The four-seasons within the sandy climate of the Kingdom of Clouds never psychically cycled, allowing the high-above airbridges throughout the wasteland to remain untarnished. Although, the monstrous sand-cyclone known as The Everstorm would inevitably shift its path at any given moment.

Luckily for Kazuki, the airbridges were developed by none other than Halidar Flywhistler. He was an old and mysterious engineer that was said to bear a celestite that could manipulate pressure. With years of study, this allowed him to learn how to command the winds of Azmoria.

Beneath these suspended airbridges was a steep seven-thousand-foot plunge. It was enough to smite anything with a beating heart. But, they were the only way to cross this country fleetly. The braising sun-star sunk in deep from this elevation, and without some veil from the enormous dust devils that The Everstorm produced, one would be brainless to voyage these airbridges without Halidar's help.

Kazuki reaped his first step on an airbridge affixed to Halidar's wooden air-house. He gulped as he gazed down. Osamu was ahead of him, dexterously coursing along the swinging ropes. He was used to the airbridges, one of the many feats he collected enduring Zoenheim his entire life.

"Come on Kazuki! It's just a stroll away. Stop looking down!" Osamu shouted, chuckling.

Kazuki could barely hear Osamu shouting at him from the other end of the airbridge. The whistles of the winds were uproarious and high-pitched.

"It's just a stroll away. No wonder Lilith didn't want to come," Kazuki muttered.

While the leaden gusts swayed the wooden airbridge from side to side, Kazuki drew in a deep breath and tried to repose. While carefully enduring the heavy strokes of wind slamming him, he placed one foot in front of the other, forcing his willpower.

Osamu had finally made it across. After looking up into the glass dome of the odd-house, he turned to give Kazuki another verbal push of confidence. Only, he wasn't there!

"Kazuki!"

Dashing back onto the airbridge, Osamu peered over its rope-tied borders. Kazuki was freefalling!

"A plank actually snapped? You've got to be kidding me!"

***

"Osamu! Help!" Kazuki screamed, descending rapidly.

The crimson blood-sand was zooming in closer by the millisecond. Kazuki quickly squeezed his eyes closed and tried to connect to his bearing demons.

Bearing demons... help me! Maybe if I shield myself in water? Would that break my fall? No, not here.

"That won't work! Osamu! Help!"

The blasting gales pummeling Kazuki's freefalling body had suddenly gone silent, only for a moment. A bluster of gravitational wind flew back his long azure locks as he was abruptly snatched out of the air by the fastest being he'd ever seen. 

"Woah!" he yelled, grabbing the silver tuffs of the creature.

Kazuki tried to pry his eyes open to focus beyond the blinding gusts of pressure. What could be carrying me? I can't see anything! These gusts are too much! 

"Hey! Slow down!" he shouted, pulling on the creature's feathers.

After a few blinks, and a long, tight grip of the beast's feathers, the aerial-sand-torrents had finally calmed. Kazuki mysteriously soared through the sepia-skies, he was in awe. He ascended through the syrupy wisps of ocherous clouds and into the hot glow of the desert's atmosphere. The rich essence of earth and dust saturated his super-sense of smell, allowing him to instantly feel the infected-mana that has corroded the kingdom for over half a century.

"This kingdom has seen an awful tragedy. The mana here is so different. It doesn't feel like my own."

While passing through the final cumulonimbus of clouds, the swift creature had finally come into full view.

--**Creature description here**--

"Hey! Thanks a lot! Whatever you are," shouted Kazuki.

"Hang on Kazuki boy, I gotcha'," the owl-beast replied, circulating his head three-hundred and sixty degrees.

"Gah! What are you?"

The owl-man lifted his goggles from his hispid face. While abiding Kazuki with an orange eye wink, he sprang to fly higher; twisting through the wind, he was as elegant as an ancient dragon.

"Halidar Flywhistler atcher' service!"

***

Halidar's hovel was one large room crammed like an overstocked library. Extremely frail wooden planks sowed the place together, and by the look of it, Kazuki had figured it was quite a long time ago that this 'house in the air' had been crafted. The tomes all piled around Halidar's desk which was accompanied by wax-spilling candles and an assemblage of ripped lounge chairs. The tomes, while some worn and others practically flawless, ascended into the wooden peak of the hovel by an anaemic ladder, into a stargazers glass dome. A majestic golden telescope embraced a delicate tinge of persimmon as the sun-star cascaded its final light for the day through the dome's glossy observatory.

