"The talk about worshipping The Seven Lucky Gods and aura wasn't all talk after all"
Maia who was now realizing this felt as if she was being played at. Who would have known that such a thing as vassals of the Gods exists? This world had long forgotten about the Gods who had seemed to forget about them too. They had surrendered all belief of Gods and just went along with their fates.
The talk with Sol had ended rather abruptly. She, Eos, and Helios could not explain to them how Maia and Maki and their other half-siblings were chosen as vassals but they just know that they are. Since almost everyone in the Seven City could see a person's aura they instantly knew when the seven of them were born.
"Was it intuition?"
"Be realistic Maki, do you need intuition to even tell about that kind?"
"Well, Old Man Shizu told something about auras"
"So you're saying your grandma could see them too?"
"Maybe… ugh why did they have to cut us off like that"
"It did look like they were on a hurry"
Percy mentions while Maia stared at the ceiling, the three older people had left them for them to rest but Maki, Damian and Percy continued talking about it. Because it did seem straight out from a fantasy book and it was hard to believe. But then again Maia did have some unnatural powers so maybe it's not so hard to believe in.
"Maybe because knowing about it would only make us hate Mom more"
Maia was the one who had answered her brother's question. And for her, it was the truth. It sickened her that she never knew anything real about her own family much less her own mother.
She thought, had she known that the old man was her grandfather, she wouldn't let him stay there. Or that if she had known her capabilities, then she wouldn't even volunteer for the mutiny. If she had known, she would've prevented the games and the deaths…
Maia abruptly sat on her bed making the other three men jump in surprise.
"What?"
Maia looked at Damian, thoughts swimming in her mind as the questions flooded in. How was it that the two of them entered the same section that school year when they were chosen for the Herculean Tournament?
How was it that a nin was given to them even though the lots for the class to join the tournament were only chosen on that day? And how could they have been given specifics? The number of remaining participants, the holographic wolves that were there, the kind of arena they were thrown into. How did it happen that a barrier was set up just as Maia was told?
"Damian, about the nin. Do you remember it?"
"This nin? The one we were given?"
Damian stared at Maia who was now clearly in a daze. Maia grabbed the side of her head and looked at them. Percy was obviously brainwashed also so that he wouldn't have made some interactions with Damian, that was already given, seeing as how they did the same to Iavan and Miisa.
"Not that one. The one before the Herculean Tournament"
"You mean about the number of students, wolves, and such? Yeah, I remember, what of it?"
"How did they know that the class Einstein was going to be picked?"
This question from Maia sent Percy, Maki and Damian on high alert. So many things happened to them after the tournament. They were grieving and preparing for launching an all-out war that they never noticed. Never really asked anything after they restored their memories.
Damian shook his head at Maia.
"They couldn't have. The lots were drawn on the spot"
"Then how could they give the nin beforehand? They were even clear and precise instructions. You and I were even in the same class. That, all of that couldn't have been coincidental"
"Maia are you implying that everything was predetermined?"
"Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying"
Damian's face hardened as soon as he knew what Maia was saying. If everything was planned since the beginning, then did that mean that the mutiny was cooperating with their school?
Or was it the plan all along? For the war to start, did someone go inside the government and acted as their spy?
Spy? Wait
"Maia, Aunt Artemis said before they sent us off to the front house that the intel was from the inside. They had planted spies in the government can't that be the reason?"
"Kuya Damian, even if it is. The fact that our mom was willing to risk the life of her daughter… that's… that's not something a loving woman would do"
Maki clenched his fist. He was too ignorant. These past years of grievance were because of his mother. His mother was the one who had instigated this war. And at the center of it, was his sister, her daughter.
It became slightly hard for him to believe everything his grandmother, aunt and uncle had told before but now, it just added to his doubt.
That maybe… their mother was the one who was pulling the strings behind the scenes all this time.
In a small surveillance room, Sol, who had cut off the small reunion with her grandchildren was gazing at a monitor.
"Did she come alone?"
She asked. A man who was sitting in front of a computer underneath the monitor answered her.
"Yes, drones followed Maia and the others. After that, government soldiers one by one arrived, led by a woman in her doctor's uniform."
"Yes, I do recognize that woman. Her name was Leticia. She was a scientist too."
Sol gripped the small knife hanging by her belt. She closed her eyes as memories of her daughter rushed inside her head.
"Mother, you can have this, it's something to protect you"
"Sol?"
The man seated brought Sol back to reality. She needed to accept that her once loving daughter was gone and in her place was a heartless monster.
She moved her gaze back to the screen. Countless bodies of soldiers lay on the ground, every last one of them dead.
In the center just beside the place where Damian parked Old Man Shizu's car was Leticia.
The once-white gown was now covered in blood, both hers and of the soldiers she came with. Both of her hands gripped the hands that were strangling her in mid-air. Sol could see her trashing her feet as if trying to kick the person holding her.
Whether it landed or not didn't matter. The person who was slowly killing her now could neither feel pain nor sadness.
On her face, a maniacally-smile was plastered. Her hair which was originally black was now cut in half, the other half with the color of snow. The same as Maia's. Her eyes gleamed with the color of blood through the monitor.
And as if she knew that she was being watched. She stared right through the monitor, through the hawk-like eyes of Sol.
Slowly she revealed a menacing smile as she snapped Leticia's neck. In a matter of seconds, the former scientist was laying on the ground lifeless.
The man sitting on the monitor looked up at Sol and saw that she was now emotionless, her face void of any emotion she should feel. He knew who she was. He knows that she too once had lived in this city.
"Sol?"
"Ring the alarms. We have a monster outside. We have to subdue it early on"
"But… she…"
"You should know. A monster always comes for its kin. She's here to retrieve her children and I won't let her. I… will personally end the monster I had created."