Chapter 7 Unexpected situations

I heard screeching sounds all around me. I thought I was having another nightmare, but this was real. I opened my eyes. Only to see that there was two air dragons surrounding us, Albel shot up, took out his sword and tossed me mine.

"It's time to show me what you're made of!" Albel yelled over to me. He began attacking one of the dragons. I looked at the other one to find out it was going right for Albel.

"You got it!" I pulled out my sword. I used my triple attack to knock it out of the air. It refocused onto me. It tried to use its talons to grab me. I never remembered fighting a dragon that was this fast before. It ended up scraping my shoulder a little, but not enough to phase me. I turned around to cut it in its side. It let out a loud screech. I looked over to Albel, he seemed to be enjoying every moment of this. His eye's gleamed with rage and excitement. I looked back on my opponent just in time to jump out of the way of its fire bolt. I ran at it and used my Aerial attack to knock it down. I shoved my sword into the ground and used my ultimate attack Reigresa, it was an attack that allowed me to manipulate my target with my sword. The dragon was flown back into the air as I pulled my sword back out again, pointing it at the sky, it was paralyzed for now. I turned to Albel, his opponent was just getting up off the ground, so I ran over to give him a hand. Not like he really needed it, but I wasn't going to just stand there and watch. Albel didn't seem to even see me there, he used his Double Slash attack to get it on the ground. When it was on the ground I used my Swirling Rage attack to do some damage to it. Albel was completely focused on the dragon in front of him. It was in the air again, I looked back at my opponent, it had just come out of its paralysis. I ran back to it, gripped my sword with both hands and swung it up towards the dragon, I had a direct hit in the dragons' neck. The sound it made was skull piercing. It was like hearing Albel's clawed gauntlet on a plate...over and over again. I pulled my sword out of the dragon's neck. I ran from it and used my Ice Needles symbology. Then Albel was at my side, I looked back and his was dead already. We both obviously had the same idea on how to kill these things because, we jumped into the air at the exact same time and slashed the dragon with our swords. I slashed upwards he slashed down and the dragon was defeated. We landed back on the ground in unison too.

"Turns out your not that bad, after all." Albel said, he was breathing heavily.

"Heh...better start watching your back...in case I decide to turn on you." I was out of breath, myself

"Bah...I said you were good but, your not that good." He said turning to go collect our things so we could continue on.

"Wanna bet?" He stopped in his tracks, turned his head to one side, looking at me through the corner of his eye.

"Fool, I would annihilate you. So unless you want to be killed, let it go." He started to collect our things.

"Uh-huh, sure...coward." He either didn't hear me, or pretended not to, so I just went over to help. When everything was packed up, we went to the entrance to the cave behind the waterfall.

"I hate this place. It's always so dark." I said. I stopped walking.

"Deal with it." Albel said as he walked ahead of me. I sighed, and here I thought he softened up a little. I guess trying to soften him up was like trying to soften a rock, impossible without a lot of hard work put into it, But I was determined enough, if it was the last thing I ever did, I was going to soften him up. Even if it was just a little.

"Are you coming or not?" Albel yelled. This brought me out of my chain of thought. Then I realized how far behind I was, I couldn't even see Albel anymore.

"Hey...where are you?" There was no answer. Was he just trying to scare me? Or was he really gone? I looked in every direction but I couldn't see anything, and I didn't hear any footsteps either. I just stood there, I was trying my best to stay calm, it wasn't going well, ever since that first nightmare, I've hated darkness.

"This isn't funny!" Still, there was no answer. Then I saw a light flash by my eyes, it landed on the floor, it was a lightstone. I had just realized this when I heard fast pace footsteps, I turned to see Albel rushing at me, he pushed me to the ground and grabbed both of my wrists.

"What are you doing?!" I yelled at him, he just smiled.

"See? That's how easy it would be for me...or anyone else for that matter, to come up and kill you." He let go of my wrists and got up to go get the lightstone. Before he got a chance to turn around to face me, I got up right behind him, he turned around. I punched him right in the face, harder than I had meant to, but at that point, I didn't even care.

"Don't you ever...do that again!" I yelled. He took out his sword, but then stopped and slowly put it back into the sheath. He put his hand above his eye. There was a cut. He looked at the blood on his fingers, then he just started to walk again, the lightstone still in his hand.

"What? Are you too soft to do anything to me now?" I asked as he walked past me, he stopped and turned. He got really serious looking all the sudden.

