Chapter 1
The soft hum of machinery was the first thing he heard when he woke up. He opened his bright green eyes and unconsciously noted that he was lying on his back, on a bed. The white room around him was glowing softy from the sunlight in the window. Every muscle felt slightly numb, but every nerve buzzed dully. 'How long have I been asleep?' These few thoughts came and left sluggishly, though his normally quick mind struggled to put the pieces together... It was too much effort to think straight. His eyes rolled around in his head and his lids started to shut…
The elf's eyes shot open and a gasp escaped his mouth. He sat up ramrod straight causing massive waves of pain to shoot through his totally weak body. He began to cough a very raspy cough, struggling to catch his breath, and he was starting to lose consciousness again.
"ちょっと まって ください！"The strange foreign words rang out into his ears as he was pushed down onto his bed by a human girl. Her clothes were white like the walls and her hair and eyes were brown. She spoke more in this strange tongue but she was only met with confusion. It slowly came to her that the strange long-eared boy in front of her didn't speak a word of Japanese.
The elf boy looked around the room with the same look of confusion on his face. The girl began speaking again. "ここわ びょういんです。" The elf boy met her with the same strange expression. She said it again, slower. "Ko. Ko. Wa. Byo. U. In. De. Su." She made motions with her hands indicating the space around her. "Byouin" She said finally.
'So this place is… Byouin? A Byouin?' Thought the young elf, bewildered by this strange new tongue unlike anything he had heard before. Based on why he was here he came to the conclusion that a Byouin must be a kind of infirmary or clinic, perhaps a hospital. He guessed that the girl would not know Thalassian, the native Blood Elven language, so he pointed, with difficulty, to the window and made a shrugging gesture.
The girl moved over to the window and opened it. She made a sweeping gesture with her arm indicating the city below. "Soko wa Konohagakure desu," she said.
This other new term served only to make the elf more confused, as he had no idea what a "Konohagakure" was. He decided that the best use of his time and effort right now was to get the girl to bring him a glass of water. He made a drinking motion with his hands a few times. The girl soon caught on and scurried out of the room.
The elf let himself sink deeper into the bed, and he ran his pale hands through his dark blue hair. That horrible scene kept replaying in his head, in his nightmares, tears began to well up in his eyes as he remembered the people around him. Then the most horrid image came, the one of his mother being crushed in the great demon's hand. He grabbed the bowl that was sitting on the table beside him and vomited into it.
The girl, or nurse as he guessed she must have been, came back into the room with the glass of water which she immediately placed on the table when she noticed the vomiting boy. She had seen people lose themselves like this when traumatic things happen to the people around them, and she immediately got to his side and placed her arm around his shoulders.
The boy stopped vomiting, but he was still panting from the exertion. He looked into the eyes of the nurse who was holding him and began to weep. He was the last of his kind. He had no one else on this world like him. He was a lone outsider among these strangers. But at least there were people like this nurse who could help him struggle through his pain. He let himself weep shamelessly in front of this genuinely good stranger.
When he began to calm down, he reached for the glass that was set down beside him and rinsed his mouth out. He nodded his head in thanks to the nurse and began to drink the rest. The nurse sighed and sat down in a chair nearby, studying this strange, unsmiling boy with peculiarly large ears. She didn't know any way to help him. How could she? She couldn't talk to him, and she could hardly communicate through hand gestures.
An idea suddenly came to her. She made lifting gestures with her arms and the boy, after a few seconds, understood and pulled the covers away hesitantly. She put her arms under his knees and back and lifted him into a wheel chair. The boy was still too weak to move after his ordeal and so she decided that this would be the best thing for her to do.
She wondered again what sort of energy this boy held; it certainly wasn't the typical chakra. And never had she seen such ears as those! Something about this boy's stature and facial expression told her he wasn't quite human. He was rather tall and had broad shoulders, and strange clothes, for a teenage boy. But he kept himself quite fit and lithe as a warrior would, so perhaps he was a ninja from another, faraway country. A warrior, at least.
She carted him out of the room down the hall to a room a few doors down from his. She opened the door and wheeled him inside. A machine was making a beeping noise and there was a person on the bed. It was obviously a girl, but with all of the machinery on and around her he couldn't make out her face.
The nurse moved him closer until one of the machines was no longer restricting his sight and he could see the most important thing. Her ears. The lightly tanned blonde-haired elf girl. The blood elf maiden, Adelia Willowheart.
'The children were shocked at the abrupt violence that had surrounded them for the past few hours of their lives, and when they saw a body crushed completely in the hands of a giant demon, they couldn't hold their stomachs. One of them, the girl, was swatted aside while the boy just stared at the ground, oblivious to his friend's demise.'
