4 Body Thief

"Where is the hospital?" Aries asked Sunrei that was barely holding on to his consciousness.

"Your house healers… can heal us…" he gave Aries a couple of bracelets with various ornaments.

The woven lace was similar to the one that Pieffer had used to bring him at that place but the decoration dangling on each of the bracelet were different. Aside from the ones with a lion ornament, there were also some laces with pendants shaped like pear, rose, scorpion, fish, bull, jar, and ram.

He grabbed the one with a ram's head pendant and showed it at Sunrei, "Is this the one?"

Unfortunately for all of them, Sunrei had already fainted and could not give him an answer.

Damn you, Sunrei!

He dropped the unconscious man on the floor then carefully placed Pieffer on the bed so that he could check the pocket of her overcoat.

He immediately found the bracelets and it was the same set as to the ones Sunrei had given him. But Aries could only put his faith in Pieffer.

He pocketed all the bracelets except for the one with a ram's head pendant then he placed the siblings back on his shoulders.

He had chosen the ram's head simply because of the horns at both sides of his head.

He could only hope that he had made the right choice.

"So, it is true. You are still alive."

The voice came from a man that entered the already opened entrance. He was a tall and lean man, probably a few inches taller than Aries. He had his long dark blue hair neatly ponytailed at the back of his head. He was wearing a dark blue overcoat, pants with the same color, and black knee-length boots. His eyes also had a dark shade of blue and dangerously glaring at Aries.

"How many times do I have to kill you, Aries Del Luna?"

At the right hand of the dangerous man, a sword with a golden blade had materialized. It had a hilt that looked like the sun with six rays.

"Who are you?" Aries should have shattered the bracelet by that time, but curiosity got the best of him.

"Stop pretending that you don't recognize me," the dangerous man shifted his gaze towards Sunrei and stared as if he wanted to devour the unconscious man. "Give me back my body."

"Are you trying to say that this is your body?" Aries laughed as he pointed at the unconscious man in his right shoulder. "Are you insane?"

"I told you to stop that innocent act!" the dangerous man raised his golden sword and pointed it at Aries. "Only I can wield this golden sword! I am Sunrei! And that body belongs to me!"

"You must have gone crazy," Aries was about to throw the bracelet at the ground but stopped when the golden blade suddenly touched the skin of his neck.

"I was told that you have problems with your memories," a wicked smile curved on the lips of the man claiming to be the real Sunrei, "It must be true or, like me and that man you think is Sunrei, you are also a body thief?"

"I don't know what you are talking about," Aries quickly hopped away and hurled Sunrei at the dangerous man.

It must be true that the newly-arrived stranger desperately wanted to take Pieffer's sibling because he quickly dropped his golden sword just to catch Sunrei.

Aries took that opportunity to shatter the pendant at the floor and disappear from that dangerous place together with Pieffer.

When the blinding light that swallowed him had faded, Aries found himself in a familiar place. That was the same room where he had awakened earlier. Pieffer was still in his shoulder. She did not vanish like what happened earlier.

He had made the right choice. It was the ram's head pendant.

As soon as Aries placed Pieffer at the bed, a door opened and a young man in a white overcoat had entered.

"Sir Aries!" the man bowed low in front of him and went on speaking, "I rushed in here as soon as I saw the transportation light from your window."

"Are you a… house healer?" Aries refrained from saying the word doctor because Pieffer and Sunrei kept on saying the term house healer.

The young man lifted his head and looked taken aback by the question. Tears filled his eyes as he answered, "Yes, Sir Aries!"

"Can you heal Pieffer?"

The young man nodded, wiped the tears in his eyes, and walked towards the bed where Pieffer was lying. She was still unconscious. Sweat covered her face and pain was evident in her creasing forehead.

The young man in white overcoat placed his palms over her wounds. After a few seconds, those palms emitted a faint green light that magically mended the stab wounds of Pieffer. And within five minutes, her shoulders looked as if it had not been scathed at all.

Aries was amazed and he wondered why Pieffer had been fully mended while his torso and the back of his head were still covered with bandages.

"Sir Aries, should we try to heal your wounds again?" the healer turned to him as if his thoughts had been heard.

"No," Aries shook his head. "My wounds will heal in time. How about Pieffer? Will she be okay?"

"Yes, Sir Aries," the young man bowed to him once more. "I will take my leave. You can call me if you are hurting somewhere. I will try my best to heal it."

"What is your name?"

"Paolo!" the young man cried then sprinted out of the room.

"What is wrong with him?" Aries raised an eyebrow then leaned on the bedside table with a lingering sensation of discomfort.

