CORE

Chapter 21 - Carnival

"You were able to survive,"

"Not that your feat was impressive,"

"He was a disappointment after all,"

"One step closer you are,"

"But the question is if you will fall on that narrow step?"

...

Hero woke up, although, not as fast as he did at other times, he took the time to let his mind recover, his head felt numb yet ultimately pressured at the same time, but it quickly faded away once he took a sharp breath of the new Area.

"What happened..?" Hero said, striking his forehead a few times, beginning to remember all that happened.

"...Save what you can?" Hero thought as he stared at the purple ground, but upon noticing that detail, he started to reminisce of Area 0, something about the platform they were on felt a lot like it, and they seemed to be within some carnival tent of sorts, purple and pink, a decent color scheme, Hero thought.

"Wait..." Hero thought, his eyes slightly widening as he stood up, looking over to his left, and there he saw Justice, laying his back on a concrete wall as his head faced upward, his right knee up and his hand resting on it while his other leg was straight down.

His face was devoid of any excitement that was there prior, only amounting to that of seriousness as he looked to be deep in thought, not even noticing Hero's awakening, his magical body looked dimmer too, was this perhaps the consequence of exhausting all his magic, or something else? Hero thought.

"Are you alright?" Hero questioned in a composed tone as he walked over to Justice, whose eyes and body noticeably turned brighter as he then looked over to Hero.

"...I suppose so, my apologies for that previous outburst," Justice said, sighing as he raised out his hand, before limply putting it back down, creating a thud on the floor.

"It was... Understandable," Hero said, taking a breather as he turned around and sat next to Justice, but that amount of power to cause a Dimensional Rift without a platform, for sure made Hero think quite a bit at that moment.

"I assume you were old friends, from what you said before he... Hm, am I right?" Hero asked, in a tone that did not seem too aggressive, nor too uninterested, for he wanted to not cause any 'reaction' once more.

"On the spot," Justice replied as he let out a smirk, letting out a compressed laughter before holding his hand on his face, as he began to remember.

"To put it shortly..." Justice said as he raised his other hand slightly in the air.

"He was my first 'Hero', and was my only true ally, until I met you, of course..." Justice remarked, before bumping his hand into Hero's chest, who looked over to Justice, in which they then put down their hand.

"So that's why he seemed so familiar, huh?" Hero said, putting and clutching his hand on his chest tightly, as he looked at his Core from within.

"...The first of me,"

"And that must be why it felt like I was dying too," Hero thought, before standing up.

"Do you wish to stay here for a while, Justice?" Hero questioned in a sincere, concerned tone, with a slight smile on his face.

"...Sure, why not, I'll know when you're in danger anyways," Justice responded, looking back at the ground as he moved his hand away from his face.

"Alright... You will need the rest anyway... I have a question though, how much time do you think it would take for you to regain all your magic?" Hero said, turning away as he was taking a look at Justice's magical aura, which was almost 90% drained from the stunt he had done in Area 4.