Chapter 2: Lindara, the Spiritual Gate's Temple, part 1

"Help… me… Please… Help me…" she could almost hear herself saying. "Help me, please!" she cried suddenly and desperately, feeling the darkness trying to engulf and destroy her.

A flash of sky blue light and the cry of a raven responded her own cry. A gust of wind pushed the shadows aside and cleared a path for her to follow towards the light. As she went towards it, she began feeling the physical sensations she hadn't had for a long while: cold, pain… and gravity.

She began falling, her surroundings changing from sky blue to mountain brown in an amazing speed. And then… her head hit a hard surface, and she fell unconscious before reaching the dusty floor completely.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Lady Melodia," Peachy said through the door to the museum. "There's someone who wishes to see you."

"Coming," she said, just loud enough to be heard through the door.

Melodia stopped reading the adventure novel Kalas and friends had brought for the Calbren Mansion's museum from Gemma Village. She placed a dry flower in the page she was reading, closed the book and placed it again where it belonged. Then, she straightened her new emerald green dress and went outside to see…

"Melodia," said Lyude, bowing and taking her gloved hand, placing a kiss in the back.

"Lyude," she said, a little bit surprised by seeing such a busy person there. "It's nice to see you around here. Is there anything I can help you with, or is it a more important matter you want to discuss with my grandfather?"

"I came here looking for Kalas and Xelha," Lyude said. "Savyna sent me a letter saying they were coming this way, to the Shrine of Spirits. Have you seen them?"

"I'm sorry, Lyude, I haven't," Melodia responded. "But if Savyna told you they were going to Nekton, you should go there and look if they are around. The most probable thing is that they'll try to contact Euline before doing anything else."

"You might be right… Thank you for your time, Melodia. I apologize if there was something important you were doing before I interrupted."

"Don't worry. Thank you for visiting."

After kissing the back of Melodia's gloved hand again, Lyude left the mansion and walked towards Nekton, the Shrine of Spirits in Mira.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Argh… Ouch!"

The young sixteen year old girl's hand slipped on the border of the dais, and the wrist did such a movement trying to keep her in balance, it woke her completely from her unconscious state to bring her a rather painful state… Hopefully, it wasn't broken and it was possible to heal. When she placed her hand firmly over the dais, it was obvious she wouldn't need healing immediately, but still needed to receive it sometime in the future before it presented serious damage.

She slowly lifted herself from the dusty floor of the dais, made of earth brown colored stone, as well as the rest of the room. In the middle of the dais stood an enormous stone ring, one and a half her height, and with craved hieroglyphics all over its surface: the famous Spiritual Gate of Lindara.

"I'm… I'm home?" she asked herself aloud as her sky grey eyes scanned the ring's surface, as if checking for a misplaced symbol that would indicate it was false.

Then, when satisfied with what she had seen, her eyes scanned the rest of the room. Twisted columns of earth colored stone rose up to the middle height of the room, which ended in a dome with a circular golden plaque in the center. Intercalated in between the columns were plain walls and plain rectangular windows, excepting the two spaces the Spiritual Gate faced: the archway with hieroglyphics, entrance to the room, and the altar. The altar came out of the wall, many golden and crystal objects placed over it; there was another circular golden plaque right over the altar, and there were small pristine water fountains that fell around it following its circular form until free fall.

"…but this… this isn't normal."

Worry and fear filled her when she saw the top of the columns, usually with ritual herbs burning there, had only ashes and the fountains were dry, a trail of white salt marking the places the water had ran. Her own body was carrying more signs of abandon: dust. The Spiritual Gate's room was the most clean and attended room of the Temple of Lindara, followed not very closely by the High Priest/Priestess' residence and the Guardian Ancestors' shrine.

What had been happening to her world while she wasn't there?

"What could have happened to Lindara?"

