~Notes~
Before anyone asks, yes, yes I intentionally try to place my extras episodes in inconvenient times for the reader, thus cruelly lengthening their period of suspense. Torture me, for I’ve been a bad author.

Episode 25 The Race for the Third Phoneme Begins!

Kunai smiles, glancing up at the sunny, cloudless sky while Sasha and Ryuu continue to bicker with the two Palace Guards. ‘Well, I guess this is it. We finally know where the Third Phoneme is. I’m gonna see my sister soon…’

[Two Days Later]

As the murky dim blackness of the night is eroded by the feeble light of a singly lit candle, the incessant scratching of a quill over a piece of parchment rises in the air, repeatedly scratching across the tough surface of the parchment.

‘It’s been weeks since the initial arrival of that letter-carrier from Meridean. Though in my living memory the King has only visited me just once, this herald of the King informs us all that he has my best interest in mind.

‘With that said, it seems that there are traitors seeking to take me away. Bishop Calburn’s ordered dozens of Church Guards to guard the temples, and it has been difficult for me to leave my quarters and wander the wilderness, like I used to.

‘I’ve been informed that the leader of the Myougun, an empire allied with ours, is about to come and take me away for fear of the traitors discovering my location and kidnapping me first. So my bags have been packed and with each passing day we await the Myougun’s arrival…’

A tiny carriage drawn by six horses slowly glides through the emptiness and timelessness of the ghostly uninhabited plains in eastern Night World. The carriage is moderately decorated, with no particularly becoming charm to it, but noble and dignified all the same.

The interior of the carriage is lit by a single candle, running low, as if telling the tale of a long, unknown journey through the abyss. The interiors of the carriage is occupied by only two people, sitting in opposite ends on plush velvet seats soft as silk.

The first one, apparently also of higher age and dignity, sits nonchalantly sipping a cup of tea, as if such journeys are mundane and bothersome in his daily life. He is dressed richly, though not too elaborately, suggesting a rank of respectable class.

He shakes the dark hair out of his noble eyes, sighing ever so slightly. He lowers his teacup, staring over its rim at his companion sitting opposite him.

His companion, in high contrast with the nobility and dignity of the first adventurer, is dressed in rags. Over his arms and across his forehead are long strips of white bandages, veiling his extremely hemorrhaged features.

“Come now,” the first nobleman says to his companion, “remove those bandages. They are useless. I treated you weeks ago. You are making fun of my ability to heal. Those wounds should have healed at longest two days after I’d applied those bandages.”

The companion remains silent, but proceeds to tug at a loose strip of bandage surrounding his face, and with a gentle pull at it, the bandages come apart, revealing a pair of jet black eyes without glimmer, sitting under a mass of grizzled black hair.

“Hmm,” the nobleman hums, staring fixedly at his comrade. He shifts the candle sitting idly by their sides, so that its light fully illuminates the face of the companion. “In just the right light, those Paradoxical features of yours are quite handsome. Shuriken.”

Shuriken removes the bandages around his arms, and casts them to the floor of the carriage, still without uttering a sound. His companion, the nobleman, laughs. “Now, now, Shuriken. There is no need to litter my handsome carriage.”

As the candle begins to flicker, giving off the last rays of its short-lived life, Shuriken’s eyes, dark as they are, begin to reflect a demonically red gleam.

“It is good, Shuriken, that you are so strong. You easily contain the powers of your Paradox companion within you. In time you will be able to release that power at will, and you will become powerful, more so than that girl Ayame.”

Shuriken still does not reply, but continues to stubbornly stare out the window into the empty night outside. The nobleman, in the meantime, smirks. “Yes, you wonder if you are so powerful, why don’t I use you instead of seeking the strength of that stubborn Kunai as my apprentice? You may be strong, Shuriken, but I have no doubt in my mind that he has more power than you do. It all lies locked in that claw of his.”

“Lord Kimura.” Shuriken finally snaps, losing his stubborn composure.

Lord Kimura only returns with a light smirk, smiling maliciously to himself. “Yes, Shuriken?”

“I do not know for what reasons you so foolishly place your hopes on that boy, but he will not come. He will not come and fight for us.”

“Believe what you will, Shuriken.”

A slight haze of ethereal light hovers over the misty, forgotten plains far to the eastern regions of the Night World. Off in the distance the forsaken whistle of a train blows, rising with an eerie loneliness above the desolate wastelands surrounding the area for miles around.

“Ryuu!” Ivy cries, panting heavily. Ryuu leads the front of the pack, with Otis clinging onto his shoulder, while Ayame follows behind him, leading Kunai and Ivy, side by side, and Sasha bringing up the rear.

“Ryuu,” Ivy cries again, “can we stop? We’ve been moving for hours!”

