"Hello?"
Dia's head spun as she tried to tune into the warbling voice that lulled her into consciousness.
"Is anyone there, zura?"
Zura? Why did that sound familiar?
Dia willed her eyes to open as she sat up, finding the movement unnaturally easy despite her aching head. Her fingers stung as they were gripped around what felt like cold metal. Finally, her blue eyes open to be met with the sight of the silver staff that rested in her lap, it's harsh metal juxtaposed against the delicate, flowing drapery of a foreign gown.
Oh, that's right. They had opened the gate.
Or at least, she thought that's what they had done.
"Dia? Kanan?"
Her head snapped up at her name, realizing it was Hanamaru calling to her.
Dia stood, taking note of the darkness that blanketed everything in sight. She spun on her heel, but was only met with pitch black stretching out as far as she could see. The heart gem on the end of her staff cast a soft red glow - the only light source in this depressing field of midnight. The stone on her hand did not shine with the familiar crimson light, but it's jagged edges were still present on her skin.
"Please, answer me!"
Hanamaru's cry pushed Dia to start blindly shuffling towards the sound of her voice. She licked her lips and tried to call out to the scholar, but her throat was painfully dry.
"I'm in the study, so please, come if you can hear me!"
The study?
Dia wasn't sure what that meant, but she pressed forward with hesitant steps in the direction she heard Hanamaru's voice echo from. She held the staff out in front of her like a lantern, even though it did little to shed insight on the darkness that surrounded her. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed a tiny blue spec on the horizon. She picked up her pace and followed after it.
"W-Wait!" Her voice was gravely, and Dia wasn't sure if she could be heard.
Surprisingly, the spec stopped, and Dia hiked her dress up as she ran towards it.
It was exhilarating, running through the blanket of darkness without anxiety or fear of crashing into anything, and she noticed she was not running out of breath from the exertion at all. The blue spec grew closer as she gained ground on it, and Dia let out a surprised gasp as the blue - no, turquoise - light illuminated off of a monstrous tiger. The glow from its body reflected upon the elegant face of her fellow Azalea stone holder, whose hand was resting on the creature's shoulder blades.
"Dia!" Kanan called, having noticed at the same time the bobbing red light belonged to her companion.
Relief flooded her face as Dia stopped in front of her. The combined energy of their lights cast a wider net around them, but still did not display anything other than a dark floor beneath them. She stared in awe at the glowing tiger at Kanan's side.
The tiger blinked slowly up at Dia, and Kanan laughed as she caressed its ear. "Amazing, isn't he?"
"Indeed."
"It looks like we've been given guides for traversing...whatever this place is supposed to be," Kanan said, her head tilting to look at the darkness surrounding them.
"It seems like it," Dia replied. Her grip tightened around her staff. "Did you hear Hanamaru, too?"
"Yes, I was trying to head towards her voice, but it's so hard to know where I'm going. I haven't caught sight of a yellow light yet."
Dia frowned. That wasn't good news. "She said something about a study, but that would imply there is a room of some sort she is inside."
The tiger at Kanan's side nudged her thigh, and began walking away. They followed after him, not knowing what else to do.
"We haven't come across any room, or any obstacle at all for that matter. It seems like you can walk through here, in any direction, without running into anything."
Dia nodded at Kanan's observation, but both knew it wasn't helpful in the slightest.
"What do you think this is, Dia? This place, I mean. All I remember was the gate shattering, and then I woke up here."
"That's the same for me. If I had to guess, we're in some sort of limbo," Dia mused solemnly.
"Limbo?"
The tiger stopped to look back at them, and Dia could've sworn he inclined his chin the slightest, as if in concurrence with her observation.
She cleared her throat and tried to explain, "Maybe this is where we remain until the next stone holders come forth. Lily White did not seem to recall much of what happened during their time before appearing to us, though they knew they could communicate with one another. Perhaps they were stuck in a similar place, with only each other for company."
Kanan looked between the tiger and Dia with a conflicted expression on her face. "Oh, I guess that makes sense."
A sad smile tugged on Dia's lips, as she felt the same despair settling in.
Would they be stuck here in the endless abyss for possibly hundreds of years with no memories to show for it?
"I could be wrong though, as that's just a hunch. Regardless, we should keep looking for Hanamaru."
Kanan's lips were tight as she nodded, and her tiger familiar nuzzled her thigh before walking away again. The tall, navy-haired woman gave Dia an apathetic shrug before following after the glowing tiger.
They walked silently through the perpetual landscape of shadow. Time and distance seemed to not exist in this realm. They walked for what felt like hours, but Dia's gut was uneasy at knowing they might not actually be making any progress. Nervous waves radiated off Kanan, and Dia knew she was feeling the same apprehension towards their situation. The tiger leading them, however, seemed unperturbed, and continued walking, his strides neither confident nor frantic. If anything, he seemed to be casually heading towards a destination only he could see.
A low hum erupted from the feline, causing the two women to flinch in surprise. He relaxed back on his haunches and turned to them with an expression Dia could only read as pleased on his feline face. The tiger slowly blinked, and turned to look back ahead before inclining his muzzle.
