Author's Notes:

Hey everyone! I'm back to posting after a month long hiatus. Feel free to shout at me :)

Chapter 73: The Human World

Sasha and her comrades sat in the woods, replenishing their energy from their travel. The mood was rather grim as everyone sat in silence, eating the deer they hunted for food.

"How do you think everyone else is doing?" Mariel asked.

"Worried about your family?" Sasha asked.

Mariel nodded, clearly worried about their well being.

"Maximilien is strong." Sasha said. "He'll protect Shion. Your son is strong enough to protect himself as well. Besides, he has those two monsters with him if anything goes wrong."

"Monsters?" Vittorio asked. "Saito yeah, but I don't see how his wife is so special. Even if she's a void mage."

"The girl possesses more magic than I do." Sasha said, taking a bite of meat.

"She's so small though..." Oliviére said. "To say that she is as strong as you is a stretch, isn't it? Even for a void mage."

"No. She has more raw power, but she lacks the refinement that I do." Sasha said. "This is to be expected given her age. In time, she will surpass me."

"You sound proud, Sasha." Mariel said.

"Shut up." Sasha replied, laying on her back.

"You should let yourself be a little more open like you used to be." Mariel said.

"I said shut up, sister." Sasha replied. "I am content with how I am."

Before Mariel could reply, she felt a sensation in her body. Sasha, too, felt the presence of someone extremely powerful towards the mountain that loomed over them in the distance. Sasha immediately stood up, knowing that everyone at the mountain was in danger.

"We're leaving, sister." She said.

Not waiting for her companions to follow her, Sasha hurried back towards the mountain. Because they had been traveling for several days, it would take a very long time to get back, even if she devoted her strength to speed.

Mariel chose to leave her nephews behind and follow her sister, ordering the three siblings to visit each of the various major cities in the kingdom and check for life.

On their way to the mountain, Sasha tried to figure out whose power she was sensing, but could not because of the large distance between her and it. By the time she was within its range, it had disappeared.

Focusing all of their power into speed, it took them a full day to arrive, by which time they were exhausted. The surrounding area didn't seem to have been disturbed, although Mariel could see the her mountain was damaged.

When they went inside, their ears could pick up the sound of people breathing. They followed the sounds until they arrived in a bedroom. Inside, they found Aigle and Max in a heated discussion while Shion lay unconscious on a bed.

"What happened?" Sasha asked immediately without introducing herself.

"Brimir was here." Aigle said rather calmly

"Here?! Why?!" Mariel asked, alarmed.

"We...don't know." Max said. "But he made off with some of your books, Mariel."

"This is bad..." She said to herself.

"Is she okay?" Sasha said, looking at the sleeping girl in bed.

"Yes. She may have saved our lives." Max said.

"What do you mean?" Sasha said.

"She...has power." Aigle said. "I didn't intend to change her so much, but it saved our lives."

"You will have to explain more of what happened once she wakes up." Sasha said, sitting on a chair in the corner of the room.

"Should we call back those three?" Aigle asked, referring to Louise, Saito, and Alex.

"No. If nothing is wrong in the human world, they will come back on their own." Mariel said.

They would spend the next four hours in silence, waiting for Shion to wake up. After the fourth hour, they decided to leave her to sleep. Sasha, Mariel, and Aigle sat outside the mountain and started to talk about things from their pasts, particularly the war, while Max remained inside the mountain to figure out what Brimir could have stolen.

"Do you think we'll survive?" Sasha suddenly asked as she stared up at the sky.

"That's odd coming from you." Aigle said with shock.

"I thought you were fearless, little sis." Mariel said.

"I'm just good at hiding my fear." She replied. "Or maybe I stopped fearing it once I had nothing more to live for..."

"We survived the war." Aigle said.

"Thanks to you, yes." Sasha said. "If it weren't for your medical corps, there might have been none of us left."

"You both did your best and saved our races." Mariel replied. "Be proud."

"Come to think of it, Mariel, you never speak about what you did during the war." Aigle said.

Mariel was silent for a few moments, deciding whether or not she would finally talk about her actions.

"Seeing as we may all die quite soon, very well." She finally said. "On the day the humans began the war on the elves , I was supposed to visit Mother and Father in their village."

"I still don't know why Mother and Father chose to live in such a small village in the countryside." Sasha said, remembering the fairly large wooden cabin her parents lived in.

"I suppose they found it peaceful." Mariel reminisced. "Unfortunately, because it was so far on the outskirts of the Elves' country, it was one of the first villages to be attacked. When I arrived, the human soldiers had already ravaged the village. It was burning, the ground soaked in blood, corpses everywhere. Of course, I immediately ran to my family's home. When I arrived, my family..."

She stopped speaking for a moment, remembering the horrific sight that greeted her when she had arrived.

"Mother, Father, little brother...were all killed." She said, holding back tears. "Before I even had the chance to mourn, another group of human soldiers entered the town, so I had to leave."

