*Silas*

I gasped as I stared at the young man standing before. He looked so much like Dante...

"B-brother?" I said, reaching a hand out.

"H-huh?" he asked, looking at me funny. "Bro-brother?"

I lowered my head and hand. This guy wasn't him... his eyes, they were a give away. The Dan I knew had red eyes, not golden eyes. Yet, part of me still wished it were him. The brother I had lost years ago.

"Hey, brother, are you alright? I told you to be careful," a boy yelled as he emerged from an alley. He ran up to the Dan-look-alike and glanced over at me. "Can I help you, sir?"

I turned away. "No, it's nothing..."

I walked away slowly. I clenched my chest. I came to a stop and leaned against the stone wall of the building next to the hotel. 

My heart felt like it had been shattered all over again. Would the day ever come in which I could see him again? Or was he truly lost forever to the sea of darkness?

I wanted to say sorry... to apologize for having hurt him. I wanted to go back, back to when I was a kid. Back to that time when I still looked up to him, before I choose my fake friends over my true friend and brother.

"Silas?" a voice called out. "Is everything alright?"

I glanced up and saw that it was Marina. "What are you doing here?" I asked, wiping my eyes with my sleeves before she could notice that they were watery. "Why did you return?"

She furrowed her brow. "I noticed that you had fallen far behind, so I figured something was wrong."

I smiled. She truly did know me well.

I sighed. "You should've continued on ahead."

She directed her eyes straight into mine and placed her hands on my shoulders. "I won't do that to a friend. I rather see that he's fine than to win a stupid game."

I averted my gaze. "You're a good friend, Mari..." What did I do to deserve having someone like her? Someone like me deserved to have no friends instead. Yet, that wasn't the case. If anyone, it should've been Dan here... while I should've been in that dark world...

"Sy," Marina said, pressing her head against my chest.

"Huh? M-Marina, what are you doing?" I asked as my heart felt like it would leap out my chest.

"I'm hugging you of course. You look like you could use a hug," she said, continuing to hold me tightly.

I laughed. "You really are the best friend a person can ask for."

Marina glanced up at me. She had a beaming smile on her face. "There's that chuckle I love!"

I gulped. "L-love?"

"Yeah, I love it when you laugh, Sy!" she said, slowly letting go of me.

My heart fluttered even more than it already had been. 

"I... I see," I said, continuing to look away.

She took my hand. "Come on, let's go! I want to see you swimming!"

"Huh? W-wait, Mari, I..."

Marina grinned. "What? You aren't going to tell me that you were lying back in the hotel, are you?"

I bit my lip. "Ah... of course not! I'll have you know that I swim like a fish!"

"Really? Now I'm even more excited!" she said, giggling.

I sighed mentally. Why didn't I just admit the truth?

***

Marina and I arrived at the town's water park, but there seemed to be an event going on as there were more people than I had expected.

My companion smiled as soon as she saw the crowd and ran on ahead without me.

"Hey, you're going to get lost," I said, following after her. I glanced up and saw a floating sphere of magic which projected what was going on within the water park.

It was a balloon race... In the lead was the shark guy from Kyuu Seishin's national team. In second place was a young woman from Rios dressed in a blue wetsuit. While in third was a big bosomed blue-haired teen from Wahkan.

The gap between all three was quickly starting to shorten. The Wahkanian girl unleashed a jet of water behind her bubble to push her ahead of the two guys.

Then suddenly a young man in a white wetsuit propelled himself past her. He was muscular like a fighter, not a swimmer. Then again, this event didn't require any swimming unless if one's bubble popped.

All three former leads gasped as the young man raced past them with relative ease. They tried to keep up but the jet of water the guy was firing off was too big that pushed away all the others.

"Such power," Marina said, eyes wide.

It was amazing to see him controlling all that force. He moved back and forth through the water as if he were surfing instead of riding a bubble.

Seeing the guy in action reminded me of stories my mom told me of my grandfather in his younger days. He would often surf in his free time. Supposedly, it's one of the things that attracted my grandmother to him. At first I didn't believe it, until I saw him surf with my own eyes. It was breath taking.

I wish that I had gotten his skills... If I were even as half as good as him then I was sure I would blow Marina away like he did with grandmother...

"That guy is awesome!" Marina said with a large smile.

I scoffed. "I've seen better!" I said. He was still not as good as grandfather, only half at best...

I grabbed Marina's hand. "Come, let's go."

"Where to?" she asked.

"Inside, we can get a closer look there."

Marina smiled.

"Sis? Sis?" a voice called out. I saw a little girl make her way through the crowd. She looked no older than five.

"Hey, Mari..." I turned and saw that she was gone. Somehow she had slipped through my grasp undetected. I turned back to look at the little girl and saw that Marina was already on the case.

I sighed. I should've known. I didn't even need to ask.

"What's your name, little one?" Marina asked.