"Look!" Dia followed Kanan's pointing finger, noticing a faint amber light radiating over the horizon.
"That must be where Hanamaru is," Dia said.
Some of the anxiety that built within her began to wane at the thought of reuniting with her sister's dearest friend. Hanamaru's presence had grown to greatly soothed Dia, and she understood why the younger woman had such a positive effect on her shy sister.
Kanan's relieved expression shone back at her from the red glow reflected off of Dia's staff, and the turquoise tiger nodded his head.
"Thank you, Haku."
A satisfied rumble in the tiger's chest caused Kanan to giggle as she squatted down to pet his head.
"Haku?" Dia asked with a raised brow.
"Well, he deserves a name, doesn't he?"
Haku tilted his head as he stared at Dia, seemingly seeking her approval. She smiled and joined Kanan in patting his head. "Yes, you have been a great help, Haku."
After basking in their attention, Haku stood and nodded his head up towards where the gold light was shining in the distance. Dia's grip on her staff tightened as she turned to Kanan and said, "Let's go find Hanamaru."
.
.
.
The two Azalea stone holders squinted as they neared a strange door propped ajar. Golden light emanated from the strange door, all but blinding them when compared to the muted glow of Haku and the staff they had grown accustomed to. Haku seemed unphased by it as he pushed the door open with his muzzle and boldly walked inside.
Dia exchanged a weary look with Kanan, but their worries vanished in relief at the voice that piped up in surprise from within. They walked in to see Hanamaru sitting cross-legged on the floor with her celestial book opened before her. A soft amber glow radiated from the tome.
"There you two are!" she exclaimed as she stood up.
A huff of air escaped Dia as Hanamaru collided with her, but the counselor couldn't resist hugging her back. Hanamaru then leapt at Kanan, who held her inches off the ground and spun her around in joy.
The turquoise moon and amber star on their hands were as dim as Dia's stone now was, but she could still see a glittery ghost of their original color reflected from the soft light from the lamps above.
"I thought I was going to be here all alone forever, zura!" she cried. "Where were you two?"
"I woke up somewhere out there in the darkness, so I'm not actually sure where I was…" Dia said.
Kanan nodded, corroborating her statement.
"That's strange. I woke up in here," Hanamaru waved her hand to the dome shaped room they were inhabiting, "And I was too afraid to go out into the darkness...I couldn't imagine actually waking up out there." She shuddered, and Haku purred as he leaned against Hanamaru's side to comfort her.
"It actually wasn't that scary. My staff glowed, so at least I had some light." Dia held her staff out, allowing Hanamaru to closer inspect it. "Your book appears to be glowing as well, so you would've at least had that, but I'm glad you didn't have to be out there."
Kanan nodded, "I wouldn't know what I would've done without Haku. At least he's another being, so I never felt alone." Haku blinked up at her from beside Hanamaru, and Kanan cracked a grin.
"I'm glad we're all together again! And at least we have this safe place to stay."
Dia and Kanan allowed their gaze to drink in the room around them. The walls and ceiling curved to create a dome shape high above them, and pretty golden orbs of light floated in clusters towards the top of the dome. There was not much inside the room of note other than a few sitting pillows and the bookshelves that lined the walls around them. It felt just like the study back at the castle, minus the rows of desks and dusty air.
"What is this room supposed to be? Other than some kind of study, obviously. Why is it here in the middle of nowhere?" Kanan asked.
Hanamaru shrugged, "I'm not entirely sure. The books are real and we can read them, but I've mostly been sifting through the one given to me by the gate."
"Limbo."
The two girls turned to Dia, who stood with her arms crossed as she squinted around the room.
"Like the thing you mentioned earlier?" Kanan asked as she tilted her head.
"Yes. I can only guess this room exists to bide us over until we are summoned, just like Lily White probably was when we arrived to the gate. Even though their memory is fuzzy, they could've easily been holed up in a comfortable room like this, and spent the years reading and talking."
Kanan mirrored Dia by crossing her arms. A bitter smile of acceptance tugged at her lips. "I see what you mean. It's comfortable and offers entertainment. There are definitely more than enough books for us to humor ourselves with for the next hundred years at least."
Hanamaru held a hand up to her lips as she looked around the room and surveyed the shelves around them. "Shame that we have all these books to read, with no way of holding onto all the information we gleam from them." She pouted and sighed a small 'zura'. "Imagine all the studies I could've published with a celestial library like this!" Kanan patted her on the back in sympathy.
"It's better than being fully dead, I suppose." Dia sighed and looked down at her body. Physically, she looked as if she was normal and alive, but internally, there was an unsettling lightness to her being.
Hanamaru fisted her hand in the fabric of her dress, seemingly understanding that same feeling.
Limbo or not, at least they were not alone.
"So we just hang out here until the next cycle occurs?" Kanan asked. Her eyes darted down to Haku, who Dia could've sworn shrugged his shoulders.
Hanamaru padded back towards her golden tome and effortlessly picked it up despite it's comically large size. "Despite not having a clear idea of what to do next, I do have something of interest to share. I believe this book serves as a history of the cycles of calamity and rebirth."
