Chapter 10,
Dark Blue Skies
"What is this one for?" Eljeric asked, pointing at the Dark Blue bird in front of him.
"Who knows, maybe Gella does," Lyka said making the two look at Gella from behind who was smiling.
"That information is classified, sorry," She said without any scratches in her voice, but her inside is shaking and her heart is beating fast as a cheetah right now.
"Don't you want to go visit the other players?" Eljeric wondered.
"Oh, no. The others are watching over them. I choose who I want to look after sometimes," she shrugged.
"Why not rest for a while? If you guys keeps on it, you'll die," Gella recommended giving a cute, worried smile.
"Is that okay?" Tj immediately asked.
"Why not? This game don't have a time limit after all, aren't I right?" Gella answered.
Eljeric moved a few feet away from them while his back facing them making the others curious. He opened his bag and came looking for something. Not long after rummaging on his backpack, he found something. It was a pencil with a dragon similar to the Chinese's dragon, but its skin seemed like its made out of hard, durable metal. The pencil is made out of dark oak and it's coal inside is a fine quality one. The other that he took out was a pad of paper that's seemingly to be at a size of one-eight of an intermediate paper.
"What are those?" Zephyr spoke from behind in his cold tone making Eljeric jolt back from shock, and immediately hiding what he's currently holding.
"Let me. . ." Zephyr was about to grab Eljeric's hand that's hiding what he's holding when Lyka spoke.
"Finally, a little rest," she said, sighing while she's sitting on Tj.
"I-I thought you were angry at Tj?" Eljeric tries to change the topic.
"I'm still," she avoided a gaze from Eljeric.
"What? I thought we're okay?" Tj asked, worried.
Lyka never spoke back, "At least, reply! Please!!!" Tj begged.
"Eljeric," Zephyr handed out his hand to Eljeric who was looking at it, as Zephyr gave his piercing cold eyes on him.
Slowly, he handed out what he's hiding in his hands, "Here," he faintly said.
Zephyr slowly sat down and leaned his head over Eljeric's shoulder, "May I know what this is for?" He asked with a sweet voice.
"This? It can be used in various ways. It can be considered as a weapon," Eljeric said in a straight tone, but he was shaking in embarrassment from deep inside him. This was too much for him to handle.
"How many weapons do you have? You're weird in your own way, aren't you?" He faintly chucked keeping his 'sweet tone'.
"Every single time my birthday passes, I receive weapons from my twin brothers. Talismans and different artifacts from my sister, Training from father, and cursing papers from the eldest brother," He explained still succumbing faintly on Zephyr's touch.
"Is this a cursing paper?" He handed back the paper.
"N-No. This ones a artifacts. As far as known, artifacts are categorized from the rank F to S, origin from blessings to creations, and grouped by what they do like if they are defensive or offensive, passive, or active or more. This one's a S-Rank Art Paper. Everything you draw or write here can come to life, but if only applies on non-living objects mostly on weapons, and used in copying another weapon, but it can only be used in a certain amount of time that differs." Zephyr nodded in understanding.
"Can we start now? It's been a long rest already," Eljeric diverted his gaze on Gella from the back.
"Kyaaah! It's okay, it's okay. Rest as much as you want. We don't mind," Gella disapproved to them while she was sitting beside Lyka while the two held hands, looking smug and slightly blushing.
"Thank you," Zephyr smiled back at them and hugged him tightly making Eljeric blush.
"Kyaaaa! We could die now!" Lyka and Gella said in resonance.
Eljeric pulled himself together and brushed off Zephyr, "If we want rest, we should finish this up faster and go to our room!" he said blushing.
"Go to. . ." Lyka was dumbfounded.
". . .your room?" Gella continued the broken sentence.
Eljeric felt himself gradually heating up in the face, "N-no it's not like that!" he explained desperately.
"It's okay. Do what you want. We'll be cheering on you two," Gella said while chuckling.
"That's right. Let's go wrap things up faster to get some rest. Haha!" Lyka was also chuckling, same as Gella.
"Let's go," Tj said while he brushes off the dusts in him.
I nodded in agreement. Lyka and Zephyr also stood up and we approached the Dark Blue bird. Along the way, Zephyr's cold look came back to his face as if nothing happened there.
"Hello, dear players." By the sudden talking of the blue bird, Eljeric and the others was freaked out, not to mention Gella from the back who was dumbfounded right there.
"G-Gella, what is this?" Lyka asked as her voice was a bit shaky.
"I-I wasn't fully aware since I didn't see him talk before, but all birds here can talk. I never seen that one talk before, sorry," She apologized.
"What do you want?" Zephyr asked in his usual cold tone.
The bird talked back, "I will only be showing memories of your dark pasts. I want to tell you four that I don't chose the memories played. It differs," the bird cleared his throat, "What my main intension is to ask you to give your sorry to the pink bird from before. We heard your conversation." the bird looked at Zephyr coldly and Zephyr fought back with the same cold eyes.
