2 The Five At The Top

Inside the wooden house the procedure had started, rune's set up by Rayns directed the childbirth and Selica expended all of her effort to keeping calm and constantly healing her damaged insides as the baby passed through. This was a stressful procedure to take as whilst it was extremely safe it required a massive amount of magical energy and would leave both the receiver and the woman physically and mentally exhausted, these two were above - average mages though so the process was going smoothly and would most likely finish with no negative drawbacks, aside from the extreme physical and mental fatigue.

From the distance a red dot could be seen and in seconds had arrived above the house and stood suspended in midar. "So this is where it's happening", he looked down at the house and hid his aura, slowly descending until he landed atop a tree, perfectly balanced. He could see straight through the wooden walls of the house with his abilities "Yeah, that's him, he should look exactly like leader did years ago within 20 years, well, i've confirmed it, so now it's just a matter of waiting for the others. Judging from their speeds they should be here within minutes, guess i'll supply some of my own energy to them to ease the fatigue." Seth reached his finger out and a tiny fingernail - sized ball of faint red energy flew into the house and into Selica, she had a sudden jolt of energy and felt extremely powerful, much more powerful than she had ever felt in her entire life - she had no problem with healing herself now and even supplied some of this outside power to Rayns who equally felt much more powerful than before. They both thought about it for a while but just eventually threw the thought to the side as they couldn't find any explanation.

A Few Minutes Later, a green light was passing through the forest, moving through it as if one with the forest itself, the speed it was travelling it was extremely fast. The green light flew from the ground up onto the tree branches and began jumping from branch to branch before eventually reaching a tree branch that allowed him to view the house, after a quick inspection he confirmed that it was indeed his old leader and was about to supply them with his own energy to relieve them of their fatigue. "Oi, Natu, I've already done that - anymore would be unnecessary" The purple energy around Natu's finger quickly dissipated as he looked above him to see Seth, he stared at him in silence "What?" Seth looked back at Natu confused. "Who are you? How do you know my name?"

Seth looked back at Natu now, revealing a smile on his face "You really haven't changed, you could barely remember our names back then when you were with us, after 400 years apart I'm guessing you wouldn't remember any of our names, It's Seth, you know, Soaring Calamity, Floating Castle and that" Natu looked back at him with confusion "Soaring Calamity? Floating Castle? What are those?" Suddenly Natu's eyes widened and excitedly said "Hey! You look like my friend Redhair! Oh I miss those days, we used to be in a team of 6 and he would always bully me for calling him Redhair, it was fun annoying him every day" Natu looked expectantly at this stranger who began to frown "What's wrong? Was it something I said?" Seth jumped down to the branch Natu was on, both were seemingly weightless as the branch only slightly bent when he had landed on it before returning once again to its initial position. "Redhair huh... I remember now..." Seth's hand now was directly on Natu's head.

Natu was now extremely confused, he knew his own power but he couldn't move under the grasp of this red-haired stranger, but he felt strangely excited in the fact that the aura he was currently feeling above him was the same one from one of his oldest friends from over 400 years ago, he looked up and said "R-Redhair? That you?" Seth now had a massive grin on his face, but not one that came from genuine happiness, it was a mischievous smile that held a hint of frustration in it. "Yeah... It's Redhair alright... I finally remembered that name... And I finally remembered how I always reacted to it..." Natu was now fully aware of who the man before him was and felt an extreme amount of regret, but he also felt a hint of familiarity, he was lost in his memories of his old crew, the 'glory days' of a band of adventurers happily making a living for themselves, swept up in a war they didn't even know existed. Before Natu could continue thinking about the past he was woken up by an intense pain on his head, he had just been hit!

Sitting on the branch rubbing his head he looked upwards towards Seth who was standing "Did you really have to hit me so hard? We just met after 400 years you know..." Seth looked down on him with a hint of frustration "You know I don't like that nickname... After the tribulation I went through during my training my body was transformed, this red hair came with it, you know I don't like the colour of my hair, so don't talk about it" The look on Seth's face was one of mild frustration, but he still somewhat kept calm in this situation. Natu then looked towards the house where the procedure was about to finish "Hey Redhai- Seth... What do you think's gonna happen now? That's definitely our leader's aura, but do you think he'll actually be able to grow strong enough to remember his past? Whilst not by much he was stronger than us by nature, and his special ability only solidified his place as our leader, but that was 400 years ago - do you think he'll reach the same level in this life? Cause if he doesn't..." Natu looked down at the ground with a hint of fear in his eyes "No one in the world may be able to live past the next millennium".

