I walked as I listened. Aurinko helped fill in the holes in his story, and gave me the facts as they really were rather than Pahaӓӓni’s skewed perspective. He also told me the story of the dimensional glass, because I had never heard of it.
In a time where all we could see was war and death, there was a way to escape. A glass that we could go through to a new place and we could be safe there. Well, when all of the wars continued and more people left to this new world, the enemies took the glass, and hid it, and then, they placed a powerful spell on it, so that only the best, and strongest, and most true of men could find it. We looked everywhere but couldn’t find it, so we could not escape. We fought, and we fought, but they were bigger, and stronger. But, we were smarter. We took all of their water and their food, and they couldn’t eat, so they became weak, and with all of the extra food, we became strong. We took all of their forts and we told them that they could be our slaves until they earned their freedom. Eventually, they earned it and were set free. We have still never found the dimensional glass to this day. Maybe you are the best of men, the strongest of men, and the most true of men.
Aurinko also informed me that Pahaӓӓni’s bullies did do all of that, but they also got in trouble for it, and they weren’t any more mean to him than any other kid that was different in any way, shape, or form. He was much more brutal than he said he was to.
Aurinko informed me that we were in the right place a half an hour after we finished Pahaӓӓni’s recording. I jumped back, right into a crowd of people. I heard screams as I inevitably lit someone on fire with my jump. People were drinking and having a good time, so most of them didn’t think anything of my strange appearance. I walked over to the steel sun, of which I was in the courtyard. I walked in and grabbed a glass of whiskey.
“A-Amaterasu?” yelled Cori in surprise as she walked into the room and saw me. “It can’t be. Your hair’s different, and your skin and-”
“It’s me, Cori.” I told her. She threw her arms around me and cried.
“We thought you were dead! Link will be so happy! He couldn’t shut up about you when you didn’t come back! We flew up yesterday and got word that they could see Pahaӓӓni’s dead body, but you were gone!” she finally just shut up and hugged me then.
“Cori, where the hell. . ? Amaterasu?” Link walked in and looked around, presumably for Cori when he found me holding her in my arms. He then ran in a b-line for me. He stopped a few feet away. “What happened to your armor? And your hair. And. . . just everything.” he asked as he inspected me.
“My body took on a fire aspect to save my life. And my armor was kind of destroyed in the battle.” I told him as I let Cori go. “I’ll go get it fixed, don’t worry about it.” he nodded at that and looked around as if on the lookout.
“Hey, how about you two catch up while I fill in everyone else.” Cori said as she walked away.
“. . . so. . . I heard that you wouldn’t shut up about me while I was gone.” I said to Link with nothing better to say.
He blushed. “Um. . . yeah, it’s not as bad as Cori made it seem, I’m sure, but I was worried about you.” he said.
“I’m sure.” I said. The conversation fell into awkward silence then. We looked at eachother and at our surroundings.
Suddenly Link kissed me. I was too surprised to act, so it just happened. As he pulled away he apologized.
“Sorry, I have always had a thing for red-heads.” he looked sheepish as he said it.
“It’s fine, and I would accept, but. . .”
“Yeah, savior of the multiverse and stuff. I get it. No worries.” Now the silence was more awkward than ever.
Five minutes later, Cori came back.
“Hey, guys, they want to see Amaterasu, all of them.” she said as she walked up and grabbed my arm pulling me away. I complied. She pulled me up to a stage where the band that was just up was playing music. They finished the song right as we got there. “Go tell your story!” she said after I didn’t go out on stage.
I walked out on stage and the crowd cheered for me. The attention was nice, but I didn’t need it. I needed to leave and meet up with the other dimensional weapons. Or, I find a more time sensitive matter. I made it quick.
