Pretear of the Old Legend
Chapter 2
Eris continued to bounce and whisper to Shin till he finally calmed down. When he did she kissed him on the head and sat him down next to Hajime.
She walked up to Hayate, looking behind him as she walked and saw the new Pretear, who was still shook up over what had happened, she smirked. This girl didn't even hear much of what was said, Eris thought, did I really pick a bad one this time? She shook her head, she did have no choice she always did chose the strongest ones, but sometimes the strongest one wasn't enough just like this one.
Eris stopped in front of him and started to talk, "The enemy is stronger then before. I would have…" she didn't finish because she stopped and turned around. Her face looked like she was trying to focusing on something. She found her target, all she needed now was something to stick it with, cause some pain or something, now only if she could remember how to summon them, damn how long had it been since she needed to think of how to do this? Before she went to sleep she could do it without a thought, whatever she willed or needed as she battle it came to her, but now she just prayed she remembered how to do it.
Behind her back her arm came around she twisted it till her hand was in the middle of her back and it couldn't be seen, in it appeared a dagger or a knife which ever you want to call it. She shook her head "I guess I am recovering from my sleep really fast, I have got myself being paranoid again, sigh what am I going to do with me?" then she turned back to the Knights. Her arm did not move, but her body was moving to hide the dagger, she just hoped that the Knights wouldn't say anything. Luckily Sasame caught on and spoke up; good old Sasame always was the quickest thinker.
"What's wrong Risa? Did you feel something? Was it another seed coming into bloom?" Sasame asked worried, but relaxed when she shook her head, instead the Knights tried their best not to show what they were seeing her do.
They kept their faces empty. If there was someone out there, this attack shouldn't and wouldn't be foretold on their faces. They would at least proved that had remember their training and prove it to their teasing friend.
"Okay where was I?" After she uttered that last word she spun around and threw the dagger toward the bushes, it must have hit something because they heard a groan.
Another dagger appeared in her hand and she was gone, she was behind the one she hit in a second. She pulled the dagger out of its arm and held them both, one in each hand, at its throat.
She kneed the person in the back, and it walked forward. "Little Pretear are you watching? This is how a real Pretear is suppose to be, rely on yourself not your Knights. Pretear is supposed to be strong even alone, lesson one. Never rely on people to help, once you do that you become weak, because if you rely on others you start to get lazy. Once you get lazy you die during the battle, and then this is where I come in and laugh over your corpse and say 'I told you so, you wish you had listen to me now don't you'."
As soon as they were in front of the Knights she dropped the daggers and they disappeared. She ordered the spy to turn around; she wasn't going to have all this nonsense just as she came back.
It was a man, one that couldn't keep his emotions off his face apparently. His face showed he was surprised, but he wasn't the only one having trouble with concealing their emotions and keeping them off their faces. Risa couldn't keep it off hers as well.
"Why are you here? Why aren't you sleeping?" he voice didn't shake or show anything of what he was feeling she had to give him some credit at least.
"Tenebrae? I should be asking you that very same question, why are you here?" she stopped and thought for a moment then laughed and started to circle around him, "So I guess this means that you think yourself ready to become a Knight huh? Well not that, strike that you are already one, what I meant was do you think your ready for your spot? All these years I hope you have been training," she said as she stopped circling around him and was in front of him once again.
Everyone was giggling inside of their minds at her teasing; Himeno saw it on a couple of their faces before they realized they showed it. This confused her even more, she wasn't completely evil, she was nice to Shin and Mannen and the others were comfortable around her to let her tease them, what was going on was she bad or good?
He nodded, "I have Princess, which is the only reason I am here." She glared at him and he looked down, "Yes your right that was only part of the reason, but not the whole truth. I felt some force I haven't felt in a long time, something that shouldn't be out. Plus I knew that you would be out soon, so I had to come."
She nodded but she couldn't smile as he expected her too, Kei went to stand beside Eris and said as he was walking, "Tenebrae, it's good to see you after all these years, how long has it been since you and Erebos went into self exile and trained?"
Tenebrae looked at Kei and said, "We had to, we had no choice, you know our powers would have hurt the rest of yours, and mainly yours Kei, think about it." After he said it he thought damn why did he have to say that name he sighed. He didn't want to tell them what had happened; he knew she would be disappointed in him, not only that but she would be so sad and hurt. But he should have known she would have said something about it.
"Where is my Erebos? Did something happen while I slept and you trained? Is he alright?" Eris asked, this time her voice held something it shouldn't have had. Worry, even if she had emotions she shouldn't show them that was the first rule she taught the Knights.
It seemed that any slip up she had it would have been caught by her Knights, but it would also seem that they had grown used to her using emotions, and didn't really catch it. It was only Tenebrae that seemed to have caught it. He didn't say anything but as he looked down, it showed he was trying to hide his face, so something was going on he didn't want to tell her about, that was his first mistake, she hated it so much when people tried to hide stuff from her, it made her so mad.
She was angry now, she grabbed his arm, the one that she had hit with the dagger, it hurt him, but she was also strong so that didn't really matter about the pain in his arm, she was inflicting more pain then that the dagger had caused to his arm. "Damn it, Tene, you better tell me what the fuck happened! How come he isn't here?" She was serious, the tone in her voice said volumes, if the Knights didn't see that then something was so wrong with them they needed a lot of training to get back to where they were and they honestly didn't want training from Risa again it was torture the first time, it would be worse then hell the second time.
All of them saw it now; she had felt something for Erebos, something most Knights of old would have killed for. She never showed any feeling for anyone, maybe anger but that was all. They remembered everyone always joking around that she was the Princess of Ice, but Mannen never seem to find that funny at all. It always seemed to them that her heart was closed off to everyone, but after what had happened to her you couldn't blame her could you.
