SHIROE'S REBIRTH

Chapter 7: Graduate Exam - Battle

I watch Neive arrive in a field in the region that's about to burst into flames again. He isn't there in person. He's using one of his skills to appear in that place. His person, his anima, is sitting next to me in a chair.

The room of the Temple of Creation we're in isn't visible to our eyes. Purrcy's secretary, Timberel, and her High Priestess, Samara, cast the spells to make this room one we can be protected in from any attacks, and allows us to see whatever we need to focus our attention on anywhere in the world. So I'm not seeing the room, I'm seeing the field where Neive will begin our battle against the guild we need to remove, as if from above.

A copy of Neive and I are also being held in a space similar to this that Kishi-Mujin has created for me in the past. Her space doesn't have the spells of protection, however. When I've been in her space before, I've had physical protectors - like Arol - with me. He's in that space with a few hidden warriors of the Eagles.

We don't know how much research Satan's Kitchen has done. Overall we felt it best to be over-cautious this time. We've assumed they know how I usually work these operations. I've played this game with them for multiple times now. If they paid attention at the beginning, I did it the same then, too. Because we're also going to assume there might be a residual kami, or perhaps an entirely new one, we're assuming that first time is remembered as well.

Thus the waiting ambush in Kishi-Mujin's space and the extra protections we've chosen for our physical persons. This time we can't resurrect naturally. If we die physically, we're dead. There is some level of protection, since the resurrection spells still work, but they take a lot of power. We'd rather just not deal with it going that far.

Michael's boys, the Eagles, his guild from the time of the era change, did a fabulous job of information gathering. Even after so many lifetimes they still impress me, and impress me newly all over again since I'm meeting them technically for the first time (again). (It all gets a little confusing, so I just handle it like it's "again".)

There is one main rule of entering the Temple of Creation, outside the boundaries of Time - although it does have a forward motion through Time, like the Great Library. Once a person has been granted physical entrance, they can only leave it physically at a time after they entered it. Their own timeline must remain consistent. At the main door to the Great Library, one can stand there and see any time they want. That helps Li Gan review the history to get it written down right without stepping over the threshold. Here, I suspect Purrcy can do the same, and Nyanta.

I'd forgotten Michael can also travel through time and thought he'd bring people in from the current time. I think some he has, but I can only guess. They are the "current" time's people - he hasn't gone way into the past to fetch them, nor would he move much into the future either, but I suspect several he has, to allow them the time to regain their memories and practice their skills before bringing them into the battle.

He's brought them all to "this" time, so that they're all gathered here in one time and space. They all have the same skills Neive does - all twenty-three of them. They can all use the coding magic, they can all walk as ikiryō, and like Michael, they can all fly with the wings they know how to create. Other than that, they each have specific skills that help them perform the jobs they need to do. When brought together into a whole, they are extremely powerful, skilled, and practiced at working as a unified group.

The Eagles have always been our ace, our way to defeat anything that comes at us. Only one creature of Theldesia learned how they move through space, and that being should be dead from long ago. We're hoping he's not still here in residual. If he is, we need to make sure he stays dead this time.

His echoes exist in humanity regardless, so it's still not a given. We'll be relieved if we can resolve it just by smothering those echoes contained within Satan's Kitchen. We're not afraid of the being that might exist, or any new kami of darkness. All of the Eagles have the power to injure it, kill any aspects of it, and Michael has the tool and power to kill it completely. That's his role as a kami of the trinity.

If Purrcy, the compassionate judge of Theldesia, finally makes the determination that something must die, she orders Michael and he follows that order without hesitation or fault. Nyanta is her balance, confirming that the judgement is just. He has never yet denied her once she makes a final judgment, but he does sometimes make her wait for the right timing.

My role is to uncover evil, gather evidence, and make sure we're pointed at the right person, in the right way to win. I suppose I'm sort of like the lawyer of the cases. Depressing, but necessary. All my roles have been like that, and my guild is very good at what we do as well. We take delight in never losing a battle, never losing a case, but I don't have most of my guild found yet, and we need to resolve this now. We and the Eagles are very similar, so while Neive and I are sad it's only us, we'll still do our best and win this with the Eagles at our back and Arol as my support.