Kazuki and Osamu drew in a deep breath as they finally rested into their sliced up lounge chairs. Halidar wasn't at all what Kazuki had been anticipating. Osamu had told him that he was a legendary celestite bearer, however, he was also a genius engineer.  As for why he was an owl-man, Kazuki thought, was beyond his understanding. Right away, Kazuki began to ask questions.

"Are you a bearing demon, Mr. Halidar?"

Halidar, whom just finished jotting down some notes upon a piece of parchment, had come to sit at his disorganized desk, in front of Kazuki and Osamu. He carried an ambitious smile with him while his eyes flared with almost-human excitement. His hands were stained with bellflower-dyed-ink and were entirely human, attached to an elegant set of grey-white wings.

"No no. I was once human, can't you tell?"

Halidar leaned back and placed his sharp talons on the edge of his desk, shifting himself into a comfortable position.

"What happened?"

With a fathomless breath, Halidar answered carefully.

"Seventy years ago, during the second calamity, I was human. I was...greedy. My aptitude for controlling pressure and my grandfathers' skills with meteorology and aerodynamics had eventually made me hungry for more experimentation, and well..." he paused.

Crossing his arms, Osamu cut in.

"He joined Death's Mask and became part of the Black Lotus Clan, for a time."

Kazuki went frigid. He tried to react but couldn't. This owl-man didn't appear to be at all immoral.

An ex-member of the most feared group of people in the world? Him?

"I was not a full-fledged member mind you. But that does not excuse me from doing the one thing he wanted from me. He told me if I did it, he would grant me the power of flight. You see, one of the celestites he possesses is the Celestite of Lightfeather. The ability to fly without physics. He promised it to me, and I... was betrayed... I have been cursed by this body ever since that day."

"What did you do? What happened?" Kazuki asked, without hesitation.

"Tobi," Halidar replied, sitting up. His bristly face went slump.

"Tobi was only four years old when he came to possess one of the most powerful sub-level celestites' there is. The Celestite of Telekinetics. It was Death's Mask's three-hundredth celestite absorption. The boy's death was entirely my fault," finished Halidar, his tone of voice, apologetic.

Kazuki immediately stood up and slammed his fist on Halidar's messy desk, sending blueprints, books and parchment flying in all directions.

"You should be charged with what you did! How are you even alive?"

"Relax brother, he is here to help," said Osamu.

"No Osamu boy, he is right. I did pay for my crimes Kazuki. However, death's wrath is surely the only sky I deserve to travel for what I did to poor Tobi. After being betrayed by Death's Mask, I had turned myself in. I was locked away within the Prison of Balados. A place where criminal bearers reside, and usually executed with no trial. Many members of the Black Lotus Clan from the past had come from this place. Such as Cadius Bellfountain.  A chemist that had specialized in venom toxins. Before the age of nine, he had already killed twenty-seven people. I had worked with him in the clan for many years. I have seen him kill five celestite bearers at once, and he was just the runt of the pack. Thankfully, he's dead... at a great cost, however," explained Halidar.

"Lilith's mother. Now get to the point," finished Osamu.

"The prison had taken my sanity, my pride and my freedom to work. Everything...it was all lost. After forty-three years of torture, I was pardoned by The Carnation Empire when I swore to build them a boat that could fly."

"What did you just say?" Kazuki asked, stunned.

"I have been developing air travel with my grandfather ever since I was a boy. Before you ask, I do have an airship for you. However, you must do something for me if you have to take it. I want you to take this scroll and give it to a woman named Alexandria, in the Kingdom of Birth. This is a grave message you two. I was leaving tonight. You're lucky, Osamu, to catch me when you did."

"What's it say?" Kazuki asked, reaching for the piece of rolled parchment.

"Aren't you noisy! Well world-saviour. It is a message from King Augustus' healer from The Kingdom of Cosmics. Odd things are taking place to the west. Reports are saying that the great Cosmic Shield is fading. King Augustus must be on his last leg. Without the Cosmic Shield, I'm afraid the kingdom will be dissolved by the acidic rain. They are calling for a full evacuation within the month. Ride those winds with caution boys, and please, be careful with The Owlheart."

