"h-hoow?!"
Her expression was one that was a mixture of various things, shock, confusion, disbelief, and even a hint of fear.
'I didn't think much of it when I heard her name as it's very possible for multiple spirits to have the same name…but that face! That broken crown!'
"Impossible!"
Undine suddenly remembered the words of the Great Wind Spirit, Sylph, when she informed the latter that she was after the new Great Lightning spirit;
["Word of advice: Stop your search. It's for your own good."
"What do you mean by that? I need to find this new great spirit and protect her before the same thing that happened to Ifrit happens to her too!"
Sylph laughed loudly upon hearing Undine's reply and shook her head before saying.
"Ifrit, huh? If what happened to Ifrit happens to this 'new Great Lightning Spirit', then the spirit race as a whole is pretty much fucked then."
The great wind spirit then gave Undine a serene gaze and spoke in a serious voice, uncharacteristic of her as Undine had known Sylph to never take anything seriously.
"I'm serious. Don't say I didn't warn you."]
Undine could now finally understand why Sylph had not wanted her to look for Kayla.
[Undine…]
Kayla took a step towards the blue-eyed woman, with ice element gathering at her feet and freezing the water of the pond where she stepped.
[This is why I told big sis to permanently erase all the traces and not hide them. One look at my face is enough for any sufficiently powerful spirit to 'remember'.]
"Lady Kayla…permanently erasing all the traces would have left a blank mark on the history and records of Aidos itself, and I'm sure 'Aidos' would not like that. Besides, only the Great Spirits are powerful enough to remember."
Kuro spoke as he tossed his jar of milk back into his shadow, with Kayla sighing softly before turning back to Undine and speaking.
"It would be very troublesome if the other great spirits started looking for me like you did, so I'm going to entrust you with the task of preventing that from happening…okay?"
Upon hearing her words, Undine finally regained her composure and nodded lightly, before her body was swallowed by a surge of the pond water as she disappeared.
Seeing the Great Spirit that left immediately, Kuro was about to speak, only for his eyes to widen in shock as his shadow suddenly expanded.
"I never really used this part of our contract, but it's quite handy."
The voice of a certain teenage boy whom Kuro was currently contracted to rang out as he emerged from the stunned shadow spirit's shadow.
He then turned his gaze to the similarly surprised Kayla, tilting his head to the side and speaking.
"And you…are a lot bigger than the last time is saw you, quite weird considering that was this morning."
Kayla's gaze trembled as she noticed his eyes move up from her body to the broken crown floating above her head, with the boy sighing softly and continuing.
"Don't look at me like that…you make it seem like I'm the bad guy here when you're the one with the secrets.
Oh well…I do have my own share of those too so who am I to chastise you?"
He then walked towards the golden plant nearby and plucked off one of its trifoliate leaves before asking.
"Hey Kayla, Are you really the Great Lightning Spirit?"
"…I am currently the Great Lightning Spirit."
"Currently, huh?
Oh well…that's enough for now."
The boy yawned after hearing Kayla's reply, muttering something about being sleepy before jumping back into Kuro's shadow and disappearing, along with the lightning elemental plant that he had uprooted from the ground.
As for the two spirits left behind, they stared at each other in silence before Kuro finally opened his mouth and spoke.
"You were careless."
"…Indeed, I was. Didn't expect him to sense it through our connection."
Kayla returned to her normal size and dismissed her fragmented crown, before plopping back down on the small rock she was sitting on previously.
"Are you going to seal it again?"
"There's no point…master has already seen it, after all."
"Then at least go to Lady Artemisia and have her properly release the seal. The current forced release would be detrimental in the long run."
"Mhmm…"
Upon receiving affirmation from Kayla, Kuro roused his energy and wrapped the both of them with his shadows, teleporting them away from the area in the next moment.
The hilltop was silent for a few seconds until a young heterochromatic-eyed man suddenly appeared and looked at where the two spirits were with a smile on his face.
"You really did let your guard down there, little Kayla.
But to think that this world's Undine is still looking for her fire elemental sister."
The man sighed softly before turning his face towards the horizon, his gaze peering through space as he looked at the spirit forest where Undine just reappeared in, sighing softly as he spoke.
"The Spirit race, huh?
Reminds me of the days when we were still at the Academy when Nicky was still learning to use her powers."
Just as he was speaking, the stars that made up the four-star constellation in the sky suddenly twinkled, before a streak of white light shot down towards the ground, moving at a speed too fast for any eye to see.
It stopped right before hitting the ground, revealing the streak's true identity to be that of a white-haired man dressed in similarly coloured battle armour.
"Foreign god of another world, what do you seek here?"
He opened his mouth and questioned the heterochromatic-eyed man in front of him, his hand reaching for his sword as he prepared for the possibility of combat.
"I believe Artemisia called you Canis, isn't that right? Have become so blind that you cannot recognize members of your race anymore?"
The white armoured man, Canis, had his eyes widen in shock as he finally got a good look at the face of the person in front of him, his voice trembling as he lowered his hand from his sword and gave a perfect 60-degree bow.
"m-my ap-pologies, Sir!"
'I sensed his divinity so I assumed it was another god but why did it have to be 'him' of all people?! He's the furthest thing from a god in the universe!'
"P-pardon me Sir, but W-what brings you to this world, sir?"
"Nothing serious. Was just going through all the worlds under Artemisia's control."
Canis felt his body tremble lightly as he heard the footsteps of the man and saw his feet getting closer before a hand landed on his shoulder.
"Come on, let's go on to the next one."
Without even a chance to give his consent, the two beings were wrapped in spatial light and teleported away from the planet Aidos, allowing silence to finally return to this hilltop.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m