"Ok, I know they're a rotten aristocratic family, but who needs a room for just old paintings?" hissed Amelia.
Blyke wanted to laugh, but he agreed with Amelia. So far, the rooms had been either empty and covered in dust, or full of surplus, miscellaneous items, such as old paintings, vases, and even one full of stacked flower stems.
As the last of the Hagani line, Blyke had been to many different manors and estates, but the Phantomhive Manor was by far the strangest household he'd ever seen, both the actual building and its contents, and the family living in it.
"This is just ridiculous," muttered Daniel. "If you have to fill up empty rooms with random garbage, Asha's right. This family needs to learn to get rid of things that hold no importance. I mean, come on. A room full of bundled flower stems? I'm shocked I didn't die of the smell alone."
"Stop being a drama queen," said Ethelyn, though she had a small smile on her face.
"Wow. Is it just me, or are you seeming more human than normal, Ethelyn?" asked Rosaria.
"Well, I am human, after all. Why wouldn't I display emotion every once in awhile?" Ethelyn asked, her voice a bit sharp despite her happier tone.
"Hey, everyone has their preferences to talk," said Blyke. "Calm down, both of you."
"Yeah. You remember my wish, right?" asked Tim, smiling.
Blyke couldn't help the slight smile that fell across his face. Tim seemed much more comfortable, as well as somewhat childish. If Blyke remembered right, Tim was actually three years younger than him, and if Blyke was being serious, the thought that this Tim, acting his age, instead of the Tim forcing himself to harden his heart, was the Tim he liked most.
Unconsciously, Blyke's hand stretched out, patting Tim on the head.
Tim didn't pull back, but looked at Blyke, puzzled.
Blyke started, shocked by his sudden behavior. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to belittle you or anything, but it's just… you looked so young, like a little brother. I had a younger sister before she died, so I suppose I got a bit nostalgic…"
Tim stared at Blyke for a bit, before smiling. "I know I shouldn't be, but I'm kind of happy to heard that. At least it wasn't just me."
Blyke smiled, raising his hand once more, resting it on Tim's head again. "Teammates for a day, and brothers for life."
"How cute. Let's keep moving," said Amelia.
The cadre continued, floor by floor, until they reached the ground floor.
"Search for stairs or an elevator," said Blyke. "Keep to pairs of two, to make sure nothing this weird family may have knocks us off guard."
"I don't normally like working with others," said Daniel. "But I agree with the second statement. I've never been in a house nearly a weird as this one." He glanced at the group. "I'm taking Ethelyn with me."
"The only one that has any sense between you people is Amelia, so I'm taking her. If it was up to me, we'd all be asleep by now," snapped Rosaria, heading off with Amelia right behind her.
"That leaves you and me," said Blyke to Tim. "Let's go. And try to be quiet, everyone, because if Asha catches us… no, if any of this family catches us, we're going to be deader than if we were shot through the air at mach speed."
"To be honest, this family kind of scares me," said Tim wryly, following after Blyke to the left. "I mean, the father choked his daughter as soon as he saw her, the mother is so cold about everything, except when it came to those documents, Asha's just the strangest person I've ever met… Only Isabella seems normal, but even she's a bit strange for not having run away by now."
Blyke nodded. "That about sums it up."
Tim gazed around the halls, shivering at the sight of the frightening faces of the nobles hanging in their frames. He stepped a bit closer to Blyke. "Hey, I have a question for you," he said.
"What is it?" Blyke asked, snapping his fingers, the shadows in the room lifting to lighten the area.
"Do you actually like Asha?"
Blyke almost ran into the doorway of the same parlor they were in that morning. "W-why are you asking that?" he exclaimed, startled by the sudden question.
"Well, I'm just asking," said Tim. "Besides, you said "Teammates a day, brothers for life," right? I know you used to get really mad whenever Asha started with her usual act, but you don't seem all that… close?"
