The instant Nue Kirisaki opened her red eyes, she leaped up from the ground with beastlike agility and surveyed the space around her. The sky was tinged with yellow as the sun approached the horizon and afternoon gave way to sunset. Around Nue was a ruined wall, and beneath her feet was a decayed stone floor. All dried and eroded, the structure had begun to turn to dust and disappear into the sands of the surrounding wasteland. She was in a land that was gradually dying.
This is... Nue scoured her memory. She had seen this place before. In fact, she had come here several times in the past. In the course of Dill’s hunt for Reincarnators, they had visited this place as they traveled between Vulcan and the Terean region.
These were the ruins of the ancient kingdom of Krios, three days’ journey from Vulcan on foot. She should be able to return home to Dill from here, then, even if she had to walk.
“So you are awake, Princess of the Titans.” The hope Nue had started to cling to was suddenly shattered. Prodotis appeared before her with his armor removed and his upper body practically bare. He had a single extravagant sheet of fabric wrapped around his waist and fastened at his left shoulder, leaving the rest of his exceptional body exposed. This was exactly the garb of a classical statue, the likes of which were placed at every intersection in Vulcan. “Welcome to my kingdom.”
Looks like I won’t be escaping so easily, Nue thought. Was this person’s body really the same one he’d had before? The magnitude of his presence was totally different from when the Reincarnator, Hero, had inhabited it. The length of his limbs, the breadth of his shoulders, the shape of his face, its angles...every element was beautiful, as though they had been entirely constructed according to the proportions of perfection determined by nature—the golden and silver ratios. When Hero’s personality had taken precedence, this perfection had been hidden. This was not beauty in the common sense. It was a mathematical beauty, of perfect balance—a beauty that belonged in the realm of the gods.
“...What are you going to do to me?” Nue’s nerves kept her voice quiet.
“Nothing. At least, not yet.” The hero pointed to an opened box at his feet. “I have prepared a change of garments for you. If they appeal, you may change into them.” The contents of the old-fashioned chest were pure white clothes from antiquity. They looked a bit like the costume Nue had worn for the play at the City Deity Festival—a woolen peplos, adorned with many pleats.
Now that it had been mentioned, she noticed that the dress of black feathers that had formed during her transformation had begun to deteriorate and fall apart.
“Is something the matter? Do not hesitate on my behalf. When I was alive, we were taught that guests should receive hospitality. Or could it be that you do not know how to wear garments in the style of Krios? I only wish I could summon you a handmaiden, but my subjects all met their end at the hands of the Tereans, without exception.”
Prodotis’s words somehow lacked intonation, and Nue felt that something was fundamentally off about him. Was this simply a characteristic of the race known as heroes, or dissociation as a result of coming from the classical age to the contemporary? Nue could not tell.
Time...the irreversible flow of the river. Nue suddenly felt the dry wind of the wastes of Krios blow slightly colder on her bare arms. “What are you going to do? Will you become king again, in an empty kingdom...?”
“A king is not a king without his people. As things stand, I cannot call myself king, but part of my duty as a monarch is to take revenge for my lost subjects. I have requested reinforcements for that purpose.”
“You won’t find anyone to help you with that... Let me go home, already.” Nue was starting to think this man might be insane. Prodotis, however, was filled with unclouded confidence as he pointed to the heavens.
“Look up.” Within the border between the setting sun and the night sky were seven stars that formed a constellation. They shone brighter for an instant, then started to move. “Awaken from your slumber, Seven Generals of Krios.” One of the stars accelerated and broke away from the others, a tail of light trailing behind it. This star from the head of the constellation drew closer, headed directly for Nue and Prodotis’s location.
The top of the shooting star broke off, and something like a conical parachute unfolded above it, slowing the star’s descent. Expanding in the wind, the parachute was nearly carried away by the air currents high in the sky, but as Prodotis raised his hand, the unseen force of his psychokinesis supported the craft, restoring its stability.
Slowly, with almost frustrating sluggishness, the conical metallic object drew closer. It eventually touched down softly, right in front of their eyes. Its height was in excess of two meters, and the cone’s apex was cut off, leaving it flat, giving the object the overall appearance of a pot or cauldron. With its base burnt black by the heat its descent generated, a door on the side of the cone burst open and flew off. Inside was a colossal seashell, with white flesh between its two halves. Buried in that flesh was a human—a man.
“What is this smell...a Titan?” Nue asked. Before she had the time to feel cautious, Nue was overcome by a wave of nostalgia. The wistful feeling seemed to originate from the shell and the mass of flesh crammed into the conical device.
Prodotis answered Nue. After the manner of an ancient hero, his tone was matter-of-fact like an imperious god, the lack of expression in his face transcending the contemporary expectations of good and evil. “The Cradle of Ouranos...or so it was once called by the princess of the Erinyes.”
The man enveloped in the mass of flesh shifted. He then extended his arms outward, parting the spongy tissue. His shoulders followed, and then he emerged entirely as if falling from the shell.
Prodotis stood before the man. They both had silver hair, and they were also close to each other in stature, with the same glorious sense of balance in their proportions. Without the man giving his name, Nue already knew what he must be. She had already heard it in the tales of mythology told by Dill.
“Show thy face, my son. O treasure of Krios—Kranos of the shining helm.”
“It has been some time, father. Far too long, truly...!” A moment after the hero Kranos looked up at his father, he prostrated himself at his feet and kissed his toes.
Prodotis responded magnanimously. “After the death of your father, I do not know whether you faithfully inherited my kingdom and fought against the forces of Terea. For now, let us say that you did. I commend you for safely returning to life and meeting with me once again, O son.” The father laid his hand on his son’s head. It was a moving reunion in some ways, but it was clear that the ideals at the root of their relationship were not in keeping with contemporary thinking.
Nue felt a sense of stunned unease. Her misgivings were confirmed by the next words out of Kranos’s mouth. “With all due respect, father, I must say this. The people of Terea must be driven from the land of Redguard. Following your death, their exploits became lawless in the extreme, with their craven treachery eventually leading to the demise of our beloved Krios! How many winters have passed since that war ravaged our land...? No matter—we must kill the descendants of the brazen Haos. We cannot leave a single one alive, not even a newborn babe.”
“O son, your thoughts align with those of your father. With my strength combined with that of yours and the rest of the Seven Generals, let us achieve that.” As the father and son spoke, metal cones that continued to fall from the sky successively deployed parachutes overhead and descended to the ground. Shells crammed with white flesh cracked open and the ancient heroes within were resurrected, their hearts still clinging to the hatred born from the day they were vanquished in their war with Terea, five hundred years prior.
One of the parachutes was buffeted by the wind high in the sky, dramatically diverting its progress. It appeared that the psychokinesis that Prodotis had exerted on Kranos’s vessel would not reach as far as this one that had flown off course. The isolated conical vessel plummeted into the open wasteland of Krios, beyond the ruins.
A plume of dust rose out of the wastes. In the very place where the cone had fallen and disturbed the ground, there approached a band of cavalry. Upon the standard they raised was the crest of a three-headed eagle. Light sparkled in Nue’s red eyes.
“Dill!”