Kronos (Book One)

Reset Part 2

"A final parting gift!"

The ship gets pushed out to sea by the gentle west wind. Takashi sinks to his knees. He touches his left side and finds no holes and no wound. His body trembles from the sensation of being stabbed and trampled. The tote is not stained with his blood.

Odysseus lays a hand on his shoulder. He turns abruptly to him.

"Are you alright?"

He latches onto Odysseus tightly with heavy tears flowing down his face. "Tell me this is real. That you're alive."

Odysseus is puzzled, but he feels like he just went through something horrible. He hugs him back.

"I'm here. I'm here", he speaks gently. Odysseus lets him cry to get it out of his system. Taki sees the rest of the crew that are concerned for him. He successfully jumped back through time. It worked. His plan worked.

Time passes by and he is somewhat calm. His eyes no longer stare off into the distance.

"What happened to you?"

"I need to explain something first. I somehow have the power of time."

The Greek men are confused.

"I don't know how I got it, but it happened before I met all of you. A Cyclops was going to hit me with his club and I froze it and the sheep in their respective places. I ran away since I didn't have the time to question that weird event."

He thinks about mentioning the 6-day skip by fast forwarding, but they wouldn't understand it.

"When Karisa fell from the tree, I couldn't have caught her without stopping time itself. That's how I was able to get to her in time despite not being close enough. And I just jumped back from the future."

The crew murmurs about what he said. They couldn't wrap their heads around what Takashi was saying.

"I'm telling the truth. We were using the bag of winds to hop our way home and we were forced between taking the narrow channel where Scylla and Charybdis were or going around the mountains."

Odysseus and some of the crew's ears perk up upon hearing those names. "W-what? But they can't be there. That's impossible!"

"Wait. What are those names?"

"They were monsters Takashi warned some of us about. We were not supposed to encounter those two at any point because we were going to use the winds wisely. Somehow things have changed. Let him finish."

"We took the long way around and we-"

That memory was too haunting to retell. Fear seizes his body up.

"We didn't make it?", the king interjects.

Takashi tries to stop himself from crying and nods his head. "I was the only survivor."

Fear begins to spread throughout the crew.

"But we took the safer route. How did all of us die?", Damian asks.

"Poseidon stopped us."

Odysseus tries to be strong for his men, but hearing that rattles him to his core. The crew are just more puzzled and afraid. There's a pause of silence as everyone processes what Takashi had witnessed.

"That seems impossible. No human can wield such a power unless....Are you a demigod?" Galen asks him while shifting the topic.

"No. I'm human just like you."

"Takashi, you speak with such conviction, but how can you do any of that time stuff?"

"I'm going to bring that bag of winds down without moving from this spot."