Blyke sighed. "I don't know, to be honest. I was kind of just running my mouth. Whatever popped into my head at the moment. I mean, I think I'm beginning to understand a bit of what she keeps hidden under her skin. She's also being a bit more open now. Thanks to that, we actually know a little about her."
"You'd think we'd be able to after three years," said Tim.
"Yes, but when you think about it, we know next to nothing about her. We don't even know her age! Or anything about her family other than the fact that they're nobles and completely insane." Blyke ran a hand through his hair. "God, what have I gotten myself into. I'm not even sure if I like her, and I'm quite sure she doesn't like me."
Tim tilted his head. "That's not how I see it. I think she looks a bit more relaxed when she's around you. She used to be so hostile, just being in the same room as her used to put me on edge. But now, that hostility has started to dull." Tim smiled. "I'm just happy she seems a bit warmer than she did before."
Blyke felt a swell of emotion, patting Tim's head. "You're too kind," he said. "Someone will take advantage of that."
"Even if they do, I'm not one to let them get away with it," said Tim, smiling. "I always pay my dues, whether it's right away, or over years."
"Did you ever get that nobleman back?" asked Blyke.
Tim paused. "Sort of. Not as bad as I wanted, and that's why I came to Luminine; to get stronger. I wanted to kill him, but I only managed to ruin one side of his face with fire. I wasn't quite so skilled in Takeover then than I am now."
Blyke napped his fingers, realizing something. "That's right. I forgot you specialized in the Takeover form. That's the hardest form to control, but you seem to be very skilled."
"Well, part of it is the fact that my Amorai is a nine-tailed kitsune. Kitsune itself is an amorai that appears in the low tier, mid tier, high tier, and god tier. There are nine kitsune Amora in the world, each one with one more tail than the other. For each tail, the power is doubled. Kitsune were said to possess psychic powers, so that might be while all Kitsune have a talent for the form Takeover, since they're fox spirits."
"Hmm… see anything over there?" called Blyke.
"Nope."
"Hey, Blyke. We found stairs," someone called from another room.
Blyke and Tim exited the room and followed the voice into what seemed to be a gallery.
"I know what you're thinking," said Amelia. "This place is the place of my nightmares now, too."
Blyke grimaced, because she was right. Instead of a normal gallery, where there would be pictures of natural landscapes, flowers, and people… Well, Blyke corrected, There are people. But the pictures were of humans in torment. There were paintings of humans everywhere, but they were thin, starving, some being hanged, some making a live throne where a shadowed figure sat. There was slavery, as well, mountains of bones, and several other disturbing paintings.
"How gruesome," said Rosaria, staring at a painting of a throne on a mountain of corpses.
"It hurts my eyes," agreed Ethelyn. "They're not even painted well."
Daniel choked. "That's what you focus on?" he asked, the slight pitch in his voice telling them all he was slightly disturbed by the paintings.
"Why not? If I'm going to look at corpses, then at least make them look nice," said Amelia.
Blyke put a hand over his mouth, forcing himself to look past the paintings, scanning the long hall. "Where's the stairs?" he asked.
"Yeah, can we get out of her as soon as possible?" asked Tim, eyes fixed firmly on the ground.
"Why is it that the girls are fine about this?" hissed Daniel. "Are you all monsters?"
All three of them turned their eyes on him, their glares making him step back. "Maybe," they said, before turning back to the gallery.
"It's right here," said Amelia. She reached out, hand gripping part of a frame, which was made to look like many overlapping bones. She pulled, the bone coming loose and mending down; a lever. The painting swung free from the frame, opening like a door, only stairs fading into darkness seen below.
"Well, that's one good thing in a room full of horrors," said Blyke. "Let's get out of here before my sanity cracks."
"Agreed," said Daniel.
Blyke walked in first, using his Amorai's darkness element to lift shadows so they could see a bit more easily, until Ethelyn lit the stone staircase with several orbs of light.
"That's quite useful," he said.
The staircase was completely made of stone, the edges carved so sharply that, should someone fall, they'd be covered in cuts by the time they traveled ten feet.