And to make him feel worse, he heard Pieffer whispering in her sleep.

Sunrei… brother… please… don't leave…

He knew how important Sunrei was to Pieffer. Even if it means death, she would find and save her only brother.

'Saving him is our top priority… I cannot do it alone… I need your help, Aries.'

'I need your help, Aries.'

Her voice echoed annoyingly in his mind.

"Why do I have to help him?!" Aries asked out loud as he reached for the bracelets in his pocket.

He picked the one with the lion's head, similar to the ornament that Pieffer had shattered earlier.

"I don't want to save him!" Aries tossed the bracelet on the floor and grabbed another bracelet from his pocket. The one with the ram's head. He gripped it tight and glanced at Pieffer. "I am only doing this for you!" 

As soon as he had shattered the lion's head pendant, he was instantly transported back to that ominous house where he had left Sunrei.

Fortunately for Aries, the blonde prince and the dangerous man were still in the room. They were wrestling against each other. The dangerous man had the upper hand because Sunrei was already gravely wounded. The former was continuously punching the latter on the face while furiously screaming.

"Return my body!!!"

"This is my body!!!" Sunrei yelled back.

Both were so focused with each other that they failed to notice the blinding light that brought back Aries.

Despite his hatred, Aries grabbed the blonde prince by his collar and kicked the dangerous man away.

"Find another body," he said to the man rolling on the floor then he quickly shattered the ram's head pendant with his boots.

Aries dropped Sunrei on the couch as soon as the blinding light that transported them back to safety had vanished.

"I thought you were unconscious," Aries sat on the windowsill while glaring suspiciously at the blonde prince.

"I was. But when that man tried to push me out of... out of my body… I woke up," Sunrei leaned on the backrest with his eyes closed.

"Sir Aries!" Paolo entered the room and quickly understood what he had to do. He quietly healed Sunrei.

It only took a few minutes for the wounds to be completely mended.

"Thank you for healing me, Paolo."

The sincerity in the voice of Sunrei annoyed Aries.

"Should I tell Miko to come here?"

"No need, Paolo" Sunrei answered. "You should rest. You've been mending our wounds since yesterday."

"It is my pleasure to serve all of you, Crown Prince Sunrei!" Paolo politely replied before leaving the room.

"That man who is claiming this body…"

"I don't care who he is," Aries had quickly interrupted. "Pieffer wants to save you. That is the only reason I rescued you. If she believes that you are her brother, then stay in that body and continue being her brother. If that man returns, then I will kill him."

"Who will you kill?" Pieffer quietly asked as she sat up.

"Before you worry about other people, you should worry about yourself," Aries seriously advised.

"I am careful most of the time," Pieffer smiled then asked again, "Who will you kill?"

"Merrick," Sunrei answered, surprising Pieffer.

"You remembered Merrick?" there was a flicker of hope in her eyes that instantly died as soon as Aries replied.

"No."

"He showed up in the House of the Lion," Sunrei explained.

"Again? He nearly died the last time he came with us," Pieffer seemed to be worrying about that dangerous man.

"Merrick almost killed your brother. You should be angry," Aries frowned.

"He is a friend's relative," Pieffer answered with a sad smile.

"Of course," Aries rolled his eyes. "You still want to save him even if he is a bad person. Do you want to die that badly?" he let out a deep breath and glanced at the red-orange sky. "Well, we are dead. So, I don't think that we can die all over again. But still…" he glanced back at Pieffer and seriously told her, "You made me worry."

Pieffer stared at him as if he was the one who had a serious problem and not her.

"What?" he snapped at her.

"Are you still thinking that this is the afterlife?" Pieffer asked with deep concern in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," Aries gently took Pieffer's hands. "You are in Hell because of me."

Sunrei laughed and Pieffer stifled a smile.

"Do you want to die?" Aries glared at Sunrei.

"This is not Hell," Pieffer seriously told Aries. "Serestral might appear chaotic enough to be mistaken as Hell but I can assure you that this is not the netherworld and you are not dead."

Aries only stared at Pieffer with disbelief.

"What proof do you want?" Sunrei asked.

"You stabbed me to death," Aries shot a deadly glare at Sunrei.

"That's not me. I swear," Sunrei raised his right hand.

Aries glanced at Pieffer and told her, "You… are dead. I… I saw you die."

"As my brother had said, that is not me."

Aries quickly let go of her hands and asked, "If you are not Pieffer Celestine, then who are you?"

"I am Pieffer Celestine."

Aries only stared at her with sheer confusion.

"We probably have the same name and appearance but the people you know are different from us. I think… those people you've met… they are from an alternate dimension."

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