Solomon's family line was proficient in a brand of folk magic that no one else in the world had. It was part of the reason they were treated with such immense skepticism and reverence.
Voodoo was divided into two practices. Rootwork and Conjuration.
Rootwork is simple, but slightly tedious. It involves the use of gathering herbs, plant roots, and other materials to create spells that heal, form curses, bring good luck, inflict bad luck, and the like.
Conjuration is far more difficult mentally, but it possesses a higher ceiling.
Conjurers can not only bind souls to themselves, but they can also control and summon infamously powerful, wicked spirits.
Solomon had barely studied conjuration before he left home. He only knew the basics and had never actually put what little he learned into practice.
Until that moment, he didn't remember that he had attempted to bind Raizel to himself.
It looked like it had taken him a while to actually get his bearings and recover enough strength to take form, but the moment was here.
Raizel lived even in death.
"How come you never taught me any of that voodoo stuff?"
"Closed practice. If I tried, you would have ruined your body and given yourself permanent bad luck."
"I don't believe in bad luck."
"You died before your 21st birthday."
"…Fuck, okay, fair."
Solomon held his head in his hands as he tried to wrap his mind around everything that had happened over the last week.
In his first few seconds awake, Raizel could not take his eyes off of his brother's body.
Heavily scarred and sculpted from some kind of divine stone, he was a towering presence that would surely be able to overwhelm most Titan-Bloods with his physical abilities alone.
But Solomon didn't want anything that he had been given.
"...I never meant for all of this to happen, you know? I thought.. no, I was sure that with this second chance that I could..."
"Save the world..?" Solomon finished.
"More or less." Raizel sighed.
Solomon lifted his head from his hands and stared at his brother's ghostly form.
"...Is this why you took me in?"
Raizel took a moment to drift about the from before answering.
"Not… totally. We weren't close in my last life like this one. You can chalk that up to another of my many regrets."
Raizel didn't really seem like he was going to elaborate. Just the same, Solomon wasn't going to push him to speak.
With the two of them connected now, Solomon could sense all of his brothers regrets without even trying to.
He didn't feel like opening up old wounds so soon after Raizel had just returned from the dead.
But then again.. he wasn't exactly sure where to go from here.
"Where are you at… ? Mentally, I mean." Raizel suddenly asked.
Even though it wasn't a humorous question, Solomon almost laughed.
"….Nowhere good, I assure you."
Solomon kept thinking about the quake. The families whose lives he'd destroyed and the children who's future he'd stolen.
He doubted he would ever forgive himself. Every time that he closed his eyes to dream, he would return to that exact same nightmare.
"This… thing inside of me..." Solomon touched his chest. "It showed itself as Rena in my mind."
Raizel didn't look surprised, but he did seem like his hopes had been let down a bit.
"Yeah, it… does that. It shows itself as the person who you trust the most in order to convince you to accept the power. It showed me my mother last time."
There were few sensitive subjects between Solomon and Raizel over the years. Raizel's mother was one of them.
"It's sentient then? The others kept saying it's name was Yaksha."
Raizel's eyes sharpened and his jaw clenched. Solomon felt waves of anger overflowing from him.
"…You have no idea."
Raizel held his head in his hands to hide his fiery eyes. "Let's just say they didn't come up with that name.."
Solomon tilted his head. "These armors are stolen then?? From who?"
"… A horned race of beings called the Zoha. They were the original inhabitants of this world and were capable of manipulating their bodies in a slew of different ways. When the Redeemer arrived here, he thought they would interfere with his plans, so he took matters into his own hands and culled them."
Solomon was dumbfounded. In his mind, he recalled what the sun-headed man was like. Calm, understanding, and patient.
The reality was so different.
"Unbelievable. So he killed all of them and took their armaments for himself…?" Solomon shook his head before he paused. "But wait, how did humans-"
"You're not getting it." Raizel cut him short.
The ghost lifted his head and stared at Solomon. "The Redeemer did not steal the amulets from the Zoha. He made the amulets out of the Zoha themselves."
Solomon was seized by a volatile sickness.
He felt the urge to vommit, but with him not having eaten in days, nothing left him.
His body felt contaminated.
Raizel hovered in front of him, and his gaze was as serious as Solomon had ever seen it.
"I know you're still reeling. I know you feel guilty.
But I vow this, brother, you must get over it quickly because if you do not what happened to the Zoha will be absolute child's play compared to what the Amnael will do to humanity if they are summoned here.
I'm quite aware that playing hero is not necessarily your strong suit. But if we don't stand against them, there's going to be-"
"I'll do it."
Solomon looked up at Raizel. His eyes had returned to that unsettling flame red and burning orange.
"Where do we start?"