Hero's Return 22 A Warning & A Discovery

S: "Huh?"

Sora opened his eyes to find himself surrounded by a vast expanse of darkness, nothing could be seen in this place, but he didn't feel any danger, the last thing he could remember was preparing for the fight with Del and Rez, then crawling into his bed to go to sleep.

S: "Am I back?"

Sora looked around for anyone else but could only see the darkness, he was alone here.

S: "This isn't like last time..."

Sora kept looking around him, there was a looming threat that he could feel but not see in this place, it was completely different from last time. He was also completely conscious, this didn't feel like a dream - he couldn't wake up from it.

S: "Rin!"

Sora thought that if he could contact Rin somehow, he could get out of this place - him and Rin had formed a mental link long ago and it only grew stronger with the time they spent together, but even that was useless, the most Sora could do was see what was going on near his body, the most he could see was his room.

S: "d.a.m.nit! I can't contact her."

?: "Hey. You."

A voice boomed inside the vast expanse of darkness, it didn't seem like someone was shouting, the voice was just naturally loud - it was eerily calm. Sora was shocked and began scanning his surroundings even faster, he was in a state of panic.

S: "Who are you?!"

?: "No need for introductions, I already know who you are."

S: "Huh?!"

?: "You're the one I must kill in order to live freely."

S: "Live... freely?"

?: "Such a long distance from me... communication is hard to maintain at this range..."

S: "What?!"

?: "So weak... yet... you hold the most power over my conquest..."

Sora stayed quiet.

?: "The only way to win, is to destroy."

Sora's eyes widened, as he looked at what was happening outside he saw a cloaked figure, two red lights glowed from where it's eyes should be and their entire face was hidden behind their cloak.

S: "Hey! Get out of my place!!!"

The dark figure was a physical manifestation of the one haunting Sora.

?: "So what if I do? You cannot do anything."

Rin had not woken up, the figure was only a manifestation, it didn't exude aura, and it didn't make any noticeable sounds, a hand covered in fog began moving towards Rin.

S: "Don't touch her!!!"

?: "I'm just limiting the compet.i.tion, whilst this manifestation can't directly kill the one who's trapped in sleep, it can effect their surroundings."

The hand got closer and closer to Rin.

S: "d.a.m.nit!!! I can't do anything!!!"

...

"I can."

A bright, thin light sped past Sora and disappeared from the expanse of darkness, seemingly teleporting to his room, the cloaked figure got hit by the light and let out a short screech before dissipating. The screech wasn't loud but it woke up Rin due to her sensitive hearing, she scanned her surroundings only to find that nothing was there. She felt safe near Sora but stayed awake just in case what she had sensed came back, she didn't want to wake up Sora either because of the fight tomorrow. Seeing that Rin had been awake and vigilant, Sora calmed down, that bright, thin light came from behind him, Sora turned around to see who it was and saw a young woman. This woman had green eyes, black hair and a slender, tall figure. She had an abnormal charm about her, one that didn't arouse nor show resistance to people. The clothes she wore were mostly made of fur and leathers, like what a viking would wear. She held a bow in her hand that was black in colour, a sort of solidified, dense manifestation of darkness - in her other hand she held an arrow made of light.

?: "You really are useless, to fall under such a weakened spell..."

Sora stayed silent, he knew that this person should be one of his predecessors judging from the weapon she held. The weapon in her hands disappeared in a flash of bright light as she walked towards Sora, as she stood directly in front of him he noticed the difference in their height, this woman was taller than him, not by much, but still taller. He kept his eyes down as she seemingly scanned him and muttered to herself.

?: "Foundation is... average. Current ability with 'Peace and Calamity' is... below average..."

She sighed.

?: "Oi, look up."

Sora looked up at the woman and their eyes met, he felt awkward being this close but she didn't seem to care.

?: "The name's Leah"

S: "Um, I'm-"

L: "Yeah I already know, we all do."

S: "Oh, okay..."

L: "You need to power up, you're nowhere near powerful enough."

S: "Huh?"

Sora knew how he felt about his own power but hearing it from someone who was actually experienced with the power, now he didn't know how to feel.

