Ah yes, long awaited, long in coming... plenty of personal drama and working life later... much hair was torn out for this chapter, but I think I finally got it down! Many thanks to Silver and White Angels on reminding me of my duties as a teacher of English and beta-ing this chapter! No, I will still yell at the kids for starting with And and But, however! I call this literary freedom and if William Faulkner could get away with writing Sound and the Fury (oh how I hated that book.), then I think I'm okay! P However, many Ands and Buts were still sacrificed for the betterment of the English language. ;)

Enjoy!

Yeah, still don't own Tales of Symphonia. Sheeucks.

The Origin of Hope

Chapter 25: For the Love of Genis

"... AND???"

"AND as an extremely concerned sister and dedicated researcher, it is not intelligent to leave any stone unturned!"

"It's private property!"

"If it was so private, then you could have thrown some elementary locking spell on it! The fact that you, a magic-user, is fully capable of this kind of spell and did not use it, concludes the journal as an invitation for anyone to read!"

Yuan felt like tearing his hair out and yelling back, but the stupid reasons Raine kept throwing at him did have a ring of truth he couldn't entirely dispute... even if they were totally unreasonable in a moral way.

"It's called ethical law! Social reasoning! You don't read people's journals without their consent! Especially if it's buried at the bottom of a desk!"

"Ethical law! Find me a book on ethical law! I happen to possess a book on ethics and it says nothing about journals becoming private, non-trespassable property once buried under some certain number of inches of material!"

"Gah! Absurd! You're totally insane, woman! What happened to morals!? Common sense!"

Raine smiled a very satisfied smile. Nothing can dispute reason. "Nothing can be changed now anyway, it would just be a waste of time to keep arguing about it."

Yuan gave her a look of absolute disdain, which she saw as a very pouty frown. Conclusion: she wins the argument.

However, Yuan's look of disdain didn't last long before it was replaced with a smug smile.

"Okay, explain to me why you would try to hide the journal back under all the junk in the drawer."

Raine couldn't immediately retort but she had an answer. "It is always good policy to return things to their original location."

"Hah!" Yuan stamped the floor and pointed the journal at Raine. "Original it wasn't! It was in the right drawer, and I know distinctly that I buried it in the left drawer!"

Raine rolled her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry."

They stared at each for a few more seconds.

"You--"

"So--"

Raine gestured for Yuan to go on.

"Fine, you know everything now. Any more questions?"

"What's your last name?"

"What?" Yuan stared at her. Of all questions... honestly...

"You never mention your last name! And you only ever sign everything with just Yuan!"

"Why does that bother you so much?"

"Everyone has a last name! What is it?"

"Yuan."

Raine rolled her eyes. "Seriously."

"I am serious. It's Yuan Yuan. So I just write Yuan."

"It's the same as your first name?"

"I dunno, that's what it is. I think you say it a bit differently or something, but I forget."

Raine was completely starry-eyed. "Oh! I read about the ancient civilizations of the Toize Valley! I think it was the Han--"

A frantic knocking on the door made Raine jump.

Yuan opened the door, revealing a rather surprised and blushing Colette.

"S-sorry! Oh, everyone was looking for you, Mr. Yuan! Mrs. Irving told me to tell Raine teacher that Kratos and Lloyd and two others are back. She's already gone to meet them at the front--"

Without another word, Raine and Yuan dashed out of the room with Colette following behind, scratching her head as to why Raine teacher looked so red when the door opened.

When they reached the dusty group of travelers, they saw that Anna had completely wrapped herself around Lloyd's waist and wasn't about to let go anytime soon.

"Raine teacher! Colette!!!" Lloyd shouted in surprise. "What are you guys doing here? Where's Genis??"

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

White.

Cold white light.

Except the bars... the bars were a cold, gray, metal.

Seconds, minutes, hours, days... possibly weeks. Genis didn't know. He lay in the back of the white cell, staring at the bars and the strange ambient white light that shone through the bars. He had tried to conjure up some small spells, but the mana in the cell seemed frozen and unable to be manipulated.

There was nothing to do but think.

Days... it must be days... or possibly many hours...

He felt so light-headed. It was like a headache, but not quite. His tongue felt like solidified sand. When Genis and Raine traveled from town to town, searching for food, rest, and community... thirst and hunger was a constant companion. However, the hunger pains... they usually start two to three days when they couldn't find food to eat... and resorted to eating grass. Thirst... at least they might find puddles of water.

There was no grass to eat here. Nor puddles of water. There was nothing... but smooth white walls. Maybe they were a bit purplish in color actually... about a ten percent grayish purple.

Genis cringed as another attack of hunger struck. The pain from the last one hadn't even left yet.

