"My flames will not stop burning until everything turns to ashes and bows down to me." -Yumi Elledan

After a couple seconds of noticing the sandstorm, we all wore the sand scarves and decided to get cover behind some rocks.

“That didn’t look good,” I said. Yumi was looking down concerned about something. “Yumi, is everything ok?” I asked. She looked at me in silence and then said,

“I’ll be back. That’s not a normal sandstorm.”

“Wait! What do you mean?”

“Yumi, I don’t think you should go out there.” Said Kasai.

“It’s ok Kasai. And Rukito, it’s exactly what I mean; that’s not a normal sandstorm. Sandstorms are formed by strong heating of the air over the desert, it causes the lower atmosphere to become unstable. This instability mixes strong winds in the middle troposphere downward to the surface, making stronger winds at the surface of the desert that causes these sandstorms.”

“Where are you getting at with that?” I asked.

“I can tell with my spiritual singularity that the sandstorm was not formed by heating of the air… so it must mean that…”

“It’s an enemy’s singularity.” Said Misaki.

“It might be black tombstone, I have to go out there and find out.”

“But why just you? We can all go.” Now that I think about it, Yumi never wore a sand scarf or anything to protect her from the sandstorm.

“I’m the only one able to fight in the sandstorm, Misaki’s singularity would be useless against the sand, the water would just get absorbed, and you and Kasai won’t be able to open your eyes in the storm.”

“How about you then?” She smiled and said,

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She walked away from behind the rock and headed towards the sandstorm with slow but powerful steps.

“Rukito.” Said Misaki.

“What?”

“Remember when I said I was the strongest advent children?” As Misaki was talking, I saw Yumi in the distance releasing her singularity, a great sword appeared flying down from the sky, as soon as it landed on the ground a massive beam of golden flames elevated up to the heavens. The great sword was white with radiating heat that could be felt all the way back here where we were.

“T-This heat!” Said Kasai.

“Yes… I remember Misaki…” I said.

“Well that was a joke, Yumi is leagues far above me and any other cloud elf.” She grabbed the sword, and as soon as her hand touched it, it opened to be even more extensive, and as it opened, two rings of golden flames started circling it.

“’Luminous’ Blessing’ is the name of her materialistic singularity.”

“Wait, Luminous? The sun god?!”

“Yes, on the prophecy of the advent children, it was written that one of them was going to be born with the blessing of the sun god, and a couple years later, the prophecy was true.” I saw Kasai looking at her with eyes of pure admiration. Suddenly all the sand around Yumi started turning white as she entered the sandstorm.

“The sand around her is getting heated so much that it’s turning into glass…” that’s an extreme temperature… how can she handle a melting point temperature?” I asked.

“Her spiritual singularity is a special one, ‘Blaze Empress’ it’s a passive singularity, by that I mean it’s always activated. That’s how I think she also found out that the sandstorm wasn’t a real one. She can perceive the heat of everything, her body can withstand extreme temperatures, and she can manipulate fire to a certain level.”

“Wow… such power and potential, what’s her drawback?”

“Well since she always increases her body temperature when she uses her blessing, she always gets a high fever after using it, making her extremely vulnerable.”

“Ah, I see.” Kasai looked at me and said,

“Rukito I want to go with her, she could always use a hand; the enemy is strong.”

“Kasai, there is no way you can withstand the heat over there.”

“I’ve been saving a lot of positive energy in my dagger for something like this.” She took out her daggers and released all the positive energy into herself, increasing all her abilities: her speed, her power, her tenacity, and many other things.

“You could do that?!” I asked.

“Yeah, I wasn’t so sure about it, but I tried it a couple days ago.”

“Well… be careful ok?”

“Yes, I’ll be back.” Kasai ran behind Yumi, she got there in an instant with her speed, she had her blindfold on, so the sand wasn’t a problem at all for her. I looked down in anger and said,

“Damn… I wish I could also help.” Misaki looked at me and said,

“Hey, it’s fine not helping for once in a while, you know?”

“Hmm… I wish there were more to my singularity… maybe… the katana has something hidden.” With my telepathy with Kasai I could hear her thoughts, and what I heard was,

“Hey, Yumi! I’m here to help.” Her face looks red… I hope she doesn’t get the fever now.

“Kasai? How are you able to be around me?!”

“Positive overdrive, I’ll explain later.” I was looking with her to see if the enemy was anywhere around, and after a couple seconds of searching, we found the enemy standing the middle of the sandstorm.

“There he is!”

