Return of the Fallen Volume 4 Chapter 16
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Author: Blue_Rat
ch16
Kazuki rubbed the back of his head painfully and he had many questions. Before he could ask a single one though Kai pointed at the Beast core.
“Shouldn’t you get on that before it’s too late?”
Kazuki’s attention landed on the Beast core and he could already sense instability within it. Without a soul fragment of some kind, the Beast core would with no leash or master in control, would most likely have the power within release back into the world. NOt just the elements but pure magical energy itself would drain from it completely and the Beast core would become nothing more than a paperweight.
Kazuki looked back at his soul tree and then at the Beast core.
Kai could see some hesitation.
“What is it, what’s wrong?”
Kazuki scratched the side of his head.
“I’m trying to figure out what to do now.”
Kai’s jaw fell to the floor.
“What do you mean you’re trying to figure out what to do? This isn’t some game where you can just wing everything and expect things to go your way. Where in the 7 realms of hell is your plan? How can you be so irresponsible?”
Kazuki rolled his eyes.
“Look it’s not like I don’t know what needs to be done but everything up to this point has just been a theory. This is the final step. If I mess up here then it’s done. You saw that fatty outside. He’s gonna take me back to Muteki and once I’m in his hands, there’s a zero possibility of escape. I have to do this right or the shits over, I’m done for.”
Kai’s brow raised in frustration.
“You really are a little dummy.”
*Haaa*
Kai rubbed his temples before he asked.
“So what exactly do you need to do?”
Kazuki pointed at his soul tree and then to the Beast core.
“I have to connect my soul tree to the Beast core. Once I do that a part of my soul should make some type of connection with the Beast core and it will become apart of me. Like how you still exist in this world. Most of your soul died in your body but the small piece that was still connected with your Mage core survived. I need to take a small piece of my soul and well you should get the rest right?”
Kai nodded in understanding.
“Ok so just do that then.”
Kazuki shook his head.
“It’s not so simple.”
Kazuki walked over and grabbed a branch and tore it off. Kai was intrigued by this.
(Hmm, when did he learn to divide his soul, interesting.)
Kazuki walked over with the branch.
“If things were as easy as you think then as soon as this branch touches the Beast core, the beast core should become mine right?”
Kai nodded again.
“That seems to make the most sense but the way you speak, you obviously doubt things will go so well.”
Kazuki said nothing. Standing next to the floating Beast core, Kazuki could see it trembling slightly. The core was becoming unstable before his eyes. Kazuki picked up the branch in his hands and touched the end of it to the Beast core.
Nothing.
Kai walked over curiously and touched the Beast core. Then he touched the branch and thought for a moment. He didn’t understand it either.
(Soul to Beast core, this should work but there’s not so much as the slightest reaction. Did Kazuki fail somewhere along the way? No, he’s way too smart for that. Even if this is all theory to him, his thought process has always been ahead of mine. If he thought it out thus far then I believe he’s right in what has to be done but may be incorrect in his approach.)
Kai held out his hand.
“May I?”
Kazuki shrugged his shoulders and handed over the branch to Kai. Kai closed his eyes for a moment and felt the branch.
(This is definitely a small portion of my brother’s soul. This Beast core, though is it unwilling but it has no master so that can’t be.)
Kai while still holding the branch in one hand reached out and grabbed the Beast core with his other hand and his expression flipped 180 degrees. Kai opened his eyes and tossed the branch back to Kazuki with a grin.
“What’s with that look, did you figure something out?”
Instead of simply answering the question Kai asked his own question.
“The soul, the mind, and the body. All three are connected since birth. When they are not, you are no longer a person. Without the mind, you are a beast of instinct. Without the body you are dead and without the soul, you simply no longer exist. Outside of here, the body represents, of course, the body but inside here what would represent the body?”
Kazuki thought for a moment but Kai wanted to answer it.
“The kid body you have now doesn’t represent your actual body but your consciousness instead, aka your mind. That tree over there represents your soul.”
Kai then slapped the Beast core and smiled.
“Then, of course, the Beast core represents the body.”
Kazuki was a little stuck but Kai continued.
“You still don’t get it? Tell me, what is the physical manifestation of magic?”
Kazuki spoke matter-of-factly.
“Materialization of the elements.”
Kai snapped his fingers.
*Snap*
“Exactly. When one uses magic they are turning the elements themselves into physical objects. Ice, rocks you name it. If that’s the physical manifestation of magic then what better object could represent the body than the container that holds that powers base form.”
Things suddenly clicked in Kazuki’s head and he looked up at his older brother in realization. Kai pointed at the Beast core and Kazuki stepped forward. Before he had only touched the branch from his soul tree to the Beast core but this time, like Kai, he held the branch in one hand and touched the Beast core with the other.
As soon as he did, everything went dark.
Kazuki though was not panicked. He remembered what his brother said.
(Mind, body, soul, all three are connected since birth. When I had my Mage core stolen from me I forgot what that connection felt like and for 10 years after, I slowly unlearned what that connection was but I know it. It’s buried within the recesses of my memories of my very being.)
Kazuki’s mind began to reel as he searched for his most hated memory. Ever since that day, that memory out of all was the clearest, the most detailed. Every word spoken by his most hated enemies by the two who ruined him and killed his only brother. He remembered it all. He remembered when his Mage core was ripped from him, he remembered that soul-shredding feeling. He now recognized that the feeling wasn’t his soul being shredded but instead it was the majority of his soul being severed from his Mage core itself.
