[Hero's Party - Kaori's Room]
It was night time within the Heiligh Kingdom, mostly everyone had gone to bed, though there was one who couldn't sleep much, not after what happened during the Orcus Labyrinth.
Kaori Shirasaki, one of the famed heroes summoned from another world and part of the Hero's Party, sat at the edge of her bed, head down, eyes puffy and red from all the crying she did.
*Knock Knock* "Kaori? Are you still up," asked a voice.
Kaori looked up at her door, recognizing the voice, "Yeah."
"Can I come in," the voice asked.
"Yeah," she responded shortly.
The door opened to reveal one of Kaori's childhood friends, Shizuku Yaegashi. Shizuku closed the door and walked towards Kaori, sitting on her bed beside her. Shizuku put her hand on her shoulder, looking at her with sadness and concern,
"I failed them," Kaori started, tears welling up in her eyes once. "I failed him. I promised to protect him. I promised he could rely on me, and said he could. But–" she continued, tears finally falling down her face once more.
Shizuku sat silently, unsure of how to comfort her grieving friend. "How am I supposed to forgive myself for this," she asked, voice cracking under her heartbroken tone.
Shizuku perked up at this question and finally spoke, "This is not your fault Kaori. You couldn't have known that this was going to happen," she said in an effort to comfort her.
Kaori looked Shizuku in the eyes, "I had a dream that something like this would happen. That both of them kept getting further and further away from me and finally vanishing. I didn't want that to happen. I thought it wouldn't. But it did. Now I'll never get to see them again," she said as she cried again.
Shizuku wrapped her arms around the fragile and vulnerable girl, which the latter leaned into, clutching her like a safety net as she cried her heart out once more.
[Transition - Orcus Labyrinth]
An ear-splitting screech within the deep layers of the labyrinth, followed by a powerful lightning bolt that shot like a rocket, which ended up hitting a giant, troll-like monster and damaging it a decent amount, but not yet killing it. The monster let out a roar, its eye glowing before thrusting its head forward with its eye wide open, a beam of magic flying out at incredible speeds towards Sargon.
Sargon was quick to move out of the way of the beam, but the explosion still caught him and sent him flying violently towards a wall. "Argh," he grunted as he got slammed.
The cyclops monster advanced towards him slowly, but the same screech was made once more, shooting lighting towards the monster's back, again doing damage, but not enough to kill it.
The monster, annoyed and irritated, turned its head at the source, the same dark blue bird that sparked with electricity and prepared to fire his beam again, but the bird was quicker and spun once in place which caused one of its feathers to shoot off like a bullet and pierce right through the monster's eye.
The monster screamed in pain as it clutched its pierced eye. The feather then started glowing with an ethereal dark blue before the monster got electrocuted once more. Then pink threads that were shaped in the form of a web shot out and latched on to the monster's foot. As the monster tried to take a step back, its foot that was caught in the pink web wrap wasn't able to move much, which caused the monster to lose its balance and fall backward, right to where the black panther was waiting.
The next moment, the face of the panther's body morphed into a circular row of rotating spikes, and then a single elongated spike thrusted out from the center of the rows and pierced right through the monster's throat. The monster's mouth opened in a silent scream as since its throat was pierced, it could no longer make coherent noises aside from the gurgling of the blood.
As the monster painfully slid down the spike that pierced its throat, it twitched violently for a minute before going still, arms falling to its side limp.
The panther retracted its spike as quickly as it ejected it and sidestepped the huge body that would've fallen on top of it had it just stayed there.
Sargon, a little bit before his creations took down the monster, had gotten up and was enveloped in a light blue, almost teal aura, healing whatever injuries he had during that fight.
Sargon took a deep breath in and one out in an effort to calm his racing heart beat while his animal creations converted to their dark matter formless mass before flying back into his shadow.
'These monsters keep getting quite tiresome. The more I venture, the more likely I am to die here. Though on the plus side, I must be getting closer to the end. I can't afford to slow down now,' he thought determinedly.
He then turned to continue on his trek when all of a sudden he heard a voice that screamed in desperation, fear, panic, and worry. But what shocked him the most wasn't the voice itself, but what the voice said,
"Hajimeeeeeeee!"
Sargon immediately became alert looking towards where he heard the voice at, "The voice said Hajime. He's still alive? But maybe this labyrinth could be playing tricks on me in order to misguide me," he said trying to rationalize the voice.
But then again, this labyrinth has been filled with monsters that were stronger the deeper you walked and he hadn't encountered any monster able to speak the human language. Besides, on the chance that his friend really is alive, by the sound and tone of that voice, it may not be for long.
Sargon, resolving himself to find out, gripped his cane tightly, he increased his speed as much as he could and blasted right through towards the source.
'Hang on Hajime, I'm on my way. Don't you dare die on me now,' he thought as he continued to run.
A few monsters tried to block his path, but he wasn't in the mood nor did he have the time to bother with them, "Get out of my way," he shouted.
He thrusted his cane outward, which sent a condensed blast of wind towards the monsters, which threw them off of their feet as he dashed past them. Then he heard another voice from deep within,
"I'll kill you," it said with rage and aggression.
It sounded like Hajime, but the tone and the context of what was said sounded unlike him, but Sargon didn't have time to worry about that.
