The Ghosts of Me

3

Makoto was still on the ground, barely able to have jumped up as Takeru did once Adel gripped his brother firmly and was gone within seconds. He had no idea what he had just seen, but he knew that he did not like it, and that it definitely bore no good for the upcoming few days. Alain was gone, and Makoto was going to be inconsolable. Takeru refused to focus on that, though, considering he could do nothing about it, and instead turned his attention towards Makoto, whose shoulder had taken a rather nasty displacement.

He helped the other upto his feet, watching the despair in Makoto's eyes. Takeru supposed he could understand just a bit, but that did not mean that they could dwell on this. They had to figure out what to do now. It was not as easy it would seem, and they had to admit what had happened to the others. He had no idea what the humans at their restaruant would do. He did not even bother to glance at them. It would be too much for him if he were to try and explain what had happened, and he did not doubt that they would want some sort of explaination. To be honest, he did not even understand what had just happened.

"What are we going to do?" Makoto whispered, distress rife in his voice. Takeru shook his head.

"I don't know, but we can't be thinking about that right now. We have to get your arm fixed before we do anything." Trying to go against Adel with an arm yanked out of socket was definitely not on the to do list. It was dangerous just going against Adel, so they needed to be as prepared as possible.

"How are we even going to get to him?" Makoto demanded as they slowly made their way back to the temple. Takeru knew that Makoto was beating himself up. All the things going through his own mind right now were likely flying through his friend's at an even faster rate. Makoto had been the one who insisted, in the beginning, before deciding maybe they should just let the outing go. Now that Alain had been taken back by his brother, he likely felt as though he were a failure. After all, Makoto had been the one who knew the brothers the best out of all of them.

"Philip was able to open the protal the first time, perhaps he can do it again."

"But Alain was not even sure how he was able to do it. It could have just been a fluke of some sort, or him being entirely overwhelmed and scared. How are we supposed to just rely on that?" Takeru sighed, this was getting them nowhere, and he knew that Makoto knew thta just as well as he did.

"We don't know how, and we don't know what caused it, but the least we can do is ask him to try to open it again. If he does manage it, then we can rush to Alain's aid, but for now we just need to figure out if he is even able to do it again."

"And if he isn't?" The question came, a slightly sarcastic feel to it.

Takeru could not answer that. If Philip couldn't open the portal again, he just had no clue how they were going to get back. Royals were the only ones able to do that themselves, and Philip was an outlier. Makoto could not do it himself, and so they were sort of fucked if Philip ended up not being able to help them.