Chapter 22: Shadow
After returning to the Elemental Research Laboratory, the group ends up receiving the Blue Candle from the head researcher, and the rest of the team is thankful for Lloyd and the others rescuing Kate. There was also some brief talk of the Pope losing face for the stunt he pulled in the Coliseum with the dragon and Zelos, but that was not important enough to warrant any further attention at the moment.
Thus, after a quick escape from Meltokio, the group decided to focus back on their original goal, and used their Rheairds to fly back to the Temple of Darkness to pact with Shadow. Along the way though, Lloyd brought something up to the others "So once we're done with Shadow, we just need to form a pact with Luna in Sylvarant, right?"
"That's not that simple, remember? Luna requested that we reunite her with Aska before she'd do anything with us." Raine's reminder made Lloyd chuckle and say "I know, I know, but I'm just making sure the others know when we'll be breaking the last mana link."
"Hmm, that's true. We need to start considering just where we're going to go once the worlds split apart…" Regal remarks, leading to Zelos saying in a laid-back manner "Let's not worry about that right now, we got plenty of time to think about that before we see Luna."
"I suppose you're right, but you better plan on taking this matter seriously, Zelos." Sheena says, to which Zelos grins and replies "You think I don't know? I'm going to take it as seriously as I do everything else." "…That's the problem, really." Sheena groans in response.
It only takes a few minutes after that conversation for everyone to land on the ground outside the temple entrance, and as they move towards the heavy darkness Lloyd reaches into his coat and pulls out the blue candle, which is a mound of purple wax wrapped inside a heat-resistant glass sphere. The flame on top of the wick was dark-blue with a black center, but it provided no illumination until the group walked into the temple itself.
The darkness keeping them away was now instead replaced with an eerie but fitting violet glow. "Well, better than nothing I guess…" Genis says, his tone indicating that he felt a little frightened by the environment. "The mana definitely feels unstable here, especially compared to other temples." Raine notes not long afterwards.
"Well, let's take a long around and see what's up. Just don't stray too far from the blue candle." Riku's remark leads to the group sticking close behind Lloyd as they advance further into the cavern. A quick trip across a small white bridge leads to the group walking into a temple-like structure, and on the other side of the walls they find themselves inside an area with bleak and very ancient looking architecture.
"So this is what the temple is like on the inside…This place is even more foreboding than Volt's temple." Sheena comments, her body trembling slightly in fear before Zelos says "It's called the Temple of Darkness for a reason, my dear dear Sheena. Oooh, maybe we'll run across some ghosts!"
"Shut up Zelos, I don't need to be thinking about that!" Sheena turns on the Chosen and yells at him with an uneasy tone in her voice. Zelos waves his hands in front of his chest and replies "Easy there Sheena, I'm just joking around here! Besides, there's no such thing as ghosts."
"I'd have a few tales to tell you otherwise, Zelos." Riku says with a light smile on his face, and Zelos proceeds to glance at him while saying "Ok fine, there's no ghosts on Tethe'alla or Sylvarant! Sheesh, I just nearly got fried by a dragon and now you're picking on me, when did this become 'Pick on Zelos' day?"
As the group was having a little moment, a small shapeless blob of darkness slowly crawled along the ground in front of them, it's body carrying within it a miniscule clump of violet mana. Raine, who was sighing at the antics unfolding behind her, was the only one who happened to notice the blob, at which point she commented "Hold on, what do we have here?"
Raine bends down and tries to stop the blob with her right hand, but is surprised when the creature moves right through without being stopped at all, like it was a type of phantom. This causes Raine's eyes to glisten brightly as she grins and feels her body tingle in joy "Fascinating, what could this be?"
"Huh? What're doing sis?" Genis turns to face Raine, failing to notice the blob until a moment later, at which point he comments "A blob? What's that doing wandering around a Summon Spirit's temple?"
"Heheh, I get it now, this must be Shadow's power in a physical form! His mana leaked out from the seal and began wandering around the temple, and unless we capture them all we won't be able to form a pact with Shadow! Hehehehehe!" Raine was clearly enjoying this discovery, and Genis could only slant his eyes in concern and groan out "Ugh, Raine…"
The blob suddenly stops moving once it reaches a cylindrical crystal filled with light, allowing the others enough time to take a look at it and figure out what to do next. "Aw, how cute, this little fellow can't go into the light." Colette comments as she goes down to try and pet the blob, forgetting it's ethereal nature as her hand slips through.
