A/N: Hold your horses, I'm gonna be uploading two chapters in one day. C'mon, I had to get them both out before Valentine's, I couldn't torture y'all on the day of love! I mean, I guess I could if I wanted, but I digress. also, this sorty has massive references to another one-shot I posted ages ago, A Cautionary Tale. Check that one out, it was a little too long at add to this one as a bonus without massively padding the story.
A few days later, the kids were all busy at work with helping around the temple. Nadia, Aaron, Kelly and a few other acolytes were helping out Brightmore, while Kimora and Chavez were helping Masters Takahashi and August. There hadn't been any more reports of attacked creatures since Kimora had stumbled across the Fear Fang, which was both a relief and a worrying silence. They couldn't have given up that easily, after two children and an Outpost Guardian had killed one of their men, right? It all just seemed too weird, but this didn't stop the masters from their search.
Nadia and Aaron had other ideas for finding out exactly what the Injured Order was all about, and decided to take matters into their own hands. So, after dually claiming that they had forgotten to do "something" for Master Ezra, they quickly went into the darker parts of the temple, passages that hadn't been used in decades. They lit up their gauntlets, and walked into one of the darkest corridors, conversing of their own thoughts of what this violent group truly had in mind.
"What I'm saying is, these people know what they're messing with, and they know their weaknesses, so they've gotta be duelists of some kind," Aaron said. "And the whole inverted symbol looks like it might be some sort of rebellion. But the real question is, what are they trying to rebel against? It's not like the current order is exactly super friendly to the creatures."
Nadia shrugged. "It doesn't have to mean that. Maybe they're trying to make a statement that if they're going to go too far, then everyone else will. Of course, that seems a bit counterproductive…" She stopped talking when their little march led them into a room, filled from top to bottom with old scrolls, some still in their dusty glass cases on the shelves. Both kids' eyes lit up, albeit for slightly different reasons, and they rushed over to them, eager to discover more.
"Wait!" Aaron said. "These things are ancient! We can't just go crazy rooting through all of these. We might destroy them. We have to find one that talks about exactly what we want."
Nadia rolled her eyes. "I know that, do you think I'd really destroy priceless knowledge just for this? But, you do have a point." She performed a Water summon kata. "Aqua Chaser Rusalka!" The trench hunter burst from the portal, a bit startled by the change in scenery, but she quickly regained her calm when Nadia mentally relied her plight.
{Are there any scrolls about creatures being attacked by humans, or anything talking about human-creature disputes? This is sort of a time-sensitive matter.}
{On the top left innermost shelf, there are a few scrolls relating exactly what you'll need to know.}
Nadia nodded, and rushed over to the shelf, Aaron in tow. She pulled out three different scrolls from the notch, and placed them on a table. Careful not to rip or tear any of them, she slid the first one out of its glass casing slowly, as Aaron took the second and unrolled it by its handles gently. He blinked in confusion as he glanced over the paper, examining the drawings laid forth before him.
"This is just… a spell kata. Although, it would be pretty cool to evolve ol' Twin-Cannons!" He looked over at Nadia, who was reading over hers with eyes wide and full of horror. "Uh, Nadia? You alright there? What does it say?" He asked, nudging her a bit as he looked over her shoulder to read the scroll. But she proceeded to ignore him until he'd found a way to shove himself onto the bench to where they could both see it.
"It's a warning," she said softly. "About a duelist who tried to destroy both the creatures, the kaiju realm, and any duelist who stood in his way. Does this remind you of anything?" Aaron's hand flew up to cover his mouth as he gasped, and the two proceeded to scan over the scroll, the similarities between this "Chronarch" and the Injured Order steadily increasing. In fact, they'd become so engrossed in this scroll, they both were unaware that Rusalka had been mentally warning them that someone was coming.
"Aqua Chaser Rusalka, be gone!" Brightmore's voice called out suddenly, and the kids both yelped in panic, nearly falling off the bench as Rusalka was dragged back into the Water Civilization. The Light Master was understandably angered that he'd been lied to, but equally worried that the older library had been re-entered. "You two had better have a good explanation for this." He said, his dark green eyes narrowing to slits.
"We were looking for knowledge!" Nadia answered truthfully. She confidently held up the scroll in front of Brightmore. "And I think you'll be happy with what we've found." Aaron also held up the scroll with The Spell of Temporary Evolution, with just about as much as she. Nigel took the scroll, examined it, and gave it back to her, bit more shakily than he had intended to show.
"I'll admit, the parallels are… staggering. But what could they have to accomplish by mimicking that monster?" He asked. Nadia, not thinking that she'd have gotten this far, froze up. Any possible explanations or theories that had been coursing through her mind for the past 5 minutes had vanished out of fear of mockery or disapproval. All she could really give him was a sort of forlorn expression and a sighing noise and a noncommittal hand gesture.
Aaron, who was still holding up his scroll, cleared his throat to speak up. "If I may? I think this might help us!" He handed it to Brightmore, and then stood next to Nadia, impulsively holding her hand to try and make her feel better. Brightmore clicked his tongue as he looked over it. "This doesn't make up for you two shirking your duties, you know. But, I must agree it's helpful nonetheless." He closed it. "Now, put those other two back. We still have work to do."
The two bowed in reverence, and walked over to the table. Curiosity tempted Nadia, as she was putting the scroll back in the glass case, to see what the third scroll said, but she quickly shrugged it off as she and Aaron returned them back to their shelf, and then returned with Brightmore to the main Dojo.
Meanwhile, Master Rojas had gotten word from Slyth that there had been a minor disturbance on the borderline of the Darkness Realm and Nexus Zone, a possible attack or "example" made from the Injured Order. Not wanting to disturb Chavez from his studies, she went alone and without a creature, depending on only her mana to defend herself from any possible ambushes or traps. But, when she arrived, virtually nothing was there, except the usual bones and remnants from creatures who had strayed too long.
But, something caught her eye, a shining silver light, barley buried beneath the massive skeletal structure of a Lunar Boar. She walked over to it, and began to dig it up, perhaps it was a possible clue left behind or something along those lines. Rojas chipped off the dust and mud to reveal that it was a gauntlet, extremely old, rusted, and unbelievably gaudy. The gems upon the wrist glowed brightly, no longer muffled by the dirt. She coked her head to the side, not knowing what to make of it. She decided that she would simply take it in for study at her own office, and tell the Masters of it when she discovered what it truly was.