Ryuu glances back over his shoulder, as the five of them hurry onward, running at top speed courtesy of Kunai’s Haste. “We can’t do that,” he mutters over the blowing wind, “it’s already been two days since we left Meridean, and there’s still miles left to go before we get there!”

“Yeah, but Ryuu, this is insane!” Ayame retorts, “We haven’t stopped for a rest since yesterday afternoon! It’s been at least over twenty-four since then…you haven’t so much as given us a bathroom break!”

“You can pee when we get there,” Ryuu replies simply.

“Ryuu…” Ayame mutters exasperatedly.

“I have to admit,” Kunai joins in, “this is a bit overkill, Ryuu. We’re all pretty much exhausted. It won’t hurt us if we just stop for a few minutes to catch our breaths.”

“No,” Ryuu replies immediately, “it won’t hurt us, but think about it. We’ve been journeying at top speed for the last two days, but something hasn’t happened that was supposed to happen yet…can you figure out what it is?”

Ayame glances perplexedly at Ryuu. “What do you mean, Ryuu?”

“We haven’t seen Lord Kimura yet,” Ryuu answers, without so much as turning to glance at Ayame. “Taking that into consideration, then it means we’re still behind him.”

“Y-You’re right…” Kunai mutters in response.

Off in the distance, another hollowed, ghostly whistle of a passing train rings again. The sound of its steam engines chugging past hovers slightly in the air for several moments, like the vibration of a tone not yet dissipated.

In that instant, a powerful stroke of black lightning crashes amongst the group, causing them all to yell out in fear and surprise. The entire group, Kunai, Ryuu, Ivy, Ayame, and Sasha, skid to a stop halted by an immense wall of black cloud surrounding them.

“What is this?” Ivy whispers into the silence.

“It’s—” Kunai begins. A wave of sparkling energy reaches out and gropes at him, as if seeking to tear into his very flesh. Kunai attempts to deflect the beam with a Steely, but it merely absorbs it, and continues on its way, hungry for more.

Ryuu leaps in between Kunai and the burst of black cloud just in time, repelling it with an expert stroke of his sword. The cloud catches on fire, and is sent recoiling back.

“Go on,” a familiar voice rings then, and the black cloud freezes in its attacks, as if actually listening to the words of its master. “I will finish this.”

At its apparent master’s beckoning, the cloud dissipates, shrinking away until it is no more then a wisp of black cloud, and disappears, blown away by the wind. In its place stands only one person—Arayu.

“Arayu,” Ryuu growls, “have you come to fight? Now is not the time.”

“Unfortunately,” Arayu replies, “now is definitely the time. I, unlike you, am in no hurry. I already have comrades running ahead of me. You have naught.”

“Then,” Ryuu answers impatiently, “I’ll cut you down and kill you! We don’t have time to waste around with you!” Ryuu lashes out immediately without bothering to wait for a response, much to Otis’s astonishment.

“Whoa! Hey!” Otis cries, tears flying from his tiny eyeballs as he clings onto Ryuu’s shoulder, “Take into consideration your tiny snail friends, Redheaded Gorillaaa!”

Ignoring Otis, Ryuu merely continues onward, coming to a stop with a charged vertical slash. Arayu merely sidesteps the attack, allowing Ryuu to cut nothing but air. Ryuu turns ninety degrees to face Arayu again with a second round of attack, but Arayu once again dodges the attack.

With a whirl of wind and confusion, Arayu leaps back, and fires a stream of golden arrows through the air. They glide past over the heads of Kunai, Ryuu, Ivy, Ayame, and Sasha, and instead collide with a pillar of large boulders stacked precariously over a mound of dirt behind them.

A loud rush and rumble of dirt and boulders tumbles down from above, falling onto the floor with an earsplitting crash. As the dust settles from the collapse of the hill, a huge wall of boulders packed tightly shut with mounds of dirt is revealed, separating Kunai and Ivy from Ryuu, Ayame, and Sasha.

“Ryuu!” Kunai cries over the noise of the settling rocks, coughing slightly as the dirt enters his throat. “Ryuu! Can you guys hear me?”

“Yeah,” Ryuu growls back, his voice muffled through the solid wall of rock between them. “I can hear you all right. But fat chance that’s gonna help us much. This wall here looks pretty tough. We’ll never break through it in time now.”

“Is Arayu still there?” Kunai asks over the wall, the empty hills around them now silent and peaceful once more.

“Nope,” Ayame mutters from the other end, “this was probably that sorry ass’s plan from the beginning. He wasn’t aiming to kill us; that would take too much time. He was aiming to separate us, which is just as bad.”

