Chapter Two: Shades of the Heart
I dreamed.
Sunlight.
Two girls faced each other in the middle of a forest glade. One of them was I, kodachi at back, familiar shorts and sleeveless top worn even then. My face showed a shocked, hurt expression.
The other was pale, but still beautiful. Brown hair with a touch of gold fluttered limply for a second in the small breeze that whistled through the trees, as a short dagger hung at her belt. Icy blue eyes gazed coldly at the dream me, and I felt the pain of loss even watching this all as if from a distance.
Saki.
"Chelle, get away." She said, voice so cold that the dream me shivered visibly, taken aback. "I don't want to hear about it."
"...Saki, what's with you?" The dream me pleaded, eyes gazing imploringly. "What's wrong?"
Dream-Saki looked down, then raised her voice slightly- something she hardly ever did. "Leave me alone, or you'll regret it."
"We can talk about it, can't we, Saki? We're best friends... Just calm down." The me in my dreams clasped her hands together in distress. "Can't you even talk to me?"
Saki waited for the wind to fall so that strands of brown hair fell across her face, hiding her eyes. Even though I couldn't see them, I knew they burned with rage.
"Shut up. You have no idea how I feel." Dream-Saki muttered, her voice now dangerously soft.
"I don't know what happened with your grandfather, but I know how it feels! He was like a grandfather to me too..." Dream-Chelle spoke uselessly. It was useless because I had played this scene in my head more than a million times, each time exactly the same. I knew how it was going to end, and I knew what was going to happen. The Chelle in my mind continued. "Acting like this won't bring him back! He's dead! Gone!"
"Chelle..." Saki murmured, eyes still hidden. "I'm asking you one last time to get the hell away from me." The voice shook slightly, but the proclamation was there.
The dream me gasped in shock. Saki is always polite. Was.
"...No..." I said it at exactly the same time the dream me said it, the fatal word... The dream me stepped forward, only to find the business end of a dagger pointed at her throat, courtesy of Saki.
Dream-Chelle's eyes tightened, on the verge of tears. Had I really been that outwardly emotional back then? I didn't know...
"Get AWAY FROM ME!" Saki thrust forward, intending to slit my throat.
This was the part where she fought like a madman, and I dodged nearly all of her attacks. I had seen this in my head so many times that I had actually memorized all the moves used by my best friend. A spinning slash followed by a upwards cut that would have torn me open, had I not rolled back and...
Sparks flew as the steel of the dagger was met with the steel of my own kodachi. Weapons glanced off each other, my desperate defense blunting the attack. I dodged left, broke right, slid to the ground as metal punctured the earth, I rolled sideways... not fast enough, she was always there and OH there it goes, a slash on my left arm...
This continued for some more time until I moved to sidestep another forward cut, hoping to disarm her peacefully, only to find she had expected this and slashed sideways and up diagonally.
The dream me reacted as I would have, ducking underneath the weapon, grabbing the attacker's wrist, and twisting, sending the dagger flying through the air to fall on the floor with a soft thud.
"So." Saki said, her voice distant. I had the feeling she was really disconnected from reality, not really aware that she was fighting me... "It's like this, is it?"
Tears now truly streamed down the dream me's face in rivulets, twisted in part by pain. Blood dripped from the cut arm. "...I don't want to fight you, Saki. I don't." Dream-Chelle took a step forward, knowing that she was unarmed...
No! I nearly yelled in frustration, but they of course couldn't hear me, this had happened so long ago, you couldn't change the past, only the present...
Dream-Saki's eyes closed as the meaty 'thukt' of a blade hitting flesh resounded. Dream-me looked at the other knife embedded nearly hilt-deep in my side.
I had been weak.
Emotions. Always getting in the way. The instructors had told me. In a battle, everything has to be clear-cut, pure as glass, crystal. No second chances, no possibility of return, no morals, no emotion. You had to be sure what was right and what was wrong.
Trying to breathe, the dream-Chelle collapsed, one hand straying down to the wound in her stomach. She coughed into her other. It came out bloody. Being me, she laughed brokenly, still trying to breathe.
"...Remember... we used to joke..." Dream-me paused. "...about how... we would die...?"
Saki's head bowed.
"...I guess... it wasn't some... monster that ... got me... in the end..." My eyes lolled into the back of my head as I passed out, half in shock, half in surprise.
