The Sacred
Yumi's lips departed from Tsukiko's mouth, Tsukiko's face turning as red as ground
cherry. She considered this her first real kiss, but still could not get over the fact it
was with another girl. For some reason, she thought about how her school friends would feel
about her if they knew about this. Then again, so much other stuff has happened recently,
kissing a girl would seem like an every day occurance by comparison. She could see the
passion in Yumi's eyes, and also could tell she had a few other plans, and decided to leave
the room and return to her own, locking her door as she got in so Yumi couldn't follow.
Yumi started to go after Tsukiko as she ran away into her own room, but was stopped
by Komoku.
"Yumi-chan, you busy?"
She shook her head, embarrassed that he might have overheard the events that had just
took place between her and Tsukiko.
"Follow me." Komoku stated, his voice empty.
"Where to, Komoku-sensei?"
""I have something you need to see. I don't really want Tsukiko to see just yet, but
I'll bring you both to see it later."
Komoku escorts Yumi downstairs, and down a long hall she had scarcely even seen
before. They turned into another hall, and got uncomfortably near the room she had stumbled
upon earlier. Yumi began to wonder at the actual size of the building she lived in, and
more importantly, she hoped not to be going to the shrine, for fear of that man being there
again. She than began to wonder why he intentionally excluded Tsukiko.
"Is there something particularly special about me, Komoku-sensei?"
His response came immediately and expectantly. "Yes, but no more than Tsukiko-san.
You see, I called you here alone acting on orders. I have my own superiors to obey. They
decided on accelerating our plans. Although you are both very talented, I doubt we have
time to train you as much as I would like. That is why I am showing you this in the first
place. Tsukiko-san simply needs to wait before she is told anything."
Yumi began to worry about Tsukiko, since both were equally involved. "Komoku-sensei,
why are you being so secretive?"
"I would not use the word 'secretive', rather, just cautious. One cannot be surprised
if all this began to affect one's mind, and Tsukiko's seems somewhat more frail than yours.
Despite the fact that she had little of a life to leave behind compared to you, she is not
the type to handle situations such as this. For you, this comes off as just another fact of
life, something you have to deal with. For her, it could be like a scene from an all too
real nightmare."
"Okay... so?" Yumi wondered. "What exactly is so special? Just show me."
They walked farther down the hall, and entered into another room, devoid of any
furnishings whatsoever. None of anything, actually. Except an eerie door.
Komoku opened the door (by raising his hand and pointing at it) and they walked down
yet another hallway, the only lights coming from behind, and a faint glow from a fire
out of sight. After a short while,the fire came into view. It was a giant blaze, more
accurately, burning in mid-air at least two dozen feet in the air.
Komoku noticed Yumi's interest in the flame. "The fire is fueled by mana, so it burns
continuously, generating solely light. No heat, no ashes. Beautiful, isn't it?"
"What exactly is down -" Yumi began to ask, before the answer revealed itself.
A massive stone structure floated a few feet off of the ground, covered in glowing
runes that she could not decipher. Although it appeared to be a sort of alphabet - or at
least written language - it wasn't a language she recognized. That and well, she thought to
herself, most letters don't glow. Not human ones.
"Those markings are a spell placed on the stone by nymphs. Well, not by nymphs, but
using their style of magic. They have very impressive magic, y'know. Whole cities can float
like this." Komoku remarked.
"How old is this thing?" inquired Yumi. She still was not entirely sure why she was
being shown all this. What was it all, anyway?
"I cannot actually say. All I know is that it is hundreds of years old."
"Well, what is it for?"
"It was built in order to keep this building - the Hidden Hall - exactly that.
Hidden. If someone who did not know this was here, they could not see it, or touch it."
Komoku paused. "But that is not what I brought you here for. I brought you here to tell you
why this building exists. Why you are on this planet."
Yumi was excited. Or, she should be. She could not explain why, but her emotion was
best described as 'fear', not 'excitement'.
"One-thousand years ago, a dangerous monster came to our world, straight out of
Heaven. We fought so hard against it to prevent a pre-destined Apocalypse, but nothing we
could do worked. Then She showed up."
