A/N: Well, here's the next chapter... it's got a bit of World War history in here, so my deepest apologies to anybody who finds it boring. To tell you the truth, WWII has always been my favorite topic in social studies. n.n
Gaea looked pretty much the same as when Hitomi had left except that Fanelia had been fully rebuilt during the time that she had been gone. However, by just standing where she was, she could tell that there had been a significant change. Gaea was no longer a world at war and she could feel the air of peacefulness all around her, but she couldn't enjoy it... not without Van.
"Alright, Hitomi," Allen said, taking out a map of Gaea and placing it on the ground, "Come do your thing."
Very reluctantly, she knelt in front of the map and took the necklace from around her neck. She closed her eyes, then released the pendant so that it could swing while she moved her hand over the map. No... no... no... no... wait... "There!" she said, dropping the necklace over the spot where she was sure Van was. "He's there."
Allen knelt beside her, Dryden crouched in front of her, Gaddes beside him and Robo-Van, instead of sitting at her other side, crouched behind her to peer over her shoulder. She was sure it was only an excuse to touch her, though.
"You were right," Allen said with a disappointed sigh, "That would be where Zaibach once stood... and where it's most likely standing once again."
"Does this mean that there'll be another war?" Dryden queried, falling onto his rear so that he could prop his elbow on his knee and lean his chin on his fist.
"Perhaps," Allen answered, making his fore- and middle fingers walk across the map from Fanelia to Zaibach and then from Zaibach to Austuria. "That's a long way to go without the Crusade or any mode of transportation," he said mainly to himself and then muttered a curse. "We most definitely can't go to Zaibach as we are... we'll have to stop at the nearest village and get some horses."
Dryden nodded in agreement. "Good idea. We'll also need a place to shack up for the time being, Hitomi's probably exhausted."
"I'm fine," she lied. Actually, if she hadn't knelt on the ground, she would probably be flat on her face by now. She was dead tired... and hungry. "I'll survive."
"Don't cause yourself to suffer for our sakes," the fair-haired knight told her grimly, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder, "That won't do you or any of us any good and, if it doesn't do any of us any good, imagine how bad that'll make it for Van. He's counting on you."
She nodded.
"And, after you've rested, you could do a reading."
Her head snapped up at that and she stared wide-eyed at Allen. "What? But... I-I can't! Remember what happened the last time I did that? I nearly destroyed Gaea! B-Besides, I don't have my Tarot cards with me, I put them away as soon as I got back to Earth and I swore to never touch them again."
"Listen, Missy," Gaddes said, pointing his toothpick at her, "If we want any hope of saving Van, we're going to have to go all out on this one. To go all out, you'll need to find out whatever it is we're up against."
"Don't be so rude," Allen told his second-in-command before turning back to Hitomi, "Please, Hitomi? You said that you would use your powers to help us find Van, you didn't think that meant also doing your readings?"
Actually, she hadn't and now she was feeling stupid. She'd had no idea what she was getting herself into. "But, last time..."
"You know what you're doing," he persisted, "I have my utmost faith in you. You just have to have faith in yourself."
She sighed and nodded her relent. "But I don't have my cards."
"We got some when we were on Earth," Dryden said slyly.
"How did you do that without any Japanese money?"
He chuckled with that same sly attitude and answered with a mysterious wink, "I have my ways, little missy."
"He swiped them," Robo-Van said cheerfully, obviously quite glad to be the one to answer his beloved Hitomi's technically-unanswered question, "That's what he told me!" Dryden's eyes narrowed on the little robot and said robot shrunk away behind Hitomi.
The afore-mentioned psychic girl sighed again and once again nodded her relent. "Alright, I'll do a reading, but don't blame me if I'm a little rusty."
"Wouldn't dream of it."
