Dehumanization

With every passing day, Anna became increasingly convinced that Kratos did not actually know where they were going. The "pass" he had described to her was little more than a narrow gorge, slicing through the northern mountain range at perilous, jagged angles. There was no trail to follow and they changed directions so many times that Anna started to lose track.

The terrain was rugged, tangled with rough, prickly plants and poisonous things. Despite the warm weather outside, Anna was glad for her long sleeves and trousers, to keep her legs and ankles covered. There was no evidence that anyone had ever passed through the area before; more than once, Kratos had to hack his way through the underbrush before they could proceed.

Noishe didn't seem to have the same difficulties that they did, navigating the treacherous, sloping terrain with ease. Sometimes he disappeared for hours at a time, only to reappear with some small animal in his jaws for them to eat. (These, he presented to Anna with great self-satisfaction.)

Anna worried when the protozoan was away. If he could traverse the steep slopes of the gorge so easily, then other monsters would be able to as well. The problem was that she and Kratos didn't have the same manoeuverability. If they were attacked, then they would be severely disadvantaged.

Her fears came true on the third day of their trek through the gorge. She and Kratos were in the midst of breaking camp when Noishe came bounding through the underbrush, barking in alarm.

Anna paused halfway through folding up her tarp, alarmed.

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

A chorus of howls sounded from the surrounding underbrush - wolves.

"Ready your weapon," Kratos told her over his shoulder, soundly slightly annoyed.

Kratos already had his sword at the ready and Anna hurried to copy him, rushing to the place where she'd left her spear propped up against a tree. (Kratos had lamented on more than one occasion that she had no proper way of sheathing it. He was still campaigning for her to abandon her chosen weapon in favour of a sword.)

Before she could retrieve it, the first of their attackers emerged from the trees and lunged at her, knocking her weapon away in a blur of matted brown fur and snapping teeth. Anna snatched her hand back just in time to avoid losing it, alarmed and… and slightly embarrassed, despite the danger. There was no time to dwell on it though, as the wolf rounded on her again with its teeth bared.

Kratos was busy with his own problems – cleanly dispatching another wolf just a few spans from her position as another one circled in closer, ready to attack.

Anna clenched her fists. She might not have a weapon, but she still had the Angelus Project embedded in her chest, burning hot now in the adrenaline of the fight, making her stronger. Monsters didn't frighten her anymore. Nothing did. She felt almost invincible, the way she had when she'd last encountered the Desians.

The wolf between her and her weapon surged forward again, jaws open. Anna threw an arm up in front of herself in defense, but it caught her with its teeth, clamping down on her arm in a crushing hold that should have made her scream. Anna was barely aware of the pain, though, channeling the strength of her exsphere to land a heavy blow to its throat with her free hand. The wolf lost its hold on her then, but there were deep bloody gouges in Anna's forearm where its teeth had been.

Anna wasted no time darting past it, darting forward to snatch up her weapon with her good arm and bring it down on her opponent, plunging her weapon through its brain.

Blood streaked across her white sleeves and down the dark fabric of her trousers. She looked at the ravaged remains of her arm, alarmed, but the pain was still dull and far away. She could barely believe it. And even then, that invincible feeling hadn't gone away.

"Anna!"

Kratos had drawn a casting circle around himself already, trusting Noishe to keep his enemies at bay as he focused his efforts into a spell. It was the first time she's seen him cast up close. The runes that materialized around his boots lit up his face in eerie contrast. It was a jarring reminder of how completely and utterly inhuman he was.

When he raised his hand, soft green light enveloped her arm, stitching her wounds together.

"Pay attention," he told her.

Anna took his advice.

There were three wolves left on the field and Noishe was doing his best to keep them all at bay, growling and snapping at any who dared to approach his master. Kratos moved around him fluidly to engage one of the beasts and Anna followed his example, moving in to engage an opponent of her own.

This time she had her weapon, and this time, she was mindful to take up the proper stance that Kratos had taught her. She swiped at one of the monsters, with her blade, drawing its attention away from Noishe and tempting it away from the group, where she+ could move freely without the risk of injuring her allies by mistake.

Her spear gave her a longer reach than her attacker and she used to it keep it at a distance, swiping left and right, keeping its eyes on her blade. When it tried to circle around her, she swung her spear in a wide arc, catching it in side and forcing it back again, keeping the fight on her terms. She feinted, as if to step to the side, and then moved the other way, bringing the blade of her spear down on top of it when it lunged in the wrong direction.

Kratos had already dispatched the other two monsters and watched her straighten up with a disdainful eye.

"That could have gone better," he said. Then he added, "Are you alright?"

Anna inhaled. Her exsphere still felt hot against her skin, hard and unyielding as her skin stretched around it, expanding as her lungs filled with air. There was no pain, only the strange feeling that it didn't quite belong there.

"Yeah," she said. "I feel fine."


Against all odds, Kratos actually managed to navigate safely through the gorge and bring them to their destination. After so making so many twists and turns with nothing but the sheer rock walls of the mountains for scenery, Anna was shocked to finally see the high turret of the tower jutting between the mountain peaks ahead of her, suddenly so much closer than she'd ever seen it before. She hadn't realized how much ground they'd managed to cover in just a few days. In fact, she had been beginning to think they'd gotten turned around.

As a young woman, Anna had dreamed of traveling. Her efforts to get-rich-quick playing cards and rolling dice had all been in the hopes of earning enough money to get out of town and see the world, before her youth and before her risk-taking ways became a burden on anyone else. She'd always thought she'd start a family one day.

