(Since the title wouldn't fit)
"In which Seto Dreams, and the Crew finds a factory"
Honestly, how had they not seen such a giant, dense forest from town? Some of the trees they'd already passed could easily have been taller from some of the buildings. Crow wondered how exactly that worked as he and his two crew members wandered aimlessly through the forest. At some point, Toyo and Zen had taken to leading, they looked completely lost though. Not that Crow had any idea where they were going either, it didn't help that all the trees, tall and taller, looked completely the same to him. The pirate sighed.
"We're lost." He said bluntly, causing the two ahead of him to stop walking and turn around. They knew he was right, none of them were suited for trying to figure out how to navigate a forest. They were pirates, after all, the ocean was more their forte. They were easily out of there element here, more so than ever it seemed. It was then that to the side of them they heard rustling, like someone walking, and there was then a bright pink that contrasted all of the greens and browns around them. It was a girl in a white, sleeveless sun dress with long, wavy pink hair. She blinked at them, looking surprised to see them. Part of Crow wanted to ask who she was, but the pirate captain in him told him that she was suspicious. Showing up right when they needed help? Apparently, his crew did not share his thoughts.
"What are you doing out here, Maria?" Toyo asked, giving the girl a curious look. Crow turned to look at him. How did Toyo know her? He gave a questioning look to Zen, who apparently wasn't paying attention. Wait…no, he knew the girl. This was one of Silvia's sisters; she'd woken them up this morning. Fingering the ring in his pocket, that thought all of a sudden seemed untrustworthy. All the same, as if she didn't notice him, Maria offered a shy smile towards the boys.
"I-I'm out here collecting flowers, or at least looking for them. The fog suffocates them, but you can usually find them after it clears." She answered, and Crow noticed that she had a wicker basket in her hands that had some small flowers sitting at the bottom. There weren't a lot of them though. Toyo nodded, taking her answer as a valid one.
"So you know the forest well then, from collecting flowers?" Zen asked, catching her off guard with the question. She nodded.
"Yeah, I-I guess. I don't get lost anymore, at least. Why?"
"We're looking for that old mine place Silvia told us about." Crow said, watching her carefully, looking for a reason to give his suspicions some grounds aside from a feeling. He did find it slightly odd, though, as he looked at her, how her dress was still completely white if she'd been picking flowers and almost the entirety of the ground they were standing on was dirt. Especially if the flowers were anything to go by, she'd have had to kneel to pick them, and even if she pulled her dress up, there would at least be dirt on the hem of her dress around the bottom, right? "You must be very careful picking flowers, there's not a speck of dirt on your dress." He observed, and for a second, the girl looked nervous.
"I-I try my best, if I get it dirty I have to wash it." She said with a bit of a nervous looking smile. "Why do guys want to go to the mines? They're not a very safe place to go adventuring…" She said, a worrying tone in her voice.
"We're looking for something." Crow said "Two somethings, in fact. Two important somethings." He wondered how incredibly ridiculous he sounded when he said that. He then decided he didn't really care what this suspicious/non suspicious girl thought of him. Maria raised an eyebrow at him.
"Do you not know what you're look for, if they're somethings?" She asked tentatively.
"Not exactly, one of them is a fiery red thing and the other is possibly a silver cat." Toyo explained, a bit if a nervous grin on his face. The girl blinked at the three of them, obviously confused and looking completely lost in their explanations. Crow couldn't blame her for that at least, they weren't sure what they were looking for, how could they expect her to? He wasn't surprised when Maria changed the topic back to the mine location, he was actually slightly grateful.
"I-I'm not sure about what you're looking for…but I know where the mine is." She said hesitantly, her grip on the wicker basket tightening slightly "It's very dangerous though, are you sure you should go there when you don't know what you're looking for?" There was a tone of worry in her voice, but Toyo just gave an over confident grin in response.
"We'll be fine." He said, pulling Zen and Crow close, the latter of which shoved him off just as quickly. This didn't deter the red head. "We're pirates, after all." Maria gave them a soft smile, nodding in defeat, knowing there wasn't a way she was going to convince them against going somewhere so…dangerous, just plain dangerous, according to her. But obviously, none of the males were worried. They could defend themselves fine, they were pirates after all.
"Alright, I'll lead the way then." Maria agreed.
Seto had been going in and out on consciousness for awhile now. The majority of his conscious moments he had been alone in the wooden building, he was sure the last time the red haired monster girl had been in there she had kicked him in the head again, but she had been gone awhile as well. Ren was still in there, her flame flickering smaller and smaller every chance he could turn to look at her. Ren's flame was steadily getting smaller, she was dying, and like he was sure he was. It made his heart ache, thinking she was dying…they had shared a lot of times in the time he'd spent paying back his debt to her cat, she was his friend after all.