The other girl fell to her knees, the enormity of what she had just done coming down on her like a ton of lead bricks. Then a flash, and she was gone, only a slight rustling in the brush where she had passed.
A memory. Nothing more.
WHAP-CRACK
It was a shocking, terrifying sound. A sound that could wake the dead and resurrect them. A sound that would probably have given several old ladies major heart attacks unless gratuitous use of healing magic was applied.
I jerked awake from my daydream and stared into the piercing stare of the instructor, who had just slammed a metal ruler down onto the desk an inch from my face, carving a small line in the aged wood and nearly amputating my nose.
"Would you please repeat what I have just finished telling the rest of the class?" He said, smiling sweetly, assured in his victory. "Or were you too busy catching up on lost sleep?"
I stared wide-eyed, then realized the rest of the class was looking at me expectantly. Trying to cover for the blunder, I replied. "...Yes, sir. I was... doing extra training last night and I felt tired." It wasn't a particularly good excuse, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances.
His eyes softened. He looked up to people who trained like maniacs, people who hit punching bags through the night and broke bricks with their bare hands. "This is an unexpected development. Take yourself off for the rest of the day. And get some sleep."
I sighed in relief. Although it wasn't that much of a reprieve - there was only two more lessons before the end of the day, and both of those were easy. And nuts to sleep. I didn't feel like sleeping.
I caught sight of Josh's form, lounging in the militant-like barracks provided for the male students at the Koneale Academy. A sign hanging from the door stated two rules: do what the acting commander tells you, and don't screw up. Underneath, someone had added in marker: 'Don't piss on the bed'.
I wrinkled my nose in distaste. Boys. The lot of them.
Josh waved to me as I passed. "What's up, Chelle? Gave up Magic Studies?"
"Never was much good at it, anyway." I muttered. "Nope, instructor on duty gave me the rest of the day off."
"Lucky you." Josh mumbled dully. "I'm supposed to be in class, but I'm taking my own holiday. If I'm caught, I'm in deep sh-"
"Why don't we check out that cave we found?" I said quickly, before he finished his expletive. "I get this feeling there's something else in there." I didn't mention the note I had received along with the Fang. It now rested in a leather pouch at my belt, along with the Fujin Fang itself.
Josh stretched. "You know, that's not a bad idea. It's better than staying here, anyway."
Within a few seconds we were ready, respective weapons, Mechlites, spare glowsticks, heal-all potions, and everything else. After last time, I was going prepared. Giving a last check to my kodachi-ryu, I sheathed it and strapped it to my back affectionately.
"Let's go."
He followed me at a safe distance (no point in two cadets caught skipping class together) and we were soon out of the local area and well into the surrounding wilderness, heading for the cave where I had found the fang. The diary rested in my pack as well; no way was I giving up a part of my best friend's history.
After a series of wrong turns, some misconception of direction, some terrible map reading and a lot of cursing from Josh, we found the room with the altar in it where I had fought the monster last time. Surprisingly, the shredded corpse of the monster was gone.
There was no way it could have survived. No freaking way.
Oh well. I flicked on my Mechlite and surveyed the room. The small craters in the floor were still there, as was a sizeable amount of debris. But any indication that the monster had been there - blood, toad flesh - was gone. The only thing that was still recognizable was the small selection of bones that had belonged to Saki's grandfather.
I jingled the Fujin Fang in it's belt pouch, feeling it dig into me a little, while staring at the deep scar on the side of my left arm that Saki had given me a few years ago. How could she ever do such a thing? We had been friends from an early age... sure, we had had our petty little childhood squabbles, but we always made up again after them. She had never physically attacked me.
Placing a gloved hand on the altar, I sighed. Had it really been that long since I had seen Saki?
My mind drifted, back to a time long past...
flashback
"Hey, Saki!"
The edge of Terra's Cliff was an awesome place, a quiet place to just be alone with our thoughts and do a little well-deserved brooding. It had been Saki's and my childhood play spot since the tree with our tree house in it had been struck by lightning and burned. (I was six, okay? Forgive me if I had no idea then that the tallest object in a field would be struck by lightning.)
"...Leave me alone." She turned her face away from me.
I shook my head. "Saki, the past is the past. Leave it there. Right now, I'm your best friend. Are you willing to let me in again?"
