The Shadow of Eudaimonia

Chapter 11: The Soldier and The Princess

"Oh no! I don't want to be wet." Ophelia frantically drew a circle above her head which made every raindrop about to touch her hair translocated somewhere else.

Lazzi's mouth went agape. "Really? Your Obelisk could move entire planets but you here are using it as an umbrella?"

"You're just jealous. In literature they called that a displacement ring."

Lazzi was about to clap back when he heard screaming coming to their way. It was an old woman running frantically. From the looks of it she looked homeless and distraught.

"It's raining! She's coming back!"

Lazzi jogged towards the old woman who was completely having a mental breakdown. "Ma'am, what's wrong?"

"She's coming! She's going to get me!"

"Who's coming to get you? We're here to help."

"Shijian, she's clearly confused. I don't think—"

"Wait, I think I remember something." Lazzi said to Ophelia. Lazzi placed his thumbs on the old woman's temple. Lazzi focused and his eyes now began to illuminate a yellow light. Like a personal memory coming back to him, he saw what the old lady had seen a month ago. "She saw them. Veross and Ortus."

"What? How do you know?" Ophelia asked.

"Retrovision, I think. I can see the memories of other people."

"What? You could do that? All this time you could do that?"

Lazzi scratched the back of his head. "Get off my back. I forgot that Shijian could do that."

"What's going on between you two?" the old lady asked.

"Carry along grandma, Vide and I are gonna protect you from that monster."

The old lady, still confused, just nodded and ran off.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. "A month of asking people..."

"Well, our search might be done soon. I know where Veross passed on his Obelisk. Let's go there now." Lazzi stared intently at Ophelia.

"What? We can't just warp there. I must have visited the place first."

"You haven't visited it?" Lazzi said mockingly. "You're the Obelisk of Space! Why haven't you visited it yet?"

"Ha-ha, you're a funny man Shijian. If you don't know, my mind archives every spatial point in any dimension of the entire expanding universe."

Lazzi scoffed. "Copycat. Let's just go and walk, it's just a few meters away from here anyway."

Ophelia sighed and followed Lazzi.

"It's in this alley." Lazzi said. He crouched and brushed his fingers against a scorch mark in the wet ground.

"Okay, we're here but we still don't know where Veross' Inheritor is."

"Not yet. But if you Bridge me your Obelisk we will." Lazzi stood and held out his hand. Ophelia nodded and combed her hair away, revealing her insignia. Lazzi breathed in, his one hand on Ophelia's neck. He twisted his other hand as if he was turning a dial. At first nothing happened but then the rain swiftly started to move upwards back in the sky. After a while, the two Obelisks saw faint ghostly visuals of people walking backwards around the alley.

"You're rewinding time?"

"No, not exactly. It's just after images of the things that happened here in this area. Basically, I'm rewinding light."

"Oh right," Ophelia blushed. She remembered reading that in one of her textbooks about the effects of Bridging. It was a technique used to solve mysterious crimes in the future.

"Alright, let's move backwards up to a month ago." Lazzi twisted his hands further, making the rewind process faster.

"There they are!" Ophelia said. Lazzi snapped his fingers and the vision paused. Static jolts of lightning were scattered everywhere like dangerous strings. Ortus was in midair, thrown away by the huge sparks of electricity frying her body. Lazzi looked at the center where the main bolt of electricity hit.

"Oh no..." Lazzi held on to the hem of his shirt. There in the middle of the chaos he saw a boy coiled with a lightning bolt and in front of him was a burnt body. Ophelia placed a comforting hand on Lazzi's back.

"He sacrificed himself to protect the Obelisk up to the very end. I hope he's in peace now."

Lazzi nodded and reached out for the boy's face but his fingers simply passed through.

"That's him, isn't he?" Ophelia whispered.

"Right. Veross' inheritor." Lazzi snapped his finger once again and the vision played forward. After some time, people had discovered Veross' Inheritor and took him in an ambulance.

"We must follow his after images."

"Where's Ortus?" Ophelia asked. The two looked back and noticed Ortus was now missing.

"Let's think of that later, for now let's follow where the ambulance is taking him. Vide, please expand and move the area of vision wherever this ambulance takes him."

Ophelia nodded. "We finally found him, huh?"

"Yeah, we found our Obelisk of Odds."