Hearing about her family's demise brought tears to Sasha's eyes. She especially felt guilty because to her, their death was her fault since she helped Brimir.

"By the time I got to the nearest big city, the humans had already begun attacking it." Mariel continued. "They were driving back the Elves that were desperately trying to fight back, so I decided to intervene. Because of Brimir, I was strong enough to dispatch them quite easily, even though I didn't know much in the way of fighting. When the city's general saw me fight, he decided to enlist me in the army. I spent a lot of time fighting on the front lines, but my role eventually evolved into covert operations like killing enemies in their camps or planting traps."

"So that's why we never heard much about you." Aigle said.

"Yes. Most of my work was secret, so not many people knew." She replied.

As she finished her sentence, an ovular light appeared at the base of the mountain. Through it, Saito, Louise, and Alex walked into the woods. They immediately noticed the two elves and the fairy that sat on a ledge above them and walked to speak to them.

"I thought you'd be looking for Brimir or anyone who's involved with him?" Louise said.

"We left that task to my sons." Sasha said. "Brimir attacked this place again."

"What? But why?" Alex asked.

"He ran off with some of my books." Mariel replied. "Your father is trying to figure out what he took."

"Wait, where is Shion?!" Alex asked, feeling the worst.

"Don't worry. She is fine." Aigle said. "She very well may have saved our lives. All of our lives."

"I'm glad she's okay." He said, sitting down next to his mother.

"How about you three?" Mariel asked, brushing her son's hair. "How was the human world?"

"Everything is fine." Saito replied, sitting down with Louise.

"So was it just an empty threat?" Sasha asked, more to herself than to Saito.

"No, that doesn't sound right." He replied. "There's no way they would say something like that to distract us. If it was to separate us, they would have attacked while me, Alex, and Louise were away."

As they sat together and thought about what they should do next, Shion walked outside and was immediately surrounded by her friends, who were all concerned about her health.

"How do you feel?" Alex asked, holding her hands.

"I'm fine, Alex." She replied.

"You don't have to keep your eyes shut anymore." Aigle said.

She nodded and slowly opened her eyes, letting them get accustomed to the light. She could see perfectly out of both eyes, although the scar on her face and neck was still there.

"What happened in the human world?" She asked, rubbing her eyes since she just woke up.

"There was nothing wrong." Louise said. "On the surface, at least, everything seems fine. What happened here?"

"Brimir attacked us." She replied calmly.

"It's amazing that none of you got hurt." Alex said.

"He chose to leave for some reason." She replied, not bothering to be detailed.

As they made sure she was okay, Saito sat silently, pondering everything that had happened. He had developed an idea for what the winged person might have meant, but he kept trying to dismiss it.

Sasha noticed that he was seemingly lost in thought, so she decided to confront him about it.

"Something on your mind?" She asked quietly so that only he could hear it.

"You could say so." He replied. "I've been thinking about what that person said. About the human world."

"What about it?" She asked.

"Do you think he could have meant my world?" He asked.

She stared at him silently, thinking about his question.

"It is possible." She said.

"I want to go and check." He said, rising to his feet.

"If you insist on going, then I will come with you." She said. "I'm sure everyone else would like to come as well."

"But what about your sons?" Saito asked, remembering that they were still away.

"I have given them the order to return here in our absence." She replied. "If there is trouble here, they may call us back with the same stone I gave you when you were bedridden."

"Alright. If that's settled, we should leave as soon as possible." He replied.

Sasha agreed and went to inform everyone that they were going to Saito's world. As she had predicted, they all wanted to tag along, most likely from wanting to know what his world was like.

When everyone prepared their weapons, Louise opened a world door to the house Saito's family used to reside in. With a slight amount of hesitation, Saito stepped through it. When his eyes adjusted to the light, he was met with a rather grim sight.

The ground was flooded with water in which floated debris and, occasionally, bodies. The sky was gray with storm clouds through which lightning streaked across the sky. A few moments later, his friends walked through the portal one by one.

"Is this what your world is normally like?" Alex asked, hoping that Saito would say yes.

"No. Something happened..." He said, a little sick to his stomach by the smell of sewage in the water that reached his waist.

Wondering what happened, he walked into his family's house. He immediately went to his room, where his laptop was still intact. Turning it on, he searched for news about what was happening in Japan. On several sites, there were reports of catastrophic weather not only in Japan, but around the world.

Satellite images showed several hurricanes on the coasts of most of the continents. Reports of the tide rising and falling dramatically and unnaturally were abundant.

"We need to find out who's doing this." Saito said finally.

"I can feel some magic nearby. Perhaps we should go there." Sasha said.

"Alright." Saito replied. "Be careful.. Those weapons the Germanians used in the war are everywhere in this world."

"All of us are here. What's the worst that could happen?" Alex said in his usually childish demeanor.

"Yeah. You're right." Saito said, although in his gut, he had a horrible feeling that things would not be so simple.