Chapter 3

Tao and Sehun stood in front of the gilded belt on the pedestal before them. The former was still dripping wet from his fall into the water. The pools contained bits and pieces of memory of a former life that Tao felt was his.

"Why can’t I remember everything else, Sehun?" Tao asked, staring hard into the artifact, as if willing it to bring back his memories.

"I cannot answer that, Tao,” answered the other man. "What I only know is that I have been tasked to wait for you to claim what is rightfully yours."

"There must be a bigger purpose," Tao stared at the towering structure before him and realized that even if it was made of stone, the carvings on it made it look like the trunk of a tree. "This looks like the tree in my vision."

"Yes, it is in the image of the Tree of Life," Sehun answered. "What you see before you is the Janus belt, the armament of one of the four guardians of the trunk. Go on, Tao. You can touch it now. It is yours."

Tao slowly reached for the belt. As his hand came close, the artifact started to glow as if to greet its master. Tao traced the buckle with his fingers.

"It feels warm," Tao remarked, turning his head towards Sehun.

The other one smiled in return. "Like home."

It was then that Tao realized that it wasn't just the belt that was making him warm inside. Tao tried to deny it, but somehow, the keeper drew him in. Unable to pinpoint a specific quality, Tao decided that it really was just Sehun as a whole.

Both realized that they have been staring at each other for a long time. Tao was the first to look away, and he couldn't help but blush. Sehun saw the tint of red, and he let out a self-conscious laugh, knowing he too would be mirroring Tao's face in color.

When he turned away, Tao jerked the belt away from its place. All of a sudden, the temple below them began to shake violently.

"Oh, hell no," Tao muttered aloud. "I knew this place was too safe to not have any traps."

"It's not a trap," Sehun gasped. "Without the belt to power it, the time bubble we are in is about to collapse."

Tao let out an expletive as the two of them began to run across the causeway and towards the pyramid's steps.

"Wait," Tao called out, as he recalled his combat boots. "Let's go to the slopes on the side. I think sliding down would be faster.

Sehun looked back at the other man quizzically but followed him anyway. When they got to the side, Tao and Sehun looked down. Cracks were starting to appear on the pyramid's face. With the motions of his hands, Sehun raised a large whirling ball of wind and sat himself on top of it.

"Cool!" Tao grinned at him.

"Race you to the bottom!" With that remark, Sehun tipped himself over and began his descent.

"No fair!" Tao jumped off and just as he did on the cliff, he adjusted the ers on his combat boots so he could begin sliding down after he landed on the pyramid's face.

The two were laughing hysterically as they made their way down to the ground. They dodged falling debris and jumped over widening cracks. As they got near the pyramid base, Tao and Sehun looked at each other. With a nod of their heads that they seemed to have practiced for a lifetime, both jumped off to the ground. Tao did a couple of somersaults before landing in a crouch. Sehun, on the other hand, just smirked at the other man's antics and he landed softly on his feet, cushioned by the wind.

"Come on," said the rainbow-haired keeper. "The entrance is still some ways off."

Both of them made a mad dash towards the path where Tao entered as the temple pyramid behind them collapsed on itself. Tao somehow looked up and his eyes grew wide in slight panic. It seemed like the sky was closing in on them. He felt Sehun take his hand in his own, and Tao felt a burst of energy as they sped up. Both made their way out before the trees that marked the entranced fell down behind them.

Tao and Sehun tried to catch their breath after such a strenuous exercise. The hunter looked back and saw only the trunk of a tree. Gone were the pathway and the temple itself.

"Tao! Tao! Do you read me? Come in, Tao," Chanyeol's voice crackled through the earpiece. The comlink must have folded back into itself when Tao hit the water.

The hunter pressed the button to bring out the headset once more. He waited for his breathing to slow a bit before he spoke, "Comlink 4635; Codename: Tao."

"What the happened, Tao?" asked Chanyeol, frustration and concern evident in his voice. "Did you hit your head or something? I completely lost you for a couple of seconds there. Why are you breathing so loudly?"

Tao was confused. He looked down at his hands and saw that he was still clutching the belt tightly on his left. He turned his hand around and saw that his gear showed the proper time again and barely a minute had passed since he arrived at the clearing.

"I'll explain later, Chanyeol," answered Tao. "I'm making my way back to the hoverjet."

"What? What about the mission? The artif-"

Tao cut off the other man. "I'll be bringing along a guest."

The hunter pushed a button and the comlink folded back, instantly cutting the communication line. Tao knew that Chanyeol would be pissed with cutting him off like that, but he really didn't care.

"Uh, Sehun?" Tao called out to the other man who was leaning against a tree still trying to catch his breath. "You think you can still race me up this cliff?"

Sehun just grinned in reply.

"So exactly how long did you say you were in that temple again?" It was Suho who asked the newcomer that Tao brought him with him after their recon mission.

