Suikoden VII

Chapter Five: Part Four

Note: I'm currently obsessed with Hello Kitty Island Adventure. 🤣

It's a little early in the story, but I'll be taking requests for bath scenes. If there's any characters you want to see conversations for, if their conversation is not already planned I will add it to the list.

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Chapter Five: Part Four

Astraea opened her eyes, and she was stunned to see a massive hole in her ceiling, revealing the black void of the night sky. She blinked rapidly and sat up. W-What happened?!

But it was then that she noticed her surrounding were black and white once more. Her bedroom was dilapidated and falling apart, but it was void of color and...warmth. She hugged her arms and closed her eyes. "I'm dreaming," she whispered aloud.

"So you saw what happened to my brother?"

Astraea's eyes snapped open and she jerked her head towards the window. Luc was standing there facing towards the window, looking out at what was undoubtedly a wide expense of white and black. His hands were in his pockets and his expression grim. Astraea swung her legs over the side of her bed but she didn't stand up. "...You came back?" she asked quietly.

"It's as I said before; I am tied to the True Wind Rune. It will draw me back to it if it wants to. It must have been disturbed by what was revealed in that memory for it to call me back."

Astraea swallowed thickly. "...The man in the coffin. The previous wielder of the Shining Rune. You said...he was your brother?"

"Yakushimaru," Luc said, turning to face her. "He was born to wield the Shining Rune. Just as I was born to wield the True Wind Rune."

"His body...he couldn't move. I only saw his eyes move."

"Yes," Luc said quietly, ducking his head. "They took his legs, but that was not enough to fully subjugate him to the will of the Holy Kingdom. They inflicted a condition upon him called "locked-in syndrome". With locked-in syndrome, your body is fully paralyzed except for eye movement. You cannot move at all except to look around with your eyes, and to blink. But your mind is fully intact; you are aware that you cannot move at all. It was the surest way to control Yakushimaru; freezing his body so he could not escape, but also keeping him alive just enough to maintain the True Rune attached to his hand. A perfect puppet to produce wealth for Harmonia."

Astraea pressed a hand to her throat. "That's...I-I've never heard anything so horrible in my life! H-How did the True Rune not heal him?!"

Luc smiled thinly. "Because his condition was crafted for his body. True Runes are powers of creation, but they are not Sword and Shield. Even they have limits to their power. That is how that boy who wields the Rune of Restoration still has mangled fingers. That is how people who wield True Runes still die.

"That is why Yakushimaru begged your friend for death. That is why he wanted to die. I was only so lucky that I was made to be a weapon; they needed me whole to use the True Wind Rune. For the Shining Rune...a living flesh sac was enough."

"A-And the babies," Astraea sputtered, shaking her head. "W-What the hell was that?!"

"They are not babies," Luc told her. "They are constructs. They were not conceived from a sperm fusing with an egg. They were created directly from High Priest Hikusaak's own body. In the Kingdom, they call the process "cloning". The babies are not individual people; they are replicas of Hikusaak himself." He paused for a moment before continuing. "It's curious though that one of the clones created had blonde hair. Hikusaak is not blonde. This may be a sign of the deterioration of the technology used, or a deterioration of Hikusaak himself. I supposed it doesn't matter in the long run. Most of those "babies" will not survive long outside of their incubators. That is why so many are created at a time."