"Well it makes sense, it's the Summon Spirit of Darkness." Lloyd obviously points out, leading to Genis stating "Well if we need to gather them all, we're gonna have to put out that light."
"I'm going to assume shattering the crystal is out of the question?" Riku asks, leading to Regal commenting "Assuming my theory is correct, these crystals should be filled with light mana, so it'd probably kill the fragments of Shadow if we broke them around him."
"Then maybe we should corral all five of them into that wide open area below this floor, and it'd be easy to take them from there down to wherever the seal is at!" Colette makes a surprising smart decision, and after Lloyd glances down at the area his friend was talking about he says "That could work Colette. Might as well explore the temple and see what we can do."
"But shouldn't we keep someone with the blob, just in case he tries to leave?" Zelos asks, leading to Raine immediately lifting her hand up and saying "I'll do it!" She did little to hide her enthusiasm, but Lloyd just glances at her in a deadpan manner before saying "Well there's only one candle, so we kind of have to stick together."
"Actually, maybe not." Riku walks over to Lloyd and takes the blue candle from his hands, examining it's structure with his eyes before he notes "Yeah, I think I can solve this issue. The flame doesn't rely on mana to burn, surprisingly."
After a bit of concentration, Riku forms a sphere of energy around his left palm, showing a light twitch of pain in his face as he forms a glass orb along with a near replica of the blue candle inside. Once he's done, the teenage Overlord lets out a relaxed breath and says "There we go…Now we can split up and cover more ground. I'll stay with Raine to keep an eye on this fragment of Shadow, and Lloyd, Genis and Colette can go find the Sorcerer's Ring altar that's more than likely in this temple."
After he says this, he hands one blue candle off to Lloyd and proceeds to create another one, only this time Sheena figures out what the teenage Ovelord was suggesting and said "And you want the rest of us to go find Shadow's other fragments?" Riku nods his head as he finishes the second blue candle copy.
"I think we can handle that…So long as Lloyd finds what we need to deal with the lights." Zelos makes a joking remark towards Lloyd, and the boy replies with an equally jovial sounding "You do your part, and we'll do ours."
After Riku hands the blue candle off to Sheena, her group heads off to the western part of the temple while Lloyd and his two friends go for the eastern part, leaving the teenage Overlord and Raine with the first of Shadow's fragments. Riku holds onto the blue candle in his right hand and sits down at the edge of the path, while Raine taps the bottom of her chin and examines Shadow's fragment further.
"Interesting, so the unbalanced mana in here can be attributed to Shadow carrying his mana around, even after he split apart. Just how long has he been split apart, and has it had an adverse effect on the mana links? Hmmm, there's just so much I wish to do to this little blob, even though I can't touch him!" Raine's excitement echoed through the Temple of Darkness, causing a familiar sounding groan to be heard in the distance.
"It wouldn't be right to violate a Summon Spirit anyways, otherwise we'd anger them before we made the pact…Granted, I don't think Shadow could cause any destruction to Tethe'alla like Volt did." Riku says, leading to Raine commenting "Yes, I suppose you're right…Ohhh, why can't the Summon Spirits share their secrets with us?!"
With her excitement not fading any time soon, Riku grinned and decided to test something out while he was near Shadow's fragment. Reaching forward, the teenage Overlord moved his hand into the blob, and once it phased inside the teenage Overlord's expression went blank as he began to hear a voice slowly call out to him from afar "Riku…I can't…don't free al…it'll be the…"
Riku pulls his hand out suddenly and starts breathing rapidly, which actually pulls Raine out of her "ruin-mode" as she turns to look at him and says out of concern "What happened? You look paler all of a sudden." True enough, the teenage Overlord's face was flushed of color, leading to him staying frozen in place with his heart pumping until he recovers, where he then looks straight at Raine and says "I…I'm sorry if I worried you Raine."
"…You weren't out for long, but what happened when you touched Shadow?" Raine was curious to know what caused this event, and Riku rubbed the back of his head while commenting "I don't know. It's hard to explain."
"I'm willing to hear you out, if you want." Raine makes this offer politely, and after a hesitant pause Riku leans back and looks towards the ceiling while saying "I don't remember if I explained this to you, but when I came to this world most of my elemental powers were taken away from me. It turns out that I could regain them once Sheena formed a pact with the appropriate Summon Spirit. But there are two elements remaining that are more crucial to me than the rest."