***

The following forenoon, Kazuki, Osamu and Lilith had begun to make their way to a grandiose airbridge known as the landing pad. Mr.Halidar's airship, The Owlheart was being prepared for its third-ever takeoff. This suspended landing pad was overlaid with many pulley-ropes that were tied to linen sheets with baskets, all sending supplies to the stern from every corner of the kingdom. Crates of all sizes, filled with coal and food were being lifted into the towering airship by a dozen strong-armed men using a humongous pulley system. With raw muscle, they would be done in no time.

The Owlheart was a fancy battleship-like barge and was completely built of solid ironwood. Its masterful cinnamon-dyed sails fired high into the desert's brassy sky; the sails' ropes all intertwined with a copious coal burner within its centre, energizing the ropes to all cycle in proper coordination through precisely driven holes. The strong-armed men began to shovel coal into it. Suddenly, the propellers began to whirl, forming an oppressive whirlwind upon the plateau.

A bald, muscular sailor, with a red-dragon, tattoed over his right-eye, wearing nothing but rope-tied pants, had begun to yell at the crew to get a move on. While casting the rest of the supplies onto the ship, the broad sailor-man turned to see the three champions just staring at The Owlheart with wonder. He approached them with a blunt look and introduced himself. His accent was of Draconian descent, and the red-dragon tattoo was none other than the brand of The Crimson Order.

"He's a dragon-slayer. No... wait, that tattoo! He trains dragon-slayers. The Crimson Order. Why haven't I seen this man before?" Osamu thought.

"Were leavin' soon. If you have anything else to do here now's the time. There is no telling when we may return. The Kingdom of Birth is about two weeks away from the Mountain of Varis by air travel. I'll have the crew show ya' er' rooms. My name is Dirk, and I'm the captain," he said.

Osamu closed his eyes with a smirk.

"Dirk? As in, Dirk Kilver? Son to Hohenheim Kilver? The founder of The Crimson Order? Elite dragon-hunters... I've read stories about your father. He has is own entire section of historical records in the archives of cloud. The Celestite of Teleportation allowed him to be the first human to kill an Omega-Hydra of some kind. That true?"

Dirk burst out laughing, holding his gut. "I didn't think anyone read those books anymore. Aye, tis' true. Me' father took one of its heads as proof."

With a broad smile, Dirk pointed to the bow of the wooden air-boat. Carvings of an owl's wings wreathed a gigantic stuffed-hydra-head that had been stained with liquid-gold. It magnificently glinted with a self-entitled reign over the sun-star's gleaming horizon.

"Come aboard!" Dirk twinkled.

***

Osamu's Owlheart room was decorated with a modest hammock; three ratted campstools, a chest filled with bags of tomes and a concise table lit with wavering incandescent candle lights. There was nothing of beauty, rather than being in a floating room. There weren't any curtains overlaying the convex window, and all day the sun-star had been pouring within. The room over time had begun to broil almost as much as the coal burner's steam chamber. Although, as night fell, the air charmingly cooled and the carmine haze of the desert's rime had all washed away to unveil the western's ultramarine stars upon a beautiful open night sky. For Osamu, nightfall was when profound axioms wished to emerge.

"There is still a lot I haven't told you yet Kazuki," said Osamu.

"About what?" Kazuki replied, sitting down. He took a ratted rag from the small table and began wiping down Hyperfang—Agatha's magical katana.

With a sunken breath, Osamu gazed into the thousands of turquoise star clusters from the convex window beside him; Igniting another candle with his finger, he replied.

"I was very depressed Kazuki. All of my patience, all of my hope, it was just gone. And...it never came back. I can't find an answer to who I am. That's why I'm coming with you."

"I'm depressed as well Osamu. I can't remember anything. But hopefully, I can get the answers we both need. Aren't you respected in your village? Why do you feel so down?"

"I wasn't always respected. Even now, it's because of fear. Like you, I too was rescued and taught the ways of the shadow-dancer by Lord Gomatusu. He gave me a purpose, being his successor. I was to receive his celestite even. Don't get me wrong little brother. I know things have changed. I just wish I knew what we were."

