Chapter 33 - No More Games
Before long, Zyro and the others had managed to continue on through the corridors of the temple, making their way through the torch lit halls that - in their rather confining space - still had Zyro fidgeting a bit, but nothing close to what had happened earlier.
From the point that they had left the chamber they had originally been in, things were uncharacteristically quiet and calm around them, with nothing but the crackling of the torches and their own footsteps and small chatter to be heard. That was enough to set all of them on edge, having them turning corners and walking down corridors cautiously and with little room to feel secure.
They all knew from experience that whenever there was something that involved Alcorin, 'quiet' and 'calm' did not fit in to any sentence they could use as a description. Either he had forgotten about them (which was highly unlikely), or he was simply laying in wait for the proper moment (which was very likely).
So they all stayed on their toes, the only talk among them being the talk of the situation or other things that could make it so that there wasn't just total silence. Total silence was unsettling, as they had all come to mentally decide. They had no idea how long they went on for with nothing to come about, making their way down corridors and short hallways and chambers (which seemed to become more elaborate with each one they passed through, fancier, well and artistically built) with nothing to stop them.
Something just wasn't right... Couldn't be right.
"So, in case any of us really care at the moment..." Ren began quietly, though her voice echoed off the walls, "I've counted about 6 rooms, and a bunch of hallways. With nothing happening."
"Well, it could be worse..." Kira pointed out, "We could've had our heads on stakes by now."
"Can we not talk about any dismemberment or mutilation?" Maru asked flatly. Kira said nothing to that.
"Let's just keep an eye out..." Madoka said, though she knew that she didn't have too, "Alcorin's definitely not up to anything good."
"When is he ever?" Shinobu questioned rhetorically. None of them had to answer that. Anything that remotely involved the psychopath was never good, and it was without a doubt that he had something in store for them.
If he planned on keeping Gingka (and chances are that he did), then nothing good was coming their way. Whenever it came. And that was a very big 'whenever'. It wasn't too much longer after that that Zyro could swear that he heard something. He stopped for a moment in the middle of the hallway, and he glanced around, trying not to pay any mind to how small the walls seemed around him. He didn't know where it had come from, or exactly what it was, but he swore he had heard something. Then again, that probably wasn't a good thing.
Considering all they had seen and been through, 'thinking they heard something' was probably enough to be worried.
There was no telling what lurked within these walls.
"Zyro, you okay?" He heard Shinobu ask, and looked towards the rest of the group that had stopped just a couple meters away.
"Oh, uh, yeah..." The raven said, "I just thought I heard something."
"Well, that's probably not good." Madoka speculated.
"Nothing would be in this place..." Ren muttered, "Join the huddle, Zyro, it's probably safer." Zyro half-chuckled at that, and quickly made his way back up with the rest of the group. With that, they continued on, though this time was a bit more less conversation than there previously was as they all made sure to stay on their toes.
Zyro still wasn't sure about what he had heard, or if he had heard anything. There were a lot of things he wasn't sure of in this place - mainly the two pulls that he kept feeling, one weaker than the other.
He was sure that he knew where those came from, and he could take a pretty good guess, but it was a matter of which was coming from who that really made him wonder...
"Let it rip!" Both Takanosuke and Sakyo shouted in unison as what could be a final war cry, both unleashing their Beys at the same time with a determination that was almost visible.
Dragoon and Griffin heard the cries of their bladers, and both face bolts pulsated and glowed in their respective auras as soon as they landed soundly on the ground, not far from Bellerophon.
Both Beys stood side by side, just as Sakyo and Takanosuke did, willing to oblige to every command in a battle that could be their last.
From their last battle, both bladers knew that there was no use in trying to urge Bellerophon to attack, both because it was a Defense type (and strong at that) and that they knew from experience that it would wait for them to attack first.
Luckily, though, they knew some of its tricks this time. Both of the glared across the battlefield at Alcorin, who simply stood there, waiting as patiently as his Bey, with that small smile on his face that most commonly sent chills down one's spine.
It was about time that they wiped that smile off of that stark white face - for real this time.
"Dragoon!"
"Griffin!"
Both Beys heard those cries, and immediately sprang into action, both zooming off to either side (Griffin to the right, Dragoon to the left) and quickly curving back in to supposedly ram into the black, silver, and dark blue Bey that spun in the middle of the floor.
