Reina knows for a fact that Riku wasn't dead. She knew what Riku was capable of, and one of the things he was capable of was survival.
"Riku isn't dead" Reina assured them
"But we can't sense his aura anywhere. The only thing left of him is his tracking device which was abandoned in the middle of nowhere" renzo contemplated.
Reina stretched forth her hand in demand
"let me have the tracking device"
"What are you going to do with it" renzo responded. Suri became annoyed at renzo
"Would you just give her the tracking device or I'll take it from you myself"
Renzo threw it on the floor and walked away from where she stood "good luck finding him in such helpless place, I'm outta here" the moment he took a step, he found himself inside a prison.
"Renzo, I said you're not leaving here till this mission is over" said suri with a slightly provoked tone. Suri had used his force field manipulation abilities to trap renzo inside a cage. Renzo doesn't seem bothered, he just sits there with his arms crossed.
Reina had already picked up the tracking device. She brought out three daggers from a bag she carried around. She pierces the daggers on the ground forming a three point triangle. She carries the tracker on her hand like she was using them to take water from a stream. She places the tracker at the center of the triangle.
"What are you doing?" Heiwa asked.
Reina didn't answer yet because she was trying to focus. The tracker that was placed in the middle started glowing.
"Awesome….uhh why's it glowing?" Heiwa asked.
Reina picked up the glowing tracker and placed it in transparent plastic bag. She picked up her daggers and returned them back to their rightful position.
"It's another way for tracking Knights. It was used back in the day to track dead knights" Heina explained.
Suri replies,"So you're saying Riku is…."
"No, if he were dead it would only glow for a second, the continuous glow means he's alive but…." Reina explains but she omits something.
"go on, what are you not saying, heina" Renzo said.
"Yes, riku's alive but he's inside a barrier that's restricting people from reaching his celestial aura" Reina explained.
Heiwa's is still a little bit confused, she rubs her chin and she asked "if his celestial aura was being restricted, then how did you track him?"
"A knight doesn't fall far from their sword". This was the only word that came out of reina's mouth. Heiwa uses a finger to scratch her head in confusion "I don't get it " she said.
The tracker in the plastic bag started pointing towards a direction. "I'll explain everything on the way, right now we have to follow the tracker"
They all followed the tracker. They took turns and cuts. While they were still on the journey, heiwa turned to suri and asked "aren't you gonna let renzo out of the cage?"
"No, I can keep him floating around with us till we get to our destination" suri replied
'Having such huge amount of celestial aura as a rank-1 C-rank student is really amazing' heiwa thought to herself.
While walking Heina started explaining the technique she used earlier "the technique is called SŌKŌ TSUISEKI. Sōkō tsuiseki is an ancient technique only the knights can do. It is used to track a knight's sword and a sword can mean different things when it comes to knights. Riku on the other hand had always said his sword was his heart and that made it easy for me to track his living status….that's all I can tell you, the rest is knight top secret".
Heiwa finally understood the technique a little "why can only the knights use it?" She asked
"It's knight top secret and it's a hard technique to learn"Reina replied.
Few moments later the glowing tracker that was leading them to their destination stoped moving.
"We're here" said Reina as they appeared infront of an abandoned house.
"Yeah that house is empty and there's no sign of any celestial aura coming from in there" said renzo. They all walked inside the abandoned house and discovered that renzo was right..but he was also wrong
"this house may be empty but there's someone here" Reina said.
This made heiwa and renzo seem confused "what are you talking about" renzo said.
Reina ignores renzo and walks around the living room they had entered, she figured out that the house they had entered isn't real, although this was just a hunch. She wanted to confirm it. She went to the corner of the room and stood there "Suri!, stand over there" she pointed at a corner diagonal to where she stood. Suri walks toward Where she had pointed out, ruminating 'what is Reina possibly trying to do at this moment'. When he arrived, Reina explained what the both of them would do " I picked you because I know you're fast. Now In 3 seconds, let's run past each other while leaking some of our celestial aura. Heiwa will do the counting". The moment suri heard 3 seconds, he knew what Reina was trying to do.
"Alright I get it now, shall we start?" Suri said.
Reina nodded "heiwa start the count down". Reina and Suri started leaking their celestial aura, ready to run past each other
"1" Reina and suri moved quickly
"2….3" the moment they crossed each others path, there was a glitch in not just the abandoned house but the entire city.
"What just happened" heiwa asked, noticing the glitch "so this city is just an illusion?" She asked again. "no way" suri said, trembling.
"This city is not exactly an illusion, it's real actually but this is 2 cities existing in one dimension" Reina explained. Suri agrees with her "yes, there's another city here, it exists in a parallel dimension and I think that's where Riku is being kept". Renzo grins mischievously but nobody noticed except suri, but he doesn't take it as anything
"We'll have to get to the city gate, that'll take 30 minutes if we walk but with suri's help we can get there under five" Reina said.
They exited the abandoned house. Suri made another jet with his force field piller "let's gooo quickly!!" They all stepped into the jet and took off.
'parallel dimension? Has this city always existed in our world?' Heiwa pondered.
