Marks of the New Era

Chapter 2.2

Tai had gotten quite better since he reached for help but there were some things that he still needed to work on, one of these things is that he still suffered a lot from insomnia and he had nightmares quite often.

What were his nightmares about? Well, most of the time he was forced to witness either the Saigai Night or the Cheve Slaughter, usually waking up when his father got stricken down or his mother collapsed against the ground.

But there was a specific dream that had always bothered him, he seemed to be in some sort of limbo, like he was surrounded by darkness, the only thing he could hear were three words: One, declared and war, after that he either woke up or his dream transformed into one of the previously mentioned nightmares.

What did it mean?, when he told the queen about it, she said that maybe it was a mere representation of his fears, but he wasn't so sure, he had the feeling that it was something more and that his mind was warning him about it.

Those thoughts repeated over and over in his head as he wandered across the hallways of the castle, because of that, he didn't notice when someone was following him from behind.

"Brother?" He looked towards the owner of the voice and was met with a pair of crimson eyes staring at him.

"Oh, hello Takevu" He greeted her

"Why are you up this late?"

"I could ask the same thing to you"

She playfully rolled her eyes before answering "I trained until late"

"Again?, Takevu you know that isn't healthy, you need to rest" He said with a firm but gentle voice.

"I know, I know, I can't help it, keeping a track on time definitely isn't one of my virtues" She said with a chuckle.

"Even then please be careful sister, last time you trained so much you almost passed out"

"Don't worry brother, I promise I will be more careful" She reassured him. "Anyway, it's very weird seeing you up at this hour, did something happen?"

"Ah no, I was only thinking"

"Thinking? It must be something important if it's keeping you up at night"

"Well actually it's- Wait do you hear that?" He asked.

"Huh? Hear what?"

They both stayed silent for a moment and suddenly they heard... steps.

"Are those steps?", Takevu looked at her brother "Maybe our guards are doing their night shift"

"No, it's 2am, the shift starts at 3am" He had a concerned look, "Besides, I have a bad feeling about this, we should investigate"

They followed the sound of the steps which came from the main hall, before arriving they stayed behind the corner and cautiously peeked towards the hall.

Both pairs of eyes widened when they saw not one, not two, but at least 30 soldiers from Yami scattered around the area.

"Oh gosh" Takevu said in disbelief "Those are..."

"Yes they are" Tai suddenly remembered the meeting that had taken place barely the day before "It was all planed, the reunion, the reports, everything"

"Do you think they're here to kill mother?" She asked concerned.

"Not only her" Tai responded, "All of us"

They almost enter in panic when they heard one of the soldiers say "Find the royals!"

"We must protect her!" Tai was about to jump into the fight but his sister stopped him, "Takevu what- "

"We can't just go out to battle like that Tai Hikari, they'll kill us!" They needed to think of a plan, the soldiers were starting to move. "As much as I hate to admit it, we can't win this on our own"

"Go get our army, I'll buy you some time" She said while looking at him in the eyes.

Tai nodded and quickly went to get his soldiers.