RAGNAROK ONLINE Dark Symphony
a series of ragnarok online short stories by Zanyuki, author of "Virtual-On Sword-Dance Concerto"
Dai Shan (Far Aldazar Din)
THE SOUL OF SORROW: Episode Two
The Assassin Cross flicked a small stone from his palm and stood up. A veil was on the lower half of his face, indicating that he was ready for battle. Or a massacre, depending on how you think of it. To date, nobody had ever nicked the quiet and reserved assassin even once, except for a scar on the back of his right hand that he hadn't talked about ever since he had joined the Warriors of the Shadow. The wide band on his forehead, a strip of white cloth that was otherwise the brightest spot on his black-clad garments, flowed against the underground wind of Geffenia.
"It is here," Aoshi told him.
Dai nodded. He was perched on a jutting piece of a boulder, his Razorbow sitting securely on his lap. The weapon was entirely made of extremely sharp cutting materials, even the frame and the bowstring, and its length of nearly four feet also doubled it as an excellent close-range weapon. He was proficient in its use, having grown up with it, as far as he remembered. Though, his memories were sometimes fuddled and obscure, but as long as the Gai was there, he was content with his life.
"Aren't you alarmed...?"
"Why would I?" he laughed. "I have you with me. It seems that no one could touch the Knife-handed without permission."
"Was that supposed to be a compliment?" Aoshi asked him flatly.
Dai just laughed. "Well, I just don't know why only two of us were tasked to defend Geffen's innards," he mused. "The other Gai were dispatched to fight off the invading army, but why not us, too?"
"We go where the client wishes us to," Aoshi reminded him. "It is not our place to question."
"Even if we stake our very lives to accomplish their missions?" Dai shook his head. "Give me a break. If not for you guys I really won't mind asking him what sort of death-trap awaits us here. Which I think is death by boredom."
"If you think you can be bored by the Doppelganger, I will not extend a hand to rouse you."
Dai chuckled again. "What? Man, I think the Knife-handed has no sense of humor at all." Aoshi just stared at him levelly. "You're boring."
Suddenly there was a flash of light in the distance, and both of them vaulted out of their position, alert as always. While they were still in the air they saw spiky crystals race to the boulder where Dai was sitting before, its path straight and unrelenting. It was so fast it seemed icicles were sprouting out of the ground at an unbelievable rate, and the ice-elemental attack exploded in a shower of ice shards at the boulder, itself frozen and shattered to pieces.
"He's here already," Aoshi said, a few meters to Dai's right.
"Yeah," he agreed. "He's using Frost Diver, Aoshi. Watch out."
The Assassin Cross nodded, his hands already on the hilts of his two weapons. His daito, or the sword, was slung on his back obliquely, while the other, a long dagger, rested horizontally on the small of his back. He had two coattail-like pieces of black cloth from his hips down to his ankles, covering the sides of his legs, and they were still fluttering against a wind that Dai couldn't feel on his skin, but almost tangible and physical nonetheless.
"Here he is!" Aoshi warned him. Another attack like the one before, but faster. But as Aoshi bolted to the air, drawing both blades at exactly at the same time and with a graceful, smooth motion, Dai just stood there, his eyes narrowed against the incoming Frost Diver. He clicked his tongue, crouched, and quickly drew an arrow from his back. Nocking it on his Razorbow at the last instant as the head of the snaking ice attack came too close for comfort, he released the silver arrow with as much force he could muster.
"Sharpshooting!!"
The silver arrow took on the substance of light and fire combined as it was released, glowing golden-white as it punctured the head of the Frost Diver spell. The icicles shattered as the arrow, as the beam, surged through the entire length of the Frost Diver, parting it into equal walls of ice and halting its progress to Dai, entire chunks of ice exploding and shattering in all directions. But its target was too far to see, even with his keen eyesight.
But one of his abilities was a sense of hostile intent, sensing an enemy's murderous intentions before it could hit him, or an ally. "Aoshi, behind you!"
But the Assassin Cross's reflexes were faster than any mortal, and he had reacted even before the sound waves from Dai's warning reached him. In the Gai, Aoshi was the fastest of the triad of Lightning, and he demonstrated it now. A swordsman teleported right behind Aoshi, its blond hair and cloudy appearance instantly proclaiming who it was. As it brandished its sword in a lethal downward arc, Aoshi turned and blocked it with his longsword, and brought up his dagger hand for the next attack.
