[What happened here??]Many years had pa.s.sed and Angela had now returned to Hana"s world. It was finally time to check the progress of this place as part of the fire girl"s job. She was looking forward to maybe seeing her old friend again and finding out how she was doing. But what she discovered was completely different from what she imagined.
Hana ended up failing in her mission of keeping the power Angela gifted her with as a secret and in a short span of time, the whole world was now aware of the existence of a mysterious tree that would grant energy and power to anyone who could find it.
[Hana, what did you do??]
The energy tree continued to be planted and replanted so much that Angela"s power started to leak all over the air, reaching the point that the energy of her green fire was now engulfing the whole world.
What was once supposed to be her personal gift for her special friend was now being distributed like water to anyone who could get their hands on it.
What was even more curious was that the people of this world had managed to unlock the deeper forms of her energy and found out how to evolve them to higher levels of power.
Some had managed to unlock the white form of the energy and became beings with the power of becoming stronger from the support and good thoughts of those around them.
Others managed to unlock the red form of the energy and found a way to gain more power from the suffering of the people.
The inhabitants started to call these powers with names such as "blessings" and "curses". While those who couldn"t unlock anything besides the base form of the energy simply called it "magic".
Angela started to fly all over the world and tried to make sense of the situation. All of those who had gained the power of her flames were now on war against each other trying to gain even more energy for themselves from the other side with three armies marching towards battle.
After digging deeper into the whole story, the fire girl found out who were the individuals leading this war. Twenty-four total. Each army was being commanded by eight leaders. Angela realized that it was some kind of three-sided war between all of the three forms of energy.
Representing the white energy, four individuals calling themselves the G.o.ds of the north, south, west, and east. And fighting by their side, four more individuals that were being recognized as their champions using powers received from the G.o.ds themselves.
On the side of the green energy, a group of people who were fighting under the name of magicians. Once again, working under the command of eight leaders, each one ruling over one of the elements of nature. Fire, water, air, earth, lightning, metal, light, and darkness. Each mage commanded his own smaller army that shared a similar elemental power.
And finally, the last side of the war. Those who were fighting with the power of the red energy. It appeared that the red energy had caused a lot of deformations over their bodies, and thus, they decided to call themselves "The Creatures".
The creatures appeared to have some kind of hierarchy as well, similar to those who fought with white energy. At the very bottom, there were the monsters, beings that were still in the process of converting their green energy into red energy. Next there were the spirits, beings that had lost their physical bodies and had somehow merged the red energy with their souls to remain on the living world. And finally, the demons, those who had completely mastered the power of the red energy and had unlocked the ability to feed on the weakness and suffering inside a human heart.
Just like before, there were eight leaders, all named after the greatest weakness of humanity that they would feed on. Wrath, l.u.s.t, greed, envy, gluttony, pride, and also sloth, who appeared to be the weakest among them since it was pretty hard to find lazy individuals in the middle of a war.
There was one last demon leading the army thought, a female demon warrior who had a very familiar face that Angela recognized.
[Hana!!!]
Angela screamed in terror at the sight of her old friend charging into battle looking like some kind of mistake of nature. Her usual brown hair was now catching fire, her eyes that once had a beautiful tone of blue were completely red, and her entire skin had lost all color making her look like a pale corpse. On top of all that, she was wearing some kind of red armor and holding a weird sword that was completely black surrounded by clouds of darkness.
Angela continued to watch as all three sides of the war kept trying to kill each other. The mages, the G.o.ds and their champions, and the creatures. All charged from head to toe with one variation of the energy Angela had left to her friend. The fire girl couldn"t stop thinking about what could have caused things to go so wrong in such a colossal way, and she finally arrived at one answer, herself.
[What have I done!!?? This is all my fault!!!]
Her gift to Hana caused all this. A small tree that was meant to symbolize the friends.h.i.+p they shared together had now become a tool to turn most of humanity into living-weapons of ma.s.s destruction. Angela"s small gamble turned out to be the greatest mistake of her life. She needed to find a way to fix this.
[Hana!!! Hana, stop!!!!]
"Huh!!??"
The leader of the demon army halted at the sight of her old friend flying at her with an absurd speed.
"Is that...? Angie?? Angie, you"re back!!!!"
Angela landed in the middle of the warzone and the three armies stopped at the presence of a fire girl bursting with all the colors of their energies. Hana watched the scene and released a wide laugh.
"Angie! This is perfect!! You"re just what we needed to turn this battle in our favor!!"
[Hana, what are you talking about? What"s going on?? How did things end up this way?? Why didn"t you follow my rules??]
"Your rules??"
[Yes!! They were supposed to keep this from happening! Look around you! Look at what happened to your world!!]
Hana proceeded to do so and much to Angela"s surprise, she simply smiled.
"I know... It"s beautiful!!"
[Beutifull?? Hana, this is chaos!!]
"This is freedom!! Thanks to you, we now live in a world without weakness!! Anyone can be strong!! Anyone can have power!! We don"t need to fear death anymore, we die when we decide!!"
[Hana, please listen to yourself. What you"re doing is going to tear this world apart. Your people are not ready to handle this kind of power! This energy was meant to only exist at the final stage of your progress!]
"And how long should we wait before we can handle this kind of power, huh!? A year? A decade? Ten thousand centuries?? We are here now!! We want to taste the power now!! Why should only the generation of the future get a taste of such greatness??"