“I didn’t want to use my singularity since it will make other more powerful sandstorms that will hurt the environment… but you forced me.” The hooded person took the hood off and looked at Yumi. It was a… cloud elf?!

“Ah, my dear princess, heir to the throne, Yumi Elledan. How delightful to meet you in such place.”

“A cloud elf?!” Yumi looked shocked.

“Yumi, do you know him?”

“No… but he’s a cloud elf, and that’s all it matters to me.”

“You know, black tombstone is not such a bad place after all. Most people in the group are actually happy to help our boss out.”

“How can you betray your own race?!” Yelled Yumi.

“Betray? I only am only working for a greater cause than your dumb father.”

“You bastard…” I could tell that she was furious.

“Hahahaha, but, I’m sure you will make an excellent queen, unlike your father, you have courage.” Yumi spanned around and swung the air with her greatsword, burning the air containing the sand and sending a blaze of golden flames with sharp glass towards the enemy. The enemy took the flames straight on, but the glass managed to cut him.

“Tsk, smart using glass to cut me, but your flames won’t work.”

“Huh?”

“Ever heard of the devil worm? It’s a creature that can sustain an extreme temperature and low lack of oxygen. In our group there happens to be someone that can transfer animals’ DNA inside of us, and he managed to give me their cells; I was made just to fight you.”

“…” Yumi looked at him with silence.

“ANYTHING YOU DO IS USELESS AGAINST ME!”

“Kasai, I need you to do something for me.”

“Hmm?”

“The glass managed to cut him a tiny bit, but I need you to opened one of the wounds even bigger.”

“Ah, I see what you’re trying to do.” Kasai started running around circling the enemy.

“Huh? What is she doing?” Yumi swung her greatsword again and shot another blaze of flames.

“Keep your eyes on your enemy.”

“You impudent girl… I always hated you, you think you’re so much better than others just because you were lucky enough to be born with a blessing of a god worshipped by humans?! You prideful little shit!” I didn’t think that Yumi would care for his words, but I looked at her and noticed that she seemed hesitant to keep attacking.

“Yumi! Don’t let him talk you down!” Yumi looked down and softened her grip from her sword lowering the flames.

“…” The enemy grabbed some sand from below and threw it at her, while in the air, the sand got together and formed a spear.

“YUMI! MOVE!” I decided to run towards her and pushed her off, time seemed to slow down, I pushed her off, but the spear managed to pierce through my shoulder.

“Gah!” I took the spear out of my shoulder, and the wound started healing quickly since I was filled with positive energy. “Yumi! Why didn’t you move?”

“I expected him to try something like that; with my sword I am plodding so I knew I wouldn’t have been able to dodge it. Instead, I lowered my flames, so it didn’t turn into glass and pierced me with a fatal blow. Luckily I remembered what you told me yesterday about your singularity so I knew that you could heal yourself or me if we got hurt.” Kasai smiled and said,

“Ah, I see.” We both got up and faced him.

“Kasai, what is your max speed right now?” Asked Yumi.

“Uhm.. not sure.”

“Let me see how strong you are, Kasai.” I got ready and dashed towards the enemy as fast as I could, I think I went so fast that he could barely react to me, I got my daggers and sliced him as fast as I could, he still managed to slightly dodge it, so he didn’t get mortally wounded. Unexpectantly, he grabbed my dagger before I took it out of him and said,

“Y-You are mine now!” I tried to slice him with the other one, but I realized I couldn’t use the negative dagger if I’m on overdrive with positive energy, or else I will lose the boost. He grabbed me and said to Yumi,

“Give up! Or I’ll kill her!” The sandstorm was dying since he was wounded.

“OK, OK! Don’t harm her.” Yumi said as she laid down her great sword.

“I will take your magic flow since you’re the strongest one! And with that, our boss should be recovering a lot quicker!”

“Alright, alright. Just let her go!” I decided to open my wing and push him away with it, he surely wouldn’t expect something like that.

“W-What?!” He yelled as he was pushed to the ground. “A DEMON?!” I got onto him while he was on the ground and pointed my dagger at his throat.

“Checkmate.”

“Kasai! Don’t kill him.”

“Why not?”

“He’s…”

“He’s a cloud elf? It doesn’t matter! He is the enemy!”

“I know but…”

“You fools!” I turned back to the enemy and felt that he was disappearing from under me, he was turning into sand.

“What?! Where did he go?!” A couple seconds later, we saw a giant version of him away from us, he took most of the desert’s sand to make himself bigger and stronger.

“NOW IT’S WHEN IT ALL ENDS!”

