Chapter -113: A Skarred Land
The way out of Sancturia proved to be an easier task than expected, with the guards not even raising any alert signs in Sarajin's mind. He wanted to suspect Borealis might have given them a pass, but more than likely they just didn't bother because they couldn't do anything with Temporis around.
The exited from the west side of the city and kept moving straight ahead through the wastelands towards Justek's former home.
Sarajin was a little on edge and quiet most of the trip, with Temporis having to go all the heavy lifting conversation wise, "We haven't been to that village since it was attacked. I'll be shocked if anything's still standing over there!"
Sarajin let out a slight groan, showing some interest but not really engaging with it. Temporis then leaned over her shoulder and remarked, "Come on Sarajin, don't clam up on me. Say what's gotcha hot and bothered."
Sarajin shook his head around gently and looked at her, the subject of his concerns, "Well...It's about your-"
He felt uneasy going forward, but that wasn't going to stop her from trying to drag the words out of him, "What? What? My what?"
Sarajin waved his hand out and told her, "W-We can talk about it later. Now's probably not the best time."
Temporis shrugged and looked forward, "Fine. No skipping out later though, ok?"
"Got it," Sarajin replied with a smile, only to sink into a bit of melancholy as he continued to stare haplessly at her back, "You never told me your mother was dead...Or maybe I should've realized that sooner."
He let out one last sigh to himself but then had to force himself to keep his heart feeling light, as they were pushing through heavy Rot Walker territory.
The ground tremored as a few of the towering, many-legged beasts speared the ground with their legs as they walked around them.
Sarajin looked up below them and saw them for their true selves...They weren't one creature, but many smaller ones fused together by the gooieness of their rotten flesh. They could do a lot more damage to the world this way but they'd definitely be a lot scarier as a horde.
Once the two quietly passed these beasts on by, they were relatively safe for a short while.
The air was getting smellier though, with there being this very thin, bloody tint clouding their vision. Sarajin squinted and could see a mass of objects in the distance, and felt a sense of melancholy and dread as he recognized them.
They were the proud and titanic dragons and wyverns, now reduced to pitiable corpses with snapped bones, slashed throats, and wings oozing with decayed membranes.
Sarajin paused as they neared the first body, because he felt the absence of something, the place where his first fond memory of this world occurred had been toppled over and reduced to mere pebbles.
There were streaks of dried blood in the ground with splits down the middle, indicating where cracks had formed in the world. There was a faint scent of rot coming from these spots, meaning these were also the feeding grounds for Rot Walkers at one point...
The two's pace slowed to a crawl as they jumped and walked around the corpses that littered the land and made their way towards their destination.
What was once a home to many was now little more than a graveyard, if even that. The border walls had been fractured and thrown through the air in all directions, leaving only a couple large bones snapped in half where they stood.
Many of the houses had been melted down into a black, boiling puddle of ooze, with a sickeningly toxic stench that almost forced Sarajin to veil them both in wind lest they vomit upon the ground.
However, the few houses that were still standing were now caves housing the rotting beasts that feasted upon this type of environment.
Sarajin trembled all over, his mind wanting to succumb to disgust and outrage over these beasts taking residence where they didn't belong.
"This wasn't the prettiest place in the world..." Sarajin glared ahead with watery eyes, a fire lit behind them, "But it didn't deserve this."
"This sucks," Temporis was more outward about her opinion though, her voice tinged with hopelessness, "Let's grab the journal and get out of here..."
She ran on ahead deeper into the fallen village, pausing to swing her head around. With the landscape now warped beyond recognition neither of them could remember which house was Justek's, assuming it hadn't been one of the victims of the battle to begin with.
Sarajin spent more time looking down at the bodies, forcing their broken, lifeless shells to become a memory in his head so that this type of tragedy will never happen again.
But the reality of just how horrible the slaughter was didn't really hit him until he found the largest corpse in town, belonging to Justek's father...
His skeleton was propped up in a slump against the half-broken remains of a house. His chest cavity had been caved in and his jaw kept wide-open. He had been killed so easily. Him, who could stand against the Devil and still maintain a presence of raw, immaculate power afterwards...Had been put down like he was little more than a whimpering dog.
