"So...... did we like... just change the future??" Aki asked, standing outside the cave with Echo and Luna.
"Ugh, that concept is kind of irrelevant when dimensions are involved. You can't change a future that hasn't even happened yet. We just contributed to the present, shaping the ever-changing possibilities for the future," Echo returned.
"Ugh, time stuff is confusing," Aki returned.
"Echo, why did you do that? Didn't you see how desperate he was to find that time stone?! We should have given it to him," Luna lectured her.
"It's for the best, Luna. What if he'd used it to go back but failed to change anything? He'd have to live it all again. He said himself; anything can happen as consequence. It's all too risky. Why do you think there's a curse on it in the first place?" Echo pointed out.
"Yeah, but why is something like that even in the human world?? Thought artefacts were a magical world thing. The angels would go mad if they knew something this powerful was just lying around here," Aki mentioned.
"It was probably an angel that dropped it. Or maybe a demon from the Golden Age? Since it became a legend, someone must have known about it," Echo went on.
"So... do you think we use it in our dimension? In case something bad happens??" Luna brought up.
"This belongs in this dimension, Luna. Bet it won't even work in ours. Besides, how do you think I knew where this one was? I'd already found it in our dimension," Echo revealed.
"HUH??!!" Luna yelped.
"So, what did you do with it?" Aki asked.
"This," Echo suddenly LAUNCHED THE STONE INTO THE SEA!!!!!
"AGHH!!! WHY?!!!" Luna and Aki yelled out in horror.
"Don't be dumb, guys. This thing changes the timeline, not dimension. It would be stupid and dangerous to use. The only reason I took it was for Hachiro's own good. He spent seven years looking for that thing! He might even still be looking for it now, ten years later! All it's made him do is lose what little he had left..." Echo mumbled.
"What do you mean by that??" Luna wondered.
"... that it was all for nothing. He forgot what he was really fighting for. What it all meant..." Echo went on.
"Echo, how much do you know about Hachirou...?" Luna asked.
"... too much," Echo answered.
"What was it he was fighting for...? To have spent so long there, all alone...?" Luna wondered.
"... he was fighting for his family... yet neglected them in doing so," Echo told her.
"Did... something happen to his family?" Luna asked.
Echo hesitated to answer.
"I won't say any more about it..." Echo told her.
"A lot of us wanna change the past... but sometimes... it's best to accept things as they are and push through a new tomorrow. The future remains unknown... you could just find new ways to laugh and smile..." Aki mentioned.
Luna glimpsed at him, not expecting such profound words from him.
"BUT WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO NOW YOU'VE THROWN OUR ONLY WAY HOME INTO THE OCEAN?!!!" He suddenly raged.
"Don't worry; Galaxy can get us back. I don't know if she forgot or just wanted to see us suffer, but she's linked to someone in our dimension. Meaning she can get back exactly how she got to us through Eclipse," Echo mentioned.
"WAIT!! WE COULD HAVE GOT BACK THIS WHOLE TIME?!!" Aki roared.
"WE FORGOT ABOUT ECLIPSE!!" Luna joined him.
"Don't worry. We'll find her. Probably..." Echo mentioned.
"Probably?!!" Luna squealed in panic.
"I need blood!!!" Galaxy moaned, wobbling into them out of nowhere.
"Agh!" Luna squeaked in fear.
"YOU WITCH!!!! WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?!!!" Aki raged.
"Aww, you missed meeee, puppyyyyy?" Galaxy let out as if intoxicated.
"Oh, hey, you're not dead," Echo commented with a narrow expression.
"But damaged is another story," Luna muttered, pulling a dart from her arm.
"Oh, for the love of- what the heck is that?!" Echo yelled.
"Luna, mind if I hug you?" Galaxy asked.
"Why?" Luna asked in a panic.
Galaxy wrapped her arms around Luna anyway.
"She's being too tame.......... I don't like it!" Echo shivered.
"Galaxy.....?" Luna squealed, looking at Galaxy.
"(Snore) (snore)" Galaxy fell asleep!
"Oh... well, at least she didn't suck my blood or something," Luna said as she gave the sleeping Galaxy a piggyback.
"Must be a sleeping dart. Maybe someone mistook her for a vicious animal," Echo muttered.
"Mmm!! So...!! Heavy!!" Luna complained, legs shaking.
"Hey, don't go sleepy yet! Teleport us back first!" Echo ordered.
"Aaabraaa cadabraaaa!" Galaxy raised her hand as her eyes remained closed.
"NOT SO FAST!!!" a sudden voice announced, jumping into the spell.
"Gah!" Luna fell to her knees from being teleported onto uneven land.
"Uh!!" Echo gasped, seeing a new face before them.
"Demons...!!" it growled.
"GAH!! WHAT THE HELL?!!" Aki yelped, seeing the boy on the floor.
"Ah...!! W-wait!! Who are you??" Luna panicked.
"Who am I?!! Only one of the most prestigious graduates of Lighto Academy in existence!!! I've purified more souls than you've all tainted COMBINED!!" a tall guy with glasses and a SUIT announced as he rose to his feet.
