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"So, where am I, and which way to people?"
Setsuna shouts back to where Azmaria should be, his voice raw after screaming his grief. Tears exhausted, his reservoir dry, he's cried out his farewell to his old world. No more weeping for home. He can't cling to the past.
A new reality an alien world stretches before him. Tantrums won't change it. If he can't return, he must move forward, as she said.
Forward.
One step at a time.
Waiting for her reply, he breathes deeply. The air under the clear sky feels light, a stark contrast to the forest's gloom. His heart feels unburdened, perhaps from shedding those tears.
"…?"
Her silence dawns on him. He turns, stunned.
"Gone!?"
No trace of the crimson beauty. Just the crater's scars from their battle. She's too striking to miss, even at a distance. Yet she's vanished.
Dumbstruck, he reconsiders. Not abandoned, surely. She has her reasons, though they may not aid him or maybe she did ditch him.
"Selfish woman," he mutters. Summoning him then leaving? What's the point?
Complaining's futile, but he can't help grumbling. Summoned to an unknown forest in an alien world fine, he'll accept it. He chose to open the gate, as she said. That's on him.
But her actions dumping him in an Ouma-infested forest with zero information? Unacceptable. She could've shared local knowledge or guided him out. Isn't a summoner supposed to command their summoned?
Yet she called him free, with the right to choose his path, unbound even by her.
(What's that supposed to mean?)
He clutches his head. It's all on him where to go, what to do, how to live, how to die. Decisions he's never faced. His life was about his mother's happiness, not this.
Now, in a world with no allies, no context only monsters he's lost. Knowing Ouma exist helps little.
Sighing, he knows brooding's pointless. Endless loops solve nothing.
He moves. Waiting for her is foolish. Yelling wastes energy, and stamina's finite.
With resignation or crushing defeat he scans the area. Alone in the crater, no birds, no Ouma. The explosion's aftermath scared everything off. No creature would linger here.
Gazing at the encircling forest, he sighs again. "Where do I go?"
Forest, forest, forest identical everywhere. Its size, its exits, unknown. Naturally, in an alien world's unfamiliar woods.
Still, he heads outward. The forest beyond the crater stretches endlessly, but he must escape. Not deeper in, though.
"Which way's right?"
He advances aimlessly.
Leaving the crater, he enters the true forest. Its darkness, ruled by oppressive silence, feels sticky, clinging to him. Surviving animals and insects seem muted, forced into quiet. Whether it's the forest's nature or some force, he can't tell.
No clear paths exist in this dense, shadowed domain. A faint beast trail is a stroke of luck. It might lead out. No proof, but no other guide.
No Ouma linger, likely scared off by his spear's devastation. If they've learned he's a threat, good. He'd rather not waste energy before escaping.
The forest's edge is a mystery, as is what lies ahead. Save stamina.
The spear's gone. Not taken by Azmaria he held it while screaming. But when his tears stopped, it vanished.
No trace left.
Perhaps it returned to its world.
Azmaria said the black spear was summoned from another realm, his alone. An Armament.
If a summoned weapon, its role done, returns home, that's logical. Game-like summoned creatures attack and depart. His spear answered his call, fulfilled its purpose, and left.
"Hm…?"
He pauses. The forest's branches weave a green roof, slivers of sunlight raining down like light.
(What about me?)
If the spear returned to its world by choice, what of him? Azmaria's Gate is one-way, pinpointing his world among millions near-impossible, return unlikely.
Yet the spear went back effortlessly, unhindered.
So, him?
(Can I return?)
It's possible, faintly.
The spear likely found its homeworld somehow. If Setsuna could, he might return.
(How?)
How did the spear locate its world and cross realms? Did it choose to? He doesn't know.
Maybe
(The world called it back?)
Its homeworld might've reclaimed it post-summoning. If worlds have will, pulling back their own, that explains it.
Then, unlike the spear, Setsuna can't return. He hasn't fulfilled his summoning's purpose. No world would call him back.
"What's my purpose…?"
He murmurs, dazed.