"Shit!" Dai exclaimed as Aoshi's dagger found air in the next instant. The Doppelganger teleported again, this time above him just as the assassin was falling due to the effects of gravity. The demon raised its sword to hack at Aoshi again, but his reflexes knew all about it, even if the Doppelganger was the fastest demon they had ever encountered. He spun sideways as the demon's sword whizzed past him, and counter-attacked with his sword.
The demon grinned and charged its power up before the daito could deal damage to him, and Aoshi was tossed away like some rag doll, twisting and reeling in the air. He landed on his foot and knee next to Dai, still holding the curved blades of his weapons, as the Doppelganger touched the ground just over a hundred meters away, to Dai's reckoning.
"He's fast," Aoshi remarked. Flatly, of course.
"Aoshi, I will deal with this," Dai said, raising his Razorbow. "You tell the others that the invasion will come from within, not from outside the walls of Geffen."
"How can you possibly defeat this demon, alone?"
"Don't worry. I'm not the second in command of the Gai for nothing, Knife-handed. Go!"
"I will stay. We will have a much better chance of destroying it if--"
"If we are overrun, no one could warn the others to watch their backs. Go, Aoshi. I will hold it off until help can arrive."
The Assassin Cross straightened and finally nodded, seeing sense. "All right. The embrace of the Mother of Shadows protect and keep you, Gai."
"As with you," Dai replied. He saw the assassin rip off a butterfly wing from his handy pouch, and he disappeared in a column of myriad of sparkling stardust. He turned to the Doppelganger again. "Now it's you and me, buddy," he whispered. A faint but real wind blew across the ruins of Geffenia, sealed off from the rest of the new city of Geffen when it had been overrun by a race of demons two thousand years ago. Now the ancient capital's site was crowned by the Mage City of Geffen, topped by the mystic spire at the center of the city, home to the scholarly pursuits of magicians and wizards.
The Doppelganger took a step forward, whacking his sword at his side. Then another. Dai mimicked his movements, taking one step, then two, then four, faster and faster.
And both bounded for each other at exactly the same time, though the Doppelganger was naturally much faster. Its sword was trailing threads of air along its blade, at precisely the same angle and position as Dai's holding of Razorbow, but the only difference was that Dai's other hand was holding his wide-brimmed Western Grace against the wind as he sped straight towards the Doppelganger. However, there was a small miscalculation on his part. The Doppelganger had been increasing speed each time he took a step forward, accelerating to an infinite forward velocity, so that Dai saw him about the length of ten horses far back but at the next moment saw the demon already raising his sword in front of him.
He ground his teeth. The demon was forever grinning in a wordless snarl, and its unbreakable sword was glowing sickly purple like some black light. Braking by sliding his forward foot right beside the Doppelganger, he reared his Razorbow at the sword's line of slice, hoping against hope that it would hold against the might of Geffenia's Angel of Destruction.
It did, but not in a way he had expected. The sword struck against the Razorbow's immaculate mithril blade, the same material that had forged Aoikaze's Dragonstorm, the double-bladed lance, Zanyuki's new weapon Masamune, and Aoshi's Shadowsbane, his daito, and further enhanced by oridecon, often called as the 'metal of the gods'. Sparks, light and peals of energy erupted from the two opposite blades, grating against each other and producing a cacophony of sharp, thunderous reports--but it wasn't the main result of what had happened. The force of the blow drove Dai sliding across the uneven ground backwards, his feet furrowing through it like a farmer's plow as he fought the Doppelganger's incredible strength with only his unaided muscles and the Razorbow. Every particle in his body quivering widly against the pressure, and his driving backwards having a remarkable speed of its own, and the force of the Doppelganger blasting his hair and clothes around him, he knew he has to think of a way to counter the devastating strike on his own terms.
The Doppelganger was still grinning, frozen eternally in that ghoulish smile that killed hundreds of Geffenia's citizens. He wouldn't let this bastard destroy Geffen again. He... absolutely... won't...!
Risking a single arm to hold off the sword that was still forcing, pushing his entire body back, he held out his free hand to his side, then far back behind him. He saw an eye of the Doppelganger focus on his free hand independently of the other, and if nothing, its grin widened more than ever. Renewed effort to bury him to the ground poured into its arms, and it seemed the bones in his arm holding the sword off would shatter.
"Arrow Craft...!!" Two silver arrows appeared on his hand, rotating across his palm then finally stopping on one spot, like the needle of a compass. Enveloped by a globe of yellow light, he grinned himself as he took hold of them, feeling their warmth seep through his entire being.
