Meeting the rest of the family was just as exciting as meeting Dad was, especially my mother and the last two sisters.
They had refused to even let me go even when I had wanted to head to my old room.
Turns out, it had only been two years since my supposed death in this world, something that I had kind of expected when I realized where I was. Ever since I had let the First Flame burn out and let the Abyss take over, the concept of time had slowly faded away for Humanity as a whole, hence the people of the past could easily interact with the people of the present, just as easily as they could interact with people of the future.
At first, humanity had refused to accept me as their rulers and had branded me a traitor for allowing the Curse of Undeath to prosper. But soon, they too realized the Darksign for what it truly was, just like me.
A cage created to trap our very nature from ourselves by the so-called Gods.
And with the rise of the Abyss, I had indeed restored humanity back to its truest nature, into that of an immortal species of sentient that shared the fragments of one of the Four original souls. The Dark Soul.
But, all of that meant nothing to me anymore, for I am back home.
It had taken some convincing to make my mother and sisters to release me from their death grip and get the chance to reveal an edited version of my story.
Truly, I had been a very foolish child on that fateful day.
My father, Arthur, was a renowned Hunter, a title given to a person who fights the dark creatures known as the Grimm. Due to his exploits in protecting Mistral in his long career, he was made the Mayor of this remote village, Cadia.
On the day of my 'Death', I, a 15 year old kid, had decided to sneak into the caravan that was supposed to head out of the town for a routine perimeter petrol and hunt Grimm. I had wanted to watch my father kill Grimm just like how he would tell us in stories during dinner. Needless to say, it went as bad as it could get.
There were an unnaturally high amount of Grimm on that day and the caravan was surrounded, but Dad had managed to defeat all of the Grimm quite easily, when he had dispatched the last of the Grimm, I had decided to abandon my cover in the face of cheering for my Dad, a mistake that would prove to be fatal.
A Geist had possessed a bunch of rocks and had decided to attack the truck that had the weakest pray in the surrounding area, Me.
When it pounded the side of the truck with fist made of tons of rock, the truck tumbled like a leaf in the wind and directly flew into the canyon nearby. As if it was not enough, the Dust engine in the Truck got knocked out of the hard-light containment that keeps it stable and exploded with me still in the truck.
Needless to say, dad and the rest of the hunters were not even able to find a single intact piece of metal from the Truck, much less my body.
Apparently, Dad and the hunters had searched the woods for over an entire week in all directions until they finally gave up and declared me dead, an empty coffin was buried in the family cemetery.
When Dad and Mom had finished their side of the story I had given them a heavily modified version of my version of events.
I told them that I had survived the blast but was permanently scarred and became what they see in front of them, that I was taken in by a wandering Huntsman and trained to fight, that I fought Four 'Rogue Huntsmen' of incredible power and many strange 'Grimm' as training and that my armor and weapons were gifted to me by my 'teacher' after which he allowed me to return home saying that my training was complete.
There was no way I could tell the grieving couple that I had indeed died in that explosion and was brought back as an Undead in a different world, fought Dragons , Demons, Monsters and creatures that might as well be Gods.
When my parents leaned that I had done all I have claimed to do without Aura, it led to my current predicament.
"..really Dad, there is no need to awaken my Aura now, I am already as strong as a regular huntsman without even needing it, Its not like I will be fighting anything anymore, I think I have had enough to last several lifetimes" 'Literally' I thought in my mind as I face the stern yet soft face of my Father.
"I know that you won't forgive me for rejecting your request of becoming a Hunter when you were 10 and for refusing to train you like the rest of your siblings, but now that you have already become such a fine young man worthy of inheriting the family, I believe I need to do at least this much to uphold the family tradition"
"…Now that I think about it, why did you refuse to train me like the rest of the girls?"
I watched as his face shifted from stern to pale before it set back into a stern face.
"….Honey, I think he is strong enough to handle the truth as he is right now" I heard my mother speak from the entrance to the house.