Both Takanosuke and Sakyo knew that it may have been a somewhat predictable move, but they knew that this way they may be able to catch Alcorin off guard - typically, Bellerophon would more than likely do one of two things, and they could only try and be prepared for whatever it did.
Alcorin simply gave a small smile, and lifted one booted foot to tap the tip of it on the stone floor just behind him, which made a resounding echo.
Bellerophon heard the command, and, just before Dragoon and Griffin came in contact with it, it quickly evaded the attacks that were coming at it - or so it had appeared. Both bladers on the other side of the field had expected something of the sort, and Sakyo had managed to hear that top of boot against stone just in time to curve out of the way of hitting Griffin, like Alcorin had undoubtedly wanted, and instead rushed into Bellerophon, where both Beys stood almost stationary, battling for dominance, before both were knocked back several feet.
Griffin curved back around from where it had been, and joined Dragoon once more as it landed softly on the ground, only seeming to wobble for a moment before regaining perfect balance.
Alcorin seemed to waste no time in throwing his hand out in a graceful movement, that smile on his face making all things unreadable.
"Bellerophon!" The albino called out, and the Bey heard the call, immediately taking off straight towards both Griffin and Dragoon with motives that were unknown, but could very easily be guessed.
Bellerophon couldn't attack after all, it wasn't built for that.
"Dragoon!" "Griffin!" Both Beys raced off towards the other in turn, all headed for a single clash that would never come. Takanosuke and Sakyo realized this once they saw Bellerophon's face bolt pulsate and glow a bright blue, followed by a shifting of its top before a large ring of energy was released.
Both bladers tried to pull their Beys back, but weren't quick enough as the bright ring of royal blue forced both Beys back several meters, and even made both bladers stagger slightly from the force that was given off. Both of them managed to stay on their feet, however.
They didn't remember that being that powerful...
Maybe things changed, in a place like this.
Alcorin looked at them for a moment, an almost thoughtful look on his face.
He tilted his head to the side in an almost nonchalant way, and said, "You know, I really don't even see why you too set out here in the first place... You could have just left everything be the way it was, like you were going to." Both Takanosuke and Sakyo commanded their Beys forward, and Alcorin took his left boot and tapped the ground just in front of him, "But somehow you managed to wind yourselves up here.."
All three Beys clashed, though not all head on - Dragoon, just before impact, veered quickly off to the left and past Holy Bellerophon, only to come back around and slam into the back while Griffin rushed it from the front.
Alcorin simply flicked a couple of his fingers off to the side, and the hold that the two Beys had on the former companion of Pegasus (a companionship long since forgotten through the passage of time) lasted for only a few moments before Bellerophon used it's shielded edges to quickly slip through their grasp and off to the side. This caused Griffin and Dragoon to ram into each other only briefly, and Griffin teetered only slightly from the force before retaining it's balance. Takanosuke left out a small breath of relief at that.
"You could have just left it, you know." Alcorin said from across the field, drawing both Bladers's attention, "You were going to decide not to care... You refused their offer to come with you, and yet, even after, you still decided to chase after me anyway, just like them..." Alcorin then frowned, a stoically curious look on his face, "Why is that, I wonder?"
Neither bladers were set on answering him, so they both stayed silent. Alcorin was simply trying to get to them, trying to get under their skin, just like he always did with everyone with that accursed voice of his.
There was no meaning to those words, just trying to rile them up.
They couldn't let that happen.
"Griffin!"
"Dragoon!"
Both Beys immediately complied, and went rushing after Bellerophon again, both bladers knowing that it would be best to end this before anything really bad happened.
But of course, Alcorin just smiled again.
"You're right." He said with a smile and a mock sigh, "This is getting old... Bellerophon!" As expected, Bellerophon heard its master's call, and stood its ground against Dragoon and Griffin as they came ever nearer.
Both Takanosuke and Sakyo narrowed their eyes, preparing themselves for whatever it was that Alcorin would unleash upon them - in their guts, a simple intuition, they felt they knew what was coming.
Alcorin just chuckled at this, his voice echoing along the walls like some cursed whisper, before he placed his feet perfectly together, lowered his head in the slightest, and threw out both of his hands in front of him.
"Special Move! Silent Scream!..."
