I Remain…

A streak of blood stretched off into the distance where Azu’s mangled body lay. To think that mere moments ago, he had stood tall on his own two feet, a smile etched across his face as he stared death in the eye... only to now be reduced to nothing. What remained of him bore no resemblance to life, a hollow echo of the person he once was.

Though he had traded his life to save Akari’s, the sacrifice may have bought her nothing more than a fleeting moment.

Akari’s eyes swept across her surroundings, landing on Saba’s body sprawled lifeless on the floor, now but a headless husk. But to her terror, Iddak was closing in, with eyes bloodied with murderous rampage.

There was no one left to save her, no one to take a bullet for her sake. Just a lost soul trapped in a foreign world. With no means to fight back.

Akari knew that her next breath could be her last. Her life ending in an instant. “I was already dead wasn’t I?” her voice wavered.

A shadow casted over her, with Akari feeling the hatred filled aura peering from behind. An emerald glow began to envelop her surroundings, its ethereal light weaving into intricate markings as the energy surged. Rising with a deceptively graceful intensity. Glistening off the bloodied ground and taunting her death. “You killed Saba,” Iddak wept.

Akari clenched her eyes shut, unwilling to watch her own demise, a single tear running down the side of her cheek as her voice cracked.

“Please… just wake up.”

A dark veil unfurled, cloaking over them, threaded with the markings of scripts as it blotted out all light and swallowed Akari and Iddak in darkness. Iddak knew not what he’d summoned, his heartbreak too heavy, and his mind spiraling beyond control, but he no longer cared… Nothing mattered anymore. Saba was dead, and someone would pay with their life, his mission be damned.

“In all my years I have never witnessed such raw power, it’s truly a shame.”

Norin’s arms closed around Iddak before falling backwards, dissolving into the earth as if swallowed whole. As the veil lifted, and the light of the sun glowed through the back of Akari’s eyelids, she slowly opened them, wondering if death had finally reached her.

Before her mind could steady, however, the strain she’d endured for so long had finally paid its toll. Her body dropped to its side, her vision blurred as she barely clung on to consciousness. The faint presence of a person was slowly approaching her, but before she could reach out to it, her mind fell blank.

Faintly regaining consciousness, she found herself being moved, carried, actually. The trees of the mountain hovered above, but her head was still too foggy to focus. “The Eyrie Empire might follow us,” a familiar voice spoke.

As she forced her head to her side, she could see Steia walking beside her.

“Where’s Azu?” Akari asked.

“Steia turned to face her, but Akari couldn’t read the emotion behind her eyes. “He’s gone,” said Steia, “Norin took Iddak into one of his Scytale tunnels…” she then quietly shook her head, refusing to say another word.

Suddenly the memory of the battle that had taken place surged through Akari. But her consciousness would slip again, as her eyes rolled to the back of her head and her mind filled with darkness.