"My name Claudia Ri..." She bit her lip.

"Why did you stop?" Marina asked, patting her head.

"Were you going to say 'Rios'?" I asked.

Marina laughed. "She reminds me of my big brother."

"Huh?" the little girl asked, tilting her head.

"So, what's your big sister's name?" I asked.

"Her name is Shima."

Marina took the little girl's hand. "Alright, Clau. Uh, it's fine if I call you Clau, right?"

"it's fine. My papa calls me that all the time."

"Where is your papa?" I asked.

"He's watching the event inside. My big sis and I went to get ice cream before heading there..." She lowered her head. "But I got separated from her before we could even get any."

"Claudia? Claudia!" a voice called out.

"That sounds like Shima!" Claudia said, glancing around.

"Claudia!" a trio of voices called out. One of them sounded like Lei...

"And that sounds like my cousins! I'm here!" Claudia yelled.

"Cluadia!" a blue haired seven-year-old yelled, hugging her.

"Sorry, Shima," Claudia said. "I shouldn't have gotten side-tracked."

"That doesn't matter now. I'm just glad I found you!"

Apologize... I lowered my head. If only I could say sorry to my Dan for having gotten side-tracked in my own way... but he's the one missing, not me... Though it should've been me...

"Thanks for helping our cousin," Lei said, snapping me out of my trance. He was smiling at me.

"Well, we didn't really help her. You found her before we could," I said.

"Still, it's the thought that counts," a girl who looked a lot like Lei said.

"Yup," a boy who looked nearly identical to Lei said. The biggest difference between him and Lei was the white hair. Its shade reminded me of my cousin's white hair.

"Are you triplets?" I asked.

"Yup!" all three of them said in unison.

"How neat, how do you do that?" Marina asked.

"We don't know know, we just do," the trio said at the same time again. They all burst into laughter.

"Kind of creepy..." I snickered. It reminded me of when I was a kid... Dante and I used to pretend we were twins... Sometimes our big sis would join in and say that we were triplets.

Considering that there was only a year between each of us plus our similar looks and heights, most people ended up buying it. Though most of the time Hideo would ruin it for us. It was likely because he was jealous he couldn't play along due to having black hair and green eyes.

Sometimes big sis would say he was the fraternal quadruplet. Hideo didn't seem to like that very much though. Yet... years later, all four of us would go our own ways...

"Hey, Shima!" a voice called out. It was a tall man with blue hair. "Did you find Clau?"

"Papa!" Claudia said, looking over her sister's shoulder.

"Clau!" the young man said, taking her into his arms.

Claudia chuckled nervously. "Uh, Papa, you're embarrassing me."

"Whatever, I don't care. I can embarrass you all I want, that's what Papa's do."

Shima snickered. "Sometimes being daddy's little girl isn't all it's cut out to be, huh?" she whispered.

Claudia grumbled.

"Ignore your sis, Clau. She's just jealous."

I laughed. This guy reminded me a tad of my own dad.

The young man glanced up at me and smiled. Something about his smile seemed... familiar. "You helped her, didn't you?"

"Well kind of. Marina and I were going to but then your older daughter arrived," I said.

He picked up his youngest daughter up. "Thanks, Marina, Sy. I owe you one."

My eyes widened. How did this guy know my name? I had only mentioned Marina's but not... mine...

I stepped forward. "Who are you?" I asked.

The man stopped and looked back. "My name is... Euphonium Rios," he said, flashing me a shy smile like the one Dante used to give me...

"Euphonium... that... doesn't exactly ring a bell. How do you know my name?"

Euphonium looked down at his youngest daughter. "I... am not sure. I just felt it."

"Or you just had a lucky guess," Shima said, walking beside her Papa.

The mysterious man snickered. "Yeah... maybe." He looked up to the bright-blue sky with a slight smile. There was a hint of melancholy in his equally blue eyes.

"Say, how about you two join us?" Euphonium asked. "Most of the seats for the event are filled in, but there's still room in the VIP box."

"VIP?" I asked.

"Yeah, Very Important Person," Euphonium responded.

"I know what it means," I said, grumbling. Why did it feel as if I were talking to Dan?

"So, will you join us? Marina, Sy?" he asked while cradling his five-year-old daughter in his arms.

"Uh..."

"Yeah, we'll join you!" Marina said, nodding. "I want to see the end of this event up close!"

"Great! And you, Sy?"

"Uh... yeah."

"Awesome!" he said, laughing.

This guy's personality was more open than his was... but the more I looked at Euphonium, the more I felt as if I were looking at my brother... at Dante. Was this guy and the one I bumped into his doppelgangers? That would explain the familiar vibes... though it also meant that my real brother was still within that dark dimension, waiting to be saved.

**Solar Note: Hope that you enjoyed this chapter :3. Thoughts? Theories/Predictions?**