Chapter 55: Blue Sky

Lyra and Tyla stared with hazy eyes and empty gazes at the bleak sky from a pile of rumbles.The black clouds rumbled and carpeted the earth. They watched the fuming patches billow and twir with streaks of purple lightning tearing arcs through them.

Buried underneath heavy piles of rumble from the collapsed two storey structure, none of them felt particularly enthusiastic to get up. A deep and strange lethargy and apathy filled their minds and aching body. They were bruised, with broken bones, and internal injuries.

Everything simple hurt that it was hard to pinpoint just where exactly.

As the lethargy continued too deep in deeper into their mind, the swirling black clouds resembled thier drifting thoughts that were almost as fleeting as clouds. And the longer they bot just stared at it, the mover vain they felt.

Eventually, a small tongue of violent flame licked at Lyra's surface wounds, healing it. And a suffusing underglow spread from underneath her body.

When her lips parted, it was small wisps of flames that came out as she said monotonously.

"Hey, silve bitch...you still alive?"

An equally dry and flat reply came not too long.

"What?"

As Lyra was embraced in the spreading warmth and radiance of the flames, she felt the tension and pain slowly wash away, and each second, she would regain more lucidity.

But even then, the world still appeared dark and dim, forlorn and gloomy.

Just as it should be.

Lyra lingered for a few minutes, before managing to respond in a dry and low voice.

"... you're freakishly strong. What a brutish woman." She sounded like she was bitterly lamenting, but just couldn't find the excitement and energy to show it.

Tyla heard her words but didn't release and outburst. She didn't feel anything but pain and apathy.

"Hmph. Even you're a monster. My entire right shoulder is shattered, and I can't move a finger..." Tye Silver haired Tyla's, who was covered in dirt, dust and rubbles, said almost half jokingly.

"Get out. I can't feel my right leg, and I think my left leg is shattered..." This time, Lyra actually let out a small chuckle. It was a self-deprecating one, but it was an emotion regardless.

She blinked her sapphire eyes then added after some time.

"... Well for now."

"You're fucking healing already?" Tyla almost groaned, but gave up even trying.

The silence grew thicker, but serene as the two young woman continued to silently star gaze.

Except there were no stars, moon or suns.

All of the heavenly bodies were destroyed or consumed during the first invasion, seventy years ago...

All that was left was a morbid, empty, dark and twisted vacuum; an ever present gloom that enshrouded the now lightless world.

In the end, neither Lyra nor Tyla could complain though.

This gloom...was what they were more familiar with.

It was in the embrace of this darkness, that they were born in after all. They hadn't got the chance to see the much exclaimed and fantastical stars. If anything, the idea that there actually were shimmering balls of fire hovering dangerously above the skies of the earth sounded both illusionary, impossible, and at tye same time... terrifying.

...what it they suddenly fell?

Ah, but wasn't Lyra told there were also instances that actually happened in the past.

Falling...no.... shooting stars?

"Hey, silver bitch," Lyra called out fleetingly again.

This time, Tyla took her time and longer to respond. And did so with a hint of annoyance.

"What?"

Lyra was unbothered by her attitude, and continued on wistfully as she stared at the black clouds.

"A blue sky... Would it look pretty?" There was wonder, and childlike longing in her voice.

Enough to make Tyla deeply ponder them.

But in the end...

"Huh? What's that? That would be surreal..." Tyla could possibly imagine a blue sky. It felt so distant, and strange that it was unreal. She couldn't put an image over the gloomy heavens she had grown to see.

But when she thought of a blue sky, something stared inside her heart.

... wasn't this what it meant to dream?

Lyra laughed dryly once again.

"Yeah, I guess so. But can't a lady dream even a little. It's one of the only few lights we have left in our world today..."

"... Dream, huh. " What a vague and fleeting concept, Tyla honestly thought.

Warriors weren't thought to 'dream', they were trained to draw blood and die valiantly.

To them, life wasn't worth living or complete without death.

So all the blabbering the devil from the Walls was going on about, just made absolutely no sense to her. It was a waste of time, if she had enough space to 'dream' like this, couldn't she instead go use it to learn knew battle techniques?

Huh?

Tyla for sure would do that.

But 'a lady' huh?

Strange. The Warrior from the Ntuli Tribe kept having her mind uselessly wonder down some unusual and pointless thoughts she had never even considered.

'I must have hit my head far harder... ' better still, the devil from the wall, must have hit her head even harder than her.

Tyla nodded internally.

Yes. That makes more sense.