"Look, Chelle, my grandfather disappeared and I nearly killed you. Killed. I'm not worth having as a friend if you run the risk of being murdered all the time. I'm a horrible, horrible person."
I cracked a smile. "What doesn't kill me can only make me stronger, right? And besides, you didn't mean to hurt me in the first place. Heck, it's your fault I survived! Who got the white mage from nearly two hundred miles away to come and save my life? Huh?"
"I still can't believe what I've done." She refused to meet my eyes, walking to the edge of the cliff and looking towards the horizon. "I don't deserve to live."
"Saki, stop talking like a depressive idiot. We have each other, right? That's all that matters. You were like the sister I never had."
"Sisters don't try and kill each other each time they fight." Her voice was flat, monotone. Devoid of hope.
I shook my head. "We're both trained to fight like freaking pros. It was just..." I blundered uselessly, trying to find a word that would fill the void, bridge the gap, whatever.
Saki sighed. "Just promise me one thing," she said, kicking a lone pebble off the edge of the ravine.
"What? Anything, just ask." I said, eager to please.
She looked at me, with a small, sad smile on her face. "Tell my mother... I love her."
"What, wait... what are you doing?"
"See you around, sis."
Then she leaned into the wind... and fell backward over the cliff, just simply dropping out of my line of vision, and if she had her way, existence.
I screamed, but it was too late. "SAKI!" A small figure fell out of my view, away, alone... gone.
I fell to my knees and sobbed, hugging myself, trying to shut the fact that my friend was gone. Gone. Forever.
end flashback
I shook my head, clearing mental cobwebs. Even though it has been 3 years, it is still ancient history, nothing else. Nothing else. But it had been painful reality at the time, having to accept that Saki, my sometime 'sister', my best friend, was dead.
"...Chelle?" Josh poked me in the back. Only then did I realize that I had spent the last five minutes gazing into thin air like a complete idiot. "Um... Chelle? Hello?"
"What?" I said, irritably. He is a nice enough guy, but has a habit of interrupting the best of moments at the worst of times. "Something I missed?" Thank you, stupid fallible brain.
"There's nothing here, Chelle." He spoke seriously for once. "I think we should check the room next door - it's marked with a small circle on this map, so I think it could be important."
I remembered the cryptic message left by WD, 'Someone who wanted to see me'. Who was WD? Wilson Dietrich? Wally Demeanor? Wendy Dayright? And who was this someone who wanted to see me?
Sighing, I followed Josh back out through the door, and after a short trip through a dark passage that looked longer than it actually was, we found ourselves at a door blocked by a square slab of rock, covered in runes.
"Oh well." Josh sighed. "I think we'd better get back to the academy - classes should be over now, after all. There's nothing here."
Thoughtfully, I tapped on the slab of rock, hearing a dull boom as the sound came back, reflected in the room it was hiding. "There's a room here. You call this nothing?"
He shifted uncomfortably. "You got any idea how you can get it open?" For a brief second I wondered if my new form could move the slab, but Josh probably wouldn't understand if I grew fur and a tail in front of his eyes. Then I spotted a small, circular groove in the otherwise smooth stone.
"Actually, I do." I drew the Fang out of my side belt pouch, and jammed it with all my strength into the groove.
Josh's eyes widened. "Hey... isn't that the thing on the altar-" He was cut off as the runes engraved on the slab flared with blue energy and the large carved piece of rock cracked right down the middle.
Pushing with all my might, I forced the two irregular hunks of rock loose, as they fell onto the floor with a loud thud that felt like it shook the earth below.
"Whoa." Josh said, lost for words. I was busy fighting down the energy that threatened to rise up in me again. The temptation to feel all that power again was so great... shaking my head, I pocketed the fang. "What did you just do?"
"...Opened the door." I said, and then I looked in...
What had I expected? Monsters, most likely. After fighting that guardian-frog thing in the room where I had obtained the Fujin Fang I wasn't optimistic about this room being completely safe. My mind conjured up countless images of myself caught in a series of traps and dying in various ways, not least being eaten alive.
At least in this place, Murphy's Law seemed to have taken a coffee break for now.
It was a small room, tranquil and peaceful in the darkness. Feeling confident, I snapped on a glow stick and walked in...
...as eerie green light shone from the walls and the place lit up.
Literally.
