When Elissa opened her eyes, she saw that she was lying on her bed. It was past dawn and the sunlight was coming into her room through the window. She didn't know why, but there was a feeling of confusion, in her mind.
As she started thinking, she began to wonder how she get there. Thinking about that, she got up and sat down on her bed.
Even after trying her best to remember, the last memory she could remember was her, going to the arena to see the final battle. She couldn't remember what happened after that.
With a lot of questions, she slowly got off of her bed and walked towards the resident hall, trying to remember what happened.
When Elissa got to the residence hall, she saw her teammates there all dressed up. Upon seeing them she asked,
" Are you guys going somewhere? "
Hearing that, her teammates gave her a strange look for her question and one of them asked
" Where were you yesterday? And what's with that question? "
" What? Seriously, why are you all dressed up? And what happened to the final battle?" Elissa asked because she was still confused.
" Are you serious right now? We are leaving back to our town. And what about that question about the finals? "
" What? You are leaving? "
" Everyone is leaving. What happened to you? "
" Everyone is leaving? Doesn't that mean the final battle was yesterday?"
When her teammates heard her asking that they started to worry about Elissa and asked
" Are you okay? Are there any problems? "
But Elissa couldn't understand why they were asking that. As Elissa was about to say something, she suddenly remembered that, if everyone is leaving, then aran would also be leaving.
When she realised that, she remembered that there were a lot of things she wanted to ask him. Thinking about that she immediately left her residence and ran towards the residence where aran's team was staying.
As Elissa got there, the residence's door had been locked from the outside. She understood that aran had already left. But she didn't give up. She continued to run and she left the mansion and went to the place from where the airships usually take off.
As she got there, she saw Alexia talking to someone. She was pleased to look at her and she ran towards her.
When Alexia saw Elissa running towards her, she got confused. As Elissa got close, alexia asked
" What happened? Why are you running? "
Elissa stopped and remained silent for a minute and looked around. Behind Alexia, a few feet away from her, she saw the airship of the Pheonix academy. All the other four teammates had already gotten on the ship and they were waiting for Alexia to get on the ship so that they could leave.
" Hello? I am talking to you! " Alexia started to shout at Elissa who was ignoring her. But Elissa was still confused by all the things that were happening and she didn't know what had happened. She couldn't even remember her memories. As she heard alexia shouting at her, she said
" Yeah, I, I was just, forget it. Are you leaving without even saying goodbye? "
" What? "
" I was the one who first welcomed you when you got here, Remember? Now you are leaving without informing me? "
" Well, sorry about that. I thought you don't care. So, can I take my leave now? " Alexia asked.
" What? just like that? "
"I'm sorry. I want to have a drink with you before leaving. But, they are waiting for me for a long time. So if I take any more time, then Rollo will kill me. You know him right? "
" But still? "
"As I said, I am sorry. The next time we meet, we can have a big send-off. Okay? Bye, see you soon " Alexia said as she turned around and left without even expecting an answer.
Although Elissa wanted to say many things, she just let her off. With a lot of confusion, she just stood there looking at Alexia getting on the airship.
As Alexia got on the ship, she turned around and waved her hand at Elissa. Before she closed the door of the airship, Elissa saw a glimpse of arrax, Aran's pet cat.
Soon the Airship got activated and it slowly started to move. As Elissa continued to look at the airship from afar, in a few minutes, the airship got far away from what her vision could reach.
***
Looking at the airship leaving, Elissa turned around to go back to her room. As she was about to leave, suddenly the glimpse of the cat she saw, came to her mind.
As she thought about that, her head started to ache. But she just ignored it and continued to walk but as she took more steps the headache got stronger and stronger.
As Elissa continued to walk, her headache got so severe that she couldn't even stand straight. She looked around and found a bench close to her and walked there. As she got there, she slowly sat down on the bench.
Suddenly many memories flowed into her mind like a river and she started to remember all the things from the start.
***
Nine days ago, while Elissa was talking with aran and his teammates, her father visited her. After talking for a while he left telling her to cooperate with the investigation regarding the dark creed cult.
On that night, one of the investigation officers came to her and asked her to come with him to help him with the investigation. Since the issue was big enough to start a war between her family and the cult, Elissa accepted and went with him to Eastbourne.
When Elissa got to the investigation office in Eastbourne, the officer explained all the details he had found to her. Elissa also explained to him her side of the story.
After making things clear, she had to travel around the city with him collecting information regarding what exactly happened.
After a weak investigation, what she had found was something entirely different from what she knew. Elissa found out about the defensive formation the cult had recently created around the base. But she didn't know anything about the formation and the primordial stones or the war declaration.
According to the report of the attack, there were a total of three people and two of them were lightning cultivators. But Elissa only knew one of them and she was sure that aran didn't have a lightning attribute. According to the old man at the inn they stayed, there was someone else who saved them.
After knowing that, Elissa started to wonder if aran knew anything about that, but even after learning about all that, she still trusted aran. After the investigation was completed when she got back to the Bellrun, she wanted to meet aran and talk to him about all of it.
***
On the day of the final battles, while she was waiting for the battle to start, she accidentally saw aran leaving the arena.
Although she didn't mind about that at first, something seemed off to her. So after ten minutes, she also left the arena to look for aran. After looking around for a few minutes, she found aran sitting on a bench in front of the memorial building.
Since it seemed suspicious for someone to do that while the final battles of the tournament were going on, she decided to follow him from as much distance as possible.
After waiting for a few minutes, aran got up and went into the memorial building. Seeing that, Elissa still waited for a while thinking that was not right to follow someone like that but after a few minutes she finally decided to do it anyway.
As Elissa entered the building and left her rings there after checking, she went to the next room. As she passed through that room and opened the door of the memorial chamber, she saw something that shocked her completely.
She saw aran standing close to where the book of the Cardinal family's sword technique.
As Elissa saw that, she was shocked!
She also saw aran's cat holding a pen in its hand and writing. After seeing that, when she decided to ask him about what was happening and took a step, her movements got restrained and aran charged at him and punched her!
That was the last memory, Elissa could remember.
***
Sitting down at the bench, as Elissa thought about what had happened and wondered why would aran do something like that, more questions entered her head.
As she continued to think for more than an hour, she started to realise things one by one.
Elissa realised that Aran was the one who wanted to see the mercenary guild.
He had chosen a high-ranked mission despite knowing that he was not strong enough to complete that.
When she realised the bandits are the members of the cult and told aran to abort the mission, he was the one who convinced her that they can do that.
Elissa even remembered how aran mentioned her fallen comrades to convince her.
Before leaving for the mission, he was the one who told her to leave their horses back, giving a dumb reason.
Even when entering the cult base, he had stopped her from moving and only told her to move after he heard a big explosion, as if he was expecting that.
When Elissa tried to kill the bandits, he told her to take them alive in their rings. But when they got the bandits out of the rings, they were dead.
His strange pet was writing a book like a human and he had attacked her just for seeing that.
Now that Elissa thought about all that, more things started to get clear. Even after knowing all that, Elissa was still left with more questions than before. Because, before all these things happened, she was the one who asked him if she could accompany him.
Thinking about all that, her head started to ache more because it was too much for her to take on. She started to get angry at herself for how big of a fool she was. She started to get angry at aran and she wanted to know exactly what had happened.
After all the things that happened, there was nothing she had gained. Thinking about that, she felt like a stupid person, who got taken advantage of.
Promising herself that ' one day she will get back for all of that and she will find out everything that happened, no matter what ' Elissa got up from the bench and left for her residence.