"We're here" suri said as they approached the city's gate. Suri landed and they all came down from the jet. When Reina came down from the jet, she opened her palm and a blade less sword appeared. Reina's ability as a knight was weapon summoning, she could summon only 5 weopons at a time depending on what she can carry and the ability each sword yields.
"This sword can tear through dimensions" said Reina. This made all of them think Reina was stupid because there was no blade to even tear a thin hair strand, talk more of tearing a parallel dimension "reina has finally gone insane" renzo said in mockery. Reina doesn't respond to him, she went straight to the point "suri and heiwa, make a blade with your celestial aura through this sword handle I'll do thesame" she said while stretching the bladeless sword towards them. They both did not understand what Reina was trying to do, yet they complied.
"We do it all at once…. Are you ready?" They both nodded
"Now!!!!!" Reina yelled out and all three of them started making a blade on the the sword handle with their celestial aura.
The blade was set but heiwa and Suri couldn't see it.
"It's soo bright" said Reina
"What's soo bright" suri asked
Heiwa just stared in confusion because she couldn't see anything, not even the light, it was as if it was invisible sword that is only visible to Reina.
Reina began to explain, "You can't see the sword because it's a multi dimensional sword, however if we are able to tear through the dimension and enter the cit, maybe you'll be able the see the bright light. But that's all you'll see… a bright light, no shape, no form, just a bright light"
They finally understood but they both didn't understand why only Reina could see it in their current dimension. They all walked towards the city's entrance and stopped. Reina gave them a valuable information "alright listen up, the opening I am going to create to the parallel dimension will only last an hour, which means we must finish up what we came here for as fast as possible, suri will make a water barrier in the opening I'll create so it'll be easy to locate. And yes this sword only works once a days so If we're not here in the next one hour…the opening will close and we'll be stuck here for another 24hours"
They became a little afraid but suri calms himself and heiwa "alright team let's do this"
Reina tears through the dimension making a round shape opening , cutting through the dimension. They all walked through to another dimension. Suri makes a Barrier just like Reina had instructed. The tracker in the plastic bag started pointing towards a direction, they noticed it and immediately suri made the force field jet "hop in, we don't have much time" said suri. Suri freed renzo from the force field cage.
They felt a great deal of dark celestial aura while flying the jet.
"What..what is this terrible aura" heiwa said, trembling. The pressure of the aura they felt affected suri's jet speed. Usually they would get to their destination in 5 minutes but they got there in 8 minutes this time. While on the air, they could see that the abandoned house they had stayed in before was actually a catacomb in the parallel universe.
"What the hell did we sign up for" said suri
"Our world used to be filled with pure aura…" said Reina. Suri landed the jet and they all came out of it, ready to venture into the catacombs. Suri tried walking in but he hit an invisible wall "ouch" he exclaimed in pain. Heiwa moved forward and tried to put her hand through the entrance but she noticed there was a barrier. "Damn it. does anyone know how to deactivate a barrier?" Heiwa asked. They all looked at eachother and thought non of them knew untill renzo sighed and moved forward. " you guys always forget what my power is don't you" said renzo while stepping forward to the entrance of the catacombs. "I know you have purple flames renzo" said reina as renzo stepped forward to entrance of the catacombs.
He stretched forth his right hand and melted the barrier. They weren't so shocked but they were a little impressed "my purple flames aren't just ordinary flames, they can melt anything at my capacity" said renzo, suri hanged his hand on renzo's neck and said "see, it isn't so bad to help out".
When they all walked in, they saw Riku on the floor, face down, all beat up and scars all over his body.
"Riku!!!!!" Heiwa yelled while running towards him to help him on the floor.
'Something's not right' suri ruminated and he yelled "HEIWAAAA STOP RIGHT THERE AND DONT EVEN MOVE AN INCH"
Heiwa stopped immediately. The body that was on the floor disappeared. Suri, Reina and renzo quickly ran towards heiwa.
"It was just an illusion" said Reina
"Yh just like my sister's pillar, she always used it to prank me but this one's hard to notice and Is darker" said heiwa. Suri looked around and saw a rat, he used his force field abilities to bring the rat towards him. He placed the rat on thesame place the illusion of Riku was casted and unfortunately, the rats life force got drained soo fast that it turned into Dust.
"As expected, a trap. Everybody follow my lead" said suri.
Suri and his team walked and took different turns till they finally got to a dead end . Heiwa couldn't shake off the feeling that they were being watched, all of a sudden a mysterious figure came from behind and chanted "acid rain", Heiwa noted and immediately but up a huge water barrier to protect both herself and her teammates. The mysterious figure stepped out of the shadow with a grin on her face as she said "my my, you brought us more student as promised eyyy renzo". The moment they heard renzo's name they were in complete shock, they turned around to look for renzo but he wasn't there 'renzo has been leading us to a trap the whole time?' Suri thought while he panicked. Renzo had already walked out of the water barrier "just as we planned….lady yon" renzo said as he walked towards lady yon.
the entire team became infuriated "Renzooo what did you do with Riku" Reina yells as she had flash backs from the jet when renzo said Riku was dead.