Amir's Pov
"What will happen to these children?" Morgiana softly asks. By the time we made it out the navy had already captured the pirates and loaded them up on their boats to take back to the city. Now we are back at the city docks, waiting for them to decide what they are going to do with the remaining pirates.
"The navy is completing preparations for transporting them. They will probably be imprisoned," I answer her.
"Yes and after that... well," The captain of our boat looks towards the ground, unable to finish his sentence.
"But these guys... they're all small children," Alibaba says, staring at the sobbing children.
"Mother!!" Olba and the other children begin to scream. "Don't go, Mother!"
"It's alright, my children," She smiles at them. The guards take her by the arms and begin to pull her towards the boat. From the corner of my eye I notice Hakuryuu stagger forward.
"Are you alright, Hakuryuu?" Morgiana asks him. He doesn't answer her.
"Kill her," More voices begin to shout over the crying children. "Kill that woman immediately!" We all look towards the cities people in shock.
"Kill her! She did terrible things! You don't have to transfer her!" A man yells at the navy guards. Soon they are all rushing the guards to get to Aum Madaura.
"H-Halt!" A guard shutters as he tries to push them back. It doesn't take long for the people to overpower the guards. They grab her by the hair, yanking as hard as they can as they restrain her. Soon all of the people are beating Aum Madaura as she cries out for mercy.
"This kind of thing!" Morgiana gasps.
"Stop them!" Alibaba screams at the guards. None of them make a move to step in. Slowly, Hakuryuu steps forward with a sword in hand.
"Hakuryuu?" I frown in confusion. He continues to walk towards Aum Madaura and the people back away from him as he points the sword at them.
"Ah! Child! You are such a good boy! You came here to help me!" Aum Madaura smiles up at him. Hakuryuu softly smiles in return before he raises the sword above his head. He swings the blade down, cutting her head clean off her shoulders, the soft smile never leaving his face. My eyes go wide as I watch her head roll away before it completely disappears from my vision. Hakuryuu walks towards the spot her head fell before bending over to pick it up.
"Hakuryuu!!" Alibaba abruptly yells as he stomps forward. He grabs Hakuryuu by the collar of his shirt, yanking him towards him. "What the hell have you done!?"
"What are you asking?" Hakuryuu asks in a flat voice. "I executed the captain of the pirates. It was the only way to calm down these people. And the people of this town wanted it as well. We were sent to exterminate the pirates for the sake of the people of this city in the first place, right?" Alibaba remains silent, staring at Hakuryuu in shock. "But," Hakuryuu looks down slightly. "It's true that I got a little enthusiastic because of her magic. I still saw her as my own mother."
"You saw her as your Mother!? Then why did you do that!?" Alibaba snaps out of his silence.
"That was the reason. I remembered," Hakuryuu yanks his shirt from Alibaba's hand and takes a few steps away. "My mission was to kill the Al Sarmen witch who took up with my uncle and usurped the Kou Empire. To kill my own mother."
"That's enough!" I shout at the two when Alibaba makes a move to scream at Hakuryuu again. Both look at me in surprise as I walk up to them calmly. I grab both of them by the wrist and yank them down to my height. "We can't talk about this here. Not around all these people," I hiss softly to them. With that, I pull them from the crowd and towards a secluded area. Morgiana and Aladdin are quick to follow us.
"Now explain this to us, Hakuryuu," Alibaba demands. Hakuryuu sighs softly and leans against the wall.
"Ren Gokuen, the witch from Al Sarmen who took up with the stupid, gullible Kou Prince in order to manipulate the Kou Empire. She was a woman who resembled The Great Holy Mother a lot. She cares nothing about her children. That kind of woman must not live," Hakuryuu explains to us in a soft tone.
"That's why you killed the Great Holy Mother, huh," Alibaba says, anger clear in his voice.
"Even if I hadn't done anything, she would have been executed anyway."
"That could be the case but didn't you do it because of a personal grudge of yours!?" Alibaba begins to shout again. Hakuryuu doesn't get the chance to respond. Olba breaks the ropes around his wrists and steals a knife from a guard. His eyes lock onto Hakuryuu and he bolts towards us.
"Olba!?" The other children shout. Olba doesn't look back to them. He reaches us and moves to stab Hakuryuu, but Hakuryuu simply catches his hand.
