Sorry for another long delay! Real life means business for real and I probably won't have much free time to write next year...

Forgotten Mission

Chapter 19 – Bottled-Up Emotions

Another mission accomplished. It was something she wanted to say after she remembered the past she had subconsciously suppressed and finished the mission she set out to do. Along with the mission, the pain of losing her only living blood relative right in front of her came back as well. To top everything off, the killer was none other than the only blood relative of her friend, whom she had also killed as well. It was like a cycle of vengeance, but she didn't take his life out of anger. Still, she knew that the mage's death would mean that there wouldn't be anyone to fall victim to his twisted research.

Judith's mission was complete, but her life continued on despite the hollowness within her heart. She hadn't been showing herself to her guildmates for weeks as she asked for a holiday from her guild duties. She would need to earn some money herself outside the guild temporarily before she headed back to Temza, carrying the flowers which had a deep meaning to her family. She wanted to visit her father's grave while she was going to look for her father's final message for her as well.

The Krytian gently put the fresh bouquet of myosotis on Hermes' grave before taking a moment of silence to pray. The wind blew her bangs and antennas back and forth as Ba'ul flew by to pay his respects as well. When she stood up once more, she looked down at the grave with a sad frown on her face.

"You don't have to worry about anything else, Dad. I've fixed… him… for you…" her voice ended up in a whisper.

Judith stood in silence once more, unaware that she was no longer on her own by the grave. A blur of red passed by and a different bouquet of flowers had found itself sitting on the grave by the myosotis bouquet Judith had brought. The Krytian looked on in surprise as her mage friend had come completely unannounced and was paying respects to her father.

"Rita…" she whispered her name and let out a sad smile, feeling grateful for her friend, "Thank you…"

"D-Don't get the wrong idea!" Rita had finished praying and responded to her Krytian friend while avoiding her gaze, "Just don't ever think that I'm stupid, okay?!"

"Oh? I don't think that I've ever mentioned anything like that," Judith's teasing tone made the mage growl in annoyance, "If my dad is still here, I'm sure he'll say the same thing about you."

Rita sighed in irritation, "That's not the point!" she took a glance at the grave once more, fully aware that she wasn't planning on scolding her by her father's grave, and took the Krytian's arm as she dragged her away, "Come on. We'll talk somewhere else."

Judith didn't protest as the mage dragged her through the piles of rubble which were formerly buildings of her home village. They passed through the hardly-touched aftermath of the Great War, heading off to a small clearing on top of a hill above everything else. There wasn't anyone else around them as they stood silently, with Rita facing away from the Krytian as she looked at the giant crater in the middle of the mess.

"I'm surprised that you visited me instead of Estelle," Judith was the first one to break the silence while trying to change the subject, "I'm sure-"

"Stop trying to change the subject!" Rita's louder voice echoed in the mountain range as the mage refused to face her companion standing behind her, "You… you know about him all along, don't you?" she slightly turned to the side, looking at the Krytian with a frown on her face, "About that other 'Mordio'… and his connection with me…"

Judith wasn't too surprised to see that Rita had found out in the end. She trusted that Yuri wouldn't say anything just like how he had kept her true identity a secret when they were traveling before. She had concluded that the mage had figured everything out on her own as she knew that the mage was pretty sharp. The question she had in mind about the mage's presence would be the reason why she was there, as Rita wasn't the type of person to be vengeful.

A stern look from the mage's eyes as she turned to face the Krytian made her recall the things she said when Rita found out that she was harming the blastia she cared so much for.

'She wouldn't, would she…?'

"Why?" Rita's voice softened, "I mean… you said it yourself that we're… friends… right?"

Judith wasn't expecting to hear those words coming from the mage so openly. Rita was flustered as she said it, but the Krytian could tell that she truly meant what she said. She had always had only Ba'ul at her side that she tended to forget that she still had other friends other than her childhood Entelexeia friend. Friends didn't keep secrets from each other, especially when those secrets happened to be related to that said friend.