Actually, the line between being conscious and unconscious was a blur to him. When he was unconscious, he was in a very shiny place. And there was someone there with him, always staring at him. It took him the first few trips to this odd, shiny place to realize that the person staring at him was his reflection in the glass he was seemingly surrounded by. The panes were connected by a substance that looked a lot like cloudy ice, and Seto wished he could reach out and touch whatever it was. When he looked around the glass he was within, he couldn't help but notice. It looked like he was in a glass cage…why did it seem so familiar?
He was taken out of this cage, this time at least, by a sharp jolt of pain that came from a sharp kick to his stomach, and he found himself back in the wooden building, back on the cold stone floor, with a familiar face leaning over him. Behind a pair of glasses, orange sunset eyes glared down at him, malice not hidden whatsoever. It was Bique, and as she glared down, the bell around her neck made no noise.
"Welcome back, sleeping beauty. You mind at least trying to stay awake?" She asked, her tone annoyed as she pushed a strand of orange hair out of her face.
How on earth Maria managed to navigate the forest so well just because she supposedly knew the places where flowers were was beyond Crow. They'd lost her in the thicket of trees twice already, only to see her hair in a random flash and find her again, waiting with a patient look on her face. Actually, counting right now…it was three times they'd lost sight of the pink haired girl in the wall of trees they'd been going through, and already Zen had tripped on a rather large root sticking out of the ground while trying to catch sight of the bright pink hair of their guide. Crow sighed, agitated as they kept moving forwards. "I think she's doing this on purpose." He said, sounding just as annoyed as he looked. Zen gave him an odd look.
"I don't think she's the type of person to do that, she's a nice girl." Crow raised an eyebrow at him.
"How can you be so sure? We've only been here for two days, you can't assume someone is good or bad by knowing them for so little time." At this, both Toyo and Zen stopped walking, looking at him with a completely lost look on their faces, Zen more so then Toyo.
"I think that's stretching it a bit Captain…" Toyo said, crossing his arms and watching his captain carefully. "I mean I get what you're saying, he shouldn't assume how she is because we haven't been long, but there's a difference between a week and two days."
"What are you two blathering about? We've been here a month." Zen said crossly. "Honestly, is your sense of time that terrible? And considering how hospitable those sisters have been to us too."
"I'm telling you, we've only been here for two days, you two are the ones who have no sense of time."
"Sorry Captain, I have to disagree. I'm telling you we've been here a week at the most, but certainly more than two days."
"Would you listen for once? I'm telling you we've been here for a month!"
"Umm…boys?"
"And as Captain I'm telling you to shut up, you're probably the farthest off Zen."
"Seriously, it can't have been a month."
"I'm telling you it's been a month!"
"Boys?"
"It's only been a week!"
"Two days!"
"BOYS!" The three pirates jumped, noticing their pink haired guide for the first time since they'd started arguing. She was giving them a rather strict look, which looked out of place from the patient look Crow had seen on her since they'd found her out in this bloody maze of a forest. "Please try and keep up, Silvia said the fog would probably be back by evening, please I don't want to be caught in it." She started walking again, stumbling over the same root Zen had tripped over, the bell around her neck, tied with a ribbon, rang quietly at being shook.
Realization shot through him like a sword, and suddenly it felt like something was being lifted from his mind, like…fog.
"You stole that from Ren, didn't you?" His voice was calm enough, to those who didn't know him well at least. Toyo and Zen however caught the undertone of anger that calm voice carried with it, but were more confused by the question then where the anger had come from. "I wonder, what exactly did you give us to screw our memories up so much, enough to forget who are friends were? I regret not listening better to what Seto had been saying, I knew something felt off when I saw all of you wearing those bells. Now tell me, who exactly are you and what do you want?" He wanted to ask, certainly not desperately (because Crow was NOT someone to become desperate), where Seto and Ren were.
Maria was silent, unmoving, for what seemed like a good few minutes, until out of the corner of his eye he saw Toyo's face morph from confusion as to what was going on, to anger as he stomped over to Maria, grabbing her shoulder and swinging her around to face them.
"Answer the question! What do you want? And what did you do with Ren and Seto?" He snapped, and suddenly, the confusion fell from Zen's face, too. The fog had been lifted.
Maria giggled slightly, all pretense of the shy, if slightly bossy girl from mere minutes before was completely gone, and that giggling soon turned to laughter. Toyo took a small step back, releasing his grip on the pink haired girl, and she shot them a grin. "Well, if you'd have just kept following me you'd have found them!" And without warning, she took off running into the woods, her wicker basket seemingly disappearing along with the tiny flowers that had been within it. Crow took off chasing her within seconds, Toyo soon following after just as quickly and Zen catching up after a moment or two.
