Mint's face was soaked with tears by the time she, Keo, and Timo had all made it to the surface. Timo was just silent. All of his father's work, the heart of the resistance, and potentially all hope for non-light creatures was all lost to the flames underground.

"Timo...I-" she swallowed a sob. "I'm so sorry! I led them right to you, and I-and you-and your work-"

"Mint," Timo started.

"-an-and all those p-p-people-!"

"Mint! They are not dead because of you!" Timo said, grabbing and shaking her small form. "Do. not. blame yourself!"

"...How?..." she softly weeped. "How is it not-?"

"It's Zar's fault!...and it's his alone...he didn't have to do what he did, and never had to start it all in the first place! Do you understand?"

Reluctantly, Mint slowly nodded.

"The spirits will never know of our trade secret, allowing us to spy on them all," he continued. "They'll never even know we had that capability. Though the resistance is shattered, you may hold the key to ending this!"

Timo then backed away towards nearby undergrowth.

"We must go our separate ways, for going to the Spirit Tree will now surely be suicide for me," he said. "But you must find a way to speak to Seir and your father; perhaps, along with finding the truth, you can help broker a deal to make the spirits stop what they're doing."

"B-but I-what should I even say?!" Mint squeaked. "I-I don't negotiate-!"

"Mint, forget your siblings' genocidal behavior: your father was not like this. I don't know why you're the first child he's ever kind-of spoken to, but maybe he wants you to reach him somehow! If you can get to him, he'll put a stop to it...to all of this!"

"There! Still by the entrance!" screamed a spirit from afar. "Get 'em!"

"Get to Seir and speak with your father!" Timo hissed. "End this war! Go!"

With that, he slithered out of sight, leaving Mint and Keo in the crosshairs of an angry mob of spirits.

"This way! C'mon!" Keo shouted, violently tugging Mint northward. "I know a shortcut to-!"

He was suddenly cut-off when a spirit spike landed directly between them, launching them apart. Mint, through her watery eyes, made out a barrage of arrows flying at her just in time to dash-roll out of the way. She was now cut off from her older brother and unable to follow him.

"Mint! Run!" he yelled. "RUN! Try to meet up with me at the Spirit Tree!"

The young spirit was beyond flustered: Fir was dead, the lives of tens-of-thousands now rested upon her shoulders, and there was zero time to process any of it! Her sobs becoming desperate breaths for air, she sprinted away in the opposite direction of Keo. She ran and ran, knowing where she had to be, but having no clue as to where she currently was; dashing, bashing, and grappling anywhere she could, with tears constantly clouding her vision no matter how much she wiped them away, Mint knew it was only a matter of time before they cut her off, or another spirit tackled her out of the air from somewhere she couldn't see.

She grew tired, and she could feel her reflexes dulling from fatigue. Finally she couldn't take it anymore, and she landed near a large puddle of mud somewhere in Inkwater Marsh. With a deep breath, she dived in as deeply as she could and waited. After an exorbitant amount of time, having held her breath longer than any breath she'd ever held before, she finally came up for air. Surely everyone had passed, and she could get some semblance of a breather, but when she scantily wiped away the mire from her eyelids, she saw a small squad of spirits staring her down.

In desperation, she started wading away from them, only for an arrow of light to land right next to her, stopping her in her tracks. She raised her paws in surrender.

"Please!" she cried. "I don't...I don't wanna die!"

The mire had darkened her so completely that it hid the glow of her body. It also matted her fur to her skin, and the mud that had made it under her fur was already drying and starting to feel crusty.

"You should've thought about that before ripping the light from our tree! You're lucky Zar wants so badly to kill you himself, or I wouldn't've missed!"

Mint, with shaky breath and even shakier legs, placed her paws behind her head and plopped down to her knees in the mud, starting to cry from both fear and exhaustion. Suddenly, one of them grappled her neck from behind and started pulling. It caught her completely by surprise, making her lose balance and fall flat onto her back with an audible "splat". She rolled onto her stomach as she fought in vain against the glowing, blue ability. Her hooves dragging uselessly behind her, the dread of the inevitable unknown made her sobs even heavier. What were they going to do to her?! Finally, with tears streaming over the mud on her face, she was pulled out of the mud.

"No! Lemme go!" she bawled as they held her down. "I-I don't wanna fight you!"

She almost wished they'd just kill her now, but they wouldn't. They were sparing her for Zar and she knew it! One of them used his grapple ability to bind her paws behind her back. Screams of terror mixed into her crying as they did so. She fought against her new restraints in vain, but a swift kick to her abdomen later, and she was reduced to mere sobs and whimpers.

. . .

They had gotten Keo, too.

He was down on his knees, restrained just like she was, and sitting before the Elder she'd hoped in vain to never see again. Once more, the young spirit was thrown down to her knees before Zar, and once more he looked down at her in pure fury and vengeance!

"Please...I'm sorry," she said softly and sorrowfully. "I didn't know what I was doing!"

"Mint! No!" said Keo beside her. "You don't have to apologize to-"

"Shut up!" Zar snapped. "Let her grovel."

