Chapter 24: The Friendship Heard Around the World

A monitor echoed a monotonous beeping sound throughout the past three months. A hoarse and ragged sound of a breathing machine joined in in a rhythmic melody. Ae're had been through numerous surgeries to reconstruct his limbs and to replace his left eye, due to it being severely damaged past the point of recovery. After the fight with Kira, Ae're felt his entire body begin to burn away, as his inner spiritual energy and soul had also begun to dim and fade. However, because of his synthetic abilities that replicated the spiritual attributes of the Spirits, he was able to reboot his prosthetic Energy Core, and managed to shut down his life force. During the reboot, his consciousness managed to become stored inside a motherboard chip within Ae're's brain, causing his entire being to be protected and therefore absorb the immense amount of Spiritual Energy coming from the Vermilion Bird that Kira had used without realizing it.

Soon, the door to his recovery room opened and in stepped Ha'ta. Wearing a scientist lab coat and wearing his typical serious expression on his face, the disguised Wolf surveyed the young man silently. Grabbing a wheeled chair, Ha'ta sat down and looked at a folder filled with his various reports of his years of research. As he flipped through the pages of his reports, his eyes came into contact with a sudden surge of pain, causing him to accidentally shuffle his paperwork on the floor. Holding back a scream, Ha'ta immediately bit into his hand, never minding the blood that dripped from his bite wounds and discoloring the paperwork and the tiled floor.

'Damn that…Wolf!' Ha'ta cursed to himself, as he felt his body tremble from the immense pain he felt from his subconscious link to the Pure Realm. 'Why won't…you just die already?!'

'It won't be of any use.' spoke a voice that pierced the darkness like a laser of pure light.

'Ae're!'

Ha'ta looked up and saw the prince's eyes fluttering and blink away the blurriness and months worth of fatigue. Springing up from his seat, Ha'ta stepped and kicked the damaged papers out of his way to check on the recovering patient. As the adult began to remove the prince's cables, and air tubes, Ae're twitched his hands and legs to reassure himself he could move at full capacity.

"Are you alright, Your Majesty?"

'I feel better than I have been before. My father. He managed to accomplish his goal.'

"He did. Your father is very admiral."

'And Tazuna?'

"!"

Ha'ta froze at the name of which Ae're spoke. Ha'ta hadn't heard of that name before, that much he knew. However the name itself didn't matter, being the energy seemed to pass directly from the word alone. His heart rate began to accelerate at an alarming speed, as he could sense an overwhelming amount of pure spiritual energy pierce through his soul. He imagined the image of a large Arctic Wolf with nine tails made of icy blue fur.

'I've never heard of that name before! But why is my body shaking?!'

"I don't know who that is." Ha'ta spoke in an atypical uneven voice, as he turned his attention to the overhead moon that watched from outside the Institution.

"I met a kid, while I was on my assignment." Ae're recollected, his bandaged hands holding onto the freshly heated blankets that were requested by Ha'ta.

"Did you?"

"He was small and didn't appear to be as dangerous as he was."

"Was he the one who did this to you?"

Ha'ta's voice was menacing and dark with an extremely sinister undertone. His own instructions that were left for him were to protect the future ruler and to use any lethal force necessary to bring down anyone that would bring him harm. Touching his scar that managed to be obscured from visible eyes, Ha'ta stepped away from Ae're and turned to the moon again.

"I got away before he could cause further damage." Ae're answered, before noticing a piece of paper that was written by Cher.

Studying the paper, Ae're recognized the woman's gorgeous handwriting and her extremely faint yet instantly recognizable scent of jasmine and spring water. Several words popped out at him such as "tragedy" and "alchemy characteristics." Meanwhile, the further he read the report, the more he began to realize, he was reading his surgery documents! According to his document, he'd been brought into a smaller branch run by the Institution, known as the Medical Attentive Institute. From there, he'd been kept under close monitoring, due to his apparent illness and weak immune system.

'I was sick? Did Father try to heal me?' Ae're asked himself, wondering more about his past.

