RECALLED TO LIFE
Ruriko woke up to find the calamity presented to her up front. No doubt about it, the spirits from yesterday sought to wreak havoc upon the shrine, the first sign of the Black Mage's influence in this world. Although, thankfully, they did not cause any major damage to the shrine's infrastructure, they had caused a substantial amount of mess of leaves, dust and chipped marble. All these mess called for her attention and had to be completely cleaned up if the shrine was to return to its previous state.
Brushing off whatever mess that had gathered onto her while she was unconscious, Ruriko stood up. She looked around to examine the extent of the damage. What caught her eyes first was the Hayato statue that stood in front of her.
The Hayato remained in his original position and posture as ever. It was as though the statue had been untouched. Ruriko found that while other parts of the shrine bore evidences of the ravages of the evil spirits, the statue was the only structure that stayed perfectly intact. For that matter, it looked as if a professional cleaner had cleaned all specks of dust off his body and waxed just about every inch of it.
Remembering her visitors, Ruriko hurried her way to the corridor that hosted her ancestors' tablets, the site where the confrontation had occurred. When she arrived, she saw Athena and Xenon attending to Neinheart and Claudine respectively, who were both still lying unconscious.
'Athena! Xenon! You guys are okay!' Ruriko exclaimed as she ran towards them. Both of them stood up to her.
'Ahh Ruriko, you are alright too!' sighed a relieved Athena.
'We're fine…..' said Xenon, 'but they are not,' he continued as he looked towards their fallen comrades. Neinheart had suffered messy cuts and bruises on various parts of his body, including a deep wound around the neck and forehead. Claudine, too was tattered in lacerations and upon closer look, it was clear that her neck bore some sort of constriction mark that did not seem like it came from natural causes. A distance away, rubble and debris from the shrine's structure laid in piles in every corner. Under one of them laid Irena, whose legs, severely wounded as the others', were the only parts of her that were visible. Xenon went forth and, after activating whatever function on his body still available in this new world, managed to muster his strength to move whatever was crushing Irena. It revealed an even more horrifying sight to see, so grotesque that even Athena shivered a little seeing what happened to Irena.
Ruriko and Athena blankly watched as Xenon moved the bodies and put the three of them together, side-by-side. They bore a stark resemblance - that nowhere on their bodies had there no injuries at all. 'No pulse from either of them,' said Xenon, but to Athena the injuries were suffice to tell. That it was highly likely that any life that these bodies once carried with them had all been snuffed out.
'To think not long ago we were just fighting side-by-side…' Athena choked a little, 'Time… is so short for them. So, so short…' she trailed on.
'Claudine…' Xenon could only mutter a word. If there had not been any feeling that would otherwise have been elicited in any ordinary human being at such a moment - especially in someone who had lost his/her most valuable person in life - it was now being slowly calibrated into his system. Perhaps his eyes would have teared a little bit for the first ever time if this function was within his range too.
Nevertheless, Xenon's system made him recover from such grave mood quicker and he asked, 'Do we… bury them?' Xenon realised for as long as he had been killing enemies, he had hardly known how to treat their dead bodies other than leaving them to rot.
'I don't know…..' were the only words coming from Athena's mouth. Her mind wandered various directions, from when they were still at a roundtable discussion that would soon bear fruit and lead to the formation of the Alliance, to what they would be doing from here on. Do they still carry on searching for a way back home? Perhaps, but life in the Maple World would never be the same for her again.
While Xenon still stared at the corpses, Athena turned to Ruriko, for the first time hoping someone else other than herself would take charge of the situation. Alas, Ruriko was, likewise, still staring blankly at them. Her eyes even seemed emotionless.
'I guess we do, then,' Xenon said and Athena reluctantly concurred. They decided that they would exit the shrine and find an appropriate place for the burial and attempt to dig holes in the ground before carrying their bodies. Athena kept trying to call on Ruriko but no reply - or even any reaction - came from her at all. Thinking she needed some solitude to gather back her senses, Athena informed her of their decision before heading off to the other end of the hallway.
'No…' Ruriko croaked. She collapsed on her knees, covered her face and wept. What had happened during the past few hours? She tried to bring her mind to answer that, but found that she could not get over with what was in front of her. Never mind that the shrine might have to be rebuilt, the occurrence at her front was something she could not comprehend with, and struck her almost to the point of traumatisation.
Then, she felt a sense of life stirring within her. Slowly, she uncovered her face, and at that moment, her body felt very light.
Athena and Xenon were getting to the end of the corridor when suddenly, a gust of wind filled the hallway. It seemed to be rushing in from the outside into the very confinement they were in, and in the direction against them. By instinct, they turned their heads around. What they saw was something absolutely remarkable.
The winds were gathering around Ruriko herself, dust swirling around and her dress thrashing about as she was slowly lifted from the ground. As power in the form of green essences radiated from her eyes, she assertively commanded something in perhaps Japanese as she lifted both arms at both sides. Xenon's system helped translate her words.
'Ancestors and guardians of Heian Yamagawa,
By the power of life, I beg of thee!
Hear me, and heed me!'
As she finished, the first column of stone tablets at both sides or the corridor walls lit up very brightly in green at Ruriko's end. Very soon after, more tablets lit up column by column in their direction, instantly filling the space with green radiance, as bright as day itself. Athena and Xenon marvelled at the brilliant light show for a short moment before Xenon's translation programme got to work again.
'Ancestors and guardians of Heian Yamagawa,
By order of her, guardian of lives
And by virtue of unfinished deeds,
Confer upon the fallen thy powers and blessings
And therefore recall them back to life!'
