Here's Day 6. Sorry for the not so long wait that Nexi and RL thought was long. Oh and you might not get it if you haven't read Chapter 37 of the Blank Page.
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Dark Secret - Day 6 - A Thief’s Fragile Heart
-- Dawned Nightfall --
-- Forest --
Anara ran through the forest, avoiding her pursuers as best as she could. She had just stolen some priceless jewelry from a building with the most sophisticated security systems that Anara had ever seen in her life. The thief couldn’t stop grinning when she thought about her accomplishment. Anara stopped for a moment to trick her pursuers into thinking that she was exhausted. As usual, it worked and they approached, thinking that she wasn’t prepared for them. Anara turned around when they were mere inches away from her back and plunged the metal claws attached to her fingerless gloves into both of their guts. She removed her claws and blood rushed from their stomachs. Anara forced herself to watch their deaths. Sure, it wasn’t the happiest thing to see someone die from a stomach wound, but it would be wrong of her to not see the deaths that she had just caused. With her pursuers dead and gone, Anara sprinted towards her town.
-- Faresia --
Anara slowed as she approached the town of Faresia. She started to walk towards her house when she noticed something: there were no people in town square. This was quite strange; there were always at least some people in town square. Where could they possibly be? There were people there earlier in the day, before Anara had left to steal some jewels. She would have to worry about it later, Anara just wanted to get home. Anara walked towards her small house, and opened the door.
-- Anara’s House --
The thief entered her house, and put the sac of jewels down on a small table near the door. Anara grabbed a soda from the fridge and sat on the couch. “I can't believe it's been four months already…” she said glumly as she chugged down the soda. Tears formed at the corners of Anara’s eyes as she thought of Sean, her lost love. It had already been four months since he had died, but she just couldn’t seem to get over his death. She wept quietly to herself as more memories of him flooded her mind. The front door crashed open and splinters of wood flew everywhere. Three, dark figures entered the room. Anara grabbed the axe blade strapped to her back and threw it like a boomerang.
-- Battle in Faresia --
Not waiting for the axe blade to strike her enemies, Anara charged in and slashed her claws at them. They did nothing to block it and got slashed in their chests. The three of them fell down, dead, and disappeared into pools of shadow. Anara charged outside towards town square to see if there were any other enemies there. Much to her surprise, the entire town was there. Something was definitely wrong with them though. All of their eyes glowed with a yellow light, and the colors of their skin just seemed duller and darker, as if they were fading away into the shadows. Without warning, the entire town surrounded Anara. “The leader wants your head,” they all whispered in unison, “and what the leader wants, we give to him.” All at once, every single villager charged at her. Anara jumped up into the air and easily avoided them. She threw her axe blade downwards, and removed several of their heads with it. As if it were a boomerang, the axe blade flew back into her hands. Then the trees surrounding town square seemed to extend their branches towards Anara to form something for the girl to land on. Anara landed softly on a knot formed by two, thick branches and focused all of her mental energy on the ground beneath her. Chunks of the ground flew up and crushed the townspeople beneath them. Anara jumped down and stabbed two people with her claws. They fell to the ground and disappeared into pools of shadow. Out of the corner of her eye, Anara spotted someone fighting the townspeople not too far away. He looked familiar. Anara had to focus on herself at the moment though, and stabbed several more townspeople. One after another, they vanished into pools of shadow. Anara continued to hack and slash at the villagers until there weren’t anymore left.
-- Aftermath --
Anara strapped her axe blade back onto her back, and walked over to the person who had fought alongside her. His back faced her, but Anara knew at once who it was. A broad smile formed on the girl’s face and she hugged the man from behind. “Sean,” she said, “You’re alive!”
-- Destiny Islands --
-- Kairi’s House --
Sara felt the warm sunlight hit her skin and woke up. As usual, only a wall of darkness greeted her eyes. She sighed and fumbled around for her clothes. She dressed quickly and felt her way around towards Kairi’s kitchen. In the hallway, she heard voices speaking. The sounds were coming from the kitchen. She slowly walked towards the kitchen. “Good morning, Sara,” came a voice. Sara couldn’t see the speaker, but she knew at once that it had been said by Kairi. “Good morning,” Sara mumbled in response. Sara used her telepathy to enter Kairi’s mind, allowing Sara to see through the other girl’s eyes. Through Kairi’s eyes, Sara saw the world outside of the house. It was a nice, sunny day. Not a single cloud graced the sky that day. Sara sighed. She was starting to get tired of nice weather. For some reason, she liked it when it rained. It seemed to suit her personality better. Sara exited Kairi’s mind and felt her way towards the kitchen table. She sat down. Suddenly, the wall of darkness in front of Sara’s eyes disintegrated. Sara sighed. She was having yet another vision…
-- Sara’s Vision --
A girl with long, dirty blonde hair hugged a muscular, dark - haired man. Her eyes were closed, and she looked quite happy. His eyes were open, and the flames of deception could be seen lingering in his eyes. The man turned around and kissed the girl. She kissed him back. The girl seemed unaware that the man’s eyes were open. She also seemed unaware that he held a sword behind his back. Then the image changed. This time it showed a sign that read, “Faresia”
-- Destiny Islands --
-- Kairi’s House --
The image faded, and the wall of darkness once again loomed in front of Sara’s eyes. The location of the images she had seen imprinted themselves into her brain, like always. She sighed. “We have to go,” said Sara as she got up from the table, “Now.” Sara walked out the door, leaving Kairi with a puzzled look behind her.
