kavella's journey

This Chapter will be told from Kavella's Point of View.

 I'm just about done with my studying up on Lakawanda, or whatever this staff is called. Truth be told, I can't take it anymore. All the information I've found is all kinds of useless, and I don't see anything about a special, secret Animus technique. I've been wasting my time here.

 I put all the books back on the shelf, where I think they came from. Honestly I don't put too much thought into it, I am just putting the books in whatever empty spaces I can find nearby. I sigh and realize I'm actually quite hungry. I wonder if Kael is still around. If he is, we should go get something. He must be done with his research by now, after all he had a much more straightforward task.

 I don't know much about Kael's personal life, but I can attest to his abilities. Weak fighter, slim build. Not very tall or 'manly' in any way. He's smart, though, and he sees the opportunity in things. His downfall is that he never shares what he's really feeling. Having the information is great, but if you don't use the information you have, you're a little worthless. 

 He's the opposite of Sigmund. I don't understand how they could have become best friends. Sigmund is strong, even though he's not big and imposing like that one man we met on the train. Part of Sigmund's strength in battle comes from the fact that he isn't giant and muscular, really. He uses a lightweight sword and he can attack fast. Whenever I see him fight, he spends more time jumping and rolling around on the ground than he spends standing still. It's nothing like my fighting style at all. When I fight, I ground myself solid and strike whatever comes near, while using Animus to get far-off targets.

 Sigmund's biggest weakness is what's in between his eyes. Not his forehead, his brain. There's not much up there. The little bit of knowledge he does have, he uses. If he knows any weakness about his enemy, anything at all, he will use it. He's…one of the more resourceful men I've come across, to be sure.

 Both of them are charming in their own way. Kael's a little cuter to me, but I don't find myself able to open up to him in any way. I don't find Sigmund as attractive, for whatever reason, but I feel that there is a certain charisma about him that makes me want to spend more time with him. Of course…this is ridiculous in all senses of the word. I am not supposed to be developing romantic relationships with people, so I shouldn't think about it. My heart does things that I don't appreciate sometimes, and this situation I feel with Sigmund is one of them. It doesn't matter. In time my feelings will fade away, and I won't have to worry about anything of the sort. It's the only way I can protect myself.

 Three years ago, I fled my home of Ramstadt to escape the conniving clutches of the House of Madera. They were intent on using me in some sort of Spiritual Sacrifice. Why were they using me? That is because I am a member of the House of Madera. My real name is Kealie Madera.

 The House of Madera had made a deal with the Spirits, three years ago, that if they sacrificed a young maiden of the Madera Family, then the Spirits would help the Maderas take over the nation as their own. I was to be that sacrifice. I knew this, and I fled with my protectors. They were all I had.

 My protectors were picked off, one by one, during my escape. The Spirits were surrounding us and eating us alive. Thankfully, their bloodlust would be satiated if one of my protectors stayed back and allowed themselves to be killed while the rest of us escaped. I was also able to use my standing as a member of the House of Madera to scare the lesser Spirits away.

 I managed to escape, at the cost of nine lives; those of my protectors. I came to Arcona Village because I needed to become stronger, so that I might be able to fight off the Spirits on my own, should they ever come back for me…

 Because of my royal Madera blood, my sacrifice would have made it possible for the Spirit Queen, Andromeda, to come to our world. Andromeda is one of the three Great Rulers of the Spirit World. She, along with the two Great Spirit Kings, are only surpassed in rank by Nachzehrer, who is the Emperor of the Spirit World. Any and all Spirits answer his every command.

 When I fled Ramstadt and changed my identity, I was able to prevent the Spirit Queen Andromeda from becoming a reality. Unfortunately, there was another plan being schemed up by the Vitarine Company, it seems. They were able to bring the Imp Queen Merava to this world. She is much less powerful than Andromeda, but she is still a threat.

 As a daughter of the House of Madera, which is inclined to bring so much suffering upon the nation, I feels it is my duty to stop the Imp Queen Merava. I should not be happy, and I should not fall in love. If I ever have a child, it will just contribute to this dark cycle. I am an only child, the only successor to the name of Madera. My mother is gone, and my father is all that is left.

 I push the dark thoughts out from my head. As long as Merava is stopped, none of that will matter. I will not let myself become a sacrifice to the Spirits, under any circumstances.

 I walk through the library and find Kael chatting it up with a strange girl. She looks at me with a dark shine in her eyes, and it makes me a bit uncomfortable. Kael seems happy to be around her, though, so I don't object to his decision.