"I thought you had a special celestite, like me? You know... multiple bearing demons?" whispered Kazuki, sheathing a very clean Hyperfang.

Osamu smirked.

"The Celestite of Assimilation. It gives me the capability to absorb a portion of mana from another celestite. With practice, I learned to copy it, even. It was our father's gift to me I think. I only have one celestite Kazuki. I have no idea why I am perceived to have more," replied Osamu, taking an unlit candle and igniting it, on and off with no words or gestures.

"Wait a second, so, did you kill all those people?" asked Kazuki.

Osamu slowly shook his head. The candle he was toying with began to reverberate, blur, and slowly melt within his palm. As he squeezed the hot white wax between his fingers, he countered with a sudden sneer.

"It wasn't like that! It was an imposter! The day I found out who caused the attacks was the same day I encountered him. Death's Mask," said Osamu.

"What happened?"

"Look at me Kazuki! My body is covered in scars!" yelled Osamu.

"Of course I found him..." he said, turning his gaze to the glittering turquoise stars once again, "that day will be forever a mystery to me. I should be dead, but something inside of me had awakened, something of terrible power. Nonetheless, it had saved my life for reasons that are still unknown to me. I fear Kazuki that you too may have this power, and if this power controls you, it will control the nine cores. We need to learn what we are."

Kazuki brushed back his long azure hair and sighed.

"What is a Hanyo? That's what Basabasa had called me in our little feud. It's been bugging me ever since."

"I have no idea... I have never heard of such a term. It must be the language of the demons. What else did he say?"

"He dared not to challenge the power that is within me. Whatever a Hanyo is...whatever we are. It's dangerous. We'll figure it out together. You're not alone anymore Osamu. Gomatusu was both our friend, our only friend. But now, we have each other. I feel like a great change is coming. I don't know what's going to happen, but I promise. I am going to get stronger. We will get stronger...together."

***

Kazuki twisted and jerked the rusty handle to his Owlheart room; as he pushed it open, he immediately heard whimpering from Lilith's door, nearly behind him.

Lilith?

Kazuki snuck into the adjacent shadows and got closer to her door. Slowly peeking in, he could see that the candlelight was still glowing brightly and flickering poetically. Hearing her sobbing, he went in pokily with a fake cough. She was in her undergarments and was wiping her eyes with a piece of clothing.

"Uh, you ok?" asked Kazuki, trying to avert his eyes.

"What? Oh, Kazuki, it's just you. Sorry, I am just a mess,"

"You care for Angelo, don't you? Don't worry he'll be fine. Not only that, I am going to get even stronger, so something like that doesn't happen again," beamed Kazuki.

"I know... It's just that I think I should have stayed behind to look after him, you know? It's just. It's kind of my duty now. With my mom gone and Agatha missing, it's... it's just my duty," she said, bursting into tears once again.

"You could have stayed behind you know," said Kazuki.

Wiping her eyes, Lilith sniffled.

"No, because I'm the only one who knows how to get to Dalrith Casopia."

"Oh... yeah. So then why is it your duty to help Angelo?"

"Well Kazuki, Angelo is basically my family. When I was a little girl, my grandmother was his host, and we travelled the world together. My grandmother grew ill however and passed down Angelo to my mother, Jasmine Fox, who was declared K.I.A. The Lion's Head War took many lives. Almost everyone in the world has at least one family member who died for us," Lilith explained, still sniffling.

"She defeated a Black Lotus Member by the name of Cadius Bellfountain. He was a sinister chemist that possessed the Celestite of Venomancy. It poisoned her in the end, despite her best efforts. Angelo just recently told me my mother passed down her gifts to Agatha Haru near the beginning of the war. It has been a long time since I've seen Angelo, and with almost all of his old friends gone, I feel that I need to be there for him."

"Wait, doesn't that make you at least seventy year's old? You've got to be half-elven! I would of never of guessed that. You're a young half-elf too. Nonetheless, everyone is in this together Lilith. Angelo will never be alone again. He is with good people, and once I do this, we will go and get him on his feet again!" boasted Kazuki.

