[Legend of Sun Knight] fic: Fifteen Going on Sixty (Going on Fifteen) Part 6

Nov 25, 2021 23:16

There's more of a chance of seeing a conclusion to this story at least, if not any of the others any time soon. 0__0; Another 2 to 3 chapters, I think?

Title: Fifteen Going on Sixty (Going on Fifteen) Part 6
Fandom: The Legend of Sun Knight
Words: 2,780
Summary: The secret behind the Pope's youth is no small secret. Even the Pope himself has tried to forget, but when Grisia comes too close, the Pope is forced to confront his past.
Notes: This part rehashes canon a lot, unfortunately. Though... my memory of canon is pretty shoddy ATM. Hopefully nothing is too jarring.

Sense

Common sense was never a strong suit among my companions.

Why should I expect anything different now?

My brother should have left for the forest instead of dedicating almost his entire life to me. When he had first come to find me, he would never have imagined that I would outlive him. At most, he probably thought he would only need to keep me company for a few decades, not centuries.

My Sun, in order to protect himself, should have turned Judgment in, but he could never do so, not even when the king's order came down. We weren't even well-established, certainly not to the point of being able to fight the royal family. Yet we did.

My Judgment should have lived for herself and left us behind. Her ties to us had dragged her back to a life she never wanted. She freed Sun and Metal and countless others from a life of slavery, yet she lost her own freedom in exchange, tied down to a system she didn't believe in.

None of them had any common sense. It wasn't any different now. The people who stood before me now weren't the same as those from my memories, yet none of them had any common sense just like them!

The first offense came from Roland.

Roland, a Death Monarch, actually had a dream. Not just any dream, but a dream shared by ten others.

"He was crying! I dreamed that he was crying! But how is that possible? I... I haven't slept since... I don't need sleep... I don't dream..."

Roland was frantic, afraid that something had happened to Grisia, convinced that it was a vision, not a dream. As an undead creature, he didn’t exactly dream. He was right. It was no normal dream. It couldn't be a normal dream when all eleven of them had dreamed the same exact thing.

It was a message from God.

Are you kidding me? Since when were visions on the table? Not since centuries ago had I last seen or heard anything. Not since our Sun left this world, and He with him.

I closed my eyes and covered them with my hand. I breathed out slowly and pressed my lips together to stop myself from scoffing, from breaking into laughter.

Why now?

Why, after all these years of silence?

Is it because of how similar Grisia is to him?

In some aspects, they couldn't be any more different. Their personalities, for one. Grisia's cunning was second to none, while he had had not an ounce of scheming in him. No, that wasn't why they were alike, and it wasn't because of their beautiful blond hair and bright blue eyes either.

Even now, now that Grisia no longer possessed golden hair and blue eyes, Grisia was just like him with how much he cared about his companions. He cared so much. Too much. Both of them did. And that was why, as I listened to his companions argue over how to bring Grisia back, I knew that this precarious plan of theirs that was only just starting to take shape would work.

"I can help," someone said.

Oh, that was me. I just said that.

Eleven pairs of hopeful eyes landed on me.

"Just buy me enough time."

Hah, time.

The second offense came from Grisia's vice-captain, Adair.

In order for me to prepare a city-wide seal to subdue Grisia, I needed enough time to draw the largest magic circle I would ever draw in my entire lifetime. And that was no small amount of time. The heart of the seal would be the Church of the God of Light. We would need to keep Grisia from randomly teleporting in and figuring out what I was doing during this time. The seal branched out all the way to the outskirts of the city, allowing Grisia the ability to wander the entirety of Leaf Bud City and still stay in control. However, even taking one step outside of the city would weaken Grisia's control. He would need all of the Twelve Holy Knights with him to keep sane outside of the city's boundaries.

The heart of the seal was the most important. Once it was done, we could seal away the power of the Demon King and have Grisia stay in the boundaries of the Church of the God of Light before completing the rest of the magic circle to include the entire city.

It came down to sending someone over to Grisia's side to spy on him, pretending to defect to his side. At first, Lesus wanted to send Ceo, as he had a way with words. As someone who had seen Grisia become the Demon King before his very eyes, he also had a good excuse to use to convince Grisia why he was defecting. He wouldn't even have to pretend either. He truly did feel guilty.

And guilt was quite the strong motivation. I would know.

However, Grisia's vice-captain surprised us all.

