Cross Chapter XVI: Battle Ground

Satoru, Masaru and Kakeru stared between Hikaru, their sweet, innocent, little sister who apparently had a secret life in another world and Lantis a man whom she'd met from said other world. Cephiro. It had been difficult coaxing information out of her. So far they'd gotten that she was a Magic Knight and he was a Magic Swordsman whatever that meant. They met defending that realm from monsters and invaders. The only other information they'd gathered was that she had been there a total of two times but that she had been there for months during her first visit and a few weeks during her second. That was it. It didn't make sense. When? How?

"It maybe hard to believe..." Hikaru slowly continued. "The time I spent in Cephiro only lasted a second or two in this world."

Satoru cleared his throat "How is that possible? You were there for months but only for a second?"

It was Lantis who fielded that question. "In Cephiro, a persons strength of heart determines everything."

Hikaru continued Lantis' vague explanation. "When Umi, Fuu and I were summoned there, we all talked about how much we wanted to go home. We were worried about things like tournaments and missing classes," She snorted, "playing hero..." She closed her eyes for a moment, a look of shame and disgust washed over her. She opened her eyes and the look was gone. "I believe we were able to affect the time that passed on Earth because we wanted to go back as if nothing had happened, as if no time had passed at all... How could we explain our time away? How could we worry our families like that?"

It was a hard concept to wrap their heads around.

"Was this the reason you were so upset in junior high?" Satoru questioned. She nodded. "But there's more to it isn't there?"

For not the first time that night Hikaru tensed.

"Hikaru," Masaru started up. "we saw... I mean you said that..." his lips turned into a nervous uncomfortable grin. "You, uh. Did you..." He couldn't bring himself to ask if she had killed someone. That was impossible. Their pure and innocent Hikaru? No way. Maybe they'd heard it wrong when she'd approached Lantis. Or maybe she'd remembered wrong? "Did somebody die?"

Lantis flinched at Hikaru's side. He shot Masaru a deadly look. His eyes were livid. Was he angry with Masaru for asking such a question or Hikaru?

Kakeru gasped and looked from Masaru to Hikaru. "Hikaru didn't- there's no way-"

"People died over there!" Her head was hung low and she was shaking. She had forgiven herself for the sins of the past but that didn't mean that she had ever wanted her family to know. The memories her brothers had seen she had been able contextualize because she had lived it. While they saw glimpses she remembered everything in sharp detail and reliving the events again in a flood like that had hurt more than it had in a long time.

"Hikaru," Lantis hissed her name but he sounded more concerned than mad when he addressed her. "Stop-"

"Presea... Princess Emeraude..." She looked to Lantis her eyes glossy. "Your brother and then Eagle... their deaths were all my fault."

The brothers listened in shock.

"The truth is," her voice quivered, "I killed-"

"Enough!" Lantis snarled. He shifted his legs out from under him and pulled her against his chest hugging her fiercely, feeling all the pain that she felt. He didn't care what her brothers thought in that moment. Circumstances be damned. "Can you not see what these questions are doing to her?" He looked at them all dangerously. He would protect her even if it was from her own kin. She was shaking again and he could hear her sniffling and it near broke his heart to see her again in such pain. He pressed his chin into her hair. "It's alright Hikaru. You don't have to say anymore." He rubbed her back reassuringly but kept on sizing up her brothers.

Kakeru and Masaru's eyes flared at Lantis' forwardness but faltered under the man's protective stare. Lantis was as genuinely concerned with their sister as they were. Like it or not the two had a history. Regardless of their approval she loved this man before them and he clearly loved her with everything in his being. Lantis the normally calm and complacent was raw with emotion. In that moment they truly believed that he had been in her room not with ill intent but with concern for her and her safety.

Kakeru was the first to cave. "Hikaru," Kakeru said softly. "It's okay Hikaru. I understand." An understatement. He was more lost now than before but that didn't matter. What mattered was her. She wasn't the type of girl to cry to get what she wanted. In fact he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her break down into a fit of tears. She was more the type to grin and bare any hardship.

