"We have suffered enough. Let us go. Please. Let us die in peace."
Riku stepped forward slowly, voice gentle.
"We don't intend to hurt you or make you suffer," he said. "We want to understand what happened to you and how we can make it better."
The girl — pale, fragile — stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.
"How can I trust... light magic?" she said bitterly. "How can I believe in the hands that tortured and killed my entire family?"
Riku said nothing.
Instead, he gestured outward — to the villagers who still had their hands folded and eyes slightly teary.
The girl followed his gaze.
Her eyes met lots of other eyes. But everywhere she saw, her gaze only met the gaze of others who were sad, as if weighed down by guilt.
Even a person, who appeared to be from the church of light, had been clutching her prayer sash so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
For a long moment, she wavered — her lips parting, trembling.
Something inside her softened — just a little.
"These people..."
"They are the people who brought you back to life." Riku said softly. "All of us just wish for you to live a good life. You don't have to worry about anything here."
The young girl wiped her tears, and got up. Turning towards all the villagers, she was at a loss for words. But then she gazed at the awe inspiring angel above her once again. As she took in the majestic aura of the holy avatar of the church of light, her gaze tightened.
"Dear everyone. I, Sherry, am thankful to everyone who is praying today on my behalf, bringing me and my uncle back to life. I do not know what happened while I was unconscious and how my uncle died before, but I bear no grudges towards anyone but the Light itself that has always shown us as evil."
"However, as you might have already realized, I am a practitioner of the magics of the Dark Temple. While I am grateful to everyone for praying for me, I cannot stomach being helped by Light Magic, the same magic that people wielded to harm my people in the name of righteousness and justice."
As Sherry looked at the crowd again, tears were falling freely now. Behind her, the old man was also shedding tears, still unresolved about what they had suffered.
Finally, Sherry whispered, "Thank you... But our time in this world is over. This is the last shard I have. Please do not revive us again."
And with a final, mournful glance, she detonated her shard one last time — this time without hatred.
"Ah! so this is it!"
Riku finally understood. It was not enough to bring her back to life. She was also prejudiced towards light magic the way the villagers and Lysaria were prejudiced against Dark magic.
"Riku, what should we do now?"
Lila asked softly.
"I think we should respect their choices, Riku. You would not understand the strong differences our church has with the Dark Temple." Lysaria tried to convince Riku as well.
"Well, I really did not take Sherry's emotions into account. But tell me, are you ok with the girl and the old man just dying?"
Lysaria gritted her teeth, and slowly replied.
"I am not. But it is their wish. What can we do?"
"We just have to change the method a bit." Riku said, smiling.
He reached out into his satchel, and brought out four new stones this time. These ones thrummed faintly with a deeper, richer energy.
Not white. Not golden.
But a vivid violet — like raw amethyst freshly hewn from the heart of the earth.
He removed the previous stones and laid down the new stones in a similar formation around the bodies.
"Everyone, one last time," he said, his voice steady but heavy.
The villagers were still confused, but they folded their hands regardless.
They prayed again — not for forgiveness, which they had already gotten earlier, but because of their deep trust in Riku.
Riku silently muttered an incantation.
"O silent guardian of the forsaken… heed this forgotten prayer — Keeper of broken oaths, The Shadow Priest."
The stones pulsed once… twice…thrice...
And then, once the fourth stone pulsed, the sky darkened.
Not with stormclouds. Not with gloom.
But with a profound, unknown velvet shadow — heavy, yet strangely serene.
From the thickening darkness emerged a figure — robed in black woven with threads of deep indigo, a silver crescent marking his brow.
A staff, crowned with a crystal of dusky gray, tapped softly against the air as he descended.
His presence was not violent. Not cruel.
Simply… heavy.
Lysaria, recognizing the sigil that flickered on his garments, gasped aloud.
"Varr…" she whispered, dropping to one knee instinctively.
"The Shadow Priest."
Even the villagers felt the same awe and chill in the world around them as they had felt when the holy maiden had descended upon them. Slowly, they once again fell to their knees.
The sky was not bright and glorious like the time when Axia had descended, but the violet aura was equally awe inspiring, if not more.
The Shadow Priest — Varr — hovered in the thick velvet skies, his presence silent, immutable, like a forgotten pillar of the world. The staff in his hand dipped once, and from its dusky crystal tip, a wave of deep violet light surged downward.
The light wrapped around the two lifeless forms still lying upon the blood-stained earth. Slowly and carefully, the bodies of the young girl and the old man began forming once again, but this time, they were stitched together by purple threads rather than white and golden ones.
Soon, their bodies mended and the two stirred, coughing weakly, blinking into the surrounding crowd of the villagers.
Sherry gasped and suddenly tears burst forth from her eyes once again. Her mouth soon burst out in another desperate cry.
"Why won't you let us be? What have we done to you...."
But before she could go on, Riku interrupted her with a smile on his face.
"Sherry, I understand that you have been aggrieved before. However, just look at the sky one more time, and you will get your answer."
Sherry hesitated — fear and habit warring within her.
Slowly, she lifted her tear-streaked face to the heavens.
And froze.