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Scarlet Memories

Reminiscence 23 – Memories of the Past

In a secluded area in a lush forest (not in Rukuso) of a small country, the laughter of children reverberated to a distance, but in spite of those laughter he can hear, the dark haired man's serious expression never changed as he watched the few children that the Kuruta has in the made-up village with his dark eyes.

"They will not hesitate to attack this village if you insist of not returning," said the man who was watching behind him. "You have to leave this place," he continued. "You do not belong here."

"Tchi." Gale did not say anything. He knows he doesn't have a choice. If the Ryusei Gai council decides to send its nen users to attack the village, the Kuruta people would have no chance against them. While it is true that the Kuruta are strong, they are not strong enough to defend themselves against the Ryusei Gai's trained children. Moreover, most of them did not develop their nen as a weapon; they are mostly for support as the people of the Kuruta tribe do not like violence.

"You are one of the Ryusei's trained children," the man said. "So I know that you understand perfectly what I am saying. And this place is very near from Ryusei Gai, so to speak.

"I know," Gale answered, irritated, but not letting the other man to notice it. "Just give me some time. My wife is about to give birth. Just until that time, let me stay here. Then I will go back to Ryusei Gai myself."

"That is fine with me. But do not disappoint the council. You know what will be the consequences."

"You do not have to tell me. Go now and tell them our agreement."

"Well then. See you soon," the man said and left Gale on his own.

Few days later, the promised time had come. The birth of his child had occurred. Everyone was happy. Gale was glad that his new born baby boy is healthy, but at the same time he was sad. He has to leave his family for their own safety. He has to go back to Ryusei Gai and return from being a bandit. It was infuriating, but it has to be done.

"Come on Gale. Look at our child. Isn't he so cute? He looks just like you, very much," Crea said, sitting at the edge of the bed while holding the baby in her arms.

"He is," Gale smiled as he approached the two and knelt in front of them. "So, how our little Lucifer will be called?" he asked, caressing the baby's chubby face.

Crea chuckled at how her husband calls their newborn. "How about… Kuroro?"

"Kuroro, eh. Um. That sounds good," he said, looking the little baby with a small smile on his face, but tinged with sadness in his eyes. "Kuroro Lucifer."

~o~

The next morning came, as Crea woke up and opened her eyes. She turned her head at the crib beside her bed and noticed a paper on the bedside table with her peripheral vision. Frowning, Crea stood up, taking the paper, opened it, and read its content. But as she read the content of the letter, the frown on her face become deeper as her eyes wavered from blue to scarlet.

"Gale," she whispered while clutching the paper in her hands. "You are an idiot." Tears streamed down her cheek, unable to hold them back as the words written on the letter repeated in her mind.

[Crea,

Please forgive me if I did not tell you this personally. But if I did, I know that you would try to stop me, so I decided to write you this letter instead.

The Ryusei Gai council already found this place. And I do not want to be the reason for the clan's destruction, so I decided to leave and return to Ryusei Gai. Please, tell the elder about this and leave this forest immediately.

Gale.]

"You are an idiot," Crea repeated. "Do you think I would leave this place without you knowing where to find us?" she cried.

"Mama?" a small voice asked as the door opened, revealing a little girl with light-brown hair and dark blue eyes.

Crea wiped the tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand. She walked toward the child and knelt before her as she suddenly hugged her tightly and continued crying.

Being a child, the little girl was tended to be swept by the emotions of the people around her and so she also started to cry, hugging back her mother without really knowing the reason why her mother was crying.

~o~

Five years later, in Ryusei Gai. Gale was in front of the council head, seemingly very angry as he slammed his hands at the table between them.

"What is the meaning of this, Raffgier!?" he asked in a growl.

"Taking what we need," the middle aged man with gray hair and light-brown eyes, the head of the council of Ryusei Gai, answered nonchalantly while sitting coolly at his chair in front of the table.

"Taking what we need, or, taking what you want, Raffgier? This is against our agreement."

"What you are doing is not enough."

"There is no point talking to you," Gale said as he turned around to take his leave.

"Maybe, you can prove your loyalty to us by bringing your child here. If you do that, we will never bother the Kuruta again," the council head said before Gale disappeared in front of him.

'There's no more time for dilly-dallying here,' Gale thought to himself as he ran out of the city of Ryusei. 'The children might be there already. I need to hurry.'

~o~

When Gale arrived near the forest, what greeted him was almost a chaos. He ran inside the forest, hoping to see any of the Kuruta and stopped as he met a woman in front of him with a child in tow.

"Gale, you are here!" the woman said as she stopped running with little Kuroro beside her.

"We have no time, we have to go, Crea," Gale said hurriedly to the woman.

"No, you will go with Kuroro. I will go back for the others," Crea said and looked at her son and knelt in front of him so that they are at eye level. "Kuroro, listen to me, this is your father, Gale Altair, go with him and be safe, ok?"

"But mama," little Kuroro tried to oppose.

"No buts, Kuroro," she stood up and face Gale again.

"Are you sure about this?" Gale asked.

Crea nodded. "Well then," she said and ran back toward the small village.

Minutes had past when Gale looked at the child beside him. "Wait here," he said and suddenly ran toward the direction where Crea had gone.

