Lora, staring at the tender pleading from the Mizuka General, couldn’t help but giggle a bit. As much wisdom as she had when it came to forgiveness, she had to allow Lola to give herself the chance to do so.
“Child, the only knowledge that I will give you, is that apologizing doesn’t mean you’re weak. You’re just worry about what her response will be. However, it will impact her because you’ll be doing a lot better than what she’s doing right now.”
“That doesn’t seem fair. I lied to her and—“
“It was for her safety. As much as it’d pain me to admit, I’d done the same thing for my sister Kuronina if she’d given me a chance,” Lorashisasha replied quickly. She gawked up at the enlarged Bird who continuously became more entertained by the battle instead of looking down at the wounded Aruba. “She’s a very sweet and nice entity, but the moment she feels that someone’s using her powers for selfish reasons or for things that aren’t even up to high standards.
“But, that’s one of the things—“
“Last I checked, I thought real women didn't make any excuses to why things happened the way they did. What happened to that, Mizuka? The one who was determined to save the life of those who desperately needed their own lives to be saved.”
“Well apparently she’s asleep right now until this child wakes up, and I get to see her smile again. One month of turmoil was clearly more than enough for me to deal with,” Lola quoted angrily. “Now, please tell me what I need to do for her to wake up so she can have the chance to help us fight Marscilla and get the hell out of here.”
“All you have to do, Lola, is go deep into her mind, and see what she’s thinking about while she’s in this current position. I can’t necessarily say she’s going to live or die, but if there’s a chance that she can awaken from her "coma", then that’s all that matters,” Lorashisasha advised rather fiercely with her frame retreating back into Lola’s.
The flames had finally disappeared from around Lola’s body once the Phoenix was placed back inside it’s Orb.
Placing her hand on the child’s forehead. For the first time, in fifteen years, Lola R. Mizuka’s felt something wet breezing down her cheeks, each drop splattered across her daughter-figure’s forehead. The forehead was steaming hot, but Lola didn’t mind. She then managed to have her mind slip straight into Crystal’s head and see that the Aruba gal was nearly naked from every form.
But by then, outside Lola’s mind, she heard Crystal’s voice speaking straight to her for comfort and for the truth to be told.
Hey, Lola. I guess I’m doing OK, huh? Crystal stated with her eyes growing happier by the minute. Standing before her was the mythical creature of the heavens that unwrapped her embrace from around the child, who had emerged in from a huge ball of light. Look, I know that you were protecting me. It scared me to think that you were lying. However, the one thing I'm glad about is having you in my life. Nurturing, feeding, clothing, and raising me. But there's someone I want you to meet. Come on.
The fifteen year-old dragged her mother-figure down the beaming, great light, only to then see a giant, golden gate towering both their heights combined.
“Lola Roberta Mizuka,” the voice’s echoing began to fade away. The divine spirit that was once a mortal human being was smiling with a clear conscious and pure allure in her heart. She walked towards both of them before they could talk their problems over and expose Crystal the true story of why her mother, Diamond Aruba lost her life at such a young age. “My quality of respect is towards you. You did what many thought you couldn’t do: Raised an Aruba like she’s your own. I’m honored to have the Aruba's trust in your hands. But this is something that I’m going to give my daughter for her appreciation of you.”
Lola was thrilled, speechless. Weightless burden taken from her shoulder, but misunderstood what had happened, “I don’t understand, Crystal. I thought you hated me for what I’ve done. I tried to apologize and thought you were-- You were--.”
She then bent down on her knees and wept even harder than she already did. Tears had bloomed gravely from her eyes Diamond placed her hands on the woman’s shoulders and gawked down at her. Depressed after all these years of missing the former General, Lola slowly exposed her agony and suffering to the Intoxian Goddess. It wasn’t fair to Diamond take her own life the way she intended to, but thanks to Marscilla’s own ideology, it’s what changed the world with her own ruthless decisions.
