A gust of wind entered the library, making loose papers and books flutter and turn.

The rainbow door to the great library had flown open, and amid the middle stood but a single gray boy with messy hair.

He was breathing heavily, looking around with wide-open eyes, searching for the girl to whom this library belonged.

But he did not need to search anymore for the girl whom his eyes were searching for, tugged at his scarf and practically dragged him inside, slamming the rainbow door behind him and throwing him down on the carpet.

“Cl-!” He exclaimed as he rolled around on the fuzzy rectangle, gazing up at the girl who had made him end up there.

She rolled up the sleeves of her shirt and turned toward him.

Han opened his mouth once more but then…

“-!”

The force of a fist colliding with his jaw made Han fall to the floor once more, spitting out a tooth in the process.

“Wah-?!” He stared at the girl whose hand was covered in the red color of his blood.

Why had she suddenly hit him?!

“Wha- what the hell are you doing!?” He exclaimed angrily, glaring at her face.

Blood was dripping from his nose and a wound where his tooth had previously been. He could not understand why she had punched him with such force, or why it had felt so personal.

But the girl looked relieved like she had gotten the reaction from him that she had wanted, something he couldn’t understand, and that was why he was shooting lightning out of his eyes.

“You are not mad anymore, I see. And your blood is still red. It looks like things have gone better than I thought they would. You have improved greatly, Han.”

“What are you talking about?!”

He glared at her.

What was she talking about? And what the hell was she thinking, punching him from out of the blue and then suddenly speaking to him in a calm attitude?

But the girl, Cloud, a girl he had known for a while now, just smiled and stretched out her hand like she was expecting him to take it.

He just stared at it angrily, wondering if he should just slap it away.

Cloud must have realized his anger, for she raised her eyebrows and then quickly explained.

“You are not mad are yoo? I was just trying to see if yoor emotions had gotten the better of yoo. It was not anything personal or anything of that sort, I am soorry if yoo took it the wrong way.”

“Then how do you explain punching me?!” He yelled angrily at her from the floor on which he was sitting.

Cloud thought for a moment before speaking once more.

“Ooh, I wanted to see if yoo would have punched me back.”

“Well, maybe I should!” He exclaimed and got up which put a surprising grin on Cloud's face, something that made him even more irritated as he raised his fist.

But he was hesitating.

Was it the right thing to do? To punch back and hurt her the way she hurt him? Would that solve the issue at hand? Meno was fighting Waonderers for him and he was going to use that time to beat up his friend? No, he couldn’t.

He felt his hand being held and when his head turned, he saw Cloudia, holding the hand he had been raising. With her other hand, she touched his lips and a faint glow of orange, a color created by red and yellow sprouted from her fingertip when she closed her eyes.

The strange feeling of being sung a lullaby was what he now felt, his emotions were calming down, and the anger and disgust he had previously felt were so weak that they could not control him now.

As his consciousness started fading he heard the last words of the two individuals.

“Yoo and I have very different methods when calming down someone. Do we not, Loyalty?”

“I only did what I had to do. Sir Han will be fine.”

“I figured since his blood is still red…”

“...”

He thought he died now, but in reality, he was not flying past the life of this Han, but rather going over the moment. A moment that he now viewed as something he had seen and not something he remembered.

“Sir Han, sir Han, are you alright?”

“What..?”

His eyes opened once more and he found himself lying on the rectangular table of Clouds Library once more.

His gaze wandered over the beautiful face before his eyes and then onto a similarly looking one sitting beside him.

“Why the heck did you punch me?!” He exclaimed, flying up but quickly regretting it.

“-!”

“Ouch-!”

“S-sorry Cloudia!” He said, patting the forehead of the girl his own had collided with.

As Cloudia healed herself, Han turned to Cloud, still embarrassed.

Cloud smiled at him, sipping her tea as she sat beside the table.

“Why hold such a grudge when yoo have no emotions left to waste?”

“What?!”

What the hell was she yapping about now?

First punching him, then making excuses, and now riddles.

“Cloud, this isn’t funny! Meno is out there fighting Waonderers and you are just wasting my time! Oh right, Meno is out there fighting… Damn it Cloud! Meno is out there fighting!”

He raised his arms and tried gesturing to her so that she would understand and stop making riddles for him when he had no time to solve them.