Tao and Chanyeol arrived back at the base earlier than Suho expected and the house leader saw that they had brought home a foreigner with rainbow hair. Before any more speculations could spread throughout the house, Suho immediately called a private meeting with the three who stepped out of the hoverjet. The other member of the elite hunter team was supposed to also be in attendance but he was nowhere to be found in the premises. 

"Four centuries," Sehun replied warily, looking about the private study of the leader of the High House of Aku.

Suho's study reflected that of the leader himself. Everything was in clear, polished wood from ceiling to floor. The colors were all dark shades of blue and gold. All of the furniture were upholstered in leather which were just as dark. The large, heavy, hardwood desk was off to one side with shelves of books behind it. Instead of sitting on the chair at the back, Suho was leaning on the desk’s front. Because the study also doubled as a meeting area, there was a big leather couch opposite the desk, with two wide chairs in front of it to the side. 

Chanyeol was sitting on one of these chairs in front of Suho's desk. He had his arms crossed in front of him, as well as his legs. He had barely spoken a word to Tao and his guest when they got back to the hoverjet. As mission control, he was pissed at how Tao had simply cut him off from the communication line. When the hunter introduced Sehun, he only managed a grunt and simply began flipping the switches on so they could head back to base. He barely waited for Tao and his guest to strap themselves in before he pumped up the ers.

Sehun sat himself on the couch and Tao, who didn't want Sehun to feel more unwelcome than how Chanyeol was already treating him, decided to sit beside him. Suho did not know what to make of their new guest. Sehun looked very foreign to all of them. His thin robes when they were still transitioning towards spring were impractical, but he looked quite comfortable in them. Of course, his rainbow hair was the first thing that everyone who saw him as he stepped out of the hoverjet noticed. Suho knew he would have to formally introduce Sehun to everyone once their meeting was over before even more rumors would spread. The leader knew that their house was worse than a sorority when it came to rumors.

"None of the scanners showed any structures in that location," Chanyeol declared. "It was all trees for miles in that valley. How do you hide something that big from our scanners? Even the video feed from Tao's comlink was negative."

"I told you that the temple was in a time bubble which could only be entered by the rightful owner of the belt," Sehun replied, a bit peeved at Chanyeol's tone.

The belt Sehun spoke of was in Tao's possession, discreetly hidden in one of his pockets and away from prying eyes who were already intrigued with Sehun's arrival when they came back. Something as opulent as the Janus belt was not usual in any retrieval missions. Jewelry was a luxury not many would find useful. The world had not reached that point in time yet. Information was what was more important for everyone who could afford it, whether they were for history or for war, in the guise of self-defense. Humans still have not learned that lesson, nor will they ever.

"Exactly how does this time bubble work then?" Suho asked another question, both genuinely curious and wary at the same time at the man who claimed to be the keeper of the temple where Tao found the artifact that was supposed to belong to him. It was an artifact under contract, though.

"I'm not sure I could trust you with such sensitive information," Sehun began. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Suho raised an eyebrow. He began tapping the fingers of his left hand on his right arm, which he had folded over his chest moments ago.

Sehun turned to the younger hunter beside him. "Tao, could you take out your belt?"

"Sure." Tao complied with the request, fishing the belt out of his pocket. He held out the item on his palm.

“Touch the hourglass figure in the middle,” Sehun instructed.

Tao also complied and was amazed when the gems began to glow.

 "That confirms my suspicions," Sehun gave the others a knowing smile. "The Janus belt with its 12 gems is one out of only two guardian armaments that would be able to detect the presence of nearby guardians. Look at the number of glowing gems."

"Four," Tao whispered loudly.

Sehun suddenly stood up straight and bowed towards Suho and Chanyeol. "Annyeong haseyeo," he said in formal greeting. "It is of great pleasure to meet two more guardians."

"You're a guardian, too?" Tao exclaimed. "I thought you said you were the keeper of that temple."

"I apologize for keeping this information from you," Sehun answered. "But didn't you realize it when we fought?"

Sehun had an amused glint in his eyes when he saw the light bulb turn on in Tao's head. He was even more amused at the look on Tao's office as he muttered silently.

"You two fought?" Suho asked yet another question.

"Yes," Tao answered, having recovered enough from the shock. "At first, he wouldn't let me get to the belt and then suddenly attacked me. I had to defend myself."

"You stepped forward first, Tao," Sehun scoffed. "As keeper, it was my task to defend the belt even from you. I had to know that you were ready to receive back what was yours. I could have just told you that you needed to go into the water to bring back some of your memories, but what was the fun in that?"

"You little ," said Tao in fake anger. He would have to strangle the other man when they were in a more private setting.

"Hold on a minute," Chanyeol interrupted. "Why are we talking about this guardian thing now? It doesn't even make sense at all."

"Because what he said was true," Tao answered. "I already felt something when I got on the pathway towards the temple, and both of you know that I never disregard my instincts. When I fell into the water, I saw a vision. It was just as if I was there during the Apocalypse, just as the history archives described. But there was also the tree and the mountain."