“Come here, child. Hey, it’s OK,” Diamond laughed while enveloping Lola in her arms, hearing the woman bailing in her chest. She screamed helplessly, emotionally-driving Crystal into short depravity. “You didn’t mean any harm to this family. Please listen to me. I know that you did an amazing job with my daughter. If you give up, then so does she and everyone else will die. I know Black was a fool to do something heartless, but I had to beg him to leave you all alone.”
***
Chapter 52 - The Diary Rituals
***
Standing around the clear colors almond skies, golden gates that lead to the Heavens, and several blanched almond outfitted Angels with tan skin all surrounding the three individuals. Diamond had heard more than enough of the tears flowing from Lola’s eyes. She felt her chest and stomach growing hot because of the affects from the sobs.
“Lola, it’s time to let it all go,” Even in death, Diamond still had the knowledge to . “I know that it felt as if you broke one of the laws of my family’s name, but it was appropriate for this scenario. I’ve clearly given myself the permission to grant Crystal the option of obtaining the Diary Rituals or exposing her to the truth, and thank Black for doing that. She’s already made up her mind.”
Lola was awe-struck at what she just heard. All this time, in her mind, she was more than scared to the point where Diamond would be more than infuriated with the performance.
“Like I said, you meant this girl no harm. All you needed to do was protect her. Now that I’ve mentioned it all the way through your tears, I had granted you the permission to speak with her. Luckily, she still has that blood of forgiveness in her heart. This is now the best chance to speak your mind and tell her the truth, Lola. But before you both go, I have something more interesting that I’d like for you two to see.”
Diamond had never been more than excited to exchanging more gifts to the two in terms of what’ll lie ahead of them in the near future. She extended both her hands out to the girls’ as they all made contact with.
Once they were touched, their auras were becoming unstable, due to the amount of spirits the mythical Aruba had obtained from all her hard work in helping others during her hay-days. It became very clear to the two of them that Diamond wasn’t as what many people have claimed her to be, otherwise, she wouldn’t have got involved during Crystal’s blackout.
“The Diary Symbols and the Raging Mizuka Orb are both bounded to be forming an alliance. However, that won’t be necessary unless the two of you can give out your own knowledge about Avarian Beasts Kuronina and Lorashisasha. I never had the chance to tell you, but I’m sure that you’re both aware that there’s four more other Avarian Beasts resting throughout different areas of the world. Renusakuya had already made her appearance, but she didn’t stay long or cared enough to even see either of her sisters,” Diamond applied the whole situation as to why the Mizuka Phoenix Queen or the White-winged Blue-Jay couldn’t communicate or support one another.
“I didn’t think that it was this bad. Not sure what type of research Black was doing during these fifteen years, but it’s made me come to a theoretical conclusion to why you gave up your life,” Lola assumed, which was a solid belief, giving the circumstances. “It made a lot more sense now. You willing died because of Marscilla's blade and how the Diary Symbols were exhausting you because of your lack of courage for worrying over Crystal.”
“Yes,” Diamond replied quickly, but smiled. “It was my intention to give up my life. However, Black didn’t seem too comfortable with allowing me to go through with
it.”
“As despicable as he was and still is, he knew that he’d always been a man of his word to achieve possibly anything that, and it’s always been in his interest about the Diary Symbols. There’s so much more to learning about the Diary Symbols than to abduct someone for it. That’s one of the things that the Globe Government, who’s now led by a relative of mine, knew that it’s virtually impossible to use it.”
“And the Aruba Books were a distraction from the truth, right?” Crystal asked, realizing why most of the times, Black and his group couldn’t decipher the words as easy as it was reading it like an ordinary book.
“Not only that, it was more of a signal sent to the other coasts of the army to come to my rescue, since I knew the Leserado War would occur. Unfortunately, due to the mishap that occurred during the Leserado war on the two days you were born, Black had something else in mind. He was far more interested in chaos than he was in peace-making. Knowing his character, he’d probably only provoked so many leaders of various organizations from different continents to go all out on each other to try and find the Aruba books. But even if one group were to find them all in a single week or so, they still wouldn’t be able to activate the code in order for Kuronina to be revealed.”