"Eat this, demon," he whispered. It all happened so fast. He nocked the two still glowing arrows onto his Razorbow, pointing it directly at the Doppelganger's neck and face. There was a faint recognition on the demon's face, and a pale-green defensive glyph appeared right between them. Using Endure, eh, he thought. That's too bad.
"Double Strafe!!" The first arrow exploded right on the glyph, almost making it through but cracking the field like an arrow would to a particularly strong glass. As the first of the double attacks hit, a nova of energies exploded outward from the two opposing forces, superficially damaging and crumbling the ground around them, but the pressure still remained. A solib block of rock, there since the beginning of Geffenia, and beyond that a wide rift so deep that its bottom was darkness like the Abyss itself, was racing for his back, and in the microsecond before the second arrow was released, he hoped it would shatter the Doppelganger's Endure field.
The last arrow easily pierced through the cracked field, emitting another piercing nova that cut through the ground like some monstrous lightning, and terminated right on the Doppelganger's body. As the searing beam punched itself through the demon's torso the pushing pressure suddenly vanished, and white light spilled out from its body. Dai leaped outagainst his momentum, saw the Doppelganger convulse under the pain of having a holy arrow on its body, and aimed while on the air.
"Arrow Shower!!"
Myriads of arrows, like a hail of fire, spurted from his Razorbow at a feverish rate, connecting to the ground like furious thunderbolts. Earth and stone were broken apart, vaporized and disintegrated as his area-effect Hunter skill pulverized the area where the Doppelganger was. Fountains of rock billowed out where the arrow storm hit, like exploding fireballs, and in no time the demon was covered with a thick cloud of disturbed dust, smashed boulders and splintered whole regions of bedrock.
Dai landed on the ground as the rumble from his earlier attack subsided, though the dust still clung on the area, and he covered his face with the man-made sandstorm. He panted. "Is it... is it dead?" he asked himself, hoping the answer to his question was a yes. But for all his experience, demons like that weren't that easy to kill; Baphomet himself, the most powerful demon they had ever encountered and were tasked by the royalty of Prontera to destroy, took three whole days to kill, all of them combined, and the other parties sent by other authorities destroyed. They haven't lost any men, even if they fought in the frontlines, but demons were just too strong, and without divine intervention from their High Priests, they couldn't have stood a chance.
He raised his bow and waited, another arrow already nocked onto it. He wheezed. Geffenia was an abandoned city, and the air was thick with the putrid smells of decay and death. Two millennia of non-maintenance had turned this place into worse than a graveyard, inhabited by monsters and fiends he couldn't even begin to describe, and--
There was a sudden feel that permeated the air around him. The earlier atmosphere that pervaded the ruins of Geffenia had been that of souls at unease, darkness and deterioration. Now there was nothing, nothing at all. It was like even the sounds of carrion eaters and crows were non-existent, as if they weren't even there from the start. It was death. It was the silence of being buried, being inside a coffin. Dai shivered and shook his head, charging himself and Improved Concentration. He was more aware of the surroundings around him, but it only heightened his awareness of which wasn't there, of that grim silence. It was as if the air itself had been frozen in time.
The dust cloud suddenly cleared, and he could see the red glowing eyes of the demon, like a pair of red-hot live coals. The cloud spread outward from him like being parted by a knife, and he shielded himself from the sudden blast.
"The famous Eagle Brother, Dai of the Warriors of the Shadow," the strong, octave voice announced. "You honor me by coming into my humble abode."
Dai stepped back. The dust settled.
"What? It looks like you have seen a ghost." There was a wet chuckle. "It is I, Dai Eaglebrother. Don't you know me?" A laugh. "Do you like this? Is my copy of you exact to the detail? I merely wanted to be as you... because, after all, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." Another laugh.
Dai was wavering. It couldn't be him... Was this the Doppelganger's power? To mimic what you look like...? To play games in your head...?
A mirthless chuckle. "Let me tell you an interesting story, Dai." The demon, clad in the same garments as him, breeches that was cropped on his calves and sock-shoes, including the same wide-brimmed Western Grace, and the same Razorbow, walked slowly towards him. "There was once a famous bard long ago. He was the greatest poet Geffenia had ever seen, and when he comes every Odin's feastday, he had always been the center of the festivities. All the children knew him, and the adults too. He was such a wise, young man. He had never lost an argument against even the eldest of the Wisdom Council of Geffenia. Do you know him?"
