Chapter 30 - World Cage Disease

I felt essence shoot through my hand and breach the lid. My body was almost burning.

But, at the moment I tried to shoot it out, nothing escaped. Nothing. Not a single bit of flames.

I turned to Kaya with my eyes wide.

“I-It didn’t work.”

“Try it again!”

She looked a bit frustrated.

I held my hand out to try it again, but it was the same result. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting. I knew I didn’t truly have an affinity for fire magic, but I was disappointed anyway. I had to come up with another lie to get out of it.

“Maybe I was just too tired.”

“Argg… Maybe! We’ll try it again tomorrow-”

BEEP

BEEP

BEEP

An alarm began ringing throughout the entire city. I didn’t know what was going on. The shift in noise instantly overwhelmed my brain. All I could do was sprint back to the building as quickly as possible. I saw Aqlli, Ame, Sy and Dominic prepping their gear.

Before I could even ask what was happening, Aqlli spoke up.

“The Laptaan army is outside the city. They saw us gathering troops at the border of Jeti, leaving us undefended. I didn’t expect them to attack us, especially because we were on neutral terms. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll kill Ra and hang his body from our front gate. You all can fight his personal guards. Watch out for his right hand man, Myeon Donal.”

Ame grinned as he materialized his sword of water.

“Nell, go get Inda. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

I nodded and began sprinting to her room, only to get stopped by a hand on my shoulder.

It was Aqlli.

“Don’t go to Inda. She’ll stay here. Her sickness-”

Ame lifted his arm from my shoulder and stared dead into Aqlli’s eyes.

“Shut it, King. You aren’t on our front. I’ll choose my own troops. You don’t have time to argue with me.”

Aqlli gripped Ame’s wrist and pinned him to the wall.

“I will lob your head off right this instant. Go without Inda.”

Ame smiled wryly.

“It’s me or Ra. Choose wisely.”

He let go of Ame’s wrist after he said this.

“Tch. If I see Inda on the battlefield after I’m done with Ra, you'll be smelling Baum while your feet are in L’eau.”

“Aye aye.”

Aqlli rushed off with his sword on his waist.

The second he left, Ame spoke to me.

“Go get Inda.”

I didn’t know what to do. I had to ask him again.

“Are you sure?”

Ame smiled softly.

“I’m confident.”

That was all the assurance I needed.

I ran towards the guest room as Ame ran to the battlefield with everybody else.

Something shifted around me. I felt a divine outside force intervene in this reality. It wasn’t the God of Time. I didn’t know what it was.

A rectangular prism of RME grew in front of me while I was running. Within moments, it solidified, turning into something similar to a screen. I didn’t have time to be confused. I was still scared though.

I held the screen under my arm and knocked on Inda’s door.

No response.

I knocked again.

No response.

I slammed the door open. Inda was sitting curled up on her bed, with her head in her knees.

“Inda!”

She looked up at me.

“We need you Inda! Come outside!”

“Eh? Why do you need me? You’re strong enough to deal with them. I’ve seen it with my own eyes…”

She spoke quieter than normal.

She said we were strong enough. I didn’t know if it was true or not. I would have liked to believe that it was true, but Ame said we needed Inda, so we needed Inda. That was simply how it worked.

“Laptaan is invading. Aqlli is after the king. Ame says we need you. Please.”

She sighed.

“Hasn’t dad told you? I’m sick.”

“You seemed perfectly fine when you were beating us up.”

“It doesn't affect my combat… anyway! End of conversation! I’m not going.”

God dammit.

Suddenly, the screen inside my arms moved. It hung itself on the wall in front of Inda and began playing a scene.

And on the screen, was Ame. He was fighting the right hand man of the king, Myeon Donal, by himself. Everybody else was out of commission.

Most importantly, he was struggling. He couldn’t beat him by himself.

Inda stared at the screen and grit her teeth before yelling.

“I’m telling you! I have World Cage Disease! I can’t go, no matter how bad the fight is for them! Please, just leave… I don’t want to see this.”

Ah.

That was the disease she had. I finally remembered. Aqlli had told me before, but the definition and name never clicked in my head until now.

The World Cage Disease was one of the most confusing things out of all the information I had been given. It has no symptoms and no effects for the carrier. But, whoever has it cannot leave the place they are most comfortable in, or the disease will begin to spread. Their mind keeps the disease locked in a cage until they leave that comfort zone. And, once it activates, it will infect all around the carrier and kill them within an hour.

It was understandable why she didn’t want to leave.

I looked at the screen behind me. Ame got punched in the stomach and was now on the floor. His leg was broken. His eyes widened.

