind him at the ‘entrance’ to see it all just caved in with stone and earth. It looked like it had been like that for years or even centuries. “That’s not an entrance at all, it’s just a cave-in! There’s nothing special about this!”
Her eyes lowered in annoyance again. “Is that all that matters to you?”
Pouting, Yuki walked on ahead. He refused to answer someone that didn’t understand the enjoyment of such things. ‘Fumiko would understand. I wish she was here. She’d get excited.’ The length of the tunnel seemed really straightforward. It turned frequently, but there were no forks or traps. Just a simple path.
Yuki was really bored.
Until he left the tunnel at least. He stopped at the exit staring wide-eyed. “I didn’t expect this…” Yuki kept staring trying to take it all in. A couple of people in ragged clothes passed by him, then a few more. They were in a street, an underground street. Houses were everywhere packed in tightly like they were the only thing holding up the ceiling that pressed on upon them. Ahead, the street fell as the whole area sank like a basin. The further he looked the more of the subterranean city he saw. A lot of structures blocked his full view, but he walked slowly out into the city to get more and more of a picture.
He reached a balcony on the side of the street that was built on top of another building underneath it. It all stretched out endlessly it seemed. Then he understood the street he walked on was the roof of someone’s home. Support pillars ran through the entire space. He kept finding more and more people too. All of them dressed poorly.
Ayumi stepped up next to Yuki’s right side. “Welcome to the Capital.”