"Trust me...all I want to do right now is tare you limb from limb, but you know what? I'm not going to do that, at least not right now. But believe me, when you die...it will be because of my sword piercing straight through your heart." He turned and walked away, I followed from a distance. Great, now he was mad at me again, just what I needed. I started to feel bad about punching him so hard. Wait, why did I feel bad? He got what he deserved after scaring me like that. Now I was angry with myself, for feeling sorry for him. We kept walking through the caves in silence, besides the occasional enemy. We had been walking a while before I realized that I had seen certain things twice and some even three times.

"Uhh...Albel are you sure you know where you're going?" he didn't answer me. I ran to catch up with him. I looked at his face...it was so blank and pale.

"Hey, are you alright?" Still no answer, he didn't even look at me. I went to take hold of his wrist, he turned and punched me, sending me flying into the wall of the cave.

"What's...wrong with you?!" He dropped the lightstone, took out his sword and charged at me. I had just enough time to take out my own sword to block his attack. I was pushing back his sword but he was starting to overpower me. I looked into his eyes, they were so blank, his entire face showed no emotion at all.

"You must...be under some kind...of spell." At this point he had me against the cave wall, his sword just inches away from my face. I had to get him out of this before he killed me. But what could I do? I was pinned on the wall of a cave, focusing all my strength on staying alive. All I could think of was my dream...it was just so similar. Just like the air dragons this morning...was it just a coincidence? Or was it a hint? I couldn't believe what I was planning on doing, but it was either that, or die right now. My sword was cutting through my own hand because I was pushing on it so hard, and it was starting to cut my throat. So I did the only thing I could think of to stay alive...I closed my eyes and lifted my head off from the wall to kiss him. My sword was digging into my neck even more by doing so but, slowly the pressure lessened, it was working, he was coming out of it. My sword came out of my throat. I dropped it, hurting my hand as I did so. Then I heard Albel's sword fall. I thought of his reaction to what I was doing, I suddenly got really nervous but, to my surprise there was a return in my kiss. I could've stopped it then, but...I never did. I felt his hand on my cheek, it was ice cold, I was startled by it at first but I didn't care. After a few seconds, he released, I opened my eyes, he was looking right at me. Then he looked at my throat and my hand. He picked his sword up off the ground, looking at the blood on it. He put his head down, chucked his sword to his side and hugged me, I couldn't believe it. But I was kinda glad, I put my arms around him.

"I'm...sorry. I let Romero's curse take hold of me...I had no control over my actions...and I end up doing this to you." He whispered

"It's alright. Don't blame yourself...besides the damage isn't that bad."

"That doesn't matter, it doesn't change that fact that I could've killed you because of my own stupid mistake...just like my father." There was a long silence, I didn't know what to say. We released from our embrace.

"Let's get out of here." I said. I picked up my sword wiped off my blood and put it back in the sheath, Albel picked up his sword then went over to get the lightstone. Then he came back over to me to bandage my hand and my throat. The wounds themselves weren't that bad, but they sure did hurt a lot.

"The...exit's not too far off." Albel said, his voice was a little shaky, he started to walk off. I ran up to him and grabbed his hand. He looked over at me.

"You still trust me after that?" He asked

"You don't scare me" I said smiling

"heh, obviously not. But still...you have to be careful now, if I get angry at you like that again...get away from me, alright?"

"I won't let it happen again and, even if it does...I know what to do now." I said, blushing.

"About that...what made you decide to kiss me anyway?" He asked looking at me. I was surprised, I wasn't expecting him to actually ask me that. I waited a moment.

"...I just...well...it was because that's what happened in my dream, you stabbed me, then you kissed me so...I just kissed you."

"Oh...I see, so you did whatever you had to in order to stay alive. Am I right?"

"Well...yeah it was just to stay alive..." Albel looked away from me, I shook my head. "...but just...at first."

"So it...was for real then?" He looked at me through the corner of his eye.

"Well, don't you think if it wasn't, I would've stopped it after your sword fell?" I said, smiling at him. He smiled back at me but he didn't ever say a word. We reached the exit of the cave and the entrance to the Urssa Lava Caves just a moment later.

"Do you want to continue on? Or stop here for now and go inside the caves tomorrow? So we have a chance to toughen up a bit. The monsters in there will be stronger than normal, because of Romero." He asked.

"I think I should train a bit first, though it's still early yet. You sure we can afford to stop like this now?"

"Yeah, it'll be fine. Don't worry about it." he said, setting down his things, I put down mine. We ended up training more than we planned on. It was late before we went to sleep. Albel fell asleep first. I wondered if it was really true, that I loved him, I didn't think so until today, but I still wasn't sure. Did he even love me back? He definitely never seemed to be the loving type to me, but if he didn't, then why would he have kissed me back, earlier? I ended up falling asleep thinking about this.