TORIN YOUTH – CHAPTER 06: A BROKEN BOND

In the north-eastern region of Crystal Island (also known as Iracal Island), a fight to the death between Team Two and a giant naga comes to an end under a moonless night sky.

The surrounding forest is scarred from the battle. Trees are fractured. Craters mark the immediate area.

The four young adults were caught by surprise by the serpent-human hybrid, who bears scars of the conflict on her body.

“It’s a good thing there were four of you,” the slithering giantess remarks to the last of the four team members, dangling him by his leg before her face. “That fight really worked up my appetite.”

The hungry giantess tilts her head back and lowers the badly beaten legionnaire into her gaping mouth.

Gasping in pain, the young man can hardly voice his terror while staring into the abyss before him.

“…ahhh… ngh…” he weakly grunts as he disappears behind her lips.

The naga savors the taste of her prey.

Satisfied, she swallows him whole.

The victorious predator slithers away from the campsite into the dark cover of the forest, leaving the scattered belongings of Team Two as a haunting reminder of the dangers of the wilderness.

Meanwhile, near the ruins of Old Torin City...

Without Atreus, the other three members of Team Three sleep at their campsite.

Theirs is better hidden, tucked away in a gigantic hollow tree.

Leon tosses and turns as a nightmare troubles him.

In his dream, he is surrounded by darkness. Fear grips him, but not for himself.

“RHEA!” he calls. “WHERE ARE YOU?”

A light appears in the distance.

A voice calls back to him, “LEON!”

Leon runs toward the light. “Hold on, Rhea! I’m coming!”

“I can’t see you,” the voice says.

As Leon gets closer, the light becomes a blazing fire.

Leon steps back from the heat of the growing fire.

He holds out a hand. “TAKE MY HAND, RHEA!”

“Leon,” the voice calls as Rhea’s silhouette appears in the midst of the fire. “I can’t see you!”

She reaches her hand out of the fire. “IT’S SO HOT!” she cries.

Leon takes her hand. “DON’T LET GO,” he says.

The six-foot-four-inch young man pulls with all of his might.

His feet drag along the soil as he is slowly pulled toward the flames.

“Rhea, you’re pulling me in,” he says. “You have to come out!”

“I CAN’T SEE,” the girl cries. “I’M BURNING!”

The fire covers Rhea’s arm and begins to burn Leon.

“AAARGH!” he screams in pain, but he refuses to let go. “JUST HANG ON!”

His feet enter the fire as he is pulled in.

“LEON, WAKE UP!” another voice calls to him from outside his nightmare.

Bia kneels over Leon as he is tormented by his dream. She nudges him gently and calls to him. “Wake up, Leon! Wake up!”

Leon’s eyes open wide and he gasps.

Bia rests a hand on him to comfort him. “Leon, you were having a nightmare. It’s okay now. You’re safe, with me.”

Leon sits up. The morning light creeps into the hollowed-out log.

He sees Rhea sleeping nearby.

He looks at Bia, unease flickering in his eyes.

“Every time… that dream gets worse every time,” he says.

“What did you see?” Bia asks.

Rhea begins to stir, drawing the attention of both her teammates. “Umnh,” she moans quietly.

She sits up and stretches, yawning widely.

Leon looks back at Bia, the unease giving way to fear.

Bia nods discreetly. “I understand. We’ll talk later.”

Rhea stands and looks at the other two.

“Let’s get after it, team,” she says.

Both Bia and Leon nod.

As the day goes on, gray clouds roll in, swallowing the warmth of the sunlight.

Rain lightly falls, making it difficult for Leon to read the map without ruining it.

He hums as he determines their location.

“There’s the final landmark before the ruins,” he says, noticing a stone pillar nearby.

Ahead, the trees become sparse, and incomplete cobblestone streets stretch into the forest like they were hastily stitched into the landscape.

“There it is,” Rhea says.

With only a few steps, the three Torinians find themselves in the ancient remains of a city that was ripped from its homeworld and thrown into this world of gigantic maneaters.

“It’s so eerie,” Bia says, looking at the haunting structures that were once homes for millions of people.

The webs of giant spider-human hybrids stretch across the many buildings and streets, hinting at the fate that the people who failed to escape this city met hundreds of years ago.

“To think that this was the capital of an empire,” Rhea sighs.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Bia says, shuddering. “Let’s plant the flag and get away from here.”