"Lighto... academy?" Luna repeated in confusion.
"Wait... you're a...!" Echo gasped when suddenly the boy unleashed pure white wings!!
"An angel?!!" Luna gasped with a small blush from how beautiful his wings were.
"You foul creatures are interfering with my work!! Going against the peace agreement like the scum you are; how shameful," He added.
"We ain't interfering with nothin'!" Aki objected.
"OH, REALLY??! THEN HOW ABOUT YOU EXPLAIN TO THE PURIFYING DIVISION THAT YOU TOOK ON ONE OF MY ASSIGNMENTS?!!!" he raged.
"Assignments...??? I'm so confused!" Luna panicked.
"What the hell are you on about? Ya really think we'd try an' do your job for you?" Aki asked.
"What jobbb???" Luna begged to know.
"Assignment Hachirou Yuki," the angel got out a large book?!
"After losing his son - at the fault of a corrupt human," he began to explain.
"Who, by the way, was JENNIFER'S ASSIGNMENT!! Most incompetent angel you'll ever meet. Everyone in Gold Class hates her," he side-ranted.
"Anyway *clears throat* Hachirou Yuki became set on bringing his son - Kamako - back using time magic. Really, an expected move. We get this a lot," he went on.
"But after studying in isolation for a few months, his instability was drawn attention to by the purification division. We examined different timelines to find his absence causes his second son to become an unstable mess, obsessed with getting strong, taking on power he can't handle, leading to more deaths than the reapers would care to take on," He went on.
"Ah......" Luna let out, being completely baffled.
"AND SO!! They sent out me - Taro Firestorm - to purify his corrupt soul and send him back to his family," Taro finished.
".............................................." everyone was utterly dumbfounded by the new information.
"I'm so confused!!!" Luna repeated.
"I'm the one who should be confused!! Why on earth did you take on an angel's job?!! This wasn't foreseen in any of the timelines!!" Taro lectured.
"Yeah...... we're from a different dimension, tryna back get home, so........." Echo explained.
"Wait! What?!! A demon with dimension-travel powers?!! HOW?!!! This is a disgrace!! Only the higher-up angels should know of such abilities!!! How did a load of demons come across such power?!!" Taro ordered to know.
"Hachirou," Echo answered.
"......................." Taro froze.
"Looks like ya didn't foresee every timeline, ay? Haha!" Aki grinned.
"Aghh!! This is absurd!!" Taro raged.
"Look, we're not here to mess your job up or whatever. Just say Hachirou got his head together on his own," Echo told him.
"Oh, on his own!! Please! That doesn't even occur in the cat dimension!" Taro argued.
"THERE'S A CAT DIMENSION?!!" Luna fangirled.
"What about cats???" Galaxy awoke.
"Oh, that wore off quicker than I thought..." Taro muttered.
"WAIT!! YOU SHOT HER??!" Aki yelled.
"She was interfering!!" Taro returned.
"With what?!!" Echo argued.
"WITH CONVINCING SOME LOST HUMANS THAT THEIR LIVES DON'T MATTER AND THERE'S ONLY ONE ESCAPE FROM IT!!!" Taro raged.
".... ok, that's fair," Echo excused.
"There are humans here??!" Luna questioned, quickly looking back and fourth in shock.
"Well, anyway, now we've been confused the hell outta, let's get back to tryna get home," Aki suggested.
"Oh, yeah. That's what we were doing," Echo muttered.
"You really think I'm going to let you get away with this?!! The angels know everything!! They see everything!! They'll have me demoted for this!!" Taro panicked.
"Hm. Well, it was gonna happen either way," Galaxy smirked.
"Uh... What absurdity do you speak of?!" Taro gasped in confusion.
"In our dimension, you spend a good few years on this assignment! And in the end, you let Hachirou be brutally murdered without a dent of progress!" Galaxy smiled.
Everyone froze in shock.
"Wait... no, that's not true! Hachirou Isn't....! He can't be...!" Luna teared up.
"Uh... Hachirou Yuki is murdered? ... then... his second son is still a threat... I should report- ... no. I have no reason to believe foolish demons like you," Taro grunted.
"Well, if you take us back to our dimension, you can see for yourself~" Galaxy smiled, meeting his gaze without a quiver.
No... she's bluffing, right?! Right??!!
"... Hm. Oh, I'll see for myself, alright. But it won't be with you. Have fun being stranded in another dimension, scum!" With that, he cast a PORTAL??!!
He jumped through it, and it instantly collapsed, just as Echo jolted forward after him.
"Damn it," Echo grumbled.
"Well, that was fun. Who'd a guessed we'd piss off an angel while we were here?" Aki chuckled.
"Galaxy... you were bluffing about Hachirou, right?" Luna asked nervously.
"The angels see everything, Luna," Galaxy replied with a wink as she pressed her finger against her lips.
"Well, so much for keeping Hachirou's horrifying past a secret. God, side characters are annoying," Echo sighed.