"She?" Yumi commented.
"Her name has been forgotten, if it was ever known, but we call her the Divine
Slayer, for obvious reasons."
"What power did she have? Do you know anything about her?"
"Just one thing. She fought for her own ideals and no particular reason. She was from
her own world, and a descendent of Divines, but, she died shortly after showing up, so no
one ever learned much about her."
"So, she was pretty much everyone's last hope, and she up and loses?!"
"Not exactly. The monster didn't die, but its rampage was stopped. It left our
dimension, and began to recover. It keeps trying to complete its mission, but is stopped
every time by her reincarnations."
"I wonder what made her mission so important to her." Yumi questioned. Of course,
that is what they all wanted to know.
"I have been trying to find that out for a long time now. In fact, how old do you
think I am, Yumi-san?"
Yumi was a bit thrown off by being referred to as -san, but in this serious
environment, it seemed appropriate. Although Komoku hardly seemed wholly serious.
"By appearance alone I would say, maybe mid- or late-20's. But, you would almost have
to be older than that." She thought about her answer, and then she began to realize just
how long the training was going to take them, if they hoped to reach up to the level of
their senseis.
"Good guess. You are right, much, much older. Humans have such tiny lifespans. I am
actually 51. " Komoku gloated just a small bit.
"Komoku-sensei, I need to talk to Tsukiko."
"Do not tell her a word about what I have said to you or showed you. Okay?"
She nodded in agreement.
Yumi returned by herself to the main building, and began to look for Tsukiko. She
began to call her name after a few minutes of searching.
"Tsukiko? Hey, Tsu-chan, you there?"
She continued looking,and continued shouting from time to time, to no avail. She
found nobody. Not Tsubasa, not Tsukiko... no one.
She decided to check Tsukiko's room. She went upstairs and tried to open her bedroom
door. It was locked. Strange. she thought. The room shouldn't be locked, should it? Yumi
then checked her own room. Empty, exactly as she left it. Expected. She called Tsukiko's
name a few times more, and then checked downstairs again. By now, she had forgotten why she
wanted to talk to Tsukiko, (she knew it had nothing to do with what Komoku just showed her.
She kept her promises, after all.) but wanted to talk to her anyway. It dawned on her that
Tsukiko might have gone back there, but refused to accept it as a possibility. Who knew
what'd happen if they went back down there.
"Looking for something?" Tsubasa appeared suddenly, throwing her completely off
guard.
"Yeah, Tsuki-chan. You seen 'er?" Yumi replied rather quickly.
"I'm afraid not, Yu-chan. I'll let you know if I do, okay?"
Yumi continued to look for Tsukiko blindly, eventually stumbling upon an open door.
The one that led into the shrine. She approaches the door, assuming Tsukiko probably went
down there. It would make sense. She is no where to be found, and i bet quite interested in
this place.
Just before she got to the door, it slammed shut on its on. Yumi tries to open the
door, but it had locked itself as well.
"Oh wait, what am I doing?" She pointed her finger toward the handle, and created a
tiny spark inside the metal door frame, intending to move the lock out of place. "Nothing.
Dammit."
Yumi returns to her search yet again, with still zero clues. It was starting to
frustrate her. She made her way towards Tsukiko's bedroom again, shouting her name
throughout the building.
When she finally got to Tsukiko's room, the door was wide open. Weird. Upon looking inside
the room, Yumi found the window was pulled open as well. For some odd reason, she had for a
moment thought Tsukiko lept out the window, despite being on the second floor. Although the
idea seemed stupid to her that such a thing was plausible, she looked out the window
anyway, and saw beneath it no signs that someone jumped. Like I thought. Why would she have
done such a dumb thing?
Anyway, she thought, better check outside. Who knows?
As expected, she was not outside, and certainly did not jump out her window. "Where
the hell is that chic?" Yumi thought aloud, getting annoyed of looking for her. Suddenly,
the window above her slams shut. It was Tsukiko's room's window, too. She ran inside and
hurried to Tsukiko's room, finding the door still open, the window not, and the room just
as it was before. "This..." she began panting from all the running "...is tiring...." She
then checks her own room, it being right across the hall. Empty. Eh, what did she expect?