"Oh well. There's no need for this, then." I muttered, pocketing the glow stick. A green, pulsing light shone from the walls, which appeared to be made from some sort of crystal substance. Intrigued, I reached up and broke a small chunk off it. It shone dully in my hand. "Interesting..."
"Chelle, do you have ANY idea what that is?" Josh yammered excitedly in my ear. "That's sylphstone!"
What the heck was sylphstone? So many unanswered questions...
Josh nabbed the piece of rock out of my grasp. "Famed for magical properties... the sylphstone was much prized because of it's use in alchemy." He seemed to be quoting from a textbook somewhere.
"Alchemy? Don't you mean chemistry?"
He shot me a withering look. "Alchemy. What chemistry used to be called. Just... think chemistry with more explosions and mistakes."
I couldn't really imagine that, as we had just learned to make C6 explosive in our academy chemistry class. More mistakes I could handle... more explosions was not. Especially when one kid had been playing around with a live chunk of it and it had gone off in his hand. The fool had lost an entire arm, nothing a whole barrage of cure spells couldn't handle.
I pocketed the sylphstone. It was still glowing with an inner light. "I'm sure if all else fails we can always use this as a light. I'm not to trusting of our old mechlites as of now."
"You mean these?" Josh clicked the power switch of his mechlite. Predictably, it didn't work. A string of colorful curses followed, as he tried to figure out what was wrong with the cheap academy issue product.
I sighed and left him there, choosing instead to wander into the middle of the room. Daylight shone from a small hole in the ceiling, reflecting brilliantly off the edge of... a silvery pool?
Whatever the pool was filled with, it didn't look like water. It was nothing less than a perfect reflection, on the top of something that felt vaguely metallic to the eye. Completely circular in design, something in me just drew me to touch it for some reason... I felt drawn, no, COMPELLED, to touch it.
Gingerly, I knelt down beside the pool. Half-covered by dirt, a intricately carved outline of a dragon was all around the pool edge. A Chinese dragon, you know, the long winding ones that look sorta like snakes.
Bending down, I dragged a finger over the surface of the pool. A silvery strand of the stuff came away, attached to my finger. As I watched, the silver began to slowly work its way up my finger until it had covered it entirely. It began moving faster now, and soon my hand was covered with the slick silver liquid. I tried to brush it off with my other hand, but it just came off on the other hand and begun moving up there also.
That was when I got really scared.
I thought about screaming, but it was too late... the silver around my arms suddenly hardened like a metallic rope, unbreakable, and I was yanked into the pool noiselessly.
Josh slammed his mechlite against the floor in frustration. Being of solid make, it didn't get dashed to pieces, which only served to make him more angry.
"Stupid fuggin'..." He then took a deep breath as he saw a small amount of dirt all his pacing around the room had removed...
Two seconds later he was on his knees, frantically brushing away all the dirt that had collected there after years of no human contact.
For he had seen something.
A few minutes later, Josh came to a conclusion. "...Runes...?" Yes, there were runes in the ground.
What was more, they weren't just carved. A outline in onyx had been set into the stone, so that the green glow of sylphstone showed through and made the whole thing seem even more eerie. A short time span later, and Josh was reading the lines of text with a whitish face. "The... Well of Souls?... Chelle? CHELLE?" He yelled her name again and again, but there was no reply...
...except when Chelle's bag floated up to the silvery surface of the pool.
Josh panicked. "Oh, CRAP! CHELLE!"
stupid stupid macho chick
swims like a brick
skull is too thick...
Stupid, stupid, STUPID.
Curiosity killed the cat as they say. It would very likely kill me as well... I continued sinking...
My lungs were on fire. I couldn't hold my breath that much longer... with a gasp resigned to my fate, I released the breath I had been holding. I expected to die, choking for a gasp of that precious oxygen, but what I did not expect was the... stuff surrounding me to be breathable.
Suddenly I realized I was floating, alone in the darkness.
All around me I could see people. Thin outlines, smoky, like ghosts.
In case nobody knows, I have an intense fear of the supernatural. So I started thrashing uncontrollably. Icy hands found their way around me, clutching and grasping at my clothing, pulling me deeper and away from that small circle of light that was the pool surface.
Then the chunk of sylphstone fell out of my bag.
I lunged for it, breaking away from all of the ghostly spirits that had surrounded me, seeking solace in the small green light.