"Send me instead," he begged when Lesus approached him to tell him that we needed him to be the substitute Sun Knight.

Grisia's vice-captain had taken to wandering the hallways like a ghost ever since he found out that his captain wasn't returning. With dark eye bags, a pale face, and a perpetual frown, he looked much older than his twenty something years, and definitely much older than Grisia.

Each of Grisia's companions would continue to age, their time with us short.

Perhaps, I was wrong. Grisia should be back here with them. Look at how they missed Grisia. If Grisia didn’t come back, he would miss their entire lives.

They’ll be gone before we know it.

Grisia, you need to come back. Come back before they're gone. If you don’t, you’ll regret it forever.

When Lesus agreed to let Adair go instead of Ceo, the relief that came over Adair eased away the ghastly pallor of his face, making him look just a teeny tiny bit less world weary and more like his actual age.

But seriously, no common sense. If he had stayed, he could have taken over the Sun Knight position for himself. Instead, he was going to place himself in danger to be by his captain's side.

The third offense came from Neo.

"I'm off," he told me. Chasel was with him, along with several other familiar faces.

The 37th generation. Another generation that had come and gone right before my eyes. It felt like just yesterday when Neo had been chosen as the new Sun Knight after he had soundly beaten all of the other candidates with his sword, sending pretty much all of them crying. After that, all the other candidates had dropped out, leaving Neo as the sole candidate, one that complained that his opponents had all been too weak and that he hadn’t fought enough yet. He had always been a force to be reckoned with. Now, that boy had grown up, taught his own student, and was now...

"You're retired," I told him.

Neo just shrugged. "He's my student. Once a student, forever a student. You bet I'm going out there and kicking his ass if I come across him!"

The rest of his holy knights nodded in agreement.

Neo raised his sword with his left arm, the sleeve of his right flapping. But even with only one arm, Neo was a sight to behold. At times, he reminded me of her instead of him, always ready to lead us in battle, her prowess never one that anyone doubted.

Even with only one arm, Neo was still going to go out there. He had never had any common sense.

The fourth offense came from all of Grisia’s Twelve Holy Knights.

I inked the final stroke over pale skin, imbuing the magic circle on Laica's chest with a mix of both water and holy element. Each and every one of them now had the same magic circle tattooed on their chests, sealing their fate together.

For the sake of one man, they were all willing to go so far.

"How in the world do you even know such an intricate seal?" Laica could not help but ask. He prodded at the magic circle. I slapped his hand away, only for him to glance up at me in alarm.

Right, he isn't my Metal.

"I found it detailed on some scroll," I answered.

Laica frowned. "Do you read complicated scrolls just for fun or what?"

I laughed. "I sure do."

There existed even spells as specific as this one that would allow us to seal the Demon King’s powers. Why would there not be a spell out there that would allow my time to move once again?

In studying spell after spell, hoping to find the one, I’d grown fond of pouring over all kinds of spells and figuring out how they worked.

Now, all my miscellaneous knowledge was actually coming into use.

Who would have known?

The last offense...

Although Grisia hadn't been serious about it when he made his quip, I indeed had countless skills hidden up my sleeves. He might even complain that I had no right to grumble about him learning magic so quickly when I knew so much magic myself; magic unrelated to recovery skills. But I wasn't like him, who learned all sorts of random new magic, advanced ones at that, just from seeing them performed once. Really, all the mages in the world must be crying because of him.

No, I wasn't like him at all in that sense. While I wasn't half bad at learning new spells, it wasn't like they came to me easily.

What I had was time. Time, and a need to understand the way things worked. Practice and all the time in the world could make anyone a master. My control of the holy element had only improved over the years. By now, I was perhaps more practiced at it than even the earth element, which had once been the element that answered to me the most.

While Grisia excelled in improvised spells, I specialized in intricate ones that required precision and preparation.

But for now, no precision was needed. Instead, I threw my usual caution to the wind, drawing upon as much holy element as I could, bathing our surroundings in blinding light.

No, what we needed now wasn't meticulous preparation-that was already done-but blind faith.

I thought I no longer had it in me, but apparently I did, or else I would not be here behind this pillar, obfuscating Grisia's sensing ability with overwhelming holy element.

Even though the holy element impaired my eyesight, no one outside of Grisia must be blinded more.