Sarajin's knuckles crunched as he squeezed his shaking fists by his hips, and glared with intense hatred towards the black monster.
"Sarajin!" Temporis shouted, snapping him out of it before the hatred grew enough to stir the slumbering Rot Walkers.
She was waving at him from in front of a house that was still largely intact, save for the membrane wall beginning to rot.
Sarajin hopped over to her and looked at the ground. There laid a skeleton hunched over itself with a dirty, bloodied robe and four impale marks going through it's back.
He could feel that this was Justek's mother, dying in what appeared to be the act of protecting her son one more time...
Sarajin had to force himself to look away before the sheer cruelty of this scene left him crying next. He then looked in the direction Temporis was pointing towards and saw that inside this house remained a few books, still intact.
The rest had either been disintegrated, pages torn out, or were left soaking in a pool of blood.
The two headed inside and started to look around. Temporis did them both a favor and coated their hands in aura gloves before they began.
Sarajin focused on the books that were intact while she checked on the rest.
"Nope, far as I can tell these aren't journals." She remarked after a couple minutes searching.
"We probably should have asked him what it looked like." Sarajin replied as he picked up a book with a leather spine on it.
He paused for a long while as he swiveled the book around. It was in good shape, despite a few drops of blood on the front and the corner being torn off.
But all the pages were there and the worst you could say about them was that their edges were yellow.
He flipped open the front cover and immediately saw a date, and Justek's name on it. His eyes widened and he clamped the cover shut, spooking Temporis.
She turned and said excitedly, "Didja find it?"
Sarajin nodded and put the book by his hip for now, "Yeah, I think so."
"You sure?" She pressed on.
"I didn't want to read too far to check. Journals are meant to be private, right?"
"Well, if we come back here cause you had too much of a goody two-shoes conscience to double-check, you owe me dinner for the next week." She made herself clear.
"Heh, fine," Sarajin chuckled, raising the book in confidence, "But this is definitely the right one. And if I'm right, YOU owe me dinner for the next week."
Temporis glared back competitively while rubbing a finger beneath her nose, "Ok, you're on! Now let's get out of here."
As they made their way out of the house, the ground began to rumble with the sound of monstrous footsteps, with a subhuman growl following suit.
At the tail end of the village ruins roamed a beast that Sarajin could never forget. All this time later, he remembered the shadowy silhouette and flesh stabbed through with bone.
It stood like a dragon but had rot dripping off the tips of it's disjointed wings. It had an angular shaped neck and crescent-like body, smaller than that of the Devil. The right side of it's marrow-filled jaw was melting off, while it observed it's surrounding with hollow, broken diamond shaped eyes.
It was far from the tallest beast in these lands, but it's presence was second only to the Devil, and it's footsteps left scars in its wake.
Fitting that because of all this, it was deigned the name Skarr Drago, King of the Wastes.
It was this type of beast that first drew a sense of helplessness from Sarajin's heart and plagued him with nightmares.
Now it chose to make these lands its own, sharing it with it's inhuman ilk. It stepped over bodies, molding the remnants of flesh and drawing bone into itself to be consumed. It crunched and gurgled as the bones pushed in and out of its body, digesting slowly.
Sarajin trembled all over while glaring at the beast, his hand drawn to his hilt without him even realizing it.
The nightmares of yesteryear pulsed into his retinas, as he saw Justek succumb to the beast's unending ferocity. And now said beast continued it's insult of the dragons' pride by daring to rot these once sacred lands.
Suddenly, he gripped the edge of his hilt and declared in a deep, bitter tone, "No...I can't let this stand."
"Sarajin!" Temporis shouted as Sarajin sprinted off and made light hops over the bodies before him.
He stopped below the beast's shadow, his rage luring the beast's disjointed gaze towards him like a fresh, fleshy scent.
It growled louder with ravenous appetite as Sarajin hunched down and gripped his sword's hilt tightly, glaring at the beast with eyes shaken with fear. He then tucked the journal into the back of his pants.
Temporis appeared suddenly beside him and shouted, "You're going to fight that thing?!"
"This monster doesn't belong here!" Sarajin growled between his teeth.
