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Cyan blue.
The sand of the beach he landed on.
Night blue.
The color the starry sky above was painted in.
Baby blue.
The towers stretching endlessly in the horizon.
The same color as
his
skin.
Everywhere.
Yuma couldn't escape it like he just escaped the pack of wolves gods knew who sent after him.
Flashing memories of what he refused to acknowledge as a long gone past.
They were only from a few weeks ago.
Yet seemed so far already, lost in the mist of his thoughts.
Scarlet.
The reflection of his hair in a nearby window.
Cardinal red.
The shimmering stain glasses of the church-like building a woman sheltered him in.
Burgundy.
The sparkles emanating from his hand when he touched the child's.
Like the spear of darkness that pierced through
him
.
"Your chaos can save them all." The lady, of the name of Ena, said
Chaos took Astral away from me!! He wanted to scream at her face, but words died in his throat.
He saw it.
The darkness, the raw energy that forced his friend to return to his world.
Yet he was nowhere to be seen. And that world made it clear Yuma wasn't welcomed here.
Be it, his own world had never been kind to him either. He wouldn't go back without Astral.
"I... I must...find him." Yuma started, eyes widened in distress, looking around him as if a sudden door would appear and lead him to Astral, "Where is he ? W-where are his quarters ?"
Astral must have a place to rest. A place where he used to live before his departure. And Ena must know where it was.
"Yuma," the woman gently called as she walked to him, her hand brushing a strand away from his face in a way that threw him back to the days where his parents were still with him, "Astral...isn't in his quarters."
In her throat formed a tight knot, one that inflated when a light of hope flashed through Yuma's eyes.
"Then show me ! Show me where he is..! Please... I... I came only for him...I'll leave right after, I promise... I just need to see him..."
Ena's heart sunk in her stomach. Her eyes wandered elsewhere, beyond the stained glass of the church. The boy's distress was the same as their leader's when Astral came back to them, weakened from the battle he'd just lost. Both had hopes, and Ena refused to be the one who'd crush Yuma's.
"Please... I... He's my best friend....I want to make sure...that he's alright..."
With no choice left to her, Ena took Yuma's hand and guided him within the central building of their world. Columns around them, supporting the palace's roof, received and threw back at them the lonely sounds of their steps against the indigo marble. Obelisks turned into plain, circular walls, in a room empty of anything but clear windows and pink crystal twisted in coral-like shape surrounding a pedestal.
Golden light flashed through the room.
Hands covered Yuma's eyes.
And a voice rang out in the high ceilings.
"Why did you bring the mortal here ?"
It was a tone Yuma knew too much.
A low voice. Yet fractured in thousands of mournful pieces.
Pulling away from the hand that hid his eyes, Yuma discovered a tall man in a golden armor, orange eyes glaring at him as if he had committed a crime, but on his cheeks and forehead shone the same marks Astral had.
Marks nobody else had, he noticed.
The boy took a step forward, looking up to who he thought was a warrior.
"Are you from Astral's family..? I just came to see him, I'll leave soon after. I'm not here to cause any trouble..."
The man's eyes narrowed on Yuma's figure. His fists tightened. A perfect being like himself shouldn't be prey to low emotions only mortals and chaotic beings would be submitted to. But this child was the root of this world's demise.
"Grant him that wish, Eliphas." Ena pleaded, "he's not eternal like us, the earlier he knows..."
Yuma frowned as his attention shifted to her.
What were they talking about ?
What did his mortality have to do with seeing Astral and making sure he was okay ?
He didn't understand.
Nor did he understand the hateful glare Eliphas was throwing at him.
"One can't come to that realm with blood on their hands and expect to have their wish granted."
Ena drew closer to him, her expression fierce and reproachful.
"It is not the child's fault. He is not to blame for what happened."
Eliphas stood still, through his eyes though danced the turmoil swirling within his soul.
"The crime is still his, directly or not. Nobody would grant a murderer the right to see his victim. Why would I ?"
"The child did not kill Astral ! He told you himself he made that choice, you can't hold anyone else responsible !" Ena snapped, a finger pointing towards the pedestal
Yuma's eyes widened.
Murderer.
Crime.
Kill.
And the human size crystal receptacle on the pedestal.
The boy bypassed Eliphas, escaped by a hair the hand trying to catch him, and stopped by furniture at the end of the room.
From closer, it looked like a throne.
A throne where rested a prison made of crystal.
A prison?
A coffin.
Astral lay there, hair undone, mingling with his earrings, his eyes shut down and his head resting on the side. His body was immaculate, just like Yuma had known it, if not for the hole in his chest, surrounded by frozen darkness. Around the creases and cracks, the skin seemed to be necrotizing. The deterioration stopped around the hole, as only this area had been corrupted by chaos.
It meant...it meant he was salvable right ? Deads had their whole body decaying, not just a small part.
Astral could come back.
Eliphas was just an idiot and a liar who buried the envoy too early.
Hitting the coffin with his fist, Yuma called.
"Astral!! Oy, Astral!! You slept long enough! You yell at me when I oversleep in the morning but you're not doing any better, are you ? C'me on, get up !"
