Part III

(Solias)

A vague image of two people walk into the sunset holding hands. One is obviously a little girl as she looks up to the man who accompanies her.

The little girl giggles and calls to him “C’mon Noegi!”

The man looks down to her happily and answers, “Alright Solias, no need to be in a rush.”

The image fades quickly and shows the little girl crying over the man. “Noegi… Please… Please don’t go!” Her voice breaks from grief.

“Solias,” A voice gently calls out to her.

She looks up to see another man, in white, standing above the two.

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(Shuute)

I jolt with a great surge of urgency… Where am I?... This place looks like a tunnel deep within a cave, but I can see bars which means I’m in some sort of prison.

A deep and wrathful voice echoes around me, “Argu-tul! Argu-tul!” That sounds like the language fuune speak… I’m not very fluent in it…

Being quick-minded, I pull out my katana and position it with the blade upwards as I focus my energy. With a surging pulse, I slice the bars in front of me into pieces for my escape. Suddenly I feel weak and strain to stand. What did they do to me?! My bare feet scrape on the cold rock as I drag my way out of the hole.

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(Solias)

My eyes open up to the vision of blur and stabilize for my surroundings. I feel a bit fatigued, but my body begins to recover as I look around. It's dark in here with a few beams of light from some torches. I try to move my arms, but suddenly they're impeded by something. My consciousness becomes more aware of my placement. I look around more attentively and realize that I'm in a fuune lair. As I struggle to be free I begin to thrust my arms from the chains that contain me. My long blue hair flops all over the place as I try to force my way out of the shackles. I have to find Shuute.

There's a noise echoing from somewhere in the cavern, I think it's a fuune. The grey, hairy, and big creature walks into the room with heavy footsteps. I have a pretty good idea for what he'll do to me.

The fuune are a bane to our existence. They either want to kill us, eat our flesh, or torture us. I don't know why, but this is the purpose of their existence.

He comes up to me while my body lies across the table and looks down on me. He says something in a language that I can't understand and then raises a huge mallet over me.

Before he slams it into my body I quickly bring my feet up to cushion it and push the weapon over my head. As his incredibly broad chest shadows me I kick him away pushing against it.

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(Shuute)

I continue to sneak around the cavern to find a way out of here until I catch a very familiar scent. Is that… Solias! My bare feet patter on the rigid terrain as I try to sniff her out. Where is she!? I hope she’s alright…

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(Solias)

The fuune hardly budges when I kick him, but at least that was a distraction for me to think of a way to escape.

It doesn’t take long for it to recuperate, though, and raises the mallet against me again. A powerful howl comes from the monster as Shuute digs his teeth into its thick neck. The fuune grabs Shuute’s white cloak from behind and chucks him to a wall with great force.

I hear a whimper like a dog from Shuute when he hits the cave wall, but then just bares his fangs at the creature with his hair standing on end. He charges after it and swiftly dodges the attacks. Shuute uses the mallet to jump and lands with his feet on the short ceiling then thrusts himself off. He lands on the fuune’s back again and sinks both his fangs and his long black claws into the neck.

The monster screams with more pain as I see green blood gush out from his inflicted wounds. While the beast wailes in pain, Shuute is able to grab one of my shackles and snaps it in two. He dodges a swing from the fuune's great hand.

I pull out my small dagger from underneath my kimono skirt and use it to loosen the other shackle. It cracks open just enough for my hand to slip through and I get off of the table. "Shuute!" I call out to him as he distracts the beast.

He quickly snatches my hand and we run deeper into the lair away from the fuune.

It becomes more difficult to see as we scurry through the undergrounds away from the torches until the darkness finally consumes us. I can hear Shuute panting, being in enemy territory must be putting a toll on him. “Shuute,” I whisper to him, “You can be a ghost again to save your energy. I can handle myself from here.”

“You don’t even have your spear with you.” He whispers back to me as the glow from his yellow eyes are my only light source.

“Shuute please.”

“You can’t run around in the dark, trust me.”

With no other option running in my head, I have to agree with him. “Alright, but you let me do the fighting.”

His grip on my hand tightens as he reluctantly replies, “Okay…”

We then start heading in the direction he was leading me.

“Are you sure this is the way to the surface?”

“It should be, otherwise I would be fainting again.”

“Yeah, don’t do that ever again, you scared me half way to hell!” I exclaim while trying not to be too loud.

Shuute suddenly stops and looks at me with a serious glare.

I realize that I just made an unintended pun. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that literally.”

With a sigh coming from him, he looks ahead and continues to guide me through the cavern abyss.

A long silence from the two of us hangs over until I begin to feel awkward. “Hey Shuute.”

“Yes, Solias.”

“What happened to you back there anyway?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I mean, before you fainted.”

“I would like the answer to that as well… All I can tell you for now is that I felt a sharp pain in my back before I faded.”

I hold tighter onto his hand. “Well, don’t ever do that again; okay?”

Instead of answering me, Shuute just pulls me in closer.