“Ooh, my, my, yoo seem very upset, Han. Yoo do have a reason, but no anger can I sense from yoo. Maybe yoo burnt it out fighting that state one?”

“WHAT?!”

He was furious and stressed, happy but fearing for Meno’s safety. But Cloud just sat there, calmly sipping on her tea and giving him shitty answers, something he had never agreed on.

“Ooh, calm down, calm down, as for Meno and his safety, he is right there, beside my loyalty.”

“-?”

Han turned his head and looked beside Cloudia, and much to his surprise, there stood or rather lay a tired cat.

“Meno!”

Han stretched out his arms but was soon rejected as the cat pushed him away using his small kitty paws.

“The one and only, and no way in hell that ya’re getting a hug, damn it!” He said, apparently frustrated. “Don’t ya go getting yarself in those kinda situations again, boay!”

“O- uhm sorry..!”

Han smiled nervously, after all, he had ignored the risks and come back later than he should have, which resulted in the Waonderers hunting him down.

When he thought about it, all of the times when he was going back to the library, he had fled back extra late, something that he probably should stop doing.

“It’s fine boay, just don’t come back so late, especially every third day.” Muttered Meno, giving a face that made it hard to tell what he was thinking.

“What’s so special about every third night? Is that like, the mating season for Waonderers?” He asked curiously. The sudden term of ‘every third day’ had thrown him off since it was something that had not been told to him yet, and therefore crucial information to him.

“Eh- ehm… hehe…” Meno murmured, a little embarrassed, something Cloud ultimately noticed.

“Did yoo just forget to tell him about ‘every third day’, Men0!?”

“T-that might be…”

“Yoo waste of oxygen little hairball! Cloudia, skin this son of a dam.”

“Hay! Calm down, Cloud, is it really that important?!”

“Yes! It is! With that information, he could stoop getting intoo trouble with the waonderers!”

“Well, my bad then, why don’t ya tell him all about those waonderer freaks that I killed!”

“W-what are you guys talking about?!” Han exclaimed, confused by the meaning of their words.

What were they keeping from him? What had they kept from him all this time?

Information? Information on how to evade death?

If they had not trusted him enough to give him this information, then how could he trust them? Were they going to let him struggle all alone? Laughing as he kept taking the wrong turns?

But all of his questions were answered when Cloud opened her mouth once more, turning her head towards him with a serious look.

“Yoo sees, something is going on in those gray lands, something beyond my sight, therefore, something I do not know just yet, or rather, something I am not certain of nor can be certain of without information myself.”

“What- what do you mean?” Han asked, vividly trying to see where she was going, trying to get her to give him an honest answer.

And Cloud obliged no questions asked, sharing with him the information that she had, just like always.

“The gray lands is not just a place where those children are kept, it is a farm, a farm with a shepherd.”

“The Housemaster…”

“Yes, But if that shepherd gets too old, he can not do all the work all by himself, that is why he needs help.”

“Morris…”

“Well, yes and no. That weird being is nothing but a watchdog doing whatever it is told, under complete control. But, from what I believe, this creature is not the only one under control.”

“Not the only one?!” Han exclaimed, rising from the table in a hurry.

How could this be? Another Morris? Was that the creature who had previously attacked him? A creature that was also under full control? A destructive monster without feelings?

“From what I can see, you believe there is another of those creatures?”

“Yeah, I was killed by one…”

“I do not think that is fully correct.”

“What?!” Han exclaimed once more, staring at the mysterious girl who must know way too much about this to tell him, who had seen it firsthand, that what he thought was not what was the truth.

“I believe that the creature that killed you last time may have been the same creature that watches over that place.”

“You mean… that was Morris?!”

“Yes, I do, I believe this because of the constant hostility it seems to show towards yoo. A hostility that unleashes always around the same time. First when yoo were killed in yoor sleep, then the field attack, both of them happened at precisely the same time if you think from that time resetting world’s perspective.”

Han thought over her words, analyzing her theory.

If what she was saying was true, then there was a constant threat in the gray lands that only wanted him dead, a mortal enemy. Something that wanted him dead, no matter what, this he had seen when fleeing from the castle before his inescapable death.

Whatever Morris was, it hated him for some reason, a reason that he was scared to know.

Cloud, watching him tremble a little, tried to ease his mind by continuing.