After being captured by the Desians, she'd given up on ever going anywhere. All she'd wanted was to go home, live a safe and sheltered life.

There were people who dreamed of seeing the Tower of Mana up close. Looking at it, Anna suddenly realized that this place was just the first stop of many. Maybe she wasn't on the kind of adventure she'd dreamed of in her youth. Maybe her dreams had changed since then. But she was surprised to find that there was still a part of her that wasn't dreading the journey ahead of her.

"It's so…" she started to say and then lost her words. It was hard to believe that humans had ever been prosperous enough to build something so impressive – spanning more ground than any Human Ranch ever had and standing at least fifty times as tall. She could almost believe that angels really had constructed it, like the stories said.

The tower was made of brick and stone and from a distance, it looked plain. Up close, however, Anna could see that it was decorated with high, arched windows and stone columns. Symbols in the angelic language had been chiselled into the building's façade, marking it as a holy place.

"It is, indeed," said Kratos, but he didn't sound very impressed. Then again, he had told her that he'd seen it before. Anna supposed he'd probably seen a lot of the world, being a mercenary and all. If blasting his way through a Desian stronghold and stealing one of their flying machines was an average day in his book, then she supposed she could understand why he wouldn't be 'wowed' by a bit of fancy architecture.

As they rounded the building, Anna took note of all the little windows close to the ground.

"Why go to all the trouble of getting a key for the building?" she asked. "Couldn't we just smash through the glass here?"

Kratos actually cracked a smile.

"If you think it's so simple, then you're more than welcome to try."

Anna frowned at him.

"I'm not going to bust up the windows when can just unlock the front door," she said, even though she was somewhat tempted to try it and see what would happen. "I was just wondering why the Desians never broke in."

"There are ancient seals here to prevent them from entering," Kratos told her, with a simple sort of conviction that surprised her. Maybe he did believe.

"Seals that only work on Desians?" she wondered out loud. She couldn't imagine any kind of magic that could discern its targets' military allegiances, so the simplest explanation was that the seal protected against intruders of mixed blood. She wondered suddenly if Kratos was going to be able to enter the building at all. Maybe that was the real reason he needed her help.

"No," he corrected her. "The seals electrocute anyone who touches the windows."

Anna laughed. Then she realized that that could have been her.

The double doors at the front of the building were small but ornately decorated, topped by an elaborate gold arch. A flat, green pane of glass (or maybe something else) was set between the two of them, locking them together. It didn't look too sturdy, but Anna figured it had to be to withstand the seasons the way that it had and still look shiny and new.

"There's no keyhole," she said, looking over the doors carefully. She touched the surface, cautiously at first, and then applied a bit of her strength. They didn't budge.

"Magitechnology," Kratos told her, moving up alongside her. She stepped out of his way to watch. He'd barely brushed the green glass circle with his fingers when the doors sprang open, swinging inwards in silence, without so much as a creak to betray their age. "As long as I'm carrying the key, it will open only for me."

"Nifty," said Anna, unable to keep the bitter edge from leaking into her voice. Magitechnology had always been Kvar's favourite second favourite subject of study. Being around it always made her uncomfortable. Kratos knew way too much about it, for her taste.

The doors opened into a wide corridor, with a pedestal at its center and a large round blue apparatus of some kind embedded in the floor beyond it. Anna could only guess what it was for. Further on, at the opposite end of the corridor, there were two more doors, leading deeper into the tower.

There were torches set into the wall, too, already burning brightly. It looked as if someone had been in the room just moments before them, but Anna was certain that wasn't the case. There was only one key to the Tower of Mana, as far as she knew.

Tall shelves of books lined the walls, and when Anna looked up, she was surprised to see that there were even more bookshelves set into the walls high above them. But she couldn't imagine how anyone was supposed to get up there without flying.

Kratos made his way to the nearest bookshelf, first scanning over the titles with interest, but Anna wanted to explore, heading straight for the doors at the back. Neither of them had any kind of handle that she could see and they didn't open when she gave them a shove.

"Hey!" she called back over her shoulder. "See if that key will open these doors, too!"

Kratos didn't even look up from his book.

"It won't work," he said.

"How do you know?"

He waved his free hand at the pedestal.

"It's written right there. Only the Chosen One can open the seal and proceed further into the Tower. The key only gains us access to the library."

"How is it that you can read the Angelic language, anyways?" Anna asked him. She'd found a few books in his Wing Pack, before, and she'd been surprised that he was carrying them around.

Kratos replaced the book he had been holding on the shelf, apparently unsatisfied with its contents.

"It's not so unusual," he said. "There are many people who can."

"Members of the clergy and religious scholars, maybe," she said, doubtfully. "Not mercenaries."

Kratos made a non-commital sound intent on finding his next book. Anna crossed the room and checked one of the shelves. Unfortunately, the better portion of the books she found were decorated with the same strange, rigid script she'd seen carved into the walls outside. Not all of them, fortunately, but it was still going to limit her search.

"What good is a library if barely anyone can read what's in it?" she sighed and then looked back up towards the ceiling, at the book cases that were set high up in the walls. "There's no way to even reach half of this stuff."

"Humans may not be able to reach it," Kratos told her. "An angel, on the other hand…"

Anna snorted.

"Angels," she repeated. "Right. Some help they are."

Kratos only smiled, privately, into his new book.