Lied and Xanthus stared at each other for several long seconds… Lied remembered everything he went through, from his parents’ death to him meeting the red hooded figure.

“After that day, I thought about your words” Lied said.

“So?” Xanthus said.

“Here’s my answer: I won’t run away.”

Xanthus smiled a fragmented smile as he liked his straightforward answer.

“Facing hardships head on and embracing what fate has in store for us… that's the only way to go on living. To those who imprison themselves in the misfortune of time, merely a sharp pain shall be left. They will never get out from the abyss of grief.”

“I need to ask something. I know you, don’t I?”

“Oh?”

“And all these people who suddenly popped into my life, even this Martyr guy...”

“Martyr?”

“Answer me!”

“Yes” Xanthus looked up at the sky.

“I see. The truth is, I don’t know my real parents. Not just them... I don’t remember anything from my first eight years of life. Who am I? Who was that woman? What is the ‘Adam’s Apple’? Also...” the red hooded figure came to his mind, Lied took a single step forward “…who is ‘he’? I must get my memories back in order to understand who I really am!”

“Are you sure? Retrieving those memories and uncovering the past might lead you to great suffering, to endless agony. We could say that, at the end of your venture, just an inevitable tragedy awaits you. Do you still wish to open the door of times that were best forgotten?”

“Even so, that is still my destiny” Lied clenched his right fist.

“…Heh.”

“Huh?”

“No, it’s nothing…”

The boy’s statement made a sleeping nostalgia awaken in the hooded figure… The teenager then felt an abrupt urge to sleep, as he was under hypnosis again.

“My name is Xanthus. Have a nice trip.”

Lied dozed off like a bolt from the blue... Xanthus lifted the lad up and laid him on his left shoulder. He took off his hood, revealing a pretty face with cyan blue eyes and blonde hair.

“It has taken eight years, but I finally kept our promise. I leave the rest to you... Zaccharias.”

A silhouette lurked in the darkness, his golden eyes so familiar…  Xanthus turned to Zechariah, an event to be told later on...

…

Lied woke up finding himself floating across some sort of pathway which connected worlds apart. That’s when the showy tiny blue dots surrounded him. Lied chuckled.

“You will show me the way, won’t you? To wherever I should go.”

…

Lied landed steady. The bluish marbles scattered over the place and turned into human beings who joined dozens of people in a straight line, all of them pale-faced, as if they weren’t alive. A couple of guards stood by along a third person writing behind a counter.

“Where... am I?”

Lied looked at himself, his body almost transparent resembling those weird people.

“What the...?”

“Hey, you! What are you doing? Get in line!” one of the guards noticed Lied.

“Are you deaf?! Come here now!” the other guard said.

Lied wavered and ran away, the guards went immediately after him.

“Dammit...! This can’t be a dream! What is this place? What are those people? And more importantly, what happened to my body?”

He watched worriedly his own body. His movements were fairly different from before too. Urban buildings lied ahead, they mustn't have been used in a long while judging by its decaying condition, perhaps hundreds of years...

Lied gazed at the men as they narrowed the distance in the twinkling of an eye, though he never slowed down. He stared once more at the buildings, candles shed light upon the site.

“Over here!” an unknown voice shouted.

The shout came from an alley nearby. Lied raced to the shelter wherein he rested.

“That was a close call, huh?”

His savior’s identity, with golden eyes and wearing a hat, was...

“A... talking crow?”

Once again, saved by fate.

Life. Spirit. Soul. These three elements have been put to the test throughout History. Lives were born. Spirits battled. Souls expired. In this dead world, where lives, spirits and its souls reposed, a new battle would start.

…

An 18-year-old male sat at a desk piled high with papers, a candle in one corner and a mug in the other. There was so much paperwork that he would rather throw it away. He had forest green tousled hair and eyes, and wore formal attire.

“This feeling. Something… something’s about to happen…!”

Regarding his personality… let’s say he used to be a bit insecure.

“AND I’M SURELY NOT READY!”

[END OF CHAPTER]

[SAGA “MICTLAN” STARTS]