Her gaze fell to her bare feet and the dusty floor, as her mind ran through all the memories she had of her world. Not many things though; almost everything was about her sister, her job as a sniper in her kingdom's army, and her spiritual training in Lindara… Her spiritual training in Lindara

"Oh, no…"

She ran towards a window so fast, she almost fell outside through it when she stopped to look outside at the rest of the spiritual kingdom of Lindara. The once beautiful floating island of Lindara, a mysterious labyrinth of twisted columns and levitating stairs, the Temple of the Spiritual Gate in their world had been partially destroyed, but it was still evident that the golden spiritual kingdom would last centuries to rise again…

"It has begun…" Euline said aloud, a lonely tear running down her cheek and followed by many others, as she saw a nearby pair of columns fall to the ocean below, unseen through the magical field of Lindara. "And it was all my fault!"

A black haired figure appeared then at the archway…

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Lyude walked through the trees of Nekton towards the place Kalas and Euline ended their bond, and everybody wished her the best as she returned to her world. It had been an easy thing so far; not many monsters seen around… And also a disappointing thing; no sign of somebody/anybody's footsteps so far. Lyude even began wondering of the credibility of Savyna and her letter…

"Guess I should have stayed in Alfard reading those papers about some of Mintaka's golden decorations needing a repaint and a more serious polishing work," Lyude thought.

He was growing tired of searching for Kalas and Xelha, even though he really wanted to see them, and was about to go all the way back, when he turned around a big tree and heard someone humming a song. Maybe they were there after all. Lyude followed the humming and reached the clearing where they had all said goodbye to Euline, and saw somebody inspecting the soil… but it wasn't Kalas neither Xelha.

According to the black screen dress and the long braid of light purple hair, the person was female, and had her back turned on him. Seemingly, she was the one humming the song. But as she wasn't somebody he was looking for, he turned around… and slipped rather pathetically, falling to the ground.

"Seems I left my luck locked somewhere in the Fortress…" he thought as he stood up again, and dusted his new uniform.

Lyude attempted to walk away when a voice from behind him, which he recognized as that of the lady humming the song, stopped him in half step. The thing he heard surprised him…

"Lyude?" she asked, a smile on her face.

How could she know him?

He turned around and looked at her raspberry colored eyes, lemon green makeup around them, thing that brought out her eye color nicely but was an insane color to wear as makeup. She was also wearing a very loose white top that seemingly left her whole back bare and was tied behind her neck, and also a violet waistband that… Why was he thinking about that? Anyways, he didn't remember having seen her anywhere. Again: how could she know him?

"That was a pathetic slip, Lyude," she changed her tone radically, surprising him: from happy-to-see-you-here to ha-ha-ha-you-fell-and-I-didn't. "Why did you slip?"

"It's was an accident," Lyude said, negative feelings surging towards the girl, and he advanced towards her. "I didn't decide to slip and fall."

"Accidents can be avoided if you pay attention. You were distracted, you practically decided to slip and fall."

Who was she to tell him that? Still, and though he somehow felt the desire of killing her, he was going to get out of there in a reasonably polite way and knowing who this girl was… and without slipping again. So, controlling himself…

"I'm sorry, but I must leave," Lyude told her, though he made no movement that confirmed he was leaving and her back was already facing him. "She really knows how to say goodbye, doesn't she? But, before leaving…" she faced him again. "…I would like to know who you are, and how do you know me."

"Lyude… You don't recognize me?" she asked, once again tone changing to one that was sad and disappointed, almost hurt and near tears. "Why? Aren't I enough unique to be remembered, wasn't I enough important?" she paused then, looking at his reddish eyes.

A long silence fell in between them both, her raspberry eyes begging him to remember her and say her name, but he couldn't remember her from anywhere.

"Guess we aren't friends anymore," she said suddenly, not sad but resentful, both things surprising him. "Goodbye then, Lyude."

She turned around and marched quickly to an old bag, grabbing a handful of soil in the way. She poured it in a little sac, and then tossed it inside the bag. Her hand reached for something that gleamed silver, and that had been hidden from Lyude's view…

"Is that…?" Lyude thought, memories coming back, when the ring was lifted from the ground. "…Mizuti?"