“I killed a tyrant yesterday. He died at my hand because he had hope in a new world and he went to that new world. He took that world by force, yes, but that was how he was recognized in his world as a fellow human being. He was crazy, and went too far, and I will admit, he did need to die, but we shouldn’t praise the death of a man that just wanted to live a normal life because he was viewed as trash where he was from. If there was a prison that could have held him, then he would have gone there. Just because they kill doesn’t mean that they have to die, it just means that they shouldn’t be around people that they could potentially kill. Celebrate your freedom, but also mourn the loss of a man who had nothing, but died with everything.” I ended my speech there. I likely just lost a bunch of favor with most of them, but they needed to hear it.
“How do you know how he lived? Did you just make that up to sound profound?” asked Cori as I walked off of the stage.
I laughed. “Cori, I didn’t make up anything. I have a crystal from Pahaӓӓni that tells his whole life story. It’s sad, but he overreacted. I’m sure that if your bullies had magic powers you would probably be much less forgiving.”
She laughed and tucked a stray strand of hair in her face behind her ear. “Yah, you're probably right.” That was the end of the conversation until we got back to the steel sun, with seven glass towers finished and twelve more under construction. I looked up at them and smiled. That was a good way to deal with the dead, who saw and thought and were alive in every way but in body. “They look smaller then they are. They can each hold almost a hundred bodies. We need to repopulate the areas Pahaӓӓni took out. This won’t be the only place with glass towers, you can be sure of that, but this may be the main place for them.” she told me assuming my thoughts were about the numbers.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“That’s not it, it’s just. . . so many people joined the dimensionals. It just seems so. . . surreal. They believe, no matter how strange it is.” I told her my thoughts.
“Well, it’s not surprising. I joined, and I’ve been atheist all my life. How could you not believe when you see Amaterasu first hand.” she said smiling. “Most everyone in the rebellion is part of the dimensionals. The entire army and their families, mostly. That really makes up most of the rebellion though. Those that aren’t dimensionals haven’t so much as heard much more than that you have fire powers and you built the steel sun. that’s it. They don’t have the same perspective as those that have seen you in action. They see you as a fancy-”
“Scorchblood.” I told her the correct term for them. I got a quizzical look from her. “They’re called scorchbloods, water is a riverblood, stone is a groundsblood, plant is grassblood, healing is godsblood, and taking life from others is a demonsblood.” I told her all of the terms one by one.
“Uh. okay. Anyways, you’re amazing. And, the longer you stay, the more people will join. People like that whole, living masia thing.” she said as she turned to em and smiled. “We’ve got some stuff to go over too, like that gem-thing that Pahaӓӓni gave you, and what kind of government we should do, and-”
“Cori, I can’t stay.” I cut her off before she got too excited about all of the things we were going to do together. Her face fell. She looked like I had just broken her heart.
“But. . . you’re my only friend! And you’ve had such a huge impact on our lives! You can’t go now! You still have more to do! You can’t go! You can’t!” she was starting to cry. She jumped me and put her arms around my neck. “No. . .” she said in a tone that indicated lost hope.
“Link is a good kid, he can be everything he needs to. He’s similar enough to me now personality wise, plus, he’s a godsblood. You’ve got it good with him.” I told her as I patted her on the back.
“Link is great but. . .”
“I know.” I said as I pushed her away. “You’ll need to settle down at some point, and Link is single and ready to mingle.”
“I guess. Give me a few days before you expect me to start hitting on him, okay?” she said as she calmed down and started wiping tears from her puffy red eyes.
“A piece of advice, dye your hair red. Link has a thing for redheads.” she looked up at me with confusion written on her face as plainly as if with a marker.
“How do you know that? Are you just omnipotent or something?” she asked.
“No, Link kissed me, he said because of my hair change.” she smiled and shook her head.
“So that’s why you're leaving. Leave the love-sick Link with me huh?” she asked.
“No, I have important matters to attend to. I might come back at some point, just don’t expect it within the next twenty years.” I told her. It was a fair point to make.
“Yah. I shouldn’t keep you waiting. You should get going.” she said as she turned away.
“Oh. well, I don’t have to go yet. I’ll spend the day here and then I’ll get out of your hair.” I told her. She turned and layed a harmless punch on my face.