-- Faresia --
Anara hugged Sean tighter. She still couldn’t believe that he was alive. Something still bugged her though. How was he alive? She had buried his cold, lifeless body herself. Suddenly, Sean turned around. He kissed her, and she kissed him back. Something was strange about the kiss though. It didn’t feel like his usual kisses though. There was something missing. Anara couldn’t put her finger on it, though. “No!” came a feminine voice, “Get away from her!” Anara opened her eyes to see Sean gripping a sword behind his back. Anara jumped back and brought up her claws just in time to block the blade. “Damn you! You ruined everything!” shouted Sean. He began to change shape. His body began to get bulkier and his skin became duller and darker. His long hair changed into a buzz cut and the tuft on his chin vanished. His clothes changed into a black bodysuit. The man who now stood in front of Anara was definitely not Sean. “Who are you?” asked Anara. “None of your business!” the man grunted.
-- Battle in Faresia --
He swung the sword downwards towards Anara’s head. She brought up her claws up to block it easily. Then pools of darkness appeared around Anara and the man as he mumbled strange words. People, that looked a lot like the villagers that Anara had faced earlier, slowly emerged from each one. The people also mumbled strange words. Their bodies began to mesh together and form one, huge, hulking creature that looked somewhat like a giant heartless. A gunshot was heard. Then the sound of a sword getting unsheathed came to Anara’s ears. She turned around to see five people, two boys and three girls. One girl had electric blue hair and wielded twin pistols, another was a brunette and had a large sword in her hands, the third had reddish hair and had a grey book in her hand. One of the boys had bright red hair and didn’t seem to be wielding anything, and the other had white hair and wielded a keyblade. Who were they? Anara didn’t have a chance to think about that; the huge creature swung its arms down. Anara easily evaded the attack and threw her axe blade at it. The axe blade made a deep gash in the creature’s side and flew back into Anara’s hands. From her position, Anara spotted the gunner with electric blue hair ran around the creature and continuously shot it with her pistols. The girl with reddish hair opened her book and read, “LIGHT AURA!” Beams of light came down from the sky and hurled themselves at the creature. The creature brought up its arm to block the beams, but the action was in vain. The beams burned holes straight through the creature’s arm. It howled in pain. The boy with bright red hair clapped his hands together and a staff appeared in his hands. He charged towards the creature, swinging his staff wildly at it. Anara couldn’t help but to think about how uncoordinated and untrained these people seemed. She sighed and stabbed her claws deep into the creature’s leg. She pulled her claws out and jumped away from the creature as it fell down to the ground. The creature’s impact on the ground caused a huge tremor and Anara could hardly keep her footing. “Take this!” shouted the brunette girl as she jumped into the air and forced her sword downwards, into the creatures stomach. Anara noticed the white haired boy standing alone. He seemed to be mumbling something under his breath. The boy thrust his hand into the ground, and a shadowy energy emerged from the ground and went right through the creature’s chest. This seemed to heal all of the creatures wounds. “That’s odd,” thought Anara, “Isn’t he supposed to be on our side?” The creature struggled to get up, and threw the brunette off of his chest. She fell hard to the ground. The giant sword that she wielded clattered to the floor next to her. Her eyes were closed. Whether she was unconscious or dead, Anara could not tell. “No!” came the voice of the bright red haired boy as he ran towards the girl. “Ah, young love,” thought Anara. Anara ran over towards the girl and said, “Move!” The boy obeyed and moved off to the side. Anara took one of her feather earrings off and placed it on the girls stomach. “PHOENIX DOWN!” she shouted as white light began to surround the girl’s body. The light vanished and the girl’s eyes opened. She was alive. Anara turned around and charged towards the creature again. Several rapid gunshots were heard from behind Anara and the creature fell down on its back. It disappeared into a pool of shadow.
-- Aftermath --
“Dammit! Where did he go?!?” asked Anara to nobody in particular as she searched for the man who had impersonated Sean. “He’s probably long gone,” replied the girl with electric blue hair. Anara sighed. “Oh I forgot,” said Anara, “We haven’t been properly introduced yet. I’m Anara.” “I’m Sara,” replied the gunner. “My name is Hotaru,” replied the brunette. “I’m Kairi,” said the girl with reddish hair. “I’m Kousuke,” responded the boy with bright red hair. “You,” said Anara to the white haired boy, “What’s your name?” “Riku,” he replied. “Well we should get going,” said Hotaru. The whole group of kids started walking away from Anara. “Hold it!” said Anara. They all turned around. “I’d like to join your group. You guys are far too uncoordinated in a battle. It was a miracle that we won that last one. You need a mentor, and I’m the girl for the job.” “What makes you think that you could teach us anything?” said Riku rudely. “Hmmm I have no idea. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent four years of my life fighting heartless, nobodies, Ner-yah, and demons,” said Anara. “She has a point there,” said Kousuke. “Yes, we definitely do need at least a little bit of training,” said Sara, “I think it would be a great idea if Anara joined us.” They all walked back towards Kairi’s gummi ship, unaware that a blue falcon had been watching them. The falcon flew off towards the forest where it landed on the shoulder of its master and whispered in her ear. “Oooh it looks like we have another enemy to fight!” said Kokiro, “We better go tell master about this, Kaname!” “I told you to call me Kay!” the girl shouted in response as she hit Kokiro on the back of the head.
-- to be continued --
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Before anyone says anything, we WILL be seeing more of the dude that impersonated Sean, and the whole 'blue falcon' thing was only because I thought that 'all of them walking towards Kairi's gummi ship' wasn't a very good ending. Oh and I'm currently drawing up a character design for Anara so be patient!
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Edit: I changed it so that it was only 4 months since Sean's death instead of a whole year and I made it so it wasn't Anara's 20th birthday.
Very nice chapter, Sak. I think that the blue falcon thing is good because it kind of adds Kokiro and Kay into the story more.