Our eyes widened. Inda stared at the screen in pain.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“Inda! I don’t care anymore! I’ll go to him and die!”

“No.. no… please no…”

She began crying. I felt horrible, but I needed to save Ame. If Inda left, we would die anyway. She didn’t need to come. I couldn’t handle this.

I couldn’t.

I began to leave the room, before getting stopped.

Inda had grabbed my wrist.

“No! Don’t leave! DON’T LEAVE ME! I want to be free, but I can’t! It’s not my fault! I’m strong enough!”

I looked back to her with nothing but disdain in my eyes.

“I don’t care.”

I ran out of the building and began to sprint towards the battle. I needed to go faster.

Faster.

I shot forward using as much RME on my legs as possible. I didn’t care if they turned to dust after this. I didn’t need Inda. We didn’t need Inda. I could save Ame by myself. I was strong enough.

I was stronger than Inda. I could do it.

Within a minute, I reached the battlefield. Everybody was unconscious, except for Ame. He had barely healed his leg enough to walk, but not enough to fight. I noticed that there was something I didn’t see before.

Behind Ame was a screen. The same one in Inda’s room. But, instead of displaying the battlefield we were on, it showed Inda sitting on her bed, crying.

I was frozen in place, staring at the screen as she pulled out a box from under her bed. She unlocked it and pulled a paper out, staring at it.

She spoke.

“Please… Inda… move…”

She started sobbing. I could barely make out what the paper said. But, when I saw it, my heart dropped.

“Results:

World Cage Disease:

…

Negative.”

She… tested negative? That meant she didn’t have it, right? What? Why didn’t she have it?

That was the wrong question.

Why did she say she had it? Why was she so adamant about not leaving if she didn’t have it?

She looked at her paper and spoke.

“You’re lying to me, doctors. You lied to my dads. Why else would this happen?”

Did she think she had it? But the truth was right there. I didn’t trust doctors very much, but I knew that their methods are solid. They wouldn’t diagnose something like that without triple checking.

I wanted to get through to her. I wanted to speak to her. I wanted to know why she felt like this.

“INDA!”

She looked up to the screen. I continued yelling.

“I know you can hear me, Inda! Come to us!”

She looked down at her paper and spoke.

“I can’t. I can’t. Nobody else can die. Nobody else needs to die for my freedom. Nobody needs to plummet, and nobody needs to lose their reason. Those are the effects of World Cage Disease.”

I yelled harder into the screen.

“You don't have it, Inda!”

“Yes I do!”

The right hand of the king of Laptaan got closer to Ame, gripping his face with his hand.

I had no time. I realized I wasn’t strong enough to help by myself.

“Inda! You’re curable!”

Tears flowed down her cheeks as she screamed towards me.

“THEN COME CURE ME, NELL!”

A conversation I had with her previously shot through my head.

“And, hypothetically, if it was one person in the cage, and the storm was an illusion, what would you do then?”

…

“I would talk to them and see their point of view on it.”

“... What if they told you that the storm hurt them, even though it was an illusion?”

This was a difficult question, but my answer had never been more sure.

“I would bring them out and dispel the illusion. You can’t be free in a cage, can you?”

I would bring her out and dispel the illusion.

“YOU’RE ALREADY FREE, INDA! THE GUARD OF YOUR PRISON IS DEAD, AND THE KEY IS YELLING AT YOU RIGHT NOW!”

Her eyes widened.

“But, even while knowing that, she sacrificed herself to end the storms. She turned into nothing, the one thing the gods despised the most. Humanity was broken free of their shackles, and explored the planet as they were meant to do.”

…

“This is the beginning of freedom.”

The cage in her internal world shattered.

Her internal world self turned to dust.

And the flightless butterfly grew her wings.

Within moments, a strike of lightning hit Myeon.

Inda was standing there, with tears running down her face. Myeon stumbled back as Inda stared at him.

There was something wrong. She was shaking. Even though she knew she could leave, she was still shaking.

But, she looked at me. She looked at Ame. She looked at everybody else. They were all alive.

This was what Inda wanted most. She had left her cage. She took a deep breath, and smiled softly, still shaking.

“I-I’m here!”

She wasn’t entirely free. She just left for the first time, but continuing her journey would be just as hard. I wouldn’t want her to go back to the state she was just in.

But I was happy. I grinned and spoke.

“I can see that.”

Ame stood up and grinned.

Inda raised her leg and launched herself forward at Myeon. He didn’t even have time to react before Inda propelled her entire body weight into her leg, slamming it into Myeon’s head.