Seeing how Natu was acting he moved his gaze from the boy sitting beneath him to the house in front of him "I don't know, I don't think any of us do, if he really is our leader, the one from so many years ago, then he is destined to succeed - at least that's what we think, that same mindset is the one we had back then too, but he still died... His last words to us were to survive and gain power and eventually he would be reborn, he even made it so that when he did reincarnate he would release two types of specific energy, a normal wave and a wave filled a hint of his aura. He's made plans this far into the future, and now it's all up to us to do what he told us to do. Right now it's not about whether or not he can succeed, but whether or not we, as a team, can succeed in raising him back to his former level. Everything will be determined by us and the effort we put in" He looked down towards Natu once again "You know this - we were all there when he... died..." Natu looked back up at Seth "Yeah i know about raising him, but... about his last words to us... I used memory sealing magic to seal the memory of his death, memory seals cannot be undone once they are cast and because of my lack of control back then, I lost my memory of both the event of his death and about a week after it too, it was a traumatic experience for a child to go through you know - i made the immature decision to completely lock it away and never look back at it again, the only reason I even know of any of this is because before I wiped my memory i wrote down a couple of details on a piece of paper like where we would meet and a basic explanation of the mission, my mind was all fuzzy back then so I couldn't remember the exact words that he said to us - I knew we were raising him but I forgot about his dying words." Seth looked down at Natu with a hint of sympathy in his eyes "Sorry man, it wasn't a great experience for any of us, I didn't take your age back then into account..." Both of them looked towards the wooden house once again.

The relationship between these two were like that of an older brother and a younger brother, whilst one would scold and punish the other one for anything they did wrong, they both held a mutual respect for each other that was as strong as the affection held between two brothers. They had held this relationship with each other since the formation of the team as they were travelling as two lone adventurers before bumping into the rest.

In the forest completely opposite from Seth and Natu were two blue lights travelling extremely fast through the tops of the trees, these two figures landed on opposite branches to Seth and Natu and solidified into two human figures. "Dezzie, I've confirmed that that's indeed our leader, have you?" Iona looked up to her brother's face "Yeah I've confirmed it too, but..." He no longer cared about being called Dezzie, she had called him Dezzie more times than he could count on the way over and eventually gave up and just stopped retaliating, he looked towards Iona with a hint of fear in his eyes "Yeah, that malicious aura that we felt before arriving here was somewhere near this area. Do you think that demon noticed the energy waves and came up to kill him before he had a chance to grow?" Iona was currently in a panicked state, she didn't know what she would do if her words were true. "No, it can't be that, whilst I understand how you feel you can calm down knowing it's not him - our leader injured him badly back then, he should still be in the process of healing, in his current state his speed should be roughly the same as ours if not slightly faster, the distance he has to travel is much further away then our aquatic castle. So it shouldn't have been him, even so, I'm still worried about that aura, it seemed like it belonged to someone above even our level. There are only 17 people who can be above our level." Both of them had looks of fear in their eyes for their leader who was currently reincarnating. Dezrin was looking towards the shack, scanning for any immediate dangers in the area. Seth and Natu were currently masking their aura's so Dezrin couldn't find even a hint of them. "Dezzie! Look!" Iona began pointing to a faraway branch on the other side of the clearing to see two familiar faces "Is that?" Dezrin laughed, the slight fear aroused in both of them faded away as soon as they saw these two faces "Natu! Se-" Before Dezrin could continue his sister had already jumped above the house towards them. "Natu! Redhair!" Dezrin's face dropped, Natu held an instinctive reaction of fear and Seth's previous face of sympathy towards Natu now held a silent frustration.

