RD 5 Ch 13

I frowned, finding myself in what I dared to call a utopia. A beautiful waterfall landed amidst a pond of impossibly beautiful women lounging in the water. Memories, both new and old, clashed strangely in my head, causing me to grip my face in an effort to ground myself. 

"What?" I said, knowing I sounded as stupid as I felt in the moment. A pounding headache threatened to split my forehead open. The mourning for Tarel and Kal felt fresh even as I realized they were a figment of the Trial.

"Ta-da!" A green-haired sissy exploded in front of me, confetti showering over my face. "You've passed the trial of kings," she announced in a practiced and overly grandiose manner. 

I frowned, my newest batch of memories slowly slipping away. "Wait, the trial's over?" I asked. 

"Well, I might have pulled a few strings." Sissy tucked her arms behind her back and gave me a bashful grin as she swayed from side to side. 

"I thought that already got you in enough trouble." I held my head, memories returning of where I was and what I'd been up to when Winnie had thrown herself into the trial of kings with a fiery blast that landed me in here as well. 

"The others?" I asked, focusing on what was important.

“Still in the trial." Sissy said, swimming through the air around me. "But you're done. I get to give you your choice of king's mantles. Perhaps you want to be the king of shadows." Sissy suddenly had a dark cloak across her shoulders that she hid her face behind in an overly dramatic manner. 

"Or perhaps you want to be the tyrant king." A massive golden throne shot up from the ground to catch her and lift her higher into the air. "Ooh, or I know, perhaps you'll really take the mantle of the wandering king. After all, it did you so well in your past life." 

Sissy returned to me with a giant smile as paradise disappeared into a marble hall filled with nine stone statues, each representing one of the kings.

I glanced at them and back at Sissy. "The others are still inside though. What can I do for them?" 

"Well, yes, they have to finish. And to be honest, Bran, my Bran, we all know that the trial of kings is not easy. I mean, for you to pass. You went through several trials and made it look not too bad, but not everyone is as awesome as you." She buffed her nails against her chest. "So, which will it be?" 

"None of them. I want to go help the others," I said. I needed my allies. "By the way, who all is in there?" 

"Well," she said, and ground her toe into the air as if she was contemplating lying. 

"The truth," I said, my eyes growing hard. 

"If I tell you, that's probably not going to end well. How about you take your mantle, you go out, you save the world. After all, I did sort of help you come back in time to save it, and if you go run after Simone and Circe, you're only going to end up dead." She covered her mouth immediately, realizing what she said.

I had known that Winnie and Princess Almeria had gone in, but I was shocked to learn that Circe and Simone had entered as well. Of course, they had been with that group, helping to open the way. Simone should have known better.

A flicker of anger passed through me at the realization that Sissy had hidden that particular detail when I first arrived.

“Why?” I growled out.

Sissy hesitated, clearly uncomfortable with whatever she knew. "Well," she started. "I don't know what was going on in Simone's head. She clearly had the option to turn around and walk away, but she went in with full confidence. I think," Sissy hesitated. 

"You think?" I urged. 

"I think she decided to go in, because otherwise there was no point in her continuing to live," Sissy said, spitting it out as fast as she could like it was bad news she wanted nothing to do with. 

I closed my eyes and let out a heavy sigh. That would be Simone, sadly we didn’t do the trial of kings together. "And Circe?" 

Rather than continue to explain it to me, with a wave of her hand, there was a ripple in the air between us, a screen that showed me what had happened outside the trial. Circe had come up short, momentarily stunned about what to do next, and I could see the hard decision before her, as the golden soldiers closed the path back that she would have taken if she could. Only for her to set her sights back on the trial of kings as her best chance of survival, even though I had told her, much to her dislike, that she wouldn't do well in the trial of kings. Somehow it was comforting that she had only taken it, only entered the trial as a last resort.

While she was at it, she showed me Simone staring at the gates for just a second, her expression unreadable, before she marched in confidently. 

"What am I going to do with those two?" I said to myself, not expecting advice from Sissy. 

"Perhaps love them," she said, now upside down. "They have been really good to you, and if you make them a nice memorial, then you can always keep them close in your heart." 

I looked at Sissy in disbelief. "That's what you think I would do? Are you sure you brought the right Bran back to the past?" 

While there were statues in this hall, there was a door behind me, and I began to walk towards it.

Sissy, in a flash, was in front of me. "What are you doing?" 

"Going back for them," I pointed at the door. 

"No, no, you don't get to just go back. Do you not understand how incredibly dangerous that would be?" Sissy started to explain, and then quickly shut herself up. 

"I can go back this way?" I asked with a raised eyebrow. 

"Nothing." Sissy shrugged. "You just can't go that way. You need to go, you need to pick a mantle and go forward." Her words can out in a chaotic rush as she tried to turn me around, but I failed to budge.

"No, I'm going back. Either you tell me what I'm up against, or you let me go in blind." I could feel it in my bones, there was something I could do for Simone and Circe.

Sissy whined and pulled at me, trying to get me to turn. When I didn't, after several more tugs, she began cursing. "Damnit Bran, I didn't bring you back just for you to go and die again.”

“What happens if I walk back there?" 

Sissy looked away and mumbled something under her breath. 

"Huh?" 

"Well." Sissy let out a sigh, realizing that I was going to go back, unless she could convince me otherwise. "Technically, because there are multiple people taking the trail at once, there is a secret option." She hesitated at that term. 

