Back at the castle in Nora in the middle of the night, Yenish was sitting in a chair in her bed chambers with Kyoki sitting on the floor. She gives him a picture of Eris, Marianna, and Noah. Kyoki looks at the picture of the three.

“I want you to focus on the girl in the middle, Kyoki.” Yenish instructs.

Kyoki focuses on Eris.

“That girl is your target. Her name is Eris Gadison. She is the next person that will try to overthrow us and take our throne. In order to keep our throne, I will give you two options: Capture her and keep her for yourself or kill her by any means necessary. Do you understand?”

Kyoki did not pay attention to Yenish’s words. He stares at the picture looking at Eris’ facial features in detail. Looking at her sincere smile, her uncertain looking green eyes, and her auburn color hair. Kyoki did not feel the need to kill Eris, to him, Eris was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, and he wanted to know her, so capturing her was going to be his focus.

Yenish snaps her fingers. “Kyoki!”

Kyoki quickly looks up at Yenish.

“Do. You. Understand?” She repeats sternly.

“Yes, Mother.” Kyoki replies.

“Good. Take the picture with you if you like. Go to bed. We have things to do tomorrow.”

Kyoki stands from the floor and leaves Yenish’s bed chambers for her to go to sleep. As Kyoki left, more thoughts were going through Yenish’s head as she lay in her bed.

‘Hm. They must have a secret base somewhere close, a few of their soldiers are still running around, and Oreads is in their grasp. I’m sure with Kyoki’s powers, they will bend and break to my power in the coming days.’

She chuckles evilly as she thought to herself.

~

As Kyoki walks into his room, he lays on his bed as he looks at the picture of Eris especially. “Eris Gadison.”

He repeats her name to the point he starts going to sleep, placing the picture upon his chest, and holding it close to his heart.

. . . . .

Next morning at the underground sanctuary, Senuo, Landon, Yurich, Xianchi, and Oma were in the dining hall planning on how to get Satori back.

“Okay, Senuo.” Landon speaks. “What’s your plan?”

“Well,” Senuo responds. “I just need to know how many bandits are at the temple and however many men, because I need as many men as possible to take them on. But I need someone to do reconnaissance.”

“I could do that for you.” Xianchi suggests.

“Okay. Can you do it today?”

“Sure.”

“Alright, that part is settled. That way, Landon, I’ll be able to tell you how many men I’ll need.”

“Alright.” Landon replies.

“Did you need anyone to join you?” Oma asks.

“That would be best, but I would need two of you to accompany me just in case.” Senuo replies. “Again, until we see how the numbers are in Satori.”

“Then I’ll make sure to come back soon.” Xianchi states.

Xianchi stands up from her seat to get ready to go, but is stopped by Yurich.

“Please, don’t think you’re going by yourself, Chi.” He comments.

“You’re coming too?”

Yurich smirks. “Obviously.”

“Okay.” Senuo speaks. “Whenever you two come back and tell us, everything will be set.”

Now decided, Xianchi and Yurich leave out the dining hall and out the front door of the sanctuary.

. . .

In the training cave, Eris and Noah were sparring together against Kai while Marianna was using Jika she learned from Senuo against Kai. Marianna uses Jika to push Kai away from the two, but he dodges Marianna’s attack and shoves Noah and Eris away from him. As Kai observes the three, Noah was visibly exhausted as he sits down and puts down his sword indicating he was yielding. Eris was still standing along with Marianna who was slightly fatigued and struggling to stand.

“Marianna,” He speaks. “I recommend that you don’t use your powers too much since you’re about to tire. Use it only when you need to.”

Marianna nods in agreement.

Kai looks to Eris and sees she was not tired in the slightest. “Okay. I want you both to hit me with all you got.”

. . . . .

Outside in the land of Momo, Elienta, Xianchi and Yurich were looking at the ruins of the city with Yurich sighing in disappointment.

“What’s the matter, Yurich?” Xianchi asks.

“Every time I keep seeing Momo in this state, I am reminded that my homeland looks like this.” Yurich responds in a low heated tone. “Let alone Pamola and Momo are my responsibility. Now, they’re both in ruins.”

Xianchi sees the disappointment in Yurich’s eyes which makes her want to cheer him up.

“Well,” She starts. “Tanz is my responsibility and I know Alpine isn’t any better. But I know I will get them back. When I do, I’m going to make them better than they were before. So, don’t let this upset you. We’ll get our lands back eventually.”

Yurich looks at her and smiles. “Xianchi. Ever the encouraging one.”

Xianchi smiles at him, then looks ahead to the horizon. “Let’s get our reconnaissance started.”

Yurich nods in agreement and the two begin running and ready to summon their beasts.

“Ovi!”