Everyone had known Seth's reaction to his nickname 'Redhair', but honestly Iona never cared, because, for her and her alone, she was never punished or hit by Seth when called Redhair, this was because whilst Seth would do alot of things that were deemed 'abnormal', hitting a girl to him was a form of cowardice - so he would never do so, the only times there were rules to this exception was if the woman in question was either extremely evil and was doing things both him and the entire team deemed to be unforgivable, or if it was a woman stronger than him and they were sparring, like him and Xion used to 400 years ago. Because of this belief Iona had grown accustomed to being able to call him Redhair with no consequence so she just kept doing it, it was also because Seth and everyone else in the team viewed Natu and Iona as the younger sister and brother of the team, naturally he wouldn't hit a younger sister, Natu's position as his younger brother was just a special case as they had known eachother way before they found the team. As soon as everyone remembered that it was Iona had said this they all calmed down. "How have you guys been? Me and Dezzie just stay underwater in that boring castle all day, the outside world hasn't changed that much from 400 years ago huh?" Iona was extremely ecstatic right now, not only had she finally left her castle but the first people she saw aside from her brother were two old friends. Natu, because of the previous mention of Redhair, hesitated before he said "Uh, yeah i've been good" He looked upwards towards Seth who had a clear darkness around him currently, this aura was suddenly suppressed and Seth turned to look at Iona and with a forced smile greeted her "Yeah, Natu's right, I've been good over these past 400 years too" Seth currently had both hands behind his back and he was squeezing them as hard as he could to hold back his frustration. Dezrin, due to being shocked by the name Redhair regained his composure and flew over "Natu, Seth, nice to meet you again after so many years" Dezrin's face suddenly changed as he remembered something "Oh yeah! Guys be careful, me and Iona felt a malicious aura on the way here, it was from someone on about your level I think Seth - they might be here to hurt our leader" Seth and Natu were now on shocked to hear this and released their aura's to begin sensing around the place to find any immediate danger.

Dezrin and Iona noticed something as this happened and began to grow embarrassed, noticing this change in the both of them Natu looked confused "What? What's wrong? You guys need to help us in sensing the area to find them!" Dezrin and Iona looked at Seth "Um... Seth... Can you weaken your aura a bit?" Seth found the request a bit weird but lowered the level of his aura anyway - he trusted them. "I knew it..." Iona said sounding embarrassed "Um... the aura we felt on the way here was your's, Seth... It feels exactly the same now as it did when we were flying over..." As the realisation hit both Seth and Natu were now beginning to calm down. Seth looked down at Natu "I must have lost control of my aura a little bit when I was angry at Natu earlier." Iona looked at Seth and began to scold him "Why were you angry at him? That isn't how a big brother should act!" No one said anything in response as no one wanted Iona to know that the nickname Redhair was taboo, they found it would shock her and no one wanted to deal with the fact that the realisation that it was taboo would lead to Iona being extremely apologetic, no one wanted to see her sad so they all kept it a secret.

After things began to calm down the four former teammates and friends began to talk - all of them were excited to see eachother again and shared their experiences over the past 400 years. "Us? Dezzie just keeps us locked up in the aquatic manor and I barely get to go outside! You know how excited I was just to leave?!" Iona said whilst pouting "Well if you went out by yourself you would probably get lost... You're over 500 years old but your sense of direction is still the same as when you were 8, by the time you travelled 100 metres away you would get lost and probably wander the world without finding your way back. Going after you would just be annoying and whilst I'm not worried about your personal strength, there are still over 18 people stronger than you excluding myself, you might have run into one of them so I didn't take the risk". Dezrin was the brains of the group - he was the one who planned out anything the group did and was the general advisor for everyone, he was the one who calmed the situation when it got out of hand and he also handled external matters to do with the team and if needed, internal matters too. The logic was perfect so Iona couldn't retaliate, Natu just laughed and said "Your sense of direction is still bad? It's been over 400 years!" Seth looked at Natu from behind and silently whispered "Your sense of direction wasn't fixed until 200 years after we met... You're no judge for people who have no sense of direction..." Seth laughed after saying this leaving Natu embarrassed, using their control over their surroundings both Iona and Dezrin also heard what he said and began to laugh.

"Well, it seems like you guys are having fun without me - I can't believe you all arrived before I did, I thought I would be the first one to arrive, I flew as fast as I could over here..." A figure landed on a nearby branch behind them. "You guy's really are quick, you've had time to meet and talk about the old days and i only arrived just now" Everyone turned to look at who this figure was and as they jumped from the branch behind them to their own they all looked up in admiration "Miss Xion!"

All of them knew that this woman in front of them was the most powerful person next to their former leader and whilst she was cold to others, she was extremely kind to people she was friends with, this was because anyone she chose to grew close to, there was a deep connection with, no one could be her friend without sharing a deep connection. And because these were the people she shared life-and-death battles with as well as the best moments of her life, she would obviously have deep connections with all of them. Iona jumped from where she was sitting "Big Sister Xion!" She jumped into her embrace hugging her as tightly as she could, Xion also viewed Iona as her own little sister so she naturally reacted by doing what she wanted. As she held the ecstatic Iona in her embrace she looked towards the wooden house and confirmed that the aura was the same as the one she followed so many years ago. "It really is him huh... Welp... We're in for another hero's journey soon" As she looked towards the little girl below her in her embrace and the 3 teammates she had shared her high's and low's with she smiled and looked up to the night sky above them. With a smile on her face "Looking forward to it... Leader..."