4. Hunch
Atemu quickly made it to the west wing where the tunnel no longer needed to reform for him to pass. It had been completely destroyed by this point. Stepping onto the blackened stone, the hallway behind him collapsed yet again.
In the middle of the scorching but in the back corner of the palace, Yami sat on the ground with his leg crossed lotus-style. Taking a breath, Atemu slowly started to move towards his brother. He was almost to the King when his eyes snapped open, snake-like eyes narrowing as they looked at him.
"You should have left," Yami hissed darkly, tightening his hands into fists.
Atemu gulped, taking note that the blackness to Yami's left arm had moved up and was starting to streak up his throat and down his chest. The boy's shirt had been torn and lay in tatters around the boy. His right arm was also starting to turn black, the hand completely black and streaks moving up towards his elbow. "W-What is happening to you?" Atemu murmured softly.
Yami frowned at him and opened his mouth to retort before he snapped his mouth shut with a growl, his right hand coming up to tightly grip his hair. "Go back to sleep!"
Cautiously taking a step forward, Atemu kept moving until he was right in front of Yami. He knelt down in front of the young King, reflectively catching the Emperor's left arm when he swung a fist at him. "Striking with your left arm? That's not right," Atemu responded, tightening his grip on the arm when it tried to retreat. "Tell me… What is happening here?"
Atemu tilted his head, using his magic to hold him in place as Yami's own magic started to flare. The pale boy was attempting to use his wind style powers to throw Atemu and everything else in the immediate vicinity away. Not that Atemu would let the boy win so easy.
"That won't work on me. Let him go," Atemu smirked, tossing the hand away so that he could extend both hands to cup Yami's face. "I can sense it, Yami… Fight it. You don't have to fear it. No one is going to get hurt here. They're all safe and sound."
A black hand moved to punch Atemu in the stomach, only to freeze inches from the delicate skin, Yami's eyes widening slightly as the snake-like eyes disappeared. "A-Até? W-What's happening?" Yami asked in a panicked tone, looking around in horror. "D-Did I do all this?"
"No, you didn't do this," Atemu smiled, dropping his hands so that he could give Yami's hands a reassuring squeeze. Both boys looked at their hands, taking note that the blackness had disappeared from Yami's skin. A very faint colour difference was still noticeable where it had been though. The skin was slightly whiter.
"What happened?" Yami asked again, looking around the room. "D-Did anyone get hurt?"
"No, no one was hurt. You made sure of it," Atemu reassured. "Whatever had happened to you, you fought it. It wanted to destroy the palace and ensure everyone died. But you know that you're too stubborn to let that happen. I sensed your magic reach out to freeze the damage in time just long enough for us to escape. Only then did I realise that you were fighting it. That's why I came back."
"That's awfully foolish. I never would've forgiven myself if you died because of me," Yami murmured, tiredly rubbing his eyes. "I still don't get what happened?"
"Do you remember your mother?" Atemu asked, shifting to sit beside Yami. Only once he was sitting beside the boy did he notice the transparent form of the palace surrounding them while rubble was suspended mid-air all around them.
"Not really," Yami admitted. "I know of her and remember a few lessons, but I don't remember her. Why?"
"Her people are known as Temporahs. A Temporah has skills over the time-space continuum and have a knack of reading the environment. They can sense when something isn't right. An energy that shouldn't be there, no matter how faint, is detectable to them. This ability frightened a lot of people, but their senses made them extremely difficult to eradicate. Over time though, people began to accept them and acknowledge their usefulness," Atemu started. "A lot even moved into the palace to ensure our security was upheld. Especially because there had been a heap of break-ins prior to them moving in."
"Why are you telling me this?" Yami asked with a frown, resting his tired head against Atemu's shoulder while his arms wrapped around his stomach.
"I'm getting there," Atemu smiled. "About a decade after they moved in, a strange illness started to affect them. It started as an isolated incident. A Temporah went crazy one morning, skin turning completely black. Magic far stronger than their own lashed the palace and almost destroyed it. They had to be sealed away to stop anyone else being hurt. It only happened to one person. At least, at that time. Five years later, another Temporah went crazy. Five years to the day. No one knew why. Again, they thought it was isolated. But, every five years since then, a Temporah goes crazy and almost destroys the palace."
"Why don't we just move the palace then?" Yami asked.
"No idea. Probably some stupid moral and connection to the ancestors," Atemu answered with a shrug. "Anyway, it's been happening for approximately three centuries now. Your mother was infected with the 'illness' as people call it fifteen years ago and died because of it. She took the most lives with a count of twenty-seven lives lost and more than a hundred harmed. The last pure Temporah died in the last incident five years ago… I guess now they're going after half-bloods."
"You're wrong," Yami frowned. "I can't explain it, but there are more. At least two… And one coming."
Atemu blinked and looked down at him. "What do you mean? Can you sense them?"
"No, I can't sense them. They're too far away… But I know they exist… Call it a hunch…" Yami answered. "I think we've met the two… The third isn't born yet."