"She's my girlfriend to be, precise. You and I are similar in a way and your boyfriend is also. In you, I saw my past self, I'm sure of it. Did you know how it turned out to be? Guess," the bird was emotionless, but Eljeric felt it grin for some reason. On the other hand, Zephyr was trying his best to kill the bird with his piercing eyes' freezing cold gazes.
"Okay, now, let's start," the quiet atmosphere broke by the blue bird speaking with his monotone voice.
"Playboy, you go first," the yellow bird from next spoke her recommendation.
"Okay, here goes nothing!" Tj said while he slowly approached the bird with his hand.
Tj just stood there like a statue wile his hand is still in contact with the bird's head.
"Gella," Eljeric called out.
"Yes, sir," Gella answered after Eljeric spoke, and a screen appeared out of nowhere.
"Mom, where are we going?" A young boy, who was Tj, asked while he held a hand of a woman who was his mother.
It was snowing heavily and his mother was wearing no jacket, but just a scarf. On the other hand, a big jacket was on Tj with a long scarf that has the size for adults. His mother's breathing was so heavy that her throat seems like a frozen one.
"Just wait, Tj. Can you give me a map to Uncle's house?" His mother said in a kind voice and snapped making a carpet appear there.
Handing out a map to his mother, Tj's mother putted it in the carpet and it dispersed into thin air and combined with the carpet. The carpet started to float in the air, ready for the journey.
"Listen, Tj. Give this to Uncle and tell him that mom had done it, okay? Be a good boy," His mother patted his head faintly before giving a bitter smile and waved farewell to him.
With that past, tears slowly flown down in Tj's face. That was a sad memory hidden in the back of Tj's memory. That took too much toll on him. He fell down in tears and Lyka came closer to comfort him.
"I'll be going next," Lyka said while she wears a saddened expression.
"No, you're exempted. You already shown a bad memory from before. That's enough to satisfy me. Accept my kindness," said the blue bird.
"Well then. . ." Eljeric reached out his hand up.
"Okay," the blue bird replied.
Touching the bird, memories came flashing into Eljeric until it came into a halt and the hologram shown what Eljeric was seeing.
"Brother, what is this?" A young version of Eljeric asked while pointing at a painting.
"That? It's a tiger." Terrance smiled with his kind one.
"Tiger? But it's colored white and a little black and grey. It also looks scary, is it kind?" Eljeric added another question.
"No matter how scary is a painting, it's an art. The more scary it is, the more it gives impact to the message," he said while slowly pats Eljeric's head, "Like this one, it conveys violence, but the violence is pretty if you look closely," He added while pointing at the painting.
"Now that you put it, it's pretty!" Eljeric smiled.
"See, I told you?" Once again, Terrance ruffled his hair while Eljeric chuckled cutely.
"I wish it was like this forever," Terrace mumbled to himself making Eljeric look at him in confusion.
With those words, Eljeric jolted. He was now in the kitchen. In front of him was the sink that was squeaky clean and no one was around.
"Visitors are here, Terrance," Keine said as he approached the kitchen, "Eljeric come with me," he added while dragging Eljeric upstairs to his room without his permission.
In the room was Eiji who was packing Eljeric's clothes and stuffs into his bag, "take care of this, okay?" Eiji smiled.
Terrance came crashing into the door, "Hurry, father will be here sooner. Are you done with Eljeric, Eiji?" he asked.
"Almost. I'll send him once I finished, right?" He asked worriedly and Terrance just nodded as a reply to his question.
Eiji pulled out some clothes in the bag and pulled Eljeric closer to him and haded him a piece of map, "Follow this map, it's a safe place. We'll be off for a while," He said while putting the clothes on Eljeric who was wondering about what happened.
Only in this point of the memory, Eljeric was already overflowing with tears that seems to have no end.
"All set! Take care of yourself," Eljeric looked at the hand on his shoulder. One on the left was Yuan, his father, and Terrance, his older brother.
With that, he suddenly teleported into the outside while his bag on his back and the map on his hand. No one was with him. I'm a sudden, a man appeared out of nowhere and came to attack him.
Before he could be hit, Terrance came defending him, "Go run! Faster!"
Eljeric ran as fast as he could while not looking back at where he came from. Al he did was run fr his life as he was told for his own sake and for his brother's sacrifice to go to waste.
From the battle, blood was everywhere and four dead bodies was there. It was Yuan, Terrance, Keine, and Eiji's. They were lying on the ground while bruised ad bleeding in every part of their bodies. No one was there except for theirs and their blood created a pool enough to drown an army of ants.
Eljeric came back to reality and saw everyone dumbfounded by what they saw in front of them. His face was in shock like the others while inevitable pouring tears are flowing down his face. This was surely not how they expected the turn of events.
"What's wrong?" Eljeric asked while he wipes off the tears in his face.
No one answered and stayed silent, "I'll just consider that as nothing," he awkwardly chuckled.
"It's my turn now, isn't it?" Zephyr spoke.
"I'm growing excited now! What could it be, What could it be? Is it none? Or Maybe there is?" Gella Excitedly spoke.
"What is?" Eljeric asked.
"Nothing!" Gella answered back and hit her head lightly while making a cute expression, "now, what are you, Zephyr Zilch?" she added inside her mind.
***