Rhea pulls a flag with the harpy Queen of Torin’s image emblazoned on it out of her pack.

She then drives it into the ground.

“Now, to make it home,” she says.

As they turn to enter the forest again, Leon looks at Bia, concerned for her since they lost their friend.

“How are you holding up, Bia?” he asks her.

Bia sighs.

She looks at her hands, clad in her armored caesti.

“I failed,” she says sorrowfully.

Leon moves closer to Bia and encourages her gently.

“Don’t blame yourself for what happened to Atreus,” he says. “We share victories and failures as a team. No house can stand without proper support. And there was nothing more that we could have done.”

Rhea sighs.

“We knew that not everyone would make it back alive going into this,” she says matter-of-factly. “Only the strong survive, after all. And I don’t make the rules.”

Rhea steps on a fallen branch as she walks, snapping it.

“I’m never wrong… usually,” she says quietly. “But that boy…”

Leon sees that Bia is fighting back tears.

“Rhea… please,” he begs.

Rhea glances at Bia.

“For whatever it’s worth, when I looked into the Vixen’s eyes, I didn’t see the eyes of a predator,” she says. “It was very strange, to say the least.”

Bia is baffled by the statement.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Bia asks.

“It means I don’t believe the Vixen killed Atreus,” Rhea says with frustration in her voice.

She takes a deep breath and blows strands of strawberry-blonde hair away from her face.

“And here I thought that breaking his heart might somehow make him… stronger,” she confesses.

Bia is beside herself with anger after hearing that.

“So that’s what happened,” Bia says, clenching her fists. “If I knew you were gonna treat him like that, I woulda never—”

“GAH!” the five-foot-nine-inch brown-skinned girl lets out a shout of anger. She struggles to keep her fists at her side.

Leon’s eyes widen as the conversation intensifies.

“Calm down, Bia. We can’t afford to fight amongst ourselves out here,” he says.

A chill wind blows.

Rhea stops mid-step.

She narrows her eyes, carefully scanning her surroundings as her hand inches toward the sword on her back.

Bia still fumes while Leon notices that Rhea’s posture has changed.

Leon shushes Bia. “Bia—stop! Rhea…”

Rhea draws her sword and steps forward slowly.

“Wait, are we being hunted?” Bia asks, looking around.

“No,” Rhea quietly replies. “I am hunting.”

Bia and Leon ready themselves for battle.

A low rumble echoes among the trees.

It grows, becoming the unmistakable growl of an enormous beast.

“A wolf?” Leon asks.

“Sounds too big to be a wolf,” Bia answers. “More like…”

The white paw of a thirty-three-foot-tall, wolf-like creature sets down as its figure slowly emerges from among the trees.

“…a kensha beast.”

Hearing Bia’s answer, Leon searches for signs of other creatures around them.

“Don’t they usually hunt larger prey in packs?” he asks.

Rhea observes the beast’s features — white fur with red stripes and a missing right eye.

“Nosys,” she surmises, revealing her familiarity with the beast. “Am I correct?”

Her teammates glance at her, puzzled.

The beast sniffs the air and sneers.

“Correct,” he growls. “And you reek of Taiyo blood.”

“IT CAN TALK?” Bia and Leon ask in unison.

“This one can,” Rhea says. “My father told me stories about Nosys, the Lone Kensha Beast. A beast cursed with intelligence. Doomed to a lonely existence, hunting smaller prey to survive.”

“Ah — it warms my heart to know that I wasn’t forgotten,” Nosys says in his deep tone, moving closer as he looks down at the three. “Did your father tell you what happened to my right eye?”

“You trifled with the wrong Taiyo. That’s what happened… dog,” Rhea says, pointing her sword at the kensha beast as he paces around them. “At that time, it was my great-grandfather, Pyros.”

“And you are?” Nosys asks.

“Rhea,” she says, igniting her sword with fire magic as the Caeli crystal crafted into the hilt begins to glow.

Nosys gives his best impression of a smile.

“What do you say we settle an old score, Rhea?” he snarls.

“It would be my pleasure to finish what was started,” Rhea replies with a menacing grin.

The giant kensha beast and the Torinian girl prepare to strike.

The fur on Nosys’ back stands on end as he bares his fangs at the five-foot-ten-inch girl in armor.

Leon gulps nervously.

“I have a bad feeling about this,” he thinks to himself.

