62 Chapter 33: Negotiations Part 1

Ro: \"Do you know how much time has passed since we left the tomb?\"

Barry: \"Not exactly, but roughly around two hours.\"

Ro: \"That much, huh? This place sure is big, isn't it?\"

The two converse while walking towards the pond.

Ro: \"Still, it was pretty surprising that the first direction you looked in, you found the pond.\"

Barry: \"Yeah, but not just the pond.\"

He says while reminding himself of the faces they would see when they reach the pond.

Barry: \"Kais, Sona and the dragon were present there along with someone else with the aura of a psychic.\"

Ro: \"And you didn't try to read their auras, right?\"

It would have been very problematic if they could notice that he was using Aura Reading at them.

Barry: \"Yeah\"

So he nods.

Barry: \"From what you have told me, Kais has become really cautious and I certainly have seen a few glimpses of it myself. So I didn't want to risk doing something that would cause him to go on alert.\"

Ro: \"True, if it ends up turning into a chase, catching him won't be easy at all.\"

When it comes to running away, psychics are experts. Abilities like teleportation to instantly teleport large distance away as well as photokinesis to make one invisible are extremely troublesome abilities to deal with.

The two continue walking as they exchange their thoughts.

Ro: \"But are you really sure we shouldn't be trying to run right now? Aren't we just giving them more time to slip us by?\"

Barry: \"Well, I can't deny we are lowering our chances of catching them, but if we run, there's a high risk our bodies, which are made of energy, will cause minor disturbances in the energy surrounding us. If one of them is able to pick up on that, it will be much more difficult to catch them then.\"

Ro: \"Hmm … not to mention the animals around here would probably pick up on that and seeing how much time the dragon has spent on this island, he should have some understanding of their behaviors.\"

So, in order to be safe, the two are walking fast and steadily through the forest, so they don't give the three (or four) near the pond the chance to slip by.

Barry: \"So, I have been curious, but how much do you know about the flow of supernatural energies and auras?\"

Ro: \"Only as much as I could from reading about it from Vermillion's database.\"

Barry: \"You mean as much as is made available to you Embers, right?\"

Ro: \"Right.\"

Ro didn't feel any belittling in Barry's voice but still felt that phrasing was unpleasant.

Barry: \"If I remember this right, you call your leader the Phoenix and the ten most powerful guys right under him are called Hellfires.\"

Ro: \"Yeah, that's the upper echelon of Vermillion.\"

Barry: \"And then under them are leaders of various divisions of the group, called Volcanoes.\"

Ro nods to affirm it as Barry continues,

Barry: \"That's kinda stupid name by the way. But anyway, in each division there were people who are assigned the tasks by Volcanoes, called Embers. That's what you were.\"

Ro: \"And then, there are members of the organization who we Embers could use in order to fulfill our missions, called Flares. What about it?\"

Ro says as he looks at Barry with a bored yet curious expression.

Barry: \"Vermillion could have easily overpowered Kais if they sent in about ten Embers or a Volcano came in. Why didn't they?\"

Ro: \"Well, we didn't have that much time. Pretty much everyone was busy with something.\"

Barry: \"Shouldn't this mission be given priority over the others?\"

Ro: \"It was, or they would have never sent in three Embers at the same time.\"

Barry: \"Three?\"

Barry asks 'who's the third' with his eyes.

Ro: \"Technically, she wasn't an Ember but that's more or less what her status was in Vermillion.\"

Barry: \"You are talking about Sneha, huh?\"

Ro nods. Barry ponders about it for a while before saying,

Barry: \"Why were you guys so busy?\"

Ro: \"Well, I don't know how to answer that because I think I already did.\"

Barry: \"Oh I get that you were all getting jobs one after the other but is that how it has always been?\"

Ro narrows his gaze in suspicion over the questions Barry raised, but then sighs and says,

Ro: \"There had been a sudden increase in the jobs we had to carry out ever since the chances of a war became more apparent.\"

Barry: \"About that, there are two things I am curious about.\"

Ro: \"Let me guess, you want to know what I mean by the chances of it becoming more apparent when it has been apparent for centuries already.\"

Barry: \"Yeah, that's the question I am less curious about, but what is this answer. Were they trying to hide this war from you all?\"

Ro: \"Well, every new member is immediately told that 'a war may happen in the near future', so I guess that's not exactly true. But, they never elaborated on what this means.\"

Shifting his gaze to see if Barry is listening, Ro continues after confirming that he is.

Ro: \"But about four years ago, right when I first heard about rumors of vampires existing, an announcement was made that the war will begin shortly.\"

Barry: \"And since then, your schedules got tighter.\"

Ro: \"Yeah.\"

Barry: \"Still though, there is different question that's been bugging me more.\"

Ro: \"You want to know who we thought we were going with war at when we didn't even know about vampire's existence.\"

Barry nods.

Ro: \"That's kind of hard to answer.\"

Barry: \"Try me.\"

Ro sighs.

Ro: \"Fine, so we were never told who the war is with. What we were told is that we will not fight.\"

Barry: \"Oh?\"

Stretching his words, Barry displays his curiosity at what he just heard.

Ro: \"The information given to us was that we have allies in this war who are going to be the major force that is going to fight. We were just support.\"

Barry: \"Does that mean that Kais was supposed to be sent to that 'major force'?\"

Ro: \"Precisely, we were told that once he understands everything, he will willingly become a member of that force, not that we were ever told what that 'force' is.\"

Barry: \"Seems like you guys had a lot of reasons to distrust your superiors.\"

Ro: \"Yes, and we did.\"

Barry widens his eyes in surprise when he hears so.

Ro: \"However, there was just no way to go up against a member of upper echelon or a Volcano and stay alive.\"

Barry: \"And leaving the organization was not an option?\"

Ro moves his head from side-to-side to say 'no'.

Ro: \"So, most of us convinced ourselves that there's no need to be so alarmed about it because we weren't going to fight in the war.\"

Barry: \"That's how it went, huh.\"

Ro: \"Of course, the overview of it might make it seem like no Embers or Flares even tried to do anything, but whoever did try anything, their efforts were in vain.\"

Barry closes his eyes as he sighs and turns to look at the road ahead of them. On opening his eyes, he says,

Barry: \"Yeah, I guess I wouldn't expect you guys to be able to do anything against the likes of them. No offence.\"

Ro: \"None taken. It's the truth after all.\"

The two keep walking towards the pond, only about 200 meters away from it. But, something they didn't expect happens.

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