"Light and Darkness…Hmm, considering your job, it makes sense that you'd hold those two elements in high regard. But there is more to this explanation, isn't there?" Raine asks, and Riku looks down at the half-elf to say "You really do pick up things easily…Remember back in the Temple of Ice when I mentioned a friend of mine?"
"Takashi was their name, right?" Raine says, and after Riku nods his head he explains "Well there is another friend, her name is Sodenko. Both of them are dragons of Darkness and Light respectively."
This bit of news makes Raine's eyes widen in intrigue, and a smile cracks before she says "Dragons, huh? Let me guess, these two dragons act like Summon Spirits, correct?" Riku explains "As in they exist in another realm when they aren't being summoned? Yeah, that's a pretty good guess, how did you piece that together?" He was surprised by Raine's well-thought guess, but only to a slight extent.
"When you mentioned that you lost your elements upon entering this world and the connection to the Summon Spirits, I figured that everything you lost had to go somewhere, and if the seals are already inhabited by the Summon Spirits, where would these elements go?" Raine pauses for a moment before commenting "It's obvious the mana links are where your lost elements have gone, and since you mentioned being unable to introduce us to your friends at the time it was easy to assume that the two dragons are sealed within the mana links as well."
"…That would make sense, wouldn't it? Truth be told, I was beginning to assume that before I was testing a theory out on Shadow's fragment. When my hand phased through him, I heard Takashi's voice calling out to me in bits. It wasn't as bad as it was in Celsius' temple, but I still couldn't clearly make out what he was telling me." Once Riku's part of the explanation was at an end, Raine had but one more comment to say on the matter.
"And because of what we have theorized, that could only mean that by touching Shadow's fragment you briefly connected to the mana links, which greatly harmed your body after such a short period of time." "Yeah…Well making two copies of the blue candle probably didn't help me out either." Riku replies as he pulled his head back and took a few deep breaths in to regain his strength, which surprised Raine a bit.
"…So the flames were made out of mana. You didn't want the others to worry about you." Raine states, and after getting a bit of his energy back Riku comments "It's probably selfish of me, but yeah. It's also the reason why I didn't mention that I'm friends with dragons earlier, since there wasn't really a good moment between everything involving Rodyle and now."
"That's a fair point, there is no need to cause unnecessary stress. I can handle this information just fine, but not to mock Lloyd for this…But he's probably find it all very confusing." Once Raine's sentence was at an end, Lloyd's voice is heard as he says "Find what confusing, Professor?"
The teenage Overlord and the half-elf turn to face Lloyd as he fires off an orb of darkness from the Sorcerer's Ring to turn off the light, causing the fragment of Shadow to run off and gather around Lloyd alongside two other fragments. Now Shadow appeared to be more solid in form, as evidenced by Colette kneeling down and kindly petting the three fragments around her.
"Nothing Lloyd, Riku and I were discussing something. I see you managed to find the altar and a couple fragments. I wonder how Sheena and the others are holding up." Raine and Riku get back on their feet, and Lloyd comments "Beats me, we didn't run each other on the eastern part of the temple. Should we go after them?"
"…Lets just go to the gathering spot for now, we'd have a better vantage point to help the others out." Raine's suggestion is met with an approving nod of the head from the others, and Lloyd says "We found a path down there while we were looking for the altar. Follow me."
After a brief tour down a flight of stairs to the east, the five end up at a singular rounded platform leading to a large staircase towards the deepest recesses of the temple. Once there, they find that Zelos and the others had already arrived with the remaining two fragments of Shadow. "What? How?!" Lloyd says in a tone of utter surprise.
"…Surprisingly, we didn't run into any lights on the other side of the temple. Shadow's fragments ended up following us without any trouble." Sheena comments, to which Zelos follows-up on by rubbing the bottom of his chin and saying "Heh, or Shadow was just lured in by my natural charm."
"…You really want to say that when Shadow is a guy?" Lloyd says in a deadpan manner, and Zelos immediately replies back with "H-Hey, you can't prove that now! Shadow could take on the appearance of a beautiful woman! Aren't Summon Spirits able to project themselves as whatever the person wishes to see anyways?"
"I think it was more along the lines of 'a form that the people would be comfortable with seeing'…I'm not helping Zelos' endless libido, am I?" Sheena says, proceeding to let out an annoyed sigh as Zelos grins, and Regal quickly suggests "Let us not get too off-track here…We came here for a reason, after all."