"..." Temporis immediately stood in a sideways battle stance and summoned her crossbows atop her gloves, glaring up at the beast with a fierce smirk, "Ok good, glad we're on the same page!"
The beast seemed to have enough sentience to realize it was being challenged...And began to laugh internally with the echoes of a thousand ghouls.
Sarajin's eyes widened with a cold chill down his spine and he immediately dragged his sword out of the sheath with all his might, hitting the beast with a powerful slash that cut right through it...Yet only managed to stain the air with it's rotting flesh.
The beast then charged right at them while the flesh pulled back into itself. It dove it's head down to try and latch onto Sarajin, but his quick reflexes helped him escape atop a nearby house. Temporis leapt in the other direction.
He slashed at the beast with pressurized cuts while Temporis peppered arrows into it, swinging counterclockwise around them and prolonging her descent.
It's wings held the many arrows in it's flesh and it flapped them away with ease, turning its attention towards Temporis and firing a large, muddy flame her way.
Temporis dropped and slid under the grime and then the beast, charging up her aura and then blasting it's underside with point-blank compression shots.
It lifted the hulking beast off the ground where Sarajin then hammered it's skull into the dirt with a boulder he arched through the air.
The beast got right back up and swung its tail around, pushing many of it's bones to that point to make it deadlier.
Temporis braced her arms with aura and then smashed a couple of the bones with her fists while sliding away in the nick of time.
Sarajin viciously pelted the beast's face with fireballs to try and stagger it, only for it to retaliate with a REAL fireball, big enough to engulf him whole.
Sarajin swiftly cleaved it in half but some of the drip coming off it stuck to his pant legs, melting it off.
"Bunny watch out!" He shouted as he took to the air to avoid another projectile, "That's not rot it's firing! It's acidic!"
"Acid? That gives me an idea!" Temporis pulled away from pelting the beast with arrows and then hid herself out of sight behind one of the dragon corpses, "Make it launch another fireball!"
Sarajin kept to the skies and out of the beast's range, slicing pressurized waves through its body and leaving a mess of rot splashes around it.
The beast roared but did not act in accordance with their expectations, instead charging for the nearest elevation to leap off it and get near Sarajin.
Sarajin's eyes widened as the beast thrust it's claw and him and grabbed hold with it's tight and sticky grip.
Sarajin couldn't move but found hope in a growing glint of light from out of the corner of his eye and the ferocious shout of a friend "DUCK!"
Temporis launched a spiraling arrow that ripped through the beast's elbow and the bottom half of its face, allowing Sarajin to twirl away and throw the hand off his body.
The beast crashed hard but all the crunching sounds it made came from it's continued bone consumption. It fed on itself and recycled it's meal to create replacements for its body parts. It then stood back up and craned it's head back to roar.
But it ended prematurely, for Sarajin dropped from the sky in an instant and cleaved the beast's head off, going right for its legs so the beast would collapse to the ground.
He pulled away and held his katana at the side, gathering the power of fire into it, and then unleashing a towering inferno upon the felled beast with an upward swing.
It's rotting flesh burned with a horrible stench but STILL it rose to its feet with no pause to accept the concept of pain.
The fire slowly decayed into nothingness as it spread its wings and then swerved at Sarajin, charging with loud, unbalanced footsteps.
"Tsk...!" Sarajin clicked his katana into his sheath and jumped away, avoiding the beast's desperate, hungered swipes until he found himself backed against a dragon skeleton.
The Skarr Drago went in for the bite. Sarajin laid his hand on the skeleton and muttered "Sorry" before ripping one of it's ribs out and using it to stab the beast where it's nose should be.
He then quickly grabbed his blade and sliced through its mouth, giving him time to roll out from the left. However, the beast's tail arched in an unusual way, ready to impale him through the chest with it's many bones.
Sarajin's eyes widened and when he blinked he opened to find himself whisked away behind the beast, with Temporis holding him around the waist.
"T-That was close..." He murmured with his heart pounding.
"I didn't mean for it to be that way," Temporis then stretched her arms out and pinched two fingers together, "I was just setting up...FOR THIS!"