As my hand closed around it, my bag was torn from my grasp by the things. I swiped out on instinct, but I nabbed air as I watched my bag rise towards the circle of light at the ceiling.
Remembering the basic principles of swimming, I dove to the bottom, turned myself around, and kicked off, heading for the surface at a speed marginally greater than the one I had been heading down at. The small piece of sylphstone flared brightly, mirroring my defiance. It seemed more like I was holding a handful of green fire than a lump of rock, now.
The ghosts shrunk away from the light as cracks of the green energy began to flow from the gaps between my fingers. The circle of light wasn't far, only a few yards off... not far at all..
Then a voice I thought I would never hear again dragged me back.
"...Chellllllleeeeeee..."
It was a vague, distorted echo, but I knew what it was...
The sylphstone in my hand exploded with light. The silver substance I was swimming in was pushed back by the pure waves of energy coming from the rock. Then it hardened. But the stone continued to hold, projecting a small cuboids energy field that pushed back the souls... the ghosts, the whatever the hell they were. I no longer felt like I was swimming, I was standing on a tinged green energy field that seemed to be made of glass...
I stood. I was dry, completely, as if the silver substance had been sucked from me when I entered the new medium. The pool surface glimmered feet above me, tantalizingly close.
And opposite of me stood a figure I knew from my dreams.
"..Chelle..." I couldn't see the face. But it was one of those souls, I was sure. The outline was slightly transparent, and I could actually see THROUGH it to the swirling sea of souls beyond. And... how did it know my name? "...DIE!"
I narrowly hand sprung back as a pair of long daggers stabbed into the flickering green energy field, downward. To my relief, the smooth glasslike energy field did not crack like glass. Keeping the glowing handful of green fire in my left hand, I shifted my other hand behind me as my kodachi slid cleanly out of my back shoulder harness with a metallic 'shing', smooth as silk.
Battle hardened instincts took over as another ghostly knife appeared and was thrown. I watched it fly past my face as I bent backwards, the air humming slightly in the wake of the projectile.
No time to hang over bullet time moments for damn near eternity, for she was already attacking, the see-through blade contacting with my cold steel... Sparks rang from the point of impact, time and time again as the nigh-invisible edge slammed against my weapon's edge.
Silently, I thanked the lump of sylphstone. Had it not been for the light it gave, I would never have been able to see the attacks. The ghost was almost silent in the way it moved, but it fought in a familiar pattern I was sure I recognized...
"Chelle..."
Oh, and there was the voice as well. Unmistakable. But there was no way in hell... could it be?
Distracted, I barely missed dodging the next attack, and parried it instead, somersaulting over the top of my opponent as I slashed out wildly.
Then I watched in terrified disbelief as my attack passed through the ghost like it was made of air.
The ghost almost seemed to smile. Amusement?
"You are so pathetic." Okay, maybe not amusement. Total apathy at my futile attempts to keep myself alive?
Desperate now, I did the old somersault trick, remembering an ancient technique that I had read about once in some book called the 'Olde Guide to Demone Huntinge'. It was a long shot. I had never used the technique before. But it was worth a shot... hey, what did I have to lose?
Midair, I gathered a deep breath and focused my ki, my inner fighting spirit, my spiritual energy, and forced it all into my free hand, my mind becoming crystal clear as I shut all emotion out of my mind and became cold as ice. "...Jaki yo..." (Evil be...) I landed and cocked the hand with the chunk of sylphstone in it back. "...kirai!" (...destroyed!) A small sphere of blue energy formed in my hand, pulsed once, and then smashed into the ghost's face.
Despite all rules of inertia to the contrary, the ghost flew back and impacted, hard, against the far wall of the green energy field. It slid down the wall to land in a crumpled heap against the wall.
The hood was off, exposing a deathly pale face, but one that I could still recognize. Ice blue eyes. Smooth, long brown hair with a touch of gold.
Saki. A deathly pale one, and transparent, but Saki.
Coughing and choking, she glared at me. "That actually HURT."
"Well, you were trying to kill me." I defended. "You remember this?" I held up my left arm, and the long scar from the wound she had given me such a long time ago was there.
She smiled with no mirth. "Yeah."
"...are you still trying to kill me?"
"Yeah."