Dai frowned and gritted his teeth, trying to find differences in them, but finding none.
"Of course not, what am I saying." The demon walked a little faster this time. "That bard was a very kind-hearted individual. I remember when he had given an entire poverty-stricken family food for the entire night without having one of his own. And he was very popular with girls, too. But you see, he couldn't bring himself to do that, and instead contented himself with entertaining the population of Geffen. You know, Dai... he was so famous, even the then-king of Prontera tried to contact him. You know what he said? He told the King that his place was with the common folk. The Geffenians were so proud and happy."
The demon stopped all of a sudden.
"But there was a girl he had loved," the Doppelganger said, spitting. "For all his sweet, melodious voice, and his way with women, this girl actually dumped him for another man. So you see, he was very heartbroken that he became ill. He never went out of his house eventually, and he even shouted at the concerned townspeople who were trying to see if he was all right. But the citizens didn't know that he was dabbling in powers best left forgotten. He wanted to be stronger, more popular, so the girl of his dreams would marry him. You know what he did, Dai?"
He was backing away. What was this bastard saying? What--I don't remember. Who was that bard? I feel I know him.
A loud, booming laugh. "The bard summoned the powers of darkness, Dai. The powers that the City of Juno had forbidden, he had loosed again. It was magic, Dai. His sorrow reached the bowels of the abyss and he let loose the powers and the energies that had once been chained under the orders of Lord Odin. Mortals can never be trusted with power that only the gods and their archrivals wielded, for they are inherently evil and twisted. You see, the first act he had done was to summon the ultimate destructive magic. LORD OF VERMILLION."
"What... what are you..."
The demon started walking towards him again. "The spell utterly destroyed the city, Dai. Levelled it to the ground, razed it flat, in a single wink of an eye. It was the end of the world for the city's inhabitants. The girl that the bard himself loved was instantly incinerated by the incessant rain of lightning mixed with threads of fire falling from the heavens. All were killed and none survived. Children, men, women, old men and women, poultry and livestock. And through all that, the bard was laughing, maddened. And for his newfound power of magic, he summoned his alter ego to watch over the destruction and kill those that could have survived. That alter ago... born from his hatred and sorrow... was me."
"No..." he stumbled backwards.
"But what happened to the bard, afterwards? You might ask that." The demon smiled evilly. "The bard finally realized what he had done after a few days, and saw the charred remains of his beloved. Full of remorse and grief, he nearly went mad again, but I saw him. He will destroy the entire world if he remains like that, with the power of magic behind him. I killed him. Or rather, tried to. I pushed him to the edge of the cliff--right there behind you. That... that was about two thousand years ago, Dai. But you mortals are naturally power-hungry. Now look. Right above is this despicable city of Geffen where mortals like yourself tamper with the lethal powers of Magic!"
Images in his head were reeling.
"Do you remember now, Dai? Do you see, and still know it in your heart?" An arm lazily pointed at his direction. "THAT BARD... WAS YOU...!"
"No! You're... lying!"
A laugh. "I might never understand you humans. Denying a fact when it so plain to see." The demon roared. "Where did you come from, Dai?! Where?! The professors of Juno revived your body when their expedition took them here. Only one survived, because I killed all of them. That damned girl of a woman took you in and kept you in a stasis tube for ten years. But her work couldn't be even called patchwork; she was simply incompetent. She didn't even replace your memories, or overwrite them. There are gaps in your memory that you don't know yourself, do you?"
"YOU'RE LYING!!!"
"And then when you opened your eyes again, after two millennia of being dead, she called you her son, and you accepted it. But where were those memories? Of Luna, that bitch whom you've fantasized and destroyed Geffenia for? Of summoning the Lord of Vermillion to decimate this--" the demon gestured around him--"rotting city? Of giving birth to me?"
"I don't remember... you're lying!"
"I'm not playing games with you, Dai. Or the bard that was called Asha'an." The demon pointed at him again. "Remember. Remember that pain. You've given birth to me, because I am you. I am your song of suffering. I am your soul of sorrow."
"This is... isn't true..."
"It is true, Asha'an." The demon stopped smiling at looked at him intently. "This is my true form. You've given me the power to become the exact image of a man's dark heart. But replication would pale in comparison to reality. This is not imitation. This is... ME."
"No you're not, Doppelganger," Dai regained himself, slowly straightening up. "I... I am never you."