 The three of us end up going to get lunch at a local restaurant. I'm baffled at how the food here can be so expensive, but I let it go. We have enough money to get us through.

 "So how do you two know each other?" the girl in red asks. I found out from Kael that her name was Olivia.

 "Friends from school," I say passively. The girl has been staring at me the whole time, and she is making me exceptionally uncomfortable. I want to ask her what her problem is, but that would be quite rude, I think.

 We're enjoying our meal, and Kael is chatting it up with that girl. I don't mind. It's good for him if he finds someone he can be in a relationship with. If he wants to stay in Pearl City, even better. I'm worried that Kael is too weak to fight Merava, and I know Sigmund will defend him at all costs. I don't want Sigmund to end up dying just to save Kael.

 After I share my lunch with these two, I decide to head over to the Church in town and see if they have any information on the Sealed Spirit. I walk away from Kael and Olivia, who seem to be hitting it off just fine without me. Kael calls out to me and tells me to meet him in the library when I get back.

 I suppose I can do that, although I think I should take a rest. For some reason, my chest suddenly feels heavy, and my limbs feel weak.

 I walk into the church. It is a huge, bright building with stained glass everywhere, but I don't really feel like checking out the architecture and appreciating it. I'm much more interested in the man standing at the front of the church. He is the religious leader of this city, so he must know something about the Spirits. Religion here is all based on the battling of Spirits and trying to become a good person. According to them, if you are a bad person in life, your soul will be eaten by Spirits and you will have to live in their darkness for the rest of your life. If you are a good person, however, your soul will flow free and you will reach Paradise.

 I'm not sure how much of that I believe, because I was told the Spirits came to be during a great and bloody war. That would have to mean that there were no bad people before the war, or else the church's ideology makes no sense. Still, I know it doesn't have to make sense. The church is based on faith, not rationality.

 The man standing at the front gives me a crazed look when he sees me just steps away from him. He holds out a hand and takes a step back.

 "Not another inch, unholy Spirit! How did you get in here!? There are wards and shields to prevent things like you from touching this holy place!"

 I blink my eyes in confusion. Is this man calling me an unholy Spirit? What's so spiritual about me?

 "Laela! Antoine! A Spirit has broken through our defenses!"

 From the right side of the church, I see two people run out of the back and come to face me. One is a male knight wearing shining white armor. He is holding a fairly large and imposing sword. The other is a tall, thin woman with black hair and dark eyes. She is wearing some type of shaman robes.

 I take a few steps back. "I'm not a Spirit," I plead with them. Still, they must be sensing the aura of a Spirit, or else they wouldn't be freaking out so bad.

 I notice that I am carrying my Spirit Staff, and I immediately know what's wrong with them. Right. I should have known better than to carry around a Spirit Staff, especially right into a church.

 "I'll be going, now," I say, and I creep out of the building. The two guards that came out continuously approach me, and I see they are trying hard to see my face and get a feel for what I look like. The whole situation is making me super uncomfortable, and when I get out of there I run straight back to the library.

 I didn't think I could cause such a disturbance so quickly, but there we have it. Apparently carrying around a staff makes someone an evil Spirit nowadays.

 When I get back, Kael is still talking to that girl. I sit at the table across from them, sulking, and I wait for their conversation to finish.

 "Can you repeat that one more time?" Kael says.

 "Yeah. I said I was researching how to communicate with Spirits too."

 Kael nods, and flashes me a quick look. Suddenly I feel like he's trying to tell me something.

 "That's very interesting," Kael says quietly. "And I feel like you've told me a lot about Spirits that most ordinary people wouldn't know. I've made a conclusion about that, miss, and my conclusion is that you've been performing immoral and illegal research on how to plant a Spirit in a human to possess them."

 I don't even notice Kael pull out his sword, but I see it pressed against the woman's neck. I'm a bit surprised at what is happening, if I do say so myself.

 "I talked to the Librarian about you when you went off to get a drink," Kael snarls. "He told me all about you. You're known as the Red Witch, because you have superb abilities with Animus techniques and you've been going around Pearl City, possessing people with Spirits that you have personally found a way to summon from the Spirit World. You're a wanted criminal, Olivia, and so I went ahead and had him go to get the authorities. Now here's the deal. You can wait for the law enforcement to get here and be thrown away in a dirty cell where you belong, or you can get your punishment right here, right now, from Kavella and me."