The Eagles are in a different room of the temple, physically. Some wait in that room to protect the anima of those who walk on Theldesia in spirit now. By their own magic skills, they're also watching the field I am. Neive stands facing the army of a Satan's Kitchen guild member, who is confronting him directly with cutting barbs.

It's obvious he isn't me, and they wanted me to show up (rather like I did in Yamato, actually, which really was one of Purrcy's miracles). So far, they aren't sure I'm still living, since I've hidden myself this long. I won't be telling them one way or the other. They'll only see Neive. They won't even see their punishers.

The Eagles who are assigned as Neive's guards are with him, there in the field as psyche only, ikiryō. Like I can't see them, neither can anyone on the side of Satan's Kitchen. Nor can anyone see the group that is waiting in the main stronghold of the main region that's directing all of these actions of war and greed.

I look that way now. There was motion to my left side. I've set that part of this room to that location so I can watch both at the same time. The Summon has told the head of the guild - their Strategist - that only Neive has come to the trap battlefield, and I hear the order he gives. He's not ready to move yet, but that was the order I thought might come. He's sent investigators to see if I'm in the background. I whisper my orders to Arol and the Eagles and they get prepared.

I don't have any Eagles in spirit here protecting me in this room. That's okay. I've got four deities protecting me. Kishi-Mujin is wrapped around me, letting me know what emotions rise above the surface from each of the main players. At the same time, she is with every Eagle, Arol, and Neive, protecting them and whispering the same information to them, as well as passing on my orders.

The Caretaker sits as cat at my feet, her tail waving slowly, like a soft fan. She is watching from here as well, and will cast any spell I need from her, should it become necessary. She is also watching over her sons in their places - the Eagles are all her sons as well.

Her anger is still hidden away under her sharp intellect that watches like I watch. That anger will explode out if we let it, so we don't. I'm impressed it isn't as quick to rise as it used to be. She also is learning internal strength over these generations as they pass, to match the strength of destruction and creation she has.

Nyanta watches from a different plane and place. He "over-watches", keeping a broader watch on what might be approaching the Temple of Creation so we can focus on the battle. He'll see any new kami rise up first. He learned how to stand at the side of any kami without being noticed. He, being a Swashbuckler that no magic can harm, will be the first to engage any kami that needs punishment, to hold it in place until Michael can join him. Together, they'll remove it unless Purrcy gives it a stay of execution.

I say we aren't protected by any ikiryō Eagles, but there is one here. The healer who goes to battle alone cannot heal himself. One stands ready by Neive's side here in this room, since it's the anima that pays the price for injuries and because when Neive casts his spells it takes his personal energy to do so.

Neive's first battle spell is one of protection around his ikiryō, visible because of spell also. His second spell is one that binds the leader of this army he faces. It's an old spell, one used frequently, and his opponent only smiles. I nod. By now they would have found a way around it, even if it's only a strategic one.

Neive's next spell has been building up since before he left my side to go to that field, because we expected that. It's a large spell that must affect many people all at once, so the time to build it up was necessary. He's not paying the full cost for it with all of his personal energy. That could kill him. It will still cost a lot. He casts that spell now, before the rest of the army can move.

In slow-motion, the entire army standing behind the Satan's Kitchen member falls to the ground (as do the few ambushers behind Neive). The spell was aided by Purrcy, who negated any items, potions, or spells that could have negated the Sleep status. The entire army will sleep for a full day, and cannot be woken by spell or potion or item, because of her negation. The Satan's Kitchen guildmember spins and stares at the field of sleeping men behind him, then spins back to speak angrily against Neive.

Neive doesn't answer. He's casting one more spell, as the Eagle healer casts a strong healing spell on him here in this room. Neive's last spell is a simple one. It merely marks the guild member, in his status data. We'll all be able to find him again, no matter what he does.