L: "That thing, the Demon King? It's way more powerful than you are now, this probably isn't the first time he's tried to kill you either."

Sora acknowledged this but thought back to any other times he nearly died through something mysterious.

S: "I knew that dark mist was linked somehow..."

L: "Well yeah, that's the obvious one, but there's probably times even before that."

S: "Hm? But I don't remember anything before that."

L: "Hmmm, so you don't know."

S: "Don't know what?"

L: "Nothing, guess he wants to keep it a secret."

Before Sora could keep asking questions Leah seemed to get distracted by something. She sighed and turned back and began walking away from Sora.

S: "Huh? Where are you going?"

L: "Time's up, someone's coming to wake you up."

S: "Wh-"

Before Sora could finish a figure wearing white clothes appeared in his room and immediately woke him up. Sora's body shot up as he backed away from the figure, Rin jumped next to him as they prepared to fight.

?: "Phew... so it really was just my imagination..."

As Sora's vision returned to him he slowly lowered his guard. Rin also left Sora's side and started rubbing up on the feet of the figure.

S: "M- Master?"

Y: "Yep, I sensed something over here and flew out straight away."

Yuin was wearing her nightwear and her hair was messed up, all of the people who had seen her on a daily basis had seen this side of her so they were used to it.

Y: "Lucky for me it was nothing."

Rin stopped rubbing up on Yuin and communicated with her.

Y: "Hm? You sensed it to?"

Rin nodded.

Y: "So it definitely has to be something..."

Yuin looked at Sora.

Y: "What about you, Sora?"

Sora wanted to speak up but didn't know if he should, he could easily tell them about the figure that had appeared without the details regarding 'Peace and Calamity', but Yuin would most likely question him about the missing parts of the story. He didn't really want to keep it a secret from Yuin either.

Y: "Well?"

Sora sighed, he trusted Yuin with his life anyway so why should he keep it a secret from her.

S: "Um... well..."

Sora explained what he saw whilst he was sleeping, and the woman that had appeared to save Rin.

Y: "Um, who is she then? You sure you're alright?"

Sora then went on to explain his power, including how he got it and when he got it.

S: "After gaining it from my predecessor, I fought with Seiju and eventually won against him, that's what Rin saw, and that's why my control over Light and Darkness is so good."

Yuin found all this hard to believe, anyone would. But...

Y: "That does explain alot."

Yuin picked up Rin and started petting her.

Y: "The Demon King, Predecessors on the level of the legends... and the fact that the power you have now is probably not even the beginning of what that thing you have can do... little hard to believe, no?"

S: "I'm not lying to you!"

Y: "I know you're not, you wouldn't lie, especially to me. But are you sure you didn't hit your head and start believing things that aren't real?"

Yuin's usually carefree expression was gone, she was more serious than he had ever seen her at this moment.

S: "I'm... I..."

Sora began to question how unrealistic this was, but he did meet up with his predecessors, he couldn't have just awoken to his affinity for Light and Darkness so suddenly.

S: "No, it is true, I've seen them with my own eyes."

Y: "Hmmmmmm..."

S: "If you don't belie-"

Y: "No, I believe you now."

S: "Huh?"

Yuin crouched down and let Rin jump off.

Y: "But there's something I must do to confirm it."

Yuin quickly dashed from her position to Sora, charging forward with her palm and hitting Sora in the chest, he felt an intense sting that immediately disappeared, it all happened so fast, he couldn't even react. Yuin had directly implanted her consciousness into Sora's aura, searching around for evidence of this 'power of his'. Outside, Sora noticed that Yuin had her eyes closed and could feel something swirming around inside him. Any thought he had, Yuin would hear.

S: "What are you doing?!"

Y: "Searching. Oh, an enclosed part of your aura. Let's test this out."

Yuin immediately began trying to break into it, the resistance was put up by Sora's predecessors. Sora had seen this ages ago and had tried breaking in himself, after guessing that it was put there by his predecessors he tried communicating with it, he didn't get anything back.

Y: "This resistance... hmm..."

