25: Children of War
With both the leansídhe and Patriarch gone, the dark aura enveloping the manor was diluted. Phantasia cut through it with ease, leaving a trail of purified mana in her wake as she followed the faint astral trails of her friends. She found them huddled together a short distance from the manor, accompanied by Mr Payne and Mr Smith, waiting at the wheel of his grumbling van.
The moment they saw her, there was an outpouring of relief and joy, but even that couldn’t disguise the damage she could sense in their auras. They had all suffered, physically and mentally, to help their friends and Phantasia couldn’t find the words to express how proud she was. Before she had a chance to speak, Shelley threw her arms around Phantasia’s waist, burying her sobs in her shoulder. Phantasia held her for a moment, then prised the frail girl away and moved to greet the others, only for Kaori to shuffle forwards and fall into her arms.
“I thought you were dead…” she said.
“Nah. Takes more than that to finish me off!” Phantasia stroked her hair, sensing the deep scars in Kaori’s spirit and hoping her power could soothe them.
Katrina hovered over. Of all of them, she bore the least emotional trauma, but still looked like she would sleep for days. “What happened?” she asked, “Is the Patriarch…?”
“The Patriarch’s a goner,” Phantasia replied. Joel and Theseus whooped in the background, exchanging high-fives.
“I must say, I am impressed!” said Phoenie, who sidled over as Kaori moved back to Joel, “I’m not sure what happened over there, but it looked like a bomb went off! The others were worried you wouldn’t survive, but I had faith in you until the end!”
“Yeah right, you were practically in tears!” said Theseus, “Say, Phantasia, what the hell was that explosion anyway?”
“It didn’t register on my sensors,” added John.
Would it matter if she told them the truth again? Or would they forget everything like they did the last time?
“It was a bomb,” she said, “Of sorts.” The boys looked disheartened at the lack of elaboration and she left it at that.
“So, Godhand is finished for good, right?” asked Joel.
“Don’t be ignorant, Mr Gibson,” said Phoenie, “Godhand is a world-spanning organisation!”
“Yeah, but who cares about the ‘world’, they’re gone from here!” he replied.
Katrina exchanged a worried look with Phantasia. She’d been there, heard the Patriarch’s threats and seen some of the powers at work outside the walls of Torsten Academy. She knew Phantasia wasn’t human, and the doubtful look in her eyes as her friends celebrated said she understood: this was just a brief reprieve until bigger things. Dante, propped against a wall in the shadows, watching everything from behind his face-hugging scarf, looked like he agreed with them. Even when Joel attempted to goad some cheer out of him, the conflicted boy nudged him away. Behaviour they were accustomed to, but which Phantasia now began to see in a new light.
Dante wasn’t the only blip in the shadows that stood out worse than the hormonal zits scattered across Joel’s gleeful face. Phantasia disentangled herself from the commotion and slipped over to where Mr Payne stood, hands in pockets, watching the dying smoke from the manor drift away in the winds. For all her anger with him, she had to be tactful for once. Mr Payne noticed her approach from the corner of his eye.
“Rosencrantz – that is, Bishop Wotan – he…”
“He’s dead,” she replied. No point hiding the truth.
“I thought as much,”
“The Patriarch was a demon. Wotan sacrificed himself to make sure he was defeated.”
“Typical heroics,”
Heroics? There were so many words Phantasia wanted to say right now: angry words about how both Wotan and Payne had let their own personal feud run out of control. She could still feel Kaori’s pain and Shelley’s fear! Had these two grown men behaved like adults, none of this would have happened!
God. Love this story.