He swung around wildly, shouting after Adair with a cold voice, while dark element cut through the holy element I threw at him. He could not even sense my presence, nor could he tell where any of his companions were. They all watched on as Grisia growled and cursed and sent thousands of dark blades flying at Roland, thinking him to be several people as he flitted around Grisia.

At one point, a dark blade even hit the pillar I hid behind, knocking it askew.

I could see Ceo blinking his eyes slowly, still trying to track Grisia's movements, but the medicine I made that he had taken was already starting to kick in. It was one that would imitate death, and it wasn't without its dangers. Yet once Adair had successfully led Grisia back to us, Grisia's companions had all taken it without any hesitation. Now, even as they tried to keep an eye on the fight, to ascertain that Grisia truly was here before us, they could not hold off the effects of the medicine. One by one, they collapsed to the ground like corpses scattered across a war torn battlefield. With the last of his strength, Chikus dragged himself forward and pushed himself over to face up, making sure his bleeding left shoulder was clearly visible.

Then, his chest fell completely still.

While my breathing hitched. The stench of blood did not help.

They're not dead. Not dead. This is all a sham. They're not actually dead. They're not.

I tore my gaze away from the corpses-bodies-stupid, trusting companions that never changed no matter what generation it was-and followed Grisia's example, forming blades out of the holy element to counter his attacks, digging into my deepest reservoirs. He had the power of the Demon King behind his substantial store of dark element, while I, on the other hand, had the power of, well, time.

It wasn't like I had been sitting around doing nothing for all these years!

I disintegrated each and every dark blade Grisia sent out. With the thick holy element around us, there was no way he could sense his dark blades past a certain distance from his body, allowing me the leeway to completely blast his dark blades apart once they left his range of sensing. Together with Roland, we played the part of eleven people.

He was so close, yet so far.

It wasn't time yet to play our hand.

Until now.

Lesus gave a nod to us both. Then, like all the others, he took the medicine I'd made without any hesitation, when there existed a chance that they may never wake up from this fake death. Yet, none of them had hesitated at all. They were all too trusting. They all had too much faith.

Sun, is this our legacy?

Roland and Lesus switched places.

That was my cue.

I gradually lessened the amount of holy element surrounding us, allowing Grisia to finally "see." Immediately, Grisia's attack changed from flinging dark blades to forming a huge hand out of the dark element. The hand flew at Lesus, who was only able to keep it away from him for but a moment. He didn't really try all that hard. After all, his death was meant to be the last, the most impactful one.

Sun and Judgment. No matter which generation, no matter which pair, their bonds have always been special, from the very first duo, all the way to their latest successors. The two of them started us down this path, and here I am now, countless years in the future, still witness to these self-sacrificing morons hurting themselves to save each other.

Lesus reached a shaky hand up to touch Grisia's eyelid.

Behind the pillar, I watched Grisia fall apart, begging for the God of Light to take mercy on him. Hair as dark as the night, no longer the stark white it had become after the brilliant gold had bled away after that Resurrection that should have never been necessary in the first place, marked him as someone incapable of healing others.

I half wondered if God would answer at all, but there really was no need to doubt, not when God had chosen Grisia to walk upon this world with no respite in sight, even sending a vision to the current Twelve Holy Knights, spurring us in bringing him back. Who better than someone who would never die to take on all the darkness of the world?

I had known from the start. God was not merciful. God was at best, whimsical.

I patted myself down and left my hiding spot from behind the pillar, startling Grisia. He had not sensed that I had been there. How could he have, when I had purposely used the holy element to obscure his sensing?

He was back. He smiled. He was now with us again.

And so, we sealed him and tied him down even more, imprisoning him in a mere city. An eternity spent in one city alone, never for him to leave.

The seal would work as long as Grisia remained in Leaf Bud City, as long as his Twelve Holy Knights were with him. But after their passing, Grisia would no longer be able to leave the city. We would have to solve the problem of the Demon King before then, or find a different solution...

None of them had any common sense. Not the Twelve Holy Knights who agreed to become Grisia's seal, not Archer who agreed to have Leaf Bud City house the Demon King, not Neo who went out on the battlefield despite being retired, not Grisia's vice-captain who chose being a spy by the Demon King's side over taking the Sun Knight position for himself.

And I lacked just as much common sense as they did, no matter how much I tried to convince myself.

to be continued
This entry was originally posted at https://lucathia.dreamwidth.org/371185.html. You can comment here or there.

fic type: longfics, the legend of sun knight, fic: fifteen going on sixty

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