As the moment continued to draw, all of a sudden, the two were attracted to sound of tapping feet, slowly approaching. The approaching footsteps drew them both out of their reverie, as they listened to it draw nearer, and a familiar presence grow closer.

Then they heard the masculine voice of a Middle aged man.

"Are you two ladies still alive?"

Tyla took in a deep breath.

" Professor... "

Lyra who already managed to recover somewhat, managed to move her head. She saw the familiar professor with messy white hair, ad bright green eyes hidden behind a pair of lenses. He was donning his usual white lab coat, and wore a scholary aura like a second shroud.

But there were also deep traces of physical and mental exhaustion in his expression.

Yet the professor still smiled half hopelessly and half wistfully.

Then he signed, and all semblance of serenity drained from his expression. And his next words dominated the silence that followed.

"Huey's back, and we have visitors."

___ ___

'I'm back...'

Or so I thought.

I stood high up in the grey skies, and overlooked the world from above. It was already a couple of days since I ventured out to find my neighborhood... My old neighborhood. Just as estimated, I was able to return in only a few days.

But what I wasn't expecting, was the type of welcome awaiting my return.

"What is all this?"

'It looks like a fight?' below me, in the torn ground, were a group of multiple people who seemed to have been in a confrontation with each other. They were strange and peculiar ones wearing even more stranger clothes and wielding strange weapons.

Their faces were stiffened, and their eyes looked like they would bulge out of their sockets at me, at any moment.

For the meantime, I overlooked this rude display and surveyed the entire situation from the sky.

I met a few familiar figures, and ultimately rested my attention on the large brawny Barak.

But it seems like things are much more difficult than I thought.

Barak...had lost an arm.

"Kiaaargghh!! M-m-monster!! It-it — that's it!!" All of a sudden, a petrified scream rang through the air, and everyone eventually turned their gazes, I inclusive, toward the direction it came from.

There was a person, draped in a raggarf cloak, a man, scurrying against the dirty ground and shivering with his hugged shoulders.

Underneath the hood over his head, he possessed a grouseome scar that was like half of his face had melted, and his eyes had swollen. His back hunched and twisted from underneath the dirty cloak, and his burst lips shivered.

He was filled with fear, and trembled in place against the ground. Occasionally he stole glances at me, and his lios trembled even more.

He just called me a monster, didn't he?

I've been hearing that a lot lately, but isn't it just plain rude for a stranger to say that out of nowhere without knowing anything about me?

I mean, I'm a really nice guy when you've come to know me. Pretty loveable too, actually.

If I get called a monster or an abomination, even a kind, nice guy like me could get my feelings hurt.

And it's from someone I've never met too, even worse.

I restrained a very deep sigh, and felt a particularly heavy gaze that threatened to pierce a hole through me.

It was from a young, beautiful woman, with long golden hair, and shimmering blue eyes. She had a symmetrical face, and tender features, that it was almost unreal.

She was looking really intently at me. No, like, really, really, deeply.

"Who...who are you?" Just then a voice reached out to me.

In contrast, it belonged to man.

In a bigger contrast, the man in question had a long and unpleasant face. Contrary to the young lady who's presence illuminated the world with an illusionary radiance, the world was shrouded in an even deeper gloom when around his shoulders.

Repulsive.

That was how I instinctively felt for some reason. There was something about this person that made me want to spit.

But I held myself back, and masked all of my thought behind a mask of indifferent solemnity that I had carefully bred since retuning to earth.

I focused my gaze on him, and the man with a long face, his expression deepened.

"Shouldn't you introduce yourself before you ask for other's names?" I said in a deep voice from above.

"... How rude of me. My apologies, " the man adjusted his frames, and smiled crookedly. He lowered his head as he apologized.

"My name is James. We are envoys of Allan Fort, the Fortress, due east from here..." He gave a quick introduction, turned, then gestured to the woman from before.

At the same time, his voice became brighter, more deeper, and more resonant.

"This here, is our Captain and Leader. Sonia Blade, the Mistress of Coldblood. We have come out here on an expedition, actually... " The man went on, but I was no longer listening.

Something... something about what he said...

Unconsciously, my gaze drifted away from the man, and fell on the lady with blonde hair. A strange ad inexplicable feeling of emotion welled up in my chest, and made the simple action of breathing, seem like a chore.

"Blade..." I muttered weakly.

No, this is bad. I must regain composure. How dare somebody...

My gaze sharpened and deepened as I turned back to the man who was still yapping on. Unconsciously, I released a portion of my presence and the World became heavier.

Unconsciously, I gripped the hilt of my sword tighter.

How dare someone...

"Right now...what did you just say? Blade? Sonia...Blade?"

Someone would die!