Masaru moaned beside his brothers. His own eyes were tearing as he couldn't stand seeing his little sister in pain and felt even worse knowing he'd had some hand putting her in this state. "Hikaru I swear we're not mad anymore just please stop crying."

"I'm sorry..." She croaked against Lantis' shirt.

Finally Satoru said directing his attention at Lantis. "This isn't over. We will be having a conversation you and I." He saddened focusing on the young woman in Lantis' arms. "I remember her sorrow back then. One day she came home and she was happy not her old self but she wasn't broken anymore. Clearly you played your part in healing her. For that you have my thanks." He bowed to Lantis. "We can figure the rest out tomorrow."

Lantis nodded but kept Hikaru tight against him. I love you. He thought to her desperately. He could feel all her dark thoughts. You are good. You are kind. I love you for all that you are. Always remember that.

Finally Hikaru was beginning to calm down when they both felt something outside the Shidou home. Hikaru pulled out of Lantis' embrace and on her feet faster than her brothers could blink. As pale as she had been from her nightmare any remaining color in her face drained out completely. She walked towards the window of the living room.

"Hikaru?" Satoru called.

Lantis stood as well and was heading towards her. He felt the disturbance; it was the same as when he had been in Cephiro. Something she uttered stopped him cold. "Z-Zagato..."

No. He thought. Sakuya... He felt before he saw the dark aura surround his beloved pulling her away.

"Hikaru!" it was Masaru shouting her name as he and his other brothers jumped to their feet too.

"Lantis what is this?" Kakeru yelled.

There was a shimmer of yellow around her; it jolted Lantis out of his stupor. He lunged for her but his hand cut through the air and his momentum sent him against the wall. He turned facing the Shidou brothers their expressions mirroring the look of confusion, fear and horror he wore. Hikaru was gone.

Umi paid off the taxi driver and broke into a run as soon as her shoes hit pavement. She reached the Shidou's front door and rang the bell furiously until Satoru pale faced opened the door.

"Where is she?" The question came out more like a bark as she pushed passed him into their home not stopping to remove her shoes.

"U-Umi?" Kakeru looked as shaken as Satoru and glancing Masaru wasn't fairing any better.

She zeroed in on Lantis he met her eyes. "What happened? Where's Hikaru?"

His eye brows furrowed under his shaggy hair. "Gone."

"Gone?!" She was vaguely aware of the Shidou brothers circling her and Lantis. She shared in the pain and confusion of the room. Hikaru was family to her too.

Lantis wiped his face in an attempt to compose himself. "The shadows took her. I tried to follow her aura but I lost it once she went to the other side.."

"Cephiro?"

Lantis narrowed his eyes. "No."

Anger flowed through her. She clenched her fists so tight that small ice crystals began to form and evaporate creating mist around her hands. The effect did not go unnoticed but before anyone could comment the floor shook violently under them. They heard a terrible roar and the sound of Hikari barking from the yard.

"What now?" Masaru cried as he and Kakeru grabbed each other for support.

"The Wind Knight." Lantis said.

"Fuu!" Umi shouted over him at the same time and went running to the back yard. The rest of them followed suit behind her.

What greeted them was a small crater. Fuu, poked her head out raising from a crouch. Hikari whined but waged his tail.

"Fuu!" Umi shouted again.

After a moment of focusing Fuu's eyes lit with recognition. "Miss Umi!"

Lantis stepped forward. He covered the distance between himself and Fuu and offered his hand to get her over the dirt pile. "Sir Lantis what has happened to Miss Hikaru?" She took his hand and he pulled her up with such ease that it was almost like she floated out of the crater. A testament to Lantis's strength or Fuu's magic, they were not sure. Kakeru and Masaru collectively sunk to their knees disbelieving the sight before them.