She let go of him and walked to the tree and hit her head on it, and fell down, she slid down the tree. Her hands were grabbing the tree and was making places in it, but since the tree was dead she didn't feel the pain and nether did Shin.
None of them had ever seen her like this before; they didn't know what to do. Had she loved him? What exactly did she feel for this Knight? None of them moved it seemed like an eternity had passed before one of them moved, Himeno knew in her heart and her head (even after all the things that girl had said to her and did to her) that she would have gone to the grieving girl if she could move, but she couldn't. Not when her Leife had been stolen and she been thrown around like that.
Tenebrae walked toward her, but stopped close to her and kneeled down, and bowed to her. She didn't even move, "He's dead? How could you have let him die? He was like your brother! How? How did such a strong and kind man have to die? No, this isn't possible; he was too strong, too stubborn to die. So how is this possible?"
Tenebrae was still looking down at the ground, feeling as if he had no right to look at her. "Princess, I am truly sorry. I tried to stop him, but he wanted to prove to you that he was stronger then you always said he was, that he could be stronger, he wanted to prove that to you more then anything. He always wanted to protect you, instead of you protecting him. He was just being stupid, irresponsible, he should have waited for your return to try it. I had told him…"
He didn't even get to finish because she had turned around so suddenly and slapped him. He flew; he had to have gone at least five feet maybe more. Goh sighed and shook his head as he watched his old friend fly, he thought it wasn't very good flying, but he couldn't help but smile, he also thought of some teasing material he knew it would be fun, so he decided to tease her with it.
"Hey Risa what's wrong? He should have gone farther, are you really not that mad or upset? I mean your voice shows it you know, sigh you haven't been awake long and already breaking rule one." Goh said was he trying to egg her on? Did he want to get hit too?
Himeno wanted to scream at him to shut up, one hit and that other guy what was his name? Tene or something he had flown, did he deserve to get hit like that? That guy, he didn't seem bad or anything he was apologizing, he couldn't do anything for that other guy so why was she so pissed? Did she want him to be the one who died? That was something that Himeno thought if it was true she couldn't forgive this girl.
But she had to turn her attention back to Goh what was he talking about? What was Goh trying to say? Was she way stronger then that little hit had shown? If someone could call that a little hit. Could she have hit him further? Was Goh really talking like that wasn't very far, just how strong was she? What is this girl?
Eris' eyes were really cold, it was as if Mannen had frozen them and whoever looked into them felt the coldness that seemed to flow from them. She titled her head at Goh and said, "I am not in a good mode, boy. So please keep those comments to yourself. If I wanted him to go further I would have hit him for real. Now Tenebrae, I want to know exactly what the fuck he was doing that ended up killing him, what was he trying to do?"
Tenebrae picked himself off the ground and kneeled in front of her again, "He was trying a new attack. It was suppose to suck all of the Dark Leife out of an object or person. He even wanted it, like for a person, if it was follower or puppet it would kill them, which is if you wanted it too, it was all up to the person wielding the attack. As the Dark Leife was taken out of the body it would destroy the person. Where we were we didn't have any subjects to test it on and he knew you would never forgive him if he used me. I am really sorry Risa, I would never let him do what he did, he knew that too, he did it while I was sleeping, I am a very light sleeper so he had to have put something in my food, he was cooking that night, when I realized what was going on, he already started and from what I observed once it starts there is no stopping it. He told me once that it could back-fire and kill the user but for that to happen the person has to not be able to control their power, like it you don't put enough of it in there in the first place you die, I don't know about too much he didn't say."
"So he used himself instead, and it worked. Perfect, I had wanted something like that long ago, which was why he did it I know, the fool. If I had it then, we would not be having this problem now. Only if I had been stronger then, if only I could have killed her, then everything would have been fine. None of this would have happened."
It seemed like Eris was caught up in the past, her eyes closed and she shook her head. A tear rolled down her cheek. A single tear for someone who meant so much to her, did she love him that much?
"I am truly sorry Risa, I would love to replace him for you but I cannot sadly. A brother can never be replaced."
They stared at him; they were all confused now, though it did make more sense of him being a brother to her then anything else. She never did have any kinds of feelings like that, and if she did they would be so surprised. Though if she was in love with someone the phrase, 'If hell froze over' fit well there perfectly.
"Its okay, you all know I didn't have much of a family to begin with, he was the only true sibling I had, well without the same blood thing you know he wasn't blood-kin to me. Well close enough anyway, no pun intended. We grew up together; he was a few years older then me and was the only one in the whole Kingdom who never saw me the Princess or a Pretear. Just me, plain old me, enough of this talk, I will go to where he died later, but not now we have a problem; sigh I wonder if this will never end."
Kei, Mannen, and Sasame were would have had a heart attack if Tenebrae didn't say that, they wanted to yell out right there that those words were a lie, he wasn't the only one, but when they realized what they were about to say they stopped, they didn't understand. Why did they want to scream and yell that of all things? Risa had just lost the only family she had left in Leifaina and they wanted to yell at her and correct her? What the hell was there problem? They just did like she had taught them long ago block it all out.
She started to walk off, but stopped, "Are you coming Tene? I want to see how much you have grown after all these years."
He started to walk after her; she continued to walk as soon as he caught up with her. "By the way, how long has it been since the war has ended and I have slept?"
"I believe it has been between seven hundred and a thousand years, I am not exactly sure since of course I was training for all of the time and Erebos and I really didn't keep track of time."