And, just as before, a high-pitched scream - which caused Takanosuke to flinch a bit - echoed out from Bellerophon as the face bolt pulsated and glowed in its aura of royal blue, followed by the symbols on the Warrior Wheel that created a ring around the rim of where the Warrior and Elemental Wheels met. It then made another high-pitched noise - one that shouldn't be possible for Beys to make, but who were they to say anything about Bellerophon? - as the ring shot of from around the silver, black, and dark blue Bey, creating the same walls they had once seen as it went that would trap both Griffin and Dragoon in its clutches - just like before.
Only this time, the ring didn't stop there, and Sakyo may have noticed this before Takanosuke did.
It was a split moment decision, one that he himself made not have made consciously, and he found himself quickly moving to the younger blader beside him, placing a hand on his middle, and quickly pushing him back by several feet - just in time to get him out of the way of the wall of light that quickly separated them.
Takanosuke didn't expect Sakyo's sudden action, and was therefore very easily pushed backwards and away from the imprisonment that now held Sakyo in check.
It only took a moment for Takanosuke to recover from being being pushed backwards, and his breath almost immediately caught in his throat once he saw the wall of light and energy - this time 6 feet tall - cutting him off from Sakyo.
"S-Sakyo?" The blonde questioned, confusion wracking his brain as he quickly got to his feet. Takanosuke reached out a hand towards the barrier that divided them almost without thinking, and recoiled from the shock it gave off.
Sakyo looked back towards his companion almost helplessly, a silent apology in his eyes that only Takanosuke had ever been able to see - whether or not the boy would forgive him, Sakyo knew he might never know.
"Well, isn't that just sweet..." Alcorin said from the other side of the field, drawing Sakyo's attention. The two of them, aside from the three Beys that still spun, were the only ones within the blue wall that surrounded them, the light making Alcorin look more blue than white at the moment.
Despite Sakyo's actions, however, he was still smiling - one could almost say sweetly if they didn't know there was blood on his hands.
"Looks like it's just you and me, sunshine~" The psychopath said cheerfully, and Sakyo felt chills go down his spine as the albino whistled softly, the high-pitched sound ringing off the walls.
"Oh, boys~!"
The hollow howls of the wolves that guarded most of the entrances and exits made Takanosuke jump, and the blonde immediately glanced around in fear to see all of those dead, lifeless eyes trained on him, faces that would normally be drooling with spittle blank like dolls, but still radiating off the intention kill.
"Takanosuke!... Takanosuke!" Sakyo's panicked voice (..Panicked?... No, he never sounded like that.. Never) snapped the Griffin Blader out of his fearful trance, and his cerulean eyes met with red ones, filled with emotions that were far to prominent now to be Sakyo - or at least not the one he usually knew.
In that split moment, Takanosuke was able to see those images that he had seen so long ago when he had looked at Sakyo, birds, broken glass, red, white, black, splatters of red, an owl, something black slinking past slyly, a screech that he couldn't identify - Takanosuke knew he recognized all those things suddenly all too late, and he knew it was the end.
"Run!" The Dragoon Blader shouted firmly, and Takanosuke didn't even think to hesitate.
The boy immediately took off over to the side where one of the entrances lay unguarded, ducking past the pillars and dashing through the doorway - the wolves in the room almost immediately followed him in pursuit, disappeared just as quickly as Takanosuke had down the corridor.
Sakyo, heart beating rapidly, breathing shallow, dread in his gut, looked back towards Alcorin with a fire in his crimson eyes.
"Don't you dare hurt him!" The Dragoon Blader demanded firmly, and Alcorin just smiled.
"Sorry, but I'm afraid dear Takanosuke is gonna have to go." The psychopath said casually, "I'm not just going to let him take him from me, like they all want too... But you don't have worry about him - you'll be seeing him soon enough."
Sakyo once more felt chills run down his spine, and he questioned at first while his legs and arms were shaking, why he was finding it hard to breath at the moment and why he couldn't think straight.
What was this called?...
He couldn't remember.
"Enough of this." Alcorin said suddenly, a frown marking his face as his voice once more overlayed with another, more accursed sound, "This has gone on long enough."
Alcorin then thrust his left hand out in front of him, and Sakyo immediately felt something grab him around his torso - nothing physical, nothing that could be seen, (he knew that much), but a force that wrapped around him, grabbed him and pulled him into the air as Alcorin's bidding.
The Dragoon Blader felt his heart pound in his chest, and he attempted to struggle even though he knew that it was hopeless against someone with telekinesis, but that wasn't on his mind. His own well-being was the last thing on his mind at the moment.