The paths that Crow had thought he'd seen, where the dirt looked worn, was suddenly covered in grass. There was grass everywhere, and the trees were suddenly covered in all kinds of moss. The roots that they had already been dodging were a lot easier to see now, many of them were sprouting mushrooms. The ones that weren't were quite annoying, they blended in with the grass and were hard to see until you were nearly tripping over them.
Annoyingly enough, Maria was not having near the same amount of issues they were having traversing the forest, she seemed to be having quite an easy time doing so and Crow was having an even harder time keeping up with her now than they had been earlier. Crow may be agile, easily more agile then they crew members of his that were stumbling slightly behind him, but this was pushing it just a bit even for him, he'd nearly tripped twice. Crow cursed quietly under his breath, dodging another root and trying to re-find that annoyingly bright shade of pink they were now being pretty much forced to follow.
Worry coursed through him like a wave of water, fueling him more than his anger. Was Seto OK? It had been a day, maybe longer if he let himself accept that or once Toyo may be right, and on regular terms Crow wouldn't be worried. That being said, regular terms didn't include Seto going missing and Crow's memory being screwed with. And then there was Ren, and while it wasn't the same sort of worry (Ren was pretty competent), he knew if she had been able to she'd have dragged Crow, Toyo, and Zen to the mine to get Seto, whether they remembered her not.
Crow made a sharp turn, catching sight of pink in some of the underbrush, and he heard his two crew mates behind him stumble, trying to turn as well and nearly falling, if Crow had to guess. He didn't care enough to look back right then honestly, if he didn't pay attention he'd lose sight of Maria again. Though now he was sure she'd been losing them on purpose earlier, he hated playing this game of hide and seek with her, they were pretty much running blind unless one of them spotted her. Crow decided that when they caught up to her, he was going to punch her. Generally, he didn't hit girls but he was willing to make an exception for this one. And all of her sisters when they found them.
Crow stopped short at the entrance to what seemed like a clearing of some sort, making Toyo and Zen nearly run him over when they came to a short stop just behind him. Before them, in the clearing that was a building that the trees had taken to holding up it seemed, the building was made of wood and Crow doubted that if the trees hadn't started growing on it would've fallen by now.
The wood looked decayed, and from what Crow could tell there weren't any windows visible. There was a big, carved out bell on top of the building, and Crow was surprised it hadn't gone through the roof. Ahead of them, Maria entered the building, and Crow motioned to his crew to follow him as he started running towards the building, stopping at the door and poking his head in the door carefully. It led into a hallway, but Crow didn't see anyone as he stepped completely into the building, followed by Toyo and Zen.
"Where the hell did she go?" the captain muttered, eying the hallway carefully. He could see the outline of either incredibly bad rot, or doors lining the hallway while the hallway itself seemed to turn somewhere ahead of them. Was Maria in one of the rooms? Crow walked forward to the closest door to them, a sliding door without a lock by the looks o it, and slid the door to the side, revealing a room that looked just as decayed as the outside of the building. There were a few long, but broken tables in the room as well as a lot of chairs that were mostly missing legs here and there; one was missing its back entirely. Crow closed the door and walked quickly to the next one.
After opening most of the doors in the hallway, Crow was starting to get mildly annoyed. The rooms usually consisted of the same thing as the first, long tables and chairs, two of the ones he'd opened had stairs going downwards that he wasn't willing to risk his life trying to go down judging by the rot he saw on them, but he saw large slabs when he looked down and he wasn't sure, but the slabs looked likes molds for something. In another room with a set of untrustworthy stairs, he'd seen a large metal looking thing sticking up slightly, enough so that Crow hadn't needed to go into the room to see it. If he had to hazard a guess, since the two rooms with slab like mold objects were on either side of this room, they were probably connected on the lower floors. Zen gave the large metal thing an impressed look, Crow rolled his eyes and closed the door and started walking again towards the next door.
"What do you think this place is?" Toyo asked, after Crow opened yet another room with long tables and chairs, only to close it unnecessarily hard.
"If I had to guess, I'm pretty sure this was a factory of some sort." Crow answered, walking to another door and trying to open it. This one was more stubborn then the other ones, it seemed.
"If the large metal thing is what I think it is, then this might be the bell factory." Zen said as Crow tried to open the current door "You usually only see such large metal objects like that where they need to melt metals and stuff, the molds in the room next to it that we saw are probably large bell molds."
"Zen, as much as I'd love to hear your thoughts on bells, would you and Toyo quit talking for a minute and help me with this stupid door? I think its rotted shut." came Crow's voice from beside them, trying in vain to try and pull the door open like he'd been able to with all of the other ones they'd opened in the hallway. The crew mates sighed, and Zen shook his head, but they walked over and tried to help their captain open the door that was apparently giving him trouble. Even with the added strength the door wouldn't budge, much to Toyo and Zen's surprise.