The kensha beast strikes out at Rhea, who swings her sword upward, throwing a scorching blast from her blade into his gaping maw.

Nosys recoils from the heat.

Bia springs into action, determined not to lose any more friends.

Channeling her psiki, she amplifies her physical strength and strikes hard at the kensha beast’s front leg with her armored caesti.

Before the predator can even react to the pain, a tempest of wind magic erupts from her fist and staggers the giant.

He steadies himself on his remaining legs.

Rhea leaps upward, aiming to thrust her sword through the giant wolf-like beast’s neck.

She stabs the beast; however, Nosys manages to dodge just enough that the blade misses the artery Rhea was aiming for.

Blood squeezes from the wound, staining white fur.

The girl plants her sandaled feet against his neck to stabilize herself.

She ignites her blade again, going for the kill.

Nosys shakes violently, dislodging the blade and throwing the girl off.

Rhea hits the ground with a heavy thud.

Nosys tries to close his jaws on her, only to have a rising pillar of rock and mud from Leon come between them.

Leon then touches the ground, causing it to quake and become unstable beneath the kensha beast.

Nosys’ legs sink into the earth.

The beast growls in anger at the tall, muscular boy.

A loud thud and faint crack are heard as Bia takes advantage of the distraction to strike one of the beast’s hind legs, likely fracturing the bone.

As he yelps in pain, Rhea throws another fiery blast from her sword at the giant.

Bia puts her hands together; the Caeli crystals crafted onto the backs of her armored gloves glow as she sends forth a whirlwind to fuel the fire from Rhea’s sword.

The inferno proves too much for Nosys.

Before he can escape the flames, Leon causes a rock to shoot forth from the ground below and strike the giant’s jaw.

Nosys falls over, shaking the ground on impact.

He groans weakly, his fur scorched and wet with blood still draining from his neck.

“Heh heh,” he laughs. "Not bad."

He attempts to stand, but the pain in his hind leg spikes.

“ARGH,” he growls, falling down again.

Rhea gazes coldly at the creature.

“Did you mistake me for prey? Dog,” she says to him.

Nosys looks at the girl with curiosity.

“A strange question, human,” he replies.

“I’ve never tasted kensha beast before,” Rhea says, licking her lips.

Leon looks at Rhea, concern etched on his face.

Rhea seems to be relishing the moment to a disturbing degree.

The girl continues, speaking in an unsettling monotone. “After I’ve slain you, I’m going to feast on your flesh. Raw. Just as you would have done to me,” she says.

Leon steps between Rhea and Nosys.

“Rhea…” he sighs heavily. “That's enough.”

Rhea, confused, looks Leon over.

“You are in my way, Leon,” she says calmly but firmly.

Leon shakes his head. “You’re taking this too far. He’s down. Let him go.”

Rhea’s lips curl in subtle anger.

“It’s our job to kill. You know that, right,” she says.

“Killing is one thing,” Leon says. “This is... something else. This feels wrong.”

“It’s called reality, Leon. When are you going to grasp it?" Rhea snaps back. "This world doesn't care about your... morals! It is kill or be killed. Eat or be eaten. Choose, cousin, or the world will choose for you.”

Leon stands quietly, conflicted.

Bia squints at Rhea, troubled by her words and posture.

“Perhaps you should let her make her own choices, Leon,” Bia says softly, approaching him.

Leon hesitates to move first.

"Please... turn back, Rhea," he quietly begs.

Rhea’s eyes narrow at him.

“You are in my way, Leon,” she repeats forcefully.

A deep voice laughs disturbingly behind the group.

“Ha ha ha. Arrogant pup, she is,” Nosys says as he stirs from his brief reprieve.

He uses the distraction to swipe at the group with his massive paw, knocking them over.

In a blur, Rhea is struck on her left side by sharp claws that penetrate her armor — one of them slashing across her face.

“Ahhh!” she cries out as she is slammed into the muddy ground.

She pushes herself up slowly, badly injured.

Her hand reaches up to the left side of her face as blood pours from her eye socket.

Rhea kneels, her heart racing. “S—something’s n—not right..."

The kensha beast chuckles, knowing he struck true. “An eye for an eye, my dear.”

He grunts loudly, pushing through the pain as he lunges at Rhea.

She barely has a moment to process before the beast’s jaws close around her.

Leon and Bia help each other to their feet.

Terror fills them as they watch Nosys lift his head, Rhea’s legs dangling from his mouth.