Yuin seemed to stand still, floating in the sea of aura. Where a giant sphere of faint power floated above it. Yuin seemed to be communicating with the inside of the sphere, the sphere immediately opened and she went inside, not even Sora could see what was going on. After a while, the Yuin in reality woke up and sighed.

Y: "Such powerful presences, haven't felt that in a while..."

S: "Wha? What did you do?!"

Y: "Well, that thing in your sea of aura seemed to be resisting any physical way I tried to break in, so I came to the conclusion that the thing inside was just more powerful than I was, after talking to them, they let me in, but to think... 5 people on the level of a Legend... pretty good."

Yuin sat down on the seat next to Sora's desk, looking at the ground, there was a long, unbroken silence.

S: "Um... Master?"

Y: "Huh!? Oh, yeah. I should probably get out of here. I've been rude."

S: "No, no. It's just... what did you tell them? I've tried to communicate with them myself and they never let me in..."

Y: "Well..."

Yuin looked like she wanted to get out as soon as possible and was being extremely awkward.

S: "Well?"

Yuin looked at him and sighed.

Y: "Well... you told me your secret..."

Yuin walked towards Sora and held her hand out.

S: "Hm?"

Y: "Hold your hand out to mine"

Sora complied.

Yuin closed her eyes and slowly transferred some of her previous memories to him. What Sora saw shocked him.

S: "Y-You-You're..."

Yuin began walking to his window.

Y: "Yeah, don't tell anyone, it would just overcomplicate things..."

Yuin left as quickly as she arrived.

Sora was shocked as to what he saw, Rin was confused, she never saw Sora like this. A little while after Yuin left Sora quickly scrambled out of his bed and began going through his drawers, looking for something. Rin slowly walked towards him in confusion, she didn't know why Sora was like this, Yuin only shared what she did with Sora.

S: "Found it!"

Sora took a book out of his drawer, it was labelled 'The 100 Legends', this book held all confirmed to be alive Legends and any information held on them, some would have pages worth of information whilst some would only have their name. The way Legends lived was very carefree, they would live anywhere and could choose to be major presences in places or completely hidden from the outside world. Some people had the power of Legends and weren't even known. He quickly flipped through the book looking for a name.

S: "Position... Position 79!"

Sora turned the book until he found the Legend who held the 79th rank.

S: "So it's true..."

Sora fell back onto his bed, looking straight up at the ceiling then began laughing. Rin walked up to him and waited for an answer.

S: "Legend 79, Yuni, The Lazy Fairy, location unknown..."

Rin was shocked. She could guess what this meant.

S: "A Legend has been this close the entire time..."

Yuin had changed her name and had hidden her power for a long time now, through the memories sent to Sora he found out that she decided to lay low and start a small village of her own in secret, no one had questioned why Yuin was so powerful, but to think that she had been hiding most of her power this entire time, and that she was a Legend, even if she wasn't in the top 20 the position of a Legend was not one to be taken lightly.

S: "So Master's real name is Yuni... or... is it her fake name and her real name's Yuin?"

Sora was in an extremely excitable state right now, he had been following the Legends since childhood, to think one was this close.

S: "But then, why keep it hidden?"

Sora kept asking himself questions, constantly trying to figure out more about 'Yuni' - he did this until he fell asleep once again.

[In A Dark s.p.a.ce]

Sora woke up to find himself here.

S: "Back here again?"

He couldn't see outside like last time so he knew he wasn't in danger.

L: "Finally, you're back."

Sora turned around to see Leah, the same woman from before.

S: "What happened?"

L: "Well, you woke up, left, fell asleep, then came back."

S: "Yeah I know that, I mean what happened with the Master?"

L: "Master?"

S: "Yuni."

L: "Oh, her, yeah, she's a fun one alright - forcefully finding out for herself whether or not the power you hold is true or not. She's extremely worried for your future right now, she's a good master."

S: "Worried? About me?"

L: "Why wouldn't she be. Even if she didn't like you, the iminent threat of that Demon coming to kill you means that someone she knows will be directly related to a calamity on an extremely high level, her village may be involved in it."