Sharp clangs of metal and loud crashing sounds could be heard from the base of the mountain. As Ra'ma observed the battle from her position within the Tribal Bear's cave, she realized she couldn't keep with the fight at all. The dream eating tapir creature only understood that the fight was very intense and had no clear victor. The difficulty or effectiveness of the duo's movements and which person had the advantage were far beyond her scope of knowledge.

"What a shame." spoke Dark Riku, as he saw the look of disappointment on the other Riku's determined face.

"What do you mean by 'shame?' " Riku asked, as he was breathing heavily, as he could practically feel his strength being all but completely sucked out of his Energy Core.

As it turns out, the sword wielder, nicknamed "Dark Riku", had his weapon knocked to the side. One arm was limp, while the other clutched at a wound. His face mask was ashen, yet he didn't declare his surrender. This wasn't at all surprising since the strength between the two disciples wasn't all that much different. Dark Riku seemed to even smile with sheer blackened glee at actually losing the rather short match.

'Riku!'

Riku's soul seemed to become struck with a radiance he'd never felt before. The feminine shout, akin to a loud thunderclap, reverberates through the mountain, causing buzzing in Dark Riku's ears. As if he could physically feel her presence, he knew exactly who was calling for him.

"Yoshiko!"

As he shouted, Riku had already clenched onto his sword with a tighter grasp. With a quick flash of movement, he could feel her light and confident presence and aura surrounding him, as if giving him the push needed to get himself back to where he needed to be. Riku's body was outlined in a brightly golden glow, all sense of fatigue that washed over him only moments before, had vanished. And although he couldn't physically see Yoshiko, her aura was just as good as he'd cared about to admit.

"That's impossible!" Dark Riku exclaimed, before finding himself retracing his original plan. "And yet, it's such an intriguing concept for a Wolf to rely on a lowly Human. One of such aggression and sadness. You're a magnet for such individuals such as her."

"She may be an annoying Human, but I have the right to say that she's put more faith in me than any bipedal creature in this world." Riku shot back instantly, holding up his sword at his darker side.

"Why do you think we exist, when those with the purest of hearts can have some of the darkest of paths and past? It's because we fail to accept the coexisting nature of darkness, in order to accommodate the lack of balance."

"That may be so. And may be a part of me too. I won't deny that. Nor will I deny that I'm not perfect. But if there's one thing I will deny, is to no longer have you have full control of my life!"

"There." spoke Cher, who finally managed to seal the final stitch on Tazuna's shoulder, once the microchip was removed.

After what seemed like hours of cutting and digging, and cleaning, the small half-inch long, pill shaped iron microchip was finally removed from the Arctic Wolf's shoulder. Kira had held Tazuna's hand during the entire process to the point where he could barely feel his fingers. He'd forgotten how strong Tazuna's natural grip was and this moment quickly reminded him. Shun, on the other hand, stayed close by as he lent part of his ninja wear for the Wolf to bite on, to distract him from the obvious pain he was enduring. As much as Shun was trying to look past his speculations and the rumors he'd been hearing from his fellow disciples and instructors, he wanted to understand more about their lifestyle and how their kind was able to survive so many years.

'It's true, I don't know what it's like to feel discriminated against. Or what it's like to not have anyone to trust, other than my closet friends. Yet, despite that, seeing Tazuna and his friends continue to thrive in such a hostile environment. They just might be the strongest individuals out there.' Shun thought to himself, as he continued to watch over Tazuna, who was being comforted by Kira.

"Your name is Shun, right?" Cher asked, as she began to clean her equipment.

"Shun Nakamura."

"Are you a friend of his?"

"You could say that. We haven't interacted much. As strange as it seems."

"I know this isn't within my jurisdiction to say, but I need you to keep an eye on Tazuna for me."

"You're entrusting me to him? And yet, you have yet to explain yourself as to why you're here?"

"I came here to find Tazuna. And now that I have, I have to dispose of this microchip."

"And then what? What are you going to do, once you dispose of it? Take him back to the Institution, and be hailed as a national hero?"

"!"

'How did he-?!' Cher asked, as her eyes widened with shock, as she heard Shun's words.

"The Institution are a very well known facility within the Noble families, and aren't a stranger to the scientific community too. Which means, hiring qualified doctors and nurses. But, nobody knows more about their unethical practices better than the Iron Fang."