He slowly closed his eyes, thinking again of the incomprehensible situation he was in.

Hours ago, no possibly days ago... Mithos tried to kill him. No, not Mithos. Not Mithos... Mithos saved him. Mithos stopped his own possessed body from killing him. He could feel that Mithos was still there, even if that other personality had suddenly come to life. What did Yuan call that other personality again? Yig? What did the strange angels that he saw say when they saw him? Yggdrassil. Lord Yggdrassil. The leader of... what did he say, the leader of the angels of Cruxis. Cruxis? Cruxis was the name of heaven, where angels reside, and where the Chosen goes if he or she is successful. Is this Cruxis?

When they suddenly reappeared in this strange place... this strange lifeless place... Cruxis... it definitely seemed a far cry from the heaven he was taught. He remembered being in awe of the angels floating all around him. Seconds later, he was thrown to the floor and ordered to be taken to a cell. Two of the angels floated down, merely nodded and took him by the arms. Why did they look so lifeless? Robotic? They were half-elves, he could sense that. All of them. It wasn't a very strong signature, but it was still there.

Genis shook his head weakly against the hard ground. He had been thinking in circles, thinking these same thoughts over and over again. Questions that he had no answers to. Questions he was too weak to try to reason anymore. He had slept for a bit. But then the hunger pangs came. Then they became never-ending pain. He could not sleep anymore...

"Genis!"

It took a while for it to register through his ears and into his brain that it wasn't some delusional sound.

His eyes flashed open. He saw a strange blonde woman with piercing blue eyes on the other side of the bars. Wait, it was a man.

"Genis! I'm Mithos! Here! I tried to find some food and water for you, but all I could find were apple gels and stuff! I bought a bunch, here hurry and take them! It's better than nothing! I have to go, I'm sorry, but I might revert back any moment..."

"Mithos? Why do you look like that..." Genis crawled to the bars. Mithos quickly gripped his hand tightly, shaking his head at his friend's sunken eyes and wasted look.

"I don't know, when I suddenly snapped back, I found myself like this. I think I can actually change back to my normal self, but I still need to figure that out. I'll try to find a way to get you out... but the last few times, I found myself reverting after only a few minutes... but I think each time I'm getting better. This time I think I can hold out a good ten minutes... This is the first time I dared to come see you after I figured out the layout of this place and where you were. I have to leave... Genis, hurry and eat the gels! Eat!"

After a final squeeze of Genis' hand, Mithos let it go and rushed away.

Genis looked at the pile of boxes that were thrown through the bars. Within seconds, he quickly ripped a box open and dumped as many gels as he could in his mouth, barely chewing before swallowing them. Instantly he felt his heavy, weak limbs course with newfound energy. With what must've been after two more boxes, the headache also went away. It was like the fog was clearing in his head. However, even after many more, he still felt a bit hungry. And thirsty. But, he finally felt alive, and the constant pain in his stomach was gone.

Mithos... he came back, he's still there! There's still hope! Genis looked at the pile of ripped boxes on the ground and quickly crumpled them up and tried to hide them in his pockets. Just in case there were routine checks.

And routine checks there started to be. Hours or days passed, Genis couldn't tell. The first time an angel appeared, he had a sword in hand. If that wasn't alarming enough, he opened the gates of the cell and looked ready to kill. A split second later, Mithos appeared and called him off. He apologized profusely about the assassination attempt and then apologized that he didn't bring any gels.

"That other me, I can keep him from killing you personally, but thankfully I reverted back just in time to realize he had ordered someone else to kill you. He tried to do it before, but usually I had enough strength to keep the body from opening its mouth right when he's about to give the order."

"Wow, so you know what he's thinking and planning?"

"No... not exactly. It's only when he thinks of you--and it's never in a good way--that I suddenly gain a bit of strength physically. I messed up this time, so I'm so sorry! I think I'm getting the hang of ordering some angels around. It's great how they don't seem to have an opinion or think it's weird that the same person is telling them to do something opposite... Oh! I figured out that there's a warp pad system to the planets! It was locked, but I told them to turn it on. I think I can get you out soon! Okay, Genis, I'll try to get some food for you if I still have time...!"

And come back he did, with ten more boxes of various gels. Mithos, however, was clearly agitated and nervous.

"Eat!"

He quickly sprinted off.

Then after that, angels would appear every however many hours and just look at him for a few minutes, before going away. Those were the most creepy, and Genis could not figure out why they were doing that. He hated it when he felt a presence and having his heart jump with hope, only to find an emotionless angel.

Endless hours passed again...

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Nothing was going right.

