The Chronicles of Sorataki: Lucid Wish

Chapter 33: From dream & memory

Natalie

"This nightmare ends here!" Allisa shouted.

The light that emanated from Natalie's guardian subsided bringing into view the goddess chosen herself with a young girl latched onto her back. It was Clare Natalie realized, but her body was barely visible. She looked more like a phantom-like her guardian but even more transparent.

Orba's expression darkened, his posture uncertain at the sight of them. Then he smirked ever so slightly.

"You assimilated the guardian as your own," he said.

"You overlooked Dullahan's say in all of this," Allisa said.

"Did I now?" Orba said. He sounded generally intrigued now.

"So busy trying to bend Clare's mind into your way of thinking you forgot she'd had a protector long before we came here!" Tapping the golden chest plate with her palm she continued.

"So the guardian decided to abandon the ones it's bonded for your stupid goal,"

"Dullahan lent me his power because our goals align, nobody is being abandoned here!"

Natalie made it to Allisa's side as she talked with Orba. Allisa acknowledged her with a brine grin but turned back to the conversation before Natalie could react, what distracted her was the look of Clare piggybacked on Allisa.

All around, storm clouds began to gather. Cracks from up high emerge, creating large holes in the sky, through the cracks came an otherworldly blue glow. It was a convincing display of banishing the darkness, of how much rule Allisa now had over his mind's world but despite this, however, Orba chuckled to himself drawing all their attention.

"Imperative to have gained such strength from 'borrowing' a guardian's power. But is that not why B65 is fading?" Orba asked.

Baffled, Allisa looked back around at Clare only to be shocked by what she saw.

"Clare?!" Allisa shouted.

This response made Natalie's mouth go dry. Panting faintly and barely seeming to hold her head up high Clare looked like she was about to faint.

"I'm fine," Clare pushed out.

She tried to put on a tough act but it was not convincing. It was not that she was hardly there but that she was continually getting more invisible. She'd had minutes at best. Allisa who had now placed her down looked for words. Desperate Natalie looked at her guardian.

"Isn't there nothing you can do?!" she asked, her guardian did not answer.

Orba just chuckled harder to himself as nodded as if in understanding.

"Yes, I see it so clearly now, she told you that you would not fade-that there is a way if you just followed her and saw this though. And despite everything you knew, everything I taught you, you dared to believe in a lie?"

"There were no lies!" Allisa shouted.

"Words of the deff," Orba said waving his hand as if shooing a pesky fly. "Too eager to be a hero that they don't check themselves. I bet she'd tried to warn you and you did not listen," he said.

That seems to strike a nerve with Allisa leaving her dumbfounded.

She needs to accept it, Her guardian said finally, their eyes looking down at Clare with pity.

"Accept what?" Allisa asked, blinking away her despair.

Something hard and heavy befell them like suddenly being douched by a waterfall. It was Orba's unyielding will. It was his anger and disbelief Natalie could feel it. It caught her off of grade in their own moment of doubt and like breathing against a torrent of wind she was finding it hard to regain control of her own faculties.