((Meowzy: Here we are. The last true chapter of Forsaken! After this, it's just the epilogue. I wanna thank all the faithful readers and reviewers for sticking with us up to this point. You've been great, guys! Enjoy this chap, and I'll see you at the epilogue!))

Chapter Twenty-Six (Yuan's PoV)
The Base.

Off we flew. Back to the center of the island. Now that we had our wings to guide us, the island seemed so much smaller all of a sudden. From high up in the sky, I could easily see the springs. The cliff where the third task took place. Also, I could see the beach where we'd first arrived. From way up here, I could see the little prison that had made our last weeks a living hell. Until this afternoon, that is…

All I could hear was the wind whipping past my ears. Kratos and I didn't talk. What was there to say? After this was done… After this was done, I had to return to my Renegades. Kratos might have other things to do. Though he never did tell Lloyd or anyone else that he was still on this planet, I felt almost scared that the second we got off this island, he would leave and never come back.

It took us only half the time to get to the mountain as it would have taken us on foot. We passed the trap door that led into that dark corridor… We passed the cave that led to the mechanical dragon which guarded the second task… We passed the broken dome of glass which covered the room where we'd first faced off against the dragons… Then we finally reached the ledge near the machine room. But…

"Where would Muris' base be, exactly?" I asked, landing on the ledge with a soft 'tap'. The small window that led inside was just a few feet away from me.

"I was following you." Kratos responded with a shrug.

"Oh great. We're lost." I sighed deeply and turned to overlook the island.

"Let's just think logically for a moment." Kratos moved to stand next to me, his wings giving a restless flap. "If you were Muris, where would you have your hideout?"

"Probably in a musty rat hole somewhere." I snorted.

"Underground does seem most likely…" Kratos said, his brows furrowed lightly in thought as he glanced down at the island. "But it can't all be rodent holes that lead to it. There must be an entrance we can use somewhere…"

I started to think deeply as well, trying to remember the island's locations. We'd tried all the doors in the machine room, and the dragon room was basically empty. Unless there was a hidden door in one of those two rooms, it was a no-go. Then there was the dark hallway. That was a possibility alright. But it would also mean we could've walked straight into Muris' living room while we were supposed to be fighting his dragons. Very unlikely.

"Didn't you chase him all the way onto this ledge last time?" Kratos asked suddenly. He turned to take a good look at the wooden ridge that led all around the mountain top.

"Well, yeah. But I lost him on the other side." My face contorted at the very memory. Outsmarted by a guy with the brain of a rodent…

"Let's check it out. There might be an entrance near there." Kratos walked off, brushing a hand past the wall as he went.

I shrugged and headed in the other direction, also feeling the rocky surface for any hidden buttons or other clues. Everything seemed normal. Jagged stone and dusty layers of filth. After about a minute, I nearly bumped into Kratos, who came at me from the other side. Another nice benefit of having wings; if you get knocked off a small ledge on top of a high mountain, you won't die ten seconds after.

"Nothing?"

"Nope. You?"

"Not even a misplaced pebble."

"Well, that was a complete waste of time." I sighed, leaning back against the wall.

"You lost him somewhere around here?" he asked.

I gave a simple nod, crossing my arms. Kratos gave the surface one last check with his hands before glancing upwards.

"Nah, he didn't climb up." I said, already reading his mind. "He may be fast, but he couldn't scurry up a mountain within three seconds."

"Then…" Kratos slowly turned, sinking to his knees and glancing over the rim of the ledge. "What if he went down?"

"Down? You think he'd survive a jump like that?" I frowned. "With all due respect captain, that sounds like an absurd theory."

"He wouldn't have to jump. He could either cling to the rocks underneath, or fly down as a seraph." Kratos reasoned.

Okay, I had to admit, now it sounded a bit less absurd. But still…

"I dunno…"

"Well, I don't see you coming up with anything." Kratos turned his head to smirk at me in an almost superior way.

I stayed silent for a moment, trying to quickly come up with a theory that could match Kratos'. Sadly, nothing came to mind.

"Alright, fine. Let's do it your way." I spoke airily.

Kratos' wings rustled for a moment before he hopped off the ledge. He fell only a few feet, as he quickly stayed afloat, turning to face me. I made to follow, but the most peculiar thing happened. Don't ask me how I managed it, because I have no clue.

I tripped in a way the ex-chosen of Sylvarant would have done.

With a swift, helpless flail, I fell forward. The thought of 'I'm going to die!' flashed through my head for only a fraction of a second, as I forgot about my wings in the shock of it all. My eyes slipped shut in apprehension, and the next moment I felt a pair of arms quickly wrapping themselves around my chest, holding me close to a body and stopping my fall.

"Careful, Pervert Boy." A deep voice whispered in my ear.

My eyes snapped open again to greet a thick mop of auburn hair, and I instantly felt myself blush.