“Bitch!” I nodded and we went off to have some drinks. Last night together better be a fun one, right?
An hour later Link caught up to us and Cori was insanely drunk, but I wasn’t, regardless of the fact that I had the same amount of drinks as her. I think that the fire aspect of my body burned away the alcohol or something.
“What have you two been doing?” he asked when he walked up and Cori jumped over to him and leaned on him in a drunkenly flirtatious way. She started rocking like they were doing a slow dance, but the music was a punk rock that encouraged sporadic movements and head banging.
“Drinking to my last night here.” I told him. “She may have had too many.” he put his arms around her and smiled.
“Yah.” he looked up at me. “I should take her to rest.” he told me as he started to lift her off of her feet.
“One second,” I started to dig through my pockets. Nothing good for a souvenir. I held up a finger and jumped to the dimension with the armor store, and found a magical fire starter, no fuel, just a finger on the pad and it lit a flame like a lighter with red runes on the sides.
“Perfect, I’ll take it,” I told the man selling the item and jumped back. Link was waiting with an unconscious Cori in his arms.
“You’re back?” he said.
“I only said I’d take a second, didn’t I? Here, for the both of you, it should come in handy, plus, it’ll help remind you of me. I should go now, maybe for the last time. Goodbye, Link, I hope you two have a long happy life together.” I said, touching Cori’s hair and looking at her fondly, then looking up at Link. “keep her safe, she doesn’t seem to have a great sense of self preservation.” I told him.
“Yeah. Goodbye, Amaterasu, and may your life never burn out.” he nodded to me and saluted with the hand that wasn’t holding the entirety of Cori’s weight. “We will never forget you, holy one.”
“I won't forget you, Link. I couldn’t if I tried. I told him and hugged him and Cori for the last time. I smiled and jumped away.
I went back to the place where I got my armor so that I could get it fixed. I didn’t need it per se, but it completed the look I was going for. Plus, that armor won’t fit in most places. It would probably take a while to fix, but I had no peeves about that.
I walked into the shield and spear, and the man in charge recognized my armor immediately, though he seemed confused at my new look, he started to sweat.
He ignored the customer that he was working with and walked over to me. “H-hello, how can I help you. . . a-again?” he asked. I smiled and he grew more nervous.
“So you remember me, that’s good, you should remember me. I need my armor fixed, and any other enchantments you may want to add wouldn’t hurt.” I told him.
The person he left in the middle of a negotiation walked over to us, she seemed visibly angry. “I was talking to you! What is she, your wife? Anything else would be so disrespectful that I would leave right now! You don’t get to ignore me!”
“Of course, Amaterasu! Please, take no offense to his actions, he knows not what he does.” he told me.
“I take no offense, now take my armor and get it fixed, then take up your business with her.” I told him. I then picked up a change of clothes from one of the shelves, changed out of my armor, and gave the misshapen hunk of metal to the man.
“It is an honor to be handling the equipment of your holiness!” he told me as he bowed and took it to a back room to get someone to fix it. He came back and said, “it will be ready in two days time, meanwhile, why don’t you look at our other merchandise! We have very good-” I cut him off.
“I have other business to attend to.” I told him and I walked out. He watched me leave then turned to the man that was looking strangely at the man but otherwise just bought what he was looking for and left. I went into a room at the nearest inn and refused to pay a dime, scaring all of these men into giving me free lodging.
I went to the in between dimension and did basic practice with Aurinko until the two days were up, then I went back and claimed my armor.
Should we go find Suku now? I asked after I changed into my armor.
We have no hope alone, we need the others. I don’t know who has found a partner yet. It may be years before we can get to the others.
Okay, what next then?
What do you want to do, and I don’t accept taking a break, we can’t afford that.
I guess we find some misadventures, nothing better to do, right?
Nothing better to do. And so I jumped, landing in some random dimension with tall trees surrounding us. I sought out civilization. I found a small village, and went to the most desperate looking citizen and introduced myself to him.
“I am Amaterasu, and I don’t charge to save people. What services are you in need of?”