Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control?

Chapter 24 – Invisible Hatred 

[Everything prepared?] Luna (White) asked.

[Yeah. Just make sure to disappear when the time comes, got it?] Syrus (Red) replied.

[Hmhum] (Lilly)

[Fine.] (Luna)

“Everything good Anna?” Jen squeezed Anna’s hand to get her attention. They were walking alone together after arriving in Ihere. George was one of the few adults who stayed at the village, decided through some sort of drunken game. Some needed to stay behind in case an emergency did happen. Jen asked, concerned, “Are you tired?”

“I could say that. You were overworked like crazy. We need to tell Dad to give the town chief a smack on the head.” Anna gave a gentle smack to her own head to illustrate the point.

“Thank you dear… but no one’s head is being smack today. Including yours.” Jen danced around and grabbed Anna’s other hand.

“That’s rude mum, you’ve chained me up…”

“No, I haven’t, I’m just hugging both my daughter's hands with my own.”

Syrus did a quick spin which caused Jen to let go of her left hand.

“But you are tired right Mum?”

“Busy… but not tired.” Jen smiled.

[How many nights complaining to George has it been?] (Lilly/Eva)

[Too many.] Luna (White) sighed.

[‘Can you check this, check that. Argh that damn bastard!’] Syrus made an impression of their mum’s complaining sprees.  

[But it has been a lot, this stupid ceremony and the ever-increasing bad crops…] (Lilly)

[Not much we can do besides supporting both of them when we can.] Said Luna, [Let’s just hope this whole situation passes quickly.]

[For sure.] (Syrus)

As they were walking, Syrus got the urge to explore for a moment. “Mum, can I walk around for a bit?”

Jen paused before replying, “No… It is safer with me, someone could hurt you.”

“I can just burn them up if anyone tries to harm me!” Syrus proudly stated.

“...............I guess that’s true…” Jen did trust her daughters, they were very mature and well behaved and it wasn’t like there were any bad people around.

“Okay, but come back in thirty minutes alright. If you don’t, I’m going to cause a massive ruckus and you're going to be so embarrassed!” 

Anna flatly stated, “I feel like… it's supposed to be the other way around…” 

With conditional permission granted, they went out to explore. 

The town was bustling, all the small farming villages had gathered with their kids who were the right age to take part in the ceremony. There was a large lunch before the ceremony and a festive speech performed by the church's priest afterwards.

Food was being passed around, and everyone seemed happy but a good number of people were nervous while another group seemed a little too ecstatic.

[So, what did you want to see Syrus?] (Lilly)

[The church peeps, they should be here soon if everything is on schedule.] (Syrus)

After a quick run around town, Syrus couldn't find her target. 

“Damn shit where are they?”

“Language kid!” A random passerby yelled out.

“Sorry!” Anna quickly replied, still running forward.

[Well if they aren’t in the town streets.] (Luna)

[Then the two other options are either they are in a building or haven't arrived yet.] (Lilly)

[Well I ain’t looking through each building, so let’s just wait outside the entrance.] (Syrus)

Syrus did some parkour and jumped up and rested on a rooftop near the entrances.

[Syrus… someone is going to yell at us.] (Lilly)

[Nah, you won’t believe how many people don’t look up. Not to mention we are also lying down which makes it even harder for people to see us.] (Syrus)

Syrus was right and no one bugged them. So they sat back, relaxed and waited for the priest to show up if they hadn't already. Schedule-wise, apparently the priest should’ve arrived twenty minutes ago when lunch started and after that, the ceremony was supposed to begin.

But as they were nearing Jen’s time limit.

[Guys, I think they are about to arrive.] Syrus announced as she focused on a larger than standard cart for this place that rolled up to the town.

A priest wearing the cloth of the Aurora Church stepped out of the large covered cart pulled by a single large stallion.

As he stepped onto the ground, Luna (White) forcibly took control and stared at the priest. There was no emotion on her face but staring at that overly clean white outfit lit a furious fire in her.

“Ergh, damn what a long wasteful trip.” The priest quietly muttered, which Syrus picked up on. 

[Well there goes any chance the priest was going to be a nice person.] Syrus (Red) commented.

[Yeah…] (Lilly)

The most surprised though was Luna, [I’m kind of shocked as well, when I was part of the church it was pretty much mandatory to send people with a good outer image. Didn’t matter if it was a small town or a noble in the centre of the capital.]

Syrus joked, [They lose one saint and the church goes to shit, sounds about right.] 

[Haa…. I would love to laugh but it was already an awful place to begin with.] (Luna)

[Do you think they are acting this way just because it is a different country?] Lilly asked, knowing their base of operation was in the Nevald Kingdom. Cancole, the country they lived in, did have churches but their priest still came from the Nevald Kingdom.

[No, if anything they should be more careful…] Luna closed her eyes and let go of controlling the body, not wanting to unnecessarily make any wrong actions. If this was her from the past, she wouldn’t worry about the potential of breaking a facade but the new her now was a different story.

[Well, six years is a lot of time for things to change.] Syrus replied, [‘Death served their purpose’ after all. Anyway, with a church like that, it's probably a cycle, the bad apples get a bit too cocky but before enough damage is done they calm down, replace some heads and restart the process again.]

[Huh…?] Lilly wasn’t entirely sure what Syrus was implying. Only understanding the church was going through a period of bad management. 