The Elder then knelt down to Mint's eye level and grabbed the back of her head. She shut her eyes. She was reduced to begging, but the humiliation paled in comparison to her need to live.

"I didn't know what I was doing," she repeated through sobs. "Forgive me I didn't know what I was doing…*sniff*...I-I don't wanna di-OOH!"

Zar snatched her throat again. She felt him pull her head in close to his face, but she refused to open her eyes.

"You knew exactly what you were doing!" he growled.

Mint then screamed in pain as he grabbed both her antennae and pulled her head backwards, hearing the crackling of his spirit edge as he activated it.

"I'm going to enjoy this!" he said, standing and bringing the blade up to her neck.

Blind panic overcame her thoughts, and she began squirming and hyperventilating in his clutches.

"Now quit your whining and die like the warrior you were trained to be!" he said.

"B-but-but I don't wanna die!" she bawled.

"Hmph! Not even in front of him?...Open your eyes..."

She did so reluctantly, and saw to her surprise that they were directly underneath the Spirit Tree; they'd brought her right to him! In her panic she hadn't noticed his warmth.

"You really don't respect him at all do you?" said Zar.

That.

That comment made her momentarily replace fear with anger.

"No," she snarled back. "I respect him more than any of you ever have!"

Zar gripped her antennae tighter, venting any and all anger left in her system and allowing the fear back in.

"Lies!" he hissed, putting the blade so close to her skin that she could feel it singe her fur!

Suddenly, the Elder was tackled from the side, freeing Mint from his grip! She noticed immediately that it was Keo, but how?! She looked to her side to see the spirit that had been holding him was knocked out cold, holding his crotch; Keo must have kicked him there with his free leg, then elbowed his captor in the side of the head when his grapple ability fizzled out from losing focus! Wasting no time, Keo pulled the spirit standing behind Mint towards himself with a grapple beam of his own, deactivating it and punching him straight in the face when he was pulled in close enough. Right as that spirit guardian fell unconscious at Keo's feet, Mint felt her arms become unrestrained; she was freed!

"Go to him Mint!" screamed Keo right as he entered a spirit edge dual with Zar. "Go! It's your only chance!"

She didn't hesitate. She ran right for her father's bark, climbing up the second she reached it. Zar didn't even bother with Keo, tripping him and stepping over his body, laser-focused in his rage on killing Mint and Mint only, following her to the tree trunk as fast as he could.

"No! Stop her!" Zar yelled. "She's going to steal away the light again!"

Once Keo had managed to catch his breath, he too gave chase.

. . .

This was way harder than the first time, but Mint hadn't been so exhausted the first time. Every inch upward upon his bark felt like a hundred boulders were strapped to her back, but pure desperation kept her going. Her frantic climbing wasn't just out of fear though, there was something else nagging at her mind: soon, she would know the truth, and she would rather figure it out before getting killed! The mud still clinging to her paws wasn't helping, as she barely managed to keep hold with sticky on more than one occasion during the climb.

His light was quite blinding, and the heat was becoming unbearable; Mint couldn't just climb straight up into where Seir was resting, but she figured that she could approach from one of his branches! She eyed one of the vines dangling from a branch that looked sturdy enough, and lept towards it, narrowly avoiding a spirit spike from Zar; she jumped again in mid-air and dashed the rest of the way over, grasping onto the vine just above the glittering container of light that glowed orange just like the light at the Spirit Tree's center. Mint frantically pulled herself up the vine, before finally pulling herself up onto the branch.

But her scramble upwards left her out of breath and with aching muscles, as she still had not yet fully recovered from the bloodloss. The very fact that she was able to make it this far was itself a miracle!

But her relatively slow pace had allowed Zar and the others to close the gap behind her. She hadn't made it more than halfway across the branch to Seir before Zar grappled her leg and tripped her. She flopped onto her face and stomach with a high-pitched "Oof!" as the breath was fully knocked from her lungs.

Mint tried to push herself up, but was too weak to do it in time. Zar materialized an arrow in his paw and used it to nail one of her hooves to the tree! He then grabbed her dome as she screamed in pain, lifting it before repeatedly slamming her face-down into the tree bark. When he finally stopped, her nose was broken and bleeding profusely. Mint could no longer rely on it to breath!

He lifted her head back up as she choked on her own sobs of pain, revealing a sizable hole in the tree bark. She reached up to her nostrils, feeling and seeing the blood from them on her paws as tears rolled down her face.

Mint's head was shoved back down onto one cheek. She started to cast her regeneration spell, but before she could, Zar snatched her trembling paw, interrupting the flow of energy.

"No! No pleas-AAAUGH!"

Pain shot through her paw like lightning as he snapped all her fingers into awkward angles! But before she could finish reeling from it, Zar reached down and broke her whole arm at the elbow.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" she screeched.

Finally, before she could even think about using regenerate with her other arm, Zar violently whipped it backward, dislocating her shoulder-blade. The ensuing blood-curdling scream that came out of Mint's mouth soon became a low whine, ending as pitiful sobs. Her arms lay limp and useless upon her father's bark, her body stiff in fear and pain.

