"Where the hell am I?" Guts said as he awoke in an unfamiliar room.
He arose from where he laid and felt a certain tingling on his nape. His brand was aching slightly. There was a slight ringing in his ears before his sense of hearing returned, which replaced the ringing with the sound of raindrops falling hard on the roof.
"My brand hurts, I have no idea where I am and how I got here, and Schierke and the others are nowhere in sight. Great" He mumbled as he picked up his massive sword and placed it on his back before surveying the unknown surroundings.
The whole place had what seemed to be some individual tables and chairs littered everywhere within a rather rundown building. The building had holes everywhere, especially the floorboards, though one can be surprised to know that there are no holes in the ceiling for rainwater to enter and further the decomposition of the abandoned structure. The architecture of the building seemed foreign to Guts. Although at first sight it was obvious that the building is quite old, it still seemed rather futuristic to him, as there were unfamiliar lamps, flickering on and off, dangling above him.
After taking a glimpse around him, Guts went to a nearby window and viewed the surroundings of the building. The building was completely submerged in the middle of a dense forest, while a storm occurred evidently due to the thunder and the harsh rain outside.
Guts looked at the seemingly delicate window and tried to open it. "Huh?" Guts once again used every inch of his force to open the window, to no avail. "What's with this window?" Guts, irritated, punched the window with his metal arm. "Nothing happened, huh?"
Guts thought of using his cannon to force open the window, but he would rather save it as a last effort. Something felt wrong in the structure, and he wasn't going to waste any resources. Besides, if the window opened, the spiky trees would greet him down and, if not kill him, injure him really bad. As Guts thought of a way to open the other windows, which seemed more like fixtures, a faint, bluish light glowed from behind the closed backdoor of the chamber.
"Puck?"
Guts left the window and approached the light, before being stopped by a familiar, annoying voice.
"Guts!" the elf named Puck shouted as he entered the open front door of the room. "Thank god you're awake!"
Guts merely looked at the bug with confusion as he looked back at the glowing light behind the backdoor.
"What the hell is happening?" Guts said as he tried to find the door knob to the door. However, the door's design was too foreign too him.
"How do you open this thing?"
As he struggled to open the strange mechanism, the glowing bug went directly to the black swordsman's face.
"WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY ARE WE HERE?" the elf said as he repeatedly hit Guts, although it hardly had an effect on the swordsman.
"Look," Guts held Puck's wings and held him farther from his face "does it look like I even know where, and when, are we? No, I don't know. I don't even know where Schierke and the others are. The only thing I know right now is that something is off in this place, and we might not be able to leave as fast as we want to." Guts continued to push the door away, before the bluish light began to phase through the door and reveal itself to Guts as a fiery orb.
"Greetings" the orb said as it approached Guts. The swordsman and the elf both backed away from the spirit.
"A tongue of fire, speaking in front of me…could you be a spirit?" Guts said with a cautious look.
"Of course I am. What else could a floating orb of fire be?"
After hearing the spirit's words, Guts grasped his sword and prepared to extinguish the fireball.
"Oh, please refrain from attacking! I mean no harm, I assure you!"
"Hmm? You don't want to possess me?"
"I won't. Please calm down" Guts grit his teeth before loosening his grip on his sword.
"Fine. It seems this is the first time a spirit doesn't actually want to take me."
The fireball flickered.
"You're used to this…aren't you?"
"Heh, if you only knew how much shit I've been through"
"I see. You aren't from a modern time plane too, as I see in your choice of clothing"
Guts looked at himself and noticed that he is still clad in the berserker armor.
"Ah, you mean armor?"
"Yes. It seems so…medieval."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, I'd have to inform you about the era most victims are from, then."
"Era?"
"Indeed" the fireball said as it hovered towards a and waited for Guts to approach.
"You can see here the year this school was demolished, in November 18th 1975"
"1975?"
"Yes, and based on your clothing, I speculate that you're from the medieval period"
"And what does that mean?"
