The place Aonaka found himself on was... weird. It was as if the word “Dreamy” itself became a substance, became something real and was now here, under his feet. The ground, sky, everything around looked the same, colors on a creamy beige background that reminded him of coffee and fruits. There was nothing underneath him, but there was dreamy substance. A thick liquid of some shorts if you think too much about it, rippling with each of Aonakas steps. The smell of different flavors, one of coffee, banana and strawberry, the smell of Panthello wasn’t away from the scene either. There was also emotion in the air, a different kind of emotion that Aonaka had never felt before. Something like the breeze once would feel if they were under layers of cozy, furry blankets and now felt a refreshing cold after they came up from underneath them. But that was just the physical way to talk about this feeling. In its essence, the feeling itself was similar to what the Judgment tarot card meant. Resurrection. Being born again. It was funny how this immensely big and mystical concept was now squeezed through a needle hole and had turned into this one, singular feeling. Aonaka, was in a dream. A hum could be heard around him as well, something like a choir, but also something just natural, a wind entering from a small hole in a stone, causing a whistle that would determine emotions of everyone around. That sort of stuff.

He took a few steps on the quote and quote water, he knew with his whole soul that what on the ground -there wasn’t even a ground but whatever- wasn’t water. The ripples his steps created would break the light they were getting, making the colorful blobs of light all around reflect differently on the waters surface for a brief moment. It was as if walking on a liquefied rainbow, changing color with every step. He felt weirdly comfortable where he was, in the end, this place was scary, it was endless, unknown and unnatural but despite all these big three scary facts, Aonaka was walking his head high, as if he knew where he was going. He didn’t but then he did. He tried to control the dream, tried to create some playing cards but couldn’t, which was weird since this was HIS dream... or was it? This was the moment the beast master realized that something different was going on. If this truly was natural dream like any other and he had realized he was dreaming, then controlling was no problem.

When the magical feeling around him increased he knew what was going on. The spirit, riverside spirit was there again, despite his form changed, Aonaka knew who he was. A cyan eyed kid, holding an umbrella looking at Aonaka with sad eyes but a smile. “It’s not raining,” Aonaka said after a shared silence that felt too long. The kid responded: “I know.”

It had appeared that the spirit was going to talk at his own leisure pace. Aonaka sighed and went next to the kid and sat down. The liquid on the ground wouldn’t make him wet, no trace would be left if he was to stand up and leave. In a way, the liquid had felt quite nice, Aonaka couldn’t help but wave his hand inside it, it felt like high pressured water, not water, it couldn’t feel like water since his hand wasn’t getting wet. “That’s called Veil,” the spirit spoke. “It’s my magic, but I cannot explain it to you, it’s forbidden,” Aonaka would tilt his head at the response. Forbidden? By whom? Who was so high up there that the spirit would have to follow the orders of, someone dead clinging to life using mana as a thanks from the environment had a master? The silver haired mage gaped open his mouth but no words would come out. There was a reason he was here after all, delaying the subject more was of no need, just like leaving without learning what was going to happen. “Do tell,” Aonaka began to spoke as he raised himself from the ground. “You told me about a danger and an old friend that was so dear. Is this about that?” he asked the spirit. The riverside spirit looked visibly upset. “Perhaps... so...” he said and looked at Aonaka with his cyan eyes sharpened. “Come now, Arthur Joseph, for I need you.”

The dream was over there and then as Aonaka raised up from his bed with a low scream, his throat was in a bind as if there was a knot there. His mouth so dry that breathing would hurt. He fell of his bed in a hurry, waking up his mammal beast companion on the process who was visibly worried. It was still night and the mage was flapping on the ground like no tomorrow. Aonaka finally managed to drag himself to his kitchen and held the counter frames to get up. His hand was shaking. Why? Was it that name? Arthur Joseph... Joseph... he had heard that name before. The spirit called him those names, did the spirit know his name? How? How could it? This mission had gotten personal now as Aonaka needed answers. He chucked quite a bit of water down the throat to ease the dryness and quench his thirst. A gallon went down his throat, it was that bad. Afterwards, he would quickly realize that he needed to change. He jumped into the shower for five minutes fast and then changed his clothes. The streets were quiet and lonely, whistling to Panthello to come before he left through the door, Aonaka quickly walked down the apartment building steps and was met with the outside world once more. He checked his pockets to make sure he had everything, made sure that he had locked his house door and that Panthello was here, okay. He pet his mammal for this quiet moment in their hectic moment.