She rested for a bit, and then proceeded back downstairs, towards the shrine door.
Who knew what she would find. Probably about as much as she has been finding. Nothing.
"It's worth a shot, at least, right?"
She got lucky. If you could call it luck, that is. More like someone was waiting for
her. Someone? The door was unlocked.
She headed down the shrine stairs, and found everything exactly as she expected. The
strange shrine, and the even stranger shrine master.
"So she isn't here, either?" Yumi questioned the man.
"You are bad at looking, Yumi-san." he replied, with a chuckle as he said it. "She's
been there the whole time!"
"Where?" Yumi wondered.
"Where you looked." he said. Yumi was puzzled.
"I looked everywhere!"
"Looked for what?"
"What do you mean?" He was starting to annoy her with his odd way of answering. That,
and maybe the odd lighting, even odder environment, and the fact that he was kept, for the
most part, hidden, save for a long cloak that covered his body, shadowing any features that
would be visible had he been facing Yumi.
"Why are you looking? And what for?"
Yumi began stumbling to answer.
"You forgot, huh? Classic, I swear. Tsukiko is anywhere you want her to be, if you
love her."
"I DO!" Yumi screamed as loud as she could, unknowing that she even shouted it until
she heard it.
"If you love her, find her. She has a secret to tell you."
"A secret?" It suddenly dawned on Yumi that she wanted to know the enigmatic man's
name, and had never actually asked. "Hey, wait. What's your na...." Before she could
finish, her vision became hazy, flashed a solid white, and then returned to normal. She was
now outside of the building again.
"What did he mean, 'secret'"?
"Hey!" Tsukiko's voice called out to her from nearby.
"Tsu-chan!" Yumi felt relieved. Exhaustion washed away from her.
"I saw you looking for me."
"Tsu-chan, is there something you wanted to tell me?" Yumi felt rather embarrassed by
the question.
"No, why?" Her response was simple, with no thought behind it. The oddity of the
question didn't even strike Tsukiko's attention. She had nothing to hide after all.
"I just wanted to know. That's all."
Tsukiko's blank stare suddenly perked up. "Hey, guess what? I..." She paused
mid-sentence. "It isn't much longer now, you know?"
Yumi's face showed a slightly confused expression.
"Ah, never mind. I was just thinking out loud, that's all." Tsukiko answered.
"You mean your birthday? I haven't forgot, ya' know."
"Thanks!" Tsukiko's eyes lit up and a smile drew across her face. She was delighted
that Yumi remembered. It made her feel like she was not completely alone on this world. She
had, after all, a close friend she could count on. At least for the small stuff, she
thought.
The girls returned to their rooms shortly after.
"Master, what did you want?"
Two figures were talking to each other, faceless in the dark shrine of the under area
of the Hidden Hall. Their tone serious, businesslike in manner. They obviously knew each
other, and both live in the Hall, but exactly who they are would be a mystery, even to
those in the room with them, if any one was.
"As usual. How are the Sacred doing?"
"They are doing great. Something is letting them grow in strength remarkably quick."
"Good." The shadowy, cloaked figure farthest back in the shrine began to smile under
the veil of darkness. His smile rapidly vanished, however, and he remained stressed. His
voice became incredibly impatient. "It is coming soon, after all."
"I am aware of that, master. Although they are strong, they are far from ready. I
wanted them to match my power by now, but that was impossible. You will not help them, will
you?" The student's voice picked up a more desperate, pleading tone, almost apologetic,
almost afraid.
"No. They have to let their feelings be their masters for now. Hurry them. The fates
of our world, theirs, and countless others, lie in your hands."
"I know that!" The student was getting annoyed at being told what he already knew far
too well. "I am trying as best as I can. It took me decades to reach the power I have now,
and it still is not enough. My only regret is that I took so long to find them."
The shrine master turned to face his student. An angered expression had morphed his
face into a fierce sight, frightening his own student, even in such darkness. "It is almost
noon. Return to them."
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