She returned to their circle and twisted the book in her arms, holding it open towards her comrades. "The first calamity seems to have occurred a couple thousand years after the world was formed."
Dia scanned the elegantly scripted list, mentally running through the various dates and times between each rebirth cycle. Once she reached the end of the page, her eyes darted up to Hanamaru, who had bittersweet acceptance reflected in her honey eyes. "If this book is accurate then…"
"Then the true end is almost near," Hanamaru finished Dia's thought, having already come to that conclusion before they had found her.
Kanan leaned in closer to the text, and Dia felt the taller woman tense at her side as she tallied the numbers and came to the same realization. "The time between the Lily White stones and the Azalea stones was barely one hundred years...and the time before them was only about one hundred and fifty…"
Hanamaru nodded sadly at Kanan's worried expression. "The time between cycles has been gradually closing in at a rate of roughly fifty years ever since the beginning. We're down the the last fifty, which means the next holders will presumably close the next cycle, only to have another one erupt immediately after their sacrifice."
Kanan gasped. "If that's the case, then there won't be another set of stone holders in time to band together to dispel it…"
"There won't be time for the gate to store up any purification energy either, zura."
Dia's grip tightened on her staff. "All of this has been fruitless then? Does this mean our sacrifice, and the sacrifice of the stone holders before us, has only been delaying the inevitable?"
Hanamaru closed the tome and held it tightly to her chest. "Yes and no. I can't say for sure whether any of the other stone holders have found solutions and failed, or even knew of the closing deadline to permanently stop the end from happening."
Haku moved to lean his large body against Dia's side. She couldn't resist reaching down to caress the tuft of soft fur on his head. Kanan sadly smiled as she tried to remain encouraging, "What's happened has happened, and at least we know the truth now, right Hanamaru?"
The scholar nodded, and Dia released a jagged breath. Kanan was right, there was no use getting wound up over it now.
"We have access to all these books, and plenty of time to get through them all. Maybe they're useless and only good for passing time, but they could hold the answers to ending this once and for all."
"But Kanan, what if we do manage to figure out a solution, but then we forget it once we are summoned? Lily White seemed to have no recollection of their time here in limbo." Hanamaru's expression was downtrodden as she addressed the elephant in the room.
Dia nodded, her voice heavy with hopelessness. "Assuming we even could figure out what numerous holders before us couldn't, it wouldn't do us any good if we're just destined to forget about our time spent here."
Haku retreated from Dia's side over to lay beneath the only table in the room, sparking something within his master. Kanan grabbed Hanamaru and Dia's hands and dragged them over to the table.
She walked around to stand opposite them at the other head of the table, straightened her back, and spoke with conviction. "That's a possibility, but we can't just sit here and wallow in pity. You are a scholar, right Hanamaru? If anyone can make sense of the material here, it's you."
Kanan slammed her hand on the table and turned to Dia then, who had flinched at the sudden noise, but kept her gaze lowered. "And Dia, you are a counselor, yes? Then you have experience organizing plans of action and weighing risk versus reward. I don't have that kind of formal training or experience, but I do know how to keep fighting against all odds." She gave them a confident grin and gripped the hilt of her sword that rested at her hip. "Combining our strengths, I know we can solve this problem."
"But-"
"But what if we forget? Yes, we might, but would you rather sit here for the next fifty or so years without even trying to find a solution? There is no guarantee Lily White would've been in the same place we are now, and it's always a possibility that we were the only ones given all of this," Kanan vigorously waved her arm to gesture towards the study, "As a last resort."
Dia glared at the wood-grain of the table. Hanamaru glanced around the room with furrowed brows as she assessed their situation. Clearly, Kanan was not pleased by their lackluster reactions, as she slammed her hand on the table once more.
"We did not come this far and offer up our very lives just to give up now! We were chosen for this, so we have to believe we can figure this out."
"K-Kanan's right, zura!" Hanamaru slammed her golden tome on the table with vigor. "There's no use moping around. We shouldn't give up hope yet! After all, Ruby and our friends are still out there! Even if it turns out to be for nothing, we must at least keep trying for them!"
This brought Dia's eyes to lift up towards the red heart on her staff. It had allowed her a glimpse of her sister before the gate opened, but did not show signs of offering her that same gift anymore.
Ruby.
At least she'd be able to live the next fifty years in peace.
It made Dia feel ill inside, but knowing that the true calamity would occur in fifty years time made her wish that Ruby would pass on peacefully before then. She was a pure soul who didn't deserve to suffer through the final end.
But maybe, just maybe, there is a way to prevent it.
"Okay," Dia finally said as she looked between her encouraging comrades, "Let's keep fighting for them as long as we can."
A/N: Whew, apologies for taking so long to get this chapter up. Life just got busy and I was stuck over how exactly I wanted to reach the end of this story, but I think I can see the ending clearly now ^^
Haku comes from the word 'hakumei', which from what I've gathered, can mean dusk, or twilight. Kudos to you if you get where I was trying to go with that name for him ;)