Chapter 36

After taking Nepgear back home, I went back home and laid down in my bed. I stared up at the ceiling with my hands behind my head. Too many thoughts going through my brain… talking with Nepgear made me start thinking about how everything's been going.

I need to start training again, just because we have the suspect in captivity isn't an excuse. After I go to see Rom and Ram tomorrow, I need to do more quests. If I can be able to use my CPU form as long as the others then I'll be able to stand against whatever the forces are that took Kotomi…

Kotomi… I swear I'll save you… I'll find my way to Gamindustri Graveyard, even if it means learning how to do this "Shadow Travel" that Shizuki mentioned. But what's this uneasy feeling I have...? Could it be that I'm in love with Kotomi? I shook my head, no that's not possible. Why would I ever be like that with her? It's just… not possible.

But then there's what Nepgear said, Isn't it scary? Back then, I accepted it. I knew I was going to die if I pushed myself farther already. But now… do I really mean it? I was able to become a CPU thanks to the shares accepting me. But what happens if I die again? Is it really just over and I can't come back? I don't want to find out, I don't want to die again. I want to be with everyone, my savior's… in order to do that. I need to get stronger.

That golden haired guy back in the cave… he said that I was related to him? Not by actual blood, but from light? What does that even mean? I was born from light? I thought that I was born from my own mother… I wonder what happened to them… mom and dad, did they ever get the happy life they wanted? And, if so, why haven't I seen them? I would have to see them just once by now.

My eyes started to grow heavy. I can't hold them up… any longer…

Huh? Where am I?

I looked around in the area I was in. The sky had blood red clouds circling overhead and the place had giant handheld gaming consoles scattered everywhere. All there was in the area was a bunch of rubble. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move behind a bunch of stacked rubble, I tried to move towards it, but I couldn't move my legs.

Whatever was behind it came forward, Kotomi came out from behind it holding her arm. "Kotomi!" I shouted her name, but it didn't look like she could hear or see me. She continued to walk towards me, cautiously looking behind her. That's when I could get a good image of her, her hair was more of a mess then usual and she had a bunch of cuts and bruises on her face, her shirt had been ripped at her stomach, above her chest and the sides, her jacket was still intact but it had a blood spot where she was holding her arm. Her stockings were ripped down to her knees, showing off more cuts and bruises on her legs. Just seeing her like this pissed me off even more. Who did this to her?!

She looked behind her one more time and then held her head, she was standing right in front of me too. "Please… someone help me…!" she said, I tried my best to reach my hand out to her, but I couldn't move my body. Then I heard a sound coming from my right and saw Kotomi look over, she stood up and started to back away. Another cloaked figure came into my view, he looked my height.

"Kotomi… come with me. Now." the figure said, I couldn't make out his voice properly, it was all distorted like the rest of these damn figures!

"No! Get away!" Kotomi yelled and turned but the figure quickened his pace and grabbed her waist. "Let me go!"

"Stop struggling. I'm just going to take you back."

"No! Get off!" she said and stomped on the figures foot. They let go and stumbled back, holding their foot. Kotomi used that to start running fast, and I mean really fast, she was out of sight in about two seconds. The figure's fists clenched and looked where Kotomi ran off too.

"I'm not paid enough to do this…" they muttered and started to walk where she ran off too. then everything went black…

I jerked up in my bed and was breathing heavily. I checked my phone and saw it was early in the morning, I should have enough time, but I want to do this fast. I threw the covers off, grabbed my clothes and quickly put them on. I ran down my stairs and opened my door, almost running into Shizuki on the way. I stopped myself abruptly.

"Sheesh, what's got you in a hurry?" she asked, I don't have time to explain!

"Not enough time, I'll catch you up on it later!" I said and jumped into the air and transformed.

I flew towards the guild and landed down on the ground, reverting back I ran into the guild and down the stairs towards the cells, running past all of them and coming to the door at the end. I almost ran into it, but I was able to turn the knob before opening. I ran in and saw the suspect sitting down on the floor. His legs were crossed and his eyes were shut. He opened them once he heard the door shut.

