Chapter Text
The skies of Phantagrande held a great many mysteries.
Perhaps none moreso, however, than the strange... almost akin to a gap that opened up on the normally quiet isle of Zinkenstill, home to naught but simple folk trying to earn an honest living... and a pair of dreamers, seeking to brave the skies in search of their missing parents - one, a boy, missing his father, and the other a young girl seeking both of her parents.
Over time, their travels had taken them to the farthest reaches of the Skydom - from the calm and gentle winds of Port Breeze, to the shifting sands of Mephorash, and everywhere in between. Along the way, they picked up an untold amount of allies for their burgeoning crew of skyfarers - knights both past and present, agents of a secret organization dedicated to containing primal beasts, several of the aforementioned primal beasts, and others from all different walks of life. Their backgrounds may have all differed in some way or another, but they all shared three things in common.
The first, a destination - Estalucia, the Land of the Astrals. Said to be naught but myth, it is here where the co-captains of the crew of the Grandcypher hope to find their missing parents, and uncover the truth of why they were left behind in the first place.
As for the other two...
"C'mooooooooooooooooon, Gran! You're spacing out again!"
Gran's eyes fluttered open, rapidly blinking to readjust to the bright sun above - a brightness only matched by the sunny smile of his childhood friend and co-captain, though that smile was nowhere to be found at present. Instead, she sported what others in the crew had taken to call 'the Djeeta face' - a mix of a scowl and a pout that could only truly be described as cute. Gran, true to form, laughed it off, ruffling Djeeta's blonde locks with gauntleted hand.
"Sorry, Djeeta. I was just... thinking about some stuff."
Djeeta poked at his side, and Gran couldn't help but wince ever so slightly. Though he was the older of the pair, she was much stronger physically, and sometimes had a bit of a hard time reining that strength in. "Don't tell me you're thinking of ditching us and starting a little farm here all of a sudden."
"I'd be great at herding sheep, and you know it."
Djeeta rolled her eyes and gave another playful jab to Gran, this one much more restrained. "You can count sheep after we're done investigating this area for Sierokarte. Especially since this is so close to home... I'm kinda worried some of the local kids might fall into this weird gap thing."
Gran had to admit, he did have his own concerns about the troubling job they were currently undertaking. Sure, it was one thing for there to be a weird feeling in the air - knowing how some primals were, they were simply in a foul mood. He thought back to the last time he'd felt a similar tension in the air, which ended up being caused by a simple dispute over some apples. Medusa had been annoyed with Metera for days after finding that the carefully picked batch of apples that the serpentine primal had been saving for Athena & Satyr were swiped so that Metera could help her little sister, Sutera, with target practice.
This... didn't feel quite like a primal beast, though. After all, not many primal beasts that he knew could simply open up a hole in the world, although a few came to mind. Maybe Sandalphon was grumpy about something and came out here to vent, but left a bit of an echo of the destructive power he possessed behind? Or perhaps Zooey was getting lax in her arbitration, and the world was rather literally beginning to come apart at the seams? Or, worst of all, what if Akasha managed to break free from within Lyria and sought to rewrite the world itself?
"You're doing that thing again, Gran."
Gran blinked to ground himself once more. "What thing?"
"That little frown you do every time you think really hard. It makes you look like the world's saddest cat." Djeeta dropped her voice low, uncharacteristically so, before slinging her arm around Gran's shoulders as though she hadn't just been worried over him. "And hey, we know some pretty grumpy cats as it is!" Gran could only nod in response, shuddering at the thought of running afoul of Nier again. Last time he'd done that, it took several elixirs and Shao being practically glued to his bedside for three whole days just to get back to relative shape.
"No kidding. But we're losing focus, Djeeta. We need to-"
"Uh, no we don't. It's right there."
Gran could see that, thank you very much. It almost looked like the cracking of a window, and perhaps too late, Gran thought of one more potential cause of this rift - the Otherworld denizens, trying to push their way into the skies once again. Only... this didn't feel like the Otherworld.
But it did feel like another world altogether.
"Djeeta... do you think we're somehow connected to another world, with this crack?"
Djeeta pursed her lips and readied a snappy retort, but found none, so she simply shrugged instead. "Could be; it's not like we don't have experience with visitors from other worlds before, right?" Gran nodded, recalling the various guests they'd had on the Grandcypher at one point or another, never staying forever but always ready to help when they were in need. A couple even made a more permanent home upon their airship, and Gran had to admit it was nice to be able to talk strategy with Lelouch while Kallen and Suzaku were training with Djeeta - and much easier on his body, too.
Although, he could do without Doraemon's gadgets for a bit, after the problems they'd had before. Even now, he still kept far, far away from Cagliostro's room, out of fear of being forcibly reminded of that little quarrel they'd had. And he knew Djeeta did too, loathe as she was to admit to being so readily frightened of the alchemist that barely reached her shoulders.
"Hey, wanna see what's on the other side?" Djeeta chimed in after a moment, and Gran had to physically recoil at the thought. What in the skies was she thinking, just throwing that idea out so readily? They had an entire crew to maintain, and a goal that they were still nowhere close to meeting! Besides, they had no way back, as far as they were aware, so it was just risk for risk's sake.
Which, Gran supposed, was very like Djeeta, but still. They were woefully unprepared for this, even if he was a tiny bit curious as to what would await them on the other side.
