Disclaimer: Don't own Shadow Hearts. Am about to own a whole new world.
**
[Keith]
After the light and magic faded, we looked up as one. Alice and Yuri were both gone, as was the girl. "Oh, no," Zhuzhen moaned. It seemed Yuri had really gone to the other world and taken Alice with him.
I walked closer, hoping that we could use the circle, as they had, but it soon began breaking up into thick clouds of smoke. Margarete was not pleased.
"Day off, my—if sonny boy was planning this one just like Nemeton, I'm going to kick his butt."
"I'll help," Halley said, "but the problem is finding him."
I sighed. Why had Yuri decided to run off like that? This was quite an inconvenient situation…more so as I realized just how little we knew about what we were getting into…
"Well, c'mon Keith, we better go talk to your family again," Margarete said. She fingered the yellowed paper of Yuri's note, turning it over, and then stuck it in her pocket. "I mean, it'd be bad enough leaving him there, but Alice too?"
"Yes, the sooner we find them, the better," I agreed. Hopefully the elders had not yet gone back to sleep, because there could be no delays. Who knew what could happen to them?
**
[Yuri]
I expected to see anything and everything. Everything, except—the Graveyard? Couldn't be. I turned around, a whole circle, seeing the temple, graves and gates. Alice and Lilia were both gone.
I'd probably been knocked out. It was possible; there had been a lot of magic back there—
"Yuri!" The eight-year-old from before was looking up at me, distracting my thoughts. "You're going to the other world, right? Fox Face told me."
"Um…yeah," I answered, looking around warily. "And where's he?"
He laughed. "Don't worry about him! Fox Face is a very good friend."
"Oh really."
The child frowned and then turned away, suddenly cold. My remark had upset him, and he didn't seem to like me anymore. "Come."
Curious, I followed as he approached the first set of graves. Then I stopped. The symbols were glowing again. Hell, this wasn't going to be a new twist on the dream, was it?
The boy approached the Earth grave. He reached out and took the Earth stone from it, the symbol dying down as the stone was removed. He noticed I wasn't with him. "What are you afraid of?" He snapped impatiently.
"Nothing." I joined him on the mound, glancing apprehensively at the gravestones. He held out the Earth stone and I took it from him.
"Of course. I have nothing to do with him, he's just a curiosity. Everyone knows he's only a monster."
The Earth stone fell from my hands and landed on the ground. That was…Keith's voice. But why would Keith say that? He didn't think that, did he?
"You'll need that," the child said, picking up the stone for me. I took it, again hearing Keith's voice. But there were other things too: an impression of how much larger he was than me, candles, shouting…I shook my head, placing it in a pocket. The images made no sense to me.
"This one," the child called from the Water grave. His hand gripped the stone. Slowly, I took hold of the stone.
"Take care of her for me." Her tone was odd. There was sadness, but also a strange calmness. Like she was trying to hold herself in. Something was lying next to me, something cool that touched my face.
"Past debts must be paid." Now I was holding the Fire stone, listening to Zhuzhen's voice. Past debts…what did he mean? Was he talking about my dad? There was a younger face—much younger. The argument died down as he spoke.
"What is this?" I asked. "Why am I hearing their voices? Why didn't this ever happen before?"
"The seal was on you before, remember?"
I frowned. "Why would Alice put a seal on me? Let's say for a minute she did—but she doesn't seem to remember anything either. No one does. Was a seal placed on everyone?"
The child was quiet for a minute. "I don't know." He shook his head, putting his hands up as if to shield it. "I don't remember."
"What are you doing here, then? Who are you?"
He shuddered and dropped down, wrapping his arms around his legs. "I don't have a name. They never gave me one."
"They?"
"My clan…they don't even want me. They want to banish me. But they don't because I'm the Overlord." Overlord…so he's from the Darkness clan, right? Wait…is he the one who helped Regina?
"Do you know someone named Regina?" I asked hopefully.
He looked up at me, confused, and shook his head. "I don't know anyone. Fox Face is my only friend." His dark brown eyes were pleading. "He'll come back soon, won't he?"
"Probably."
"He left because you came. He said you wouldn't like him." Now the child cast his eyes down and said in a low voice, "Why do you hate him so much?"
Before I could answer, he disappeared. Not really, though; his body turned black and all features disappeared except for the outline of the huddled boy. I reached out and touched his shoulder; he did not react and I couldn't even feel him. That might have been his natural state. After all, if he was the person who had helped Regina, wouldn't he be only a ghost now?
The stones from the three graves shone brightly, bringing my attention back to them. He'd made me get the first three. Might as well get the others, although I didn't know what the point was. One last look at him and I left, convinced I could do nothing for him.
I walked over to the second mound of Air and Light. I reached out and took the Light stone, since it was closer.
"God, our eternal Father…"Mixed feelings. Hatred, curiosity, trust, mistrust. All of them conflicting with one another. Later, an argument took place. No, it was a debate, except Alice was screaming, yelling.
Why does none of this make sense?
The Air stone.
"You've been acting different lately…"
There was a tone of mistrust. A casual grin at me as he showed an item in his hand. People dancing. Regina? Was Regina also with the people? Yes, she was watching me.
Maybe… I looked over at the kid, still pitch black and curled up. Maybe these are his memories. Which explains why I can't understand them.
But then, he'd said he didn't remember anything. Shouldn't he take these then? Or maybe they did nothing to him—that was possible.
There was only one stone left. I place the Air stone with the others and walked over to the grave of Darkness. I took the stone.
"Existence itself is a struggle, from womb to grave."
