In a burst of dimensional energy, Higure arrived at another patch of trees much farther from the Sun Peak. But despite the distance, the light still reached them and seemed to endure toward the descending horizon.
Rakna and Ceresta appeared next to her, one with the flash of a star and the other with a swirl of silver petals. The former AI immediately looked at where they came from and mused, "Is there a point where the light doesn't reach?"
"Yes, there is," the lioness nodded. "But you'd need to travel at least a thousand times over what currently separates us from the Peak. And there is nothing there; it's basically a barren land. But at the same time, it's a neutral and quiet place where I used to seclude in."
Higure vaulted over a boulder as she spoke and finally stopped at the entrance of a cave covered in leaves. She looked at it and sighed.
Rakna watched her without saying anything. He had long inferred the reason for her mood since coming here and had also confirmed it. Higure's purpose here was to see her children.
However… no matter how he expanded his sensing range, he didn't detect any presence with the same signature as hers.
"Look at you, you buffoon," an unknown, female voice caused Higure to open her eyes wide. She whipped her head to look at the source. "It has been four hundred years, and here you are, back to the world of the living acting all depressed."
A large owl was perched on the branch of a nearby tree. It stared at Higure with its round eyes emanating wisdom. Its feathers were brown and white, with a golden lozenge on its forehead.
"Laphus…" Higure muttered a name.
The bird huffed. "What? Did you expect me to be dead? I am barely 706, I still have many years to live," she said. "But what about you?"
"…"
"Back from the dead. With help, I assume," Laphus glanced at Rakna. "You came here to see your brats, haven't you?"
"…!" The lioness' ears stood straight. "Do you know where they are?"
The owl's eyes narrowed. "Do I know? I raised them myself," she harrumphed and looked up. "It probably was not even your intention, but when you threw them into Katarra while you fought that Téras, they ended up close to where I was."
"…"
"They grew up well enough. Brats they were, all three of them."
Higure stiffened as soon as Laphus used past tense.
"That daughter of yours resembled you. She inherited your golden eyes. Thankfully she also was much smarter," the owl snorted. "Though, she was quite frail, and passed away in her sleep fifty-odd years ago."
"…"
"Your two boys are another story; restless troublemakers. But, above all, strong. Their teamwork was splendid. But sadly, they fell as well. Two hundred years ago, a rogue Wild Boss appeared on our Plateau; one of them died fighting it. Then, a while later, your second boy succumbed during a scuffle with the tigers."
Clenching her fists and gnashing her teeth, Higure shut her eyes tight. But before her state could devolve any further, a hand wrapped around hers. She automatically expected it to be Rakna, but when she turned around, what she saw was Ceresta's gentle look.
Behind her, Rakna was watching with a wry smile, as if he had been beaten to the punch.
The lioness stiffened under the golden eyes that mirrored hers. Ceresta wasn't yet able to convey her feelings very well, so she simply held her hand.
"I…" Higure closed her mouth as soon as she opened it. She realized she didn't even know what words were going to come out. And looking at the innocent girl's face, she quickly deflated. "This is so unfair…" She shook her head.
"Know my pain," Rakna joked and stepped forward. "Laphus, is it? Since our common idiot here has failed to ask the most important question, I'll do it for her."
The owl's head silently turned to face him.
"Did they live a good life?"
Higure trembled upon hearing it and Laphus gazed at the therian. Considering her appearance, it was hard to gauge her temper, but something told him that she was smiling.
"That one is easy to answer, wolf," the owl cooed. "Of course, they did."
* * *
Sitting in front of a peculiar grave surrounded by a tangible, orange, dimensional energy, Higure smiled in both sadness and… unexpected relief.
"I'm sorry," she said, not to the grave, but to Rakna standing behind her. "When I told you a while ago that I wanted to see my children, it wasn't supposed to be all about me being miserable. That was a desire born out of fear more than anything else. I wasn't sure what kind of future awaited me with you, so I wanted to cling to the desire of seeing my littles ones all grown up."
Rakna didn't say anything and sat down next to her. He looked straight at the grave. "This looks a lot like our Dusk Mane."
Higure smiled faintly. "Yes, it does. Because, in a sense, it is. I've told you before; this skill is our personal dimension. It's not just attached to us; it flows through us. After dying, it slowly dies out like this; we call it our Twilight. Usually, it takes about a century to fade entirely."
Saying so, the lioness carefully put her hand into it and closed her eyes. The dimension caressed it as if welcoming her and shared its essence.
Reading the memories it was feeding her, Higure briefly frowned. She noticed a detail about the death of one of her sons, but the flood of memories pushed forward to stop her from watching it any further.
The mother chuckled to herself; it was as if the lingering will was trying to distract her.
"Smarter than me... that's definitely true," she commented and carefully retrieved her hand. "But really… none of these three little buggers gave me any grandchildren? How lazy," she scolded in mock-reproach.
"Oh, wow, now that's a mom-line," Rakna muttered.
"It's okay," she smirked. "We'll compensate by having lots of babies."