"I could understand maybe the rot making it stick, but this is ridiculous." Toyo said, letting go of the door for a moment to glare at it, as if it was aware of the problems it was causing. "Can't we just leave it? We're supposed to be looking for Ren and Seto, or Maria, not screwing with doors." His tone was impatient, and laced with worry. Zen gave him a sympathetic look that Crow didn't get the meaning behind, but he sighed.
"Alright, you two keep going. I just wanna check behind this door, if I know for sure that I can't get the damn thing open, I'll catch up to you guys." He said, noting that the two of them seemed rather hesitant to leave him behind. He sighed "Well, you going or not?"
"Are you sure you're not coming with? It's probably dangerous to be alone here, especially with Maria, and probably her sisters running around…" Crow and Toyo both sent Zen a look "Geez, it's probably not safe to be wandering around alone with those sisters running around." The silver haired boy corrected himself.
"Look, we just don't want you getting hurt Crow." Toyo said "Whatever those girls are, they messed with our heads, who knows what else they can do?"
"Seto and Ren probably know what else they can do." Crow said, and Zen winced slightly "We need to find them, and if those sisters get in my way I'll deal with them. I'm your Captain, and I order you to get going, got it?" His tone didn't leave any room for arguing. Even though Crow was younger then both his crew mates, he had authority, and disagreeing with him generally wasn't a good idea. Toyo and Zen gave him one last look, and Crow looked right back at them, and Toyo nodded.
"Alright Cappy, have fun with your door." The red head said with a teasing grin, ignoring the look he got for the nickname, waving as he started walking down the hall. Zen sighed, shaking his head and walked after his friend, sparing Crow one last look before they turned around a corner at the end of the hall. Crow watched after them until that corner before turning his attention back to the door, giving it a slightly dirty look, and he attempted to open it again.
Much to his surprise, it opened on the first try.
"Weird…" He muttered, poking his head through the door. There was a flight of stairs leading downwards, almost completely dark except for what looked at an exit towards the bottom of the stairs that lit up the bottom. He frowned, wondering whether or not the stairs were safe to go down or not, and then decided he didn't care. He'd spent enough time trying to get this damn door open, he was going to see where the hell it went. So he started down the stairs, closing the door behind him, making the dark stairway even darker.
More surprisingly, the stairs seemed sturdy enough as he travelled down them, and he praised the fact that he had such great balance. They may be sturdy, but the stairs were steep and they had no railing, and walls were never exactly the greatest hold. Everything was silent around the pirate captain, he couldn't hear any noise ahead or behind him, and he wondered vaguely how Toyo and Zen were doing in their search.
He pushed the thought from his mind as he reached close to the bottom, and jumped from where he was to the ground connected to the last step, and the sudden bright light from the open door made him wince, sneezing slightly as he blinked a few times.
The room had a stone floor, and the ceiling was wooden with supports running all about holding up the floor above it from crashing down. There were a few tables strewn about, and he could see from a distance that they, at least a few of them, had…bones, or at least the one closest to him did. He made a slightly disgusted face an entered the room completely, and stopped completely…one of those tables didn't have bones. "Ren!" She was on one of the tables; she looked like she was sleeping. He hurried over and tried shaking her shoulders, but she wouldn't wake up, and she seemed to be just barely breathing. Crow set her back down gently, surely, he thought, if she was here, Seto had to be close by? He turned around away from Ren, and found he was right.
Farther into the room, towards the back, was the familiar turquoise over coat, dirtied from being on the ground, and the maroon hair that was matted down. He didn't need to see the face to know who it was. He ran.
"Seto!"
END CHAPTER
….I'm an evil, lazy person. I've been gone for like, three months, and I leave you with a cliff hanger chapter -_- I'm not going to promise when this is going to be updated next, I hope soon, but I know that if I set a deadline I'll go horribly over it…sorry you got stuck with a slightly lazy author.
Anyways! On a brighter note, next chapter is the end of the Seven bells arc (yes, I have this divided into arcs). I would also like to say a few things to answer a few complaints I've gotten. Yes, Ren has been important in the story so far, it's because she's a main character too! This might be primarily Seto/Crow, but she still plays an important role, and she played a big one this arc (you'll find out next chapter). As for the lack of Seto/Crow so far…they've only known each other for about a month, and I don't think people can fall in love that fast, so that's why the romance is taking so long. One thing I CAN promise is that there's going to be romance up the road, just not yet.
Anyways! With that out of my system, please review. I kinda doubt anyways reading this anymore, but I do hope I've got some people still hanging on~
-Sleepy ;D