When that spell is completed, Neive bows to his opponent and disappears, leaving him there speechless until he begins to rant and rave impotently. His Summon appears before him and he's giving it orders of what to tell the man I'm turning to watch now, while keeping my ear on Neive's opponent. Another image blooms to my left now and Neive shifts his chair to look at that one, then his eyes close again.

I wait until the progress report and complaint has been registered from Neive's first opponent to their Strategist. The Strategist's face darkens. It takes a minute before he has enough control to think through what he can do.

The Strategist is my opponent, the one I stay five steps ahead of or more. When he recalls that member to his side, I nod. They will gather up into one place for us, one building, one room, that will become their trap. I don't assume it. That was only the first one.

Before he can get the warning to the others of his guild, Neive is already facing the second member of the guild in the next region. He isn't prepared to go to war, but he is preparing his men in his city barracks. Neive appears before him as a warning angel sent by the Caretaker. His men around him fall on their faces, fearful and giving Neive proper reverence.

The member of Satan's Kitchen is prideful, an Adventurer not a Person of the Land. He stands to defy Neive.

"Then cursed shall you be from this time on. No man will follow you, nor will any creature be your aid, for you will only bring them death and pain. Sorrow be upon you and your house from this day forth." Neive raises his hand and the marking spell is cast on his target, and two other spells. From this moment on, no one will hear his voice, and any spell he casts will rebound back on him.

Neive disappears from that place, returning here again. The fourth region appears behind me and Neive sits facing it. He has to hurry this time. My opponent is finally coming out of his shock and his reconfiguring and nearly has his orders ready. I whisper an order to the Eagles in that place to delay him from making his orders known.

They know what to do, so I turn around, listening to that room and watching what Neive will do. Neive sits and returns to the planet one more time in spirit. He arrives walking next to the final member of the guild, his hands behind his back. "I hear things aren't going well. How much longer before he dies, do you think?"

"What?" The man has no idea what Neive's talking about.

"I think all the fighting is getting old, really. Why do you keep doing it, anyway? What kind of power-high makes it worth it, to see so much death?" Neive is asking innocently, keeping to youthful curiosity. He's the best actor I know.

"It's something to do. No one ever cared for me so I don't bother to care for anyone else," the man actually is honest for once in his life. But then he's talking to someone that wasn't present a moment before. People tend to do that.

"What if you tried to care first? Usually people care until they've had it proven to them they shouldn't. Surely your mother in this life cared? Did you bother to pay attention to her, or did you just naturally assume she shouldn't, so didn't see it when she tried?

"Didn't she feed you when you couldn't even lift your head? Didn't she see you stayed dry, and learned to walk, talk, read, and live? What more caring could you ask for, to even have life now?" Neive's eyes are sober and pierce him. The man goes to wave a hand dismissively and Neive stops him. "If you will throw away even your mother's love is there any hope for you? Your mother lived and loved you, and not just your mother this time but every mother you've ever had.

"No woman or man is perfect, but mothers come the closest possible to humanity, because they sacrifice everything they could have had for their children, to bring them life and to bring them to adulthood. Go back and learn it again." He touches the man on the forehead between the eyes and he drops to the ground like a stone. Purrcy has taken his psyche and is teaching him - bringing him his memories back of all of his mothers from all of his births, to teach him what true caring for others looks like.

Neive calls to passers by, to come and help this man who has collapsed. When a few recognize him and come to assist, Neive disappears. We watch to see what happens. Some people want to kill him right then and there, others argue he should at least be taken to his home to see if he recovers.

They argue long enough some of the city guard arrive. It's too late for the people to kill him, and he's taken to his home to recover. We'll keep an ear on him. As soon as he dropped to the ground I gave the orders to the Eagles to stop distracting the Strategist. He's given the order for the others of his guild to gather.

We turn back to the third member's location. He's done having people fuss over him because he can't talk. Neive goes back one more time to stand by him, but not in a way Neive can be seen. "Don't go," he whispers in that man's ear. "You will take your curse with you." He tells the man to go and find the fourth man instead, who has collapsed in a strange manner.

