The four of them took turns sitting. Their formation, while not explicitly told by Idri to be anything, somehow gravitated to a square, with each one of them taking their own places in where the corners of the shape would be.
Idri was the first to speak once they had made themselves comfortable. "Your hair is beautiful, Cali! How did you get your hair to look like that? The front pieces hang around your face so cutely. Did you have Avil do your hair for you?"
Calliope held a finger to the two locks of loose tendrils that framed her untarnished face. The locks that framed her face remained hanging close and past her neck, hanging just below her shoulders. The group always had a soft spot for her immaturity. She saw the world through a lens of joy. Granted, they were children, and to some degree they all did, but Idri was different in that it dominated her very person.
"Thank you, Idri," she replied softly. "Master Avil does not, no. Although adamant about wanting to keep the natural state of his fuzzy hair, he still holds many hairstyling tools like hair dryers, rollers, and scissors from gifts his mother conferred to him on his twelfth birthday. I frequently make use of them on his request."
"You say that, but I've caught you sneaking into my dresser to use not only my tools, but my products when I'm not there. I think my supply of hair spray's already run out, last I checked."
The normally stoic Calliope coughed at his words. She held her breath, maintaining an ignorant look on her face despite the beads of sweat rapidly forming on her forehead.
"You are mistaken, Master Avil."
"Yeah, yeah. You don't have to hide it from me, you know. I won't think less of you for spraying your hair green every day. I am worried you'll damage it that way, though."
"Please do not worry, I make sure to regularly pay visits to the hairstylist for rejuvenation protocols. Miss Nalrie's wards are very effective when it comes to restoring health."
"Aha!" Avil raised a finger, having caught her in the act. "So you are using my hair spray."
The maid turned to the side again. "I… did not make any such admission."
Stars were abound in Idri's eyes. Her hands planted on the ground, and she leaned over while still crosslegged. "That sounds fun! Can I come over sometime? I want to try out some products."
Calliope numbly turned to Avil, her eyes silently asking permission. The latter crossed his arms and nodded tacitly.
"I'll make sure to tell the guards to let you in should you come." He continued, turning to take in the honeyed sunlight of the wheat fields, and the serenic mirth it naturally exuded.. "But more importantly, Idri. Why did you call us all here?"
"Four!" She flicked the exact number of fingers on her hand and raised it like a patron calling for a waiter. Then she waved it around, mimicking the sway of the crowd at a concert. "We've known each other for a long time now, haven't we?"
She added, turning to favor Raoul, who was leaning into a particularly large root. "When I first transferred to our class, I didn't know anyone. I really, really looked inside myself and dug out the courage to talk to Raoul, because he was the only one in class who had the same color as me. Back then I was still so shy, and I could barely talk to people without getting overwhelmed."
She next turned to Avil and Calliope. "Then he introduced me to you two. We were having lunch in the gym, and we noticed you and Cali were the only two ones having lunch at your table. I thought it was because you didn't want to share, but then he told me it wasn't."
The monocled boy nodded. He was the son of an established conglomerate president, born and raised from childhood with the option of being fed with a silver spoon always available to him. Despite that, he neglected to take advantage of his vast wealth, instead using it only to give back to the poor and treat his closest friends.
Of course, this naturally drew the attention of his peers, and within the first few days of school almost every student was cozying up to him, their eyes filled with naught more than deceitful intentions, all seeking one thing: to take advantage of him.
"It was a difficult thing, having to turn away most people, even if I knew they were just there to cash in by being my friend. I didn't even have that much money back then. I'm glad Cali was there from the start to turn them away." He chuckled. "Her death stare is something else. You should see."
"Mhm, mhm!" Idri nodded. "I thought you two looked lonely, so Raoul encouraged me to bridge the gap. I'm really glad I did, because now we're friends."
Her normally lighthearted mood turned for the dimmer, and her voice dropped an octave to emphasize the seriousness. "I never want to be alone again. Friends make promises, don't they?" She held out a pinky towards the middle of their square. "Let's make one here."
The other three turned to each other. They silenced for seconds, their triangular view exchanging more words than what could have been uttered in that short time frame.
Raoul was the first to move. The enthusiasm that sparked off Idri's very soul seemed to tug him in like a conduit of joy, and he felt like indulging in her desire for a pinky promise. Slowly, he slid himself across the carpet of leaves below and interlocked his own finger with hers.
Avil was the second. He shrugged, but nonetheless also acquiesced to the atmosphere that was forming. He huffed a cool breath, blinked, and then nodded to Cali before reaching forward to join his own pinky into the gathering. "I've always been taught that it's better to put promises into paper just so both parties can guarantee they keep it, but I'm willing to leave this word of mouth."
