Ash-boss
Thousand Stories: The Punishment of the Valley Guardians

The figure was standing facing the part of the tree from the outer side of the gray valley. Staring at each branch of the tree that only leaves a few leaves on the twigs.

"Since when did the leaves on this tree fall?!"

A white soul wriggled out from the ground below. It was the oldest tombstone on the side of the valley.

"Since the forbidden guards entered this side of the valley..."

"This valley comes back to life in death." replied the other soul. Then other souls rise. All that rose up were white souls hovering on the tombstone below.

"You're back to see this valley?!"

"You know the valley guards have returned..."

"Then what about the guard of this valley?! I mean, what about the figure of him being off limits?!" that raucous voice still sounded flat. Just asking without showing any emotion like the last time the white souls saw another figure of this guard in the gray valley.

"His figure has been reawakened carrying all his memories."

"Where is that figure now?! Why did the valley reopen like this?!"

The shadow of the side of the gray valley flashed across all the souls that were there. How the condition of the valley that once was not much different from what the valley shows today.

"He has gone and served his sentence as the guardian of the valley."

"He has chosen his path..."

"Where?!"

His eyes suddenly stared at the nanar behind the side of the maroon-red robe that covered him. The skull mask again moved to cover some other parts of his face. Displaying two eyeballs with a black circle that shrinks in the middle.

"Being human." those sounds seem so heartbreaking. A sound that continues to be flown by the wind and sometimes only a vague whisper.

The voices belong to another soul that rotates clockwise. The gray souls suddenly appeared. Making the white souls instantly soar up into his sky one by one.

An unusual sight happened back on the side of the valley. Where all the countless white souls wriggled out from under the existing tombstone and floated up until it disappeared at the end of the light that penetrated into the side of the valley. It became a separate experience for the figure of the maroon-robed guard. He noticed every white soul that floated up then disappeared from the side of the valley. Noticing the move the grey valley guard had taken, the figure retreated and exited while sealing the valley door tightly.

"This is all I can do right now!" Said the figure of Laras in a black dress knee-length with long hair on his forehead. He was standing right in the middle of the white-spun gasebo. "After some time, I'll come back and finish everything!"

By holding the blue light ice flower he was looking for on the deepest and coldest side of the valley section, he removed his defensive seal to restore some other souls who were eternally confined to the valley side. Releasing the souls from their attachment to the valley at the expense of their being the guardians.

Reddish-colored light grains flickered on the entire contents of the valley. Marking the valley had been sealed by another guard figure who had been chosen. Laras smiled as he looked at the blue light ice flower in his hand.

"I must have missed you!" his murmur recalled about him being the other chosen guardian of the valley. Eren's shadow continued to flash through his mind. From the beginning of their meeting until the last moment he saw Eren with the position of having been with another girl. Barrel smiling knot. Before his entire body turned into a grain of red light that evaporated into the air and then disappeared from the side of the valley below.

"May we meet again at another destiny!"

Now the figure was standing outside the sealed valley. The thicket shrub is red with flashing light like the light on a firefly adorning the valley fence soaring up to its sky.

"I will definitely be waiting for you!"

"You sealed it?!"

"Then what about the barrel?"

"This is the choice of the one who is forbidden!"

"What do you mean by this is his choice?!"

"There is another punishment that binds him to this side of the valley!"

Eren recalled the few sentences that the white souls had pointed at him. One of them is the oldest soul that remains behind the only old tree on the outer gray valley plains. As the white souls drifted one by one and disappeared at the highest part of the sky above, the white soul figure from behind the tree conveyed some things that Eren must know.

"We've been serving a sentence for the negligence of this valley's guard..."

"Although not entirely his negligence, but as the guardian of the valley, he should have corrected everything that had happened under the valley guarded by him..."

"When we entered this valley, we were still human beings living in despair. Some have either intentionally or unintentionally opened the valley door for us..."

"And sealed both our bodies and souls eternally on the side of the gray valley!"

"That's what made him born a forbidden figure in the human world."

"That makes it a world parallel for our destiny and souls that have been sealed on the side of the valley."

"It takes a thousand years and a single human life to wait for a blue light ice flower to grow!"

"He has now picked it up. Using that ice flower to repair that part of the valley at the expense of his soul."

"Today the valley must be sealed to purify everything. To restore all human destiny swallowed up by this valley..."

"And to make him re-awaken on the same side of the valley."

After which, a dazzling flash of light descended on the old tree and carried away the other light along with the disappearance of the white soul figure before Eren.

"Before this valley was sealed by itself. Then now you seal it yourself. The fate of the valley guards here is really dizzying huh?!" Zara grunted in annoyance. "When I just returned from my punishment period to be able to meet the forbidden girl!!"

"You can still meet his figure in the human world. Isn't that right, Eren?!" Aksara emphasizes his last part of the word. That made Eren realize something.

"Who is he really?" murmured Eren while staring at Aksara with a look. A character who did not know what to answer, could only shrug his shoulders slightly and then turn to Zara.

"Is there something between you?? Why are you staring at each other like that?!" The confused Zara was made even more confused by the actions of the two young men who were now looking at her with a sense of satisfaction. Finding another figure that could reveal the awkwardness experienced by the two on the figure of the short-haired Laras.

The figure who now suddenly sneezed on the living room sofa because it had been thought about so very much by the two young men who both had different hang feelings on the figure they recognized as Laras.

...***...