Sky Asterio: Sealed

Within the darkness of my own mind, I was left with a feeling of numbness that pulsed along my entire body. I was familiar with the idea of fading into another world because of what The First Trial had taught me, but what I wasn't ready for was the next world to be nothing but blackness. I couldn't see around me... yet I could hear what the others were talking about.

"What? That's it? He was sealed that easily?"

"Don't overthink it. It's a temporary fix to our issue. Sky is forbidden from the world as long as you live, Oberon," Cynthia told Dani's father. 

I was still astonished to see the man who caused me such a sufferable life, and how regular he looked. I had always imagined him to look like a demon in my mind.

As I thought more and more about him, I was able to visualize something within the blackened landscape I found myself in with Golden Strands. I envisioned a scene that allowed me to coherently understand my surroundings and rebirthed the world with the Strands around me. I played myself in the mockery of the stances of the people I defended myself against.

"And how did that work again? You said something and I forgot it," Oberon recited. The puppet I made to mimic him moved in a specific way I assumed would be realistic to the real world.

"Sky Asterio is climbing the rankings, and it was at this point I was able to see within my eye that he would be most vulnerable. The information he learned about you, Oberon, stunted his growth and clouded his judgment after he spent so long wondering about you, and of all people, you ended up being Dani's father. It all became too much and I used one of two charges of Iridescent Strands to restrict the flow of his body and trap him in a simple box composed of Red Strands. I overwrote his swarming Golden Strands with my Iridescent and was able to underpower them and restrict their growth, hence his weakness and why he's not out of that orb yet," Cynthia explained to Oberon.

I was impressed. I knew my sister had become strong as well, but to think she was able to use Iridescent Strands at the same point in time that I could. Mom was barely able to wield them, but when she did, it took a lot out of her. I bet Cynthia would be exhausted by now, even if she was preparing to use them on me in such a unique way.

The old me would've been afraid of an occurrence like this one, but I couldn't help but smile it off. Knowing I had been sealed and eventually would be unleashed gave me a little bit of hope, at the very least, but it was thanks to Faith that I could stay so soundly and calm while trapped. I almost felt cocky about it.

Knowing that thirteen people ganged up on me just to trap me because they all knew they couldn't kill me... I mean, I couldn't see an outcome where the victim wouldn't get a little cocky. After all, I am Sky Asterio.

"Strands are so weird... you can restrict his growth with Iridescent Strands?"

"Of course I can. We're from the same bloodline, and our Strands can't combine. So, what happens when I surround the parts of his body that produce the Strands? They can't move. They're forced to rotate from within. Producing Nothing repeatedly," Cynthia explained.

Oh... that makes a whole lot of sense now. I had been wondering how she was able to cut me off, but surrounding me with Iridescent Strands and blocking the rest was... ingenious. I clapped inside of the outlined portrait of my mind, and the small chatter from the outside instantly stopped.

"Did he just clap?" Oberon asked Cynthia. 

I couldn't help but smile, knowing they could hear me.

"A few times, yes!" I said, shouting toward the top of my perceivable reality. I could feel the gazes grow stronger from the people around me. I became happier by the second.

"Cynthia, isn't he supposed to be unconscious? How can he even respond to us?!" Oberon shouted out. His concern was growing. 

"Yes... he is... how are you awake?"

"I mean, it's a little dark in here, but nothing compared to what I'm used to. So, you'll seal me in here, then what? Sign your will as word gets out? I'm hardly the one you have to worry about here, big sister," 

While I spoke to Cynthia, I could feel her grow more and more frustrated with the circumstances. She became short-tempered.

"It doesn't matter, this orb is unshakable and isn't allowed to open until I say so. Antagonize all you want--" Cynthia was cut off by a sudden surge of power leaking from my body.

Cynthia explained that she cut off my strands and encased the outershell of my body in Iridescent Strands so I couldn't escape the clutches of her orb. What she didn't explain was the inside of my body. Something she couldn't perceive with those eyes is what I could practice on now. With the clouded reality I was trapped in within the orb, I amplified the mass of Strands within my body, and increased my weight as far as I could.

The orb started to drag through her pocket, tearing up her leg and slamming into the road beneath her. The entire thing cracked underneath the mass of impact from the now-weighted orb I made. I crashed through the ground and ended up moving another two hundred feet underneath the Earth before I felt any resistance. 

I sat, peacefully, in the orb while Cynthia and the others looked down the hole that was created from the Strands I amplified. All thirteen people jumped down the hole and surrounded me once more. 

"Son of a bitch! You are going to be a pain in the ass at every turn, aren't you?!" Cynthia started to get desperate, waiving her voice from her cocky undertone.

"That's what little siblings are supposed to do, aren't they?" I asked her with an audible grin. I stretched my words out and pouted at the end to play the part and egg her on, "Don't you have better Strands than I do? Why don't you just pick me up?"