Aonaka had to go and meet with Inspector Nilan first, Dacol has said that that was the case. The beast master mage took out a small crumpled paper out of his pocket to check the address and started to walk to his destination with a brisk pace. He didn’t know what he would tell Inspector Nilan, but he supposed that he was going to see it when he gets there. The title of Inspector was quite intimidating, but he digressed, assumption was quite the horrible thing, something that he would even deem the eighth cardinal sin. He scrolled around the streets, turning and walking, occasionally stopping to check where he is and use the guidance address paper to do so. The moon shone brilliantly over him as his steps quickened.

When he met Inspector Nilan, his worried faded away, Nilan was an exceptionally nice man who always had a smile on him, but there was sadness underlying there, Aonaka knew. “I’ve got a message from the spirit, Inspector. It’s calling for me, for us,” Aonaka reported and waited for the Inspector to say something. The Inspector, Nilan has been told beforehand about his comings and wasn’t surprised to see Aonaka. He nodded and quickly left the other mages side to prepare. When he returned, he was in a battle gear, radiating a sense of glory and relief. He was someone Aonaka trusted immediately and was glad that he wasn’t alone.

As they walked through the streets with small talk, Panthello held within Aonakas arms, a weird tugging feeling overwhelmed Aonaka, right at where his heart is. Something was pulling, making him feel anxious but relieved at the same time. Answers for questions that never ever been there before. What was it that was dragging the boy to the spirit? Perhaps they were connected via a point in space that no one, not even them could ever know. For that was the story of a time that was still far, far away. That wasn’t the point however, the feeling came from the names. Arthur Joseph.

Arthur Joseph...

Xenon to him, there were many things he was going to learn in this mission. The moonlit gave them a path to walk from as they embraced the night towards the river.

When they arrived at the river, Aonaka saw the spirit, completely in a human form like in his dream, the boy was on his knees, looking like he was in pain. When their eyes met, the world felt like it stopped before the spirit screamed “Look out!” and pointed at the river, on which a form of darkness was spiraling. Shadowy substance, like smoke was coming out of the river, slowly coming together like atoms to breathe a new life into existence, or perhaps allow and old one to be reborn. Nilan was also ready and stepped forwards taking a lance out that glowed yellow. “Panthello... let’s go boy,” Aonaka mumbled when he realized that the shadow was now humanoid and was ready to attack.

The tainted spirit was fast, too fast. Before he knew what was going on, Aonaka had found himself sliding on the ground with a sizzling feeling on his arms, magic attacks, this was real, this was real combat, this was happening. He had to look at Panthello to remain his calm. “Boomburst!” Aonaka screamed and Panthello flew high up, trying to find a position where it could attack. But the spirit was fast, too fast in fact that the bat didn’t know what to do and didn’t want to miss. Aonaka bit his lips to focus and had an idea suddenly. “Inspector, please take his attention,” Aonaka said. Nilan spun his lance and created several bullets of light aimed towards the tainted one, trapping it in a small volley of bullets. Panthello saw the opportunity and dived right in using his nocturnal speed and flapped his wings to create a blunt force that smashed into the dark one, making it cry out a ethereal scream. The spirit wasn’t done yet however and turned to Panthello and started doing rapid attacks of magic. Gray balls, lasers and more covered the view. “Panthello!!”Aonaka screamed and ran towards his bat, who seemed a little hurt and quickly cast his healing spells on the companion. That was more than enough as the small blunt wounds quickly disappeared. “Go boy, let’s do this.” It was almost as if Panthello smiled, the spirit was fast so Panthello gathered mana from within and screamed at the spirit, growling, a magical debuff that caused the spirit to slow down. Seeing this as a chance, Aonaka signalled Panthello and Nilan for one more attack. Nilan enchanted his lance and jumped to cause a holy slash as Panthello used boomburst once more. The spirit couldn’t escape both attacks, and he was finally done.

The spirit changed form back to it’s normal self finally and the spirit was pleased. As Aonaka tended to Panthello’s injuries that were pretty much gone, the spirit was rewarding Nilan, who got to see his wife once again.

And then the spirit called Aonaka to his side and Aonaka at beside him. When the spirit touched his hand, Aonaka saw a flash and memories poured in.

The family he knew, wasn’t his real family at all. He was adopted after being lost on a horrible train accident that took his real family away from him. He saw far back, far far back when he was just a baby, held by a white haired woman, his hair color, calling to Aonaka, but not with that name, using his real name.

“Arthur Joseph Sokolov, my son...”

The rest of the voices were inaudible as Aonaka came back to himself, to reality. The spirits were gone and Nilan was waiting for the remembrance to end. When it did, Arthur rose from the ground and looked at the moon. He knew his name now and his surname. That meant that he could find connections? A place? These things were never ever important before but now in this unknown world of Fiore where he had mostly seen evil, those three words, Arthur, Joseph and Sokolov were like the moon on the sky itself.

Hope.

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