Symbol rose from the chair I had placed him in as his wounds fully healed after a few hours. "You didn't need to bring me in here to make me rest, the healing would have been completed in the exact same amount of time and I could have been doing something productive instead of just sitting here with you staring at me for three hours straight."

I shook my head and looked him dead in the eye. "No, you would have just run off somewhere to do God knows what-"

"You mean making sure everyone in the entire Omniverse is safe?" He interrupted me with a stern look. I stopped myself from saying anything more, knowing whatever I would say would only make the situation go from less than pleasant to horrible. "Ashley, whenever I go anywhere it isn't to lounge about or to go on some adventure. It's to do what's necessary to keep everything in check, to keep the Noghtmares and Xram at bay long enough to form a plan to destroy them once and for all. Whenever I go out info the multiverse I am only doing what needs to be done because it is what I was made for, what my soul was made for." He spoke in a more informative tome than a stern one. "I didn't choose this, but I have to do it, because no one else can. There are certainly people that would more than willingly do the things I do, but they wouldn't last long."

He looked at me begore shaking himself and holding a hand to his head.

"I know I'm always going out without your knowledge, but I don't have the time to keep you updated on everything I do. There are things I have to do that I'm not proud of, but I can't stop. If I stop, the Nightmares win, Xram wins, and everything is lost." He placed his hand in my shoulder and bent down to my level. "You're my first displaced, and the one I care for most. I trust you to look after yourself and deal with whatever problems come your way, but I need you to trust me to look out for you and everyone else, trust me when I say I'll always come back. Can you do that? Can you trust me?"

I saw the care in his eyes, I don't mean to nag him about going away all the time but...I just miss him when he is gone and I don't know where. He's been close to death many times before, I just worry that one day his luck will run out and he'll actually meet death one final time. I sighed abd placed my hand on his. "I trust you." I said quietly.

"Thank you." He pulled me into a gentle hug, which made my cheeks turn a soft shade of pink from the sudden display of affection. I shyly hugged him back until he pulled away and sighed. "Look, I don't think I'm needed anywhere right now, if there's something you'd like to do now would probably be the time."

I put a finger to my lip in thought before looking out a window that Symbol was facing away from where I saw Symph, Abi, Chief and Eris standing there making walk motions with their hands or hooves...somehow. "How about we go for a walk?"

"Oh...sure, anywhere specific?"

I looked to the window again and saw them all pointing to Eris' tail, mainly the white fur on the end of it. "How about the Whitetail Woods?"

"Whitetail...alright then." He nodded, although he spoke rather hesitantly.

I tilted my head in confusion, only to look at the window and see Symph using his liquid body to spell out "You'll grow closer, you'll see" with mini tendrils. I gave him a small nod and he returned with a small smile, letting me know that this was the right move.

So, there we were. Symbol and I walking side by side along the dirt path, the rows of leaves above us only allowing small rays of light to shine through as the wind caused the leaves to emit a pleasant rustling sound over the area, much like the sound of waves by the ocean.

It was just silence between us, Symbol walkimg with his hands behind his back while he looked around almost nervously. I didn't know why he was so uncomfortable until about five minutes later, when he stopped and turned towards the trees before walking through them off the path. I followed him until we came to a large clearing surrounded by the trees. He was looking at it completely still, with his hand over his heart.

"Symbol? Are you ok?" I asked as I came up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"This was the spot..." He spoke quietly.

"What?"

He took a few steps into the clearing and I could see a bead of sweat roll down the side of his face. "On a different world...this was the spot...where I first fought Xram...the place my first body died."

Suddenly his behaviour made sense, he was still scarred from the memories of when he had been there. When I touched him again to try and comfort him, my observation Haki must have kicked in because I began to see one of his memories play out. The sky in the area was dark, the trees were all on fire and a large shadowed figure, which looked to be like a giant metallic dragon demon, was attacking a younger Symbol, who looked as if he was possessed by a Nightmare but was somehow in control. He put up a good fight before the beast claws stabbed through his body and the memory faded.

Symbol stood there out of breath while he clutched his chest. "He had possessed my friend Gale and used his body and power against me...he then kept my body as a trophy while venturing into my world to kill everyone there...I managed to break my soul out of my body and use my life energy to destroy that version of him...only a tiny spark of my soul survived which was then recovered by Roden..."

He sat down and hung his head low. All I could do as sit next to him and wrap my arms around him, comforting him as he worked through the emotional pain.