Chapter 150: Turtle Tales

  "I... wasn't like this, originally."

  The ancient, resonant voice of Tur'uga echoed from the cracked lips of Harrison Aster. It was an incredibly macabre sight—a skeletal, hollowed-out man speaking with the heavy, vibrating cadence of a mountain.

  As the beast spoke, the environment reacted. The jagged, purple-veined crystal walls surrounding Raito and Yukari began to hum with a strange frequency. The ambient light in the suffocating chamber shifted, the crystals shimmering as if trying to act as a colossal, biological projector. Faint, ghostly images flickered across the stone—hues of blue and gold trying to paint a picture of the past.

  However, the projection was heavily distorted. The massive cracks left by Silas’s corrupted energy broke the images apart, leaving the visuals glitchy and fragmented, like a shattered mirror reflecting a dream.

  "My body was not as big as this, before," Tur'uga continued, Harrison's head tilting slightly, the purple glow in his dead eyes softening with nostalgia. "I was small... very, very small. Small enough that you could hold me in the palm of your hand."

  The crystals struggled to show it, but a fleeting image of pristine white sand and a gentle, rolling blue ocean flashed across the cavern wall. The phantom smell of salty sea breeze briefly fought against the stifling scent of ozone and sulfur in the room.

  "A small, little turtle," Tur'uga recounted fondly. "Happily striding along the coastline. Just being a turtle. Not a single complex thought in my mind. The sun was warm on my shell, the water was cool. That was my entire universe."

  Harrison's bony fingers twitched, mimicking the slow, rhythmic paddling of tiny flippers.

  "Until that day," the beast said, the tone dropping into a solemn register.

  The shimmering walls reacted violently. The soothing blues of the ocean projection were instantly swallowed by a terrifying, burning amber. It was as if the sky in the memory had caught fire. Streaks of bright, blinding light—like a rain of burning stars—tore across the ceiling of the cavern, reflecting in Raito and Yukari's wide eyes.

  "The skies... they turned to the color of amber as lights of fire appeared above," Tur'uga said. "I was playing in the sands, digging a hole like how a turtle would. Until something... a black mass... dropped from the sky and landed directly in front of me."

  The projection on the wall showed a localized crater in the sand, and resting within it, a pulsing, impossibly dark object. It seemed to absorb the light around it, a piece of raw, concentrated nothingness.

  "A black mass?" Raito questioned, his brow furrowing as he leaned closer, ignoring the intense heat of the room.

  "Even now, I don't fully understand what that was, or why it fell perfectly next to me of all places," Tur'uga admitted through Harrison. "But... it looked tasty."

  The cavern fell dead silent, save for the muffled, slowed thumping of the frozen heart.

  "So, I ate it," Tur'uga stated matter-of-factly.

  "You... you ate it?" Yukari was so baffled by the absurdity of the statement that she physically had to look away, pressing her hand against her forehead. Here they were, standing inside a giant, walking, apocalyptic bomb, and its origin story was that it had the munchies.

  "Yes..." Tur'uga replied, Harrison's face looking almost apologetic, though the dead features couldn't quite convey it. "What else was I supposed to do with it? I am a turtle. If it fits in the mouth, we bite it."

  "You know what... just continue," Yukari sighed, a long, incredibly tired exhalation of frosty breath. She didn't have the mental energy to argue with the dietary habits of a cosmic reptile.

  "Right," Tur'uga agreed smoothly. "And after that... something changed within me."

  The purple glow in Harrison's eyes flared, vibrating with a heavy, unseen power.

  "It wasn't just my body," the beast explained. "I began to understand things. I understood words. I understood writing, mathematics, the fundamental laws of nature. I understood my own biology down to the smallest cellular division. The sheer volume of the universe poured into my tiny mind. Something within me—or at least, within my soul—evolved instantly."

  Raito listened intently, his hand resting on the pommel of Koenka. He remembered his own encounter with the dark abyss inside him. The overwhelming presence.

  "But... before I could fully process or utilize my change," Tur'uga said, the voice echoing with a profound reverence. "Someone spoke to me."

  "Someone?" Raito asked, his eyes narrowing. "Like a person?"

  "No. In my mind. Like how I am speaking with you two now," Tur'uga clarified. The shimmering walls shifted again, the violent amber fading into a brilliant, blinding white light that forced Raito and Yukari to squint.

  "I couldn't see who it was. I couldn't see their figure or their face. They were surrounded by an absolute, pure light. Their features were completely hidden," Tur'uga recounted, Harrison's body going perfectly still.

  "But the figure just looked down at my tiny form, and they told me..."