"Eh, wait," little Kuroro also ran, but unable to follow the man's speed. He continued running in the forest looking for his mother until he finally found Gale standing at a distance. And when he came near the man, his eyes widened in horror as he saw a man full of blood all over his body, lying on the grown and her lifeless mother with her bleeding hollow eye socket.

"Mama!" he shouted as he ran to his mother, but before he can approach her, Gale grabbed him from his shirt as he picked him up and ran faster than ever to the direction of Ryusei Gai.

~o~

"Stop all of this now, Raffgier!" Gale growled at the man before the table. Again, he was standing in front of the council head.

Kuroro on the other hand was at the back of the door frame, half hidden as he watched the scene inside, clearly seeing the anger of the man with dark hair whom he had just learned to be his father, toward the man who was sitting on a chair in front of a long table.

"I see that you decided to bring him here," Raffgier said, seeing the little boy behind the doorway. "And of course, as I said, I will not bother the Kuruta anymore. That is, if he became one of the trained children."

"I can agree to make him one of the trained children, if you can promise to leave the Kuruta alone and never bother them anymore," Gale said, looking at the man coldly.

"Yes, of course, Gale," Raffgier replied with a smile, "I am glad to have you as one of the loyal children of Ryusei Gai."

Gale did not reply anymore as he turned to leave the place. When he reached the doorway where the child was waiting, he only glanced at him once. "Be strong, Lucifer," he said as he continued walking away from that building, leaving the little Kuroro without even telling him anything, but those words.

It was a bright, windy day in Japon, a normal weather during mid September. Kurapika and Kuroro are now walking on their way to the bus stop as they decided to continue their journey and to start collecting the remaining scarlet eyes.

They bid their goodbyes to Rhea's family and thank her for her big help regarding Gale's memory. They have learned many things. The man's true intention to the Kuruta tribe, which was to protect it, but failed to do so when the massacre had occurred. But with Kurapika as the last pure blooded Kuruta, Gale decided to protect her with his nen. Thinking that she would be an easy prey with her nen still incomplete, he changed her character and sealed her nen along with her memory. They also learned that the Ravens Wings is a group of bandit created by the Ryusei's council head, composed of the children that were still loyal to him after Kuroro created his own group.

After Gale gave the group its worthy punishment, he used its name to infiltrate the mafia, having Chairo, a previous member of Ravens Wings as his spy. And everything that occurred in York Shin was actually a test for Kuroro to determine if he is worthy to stay by Kurapika's side, to determine if he is strong enough to protect her.

Now that they cleared the misunderstanding of Kuroro toward his father, the two agreed to settle everything the next time they meet Gale Altair, 'but that will be after we collected all the scarlet eyes,' Kurapika thought to herself.

As they continued walking on their way, a strong wind hit them from the sky, making their hair dance like crazy with the wind. Even if it is normally windy today, they thought, that wind was kind of odd, so they look upward suspecting to see something, and true enough, they saw a pink dragon-like creature with the size of a full grown human, soaring at the sky.

"A fyulong!" Kurapika said in surprise. But that is not everything. The fyulong is badly hurt; full of injuries around its body. On its back is a boy, having the same state as the fyulong, and unconscious.

The fyulong continued to soar in the sky toward the nearby forest and is nearing its limit to keep its consciousness.

Seeing that, Kurapika immediately grab Kuroro's hand, summoned her wings and flew to catch the fyulong before it falls.

'Just to touch it even a bit,' Kurapika mentally said, but her speed is not enough, instead, she dematerialized her wings and summoned Timcanpy, who flew in ridiculous speed toward the fyulong. With that, Kurapika and Kuroro have to freefall to the ground.

"Sorry Kuroro, I cannot summon my wings and Timcanpy at the same timeeeeee!"

When Kurapika said that, Kuroro immediately positioned himself in the mid-air to make his feet face the ground, grabbing Kurapika's body as he focused his nen on his feet.

As Kuroro carried Kurapika on his arm, they fall with an impact on the ground, creating a mass of dust around them for a few seconds.

Kurapika sigh. "Thanks," she said after Kuroro put her down. "And sorry for the sudden fall."

"That's alright, and besides," he looked at the direction where the fyulong nearly fall, and soon enough, they saw the fyulong flowing toward them with Timcanpy on its head as Kurapika's extension of her nen, "they need help more than anything."

Timcanpy laid the fyulong along with the boy, no, teenager, gently on the ground.

Kuroro and Kurapila approach them to look upon their state and they saw how badly injured they are, as Kurapika thought.

"They must have been pursued by nen users," Kurapika said. "And their target is the fyulong, to sell it to the underground market at a very high price."

"A price for a supposed to be extinct creature," Kuroro continued.

After examining their state, Kurapika turned to her nen golem. "Holy feather," she said, and Timcanpy started to fly above the fyulong and the teenage boy, flapping its wings as it release white feathers toward the two figures.

The feathers, as they landed at the fyulong and the teenager's body, they immediately formed into glowing light for a few seconds, then vanishing into nothingness, leaving their skin as good as new.

"Your healing technique still fascinates me as ever," Kuroro complemented.

"I am the best healer in the tribe, if you ask."

"Probably, the best in the world. I've never seen anyone who can heal as fast as you."

With that, Kurapika gave him a bright smile.

~o~

AN:

Raffgier: German of Greed

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