Daniel bent down, running his finger across the edge of one of them, swearing when it sliced open the pad of his pointer finger.
"That's what you get for being an idiot," said Ethelyn. But she reached out, passing her hand over Daniel's finger, a slight glow appearing in the space between them, before the cut healed.
"I'm not the most aggressive fighter," said Ethelyn. "But I chose to specialize in something else, something that I wanted to do."
"Healing," breathed Tim.
Healing magic was a magic variant, which used light, wind, and water elements fused together. Water wasn't one of Ethelyn's born attributes, but it seemed that she'd been taking classes on how to control other elements.
Blyke sighed. "It seems everyone's been doing some sort of secret training. Daniel, you can do that weird thing that Asha did before, right? How long have you been practicing that?'
Daniel thought for a second. "I think for about six months."
"Ethelyn?"
"This semester," she replied.
Blyke facepalmed. "Damn."
"Blyke, what did you do before you came to the school?" asked Tim.
"Well, my parents died when I was very young. I grew up in an orphanage, but as soon as I could, I left and traveled a bit. But I had no real home, so I came here. Thanks to one of the Professors, she vouched for me to the Headmaster. She was a good friend of my parents, and was the one who gave the orphanage a large sum of money to improve conditions, all solely for me.
"When I saw her again, she said it was all for me. She was happy that she could do something for me, because she couldn't do something for her friends. I didn't really know how to react, because I only have vague, hazy memories of her, and she brought up a lot of different emotions. She told me everything she knew about my parents. Everything. And once it was over, we were both sitting in silence. There was so much I wanted to say, wanted to ask. I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to shout, 'If you know this much, then why didn't you help them? If you were that close and this powerful, you should have saved my parents! I don't even remember them, and what right do you have to tell this to me?' But then the tears started to fall from her eyes. I was shocked. I wondered if she was sad that her friends were no longer there, or if I was reminded her of them, but then she started mumbling. It was inaudible at first, but then I started to hear words. Do you want to know what she said?"
The cadre nodded.
"It was one phrase. A little varied at times, but always with two words the same." Blyke looked sad as he continued down the steps. "She said, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry I couldn't protect you. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Blyke.' At that moment, everything I wanted to scream at her vanished. Before I knew it, we were both crying, both saying 'I'm sorry' to the same people."
"God, how depressing is your life?" asked Rosaria.
"Pretty bad, for awhile. But then it brightened a bit, day by day. I began to find joy in the days I spent at Luminine." Blyke smiled. "Looks like no matter I want to, I just can't hate you guys."
"Don't tell me you're going soft," snarled Daniel.
Blyke just smirked. "As if. Just because I said I don't hate you doesn't mean I like you."
"Hey, sorry to stop your little spat, but the stairs are ending ahead," said Ethelyn.
Blyke turned his eyes ahead, noticing the stairs did end, leading to a short hallway that opened up into a brightly-lit larger chamber. Blyke took the lead once again, walking only ten feet before he was at the mouth of the large rectangular room, a hundred feet across, and over ten times that in length. Along the walls were faces twisted in agony, mouths open, hands clawing at their faces. Blyke grimaced.
"We need to get across," he said.
"The place is probably trapped," said Amelia, gazing across the room.
Blyke nodded, both an acknowledgement and instruction. They were going anyway. It wasn't like they could just leave wherever this path went. Besides, they were six God-tier Amorai users. They could get through the hallway without a scratch, even if every inch was trapped.
"Let's go, then," said Daniel.
Blyke nodded and took the first step. As soon as he did, he felt a slight dip in the tile, but he didn't see anything happen. He was puzzled, thinking the trap had been faulty, before he was shoved out of the way, someone shouting, "Above you!"
Blyke landed hard against the tiles, many of them activating other traps. He got up and started running, glancing back to make sure the others were behind him, seeing the massive guillotine blade being reeled back up, so far he couldn't see where it retreated.