She snapped her fingers and dozens of space-time warps formed around the beast, freeing well over a hundred arrows from frozen time.
They then impaled the beast, leaving no spot on it's body untouched. The beast shrieked and fell onto it's gut, surprisingly, wounded.
"Heh heh heh!" Temporis celebrated proudly.
However, then came a tremble in the ground and a surge of power, as the beast rose with a thunderous shake of the air, while rows of bony spikes shot up from it's back like a tidal wave to shatter the arrows.
It then turned right around and Temporis went "Oh come on!" before her and Sarajin parted ways to separate the beast's attention from the other.
The Skarr Drago pursued Sarajin relentlessly as the two exited the village through the south border. Sarajin dug his feet into the ground and grabbed hold of his katana.
"Focus...!" He closed his eyes and pooled his natural energies into his katana until he heard a "Shnnn!" from within the sheathe.
He then swung his blade out a few dozen times in a second. The beast kept moving, but Sarajin swung seven more times slower and harder, his blade colored by a different elemental energy each time.
A sonic boom ruptured the air and froze the beast in place, with a five-pointed star made from a rainbow of the elemental colors getting carved into it.
The beast staggered a few steps back and at least a quarter of its body had been splattered off half a mile behind it, exposing it's marrow-filled innards.
The Skarr Drago nevertheless returned to where it once stood and spread its wings as far as it could, letting out a sky rupturing roar from it's splitting maw.
The atmosphere contorted further with a grimy fog as Sarajin started feeling sick to his stomach.
The smaller beast beckoned the call of it's King and came running from the village as a unified pack, a stampede that wouldn't stop until it's prey was trampled over and made as lifeless as themselves.
Temporis came flying overhead to disperse the herd with a rain of arrows, but many of them just shoved their bodies through being impaled and kept on going.
She instead thrust her hands out and erected a wall of aura in their path, causing them to pile up into a decaying lump and try to climb over it.
But it bought her time for now and that's all that mattered. She kept her descent and began to spin rapidly, wedging her aura-infused right leg into the Skarr Drago's skull as hard as she could.
Her bracing shattered and she flipped off as it tried to snap it's jaw at her. She then repeatedly thrust her fists to pummel the beast with aura bullets down it's front, eventually landing and sliding across the ground until she was beside Sarajin, striking a cool pose.
She then looked at the wolves trying to get through and thrust her palm out to force the wall to shove them back into the village.
The Skarr Drago then split it's face down the middle and Temporis shouted, "Heads up, it's using a new attack!"
There was this high-pitched sound and Temporis shoved Sarajin out of the way while repelling herself. The two remained suspended in mid-air, frozen with surprise and a bit of fear as suddenly a half mile of ground in front of the beast was erased from existence. Which was then followed by the air contorting with the appearance of cracked glass.
"Holy shit...!" Temporis uttered as the air shattered and was replaced with a grimy stain.
Sarajin and her both buckled down upon landing and armed themselves as the beast pressed it's face together and roared, charging straight at Sarajin with it's claws scarring the air with rot as it madly swung at its prey.
Sarajin whipped his blade out only when he was certain he could repel himself away from the beast, but he had no confidence in being able to strike back.
"Is there really nothing we can do to stop this thing?!" By this point the wolves' mindless charge granted them passage over the aura wall and they continued rampaging their way forward, splitting from their corrosive mob.
They quickly surrounded Sarajin and their King in a circle that stirred up dust, leaving only the rotting glow of their eyes visible.
The circle would continue to shrink until the King had made Sarajin part of the legion or he escaped. But they were so close together now that the beast could swat him down if he tried anything.
The Skarr Drago snapped it's jaws down towards Sarajin's head but he spread his arms out and summoned forth stalagmites of stone from the ground to impale the beast through it's head and wings.
But it kept pushing forward, only slowed a little more when Sarajin turned the stone to steel, and then slower when it went to diamond.
He was banking all his hopes on his reliable friend and partner and of course, she would pull through, no doubt on his end.
But what he didn't perceive was "How" she'd do it. Right now, she had positioned herself before the beast with time frozen.
She threw space-time bubbles with a gesture at four parts of the circle of wolves, then focused all her attention on the beast's underside.