"Shadow's seal should be at the bottom of the temple, if my assumption is correct. Hopefully the blue candles will hold up until we form the pact." Raine says, and within moments the group begins to descend down the staircase with Shadow's fragments following close behind.
Even with the blue candle lighting the way ahead, the darkness in this part of the temple was particularly thick, leaving only the staircase downward visible in this endless expanse of darkness. On the way down, Lloyd has a momentary thought before he turns to face Zelos and says to him "…I really am starting to respect your Chosens for everything they had to go through."
"Heh, what can I say? We're one of a kind over here." Zelos' response is met with a blunt remark from Sheena "Zelos, I'm pretty certain he wasn't talking about you." Naturally, this does little to wound Zelos' pride as a man, even if he does put on a big display after this comment is spoken.
After that, the group was mostly quiet so they could remain focused, and after a good five minutes of walking down the stairs and finally find Shadow's seal on a lone, warped platform. There was a cold chill in the air because of how far down the group had traveled, but they didn't bother worrying about that as the fragments quickly ran for the seal and gathered together into a singular blob.
With a mild explosion of black light, the blobs reform into Shadow, a lithe monster made of darkness that had curved, spiked extensions all across it's body along with little bits of bone-like armor and a single hazy blue eye on it's gut. The Summon Spirits glanced forth with it's pupil-less blue eyes and asked with a serpentine-like voice "…Mithos and I…pact…" He was a creature of few words, but his meaning was clear.
"I am Sheena! I ask that though annulst thy pact with Mithos, and establish a new pact with me!" Sheena says with little hesitation or lack of confidence in her voice. Shadow raises his claws up and says simply in response "…Fight."
"No need to think this one through. Raine, Sheena, Lloyd and Colette should face Shadow. A combination of light-based spells and close combat should be enough to deal with him." Riku says as he steps back and keeps the blue candle held high enough to illuminate the area. Lloyd says "Huh, I'm surprised Riku is choosing to stick this one out. Well, can't say I disagree with his plan, but are you ok with this Colette?"
The merry Chosen pulls out her two golden rings and summons forth her angel wings, happily nodding her head while saying "Of course I am Lloyd, don't worry about me." With the confidence of his friend in his thoughts, Lloyd pulls out his two swords and says "Alright Shadow, we'll show you that we're worthy of your pact! Come on!"
Shadow starts off the battle by swinging it's right arm out and drawing dark haze onto his claw, opening up the ground with a black crystal-like circle as multiple lances of crystalline energy form above the circle and point themselves at the group, firing down upon them and forcing them to divide up and not get hit.
Once they were split up on the battlefield, Shadow takes his darkness covered claws and lifts them into the air, blackening the area to such an extent that even the blue candle is barely able to keep things alit. It was then that the Summon Spirit became one with his element, forcing Lloyd to put his swords up in front of his body in case he ends up being the first target. Meanwhile, Colette uses her angelic powers to light up her rings enough to break through the darkness around them, and with a single fling out in front of her body she sees Shadow gliding along the ground at a rapid pace.
"Watch out, he's on the move!" Colette exclaims a warning to her friends, but since only she could see Shadow her considerate effort would only be in vain. Once she catches her returning ring, the Chosen's eyes light up as she thinks of an idea to deal with Shadow's movements. Putting her rings away for a moment, Colette places one hand on her chest and waves another one out, closing her eyes as a glowing circle of holy energy forms below her. "O' holy one, cast your purifying light upon these corrupt souls. Judgment!"
"Colette, no!" Lloyd blurts out in a panic, but it was already too late as Colette brandishes her finger towards the sky and lets out a ring of light as Shadow appears behind her with claw pulled back thanks to the Chosen making herself an easy to find target. Lloyd runs straight at Colette before the light around her body fades away and leaps into the air, swinging both of his swords out and meeting Shadow's claw just a second before he impaled it through Colette's skull.
The Summon Spirit is pushed back a bit as the clinging of Lloyd's blades creates some sparks of light, but then the aftereffect of Colette's Judgment is set off, leading to an array of holy beams firing down across the battlefield at random locations. Lloyd has to push back before he's struck, letting off a surprised "Whoa!" as he lands in front of Colette and skids along the ground.
Shadow is struck with the edge of the beam, causing him to let out a raspy groan of pain as it swiftly pulls away from Colette's body. "He's getting away!" Lloyd proclaims before he quickly runs past Colette and swings his sword against the ground to send a fanged projectile after the Summon Spirit. However, this causes Zelos to let out a loud "Ow!" as he gets hit in the feet through the darkness.
