Chapter 13: Literal fragment

It was a literal fragment, not the whole heart, but a piece of it. Everyone seemed just as upset and confused, Cleo appears standing next to the fragment, inspecting it, “ I thought you knew that it was just one part of it, why do you think I’ve been referring to it as the “fragment” this entire time?” Cleo says as if it really were that obvious, “ Ah it's fine, you only need this piece anyways, you should be able to delay the power outage in both Frandhenvens by a couple of months with it, plus now we can save the desert as well,” Cleo says attempting to look at the bright side, but she was right. “ I'm going to need a few minutes to interface with the fragment before we can use it,” Cleo says dipping her hand into the floating piece. Lan turns to face the entry, it seems the 4th Serph unit had finally made its way down as well, with Alice at the front. Akira slowly shifted toward the fragment, if he got Cleo to interface with it she should be able to just, do everything they set out to do, and then go home and then Akira can go back to living a normal life and not have the fate of two cities rest on him. Alice seemed determined to fight, and if she does make a move Lan would stop her, maybe. Alice quickly drew her katana, immediately clashing with Lans flame longsword, they exchanged blows before Alice hit him with a blast of fire, catching him off guard and throwing him across the room. Akira wanted to step in but he needed to be next to the fragment in order for Cleo to properly interface with it, but fortunately for him, he had allies, Lila and Lily step into the fight, but Alice was able to keep up with both, one of the seraph soldiers who seemed to be ranked higher than the rest stepped into the fight, making it a 2v2. The newcomer was able to hold out well against Lily, small wisps of frost whirled around the seraph soldier's weapon, he assumed she had a rune as well, and he was right. Ice formed at the ends of the soldier's staff, reinforcing its strength. Lan had walked next to Akira without him noticing, making him jump a little, “ Do you still think you're on the right side?” Alice and Akira both flinch slightly upon hearing Lans sudden shout, she remained silent refusing to answer his question to focus on the fight at hand, Alice manages to put distance between herself and Lila and before they could reengage Lan's longsword would imbed into the ground between the two, stopping them Lan continued with what he was saying, “ Do you even know what the Union had done to achieve its first successful rune implant? How many people died just so that we could get these!” Lan yells holding his palm out, his flame rune glowing in response to his growing emotion. He lets out a heaved sigh, gathering himself back before continuing,

“ The Union has never cared for its people, it still doesn’t. The only reason why they're even bothering to look for the heart is because it threatens them as well, otherwise, they wouldn’t have bothered to send out their precious Seraphim,” Alice kept her silence, it seemed she wasn’t sure what to say, so she didn’t. Lan tilts his head back still keeping his eyes forward but making it clear that what he said next was to Akira, “ Do what you need to do with the fragment, I’ll make sure it goes through uninterrupted,” He draws his gun and aims it toward the soldier fighting Lily, keeping her and the soldiers from moving, this kept Alice from making any moves as well. Without any further hesitation, Akira turns to face the fragment, he place his hand on top of the fragment, he closes his eyes. “ Focus, all you have to do is speak the command in your mind, and it should follow,” Cleo guides him, “ withdraw and redirect the loose energy toward New and Old Frandhenven,” When he opens his eyes it didn’t seem like anything had happened, he looks to Cleo who was still standing on the pedestal, she was smiling. With a wave of her hand a screen materializes, the same one from back then only this time the battery sat higher than before, he could only assume the same happened back in Old Frandhenven. He inspected his hand, the fragment had embedded itself into his palm, it was visible from both sides of his hand, where the purple diamond sat. “ There we go, both Frandhenvens should last long enough until we can find the other fragments, and the excess energy flowing in the desert has been removed along with the threat of collapse, now we can go home!” Akira attempts to bridge peace with the good news, but nobody seemed interested. Akira takes two steps forward, then a high-pitched ring blares through his ears, nobody else seems to hear it, his sight becomes hazy. He's struggling to keep himself upright, he's then hit with a headache, but like, 100 times worse. Akira collapses to the floor holding his head, he grits his teeth in pain as Lan crouches down next to him, he wasn’t sure what to do, nobody really knew, he would’ve asked Cleo but her holographic body lay on the ground a few feet away, completely motionless. He can hear his friends yelling, but everythings all muffled so the words are just gibberish to him. Memories begin flashing through his mind, of people and places he had never been nor people he’d ever met, the first memory was still distorted but he could make out the facial features of the person, it was of an older woman, a pair of glasses sat on her face as her crimson eyes gazed down at him, a gentle smile enveloped her face, her black hair tied back in a neat ponytail. She had been wearing a white coat over top a black sweater, before he could see anything else the memory changed, this time he could barely make out what was happening as they all flashed by really briefly. Akira jolts up gasping for air as all the ailments plaguing him had finally ended, sweat dripped down his forehead as he calmed down, they were still in the fragment containment chamber, it seemed the others moved him to a different spot, he was laid down on a blanket, his bag settled down across from him, Lila sat across from him, she was sleeping but woke due to Akiras sudden awakening. Lan walked over and handed him a fruit, it was similar to an apple but it wasn’t as crispy, more squishy and sweet. “ So, wanna tell us what happened that day?” Lan asked crouching down, Akira wasn’t sure and Cleo seemed to still be offline… “What do you mean by “that day”?” Akira asked he had no idea how long he was out for, surely it was just a few hours. “ Three days, we’ve been looking around the Sanctuary while we waited for you to wake up, Lila here has generously offered to stay and watch the entire time,” He suddenly leaps back to avoid Lila’s kick smiling playfully at her. Alice and the rest of the 4th Seraph unit stood opposite to them, they had packed their things and were waiting. Akira got up and began putting things away, mostly to distract Lila and Lan from their little showdown, Lily joined us a bit later, but now everyone was present, “ Welcome back,” Lily greets him, “ We’ll head back to my village first and report to father what had happened, then you can go home,” Everyone else had agreed to part ways now that the crisis was averted, the others walk ahead, Akira take one last good look around at the Sanctuary before he left it probably forever, he had no reason to come back. The ground fragments as a clawed hand grabs him, Jimmy bursts through the floor, they make eye contact before it rams its way through the ceiling of the Sanctuary and out into the open night sky. Jimmy flap its wings as it barrel down to the sand, preparing to fight one last time.