It took a very long time, but, eventually, the group found themselves in a rundown little village. Actually, rundown was an understatement: it would be safer to say debilitated or decrepit. All of the buildings were in bad shape, some of them even missing chunks where something had most likely crashed into it; the few people that were walking around looked quite beat up and poor, their eyes as round and timid as a rabbit's, searching for any sign of danger... actually, decrepit or debilitated didn't even do this hellhole justice.
"Is it safe here?" Hitomi asked softly, worried that if she raised her voice too high the few people that dared roam the streets would retreat back into their dilapidated buildings, "Maybe we should go somewhere else?"
Allen looked grim as he answered, "I have a feeling that most of the villages in this area are going to be this way."
"But... why? I-I thought that Gaea was no longer at war? Who could have done this?"
"Boss," Gaddes called, his face and voice reflecting the grimness in his superior's face and voice, "You realize where this is, don't you? You can see why this place is the way it is, right?"
"Of course I can," the knight of Caeli answered with a sigh as he ran his fingers through his fair hair, "This is the present state of the land formerly known as the Zaibach Empire. The Battle of Destiny was held here and, even after the war ended, people wanted to be sure that Zaibach couldn't revitalize itself and so they stripped it of all its resources and then completely destroyed it."
"That's so cruel!" she exclaimed, looking around at all the poor civilians... all the poor innocent civilians.
"But ultimately necessary," Gaddes added through teeth that kept the now-mangled toothpick in place, "These people may have been civilians, but they were supporting Zaibach and Dornkirk in one way or another and would have gladly rebuilt the Empire. We did only what we had to do to make sure that another war didn't break out."
"I did some research on the Mystic Moon," Dryden finally pitched in, "Apparently you had a war you all called 'The War to End All Wars'... but it wasn't your planet's final battle. Apparently twenty or thirty years later another war broke out as a means for revenge for the conclusion of the first war?"
Hitomi reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, but... but that was different!"
"In what way?" the merchant/king asked, his voice suddenly cold, very unlike the man she remembered, "Tell me how it's different."
"Well... Adolph Hitler was mentally unstable."
"And Dilandau wasn't?" he demanded, "And his followers weren't?" He gestured toward the villagers, getting caught up in his rant, and said villagers scurried away from what they assumed was an outright show of anger toward them. "And you can't tell me that these people weren't unstable to believe that fighting could bring out peace. That is such an obvious contradiction that a person would have to be either insane or extremely stupid to believe such a thing."
"Don't be mean to my Hitomi!" Robo-Van exclaimed with indignation, "Nobody speaks to my Hitomi like that and lives!"
"Alright, you three," Allen, ever the peaceful mediator, said in soothing tones, "There's no need to argue over this." He turned to Hitomi. "Yes, it may seem that what was done was wrong, but, in the long-run, it was for the good of all of Gaea." Then, the turned to Dryden, his tone not-so-placating, "You may be the king of Austuria, but you have no need to act so high-and-mighty. Especially not toward the person who is saving your ass."
Allen: 1 Dryden: 0, Hitomi thought with a mental smirk, that inside smirk faltered, however, when she thought, And since when was I Robo-Van's?!
Dryden's lower lip jutted out as though he was going to pout, but everybody could see that he was taking that into consideration. It seemed that Dryden hadn't thought of it as Hitomi saving his ass, but saving Gaea's (metaphorical) ass. Hitomi couldn't blame him: she hadn't thought of it as saving neither Dryden's nor Gaea's (metaphorical) asses, but saving Van.
"Now, listen up all of you," Allen declared, "There must be some area here that was left standing or that was rebuilt if Van is here... unless the buildings you saw were in bad shape, also?"
Hitomi shook er head. "They were in decent repair... I would have never believed that those buildings were here of all places."
"Alright, then let's get the Hell out of here before we're found out and go into the next village for what we need."
Everybody nodded and they set out.
A/N: Okay, the way I see it, the Battle of Destiny was sort of like our world's WWI and they're going to have their own version of a WWII now. I think it makes some sort of sense... but it could just be because of my screwed up state of mind, lawlz. n.n;