That’s all I heard from Kasai, I rushed towards them since the sands storm was gone and asked,

“Kasai! Yumi! Are you ok?!”

“We’re fine, Rukito. Our problem is that thing over there!” As she pointed towards the sand giant, we noticed that he threw a tremendous amount of sand towards us.

“Watch out!” I yelled. Everyone got down and defended themselves against the hit. I looked around and noticed that Yumi was on the ground. Around her the sand became glass. She was looking at the glass and then said,

“I have an idea…” Said Yumi.

“What is it?” Asked Kasai.

“You will see. All I need you to do is throw me towards him as hard as you can, Kasai.”

“Uhm, alright. I should be able to since I’m still in overdrive.” Yumi raised her hand, and the great sword flew towards her.

“Ok, let’s go.” Kasai kneeled down and opened her hands so Yumi could put her foot on top and get launched towards him.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks, but I won’t need it.” Kasai charged up her positive energy onto her arms and threw Yumi straight towards the enemy leaving a red trail behind her. She charged up her great sword with flames and pierced right through the giant enemy, it all turned into glass and fell onto the ground, he may be able to control sand, but he can’t control glass.

Kasai dashed back to her to catch her fall. She managed to catch her and said,

“Good job! You are amazing!” Yumi giggled and said,

“Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to do it, it’s all you.” We all ran back for the person, he was hurt on the ground but still capable of standing back up again.

“Are you deaf? I said that fire doesn’t work on my skin!”

“I know… said Yumi. She threw one last blaze of flames towards him, he didn’t even try to dodge again, but this time it hit the wound that Kasai made, and he started burning internally. He began to scream and roll around the ground burning.

“FUCK! FUCK! DAMMIT!” Kasai got close to him about to kill him, but Yumi stopped her again.

“Kasai please!”

“Yumi! We can’t let him live anymore!”

“I know but… I just… I can’t-” Before finishing what Yumi was about to say, we heard a loud gunshot and saw a bullet piercing the person’s head instantly killing him.

“Hmm? What was that?” Asked Kasai as she took off her blindfold removing her singularity. We looked at the distance and saw Misaki shooting around 200 meters away with a sniper from the very top of the rock formation; I’m guessing she climbed up there to get a better shot on the target. All the sand that was in the air fell onto the ground, half of the desert at this point was white since it had been turned into glass.

“Misaki?! How dare you kill someone of our race?!” Yelled Yumi. Misaki walked from where she was towards us as Yumi was extremely pissed at her. We all turned off our singularities as Misaki approached with her green bandana on.

“Yumi, you have to stop with that mindset.” Said Misaki.

“What do you mean?! Have you gone crazy?!”

“No, I just learned that you have to kill when you have to kill… and I think you have to learn that too; no matter who, or what it is, if it’s threatening your life and people you care about, you have to kill him.”

“Tsk, whatever!” Yelled Yumi as she was storming off. Kasai took a deep breath and said,

“Well… that was one hell of a battle.”

“Yeah, I wish I could have helped somehow…” I said. Kasai sighed and said,

“You don’t have to keep helping people of the time honey, I appreciate all the help and everything so far, but it’s fine to let people take care of stuff once in a while.”

“Hm… if you say so.” I looked at Yumi storming off and decided to go and talk to her.

“I’ll be right back, I’m going to try and calm her down.”

“Alright, I’ll catch my breath for a while.” Said Kasai.

“She is a hot-head when it comes to trying to help her, good luck with that.” Said Misaki. Even though Yumi might not like receiving help from others, I’m sure that she could use some friends. I speed walked towards Yumi since she was a bit far away. When I arrived, I said,

“Hey, Yumi.”

“Go away.” She said.

“Listen, I get that you’re mad at Misaki for doing that, but she did it to protect us.”

“I don’t want to hear it! I’m sick and tired of that attitude of hers.” I grabbed her arm to stop her, but she pulled away,

“Let me go!”

“When that person talked about your privileges… you actually got hurt didn’t you?”

“I…”

“Listen, Yumi.” I took a deep breath and smiled while saying, “Just because you were born with privileges it’s not an excuse for other people to insult you, they are just envious of what you have, even if you didn’t earn it, it doesn’t mean that you don’t deserve it.”

“What do you mean?...”

“Look at me and Kasai, Besides the fact that we recently just found out that we were half devils, we were born without any sort of privilege, the only lucky thing that finally happened to us was when the Aizawa family took care of us, but before that we were completely at the bottom of society.”

“Ok…”

“What I’m trying to say is that even though you have all these privileges we don’t envy you, we understand that it wasn’t your choice, and we admire the fact that you are able to stay at the top even though you have the future of this kingdom on your shoulders.”