'I saw her die. I thought… that she was dead… I knew that she was dead. And yet… here she is…' the bewildered elf boy thought. 'Alive. My friend is still alive.' He finally smiled, the nurse noticed. She moved him even closer and the boy reached out his hands to rest them on the sleeping elf's hand. The tears of one once lonely streamed down his face. In the midst of all of the atrocity, of all the anguish, he felt something he had never thought he would feel again. Relief. Relief, and gratitude.
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Adelia Willowheart came into consciousness very slowly and, like waking up from a peaceful night's rest, let her mind and body adjust to thought and movement. Through her eyelids she saw not blackness but bright light, which caused them to flutter open. Her bright green eyes blinked at the white light and white walls and everything clean and antiseptic. She was laying in a cot under a thin white sheet, wearing a white gown of some sort. She blinked again. This place was a little strange. But it was alright; she was strangely comfortable.
"Adelia!" a voice near her face whispered. "Adelia, you're awake!"
"Makira?" she said quietly to the voice. She turned her head slowly to the left, her vision slightly blurred, her thoughts comfortably slow and peaceful. The face that came into focus was the handsome, green-eyed, dark-haired visage of Makira Sunsorrow… although, the dark shadows under his eyes made her worry.
"Makira? Are you alright?" she asked, frowning.
"Yes. I'm fine. Just exhausted," he answered.
She smiled up at him. Then she noticed that he was feverishly gripping her left hand. She frowned. "Makira?" she said again. He was so disheveled and excited that she couldn't help but laugh. The laugh turned into a cough as a slight pain in her ribcage ripped out the mirth.
"Ah! Doral ana'diel, Adelia?" He was so intent on her. The pain subsided again, and she felt a wave of… slowness… wash over her again. She looked back at Makira, completely content. "I am fine, Maki. How are you, though? You don't look too happy."
"I am, I am happy," he said quickly. "Just- stay awake for a while." His gaze dropped to the floor.
"Alright… I'll stay awake. Where did that pain come from-" she felt her ribcage where the pain seemed to originate, and felt layers of cloth binding- and suddenly her latest memories flooded in, drowning her. The City being overrun-the magisters opening-the portal-rushing through-Makira's mother standing bravely and proudly-the demon laughing-fear and bile building in her stomach-then suddenly a sharp pain- then… darkness.
A sound came from her throat, one like what Makira had uttered when sorrow and helplessness had enshrouded him the night before, when death was all around him. Tears fell down her cheeks. A machine next to the bed beeped faster and a few seconds later the brown-haired nurse bustled in to check on her patient.
Makira did not move to look at the nurse. The nurse said something in the unintelligible language, checked a few of the girl's vital signs, and, as things began to settle down, left the room quietly.
Adelia did not cry for very long. She was too exhausted to now, though her mind was almost functioning normally now that she was awake and breathing properly. The place in her ribcage tingled; she knew her body was also functioning fairly well if she noticed this.
"Are there any others?" she asked him.
"No." A simple answer, telling much. His mother was dead, as well as their master of magic, their teacher, and all the other civilians. The city was overrun. There was likely nothing left but demons there now. And they were on a totally different planet.
"Where are we, exactly?" she asked, turning her head to look at the white room, out the window into the sky.
"A 'byouin,' a hospital, in… 'Konohakagure'," he said the strange foreign words with care. "The people here are human, but don't speak Common, of course… I'm so glad you're well," he added, looking at the bandages on her stomach.
"I'm glad that you're alive, my friend," she said in answer. She took a deep breath, felt her that tingle on her ribcage, then exhaled a sigh. "I can't believe what's happened."
Makira did not answer, but stayed quiet. He let go of her hand, and his face masked his emotions. She could guess what they were like.
But Makira was here. Even though everyone else was killed, murdered, horribly and unforgivably… Makira was alive. They would face this together. Adelia had to believe that they could come out of this horrible fate better than ever.
The nurse came in and checked the girl's vitals, then left the two strange teenagers alone again. The sun outside the window was setting, bathing the outside world in golden light. The two blood elves had talked and the conversation had lightened a little, despite Makira's dark mood. And, despite the murders they had witnessed the previous night, they would not let sorrow get in their way. The humans here were benevolent and good people. Adelia and Makira were optimistic about their new life in this new world.
"Maki, I need to sleep a little more, I think," Adelia said, yawning. "I should be perfect in the morning."
"Alright, rest, then, Adelia. I'm famished, though. I wonder what kind of food they have here…" he mused. Adelia chuckled, and Makira smiled wide, before saying goodnight.
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As Makira Sunsorrow left the room where his friend slept he noticed the nurse carrying a tray with two steaming bowls on it. He gestured to indicate that Adelia was sleeping and the nurse nodded, and they made their way into Makira's room instead where he noticed something different. There was a bag on the bed. The bag he was carrying when he ran through the portal.