  The voice that came out of Harrison's mouth layered itself, mimicking the ethereal, commanding tone of the being from the memory.

  'Sleep...'

  'Wait for the boy who crossed the stars...'

  'Beware...'

  "That is what they told me," Tur'uga finished, the blinding white light on the cavern walls fading back into the chaotic, cracked purple reality of their current predicament.

  "I asked the figure... who are you? And why do I have to wait?" Tur'uga continued, the deep voice vibrating through Harrison's rigid jaw. "The figure answered, but not in detail. Just vague words planted in my mind. They said... 'The boy will be your brother. And you will be his strength. Together, you must find the thief.'"

  "No explanation. Just that," Tur'uga said, the purple glow flickering with an ancient confusion. "And before I knew it, before I could even ask what a thief was, my consciousness simply fazed out. I didn't have the time to process anything. Nor the time to use my newfound mind. I was just put to sleep, buried deep under the warm sand on that beach where I was born."

  Yukari's eyes widened. She turned her head, looking sharply at Raito. "That sounds awfully like the voices you heard in your mind, Raito."

  Harrison's head snapped toward them with unnatural speed. "You guys hear it too?" Tur'uga asked, a note of desperate eagerness in the beast's voice.

  "Yeah," Raito nodded, his expression turning serious. "We also don't fully know what that was. But when I was pulled into the Void within me... they also told me about the thief. And that we need to be ready."

  "What about me?" Tur'uga asked, Harrison's skeletal frame leaning forward slightly. "Did they mention me?"

  Raito's face fell. He looked at the hopeful, purple-lit eyes of the dead man and slowly shook his head.

  "No... nothing," Raito said softly. "I only know of you because you literally rose from the ground beneath us."

  "Oh."

  The single syllable dropped from Harrison's lips like a stone in a quiet pond. Harrison's shoulders slumped, the sheer, crushing disappointment of a forgotten child radiating from the colossal beast.

  "I guess... I really was forgotten," Tur'uga murmured, a deep, profound sadness pooling in the dead man's eyes. The creature tried to brush it off, forcing a hollow tone. "That's fine. I guess that was a very long time ago. No wonder they forgot."

  Raito reached his hand out instinctively, wanting to offer comfort, but he stopped mid-air. What was he supposed to do? Pat the body on the shoulder? Hug the giant, vibrating heart? He felt a painful pang of sympathy but had absolutely no idea how to comfort a depressed, mountain-sized turtle. tell it that everything will be alright? if what it told was true, then this beast was also ripped from where it was, to do someone else’s bidding, a tool.

  Sensing the heavy silence, Yukari cleared her throat, her breath misting in the sweltering heat. "So, you were forced to sleep by this unknown entity," she pivoted gently. "For how long? And who gave you the name Tur'uga?"

  "For how long..." Tur'uga pondered, Harrison's gaze drifting upward to the cracked crystal ceiling. "I was told to sleep until the boy who crossed the stars arrived. But... I accidentally woke up before you were here."

  Harrison raised a bony, trembling finger and pointed directly at Raito.

  "As for my name, Tur'uga... it's the people who live around here who called me that," the beast explained. "I don't know what it meant, so I just thought that was always my name. I like it."

  "Wait," Raito interrupted, holding his hands up in confusion. "What do you mean you woke up before I came here?"

  "What else does that mean?" Tur'uga answered, the childlike innocence returning, completely failing to grasp Raito's confusion. "I literally woke up before you came back here. Before you crossed the stars."

  "By who?" Raito pressed. "Who woke you up?"

  "No one," Tur'uga answered simply. "I just woke up. I opened my eyes one day, and around me was complete darkness. I couldn't see anything. Only noises."

  The cavern walls shifted again, the glitchy images turning pitch black. The sound of muffled, distant human voices, the clinking of tools, and the shifting of desert sands echoed faintly off the crystals.

  "Yeah," Tur'uga sighed, a heavy, tectonic sound. "One day I opened my eyes. My body was big. Impossibly big. And so very hot. I couldn't even believe it myself. However, I still couldn't move like I wanted to. It felt like the command to sleep had faded, but the command to wait was still paralyzing me. Binding my limbs to the earth."

  Harrison's hands gripped his own knees tightly.

  "So... I just waited. And waited. Wait. Wait. And wait again," Tur'uga said, the repetition echoing the endless, maddening march of centuries.

  "I was bored," Tur'uga admitted, sounding exactly like a lonely child trapped in their room. "But the thing that bothered me the most was... I was lonely."

