Age of Darkness (15 page)

“You’re Riku, right? My new bodyguard?”
Aika asked curiously, getting down on her knees as she began to help take books
off of Keimaro.

Keimaro blinked a few times, leaning
forward so that some of the books fell off of him. She didn’t recognize him.
Well, it was for the best. He nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” He scratched the back
of his neck and began to scoop books up. “S-Sorry about that! I was just
getting used to the job. One day you’re off escorting cargo through a forest,
and the next you’re the princess’s bodyguard.”

Aika giggled lightly and picked up some
books as well. She began to set them on the shelves neatly in perfect order. “Well,
you moved up the ranks quite quickly, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Keimaro said, raising an eyebrow as
she continued to organize the books on the shelves, knowing where each one
went. “It seems that you spend a lot of time in this library, princess. You
know where everything goes?”

“Ah, yes,” Aika said, slightly embarrassed.
“I spend a lot of time in the library. There isn’t much to do since I’m the princess
and my father won’t really let me do anything. Weird, right? I just managed to
escape my other guards and come here to have a good read. It’s much better when
I read without my guards staring at me for hours.”

Keimaro began to put some books on the
shelves as well and chuckled at the image of guards staring at her as she read.
“It sounds quite irritating, your highness. But it seems you have yet to escape
me.” He flashed her a warm smile and could see her blushing.

“I suppose so. And what are you doing here?
Spying on me?”

Now it was Keimaro’s turn for his cheeks to
beat bright red. “N-No! It’s not like that, your highness. It’s … uh, well, I
got lost on my way from my chambers to leave the citadel. I don’t actually live
here until two days’ time, you see.” He scratched the back of his neck
nervously, averting his eyes from hers. But he could tell that she was smiling.

“Call me Aika.”

“Er … yes, Aika.”

“Now, would you like for me to show you the
way out?”

“That would be the reverse of what should
be happening. The princess escorting a common guard,” Keimaro grinned. “What an
interesting twist of events. Sure, but your father would be unhappy to see you
unguarded.”

“Ah, I’ll show you a special way out. As
long as you promise to keep it a secret, okay?”

Keimaro blinked a few times, knowing that
Aika hated to be confined to the castle grounds. But, did this mean that she
knew a secret passage and was able to sneak away? Surely not, the guards must’ve
had an eye on her. But then again, here she was in the library, completely
vulnerable and alone.

He nodded to her, and she swiftly took his
hand and began to lead him away. He blinked, not sure when the last time a girl
had held his hand, and stumbled after her. “Whoa!”

She led him out of the library maze with
ease, walking out into the hallway. She looked both ways, making sure that one
of the patrols was not walking by, and quickly began to move down the corridor,
dragging Keimaro behind her. She took another turn into a hallway before
grabbing the doorknob of one of the many doors and turning it, walking through
the entrance into a new room.

Silence reigned as Keimaro blinked a few
times, looking forward at something he had never expected to see: a greenhouse
containing an incredible amount of exotic plants from around the world. He
recognized a few of them. One was the Phoenix Heart, a small edible flower with
red petals that were completely engulfed in flame. When the flame went out, the
flower would die. It usually didn’t coexist with other plants because it
typically created a forest fire, so Keimaro thought it was smart that this
plant was isolated from the rest.

Some plants had frosty mists circulating
the stems. Others gave off different aurora colors that reflected off of the
glass ceiling above. The moonlight shined down and gave all of the plants a
glow, making them all the more magnificent to look at. It must’ve taken years
or even decades to collect so many exotic plants of this rarity. Keimaro couldn’t
help but stare at some of the flowers in awe but soon realized that the
princess had walked past the rows of plants to the very back of the room. He
walked quickly after her and frowned when she moved a rather large pot that
contained a fake plant, revealing a secret hole underneath. Who would’ve
guessed?

Keimaro blinked a few times as he peered
into the pitch-blackness of the hole and whistled. “Uh, Aika, as your future bodyguard,
I really don’t advise you to go down there. You don’t know what’s in there and—”

“Oh, don’t be a poor sport, Riku.” Aika
sighed, gripped a ladder that had been concealed in the shadows of the hole,
and began to climb down. “I showed you this because I trust that you would keep
it a secret. After all, you are my age. You know that a girl has to have a
night out every once in a while, right?”

“Y-Yeah, but if you are found out of the
castle….”

“It’ll be my fault, not yours. I won’t let
any punishment come to you,” Aika said, disappearing into the darkness. “Besides,
I’ve been through this tunnel already. It’s safe. Coming?”

Keimaro rolled his eyes, not particularly
sure what he had gotten himself into. He felt something ominous from the hole,
but he ignored his intuition and leapt down, landing in soft dirt beside the
princess. It was extremely dark around them, and it took a few moments for him
to adjust to the blackness that engulfed them. Aika, however, seemed perfectly
able to navigate her way through such thick shadow, her hands guiding along
jagged stone walls as she began to progress through the tunnel.

Keimaro slowly unsheathed his sword and
shook his head in disbelief that the princess was leading the way through a
potentially dangerous area. Why wasn’t he stopping her? He watched her closely
and smiled to himself, knowing exactly why he wasn’t stopping her. She reminded
him of himself back in the day when he had wanted to search for adventure. The
castle grounds were the same as the barrier that had confined him to Bakaara.
And now she was out searching for adventure, just as he and Yata had done.

The tunnel led out, and soon he could make
out the shape of a ladder. His eyes were squinted from the minimal amount of
light that cracked from the ceiling above. They were definitely underneath the
castle. Why was this tunnel even here? Perhaps it was a secret tunnel for the
king to escape in case of an invasion? Maybe. Who knew?