Whatever this place was, why was there so much security?!
Blyke triggered another trap, narrowly avoiding a dozen needles, most likely coated in poison, shooting from the mouth of one of the faces on his left.
"Daniel, I'm taking to the air," Ethelyn called, unfurling the huge white wings that came from her Second Form.
Blyke could only watch out of the corner of his eye, but he was amazed at how agile Ethelyn was in the air.
Another trap activated, and Blyke had to jump over a pair of blades that shot from the ground, snapping together in a deadly scissor motion before sinking back under the tile, but as Blyke fell back toward the earth, something cut him. It wasn't just one cut, but several, all over his body. He realized that it was thin, practically invisible wires or threads strung in the air, ready to cut up anyone who was trying to fly.
"Ethelyn, watch out!" he shouted.
Tim saw the blood clinging to the wires, staining them a visible red, and snapped his fingers, sending a wave of fire at them. He'd hoped they'd melt, but they just glowed red, which was his secondary objective.
"Thanks," Ethelyn called. She shouted, "Third Form! Materialization!" One of Ethelyn's wings vanished, a long lance made of gold appearing in her hand. In a split second, she slashed a small gap through the wires, the single wing causing her to spiral, fitting through the gap easily. The spear disappeared, the wing spreading from her back once more.
"Almost! Everyone, keep going!" Daniel shouted.
"What else are we going to do?!" snapped Amelia. "If we stop, we'll get torn to shreds!"
"I'm astounded you have the time to fight right now," said Tim, leaping over a blade that would have gone through his foot.
"Stay out of this!" both Amelia and Daniel snarled.
Blyke laughed. "Let's keep going!"
"Uh no. Exit closing!" Tim shouted.
"It's my turn to shine!" Amelia laughed, speeding up, slashing her hand toward the exit, where a large slab of stone was slowly descending to block them out. Ice shot from her, freezing the entire block of stone, holding it in place. "It'll only last for a second, so you'd better move your asses before it closes!" she shouted.
"Roger that!" the rest chorused.
Ethelyn was the first through the exit, followed by Amelia, Blyke, Daniel, and Rosaria.
The ice holding the stone up shattered.
"Tim, hurry it up!" Daniel shouted.
Tim snarled. "I'm going! Don't tell me what to do!"
The stone, as if making up for the time it had lost, crashed down. Just before it obscured Tim completely, they saw several traps activate and a wave of Oblivinite rushed toward him. Blood sprayed, then the stone slammed down.
"TIM!" the cadre shouted.
"We have to open the door! We have to get to him!" Blyke shouted.
"This thing has Oblivinite in it," snapped Daniel. "If anyone tried to touch it, they'll end up a corpse before they could scream."
"Then you do it!"
"It's not that easy! I have to put in the right algorithm to gain control over it!" Daniel shouted.
"Then do it! Open the door!"
"Guys, is it just me, or is it getting hot here?" asked Rosaria.
Amelia's eyes widened. "Everyone get the hell away from the door!" She saw the slight glow of red, lunging forward, shouting, "Fifth Form!"
∽
The door exploded, just as a shield appeared on Amelia's arm, going from her shoulder height to the floor. She braced her shoulder against the shield, planting her feet, before a wave of fire knocked her back a foot. The shield was in the shape of a large kite, and it had a silver frame, with the metal creating a pattern, the gaps in the metal filled by a semi-clear ice.
Amelia could feel the ice melting, which was both a first to her and a shock, because that was the same unmeltable ice that made up the northern continent of Yelain, which was so cold it was impossible for a living being to stay for more than three minutes before all the blood in their veins froze. And for this fire to be able to melt it, Tim was much more powerful than she thought.
"Fifth Form."
A barrier of water appeared in front of Amelia, relieving her of the barrage of flames.
"Thanks, Rosaria," she said, as tongues of water touched her shield, freezing against the ice and filling in the melted parts.
"No problem. I don't really want choose fire as the reason for my death, you know," Rosaria told her.