 Olivia places her hand on the sword blade and smiles wickedly. "I'm impressed with you, Kael," she says coolly. "I wasn't expecting you to do so much detective work, just based on the little bit of information I told you. You even went to the Librarian, you were that distrusting of me? Had to go tell someone of my…evil?"

 "I knew he would know, he seemed informed about what was happening in this city," Kael growls. "Even though I knew all the information you told me, it still gave you away. It was how you spoke, not what you spoke of."

 "So you even brought me and took me out for lunch, just to pull one over on me?" she laughs. "You're a smart, smart boy."

 I stand up and take out my Spirit Staff, eager to help Kael. "Don't you even dare, girl," Olivia says. "You couldn't hurt me with that thing if you wanted to."

 There's a flash of red light and Olivia is gone. I can't believe she'd use such a technique. What she did was the extremely high level and the extremely risky Animus technique of teleportation. Of course, it does not simply teleport a person away. It teleports them to the Spirit World. Of course it makes sense, though. If what Kael said is true, she's developed quite a friendship following in the Spirit World.

 "How long were you suspicious of her?" I ask, annoyed. I wish he could have mentioned something to me before I had to suffer through lunch and hear her talk about all kinds of mindless things.

 "About twenty seconds after I met her, she mentioned Spirit Possession. There's no way someone would be prying into such things unless they had some taboo curiosity about it. I was able to confirm it with the Librarian, but I was getting a dark vibe from her all along."

 "It looked like you'd been buddying up, from my perspective." 

 "I had to gain her trust, Kavella. If I made her feel uncomfortable at any point, she'd have left."

 "You mean like she just did?"

 "Well," Kael scratches his head. "I really didn't think she was crazy enough to jump into the Spirit World. That's dangerous no matter how you look at it."

 "Maybe being devoured by Spirits is a better alternative to being locked in jail without her Animus." I figure that's the real reason she did what she did. It's a shame she's gotten away, but Kael did put in a pretty valiant effort there. Maybe I misjudged him when I criticized him for not being able to act quickly enough.

 I place my hand on my chest. I have what feels like heartburn. I wonder if it has anything to do with what I ate today.

 "Are you okay?" Kael asks.

 "Yeah, I think the food just went down the wrong pipe," I say. "No big deal." I play it off, but it hurts quite considerably. It's like…my heart is in pain.

 "I figured out where the Sealed Spirit is," Kael tries to inform me now that Olivia is gone. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, but I was trying to deal with Olivia. The Sealed Spirit is in the basement of the Vitarine Headquarters here in town," Kael says. "The Rose Building. There's only one entrance, so if we stake it out we should be able to stop Merava. She has no choice but to walk through the front doors. She'll be in disguise, but if we use Bright Eyes we'll be able to identify her. When she comes along, we'll get her right then and there."

 "What about…"

 "Underground passages, I know," Kael sighs. "There's no way to know if there's something underground, but if there was, we could use that to get to the place where the Sealed Spirit is."

 "There is an underground passage to the Rose Building," comes a familiar voice behind me. I turn and see the tall, imposing blond guy from the train. I don't believe he ever told us his name. How in the world did he sneak up on me, at that size? It makes no sense.

 "The underground passage is controlled and monitored by Vitarine around the clock, so you won't be able to get in…" the man says. "Unless you have someone who's an expert at infiltration with you. You'll still need a key to get into most places down there, but I can get you in. That is, if you're willing to pay."

 Kael looks at the man, a strange look crossing his face. "What makes you think we can trust you?"

 "I overheard you were looking for a way to get into the underground passage of Vitarine, and I didn't run off and report it," the man shrugs. "It would be stupid of me to approach you if I wanted to use that information against you. Now listen up. I can get you into the basement of Vitarine, no problems. All I want in return is that staff."

 The man points at my staff, and I feel hesitant to give it to him, but I might have to. This is the only way we can get to Merava. If there really is an underground passage, there's no way she'll be walking through the front door.

 "I know it's the Sealed Spirit you want to see," the man says. His voice is deep and powerful. I hear the door to the library open and a few people are rushing in. It must be the law enforcement. Unfortunately, they're way too late to catch Olivia.

 "I can get you there. You can pay me after you're in, if that makes you feel safer, but you can trust me."

 Kael is looking into the man's eyes. "I'm okay with it, if Kavella is." Obviously, Kael saw something he could trust in this man. Given his intuition with Olivia, I guess I have no choice.

 "Fine," I say. "You get us in, and you get this staff."

 "Great," the big man says. "My name is Cabel. Nice to be in business with you."