Back Here

"I see, Leala," he slowly turned around to face me," I'm Ash Black. The only one like yourself here; a G1 former. It's surprising how you came a day before the G1's meeting. I will at least have a company now." His unrecognizable smile stabled me like an arrow in the chest. There was still a part of my memory that is missing? A part of me that I may not have recognized yet...

Ash Black was a G1 I could not remember. Perhaps it was another change from the Golden World, yet I could not have said that for sure.

As the seconds went by, I slowly started realizing he looked familiar, the new Klaus carries the looks of this Ash Black. His night-black hair fit into that Black Castle. I looked him in the eyes. Eyes driven from the whiteness of the snow and pupils that protruded from their dark black shades. It was like I had stared at a deep cave in a brightless night. Those eyes of his carried his ambitions more than anything in him. I got a bit excited, but Klaus looking like him was still something I could not explain.

"A day before the G1's meeting? What meeting...?"

"I don't know myself," he looked me in the eyes with confidence I had not witnessed before. I was never someone easy to approach; not now, not even then. But he still was able to face me with that much confidence. Ash Black's daring attitude was something I liked in his exclusive personality.

"Haha!" as his hand rose over my head, "What's with that facial expression? I'm not gonna bite you. Relax, haha."

.

After a long wait, I, at last, had the chance to smell the Golden World's soil. And even more than my longing for the Golden World was my need to go back to the Golden House. I wondered if this day will ever come, and when I arrived in the Golden World and found my self standing in the Black Castle and not my Golden House. The same disappointment I had felt when they all came to the Golden World and I was left climbed my shoulders once again. It weighed a burden I hated.

But I was relieved that this disappointment would not last for endless-years wait as it did at my birth. It was only until tomorrow morning.

.

Early in the morning the next day, I was all ready to hit my way to the Golden House. And it was not only me who seemed to have wanted to visit the Golden House so badly. Ash woke up even earlier than me. I was stunned by his sense of time. More than thirty minutes before I left my room, he stood by that same glassly window he was standing by the day before.

Walking with Klaus, who was on my left, I leaped my steps down the stairs "I think he still isn't awake, Klaus..." I couldn't hold my astonishment, and it was easy to read my facial expressions. My eyes dropped from their place with my frozen to the ground feet, at that moment I think I lost my sense of control.

"That face again!" Ash mocked my facial expression with a straight tone.

"You're mean..." I coldly confirmed a new part of this Ash Black.

"You should hurry up. We should be going already... especially that you still can't..."

"The golden house is not far from here..." and again I lost control over myself.

We both walked out of the Black Castle accompanied by our KEYs. For a long time, no one spoke. We did not have to. It was unnecessary, yet something in me still wanted to ask. Still wanted to know about this new Ash Black she had never met before, and if he really had something with the Golden House.

I could not but start to wonder what was it that drove him to want to go to the Golden House that much. Speaking of myself at the time, I wanted to see my Golden Familly; the Golds. But he did not seem to be any interested... It was just different.

"Ash...," I hesitated for a few seconds, " Do you have something you would like to see? In the Golden House, I mean..."

"Do you?..." he stared again without a blink at my eyes, " Asami. I want to see Asami the ACF..."

'Asami the ACF?... He wants to see Asami.'

"Well now that you put it this way, I too want to meet the Golden Leader!" My voice echoed in the place.

I turned my face to see his expression. Together with my head, his head oppositely synced movements. His smile slowly brightened his face. He looked at me for a while, " Huh, you want something, Ash?"

"Not really, just was thinking how could be that this KEY of yours..."

"Klaus. He has a name. His name is Klaus," I corrected him

"Sorry, Klaus looks exactly like me?" he smirked at me. As that smirk was...

***

VOLUME 4 ENDS