"What the hell Lloyd, can't you see where we are?!" Zelos says, hinting to Lloyd that Shadow's field of darkness did not affect any of his allies. Standing upright for a moment, Lloyd throws out a "Sorry!" at Zelos before quickly turning back around and saying "Are you alright Colette?"
However, he could no longer see his friend, as the darkness had taken her away from his sight once more. But her voice could still be heard, and she says with her natural chuckle preceding it "I'm ok Lloyd." Sheena then says from somewhere else on the battlefield "Y-You probably shouldn't use Judgment in here Colette! None of us can see what's going on until the last moment!" From the sounds of things, she had narrowly survived a beam from Colette.
"Hehe, sorry Sheena…" Colette apologies, but then she proceeds to let out a cry of shock as she suddenly notices Shadow appearing in front of her with both claws drawn like a guillotine. Colette jumps out of the way of the Summon Spirit's slash and flips her body around, throwing one light covered ring at Shadow's chest to try and hurt him. The light signals Raine about where Colette currently was along with the Summon Spirit, allowing her to focus her staff in front of her body and prepare one of her most powerful light spells to strike against Shadow.
"Colette, keep attacking him with your rings. Lloyd, assist her!" Raine gives out a couple orders to make things easier for her since she'd need to spend a few seconds preparing her attack. After Shadow had ducked below her first ring and clawed at Colette's legs, the Chosen used her wings to fly up a bit and call her ring back into her hand.
Before Colette could follow up on Raine's plan, Shadow cast another spell, using his darkness to summon forth a collapsing black sphere around the Chosen's body that binds her in place and squeezes her body, making her let out a cry of pain that hastens Lloyd's advance towards the Summon Spirit. He takes both his swords and thrusts them into Shadow's shoulders with enough force that the Summon Spirit recoils back and drops all concentration on his attack, which frees Colette before the sphere bursts.
Lloyd pulls back on one sword and swings the other against the ground to send a fanged projectile at Shadow's lower body, which makes the creature flinch in place long enough for Colette to catch her breath and throw another ring of light at the Summon Spirit's head. The ring moves right through him, but deals significant enough damage while illuminating the way for Raine's completed spell.
"Photon!" Raine proclaims the name of her attack, and within moments Shadow is bound in place by a collapsing sphere of light that acted as the antithesis of his last attack. However, no one was around to save Shadow, leading to the sphere bursting apart and striking him with a large influx of light energy.
Shadow shrieks in pain this time, but is left paralyzed as Lloyd runs up and performs a diagonal slash with both of his swords to keep up the assault on the Summon Spirit. But even with all the damage that he had taken thus far, Shadow's durability was enough to allow him to stabilize himself and try to slip away back into his own darkness. Before that occurred though, Sheena took advantage of the light display to throw a seal onto Shadow's back.
When the Summon Spirit retreats into the ground, he is quickly met with a medium-sized explosion that blows apart his body into various chunks that spreads across the battlefield. "Whoa, way to go Sheena!" Lloyd says in a praising tone. "Thanks…I've been having difficulty helping out, but you helped with the light shows."
"It's not over yet…Shadow is starting to reform." Raine says as she feels the individual pieces of Shadow moving around her feet. Shadow reforms in the center of the battlefield, and Lloyd readies his swords again for another round. But once the Summon Spirit is back to normal, the air is filled with an abnormal sounding echo of the word "Execution…" Suddenly, Shadow's presence is illuminated by a hazy crimson circle beneath his body, and before Lloyd can run at him for another attack the Summon Spirit splits apart into multiple pieces and sinks all of them into the circle below his body.
After the circle vanishes, the entire temple trembles as Shadow summons forth a cloud of crimson darkness above his opponents. Lloyd grits his teeth and looks up while swinging his swords out to the side and watches as one beam of swift piercing darkness comes down from above, forcing him to leap back before he's punctured through. That beam was a prelude to many more that seek out the four fighters with complete precision.
Flashes of crimson light streak through the battlefield, putting even the onlookers on edge as their friends' lives are put on the line against Shadow's desperate onslaught. Colette's wings allow her to avoid most of the beams, while Sheena and Raine have to be swift in their movements since their weapons aren't suited to cut away the beams before they strike down.