"Dad, help!" she cried helplessly at the glowing orb before her. "Please! Dad!"

Her voice was just above a whimper: weak, sad, and scared. It was just like the first vision she'd had of her father: she was broken, and the one who made her this way was closing-in from behind! Zar simply lifted her up by the antennae, bringing her to her knees and placing the blade of his spirit edge on her neck.

"He can't save you," he said, holding half of her face with his free paw. "In fact, I'm sure he'd want you dead!"

Mint shut her eyes, breathing terrified breaths.

"DAAAAAD!" she screamed.

Nothing. Absolutely no response from the spirit light. In that moment, Mint lost all hope. She now understood: she had wronged him. She didn't respect his legacy, and now she deserved to die.

"I should've done this myself the first time!" said Zar.

Mint felt her throat get sliced open. She was released onto the floor as blood was pumped out of her by her own racing heart. She felt him stab into her back a few more times for good measure, but her nerves had dulled by then and she couldn't feel much of the pain. Slowly, the light within her faded out, and she knew, this time, there was no one to save her.

...I'm sorry, dad…

The last thing she saw was the gentle fluttering of the leaves on her father's branches as the world faded to black.

. . .

"Mint!" yelled Keo from below. "Miiiint! I'm coming! I'm-"

His body and mind all froze the moment he came to the top. In front of him was Zar standing over Mint's maimed and lifeless body.

"...Finally…" his Elder breathed.

"NOOO!" he shouted in anger, summoning a spirit spike and hurling it towards his Elder.

With lightning-fast reflexes, Zar summoned his own spike and collided it directly with Keo's. The resulting blast knocked Keo backwards into two other spirit guardians who had climbed up behind him. They held him back, despite his struggle against their grip.

"Keep hold of him!" Zar ordered. "He's next!"

"How could you do this?!" Keo yelled back. "HOW COULD YOU?!...She was your sister-"

"Was my sister! She gave up that right when she betrayed us..."

He placed the tip of his spirit edge under Keo's chin.

"...and so did you," he growled. "When you decided to help her!"

Keo could barely hold back his tears. He had heard the struggle as he was climbing, but never expected Mint's final scream to truly be her last.

"You're a monster!" he choked.

Zar just shook his head.

"She was a traitor! I thought you understood that!"

He pointed behind him with his spirit edge.

"He understood!" he said. "If he truly wanted her alive, he would've stopped me! But he didn't!"

Then, with a forward flip of his sword, he took aim at Keo's head with it.

"And he won't stop me now."

Keo solemnly bowed his head and awaited his own slaughter, but the killing-strike never came. Instead, he heard one of the spirits holding him say, "What the-?"

"What?" said Zar, turning around. "What is it?"

Keo looked up as well to see a pair of black eyes with white pupils emerge from the glowing, orange orb past Zar. A glowing, white figure stepped out onto the bark, leaving everyone speechless.

However, the figure himself could find his voice immediately.

"I...am so...sorry," he spoke softly, eyes never wavering from Mint's mangled body. "It's all my fault."

He looked to be about Keo's age, about as tall too, though his ears were slightly longer and he had two antennae on his head instead of one. Yet, his voice sounded like that of a fully grown spirit, which was only slightly off-putting.

"Hey! Spirit!" Zar shouted commandingly. "Identify yourself!"

To everyone's surprise, he didn't reply, even seeming to ignore him! Instead he simply dropped to his knees before Mint.

"I could've stopped him," he went on, stuffing his teary eyes into his paws. "Why didn't I stop him?! Why couldn't I get out in time?!"

"Hey! I'm talking to you!" Zar continued to shout. "Who are you?!"

"...I know I can still save you...but I didn't want you to die..."

"Look at me!"

The unnamed spirit reached out and gently stroked the back of her head.

"...The first spirit I've ever touched in years...and she's dead…" he uttered sedately.

"I said LOOK AT ME!" Zar screamed, summoning a spirit spike and hurling it at him.

What happened next tore away Zar's ability to speak, leaving the one-eyed spirit frozen in his stance, stunned: the anonymous spirit actually caught it! He had moved his head aside to snatch it with lightning-fast reflexes that most spirits could only dream of. Finally, he looked at Zar, eyes burning with rage, before standing and effortlessly twirling the spear around in his paw to point it back at Zar. The Elder was still so stunned that he wouldn't have been able to dodge it if it had been thrown his way! But to everyone's surprise, he didn't.

"I could kill you!" he shouted to Zar. "And I should for everything you've done...but I won't!"

With that, the unnamed spirit gripped the projectile in both paws and snapped it in half with his knee. It crackled and faded as he threw the pieces aside, leaving only his fists at his hips.

"Yeah?! And why's that?!" Zar finally said. "Are you a coward like them?!"

"No Zar," he replied, his voice shaky. "...It's because you're my son..."

Zar's eye widened in realization.

"F-fa-father?" he stammered.

"Ori!" Keo breathed in disbelief.

"...Who-Who's Ori-?"

"That was my name, Zar," said the figure. "But you wouldn't know that...because I never told you my story."