Kororo began to descend towards the ground, once reaching land; Hao jumped off and lifted Opacho to the floor too. HoroHoro leaped off, his spirit vanishing. They looked around at the deserted area they had landed in. Hao gave yet another sigh followed by an "Hmmm…"
"Okay now what?" said HoroHoro looking behind him. "They'll be here soon." HoroHoro pressed his hand to his forehead. "Hey! Who's that?" he said pointing.
"Hmmm?" Hao said again. "Where?"
"Oh. It's Eliza. Faust must be in Patch." HoroHoro turned around and looked at Hao. He was eyeing the ground and circling on the spot, trying to see anything different.
"Hmmm…" Hao muttered again.
"Hmmm! Hmmm! Hmmm!" sang Opacho skipping around kicking stones. "La! La! La!" she happily laughed.
"I…!" said Hao loudly opening his eyes and looking at the sky and paused. "We…!" he said loudly again not sure how to start off his statement. "You…!" he then narrowed his eyes to the ground again. "Hmmm…"
"Well c'mon then you're the one with the brains not me!" friendly snapped HoroHoro.
"I know that!" laughed Hao. "I'm just thinking. Maybe this could be a test…"
"What kind of test?"
"A test of the great spirits. Hmmm…" Hao trailed off. HoroHoro looked to the sky.
"Hey it sure has gotten dark eh?" he smiled. The sky was full of beautiful twinkling stars. The sky was a perfect violet black. Hao summoned a small flame at the tips of his fingers on his right hand. He knelt down to have a closer look at something on the ground.
"HoroHoro come and have a look at this." He said staring at it waving his hand for HoroHoro to approach him. HoroHoro quickly came over to him and knelt down too. The flames lit up the sandy soil and there on the ground, was a triangular shape, similar to a pyramid. One each side was a star like symbol. "Hey you know what? I recognize that symbol. Yeah! The Buddhist monk star!"
"Oh I see…" said HoroHoro nodding his head. "I see…"
"You have no idea what that is do you?" said Hao looking at him with one eyebrow raised.
"Not a clue!"
"Well it symbolizes life and nature of the Buddhist monks. Each point represents an element. This is exactly the same kind of thing I needed to master to reincarnate myself." Hao carefully stroked the top of the pyramid. "I wonder what we need to do with it?" HoroHoro tried to lift it of the ground but it was solidly attached to the earth.
"Well, we definitely can't take it as a souvenir!" said HoroHoro trying to make a joke out of it.
"Heh. Are you always this punctual?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Never mind."
"Hao-Sama! Horo-Kun! Opacho found something!" yelled Opacho jumping up and down on the spot. Hao and HoroHoro approached her. She was holding a larger box made of stone in her hands. She passed it to Hao. Hao held it with one hand so he could examine it with the flames of his other hand. He suddenly realized the bottom of it was hollow.
"Hmm. There is a hole in this." Hao passed it to HoroHoro so he could have a look. HoroHoro turned it over so the hold was facing upwards. There was a sinking narrow hole inside it.
"Hey I think this would fit over the little pyramid." Said HoroHoro walking over to the pyramid, Opacho and Hao followed kneeling down on each side of the pyramid and HoroHoro slipped it over the top of it. Nothing happened.
"Maybe you've put it on the wrong way. Try turning it." Opted Hao. HoroHoro lifted it, turned it 90 decrees and then place it on top of it. Still nothing happened. He did the same thing again but still nothing happened. And they had tried all 3 sides of it.
"Now what?" sighed HoroHoro.
"Let me have a look at that." Hao said holding his hand out to him. HoroHoro gave it to him and Hao had another closer look. "There is a message on here…" muttered Hao trying very hard to read the faded Japanese traditional symbols. "Something about team element…erm…element mix? Team work?" Hao gave it back to HoroHoro and held his enflamed fingers above the strange mysterious object.
"Team work? Mixed elements? Ice and Fire?" HoroHoro looked at Hao and Hao returned the look with one of his own.
"Now where are we going to get ice and fire in the middle of the desert?" sighed Opacho patting her chin.
"Opacho, you really are so filled with wonder." Smiled Hao. HoroHoro pointed the end of his Ikupasui into the hole of the block of stone filling it with ice. He then held it above the pyramid with both hands; Hao blew a force of fire under the block and over the miniature pyramid, causing a few water drops to fall into the blaze. HoroHoro carefully and slowly began to place the block onto the pyramid pushing it through the fire. Water ran out of the edges of the block once HoroHoro had placed it fully down, and then a bright white light shone lighting up all the symbols. It shone so beautifully and took the effect of sun streaming through the leaves of a forest. Hao and HoroHoro smiled at one another, Opacho gazed in awe and excitement.
"All Right!" cheered Hao and HoroHoro giving each other a friendly high five. The bright light grew into a huge beaming glow, and the moment Silva and the rest of them reached the ground and began to run the last short distance to get to them, the three of them, we're gone.
"Where am I?" Hao blinked and looked around him. It was daylight and he was inside a room of some sort. He blinked again and realized he was stood right in the center of a room from his home of 1000 years ago. "Wait a second, this isn't the Patch Village. This is…" Hao walked to the door and slid it across to peer out site. "Is this where I was born?" Suddenly a man wearing a tall hat and a very long sleeved white patterned coat ran in front of the house and began to violently knock on the door of the house opposite. "Hey!" said Hao jumping out side to approach the man. "Where is this place?" he called. The man ignored him. "Hey I am talking to you!" Hao attempted to walk directly up to this guy but the door of the house swung open.