"I'm sorry," Judith apologized in a whisper, "But with what you told us about your own thoughts about your dad…"

"But that doesn't mean that I don't deserve to know!" the Krytian was taken aback by the mage's sudden outburst, "He… he's still… my dad, you know… Even with all that twisted stuff he did just for my sake…"

"And I finished him off…" the Krytian had looked away from the mage in guilt, "Just like how your dad took my dad away from me, I took him from-"

"That's not what I'm trying to talk to you about!" Rita shouted once more, "I just… I just want to ask him why he left in the first place…" the mage was gripping the side of her arm as she tried hiding the hurtful look on her face, "I just want to know… why he left in the first place if he actually cares…"

For one moment, the mage had shown Judith her vulnerable side which she had always tried to hide from the others. While Rita herself wasn't aware, Judith had a feeling that there would be a connection between them that the mage was the first person to know about her father. She could assume that she had seen her own father in Rita as they had passion in blastia research. On another side, she had also seen her old self in Rita when it was about her own father.

Judith had questioned why her father was so distant from her. He had locked himself in his study more often during their final days together until she had had it and decided to find out herself. The final encounter ended in a verbal fight, which had hardly happened between them, before her father left the house the next morning. The next thing she could remember was waking up in her father's arms as they fled their destroyed home and his demise soon after.

She found out about her father's 'sin' in the end and how he wanted to keep her in the dark just so that she wouldn't bear the burden of his mistakes. She had decided herself to finish the job despite how he didn't want her daughter to be involved and she could assume that Rita was going to do the same. Perhaps to a more noble way, seeing as Rita was a nicer person that she had always been.

Rita suddenly shoved Judith out of the way, snapping the Krytian back to reality. Her eyes looked like she was about to cry as she passed by, but stopped a few steps away with her back turned to the Krytian, "I'm going back now. I still have research to do in order to come up with something to replace blastia."

Research. Her father should've still had some research materials her friend could use if they weren't completely destroyed by the damage from the Great War. She was planning on going back to her old house for her father's letter, so taking Rita back with her wouldn't be too troublesome. As she herself wasn't interested in research, her father would at least be happy to have someone else trustworthy to inherit his old work.

"Wait, Rita," Judith told the mage, "Come with me. You might want to take a souvenir from Temza while you're here."

The brunette mage gave her an uninterested stare, "This has better be good."

The big grin never left Rita as she held up a stack of books in her arms. The mage was surprised when Judith was letting her have Hermes' old books which had survived the fire from the Great War. Some were missing and some were burned down, but she had enough materials to read through for the sake of her research.

When Rita had left with a stack of books in her hand, Judith wandered into the remains of her old home. Books still littered the main room of her house, though with a mix of rubble from the broken roof in it. Her father's study barely had anything left as Rey had most likely smuggled everything out, leaving only a pile of rubble from the ruins of the walls and the remains of the blastia parts.

Her father's room no longer had any walls left along with similar mess as the main room decorating the already chaotic room. Her old room, however, only suffered minor damage as her small bed was the only thing broken. Her desk was still there looking as if it had barely been used as studying had never been her main interest.

Her father's will would've been somewhere among the pile of rubble, but the room's condition had told her that fire had caused enough damage to reduce anything written in paper to ashes. Her father's belongings had mostly been destroyed, but hers were mostly intact for reasons she couldn't really tell. The Entelexeia flying around above the ruined building was being silent as she could sense his lack of knowledge on the unusual condition.

Other than the abnormal condition, one thing that she could notice was the fact that she wasn't on her own anymore. The other presence wasn't hostile as it was the battle partner whom she had been fighting alongside with for years. She had expected him to be there as him being there would be one reason for Rita's sudden appearance, though she wasn't planning on seeing him when she was at her breaking point.

The Krytian stood still in the middle of her old room as she tried to act like her normal self, "Trying to scare a woman into your arms, aren't you, Yuri?"

A familiar laugh came from the other side of the wall, "Except that same woman will point her spear at my throat first before anything else."

"I need to always be ready for anything," Judith replied with a chuckle as she turned to face the swordsman as he came in, "Besides, I'll charge in first rather than taking the time to point my weapon at anything."