With her head beginning to hurt she hunched down and tightened her fists, gritting her teeth with her expression flared with intense determination.
"You want something to nibble on, then here you go!" She coated her fists in spiked gauntlets and concentrated her punches at one singular point of the beast's chest.
Every punch increased the size of the impact silhouette she left in front of the beast until eventually, her efforts made it grow to become larger than her body.
She then cracked a smirk and whipped away to Sarajin's side, tossing her hand out in a playful manner and then snapping her fingers to resume time.
The Skarr Drago suffered the additive force of a hundred punches all at once and was thrown off its feet hundreds of feet away, crashing on it's back with a gaping hole penetrating through to it's back.
The smaller bubbles tripped up the wolves' momentum for a bit as in their mindless state of aggravation, their bodies kept moving but their heads and backsides were getting torn off from the rest of their frame.
Temporis took this opportunity to grab Sarajin and leap away, letting him take the opportunity to catch his breath.
The Skarr Drago rose to its feet and roared, shaking the air and putting goosebumps on Sarajin's skin. He grit his teeth and wondered, "It can't stop...!"
Suddenly, veins of rot launched out from its feet and grabbed hold of the wolves in its path. The wolves showed rare signs of struggling as the King mercilessly dragged their rotting bodies over to it and consumed them whole all at once.
It's damage had been healed and it's wings were raised prouder and wider than ever before. The air around it's jaw twisted as it began to suck it in for one big attack.
Temporis' eye shot up and she proclaimed, "Wait! I think this might be our chance!"
The beast's innards glowed with a hot light and all it's bones shot up from it's backside like an extended spiky crown.
It then lunged it's head out and launched a massive rotten fireball, it's center a deep crimson hue that made it look more like the sun was descending from the sky to kill them all.
"Get ready to strike, Sarajin!" Temporis shouted, her confidence giving Sarajin the vigor to keep pressing onward.
He parted ways and expected her to leap in the other direction, but instead she jumped towards the fireball.
"TEMPORIS!" He screamed in a panic.
He then began to dive towards her, but she caught him out of the corner of his eyes and chuckled, "Haaa, really, Sarajin?"
She blinked to stop time and smirked, "You've gotta have more faith in your best friend!"
Her forward momentum kept going and she sprung off an aura platform to gain further height. As she leapt over the fireball she began weaving lines of aura around it until she had it trapped in a tightly woven sphere.
She flipped through the air with all her youthful vigor while the ball was being tugged along by the strings at her fingertips.
She then resumed time and froze in place floating upside-down, yanking the ball overhead and shouting at the top of her lungs, "SPECIAL DELIVERY YA ROTTING BASTARD!"
The Skarr Drago raised its head just in time to have it's attack come crashing back down on top of him. The aura shattered and the impact left the fire to disperse in a cross-shaped set of trails which, of course, rotted everything it touched.
The Skarr Drago shrieked in agony as it's body started melting down. Even it has its limits, and it seemed suffering damage from it's own attacks was enough to overpower them.
Temporis then turned around, still upside-down, and flicked her fingers at the bewildered Sarajin, "He's all yours!"
Sarajin locked his hand tightly around his hilt and threw a quick nod and smile at Temporis, before swiftly delivering upon the chance she had set him up with.
He dove directly before the King of rotting beasts with all his remaining strength gathered into his blade. He glared the face of his fears straight on with piercing eyes and growled at him, "GET. OUT."
He then cleaved the beasts down the middle faster than the eye could see. First there was silence, then a rapturous hurricane gale divided the land for a mile beyond where he floated.
The ground cracked apart in a triangular shape and then caved in beneath the Skarr Drago's feet, dragging the beast down into a deep, dark ravine, buried under an avalanche of stone.
Sarajin collapsed on his knees at the tip of the ravine and planted his sword into the ground for support, clutching his other hand over his throbbing heart as he panted so hard he couldn't even see straight.
But he could feel the warm touch of Temporis' hand on his shoulder, as she dropped down all hunched over and panting as well.
"W-Whew, I feel better, don't you?" She said in her cheerful tone.