He was getting close, "Almost there, just need more speed!"
Sargon's legs burned from the exertion, but he didn't care. He found a trace and sign that his friend was still alive and if he let some pain stop him from reaching and supporting him, he couldn't call himself his friend.
Sargon then saw some huge double doors that looked like they were blocking him. He gritted his teeth, furrowed his brow, and held his cane in his right hand. He then jumped up with the momentum that he had while he was speeding past the monsters, held his cane back, and then with all his strength and with a mighty shout,
"Hhhhrrrrraaaaaaggggghhhh!"
He thrusted the gold and blue pommel part of the cane towards the double doors, making a huge wall within them and flying through.
He landed back on the ground after doing a front roll to absorb the impact of his momentum and looked ahead. There was a giant, grey headed dragon like head constantly firing down on someone, who was too fast for it to hit.
Sargon didn't think twice and proceeded to dash towards the dragon-like head. He pointed the pommel of his cane down as another formless mass of dark matter arose from his shadow, snaked up his body, around his arm, and onto the pommel of his cane. He then raised the cane in an ark like fashion towards the dragon head, sending the formless mass toward the dragon head.
The mass morphed itself into a giant monster with a heavy top, huge arms, and one eye within the middle glowing white. The newly formed monster curled itself into a giant ball and crashed into the dragon head, making said head jolt back from the force.
Hajime and the mysterious girl he's holding looked on in bewilderment as the head jolted back from some out of nowhere ball. Then they heard a voice,
"Looks like I made it in time."
Hajime and the girl turned around and looked at the unexpected addition to their fight against the dragon. Sargon looked at them and waved
"Finally nice seeing you again Hajime, and nice to meet you as well miss…" he slowed as he waited for her name to be said.
"Yue," the girl said, still a bit confused on this man's sudden presence, though that soon turned to realization when Hajime spoke,
"Sargon?!"
The man in question simply nodded and smiled. That smile soon vanished when the dragon roared again, launching its attack in multiple directions, however Sargon and Hajime moved fast enough to avoid them.
Sargon looked over to Hajime and Yue, "I don't suppose you 2 have a plan to beat this thing?"
Hajime nodded, "Yeah, we do. But we're going to need some time. Can you distract it until then," he asked.
Sargon nodded, "You got it."
Sargon then stopped his movements and spun his cane around rapidly in front of him, blocking the projectiles that came his way. As he did this, the monster he launched at the dragon earlier warped over to his left a little ways away. The monster was hit with a few shots from the dragon thanks to its large surface, but said surface is quite tough so it wasn't too big of a deal.
It raised its massive left arm and then slammed it into the ground, which caused a mountain of spikes that grew larger to erupt from the ground and pointed towards the dragon. The spikes hit the dragon, but not enough to fully pierce its scales. The dragon roared and channeled power into its maw for another breath attack.
Sargon, blitzing over to his towering monster, climbed onto its back and dug his cane into it for balance, "You wish to fight fire with fire? Very well, I shall meet your challenge head on," he shouted.
The created monster's ball-like eye started to glow as it too charged up its attack, stretching its massive arms below to brace itself from the power of this attack.
The dragon finished charging its attack and unleashed it in a powerful beam, which was met by an equally powerful beam from Sargon's monster. Both beams clashed in the middle, holding each other back.
However after a minute, the beam from Sargon's monster began to lose its ground as Sargon gritted his teeth from the exhaustion that piled up from having to deal with the other monsters before now and using his magic more often. But he didn't waver and kept gazing at the dragon with no fear in his eyes as his will only strengthened in this scenario. His will also seemed to carry over to his summoned monster as its beam slowly pushed the dragon's beam back.
"Sargon, we're ready! Get clear," shouted Hajime.
Sargon's eyes narrowed and glowed brightly as his monster's beam finally reached the dragon's maw and exploded in its face, stunning the dragon. His monster then warped from its previous spot a little ways away. The dragon head then suddenly collapsed to the floor violently as a huge rock fell on top of it,
"Of course the ceiling would fall after all those shots you wildly made, dumbass," Hajime taunted. "Yue!"
The girl raised her hands and with a serious look shouted, "Azure Sky!"
A moment later, a gigantic blue sphere of energy formed above the dragon and landed on top of it, crushing it even more.
"Hajime," Yue screamed.
Hajime pulled out his handmade revolver and aimed it towards its opened mouth, which made a loud bang before the dragon exploded in a massive surge of energy.
Hajime landed with Yue in tow, but then started bleeding from his head and mouth, "I've reached my limit," he said, before he collapsed.
"Hajime," Yue screamed in worry.
The giant monster Sargon created warped to the side of Hajime with its creator in tow on its back, who jumped off, and rushed towards Hajime, the monster quickly melting into formless dark matter and retreating into his shadow.
Sargon looked at Yue with a small smile, "Don't worry Yue. If Hajime was strong enough to make it this far, he wouldn't die like this. But we need to get him healed quickly."
Yue looked at him for a moment, closed her eyes, then reopened them with a new determined look on her face, "Right!"
The next second, another huge set of double doors opened in front of the 3 and light shone from it. Sargon and Yue covered their eyes from the brightness before bringing their arms down to look at it. They looked each other once, nodded, lifted Hajime off the ground, and slowly made their way into the light.