86 Chapter 86: Rean Schwarzer

Giliath demands your power stones!

*

"Elie!", The violet haired boy suddenly shouted, before dashing to the other side of the cruise ship

to approach the airship flying higher than the cruise ship. This left the rest confused while Vita watched on with interest.

"It really is you, Naoto....", The silver haired girl replied seeing the violet haired boy approach her.

Unfortunately the gap in space was too large so Elie could only see the violet haired boy reach the end of the ship the girl saw him on. Yet seeing him, a couple tears started to form in one of her eyes.

However, time was relentless and the orbal airship did not slow down, even if it was passing by this cruise ship. Seeing the airship get further and further away and further as the seconds passed. Seeing this, the silver haired girl quickly realized, and started to wave her hand out at the violet haired boy.

"I'll wait for you, Naoto!", The silver haired girl shouted at him. "Definitely!", the girl continued to shout.

"Yeah!", The violet haired boy, acknowledging her, only to continue waving his hand until the airship vanished from sight.

"And there she goes...", I said, seeing the airship now. I took this time to calm my excitement down from seeing Elie, since it has been a few years from seeing each other last.

A couple moments later.

As I calmed down, the rest of the group slowly approached me still with confused looks in their eyes. As for Vita, she lifted one of her hands as she began to speak out to me.

"Care to enlighten us on who that was, Naoto? It's clear that girl was someone you know. And yet

you already have more beside you already. Tsk tsk. Emma has quite a challenging road ahead of her.", Vita retorted me as she clicked her tongue a bit after the airship was out of sight now.

Hearing that, my eyes twitched a bit. Rufus also spoke out with interest.

"Haha, that is true. But I am more interested to those who those were beside that silver haired girl.

They looked like they were members of the Septian Church, so it's highly likely that airship was en route to Arteria, the Holy Capital. As for the girl, she was in a school uniform, likely going there to attend one of Arteria's schools.", Rufus said, assuming on what just happened. He placed his hand over his chin as he spoke that.

"Mmm.", I said, with a nod of my head, acknowledging Rufus. I knew Elie was due to attend a school in Arteria as a foreign exchange student, but I guess that moment was now, huh?

"I wasn't planning to hide this from you guys, since it would have been brought up sooner or later. But I guess now is a good time to show you guys since we have time on our hands now.", I said, reaching my hand out. Vita became confused seeing this since this was the first time she saw my Inventory skill, but the rest didn't have much of a reaction after seeing it the first time.

Vita saw my hand vanish into a mini black hole of sorts, only to pull out a picture frame with a photo inside of it. Vita's eyes were of course surprised seeing this.

"...Was that spatial magic? I don't remember Grandmother teaching you that.", Vita asked with a somewhat shocked yet interested look in her eyes.

"That's because she didn't.", I simply answered Vita, which caused her to blink at me.

I ignored her, and continued to speak to everyone.

"Anyways, what I wanted to show was this.", I continued to say, only to toss this framed photo toward Vita. Vita quickly snapped out of it and caught it, which caused all of us to gather around her. Even Lechter was now beside us to look at this photograph.

"This...is a family photo?", Sherryl asked, immediately seeing several figures. It was very reminiscent of the second photo Elie had, except this one was more complete to where the mayor of Crossbell was also standing in the photo together with my family.

Lechter's eyes paused on the middle aged brown haired man with a full straight stature who had several white strands of hair going down the one side of his face.

"...Is that really His Excellency?", Lechter uttered, wondering.

"This is quite a surprise, but it looks like this is indeed His Excellency's family. I wasn't expecting the Crown Prince and their Highnesses to be in the photo as well.", Rufus also said with interest.

"This girl too...", Van began to say, only to see the six year old silver haired girl next to me, who was also six years old at the time. "This was the girl we just saw on the airship, isn't it? Childhood friend?", Van assumed. Seeing this, he couldn't help but think of Elaine for a moment.

"Pretty much. This was taken three years ago.", I said, nodding my head at Van.

"Right before you were declared missing...", Tio couldn't help but utter.

"So that Elie really is a childhood friend of yours?", Vita asked, drawing her eyes to the silver haired girl in the photo.

"Yup. I didn't think she would be on that airship just now, but it looks like she is going to begin her studies.", I answered Vita with a smile.

"Thank you for showing this, Naoto. I couldn't help but be drawn to one other thing.", Vita continued to say, shifting her eyes from the silver haired girl to the black haired boy who was also standing beside me with a happy look on his face.

"Hmm, now that you brought it up, I'm also curious. Who exactly is this boy?"

"Oh, I thought I brought it up to you and Emma, already, but it seems it slipped my mind when we were at the village. That's Rean, my brother. He's a year younger than me.", I said, explaining who the black haired boy was standing next to me and in front of Giliath and Kasia.

Hearing this, not only Vita's eyes turned wide but everyone but Rufus did as well.

"No shitting? This kid's your brother?", Van asked in shock.

"To think you'd have a brother like this...", Sherryl also said with interest.

"But you two hardly look alike?", Tio asked, confused.

"Haha, it was good you brought that up, Tio. We're essentially half-brothers. Two different birth mothers.", I answered without giving too much into my own mother's background. And yet, Rufus looked on with interest.

"So that's how that played into this...", Rufus said, as if he had figured something out. Well he knows I'm of the Phoenix family, and that I'm an Auslese, so he probably was able to put two and two together.

"If everyone is gathered like this, then what happened to your brother?", Ennea decided to ask this time, having her eyes glued on the photo.

Hearing that question, I shifted my eyes to Rufus, giving my intent. Rufus was quick to notice, and he calmly shook his head, as if he answered me.

"Haha, that will be a story for another time., Ennea But I can't help but wonder what Rean is doing right now. Does he still remember me...?", I asked, zoning out a bit with a reminiscent look in my eyes.

"Naoto?", Vita asked, seeing me turn quiet. I didn't say anything more during this time, only to wonder what Rean has been up to these days. Like this, our cruising soon became a silent one as we calmly listened to the waves crash onto the ship's bottom in a relaxing manner...

Meanwhile...

Somewhere in an excluded area in the Eisengard Mountain Range to the north of Ymir.

A rather run-down yet properly maintained old eastern-style dojo could be seen surrounded by a singular path that lead down further into the mountains. Carved out steps were placed evenly on this path, and each step had green bamboo flooring covered over it. As for the dojo itself, it seemed to be occupied with several sounds of striking wooden blades echoing around it. These sounds seemed to contain a certain rhythm to it...

As for the entrance of this dojo, a large wooden plaque could be seen placed on the top of it, which contained the name of this dojo. The name simply read as: Eight Leaves, One Blade.