"Okay," Chanyeol drawled out. "Poetic Tao is so not funny at all."

"Chanyeol, please," Suho placed a hand on the other's shoulder. "Alright, say that we believe you and that this guardian thing is true. What happens now?"

"We search for the rest of the Sons of Gaius," Sehun answered.

"The what?" Chanyeol exclaimed, but Suho told him to keep silent again.

"Let me begin with the Gaius, the Tree of Life," said Sehun as he began to weave the tale. "Gaius was the primordial seed of life in the womb called earth."

"Gaea," Tao whispered, remembering the old myths he loved.

"That is right," Sehun smiled at him. "The universe is always a balance, and with life and birth, there would also be death and destruction. There was not just one primordial seed; in fact many of them were spread throughout the many planets of this universe. The Great Engineer devised the twins, Life and Death, or Gaius and Mors, and they had their own duties. It was not anticipated though that the darkness in the twin of death would far outgrow the boundaries of his duties. Mors had come to hunt down and destroy all the planets that had the seed of Gaius. He would stamp out the presence of Gaius on those planets and leave them dead forever. Gaius tried to hide this world from his twin, choosing a solar system that was out on the far edges of a galaxy so that the children of life would live in peace."

"Alas, it was not to be. The Apocalypse was the result of Mors eventually finding this planet. It would not be the first Apocalypse though as your archives would say. Gaius was one step ahead of his brother. He gave life to twelve Sons, the guardians of the Tree of Life. Once every few millennia, Mors would attack and destroy this planet causing an Apocalypse. In every Apocalypse, Mors would seek out the destruction of the Tree of Life, the presence of Gaius on Earth, but because of the Twelve Sons, he would fail. While Mors could destroy the body, the heart of the Tree of Life could not."

"Eleven Sons would sacrifice their lives to hide the two pieces of the heart before the Apocalypse will happen, and the Twelfth's sacrifice would be to remain and guide the eleven who would be reincarnated. I was the twelfth for my generation, hence why I remained in the time bubble as the keeper of the Janus belt."

"How long does reincarnation take?" asked Tao.

"It does not take very long at all. After an Apocalypse, the eleven could be reborn again so that they can return the Heart and hasten the planet's healing," Sehun answered. "Something else must have happened after the previous Apocalypse as I do not understand how it took four centuries for Tao to come back. The Twelve Sons must be gathered back as soon as possible and the Heart restored."

"How would you even know who these guardians you speak of are reincarnated in?" asked Chanyeol, his interest piqued after Sehun's story.

"The Twelve Gifts, of course," said Sehun, as matter of fact. "There should be eleven other unique people who have enhanced use of their bodies, like the five senses or being able to walk through solid structures or..." Sehun stopped when he looked around at the shocked faces of the other people in the room.

"Did you not get the memo?" Chanyeol spoke first. "A lot of people can do those things now, that's why we have hunters. Looking for those eleven other unique people is like finding a needle in the haystack. Granted that the chance is already multiplied by eleven but that's still bordering on impossible."

"The Twelve Gifts are only reserved for the Twelve Sons," Sehun insisted.

"Not anymore," Suho shook his head. "Statistically about 26.21% of the current world population have enhanced uses of their bodies. Almost 80% of these have become hunters like we are. Even if we just stick the search to hunter houses, that would still be impossible because not even all hunters have enhanced bodies."

"You said, there are four guardians in this room," Chanyeol added. "Well, I hate to burst your bubble but you are wrong. If only those with the Twelve Gifts can be guardians, then you can count me out."

"Now, that is impossible," Sehun exclaimed. "The Janus belt does not lie."

"Well it is now," Chanyeol remarked. "While it is true that there are four of us in this room, I have no gift."

"It's true," Tao seconded. "Chanyeol has been tested for the gift, but everything has come out negative. But he is the best when it comes to tactics, which is why he is our mission control. I'm sorry for disobeying your orders back out in the field, Chanyeol-hyung."

"I've already forgiven you, ," the other man said with a grin. “But what did you just call me?”

“Chanyeol-hyung,” answered Tao. “I don’t know, but it just comes off naturally for me now.”

"Well," said Suho, after breathing in deeply. "This has been very interesting. But is there any other way that we are able to find the other guardians, Sehun?"

"There is one more way," answered the other. "We need to find all of your armaments. Like I told Tao, the guardian artifacts only respond to its rightful owner. Besides, I think we first need to locate the armaments for the two of you anyway."

"I told you I'm not a guardian," said Chanyeol, insistently.

"Let's just worry about that some other day, okay," said Suho, trying to calm the other man down. "I think locating the other artifacts first would also be best."

"Well, hand me a map then so we can get over this over with," Sehun declared.

"There will be time for that tomorrow, Sehun," said the house leader. "I believe you three should take a rest first. Tao can show you the way to the hunter quarters."