"No, I really don't. We need to figure out how to close it."
"Think about it for a minute, Gran." Djeeta turned to him with a resolution far unlike what many in the crew had seen from Djeeta ever - one Gran had only seen once before. "You know that every time we've had someone from another world end up in the crew, we've had to solve some sort of problem to be able to get them to go back home. Not a moment before, not a moment after."
"Right, but... I don't get how-"
"Because, Gran," Djeeta continued, bowling over Gran's attempt at a retort. "maybe it's the same deal with cracks that pop up on our end." Gran blinked a couple of times, and Djeeta took that as her cue to press on. "Maybe this time, we're the visitors from another world, called somewhere to solve a problem. And hey, maybe it'll lead to us getting crazy strong - strong enough to get all the way to Estalucia without breaking a sweat!"
Gran had to admit, it did make a certain degree of sense. With the exception of Lelouch and his cadre, they did manage to get all the otherworldly visitors home after a time - perhaps this was the same way. Djeeta certainly seemed to believe it was, which Gran could accept as speaking from experience. Even still, there was one little matter that Djeeta evidently hadn't been thinking of - or, rather, two.
"What about Lyria and Vyrn? I'm not going anywhere without them." Gran replied, firmly as he could to Djeeta, who seemed to be running the math in her head. Gran could almost hear the chime ringing out in her head when she finally realized her blunder.
"Oh, crap, that's right! We probably shouldn't go hopping into other dimensions without Lyria, in case our life link gets screwed up while we're gone."
"Right. We won't be much help to this other world if we're dead as soon as get there." Gran added, though he trailed off into a mutter as he did. Djeeta placed a comforting hand atop Gran's shoulder, knowing exactly where his mind was drifting. Though, almost on cue, rather than the pair leaving the gap behind to seek out the blue-haired girl, Lyria - with Vyrn in tow, as he often was - came running towards them.
"Here you guys are! Katalina was starting to get... worried..." Lyria began to speak, but found her voice dying in her throat as she stared at the crack between worlds - or, at least, what Gran assumed was such, anyways. What if the captains were wrong, and they ended up stranded in the Otherworld, or worse? Gran started to have his reservations again, but was met with another comforting presence atop his shoulder - this time, Vyrn's.
"You feeling okay, Gran?" Vyrn inquired, poking at Gran's cheek as he did so. Gran couldn't help but chuckle even in spite of it all, which in turn got one from both Lyria and Djeeta, who seemed to be huddling together to see if they could peer into the crack to glean what might be on the other side.
"I'm fine, Vyrn. Just... thinking."
"You wanna jump in there and go see what's up, don'tcha?"
Gran pursed his lips, trying and failing to suppress a frown at the thought that he'd been so easily read by a tiny dragon. Although, given that Vyrn was with him for as long as he could recall, Gran supposed that it made sense that Vyrn could tell what he was thinking. Vyrn couldn't help but laugh at the face that Gran was definitely not still making, thank you very much, and Gran responded by brushing the dragon off his shoulder, sufficiently calmed once more.
"Djeeta does, for sure. And I get the feeling that Lyria does, too. So, naturally..."
"Oh, brother. Just make sure nothing bad happens to 'em, okay Gran?"
Gran smiled, in spite of himself - though it held a degree of dissonance behind his serenity. "You can help too, Vyrn. You're coming with us."
"Wait, wh-"
Sensing that it was no longer the time for talk, Gran grabbed onto Vyrn as gently as he could while still remaining firm, and rushing towards the gap. Djeeta and Lyria, perhaps sensing what Gran was wanting, clasped their hands together, bringing a light dust of red to both of their cheeks, before the quartet leapt into the crack, as it widened to accomodate them, before shutting altogether as they tumbled
down,
down,
d o w n,
before landing on the ground with a thud.
Gran was the first to stir, though he knew a little tumble like that wouldn't keep Djeeta down for long. Taking in his newfound surroundings, Gran marveled at the sight before him - an immense stone spire, linked together to others of its' kind by arching supports, encircling the quartet. There seemed to be training dummies of some sort dotting the area around them, a notion reinforced by the myriad of wooden training weapons scattered along the walls and across the sandy floor they stood upon. Two wooden doors stayed shut for a moment, but as Djeeta was helping Lyria to her feet and Vyrn began to collect his balance...
The doors swung open, revealing a pair of... what Gran assumed were normal humans, not unlike himself & Djeeta. One was a hulking mass of man, more built like a Draph than anything, but without the telltale horns and with much fairer skin than the Draphs he knew. His clothing, however, seemed oddly familiar - not too dissimilar to that of Vane's, Gran realized after thinking for a moment.
It was the woman with him, however, that really drew Gran's attention to her.
Admittedly, part of it was due to her obvious beauty - the striking bluish-green hair, her toned figure that belied a life of battles not unlike his & Djeeta's own, and clothing that... well, it certainly wasn't the strangest he'd ever seen. But, perhaps more importantly, there was a sort of aura emanating from her - something mystical, much like the feeling that called both Gran and Djeeta through the otherworldly crack into this world. A feeling also not dissimilar to the feeling that Gran & Djeeta got around each other, the two Singularities of the Sky Realm.
Byleth and Jeralt blinked. They had sworn that the training grounds were empty just a few moments ago.
"Uh, Dad? Maybe we should go get Seteth."