“…” She stood silent there staring at the ground with a melancholy expression.

“How about you become the greatest ruler of the cloud kingdom and prove them all wrong? Prove to them that you got what it takes and more.”

“But, I’m sure they all know by my blessing.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” I chuckled. “I mean that you should show them your leadership and grace. They can’t love a future queen if they don’t know her, right?”

“Yes… you have a point there.” She looked at me and smiled. “Thank you, Rukito. You really are good at helping people.”

“Yeah, at this point I might as well be a life counselor…”

“Hahaha, you’re also pretty funn-” She held her head for a moment, and then lost her balance, she was about to hit the ground, but I managed to grab her before she fell.

“Yumi, what happened?” She had her eyes closed looking away while breathing heavily. I felt her forehead, and as soon as I touched it an, I got burnt.

“Ow! Holy fever! Misaki wasn’t lying when she said she gets a high fever.” I tried picking her up, but since she was wearing armor, she was pretty heavy. I need to tell Misaki. I looked back, but Kasai seemed too far for the reach of my telepathy. “KASAI! MISAKI!” I tried yelling, but they still didn’t hear me, the sound of the strong wind pushing against the sand was not working for me. I looked back at Yumi and decided to pick her up with all the strength I had. “Alright Yumi, I’m going to take you back.” After a couple seconds of walking, I didn’t notice that we were in a steep dune. Therefore I slipped off, and we started rolling down together.

“Dammit!” After rolling for a good amount of seconds, we reached the bottom, the sun was still hitting us, so I told myself, “I have to get her to a cool place, the sun will make it a lot worse for her. I looked around and notice a nearby rock-forming, I decided to pick her up again and take her there to see if there was any small hole or cave I could lay her inside of. “I’m starting to get tired… but don’t worry Yumi, I’ll find something.” After circling the rock-forming for a couple seconds, I finally found a small chilly cave where to lay her. “I would take off your armor if you had something under… but for now, you have to deal with being a little uncomfortable.”

I took out a water bottle out my bag, took off my off scarf, wetted it and laid it on her forehead. “Alright, this should make you feel better.” Her cheeks were red, and she was still breathing heavily, but at least she wasn’t burning hot anymore. “I’ll be right back, just hold tight.” As I was getting up to leave she grabbed my shirt and said with a soft tone,

“Stay here, please…”

“But I have to tell Kasai and Misaki about this.”

“I know my sister… she will wait for us outside the desert with Kasai; we once agreed if we ever get lost in the desert, this is what we would do.”

“Oh, ok.”

“Yeah, we got lost in a sandstorm once.”

“How come?”

“We-” She groaned and stopped talking.

“Sorry, you should probably just relax for a while.”

“Yeah… Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” I said as I looked out to see if Misaki and Kasai were looking for us, but nothing, I guess Yumi is right.

“I guess you’re not the only lucky one to have met Kasai… she is also lucky.”

“Hmm? I said to just relax and be quiet!” I said while chuckling. “‘It won’t work on me’ she said, haha.” She giggled and said,

“Be quiet.”

“You’re the one that is supposed to be quiet,” I said. She giggled and decided to do so. “Going out and meeting people really made my life more interesting…” I said.

“Hmm?”

“Before all of this happen, I just had the same day cycle over and over again. Wake up, go to school, get back home, study and walk around the garden, go to sleep and repeat… the same thing, over and over. But now that I’ve met you and many other amazing people along the way, I realized that sometimes you can’t just wait for something to happen… you just have to go out yourself and look for it.” At this point, I was just rambling on what I was feeling like since all she could do right now was listen to me with a smile.

“I see…” We stayed there chatting for a while until she got better, it probably was around an hour or so, she slowly got up and said,

“I’m feeling better.”

“Ready to go?” She looked at me and smiled.

“Yeah, let’s go, Rukito.” We started walking away towards the outside of the desert.

“Yumi, do you have a boyfriend?”

“W-Why are you asking?!”

“You seem pretty cute, I was just expecting that you did.”

“Cute?! Well, I take care of myself, so I guess… but no, I’ve been asked out a lot since I will be the new queen, so other guys are looking to be the king, but I'm not dumb, I know what they are trying to do.”

“Ah, I see.”

“I just want to have friends for now.” She said while smiling at me. She didn’t smile much before, I guess as she gets more comfortable, she lets more of herself show.

“I got you. Mind if I ask something else?”

“Hm, no I don’t.”

“Why did you leave the kingdom with Misaki?”