A giant orange red bird with wings made of flames appears from the sky and flies next to Xianchi to mount.

“Lena!”

A platinum-colored bird appears from the sunlight and flies next to Yurich to mount. Both the safekeeps’ beasts begin to lift into the air.

“Onward to Satori!” Xianchi shouts.

Ovi and Lena begin to fly in the direction of Satori.

. . . . .

Back in the cave, Kai and Eris were still sparring with each other while Noah and Marianna were on the sideline exhausted. Eris was blocking Kai’s attack, then she quickly counter attacks him which makes him dodge out of the way to Eris’ right side. Kai goes to attack Eris again which she parries him, catching Kai off guard. She quickly charges at Kai and lands on top of him which makes lose his grip on his sword. Eris sits up and holds her naginata to his neck.

“Do you yield?” She asks.

Kai looks to Eris and nods with a smirk.

As Eris moves her weapon away and starts to get off of him, Kai instantly disarms Eris by taking the naginata out of her hands and throwing it out of reach. He moves Eris off him and pins her to the ground. Noah and Marianna run over and brandish their weapons at Kai.

“Get off her, Kai!” Noah shouts angrily.

“Let her go now!” Marianna yells.

Kai ignores them and looks in the eyes of Eris who was surprised by his actions.

“Always remember:” He informs. “The enemy will never yield. The options you have is to incapacitate them, or kill them.”

Those words reverberated in Eris’ mind and she made sure she remembered that. She then starts to feel embarrassed that Kai was still on top of her.

“Um,” She speaks. “Do you think it would be best if you’d get off of me?”

Hearing this makes Kai look up and see Noah and Marianna with their weapons pointed at him.

“Brother!”

Kai’s attention turns to the stairs where he sees Furia.

“Unacceptable!” She berates. “Please unhand and get off of her!”

Kai gets off Eris and helps her to her feet while Noah and Marianna lower their weapons.

“Training is done for the day.” He states in a low tone. “You three can do what you want.”

He walks away from the trio and goes upstairs passing Furia. Furia glares at Kai, then calmly looks back to the trio.

“Well,” She speaks. “I hope you all had an interesting training session. I apologize for my brother’s actions. I hope he didn’t scare you, Eris.”

“He surprised me is all.” Eris explains. “He advised me on what the enemy could do if they didn’t yield.”

“He shouldn’t have done it that way!” Marianna retorts. “It was inappropriate of him to do that!”

“Yeah,” Noah agrees. “Especially to someone that’s a queen to be!”

“Listen! I’m fine. I understand Kai was out of line with his actions, but we need to understand that the enemy won’t take it easy on us and he’s right about that. There will be a time that they will surprise us, and we’d have to be ready. If they looked downed, expect them to get back up.”

Noah, Marianna, and Furia were surprised at Eris’ remark along with defending Kai. Eris then looks at Furia. “I’ve been looking to speak to you, Queen Furia.”

Furia sees the look on Eris’ face that noted that wanted to speak to Furia privately. “Follow me.”

Eris follows Furia out of the cave while Noah and Marianna leave the cave afterwards.

. . . . .

In Satori, Xianchi and Yurich were on a hilltop overlooking the temple. They look at the flow of bandits going in and out and see Kabu coming out of the temple with a dozen bandits behind him with one of them talking to him.

~

“What’s the problem?” Kabu asks the bandit.

“Report from Queen Yenish.” The bandit answers. “She is sending Prince Kyoki to accompany you here.”

Kabu sighs in annoyance. “And why is she sending him here?”

“She has a feeling you might need his help. She said she felt a disturbance here early this morning.”

“A disturbance? I’m not sure what type of disturbance she’s talking about.”

~

Xianchi and Yurich hear the conversation. They look up to the sky and they see the sun slowly moving from where it was during the morning.

“You dense idiot.” Yurich comments. “You really don’t see the sun is too far over and it isn’t 12:00 L yet? We haven’t been here for that long.”

“Blissful ignorance.” Xianchi responds. “He doesn’t understand the time lapse that happens here. Being prideful, arrogant, and ignorant is his downfall.”

“Also, I never heard of a person named Kyoki before.”

“Hmm. Maybe he just came into her regime. Do you think Kai would’ve known about this Kyoki person?”

“I don’t think so. If so, he would’ve told us. Wait a minute. Did he say Prince?”

“Yes, he did. Yenish has a son?”

They were surprised about this revelation and continued to observe the temple below.

~

“Fine.” Kabu responds. “When is the prince coming?”

“Tomorrow morning, sir.” The bandit replies.

Kabu grumbles and crosses his arms. “That’s fine with me. I can’t believe she would send him here.”