"It means you're hundreds of years older than this whole school"
"EEEEH?" Puck yelled as he showed himself from behind Guts.
"Hmm? Is that a…pixie?"
"It's a bug. Don't pay attention to it."
"NO I'M NOT! I'm an elf. Can't you see these pointed ears, wings, magical dust and glow?"
"Ah, it seems the term 'pixie' should be more appropriate, though. It is amusing to have another being other than a human here. Who would have known I would see one in the afterlife."
"Anyways," Guts said as he broke their discussion "you said we were thrown far into the future. Do you know why?"
"Ah, if I remember correctly, you did something you shouldn't have; you did the charm"
"What charm?" Guts said as he tried to remember what he last did before being sent to such a place. "If I recollect, Schierke began to study some spells in her book with Farnese. Next thing I remember, I'm here."
"Strange" the orb shrunk. "It is also the first time someone has entered this damned school through another way. The damned children must have increased their power"
"Kids? You mean this school isn't one with scholars?"
"Yes. In this era, children, poor and rich, could be educated."
With those words, Guts remembered his own tragic beginnings.
"However, in this school, it is the children you must fear."
"Eh?" Puck said before feeling a wave of emotion from the ball of fire. The emotions were filled with anguish, and fear.
"They…they're behind all this…they'll break you through psychological torture…if not…they'll murder you…and they can't be stopped"
"What do you mean by that?"
"The children were the ones who brought us students here in this wretched hell hole. Ever since I've died here, I've seen countless of pitiful, innocent students led to their deaths by them. Now, even those from the previous parts of history are getting sucked in by their curse." After saying these words, the fireball's light lit up back to its previous state. "In any case, if you were sucked in, then it is possible that your comrades are here too."
"My comrades-" after hearing the spirit, Guts had a vision of Casca in the same room as they were in.
"Casca?" Guts yelled as he turned around and looked around the classroom seeking her. "Where is she?"
"It seems I'm correct. Then it means the presences of eight beings are in the school grounds"
Guts shrugged what the spirit said and yelled his words once more.
"Calm down" the spirit said. "She may be in the same room and school grounds, but she's definitely in another dimension"
"What the hell does that mean?" Guts snarled with his forehead furrowed.
"This is going to be difficult to explain to you, so I'll make a simple explanation. If I may, I would compare this dimension as a piece of paper having several copies." The spirit levitated several pieces of paper from the teacher's desk and presented it in front of Guts.
"Now, these are several copies of the same place, which is Heavenly Host academy." From the pieces of paper, a spark appeared and burned, rather imprinted, several blueprints of the school. "You may be in the same place or room with your comrade, but they can also exist in another different copy of the school. That's not all, though. You may be in the same room, but the specific order of things in one copy may be different in the next copy. This means that there will be slight changes from what you can see and what they can."
"That doesn't matter to me" Guts took the floating papers and threw them to the floor. "How can I get to her?"
"You don't"
"What the hell does that mean?"
"You can't go to other dimensions unless you find a way to cross over or they want you to"
"Then how do I make them"
"Unfortunately, I'm in the same boat as you are. I just wander through these halls lost in my own sorrow and anguish. We're all lost souls here, thanks to those children" the orb flickered faintly and began to shrink.
Guts grit his teeth and left the orb in its state.
"Guts, wait a minute! We're not going to help him?" Guts stopped before the door.
"Help him with what?"
"Get eternal peace, dummy!"
Guts sighed and went to the orb, which seemed more like a spark now. "Look, with what you just said, I can see the gist of the situation just fine."
The orb brightened slightly.
"You're pathetic. You don't deserve saving. You keep on sulking on what you did and whatnot. You didn't even try to find a way out of this shit. Now you want to stay depressed and hopeless? Sorry pal, but I won't follow your example. I will protect her. We've gone through enough, and we'll get through this. I won't lose her again, not in this place" Guts angrily exited the room, leaving Puck and the spirit alone.
"it hurts…" the spirit said before slowly shrinking into nothingness. Puck held his chest due to the painful emotion before following Guts.