Author's Preface
Vera flinched as a rough hand shoved at her.
She was in a twisting corridor in some corner of Lastlight. Her hair and clothes tidy, but her face in a disheveled mess as two men in cloaks tugged her through an alley.
One wore a feathered cloak while the others was ragged and torn, patches sewn on to fit his overwhelming size. He had to be almost three meters tall.
Vera gulped down a quiet tear as she compiled all her thoughts.
'I'm here again.'
Once again, she was back at the start. For the third time, she was now certain. Certain that everything she saw, everything she felt had happened...Is going to happen.
The brooding man tugged once more causing Vera to topple over and scrape her knees.
Dian grabbed onto Theron's wrist. His grip tight as his voice cut through the hulking man's ears.
"Dear Theron...What did I say about roughing around?"
Theron gazed into Dian's hood, his voice faltering.
"I...Sorry Dian."
Using this sudden opportunity Vera slipped through their grip, running in the opposite direction as they yelled and chased for her in kind.
Cutting through corridors, tossing barrels and debris behind her to slow them down even a little bit, Vera ran forward. Her breath heaving and her amber eyes stained with regret as she inevitably faced a dead end.
Was this all she was capable of?
Steering these two away from Cairo. At least then he wouldn't die like he had the previous two times. But even still...Was this all?
Dian caught up first, his voice gentle.
"Honey, I'm sorry for my brutish friend. I can't believe he'd hurt such a cute little girl."
Vera was almost certain by now. It had to be him. The thing that killed Cairo...
——————————————
Cairo held onto his left eye. The aching pain surviving as a source of respite in this unfamiliar place. He was surrounded completely by corridors that seemed to only leave to more narrow alleyways. Each twisting and folding onto each other.
"The hell am I?"
His groggy memories were all swirling in a fuzzy constant pain that ached every time he paid it any attention. As well as a sinking dreadful feeling stuck inside the pit of abdomen.
He traced the cauterized scar of his last fight for a moment. Grimacing from the fresh pain.
Gritting his teeth, Cairo beat his head with his palm, trudging down the alley. Until a voice stopped him.
"Been a while since I've seen you breathing, Stain."
Turning around, a hooded figure was leaned up against a brick wall. A white wire slightly peering through her cloak as she sipped on a waterskin through a straw. No mouth in sight. Instead the straw simply disappeared into the dark wisps of the hood.
Cairo clicked his tongue.
"I know ya?"
Yuna took a couple steps forward.
"Don't tell me you forgot about me...Though we only met once when you were still at the academy."
She paused before continuing.
"Back before you went crazy."
"You one of those sorry nepo bitches?"
The princess reached into her cloak, Cairo's hands hovering towards the kunais in his waist pouch. However, all she brought out a second waterskin, throwing it to the one-eyed man as she continued speaking.
"Easy, Stain...You're thirsty aren't you. It's a new flavor, nothing you'd get down here."
She stopped, sitting down on a crate, slowly sipping on her drink as Cairo caught the bottle.
The one-eyed shinobi stared at the bottle in his hands. His mouth watering from the lack of a good quality drink in a while. For a second he thought, wondering if this was a trap.
But his pride overtook his wariness and Cairo began chugging the alcohol. Who cares, even if it was a trap he could just burn the girl.
However, as he was half-way through the bottle he spat out what was in his mouth.
Before him, Yuna had taken off her cloak, two white buds connected by a white wire stuck in her ears. Her dark blue almost-black hair resting inside the dark wisps of the cloak.
His lips twisting into a grin as his eye fell onto the purple lilly complimenting the silver piercings on Yuna's ears.
"You weed...The hell'd you do..."
Cairo's voice trailed off as his vision began to blur.
Then within the next second, he blinked once more. Surrounded by nothing but black.
He twisted his hands, the cuffs around his hands creaking and clanging as he continuously beat it against the cold stone floor under him. Drips of waters constantly interrupting each second of silence he felt.
Cairo cracked his neck in the dark damp dungeon.
"I'll burn that fuckin weed off yer head."
——————————————
Naren yawned a couple times as he wondered just how he had gotten to where he was. He was standing in the middle of a series of corridors. All without any real destination or purpose other than to confuse him.
"Just how'd I get here?"
The weird name of Yuna had popped into his mind suddenly, causing a pulsating of pain. And before he knew it, he was here. In an alley in the middle of nowhere.
Naren grimaced as he reached over to his bad shoulder, stretching it out and rolling it in a circle. Though, he was amazed. The pain that'd been bothering him was miraculously gone.
'Oh yeah. Yuna fixed it.'
Naren caught himself mid thought. Yuna fixed it?
He blinked scratching his hair. When did that happen? He couldn't remember a Yuna, let alone her fixing his shoulder.
"Ughh...Why the hell is this so complicated. My head hurts."
His ears were hurting as is from whatever foreign language all those people constantly spoke. Whispers and laughters meshing together completely putting a plug into his poor ears.
Yet on top of that he had migrains now too.
If he'd known this he would've never agreed to help Shrimpy to begin with.
He paused again. Who was Shrimpy?
Just then the stray sounds of a human language broke through his plugged ears. An accentric voice that spoke close by.
Naren followed suit, hoping it would lead to some discovery. He had to figure out why everything felt so hazy after all. Despite the nagging feeling that he should just surrender himself to Atlas, he couldn't help but feel there was something more to it.
Finally, he peered through a corner.
Two cloaked figures standing in an alley.
His face immediately dropped to a look of annoyance. What a cliche. He really followed to find a couple creeps. What a waste of time.
Naren was just about to leave when he glanced at the girl in between.
A little girl with tidy black hair that reached her shoulders. Her sailor uniform almost spotless as if she spent more time maintaining that then anything else.
"Shrimpy?"