Chains Of Pride

"I-I've missed you so much bunny," was all that Rikona could say as she flew straight into her sister's arms for a crushing hug.

'Sniffles,' "Me too sis."

One would ask how Rikona knew that Kura would awaken as she did. It was quite simple. In the days leading up to the battle, Rikona had noticed an odd fluctuation emanating from her sister.

During one of the times she was caring for her sister, she had managed to see the golden light that enveloped flashed on and off. Rikona practically reeled back in shock at this as she had no idea what was going on.

She had then tried to see if she could 'backtrack' her sister's blood origin again. However, to her surprise, she found that she was unable to encompass the entirety of Kura's Blood Origin?

As if it somehow grew from being a sea to an oceanic world. As such, she was not able to turn back the clock on it. The weirdest part was her in'essence, Rikona could sense that it was back, however, it somehow felt as if it was asleep.

Obviously, this made her overjoyed, but the mere fact that Kura was still deep in slumber extinguished this joy. Moreover, she told no one of her findings as she wanted them to focus only on the task at hand.

Since Kura was still out of it, Rikona sent her away with Makoto, so that the latter could take good care of her. Just until the war was over and she could figure out what was going on.

"Master Kuuurrraaaaa!!!!!" Flying to where the sisters were with nary a care for their appearance was Yang Min. She dove headfirst in their embracement caring not for the tears and snot that ran all over.

"Little Min…" Kura couldn't help but pat her head as the latter just buried herself in Kura's c.h.e.s.t as she clung to her.

All the Taliums looked on with an undisguised look of joy on their faces. How could they not be joyful, one of the very first Taliums who had aided in her liberty was not awake and it seems as if she was fine.

Kura spared Gin a peculiar look. He could tell, it was no longer filled with indifference like before. It appeared to be filled with…hope maybe?

However, though the two sisters wanted desperately to catch up and spend some time with each other. This was neither the time or place for that to happen.

"So, Imaculen, meet the most powerful Talium, my little sister," Rikona said gracefully, bequeathing the title to Kura.

Kura's face evinced a flush at this as she shot a glare in Rikona's direction. Imaculen simply stared back at them both, the look of confusion gone and replaced with…hope?

"Though it wouldn't have worked, I am impressed that you didn't try to escape like a little rat during our little revelment," Rikona said, her eyes subconsciously shifting to the ship where Makoto was held.

"Based on my needs and my wish, I have no need to escape from you," Imaculen calmly stated.

Rikona's brow raised in interest, "Oh, and why is that?"

"Why do you think I started the Association, why do you think I helped to fund the research institute Exélixi, for fun?" He answered, slightly annoyed.

"Why?!" Rikona half-jokingly asked, counting off on her fingers, she started to answer "Hmm, let's see, harvesting power for yourselves, selling the Taliums for an o.b.s.c.e.n.e amount of money, experimentation on said Taliums for your betterment and their detriment, and oh I don't know, not curing world hunger. Did I miss anything?"

"You know nothing!" Imaculen spat.

"Careful…" Kura warned.

Imaculen didn't pay any heed to Kura nor her apparent warning, he needed to get his point across, "A few years ago, we found…something." His face scrunched up at the word 'something'. "Something we couldn't explain, something that had no reason, something beyond human…beyond you." he gazed straight in her eyes when he said this.

"Tch, you expect us to believe you!?!" Gin interjected here, refusing to believe what he heard. "You kidnapped our kind, oppressed our existence and committed god knows what experiments on us and you expect us to believe you?! What? Did you kidnap our kind to have them fight for you or something?"

One of his subordinates, the one who took the cardinal point of the east knelt down and spoke, "Sir, should we really be telli-"

"Enough," Imaculen said, interrupting him. "These old eyes of mine can tell that the one in the ship is human. So maybe we won't be disappointed with these two."

He looked from his subordinate and back to the sisters, "What I am about to say to you will sound unreal, but my words are all true."

Taking a deep breath, he continued, "Years ago, we encountered the first of them, beasts that were illogically strong, and nigh indestructible. Guns, grenades, fire, tranquillizers everything short of nukes were used on the damn thing but we were going nowhere fast!" The first sign of anger nearly broke through, but he suppressed it fast.

"Eventually, we had to instil a mass evacuation in the are and try our best to keep it under control. However, the strangest thing happened, this beast that was no different from a beast started to move abnormally collected."

"Instead of wanton destruction it appeared to be suddenly aware of and was searching for something. Then we saw it, or more accurately, him."

Kura's brow shot up, "Him?"

Imaculen nodded, "A Talium just like you, his name was Trew Furst, of course not as powerful as any of you. In any case, we only knew any of this way after. Apparently, he was hiding within the wreckage when he failed to escape, and the beast appeared to be searching for him."