Not only were Yuan and Kratos somehow missing (in fact, they hadn't been seen for weeks), he couldn't kill a stupid little boy. So the two former friends have finally truly turned against him. He never did trust them anyway.

Yggdrasill paced the dark spiraling staircase in his castle, brooding. He was still strong enough to be in control...as long as he did not revive the idea of killing Genis. Whenever he called a servant in to tell him to kill Genis, his mouth suddenly wouldn't open, and he'd just have to dismiss the servant every time. He nearly succeeded once but was ultimately thwarted by the weaker bastard. It was a ridiculous fight with his own body. Not to mention, standing there struggling to open his lips in front of his servants made him seriously angry. It was a good thing the servants couldn't form opinions... because they always had to bring a new desk every time he smashed one in anger.

The least he could do was not feed his prisoner any food or water (not that there was water there anyway).

Then there were the times when he would blank out for what seemed like a few minutes. And find himself somewhere else. Yggdrasill was not one to indulge in worries. However, it was still alarming... alarmingly familiar. This has happened before. This has happened during the beginning. The lesser half had gained footing. Gained enough strength to start opposing the stronger half. Before, that lesser half must have just given up at some point, because the blank-outs became fewer and fewer. However, the opposite was becoming true now.

Reports of the prisoner having not died of starvation or thirst after about a week was also not good.

He was losing control. This cannot be allowed.

Down he paced the stairs, up, down, and around, ignoring the angel guards that floated around mindlessly. He entered his numerous libraries and exited them. He began pacing the stairs again.

Yggdrasill stopped mid-step.

Perhaps there is a way...

Within seconds, he disappeared in a flash of white light.

And reappeared in a beautiful stone chamber. The room was dark except for one emanating light source coming from a lower level.

The Eternal Sword floated as it always had, for about the past four thousand years ever since its one and only use of severing the world into two. The sword itself was huge, almost the size of Yggdrassil himself. However, it was nothing but an illusion and a symbol. A symbol of Origin's power.

If it can sever worlds... surely it can sever other things.

Yggdrassil raised his hand towards the pommel of the sword.

Origin.

The Eternal Sword hummed with energy.

Pact-maker. What is it that you wish.

You gave me the power to separate the world into two. Now I want you to physically separate this meddling, weak personality from me.

This will split the amount of mana you personally possess as well.

Take only what is needed to separate the weakling from me. And I want all his new memories.

That is not possible. There are already two distinct souls formed in your body with individual memories.

What about Summon Spirits and magical power that I learned myself? I want to make sure he has no access to the Summon Spirits.

Origin was silent for a second

Well?

You will retain what you remember and the magical power that you learned on your own. He retains the power he remembers. The Summon Spirits will continue to honor the one they made their pact with.

Now it was Yggdrassil's turn to be silent for a second. Ambiguous statements...

Clarify that.

There is nothing to clarify. The souls have already been divided on their own, I have no ability to customize in detail.

Fine, however, mana should be possible to partition. Even if he is capable of his abilities, I demand that you only let him have as much mana to extricate him successfully from myself.

Regardless, the process of creating another body will still take much mana, and you will still be in a weaker state.

I will find ways to amend for that.

As you wish.

Origin smiled thinly to himself.

The Eternal Sword started to emit blinding rays of light, levitating, encircling, and engulfing Yggdrasill in a cocoon of myriad colors.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Ugh, I feel like we can almost touch the tower, but it still seems so far away!" Lloyd cried angrily.

"It should not be much longer. The tower always seems close due to the enormity of its size," Kratos said.

Five Rheairds flew through the starry Tethe'allan skies, first and foremost, Lloyd. Followed by Raine, Kratos, Yuan, and Colette.

There was no time for a sit-down discussion meeting or even a chance to rest from their journeys. Lloyd only heard two things from Raine's explanation of what happened to Genis: Captured. Somewhere at the top of the Tower of Salvation.

Kratos gave him credit for remembering that the Tower only showed up on the Tethe'allan side when Lloyd took off running toward the Rheaird warp portal room. However, plans had to be made on the fly while chasing Lloyd down. While running after Lloyd, Yuan decided that key people shouldn't go in case they, well, get killed.

However, no amount of reason could keep Colette from adamantly deciding to go since Genis was a close friend of hers as well. Yuan put the foot down on Sheena, however, as she was irreplaceably important in saving the worlds by making pacts with the Summon Spirits. Zelos had no problems volunteering to stay behind since he'd rather have some rest and relaxation after his recent strenuous and taxing adventure of getting back to base.