He shook the crystal prison, hit it, even tried to open it. All he managed to do was moving Astral's head from one side to another, despite how stiff the body already was.
"Astral..? Oy...that's not funny, get up already..." The boy insisted, a mist of tears blinding his sight
Why wouldn't Astral react ? It wasn't fair. He always got up when Astral told him to. Why wasn't he doing it too?
"You promised me a duel...and I know you're not a liar..! You never lied to me, don't you dare start now !"
The last hit was enough for the coffin's lid to break down into pieces in a loud, clear sound.
Eliphas swooped down on Yuma, incapable of handling to blasphemy.
The wind whistled to the attack. Yuma looked behind his shoulders, facing with a blade a gigantic one stopped, held by a gloved hand. The boy found himself sheltered behind white wings, ones that always protected him in desperate days.
Ones Astral had said to entrust him, along with other Numbers.
"Hope..."
The warrior pushed Eliphas back, standing in between his masters and the assaulter.
The latter seemed to frown upon the living monster, as if it was abnormal. As if it was never meant to be. As if it was a mistake.
This "Hope" was all three.
An error.
The manifestation of bonds between a weaponized being and a boy nobody ever believed in.
From those ties death had broken, only the warrior remained.
Yuma swept the crystal pieces with his hands, careful not to damage his friend's body or cause him any more harm, then held him close, gently shaking him once more.
"Hey... Hope's there for you, say hi at least, no?"
But the body was colder than it'd ever been. The shoulders had stiffen, the head had weakly fallen against Yuma's, and an arm hung down to the floor.
The boy's grip tightened, nails digging Astral's skin without eliciting any reaction.
As Hope looked behind his shoulders, a dim light in his usually scarlet eyes when he glanced at Astral's body, Yuma felt tears streaming down his cheeks.
He held on tight, his face hidden against Astral's neck. Choking on sobs he couldn't refrain, sorrow grabbed him by the throat towards the comforting abyss of guilt he had spent weeks in after his friend's disappearance.
"You didn't have the right to leave like that..! Not to fucking Black Mist ! You can't...survive a battle with a god and just...die to that loser..! You didn't have the right to leave me like that..!"
What was he going to do now? Without Astral and his goal? He couldn't keep the numbers just because. He wouldn't know what to do with them once they'd be reunited. It was their quest. Alone...it made no sense...
He hated him. For leaving, despite having said goodbye. For not keeping up with his promise of dueling Yuma when the time would come. For not fighting for his life until his friend had come.
He hated this world. A world that did nothing to save him. A world that asked him to protect them all, yet refused to protect him back. A world that would soon collapse without him. A world Yuma wouldn't save.
He hated himself. He, who hadn't been strong enough to protect Astral. He, who always thought it'd last forever and that nothing would do them apart. He, for whom Astral sacrificed his very life and yet wasn't worth it.
A gentle hand squeezed his shoulder, and his eyes misted with tears met with empty ones, holding all the gentleness this world and other realms could have.
"It is time to let go..."
"And if I don't want to?"
He'd hold this body till his own death. It didn't matter if it wasn't Astral's wish. They were one, right? With their combined power, they always were one. They should have died as one. It was only justice. He didn't want to let go. It'd make no sense to let go.
"This realm is not yours... You have your own life to live, your own destiny to face, your own demons to vanquish. And fear not for him. In your heart he remains, and to us all, he'll be remembered as a hero."
In his heart, mh?
In his heart, butchered by misadventure and misfortune, grew a twisted chaos. Like a slow disease that spread through his veins and impregnated his tongue with venom he spat.
"My own life ? But you expect me to continue the work you asked him to do, don't you?"
His eyes narrowed on Eliphas, beyond Ena who, he believed, had done nothing wrong.
"Astral was used as a tool, and as I'm the one he entrusted the numbers to, I bet you'd be delighted if I could get you all the numbers to use them, wouldn't you ?! The numbers he gave his life for, you want them for your own profit right !?"
"This is a war that doesn't concern you, mortal."
Yuma let out a bitter laugh, almost like a snarl, as Eliphas dared call him useless in their battle.
"Oh but it does! It does, it always did! From the moment I've met Astral, this war was mine to fight in! What were you doing all this time, here? Strictly nothing! Admit it, admit you're as responsible as I for his death !"
"It is the job of a warrior, as much as the one of a monarch. I do not consider myself responsible for letting someone do their job, as I couldn't go against his will."
Chaos flowed in Yuma's veins, anger rising in his chest to such words. Eliphas wasn't mad because he cared about Astral. He was mad they'd lose this war due to losing Astral. And it was easy to designate a kid as the one responsible for their loss.
"May your rotten world sink in despair and self destruction. I'm sure it was a better place in Astral's memory, but it looks like it's not worth fighting for."
Jumping in Hope's palm, still holding Astral's body he refused to leave behind, Yuma escaped Eliphas' ire and returned to the mortal realm.
Behind him stood a shadow, one Astral once fought against, one Yuma would soon embrace. As on his cheeks spread red marks, his heart reached the bottom of the abyss, dripping in necrotizing darkness akin to the one that had killed his friend.