"The most bizarre thing was that Furst was able to actually inflict some level of damage on the thing. Furst was extremely resilient in his own right, and through the combined efforts of the team there and him, were able to finally beat the damn thing. We had to keep the whole thing under wraps to avoid a panic in the populace."

"There were more of these things? The-Then why didn't you use the Talium you found at the time to help you in subduing these things?" Xiao Yu asked, coming closer with a slew of Taliums behind her.

Imaculen looked saddened when that question was asked, "H-he had died in battle against one of them. The only way we could help was after he inflicted a certain level of damage to these monsters. He would then fall back and we would further destroy the beast through liberty of the wounds he inflicted. It was through this we found that inside of them, once you inflict enough damage, you can take them down, but one of them just happened to fatally harm him when he was retreating."

Sighs…

"Once Furst died, I used my authority at the time and created a bureau responsible for policing these beasts."

The Association," Gin said.

He nodded in affirmation, "We were able to finally locate other Taliums, we recruited them into our cause, but after they espied the beasts, and the latter locked on to them they all ran away."

"Lies!" Zutto Shu accused.

"It's true!" Imaculen retorted. "The minute they got close enough and the thing closed in on them, they felt a bone-deep fear for the thing. They all scattered, the casualties at that time were enormous, it was only when they were finally cornered by the thing that they inescapably fought, tooth and nail."

"After that, the Taliums demanded their release from the bureau, nothing like Furst who though weaker than you, was many times stronger than them and many times braver as well-"

"And so in your desperation and aberration, you retained these Taliums by force, and given the perversion of the human mind you forcefully carried out these so-called missions," Rikona cut in. "The ends justify the means, eh?"

"What were we to do?! The only ones that could even scratch the damn thing were your kind!!" Imaculen growled.

"Get better!!" Kura roared.

"If you fail to find any of those who wanted to support your case, don't enslave others!! Slavery is a base human action, the mere fact that you all forgot your goals and now have this Association that is nothing but a Talium slave plant sickens and disgust me!!" Kura's face twisted in rage for his reason.

"Then who will help us in exterminating the beasts, you two?! Get real, these things are all over the globe and seemingly pop up out of nowhere," Imaculen stated.

"If we see this so-called beast, we will exterminate it, but we will not join you. Now if you'll excuse me, there are some more Taliums we need to free, so this may hurt." Rikona then turned around before her eyes shifted in a certain direction to move in concert with Kura to suppress the entire area.

"These things are your responsibility too!" Imaculen shouted.

Rikona, now frozen in mid-air, looked back at the unflappable Imaculen incredulously, "My what?! What did you say?! Listen here stone face, it is the responsibility of your bureau or whatever to deal with these things. Don't infringe upon the freedom of another as long as they don't infringe on another's freedom, that is my rule. You have Divinus Plasma don't you? Use that an-"

"You can feel it can't you?" He stated, interrupting her.

"I have no idea what you-"

"Don't lie to me," Imaculen said, staring at Rikona specifically. "I could tell your eyes periodically turning to the shift. Your friend wouldn't warrant that over and over again, something in there has an attraction to you and you can feel it can't you?"

Rikona's face turned up in horror, "You don't mean you?"

"That's right, in the ship right now is one of them. Through a painful sacrifice, we were able to capture it alive. My plan was to bring it to another facility to study it and find out what makes it tick, this was supposed to be a quick stop." Staring at Kura, he continued. "Things just took a turn from how I expected it to go."

Rikona refrained from asking him what this painful sacrifice was, afraid that his answer will cause her to fly into a blind rage and kill him outright. "Show it to me."

"Sister…"

"It's okay, they are no longer a threat with you here, any further retaliation from their side would only end up with a one-sided massacre, and you're stronger than me so you should have felt it too right?"

Kura nodded in confirmation. Kura did indeed feel is more acutely than Rikona but the truth was that it also came with a wish to not see the thing that made her so unsettled.

Under the lead of Imaculen and his men, they went into the ship, and it was there that they could see it.

In the ship's hold was a large beast, it's skin was craggy and the bone of its shoulder blades could be seen protruding from its shoulders. It only had one large eye partially covered by a flap of skin on the side of its head.

In addition, it's body was quite lanky, but the muscles present were abnormally defined and looked quite powerful despite being so few.

It was being retrained by multiple metal bracings. They were locked around the joints to keep it from exercising its daunting strength.

To the left of it, tied up in some simple rope was who Rikona was really worried about.

When Yang Min stepped into the hold, her hand went to her mouth in shock, "This is the monster?! Indeed it's more grotesque than I thought, but is it safe to tie it up with only hemp ropes?"

"Ha Ha HA, very funny. Seeing as how you're all fine, can one of you please untie me?" Asked Makoto, who was apparently none the worse for wear despite his current situation.