"So you don't remember what happened after you were surrounded." Azekiel sat on the soft grass, trying to make sense of the situation. How could it be that Raphael was able to use such strength without even knowing about it? In fact, I didn't know a single thing about possessing a Sword at all.
Raphael shook his head in response. He really had no idea what happened after he blacked out. "Can you tell me exactly what happened?"
He asked Azekiel to explain in detail, wondering if he could get some clues.
"There's not much to explain. It's exactly as I said. After I killed the Soul Demon, all the spirits went crazy. Some even came to attack me. It's also when you changed. You had an Armour around you and a Sword that seemed quite powerful. You destroyed all the spirits. In fact, your speed at that time... You were much more than I've ever seen you move before."
"Can you describe that Armour or that Sword?" From the story, he couldn't remember anything, which prompted him to ask for more information.
Not far from them, a young lady was hiding, hearing their conversation secretly. She didn't even dare to breathe too loudly as she was worried about getting caught. She was like an assassin, hiding behind a tree.
"That Armour of yours... I only saw it briefly, but I remember some things about it."
Azekiel used the stick once again to draw something on the soil. He drew an Armour right beside the map he had created previously. After making the outer shell of the armor, he drew the patterns that the armor had, trying to be as precise as he could.
He didn't remember everything about the Armour, but what he did remember, he managed to portray well enough.
Right beside the Armour, he carved the shape of Raphael's sword.
"This was the sword you used." Azekiel gazed at Raphael after finishing the sword's design, only to notice that Raphael wasn't even looking at the sword. Instead, he was staring at the Armour.
"Are you sure this is exactly what I used?" Raphael grimly stared at Azekiel.
Even though he asked a question, he didn't wait for an answer, seemingly lost in thoughts. "Then again, if you didn't see this Armour, it's impossible for you to draw it to such detail. But how? How could I have this Armour... How could I have his armor?"
"And even if I had his Armour, how did I not know about it? Is this also related to the missing memories?"
As Raphael thought out loud, Azekiel managed to hear him. Finally, he heard the secret of Raphael. "Missing memories?"
Raphael didn't plan to trouble Azekiel with his lost past, but now that things had reached this point, he couldn't hide it anymore.
"Yeah. When I was lost in the darkness, I heard a voice..."
He told Azekiel everything regarding meeting with Alzeim and how he knew that guy. He articulated the exact words of Alzeim that he spoke in the darkness regarding the lost memories.
"That's when I discovered that what I thought to be my past wasn't my entire past." Raphael picked up another stick. As he talked, he started carving the patterns of the Armor that Azekiel had missed.
"When you found me screaming? It wasn't for no reason. It was because I was trying to recall my missing past. As I failed to recall that past, again and again, I started losing myself in despair, even forgetting who I was. That's when you came and pulled me out of that..."
"That's when I decided I wasn't going to think about my forgotten past. If trying to recall my past meant losing myself, then I was ready to bury that past. I stopped thinking about it. That's why I didn't tell you. It wasn't because I wanted to hide it from you. It's because I had decided to just forget what happened there."
"However, it seems that my past isn't something I'm allowed to forget... If I have the Armour that belongs to him, then something big must have happened in the past... Something that I can't afford to forget."
"Until now, I used to think he killed me as punishment after I was cursed. I placed most of my anger on him... But now I found out that I was wrong. He didn't kill me. He cursed me and banished me..."
Raphael described the new memories he gained when he was asleep.
"What happened after that is the question. And it's a question I must find an answer to. That answer is too important! It's too important for me!"
Realizing the importance of his past, Raphael slowly started entering the same zone as before, trying to force his memories out.
His headache also kept increasing once again. Ultimately, he was forced to stop as he felt that he was once again going to lose himself if he didn't stop now. The headache only kept increasing after all. He felt as if his head was going to explode in pain.
Azekiel couldn't see Raphael like this. He knew Raphael was in pain and that if he didn't stop, he could enter the same phase as before.
"What about this Sword? Do you recognize it as well?" Azekiel asked, trying to change the topic from the Armour.
It worked as well. Raphael turned to the Sword's drawing on the side, observing it carefully.
He shook his head. "I don't remember that sword. I don't think I've ever seen that Sword, even in the memories I hold. It wasn't a weapon used by the gods that I'm sure of. It also wasn't something that I ever used."
"So basically, we are back at square one. We don't know how you got these things, but what we do know is that you can call them out. You can use them."
Azekiel knew how powerful Raphael was with those things. If he could learn to call them out or to use them, his strength was going to get a massive boost. That was also how he could keep Raphael busy, stopping himself from thinking about the past.
He was sure that with time, Raphael was going to get his memories back, just like he received a fragment of his memories now. Moreover, that Fragment of memories only came when he used that Sword and the Armour. He was sure if Raphael used these things again, it could help him remember even more.
"Those two things also take a heavy toll on him. We shouldn't forget it." Lia finally chimed in after sitting silently for so long. "We need to be careful with those things if we don't want to have to drag Raphael again. If we're not careful, it can put him at risk, but if he can learn to control them without over-exerting himself, things will get quite interesting in the tower."