However, he was forced out of his own occupied thoughts once he felt the force around him give a sharp pull, and the only thing he saw was devilish red eyes before he was slammed over into one of the many stone pillars that supported the upper balcony and his mind nearly exploded in pain.
He gave a sharp cry at the unexpected impact, and swore he heard something crack in his shoulder - because of the pain that blossomed there, he could only assume that he actually had.
Almost as soon as hit the column was he pulled back and then slammed into it again, side first.
Then again, hard, and he felt something break.
Then again, harder, and his shoulder made a sound that echoed to his collarbone and almost made him sick.
Then, unexpectedly, he was pulled away from the column, pain wracking his mind and the sight of royal blue light, and white and black and red, filled his vision along with black spots, and he was suddenly pulled back, and was slammed into the wall behind him.
Sakyo never got time to register the blow before he was pulled forward and then slammed back again, and again, and again, and it was all just pain, everywhere.
Then he was pulled away farther, and he suddenly felt the air rushing down him as he himself was forced upwards, and he slammed into the ceiling, back first.
He heard more than felt a crack somewhere, and he tasted metal on his tongue, the impact forcing him to cough out the blood that rose in his throat.
After that, he was quickly brought back down again, though he was not slammed against the floor or the ceiling again as he had expected.
Instead, he was suspended just a few feet above the stone ground for a moment, before the force that had latched onto him suddenly let him drop.
The Dragoon Blader grunted and groaned briefly at that before the sounds coming from him weakened into a pained whimpering as he was slowly forced to acknowledge how much everything really hurt.
Sakyo found himself unable to move but for the small amount of twitching that his body spasmodically did anyway, but even if he could he wouldn't want too.
Everything hurt... Everything.. His vision was filled with black spots around the edges, blurring every now and then and making him wish so much for unconsciousness...
But that didn't come, because why would it?
Clearly, the god that he had stopped believing in - or so he had convinced himself - would give no mercy.
All he could was lay there in silent and excruciating agony, just barely hearing booted footsteps against cold stone, and only barely seeing through continuously blurring vision as a figure dressed all in white, entirely white, made of white and red and black, approached and knelt down before him.
As he lay there, breathing erratically, suffering thoroughly, Sakyo realized what it was that he had been feeling before and now.
Fear.
A dearest old friend of his.
Alcorin knelt down before the broken blader, and, unceremoniously, grabbed him by the collar of his trench-coat and yanked him up until they were face to face, ignoring the sharp breath of pain that the young man inhaled upon being moved so suddenly.
Of that, Alcorin didn't give a damn.
"What is it?" He asked sharply, that once playful tone gone from his voice and eyes, "What are you thinking?... 'Why am I doing this'? 'Why is this happening'? 'What will this achieve'?... What do you think? You thought I did this all for nothing? That I would just let go of him afterall of this?!"
Sakyo didn't answer.
Of course, that was to be expected.
How could he really care when he felt nothing but pain?
Alcorin's expression did not change, but he continued to look at Sakyo a moment longer before he simply let him drop to the ground again, ignoring the pained grunt the younger gave off. Alcorin then stood up, and stepped back several feet with the same displeased look on his face.
"I don't care whether he hates me or not..." The albino stated, "I don't care what I have to do... You can't have him..."
Once more, Alcorin put his hand out in front of him, and Sakyo braced for the force that he knew would grab him, and then would again slam him against all surfaces of this room without mercy.
What he didn't expect, however, was to feel that same force grab him around his ankles, and slowly pull him upwards until he was dangling in the air by his legs.
Sakyo's breath hitched, and then his mind went back briefly to Takanosuke, who he had forgotten about momentarily.
Oh god...
Takanosuke...
Suddenly, the force around his ankles pulled him sharply upwards, before slamming him down on the floor head first - hard.
Sakyo gave a loud cry at the impact, and he heard something crack.
He was then dragged away quickly, raised sharply, and then slammed down again, and he cried out again, and saw blood.
Red soon clouded one side of his vision, and his fingertips suddenly felt numb, but everything still hurt, it hurt so much... He wanted to beg for it to stop, whether verbally or mentally, but that was worthless, and he knew it.
There would be no mercy, not from Alcorin. Never.
And certainly not from the smiling figure that he saw when he was quickly raised into the air again, who looked strangely like someone else he'd seen before, staring at him with all due pleasure and insanity in those red eyes that mirrored another's.