Aika was climbing up the ladder and began
to move something above, keeping one hand on the ladder as she did so. Keimaro
made sure to position himself below her in case she were to slip so that he
could catch her. He blinked a few times when the moonlight shined through the
ceiling as she moved whatever was blocking the hole. He glanced away, making
sure not to look up Aika’s dress, a crime worthy of capital punishment. When he
looked back, the princess had already climbed out of the hole and was motioning
for Keimaro to follow.

When he pulled himself from the hole, he
found that they were on a rather large, flat green field, somewhere in the noble
section that overlooked the city. He admired the beautiful view of the city
below and smiled at its magnificence. He was about to say something when he
heard a rumble. Then an explosion. A burst of dust and a shockwave knocked over
multiple buildings in the distance, and Keimaro’s eyes widened. A giant spike
made completely of metal bulged from the earth—a technique learned by Yata.
Without a doubt, it was him. The fact that he was resulting to using such
strong techniques would mean that he really was in trouble. Was it the Bounts?
It definitely wasn’t Gavin; that soldier was far too weak to drive Yata that
far. 

“Aika.” Keimaro glanced over his shoulder
at the princess, who was staring with wide eyes at the explosion. “Your highness!
We need to get you to safety. Go back into the tunnel, got it?” He gripped his
sword tightly, knowing that he should stay with her to ensure her safety. But
right now, his prime priority was seeing if Yata was all right. “I’m going to
go see what happened. Go back to your room and make sure you’re safe.”

***

Aika stood there for a moment, staring at
the explosion with disbelief as Riku ran off, his sword raised high in the air.
Her hands were shaking at her side, and she couldn’t believe what she was
seeing. Four years ago, she had awoken with an abnormal ability that wasn’t
known to man—an ability of healing that could instantly mend any wound, no
matter how bad it was. The only thing that she could link her foreign powers to
was to that meteor that had fallen out of the sky. It, without a doubt, gave
her this odd power. She’d always wondered whether or not it had given Keimaro
or Yata powers, but that Bount by the name of Junko had clarified that for her.
He had said that Keimaro Hayashi had the ability to control fire. Magic. So,
everyone who had been within range of that meteor was given a power. That
disturbance in the distance—was that the doing of Yata and Keimaro? The
destruction of her city?

Then again, she supposed that she could
understand their hatred for Faar. Their armies had destroyed everything that
they had. Bakaara had been completely massacred without warning. In fact, they
were wanted dead as well. Why must things be so complicated? Why was there even
war in the first place? All that remained after a war was a desolate wasteland
of destruction littered with corpses. The winners never cheered nor celebrated,
for the loss of their comrades haunted them so. In the end, there was always
sorrow and nothing more.

And then there was this boy, Riku. There
was something about him, something that Aika couldn’t quite point out. She felt
as if she recognized him, which was why she had led him into the secret tunnel.
She’d immediately felt as if she could trust him with everything. She had no
idea why. The way his eyes looked at her made her melt with warmth. The way he
smiled was the one thing that had made her giggle in a long while. Yet, he was
a commoner. A simple guard. Any relationship, whether friends or more, was
completely forbidden. Her father would just have him executed if they got too
close. Thinking about friendship or beyond was simply nonsense, especially for
an important person such as her. But she didn’t want to be alone forever.

The princess had climbed down into the
tunnel and walked into the darkness alone. The dead silence truly was disconcerting.
She made her way back to the royal garden and pushed the plant back into place
with a heavy sigh. She really did hope that Riku didn’t reveal the tunnel to
anyone.
Why did I trust my only secret way out from these walls to a
complete stranger?

She heard another rumble and felt the
ground shaking ever so slightly. To be able to feel such an explosion from this
distance was incredible. She turned around and looked off into the direction of
the city through the glass panes of the greenhouse. What was going on?

***

Keimaro couldn’t believe what he was
seeing. The entire inn was obliterated, pieces everywhere. Corpses of men and
women lay inside, scattered about in the debris, and soldiers were trying to
pick up the pieces or at least identify the bodies rather than finding out what
had happened. A huge crowd had surrounded the area but was being blocked off by
mobs of soldiers who had recently arrived.

The young boy began to push his way through
the crowds, looking for Yata or Gavin. He hoped to the gods that they weren’t
amongst these unidentifiable corpses that lay on the floor. The mere image of
all these bodies under the debris reminded him of the massacre of Bakaara four
years ago. He shook away the thought and trudged on through the debris until he
saw small pieces of metal on the floor, tiny shards in a concentrated area. He
walked up to the spot, knowing that this was where Yata had been defeated. He
had been beaten in his metallic form, as indicated by the metal, which meant
that whoever was here was truly a strong opponent. Then he looked down and saw
blood. His eyes followed a trail of small droplets that led into an alleyway.
There, he saw Gavin leaning back against a wall, breathing heavily with his
head tilted back.

Keimaro walked up to the soldier and stood
beside him, expecting him to say something, but he never did. He slowly knelt
down beside Gavin and touched his shoulder. “Hey, are you okay? What happened
here?” he said calmly, trying not to lose his cool.

Gavin’s eyes were barely open, and he
sucked in a deep breath. “A guy came. He had white hair and was so fast and
strong. Yata and I didn’t stand a chance. They took him to the mansion that we
passed by on the way to the inn; you remember it? It’s disguised as a warehouse
to the ordinary eye. But certain people can see it as a mansion. I’m assuming
that you were able to see it. It’s called Z’s mansion, a rumored place where
only magical beings are welcome.”

“Z?”

“The richest man in the city. No one ever
sees him, and he’s supposedly the one who kidnapped Yata,” Gavin murmured. “That’s
where we’ll find him.”

Keimaro nodded and stood up once more.
Why
would those guys want Yata?
“Can you walk?”

“Yeah.”

“Then let’s go.”