"Back to square one, are we?" The therian hung his head with a small smile.
The lioness stuck out her tongue and hopped to her feet. "We can go… I'm satisfied to have seen my daughter's Twilight," she said and turned heel back to her old friend, who was chatting away with Ceresta.
Rakna glanced one last time at the grave and looked down at his palm. He squinted his eyes and snickered to himself. "Playing god, am I?" He muttered, and without anyone noticing, an eldritch eye briefly opened in this place before the therian walked away.
"Laphus, I have one last question," he heard Higure ask when he approached them.
"What is it?"
"The tiger who killed my son," the lioness' eyes flashed with coldness. "Is he alive?"
The owl's feathers bristled, not out of fear or nervousness, but apprehension. However, she was not one to hide the truth. "Yes. He is. It was some child barely a century old at the time."
"I see. Then it seems I have one last visit to make."
"Don't go overboard," Laphus immediately chastised. "Do you really want to leave this place with another bloodbath behind you? Don't waste your new life by becoming a wild beast again."
Rakna raised an eyebrow at that, which Higure immediately fled from.
"W-well… I was just a bit… um, free-spirited in my youth," she defended herself.
The owl did not look amused.
The lioness sighed. "I'm not going there to necessarily kill him … but I have seen how he died in my daughter's memories. Amends must be made; I won't budge on that," she declared.
"…understood. But you should know something," Laphus said as she prepared to take flight. She let out a purely animalistic coo and spoke, "He is still alive."
With those words, she flapped her wings and took off toward the sky.
As for Higure, her expression was full of shock. "Him…?"
"It's someone you know?" Rakna asked. Although Ceresta might be a bit confused, he knew that the coo made by Laphus referred to someone.
It was a part of his Beast Tongue; creatures like Higure who usually did not possess the inherent need to have articulated names often referred to each other by a sort of mimicry.
In this case, they would purposefully alter the pitch and strength of their cries in certain ways as a form of primitive naming.
"He's…" Higure furrowed her eyebrows. "An old rival… now, there are two reasons I have to pay the tigers a visit," she laughed to herself and they collectively left.
* * *
The border between the two territories was distinct; the clashing colors of the Sun Peak created a curtain of spiraling hues. As soon as they crossed it, Higure's group was put under the scrutiny of hundreds of Dawn Tigers.
The first streak of tigers they spotted had their eyes fixed on them, no matter their speed. Dawn Tigers were, as expected, a clear contrast compared to their counterparts. They mainly had pure white fur, with yellow highlights instead of orange, and blue eyes.
On their way to Higure's destination, Rakna sensed something and was about to unwrap Sonata, but Ceresta beat him to the punch. Like a bolt of silver, she grabbed the neck of one tiger that had just tried to pounce on them.
"Kgh--!" The beast choked in dread.
"Down, please," the slender girl spoke with a dreadfully cold voice. Her golden eyes became filled with the shapes of flowers and her Spiritual Intent manifested into reality. A War Crest appeared on the back of her hand and with a burst of power completely unfit for her stature, she flung the feline toward the ground.
Like lightning, the Wilden crashed into the mountain. It was followed by a rain of petals, as well as the growth of a giant crimson flower that trapped the tiger within its roots.
Higure gawked.
Rakna wasn't that different.
Yet, Ceresta smiled innocently. "It is fine now."
"…devourer of mine, you do know Dawn Tigers are level 700 on average, right?"
"…yes."
"Haha…" The lioness laughed in disbelief. "No wonder you want her to participate in the raid."
Rakna helplessly shook his head at that. Of course, he wanted Ceres for the Chintamani Lord. For the past weeks, he was the only one aware of what went on in her status. Ever since learning the sword, she hadn't stopped developing new abilities.
By now, the number of skills she possessed had long surpassed his. Moreover, Bhumi confidently stated that she had actually surpassed him in pure swordsmanship; she was someone capable of reaching Divine Class proficiency in anything within mere days.
The only saving grace for the self-esteem of… well, every other living being in the universe, was that her soul functioned on an entirely foreign spectrum. While she could attain perfection in all manners of techniques and even magic, she could not utilize it as much as others could.
However, even with that minor setback, Ceresta's magic power was unmatched, and her aptitude for World Formulas had the potential to break or make literal worlds.
"Anyhow…" Higure shook her head to clear her head. "While that didn't exactly prove you were invincible or anything, they've become more docile at least," she remarked whilst observing how the tiger that had just attacked them was slowly extricating itself from the red flower seal.
"Let's hurry up," Rakna grunted. "Can you tell me where that rival of yours is?"
"Uh? Well, I don't know how to describe it… but it's the old, powerful, and 'quiet' presence over there," she pointed at somewhere probably thousands of kilometers away.
The therian exhaled. "All right. Don't resist it; are you ready?"
"Un," Ceresta nodded without hesitation.
But Higure was confused. "Resist wha—"
"[ReverseCosmos.]"
With those two words, the trio vanished.