"It has happened!" cried in man in desperation. "It has happened!" he repeated. The man at the door was wearing the same thing as him. He looked at his visitor in shock.
"No. The worst has come." Shuddered the man stood at the door. "He has really gone too far!" the pair of them began to run out of the street and round the corner closer the center of the small village. Hao ran after them.
"Come back! What is the big rush!" he called slightly confused. He realized that these two men weren't the only ones going in the same direction. There were women and children, people wearing these tall hats and simply different cultural shamans running towards the center of the village. They all were muttering among themselves, whispering. Hao dodged in and out of them trying to catch up to these two strange men who he had seen earlier.
"It's unthinkable," said some one in the crowd. Hao looked over his shoulder; he realized maybe these people couldn't see him. Was he invisible? Soon, the crowd of shamans and Hao all reached the unknown destination. There were groups of people surrounding something in the center of the entire crowd.
"What is happening!" shouted Hao.
"Asakura Hao!" yelled some one in the crowd. Hao blinked and looked around for the person calling his name.
"Yes?" he called back.
"Have you gone insane!" screamed another shaman.
"It's not sane for a man to go up against the Imperial Court!" cried another. Hao gasped. He's been through this once before.
"What is going on?" called Hao. "Where am I?" he cried. He began to push all the people in front of him out of his way, they moved from the pushes but they did not falter. It was like he wasn't even there. Once he reached the source of this entire problem in the center of all the chaos and panic, he was staring strait up and a man stood upon a platform. He was smiling out to the crowd with his hands stretched out.
"Why can't you believe in me?" he said calmly. Hao blinked up at this figure.
"That is…" he gasped. His eyes widened, white. He couldn't believe what he was seeing before him. "That is…" he repeated quietly.
"Is he really human like us?" he heard someone whisper behind him. Hao tried to take all of it in.
"That is me…" he muttered in shock.
"He's a demon with a human face." Said someone else. Hao tried to turn to see the person who said this, but it was impossible to tell.
"He'll possess us!" yelled someone on the other side of the crowd. Hao's face was filled with terror.
"Why am I here?" he called out. No one paid any attention to him.
"I can't keep up with him!" called one of the two men he had seen earlier.
"Why can't you believe in me?" the tall figure stood in the center of them all said again. "That is the form that nature should take. I am correct." He said.
"I have to get away from this place!" yelled Hao barging through the crowd, and again, the people took impact on his shoves but still did no pay any attention to his presence with them. Hao could still here the preacher continue the pointless speech among the people.
"Humans are such fools. They don't value their existence. That is the form that nature should take. I am correct." Once Hao had freed himself from the pack of shamans, he stumbled along the ground and fell to his knees. He gasped and took a breath looking all around him.
"What am I doing here? Why am I in this place?" he said getting to his feet, when he turned around, all of them had vanished. "Why am I here?" he said again shocked at the disappearance. He took a few steps further away from the town center, and come across what appeared to be a piece of clothing. Hao walked towards and it and picked it up. It was orange, and it was torn. The sudden shock ran through his mind. "No…" he murmured. "Opacho!" he called his eyes looking all around him. "Opacho!" he began to run desperately further into the strange place he had been placed for unknown reasons. He was running down a path closed in by trees now over looking the town, his face filled with terror. "Opacho!" He soon came across yet another object in front of him. He sped up and approached this white piece of shattered wood. It had black wavy markings on it. "No…HoroHoro…" he whispered. "HoroHoro!" he shouted running faster. Suddenly he found himself in a wide-open field surrounded by trees. In front of him in the center of the field stood a huge tree. "Where am I now? What's going on?" He looked closely at the tree, hanging from the branches hung HoroHoro and Opacho, unconscious. "HoroHoro! Opacho!" yelled Hao attempting to run towards the tree, but was suddenly forced back away from it and hit the ground hard. He groaned in pain and then got to his feet. "HoroHoro! Opacho!"
"Go back." came a very loud voice.
"Huh? Who are you?" he shouted angrily.
"Go back. You should not have come here."
"I am not going anywhere!"
"Go back." boomed the voice.
"I asked you a question!" Hao summoned a ball of fire in his hands and threw it with full force and speed at the strange shield, but it failed and threw itself back towards him. He hit it away but it threw him to the ground just the same.
"It's useless," said the voice. "You can't reach it." Hao sighed angrily. "Go back."
"You are so irritating!" shouted Hao.
"Go back." The voice continued. "Or else you won't be able to make it back."
"What?" gasped Hao. Suddenly the whole scenery around him began to dissolve and disappear. Until there was nothing left but darkness and this huge mysterious tree.
"Only one will remain. Go back."
"I won't leave here, with out them!" yelled Hao. He summoned more power and then ran towards this shield attempting to knock it away. But sadly it did not work and he was thrown back to the ground. Hao lay there in pain gasping for breath.
"Are you going to choose death?" boomed the voice.
"No. I didn't choose anything." Hao slowly got to his feet again and looked towards the branches his two companions lay upon. "I am not going anywhere with out them!" And once again, Hao summoned power and raced towards this strange power to attack…
But then suddenly, the tree vanished into the light…
"You have done well…my brother…"
Hao opened his eyes, and he was lay upon a field in the Patch Village. And lay next to him fast asleep, was his two most prized possessions, his most loyal friends in the world. Hao smiled, and sighed, relieved that the ordeal was finally over…