Stories of Sinners

[Kon]

Chapter 5

Rose teleported back to me. "Is everything okay?" I asked. I didn't want to fight anyone, Rose had bandaged my broken leg, but that wasn't enough to let me fight.
"Well... almost. They want to imprison you since you're 'too dangerous'."
I sighed. Setting sail again, I gritted my teeth. After twenty seconds, we arrived, and a green haired Swordmaster wanted to tie me up, but I refused, slapping him. He pulled out his sword and held it at my throat, shaking.
"You want to FORCE me to go prison? You're scared of me. I'd get you in one single hit - you wouldn't even notice."
"Yes, I would - and I'd dodge, and slash you with my sword!"
"Just like your hat did?"

He turned around in terror and saw his hat, pierced by my steely, hanging on the mast. "You - I'm goin to..."
"No, you won't." Joshua smiled, putting his hand on the Swordmaster's shoulder. "Colm, you're too hot-tempered. I hear complaints about you way too often, and that guy over there has a broken leg. I think taking his weapons will do fine."

Some steps away, Rose smiled at me. I got up and emptied my bag of throwing-star sets, giving Joshua my Slain. He took it, saying "I'm going to make sure you get them back just like you gave them to me."
"Thanks... you are?" I asked. He knelt down. "I am Joshua, Swordmaster and General of Frelia's Army. Welcome to Frelia."
"I'm Jath... Assassin and Master of Thievery."

I caught up with Rose and we walked towards town. Some steps away, I reached into my bag. "My steelies and my Maple Kandayo." Then I took out a little pocket and gave it to Rose. "And some starting money. That Swordmaster who threatened me kept his money inside his hat."
"Jath! It's stolen! I'm not accepting it!"
"Whatever. It's my way of keeping you safe and fed up." I chuckled.


At the beach, Joshua smiled. The lucky dime he'd thrown was heads, and Fortuna told him to let him keep his weapons which he'd hidden.

///

We walked towards Eversun City. This was the place where people learned how to become Summoner, and here Rose hoped she could get to know why she could summon Aeons. Having gone over a hill, we spotted two silhouettes. Apparently a Swordmaster and an Earth Magician. They were fighting against some... Monsters? They looked like our Minor Zombies and Flyeyes. Finally I'd get to see those classes fighting! The Earth Magician, who was throwing around rocks which he pulled out of the ground, was about to lose. But as I wanted to save him with a steely, I got to see the Swordmaster using an awesome move.



I hasted myself and ran to help them, but tripped over my broken foot. Seeing this, Rose decided to stay near me, she wanted to help them too.

"Okay, end the fun part. Let's roll!" the Earth Magician said and suddenly, covered by flying rocks, threw pieces of stone around him until the whole mob was dead.
They walked towards us and asked if everything was okay, so I got up and asked how he disappeared.
"Like this." a voice said from behind me. How'd he...? "I'm able to move fast, and it looks like I'm disappearing. And those copies - yeah, that's magic. A skill. You're not from here, are you?" he asked, eyeing my Maple Kandayo.

"No, we're not." Rose said and helped me up. We walked towards Eversun, I was hobbling, but we managed to get there without any more disturbances. It was getting dark and we decided to search for an inn to sleep.

"That'll be 1500 zeny."
"Aw, we forgot that they don't have mesos..." I took out my old pickpocket pilfer. "Can we pay with this?"
"I don't really wanna rip you off, but here you go. 2000 zeny back to you."

He guided us into the upper floor of the inn and unlocked a door for us. "Breakfast tomorrow?"
"No, thanks." I closed the door.

"Why not?" Rose asked. "I'm supposed to keep you safe. I'll make something for you..." I said, locking the door with a steely. "Don't overdo it, Jath..." she sighed. I jumped into one of the beds. "Aren't you... changing into something else for sleep?"
"No, why?"
"Hmm... I wonder what's up with you. You keep on wearing your fighting equip. You're locking a door in an inn..."
"That's just how I am." I smiled.

As Rose wanted to change into her sleeping dress, I hid my face under my blanket. As I heard her lying down on the bed, I came out and also laid down.
"Want me to tell you a bedtime story?" I grinned. She closed her eyes, saying "Why not?"

"Okay... some time ago, there was a small kid, without any family or parents, maybe he didn't know if they still lived, or they all died. The kid didn't knew where he came from, where home was. The only thing he remembered was a faint, golden glow. Other than that, the first thing he remembered was waking up in a cloister, being taken care of by the nuns and monks. But he wanted to find home, so he left the cloister without telling anyone. He searched through the lands, searched and searched, but he didn't find anything. After about six months of searching, he came back."
"And what happened then?"
"Well, the first person he met in the cloister was the monk which had found him lying on the floor and taken him into the cloiser, taken care of him, fed him and helped him with everything he did.
But the monk was beside himself with rage. He gave him a slap into the face, as strong as he could, and the kid fell over."
"Why?"
"I don't know. But you won't believe what they did next!"
"What did they do?"
"They started laughing. The monk stood there, the boy lay there, and they laughed, like five minutes."