[Because you are all still immature... I leave you alone with my power for a couple of years and next thing I know you all found a way to divide yourselves more than ever!!]
"This is just the way things are... People find ways to divide themselves no matter the situation. Wouldn"t matter if you waited a week or a millennia, we still would end up like this!"
The fire girl continued to look at her old friend and finally understood that there was no changing her mind by that point.
[... I see...]
"...?"
[I now realize my mistake... It wasn"t that I trusted my power too early with your world...]
"..."
[It was that I trusted my power at all...]
"What are you saying...?"
[I"m saying that I"m ending this war that started because of me... I"m taking my gift back... And once I"m done... I"ll make sure this power never falls into your hands ever again!! Not now, not ever!!!]
"You... You want to take our power away??"
[...]
"..."
Hana and Angela were glaring at each other. Hana couldn"t let her source of strength vanish like this and return to her old frail body and her doomed life.
At the same time, Angela couldn"t let her old friend continue to play with her gift like it was a toy and continue to ruin even more the world she lived in. She needed to correct her mistake.
A battle began to take place. All armies stood in place at the sight of the leader of all demons and the girl made of fire exchanging blows with each other.
Hana tried to fight with all her strength, she channeled as much of her cursed energy as she possibly could and unleashed all of it on top of Angela. However, Angela herself was pure energy, she was every energy. The purest combination of all forms of energy that this world was trying so hard to master, she could handle it like it was child"s play.
Every time Hana tried to strike her, Angela would respond by unleas.h.i.+ng an attack ten times more powerful. The rest of the demon leaders tried to rush towards the aid of their boss, all except for the demon of sloth who ended up falling asleep in the middle of the battle.
Angela saw the approaching demons and simply opened a portal to a world without energy, making it impossible for them to cause more harm. All with the wave of her hand. She was determined to deal with Hana herself, but she couldn"t care less about her followers.
She turned her head around to confirm that the other sides of the war were not trying to charge as well, but it seemed that they were all enjoying watching the demons getting slaughtered.
Angela returned her attention towards Hana.
[It"s over... Don"t make this any harder than it needs to be...]
"I knew it... In the end, you did just as I imagined you would... You gave me a new life, just so you could take it away..."
[... Yes...]
"...!?"
[I made a mistake... A huge, huge mistake... I got too involved and let my emotions take the best of me... All because I wanted to help one crying little girl... And now this same little girl is right in front of me looking like an abomination... I"m so sorry Hana... I should never have talked to you...]
"..."
[I should never have been your friend...]
Angela"s words began to fill Hana"s heart with misery. Her first friend, her only friend, was now saying right in front of her that the moments they shared together were a mistake and that it should never have happened.
Hana noticed her power growing. Her hate, her anger, her frustration, they were so big that the red energy flowing through her body started to increase at an absurd pace.
Meeting with Angela was the biggest turning point of Hana"s life, her whole life had become about that meeting, her first chance at actually living.
"You think my life was a mistake!!???"
[!!!]
Angela noticed the increase in the demon woman"s power. So much power, too much power.
Hana then proceeded to drop her black sword. She didn"t need it anymore. Her own anger was enough to power up an entire country fueled by red energy.
"Let me show you what true power really is!!"
She aimed at the girl made of multi-colored fire and blasted her with all the strength of her suffering.
Angela tried to block it like usual, but this time she couldn"t handle it for some reason.
[Kyaaaaaahhhhh!!!!]
Angela rolled on the ground after receiving a direct hit from the blast. Even though that was her own power, it was much stronger than anything she could ever provide.
"You got too full of yourself..."
Angela then understood, that wasn"t her power anymore. Hana had obtained completely control over it. That power now belonged to her.
The two armies noticed that the tides of battle were changing and decided to jump in to help Angela.
The four G.o.ds, four champions, and the eight elemental mages. They all started unleas.h.i.+ng a barrage of attacks on top of Hana, who still tried to fight back but with little success. Even with her anger powering her red energy, she still wasn"t strong enough to take all that damage.
After a long struggle, Hana was finally defeated. Her combatants were about to deliver the finis.h.i.+ng blown but were suddenly stopped by a crying voice screaming inside their heads.
[Stooop!!!!]
They all looked at Angela who was using all her strength to not lose consciousness while walking towards them.
[Please don"t kill her... This was all my fault... She is not to blame...]
The leaders of both armies traded glances at each other and realized that they had a golden opportunity.
Hana was the cause of all this, but so was Angela. In the end, she still considered that woman her friend and would do everything she could to keep her safe. So in exchange for Hana"s life being spared, Angela had to promise not to take her power away from this world.
Angela was not a fan of that deal, but her guilt and love for Hana were blinding her judgment. Once again, she was allowing her emotions to take the best of her.
[I understand... Just please... Let her go... She... She"s my friend...]
The deal was confirmed and as a sign of their mutual victory, the users of white energy and green energy decided to declare a truce and began to work together from that day on, joining forces to fight off the remaining demons who now only had one leader left, the lazy demon of sloth who just wanted to sleep all day.
As for Hana, Angela took her and they both were never seen again. Their fates remain a mystery, a tale for another day.
But one thing was sure, this tale involving these two girls, was far from over.