"..Very well, the reason I did not train you was because I did not want you to lead the life of a Hunter, always in danger and never knowing when they might die, but there was also another reason, something that has to do with what happened during the Great War"
"During the Great war, your Great-Great Grandfather had been in the thick of things, The Arcs were one of the few Noble families that opposed the King of Mistral during the times where he had followed Mantle and abolished the right of Self Expression from its own people, when the war began, the Arcs decided to side with Vale and fought against Mistral and Mantle but ended up in a situation they had not anticipated. The Mistral Nobles hated the Arcs for betraying their King, Mantle's King had a personal history with your great-great Grandfather and also hated the Arcs, Vacuo was neutral to the Arcs but kept a distance from them while Vale's own Nobles were weary of the Arcs due to the fact we were from Mistral, simply put, our family was surrounded on all sides simply due to the fact that we chose to side with freedom instead of oppression" He said with a wry expression as I listened to him intently.
This brings back nostalgic memories of the simpler times, when I along with my sisters would sit at the dinner table and listen to him speaking about his adventures.
"But even when besieged from all sides, even when we were stabbed in the back by assassins while we fought in the war, even when we were tricked into fighting entire hordes of Grimm while also holding back attacking armies, we stood strong, the Arc men and women never faltered and would rather die standing than running like cowards, even when the once prosperous noble family that had many members were reduced to a mere handful of people in a shabby house, we still did not give up and fought to the very end, this stubbornness was also out downfall" he said sadly.
"Terrified of the might of the Arc family, the many noble families of Mistral and Mantle, now Atlas, have been hunting every Male Arc that showed promise in the field of being a fighter. While this has been subdues quite a lot during the recent years since Ironwood took over Atlas military and the old Council members of Mistral were replaced a decade ago and also thanks to a few friends of the Arc family that ensured that our names were erased from the history books so that no one can find us, there are still decedents of the Noble houses in Mantle along with a few influential families in Atlas that would stop at nothing to kill you if you ever showed up in front of them as a hunter, that was the main reason why I never trained you as a Hunter like your sisters, because even though they area also hunted, it is not as bad as it would be for a male Arc to be a hunter"
Listening to the story of my Father, I did not know whether I should laugh or cry. On one hand, I felt that my Father's fears were quite justified now that I had learned the true history of the Arcs, but on the other hand I also felt that those Noble families were quite stupid for ignoring the daughters of the Arc family and only focusing on the sons, then again, these were the same fools that believed that stopping people from expressing themselves was a good way to protect themselves from Grimm so I thing them being stupid is a given.
Dad sighed and slowly walked towards me, when he was close enough to reach me, he stabbed the family sword into the ground while motioning me to place my hand on the hilt of the sword tight on top of his own hand.
"However, now that you are already as strong as a Hunter even without your Aura unlocked, I think it is a moot point to hide you away from them anymore, so I might as well give you another power to handle yourself much better in the field"
Suddenly, I felt a strange power slowly enter my body through my hand as Dad closed his eyes and started to speak.
"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a Sword to Strike down Evil and a Shield to protect all, infinite in distance and unbound by death. I release your soul and by my shoulder protect thee."
But as soon as Dad's words stopped, I felt something else rise in me as an unfamiliar voice spoke in my mind.
"The first soul, the soul of light" I felt the very power of the sun course through me, just like I always did whenever I called upon the Miracle of the Sunlight Spear, only it was much more amplified and did not feel as limited as it always did.
"The second soul, the soul of Death" I felt Death grip my heart just like it always did when I used Gravelord Sword Dance.
"The third soul, the soul of Life" I felt the flames of life course through me as if a headlight balm, stinging when it touched me, yet calming me down at the same time.
"The fourth soul, the soul of Dark" I felt the comfortable embrace of True dark on my very being as all of my worries flew away from my mind, the only thought remaining was the warmth of the dark, my domain.
In my state of unawareness, I only heard the voice speak yet did not remember it after waking up.
"thou whom had conquered the four lords and claimed their lord souls for thyself shall now be imbued with their power, now, thou shall be the one to undo the wrongs of the two lords of this World and bring in a New Age of Fire"