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The jagged crystal walls flared with a sudden, vibrant projection. It was the pristine beach again. But this time, it was filled with life. A massive herd of sea turtles, dozens of them, happily scurrying across the white sand, riding the gentle surf, and playfully snapping at each other. The phantom scent of the sea returned, washing over the oppressive heat of the cavern.

  "I missed my mother," Tur'uga's voice cracked, vibrating with raw, ancient sorrow. "I missed my siblings. I missed munching on crabs on the sandy shore."

  The projection on the walls slowly faded back into the dark, suffocating reality of the purple-veined chamber.

  "I am... alone," Tur'uga whispered. "I was jealous. Jealous of the people who called me Tur'uga. They were outside. Free to walk. Free to move around, to see the sun, to talk to each other. While I was trapped down there in the dark dirt... just listening. Waiting for something I didn't even understand."

  "So I waited again," Tur'uga continued, the deep rumble vibrating through Harrison's chest. "Hoping this wait wouldn't take longer than before. Waiting... until the people who lived around me were no more. Still unable to move. Only listen. It's suffocating. It's lonely."

  "I thought... I was forgotten. No, I believed for sure I was forgotten," Tur'uga said, the purple glow in the dead man's eyes suddenly shifting, brightening with an unnatural, almost joyful warmth. "Until... he arrived."

  "My father," Yukari added, her breath catching in her throat.

  "Yes. Harrison," Tur'uga confirmed, a profound reverence soaking every syllable. "He was my light. He saved what I had left. I owed him."

  "How exactly did... you meet him?" Yukari wondered aloud, taking a hesitant step toward the skeletal figure.

  "He fell," Tur'uga said simply.

  "Fell?" Yukari asked, wiping a tear from her soot-stained cheek.

  "Yes, fell. He fell from a cavern near me, down to where my head was buried."

  CRUNCH.

  Tur'uga telepathically replayed the sickening, visceral sound of shattering bones, making Raito physically wince.

  "He fell right next to my head," Tur'uga explained. "He saw me. There was this... red stuff coming all over his body. I didn't know what that was at the time. But despite it... he just smiled at me."

  Suddenly, the cavern walls flared brilliantly.

  "Oh, great! Another grand discovery for me!"

  The voice wasn't Tur'uga's deep rumble. It was undeniably human. It was Harrison's voice—vibrant, sarcastic, and full of life—ringing out clearly within the superheated heart room.

  "Papa?" Yukari gasped, looking around wildly at the crystal walls.

  The vision on the jagged stones was perfectly clear this time, much sharper than the ancient memories. The point of view was massive, looking down from Tur'uga's perspective. It depicted a younger Harrison Aster. His iconic leather coat was shredded. His flesh was almost torn to the bone. He was heavily bloodied, leaning agonizingly against the dark cave wall. His breath was visible in the cold underground air, huffing and puffing with heavy, wet gasps.

  An adventurer clearly on his absolute last legs.

  Yet, despite the agony, he still smiled. A wide, reckless, beautiful grin.

  "Who... are you?" an echoing voice asked in the vision. It was Tur'uga, but the voice wasn't ancient. It was the true, high, and incredibly childlike voice of the nascent beast.

  Young Harrison coughed, spitting a wad of blood onto the stone floor before looking up at the colossal eye staring at him. He tipped his ruined hat.

  "The name is Harrison Aster," he declared, his voice strained but brimming with pride. "World-famous adventurer. And more importantly... a husband, and a father on a mission. Pleasure to meet you."

  "Hello, Harrison. I am Tur'uga," the childlike beast answered. "What is a 'husband'? Does it taste good?"

  In the vision, Harrison burst into a fit of laughter, immediately groaning and clutching his shattered ribs in pain. "Ah, haha—ow, ow, ow. You're funny. My, why must I meet you like this, of all times?"

  "What... do you mean?" Past Tur'uga asked, thoroughly confused.

  "A husband is not something you eat, big guy," Harrison explained, sliding slowly down the wall until he was sitting on the cavern floor, wincing with every movement. "It's a word meant to show a connection to someone. Someone you love."

  Harrison took a deep, rattling breath, leaning his head back against the cold stone. "Now tell me... Tur'uga. How long have you been here?"

  "I don't know," the childlike voice answered. "Very long."

  "I see," Harrison chuckled weakly. "And why can't you get out? Judging from the size of your head, you must be big, you know. You also share a name with a volcano outside. That is a funny coincidence."

  "I don't know," Tur'uga said again. "I just can't move. I was told to wait, and now my body can't move."

  "Waiting? For who?" Harrison asked, his eyelids drooping with exhaustion.

  "The boy who crossed the stars," Tur'uga answered.