"I'll kill you," Olba glares up at Hakuryuu. "You... you killed Mother!" Hakuryuu shakes his head before back handing the small boy. Olba falls back onto the ground with a sharp cry of pain, his blade falling from his grasp.
"How many people did you kill in this city?" Hakuryuu asks him coldly. "There were even women among them, right? Weren't they the mothers of someone else? What about their children!? And only after your own mother's death do you behave like that!? Aren't you thinking about things too conveniently!?" Olba doesn't respond to him, unable to find any words. "Also you've vaguely realized it already, right? You already know the Great Holy Mother was just using you."
"Hakuryuu," I step forward to grab his hand, but he pushes me away from him.
"Because The Great Holy Mother commanded you to kidnap even more children, right?" He continues without batting an eye. "That was in order to create new pirates. You should know this already. You should have noticed. There is no reason to be sad. You all, from the beginning, were not loved."
"Hakuryuu!" Alibaba shouts, rushing up to him. Hakuryuu glares at Alibaba before storming off. We don't get a chance to go after him thanks to the guards. They quickly gather Olba and tie him back up with the other children.
"Hurry up and move, you damn brats!" One guard screams. "We're moving out. You'll go to meet your execution, or you will be sold as slaves." My eyes go wide when I notice the rukh around the children. It's turning black. Aladdin softly gasps when he notices it. He quickly steps forward, his staff raised to put a stop to this.
"Wait, please," Aladdin freezes at Alibaba's voice. Alibaba calmly walks up to the guards and holds his hand out. "Could you hand those pirates over to us?"
"What? It is true that you cooperated with us in the capture of these pirates, but aren't you going beyond your authority when you interfere with how criminals from Aktia should be judged!?"
"No, my country has half of the responsibility of these pirates," Alibaba says. My eyes widen a little when I realize what he is planning.
"Responsibility, you say?" The captain asks him.
"Yes. The Great Holy Mother acted on a trade route that went between Sindria and Aktia, so as members of Sindria Kingdom, we cannot ignore this. However, regarding all future damage caused by pirates on the maritime commercial routes between our countries, if Aktia prefers to cope with them alone and give us reparations, we will convey this principle to his majesty the King of Sindria," Alibaba says confidently. I smirk a little as I watch the guards become flustered.
"T-That's..." The captain trails off and turns around to quietly talk to his men. Soon he turns back to us. "We cannot agree to that without knowing that you are indeed from Sindria."
"Captain," I step forward.
"What is it boy?" He glares at me. I keep my face straight as I look him in the eye.
"As the Prince of Sindria, I'm sure that I alone am enough proof that we are from Sindria," I state. His eyes go wide in what is most likely disbelief.
"T-The Prince?" He stutters, a look of panic crossing his face. "F-Fine, we'll give the remaining pirates to you but we will confiscate all their magic tools!" He points at me as he shouts. He quickly turns and walks away from us. I shake my head at his behavior before turning to look at the children.
"You guys handle this. I'm going to go after Hakuryuu. Hopefully he has calmed down now," I say, walking in the direction of his rukh. I sigh softly to myself. What am I even going to say to Hakuryuu? He isn't the same person anymore. He has changed so much in the little time that I've known him. Hakuryuu isn't the boy I grew to like anymore.
"Hakuryuu!" I call for him when I finally spot his rukh. He freezes mid-step before slowly turning to look at me. I quickly jog up to him before he turns to leave again. "Um. Are you okay?" I ask him, slowly taking his hand in mine. His eyes grow colder and he yanks his hand away.
"Of course, I'm not okay!" He shouts at me and all I can do is stare wide eyed at him. "How could I possibly be okay!?"
"I-I..." I look towards the ground unable to look at his cold eyes any longer. After a few moments he sighs deeply.
"Amir, just go back to Aladdin," He orders. "Stop trying to act like you care about me and just go." I look up at him in shock.
"I'm not acting! I do care about you. That's why I'm here. I want to understand why you're so upset and I want to help you," I look up at him, slightly hurt by his words. He merely scoffs at me, shaking his head.
"Not the way I cared about you. You love Aladdin, and I can see that your feelings aren't going to change."
"Is this really why you're acting like this?" I begin to glare at him. He shrugs before looking away.