"Ha ha, yeah...y-yeah...I do." Sarajin calmed down just a little more and then rose to his feet, planting the sword back in it's proper home and immediately reaching for his back.
The journal had survived the confrontation. Thank goodness.
He breathed a sigh of relief and then looked up towards the sky. But his ability to take in the sun's rays was ruined by the sight lurking beyond the horizon.
The skies were bleeding above a mountain range of towering, blackened landscapes that looked like spear tips that had pierced through the whole planet. At the largest peak, surrounded by defiled clouds of acid rain, rested the Devil of this world...The Khull Drago.
Ever since the black monster descended upon this world the Devil has been silent, even it, a victim of fear.
But someday it would reawaken...Except now, the ones who could hold it back were gone. And the planet would finally pay the price for its existence.
And all Sarajin had to feel was the exhaustion in his body and the guttural growls of the beast in the ravine to understand that this wasn't enough...If he couldn't even bring down the King, what chance did he, or the world, have against the Devil...
He slowly turned away from the hellish domain with a cold gaze fixated on it until he forced himself to look the other way, murmuring in a semi-triumphant tone, "We've done all we can for now."
"Yeah," Temporis agreed, "He better be thankful we went this far for his book!"
As the two went along on their merry way, they left the ruined village behind.
However, their departure gave something a chance to stir. The seemingly dormant puddles of black ooze began to seep their way through the cracks in the ground with a tired hiss.
It slowly crossed the lands through broken earth until eventually making it to the ravine, where it plopped further and further down like rain drops.
The Skarr Drago decayed the rocks that buried it and tried to stand, only to be frozen in place when the first black drop touched it's rotting flesh.
A slithering voice whispered in it's ear with a haunting echo, "You're like me...You want fear...But you do not know how to seek it..."
The black ooze stuck to the beast's legs and wings and began to consume it, the beast moaning in misery as the ooze began to penetrate it's veins and scant traces of sinew.
"Iiii...have slumbered for too long...But there is still hatred to feast on...Gorgeous, repugnant hatred..."
The Skarr Drago tried to spear the black ooze on it's bones but just was offering it more material to be consumed.
"Let us become as one, little child... and I will show you...How to fulfill your true potential..." And thus the beast who ravaged the land unopposed, now found itself scarred by the presence of a floating, phantom grin before it...
"We can make this world a better place."
Eventually, Sarajin and Temporis got back to Sancturia and made their way inside. The guards just really, really didn't care about their presence now. Not like they could do anything about their princess anyways.
They then made their way back to the library and unsurprisingly, Justek was still there, but at least he had gone off to a higher floor to put some books back.
"Yo! We're back!" Temporis shouted with her hands cupped around her mouth.
Justek turned and then hopped off the side, levitating to the ground and winding up next to them a couple steps after landing.
"Did you find my journal? I probably should have mentioned it has a leather spine. The only one of its kind." He seemed to be in a bit of a humored mood at the moment.
Sarajin pulled the book out from his pants and gestured it, "We ran into a little trouble with Rot Walkers, but the journal was still intact."
"Heh, I could tell from the fact you're still breathing a little harder through your nose," Justek took the journal and tucked it under his arm, "I'm glad you both made it back safely."
"So?" Temporis nudged her elbow into his side a few times, "C'mon, what's in the journal! We busted our butts for it!"
"Ha! I'm afraid this isn't meant to be shared with either of you." Justek said, further protecting the journal from Temporis' clawy hands, flashing a small smile her way.
Temporis eventually gave up and tucked her hands behind her head with a pout, "Then you wanted it for nostalgia's sake? I mean, you still haven't told us how you're able to read these things."
"Right, I did promise to tell you something important in exchange for the book's safe return," Justek gave a long and careful pause before continuing to speak with some hesitation, "I..."
"DADDY!" A loud and rambunctious pair of voices entered the room, belonging to a pair of very young kids in Aurian-inspired robes.
They were tripping over their own feet to make their way to Justek, whose smile lit up softly in their presence.
Sarajin became stunned silent as he watched these two little kids surround his friend on both sides and hug his legs softly, neither of them standing higher than the top of his thighs.
