Tensura Alteration: The Heroic One (TenseiYu)

The World's Solitude

A man waking up with a bandage wrapped around his head, though it was not entirely useful, it still gave him a sense of safety.

However, that entire feeling of peace faded into nothing the moment he realized where he was.

-"Satoru! Where is Satoru?!"

Frantically getting up and jumping to the door, Leonard opened the door to a bright sun shining down everywhere on a town surrounded by trees.

"Is this.."

He was awake at the Ogre village they had left not so long ago.

This brought him relief as that should've entailed that Satoru is now waiting for him.

Oh, how wrong he was.

He was greeted by one of the Ogre people who were meant to take care of him, that Ogre had rushed to him soon as the door swung open.

-"Oh! Sir Leo-"

Cutting the small talk off immediately, Leonard took to questioning.

-"Where's Satoru?"

His intense breathing was audible, like he had just woken up from a terrible nightmare.

-"Um.. I.. Don't know."

Sighing before going to every other person that appeared in front of him, Leonard slowly grew more frustrated as all of them gave the exact same answer each time.

-"I don't know."

Leonard sat down for a minute, still a little dazed, but, he was soon approached the first Ogre that Satoru had named, Shuna.

She sat down beside him, and she looked at him with a very sympathetic look.

She wanted to tell him that it'll all work out, and it'll be okay, but she knew he was not a child to fall for these words.

To her, even if the time they had known each other was short and not very interactive, Leonard was a man exuding the highest levels of care and persistence, it was like he did not even know the concept of surrendering.

She found that to be quite the noble quality, which made him ever the more likeable.

All of these thoughts circled in her head whilst she was sitting down silently beside him, and just when she had found the proper way to ask him about the events that transpired, he asked her first.

His voice seemed to have lost all its tone, just a blank line.

-"Where is Saare?"

Easy enough to answer, she thought.

-"He left to return to the Church, as you told him to do."

Just as she finished, Leonard buried his face in his hands.

The man she found to be a close image of her own brother a second ago, was now the exact opposite.

His persistent aura died off completely and only a hollow and sorrowful feeling spread from Leonard's body.

She wanted to help, she wanted to comfort this man just as she would her own brother, but, something didn't sit right with her.

The excruciatingly long silence between them was only worsened by Leonard talking to himself.

-"Oh no.. Oh no..

Saare.. You better not..

Oh... Saare.."