He turned his head back, barely keeping it on, and held his hands out towards Inda’s stomach. Just as he was about to blast fire through her stomach, Inda disappeared.

A crack of electricity floated through the sky as Inda rotated herself in the air above him, and slammed her heel into the back of his neck. I could hear something get singed as electricity flew past my head.

He fell to the ground, but quickly got up and looked around. Inda was nearby somewhere. But she was fast. She was way too fast for him to see.

Each and every time her feet touched the ground, another crack of lightning hit the space under it.

Myeon turned his head around constantly, trying to keep track of Inda. He was being circled. His eyes couldn’t keep up, and her blur from movement began to look like an afterimage.

Myeon placed his hand on the ground, and shot flames around him in the form of a ring bursting upwards from the floor. The afterimages disappeared and melted.

Inda was gone. Nowhere to be seen.

Myeon, panting, grinned and yelled out.

“SEE, ETERNAL FLAME! EVEN WITH HELP, YOU WILL NEVER OVERCOME THE FLAME OF LAPTAAN’S SECOND IN COMMAND!”

Ame grit his teeth. Sy and Kaya were beginning to wake up, and were still shaking. Dominic was already back to consciousness as he gripped the hilt of his sword hard, waiting for a moment to interject.

But that moment never came.

Myeon gripped the air in front of him as flames shot from the palm of his hand. He held that palm to Eternal Flame, too hurt to move out the way. I needed to act. I needed to move my feet.

I needed to leave this spot. To break free of these chains.

Myeon yelled out to us.

“IT’S OVER! THIS IS THE END, ETERNAL FLAME!”

And flames burst through his palm.

A bright light flooded my eyes and sounds of lightning burst my eardrums.

Inda shot down from the sky, holding onto Myeon’s waist with her legs from behind, her head next to his ear.

She whispered to him.

“We’re just getting started~!”

She launched herself upwards, and with her legs, she rotated his body through the sky until his head was facing the floor. She stood on top of his feet from above, before grabbing his ankles and lancing his body directly into the floor.

Still in the air, she floated above him, aimed her leg at his head, and held her hands above her.

She shot electricity through her hands, propelling herself downwards, and slamming her foot into his head, burying him into the ground. The impact caused a snap in his neck as his body contorted inside the floor.

Myeon was dead. It was over. Inda won.

But that wasn’t what I cared about at this moment. I didn’t care about his life being ended.

Inda was here. Standing with us. I cared about Inda. I cared that she was outside. I cared that there was a connection that she could make without worrying about them dying.

Inda fell down onto her knees along with Ame.

We were all breathing heavily. The sun was just beginning to rise.

I was tired.

After a couple of minutes of catching my breath, I saw Aqlli limping over to us. He saw Inda and tried to yell, but fell over.

Inda shot over towards him to catch him.

“What happened, Dad?!”

“Ra has strength comparable to that of a monster. He escaped, but retreated. We are safe, though. But I have another question. WHY-”

Cough Cough!

He couldn’t get out what he was trying to say.

I didn’t want Ame to die, so I took his inactivity as an opportunity to explain.

“I-Inda came out here on her own accord. She wanted to-”

“Shut the fuck up, Nell.”

He felt a lot less formal and elegant than he normally did. Thankfully, Inda walked over.

“It’s true, Dad. I came out here on my own.”

“...And your ‘disease’?”

She grinned and closed her eyes.

“I’m free…!”

Aqlli grit his teeth and furrowed his brows. It looked as if Inda said something that pained him.

“No you aren’t, Inda. It’s not that simple. Stay comfortable with freedom, or you’ll return to that sorry state. I say this only out of love for you, my daughter.”

She smiled.

“Alright...”

Aqlli turned to us.

“Go back to the castle, benefactors. The true battle is not over yet.”

He took a deep breath and looked Ame and I dead in the eye.

“I have another favor to ask of you all.”

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Nell's Notebook: Page 48.

I recently learned more about Kaya. I am writing this because of a simple question I have.

What is justice? Of course, it is what allows morality to work. But how? It is the ought to the is of divinity, but why does humanity care? Because The Original Sin wills it? Of course it is.

But Kaya cares too much for that to be true. I don’t know how to say what I want to say. I’m gonna write it down.

One day, after dinner, I walked into the backyard. I had a pet dog. Her name was… Little Man.

But she had died of sickness. I was incredibly sad.

It was wrong. What made it wrong? Did God make it wrong?

I could only cry more because of this thought.

Were my emotions meaningless?

Or did my emotions make it wrong?

I sat down next to the dog. And I wrote these words.

…

I miss you

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