"Denial still, Eaglebrother? Then let's see who is more real of us!"
"Get lost, demon!"
"Try me!"
A column of wind shot out from Dai's body, and he raised his Razorbow to one side. Both of them watched each other, Dai's face pained with memories flooding into his head that he still denied, the Doppelganger smiling and waiting. Dai closed his eyes. Please... power of the wind elemental... give me power to vanquish the enemy... Wind Walk...!!
He snapped his eyes open. It was time. "I will never believe you!!" The wind gave his feet speed that he had used only a handful of times before, which made him as fast as one of the triad of Lightning. Every step that he took, that his foot landed on the ground, sent out gusts of wind in every direction, like he was stepping onto columns of wind that stirred on his passing. The Razorbow was upraised like a sword, visible wind flowing through its four-foot silhouette.
"You will die, Eaglebrother!" The Doppelganger raised its own Razorbow, glowing in its own blue light. "This time, I will make sure of it!"
Dai was racing the last feet separating him from the demon. He had never used this move before, except against Aoikaze himself when they fought before, thus forming the Warriors of the Shadow. He projected both arms to his sides, a a little swept back behind, like the spread wings of an eagle while his entire upper torso was bent forward, belly to the ground. His fingers drew out intricate finger positions, flowing into patterns smoothly and continuously. This was the second time he would use this, he knew, and he only had about four of this power left, and when it runs out, he'd die. Two concentric rings of light appeared vertically in front of his palms, facing outward from him and perpendicular to his body.
"Arrow Summon! Mysteltainn!" A long beam suddenly materialized on his free hand, as long as a sword's blade, glowing gold, fringed with black and purple currents like miniaturized lightning bolts, much like chains sealing its power in.
"What? The twig that killed Balder... no..." For the first time the Doppelganger let anger show on his face. He had underestimated the power of this Sniper. But no more. He will fight with all his power. Mysteltainn... the legendary sword... so this man was its bearer...! But why...? he asked himself as Dai raced for him. Why a mere mortal?
No matter! he told himself. I will win! He used his powers of darkness to shroud everything into deep blackness, that you could only see what was immediately in front of you.
Blind Attack, huh, Dai noted. But his True Sight would--
"Got you!" The Doppelganger had used its Blind to hide his teleporting right in front of Dai, cutting across his line of advance. The demon was too fast, and he was too shocked that his mind went blank. The last thing he saw, as time stretched on forever like in extreme slow-motion, was the demon's snarling, grinning face, HIS face, and it inclined its body, drawing its leg far behind it--and kicked him upwards.
The demon's foot connected to his chin, and in a dizzying moment he was flung upwards with bone-breaking, mind-jarring force. The Mysteltainn fell loose from his hand, its tip burying itself into the ground with a clattering sound, as he himself soared upwards through the damp, dark air due to the immense force of the demon's kick.
It seemed that he was flying upwards forever when his senses told him something--or someone was behind him. It was the Doppelganger, he senses, and there was a snarl when it used its fist this time to strike a blow onto his stomach. The force was murderous, and he almost blacked out and breath was driven away from him as he flew at another point in the air yet again. Yet, before he could fall due to the effects of gravity, the Doppelganger was there behind him again, then used its foot again to kick him upwards. Then teleported itself right behind him, connected its hardened fist on his face, flinging him away, then appearing right on his back, and punted him as if he was a ball right between his shoulder blades. As the Doppelganger bruised him with severe blows, chucking him on various points in the air but materializing behind him before he could fall, and then repeating the process, Dai feared that he'd die. All his bones seemed broken. He was staggering, surrendering against the blows. He was like a doll being tossed in the air, being caught and kicked to another place, then caught and booted off yet again. He almost wished the demon would let him fall to his death.
"Repent...!" The demon gave him a square blow on the chest, casting him away as quick as a meteor, burning through the air.
"...and die!" It appeared yet again behind him, catching him by his arms, whirling him around several times, then tossed him on the opposite direction.
But... but he couldn't die yet...
'Your Razorbow,' his mother told him, 'is your soul, child. I have seen you with it clutching it as for dear life. And you will die with it, and fight with it. Fight...
'... for what you think is yourself. Never listen to anyone who would dare try to replace your memories...
'... because you alone decide what you remember and who you are... YOU... are you, Dai.'
At long last the demon caught him by the neck, nearly choking him, levitating off the ground. "Have you repented, Sinner? Now... die and rest in oblivion!"