"Secret?"

"Not secret in a good way. Secret in like a suicidal way." She flew up until she was eye level, giving me a glare that told me not to do it. 

"Explain." I was tired of her non-answers.

Sissy groaned and spun around several times in frustration before facing me head on again. "Fine. Because there are existing people trying the Trial of Kings, and you have already passed, if you go back through that door, all of the trials will suddenly be a joint trial." 

I nodded. Joint trials sounded wonderful. I could scoop up Simone and Circe and ensure they made it out alive.

"You will be heavily, I mean heavily penalized for going back in, but you will retain your memories." She made it sound like the end of the world.

I nodded. That didn't seem so bad. 

"I'm talking the equivalent of being a cripple if you go back in there," she pointed. "And the only way you walk back out is if you somehow manage to take one of the current trialees and make them submit to you. Even then, you have to win their challenge while leading them. Do you understand just how difficult of a task that is going to be? Their challenge will become all four of them, deadlocked in a war. For each one you cannot subdue, the only option for them is death within the trial. Rather than each of them trying to secede individually, it's now your job to subdue as many as you can and come out victorious in the four-way war. In what will be a four-way war, that is, if you can manage to subdue a single one. Because Bran, remember, their memories are gone." 

Sissy got in my face. "They won't know you. They won't care. They won't be able to recognize you. You will have to, from scratch, subdue each of them while they have their full strength as well as forces available to them and you are crippled. Now do you understand just how suicide it is to go back in there?" She pointed at the door.

"I can't leave any of them," I said, "and I think if I lose Simone, I won't be the man you need me to be to save the world." Those words came out in a rush and shook me to my core.

Odd how you realized some of the most important things only when they were at stake. The idea of walking away from here and leaving Simone inside would be one of my life’s greatest regrets.

Since I came back, I had hoped to change things around, and I had. Things were going better for me personally, I was increasing in power at a remarkable rate and this time I had built up a force even before the Rapture. Now they were growing to the point that they might even be able to stand up to a number of the better Sects. Still short of a Clan, but perhaps in another few years that would change too.

All of that had given me hope that this time I wouldn’t have to watch those that I loved died. The part of me that had experienced that and hardened myself to the reality of several demon wars had softened considerably, letting people back inside my heart where I was vulnerable to losing them.

Simone was firmly lodged in there.

If she didn’t come out of the trials and I walked away when there was a chance to save her… well I would become a very different man, filled with regret and anger. Not the type of person to lead a successful force into the future.

Sissy began pulling at her hair in frustration, growling while spinning around and sinking towards the ground. "Damn it, Bran, do you realize that I brought back the Demon King too? Well, I didn't mean to. He sort of slipped through the cracks." She snaked her hand back and forth in front of her.

"Would have been nice to know that sooner," I said.

"Well, if I gave you that information when I sent him back, I would have had to tell him as well. And to be honest, you were starting nowhere near in the same position. Hiding you from him was the better option.” It sounded like bringing me back needed some sort of balance.

“All the more reason for me to use the allies I've collected this time.” I argued.

“Don't you see?" Sissy said, spinning around and floating up again. "If you go in there and you die, the Demon King, with all the memories of his past life, will be unleashed upon this world. It will be worse than last time. Humanity won't stand a chance."

"I'm sorry, Sissy," I said, ducking my head. "But you chose me to come back, for I'm sure, a multitude of reasons, one of them was my ability to have so many people follow me faithfully. That only happens because I didn't leave my people behind. When they needed me, I would be there. And though the situation has turned out far from ideal," I chuckled, "it doesn't change what I must do."

I grabbed Sissy by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes. "For what it's worth, I'm genuinely sorry. But that won't stop me from doing what must be done."

Sissy deflated. The personification of the system was despondent as she kicked at the air, it was funny just how human the woman behind what most people would consider a lifeless and brutal entity like the system was.

"Fine, go. I don't care what happens to you," she pouted.

I stepped up closer, wrapping her in a hug. "Don't say goodbye to me like that."

"Humpf," she huffed.

"Oh, come on, don't be like that," I tried to tease her and cheer the woman up.

"If you're going to go kill yourself, the last thing I'm going to do is be close with you before you leave." Sissy wouldn’t look at me.

"Well, could you at least wish me luck?" I asked.

She waffled her head back and forth for a moment, looked me up and down out of the corner of her eyes. "Good luck. Just don't waste all of the effort I've spent on you."

"I'm the one you picked, right? And since the great and powerful Sissy picked me, bet on me. Then how could I ever lose?" I sweet-talked the personification of the system.

She paused, thinking briefly on what I said before a grin spread massively across her face. "Right. Since I, Sissy, picked you, you must be the best. And so good, in fact, that you'll complete all of this without even breaking a sweat.”

“Right?" I encouraged her, filling myself with as much confidence as I could, and hoping enough of it would spill over to Sissy.

"You're right. Absolutely right. Now, mister, go in there and beat all of their sorry asses into submission and show them just how great my pick, Bran Heros, really is. So much better than that stupid demon king. I can’t believe I got away with comparing the two of you. You’ll come out of this and steam roll him." She was now considerably puffed up.

"Oh," she paused, freezing in place. "Who would you prefer to start with?" she asked.

A massive grin spread across my face.