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Ishimaru entered a hut near the lake. It was a small hut, but very warm and comfy. It always made you feel right at home.

Miharu-baba?

Right here, Ishimaru.

An old woman with strange robes was sitting on a cushion meditating. Ishimaru ducked under the door and sat down on a cushion across from Miharu-baba.

Yume is sick.

I know. I diagnosed her. I'm working on a cure for her right now.

Ishimaru looked at her. Yume was sick, and she was so calm about this whole thing...he shrugged and bowed to her before leaving.

Wait child! Take this with you. Every day, one cup of this herbal tea. Give it to her when she wakes up.

Ishimaru grinned and bowed again before dashing out the door. Yume was cured!

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Yume was still resting on the couch. She hadn't moved, and hardly breathed. Being able to hold your breath for 6 minutes really sucked sometimes. She could still hear voices and such, but she couldn't open her eyes. Her body didn't want to.

Pander, is Yume sleeping?

Yume could hear the hushed tones of the girl she loved like her own sister. She didn't want her to worry about her...Slowly, she could feel her eyes slowly opening. Her throat was dry, and she desperately needed something to drink.

Yume! you're awake!

Yume looked at Amon, who was watching Natsu with his arms crossed. She hugged the little girl and mouthed the words: 'She doesn't know?' to him. He shook his head with a finger to his lips. Yume nodded and let the girl go.

Ishimaru burst in with a small bag filled with some kind of leaf. Yume waved and he waved back jokingly. Without wasting time, he started making the tea for Yume.

Ishimaru, what are you doing? Her voice was quiet and hoarse.

I'm making some tea for you. Miharu-baba said it would cure you. Drink it everyday until it's gone.

Yume looked at the tea. It looked okay, it smelled okay...so it should taste okay, right? Wrong. She took one sip of it and almost choked on it and spit it out.

Miharu-baba always did make the worst tasting tea...she always gives it to you straight and hard, no matter who you were. So...I might be cured...if I drink this tea everday.

Yume smiled and almost did her happy dance. But she didnt. That happy dance was...embarrasing. She laughed and looked over to Pander. He was reading a sort of family book, it looked like. She shrugged at the thought of family. She hadn't really had one, so it didn't really matter to her.

What'cha reading, Pander?

Yume swatted at the dust, trying to get it to stop lingering in the air.

Pander, isn't it great? I might be cured!

Yume hopped up and down in the air, trying to stop, but her body and mind were in their little happy place.

Um...okay...er...trying to stop now...

Yume tried to imagine Dirge and Jangen flying. She cringed when she imagined the loud sounds of metal hitting ground.

You really think flying is going to work?

Yume looked in awe at how fluidly the Heavy Cav moved. She looked at it with admiration. Whoever made this sure put a lot of work into making it the way it was now.

This is amazing...it's so graceful...

Ishimaru looked at it with his arms crossed over his chest. It was amazing. Especially for human hands to have made it. They were remarkable, weren't they?

(( I didn't enter. None of my posts said I entered. confused ))

(( Well, I'm just going along with your post "Pander looked back at Yume, not realizing she had followed them. She was sneaky when she wanted to be."))

Yume watched the two fight. Watching people fight always brought back memories of the other children and adults beating her and being merciless.

These memories will forever scar me, I guess...

Yume bit her lip and looked up so that she could stop the tears that were going to fall. Shaking her head and tying her long black hair, she started to practice her martial arts on a large, random, out of place rock. She punched it lightly a few times, then she thought of how she had to learn these techniques. She growled quietly and smashed the boulder.

I swear to me, that wasn't God.

Rivera was in her robes again, but now, she was wearing silver armor plates over it, a black cape around her shoulders. Her hair was pinned p with a silver dragon clip, two spikes stuck in it. Kairyu was burning a violent blue in her hands, the four foot blade of silver light a pillar of silvery beauty. The Kairen floated around her in a spiral of links, electricity lacing around them in draconian forms. Her face was different than the usual serenity that she held around her in a shroud. It was warlike, deadly, but more beautiful.

