Return of the Fallen Volume 9 Chapter 58
As Asuna, Kimi, and Nunully sat in a corner and chatted happily with one another, others were not doing so well and could find no such thing as joy. Many cried, curled up like an infant, while others just stared blankly, awaiting their doom. Some paced back and forth, biting their nails and some gathered in small circles and told old war stories. Laughs, tears, anger, sadness, the atmosphere in the grand hall was a muddled one at best.
King Brian stood almost awkwardly near one side of the wall. He felt if he sat down in front of those few thousand that remained, it would tarnish his reputation. To sit on the dirty ground, that wasn’t an option, at the same time there were no chairs or anything like that to sit on. So he stood there…awkwardly. Sam wanted to join Kimi but she flatly refused as she was having girl talk with Asuna and Nunully.
Sam could only sit down with Shin and Triska, who still had not the slightest panic or worry in their expressions.
“Why are you two so calm?”
Shin shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we’re together. Maybe it’s because it just doesn’t feel quite real yet. I can’t say for sure.”
Shin then pointed over at the center of the room. There, Danny sat with his eyes closed, his aura outstretched, and his focus unyielding.
“Or maybe it’s because Danny hasn’t actually given up just yet. I don’t know what he’s doing but from what I do know, Danny doesn’t do pointless things. He is very logical yet he’s been known to think outside the box on occasion. Right now, I’d say, either he has a theory and he’s figuring out how to test it or he’s already in the process of testing his idea out. One way or another, It’s hard for me to feel scared when I know he’s still trying his best for all of our sakes. It’s not just me that’s noticed this but Tozu, Shaila, and Sasai are watching Danny as well and none of them seem too concenred. They’ve spent a fair blt of time with Danny and so they probably know him even better than we do now. They’re not worried, so why should I be?”
Sam, hadn’t really spoken to Shin in a while but hearing him explain Danny’s line of thinking, like this, Sam wondered if Shin had finally grown up. That is until Shin added.
“That or he’s trying to hold in a shit.”
*Pffft*
Triska let slip a small laugh. Shin and Sam’s eyes shot over at her and she quickly went back to a stoic expression as if she never laughed in the first place.
Shin scooched closer to Triska, a teasing smile on his face. Gently tapping her on the nose, he chuckled.
“I believe that counts as one.”
Triska’s fists shot forward like lightning but Shin was already a step ahead. With the power of her fists, it created a heavy push of air, Shin simply allowed his body to flow with this wind and was pushed backward by the air, allowing him to dodge easily.
“Yep. 1 for me and a fat Zero for you. Two more times and it’s my win today. That prize of yours, I will surely collect.”
Sam was confused by this weird couple.
“Two more times, what are you talking about Shin?”
Shin curled his finger, indicating Sam come closer but Sam’s interest wasn’t so great and he just got up and turned to leave.
Shin rolled his eyes before appearing behind Sam as fast as the wind. His warm breath tickled Sam’s ear.
“Fine fine, if your gonna act like that I’ll just tell you, so don’t run away.”
Sam swatted at Shin to shoo him away but Shin was far too fast and again was left untouched as he avoided Sam’s backhand.
Across the room, Asuna and the others saw Sam and Shin messing about and they all shook their heads.
The room was lightening up more and more and a few more people began to laugh and have fun. The gloom that filled this place was being replaced by laughter. It was almost like the people here were in shock. The right emotion would obviously be fear at this moment. No one would blame them as it was natural. Instead though it was the complete opposite.
As the grand hall filled with noise, sitting at the center, Danny had cut them all off from his senses. His mind heightened and focused to an unbelievable level. He stretched his aura outward and touched every single edge of the inside of the dome. His aura moved as fast as lightning as it periodically banged against the inside of the dome.
He did not do this to try and break through rather he was testing for weaknesses. Whenever his aura touched the inside of the dome, he received bits and pieces of information. Some small bits here and there and some slightly more. Another reason why he struck the inside of the dome as fast as possible was that Zetrazz’s aura breath and Torzz’s white flames were incredibly destructive. For someone like Danny who was equal to a being at the Core stage, his aura when compared to a Titan’s was like the distance between the land and sky. His aura was feeble and ant-like compared to theirs.
The very second his aura impacted with theirs, bits of his aura started to be destroyed. Within that small time frame, Danny gathered important information, and nanoseconds later, the very tip of his aura that touched the inside of the dome was destroyed, gone, no more.
Having one’s aura destroyed could be very excruciating. To him, who relied almost entirely on his aura to function, both his aura and soul were very resilient and gave him slightly more protection than others around the same stage but even with that resilence, it did not block out all of the pain.
Even with no physical body, the pain he received felt real. His mind pricked as if needles were actually stabbing at his brain. Even though his limbs were that of metal, like a phantom pain from having a limb amputated, it was as if real flesh was being torn apart all over his body.
If this was the Danny who had first arrived in Gordonia, he would never have believed such a seemingly illogical thing could be possible. After all of his trials and tribulations though, after everything he’s come to learn and understand of in this world, even this phantom pain had some basis some truth grounded in reality. Because he could link his understanding of this world and its laws to the current pain he was feeling, he felt little fear.
This lack of fear allowed him to continue his path and endure the ever agonizing pain he faced alone.
On the outside, onlookers would see a tall metal unfeeling Golem sitting in complete silence. On the inside though, he was enduring suffering on a scale that most could not imagine. Taking on two titan’s auras again and again and again. Even if it was for fractions of a second at a time, this was not something just any could handle. This continuous onslaught on the mind, body, and soul, would render nearly all a mindless drooling mess after even one encounter. Those people would be left with a shattered psyche and a crippled body and that was if they didn’t die from the combined aura’s.
Something that could easily crush mountains made of dense rock. Who could take on such a thing? Yet here Danny was, taking on what could not be taken, and doing it all in absolute silence.
As Danny continued to crash his aura into theirs, again and again, he gathered more information.
(The auras flow almost naturally around one another but the two auras are anything but. One contains the element of fire…no, one is just Torzz aura using his soul. Yet he has seemingly coated his aura in white flames. His power is separated into two while Zetrazz’s Aura breath truly is two powers combined into one. Zetrazz can fuse these two energies into one but his older brother cannot. Yes, because of this, when they made this dome, their powers that flow around one another do not truly combine, and that leaves tiny gaps. Gaps so small that they are invisible to the naked eye but I’ve felt them with my aura.)
Danny endured the pain and slammed his aura into the dome again. He had discovered small nearly invisible gaps left in the wall. Because the two brothers couldn’t actually combine their powers together, it meant there had to be tiny spaces left in between them, otherwise, their powers would naturally destroy one another’s energy. Danny found the chance he was looking for, the final hope.
(If there are gaps in this dome, then I can exploit them. First, let’s try and expand them…No first let’s accurately pinpoint them.)
Danny’s aura clashed with the wall again and he endured more torment. At the same time, he observed with everything he had but.
(Damn, this is too difficult. The gaps move because the flow of energy from the two Titans continues to move…!)
The moment he realized this it was as if a bolt of lightning went off in his head.
(That’s it. The gaps move along the dome because the energy in the dome keeps moving. I just need to track the flow of this energy and in that way I can track the gaps.)
Even through all of this pain, a thrill of excitement welled up within Danny as he finally saw hope.
(Just a little more time. With just a bit more time, I can expand a gap big enough and I can speak with Detra. Once she sees this madness, surely she will stop her sons from destroying anything else and we can be saved.)
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