Chapter 8: Field Trip (6)
~8.6~
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Not even fifteen minutes after the message from Liliana, and with the redheads having paced enough to wear a proverbial rut in the floor, Kye and company arrived at Northern Forest. They landed on the balcony, electing to outright bypass checking in.
Alethea and the redheads froze the moment they laid eyes on the white-haired beauty following Kye and their attendants.
"Al-Al-Al-" Doran mumbled, unable to finish her name.
"F-F-Fia?" Michelle barely managed to get her nickname out.
Alethea skipped the name altogether. "W-What are you doing here?"
Kye raised an eyebrow and glanced between them and her sister. Alfia gave them a smile that nobody misunderstood. "Ah, yes. Hello, you three. It's been a while."
"Uh..." Kye muttered.
"If I recall..." Alfia leisurely approached Doran first. "My dear Adele, you had just finished your 16,472,956th life when we last met. I was visiting mother when you appeared in front of us. What was it you told me?" She cocked her head sideways, aiming one ear at Doran. "Go on, dear. Remind me, if you would."
Doran gulped and said, "I said I was working hard to ensure enough mana was being supplied so that Elysia's body wouldn't be overburdened."
"And?"
"And that by... long before now, that it would no longer be necessary for her to remain incarcerated." Doran looked away, unable to look at either Alfia or Kye.
Alfia nodded and turned to Michelle. "And you, hon? Life number 17,875,900 if I recall correctly, and I certainly do. What was it you told me when you appeared before mother and me that time?"
Michelle gritted her teeth and looked away. "The same."
"You two promised her that?" Alethea asked.
"Yes, they did," the immortal said as she approached the pink-haired girl. "You are so like your real self right now it's uncanny. Despite being born into a male body for the first time, you have overcome much of it and one could even be forgiven for mistaking you for Maya based off appearance alone. Well done."
Alethea curtsied. "Thank you, Lady Alfia." She looked up with a degree of fire in her eyes. "Though, I wish you wouldn't ridicule Adele and Adara the way you did."
Alfia raised an eyebrow and looked at Kye, who was giving her a look of disapproval. She then looked back at the redheads, who were still unable to meet anyone's eyes. "I see." She reached down and forced each of them to look at her directly. "You promised me things you did not deliver on. However, I fully understand how difficult your mission is. Maya made no such promise. Do not worry, though. I simply wanted to give you a hard time for promising to fix it, rather than promising to do your best. Nothing more. Maya promised the latter. I do not hold it against you for speaking the former while intending the latter."
""W-what?""
Alfia smiled genuinely and patted their heads. "Stop letting a mistaken promise bother you. I never expected you to fix it. I only expected you to do your best, and you have. You've done well." She glanced at Alethea, then at Kye, then at the attendants as well, "all of you."
Kye was suspicious that Alfia even looked at the twins, including them in "all of you". "What do you mean."
"You chose not to know yet, Eli." The twins exchanged confused glances.
Kye sighed. "Very well."
Alfia shook her head, "Anyway," she looked at Rosalie, who was still in the room sitting quietly at the table sipping tea. "You have certainly matured, young lady."
"I thought you might be the same one," Rosalie replied.
Kye and the others snapped back to reality and realized that Rosalie had just overheard everything. "Wait-"
"Relax, Eli, she knows who I am. A handful of who you refer to as elders know of me. I haven't visited since Terra nearly destroyed itself, but Miss Rose here was among the survivors, as were your mortal parents, and... well anyone alive now that was born at least ten million years ago."
Kye and company were more surprised than anything after hearing that.
"Anyway, yes, I was with the goddess that appeared and healed Terra. If it isn't one thing or another..." Alfia shook her head and sighed. "Good work, by the way. I was wondering if I should pop in and visit, but my little sister here," she patted Kye's head, "ended up here before I made up my mind, so I simply stayed hidden and observed a while longer." She then glared at Kye. "If she hadn't gone overboard with her mortal body in that battle a couple months ago, I would not have visited yet, but my worries soon outweighed my desire to stay hidden, so here I am."
Rosalie wasn't sure what to say. "I... see?" She sighed, took another sip of tea, and shook her head. "My apologies, this is all a little over my head. You are Alfia Athas, correct? You appear as no more than a mortal with zero mana. I can't even tell you exist right now, beyond what my eyes can see."
Alfia nodded. "My power is not bound to the system. You cannot sense me within it because I do not exist within it." She held a hand to her chin, as if making a stereotypical thinking face. "Although, I suppose I could create a system account and have a mortal avatar here, as they do." She glanced at Kye, Alethea, and the redheads. She shook her head. "Anyway, that's not important. I'm just here to visit my sister for a while. I'm not sure if I'll be here long enough or frequently enough to require a mortal identity, or if I'd use one either way, so that's probably a moot idea. I would like to say hi to a select few while I'm visit-" She stopped suddenly and looked at the sky through the balcony. "Eli, I swear you're a trouble magnet."
Kye, Alethea, the redheads, and the twins picked up on it the same time as Alfia, then Rosalie sensed it a moment later. Kye stepped out onto the balcony, sword drawn. "What?"
Dozens of rifts were opening across the sky, above the gigantic forest.
Kye spun around. "Alethea!"
"Already on it!" Alethea was taking over the local broadcast channel with her imperial authority and giving emergency instructions.
Michelle slowly walked up to Kye and grabbed the hand that had no sword in it. "You really are a trouble-magnet. Kye squeezed her hand tightly for a moment, then let go and jumped into the sky. The others quickly followed suit.
When Alfia joined them, Kye stopped and faced her. "Will you always be here to fight for us?"
She shook her head. She knew what Kye was getting at. "I have my duties, of course. But I mean to stick around for a while."
"How long?"
"Long enough to see you grow. I have things to teach... for you to re-learn before I leave."
Kye quickly weighed it all in her head and decided to let Alfia fight. "Very well. If I can rely on you to be there, then I accept your assistance."
Alfia nodded and took off ahead of them.
"Is it really okay to have someone like her fight here?" Alethea asked as the group flew toward the rifts. "Will there be no negative effects?"
Kye smirked. "My work is not so brittle as to crumble under the pressure of a single soul wielding power it does not govern. The system was fine for eons when I wielded my full power before…" She clasped a hand to her head. She felt a memory surging forth. "Before…?" She stopped. Her eyes were watching the nearest rift, but her sight was filled with a different scene.
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Revision 12-11-2023