"What am I going to do?! If this woman is an apostle, were doomed." Aedis thought.
He wasn't wrong, even if she was one of the weaker apostles of her god, she could probably still take on a rank III anomaly along with him. However, the time to think or talk was neither here or there as the battle was about to start.
Kuro lunged forwards with his dark blade and proceed to try to land a strike on her. When his blade had reached her waist, a smooth silent slash followed. However, it wouldn't be that easy of course. Her entire body merely exploded into cards as if nothing more than a dummy.
"Your quite fast, little anomaly. However, you'll have to try harder than that with your blade to kill me." Alena teased.
Kuro pointed his blade towards her direction. Foolish woman. My blade, The Silent Void will make you mere nothingness in my presence.
"Is that so? I'd like to see you try that then." Alena smirked, before a barrage of cards swirled around her in a circle. Her expression returning to seriousness.
She starting throwing crimson-colored cards as she darted around in the air. These cards blew up immediately upon contact the floor or a living thing. Kuro wasn't going to allow a single of those things to hit him, evading, parrying, and backflipping away from each card which exploded. Aedis was trying to dodge and parry the cards that went his way with his blade and was able barely able to hold out.
All you got pretty lady?
"Oh no, this is far from the beginning." Alena said, with a smirk
With a snap of her fingers, an arrange of cards came together forming a double of herself.
With two of her the battle became only more intense. The original manipulated an torrent of cards to rain upon the field, while the double was using arcana magic trying to catch either of them off-guard.
"These cards, why do they contain so much damn fire power!" Aedis thought to himself, as he kept evading the current torrent of cards falling down.
"Is that all an apostle of the God of Anomalies can do?" Alena asked, mockingly.
"W-Well! Y-You see I just don't see the need to use my full strength!" Aedis spat out, digging himself a bigger grave.
"Oh is that so. Guess I should go harder then!" She replied before making chains appear from the floor randomly and uncalculatedly.
"One of these will hit you and when it does, game over. My spikes, my cards, or my clone with her magic." Alena said.
Now along with the stupid explosive rain, he now had to worry about spikes as if her stupid clone waiting for a perfect moment to strike wasn't annoying enough.
Suddenly in the mist of the battle Kuro decided to stand still, closing his eyes. Not a single muscle moved. He had cleared all thoughts from his mind, in fact this very battlefield was no more but darkness as before his closed eyes.
"Kid! The card!" Aedis called out!
A card was making its way right towards Kuro.
"So what are you planning exactly?" Shiro asked in his thought realm.
I'm going to get me and father out of here.
"You don't deserve to call him that you know." Shiro added.
Are you still upset?
"Yes. You aren't me, no matter what you say. I won't accept you." Shiro responded.
Come on, can't you see what I was doing was simply to protect us! No one truly cares about except a certain few, everyone else who came near us was nothing more than trash that wanted us gone.
"Wasn't worth the trauma I went through when I woke up to see them dead." Shiro continued.
Their death was painless. My blade makes sure of that, "The Silent Void." A blade made from the very essence of the void.
"Honestly, I've been thinking for a while. Why did you only recently contacted me? Have you been able to this entire time? Was this just convenient for you? However, something in my memory isn't right." Shiro said.
I... see... You don't remember yet, that is fine. All you have to come to understand is that you are me and I am you.
"Your right." Shiro muttered.
H-Huh?
"You are me, that's an undeniable fact I've been trying to ignore. Your my opposite, it's something I've been trying to come to terms with. I can't forgive you, however I can accept you are me. So, don't let you or father die and make our journey rendered useless." Shiro closed.
A smile slowly appeared on Kuro's face as he slashed the card which was about to hit him. To everyone's surprise, it didn't explode.
"Yang Style, Silent Annihilation" The moment these words were uttered, each card turned a dark black before turning into abyssal flowers[1].
Alena was absolutely stunned. She had used a lot of flux with her death arcana magic. So she had started using less flux using and more efficient abilities. However, even these cards should've done the job eventually. Aedis was stunned as well, but also incredibly relieved.
"N-No way! Don't tell me you've evolved from a Rank III to a Rank IV?!" She asked.
Kuro sighed.
It seems that way. Soon, we'll be back to how we were.
"Tch, ignoring the entire battle that's happening to talk to yourself isn't very smart—" Alena said, about to do something else.
Suddenly a majestic butterfly with a cosmic blue design etched on it's wings suddenly flew past landed onto of the clone's head disintegrating it in an instant, before landing on Aedis head.
"A... butterfly?" Aedis muttered, confused.
"H-How? I put a veil over this area to make sure nothing can enter, leave, or see what's happening here or outside. A butterfly shouldn't be able to—" Alena stammered, trying to rationalize what was happening.
Aedis was shocked and looked around and couldn't notice a thing that would show that there was a veil. Kuro wasn't suprised after all she had to have a measure in place to stop their escape.
You don't know what a flux butterfly is? Kuro asked.