"Oh… What happened to you?" Atemu asked. "You're the first person to snap out of it."
"I don't really remember. I just remember sensing another presence invade my mind while I slept. It tried to keep me asleep… but I wouldn't stay quiet. That pissed it off even more… I fought back and then I remember waking up here…" Yami responded.
"Can you fix the palace?" Atemu asked, looking around. "It seems to be stuck in a bubble."
"Oh… Durp, that's what I was forgetting to do," Yami chuckled, biting the tip of his index finger as he focused. Lucky for him, he had already subconsciously begun the process needed to undo the damage to the palace.
Atemu smiled and watched as the rubble moved back towards them, the stones forming together once more to form the palace. He watched as the transparent palace became real once more and all signs of the destruction was removed. It was always something that interested him. Watching Temporahs manipulate the space-time continuum so easily was always one of his favourite pass times. He just wished they weren't wiped out by some unknown force.
"She's not happy," Yami muttered, a frown forming as his face.
"What?" Atemu blinked, turning to look at him. "Who's not happy?"
"I don't know… She was expecting a show. Now she's annoyed that things went this way… Especially since she had made a big deal about it to the palace people on the cliff. She wanted them to watch you be killed… Now she's pissed that you're perfectly fine," Yami responded. "Don't worry. She has no actual power anymore. She's a ghost. The best she can do is create a screen to show you something occurring at this time."
"What's she going to show me? You having sex," Atemu scoffed, chuckling when Yami turned red.
"You do know I can pick to leave your room in ruins," Yami grunted, putting the last of the palace back together.
"Like that'd happen," Atemu responded, smiling softly as Yami tried to hide a yawn. "Done?"
Yami nodded tiredly. "What will we do now? Should we move the palace?" Yami asked, sensing the screen showing them to everyone disappear.
"Are we out of danger?" Atemu asked.
"I can't answer that. I couldn't even sense any danger before this," Yami answered.
"What happened before all this?" Atemu asked curiously.
Yami shrugged. "The last thing I remember is finishing my work and getting up to go back to my room. Before I could get back, I sensed something under the palace. I followed it down into the dungeons and into a hidden tunnel that led even lower under the palace. On the way down I could a baby cooing. There I found the corpse of a prisoner. Except… She wasn't dead… and there was no baby. She grabbed me by the throat. She murmured something to herself and then dropped me. Before I could react, she struck me in the stomach, and I collapsed forward. Her body turned to ash, and I was left alone in the room," Yami explained. "The last thing I remember is the word 'Kissa' being roughly carved into the wall."
"Kissa? Sister of twins?" Atemu enquired, scratching his head. "Oh, that's where the bruise on your stomach came from!"
"I don't remember how I got back here though," Yami muttered, looking around his bedroom.
"Why didn't you bother repairing this room?" Atemu asked with a frown, looking around the bedroom that had nothing left after the incident.
"Too tired," Yami yawned. "I don't know if it's safe to sleep though."
"Hmm… I know somewhere safe for you to sleep," Atemu said, Yami raising an eyebrow at him. "There's a room down in the dungeons that will suppress your magic. That way it can't return while you're asleep… At least until you feel safe to sleep here."
"I'll try it," Yami yawned. "I don't want to destroy the palace again."
Atemu chuckled and nodded, helping Yami to his feet. The two boys left the room together, Atemu leading them down towards the dungeons. He couldn't help but look around as he walked. It always amazed him how Yami could reverse so much damage without any sign of what occurred before. That's secretly one of the reasons why the palace was never moved. The Temporahs always reversed the damage done so the palace never actually needed to be rebuilt.
Their powers were limited though. The dead couldn't be revived. That would require far more energy than any of them possessed. Although there was a rumour that a child had saved the life of their best friend twenty-one years ago. Apparently a two-year-old Temporah undid a life-threatening injury after the person had succumbed. No one knew if the rumour was true, and no one knew which Temporah had actually accomplished the impossible. It was one of the best kept secrets of a dying clan.
Yami couldn't help but frown when the reached the dungeons. He didn't feel safe down here. Something wasn't right! "Why didn't the prisoners get evacuated?" Yami asked, looking at all the cells.
"What are you talking about? We have no prisoners at the moment. They all got transferred to the new prison two weeks ago," Atemu responded, looking at his brother with a frown.
"No, what are you talking about? There are heaps of them," Yami responded, looking away from a cell when cold eyes gazed at him. It made him really uncomfortable.
"You're losing it," Atemu muttered, leading Yami to the very back of the dungeons where a room was hidden behind a fake wall. "I'll be back in a few hours to check on you."
Yami gulped as he stepped foot into the room. The room felt way too familiar to him. A stone bed with hidden in the back right corner and water was trickling down the wall beside the bed. A toilet was on the left-hand wall, directly across from the bed. The room was bare of all else, but the walls seemed to faintly glow in the darkness. Turning around, Yami found the door to be gone and a stone wall to be in its place.
"ATEMU! LET ME OUT!" Yami shouted, trying to reach for the door but the stone wouldn't let him through.