We're surprised when the third man does go fetch the fourth first, to confirm if he really did collapse. He arrives at the bedside of his friend, scowls, then picks him up and disappears, to reappear in the room of the Strategist.

"Hmm. Kishi-Mujin, how are they traveling through space?" I ask. "By Summon, or by magic?"

"[Magic, but of a kind I don't recognize.]"

"Neive."

"I'm on it."

Purrcy could also do it, but I need her focused with me and Neive has a few moments before I need him again. "Nyanta, we've confirmation that it might be deity related. New magic including a teleportation capacity across regions. They're all in the one room, now."

"Okay." He'll look into what he might find in that place now, that might have aided them in the teleportation.

"Kishi-Mujin, be the distraction so he stays safe," I add. I get an affirming feeling. It's possible that if it is a new deity, it may already recognize Kishi-Mujin, but shouldn't recognize Nyanta, and we'd rather it didn't. If it's item related we'll merely find the item.

The unconscious man was laid on the floor in front of the Strategist, who is looking both dark, and frightened. I've sent him my message. We've discovered them and know who they are, and in one action have removed them from their supports.

The Strategist's eyes suddenly go wide. Before he can open his mouth, I give the order. "Now." A faint glow surrounds the four men.

The Strategist looks around the room wildly. There is nothing in the room but his own people and they didn't do it. Because these know what the restraining magic prison cell does, they know they can't cast any attack spells. One of them tries to teleport out of the cell. The Eagles have already studied the teleportation from just before and they can't get out. "That's a kami restriction we put on the cell spell. If it had been item related he would have escaped."

Kishi-Mujin passes that on to Nyanta and they're hunting even more intently. "Try to tease the kami out," I order the Eagles. "Stay hidden and background for now, though."

"Hahaue," I order.

She releases the man from the memories and returns him to his anima. He moans and stirs. The healer of their group (not the one who can't speak) casts a healing spell on him, and helps him to sit up. He sits with his head in his hand, and tears drip from his eyes. He doesn't look up, hiding the tears from his guildmates.

The Strategist crouches down next to him and grasps his arm. "What? What did they do to you?"

"The Caretaker ...she forced me to remember every mother I've ever had."

The Strategist scowls and looks at the other that has just arrived. He lifts his hand and writes in the air, the words glowing, like I can write in the air. "I was cursed, and all my House after me, and I can't be heard by anyone when I speak."

I can see the Strategist is trying to decide what he'll do next, and I need Neive again. "Pass what you've got along to Michael," I tell him. "It's your turn again." Michael is also a Master Programmer, but without the same permissions Purrcy has.

In another half minute Neive's psyche arrives outside the prison cell Satan's Kitchen is in. "Nyanta," I warn him softly. "Tetorō's in place." Now we're fishing. We've told them Neive's an emissary of the Caretaker. If there is a new kami in the making, now is when it will want to -

And there's the attack. Neive stands still, not moving, but his forefinger twitched up, an old sign from Earth that he wants to kill. That was enough of a clue for the Eagles, and they've locked the entire room down. Kishi-Mujin is cautiously triumphant. She and Nyanta have the scent they're looking for.

"It's trying to free it's High Priest and priests," Purrcy is the commentator for me, to tell me what isn't visible to my eyes. "Being even more junior than Kishi-Mujin, it has no concept of the spells created in the last era. Having chosen Adventurer clergy, they can't teach anything to it, either."

"Eagles, allow it access to them, but only if the outer cell will keep that aspect inside, and only if the Strategist calls for it." I want the evidence that they know it exists, and I want to know what it will do. We don't know what it actually is, why it exists.

"It must be Creature related," Purrcy muses at my feet. "The Summons were used too effectively. Normal Summon rules don't work that smoothly together." I nod agreement to that assessment. "Of course, we're still trying to get them figured out," she sighs. "I suppose there's a loophole in that somewhere. I'll get my department working on what data we've gathered so far to see where it is."