Ivy places a hand on the wall, feeling the smooth clumps of dirt packed into the narrow spaces between the contrastingly coarse walls of stone. “I…I think I can teleport through this.”

“You can?” Kunai asks, turning to Ivy.

“That won’t help us much,” Ryuu answers discouragingly, “Kunai can’t teleport. And I doubt he’ll be able to jump over this wall, even with his Haste.”

“Then what should we do?” Sasha asks, turning to Ryuu and Ayame on the other side. “We can’t just abandon them like this.”

“Ivy,” Ayame mutters, “you should probably stay with Kunai for now. You guys keep each other company. This wall’s enormous, and the way this plain is constructed, we’ll waste too much time and effort trying to either move through it or around it.”

“Then what do we do?” Kunai asks, pounding the solid, immovable wall with his fist. “Dammit! How could we just let him do this to us?!”

“Calm down,” Ryuu warns, “the worst thing to do is panic with the situation we’re in right now. We don’t have time to be doing this. We really should get moving.”

“So what are you suggesting, Ryuu?” Ayame retorts, turning to Ryuu. “That we split up and try to meet again later?”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Ryuu answers. “The way things are now, me, Ayame, and Sasha are on the further side, meaning the path isn’t blocked for us to get there. But for Kunai and Ivy, there’s this wall in the way. The three of us should go on ahead. Kunai, you guys can catch up with us later, just find a way around this wall. We haven’t much time to help you guys out, sorry.”

“I understand,” Kunai murmurs, “you guys hurry up and keep going. If you can get there in time, stall Lord Kimura as long as you can, and we’ll get there when we can.”

“All right,” Ryuu’s voice replies from across the wall. The sound of clinking metal can be faintly heard through the miniscule air holes within the wall. “We’re leaving now.”

“Okay,” Kunai responds, “don’t wait up for us. Keep going and don’t look back. We’ll be fine.”

“See you soon,” Ayame’s voice murmurs back, and the barely audible sound of footsteps signifies the departure of Ryuu, Ayame, and Sasha.

Meanwhile, Kunai turns to Ivy. “Okay. We’re gonna have to get past this wall somehow.”

“How do we do that?” Ivy asks, “I can get across by myself, but what about you?”

“We’re just gonna have to go around. It’ll lose us a couple hours at least, but we haven’t got any other choice. Hopefully Ryuu and the others will be able to handle things themselves until we get there to help out.” Kunai scans the dark silhouettes of mountainous shapes surrounding them.

“Damn Arayu!” he curses, kicking the wall.

“Keep Hasting us, Ayame,” Ryuu mutters to Ayame as he, Ayame, and Sasha continue speeding on their way to The End of the World.

“This is as fast as I can Haste us,” Ayame replies, slightly distressed. “If it weren’t for that brief skirmish with Arayu, we’d be there by now…”

“I know…” Ryuu growls back, his eyes narrowing in bitterness. “But we can’t help that anymore. We’re—”

“Look!” Sasha interrupts suddenly, gesturing ahead in front of them.

Ryuu, Ayame, and Sasha immediately slow to a stop, awed by the scene in front of them. At their immediate vicinity, stand several ramshackle dunes of murky sand and dirt, only a few feet taller than the average person. However, past these pathetic hills the land immediately dips downward into small valley surrounded by clusters of hills.

Within this valley stands a miniature city, the size of a small town. The darkened silhouettes of buildings can be seen grouped together, some with faint traces of candlelight gleaming in their square windows. Overhead starlight shines down, the sky a faint periwinkle blue, as if hinting at a possible dawn.

However, the most remarkable sight of all stands at the far end of the valley, directly across from Ryuu, Ayame, and Sasha, its foot nearly on an even level with theirs.

A large stone monument stands unmoving in the dark moonlight, with ancient characters engraved onto its rough and jagged surface. This monument stands in the shape of a large archway, several hundred feet high at least. At the center of it, on the ground, is an altar with a podium standing at its center.

Through the empty space under the arch, the faint outlines of enormous wooden doors, ghostly almost, flash in and out of sight, as if composed of a dreamlike substance, leaving one in doubt whether its existence was real or not. To add to the scene of awe, every once in a while the faint creaking of the doors can be heard, drifted forward by the wind.

“What…what in the world is that thing?” Ayame gasps, astounded by the sheer enormity of ancientness of the archway before them.

“That’s—that’s…” Sasha stutters, “Those are the Gates of Hell…”

Next Time: Phoneme Series Extra #2

Ivy: Hey everybody! Next time, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for…the revealing of the Third Phoneme!

Otis: But first! We have a Phoneme Series Extra…

Ryuu: Boo.

Otis: No one asked for your opinion, Redheaded Gorilla!

Phoneme Series Extra #2 coming soon!