  Harrison's eyes widened. A spark of absolute wonder ignited in his dying gaze, cutting through the veil of death.

  "The boy who crossed the stars..." Harrison whispered, a bloody smile spreading across his face. "Wow... that is one heck of a title. If someone really exists out there... I really want to see them. That sounds like an epic journey. An adventure of a lifetime."

  In the vision, Harrison weakly raised a trembling, bloodstained hand toward the dark cavern ceiling, as if trying to reach the stars themselves.

  In the present, the superheated air of the heart chamber was broken only by the sound of quiet sobbing.

  Tears started rolling freely from Yukari's eyes, sizzling and evaporating into steam the moment they hit the blazing floor. This was him. The father she had looked up to. The father she had so desperately wanted to travel the world with. The one whose warmth she had almost forced herself to forget.

  "That was the first meeting I had with Harrison," the present Tur'uga said softly through the skeletal puppet, the purple glow in its eyes dimming respectfully. "He was something else. Despite dying... he was full of vigor. He wouldn't let anything extinguish his smile, and his love for his treasures."

  "Treasures?" Raito asked, his brow furrowing in confusion. He looked at the projection of the dying man. "Even when dying, that man talks about treasures? Was he that greedy?"

  "Yes," Tur'uga answered, though there was no judgment in the deep voice. "That is true. Harrison valued his treasures above all else. In fact, even until his last breath, he kept talking about his most prized treasures."

  "How..." Yukari forced the word out, her throat tight and burning. She clutched her hands to her chest. "How did... how were his last moments?"

  "I can't tell you," Tur'uga said, the purple light in Harrison's eyes flickering with a profound, heavy sorrow. "But I can show you."

  The vision on the jagged crystal walls began to change, shifting like oil on water.

  It depicted a montage of Harrison and Tur'uga's time together in the suffocating darkness of that underground cavern. It showed Tur'uga, a trapped and ancient mind, eagerly learning about the vibrant human world from Harrison’s lips. It showed Harrison, bleeding and broken, spending his final hours telling all his grand tales to a giant, buried reptile, unwittingly saving the beast from its maddening, centuries-long loneliness.

  Tur'uga listened intently in the vision, its massive eye unblinking, as if being serenaded with a bedtime story by this tiny, fragile human it had suddenly met.

  Was it hours? Or days? Time blurred in the dark.

  Harrison held onto life much, much longer than his catastrophic bodily condition should have allowed. It was not adrenaline that kept his heart beating. It was not anger or the stubborn pride of a famous adventurer.

  To Harrison, it was regret.

  The projection slowed, focusing on Harrison's final moments. He reached a trembling, blood-soaked hand into the inner pocket of his shredded leather coat. He pulled out a small, crumpled photograph.

  Harrison was wheezing terribly now. Each breath was a wet, rattling struggle, echoing loudly against the cavern walls. He could feel it—the cold, creeping grip of death numbing his legs and crawling up his spine. His vision was tunneling, the edges turning dark.

  "I regret it," Harrison rasped in the vision, a tear cutting a clean line through the dirt and dried blood on his cheek.

  "Hmm??" The childlike voice of Tur'uga echoed in the memory. "What do you mean, Harrison? You told me your stories. Do you regret not being out there? To do that adventuring thing you do?"

  "No. Not at all," Harrison said, a weak, genuine smile touching his lips.

  "Then, why do you regret?" Tur'uga asked, innocently confused. "Doesn't regret mean you have something left unfinished?"

  "Yes. That is true. And I do regret something," Harrison coughed, a violent spasm that wracked his broken frame. "It's the reason why I left... traveled the world... sought to make stories."

  He looked down at the photograph. It was a picture of his family. Him, standing tall and proud. Lei, her beautiful midnight-blue hair cascading down her shoulders, smiling softly. And young Lin—Yukari—held safely in his arms.

  "I regret..." he wheezed, his thumb gently brushing over the faces in the picture. "Not being able to take Lei and Lin with me."

  "I wanted them to come. I wanted them to travel the world with me. To see the sunsets over the ocean, the snow on the mountains. But Lei... she was sick. And Lin... too young," Harrison said, the tears flowing freely now, pooling in the dust beneath him.

  "Then... why are you not with them?" Tur'uga asked, struggling to understand the complex, agonizing clash of human emotions. "Why are you here, with me, down in the dark?"

  Harrison finally lowered the picture. He looked up at the massive eye of the beast and told him the truth.

  "I was... I am here... because I am seeking something," Harrison confessed, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

  "A new treasure?" Tur'uga asked.

