| |
“Man, it took forever for them to rebuild Nioglow.” I grumbled as I sat down. We were on the platform beside the bell on the top of the cathedral.
“Six months is pretty good, since half Nioglow was destroyed and hasn’t been lived in for more than three years.” Cloud said, sitting down beside me.
“At least Kazuki agreed to governing Ragnarok for a while.” I said opening my bag of spongy circus peanuts, “I hope they start the fireworks soon, they were supposed to start at nine PM. It’s not surprising Maaya insisted we have a firework show and dumb it the ‘Grand Reopening of Nioglow’ and want fireworks.”
Cloud smiled at my complaint saying, “But you didn’t have much objection to it, now did you?”
“That’s besides the point.”
“Meaning to say,” He said slyly, “that you’d rather not be stuck up here, all alone with me.”
I chewed on a circus peanut, hiding an evil smile as an idea came to mind.
“No, I’d rather be stuck in my room all alone with you.” I suppressed a grin as he almost fell off the tower. I knew I’d get that reaction.
“Well, that could be arranged easily…” He wrapped one arm around me and pulled me against him.
“Wait until the fireworks are over, at least.” I smiled.
“Wait? For the rightful ruler of Ragnarok? You’ve got to be kidding me!”
I elbowed him, hiding my smirk with an irritated look.
“What was that for?” He demanded.
“Old times’ sake.” I said idly, grinning at his muttering reply. It sounded something like “Old times’ sake my ass…”
As he straightened and gave me an irritated look, I said out loud, “I wonder of Katsu and Ryuu have run Valkyrie into the ground over in Mazar…”
“You love to change the subject.” He said dryly.
“Now who’s complaining?” I asked with a smile. “At least we’ll get some time off before helping out with rebuilding Myildaypain. I still think Maaya is going to have us panting picket fences down there.”
“Tsubasa isn’t rebuild yet, but there are other tropical islands in the Spherical Line.”
“Mmm.” I agreed, “That time off is going to be limited to, since Twi-LIGHT crumbled Silva and Niveldon are at a cease-fire. Mazar is redeveloping quickly, and since Valkyrie is mainly Mazarain there isn’t tension as long as the citizens don’t know it’s Ragnarok helping them. It’s only a matter of time before war breaks out again, but at least there’s a small calm.”
“Or rather, the calm before the storm?”
“I’d say more like the false calm in the center of the storm.”
“Another good thing is that Dalmara is being left alone again, it would have been a pity for the last uninhabited continent to be wrapped up in Ragnarok and the impending wars.”
“Yeah, there is that.” I agreed, “Now that Ragnarok has a stable government and the rebuilding is almost complete, the Exodus military can blend with Ragnarok’s military completely, so we’ll be ready for any attacks.”
“Not to change the subject, but how are things in Nohin? Silva launches a few attacks over there.”
“For the most part all is well. That bitch Mitsuko is over there, and as long as she stays out of Ragnarok I’m happy.”
“Language, my lady,” He said, then moved just in time to avoid another elbow to his stomach. “I was only kidding!”
I glowered at him. “Watch it, if you want to keep tonight’s agenda. Not to mention your head. Besides, you made a few other wise-cracks at my language. Remember that one in Nohin, garlic breath?”
He chuckled, and wrapped his arm around me again.
After a while, he asked, “The group has kinda dissipated, any wind of what happened to them and the remnants of Twi-LIGHT?”
“You’re not going to comment on the garlic breath?”
“Comment. Happy now?”
“Not really.” I said with a smirk, “Niketa is helping relief movements in Myildaypain, Rikku is back in Mazar helping with rebuilding, Rei is still in Ragnarok, and I haven’t heard anything about what has happened to Zeev and Lena. You can be specific with names, since I doubt you had the remaining Special Agents in mind.” I added with a mischievous smile. “I was thinking of Kayamdayer, the group of islands north of Tsubasa.”
“Not a bad idea, but do you think it’s as tropical as Tsubasa?”
“It’s hard to say, it might not be as ready for tourists. It’s going to take at least a year to rebuild Tsubasa, probably longer, and things did finally calm down and that’s originally when we were going to go on vacation.”
“True. There are seven islands in Kayamdayer, right? Which one would you want to go to? The center island would probably be the most tourist-ready.”
“There would be nice hotels and that sort on the southern most island of Kayamdayer, too. There’s a lot of scuba diving and jet skiing down there, too. It’d be the most tropical of all the islands in Kayamdayer.”
“Good. I’d like to see you in a bikini.”
“That’s it! Count on sleeping alone tonight!” I stood up abruptly, letting him think I was about to leave.
“Hey, wait! I was joking! Akhy!” He reached for me and pulled me back towards him. He took me in his arms and our mouths jolted together, until the fireworks suddenly went off with a bang, startling us.
“You didn’t say it was so loud up here.” He said over the noise.
I smiled saying, “It’s not my fault you were a dumbass. Spongy circus peanut?”
While the streets of Nioglow were packed with cheerful citizens moving back into the city and celebrating the Grand Reopening, one person had strayed to the less savory parts of Nioglow that weren’t fully filled yet.
The person glances at the motorcycles parked outside the cathedral, idly noticing the two people the belonged to were enjoying the firework show from above. The person touched the doors calmly, waiting for the foreboding aura to dissipate before entering.
While walking past the rows of seats, all the candles in the room extinguished themselves. The person stopped at the far wall, observing the mural on the wall. The wall started to glow, as the picture changed. Ariest was no longer an opponent, and the glow around the wall slowly disappeared as the city of the second weapon appeared.
The person observed it silently for a long moment.
“Gaia is here…but where are you, Aruen?”
To Be Continued
|
Help Us Stop Plagiarism -
Nearly all works at PnP are original. However a few people choose to plagiarize.
To check, choose a phrase from the work, then either drag and drop to the search box or copy and paste.
click on search and works at Google will be shown which match. Just to be sure, please do this before
you recommend or rate the work highly...
|
 |
|
|
|
Select a Random Book
|
|
Welcome !
