Chapter 2: So We Meet, Brothers Once More (2)
Chapter 2: So We Meet, Brothers Once More (2)
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The sky wept without end.
Upon the broken earth, ruins crumbled like ash, and nothing endured.
Sssshhhh—
The dying embers of fire hissed beneath the rain's solemn blessing.
All had fallen.
None remained.
All... save one.
A child.
A lone girl stood amidst the desolation.
Tattered rags clung to her frail frame, blood mingling with rain as it poured from unhealed wounds.
A ghost in the storm، Silent، Watching.
Dead they are, dead, This place … a river of blood and echoes.
A passing thought—fragile, persistent—lodged in her weary mind.
She gazed upon the slain, scattered like leaves.
Rain washed away the filth of war, revealing beneath the horror a painful, quiet purity.
A mother clutched her infant in frozen defiance, shielding her child with the last of her soul.
Even in death, the mother's warmth endured— if only in posture.
An old man, back against the charred remnants of his home, had fallen sitting, as though to guard the final memory of a family long since taken by time.
A young maiden knelt, even in death, blade in hand, spine straight—her tattered weapon propping her broken pride, her back against a tree still smoldering with flame.
A youth had perished standing, beasts felled at his feet in testimony to a final stand.
None survived… save one.
Dead they are, dead، Their stories… fragments of warning, floating in the mist.
The warmth has left their limbs, Only emptiness remains.
They struggled, They endured.
And now, they are forgotten.
No soul remains to mourn them.
No lips to whisper their names.
No hands to bury their deeds in honor.
No grave.
No kin.
Nothing.
Dead they are, dead, Their bonds severed.
Their names cast into the wind like dust, strangers even to memory.
Dead they are, dead, Eyes once gleaming with hope now closed forever.
Dreams dissolved into shadow.
The girl wept — softly, as the rain had taught her.
A question escaped her lips, but no one answered.
"Why?"
She rose—barely.
Her wounded form staggered into the void left behind.
Why?
They had scorned her, Wounded her.
Rejected her because she did not look like the others.
No one spoke of her parents.
None whispered even hate for them.
Only silence.
A silence so deep, she too forgot.
But something ancient stirs in all living things—a desire for shelter.
For kindness, To belong.
She had no parents.
And so she looked to the village.
To be protected.
To be spared.
To be loved—perhaps.
The wind toyed with her body like a petal on the edge of the abyss.
Her wounds tore anew.
"...Ah."
Pain flashed—sharp, biting.
But clenched teeth silenced her cries.
And memory returned, not as a flood… but a whisper.
"Eugh! Stay away, filth! My children won't touch that thing!"
"White hair… do you not recall what the elder said? Those with pale hair carry disease."
"Should we exile her?"
"Fool. She's but a child. The beasts fear her kind. If we do not touch her, the sickness may pass us by."
They muttered.
They stared.
But none dared approach.
The children?
They feared her too.
And so they threw stones—only when unseen.
Crack.
Her pale hands were cracked, blistered, aching.
She did not care.
She dragged the corpse of the mother and child to what remained of a shelter—only soot and silence now.
She wiped blood from her eyes and returned for another.
One body, Then two, Then three…
Time dissolved.
She no longer counted.
Only buried.
She had hated them, Truly, Sincerely.
But her hands moved.
And her heart … refused to let go.
She should not have cared.
Let the beasts feast.
Let the flesh rot.
They had earned nothing from her but disdain.
And yet…
Her heart would not let her rest.
"Hey! You miserable brat! Take this food—I've no need for it!"
A gruff old man, never once kind in word, tossed her bread without meeting her gaze.
"Kya~! Why do you look prettier than me in my dress? Ugh! I don't want it anymore! My mother won't let me wear it anyway—hehe!"
A merchant's spoiled daughter laughed wickedly as the child shivered in stolen warmth.
"One day, I'll become an Ego Warrior! Then no one will mock her! Not even the plague will scare our village!"
"Ha! Dream on, fool. Think commoners like us can become Ego Warriors? Better go wed off your daughter first…"
"Bah! That sly fox just wants an excuse to throw a banquet for the children again."
Men spoke in hushed tones by her sleeping form, pretending not to care, wrapping her in warm blankets.
"Tsk, guess I'll need to buy a new one for my grandson…"
"Eyy! That's my blanket, grandpa!"
"You disrespectful wretch! Dare accuse your elder? I'll teach you manners—!"
"But it's true—ow, ow, owww!"