“But yoo do have the power to stop it.”

Han looked up, surprised as she said this.

How could a guy like him have the power to stop that thing?

“What? How?!”

“Through a great power of this world, a power that those gray children lack in skill, and therefore, they are way too weak to escape alone.”

“But- how? How is that possible? What do I have that they don’t, aside from memories we are the same, right?!”

Cloud smiled, gazing out the windows behind Han, through which white light was pouring in. She then opened her mouth once more, laying down a final card.

“Through the power of emotions, a power that can break this world to bits.”

Han stared at her in disbelief as he suddenly realized, for real this time. He realized that he truly knew nothing of this world, nothing except wanting to flee from it.

“The power of emootions is divided into five main feelings and then ten more, anger, sadness, happiness, disgust, and fear being the main ones, and madness, narcissism, proudness, phobia, doubt, acceptance, rage, confusion, love, and hate being the ten feelings created when combining these. And then there is neutrality when all of these emootions are the same, or too weak to be called the dominant feeling.”

Han stared at her for a moment before saying.

“Wow, that was a lot… so what does this have to do with me? Can’t the other children also feel or what?”

He was confused, if all of these emotions were so powerful they could break the world, why hadn’t any of the gray children tried using them yet?

It sounded stupid and unbelievable, yet somehow, he felt like these were all facts coming from Cloud’s mouth. Not that he doubted her or anything, only that she was not a girl who told the whole truth.

But he wouldn’t press on that issue, for he feared that she would just stop talking to him, or worse, lie.

He trusted that she was telling him the truth, and that was why he continued asking her for more details.

“It is simple really, so simple that I do not yet know why. Have yoo tried  asking?”

“How would I ask if I just now got to know what it was?!” He muttered. But Cloud just shrugged her shoulders, stating.

“I think yoo have noticed it by now. The light that emits from that weapon yoo carry so dearly.”

“My… weapon?” He took out the black knife and looked down at it for a moment and Cloud nodded.

“Yes, that blade is a blade created from a material called Facies, a material meant to be bound and used by emotions. Emotions take a color too, anger is red, sadness is blue, happiness is yellow, disgust is green, and fear is black.”

“Wow, so I have the powers of Skittles?”

Han let the joke slip as he thought over what she had told him.

The power to bind emotions using that blade, something that was within reach for him, could surely be used by him too. But how come the gray children had not used one of these yet?

But the answer to that question was almost too simple, they simply did not have access to such a blade, and probably not anything made out of Facies either.

“It seems that yoo are thinking over whether or not there could have been a way for those children to escape using this power, but as you clearly can tell, this would seem impossible. I’m going to add that it is not impossible to bend emotions without a Facies blade, but it takes training and hard work, something you can not learn in only a day.” Cloud said with a small smile, emphasizing with his trying to find a way out for all of them.

“Not only that… but how come they are always forgetting? They live in a world with those horrid creatures, monsters they can not fight if provoked, and they have no way of escaping either.” He sadly exclaimed.

There could never have been a way for the gray children to escape, not without Han that is. This was a serious crime, a crime he had to solve.

“The thing protecting them is that dog since the Inheritor always goes on his little adventures to who knows where. It is simply a day being repeated, a time loop that can not be broken from the inside.” Cloud said, adding to the layer of suffering the children must have gone through, all without knowing.

“This is where ‘every third day’ comes in. Every third day, one of the children does not go outside. And that same day, waonderers appear, can not be a coincidence, right?”

“...”

Han looked up at Cloud again.

He knew where she was getting at.

“This is not a coincidence, since it is always the same child, always. Every third day, one child does not go out, and time changes for only one day.”

“...”

“This is on purpose, this is what he wants, to make the waonderers come, so that anyone who threatens the world will be eliminated, yoo have seen this first hand, have yoo not?”

“...”

Cloud grinned as she finished her speech.

“Han, yoor death was on purpose.”

“..!”

Han stood up, angrily staring at her.

She was telling it to his face. One of the gray children was a traitor, a traitor who stayed back so that the chance of an intruder getting killed would be inevitable, and from there, no one could escape.

He did not know why they were trapped, but he wanted to save them, so this someone was his enemy.

“Who..?” He asked.

Cloud’s face became serious again as she answered.

“Sayora.”