Diamond was unfolding a lot more than what Black should’ve been able to mention. Not that he’s only a hypocrite in many people’s eyes, but he was more than a monstrous being, but with human intellects.
Lola felt something that wasn’t in between the palm of their hands a minute ago. Gawking down at the image, it was an amulet necklace in the Goddess’ hands for each heroine.
“This is one of the things that you two are going to be ultimately responsible for. Don’t forget that there’s much more to this world than meets the eyes. Lola, sure you’ve gained a huge portion of what this world has to offer, but best believe that this is just the beginning for you at the Core General. Fifteen years, still not enough. That’s a huge world down there that you must protect and you’ll have five organizations to have your back to the very end.”
Diamond’s accuracy weren't just mere words. The quality of her word choices were something that a lot of people aren’t so used to saying.
“Can I truly entrust you two this time to do the right thing and stop Marscilla at all cost? Killing her would be the solution for you both, but that’s up to you. I’m a Goddess so I can’t decide a person’s faith entirely until that spirit arrives,” Diamond continued, embracing the both of them. Suddenly, she and Crystal both made eye-to-eye contact and uttered one last thing before sending back down to Tomb of Leserado for Crystal’s first battle as a heroine. “Crystal, you ‘outta know that you are in Lola’s depth for raising you, right? She only did what was right so she could for you. Now, Crystal, the Diary Symbols, I’m going to allow you to release them down there because your friends are in trouble. Don’t feel too overconfident with your new powers. As the saying goes: All the choices in your life comes with a consequence. That’s all you need to remember. Make the wise ones and they’ll be no backlash from those that’s supporting you.”
Sighing after hearing everything that was told, Crystal initially swallowed her fear and had elected to stand up and fight again for the first time as Intoxia Warrior.
“OK, Mom. I’ll do my best this time. And Lola, I’m so sorry for misjudging you. I didn’t think that it was all true until reality hit me in the face,” Crystal apologized, annoyed with herself and how she was constantly being lied to by Black and his ‘truth’.
“It’s not your fault. We’ll talk about that once this is all taken care,” Lola stated, nearly in a rush to get back down and save the others from getting eradicated.
***
Back at Leserado, the battle was a disturbing struggle for the Intoxian Heroes. They’re attempts to hold off Marscilla long enough was reaching the limit a lot faster than they prepared for. Hiba barely knocked unconsciously, Sonya, Hitachi and Alex all knocked to the ground. They were wounded heavily, hardly moving a finger.
Hiba had taken her time to use up the last will of her strength before collapsing.
“I may not be able to predict your movements as easily as I was able to, Marscilla, but I will take you down one way or another,” Hiba panted, wiping the blood from her forehead and positioned herself in the fighting stance without the use of her sword. “It seems how the only way how I can surpass you in speed is without a weapon.”
“That would be dishonorably for me to fight an opponent unarmed, but by all means,” Marscilla applied Hiba’s request. “However, don’t think that I haven’t been watching you, Hiba. I know that you’re pretty quick with your hands and you may think you have the upper hand.”
Marscilla launched her sword barely two-hundred feet away from her and at the Hinura Heroine's left feet, “I do think that me fighting you physically would be more than exciting enough to test my own skills with my bare hands.”
Marscilla had clutched her fists together with both her arms moving backwards, “I’m going make sure I torment you to the point where you’ll never fight again, Hinura. Of all the years you being in the Intoxian Army, I say that your times up.”
Hiba panting, exhausted from the immense fight and from spamming her Stareye Stages 1 – 4, it put a severe strain on her body. She tried to put her guards up. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as she had planned in terms of self-defense.
“I’ll just make this quick because it bothers me seeing you struggle to survive,” Marscilla’s foot landed fiercely against Hiba’s gut, kicking her across the Blue-Eyes Fortress. Her next fury of kicks was suddenly blocked off by a block of Hiba’s forearms once she was fast enough to reach her target.