"I admire your compassion Kazuki, I really do. Maybe you're right. I have this gut feeling that we're going to need all the help we can get, maybe some new friends. You better get to bed though, it's going to be a rough day on your tiny brain," giggled Lilith.

"Tiny? I guess solving that magical door wasn't good enough huh? I'll have to try better. I'll tell you one thing though. I am never going across another airbridge for as long as I live."

"I am going to bed Kazuki. Thanks for checking on me," smiled Lilith, wiping away her last stream of tears.

"Oh, right. Sorry. I'll see you tomorrow Lady Fox," said Kazuki, grinning back.

"We're friends. I told you already, call me Lilith."

Closing the door, Lilith's cheeks flushed. "Goodnight Kazuki."

***

The fiery alps, north of the Kingdom of Ashes, were now licking The Owlheart. While stretching his arms and legs on the Hydra-stuffed-bow, Kazuki watched as the sable smog unexpectedly began to seep through the airship. It skimmed every dark recess and crevice it could shape into, birthing waves of heat all throughout its creaking planks.

This baneful smog, not entirely formulated into pyroclastic, cultivated from the high above flaring Mountain of Varis. A ceaselessly erupting super-volcano that laid within a blackened craggy mountainside against a jade poisoned sky. The thundering temperament was so loud that The Owlheart began to fissure. Without a single warning, the ironwood-deck fluctuated, and the grilling atmosphere became without a conscious, raining granite embers all over the great invention and its crew.

Lilith, thoroughly geared, abiding a severe look, suddenly strolled passed a worried Kazuki and stood on the very brim of the vibrating, scorched-bow. Her eyes tilted upward, towards the colossal volcano with zero fear. She stood as still as a statue, until, she crossed her eyebrows.

Smacking her palms together, she emitted a loud thunderclap that echoed throughout the verdant sky.

"Ruby-Art: Everglow-Two!"

Lilith's entire body began to radiate with a scorching ochre aura. The amount of mana and magical flame flowing from her body was so thick that Kazuki could barely see her holding a vermillion orb of energy. Clasping it within the midst of her two palms, she concentrated intensely. Astonishingly, a magical barrier began to blazingly dazzle and cloak the entire airship, forming like a bubble imbued with vicious molten embers.

Enraptured by Lilith's powers, Kazuki could see the glowing spray of magma splatter the magical barrier, emitting a fizzle. The emanation of burning metal became even stronger to his sharp senses.

A magical barrier. Angelo once told me that it was a great feat. It takes a lot of mana and is extremely dangerous to the white blood cell count of the body. It looks like we have no choice though...

With great haste, Dirk slid down the main sail's rope and breathlessly ran to the helm.

"The mainsail is damaged! I gotta' put er' down, or we'll be burnt to bacon!" he yelled.

Lilith, still concentrating on the magical shield, shouted at him.

"Land us right over there! I don't know how much longer I can keep this up!"

The captain turned to Osamu, who was seemingly collecting the magma. A cyclone of whirling lava flowed into his palm from within a narrow hole in the magical shield.

"That's handy," Dirk remarked, spinning the helm a hard left.

***Sequence missing here***

While a cooking fire crackled around them, within their small cavern campsite, it cascaded stretched shadows of the three. The flickering coals seemed to behave with harmonic motion among Lilith's magically illuminated lanterns. Startlingly the complaisant glitter of hundreds of fireflies goaded through the dark encampment with there bittersweet lucidity, Illuminating the cavern with an illusionary fire-haze.

"That is a lot of fireflies. I wonder what's bringing them all down here," pondered Kazuki.

"They tend to come to me like this once and awhile. No idea why," Lilith giggled, playing with them.

"Some say the dead reincarnate into a loved one's favourite creature," said Osamu mysteriously, from underneath his cowl. He didn't look up, as he was flipping a big trout on the cooking fire. His eyes, identical to Kazuki's, sparkled with pins of yellow light.

"Well, fireflies are my favourite," replied Lilith.

"Maybe it's your mom," remarked Kazuki.

Lilith nodded and gazed into the dancing swarm more deeply.

"If it is, I have high hopes for us and that door. Fireflies are good luck for me."