Suddenly I heard a bit of snoring from the other side of the room, and smiled. I wondered if she knew that it was my childhood I have been talking about.

[Timmias]

Yeha thanks for the uppie

[jiahao_94]

2 Chapter Fours'. =P

Um, great update, and the animation is cool as well.

Where did that come from?

[Kon]

Fire Emblem.

[Kon]

Spoiler!

CHAPTER DONE OMGOMG

Chapter 6

I woke up under my blanket. Deciding to get up, I looked around the room - to see a Rose in underwear. Blushing, I got under my blanket again, fortunately, she'd shown her back to me, she didn't know I'd seen her.
After two minutes or something, she tried to wake me up. "Jath, I wanna get out... I'm hungry, please wake up."
I yawned, pretended to just have woken up and picked the door's lock. Rose walked out and I sat down on my bed, thinking about what to do once she would know how to summon. I somehow hoped she'd need some more help, that I'd get to stay next to her a bit longer. I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible. But somehow... when I walked out of the inn, I felt the innkeeper looking at me. I stopped in front of the inn. If Rose wanted to go out, she'd probably expect me to stay at the inn, to wait for her.
... Would she? No, her attitude would make her tell me. Except if not telling me would make her help me... there had to be a catch in it. Just following an instinct of mine, I jumped up the roof and looked into the backyard.

There was a muscular man with heavy armor, probably a knight, wielding an axe. Next to him, Rose was sitting on the floor, being guarded by two swordmasters.
"We four will wait until that brat thinks you left him, then we'll take care of you. 'Twas a nice idea of you, killing him could have given me some problems."
"Wha-?!" she yelped.
I jumped down, saying "There's your problem." I took out two steelies, twirled them up into the air and dodged the swordmasters attacks while catching the stars. I stabbed them with my backhand. Then I turned around to see the knight having taken Rose as a hostage.

"As simple as this: You attack me, and she's dead. You sacrifice yourself, she gets to live a little longer."
Rose looked at me with a tear in her eye and vaguely shook her head.
"What do you mean? Sacrifice?"
"Don't you understand me? Kill yourself. If you won't I can't be sure if you won't chase me."

Suddenly a person behind the knight caught my eye. Could it be...? It disappeared as quickly as it came, and Rose disappeared too. The knight didn't even notice.
"So if I kill myself, what will you do?"
"I won't kill your friend."
"Which friend?" I asked, smiling. Joshua appeared next to me, with his sword unsheathed.

"The Killing Edge... you must be Frelia's General."
"Yours sincerely, Joshua."

He wanted to start fighting, but I held him back.
"Joshua, you must understand me. This is my battle."
"Alright. Take this."

He threw my Dark Slain to me. I smiled, finally, I had my weapon back. I threw two steelies which hit his armor. It was too heavy to fly through it, but I just wanted to test that. I tried to aim at his head and legs, which weren't armored, and finally managed to hit him a few times. As he fell down, not being able to stand anymore, he called out "Summon my trump! He must kill the girl or the kid, at all costs."

Joshua's eyes widened. "NO!" he shouted, trying to shut him up by slicing his head off. A voice came from the roof.

"I summon you, my attendant, Anima! Rise up from hell and kill them at all costs!"

A glowing circle appeared next to him, protecting him from Joshua who tried to abort the summon, whereas I tried to help Rose standing up, checking if she was hurt.
"Never do this again... I'm not worth enough to have you sacrifice!" she cried.
"We don't have time - this Anima thing seems to be dangerous!"

Suddenly a black hole appeared next to Rose, trying to suck her in. I pulled her out just in time, seeing a creature rise up. It was white, it had black eyes, it was as big as three trees and it was held back with chains.

I tried to get Rose out of reach. Joshua started attacking it, but the only thing he managed to do was to cut the chains off.
"Run! We can't hurt it!"

A black orb appeared next to Anima's mouth. "No, Anima! Don't shoot at the ground! You'll destroy the continent!" the Summoner called.

"Must... destroy... at all costs." it spoke, shooting the orb at us. Rose fell down and I caught her in my arms.
"Are we going to die... Jath?"

The orb was about two seconds away from us.
"I think we will..." I answered.
"Let me do this, please." she said, slowly putting her lips on mine. A white light suddenly surrounded me and I stood on a huge meadow.
A man with black hair was standing there, looking at me.
"Tell me, do you want to die, or do you want to walk on the way which will take you to the truth about yourself?"
"I don't have any choice. I'm probably already dead... and this is what the other world looks like."
"No, it's not. Time's stopped inside your mind. I'm able to let the spirit of the pendant of purity fly through you. You've fulfilled the prophecy."

