Sora sighed, not bothered enough to continue the topic and asked about the thing that had been bothering him this whole time. "And for my punishment?"
Shuen remained silent for a moment, making the atmosphere a little awkward. "Punishment? What for?" He said, tilting his avian head.
Sora looked around, a little confused. "Didn't you say you brought me here because I was related to something that happened? That's pretty vague…" Sora sighed before continuing. "I thought you brought me here because I blasted that weakling's finger off?"
Shuen coughed, Sora a little stunned that he could even do that. "No. That is… not the reason I brought you here. As for your punishment, I'll leave that up to whoever's finger is missing…"
Sora shook his head in protest. "But that's not fair! It was self defence, you know." He started to tap his foot on the floor in defiance.
Shuen suddenly froze. "Enough. Your time here is over, now leave." He spoke, his voice a little more serious now. Causing Sora to suspect he did something wrong.
The large door suddenly closed once again, and the two guards walked in to escort Sora out. However, Sora took one last glance at the big bird. He nearly forgot to check out how much chakra this thing had.
Focusing on the silhouette of the big bird, his eyes widened in shock. It was a truly monstrous amount of dazzling golden energy, it wasn't all blue, a majority of it was golden. From what he could see, the amount of blue energy was also nothing to scoff at. It looked to be at least tenfold of what Fuko had, meaning this gigantic peacock had about one hundred more chakra than the average villager! No surprise there though, this was a god after all.
Once the three had left the sanctuary and were back in the hallway, Sora sighed in relief. Causing the woman to raise an eyebrow, "How'd it go?" She asked.
Sora looked up at her, nodded his head and replied. "Pretty good. He is pretty chill for a god, though I got the feeling that he has something pretty heavy going on right now." He said while holding his chin in thought.
The woman coughed awkwardly. "Chill?" She questioned, but Sora didn't think much of it.
Having nothing else to say, Sora bid the two farewell before making his way out of the large building. At the exit, he found his sister waiting patiently for him.
She quickly noticed him and sighed in relief. "Sora, you're okay. That's good. I was worried The Lord was going to kill you or something." She said with a chuckle.
Sora rolled his eyes. "Even if he is a god… no one could kill me." He spat, his ego a little bruised.
Fuko raised an eyebrow. "Right…" she said, clearly sarcastically. "So, no punishment? What's up?" She finally asked.
Sora started walking, both hands in his pockets as he looked back at Fuko, signaling her to walk with him. "Nope, he said that I did nothing wrong and that I shouldn't be punished, but rewarded." He said, an extremely cocky expression painting his face.
Fuko followed, quickly catching up with a serious expression. "Sora. You shouldn't lie about the Lord like that…" She pointed a finger at him as she attempted to educate him.
Sora looked away, a little disappointed that Fuko didn't find his remark amusing. "Fine. But he said he would not exact punishment on me. Basically, no punishment for me!" He looked back at Fuko with a more smug expression.
His big sister let out a loud sigh of relief and pulled him into a hug before ruffling his hair with her knuckles, making him struggle in protest. "Thank goodness! I was starting to get worried that you'd have to remove one of your fingers as a recompense…"
Sora finally managed to push away, rubbing his head. "You're going to make me go bald if you keep doing that. And even if they wanted me to cut off my finger, I would be long out of the village before they managed to hold me down to do that." He rolled his eyes, but Fuko knew he was being dead serious.
"Alright, let's go get something to eat. How about ramen?" Fuko suggested more for herself than for Sora. But the kid knew better than to decline an offer of free food.
Sora stopped walking and gave Fuko a big thumbs up. "Absolutely! And I will grant you the grand honour of paying!" He said while nodding, as if he had just blessed his big sister.
She just gave him a dirty side glance. "Kid, you are dirt broke. It'd be a miracle if you had enough money for even a singular ramen noodle."
Sora nearly choked on air before he coughed awkwardly, lowered his head and followed his big sister towards the village's best ramen stand.
…
…
After about 10 minutes of walking the two found themselves sitting alone at the ramen counter, waiting for their order to arrive.
The sun was starting to set, casting a pinkish hue over the desert landscape in the distance. Sora's face was resting on the palm of his hand and his sister was sitting upright like some goodie too shoes.
Fuko then turned to look at Sora, who looked to be getting impatient. "So, am I allowed to know about what the two of you talked about? Or is it some kind of secret?"
Sora slowly let his head drop off his hand before he turned to look his sister in the eye. "He just taught me about chakra and whatnot. I assume you already know what that is? Because you went to school?" He sighed, not regretting his absence from school, but wishing someone (mainly Fuko) would've informed him… like 10 years ago?
His sister just started to twirl her hair, realising that she could've told him about that years ago. "Ah I see…"
"And you do know that you have a stupid amount of chakra, right?" He asked, his eyes sharpening slowly, shifting from the sun like pattern to the more focused star like pattern.
Fuko tilted her head. "Right, the eyes can see the amount of chakra someone has. Yeah, I am aware that I'm a bit more gifted than most in that aspect. Hey, your eyes just changed, that was really cool actually." She moved closer to Sora's face to inspect his eyes.
His eyes slowly reverted to normal and he scoffed. "You didn't notice in all the 13 years I've been alive?" Shifting his focus to the approaching ramen in the hand of the chef. "Hey, food is here."
Fuko just pouted and eyed the multiple delicious bowls of shoyu ramen, her personal favourite. Sora just got the same as her, because he didn't really have a preference for ramen.