  "No. This time, it's not," Harrison smiled sadly. "I am seeking a cure. A miracle. Something to help Lei. But... I was grasping at nothing but rumors, anyway. I had heard that somewhere in this desert lies an ancient ruin. With technology far beyond what we have right now."

  Harrison took a shuddering breath. "However... I made a mistake. I found something... I was not supposed to. I ran. And I slipped. And I ended up here."

  His head lolled to the side, his strength completely failing him.

  "I just wanted her to be better. But now... I can't even see them anymore," he wheezed, his eyes losing their focus. "My treasure... my precious treasure. Lei... and Lin."

  In the vision, a heavy silence fell over the dark cavern. Then, the childlike voice of Tur'uga spoke up.

  "Then... I might be able to help you."

  Harrison's head snapped back up, a desperate, dying spark igniting in his eyes. "How?" he asked, his voice cracking.

  "If... you tell me more of your stories. Be my eyes," Tur'uga said. "Then maybe I can help you. Make this cure."

  "Then yes," Harrison said instantly, without a single second of hesitation. He tried to push himself up on his shattered arms. "Anything. What should I do?"

  "Come next to me. I will... help you."

  In the present, the superheated chamber was dead silent.

  "A lie," the present Tur'uga said through Harrison's lips, the purple light in his eyes wavering with immense, crushing guilt. "A lie I told because I didn't want to lose my first companion in that dark cave."

  The beast's voice broke. "I didn't know what a 'cure' was. I didn't even know what 'Lei' was. I just... wanted my friend to stay."

  The projection on the walls showed the heartbreaking result of that lie.

  With the absolute last drop of what he had, Harrison tried to crawl toward Tur'uga's massive eye. He dragged his broken legs across the jagged, unforgiving stone, leaving a dark trail of blood behind him.

  "Lei... Lin... wait for me..." That was his mantra. He repeated it with every agonizing inch he pulled himself forward.

  However, his body was already past its absolute limit. He had lost too much blood. His organs were failing. He was a man who, by all biological metrics, should have died hours ago. Yet, he still managed to tell a lifetime of tales to a lone, forgotten turtle in the dark.

  Harrison's arm gave out. He collapsed onto the cold stone floor, just inches away from Tur'uga's head. His chest stopped rising. The light faded from his eyes, leaving them fixed and glassy.

  That was the last of Harrison Aster. The world-famous adventurer. The husband. The father.

  In the present, Yukari's knees buckled.

  The pain she felt was a physical weight, too agonizing to bear. The truth shattered years of built-up resentment and abandonment issues in a single, devastating instant. Her father, who had gone missing—who she thought had chosen adventure over his family—was just out there desperately looking for a way to save her dying mother. And through the very last fading embers of his life, bleeding out in a dark cave, all he had thought about was them.

  She fell.

  But Raito moved with lightning speed. He dropped Koenka and caught her before her knees hit the boiling crystal floor. He wrapped his arms around her from behind, supporting her weight firmly against his chest as she broke down, sobbing uncontrollably into her hands.

  "That was Harrison's story," Tur'uga said softly. "I am sorry."

  Yukari could not respond. She was completely consumed by the tidal wave of grief, too busy processing the brutal, beautiful reality of her father's demise.

  Raito held her tight, his expression hard and somber. But despite the overwhelming emotion of the moment, his sharp mind had caught onto an unanswered question. A lingering, dangerous detail from Harrison's final confession was nagging at him.

  "Hey," Raito spoke up, his voice steady but laced with a dark edge. He looked directly into the purple eyes of the corpse. "Harrison said he found something. He said he saw things that he should not have seen. What was that?"

  "It's..." Tur'uga tried to say, the purple light flickering nervously.

  But the shimmering projection on the crystal walls answered it first.

  The vision of Harrison's dead body was suddenly bathed in a harsh, unnatural purple light.

  "Hello... oh, you are here.... you are as big as I'd imagined."

  A new voice echoed from the walls. It wasn't Tur'uga's childlike tone, nor Harrison's warm rasp. It was cold, sterile, and layered with metallic static.

  A heavy, metallic frame entered the edge of the vision, stepping casually over the pool of Harrison's blood.

  "That human finally croaked," the voice said, devoid of any empathy. "Poor him."

  The visual angle shifted, revealing a sleek, metallic humanoid body walking slowly toward Tur'uga's massive, buried head. A single, glowing red sensor burned in the center of its smooth, featureless face.

  The machine looked down at Harrison's lifeless body, then back up at the colossal eye of the beast.

  "Do you want to bring him back?" the machine asked, extending a metallic hand. "I can tell you how."

  Raito's breath hitched. His abyssal eyes widened as he recognized the nightmare in the projection.

  Silas.