They had hated her.
Because the elder said so.
But that was not the whole tale.
"Fools… all of you…"
Her voice trembled as she stared at the dead beneath the ruined shelter.
There was no shovel.
She dug with what she had.
Broken branches.
Drenched earth softened the way.
When the branches failed—she used rocks.
When rocks failed—her hands.
Tear the ground.
Carve the soil.
If the world forgets them—she would not.
Discrimination devours those who are different.
That was truth.
But not the whole truth.
For even the despised may be cherished.
Even the hated may be loved.
Love cannot be manufactured.
Nor can hate be removed by will alone.
These things flow—like a river, winding as it wills.
She was always a mischievous child.
Bothered the other kids, Screamed at sunrise, Played cruel tricks.
It was not malice, It was thirst.
A thirst for attention.
To be seen, To matter.
To be hated… was better than being ignored.
To be unseen…
as if one were mist on the breeze—
To pass from the world, and none notice … not in life, not in death.
Who could endure such silence?
She was fine with their hate.
She hated them in return.
Was that not fair?
Crack, Crack.
Blood oozed from ruined palms, Skin peeled away like paper.
She was but ten.
Yet endured as if forged of steel.
"If only you'd left Lilith alone… she'd not suffer like this…"
The whisper passed her lips.
If nothing had changed…
Would her heart have stayed cold?
Among these corpses… were those who had shown her kindness.
They fed her, Clothed her, Let her sleep in warmth, secretly, under their roofs.
All knew, None spoke.
The elder? A senile figurehead.
The merchant? True power incarnate.
He fancied the girl, None dared oppose.
But to avoid wounded pride … they acted in secret.
Lilith was clever, She knew.
To speak of kindness… would invite destruction.
So silence reigned.
Some hated her, Some loved her.
Her hands, torn and red, now held the infant.
He had died from smoke — not fire.
His body, untouched.
"I'm …"
Her body shook.
She buried him with care.
"I'm sorry."
She didn't need to say it.
No guilt bound her.
And yet the words came — for grief has no rules.
She turned to the next body, heavy with sorrow.
The storm had ended.
And The ash remained.
Only ruins marked where homes once stood.
These villagers—simple souls—had perished.
They had fought to live.
And when death came…
They shielded her.
They left their daughter behind, not to die…
but to remember.
Tak.
A handful of earth fell upon the old man's chest.
The burial began.
The stubborn elder.
The aspiring youth.
The merchant's mischievous daughter.
The children who once scorned her—yet in rare moments, offered a love deeper than most.
The women who taught her letters and lore.
The wandering poet who whispered tales of distant stars.
Tears blurred her sight, but she wiped them away—deliberately.
She won't cry.
Not now.
Not in front of their resting place.
She carved each memory into her soul — every face, every final expression.
The echo of voices that would never speak again.
"I hate you …"
Each handful of soil carried with it a truth too bitter for words.
"You let me sleep in the cold … You called me cursed … I wish you were never born!"
I never hated you.
"You left me to starve … I hate you."
You kept me alive … I loved you.
"In sorrow I lived… you only deepened the wound… I hate you."
When I saw no purpose in life … you embraced me.
I loved you.
"You who bled not, and wept not—I curse you all…"
Yet my love for you surpasses all else, you who lit the night of my exile.
"It hurts…"
She collapsed forward, her tiny arms clutching the soil as though it were their flesh.
"Why did you make me wish to live?"
Now I don't know what to do.
"Why… why did you love a child like me?"
Her voice cracked as her chest convulsed.
"I once cursed you in time… but in time, I found myself loving you, And thus is born this pain."
O, most hated of my heart …
O, most loved of my soul.
"You were all that I had… and now, you are no more."
Farewell.
A farewell with no return.
Never again.
She stood.
Her back straightened.
Tears wiped away—for the final time.
And then, she smiled.
Not with joy.
But with solemn radiance.
"Your memory shall dwell within me. Always and ever. Through sorrow and triumph. Until the end of my journey, I shall not forget."
Dead they are, dead, But I … remains, Today, or tomorrow — Through storm or silence— I will mourn them still.
And with those words, her strength gave way.
Her body crumbled into unconsciousness.
"What a pity."
Somewhere, adrift in a sea of fading awareness, she heard a voice.
She wished to stay awake, To resist the abyss.
But her body — Worn by grief and sleepless days — Refused her will.
"Thus ends their tale, Without meaning, Cold, as winter in the hearts of world people, But like the plum blossoms that fall in frost … so too shall spring come again — perhaps for another."