And then he was slammed down again, and something splattered, red.
And again, and there was more splattering, everywhere.
The impact this time sounded and felt wet...
And again. Something broke and gave.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And then again, but, by this time, Alcorin wasn't slamming anything down head first but a dangling, lifeless corpse, now with just barely half a skull remaining.
The albino breathed heavily, and then let Sakyo's body drop to the ground, which was messy, covered in blood, and bone, and other juices, he was sure.
Alcorin stood looking at nothing for a moment, the smell of blood and death and other things reaching him from the body only a couple meters away, but he gave no reaction. The blue wall that had surrounded the two of them had disappeared, along with Bellerophon at his own will, with Dragoon now laying motionless on the ground.
A mirror image of what was left of its blader.
Griffin, however, was nowhere to be found.
But Alcorin didn't care about that. There was no reason to stay here now. He had to deal with those other little pests, wherever they would be.
Almost as if nothing happened, Alcorin turned and walked away towards one of the many entrances of the room, before disappearing altogether, and leaving the mangled, blood-soaked corpse of what was once a human being to the wolves.
And, of course, to the one who had stood staring with glee...
Takanosuke ran.
He ran endlessly, fueled now by nothing but adrenaline and fear as he heard the loud pattering of numerous paws behind him only by meters. How long he had been running for, he was unable to tell, but he could only guess how long from how much his legs burned, and how his chest and side ached effortlessly as he did everything he could to stay focused on running, and watching everything in front of him to assure that he didn't trip, or reach a dead end, or make some mistake that would cost him his life. He didn't even care where he was running too, he just knew he had to get away. He also knew that if he hit a dead end, then it was all over.
Takanosuke quickly turned a corner down another corridor lined with torches, and the wolves followed, as they were ordered, as he knew they would.
He just had to keep running... Keep running... Just like Sakyo told him...
So Takanosuke kept running.
Kept running and running until he could barely breathe, and even then he didn't quit, not as long as he could still hear the wolves behind him. He turned corners swiftly, cerulean eyes filled with fear but still alert nonetheless.
He was sure these corridors were endless, that he would be running forever, until he saw stairs up ahead. Strange that this place had stairs, but Takanosuke didn't care whether it did or not at the moment. He raced towards them, barely breathing, kept moving by nothing but adrenaline, and hastily climbed them to the upper floor with a mixture of quick steps and fast crawling - he didn't care how he got up the stairs, he just needed to go.
In his hurry, Takanosuke hadn't been looking where he was going, and was therefore shocked when he found himself running into something and then toppling over onto the stone floor.
The blonde grunted as he landed on the cold stone, and heard another such sound from in front of him, and then several other voices.
For a moment, Takanosuke forgot about the animals that were chasing him.
"Takanosuke?" Asked a familiar voice, and said blonde opened his eyes and looked up. He was surprised - though, deep down, he also wasn't - to come face to face with Ren, with Shinobu, Kite, Zyro, and the rest of the others standing beside and behind her.
Takanosuke lay there for a moment in both confusion and mild shock, before Zyro offered a hand up to him to help him up.
Gratefully, he took it, and quickly rose to his feet, almost in unison with Kira. So that's who he ran into...
"Could've watched where you were going..." The mutlicolor-haired blader mumbled irritably as he stood up properly and brushed himself off.
"What are you doing here, Takanosuke?" Madoka asked, which seemed to be what many of the others wanted to know as well.
"W-well..." The Griffin Blader began breathlessly, "Same as you, really..."
"Didn't you say that you didn't wanna come along this time?" Ren asked somewhat skeptically.
"Yeah, we did..." Takanosuke said while rubbing the base of his neck slightly, "But, afterwards, me and Sakyo deci-"
At the sound of the elder's name, Takanosuke suddenly stopped mid-sentence, and then he remembered why he had run into them, why he had been running in the first.
Because Sakyo had told him too, to get away from the wolves and-
The wolves.
The blonde's breath suddenly hitched, and he fearfully looked back down towards the stairs that he had come up. There appeared to be no sign of them, but what was he to say for sure? They could be waiting. They were not ordinary wolves.
"Hey, Takanosuke, what's wrong?" Ren asked, suddenly concerned at the sudden change in behavior that the Griffin Blader was showing.
"We have to go." The boy said suddenly, looking at all of them with fearful eyes, "Before they come back, we have to go!"