How were they going to get up to Derris-Kharlan? Well, with one of the Chosens, Kratos decided it was worth the gamble that the special warp pad in the Tower of Salvationmight have been forgotten to be turned off, since it's the most rarely used. And if the warp pads were closed... well... Raine and Colette agreed they would let Kratos, Yuan, and Lloyd (who now had the necessary requirements of an angel) have the fun of going back up the supply chain by themselves.

Raine leveled her Rheaird next to Colette.

"Are you okay, Colette? It's a lot of information to suddenly digest..."

Colette smiled faintly. "I do feel that I should be more shocked and upset at the fact that all that Phaidra has taught me... were in fact not entirely true. But I can't help feeling a bit glad that I can save Sylvarant in other ways besides sacrificing myself. I can't describe how I feel exactly... but I still do believe in the Goddess Martel because, I feel like, when I pray to her... she does speak to me and make me feel better."

Raine didn't say anything. However, Yuan heard the last part of what Colette said, and slowed his Rheaird down a bit to listen.

"When I was little, I would get so afraid... and s-sometimes I would hear her singing a beautiful tune to me in my head, calming me down. And when I got older, I had thought that if I were destined to die, it would be unfair for me to be close to anyone. But she would tell me not to be afraid... that it was okay to have friends and not keep them at a distance. And when I told her about Lloyd and Genis, she was the one that urged me to get to know Genis better. That all living beings are precious, regardless of their race. The Goddess Martel is so kind and so strong... she helped me so much...I know she exists and she is not a lie."

Yuan smiled in spite of himself. That sounds like Martel, alright... but hey, how come he never got any response from his Martel?? Another thought struck him. "Did she ever say anything about Desians, Colette?"

"I did ask her why Desians are so awful once... she told me it was all a horrible misunderstanding gone wrong. But she didn't say much more about it... she sounded so sad when she talked about them."

"I see..." Yuan flew next to Kratos.

"Hey, the Sylvarant Chosen seems to be able to communicate with Martel. She was saying how she prays to her and talks to her and stuff and she would talk back. Why don't I get such loving attention??"

Kratos chuckled. "Actually I would assume it is because she has the closest mana signature to Martel. Perhaps that somehow lets them communicate? I really don't have an answer for you, why are you asking me anyway?"

"I was just saying... but yeah I guess that makes sense. Unless the Sylvarant Chosen is actually insane, this would mean Martel's soul really is still alive. Possibly stuck in that crystal on the Mana Seed..."

Yuan shook his head sadly and sighed.

--Make haste!

Kratos snapped his head up.

A sudden shock wave of mana suddenly washed over the group, stopping all but Colette in their tracks.

"What was that?" Lloyd said, eyes wide.

"What was what? Why is everyone stopped?" Colette asked, confusedly.

"There was a large wave of powerful mana that came from the direction of the Tower..." Raine answered, though it didn't help Colette feel any more knowledgeable.

"We must hurry! Origin just spoke to me again and told us to make haste!" Kratos shouted.

Without another word, Lloyd revved the Rheaird and shot off, followed by Kratos, Raine, and Yuan who wasn't sure whether he should yell at them not to push the machines past the red line... but he did it himself anyway. This left Colette to figure out how to rev the engine in the first place, but as she looked at the various gauges, her foot slipped, and she gripped and twisted the handles extra hard--giving her a sudden jolt of speed that nearly toppled her off the Rheaird.

Within moments of landing, Colette found herself walking towards the Tower of Salvation that she knew so much but so little about. She was in awe, this is the same place where she was supposed to become an angel, lose her soul, and save Sylvarant...except in a whole different world called Tethe'alla.

"Colette, put your hand on that block of stone next to the door," Kratos instructed, pointing at the stone pedestal to the right of large ornately carved doors.

Yuan stopped her for a second.

"Before you open that door... everyone, hide your mana signatures now. I'm feeling the mana signature of someone inside that we don't want to meet..."

Everyone got their weapons and guard ready. Raine helped put a shield around Colette. Raine's hand was shaking.

"There's a weak signature in there, too!" Lloyd asked. "It must be Genis!"

As Colette placed her hand on the stone, she gasped as she felt a warm sensation and a glow emanating from below her hand.

The doors slowly opened to the echoes of a massive fight taking place somewhere high inside the tower.

There it is!! Review, review! The more reviews, the faster I'll try to get the next one out! Har har, I really will try though. And reviews make me so warm and fuzzzzyy and oh by the way Valentines is tomorrow (for me), so um, yeah the reviews'll be like getting love letters! Woohoo! Alright, it's ok... it doesn't have to be me... ;; You can address them to Kratos or Lloyd or Zelos or whoever you want (guys, you have your choices of Sheena, Colette, and... uh Presea) P

Review!