"N-No I know what they are, after all butterflies are the sign of good luck in my family. So I know a great deal about them, my father even had a book about them which I have." Aedis reassured. "What is a flux butterfly doing over here of all places, though?"
Before he could even get a chance to harbor about such thoughts, Alena raised another card. "That's it, I'm tired of trying to play this cat and mouse chase with you two. It ends now!"
However before she could even utter another word she had been covered in a swirl of flux butterflies. The swarm had started to enter the veil and consume everyone that was inside. The veil now utterly destroyed and within it now complete—SILENCE.
Aedis slowly opened his eyes, still quite disoriented from what happened.
"K-Kid?!" Aedis shouted looking around frantically. "Where am I?"
All around them seemed to be trees, their large banches letting cracks of light through what seemed to be a forest, the earth damp was felt under his shoes. On the ground not to far from Aedis laid what seemed to be two people.
"Huh? Kid!" Aedis rushed towards Shiro.
However, what shocked him was the simple fact that him laid not only Shiro but the same entity that took over his body and attacked him. In a way they sorta looked like twins.
"W-What? D-Did they split from each other? Ugh! Why is all of this happening today. This sure is some adventure." Aedis said.
"Mn? Where did—? H-Huh, Dad? Kuro?!" Shiro mumbled, finally stirring up.
"You know that thing that was inside you?" Aedis asked, confused.
"Y-Yea, I wanted to tell you a bit ago. He actually spoke to me and were somewhat on agreeable terms." Shiro said still shaking Kuro's shoulder.
"I'm up, sheesh." Kuro replied, brushing some dirt off as he sat up.
"Well talk about whatever is happening after we figure out where the heck we are. Come on get up, you two." Aedis said giving both a hand.
Out of nowhere—
"Someone, get me out of this tree please!" Alena echoed from above.
The three looked up to see that Alena was tangled akwardly upon a high branch of a tree, quite high up.
"Can't you get out of it yourself?" Kuro asked, with a dark glare.
"I- Well... I know I attacked you all without warning, but come on! What did you expect an apostle to do when potential threat could emerge? Let it thrive and cause calamity to the world?" She reasoned.
"As much as I want to leave you behind." Aedis muttered. "If were going to figure out where we are were gonna need her and I'm not in the business of leaving people in danger." He finished as he parkoured up the branches and then releasing her.
"Thank you, I must say it's quite embarrassing practically losing a fight and it's just a month of me being an apostle." Alena said fidgeting with her fingers.
"So that entire calculative demeanor was an act. That makes sense I suppose." Kuro said.
"Um, where exactly are we though?" Shiro asked, glancing around looking at the endless trees.
"I think this may be Illusionary Forest and if it is, were in big trouble." Alena said, her expression becoming a bit pale.
"Exactly how big is this trouble?" Aedis asked.
"The Illusionary Forest is one of the places that even the gods like keeping their distance from. Once one has entered this forest it practically impossible to leave, a god can easily escape in about 3 minutes or less but for us mortals it's high-neigh impossible." Alena explained.
"So, let me get this straight. Flux butterflies swarmed us during our battle... and transported us to basically a trap." Kuro asked.
A voice suddenly came from the shadows a bit deeper in the forest.
"Indeed, however your a bit off the mark." A stranger said, dressed in a dark cloak with a butterfly symbol engraved on the hood head.
"W-Who's there?!" Shiro said backing towards Aedis and Kuro.
"Can you fight Alena?" Aedis asked, drawing his sword.
"Not a change. I'm out of flux, those butterflies drained me dry." Alena replied, in a defense stance.
"Don't be alarmed friends. After all, I was the one who told the flux butterflies to bring you." The mysterious person said, revealing their cloaked being.
"What do you want?" Alena asked, her voice sharp.
"I bring no harm trust me. After all I have no intention of harming a fellow anomaly." The cloaked figure said looking at Shiro and Kuro.
He took of his hood revealing his face to be that of a Dragonoid, his dragon horns on the sides of his head curving up. His black hair tinted slightly with red and his face without scars.
"A dragonoid? Your an anomaly too?" Alena asked.
"Indeed. I'm just a Rank II though. However, finding out about the existence of a God of Anomalies. I have devoted my entire being to keeping other—anomalies—within the safety of this forest." The dragonoid said.
"Honestly, I'm starting to doubt this God of Anomalies. Convenient that now of all times his presence is known? Have you even seen or heard this god?" Alena asked, folding her arms.
"Did you forget that Aedis is an apostle of this god?" Kuro defended.
"I-I... yea, I sure am." Aedis said, scratching the back of his head. "He's just... uhh, doesn't interact with mortals often." Aedis stammered, slightly.
"Well, great... no I'm stuck in a forest that near impossible to escape, with an 'apostle' of this God of Anomalies, a dragonoid who acts to be a priest of this god, and a kid that has another version of himself. Sheesh, this is going to be a pain to deal with." Alena sighed, rubbing her temples.
"This is going to take a while, I can tell you that much." Aedis replied.
"Especially for me." Aedis thought.
[1] A type of flower, when seen it often means death, danger, or rebirth.