[Maybe… but it does sound weird hearing the twenty years I spent there supposedly being part of the good cycle.] Luna understood completely what was Syrus' saying, importantly understanding that she realised the church had some involvement with Luna’s death. She wasn’t surprised Syrus picked up on that and equally so that Lilly didn’t. The only reason Syrus was being vague about it was because of Lilly. Both of them knew she had gone through some hardships, but it still didn’t feel right to ruin what was left of Lilly’s innocence.  

[Well I could just be wrong as well.] (Syrus)

The trio sneakily got off the building’s roof and made their way back to Jen. Who was only mildly upset that they got back at 29:48 minutes after they left. Instead of watching the town's clock tower for the time, she was counting in her head for the full duration so she could be exact. Jen responded with, “You cheeky, that was on purpose wasn’t it?”

To which, Anna didn’t provide an answer and just looked flabbergasted that Jen spent nearly the last thirty minutes just counting.

It didn’t take long before the priest entered the town and the late attribute ceremony finally got underway. 

It was a simple ceremony that took place in the centre square. The parents with their children waited outside the square in line while the curious crowd looked in.

The priest was a large skinny man in height and a little pale for his age. One guard stood by his side, but they weren’t paying much attention.

The priest placed his gloved hand on each child's head while in his other hand held a glass tablet. By chanting a phrase and waiting a minute the tablet would provide a response and the priest would yell out the attribute. Yelling out the attribute made it seem like more spectacle, but Syrus was betting he was just doing it so he wouldn’t have to repeat what he said twice in case the kid didn’t hear.

[This seems slow…] (Syrus)

[Yeah, at home we just touched an orb that told us directly.] (Lilly)

[Luna, you're the expert here. Is this really what the church usually used?] (Syrus)

[Yeah… they have other artefacts as well, but this tablet was, well I guess still cheaper to make. So I’m not surprised it’s being used for faraway towns.] (Luna)

Earth, Fire, Wind, Hearing, and Plants were some of the attributes called out.

Two people had dual attributes, one had Wind & Lightning while the other had Earth & Hard.

The trio didn’t recognise either of them, but they knew from their clothes they were from another one of the villages.

[Okay someone has to be pulling my leg, how is Hard a gift? I mean I know the exotic gifts are also weird but at least those kind of have a reason.] (Syrus)

Lilly was about to respond but quickly decided not to.

Then soon it was Anna’s turn. 

Jen pushed her forward, “Okay good luck Anna.” 

Syrus just smiled, “Hehe.” 

Luna and Eva disappeared into the Soul Space while Syrus confidently walked forward.

“Okay, stay still and don’t move.” The priest requested.

“Okay!” 

“A response wasn’t necessary.”

The priest did the deed and placed his hand on her and chanted “Auro Window.” And waited for the process to be completed.

Then three minutes had passed.

Luna was concerned but was afraid to enter the body to question Syrus.

The priest was confused and a little panicked, “Hmuuumm… Nothing Is appearing… um... Can you focus?” 

“Focus on what?” She tilted her head slightly and asked.

The priest remarked, “Just try to focus.”

“Okay!”

Syrus squinted her eyes, clenched her fist and focused. 

The tablet activated and the priest began reading it out, “Fire! Argh! Fire! Fire, fire!” 

His hand leapt off Anna’s head as a burst of flame erupted from the top of it. 

The guard nearly stumbled over in a panic and the priest tore his glove off and threw it to the floor.

After breathing in and out for a moment, he yelled “What did you do!” 

“Huh, I focused?”

“I’m talking about making the Fire appear!” The priest yelled.

“Oh! It usually doesn’t appear, fire is dangerous after all so I buried it deep down.”

“You had already awakened your attribute, why didn’t you just say that!”

“What…” Luna jumped in and stepped back, acting scared at the big man, “I was told I still had to do it because I could have two…”

Some of the adults went forward quickly explaining that it was awakened by a traumatic experience. 

But Anna overheard some useful information. 

Apparently, the priest was supposed to know this, as the entire incident was reported to a higher layer of government and the church. The latter of which specifically asked for reports when environmental incidents happened in the towns and cities.

[Interesting…] Syrus wondered why they would care about that.

[It’s realistically nothing good.] (Luna)

With the task done and the priest quickly fixing his hand with his magic, Syrus went back to their mum.

“Hey, Mum!” 

“Sweetie are you okay!” Jen crouched down and hugged Anna.

“Of course!” 

Jen and Anna walked out of the crowd towards the edge of town.

The crowd didn’t mind what happened, a few were upset about it but most just found it funny. A fun surprise for a slightly late event. No one was injured so why not laugh?

Once they reached the end of town, Jen slowed down to a walk and then sat beside Anna.

“Syrus, are your sisters okay?”

Lilly quietly spoke up, “Yep, we are fine.”

Jen smiled, “Oh Eva, it was just that you and Luna weren’t around until the end.”

Luna chimed in, “We didn’t care about the event, and it was Syrus' turn to deal with the annoying stuff.”

“Oh…” Jen quietly muttered, “That’s so handy…” Before raising her voice to a normal level, “Well let’s go home. I don’t really care about the after party, my husband is still home alone and he needs his family to cheer him up! Who is with me!”

Luna replied, “We are.” 

Syrus added, “We kind of can’t not be with you…”

“You're all supposed to join in all excited…”

Lilly sorrowfully replied, “Better luck next time Mum….”