S: "Well... I guess so..."

L: "Adding the fact she actually cares about you..."

S: "Yeah..."

There was a short silence.

L: "You need to get stronger. Fast."

S: "I know, but... I don't know how... "

L: "I do."

S: "How?"

L: "Take the offer"

S: "What offer?"

L: "Oh come on, she told us about it."

S: "Oh, the school..."

L: "Yep, what's keeping you here anyway?"

S: "Well, friends... and fam-"

L: "Doesn't matter."

Sora was taken aback.

S: "Huh?!"

L: "They'll all die if you don't stop that Demon anyway"

S: "Well... I've been meaning to ask something"

L: "What?"

S: "Why can't the Legends fight him off?"

L: "Pretty simple to be honest, some of them don't care enough, they'll just move to a different realm, whilst the one's who do aren't strong enough - that Demon is stronger than any Legend, the only one to rival him is his direct counterpart, that Celestial King."

S: "What?! None of the Legends?!"

L: "Nope, the full power of 'Peace and Calamity' far exceeds the current power of any of the Legends, all you have to do is reach it."

S: "This is all..."

L: "Too much? You've said this before, and you still accepted, just accept this now"

S: "I accepted it cause you guys put this power on me!"

L: "Yeah... but you still accepted it..."

Sora sighed, there was no arguing with this woman.

L: "Listen, that Azu guy, he was the one before you, he took on the duty with a smile on his face, he was just as scared as you are but he still did it. You're special, as soon as you inherited the power we were able to communicate with eachother, the stories of our lives... we all know the details from eachother now. And his story was the most terrifying out of all of us. He died the youngest too..."

Sora stayed silent.

L: "Trick the fear inside you - you're usually happy all the time anyway right? Just do that more than usual."

S: "That's different!"

L: "In what way?"

Sora's body slumped down. He couldn't win.

S: "Ugh... fine... smile on my face..."

Leah pointed at him and laughed.

L: "Now you're getting it!"

Sora stayed silent, this woman was abnormal, everything she seemed inhuman.

L: "Oh! I forgot what I came here for"

S: "Huh?"

L: "Well I didn't come here just for a motivational speech, come to think of it... it wasn't even a motivational speech, I just told you about someone else telling me a story..."

Leah began muttering to herself, after realising she had been muttering for a while she snapped out of it.

L: "Well, the real reason I came here is to give you something. Consider it a gift from all of us."

Leah walked towards Sora and put a finger on his forehead, a bright light appeared at the tip of her finger before quickly dissipating. Sora didn't feel any different though and didn't know what he was just given.

L: "There you go. That's it, you can go now."

S: "Huh? But I don't feel any different."

L: "I never said you would."

S: "Huh?"

L: "Go on now, you have something important to do now right?"

Sora remembered.

S: "Oh no! I forgot! What time is it?!"

L: "I don't know. Don't really check."

S: "How do I wake up?!"

L: "What do you mean?"

S: "Well- You guy's never really-"

Sora's body shot up from his bed.

S: "-Told me how to get out!!! Huh?"

Sora looked down to see Rin, who was looking back at him in confusion, this had been a weird night for Rin, this just added more to the confusion.

Sora looked outside and the Sun was barely coming up, he instantly felt relieved as he sat down on the chair on his desk, seeing that the book he opened still on the same page, he smiled and closed the book, putting it back in his drawer. After a short silence he stood up and stretched his body out.

S: "Well, the big fight's today Rin, are you ready?!"

Rin jumped up onto Sora's shoulder and rubbed up against his cheek.

S: "Hehe, looks like you are, let's get there early, might as well go for an early run!"

Sora left his house early to do some laps around the village to warm up for the fight, he had too much dumped on him at once, he wasn't doing this to trick the fear inside him like Azu just yet, he couldn't do that just yet, he was doing this more as a distraction, and it was working, his excitement for the fight eventually drowned out the responsibilities.

S: "We're winning this fight Rin! Let's show em just how strong we are together!"

Rin let out a comfortable purr.

Sora ran around the village once more, with a smile on his face.