"Ah. CPU Red Heart this time?" he said, "You have more you want to ask I'm guessing…"

"How did you learn to travel to the Gamindustri Graveyard… How did you learn to use Shadow Travel." I asked and the man smirked and stood up.

"It's a secret technique. Someone like you couldn't possibly learn how to use it." he said and put his arms behind his back. "It's something that can only be taught by him."

Dammit… dammit! "Enough with this him shit! Just who are you talking about?!"

He chuckled a bit, "It wouldn't be fair if I gave away who I'm talking about."

I grabbed ahold of the bars, "Then you'll take me. Take me to the Gamindustri Graveyard."

A sparkle shined in his eyes, "Oh? You wish to go to enemy territory? All for the girl…?"

"I'll take on whatever's in there."

"…are you crazy?"

"No. I'm not, take me to the Graveyard."

The figure stared at me before giving another smirk and closing his eyes, "You have courage over fear, that's how you've come all this way." then he opened his eyes, "Oh… it looks like time is up…"

"Time is up? What are you talking about? Hey!" I shouted, but he sat back down on the ground, crossed his legs, and shut his eyes again. "Dammit answer me! Take me to the Graveyard!"

No use, he's not answering anything! I turned back and slammed my fist into the wall, causing cracks to appear and a hole was left were my fist was. I walked back out and walked down the hall.

After getting out of the guild, my phone started vibrating. Without looking I opened it and held it to my ear, "Yes?"

"Hikaaaan! Where are you?" Ram shouted through, I had to take the phone away from my ear to avoid getting my eardrums blown out.

"Ahahah. Sorry Ram, I had to check on something, I wasn't expecting you two to be up so early."

"Of course we're up! You promised to be here and we couldn't wait!"

I should have expected this much, they're kids. "Alright, I'll be over there in a little bit. Don't worry."

"Sweet! Hikan's coming over!" Ram said, I heard Rom comment in the background, but I couldn't really make out what she was saying. "Don't keep us waiting too long!"

"R-Right…" I replied and hung up the phone, I closed my eyes as the fire erupted around me and took to the skies…

The air quickly turned cold as I flew, letting me know that I crossed the border into Lowee. After flying for a couple more minutes, I saw the city of Lowee. Flying lower down, I heard people saying something below me, I looked down and saw some of the town's people staring up at me.

"Red Heart!"

"Hero of Gamindustri!"

They shouted a whole bunch of stuff, I smiled and waved down before darting towards the Basilicom. I landed in front of the entrance and walked in. But not without making sure to check above the door for any sort of water buckets.

After making sure, I went up to Rom and Ram's room and knocked on their door. It quickly shot opened after my first knock. Ram stood in her gray dress and smiled. "Finally!" she said and grabbed my arm, pulling me in the room. Looking around reminded me of when I came here before, I saw the TV with a bunch of consoles plugged into it, each console were from every nation, they also had a bunch of controllers scattered around the place.

Next to the door were shelves with several books all neatly organized. Their bed was in the center of the room in a heart shape under a glass roof. Rom was sitting beside the bed drawing pictures on pieces of paper. "Rom look! Hikan's here!"

Rom turned to look at us, her face quickly flushing red as she moved a piece of paper next to her around behind her back. Then she smiled at us, "Yay!"

Ram dragged me over to the bed and sat me down, Rom making sure that I didn't see the piece of paper that she had. But the others were still lying on the floor, there were pictures of Dogoo's, pictures of themselves and pictures of everyone else. "Can I see that real quick?" I asked and pointed at the picture on the floor with a bunch of blocky figures on it. Ram handed it to me and I studied it. "Is this… all of us?"

Ram's smile brightened, "Yep! Rom and I worked together on it!"

I couldn't contain my smile. "This is one of a kind. It looks awesome." Hearing this made both of the girls smile.

"You hear that Rom? He likes it!"

"Eheheh…"

"Hey. I'm going to go talk to your sister for a little bit, I'll be right back. Okay?" I said and stood up, but before I could walk Ram got in my way.

"Why? All she does is lock herself up in her room and not come out." Ram said and crossed her arms, "You don't want to talk to her."

"Ram." I said and put my hands on her shoulders. "Your sister wanted to talk to me about something. I'll be back alright? In the meantime, find a game that you two haven't beaten yet, I'll help you beat it."