None can know.
Such is the cruelty of life.
The voice belonged to no one she knew, A stranger, A dream, A shadow.
"Forget the past… until the time it must return, Like drifting ash, Remember, when the sealed chains break, We know not what future lies ahead, Strangers meet and part — that is the way of the world."
O, child of the Eternal Dream, The weight of fate is strange to bear — Yet each shall walk their path.
Today, we part، But one day—we meet again.
Her final sensation was—
A faint smile.
And then …
Darkness.
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The haze lingers.
A strange dream, Disjointed, Unreal.
Her eyes trembled open.
And met another's gaze.
"Wonder of wonders، Just how far did you push yourself, our little girl? You collapsed like a weary traveler in a foreign land."
"...What?"
Clarity returned, Confusion followed, Then, memory.
But the boy — He only smiled, oddly.
"Seems exhaustion claimed me. Sleep wrapped its arms around me without permission…"
Lilith murmured.
The dream…
She could not place it.
Nor understand its weight.
But now was not the time.
Ahead lay their destination.
And if she wished to shape her future, she must shine within the Moonlight Academy.
She buried the ache.
And looked to the blue sky.
"Such days are rare…"
No clouds, No rain, Only peace.
She exhaled softly.
"On the contrary," said Leon, lifting his hand to the sky.
"The sky has always been like this—blue, bright, majestic, We just forget to look."
His words were simple, Yet they held weight.
She remembered his face — calm during the storm.
When fear gripped all…
He smiled, And Slept soundly, free of worries .
"You're strange."
She laughed faintly, watching a lone cloud shift above.
"I hear that often," he replied. "But your judgment is harsh."
"Who sleeps through a disaster? Either a fool—or a strange lunatic."
"I will ignore this, But for now, rest as you wish, I doubt you'll get the chance again in a few hours."
"Tsk… striking where it hurts, huh?"
She winced, remembering what came next.
As the captain of their ship, the survivor of the storm, the others would soon drown her in praise.
Rest would vanish.
So for now … this moment was hers.
"Anyway … I am curious about that land — Moon Island, I mean, They say it has no king, No high lord, Many races dwell there. Though divided, they live in harmony, The Moonlight Academy guides them all, What do you think, Leon?"
"Long speech, But I agree, I hear the academy only accepts 300 students, Ranks aren't decided by blood or name, Be they human or half-blood—it matters not,
Only strength decides worth, I like that."
"Because you hate racism?"
"No, I simply like competition."
For once … they agreed.
And so, the two stared eastward — With smiles, as a mine of living, in light prosperity, watch the path of their ship, towards the island.
Towards the unknown.
Towards the life joys.
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[Elsewhere – Moon Island: Northern Forest]
Crack!
"Awooooo!"
The tree fell.
Crushing the wounded wolf beneath.
Its final howl snuffed in splinters.
Bodies upon bodies, Blood upon blood.
The forest reeked of rot and ruin.
Insects feasted freely.
Gluttons of the dead.
"Hey… when do we finish prepping?"
A boy with tiger's eyes lounged atop a big wolf's corpse, wiping his blade.
" Annoying, yeah. But we wait, Leon says he's close "
Another youth, white-haired, violet-eyed, carved into Rotten parts of a medium-sized wolf carcass، with eerie calm.
"Man… words fail me، The Forgotten Time is really over, huh?"
His voice was quiet, But heavy.
As if unshackled from a century of weight.
One eye shone emerald, The other, dark gold, Mismatched — yet somehow whole.
"Let's go. After all this time—we meet again."
The last of them — sitting on a tree، stood and walk.
Golden hair dancing with the breeze.
Eyes like molten fire.
"Yeah… let's."
Swoosh!
Four young men, Grinning, Stepping through ruin.
Behind them—chaos.
Before them—destiny.
In our new homeland we shall gather, O brother.
An empty past lies buried behind, yet still we smile.
From beasts we fled, as the weak.
Now, in strength reborn—we return.
We have not forgotten pain.
We have licked our wounds like wounded beasts.
Now it's time to make our enemies bleed.
Today begins our march.
Tomorrow—the rain shall run red.
Their blood shall answer for ours.
They fall … or we do, Let the doomed awaken.
The song of the past, buried in our hearts, is sung at last.
Grief is drowned beneath the joy of reunion.
At long last—this day has come.
The day of the Five Brothers.
Reunited after ages.
At winter's end … they walk once more.