Distortion

Let's Go to Oaken Shield! Yay?

What...what was I running from? They were running after me....but who are they? All I could see were flames hovering over me. I was screaming for help, trying to find a place to hide.

"Come on! We're almost there!" Said a familiar voice. The person was grabbing onto my arm and we were both running from them.

But....who was that? What was that familiar voice?

But I don't know why....why was I running? I don't...know...Suddenly...I felt something grabbing me...What in the world is going on? I turned around to see what was holding me back and-

"Sotaru!"

"Fuyuki-"

"WAAAHHH!!!" Sotaru woke up in cold sweat clutching his damaged right eye. He looked around, finding himself safe in his motel room.

It was just a dream...yeah... just a dream.

He looked at his clock to see what time it was: 6:50 AM. He quickly put on his eyepatch and got out of bed.

"I should get ready now..." He forced a smile.

- Back to Soren's Perspective-

Soren wakes up in his hotel room. He looks at the clock, and it reads 7:45 AM.

"Huh. Looks like I have some time left to get ready, and eat something. I wonder if Sakura or Sotaru can let me borrow some money."

Soren sits up and stretches. Should I go and do proper morning routine stuff like hygiene? Eh. . . I guess. I forgot to take a shower last night, so I guess I should do it. Besides, I think I have time.

Entering the bathroom, Soren looks at a cheesy poster on one of the bathroom walls. "Going through a normal morning routine is great for keeping your sanity!"

"Well, thanks for the reminder. The stupid poster is giving me mental health advice. Wonder what that means."

After washing up and collecting all of his stuff, Soren slips his mother's pendant on, and exits the door, only to see Sakura walking down the hall towards the dining area.

Catching up to her, Soren asks, "Morning. Do you know whether or not Sotaru is awake yet?"

Sakura turns to him and shrugs. "I don't know. I'm not a stalker, nor do I care. Either way, he should be in the dining hall somewhere by now."

"Hey! I'm over here!"

Soren turns in the direction of the voice and finds Sotaru sitting at a nearby table.

"See? There he is. I told you." Sakura jogs over to the table, waving for Soren to come over.

When Soren reached the table, somehow Sakura had already gotten two meals and was digging into hers. She pointed at the seat, and then at Soren.

"I bought you breakfast, since I had some money left over, and you don't have money, and this guy over there didn't want to share any of his profits."

Soren's cheeks turned a bit red from embarrassment of how he couldn't do anything. It seemed like Sakura was babysitting him. Sorta. He sat down and started to eat. "So any plans on what we are doing?"

Sotaru shrugged. "I'm just following you two for fun. If I go back now, it'd be no fun."

Sakura answered, "We could go back to look for cities that are surviving. Like you said 'the minor cities need to know what has been going on'. But on the looks of it. That's not going to happen."

Soren narrowed his eyes. "How did you know about that. I never told you, and I'm pretty sure the idiot here wouldn't either. And how do you know that 'it's not going to happen?'"

"I don't. It's on the freaking news over there." Sakura pointed to a nearby screen.

"DARK BLOOD FELL? TODAY, IN DAILY NEWS, TRAVELING MERCHANTS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT ONE OF THE TOP GUILDS, DARK BLOOD HAVE FALLEN DUE TO UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES. THE TOWNS NEARBY HAVE ALSO BEEN DESTROYED. THE SURVIVORS OF THE ALLEGED "ATTACKS" HAVE REFUSED TO COMMENT ON THE SITUATION. WHO ARE THESE MYSTERIOUS ATTACKERS THAT WERE STRONG ENOUGH TO BRING THE GREAT GUILD DOWN? WILL KRISTALLHERZ AND THE OTHER GUILDS BE NEXT? IN RESPONSE TO THESE ATTACKS, SCHOOLS AND OTHER PUBLIC AREAS WILL BE CLOSED IN ORDER TO REDUCE CONFUSION."

Soren felt empty. So the guild really was gone. . . . No . . . he couldn't dwell on it. He had to get to Oaken Shield. Surely they would have some solutions to offer. But do they even have a solution? Dark Blood is completely destroyed. What can Oaken Shield do about it? Nothing they could do would help Dark Blood rise again.

"Well then, that's disappointing," Sotaru yawned.

"No school? Yes! But that's not important right now," Sakura said. "The question is, will the high and mighty guilds do anything?" Sakura said in a lightly mocking tone, "Judging from the news, the other Guilds aren't helping. It might appear that you're on your own."

"You're not helping?" Soren asked

"Of course I am. It's just that I couldn't care any less. As I see it, Dark Blood was weak. Their members joined just for the name brand, and that diluted their true strength. I saw it as I was walking through the halls."

Soren had to collect his thoughts that were in a disastrous mess. He breathed out. "Well then. I think we should go to Oaken Shield. The Guilds did make a truce with each other. So they're probably going to try to figure something out. To prevent themselves from being destroyed."

"So? We gonna go to a crap Guild? I heard Dark Blood is actually stronger than Oaken Shield. Oaken Shield is the weakest out of the four Guilds. This is going to be booring~" Sotaru complained.

Sakura seemed amused at this comment. "I like this guy, he thinks along the same lines as me."

"Then you both are a bunch of idiots."

"Right. And the reason I should care about that obvious insult made by an immature 15-year-old?" Sakura asked in the same mocking tone.

"Nee hee hee~" Sotaru snickered.

Soren sighed. Why am I stuck with two, probably insane idiots? One, who is a constant liar, the other who seems like a somewhat crazy 13-year-old. Am I the only sane person here?

"Anyways. Whether or not you two are coming, I'm going to Oaken Shield and asking them for help. Since it seems both of you don't care about this, I might as well be going alone."

Sakura looked hurt at this comment. "I never said anything about not caring at all. I just don't want to involve myself in a potentially dangerous struggle such as this. It's pretty obvious that the attackers are pretty strong since they took out Dark Blood, for as weak as they were, they still had some pretty powerful members."

Sakura, noticing the look Soren had on his face when she insulted Dark Blood, said, "Oh, and I'm sorry about Dark Blood being weak. That was a slip on my part."

"Well then, we should get going," Soren said as he got up and started to walk towards the exit. Sakura and Sotaru caught up with him, as the group exited the motel, and started on their way towards Oaken Shield's city.

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So not a lot of action in this chapter but there will be more in the next chapter.