There were so many images connected with this stone that they simply flashed past, almost too fast for me to see. There were screams and candles burnt low, a small empty room, a garden—a jungle?—the first few images could be picked out, but then the got faster and blurred together and I saw only flashes, but all the time felt pain, some in my body but more in my heart and mind.
The images got even faster, the colors beginning to turn into black. Then I was standing on a riverbank, looking into the depths of the water. A hand took mine. I tried to pull back. But instead Alice took my hand again and stole one last glance behind me before pulling me down into the current.
**
[Alice]
I awoke and found myself alone in a field. At least, I thought I was alone, until I rolled over and saw a small child about five, looking down at me. She had short white blond hair and blue eyes, like me. She does look rather like me, I thought bemusedly. Then looking lower, I gasped; her hands were covered in blood.
The loud sound in the silence brought a wave of creatures flying out of the grass; I tensed and then realized they were nothing more than butterflies. There were thousands of them, in all different colors. Instead of flying off as I expected, they formed a loose circle around the girl and me. It was almost a tornado of butterflies. It was one of the most beautiful things I'd seen in my life.
As I watched in awe, a small voice began: "All affirmations are true in some sense."
"Excuse me?" I looked back at the girl and frowned; she was taller than I'd first thought. I stood up.
"False in some sense, meaningless in some sense."
No, I hadn't been mistaken. She was actually growing taller as she spoke.
"True and false in some sense."
There was a howling noise. I looked around. The butterflies had turned into ghosts that swirled and shrieked around us. Now it really looked like we were in the middle of a tornado. I looked up and my heart nearly stopped.
There was an eye above us, closed as if asleep. It looked like a hundred people could easily stand on top of the eyelid.
"Stop," I told the teenager.
"True and meaningless in some sense," the eye opened, "false and meaningless in some sense."
"Stop," I repeated, yelling over the ghosts.
"And true and false and meaningless in some sense."
There was a flash of light from above and I cried out, expecting pain. But the two of us were unhurt, so I gazed up at the eye, wondering what had happened.
Seeing the butterflies fall, I knew. The souls were changing back to butterflies, insects with shredded wings. As they fell out of the sky, useless bits of colorful wings fall around the two of us. One even landed on my face.
"Everything is true, false…and meaningless… and one day, we will all be forgotten."
**
[Keith]
All of the clan was still awake, though scattered throughout the castle. We settled with talking to my father alone, in the room where I had met Alice and Zhuzhen. All of us were anxious to waste as little time as possible.
"So…you want to know how to follow them," my father concluded once I had explained the situation. He had a peculiar expression. "Both the Light and Darkness class are gone?"
"Yes, they are," I confirmed.
He shook his head. "Then you can't follow them."
"What do you mean?" Margarete demanded; at her forward tone, I turned and shook my head to her past Zhuzhen. She was cross, which was understandable, but it was not a good idea to be rude. She frowned at me.
"I mean that you can't follow them," my father replied, sounding annoyed. "The crossing requires one of either the Light or Darkness class, with some magic power."
"Great, they both just had to go," Halley muttered.
"There has to be some way…"
"We'll just need to find someone of the Light or Dark class," Zhuzhen said, trying to sound a bit optimistic.
Halley's eyes widened, and then he frowned. "Do we know any Dark class people?"
Margarete thought about this, then looked at Zhuzhen. "I think we've killed all the Dark class people we've met."
"I think you're right. Except Yuri, of course," he added unnecessarily.
"But still, you must've met someone who can use Light class magic, right? Or maybe we could find someone—"
"And convince them that there's a completely different world on a different plane, and oh, by the way, two friends of ours are there so please help us get there? Even most people who do use magic would think we've lost it."
"Why can't they just bring themselves back?" Halley argued. "She's Light, he's Dark. What's the problem?"
"The problem is that the ritual also requires the four elements," Stephen said. "Which is no problem for a summoner, but may be a problem for your 'friend'."
"What about Yuri?" Zhuzhen asked.
"He chose to leave in the first place," I reminded him. "And Regina would probably try to find ways of discouraging him to go back."
Margarete flung her hands in the air. "Great! So we have to find some random stranger and try to convince them to take us to another world. This is great…"
This was not an appealing course of action to anyone, and finally Halley sighed. "There's one other option," Halley said, looking very pained. "Sharon. She's a Light class."
There was silence for a moment. Why would Halley even suggest Sharon? She was far too young. While Roger Bacon might be on one extreme of the age factor, Sharon was right on the opposite. It wouldn't work. It was ridiculous.
"Koudelka is gonna kill us," Margarete predicted.
**
Author's Note: No wonder you people thought I stopped writing. Now that summer's here, I'm totally out of it. Not to mention that I've been spending most of my online time at gmboard.com, which is a very good site.
The next chapter might take as long to write, seeing as how—
Yuri: We're lost AGAIN?!
::sweatdrop:: Well, we weren't sure what would happen after the picnic, but we managed to plow through that. We weren't sure what would happen after Nemeton, but we plowed through that. And you know what they say, the third time's the charm.
Yuri: Or the curse.
Oh, stop being a pessimist. The only problem is, we don't know yet whether we want this to be a long fic or a short fic.
Yuri: Aegis, it's twenty chapters already.
Okay, a long fic or a longer fic. This is actually my first fanfic that has reached double digits in chapters. And now I really want to get to the end with this. Though not exactly sure where the end lies…
Yuri: Shoot me please.
Margarete!
Yuri: ::sweatdrop:: Not literally…
And again, I'm not answering reviews for this chapter because of fanfiction.net. Thanks to everyone who sent one though. Next chapter, I will be answering reviews.
**
Also: I thought that Roger Bacon was a Light class, but he's actually Earth. Weird…and why did they kill all the Dark people ex