Flat-Brim Samurai Chapter 148 - Reunion
Apollo hugged his grandpa ,"How'd you get here?!?"
Hiroto replied ,"I came here on a magic carpet."
Apollo laughed, inviting him inside and settling him down at the dining table. Hiroto was glancing off at the wall before falling his eyes back onto Apollo ,"I've come here because I was worried about you. I knew that look in your eyes when you left and I needed to check up on you. Another question you might have is how I've actually entered the 4th dimension after staying in the 3rd for so long. I've told you this before but I was part of the military here. After numerous amounts of training I was able to limit my dimensionality so that I could enter back into lower dimensions. That's when I met your grandma."
Apollo nodded, seemingly understanding without entirely getting how it was all possible.
Hiroto continued ,"One of the reasons I came back after was because of the Void Walkers. Those people wielded a certain energy that was unique, nothing like it was ever seen. And, I was scared, for once in my life, I wanted to run away and so I did to create a life for myself."
Apollo remembered the old tales and remembered exactly what Hiroto was talking about, he instantly connected those Void Walkers to the man in the voided cloak.
Hiroto said ,"One thing I haven't shown you are the true scars that appeared because of that battle."
Hiroto lifted up his shirt and a giant gash akin to a lashing appeared around his body ,"I've held this in secret for a long time, covering it up with a Hallucination. I didn't want to show anybody the thing that gave me the most shame and terror. I covered it up to forget about it but when you came back with that same scarring, my pride dissolved immediately, reminding me of the frail, scared old man that I am."
Hiroto looked over ,"Cias, get over here. I can sense you, I need to tell you the real story of what happened."
Hiroto breathed in and out ,"That day, I had my own army under my command in the IDM, we were searching for an anomaly in the 6th dimension. It seemed that the space and energy of a particular region disappeared, not absorbed, it was gone, completely. When we were searching around the area to figure out what happened, we saw many abominations tear out of the void, infected with that same energy. Many close friends of mine fell that day and only I was able to survive. On my last legs from fighting wave after wave of these abominations I sensed fear itself radiating behind me. I darted at the location and attempted to strike at the cloaked man but I couldn't even strike past the space surrounding him, as if the universe was telling me that it also gave up its will to fight against him a long time ago."
Hiroto looked down, exhaled, breathed in and looked up ,"And then he summoned a chain. He wrapped it around my body and pulled back, slicing every layer of my defenses and even struck at my souls. He then looked at me with a look of pity and excitement, as if he saw the future that I would lead and the past that I experienced. No… He could see those things. The man laughed and said to me ,'Make sure that you're ready for our next meeting.' He snickered and left me alone, bleeding to my own devices. The space surrounding me went back to normal and Michael Young came to my rescue. He transferred the energy to a clone of himself and erased that clone. After that happened, I ran away from all of my problems and ended up back on Earth where I came from. The familiarity felt amazing on my burdened psyche and scars that surrounded my body. But still, I remain terrified to this very day that he may return and when I saw what happened to you, I knew that it was close. I came here to train you. I may have run away, but I'm the only one who has experienced what you have gone through, so I want to help."
He looked at Apollo and Cias who were flabbergasted. Cias spoke ,"I had no clue."
They all sat there for a while until Apollo broke the silence ,"We would both appreciate the training that you could give us, please teach us what it means to fight."
Hiroto got up and smiled at them ,"Thank you for letting me become your teacher again. I will not disappoint you."
Apollo looked at him ,"You've never disappointed me."