"Wait, 'before who comes back'?" Kite asked, confused.
"The wolves!" The blonde explained, "They were chasing me, and they were right behind me! That's why I was running!"
"Since when does Alcorin have wolves?" Benkei asked, glancing down towards the staircase Takanosuke had come from.
"Well, I don't know, but I don't want to wait to find out." Madoka said, sounding more than ready to go, "Come on, we should go.. This place is probably crawling with things that want to kill us."
With that, all of them set off at a running pace, Takanosuke being the one to more or less lead the pack - it was actually quite impressive on how much he was able to just go, considering how tired he was, how weakened everything so far had left him that none of the others knew about.
The boy figured it was probably the adrenaline, that will that Sakyo had given him many times before, to keep running and not look back.
So that's what all of them kept doing, hurrying through the halls and paying extra mind to where they were going.
The went down corridors, through rooms that branched off several ways, and down more halls.
They never heard the patter of numerous feet behind them, but they kept at a brisk pace anyway, because they knew that you could never be too careful.
It was only after what seemed like the longest time did Zyro suddenly stop in his tracks, making Eight, Kite, and Benkei run into him from behind, making him stumble and nearly fall over.
"Geez, Zyro, what was that for?" Kite questioned sternly, and everyone else stopped as well, some of them just a little ways more ahead.
"Are you okay?" Madoka asked, concerned. Zyro nodded, just barely glancing over towards her as he continued to look down one hall that they had just been about to pass.
It was lit with torches, but much less than the rest of the corridors they had gone through so far. They were farther spaced apart, so the corridor was much darker than the rest - Zyro couldn't tell where it lead to.
"Yeah, I'm okay," The boy said, "I just... Felt something.."
"Are we talking 'good feeling', or 'bad feeling'?" Kira asked.
"I-I don't know, it's just... I feel something from down there." The Ifraid Blader explained, unsure, "Like, it feels familiar, it's weird..."
All of them were silent, save for much of their heavy breathing, before Maru spoke.
"That kid..." She began, sounding uneasy, "He... He said that you've been able to feel Gingka, right?" Everyone turned their eyes to the small pinkette in surprise, and realized that she had a point. Yeah... The kid had said that. "Gingka's here, and you said that it's familiar, so..." Maru almost seemed to think aloud, "Maybe it's him that you're feeling. I mean, it's not impossible, right?"
"Maru has a point.." Madoka said resolutely, "It definitely could be."
Whether or not she meant for the hope in her voice to appear, no one was sure, but they all heard it.
As much as it was dangerous to have such hopes in a situation - in a place - like this, most of them couldn't help but feel the same way.
"Wait, what about Gingka?" Takanosuke questioned, suddenly confused, "I thought he was... You know..."
"It's a bit complicated..." Ren explained with a small sweat drop, "We can explain later.."
"Well, if we're so sure it's him, then let's go!" Benkei said with determination, and they were able to feel it at almost an equal volume. Because of this, they were all able to decide fairly quickly what they would do. Soon enough, they were setting down the barely lit corridor.
"You realize we might die, right?" Kira asked flatly as he, too, went along with all of this.
"I think we've got that down by now.." Shinobu responded, though it wasn't nearly as bitter as most of his previous responses to half of Kira's words had been.
At a slower, but still brisk pace, all of them journeyed down the mysterious corridor, following Zyro's lead as he almost really did seem to be pulled by whatever it was he felt.
All of it was just one long hallway, with only a select few twists and turns that lead them on, as well as one staircase that lead them upwards, and then the hall kept going.
However, it didn't take long after that staircase for them to see the ending in sight, which appeared to be a room, or antechamber.
They found the latter to be true, as they kept to a small, circular space with a wide staircase leading upwards into the main chamber.
Here was where Zyro felt that pull strongest.
Hearts pounding (Zyro's the hardest, with Takanosuke's rivaling for an almost entirely different reason), all of them made their way up the stairs, both cautious and wondering what they would find in this large room that they had come too.
Their answers were soon answered as they reached the top of the stairs, and many of them felt their hearts skip a beat at what - no, who - they saw at the other end of the room. It was dark in there, and the room was rather long, but it was still evident who was there, sitting almost sideways in a chair that was engraved into the rest of the room.
Almost disbelieving of what he saw, breathless, awed, and - above all - relieved, Zyro managed to breathe out only one word. Right now, it may have been the only word he needed to hear.
"Gingka..."