Amelia sighed as the fire died, leaving nothing but smoke and pieces of the stone littered on the floor.
There was a flash of light from the darkness, before a figure walked from the smoke. "Sorry about that, but I panicked a bit."
"Son of a bitch, I can't believe it," Daniel laughed. "Welcome back, Tim."
Tim smiled as he walked out of the rubble. "Sorry for the scare. Oh, and we won't have to worry about the way back activating traps, because I'm pretty sure I just incinerated the entire room. I ended up having to put up a barrier to keep the place from collapsing."
"How long?" asked Ethelyn.
"As long as I have spirit energy left," Tim replied.
Blyke nodded. "How did you get out? With the Oblivinite and the traps…?"
Tim gave an adorable smile. "I told you I excelled in Takeover~" he said. "The transformation itself can take a bit, thought, so I had to speed up the process." He showed them all a long, semi-deep cut on his wrist. "I used my blood to force the contract. The fire my Nine-Tailed Kitsune controls is some of the hottest in the world. Oblivinite has a certain resistance to heat, but it's nearly impossible to find something my flames can't burn."
"Well, then, we're lucky Amelia was so fast on the draw," said Ethelyn. "Let's keep moving. I don't know if there are more traps that can trigger, but I'd rather not find out when the arrow goes through my head."
"Agreed," said Blyke.
Amelia nodded, walking to join the head of the group, but as she passed Tim, she patted him on the head. "You're one powerful little runt, aren't you?" she asked, grinning, before joining Blyke at the lead.
They walked in silence before something from before surfaced in Amelia's mind.
"Hey," she began, "Daniel, you said you had to input algorithm before, didn't you? To control the Oblivinite?"
Daniel sighed. "I wish you'd just dropped it. It's a bit of a pain to explain. Unlike other elements, Oblivinite is a manmade one, nothing more than a programed parasite. Anyone with Oblivinite has a certain amount they can control. For me, I have never reached the limit of the amount I can control just yet, but for others, they have a certain amount they can keep under control. And even if they past that, the amount they can summon themselves is dependant on the amount of magic energy they have. However, the way to bypass that rule is if the user finds Oblivinite and reprograms it to follow their orders, instead.
"Personally, I sometimes take some from the school gates, because, honestly, with Asha there, the only things they ever actually destroy are birds stupid enough to stand on them. The way I do it is by inputting algorithm into them and reprogramming them. The easiest way is with a laptop, but sometimes I have to do it mentally."
"That's bullshit. How can someone be that freaking overpowered?" asked Tim.
"That coming from the guy who could burn right through my Oblivinite?" laughed Daniel. "When you think about it, all of us have certain talents that are key to defeating each other. I guess that's God's way of keeping balance between the God Amora."
"Seems that way," Ethelyn agreed.
There were several more traps, or tests, because Amelia believed the path led somewhere where those less skilled would not be welcome.
Once they reached a large pair of doors, which the armed guards standing next to them opened, the cadre walked into the largest room they'd ever been in. They couldn't see the end of the place, only a high ceiling and thousands of people swarming around, some of them waving small hourglasses.
Amelia caught on first. "Oh, my God," she gasped.
"What?" asked Blyke and Daniel.
It wasn't the fact that they were in Casinamora that shocked her, but the fact that -- "The Phantomhive Manor has a tunnel that leads directly into Casinamora."
Blyke and Rosaria swore.
"We need to get out of here," said Daniel. "Now."
"Don't let anybody touch an hourglass in this place, unless you want to say goodbye to your Amorai," said Ethelyn.
"We need to get out, now," said Daniel, urgently, as he spotted several figures in the crowd moving toward them. "Now!"
The cadre rushed back outside, not breaking their sprint though the paths, not even when they activated the traps, using their fifth forms to block every attack.
When they were breathless, panting in the gallery in the Phantomhive manor, it was Tim who had hissed, "We have to tell Asha!"
∽