Ram's smile returned again. "Alright!" she said and went over to the consoles, Rom continued to draw on the certain piece of paper that she was hiding.

I walked out of Rom and Ram's room and walked towards Blanc's room. I stuck my hands in my pockets as I walked, after a little while. I stood outside her door and knocked three times.

"WHAT!?" I heard her voice shout through the door. Clearly she's mad at something…

"Ah… it's me Blanc. It's Hikan." I said and heard nothing, but then the door opened and Blanc stepped out.

"Sorry for yelling… I've just been stressed is all." she apologized.

"It's alright." I replied, "Is it about Ashinaga and them?"

Blanc looked up at me, "Kind of, I have no clue how to get the Gamindustri Graveyard… I've went through book after book looking for a way…! But I can't frickin' find it!"

I put my hands on her shoulders, "Calm down Blanc. It's alright."

"...Sorry."

"Come on, let's talk in your room." I said and walked in with her, we sat down on her bed and saw the books scattered all over the place, all turned to pages. "Have you been researching on trying to find it?"

"It all keeps saying the same things, it's only a myth. The books read that the Gamindustri Graveyard existed back before Lowee was created. Probably even before the one true Goddess was around."

"It's real… it has to be… that dream I had."

"Dream? What dream?" Blanc asked and I explained to her what I saw. "Kotomi is in the Graveyard? And… Shadow Travel?"

"That suspect that Makoto captured told me that he could Shadow Travel, that's how the group continues to go from the Graveyard and back. That's why I couldn't find them either after Kotomi was kidnapped. She just disappeared."

Blanc looked down for a second before nodding, "It would make sense. But, if that's true, that suspect is the only one we can use to get us there. And that teleporter... if they can travel themselves then why did they take it?"

"I already tried, he refused to say anything. And I don't know what they're doing with the teleporter." I replied and then my phone started ringing. I quickly grabbed it from my pocket and held it to my ear. "Hello?"

"Hikan?! Where are you?!" Ozaki's voice came through.

"I'm in Lowee. Why?"

"You need to get Lady Blanc, Rom, and Ram out of there now! Hurry!" he yelled and then I lost the call.

"Ozaki? Ozaki!" I said and looked at Blanc.

"What was that about?"

"Come on, we're getting out of here." I said and grabbed her hand, I pulled her to her feet and we ran towards the door, I opened it and pulled her through the halls.

"H-Hey! Stop!"

"We have to go now!" I shouted, but then we heard some type of crash. It came from… Rom and Ram's room!

"Rom! Ram!" we both yelled and sprinted towards the room. We bursted through the door and saw two figures in the room, both of them still had those same masks that the beast has. One of them holding Rom and Ram, Ram was unconscious and Rom was still awake, but she had tears in her eyes. The other had a short shirt and tight shorts while the other figure holding Rom and Ram had black armor on with sharpened points at the shoulders and waist, he had spikey gauntlets on as well and the area where his chest and stomach with me glowed blood red. And he had matching sharp black leg armor and boots.

"Blanc… Hikan…" Rom cried out and both me and Blanc clenched our fists.

"How dare you…!" I said while grinding my teeth.

"Woah there you two!" the other figure said, this one was female. "We wouldn't want anything to happen to these two now would we…?"

"Let go of my sisters! NOW!" Blanc shouted, but they didn't look to be listening to demands.

"Or what?" the female taunted.

Blanc engulfed in light while I engulfed in fire. We came out in our CPU forms with our weapons in hand. "Leave Rom and Ram out of this!"

"Too late for that." the female said and looked at the other figure. "Sanjiro?"

"Aye." he said and dropped Ram on the ground, before I could react he flicked his hand up and a bright light shined in his palm and shot towards us, the light shined even more as it came towards us, soon I couldn't see anything.

"Gh!" I reached for my eyes to wipe them off or something, but the blindness wasn't going away. "Dammit!"

"Hikan! Blanc!" We heard Rom cry and then heard them leaving. Then the blindness went away. "No!"

"Get back here!" Blanc shouted as her wings appeared on her back and she took off through the ceiling, my wings appeared as well as I flew after her.