The kid on the right was a boy with spiked, rascally looking red hair and a couple scrapes on his elbows. He was wearing a red and gold robe with a fancy symbol of the sun enlarged across it.
The other kid was a girl with shoulder-length hair, which was so sleek and shiny it looked like pure silver. She had smooth skin and a fair complexion and a smile that lit up like the stars late at night. Her robe was white and gold with a crescent moon spreading across a majority of it.
After the two kids had nuzzled up next to him for a while, Justek rustled their hair one at a time, with the boy looking shy towards the warmth he shared.
The kids then turned towards Sarajin at the urging of Justek patting them on the back, "Lunis. Solaris. This is the friend I was telling you about."
"You're Sarajin?!" The boy shouted.
"You're tall, like daddy!" Shouted the little girl in awe.
"And you've got a cool cape too!" The boy added up, standing on his toes to tug on the bottom of the poncho.
"W-Whoa!" Sarajin found himself getting pulled down by the kid's surprising strength.
"Ha ha! Alright you two, don't hurt him now," Justek said with a chuckle before turning to his right and asking politely, "Temporis, if you could?"
"Fiiiine!" Temporis grinned and then bent down, patting her knees, "Alright you two gremlins, let's play!"
"Okie dokie Auntie Temporis!" Lunis said with a giggle.
Solaris growled and then lunged at Temporis, grabbing on tightly to one of her ponytails as she stood up and looked unfazed by his attempts to pull her down.
Lunis then jumped onto her other ponytail and Temporis laid a hand on her hip, rolling her eyes as she declared, "Ooookay, if that's what you want...!"
She then coated her ponytails in aura and started twirling away, causing them to fly around in circles, holding on and having the time of their lives throughout.
Of course some books were getting knocked down in the process but nobody was around to care.
Sarajin watched over them with a blank expression throughout and his mouth agape. After a while he really had to stop and ask Justek, "T-They called you...'daddy'?"
Justek's eyelids sank partway while his smile seemed to cross over into being more of a frown, "Yes...They're my children."
This news strung Sarajin like an ice cold knife to the chest. Justek turned his head aside at him and smiled once more, "The girl is named Lunis, derived from the name of our moon 'Lune'. The boy is Solaris, derived from the name of our sin, 'Solare'. They are both five years old."
"T-That..." Sarajin stumbled over his tongue with their being the only thing he could take away from that, "Five...five years old?"
Justek nodded and then silently turned to the children trying to catch Temporis as she jumped around everywhere with her time stop.
"Are they survivors...from the village?" Sarajin wondered aloud.
"In a sense, yes..." Justek muttered quietly, "But they are not denizens from this world."
Sarajin went quiet with a sense of unease developing over his body as his friend continued his explanation, "When I was brought here, a pair of babies came with me. Thanks to Lord Borealis' alchemy, he was able to discern their true natures..."
"They were once one being, a warrior of solar and lunar might who protected a large world beyond ours from monsters. They must have been drawn to this world by the black monster's presence."
"Somehow, the battle between the warrior and the monster caused the warrior's soul to split before they could kill the beast. Thus, when they perished, their body was reincarnated into two halves. One retained the power of the moon, the other the sun."
Sarajin looked at the two playful, happy-go-lucky children and wondered, "And they don't remember any of that?"
Justek shook his head, "Nothing at all. This has been a new chance at life for them...Free from their herculean task, and the memories of ever having saved the life of this insignificant half-breed..."
"Justek..."
Justek closed his eyes and sighed warmly, "For some reason, their rebirth left an imprint on me that caused them to cry if anyone else had tried to handle them. Thus, Lord Borealis entrusted me with raising them as my own children."
"But even if this was the will of fate, or something greater...I would have fought to raise these children as my own without hesitation. I owe them everything, Sarajin...And they deserve even more."
Sarajin looked at the light in Justek's eyes when he stared at his children's play, and the children, so demure and innocent of all the happenings in the world...And his stomach began to churn.
He found his heart shaking, wanting to deny everything he saw as a lie. But that was just selfishness...
"...You really can't leave here." He whispered to himself.
