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Keiko

It was a long time before Keiko felt strong enough to get out of bed, but once she did, she immediately dragged herself out of it. Her body was covered in a layer of sweat. She had a mild headache, and she felt off-balance, but she wanted to move. She\'d been staying in bed for too long. 

So, Keiko walked out into the halls of the palace, where she nearly crashed into a passing soldier. 

"O-Oh, excuse me," she said, but the soldier ignored her. Sighing, Keiko kept walking, making her way to the main hall. 

It seemed just as busy as it had the previous day, but Keiko did notice that there appeared to be fewer citizens. At least, there was more space between the two sides of the hall, where soldiers were walking through. 

"Hey," a voice called out to her and Keiko turned. Metsumi was walking towards her, and behind her, Keiko saw Satsuhiro, Opah, and that Luvine girl that Ash had saved. 

Keiko hadn\'t seen Caroline in a bit. She wondered if the girl was handling the change of space well. She couldn\'t imagine how it must feel to go from living in your own building to sleeping every night away in a crowd. 

"Hello," Keiko greeted her softly. 

"Glad to see you walking," Metsumi told her. "Feeling alright?" 

"Yes. A little better, anyway." 

"Good, good. Let me know if you want anything to drink, we\'ve got a few bottles of cold water that the Lord gave us. She\'s uh... Been treating us pretty well, for some reason." 

"... Hm." 

Keiko turned towards the other civilians. 

"Hey," Keiko started. "Does it seem like there are fewer people here?" 

"Yeah," Metsumi nodded. "You\'re right." 

"Why?" 

"A lot of them left the city," Metsumi informed her with a shrug. "They were escorted out by a small squad. Considering how last night went, and with Kaori being taken out of commission, I think Eliza\'s starting to feel like we might not win this." 

"... I see," Keiko noted. 

"In any case, just..." 

At that moment, the gates opened. Both women looked towards the doors, which they could see from here. Keiko\'s eyes widened. Walking in was Ash, moving with a focused stride, but she was still carrying Kaori on her back, with the blonde\'s arms wrapped around her.

Oh no... The gods didn\'t help?  Keiko wondered. 

Ash saw the two of them and walked all the way up, ignoring the looks that the people were giving her. When she reached them, Keiko saw a rare warm smile appear on the half-demon\'s face, aimed at her. 

Keiko got mixed messages from this. On one hand, Ash seemed a lot less panicked than she had been, but on the other, Kaori wasn\'t awake. 

"W-What happened?" Keiko asked, and Ash\'s smile disappeared, as her face turned more serious. 

"Uh..." Ash paused, looking away. "I\'m just gonna say it. Long story short, Kaori won\'t be waking up anytime soon," she stated and Keiko just about gasped. 

"No..." Keiko muttered. 

"But," Ash quickly followed up. As Ash spoke, Satsuhiro, Opah, and Luvine all came walking to them. Now, the entire group was standing here, in the middle of the hall, just in front of the throne. "We can help her. Just... Not right now. Look, basically, Kaori is stuck somewhere. And, I can go get her from that place, but I\'m not strong enough to do that."

"Is that so?" Satsuhiro looked away, and Keiko could see the gears in his mind turning. "What do you need then, for us to help her?" 

"It\'s complicated," Ash shook her head, adjusting Kaori, who was slipping a little. "But, Lumina told me that I need to close a bunch of portals and restore a bunch of her Sites. If I do that, apparently, we\'ll be good to go. Give me a second, let me lay Kaori down, and I\'ll tell you everything she told me." 

"Mm," Satsuhiro nodded. "We should probably head to some other room anyway. Too many worried ears could catch what we say here." 

With that, the group briefly split again as Ash went to put Kaori back down in their bedroom. Keiko followed her though, walking with the half-demon as she went over there and walked into the room. 

Keiko watched as she gently put Kaori down. She threw a white sheet over her, and then placed a hand on Kaori\'s head, lightly caressing it. Then, Ash sighed and walked out. Satsuhiro and the others were walking towards them, but Ash said something to Keiko. 

"Hey, can we talk later?" Ash asked. "If you\'re feeling alright, I mean." 

"Of course," Keiko answered. 

"Good... Just... I need to get a bit off my fucking chest," Ash mumbled before she turned towards Satsuhiro. 

"I got that room for us," Satsuhiro said. "Ready?" 

"Yeah, let\'s go." 

---

Ash

The walk back to Onyx from the shrine had let Ash think about a lot of different things. Among them was her time with Kaori at the portal, their relationship, but most importantly the point where things had started to go wrong. Maybe she was blaming herself too harshly, but Ash felt like what happened last night was entirely preventable, and that it was the result of her own failures. 

Firstly, she never talked to Kaori like she promised she would. Sure, they had a lot going on, but if Ash had just pulled Kaori aside and allowed her to vent like she clearly had needed to, maybe the blonde would have been a little more decisive that night. If she\'d activated her ability just a second faster, she might have still been here, conscious, walking next to Ash with a smile. 

Second, Ash had not been taking her role as seriously as she should have. Not that she suddenly cared about humanity and wanted to be role model of a Savior or whatever, but rather that Ash wanted to protect her friends. Keiko, Kaori, Satsuhiro, Opah, Metsumi. Everyone she cared about, and she needed to be stronger to do that. She should have farmed more, looked for more spells; maybe if she had researched more Dark and Light topics, she would have easily killed the level 90 demon. Instead, she went into that fight as a half-assed excuse of a fighter. 