However, the sound of his sister devouring multiple bowls of ramen right in his ear was something he'd rather not hear. So he quickly finished his bowl, probably the only time he'd actually rushed eating, so it hurt his throat a little.
But when he was done, he didn't even bother waiting for his sister and immediately left. He turned back to see if she even noticed and funnily enough, she was way too infatuated with that damn shoyu ramen to notice that he was already gone.
He chuckled and shook his head before walking off into the empty streets. Most people had already gone home for the evening, all except for a few children that Sora spotted in the distance. He focused, eyes shifting, before he just shook his head. Nope, all of the children had the same amount of chakra, no monsters like Fuko.
But before he turned around and walked away, he heard a loud thud. One of the children was thrown to the floor and was being kicked repeatedly.
All of the children had black hair and the same brown eyes, but the one on the floor was a small boy with extremely pale skin, white hair with pink undertones and Sora couldn't quite see his eyes but he was sure they were the same as everyone else's.
He clicked his tongue and was about to leave until he heard it. The same insult he had heard directed toward himself on multiple occasions. "You… filthy heretic!"
Sora's eyes widened and before he could think, he was instinctively moving toward the group of children. They each looked to be 8 years old, only 5 years younger than Sora himself.
Sora realised he was moving forward and only moved faster. "Hey!" He shouted, his voice a little deeper than usual. It was like he was trying to seem more commanding, more intimidating? Either way, that drew all the attention towards him.
Two of the kids pointed at his eyes before running away, the remaining one kept kicking the one on the floor as if he hadn't noticed Sora despite his shouts.
Sora rolled his eyes and pointed a finger at the kid.
"Bang."
An invisible force hit the child in the stomach, not enough to injure him, but enough to knock him on his backside. Yeah, that got his attention. He saw Sora's silhouette approaching and quickly scrambled to his feet before running off.
Sora quickly rushed over to the boy who was on the floor, hoping to examine his eyes. The kid had his eyes shut tight and was curled up in a ball like a spider that had accepted its fate.
"Hey, kid. They're gone, you can relax." Sora said, his voice wasn't calming nor reassuring. If anything he was starting to get a little irritated and desperate to see his eyes.
The kid slowly unfurled himself before taking even longer to actually get up and show Sora his face.
And when he did, Sora was a little disappointed.
The kid didn't have the same eyes as him, unfortunately. HOWEVER, he didn't have the same old brown eyes as everyone else either. Instead, Sora noted that the kid had a very strange unique kind of pink colour to his eyes. His entire appearance was strange, hair even whiter than Sora's, extremely pale skin despite living in the middle of the desert…
"You alright?" Sora asked, but the kid was staring a little too deep into his eyes. Making Sora feel a little uncomfortable.
After a moment of awkward silence passed by, the kid flinched back to reality and nodded repeatedly. "Y-yes, thank you." He stammered.
Sora rolled his eyes. "Uhh, are you from this village? You don't really… look like everyone else." He managed to ask, feeling a bit strange to ask, but he asked nonetheless.
The kid looked a bit uncomfortable at the question, but he answered anyway. "I don't know… I was born here, but I have always looked this way. And I can't be out in the day either, my skin will burn and the sun hurts my eyes." He managed to get out, making Sora feel like a bit of an asshole for asking.
Sora examined the kid further. "And why were those kids beating you like that…?" Finally addressing the elephant in the room.
The kid held his arm that was covered in bruises and scrapes. "Well, they think that I'm a heretic because I don't look like them."
"Seriously? That's not even what the word means! They just wanted a reason to hate you because you're different. How pathetic." Sora shook his head in disappointment. Totally as if he didn't place anyone other than himself and sometimes his sister leagues beneath him because they don't have his eyes.
The kid flinched at Sora's sudden outburst, but after hearing all that he had to say, well. The kid did feel quite inspired. He wanted to ask for Sora's name, but before he managed to ask…
"Yukio! There you are!" A loud, worried masculine voice echoed from the other side of the street.
Sora quickly turned around to see the largest man he had ever seen in his entire life running their way. Sora was pretty damn good at estimating things and this man was about 4 inches taller than the doors in his house. About 6 foot 10 inches… that was like a whole foot taller than Fuko! And she was considered absurdly tall for the standards of the village! How hadn't he seen this brute before?
The man got closer, Sora noted the evident worry in his expression. The man was huge, his chest was bare and hairy, his head was full of thick black hair with a few odd gray hairs from age, he had a thick beard, a strong bone structure, tanned skin and sharp brown eyes.
"Dad!" The pale boy shouted back, his voice far louder than before as he rushed toward his… father?
Sora couldn't quite comprehend how the white haired, pale, fragile, short boy could possibly be related to, let alone the SON of such a man.
On that topic, the man embraced his son before looking at Sora, confused as to why this child with similarly light hair to his son was here. Completely ignoring the eyes of the Lord.
"Yukio, who is this boy? A friend?" The burly man asked, his voice gruff.
The pale boy, whose name was apparently Yukio, looked up at his father. "He helped me out when those guys were being mean." He said, covering the bruises he had amassed.
Sora just kind of waved awkwardly before he heard yet another extremely loud voice coming from the other side.
"Sora! There you are!" A loud, energised, deep feminine voice echoed from behind Sora.
....
AUTHORS NOTE : Incase you didn't read the auxiliary chapter… here are all the characters and what they look like!