The world is still young in comparison to where it's going, for all it's evolved. There won't be magic changes to learn in every one of my lives once this phase is over. Like magic is still settling to its final state, the Summons are a thing difficult to integrate into real life. I'm sympathetic, but we still have to deal with this now.

"Are you letting the Creatures worship you?" I ask, suddenly.

Her whiskers pull back in what would be a nose-wrinkle. "I don't like it, but how am I to stop them, when I was the first to befriend them?"

"Then it may be that's the loophole. Perhaps this one is the side of them that hates Adventurers and People of the Land?"

Her eyes go distant. "Maybe that is the loophole. I'm not going to say that's what it's based from yet."

I nod and watch the scene in front of me for the next clues and step. "Go protect Neive from whatever is attacking him inside. The Eagles still can't see it and he's dropping faster than I like. It's hurting him. Don't kill it yet," I tack on, to calm her sudden anger down. Kishi-Mujin goes with Purrcy so she can pass on more clues to Nyanta.

Except Purrcy only turns and jumps into Neive's lap here in this room. She puts her nose to Neive's ear and purrs. Kishi-Mujin is taking Neive's pain while Purrcy is healing him, to slow the damage and reduce the feeling of the pain.

As soon as Kishi-Mujin has taken enough of Neive's pain, his anger explodes and a spell rushes out of him and into the thing causing him pain. "Thank mew, Tetorō," Nyanta purrs. "A very nice beacon. Michael."

In the picture in front of me there are suddenly three new beings and the guild that is locked up jumps in surprise. A grey and white tuxedo felinoid Swashbuckler, with his two rapiers pointing to a glowing mass, is hunting - given the way his tail twitches behind him.

On the opposite side of the glowing figure is the winged Michael. In one hand is a war ax, in another is a thin sword. On the other two arms are gauntlets with white light swirling around them. Those hands grab the glowing being. Nyanta's rapiers point directly into the being.

"No!" the Strategist leaps up to run into the barrier penning him in. "You can't take away my anger and grief! You can't make me forgive!"

"It only hurts you to not forgive, you know," Michael says without looking at him. "That kind of pain only makes you worse inside. Why'd you bother coming back if you wanted to bring those things with you?"

The judge behind me makes her pronouncement. She has already read their souls. "It is an artifact of his emotions, not worthy to become a kami in full. However you will not kill it in his sight. Only hold it for now.

"Nyanta go and make sure this is all of it." He disappears from the room.

"My sons, they are not worthy to continue living this life, having already brought death, sorrow, and destruction more than I can bear. I will handle what happens on their rebirth."

The Eagles in the room cast Sleep on the four. That many high level Adventurers against the few and they can't stay awake, although the Strategist is the last to succumb. His eyes stay on the creature held in Michael's hands until they close, his face still showing his grief and anguish.

"He loved someone who stayed here?" I ask, turning away from the vision of the room as the Eagles mercy-kill the four, not wanting to give them pain while awake. I don't delight in death either, and don't need to watch them do it. Michael does the same for the emotional essence and artifact that was trying to be birthed.

"Possibly," Purrcy answers me. "More likely, someone who refused to return with him, and was coward enough to not let him know. He would likely have stayed on Earth if he'd known." I shake my head. Unrequited love is one of our very strong emotions that usually leads to the darker emotions rising if we don't recognize it first, and forgive enough to move on in life.

The Eagle healer with us finishes with the final spell to heal Neive back up. He sits forward in his seat to rest his arms on his knees, no longer in that room either. "Thank you, Neive," I say with sober gratitude, putting my hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry I didn't catch the drop fast enough."

He gives a little shrug. "I know you wanted to be sure what it was first, and if it could be turned like Kishi-Mujin." Kishi-Mujin gives him a gift of gratitude as well, also glad that we had mercy on her, to teach her both sides of good and evil rather than just kill her because she started evil.

"Kishi-Mujin, that was the sum of what comes from unrequited love, and an unwillingness to forgive," I make sure I've spelled it out for her. "It won't happen often that it gets out hand that much, but do pay some attention when you feel that one come up again in the future. It's worth having Hahaue's eye on Adventurers like that.