Finally, Ash needed to start learning from her mistakes. Or, put differently, she needed to be better. She needed to be a better fighter so she could protect the ones she cared for, she needed to be a better girlfriend to Keiko and Kaori so that the two of them wouldn\'t be walking around with so much unnecessary weight on their shoulders. She needed to be a better Savior so that when threats came, she could easily deal with them. Especially since Niven had put a target on her back. 

It was as she\'d entered the Grey Chamber that the thought had come to her. 

I won\'t let this happen again, Kaori.  She told the girl in her mind, hoping her soul could feel her determination.  I... Shit, I failed you, and I\'m sorry. It won\'t happen again. 

Now, as she walked with Keiko and the others, the fire burning in her heart was still blazing, especially as they sat down to discuss what they needed to do next. Ash was ready to tackle this. 

For Kaori\'s sake. 

"Okay," Ash took a deep breath as Metsumi passed her a bottle of water. "Thanks. So, basically, uh, we need to find out which churches belonged to Lumina. Old Sites of Power that I could reactivate. I\'m guessing Lumina will let me know about a few if I go back to the shrine, but it wouldn\'t hurt to know a few ourselves. Also," Ash continued, "we need to close portals. Lumina told me that doing that would weaken Niven, at least a little. Once he\'s weak enough, and I\'m strong enough, I can go do...  something, because Lumina didn\'t really explain that part too well, but I can do something to get Kaori back." 

"Hm... Did she recommend anything else?" Satsuhiro asked. 

"Yeah, at a point," Ash said, recalling the conversation, "she showed me this place with a bunch of sand. I dunno, I haven\'t seen it before. A dragon flew over our heads too." 

"A dragon!?" Opah asked, making an awed face. Ash chuckled. 

"Yeah." 

"Wait, sand? As in, the entire land was covered in it?" Satsuhiro asked.

"Yeah," Ash was then reminded of something, "oh, right, kinda like that portal you and I went into, a while back. Remember?" 

Satsuhiro nodded. 

"Amber," he said with a sigh. "She\'s saying you should go to Amber." 

"Why?" 

"Because the strongest monsters in the world live in that region. If she told you to go there, then, yeah," Satsuhiro said. "She\'s definitely serious about you getting stronger." 

"Strong... monsters?" Luvine muttered, confused. Ash couldn\'t explain to her what was going on right now.

"..." Ash closed her eyes, nodding at Satsuhiro. "Alright, I\'ll go there then." 

"Don\'t take it so lightly, Ash. I\'m serious," Satsuhiro responded. "Amber is a strange, dangerous place. From its monsters to its people, it\'s especially easy for people to die there." 

"Have to do it," Ash shrugged. "Only way to help Kaori." 

"... Fair enough, but before that," Satsuhiro continued, "if Lumina wants you to close more portals, then, well, you\'ve got two good candidates for that just outside the city." 

"Yeah, that\'s probably a good place to start. Question is, how do I do it?" Ash asked. "I haven\'t gone into one of those things alone yet. Well, outside of the Sapphire one, but the demon army was pretty much fucked at that point. If I try that here, I\'ll probably run into hundreds of those things alone." 

"Hm... I\'d say there are two possibilities," Satsuhiro started. "Either, you take a bunch of soldiers with you and... As terrible as it is, use them as fodder so that you can get to the end of both portals in one piece, or," he added, "you get stronger and you go in alone." 

"What does \'fodder\' mean?" Ash heard Opah ask her mother. 

"... I could farm, I guess."

"You still have Vyl\'s potions, right? I\'m pretty sure she\'s made a few more too, since last we saw her. We can send word over to her to restock and you can use those to buff yourself before heading in and... well, hope for the best." 

"Maybe Yumi could help you," Keiko pitched in and Ash glanced over at her. "With those potions and her own stats, she should be powerful enough." 

... Outside, maybe, but with that Niven\'s Blessing buff... Actually, since she\'s got her Dex at 100, she might still be strong enough. If anything, just to keep a few demons off me while I kill them. 

"That could work. That... Yeah, that\'s probably it," Ash slowly nodded as the idea made more and more sense to her. "Get more potions, ask Yumi to come with me, and if she agrees then... Yeah. We can do it tonight, even." 

"Make sure you\'re rested, at least. Last night was eventful, after all." 

"Don\'t worry about me," Ash huffed. "I\'m fine. We just need to get this out of the way so we can get to helping Kaori out." 

That was the end of this meeting. With that plan, they walked out of the room and out into the halls again. However, as the others walked ahead, Ash gently reached out for Keiko\'s wrist. 

"Hey," she gestured for them to stay back.

"Right," Keiko nodded. "Um... What did you want to say?" 

And at that, Ash breathed in, calming herself down. 

"I..."  I\'m sorry,  is what she wanted to say.  Actually, this is all kind of on me, and if I were better, Kaori would be here. If I were a regular fucking person who could actually read people\'s emotions and knew how to deal with them, Kaori might not be in this mess, but I\'m not. I suck, so, we\'re here. 

Instead, she said:

"I just wanted to let you know that... If you want to talk, if you need anything, if you feel shitty and you just wanna cuss for a while to get it off your chest, anything like that... I\'m always willing to listen. Just... Thought I should say that." 

"Is that all you wanted to say?" Keiko asked. "It sounded like you, uh, wanted to confess something." 

Only that I care about you and Kaori. Like, a lot. Ash thought. 

"Yeah. That\'s it. Sorry, I\'m.... Just had a lot on my mind earlier."