"You're just glad to have an excuse to hold me." I spoke indignantly.

"Yet I don't hear you complaining…" Kratos retorted slowly. I was sure he was smirking again.

Unable to think of a comeback to that, I merely provided a short grunt in response. Then I reluctantly pushed myself away from Kratos' body, relying on my own wings to fly. Judging from his mild pout, my companion hadn't wanted the embrace to end so quickly either. But we had work to do.

I turned to glance at the mountain wall. If Kratos was right, there had to be something below the ledge. That was why we slowly started to descend, keeping a lookout for anything out of the ordinary.

That was exactly what we found.

"Yuan…" Kratos spoke slowly, causing me to take my gaze off the rocks and glance his way. "Exactly how absurd was my theory again?"

My jaw dropped. There, in the wall in front of him, was a hole. It was perfectly round, and large enough for a man to fit through. It was placed about twenty feet below the ledge.

"Well, there's still no guarantee it leads to Muris' room. It might lead to more dragons." I huffed, crossing my arms.

"Only one way to find out." Kratos placed a hand above the opening, already sticking one foot inside it. "Oh, look, it has a slide. What fun!"

"Hey, wait!" I shouted, but to no avail. A second later, he had completely pushed himself through and disappeared into the darkness. The light of his wings had vanished soon after, leaving me to listen to his fading scream of mirth.

"Ah, great." I gave another quick sigh, before diving face first after him.

Kratos was right. There was a slide. A slide that continued to grow steeper and steeper, making me feel like I was plummeting to my doom. To make things worse, there were occasional sharp corners. After about fifteen seconds of mindless shrieking, I noticed I'd completely lost my sense of direction. All I knew is that I was going down. A little too late I realized that when this slide would end I was going to end up face first on the ground. With my current speed, that would not be pleasant.

Before I could even try to slow my momentum, however, the slide leveled out. Before I knew it, I was sent shooting into a room, covering my face with my arms as I screamed wildly. Lucky for me, I landed on something soft. A large, deep cushion. Kratos was already standing beside it, dusting himself off. I pushed myself into a sitting position, hoping to regain my breath some time this century.

"Never again."

"What? You didn't think that was fun?" Kratos smiled slyly at me.

"All I'm thinking right now is that Muris was nuts." I got to my feet, but found myself swaying with dizziness. Kratos didn't seem to notice, however, as he was too busy taking in our surroundings.

At first sight, it seemed like a normal, damp cave. Then I noticed that the light in the room wasn't coming from our wings. It was coming from cheap, fluorescent lighting attached to the ceiling. Kratos and I exchanged a quick glance, then started to walk down the only hallway this place had. A hallway that led to nothing other than a laboratory.

Eerie green light flooded the place, and an abundance of scribbled papers littered the ground. Test tubes, at least five feet in diameter reached to the ceiling. What was even more creepy was that some of them were occupied by small, flaming red dragons, floating in some sort of nearly transparent orange liquid. I shuddered heavily.

"Where did he get the energy to power this place?" Kratos wondered aloud, striding over to a nearby desk. A cage with two nasty-looking rodents was settled on top of it.

"Magi-technology." I said simply. "He must've drained Mana from the island for his weird little experiments."

As I placed a hand on one of the tubes to closer examine the dragons, I noticed something was off. The build of these creatures was not quite the same as those we'd faced before. These looked like they could move more swiftly and their spiked tails were even more dangerous. If these things were fully-grown and released, we'd have been in a whole lot of trouble. For now, though, they were baby-sized and in a hibernative state.

I intended to keep it that way.

Quickly stepping away from the tube, I saw that Kratos was shuffling a few papers on the desk.

"Find anything useful?" I asked, moving to stand next to him and peering over his shoulder. I spotted a drawing of something that looked an awful lot like one of those flesh-eating plants, but decided it would be rather pointless to look at it more closely.

"I found out that this man has the worst handwriting in the history of the worlds." Kratos tossed another 'blueprint' over his shoulder.

"Maybe it's to stop people like us from stealing his work." I gave a quick grin, before glancing at the rodents. They glared back at me, standing up on their hind legs. Somehow, I couldn't take my gaze off of them again. It was like they knew I'd killed their master.

"What do you reckon? Relatives of Muris?" Kratos pondered.

"More like his wife and kid. Muriel and Muris Jr." I said, stifling a snicker.

"I certainly hope you're not right about that. I'd hate to imagine how he would have managed it." The man gave a deep, overdramatic shudder before moving away from the desk again.

Chuckling under my breath, I followed him into the next room. This one was rather peculiar. It was filled with all sorts of scrap metal and tools. This time, an entire stack of blueprints was standing in the corner. It was probably some sort of engineering lab. It didn't seem like anything useful was in here, either.

"All work and no play makes Muris a bitter old psycho." I muttered.