“Hmmm, well, Misaki wanted to start her own group, and I wanted to escape my father since he kept training me day by day to be a warrior and a queen, it was getting annoying, so I agreed to leave with Misaki. Plus, down here in the wild is amazing and relaxing, up there in the clouds is boring.”

“Ah, I understand.”

“What about you? Why are you here?”

“Well besides trying to find a way to get Kasai’s voice back, we wanted to warn the king about black tombstone since it seemed that the word wasn’t spread till here.”

“It wasn’t until a couple days ago, and I’m still confused on how that guy managed to arrive at this land.” Said Yumi.

“I know that the group was created in Greenterra, but maybe that cloud elf never went there, he got hired from there and always lived here.”

“Hmm, possibly.” We stood quiet for a while thinking while looking at nature. I started noticing how cool cloud elves can be, both Misaki and Yumi are interesting people with different but yet so close goals.

“Have you talked to the king?”

“Yeah, I had to since I am the heir to the throne. He actually made me fight all of the king’s guardians.”

“You fought them?! They are said to be humanity’s best warriors.”

“Really? Ahahaha.”

“Hmm?”

“I didn’t even break a sweat beating them.”

“Oh… that explains a lot.”

“Humanity and Caelumians have been in peace for so long that their blades have gone dull.”

“That’s true, maybe we should train soldiers more often, how about a world tournament?!”

“Awesome idea! I’ll see to do something similar in the future.”

“Yumi! Rukito!” We saw Misaki and Kasai waving at us from a distance.

“There they are!” We walked towards them. When we arrived, I said,

“Yumi had the high fever, but I managed to cool it down.”

“Eeeh, I would have been fine.” Said Yumi.

“Yeah, sure you would have,” I said with a sarcastic tone.

“Kasai here almost got a heart attack!” Said Misaki.

“Hmm? What do you mean?” I looked at Kasai, and she was blushing look away.

“She couldn’t stop worrying about you, she was driving me insane with her,

‘What if…’ questions.” I chuckled.

“Really? That’s cute.”

“S-Shut up! That’s not true.” Said Kasai. Now that I think about it, this is the first time we got separated for some time since we became a couple. I opened my arms and said,

“Then come hug me if you really missed me.” She looked at me while blushing and ran towards me giving me a hug.

“Dummy… stop embarrassing me in front of them, I’m not a kid!” She said before she kissed me. “I was so worried, honey…”

“Hmm, but who is the one kissing me huh? Thought you didn’t want to be embarrassed.” She pushed me hard to the ground and said,

“STOP!” I chuckled and said,

“Don’t worry Kasai, it’s ok to show emotions.” I guess that when she is not with me, it triggers a panic switch in her brain to get extremely worried since she needs my affection for her succubus side to keep her emotions alive with my positive energy. But I’m sure she was also genuinely concerned, those two things mixing together make some extreme worries. It can be adorable at the beginning, but I have to teach her to control that emotions through meditating; I’m not sure she has ever meditated in her life.

“I love you.” She told me.

“I love you too.” We looked back at the girls and Misaki was tearing up.

“Yo, you two are just too cute, my heart is going to melt.” While Yumi was walking away.

“Let’s hurry, it’s starting to rain.”

“Rain?” As soon as I asked that it began raining. “How did you know?!”

“Well besides the point that this is a rain forest, I could tell by the sudden lowering of the temperature.”

“A rain forest? Besides a desert?!” Asked Kasai.

“Yeah, this land is known to have weird nature.”

“You don’t say!” I said.

“For me, it’s normal since I was born only knowing this, but for humans is known to be weird.”

“Yeah, and a lot.”

“Rain?! YEAH! I LOVE RAIN!” Yelled Misaki.

“Huh? How come?”

“I can use the rain instead of my body to make the weapons, and I can move a lot quicker!”

“Oh, that’s quite convenient!”

“This reminds me of how much a miss a shower already.” Said Kasai.

“We got a hot spring at our house if you want we could use it.”

“Really?! Of course, I will!” I started laughing to fit in.

“I can join, right?” Kasai started laughing with me, but exceptionally sarcastically.

“You want that to be your last day?” I continued laughing nervously and said,

“Hahaha, it was a joke, of course, ahahaha….” Kasai started walking forward with Yumi, Misaki walked back to me and whispered in my ear,

“I can make that work if you really wish to bathe with all of us, I owe you one for helping me after all.”

“Wait, really?!”

“Shhh, but you have to be quiet.”

“That would mean the world to me.”

“I got you, bro.” She said while winking at me.