"Guess so," Yuri nodded in agreement, "So, what are you doing out here anyway? Boss is looking for you after you left without saying a word."

The smile on the Krytian's face faded as she looked back at the room, turning away from Yuri, "I have a few errands to finish here. I think you've heard me talking with Ba'ul about it."

The swordsman only gave her a shrug, "Okay. I'll be outside if you need anything."

Judith looked back in confusion as she saw Yuri walking out of the room. She didn't mind his presence nearby under normal circumstances, but she wished to be on her own for a while as she tried to come into terms with her own past. She couldn't understand why he was unusually considerate and sensitive about her when she was sure she wasn't being too open about what she was feeling. She knew that she wasn't good at lying, but she could easily put on a face to hide her true emotions.

Her hand subconsciously touched the dusty old desk and her nageeg reacted as the information within the desk poured into her head. Except, it wasn't just any information that was present in that desk. Images of the past had flooded into her mind as with the emotions contained within those images. They were images of her as a young child, smiling happily as the feeling of familial love and warmth overwhelmed her.

The Krytian removed her hand in surprise, looking at the old desk with wide eyes, "This is… Dad's memories…?"

Judith took a deep breath before closing her eyes to focus as she put her hand on the desk once more, swimming through the sea of fond memories.

The warmth in her heart was familiar as she saw her younger self within the memories, feeling the love her father had for her. Old scars from the passing of her late mother would resurface every now and then, but soon washed away by the happiness from the small and minor achievements she had as a child. Those achievements didn't matter to her, but she could feel that it meant everything for her father. It was the parental love she didn't get the chance to grow up with.

Deep within the warmth and happiness, her father's sorrow and guilt were kept hidden. The loss of her mother was still hurting him and the regret of not being able to help the precious people around him was weighing him down. Yet, he kept everything hidden from her with a smile even if he knew that she could someday read his emotions through the abilities they shared as Krytians.

Among the mix of emotions contained within his memories, Judith found herself in the middle of everything. She was the source of both his happiness and his regrets, but she couldn't feel any sense of malice within him. She dug deeper into his remaining memories, reaching out to the deepest part of his memories which hadn't shown itself.

"No matter what… you will always be my beloved daughter… I shall die as a sinful person, bearing the guilt from being blinded by my own curiosity, and let my own daughter live her life free of pain in the path my partner decided not to choose… Live well and make lots of friends, my little Judy…"

A single, rare tear dropped from her eyes. It had been years since the last time she cried that she couldn't remember what it was like. She cried the moment she was fully aware of her father's death, but she would soon move on once she found out more about the world. She had made the destruction of Hermes blastia to be her mission to fill the empty void left behind her loss, but she never considered what would happen when she finally accomplished her mission.

But her father knew, and that he would wish to fix everything so that she wouldn't have to bear the burden of his sins. She only wanted to destroy her father's work just to cover up for him before anyone else found out, but her father only wished for her to have a happy life with her friends. They were the same friends she tried pushing away for the sake of her mission, but she finally realized that she wouldn't be able to accomplish her self-proclaimed mission without the help of her friends.

One friend seemed to be aware that he was already present and nearby. Lowering her head to prevent anyone from seeing her in an unusual breakdown of emotions, she dashed out of the room and grabbed the dark garments he was wearing, much to the person's surprise, as the swordsman was walking out to leave himself.

The Krytian had buried her face on Yuri's back with her arms wrapped around the swordsman's figure. She muttered a barely-audible apology as the hold on him tightened, before he relaxed at the gesture and firmly grabbed her gloved hand, "I won't tell anyone."

"Thank you, Yuri…"

The wind coming from the wall-less rooms blew the strands of Yuri's hair as a voice foreign to him whispered in his ear, "Please take care of my little Judy for me."

He couldn't tell where the voice came from or to whom it belonged to, but he responded with a silent nod as he stood still and let the Krytian on his back pour out the bottled-up emotions.

Next and final chapter hopefully will be up either tomorrow or Tuesday!