Author's Note: ^-^!! I am happy! It is the second last day of school and I'm going to write instead of doing school work! KYAAAAAAAAA
Oh yeah. and I forgot to mention…that this story is intended to be non-yaoi…(sorry if anyone is turned away by this T-T) but maybe shounen-ai, depending on everyone's view of this…genre. By shounen-ai (boy love) I mean more like, brotherly/friendshippy love…also known as SMARM!! HAHA….and also they're probably be/already has been a lot of h/c (hurt comfort) which is kinda self explanatory…and I'm doing it cause I love that TOOOOOOOO! HOHOHOHOHOHO
Reviewer's Response:
Lady Kickass: WHOA. While reading your review, I was just sitting there….grinning so hard my cheeks hurt!!! I am sooooo flattered!! YAY!!! Thank you so much for the WONDERFUL REVIEW OF DOOM THAT I LOVE….lol And once again my wish is that I can continue to write this story to your expectations, and hopefully even better!!! EEEEEE… :.:reads her wondrous long review of praise she really doesn't deserve:.:
I HEART YOU LOL
PS, I'll take the alternate title into consideration, and I'll keep thinking of ideas for it… ^-^
Hele: Heh heh. I bet you misread it cause you loved it so MUCH you couldn't wait to find out what happens, ne? LOL Anyway…anyone can make that mistake! Yeah…and I realize that Aya is a little TOO baby-ish, but I plan for him to slip more and more in character as the story progresses, so hopefully he can be back to his more or less normal self. ^-^ Thanks for reading and reviewing!!!!!!! Please continue to enjoy!
Purple Hotagi: YOUUUUUUUU!!!!!! :.:bashes Hotagi with a baseball bat:.: YOU ARE NO LONGER ALLOWED TO SPEAAAAAAAAAKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!! EVEN WHEN YOU THINK YOU AREN'T GUESSING THE STORY YOU ARE!! STOP SPOILING THE CHILDREN'S FUN!!!!!!!!!!! LOL Okay…I'm joking, you aren't sentenced to silence….but …masaka, I wouldn't be surprised if you were an alternate version of myself….LOL Thank you for your support!! And please don't let me have scared you away so you'll review me still! LOL
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Classic Fantasy Adventure
Chapter 4
The night was dark and muggy when they finally emerged from the lush forest and out onto an empty plain of tangled weeds and grass. The four adventurers were tired, hungry, and scratched up, and as the last tree passed away behind them, and the rolling hills of grass yawned open to welcome them… they couldn't help that their hearts sunk in disappointment.
Yohji whirled on the young sorcerer Nagi, who had been guiding them to a so called town that was always "just a little ways ahead."
"Does this LOOK like a town to you, ya little ingrate?!" He shouted, his entire body tense with anger.
Nagi cowered before him, true sorrow evident in his face. His cheeks were slightly flushed from embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry I really thought that…"
Yohji snarled incoherently, waving the boy away and unsheathing his sword, shredding some of the knee-high brush that tickled his legs.
"Guys…I think we should keep going…Ran doesn't look to well…" Omi offered tentatively. The Elvin boy was nearly collapsed on his shoulder and his panting breath was hot and sickly against Omi's neck. At the mention of Ran, Yohji's eyes seemed to soften and he took the young man's fevered face in one hand, looking down at him kindly. "If only there was a way to take that cursed cold away…back to where it belongs…" To emphasize his point he took a fist and pounded his chest, sorrow dwelling in thee depths of his eyes.
Nagi, though angry at Yohji's rebuke, desperately yearned to earn back some favor, and make this whole journey more enjoyable for all of them. "There is a way."
But his plan backfired, and Yohji threw a glare at him. "Why didn't you say so before??"
Nagi drew back, anger bubbling in him, seeming to tighten around his lungs. Yohji stared, unwavering, his arms crossed over his chest.
'You never asked, you…you thieving pleasure slave!!!" Less than a split second after these words left his lips Nagi gasped, staggering away dumbly. His heart had seemed to stop as the world around him slowed. He was going to die. Yohji was going to kill him for that one.
"I—I mean…" He turned and tried to run, but as he thought Yohji was already on him with a roar, the flat of his sword smacking into the sorcerer's shoulder and knocking him to the ground. Nagi lay there, gasping in pain as Yohji knelt and pressed his hands to his neck, strangling the younger boy against the ground. Nagi choked, terror flooding through him as he realized that his air had already run out, and the back of his throat seemed to warm all of a sudden, and something gurgled up in the back of his mouth…blood! He threw his head back in agony, a trickle of his ruby lifeblood running down the side of his lips as he croaked and thrashed in agony. And then desperately, his life fading in Yohji's clutches, his soul screamed an invocation, and to Nagi's boundless joy Yohji was pulled away by an invisible force, thrown to the ground and crushed. He scooted away, vaguely aware that Omi was pleading with them to stop and Yohji was lying nearly still, his whole body stiff as he tried to push against the ghostly power that forced him to the ground. His head was swimming, but as Nagi beheld Yohji, his body twitching with strain, his face a mask of frozen agony, he could only remember his own overwhelming horror as his life slipped away. "Nagi! Nagi please! Let Yohji go!" Omi was begging, tears running from his eyes… And so with a tiny gesture of his trembling finger, Nagi banished the magic back to the recesses of his spirit.
