The winter air blew harshly the moment they stepped out of Black Dimension. Rainie shivered despite wearing layers of clothes while Darwin seemed to be unaffected.

Of course, she thought. He's used to this kind of weather.

"I hate real winter," she grumbled as they approached the shrine house standing at the peak of the mountain.

Darwin snickered at her remark. "Your body is not just used to the cold. You should have worn a thicker coat."

Living in a tropical country where the coldest temperature does not fall below 10-15°C made winter so unfamiliar to her. They would always make it snow in the campus during Christmas, but those were just holograms, and the temperature was incomparable to the real thing.

The cold was like a thousand icy needles prickling her skin and bones. Her teeth were chattering, and her eyelashes were frozen. Upon seeing the fire burning on the braziers lined up across the shrine, she desperately ran toward them.

"Hey, careful!" Darwin reminded, knowing how clumsy she was. "You'll slip!"

She ignored his warning and raced through the ankle-deep snow. The nearest brazier was just a few meters away, and she was almost—almost close to the warmth of the fire, but her feet and knees were numb from the cold, and they buckled.

Faceplanting on the snow was a very embarrassing thing for others to witness, but fortunately someone had caught her arms before she could fall.

"I missed your clumsy ass, Senshin," Nel teased as she hauled Rainie back to her feet. She had always thought the girl was a fearsome and intelligent fighter, but she could be such a klutz sometimes, especially outside of battles.

"T-Thank y-you," Rainie said, her teeth still chattering from the cold.

A shadow emerged from the house shrine. She was clad in leather armor and linen cloth, with a gray fur coat draped around her shoulders. Krystal's intense blue eyes looked at them in displeasure. "You three are late."

***

Yllka's shrine was as mystical as they had seen it few years ago. The house was made of ice, but the constant warm breeze made it good enough for shelter. Mysterious plants grew from the garden and flashes of miniature lightning would appear once in a while. What's more bizarre was the weather around it. The right side was shrouded in dark, as if it the land was woven with shadows, while the left, where most of the shrine was, looked like a holy place because it was illuminated with almost golden light.

Rainie sat right in front of the hearth and hovered her hands near it to feel warm. She was envious of how the three were unbothered by the cold since they were living in places with extreme seasons.

The three were gathered at the center table while the wind carried cups of tea toward them. If Rainie did not know those were some sort of attributes from certain Huntres, she'd think there were ghosts in the shrine, though she was not sure how those worked.

"How's the Huntres tribe doing? I heard there are groups of agitators on the rise again," Nel remarked as she sipped from her cup.

Krystal's face slightly twitched. "Still the nosy outsider, aren't you?"

She smirked at the Huntres' ever impassive face despite being annoyed. "Given that my tribe is an intelligence agency, don't you think it'll be stranger if I don't know?"

After ascending to the highest position of their tribe five years ago, Nel was granted access to confidential information about the Erityian race, as well as several countries' classified particulars. She realized how her dad, the previous commander, held so much power that it could topple world governments. And that was the very reason why she was terrifyingly impressed at how Nox Organization almost managed to bring down the Custos tribe.

"Touché," Krystal murmured.

"Is she going to spend hours there again?" Nel said while looking at Rainie, prompting the two to crane their necks, too.

"Rainie," Darwin called. "Feeling warm now?"

She took a breath and rubbed her hands together. Few seconds later, Rainie stood up and joined the three. "Yeah."

Almost a decade had passed since they first gathered here. They could vividly remember the tension that day, and how they drew their weapons because they could still not trust each other.

"Is Hideo still the president of Senshins?" asked Nel.

Rainie smiled. "Oh, he is, though I'm starting to take over some of his works."

"Good," Krystal commented. "This summit will not be official if everyone isn't a leader."

She blushed a little after her remark. The three had already been inducted as the new heads of their respective tribes. Since she was the youngest, she had already expected it would end up like this.

They held their first, albeit unofficial, summit almost ten years ago when they planned about the subjugation of the then Shinigami leaders after Rin's death. The next one happened five years ago, when Nel became the Custos tribe's commander, and they decided to hold an Erityian summit every five years. Today marked their third, after Krystal and Darwin ascended to their seats of power. To make the summit and therefore the matters they would discuss official, everyone should be recognized as their respective tribe's leader.

The truce from almost a decade ago kickstarted a lot of changes within each tribe and among the Erityian race. For the first time in centuries, the four tribes were civil with each other.

Being leaders made them see what the previous ones had to deal with. Ironically, their race who was supposed to have the power to control the world ended up controlling them instead.

Countless wars fought against each other, bloody disputes within each tribe, and centuries of hatred and agony . . . the power they thought were gifts from the gods and nature was the same power that almost caused their downfall.

"How about the Shinigami factions?" asked Krystal after cooling her tea.

Darwin's hair billowed in the wind as a shadow cast on his face. "There are still groups that bear extreme hostility to Senshins," he said, glancing at Rainie. "It will take a long time to unite the two tribes."

After the war, he and Rainie talked about a grandiose aspiration—bringing back the two tribes to its single root, but they both knew it was nearly impossible. Not in their lifetime.

"It may take several centuries," Rainie added. "Hatred is something that cannot be quelled easily. I am sure we all know that."

Krystal almost winced. She remembered how she lost her family before because of the divisions' hatred of each other and the greed to be in control. Even now, these powerful emotions were keeping their tribe from being united.

The smile on Nel's face also faded. Their own people attempted to overthrow them because of their hatred towards humdrums and how his father ran their tribe. She witnessed her mother's second death and how his father crumbled because of that. She, too, harbored hatred against the Nox for what they did.

"But I hope we can pave the path toward that dream, at least," Rainie continued.

Everyone fell silent for a few seconds, but Nel's laugh broke the tension. "Despite being the youngest and quite a timid one, you have a way with words."

Krystal nodded in agreement. "I cannot wait for you to be the leader. You're definitely more mature than this one," she said as an icicle of ice pointed at Nel.

"Just say you are short-tempered," Nel retorted.

Rainie blushed at the sudden compliment, but the two started arguing so she could not say anything anymore. Sometimes, she wondered if they just like annoying each other, or they really dislike one another.

"Your words are starting to become more and more compelling," Darwin murmured, his face leaning on his right hand.

"Really?"

He smiled. "Yes. I'm betting they'll stop if you tell them to."

"I heard that," Nel chimed in, and before Rainie could react, the two women had already shifted their attention to him. Now, he had to listen to them complaining.

A smile escaped her lips upon seeing the three. In front of their people, they had to act like a dependable leader, but when they were together, it felt a little less suffocating because they shared the same worries and sentiments.

For the next few decades, the lives of their people and the future of the race would be in their hands. There would surely be hardships and challenges, but now that they could depend on each other, perhaps it would not end in bloodshed again, hopefully.

Everything had started from a subtle change. Their ancestors would say it was the power bestowed by the gods to the chosen ones, while modern scientists would attribute it to mutation and natural selection. Whatever it was, they rose above the rest through the course of evolution and became the hidden yet true rulers of the world.

Humdrums might not, and might never, know their existence, but they would always be part of their history. They would always be here, watching from the shadows, hidden among the ordinary.

The Erityians, children of the special blood.

And this . . . is how they would like to be remembered. 

--- ҩ ᵻ Ϡ ---