He had been learning under his tutor of magic before the Burning Legion had infiltrated the city, his mother had come by to escort him away from the old elf so that he may be encouraged to come home with a bit more haste than he had shown the day before. That is when they struck, and he and his mother immediately turned tail and ran, one of the first few to arrive at the Court of the Sun.
The bag contained little. A bit of Eversong wood and shining dust from his enchanting lessons; he never had been any good at that type of magic. His Book, the book that all elves are given once they come of age to learn magic, the book that revealed a wealth of magical knowledge, all kinds of spells and incantations from beginner to advanced. He had always been fascinated by it; the types of abilities it would allow the user to see depended on how much power the user put into the book, in order to prevent gung-ho students from getting too far ahead of themselves and completely draining themselves of power.
He sifted through the other various odds and ends and then something caught his eye: a soft green glow. Shining through the material of a pocket in the bag was the item he had almost forgotten about. The glowing green orb he had somehow managed to conjure into existence at the cost of an enchanted sword. At the merest touch a new pain came to him, a pain he had forgotten in all of the excitement he had been hit by since he came to this world.
The pain of one starving… for magic.
The nurse looked at him worriedly, seeing him raise the sphere to his chest and breathe ragged breaths. After few moments he calmed down, having sated his thirst. He decided he would keep this orb on his person at all times, its closeness giving him comfort and strength.
He looked down at the meal still sitting on the tray on the table as his stomach growled. He reached for the bowl and… sticks?
Makira raised an eyebrow to the nurse, who took the other bowl in her hands and gripped the sticks in a strange fashion. She pinched the rice and meat lightly between the sticks and raised it to her mouth. He tried to do the same, but only managed to drop them.
After perhaps the sixth try he decided just to scoop it into his mouth. The meat had an odd tangy taste to it, not at all unpleasant, but it was perhaps a bit too cooled off. He waved his hand and a light steam rose from the bowl once again.
The nurse stared incredulously at what she had seen; or had she seen it? The elf continued to scarf down his meal, so used to magic that he simply assumed that everyone had seen it. He indicated to his meal and made a shrugging gesture.
"Teriyaki desu," the nurse answered. She indicated the sticks: "Ohashi". The nurse continued to teach Makira words in Japanese, while the boy listened very carefully to the sentence structure of the language and ate the teriyaki. She taught him the basics of the language, indicating basic things to say when certain things happen, words for all sorts of things.
"Thank you for the meal, miss," he said presently in Japanese. The nurse was stunned. From just thirty minutes of naming things and acting out basic situations with gestures this boy had already figured out how the sentences worked, and had even pieced together words she had never used together at the same time. This boy had an incredible intelligence.
"No problem… sir," She replied, still amazed. She picked up the tray and the bowls and said good night. Makira lay down, reaching for the green orb once again. He pondered what it possibly could be. He had heard some scattered talk of some mages from years back using them, but he wasn't sure what they were for. He searched through the book, ordering it to look for information on such a sphere, and his face fell.
There was a fairly high power restriction on this page, one that he doubted he could obtain, especially in this world where there was so little magic in the air. He took a deep breath and began to focus on the book. He gripped the sphere tightly and expelled a large amount of energy into the pages and, amazingly, the seal broke. Even more amazing was the fact that he hardly felt drained from the effort. He looked at the sphere for a moment and read what was on the newly visible page.
'The Verdant Spheres: Weapon of the Blood Mages' was the title. Apparently these spheres were used by a group of elite mages that are no longer prevalent. Perhaps one or two may have still been around before the Legion attacked, but that was irrelevant at this point. Usually such spheres were used in groups of three, as their power becomes far more potent the more spheres there are. The Spheres are made by consuming the magical energy of a demon and a very forceful will from the maker; this made sense, since he had stabbed the fallen demon with a spell blade.
Other tidbits of information were scattered about the article such as how the spheres are stationary if solo, hovering if in a pair, and flying about in a circle and aligning themselves to the user's spells when in a trio.
The last bit caught his eye. The spheres will siphon the essence of every evil outsider confronted by its master. Outsiders; elementals; celestials; demons; anything that is of another plane of existence than the normal realm. He closed the book and laid it aside, gripping the sphere tighter. As he was laying his head on the pillow he began to ponder his new power, a power that he could not even begin to know how to use.
Authors Note:
We would like to give all of you who read this story a good show. I apologize that the summary doesn't say much, but we weren't sure what to say in such a tiny little box. Please enjoy this Fanfic as we are trying our best to make it wonderful.
Edit: Spotted a few typos. Fixed a bit.