The demon raised his limp body covered with bruises, as if appraising him, then threw him forcefully down, to the waiting, hungry earth. And he fell, and he closed his eyes for his death, for the overdue death he really deserved.
'What you think is yourself... is you, Dai,' his mother told him once. 'Nobody could ever tell you what and who you should be...'
'Memory is just half of a person, my son... The other half, and more important, is belief in yourself. Even if you have memories of what and who you are, if you do not believe in yourself, you aren't you.' His mother had smiled at him. 'Do you?'
'Are you crying again?' His mother had takenhim in her arms. 'Listen. Do no try to remember, I love you just the way you are. Aren't you happy being my son...?'
'You alone decide what you remember... and who you are. You are you, Dai. Forget everything, forget even yourself... but never forget, you decide what you want to believe, and you decide who you are.'
'You are you, Dai. My beloved son...'
'... my son...'
"I am..." he muttered, as he fell, trailing visible wind. "I am... her... son..."
His eyes snapped open. "I AM MY MOTHER'S SON!!"
"WHAT...?!" the Doppelganger said. "You are still alive, worm?!"
Dai was falling at an incredible rate, and he had to act fast. He stretched his arms, like before, and spinning discs of light appeared on his palms. Now he understood. Whatever crimes he had committed, whatever he had done, it was in the past; it was fate. And it was Fate that brought him here. Fate that made him face himself, and his greatest fears. His identity. And he won't run away now; now, that he had found his real self.
In a gust of wind he instantly moved, quick as lightning and as smooth as wind, right above the floating and flabbergasted Doppelganger, the Razorbow aimed right at it.
"I've repented," he announced, as the wind provided support for his feet, and the Doppelganger too shocked to move. "But Asha'an is dead. I am me."
"YOU!!" The Doppelganger tried to reach him, but it was too slow.
"Take this!" The Mysteltainn glowed, still buried in the ground, and flashed like lightning, a sliver of light that raced to nock itself on Dai's straining Razorbow.
"Die, Asha'an! MYSTELTAINN!!"
Concentric rings of light erupted from the bow outward, as overlapping parabolas of energy shot out from both directions away and outward from Dai. And the arrow became a wide, gigantic gout of liquid fire that devoured everything in front of it, and below it. The beam consumed the screaming Doppelganger and continued on to the earth, churning everything into a chaos of destruction and infernal, fiery devastation.
"Dai... Dai...! Wake up," Zanyuki said, cradling him on his lap and shaking him. He still had a pulse, but very weak, and sported numerous bruises and several serious cuts. His Western Grace was charred right beside him, and the Razorbow, still very hot and smoking, a stone's throw away. "He has a very weak pulse!" he shouted at the others.
The others came running to them. "Chan," Aoikaze gestured. The red-clad High Priest nodded quietly and knelt beside Dai's unconscious form, and faced his palms forward, pointing at Dai. Green, sparkling light were issuing out from the latter's body, healing his injuries and rejuvenating him, giving him life and energy.
"Dai...?"
The Sniper slowly opened his eyes. "Yuki..." He saw the others behind the Lord Knight's relieved face. "Guys..."
Aoikaze knelt on one knee at Zanyuki's side, his blue hair tangled as usual. "We're worried that we've lost my second-in-command," he said quietly.
Dai tried a laugh that turned into a coughing fit instead. The others laughed for him. "You wish, Aoi." He coughed again. "Damn, guys, you're so slow, I killed the Doppelganger alone! Where were you?"
A swirling white robe came into view. "This is very unexpected, Dai. When Aoshi found us, we were already engaged in thousands of Orcs, High Orcs and Orc Archers storming the city," a deep voice said. "Geffen was about to be besieged from all sides at once."
"Storm?"
The High Wizard didn't answer. "It seems that the natural order is falling towards the Twilight of the Gods, as expected," he said. "We will need to prepare ourselves." He then stalked away, muttering to himself.
"Seriously, that guy's a weirdo," Dai promised. Aoikaze shook his head and smiled, then stood up, offering his gauntleted hand. He nodded at Dai's questioning face.
Dai smiled back. He won't run away again. He had found himself, and the answer to his existence. He took Aoikaze's hand and propped himself back, among the smiling faces of his comrades-at-arms, his family, and the ruins of the Geffenia and Mysteltainn's destructive power.
Dai is the Eaglebrother. He is a Gai.