What happened next was so quick Lyude hadn't time to react or even prepare, but would thank the Ocean for the rest of his life that he didn't result hurt. Mizuti ran towards him and hugged him very tightly, one of the pointy "sides" of her chakram pressing against his back; that could have easily ended in bone breaking and/or back stabbing had he moved… Because the Great Mizuti couldn't do anything wrong, could she? Lyude would lose the battle if he tried to tell her to be more careful next time.

It also surprised him the fact that she would react like that when he said her name; they had gotten along, but never were good friends…

"Maybe she hasn't seen anybody else from the group since we all split two years ago," Lyude thought, carefully moving his right arm and patting Mizuti on the back, hand meeting her long braid and some bare skin, trying to calm her over-excitement/"hyper-activeness".

After a while of tight hug, pointy chakram dangerously placed, and back patting, Mizuti practically jumped off from Lyude; she was a bit shorter than when she was hugging him.

"You remembered the Great Mizuti's name!" she exclaimed, a smile on her face. "What was it that made you remember?"

And without waiting for an answer, she said a rather long list of "amazing" and "unique" qualities she "had"… and Lyude began thinking he shouldn't have said her name; Mizuti had been so different from the one he had met three years ago just a while ago, and now she was back to her annoying old self thanks to him.

"Should have left while I could," he thought as Mizuti came to a halt because he wasn't answering.

"…Okay. Then what was it?" she asked him, hands on her hips.

The truth or a lie… Oh, difficult decision…

"The chakram," the truth.

Mizuti's eyes narrowed, her lips pressing tight together, and she crossed her arms in front of her; she was angry… and she still had her chakram on her hand. And as sudden as the hug had been, she calmed down and smiled again. Couldn't she decide once and for all what she was feeling?

"Was it that the chakram brought you memories about the Great Mizuti's great ability with it?"

"Should have seen that one coming," Lyude thought, and said the truth once more. "No," another angry pose by Mizuti. "It was because I've only met one person who uses it."

Seemingly, Mizuti wasn't going to calm down this time… Change of subject.

"And what are you doing around here…" Lyude said, and added, trying to get her back into friendly mode. "…Great Mizuti?"

…and it worked. Mizuti smiled at him, and answered while kicking some little stone at her feet and then the soil.

"Well… The Great Mizuti had been exploring the world, with the company of Kee. But one day, a thing happened that made the Great Mizuti return home with her parents, and stayed in Gemma for a whole year and a half… Hence the new habit of braiding hair, taken from mother," she added, pulling her braid forward for him to see. "After that time passed, the Great Mizuti returned to her adventures alone. A promise made a while ago made the Great Mizuti come to Nekton. And… and… Well, that's all."

"A promise?"

"Yes, don't you remember?" and again not waiting for an answer, Mizuti said. "Have you hit your head hard? Seems your memory has been erased partially…"

"No, I haven't," his turn to begin getting angry, but didn't last long.

"Oh, well…" Mizuti said, shrugging. "The promise the Great Mizuti made to Euline, Kalas' Guardian Spirit, of going to her world and explore it together!" her eyes gleamed as she said that, and then sighed. "The Great Mizuti was examining the place for any clue as to how to cross the Interdimensional barrier before you interrupted by slipping and falling pathetically."

Lyude wasn't going to go deeper into that conversation, or Mizuti would keep accusing him of "interrupting her by slipping and falling pathetically". Instead, he took Euline and Kalas' topic and asked Mizuti about it.

"Speaking of Kalas; have you seen him, or Xelha, around?"

Mizuti looked at him confused. Why would have she seen either of them around?

"No," she answered, still looking at Lyude in a confused manner. "Why?"

"Well… I was informed by a letter they would be coming to Nekton and try to make contact with Euline," Lyude explained, Mizuti's confused stare slowly going back to normal.

"Oh," and that was all she said.

Silence fell… again. But this time, none of them both broke it by starting the conversation again…

The wind began blowing, its speed increasing rather quickly, until it reached the hurricane wind speed; both of them were thrown against the trees. The distorted cry of a raven was heard, more part of the wind than from a raven; the sound was so high-pitched, Lyude and Mizuti were slowly developing a headache, and were desperately trying to cover their ears and block the noise, but it didn't work.