"She has been taken from us. I am going to get her back." He half turned and glanced at Satoru who stood powerless beside his brothers.

Satoru swallowed, "I thought you said you lost her when she went... over there?"

"Indeed. But I suspect I can find her with this." He outstretched his arm and something flew passed Satoru in a rush. In the time it took Satoru to blink there was a large object in Lantis' hand. The man's strange sword hilt? The gem in the center glowed and to the three brothers' astonishment Lantis' clothing changed. Armor grew over the man's chest, shoulders, forearms, shins and feet. A cape flowed from behind and his clothing turned black with a protective outer layer over his pants.

Fuu caught on to his intent first. "Ah, that's right. You can track her with the pendant you gave her!"

Umi clapped a fist into her palm, "Oh yeah!" Hikaru had told Umi and Fuu about how she had used the pendant in the past to track his whereabouts and how he had used his sorcery with it during their battle with Debonair to help them out. She walked beside him and wrapped her arms around his waist. She felt him tense and she looked up at him seriously. "Don't get any weird ideas. I'm going with you."

"Hn." He nodded.

Fuu approached him as well although she was not as forward as Umi. "I would also like to accompany you. Who knows what we may find."

With his free hand he drew Fuu against his other side. His arm rested over her shoulders, "stay close. Do not lose focus." With that he closed his eyes. There was a flutter of sparks and then a full beam of light exploded from the sword hilt. It gathered power glowing brighter. The same golden yellow shimmer wrapped around the trio and then there was only Satoru, Kakeru, Masaru and the whimpering Hikari left in the yard.

This place... Hikaru had been somewhere very similar to it before. It was dark and the atmosphere was heavy. It was like the other Cephiro- or the shadow planes she had battled with Nova in so many times... Zagato's aura felt stronger here. She heard footsteps coming towards her.

"So nice of you to come to this realm without a fight."

He didn't sound quite like Zagato. She focused as a man came into sight. He didn't exactly look like Zagato either. His hair was dark blue almost black towards the back he looked younger than her old foe too. She remembered what Lantis had shown her in her minds eye. The Magic Swordsman had faced this man down before heralding to Earth.

Her eyes narrowed, "Sakuya, is it?"

He smiled, stopping about fifteen feet away from her. "So you know of me? How is that Miss Pillar?"

"Tsk." She clenched her teeth at the title. "The Pillar is no more."

He tilted his head. "Is that so? Can you be so sure?"

"I abolished it myself! Cephiro is a land for those who love it. It is their hearts that support that land. That was my decree!"

"And yet, I can see it in you as clear as day." His face hardened. "To think that you would inherit the power of the late Princess. That your heart should be strongest..."

Hikaru in her pajamas facing him down was probably about as nonthreatening as she could get but she stood her ground. "What are you talking about?"

He huffed. "There's so much you don't know, so much you refuse to know... How sad that the Creator would allow such a negligible Pillar. Such a deluded sense of the deserving."

"What do you want?" She hollered.

Lightning cracked behind him, "I will never forgive you for what you did to mother and father."

"I don't understand!" she rasped feeling ill. There was a sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. "Who are you-"

"Playing dumb? Or just plain stupid? You know them. You murdered them. Princess Emeraude and High Priest Zagato!"

She felt like she'd taken a body blow. Any fight in her had fizzled out at his words. She broke into a chilling sweat and stood motionless.

He drew the concealed pistol and fired.

TBC

Author's Notes: Cliffhanger! Dun! Dun! Dun! I have been trying to figure out how this scene would unfold for over five years and it finally came together in a rush at 4 in the morning. Yeah! Emeraude and Zagato?! Had a son? When? Where? How? Stay tuned to find out.

Someone messaged this to me can anyone translate? Hola! Muy buenas ideas tengo que decir jejeje te felicito por tratar de terminar tu historia y aqui te seguire esperando. Thanks. Review, fav and follow if you're in it for the long haul. ^-^