Kai stood beside her, wearing black armor laced with silver patterns. His chest was bare, and painted with silver inscriptions in the ancient tongue. It spoke of spells and sorceries for protection. There was a metallic headband that showed under his bangs, a red jewel shaped like a vertically standing eye adorned the black surface. He carried his own sword, the light of the sun gleaming upon it. He had a similar look to Rivera, both of them deadly looking. The cape around his shoulders was silver, secured by a golden brooch shaped like a sun. There were two heavy spikes dangling from the strong chains attatched to the sun shaped hilt handle. He held it before him vertically, point towards the ground, formally and gracefully.

Rivera stepped forward slowly into the water. Her strange shoes, like a cross between a sandal and silk stockings, but stronger, steel plated and thick soled. She looked up into the sky with her fiery violet eyes and looked towards the east and the west. The sun was growing low in the sky now... it was almost time... With this, came the Crimson Decadia... ten days of Chaos, ten days of destruction, but followed by the wave of ultimate renewal for all that take part. She slowly let the tip of her sword pierce the surface of the water. The steel cast a silver shadow over the gentle ripples around it, a ghost within the depths. It reflected its personal light upwards and around her. Slowly, the power surged through the blade and aroudn her feet, throughout the water around her. The knee deep water parted around her, pulling upwards and towards the side until it had formed a 10 meter wide circle of dry riverbed and twenty-four pillars of water around her. As if in a trance, Rivera began to recite the ancient spell.

"Ten silver circlets and nine golden torcs upon the kings of old..."

The water turned a sudden red and the sky was swathed in black. Not even the sun could shine well through it, only a reddish light could hover over the plane of darkness, brighter in the places where there were visible pricks of stars, pink and burning. The wind picked up around them.

"Eight princely virtues and seven sins for which a soul is sold..."

Seemingly, voices from the water came from the pillars, crying and wailing to be released. Rivera held up her sword and let light form halos around the blade. Light gathered from the pillars, and the voices grew louder. It wasn't just the mournful... but the kind, the evil, the pitiful, the generous, the sick... not just people but also of creatures that none heard of.

"six is the sum of earth, sea and sky, of all thing new and old..."

Rivera let her sword crash down into the gravel bed of the lake. The rocks parted and flew upwards. At the same time, the sky seemed to drop towards them, the pressure increasing with the tension. Trees began to tumble and the waves churned with an indescribable power.

"five is the number of ships that sailed from Atlantis, lost and cold..."

The light formed a pentagon around her feet. Wind and light lifted from beneath her, washing her in a whiteness that was too bright to look at. Only Kai could stand to watch. His eyes really didn't watch anything. They were just blank orbs, looking ahead.

"four clans in desperation divide, three clans now withold,
two unite in love and fear in Aeterranchisen stronghold.
one world to live, one world to die, the druid stars fortold.
Ten days of renewal post ten of sin, the crimson tides unfold!"

Everything came together. The once empty lake now was filled with light as people appeared, left and right, all over the place. By the time she spoke the last word, the lake was filled with an Atlantean army and all its equipment. Rivera looked around her and spoke each name of the royal family clearly.

"Mirisekri... Raesekri... Kilesekri... Torasein..." four figures appeared around her. Two were raven haired like her, both with green eyes. One of the two held a massive battle axe. The remaining two were silver haired like Kai. They had blue eyes. The taller was male, with bulging muscles and a massive size. The other three were female, every one of the elegant and lovely. Rivera looked boyish and impulsive against their elegance.

The man, Torasein, placed a hand on Rivera's shoulder. "Isekri... it's been long... "

"Father..." Rivera looked at him with equally blank eyes as he did, smiling an artificial looking smile. Rivera now spoke with a voice instead of a whisper. She rose up and raised her sword, calling out to the mass of people. "People of Atlantis, hear my call! The crimson tide has come! IT IS TIME!"

She let out a gyrfalcon call that could be heard over the entire campus, a displacement of silence, but a deafening shriek of a bird of prey. This was her war call...

The Crimson Decadia has started...