They almost didn't notice an Interdimensional crack opening right in the middle of the clearing, where they had been before the wind threw them away… Almost.

"Wha… What's that!" Mizuti exclaimed.

As if it had been waiting for someone to ask that question, a sky blue colored tentacle flew through the Interdimensional crack and towards Mizuti, wrapping itself tightly around her ankle. Mizuti screamed to warn Lyude as other two tentacles came from the crack and the one around her ankle pulled her, her headache and his becoming even worse because of the scream.

"Had we been in a crystal store, she would have broke them all," Lyude thought as he withdrew some Magnus and took his sonic riffle out. "Darn, nothing to heal headache with… Mizuti, take your Magnus out and help!"

Mizuti hit the floor hard with her chakram to keep the tentacle from pulling her and withdrew some Magnus from her violet waistband. A Cherries Magnus was on her hand; now the problem was who was going to have it…

"Lyude! Take this!"

Mizuti used the Cherries Magnus on him, the Magna essence of the cherries fusing with his own and making his headache go away… plus leaving a phantom of what real cherries tasted like. And then Lyude shoot one of his Magnus against the tentacle pulling Mizuti, a Shining Trumpet, and it evaporated at the contact.

But the other two dancing tentacles went after him, one wrapping in his ankle and the other around his upper arms. Three new tentacles came out from the crack and waited as the other two had until the first was destroyed.

"Lyude!"

"I'll be alright… Don't worry…" he said as the two tentacles pulled him unevenly, resulting in him falling sideways from his sitting position. "Heal and defend yourself, I'll worry about myself."

But her headache wasn't that strong and she couldn't leave him like that… and there was a Chronos Blow Lv 6 Magnus on her hand. Oh, another difficult decision.

"Chronos Blow!"

The attack hit the tentacles holding Lyude, but seemingly they were immune to the Chronos element… and/or reflected it. The Chronos Blow bounced on the tentacle and returned to hit Mizuti, who staggered a bit on her place and fell to her knees.

"Mizuti! Are you ok?"

"Y-y-yes… I think so…" she responded, standing up again.

Then it was the three new tentacles turn to attack them, or more accurately their recent attacker. They conjured something very much like Distorting Wind, the Wind Magnus Euline enabled in Kalas and Xelha's decks once; the results were somehow predictable… Mizuti's scream was heard after the attack ended, and she fell unconscious to the ground, two tentacles wrapping themselves around her upper arms and her legs and dragging her towards the crack without any opposition coming from their victim.

"Mizuti!" Lyude called for her, but she didn't even shift. "Argh… They won't let me go…"

After the tentacles had knocked out Mizuti, the one left went to wrap itself around his legs and joined the other two's efforts to pull Lyude towards the crack. Half of Mizuti's body was through it when Lyude was at an inch away from the Interdimensional crack; his hand reached for hers and managed to take it before she disappeared completely and half his body was through.

Wherever they were being carried to, Lyude would not leave Mizuti alone.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Feelings left their bodies suddenly and completely, consciousness barely staying with their left behind souls. They didn't remember anything about how they ended up there, or why did they felt so happy without reason. They could see the stars and hear their call…

"…Lyude…"

…All they wanted was to drift away and join the stars that shone every night…

"…Mizuti…"

…But who was calling their names, who was the owner of that familiar voice?

"…Lyude, Mizuti… Don't go away. Don't hear the stars' song… Please, don't die…"

The voice had spoken clearly, yet they didn't understand what it was saying: away, song, die… Die… Wait, they understood that word, they knew it meant something bad; but what was that bad thing?

"…Lyude, Mizuti, don't follow the stars… Come to me, I don't want you to die…"

There it was again: the word "die"… The voice had spoken even more clearly, and their surroundings changed from pitch black with sparkling stars above and very far away, to warmer colors that seemed to be gold and brown. The scene was all blurry, but they saw a something that came out of the background because of its colors: black and white.

"Come on, Lyude, Mizuti. I want to help you both."