"I have a lot on my mind and knowing you don't return my feelings doesn't help anything..." Hakuryuu trails off in a sad tone, his shoulders sagging slightly. "But," He straightens himself back up as nothing happened. "I'm over you."
"Over me?" I question.
"Yes," His face twists into a cruel smirk. "In fact, I don't think I ever even liked you. The way I feel for Morgiana is much stronger than anything I ever felt for you." My mouth opens but nothing comes out and my shocked stare turns into a glare.
"I see," I mumble. "That's fine. Like you said, I never stopped loving Aladdin and I never will. Goodbye, Hakuryuu," I turn to leave without another word. He doesn't respond, but why would he? He simply doesn't care. I look down to the ground, hot tears filling my eyes. I can't believe I actually wanted to love him. To be with him.
~Later That Day~
"Good evening, and welcome to our inn," The inn keeper cheerfully greets us.
"Room for four," Alibaba tells him. Alibaba, Aladdin, Morgiana, and I decided to stay in Akita for the night since we will go be going our separate ways tomorrow. Aladdin slowly scoots closer to Alibaba and begins to whisper to him.
"It seems that Mor and Amir aren't in good spirits," Aladdin says so softly that I could barely hear it.
"Yeah. Hakuryuu suddenly left after showing us that unpleasant thing." Alibaba frowns deeply before walking up to Morgiana with a bright smile. "Well, let's go eat and be merry! We still have a lot of money left from what they gave us after conquering Zagan's dungeon!"
"Yeah!" Aladdin happily agrees with him and skips over to me. He grabs my arm and grins up at me. "Let's go!" I sigh tiredly, but nod in agreement anyway. I don't want to ruin his fun, especially since I know they are trying to cheer us up. We are quickly seated and soon served our food.
"Mor, Amir, are you sure you two are alright? You guys haven't eaten anything until now." Aladdin looks at her worryingly. I just nod and continue to pick at my food. I can't bring myself to eat it, not when there are so many strangers around to see me fumble around looking for it.
"What's wrong Morgiana? Your strong point is your physical strength, so if you don't eat to your heart's content it won't be good for you, so here!" Alibaba shoves a fish in her face.
"No. I'll be fine." She pushes it away.
"Ah, if you say that then I will end up eating this delicious little fish," Alibaba continues to pester her with the fish. With every second Morgiana looks more annoyed. It doesn't take long for her to give in and eat the fish he continues to throw her way.
"Are you satisfied now?" She grumbles through her food. Both Aladdin and I just stare at them weirdly.
"You're great Morgiana!" Alibaba says gleefully.
"The four of us will have to wait a long time before being able to do something like this again," Aladdin suddenly speaks up, gaining all of our attention. "Tomorrow Amir and I take the land route towards Magnoshutatt. You two will travel to the Laem Empire, right?"
"Yes, but we will be taking different ships," Morgiana says. "Alibaba's destination, Laem Empire's capital Remano, is on the North-Western part of the Laem continent. To reach my destination, the region of Katalgo, I have to go through the Southern province of Laem Empire."
"I see. So we will all go on separate ways," Aladdin says.
"But we will meet again soon!" Alibaba nearly shouts with a bright smile. "I intend to return in no longer than a year."
"Me too," Morgiana quickly nods in agreement. "As soon as I see my home village, I will go back to Sindria." Aladdin looks down with a sad smile.
"I will probably take much longer. There are a lot of things I want to learn."
"I will also take longer. I intend to stay with Aladdin until he is ready to leave," I say softly.
"Now don't you two dare stay there and never come back!" Alibaba shouts in worry.
"It's alright!" Aladdin laughs softly. "We are tied by destiny. We will meet again for sure!" Alibaba nods slowly and a grin makes its way onto his face once again.
"Let's make a promise," Alibaba holds his hand out.
"Yeah!" Both Aladdin and Morgiana agree as they stretch their hands out.
"You too Amir," Alibaba grins at me. I look at him in shock before slowly reaching my hand out towards theirs. All three of them smile at me and I can't help but to smile back at them.
"We will surely meet again and in one piece!" After that we spent the rest of the night having as much fun together as we could. We ate, we sang, and we danced. We had the time of our lives together knowing it would be a long time before it could happen again.
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