"This is ridiculous! Where did Shadow go?!" Lloyd says as he takes whatever opportunity he can to look around for the Summon Spirit's presence. But when not a trace of him can be found, Lloyd actually has a moment of brilliance upon looking up towards the cloud. After swinging away another piercing beam with the reflective glint of his blades, Lloyd folds both blades in a cross in front of his body and waits for another to come down, where he lets the beam collide with his swords.
The impact cracks the ground below him, but Lloyd pushes back against the beam with all of his strength to keep it at bay long enough to grunt out to Colette "S-Strike at the cloud! It's our only chance!" Shadow's onslaught is stopped by Lloyd's effort, giving Colette enough breathing room to take a quick and concerned look at Lloyd before glancing up at Shadow's cloud, where after a quick fold of her arms she throws both light covered rings straight at the phenomenon.
A bright flash of light is sent out through the cloud, and immediately Lloyd is able to push back the beam of darkness that was against his swords. Shadow is struck amidst the dark cloud, and after a mere moment his body is thrown out of his own created phenomenon, where his reformed self lands on the ground in a barely stable mesh of darkness.
The darkness that blinded the group vanishes along with the cloud, and it was safe to say that Shadow was no longer in any condition to fight so Lloyd sheathed his swords and said "Whew…That was pretty rough."
Shadow rises up slightly to be a little more dignified in his defeat before he speaks to Sheena. "Vow…" He was short on words once more, but didn't appear to hold any ire towards the ninja for the efforts put in by her and her friends. Sheena scratches the back of her head and comments "You don't waste any time, do you? Ahem, well then…For the sake of creating a place in which the two worlds must no longer sacrifice one another, I ask that you lend me your power."
Shadow nods his head with little hesitation and says "…Agreed." He then disappears into nothingness, creating a black seal for Sheena to use as a means of summoning him into battle, leaving Lloyd to simply comment "Now all that's left is to form a pact with the Summon Spirit of Light, and we can sever another mana link! We're counting on you to finish this, Sheena!"
Sheena confidently nods her head after putting Shadow's seal away, saying to Lloyd in response "You got it!" Now that they needed to leave the Temple of Darkness, Zelos was quick to point out "So umm…Are we going to have to climb all those stairs to get back?"
"Yes Zelos, every last one of them." Sheena replies in a deadpan manner. Zelos sighs for a moment before glancing at Riku and saying "Heeeeeeeeeey, buddy! Think you can use your powers to carry us back to the top?"
Riku, who had one hand on the side of his head as he was trying to focus on something, swiftly rejected Zelos' proposal with a blunt "I'm not an elevator service Zelos, we're climbing and that's final." The Chosen groans, but finds himself quickly having to accept this matter as everyone begins to depart.
The teenage Overlord chooses to lag behind slightly, and after a bit of time manages to finally hear a voice speak to him through the mind "Riku? …Yeah, it is you, I recognize this connection. You finally managed to contact us again after you went to this god-forsaken world."
"Sorry Takashi, I couldn't just go straight to the Temple of Darkness with the way everything was going down. Are you ok? Have you had an adverse reaction to the mana links?" Riku's immediate attention was on the black dragon's condition, and he got a swift response in the form of "Mana links? Oh, the light ethereal flows I saw outside the dimension. I didn't get anywhere near those…But there is something I was trying to tell you while you connected with that Summon Spirit's fragments. You can't let those guys you're following break the last mana link. There's a force at work that-"
"Relax Takashi, I know what's going to happen when the last mana link breaks…And I know that we'll be able to deal with it when the time comes." Riku replies with a timed interruption, which leaves the black dragon to say in a puzzled manner "What? How the hell do you know that?"
"…It's kind of complicated, but it involves me providing some thanks to my brother for the type of memories he chose to give me." Riku replies after a moment's hesitation. "…I won't argue with you on that. Still, it's good to have you back, I was worried that I'd once again be trapped in an inescapable prison."
"While I'm here, I won't let that happen…Speaking of that though, is your sister with you?" Riku's question was spoken simply due to the mention of the dimension that Takashi resided in. The black dragon's shaking head could be felt as he responded "No. It's safe to assume she's residing in the part of the dimension where the mana link for the Summon Spirit of Light is. I can't safely travel there, but she should return to here once the pact is formed."
"Then free her I shall…Hang in there Takashi, the three of us will be reunited soon enough." Pulling his hand away from his head, Riku continues to walk forward with the rest of the group, his goals placed firmly on the front of his mind as the pact with the final Summon Spirit drew closer with every passing second…