Then wind blew through them as if they hadn't a physical body, forming a sky blue blurry figure that disappeared in a flash of rainbow light when it went towards the top of the black and white figure… The black, white and grey humanoid figure. Their surroundings were getting more defined, less blurred…

"Come on, bond with me," a female voice said, and they understood what she was saying.

They went forward to the humanoid figure through a stone ring, and crashed against her in a burst of bright sea green petals.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

The black haired woman at the archway gasped as Euline bonded with two spirits from the other world at the same time, wondering if she would be alright. Unfortunately, it seemed she wasn't: Euline fell to her knees, and supported the rest of her body with her hands… her slightly damaged wrist gave way, and she fell to the dusty floor with a little cry.

"Euline!" the black haired woman ran towards the girl on the floor and knelt besides her. "Euline, are you alright?"

"Euline!" two voices exclaimed, Lyude and Mizuti, from the back of her head.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Answers to Reviewers!

Thanks to the people from the BK forums who came to read this here in FFnet!

I don't remember having seen Ephraim-Kun's name back there in the Revelation-of-FFnet-Names thread following my prologue, so: THANK YOU FOR REVIEWING! And I'll try to update constantly and as long as this period of "creativity" lasts (I hope having much more of these "periods of creativity"; if I don't, I'll still make my best to update and write a very interesting story!)

And now… Chapter's notes!

Wow, I had fun in this chapter! Specially in the LyudeMizuti reencounter. It would be fun to make them speak in poor Euline's (from now on, "victim") head until a discussion erupts and they drive the victim insane… But, unfortunately, it won't happen; I have crueler plans for the victim

I had such an amazing urge to use parenthesis through all the chapter (I love parenthesis), but I didn't add them in the chapter (and I suffered for it). The reason: I almost always insert very sarcastic comments in the middle of a really good scene, and lots of notes that make you lose the theme of the whole sentence/paragraph (did you notice the phrases in this font and that weren't thoughts? It'll be a way of easing my pain a little bit, and in a reasonably nice way without damaging the story).

As I said before, I adored the whole scene of the LyudeMizuti reencounter, and wanted to add more stuff here and there… but it would have ended like if I had put the texts I usually write in parenthesis and then erased only the parenthesis (thing that is bad, really bad). I also wanted to put a reaction from Lyude at Kee's mention, but you would hate me because you would think I'm pairing them up (which is a lie, very similar to the lie that says that Durango and Chihuahua aren't only the names of a car and a dog, but also of Mexican states… no, wait; that's true! Forget it all NOW!)… Well, that parenthesis was… weird. But I'm not trying to pair them up (at least, not now… maybe later, or in other fanfic, but not now).

Other things I wanted to write were the location of Lyude's sonic riffle and the rest of Mizuti's hand of Magnus. The Lyude's sonic riffle thing is pretty simple: Lyude thought as he withdrew some Magnus and took his sonic riffle out from… somewhere? (Yes, that's all there was to it). Mizuti's hand was a pretty boring topic, but I have to explain somewhere why she didn't defend herself: she used Cherries on Lyude, then took Chronos Blow Lv 6 (I described it as a "pretty Chronos Blow Lv 6 Magnus", but erased pretty) to a hand with Camera 3, Light Yell 4, Alias Fall, Blank Notebook, and Chronos Aura Lv 5 (just for reminding you of the card system of Baten Kaitos, and the probabilities of getting such a bad hand. The reasons as to why Mizuti had a Blank Notebook with her in that moment are unknown, but serve me pretty well).

Now, PRONUNCIATION!

Euline: Eh-uh (OR the "e" from exam, the "u" of unknown), and "lean".

Lindara: Again, "Lean", plus the "da" like in danger (this two first syllables make the word "linda", which is a sweet and simple compliment for the girls who are pretty), and "ra" like the Egyptian God Ra, but with the soft "r".

If you knew how to pronounce these ones before even viewing this, you're smart and have the right vowel sound for speaking Spanish (same with the Zyabel case in the prologue, which was more complicated). But I'll continue posting the pronunciations (mainly because I have very complicated words waiting for you in next chapters).

…WOW! Now that was a large Chapter note, so I won't post an Author's note because who knows which length it will reach, but…

READ AND REVIEW!