"No, I haven't. I haven't brought purity into this world."
"What? CLEARLEAF! Damn. He probably lied to you. What did he say?"
"Pendant looks for White Child. White Child brings purity into the world, cleaning it from all sins."
"Well, only one fact's wrong about what Clearleaf told you. It won't bring purity into the world, but into someone. This person is going to become someone of great strength... it's called the Trance. You're only able to maintain it for a short period of time, and it can only be used to protect the life of someone who loves you. No matter if you like that person or not, once he or she gets in danger, you get into trance, and you won't even think about not helping."
"But why didn't I ever get one before?"
"You're the Black Child. White searches Black, and the pendant's already found the White Child."

As I wanted to ask him what he meant, I suddenly found myself standing in the battlefield again, Rose fell unconscious and the orb was almost touching me. I looked down on myself... I was wearing crazy things... and I had a tail for some reason. I also had some weird claw... but I decided not to care and threw an Avenger into the orb, splitting it into pieces, then I turned around to attack Anima. "Star Twister!" I said, twirling around. A bazillion of steelies flew around Anima, covering him in stars. After 20 seconds, it disappeared, and I turned around to see the Summoner throwing a knife, aiming at Rose. I jumped in the way, killing him with a star, and then I turned around to see Joshua in terror.

"What's happening?" he asked with eyes wide open as I turned back into normal.
"Later. Let's bring Rose somewhere safe."
"So her name is Rose? We'll bring her into Castle Frelia."
________________________________________________


Kays... big character show.

This is Anima.

Jath in Trance

Joshua

The man who appeared in Jath's mind

[xdgr]

Oh snap.

Fire Emblem stuff!

[jiahao_94]

Whee! Thanks for update!

[Kon]

Chapter 7

I was on one of the outer towers of Castle Frelia, thinking about what had happened yesterday. It had seemed like Rose's unconsciousness had turned into sleep, and they got her into a bed, with two guards in front of the room. Frelia's marquis stated that our survival couldn't be a coincidence and tried to find out what was special about us, whereas I just wanted to be alone and to think about yesterday's happenings.
So I now knew that I was the Black Child, but neither I knew what that meant nor why. The only things I could start to think about where the words. White and Black. Completely different things. But they looked for each other, I figured, seeing a black mountain with snow on its top. And why did it have to be Rose, the White Child? White Child meant she was pure, she wasn't a sinner. So I had to be the opposite...

I heard steps from the tower stairs, jumped over the tower wall and rammed a steely into it from the other site, I hung down the castle wall. If I'd fall down, I'd fall into water, so I didn't really watch out.
"Jath? I know you're here." I recognized Joshua's voice and swung up.
"Sorry, I just don't want to talk to others right now, especially to Rose." I explained as he looked at me calmly, but surprised. "Just wanted to tell you that the Marquis wants Rose to learn about summoning and that you can come back and sit down in the castle. It's cold out here..." he said vacantly.

"Nope. I'm okay with being out here... I'm not used to warm places, I like the soft breeze out here." I said.
"Why aren't you used to warm places? Come on, tell me something about yourself." he replied.
I sat down on the cold stone and thought of from where to start telling him the story. I decided to start from the very beginning and skip details.

"Interesting... you know, I'm from Maple too. But my father died in a battle, I don't even know who he fought, and my mother was banned from Maple after two years, when they found out that she was trying to revive him. I was still a baby then. Ten years ago, she let me be adopted in the castle and went off to live as a hermit. I don't know where she is now... or if she even remembers me."
We just sat there and looked at the landscape of Frelia.


Rose sat in the library, reading a book about Aeons. She just knew the name of one, Anima, the one which had attacked her. There were pictures of all Aeons in the book and she looked for the bird which she had summoned.
After 20 minutes of searching, she found it.

Spoiler!

Valefor. A beautiful mixture of Dragon and Bird. Not summonable, but still an Aeon. It's the older brother of Phoenix and in the times of Phoenix often seen protecting her.

Phoenix? That name was on one of the last pages, under the Old Aeons. She looked it up.

Spoiler!

Phoenix. A giant burning bird which had the power of revitalizing people by bathing them in sunlight. It disappeared during the solar eclipse in the last century. Seems to have a special relationship to Valefor (read under chapter: Valefor)

So why did she manage to summon Valefor if it was unsummonable? Did she have something to do with the Aeons, or with Phoenix itself?

[gutterball930]

is valefor like Odin on FF8 he appears randomly???

[jiahao_94]

...Oh no. I don't know what you guys are talking about.

Good chapter anyway!