Ruriko thrusted her arms forward to the corpses as she chanted. As if really heeding whatever Ruriko had just uttered, green faintly luminous smokes emanated from each and every tablet in the corridor. The essences twisted, twirled and danced as they travelled before finding their ways to the three bodies that lay just in front of Ruriko. Each time a smoke enters a body, a small part of its wounds lit up before fading away to reveal that that part had been completely healed. Throughout this whole process, the gust of wind never stopped howling within the confines of the hallway.
As essences stopped emanating from the tablets and the last puff of smoke entered Claudine's body, all three bodies have completely and miraculously recovered from all injuries as if they never ever had one at all. As the winds gradually died down, Ruriko collapsed on the floor once again completely fatigued, while Athena and Xenon hastened back to help her up. Meanwhile, the three who had fallen started breathing again.
When Ruriko came to, she found herself carried by Athena, her arm over Athena's shoulder and walking slowly back to her house. Everything felt surreal for a second, as if instinct had been taking over her body for the last few moments, and her body felt weak.
'A-Athena?' muttered Ruriko.
'I got you, don't worry,' came Athena's reassurance.
They continued their way back. At the far end of the visible scenery of mountains and river came the first break of dawn, and Ruriko felt rather soothing. She heard footsteps behind other than hers and Athena's, and so she turned around. Immediately behind her was Neinheart, with Irena trailing behind. Slightly farther back were Xenon and Claudine. The four of them matched their paces as they walked and stayed behind Ruriko and Athena at all times.
The way home was slow and silent. As soon as they reached the house and stepped foot into it, Athena brought Ruriko to her room and laid her down on the mat on which she was sleeping before all that happened. Ruriko laid comfortably but stayed widely awake.
It was Neinheart who went forth while the others gathered round.
'Xenon told us about what happened. We…' Neinheart stuttered, for the first time, 'We are in your greatest debt.'
Ruriko merely smiled. She did not exactly know what happened. All she knew was that some of her companions took a trip to the Afterlife and back, and she felt certain that she had something to do with it. She was not quite eager to talk, for she was still feeling as if she had walked five hundred miles and more.
'We'll leave you here, if that is fine with you,' Athena said, to which Ruriko nodded. Slowly, the five of them retreated from her room and shut the door.
Ruriko could not put herself to sleep even if she could have done so without much trouble. After all, it was about time for her to wake up, assuming her normal routine was still followed. She scooted a little to reach her phone, which was just lying out of her reach, and flicked to check her messages.
There was a message for her when she went over to the MapleStory forum. It was from another forum user whom she had seen a few times but did not quite make a move to befriend her online, and it was sent to her and another unfamiliar forum user.
Title: OPERATION SETBACK
Soro, Ruriko,
We need a time to meet up. Get your people to dress in suitable clothes and come to Seoul, Korea. Use any means necessary to bypass immigration. Make haste. We will discuss more on this once we're together.
Reply to me once you have arrived. Let nobody in the forums and around us know about this.
Nami
PS: Don't question how I managed to find you guys out.
The message reminded her of her encounter with Rhinne, along with two other strangers, Nami and Soro. She thought about it for a while as she sent a quick reply to Nami's message. The one thing she was sure was that her links with the realm of the Maple World were apparent, but she was uncertain what Rhinne had meant when she had implied that the three of them bore extraordinary identities.
In fact, Ruriko still had many questions to ask. The chief of it, though, was if she could handle the responsibility of sending her friends from the Maple World back to where they belonged. What happened to them as mentioned by Neinheart and Rhinne sounded convincing enough for her to pursue this ultimate challenge, but she was not sure if she had prepared herself for such a life-changing experience.
The five continued their discussion to clear some doubts before they decided on their next move.
'If Von Leon and Damien could make their first move at us so unexpectedly, they could do more. Knowing the commanders, I know they wouldn't give up just yet,' said Claudine intently.
'Our powers are lost, though,' reminded Athena, 'We can do almost nothing to defend ourselves.' Neinheart raised an eyebrow towards Athena. '...except our wits,' Athena corrected herself.
'I know the most plausible solution would be to evade them as far as possible,' said Neinheart, trying to lay down strategies the way he would in meetings back in Ereve, 'but with powers sealed away, it wouldn't be wise to keep running away from them.'
Meanwhile, Athena retrieved the poem she had previously written down. With the situation they were now in, perhaps this poem might help in a way.
They tried to study the poem. Once again, the line containing 'respective time, light and life' caught their eyes.
'I think we would find solace in the transcendents of reality, and I say we do that,' Claudine suggested, and others agreed.
'But from where do we start? My system is already telling me that there could be much more than just millions of people in this world, much much more than the population of the Maple World,' Xenon pointed out. Once again, this problem proved to be their biggest hurdle to overcome before they could even move on to address the issue of how they could get back.
'Wait, Athena, could you tell me again what happened to us after they summoned the evil spirits?' asked Neinheart suddenly.
Athena told him all she had known. Neinheart thought about it again, and asserted, 'You know, I am fairly sure that we are closer to one of them than you think.'
A/N: Ahh, such a fresh start after a long hiatus due to real-life commitments!
Okay, I will admit that the real-life commitments aren't actually 'commitments'. I suck at time management, I have a serious issue of procrastinating, and many a time I simply neglect the existence of this project. Sorry folks! Blame me not on this one!
Firstly, do allow me to apologise because my frequency of updating this story has been rather inconsistent as of late, and even though you have my word that I won't abandon this project, I cannot guarantee that I will be updating this any time sooner.
As to what has happened in the story so far, I think I have mentioned that this story first appeared on MSEA forums before here. The three characters from the reality are actually my forum friends whom I've decided to feature in this story! Be that as it may, they were featured only in name, and less of their complete character in here (though Nami did tell me she was rather excited to have 'three hot guys descending upon her' XD
Once again, apologies if I'm unable to deliver the contents swiftly enough!