Calliope wasn't hesitant at all, but she expressly waited for her master to agree before responding. She swept off the skirt of her maid uniform and curtly held out her own pinky, finally completing the assortment.
Idri smiled. "Then, this is the promise. We four are like peas in a pod. So, as long as we are friends—which I hope is forever—we don't leave anyone behind, okay? The adults always tell us how things will get difficult once we get older, so when those times do come, we need to be there for each other. We'll walk toward the future together, and when one of us trips and falls, we'll all reach out our hands to pull them upward and beside us. That's how it's always been, hasn't it?"
"Sounds perfect." Raoul agreed. "But what if we all fall, and there's no one left to pull the other up?"
"Then we'd be on the same level then, wouldn't we?" She replied. "If we're all rock bottom, then we'll rely on each other like we always have to stand up again. Because we're friends."
Those words rang through Raoul's mind.
Even as he returned to the present.
The tranquility of the past faded away. The soft, cuddling embrace of the early evening wind began to warm and heat up drastically. The clear edges of sun-swept hills and fields obscured itself with the thick shroud of smoke and the distressing beep of the Conduit that was reaching critical levels. The shouts of his mentor that had been lulled into incoherence by his mind slowly started to seep back in, gradually bringing him back to the moment at hand. In his hands and in front of him remained the middle-body of the Conduit, close to bursting and blinking as its frame began to tear apart at the seams.
"Good! You're finally back." Krocko breathed a sigh of relief. "I've never seen someone literally daydream with a bomb directly in front of them that's this close to exploding."
"I did some reminiscing, that's all." Raoul shook his head. He steadied his fingers and readjusted his grip on the metal. Strain piped through his veins, and he held fast even as the heat from the inside started to spread onto his palms, risking harsh burns. "Tell me what to do next."
His better raised an eyebrow at his sudden change of pace. To him, less than a dozen seconds had passed. The boy that stood beneath him and who had pressed his entire frame into the Conduit now spoke with a confidence he didn't see him with a mere half hour ago.
"Raoul," the boy suddenly started without any preamble from Krocko. "What defines Raoul is his willingness to stay. He as a person does not turn back on those that he came with, nor does he leave them behind. He is someone who wishes for himself and everyone else around him to move forward, even when the world ties him down." His lips quivered, the words magically flowing out like a spring from a fountain. "He is someone who… who stays, even when it's easier to go."
He didn't notice it, but his entire self was different. An intense aura of pure, tangible white welled up from his body, piercing the smoke in an instant and sending it back. It flowed outward like the wind's breeze, free and untethered, and showed no sign of relenting anytime soon. Krocko wasn't one to miss it; his eyes were practically bursting from their sockets at the excitement.
"Fantastic…! Keep going. Then, Raoul, as the person who you believe you are, I want you to impose your will onto this Conduit. Believe it as an extension of your own self, and then will it to close itself off and shut down. You can do it."
It wasn't that easy. To ask someone who had his mind focused on freedom to immediately focus it on isolation was a tall task for him. But the concept of such was the farthest thing from his mind. His eyes didn't see the Conduit, nor the chamber around him. In his view, all he saw was the very consummation of his will, forged into a palpable essence that he could reach out to and grab. And he wasn't alone. There were three other hands that guided him forward. Three that he would need to reconnect with soon.
This… is my burden to bear. He muttered in his head, his inner monologue full of authority. So… shut down! You won't stop me from achieving my freedom.
The display of pure will breached physical, and its sheer intensity even reached Krocko, who held an arm out to shield himself from the intensifying aura that endlessly poured from Raoul. Then, said aura began to mold itself, its freeform nature winding around to encompass the entirety of the Conduit in an instant. It consumed the structure, hiding it from the rest of the chamber.
And then, it exploded.
It never would have been possible. Even Krocko knew.
A resounding boom crashed the factory. From the outside, it seemed to have spontaneously erupted in an unknown blast. Hundreds of tons of concrete and metal exploded outward, destroying the many-storied building in an instant despite its rugged framework. The blast echoed even farther, adding within its radius four-hundred meters more of unchecked and unexpected devastation. Countless more construction vehicles spewed back, carried away by the force from the explosion.
If it had reached terminal point untouched, Lupas Hendu wouldn't have been a district anymore.
When the smoke finally cleared and the dust had settled, there were only two that stood in the now-crater that was the underground chamber. Raoul's arms remained stretched out, his palms faced flat on the Conduit that was no longer there.
And then Krocko fell to his knees, his body momentarily giving out at the sheer spectacle.
"Hah…" A laugh finally left his lips. "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
It echoed throughout the entirety of Lupas Hendu.