Osamu took the delicious rainbow trout and slapped it over a baking molten rock. Curling his hand into a fist, he pointed at it with his index finger. Suddenly a small beam of peach light began to slice the fish. The trail of luxurious spices of all kinds, hidden under a thick blanket of scented lemons had hit all of their noises fiercely.

"Whose hungry!" Osamu beamed.

***

Even though Kazuki was tucked into a comfortable marine blue sleeping bag inside a linen-tent, he could not fall asleep. He kept looking through Emerac's journal over and over, just knowing there was a clue of some kind.

While tossing and turning, trying his best to sleep, Kazuki suddenly heard a whisper come from his tent's entrance. While putting Emerac Sirus' journal down and reaching for his weapon below his bed, an expansive ghoulish black hand suddenly snatched Kazuki's mouth.

Kazuki fought to break free, and as he turned to see this creature, he was benumbed. A pair of red-glowing eyes were allegedly staring right down into his soul.

Levitating only a few feet from the ground, a jet black misty man surrounded within a hazy maroon aura had loiteringly come into Kazuki's focus. Its dark whisper was like the sharp sound of a growling wind. The ghoul became more elemental and transformed into a familiar little boy.

"Adrian?"

The lost little boy they had saved from the blistering grotto, Adrian. The boy, still covered in his rags, held Kazuki's mouth and spoke softly.

"Daisuke says we have to be quiet," said the boy, removing his hand slowly.

"What?"

"Daisuke will open the door. Come alone!" Adrian whispered.

The boy ran out of the linen-tent without a sound. Getting up, Kazuki swiftly equipped himself and went outside into the cavern.

"Adrian? Where did you go!" Kazuki whispered.

After finding his way through the darkness of the carbonized cavern, Kazuki peeked his head out from the entrance. Alarmingly, the wretched spectral had launched towards him from the gloom. Its puce eyes were firing with rage and an unforeseeable knowledge of fatality. Its body, nothing but dark wisps of what possibly once was.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Kazuki asked, tightening his grip on Hyperfang.

The harrowing form replied with nothing more than short phrases drawn out to be a lengthy whisper.

"I am Daisuke, The Lord of Souls. I have come to repay."

***

Nearly twenty feet tall. A gargantuan door, built of nothing but immovable gold. The surface, flat and glossy, like the outside of a freshly crafted carnation-spear; only the deteriorated etchings of an ancient kanji laid embedded upon it. There were no handles or locks either. From the looks of it, it had been forged centuries ago and not by a mortal's hand. Whatever this place was, it was not meant to be accessed by anyone or anything.

"What's inside?"

"Your new soul. A transcendental power. But, at great personal cost," Daisuke chuckled.

"I don't care! I need this power to remember who I am!" Kazuki wailed.

"You are to go alone," said Daisuke.

Suddenly, the frightening figure altered his form. His wispy, levitating body began to etherize and phase through the golden door, dissolving into the other side.

Moments later, the giant golden door began to swing open with a blatant haul, slowly. Nothing but the morality of darkness and a thick magenta smog majestically engulfed this hallway-like entry. A cloud, unlike any other, just like Emerac Sirus's journal had said, laid deep within.

The cloud was as black as Death's Mask's heart. It emitted a glowing orb from its centre that revolved sluggishly and fizzed with the sound of heavy static. It mysteriously sat amongst a stone-hallway that was filled with nothing but old etchings of a time long since passed, surrounded by the enthralling fog's lowly drift of a magenta eclipse.

As Kazuki carefully walked within, Daisuke's whisper infiltrated the air once again.

"Sage, once you are allowed to leave the Hollows... you will be nothing but a shadow of your former self. Listen closely. Your soul will be split into three different pieces. One of these pieces will be taken from you in the end, and you will not have a choice as to which. The two remaining pieces will be placed back. The three pieces that are needed to forge a soul are the body, the mind and the spirit. In rare cases, it has affected all three. Are you certain you wish to do this?"

"Will I remember everything? My childhood? My purpose?"

"When you have fully gone through its rule, yes."

Kazuki stopped to think for a moment. He had no idea what awaited him. He closed his eyes and drew in a deep breath; firing them open, he smirked.

"If I can remember who I am. I can save Azmoria, and tell Osamu what we are! It's been a long journey. But I know...I know that this is just the beginning!"