"... I can't believe he had his son taken away from him like that. Just like when that human attacked cold stone, and took Yurika... but Hachirou just left when he had another son to look after?! What happened to his mind? He... really did become so lost..." Luna mumbled.
"It's easily done when something you love is taken away so harshly," Echo mentioned.
"Well, we can't spend all day moping over someone else's backstory. How bout we get back to our plot??" Aki suggested.
"Yaaaay! Main story! Main story!!!" Galaxy cheered.
"Galaxy, you're linked to someone in our dimension, right?" Echo brought up.
"Yeaaaaah," Galaxy confirmed.
"So....... you can get us back?!" Echo told her, twitching in frustration.
"Yeah! Haha!" Galaxy immediately admitted.
"YOU COULDN'T HAVE TOLD US THAT EARLIER?!!!" Aki yelled.
"You guys abandoned me earlier!" Galaxy reminded them.
"No! You refused to come with us, then teleported to go and harass humans!!" Echo corrected.
"I was boreddddd!" Galaxy whined.
"Can you just get us back already?" Luna asked.
"Hmm.... sure can! Lemme just go check their location real quick. Wouldn't wanna teleport us to an even worse situation, ay!" Galaxy smirked.
"THERE IS NO WORSE SITUATION!!!" Echo raged as Galaxy teleported away...
........
"... she's not coming back, is she?" Aki assumed.
"She wouldn't do that! Come on, Galaxy can be mean sometimes, but she's still our friend," Luna told them.
"Hm. If you believe that, then she has you right where she wants you," Aki commented.
"Uh... what do you mean?" Luna asked.
"(Sigh) Come on. While we're here... there's something I wanna see," Echo sighed, walking off.
"Uh... huh? Hey, wait up! Where are you going??" Luna asked, hurrying after her.
"Just follow me," Echo grumbled.
...
After walking in silence, they came across a large village...
"Uh... wait. I didn't know there was a village here..." Luna mumbled as they hid behind a tree.
"I thought I sensed it... Galaxy didn't teleport us back to the island... this is Angel's Peak," Echo explained.
"Uh!! Akira's still here!!!" Luna added in shock.
"Shh!" Echo hissed.
Akira was in the village, which was signed "Shadowhall". He stood before a massive crowd of surface demons. Next to him was a girl with long, brown hair.
"Ah!" Luna jumped as a baby dragon ran by them into the village.
Small dragons could be seen all about the village!!
"... this was my village, Shadowhall. The one that burned down," Echo revealed.
Luna gasped as she noticed a little girl that looked a lot like Echo among the crowd...
"Uh... I didn't know you used to have short hair," Luna mentioned, seeing that the younger Echo's hair was just up to her shoulders.
"Mmm..... it would grow out pretty quickly. I'd cut it so it didn't get in the way when I'd read. But erm... I decided to grow it out eventually," Echo looked away with a blush.
"And so, Midnight will be cooperating with you all to create harmony between demons and vampires. If we progress in small steps like this, the vampires could settle a new peace agreement to help us advance as a kingdom," Akira explained to the villagers.
The surface demons seemed to react a little hesitant and disapproving, murmuring and piecing the girl with a sharp glare.
As they watched, Echo's gaze fixated on the brown-haired girl beside Akira. Her names Midnight? And she's...
"... that girl's a vampire?" Luna mumbled, surprised at how docile she looked. Her eyes were a fierce red, yet her smile was so warm. She looked as though she could be Luna's sister with how soft her demeanour was.
"... this was Akira's big mistake. The agreement that went against everything the angels had regulated; letting a vampire mix with demons..." Echo told her.
Luna noticed the younger Mightnight approaching Echo...
Echo met her eye. She smiled sweetly while Echo awkwardly looked away, seeming quite scared.
"H-hi there. My name's-" Midnight attempted to introduce herself.
"Um!" Echo ran away in a fluster, dropping the book in her arms.
"Uh..." Midnight looked confused, her hand still extended slightly.
Her gaze lowered with puppy dog eyes.
"You never told me about her... did you two become friends?" Luna asked gently, curious about Echo's past.
But she dismissed his interest.
"I'd rather not talk about it," she replied, tone lacking emotion.
"... Echo... are-... are vampires bad?" Luna wondered, still not clear on how she should perceive vampires.
"Not all of them," Aki answered in a serious tone, looking on at the scene with them.
"Ah! Wait! He's leaving!" Luna panicked, seeing Akira walking out of the village.
"I have to speak to him again!!" She suddenly launched to her feet.
"Ah! Wait!!" Aki panicked.
"Come on!" Luna urged.
"... Echo?" she paused, seeing Echo hadn't moved, gaze locked onto her past self, hiding from the crowd and watching Midnight try to interact with her village, who mainly were dismissive of her.
"Hey... don't get lost too," Luna bent back down to her, resting her hand on her leg.
Echo turned to her, gaze breaking.
"Uh... right," she snapped out of it.
Update: I decided to add a side character in this chapter so that I can get some information about the established angels and Hachirou's backstory. There's also a scene linked with Echo's backstory. Overall, this chapter should feel more informative while also triggering some curiosity for the questions the revealed info creates!