As he lay back weakly against the ground, choking back sobs, he noticed his throat seemed swollen, and for a horrifying moment he thought he would never be able to swallow again. But finally, after a few failed attempts, he managed a tremulous swallow, feeling warm blood flow back from where it had come. Tears burned at his eyes. He had never wanted to go on this journey…but he had, and he'd tried to be helpful, but it had come to this… his hands clenched over a clump of grass and he cried.
Meanwhile, Yohji gasped as the magic presence was lifted from him, and he rolled over on his bruised sides and coughed hoarsely, tears pricking his eyes. Oh man…I'm going to be sick… he thought, and true to that, he clambered weakly to his knees and emptied the meager contents of his stomach into the grass. Omi kept his hand on Yohji's back the whole time, smiling sympathetically. When Yohji seemed through, he crept away silently, over to Nagi.
"Are you ok…? I'm sorry about all this, I know we're all tired and angry and tons of other things… something like this is bound to happen…" Nagi stared at the ground, not so much ignoring the boy, as waiting for his tears and anguish to pass so he could answer the blonde haired magicmaker with a more or less dignified air. Or maybe he wasn't sure if his throat could even be used to speak any more…so instead he just nodded, and with Omi's help, stood up slowly, wiping the last traces of tears from his eyes.
They approached Yohji, who was bent over, no longer sick, but rustling around in the prickly field as if searching for something. He heard the sound of the two approaching him, and stood up stiffly. "….. Sorry about that, kid"--now that wasn't so hard! ---"now, have you seen my blade? You'd probably know best, you musta felt it." He poked at Nagi's shoulder, his expression apologetic.
Nagi winced, looking behind him helplessly for the flash of Yohji's blade in the grass, and then shaking his head. "I'm sorry…I don't know where it went…" His voice was rough and pained, and Yohji's expression seemed to grow more humble at the hoarse tone.
"Nagi…again….I'm sorry…..I know that you didn't mean for this to happen…. Right?"
Nagi nodded, a small smile betraying his still-boiling anger. "It's ok…I'm sorry…I honestly don't know how this could have happened..."
Yohji grinned. "Well, that's all over then! I---"----"Yohji! Nagi! I can't find Ran anywhere!!!"
They turned to see Omi, frantic as he jogged through the tall clumps of brush, his eyes afraid. "I let him rest….right here! Now he's gone!!"
"What?!" Yohji cried, "that's impossible!"
"Just stay calm!" Nagi shouted, and the two stopped. "I will summoning a lighting spell…just be calm…I'm sure he is not far."
The two waited, tense and silent, as Nagi folded his hands, kneaded his slender fingers together and chanted lightly under his breath. A small breath of wind picked up around his feet, seeming to glow as if it were a long airsnake, lighting the air with its magical energy. And then abruptly, it stopped, and the world fell back into darkness. The ground thrummed beneath their feet, and a low rumble began, vibrating their very skeletons with its bass sound. It seemed to come from the very center of the earth! Nagi staggered a few steps, gasping. "Take alarm! This is not my doing! It's rockresters!!"
Rockresters. Mysterious beings dwelling in the core of the earth, their snakelike limbs lurking under the surface of some choice areas, where the earth's crust was weak enough to break through from below.
Taking a deep breath, Omi fell silent and concentrated, bidding his crossbow to appear from its Place, another dimension where it dwelled until it was needed, and in a few seconds, which seemed to stretch on for eternity, he felt the bow in his hands, the wood sleek and rich. He nodded at Yohji, who was standing in a defensive stance, prepared to use his fists and feet or whatever was needed to defeat the creature without his blade. Yohji was watching the ground nervously, dancing slightly, as if on hot coals. The rumbling was growing louder, causing hearts to flutter in fear. The ground no longer vibrated, but began to quake violently. Still they kept their eyes to the ground. One never knew where the rockrester would surface…
And then it came, the rumbling in the ground becoming so violent that it knocked them right into the brush. The ground around the rockrester's jagged snout splintered like glass, fractures racing swiftly across the ground until they became like a spiderweb, and the ground exploded, and the lithe body of the rockrester soared above them, into the night sky, and chunks of rubble rained down on them.
Omi came up behind Yohji, though he could not figure out how he had managed, for he felt half-paralyzed with terror. Numbly, he gripped Yohji's jacket sleeve, his eyes wide as dinner plates and fixed to the sky, where the monster's ear-piercing shriek seemed to split the night apart.
"Oh gods…Yohji. I'm a coward…I don't want to be an adventurer anymore…."
And the monster came down, faster than lighting and more ferocious than a firestorm, its pointed nose making a crater only a few feet away from them. Living under the ground had made rockresters sensitive to even the slightest ray of light, so their eyesight was poor, but that was their only shortcoming.
A few feet away from Nagi a gnarled claw the size of a Warhoof rumbled from the ground with a spray of dirt and clumps of weed. Nagi flew back a few meters, crashing into the ground painfully. He lifted his head to face the vicious, twitching, claw of the rockrester… and gasped. In the yellowed talons of the monstrous beast was clutched the lost Ran, streaked with mud and dirt, but otherwise unharmed…and next to him was the beaten and bloody form of Guild Master Schuldig.
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Author's Note: EEEF. I feel like this chapter is really short! GOMEN! How d'ya like the cliffhanger tho? HOHOHO