Justek turned towards him and smiled. Sarajin's eyes sank but he tried to look at his friend and tell him with a light, defeated chuckle, "I thought we could go back to the way things used to be between us. But...I guess none of us are children anymore, huh?"
"Nothing's changed between us beyond our maturity, Sarajin," Justek smiled, "You will always be my best friend, just as I'll be yours."
Sarajin lifted his spirits up with a smile and rubbed the tears out of his eyes, "Y-Yeah...Yeah!"
He extended his hand and told him, "Friends until the end, right?"
Justek began to reach his hand out, but then found it shaking, forcing him to withdraw. Sarajin was worried, because for a brief moment he felt something abnormal from Justek's hand.
Justek shook his head and continued to smile, "Until the end..."
Sarajin pulled his hand away and raised his brows curiously, "So...Lord Borealis actually let you raise these kids?"
"He's done a lot for me," Justek said, "He clothed me in the garb of his people, took me in as one of his own...He taught me how to use aura to compensate for my lack of sight. And he gave me the freedom to read to my heart's content."
And Justek said all this, knowing full well he was leading Sarajin down a predetermined road, where he would speak something that would sting his heart...
"Sounds like he is a good man then."
Sarajin's smile creased out and he said following a relieved chuckle, "Sounds like he is a good man then."
Justek's brows sank and he hesitantly nodded, "Yes...He is."
Sarajin faced him full and stood tall and confident before the man, no longer the plucky child he was before, but rising higher with pride and optimism on his shoulders.
"Justek, I want to let you know I'll be trying my best to work things out with Borealis so someday, everyone in Sancturia will be able to experience a clean and comfortable world with the rest of the Tribes."
"I suspected as much," Justek chuckled, "But you have a long and difficult road ahead of you. I heard Ophelia perished just the other day."
"...Yeah," Sarajin nodded, "Starting tomorrow, me and Temporis will probably be going around checking up on the Tribes to see how they're taking the news. I'll let our friends know you're still doing ok."
"Thank you very much, Sarajin." Justek said with a courteous bow.
Sarajin then sighed and muttered under his breath, "It's just not fair though..."
"Hmmm?" Justek raised a brow.
Sarajin gestured up at his head and chuckled, "I-I thought I'd be taller than you when I got older. But we're still the same height apart."
"That's all?" Justek almost seemed like he was going to burst into laughter, "Ha! There's no reason to be envious. I've had many unfair advantages from the start."
"Heh heh," Sarajin grinned and then gestured his hand out, "Well, until next time buddy."
"I look forward to your two's next visit. Perhaps next time I can show you a few of the books I've found to my liking."
"I haven't really sat down and read in a while, so sure, why not?" Sarajin then turned and shouted, "Alright Bunny, we're heading out!"
Temporis was standing atop a bookshelf trying to keep out of the reach of the two springy children. She waltzed on up to the end of the shelf and then sprung over next to Sarajin, "About damn time! Those kids of yours don't get tired, Justek!"
"That's ironic, coming from you." Justek smirked.
"Yeah yeah, you're Mr. Funny Man," Temporis tucked her hands behind her head and began to head for the exit, "Catch ya later!"
Sarajin joined her while Lunis and Solaris ran up beside their father and waved their hands out, "Bye bye!"
Justek stood there with a tense look on his face as he stared at Sarajin's backside. This was a moment being repeated before him, but only in the past could he see this present clearly.
And he recalls not just this moment, but the clear sights of his friends fighting the Skarr Drago, fending off Colrez' charge, and meeting with the new ruler of Obscura...
He began to frown and let out a melancholic sigh, his thoughts clouded in turmoil, "...I wish I could hold your hand once more, my friend. But I am cursed in more ways than one..."
"And now, I am to be plagued by these sights of events yet to come. All I seem capable of...Is watching them unfold, never able to do anything to change their course."
"...I'm sorry I cannot speak a word of this to you. You, who trusts me with all their heart. But it's for the best that you cling to the relationship you believe we still have...and not see me for what I truly am...A stain, dirtier than humanity's violent hearts."
"Forgive this half-dead man his folly," A tear fell from Justek's cheek to the floor, "...Sarajin Stratos."
Next Time: The State of the World