“QUICK, MOVE!” Leon shouts to Bia.

The kensha beast lets Rhea slide completely past his teeth.

Inside, the panicked girl, covered in blood and drool, breathes heavily.

“N—NO — THIS CAN’T BE HAPPENING TO ME!” she yells.

She punches and kicks against the flesh surrounding her in tearful despair.

“I—I CAN’T… NO… I W-WON’T BE PREY!”

She grabs hold of her sword’s hilt.

She tries, but there’s no space to use the blade.

Her panic turns to rage. Uncontrollable rage.

Fire erupts inside the kensha beast’s mouth.

Nosys writhes in pain, but he refuses to release her.

“I WILL NOT BE PREY!” Rhea screams from inside the inferno.

Leon takes up his sword and shield, preparing to launch Bia into the air, as they had done when fighting the Scarlet Vixen.

The Caeli crystals crafted into his weapons glow.

Bia stands ready, fists clenched.

A pillar of rock erupts from below, propelling Bia upward.

She leaps and drives her fist into the kensha beast’s jaw.

The shockwave ripples across his fur.

Nosys collapses.

Rhea’s teammates rush toward the smoking mouth of the giant wolf-like creature.

They strain together, forcing his jaws apart.

Rhea crawls out and away from the beast.

Leon and Bia rush to her side.

Rhea trembles, kneeling, her hands gripping the muddy soil.

Tears drip from her right eye onto her hand. Blood streams from the other.

She sobs bitterly.

Leon reaches down to comfort her.

“I... can use healing magic to close your wounds,” he says quietly.

Rhea lifts her face toward him in fury.

“DO NOT TOUCH ME,” she roars, reaching for the hilt of her sword.

Leon’s heart shatters.

He steps back, stunned and wracked with guilt.

Bia's heart sinks.

Rhea’s sorrow is once again swallowed up by rage. She screams and digs her hands into the muddy soil.

Bia slowly crouches to peek at Rhea’s face.

She gasps. “Oh no…”

Nosys, severely beaten, twitches.

His ears flick as they pick up a sound nearby.

His nose sniffs the air.

Something is troubling him. The kensha beast tries to push himself up off the ground.

Team Three notices that Nosys is stirring again.

They steel themselves for another fight.

They quickly realize that Nosys has no intention of attacking them and is instead trying to flee the area.

They look in the direction that seems to have drawn the kensha beast’s concern.

From among the giant trees, the legs of a spider come into view.

The three Torinians follow the movement with their eyes until the entire body of the ninety-five-foot-tall dridder emerges. The human half of her body is covered in a leather, fur-trimmed coat. From beneath her hood flows long, silky black hair down to where her human half meets the spider half of her body.

Her emerald green eyes regard the scene with pity.

“Oh dear,” she says to herself. “It appears I’ve arrived a touch late. I’ll apologize to Cadmeia when I next see her.”

She looks to the kensha beast as he tries to limp away.

“Tsk tsk — Nosys, you naughty boy. I commanded you not to prey on Torinians anymore,” she says in an amused tone. “I would punish you for breaking my rules again, but it looks like you’ve already paid the price for your misbehavior.”

The dridder carries herself and speaks with sophistication and elegance, despite her more common attire.

“Khariklo, I was only passing through,” the kensha beast says, his tail between his legs. “I just happened to run across the relative of an old acquaintance of mine. We were merely… catching up.”

She looks at Rhea’s condition and sighs. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner—better get you an antidote for Nosys’s venom before the paralysis kicks in.”

Nosys pleads with the giant dridder, “Khariklo, please release me from this curse.”

“That isn’t happening,” she replies, shooing the kensha beast away with her hand. “You deserve every bit of that curse for crossing me. Now leave us.”

Nosys sighs and limps away, grumbling under his breath.

The dridder reaches down to gather the humans into her hands.

“Oooh, I just love Torinians, you know,” she says softly and melodically. Her cheerfulness is almost infectious. If Rhea’s condition weren’t so serious, the team members might have returned her smile.

“I can hardly wait to get you home. We’re going to get you three cleaned up and fed,” she adds, beaming with joy. “Don’t worry — it isn’t far off your course.”

The three team members look at one another in confusion as they are carried in the gentle dridder’s giant hands.

“I know you have questions. Don’t fret — I can answer them all and then some,” she promises as she heads home.

(NEXT CHAPTER)