The Mystery of Albus (Part 2)

After the initial meeting with Feng, Makoto started to think. What was the cause of Shinsuke's death? Why did Albus disappear afterwards? And, even though he had already thought of it, why was Shiro so scared of Feng?
Makoto was going to find out.

Makoto went to the Apex Master's study. 'If the Apex Master knows about this, it'll probably be much easier to get answers,' he thought.

*knock, knock*

"Excuse me," Makoto called, "may I come in?"
"Yes," the Apex master said from inside.
Makoto walked inside the room. Inside, the Apex Master was sitting at his desk as usual, reading something.
"What is it, Makoto?" the Apex Master asked, looking up from his scroll.
"I have a question," Makoto said. "Do you know anything about Shinsuke and Feng? Oh, and what happened with this Albus? I heard from Feng about him, and was curious."

The Apex Master looked at Makoto, confused. "You- you know about Albus Aurelius?" he asked Makoto, who nodded.
The Apex Master sighed and said, "That's for Shiro to tell you."
Makoto tilted his head. "Why?" he asked.
"Well," the Apex Master replied, "because... I shouldn't tell you."
Makoto still didn't exactly get it, but he just shrugged it off and said "Alright."
After all, he had learned to only ask about something once; and if he couldn't learn more about that thing, he should just forget about it.

But forgetting about this particular thing wasn't exactly easy. He thought about it some more over the day, and eventually, he decided to ask Ryu if he knew anything.
"Hey, Ryu!" Makoto called into the room he shared with Ryu and Chihiro.
No one was inside.
'Huh, maybe they're training?' Makoto thought. He looked around the room and saw that there really wasn't anyone inside. So, he just sat down and decided to wait for them to get back.

Some time later, Makoto had been waiting for a little while. He was getting kinda bored, so he went over to his bed and lay down. Not for any particular reason, just because he was bored.
"I guess they're gonna take a while," he thought aloud to himself.
Makoto yawned and dozed off.

But he wasn't exactly asleep.

Because when he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in some kind of monochrome room.

               And that room he was in seemed familiar somehow. He just didn't know how.

                                                                                 ***

"H-hello?" Makoto called nervously. "Is anyone here?"

No answer.

"*clears throat* Hello?" Makoto called again.

Again, no answer.

Until he heard a voice coming from a room nearby.

He ran towards it, and when he got there, he saw a transparent version of himself standing in his old classroom. 'That was me on my first day at high school!' Makoto thought.

It felt surreal, seeing himself from that day in this strange place. But before he could think about it more, he heard what sounded like a young Ryu speaking.

"I'll go if Chihiro can come with me."

Makoto ran towards the sound of the voice, and in a different room, he saw young Ryu and young Chihiro. They both looked between 12 and 15, but it looked like that had been the day they went to the Apex Tower for the first time to train.
"They were so young," Makoto said, feeling bad for the two brothers.
Suddenly, the scene shifted, and instead showed the two training. But before he could watch for too long, Makoto saw a path. He followed it to a large, metal door.
'What's behind this?' he thought as he knocked on the door. "Hello? Anyone there?" he called, but no one answered.
Just then, the door opened seemingly by itself, showing a scene with people Makoto had only seen once.

                                                    It was Feng, Shinsuke and Albus.

                                                                             ***

"Alright," Feng said in the vision, "we don't have a whole bunch of time to get there, but I'm sure we can make it to that village if we move fast."
Shinsuke nodded. "Yeah, we can make it if we move quickly."
The two seemed confident, but Albus seemed nervous.
"B-but," he stammered, "what if yourー o-our plan doesn't work?"
Shinsuke chuckled and put his hand on Albus's shoulder. "No worries, Alus. I'm sure you'll do fine."

Makoto tilted his head, confused. 'Wait,' he thought. 'Wasn't "Alus" Shiro's old nickname?'
But before he could think about anything else, he suddenly woke up and saw that Chihiro and Ryu had just entered the room.

"Oh, there you are, Makoto," Ryu said, wiping the sweat from training off his forehead. "We had been looking for you; Feng wanted to say something to you."
"Oh, he did?" Makoto asked as he sat up, curious as to what the older Paladin might want to say to him. "Did he want to talk to all of us, or just me?"
"Just you," Chihiro replied. "I'm not sure what it's about, he didn't elaborate; but I get the feeling it might be about the Abyss King's true identity."
Ryu put his hand on his younger brother's head. "You're overreacting, Chi. I'm sure it's just some technique that he learned from somewhere that he wants to teach Makoto.
Anyways," Ryu said, "he told us that he'd be in the Training Arena, now that it's empty."
Makoto chuckled and got up from his bed. "Alright then, I'll go see what he wants to say. See you guys in a bit!"
The brothers and Makoto parted ways at the doorway.

'Huh, strange,' Makoto thought to himself as he walked to the Arena. 'I had a weird vision about Feng, and then he wants to see me... hmm.'

When Makoto got to the Arena, he saw Feng standing in the center with his arms crossed. He looked at Makoto and grinned slightly for a second, then gestured for Makoto to come forward.
"Um, Feng?" Makoto asked, a little nervous. "Why did you want to see me?"
Feng pushed his bangs out of the way before he spoke. "I wanted to tell you what exactlt happened to Shinsuke, since you seem to want to know."
'Oh,' Makoto thought to himself, calming down a bit. 'So it wasn't what any of us thought it was; it was just Shinsuke.'
"Back when Albus had first joined us Apex Paladins, he was very... shy," Feng said. "Shinsuke saw that, and wanted to help him. He was very charismatic, so it didn't take long for Albus to join our small friend group, if that's what you would call the three of us.
"But," Feng said, his gaze becoming firm, "one day, we were planning an attack on the Abyss King. Shinsuke and I had planned it out perfectly, there was no way in the whole Abyss that it could go wrong.

"But Albus," he said, distain in his voice, "he ruined the plan. I left him alone with Shinsuke for five minutes, kid. FIVE MINUTES. And when I get back," Feng continued, the pain in his voice audible, "I see Shinsuke, my only friend since I was a child, DYING, and I couldn't even be there for him, because that TRAITOR ALBUS WOULDN'T LET GO!!"

Makoto's eyes widened in shock. "Albus... Albus was the one who...?" Makoto started to say, but he couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence.
Feng nodded. "Yes." His voice sounded strained, like he was holding back tears.
"Why would Albus do that?" Makoto asked, confused and sad. "Maybe he had been under some kind of mind control," Feng said, "but it seemed to much like he had intended for it to happen. It was almost like he had been tricking us all that whole time."

Makoto looked down, and decided that he was going to figure this out, one way or another. Even if it meant he had to fight the Abyss King right now, he didn't care. He was going to do this.