Hiba didn’t waste any time counter-attacking with the palm of her hand, cloaked by her Stareye Stage One’s armor, ramming deep into the foot of Marscilla. In an instant, the two exchange a series of blows.
The Hinura warrior was ducking and dodging each blow. She lowered her body from a right hook and connected an uppercut to Marscilla’s chin, but the hit didn’t have any effort. The Erisa Bloodlust member then grabbed her enemy’s wrist, mauling her elbow a couple of times into Hiba’s face, pushing the warrior back by a few feet.
She lost a bit of her sight for quite a bit and was pounded in the face by an immense right hook that knocked her to the ground. Quickly widening her eyes to recuperate in time to see the next incoming attack, Hiba saw Marscilla moving in crazily with her right arm altering into the arm and hand of a demon. The Erisa warrior darted her way at a blitz speed. Hiba escaped in time by rolling to the right, but made a quick attack and kicked her while nearly positioning herself in monkey stance.
The second kick from the attack had connected to push Marscilla away from the spot she was struck at. It wasn’t too long that they both thought of the same idea, hoisting their bodies in the air for a phenomenal side kick. Sadly, Marscilla motioned her body at a blur speed and resumed the attack, only this time, it was clean across the left side of Hiba’s skull, royally soaring her body back down to the surface and onto her right side. Marscilla landed on both her feet and realized how much of a threat Lola’s best female warrior had become for the last three years.
Panting, barely exhausted from a great battle that was nearly won, Marscilla’s body was on the verge of reverting back to her ‘human’ state. No, not now! Marscilla had resorted to using her Renusakaga Demon Form (Which is the original formation of Renugaraska) for well over twenty-five minutes. The vision in both eyes had shifted simultaneously. It soon resulted to somewhat of a temporary head-ache. Dammit. I knew I shouldn’t have bothered trying to use my demon form in the mist of all this chaos. I’ll have to relax myself and give myself time to recuperate, otherwise, I’ll end up just killing myself before I get a chance to take Crystal’s head.
***
Sophia and Layla had continued their fight with the Bloodlust’s Succubus as she went wilder than normal for a seducing creature. Lisa was screaming while swinging
her sword uncontrollably, despite all the ‘fun’ she’s having with these two.
“I’m getting bored, I want to save you two for another time,” Lisa stated with a tiresome voice. “It’s been very clear to me that we’ve completed our mission, so why prolong any further?”
Sophia and Layla were extremely confused about the sudden halt of the battle. Sophia, barely weakened from the previous fight and this one combined, it was more than likely that she needed to recuperate for the time being and allow Layla to help handle the rest with the others.
“As a matter of fact, I would love to see Crystal slaughter every last one of you without even considering the fact that she’s going to be on our side from now on. Since you’ve all lied to her about her mom, so why bother trying to save her? So you can protect yourselves from the truth and swiftly give out a concise answer that’s far more appalling than you all rescuing her?”
“No, we’re going to continue to support and always stay honest with that girl the way we want her to be for us,” Sophia had answered the Succubus, even though it was unfortunate for her to do so in this situation. “I don’t think that me giving you a convincing answer would be enough to handle. But in the meantime, you can scurry away like a cat and leave us be, or we’ll just try to kill you like we should’ve a long time ago back at Mayhem Coliseum.”
“Oh, come on, Sophia, you’re still mad about that? It was just a love tap,” Lisa exclaimed with her sword sheathed onto her back. “Despite all that effort you put into the tournament to get to me was far more than a gigantic waste of time to me. I’ve kicked your ass in less than fifteen minutes. Luckily, I didn’t kill you, even though the rule of death was accurate. But we’ll worry about that another time. Right now, I think that Crystal is more critical for you to deal with than me. I’ve done my part, so I don’t even know where I’m even going at this particular point. Maybe head on back over to where Black Widows are located and hang with those bitches. They’d be thrill to see me again.”
Intoxia Warriors - Mizuka Blood (Book One) Page 48