~

Xianchi and Yurich see Kabu go back in the temple with a dozen soldiers staying outside and guarding the perimeter of the temple. Moments later, they see another band of bandits dragging a Satorian resident by the arms while another bandit goes inside the temple to get Kabu. Yurich and Xianchi see the civilian twitch due to the effects of Satori’s withering heart. The two see Kabu come back out with more bandits following him out in front to the male civilian.

~

“Well. What do we have here?” Kabu asks.

“We found this man sneaking around the weapons building.” A bandit replies.

“Oh. Is that so?”

Kabu walks toward the captive; arms crossed. “What were you doing snooping around our property?”

“First off,” The man starts. “I wasn’t snooping around here. I was coming here to send a letter telling you that we Satorians are suffering.”

Kabu rolls his eyes and scoffs. “I don’t do letters or complaints, peasant. You should know that by now. Also, you need to understand that you should tell the queen when she comes here.”

“Many of us have done that and we received no answer.” The man counters. “But this is your responsibility. You’re inside this temple. You’re the safekeep. Listen, we’ve been having small time lapses here.”

“What time lapses are you talking about?”

“Look up at the sky.”

Kabu looks to the sky and sees the sun’s position was far over Satori than where it is supposed to be.

“It’s still morning.” The man informs. “The sun is supposed to pass over at 12:00 L. It’s 9:00 S. You didn’t notice?”

Kabu looks back at the man. “Not really. What about it?”

“What do you mean what about it?! If you don’t do anything about it, the time fluxes here will alter our age. Yours too.”

“What do you mean alter our age?”

The civilian becomes annoyed by Kabu’s ignorance. “How dense are you?! If you don’t do anything about the flux as soon as possible, the people here will age dramatically in some way or another. You also will, Satorian or not!”

Kabu became offended by the man calling him dense and punches the man in the face out of anger. Blood comes out of the man’s mouth, making him spit it out. As Kabu smirks, the man starts to laugh, making Kabu’s smirk fade.

“You incompetent pathetic man.” The man belittles. “Your tainted flaws will become your demise. You don’t know a damn thing about being a safekeep.”

“Oh. And you do?” Kabu counters. “I don’t see you in this temple.”

“You do not have the power just because you’re in the temple. You know nothing of the title “Safekeep”. Senuo Mika is the true Safekeep of Time in Satori. You are a false safekeep along with the others and your so called “Queen”!”

Now infuriated, Kabu starts beating the man out of rage. Xianchi and Yurich were angered by this as they watched from afar. Some of the bandits had to stop Kabu from beating the man to death.

“GET YOUR DAMN HANDS OFF OF ME!!!” Kabu shouts angrily.

“Boss, that’s enough!” A bandit exclaims. “Let us take him to the dungeon.”

Kabu decides to calm down and pushes the bandits off him and looks at the man he beat and bruised.

“Fine.” He speaks. “Take him to the dungeon. I’m done wasting my time with this trash anyway.”

Kabu then walks away back inside the temple while two of the bandits drag the civilian inside the temple.

~

Yurich and Xianchi were angered by what they witnessed.

“That ingrate has to go.” Xianchi states.

“Hm. No doubt about that, Chi.” Yurich agrees. “Let’s go back and tell Senuo about this.”

Yurich and Xianchi decide to leave Satori on the backs of Lena and Ovi.

. . . . .

Outside of the sanctuary, Eris and Furia were sitting in the cave at the spring’s edge.

“What would you like to talk to me about?” Furia asks.

“I wanted to talk about how it is to be queen.” Eris replies. “Now, I know the three rules we’re supposed to follow: No marriage, no children, and stay pure. Do you believe in following those rules?”

Furia thinks for a moment. “Well, it is part of the tradition. They are our three cardinal rules to follow. As queen, I have to live up to those rules along with providing for the people of Elem.”

“So, you do believe in those rules?”

“I do.”

“Who were the people who made those rules?”

“The monks that follow the will of Alpha.”

“Are those rules in Alpha’s words or theirs?”

Furia’s becomes uncertain when Eris asks that question.

“Well,” Furia speaks. “Due to them being the ones who christen us as queen, they tell us those are the rules.”

“Well, have you ever thought of making your own rules? Actually, doing what you want to do as queen?”

Furia was wondering why Eris was asking these questions. She also did not know how to answer them, but did so to the best of her knowledge.

“Well,” She speaks again. “Being queen has its responsibilities, along with being humble and true to the people and keeping up appearances. That’s what I’ve been doing for 4 years since I am also a royal. During then, the monks never shunned me.”

Eris sighs becoming annoyed. She feels that Furia was avoiding the question. “You really don’t think it’s possible to do your job and make yourself happy at the same time?” She asks.

“What do you mean?”