The room that followed was a whole lot more interesting, not to mention strange. Seemingly pointless machines, emitting beeping sounds, took up most of the space. There was a dartboard hanging from the wall, several knives and small axes sticking out of it. A simple bed, looking like it had never been used, stood in a lone corner. There was one thing that immediately caught my eye, though.

"What the heck is that?"

I slowly approached the odd apparatus, trying to comprehend if I was really seeing what I thought I was seeing. A large, round wheel was connected to the wall, several wires leading away from it. Wires that led to other contraptions. As I reached out to touch it, my suspicions were confirmed. The wheel moved. Though it was still stuck the wall, it could go round and round.

"Yuan… I do believe we've found a hamster wheel." Kratos' lips curled in amusement. "A human-sized hamster wheel."

Immediately, I imagined Muris running inside this thing and couldn't help but burst out laughing. Kratos had apparently done the same thing, as I heard him laugh along.

"I think that if there was any doubt left that this guy was insane, it has now been vanquished." I snickered.

"I'll bet he uses it to power his microwave or something." Kratos remarked with a grin, following the wires with his eyes.

"Why would he need one? He can always eat hamster treats." I replied.

The next second, we'd doubled up with laughter again. After about a minute of this, I was starting to feel weak in the knees. This was why I wandered over to the bed and sat down, trying to catch my breath. Kratos settled down beside me, still smiling faintly.

For a while, everything was silent, as we simply sat there, enjoying each other's company. In a way, it made me feel empty. To think that I'd have to give this all up, to return to the Renegades. Back to endless, not to mention slightly pointless paperwork. I didn't really want to leave this island anymore…

"Yuan?"

"Hm?"

"Why was Muris still alive?"

My breath stopped short for moment. Kratos' voice didn't sound angry, nor demanding. It was more curious than anything else. A tone of voice that said he didn't blame me. Still, the question had had a rather painful effect.

I sat up straight, a nostalgic smile forming. "It was a mistake on my behalf. Not only did I find myself unable to withstand Martel's charm, I was also stupid enough not to think of what Muris could accomplish with all that knowledge about exspheres."

"Then… Martel really did ask you to let him live?" Kratos asked, observing me closely. I noticed that he was leaning towards me a bit, trying to look me in the eye.

"That's right, captain. I guess it was my fault we got into this mess. I should've just let you finish him off in that dungeon when we had the chance." I spoke, stubbornly staring at the far wall, that smile still lingering on my lips.

If I had stood back and let Kratos kill Muris back then, he wouldn't have gotten his hands on that keycrest. Muris wouldn't have created a fifth Cruxis crystal and he wouldn't have lived long enough to prepare this extravagant Island o' Revenge. If I had refused Martel's request, Muris wouldn't have gotten powerful enough to nearly kill us at least ten times. It was because of my weakness that all this had happened.

"It's not your fault." Kratos said firmly.

"Oh? Isn't it?" I still refused to meet his gaze.

"Damn right it isn't! How were you supposed to know he'd create a crystal and still be alive after four thousand years? All you did was grant a favor to… to the one you love."

At this, I sharply turned my head to glance at Kratos. The man's attention was now directed at the floor. Though the messy auburn bangs covered most of his face, I was sure his eyes were filled with sadness.

"Kratos…"

"We all make mistakes. Some graver than others. But sometimes… it just isn't your fault."

I smiled again, though it was a whole lot more gentle this time. He was thinking about Anna. I knew he was… Slowly, I wrapped an arm around him, holding him close. He leaned into the embrace, resting his head on my shoulder.

"I know…" I whispered.

Again, we sat in silence for a while. It'd been a long time since I last had the notion Kratos actually understood my feelings. He had gone through a lot of horrible experiences as well. He could sympathize with my pain, as I could do with his. This was a nice feeling of mutual comfort.

"… We're going to have to leave this place, aren't we?" I managed to ask eventually.

"Yeah…"

Though Kratos' voice seemed fairly blank of emotions, I knew the concept was pretty hard on him too. He probably didn't want our ways to separate either.

"You can stay at the Renegade base with me, if you want to…" I offered.

It was all up to this one suggestion. This was the only solution I could think of, after all. He didn't have a true home out there, so perhaps we could share one. The pointless paperwork would seem a whole lot more enjoyable with Kratos around.

"I'd like that." the man shifted in my grasp to hold me closer, and I noticed he was smiling.

A sigh of relief passed my lips, but I hardly noticed. Even away from the island, our ways wouldn't sever. We could stay together. Kratos and I could slowly develop our relationship, taking things one step at a time. For an angel of Cruxis, time had no meaning, after all. Again, I felt grateful for that accursed crystal that had been planted on me so long ago.

In a way, I should be thankful that Muris went through all this trouble to get revenge. Were it not for that, I would've remained alone, oblivious to my own feelings. The same would've accounted for Kratos. A lot happened during those weeks we were stuck here and in the end, I realized that this island wasn't such a hellhole after all.