Return of the Fallen Volume 8 Chapter 49
While Bozek was still unconscious, Kazuki and everyone else sat around a large table. Plates of roasted meat and fruits filled the table. Mei saw all the different meats and her eyes grew larger. Back in Glaicous’s tiny world, there were only 4 or 5 different animals, so even though there was plenty of meat, living in said environment for a lengthy duration caused her to grow tired of the same selection. Right now in front of her, there was pork and goat and things that she hadn’t had in well over a year.
Mei’s hands were fast as she grabbed handful after handful of food and shoved it into her mouth nonstop. If others saw this, they would be horrified at the amount of food she could fit in her gullet but those around her were also Ancient beasts. Their appetites dwarfed hers but Mei was competitive seeing this and ate and ate and ate.
When all was said and done, Mei’s stomach was slightly bloated and round. Rubbing her belly in a proud manner, she belched and smiled in satisfaction.
Danny watched this and even though his metal-faced showed no emotion, deep inside he was feeling happy. Seeing Mei happy and eating to her heart’s content, left Danny warm inside his soul. Kazuki as well held a soft spot for the little rascal of a child and wanted to feed her even more but it was obvious she was stuffed.
After a moment or two of sitting in bliss, Mei still had many questions that had gone unanswered.
“Big brother, where were you all this time? I know I accused you of playing around with big ti…er, missy Shaila but since you said that wasn’t the case, I’ll believe you. So then how come you never came back to us. Didn’t you care about us at all?”
That one hurt.
“Of course I care about all of you. All I wished for, this entire time was to hurry up and get back to you and everyone else but things kept getting in my path.”
Kazuki then went on to explain what happened immediately after he fell. He left out the useless details and things Mei just didn’t need to know and kept things relatively short but still, as he went through it, Mei went through every emotion as if she had lived it herself. One of the main things she clung to was when Kazuki was left without food for months on end and was on the verge of starvation.
“Eh! I would have died big brother! I can’t go a day without food, let alone months! How cruel that that happened.”
Kazuki nodded along.
“Yes, things were truly desperate but it didn’t end with that.”
Kazuki told her about the strange creature that hunted him in the darkness and played with his life as if he were a toy. The fear he felt, the eventual confrontation, and being eaten. The desperation and despair as he began to give up all hope. Mei’s eyes filled with tears.
After escaping the dangerous creature in the Abyssal trench and the fight they had that led him to an even lower depth of the trench and his discovery of Ape city.
Kazuki talked about how he was captured and imprisoned and how he made friends with the previous king and so on and so on. Mei grew more and more excited, and then sad, and then was bursting with laughter and joy. She was on an emotional rollercoaster filled with ups and downs but she was now understanding why it took Kazuki so long.
Eventually, everything led to Zetrazz and the Ancient beasts and his story caught up to where they were now.
“So you see. I’ve only wanted to return but obstacles one after another got in my way. It wasn’t all terrible though. After all, I met King Oren and we became friends and I ended up meeting Shaila, Tozu, and Sasai. Not only that, Danny has returned to us in this new form. Along the way, I made some friends and even became much stronger.”
Mei couldn’t help but get up from her seat and hug Kazuki with everything she had.
“Big brother suffered so much. When I thought you died, Mei Mei’s heart was broken. It broke for Daddy and then Danny and just when I thought I was done with all the heart stuff, you died too. For a long time, I was mad and sad and even when I was with mama and everyone else, I sometimes felt really lonely but you had to go through all of that all alone.”
Mei pulled her face from Kazuki and a string of snot along with a stream of tears cling to his shirt.
Kazuki wiped her face for her and shook his head.
“I may have been alone physically but Danny and my brother Kai were with me the whole time. If I were truly alone, I may have given up long ago. I would have laid there and just died but Danny’s ideas and my brother getting on my back was the push I needed. The thought of everyone, coming back, this is why I struggled so hard I kept telling myself. Seeing you now, the fact that you would shed tears for someone like me, It was all worth it.”
Hearing that just made Mei’s tears come out even harder and she then proceeded to blow her nose repeatedly in Kazuki’s shirt.
At this point, Kazuki could only sigh as he gently embraced Mei and rubbed her back. Still, these tears for him, Kazuki couldn’t help but feel warm in his heart.
Danny watched this from the side and he felt some jealousy. He too wished to feel the warmth of a hug on his skin but he knew that it was something that could not be. A bitterness yet understanding was ever-present.
Shaila as well was both saddened and touched by this moment. She gently grabbed a stunned Tozu’s hand. She looked as if she would cry at any moment and Tozu was confused at first but he did the only thing he could think of and hugged her. At the same time, he and Sasai were both taken aback by Kauzki’s story and found some of it almost unbelievable.
When they first became allies with Kazuki, Kazuki had said very little about his past, They now understood why. The things he went through, were not something one would want to relive by telling them. His story was beyond depressing. Starvation, madness, being eaten, a crazy power taking over his mind, being imprisoned, and so on. His life was struggle and hopelessness time and time again and yet he somehow managed to return but that didn’t stop his life story from being a horror story.
Tozu and Sasai both had a bit of envy, regarding Kazuki’s inhuman strength but now after finding out why he was so damn strong, neither one would trade their lives for his.
Old man Sid as well was shocked. He was holding a large mug of alcohol for a while now but that was now warm. he had been so engrossed and shocked by Kazuki’s story that he had forgotten the drink in his hand, something that never happens to him. Only now that the story was over did he slam his drink back and burp before commenting.
“So that’s what happened. Kazuki, you went through all of that and here I am sitting around like a lazy turd.”
A fire grew in Sid’s eyes as he was getting the itch to swing his hammer and put on his Sozo glove.
“Old man, what are you talking about. You’ve been working for weeks with no rest. No one would ever dare say that you were lazy.”
Sid shook his head.
“I’ve been working all this time and the new weapon you asked for, I’ve only managed to produce three of them. I need to work faster and harder from now if these are to become effective in battle. One or two won’t cut it. I need to make hundreds…no, thousands if it’s to destroy that Miasma shit.”
Sid said nothing else and jumped off a tall stool before tossing Kazuki a small ring and heading back inside his workshop in the back and slamming the door tightly shut behind him.
Kazuki held the ring in his hand and sunk his senses inside of it. It was a small storage ring. The inside was around 10 feet by 10 feet and inside there were three large diamond-shaped objects inside. Kazuki had never seen them in real life but he clearly recognized the design right away.
It was the weapon he had come up with. Just like with his new power, it was a weapon that combined three different energies. The energies would try and burn away at the other one to add to themselves in a sense. This though would instead amplify the other energies. All three would amplify one another in a bid for dominance until they reached a critical point where they could strengthen no further. At this point, the energies would combine together chaotically and exploded, destroying not only themselves but everything else in their path.
Kazuki quickly took the three odd diamond-looking objects out and gave a brief explanation of what they could do. Just as he finished his explanation, Bozek who was still lying n the floor woke up in a grog.
“Euh, where am I?”
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