The Last Legacy

Chapter 3: The Things We Bury

She was dead.
Or everyone at least presumed that she was. I couldn't help but think that maybe this was just another one of my visions haunting me and somehow making me see what I always wanted to see. Making me feel what I always wanted to feel...a friend in my reach. But no vision was ever this long.
And everything was as vivid as reality could be. Amaya has been inside that chamber for as long as I can remember and I'm starting to grow impatient. Shujinko asked me to give her space and let her settle in. There's much she needs to discuss with her clan and kind.

Damn it. This old man keeps getting in my head. Quite fairly, that's just fine; she needs this. She needs to vent and to be heard for the struggles and incidents she had to overcome. But shit, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was at the top of that list. Amaya and I have been through so much together...it would make sense.
But I saw it the minute that I stared at her blanched-covered peepers.
I saw what I've never thought I could see.
The riveting and the ruinous beam. The lustful taste that you bribed and circled all around the room was gripping. I knew that this wasn't who you were. Not anymore, at least.
You were changed.
And not into something exceptional.

We grew up in the depths of the dessert of Niflheim. The humans were still building their own empire after the vendetta against the Morlocks. They were afraid of us; terrified. They knew they could never beat us because we were just the far superior kind. Of course; it was a matter of time until someone with as much power as the King could live among the humans and take command of the situation. Building a federation that stole alien weaponry and took it for their advantage.
They began to feel like a real threat to the Red Devil Citadel.
And we were not going down without a fight.

They would hunt down every extraordinary individual and slaughter them. They didn't even dare to question them; how could they? They were crazed by vengeance.
And so, we had to keep a low profile. The King had ordered for gates and tall frameworks to keep us at distance. I remember everything like it was yesterday.
I was a child when I saw the first invasion take action on the Citadel. They murdered hundreds of our kind...

I couldn't do anything about it. Missile projectiles were aim at our tower and Jonas did everything he could to protect me. Especially, from witnessing the darkness that the world really was outside these gates.
I saw it all nevertheless.
The decomposed and distorted outlook of the human perception. They were monsters.
Nothing could question their judgement. I saw Jonas battling with the sword; the hellblade.
He was...natural. A warrior willing to fight for honor and world peace. I remember wishing I would grow up wanting to be just like him. Fearless, relentless and vigorous.

I saw my brother take out three guards. Their paratrooper uniforms gleaming into the night and striking for something they believed in as much as we also did.
Except we were the correct team.
The symbol on their bulldoze signaling for the achievement. The ribbon. The white ribbon that carries out what is world peace for them.
This is world peace for them. And it's everything they've ever known.

One of the guards takes a swing on Jonas but he manages to get out of the way just in time, as the other guard follows the same rhythm. And the third guard...
The third guard...oh no.
His hand encloses my entrance before I can fully gasp and plea for help. I try to shake away from his grasp, but he is too strong.
And I'm too fragile.

I see Jonas's gleam come my way and something in him awakens. The same lustful stare that I saw on Amaya when she came back. I see him taking a deep breath, trying to gather his following actions. I don't know if he is doing it to gather what's left of his humanity or to genuinely think for his next move.
I'm scared.
I'm so scared, Jonas. Mother and father are missing, and I have no one.
He is getting slammed. Jolted by the top of their heels and insulted.
Jonas pleads for recovery, but it is too late. The drizzly and stormy climate sorrowing upon us with such despair.
I thought that was it. The end of Red Devil.
The end of an era.
But it's then when I hear it.
"I'm here, Ari...I'm here."