Alek listened to what happened to her in a cell next to the one she was previously in. There was still a possibility that Kiryuu, her beast, was going to take control of her.
"You held your head and screamed when mum told you to kill her. That's when you turned back." Kai explained. Alek was cuffed and chained like before but, she didn't seem to mind it. "Do you know what happened to you?" He referred to when Kiryuu took over, and Alek disappeared in her mind.
"I was trapped in this...room kind of place." Alek tried to scratch her face but, she remembered she was in cuffs and continued. "It was about the size of this room. I tried to find a door or get out of there, but I couldn't. I kept on shouting to let me out, but it didn't listen. I came back when I saw images of Aether. Then in a flash, I was back. I didn't feel the pain that it was feeling."
"Why Aether, though?" Bia asked. Neither did she or everyone see the faces of Robin and Panacea made when they heard Aether's name apart from Yukari.
The adults of Minazuki communicated with their minds with only the two of them in chat. They didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about.
"Mum, dad?" Alek looked at her parents from the ground. She thought she saw a flash of their animal eyes indicating they were using mind link.
"Yes sweetie?" Panacea replied a second later. She didn't expect her daughter to catch her off guard.
"Are you alright?" Alek asked. She saw the worried face of her mother.
"Nothing. I'm going to come back soon. I'm just going to take a cup of water. It's hot." Panacea smiled and told the people in the room. She then dragged out her husband with her out of the room.
Yukari was carefully watching them all this time.
"Okay." Ale replied when the door was closed. The room was only had one light bulb and, it was dimly lit.
"Can you try to communicate with your animal?" Astraea asked her niece. Shifters could talk to their animal anytime they wanted and, it was one of the first things to learn when they first shift.
"Novah?" Alek looked at the Yayoi. She was not confident if she could talk to her beast with only her strength. She needed someone to help her.
Novah nodded. "I will not use my full powers to shift you. I will try to create a line between you and her. Although I wonder why she hasn't contacted you..."
"I also wonder that too. Mine was loud before I even had my first shift. He was pretty loud and always annoyed me." Jin sighed next to his twin. His animal, Uta, have been disturbing him since he learnt how to communicate with his human.
"Oh, is that how it's supposed to be?" Alek asked the people in front of her.
"Most of the time." Rin told her. His animal, Chikage, usually kept quiet but forced his way out when things didn't go his way or spent time with Rin's sister when he wanted to.
Alek only nodded to that and looked at Novah to help her communicate with her beast.
Novah didn't ask anything and closed her eyes in concentration. When she closed her eyes like that, she felt it was easier to communicate with shifter's animals, unlike when she wanted to forcefully shift.
Soon, Alek felt that she was in her mind and not in the physical world anymore. Her body was still there, cuffed and chained in the cell but, she didn't hear anything or feel anything in the physical world.
In her head, she wasn't in the room she was locked up in before. Right now, she saw a black circle in front of her. She was surrounded somehow by sunflowers and, the black thing floating directly in front of her was standing out greatly. She stared at the circle for a long time without moving. She could hear and smell the sunflower from everywhere.
When she finally took a step, the circle began to suck up the flowers nearby with string force. It was using tremendous power and, the flowers were ripped and sucked into it. She then realised the black thing wasn't a circle but a black hole.
Alek tried to run away from the circle. But with a fertile attempt, she was sucked into the hole just like her surrounding flowers.
She woke up in a dark room, still in her head. Gosh, how is her mind having a space like this? She thought and woke up from the ground. For an unknown reason, she could see herself perfectly fine. She saw herself as before she communicated with her animal; her arms still had bandages, and she was wearing the same clothes she came to Nagatsuki with.
'So no one thought of changes me.' Alek thought to herself. At least her sister could have changed her clothes into a more comfortable one when she was hospitalised.
She looked around herself and stepped forward into the darkness. Her foot landed on something and made a crashing sound. Alek bent down to pick us and the thing she stepped and brought it up to see. It was a ripped part of a sunflower. She must have entered into the same place where the sunflowers were sucked into.
When she looked around for more, she couldn't find them because of the lack of light. She looked back at the half-ripped sunflower in her hand, and suddenly, it lit up with black flames, burning it to ash.
'The eff?!' She immediately let the flower out of her hands and took a few stepped back from it. Her foot stepped on another piece of the flower and, it lit up just like the one she had in her grasp.
As she also stepped away from it, she realised all the ripped flowers were burning with black flames. She saw it burning even though she didn't have light to see. It was almost as when Jin shared his vision with her back at home when he first showed her his powers.
She looked down on herself and saw that she was also burning with the strange black fire. The fire was almost silent and, she wouldn't have realised it if her eyes didn't catch something moving on her. The fire was painful but, it wasn't burning her like it did on the flower. The flowers turned into ash when the fire consumed them but not her. It only burnt her, slowly but quickly.
Alek screamed in pain and crouched down on her leg. She could see the fire burning but, her skin was perfect outside. Even though it was perfect on the outside, it hurt like hell on the inside.
"Stop!" She screamed into the darkness. She felt that her animal was behind it. "Why are you doing this?!"
"Because you don't get it." A deep, rusty, but still female voice answered her from the front.
"Get what?" Alek was still fighting with the fire that was reaching her hips.
"You don't know how many years I have suffered." The voice replied. It sounded angry and a little hurt.
"Stop this, please." Alek begged. "Kiryuu, please."
The beast seemed to be surprised that she called her by her name. No one has ever called her her name apart from that one...
"Kiryuu, I'm sorry." Alek apologised, but she didn't know what she was apologising for.
The beast stopped the fire on Alek and let her breathe in relief after hearing her desperate plea. After all, they have been together since birth.
"Thank you." Alek whispered, looking into the darkness to where she thought her animal would be. Then she thought she heard a hmph from her.
"Why did you come here?" The beast asked her, still in the darkness, not showing herself.
"To talk to you. To get to know you." Alek came over the pain and stood up. "Can I see you?"
Kiryuu grumbled and showed a tip of her snout to Alek.
Alek then saw that her animal was more closer to her than she thought. "Can I touch you?" She asked and straightened her arms.
The beast didn't say anything, but it was pretty much an action telling her it was okay.
Alek carefully stretched out her hand slowly, making sure the animal was following what she was about to do.
The snout of Kiryuu was moistured and was big as Alek's palm. When she touched it, Kiryuu leaned forward to get more touch from her.
"What are you?" Alek asked, enjoying the feeling of her beast.
"I am a Ryu." Kiryuu spoke to her human.
"Ryu... As in Tatsu? As in eastern dragon?" Alek bombarded the questions.
Kiryuu didn't reply to Alek's question and closed her eyes in reply.
"Oh my God..." Alek covered her mouth with the other hand that was not occupied with Kiryuu. "Are you serious? Why are you mythical?"
Kiryuu made the are-you-serious face in the dark and stepped forward so that Alek could see she was not kidding.
Alek was awed at the appearance of her animal. Her face was exactly how it was drawn on old drawings. The snout, the eyes, the beard, the horns... and most of all, she was a yellow dragon. "Why are you mythical though?"
"Are you asking me that again?" Kiryuu moved her mouth and, human words came out.
"Wow, you can talk." Alek widened her eyes. "I mean, pretty much everyone else in the family, apart from grandma, is a prehistoric creature. They have evidence that those creatures lived back in the day."
"I don't have an answer to that question." Kiryuu told her straight into her eyes. Her golden-yellow eyes were not split in half, not now. She was calm.
"Then will you tell me why you attacked my parents?" Alek lowered her face and asked in the same tone.