(There was clearly a before and after. The feeling of my very being before my Mage core was torn away from me and the feeling of my being afterward. )
Kazuki played that memory in his mind again and again and again. He knew it all to well but this was the first time he really thought about what that missing feeling was, what it was like to no longer have a Mage core connected to him. Like a chef, he tried to recall the missing ingredient in that connection. A detective sifting through the clues, he looked closely at his body at that time. He remembered everything he felt, smelled, saw. Every sense of his, he examined it all with everything he had.
He also thought about why whatever was happening to him now wasn’t activated when he held the branch from his soul to the Beast core but instead when he held them individually in each hand. He thought about why it didn’t activate when Kai did the same. It was obvious from Kai’s face that when he held the Beast core and the branch, he felt something. That’s when he gave Kazuki the clues he needed.
Cause and effect, what did this all represent, what did it mean?
(My mind and soul were always connected but I couldn’t access my soul world until Zetsu attacked me with his soul attack. Certain conditions had to be met in order for me to appear in my soul world. After that, I couldn’t remove a branch from my soul tree until another condition was met and I recognized it as my soul. One connection led to another. Zetsu attacked me through my body with his light, which disconnected my mind, which in turn led me to my soul world. Body, mind, soul, this could be considered backward, out of order. Or maybe, the order doesn’t matter at all?)
Kazuki became confused but he felt he was getting closer and closer to something. Then something occurred to him.
(Maybe Zetsu’s method isn’t in the wrong order. Could it be…?)
Kazuki thought about Zetsu’s power and the same thought kept coming to him.
(Manifestation of the body, aka his Beast core, the magic within. Body, mind, soul. His body, the physical manifestation of magic, to my actual body, then to my mind, then to my soul world. In order for his power to affect me, it first had to come into contact with my body, then it moved through the three connections. Then could I not do the same? Could I connect the physical manifestation, my magic, to my body, to my mind, to my soul but how can I do that in this dark place. I can’t even sense…)
Kazuki’s eyes widened and everything came together.
(The removal of my Mage core, the change afterward, was it not my ability to sense the elements.)
Kazuki using his ancient hand signs could use the elements but he could no longer sense them. Because of this, the remaining fire element that still resided in his body when he came to earth destroyed the side of a mountain when his granny Master Maya extracted it from him and threw it away. The two were shocked that day but Kazuki never really thought much of it afterward but now.
(My ability to sense the elements, that was the change.)
Kazuki to this day could not sense the elements but that didn’t mean he couldn’t remember what it was like.
Kazuki found it was useless to shut his eyes in this dark space as it was pitch black and just skipped ahead to his memories. He remembered when he was younger, the first time he sensed the element of fire. He remembered when he began to sense the element of earth and darkness. Every time he used up plenty of energy in his Mage core he remembered sitting down and meditating. He recalled the heat that swelled and swirled in his surroundings before it sunk into him and raced toward his Mage core.
Just as he was lost in thought, Kai watched with horror as the god aura that was floating silently nearby suddenly shot itself forward and before he could stop it, the Aura disappeared into the Beast core.
Kai’s staggered backward as though he was almost devoured by a monster ad fell onto his ass.
(Little brother.)
As soon as the aura disappeared into the Beast core, it was at this exact moment that a small flame floated in front of Kazuki. He didn’t know how it had appeared nor when but it was there. Not only that, but Kazuki also caught something out of the corner of his eye and found a green rock floating not so far away. Before he could even start to comprehend what was happening he felt something on his opposite side. He looked over but could see nothing but he recognized the feeling.
(Dark energy. All of my elements, I can feel them.)
Kazuki smiled at the elements and ordered them with his will. Calling out into the darkness, Kazuki barked.
“COME!”
The flame directly in front of him was the first to heed his call and fell into his body. Then the green rock and the darkness floating nearby raced at him from both sides almost simultaneously before they to disappeared within him.
An aura appeared near Kazuki and unbeknownst to him it sunk into him as well.
Light returned to Kazuki and he stood in his soul world once more. The Beast core in front of him slowly started to change color from a muddled clear orb to a mix of orangish-red, green and black. The colors swirled within but never mixed. Kazuki felt a string of energy connecting between this Beast core and his soul tree. The connection couldn’t be seen but Kazuki could clearly feel it.
He looked over at his brother and found him sitting on the ground. Kazuki tilted his head, slightly confused.
“Kai, what are you doing?”
Kai’s face was pale but in the end, he told Kazuki the truth.
“What, that aura went inside the Beast core?”
Kazuki examined himself and he found the aura almost immediately. At first, he was fearful but after a few moments he quickly calmed down when he realized the aura wasn’t affecting him in the slightest. He didn’t know what this meant but as long as it didn’t do anything, Kazuki could only accept it. The aura remained motionless within him and seemed to go dormant.
Kazuki sighed in relief.
*Haaa*
“For now, that doesn’t matter as long as it doesn’t do anything I should be fine.”
Kai jumped up to his feet and disagreed completely.
“I was going to tell you this earlier but that stupid cat got in the way. The reason I freaked out earlier is that I felt an energy like that aura before. It was similar, so similar I dare say it was the same. That aura is just like what our mother emitted.”
Kai’s words fell into Kazuki’s ears and for a moment there was dead silence as Kazuki was absolutely stunned. He looked down at his chest and where the aura resided before he looked back up at Kai. Kai said nothing but simply nodded his head in confirmation.
Kazuki was suddenly filled with an indescribable disgust that made him want to vomit. He began to gnash and grind his teeth. A seething rage welled up in him after the disgust and he spoke with fury.
“That bitch has a god aura, are you telling me our mother, the cunt who stole our Mage cores and killed you is actually a fucking god!”
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