"Early intervention helps to turn them. You can do that part, to encourage them to see that life is still worth living, even if they can't have what they initially hoped to have. If they won't be turned, bring it here. A mother's love will always help them through it. They just need to be reminded that love still exists in the world for them."

I feel her acceptance of the lesson, then a sorrow that is turned away from me rather quickly. I give her the equivalent of a pat on the head for encouragement and comfort and she settles. I don't really like the fact it leaves me unsettled, but I ignore it for now.

I pick up Purrcy and lead Neive and his healer out of the room, headed for the room the Eagles are in. They should also be arriving. We need to have our follow-up meeting to make sure we handled everything we were supposed to.

We have to wait a few more minutes for Michael, a few of the Eagles, and Nyanta to hunt down the final aspects of the artifact-kami and arrive. Purrcy doesn't come back for another minute after that since she was rewriting the data of the four members of Satan's Kitchen so they're reborn the way she wants them to be into the future so this can't happen again.

She starts the meeting. "I've made the Strategist into a Person of the Land. He needs to become incohesive psyche and relearn all over again how to live properly. The other three I've left as Adventurers, since we do need them, but I've erased the memories that tied them together, and taken their Summons from them."

Her whiskers droop. "I've had to erase the Summons. Their memories stay intact in the Summon database, and they'll get the four back together any time they can.

"To prevent that further, I've also set the seed that determines when the remaining three Adventurers are reborn so they can't be reborn at the same time again. I don't like to do that, but I think in this case it's important to not tempt them again."

Erasure is permanent. Purrcy really hates to do it. Even the Inari will only do it in extreme cases. We're glad she has solutions so the Adventurers don't also have to be erased. That would have been a worst case requirement. We can't send anyone back to Earth anymore. The two planets haven't been connected since my guild was returned to this planet after we lived our lives on Earth. That's a lot of time to move apart, through the dimensions and universes.

"What about my curse?" Neive asks.

"I left it, but set a limitation on it. It will end after the fourth generation, since that's typical, but if a later generation tries to gather up soldiers under him again, then the curse will be in effect for him or her. That way if the memories get loose and he should try again in a future life, he won't be able to." Neive's content with that answer.

"What about the one you made remember?" Arol asks.

Purrcy shrugs. "Maybe those memories will have more meaning this next time around. I've tagged them for early remembering every time he's reborn. We'll keep an eye on him and see if that's sufficiently effective to teach him to learn to appreciate the good around him."

"And the first one?" I ask.

"The test case for the other two. Have to leave one untouched to know if either of the other two are effective lessons. We'll likely see him again on the battlefield, but I hope he'll learn eventually. I've tried to put one new tag on him that I'm hoping will draw better advisors to him when he's young, and push the ones away who will try to bring him back to destruction."

I nod, satisfied and hopeful that will work. Hahaue is always working with Chichiue to teach the Adventurers in each life how to live better than last time. They really are the parents of Theldesia, and more particularly of the Adventurers. They started that way: the oldest of the Adventurers on the planet, adopting them all and making it possible for them to continue living good lives even in difficult and lonely circumstances.

The others give their reports of what went on in their hunting locations. Arol's a little upset he got left out of the action, but not as disappointed as the Eagles. Arol's just as content being lazy as being in action. Because he got to watch the action, he was entertained. It's being bored he doesn't like. He's been that a lot here while I've been working.

I'm relieved to have passed my graduate exam, and so is Neive. We have one final family dinner and good night's sleep before seeing everyone off. I have one final request to Hahaue and she lets me use the room one more time to look over Theldesia. I can't hide on Yamato, as much as I love my home. The island is too small for me to hide my family on.

I work world-wide, and will be brought either here to the Temple of Creation or into Kishi-Mujin's space when it's time for me to do my real work, and the Great Library has many doors all over the world. The rest of the time I can be anywhere. There's only one problem.

I'm quite sure my wife, from my First life, is someone I love deeply. I want to know she can be born again where I decide to live. And..., if possible..., I want to take her with me this time.