"Wonderful. Ah, what a great day." I sighed. "My best friend comes back from the dead just to kill me, I'm stuck in a pit filled with ghosts, and I'm missing class. What could be better?" Man, I love sarcasm.
She looked at me with hate in her eyes. "Shut UP! This is all YOUR fault!"
...huh?
"Since when was this all my fault?" She paused at my question, allowing me to step beyond her reach and crouch low in a corner. Actually, I didn't have much juice left, and I was running on empty. That conjured ki blast had taken a lot out of me.
Okay, last resort time.
My hand strayed down to my belt, the small pouch coming off the belt clasp and the fang hidden within flying up in the air. I caught it and grasped it tightly praying, hoping, wishing for something to happen, something, anything...
Power flooded into me. Nails and claws grew from stubby, pitiful human fingers. A tickling sensation passed me in waves, and short red fur coated my tan skin. My eyes flickered in the darkness and then changed altogether, pushing back the darkness and revealing shadows where there ought to be none. My spine pushed out the back of my shorts and grew, a tail forming. My emerald orbs that passed for my eyes in this form reflected the dim glow projected from the lump of sylphstone, enhancing their green color even more.
They glowed and flashed with power.
Saki looked at me, and I saw the look of confusion in her eyes before the energy grew too much for me to hold, and exploded outwards...
I lunged for her as the souls around us finally shattered the force field that had been given off with a mix of the sylphstone's power and my own waning hope, only to be consumed as blue energy mingled with green and flared up, until I saw nothing more but white...
Josh was panicking.
He did not know what to do.
Many considered him a simple person. But this was only true in some aspects - he was also blissfully happy. He hit things, and sometimes they hit back. He could take what life could dish out, if he couldn't, he ran away only to get stronger, come back, and kick some ass.
He liked to fight - it made him feel good. He liked to play the practical joker and give everybody something to laugh at - it made him feel accomplished. He liked life in general, had fun, and lived on the wild side. After all, even simplicity knew that ignorance was bliss and life was temporary.
But simplicity right now had problems.
He had no idea where Chelle was.
Okay, scratch that... he knew where she was. In that pool. But was it even a pool of water? It looked metallic to the eye. He hadn't dared to touch it for fear that it might be dangerous. But if it was dangerous... Chelle was in there. What had happened? Chelle was a smart girl, she shouldn't have gotten herself into this sort of trouble...
He was about to shuck his clothes with disregard for personal safety and dive in to look for her when the pool began to bubble.
Interested, he looked at the bubbling surface of the pool, only to recoil violently as he saw something that vaguely resembled a screaming human outline, grotesquely twisted like it had been pulled through a strainer, screaming noiselessly.
Not just one. More, scrabbling violently, trying to get out, but never getting beyond the edge of the pool, the carved dragon outline seeming to burn them all as they touched it...
...Souls. They were souls. Trapped in this pool, struggling to gain the world of the mortal, so frantic to live once more..
Josh stared, eyes wide. Shaking slightly, he began to reach in his pack for the academy issue pistol he had been given and that he kept concealed there.
But then blue streaks of energy began to flare out from the side of the pool, the souls themselves recoiling from them. Silver water parted and bubbled furiously as whatever that was kept there began to gain pressure. Josh shook his head... had he heard yelling?
"...KAMAITACHI!"
An air bubble suddenly became a lot more than just that, a spear of air that felt solid to the touch and yet invisible, parting the surface of the Well of Souls.
The pool erupted, two figures covered with silver fluid bursting out and landing in a crouch at the water's edge. One had an arm protectively around the other. However, that was not what caught Josh's attention - the protective figure seemed to be holding a handful of green flame in it's left hand, the other shining with blue light between the cracks in it's fingers.
They were both female, he realized. Then he was running forward, gasping for breath. He hadn't even known he had been holding it.
"Chelle?"
I took a deep breath as I let the energy flow out of me and closed my hand tightly around the Fujin Fang in my right palm, shutting off the light. My fur disappeared as my tail shrank back into my spine. I kept my eyes closed until someone yelled my name.
"Chelle?"
I opened my eyes, hoping that they weren't green anymore. "Hi, Josh. Had fun?"
His eyes were wide as they stared at my left hand, the sylphstone brimming with power. "What the hell is that?" Then his gaze traveled to the figure I was hunched over. "Who the hell is THAT?"
Casually, I tossed the sylphstone up in the air and caught it again. The green light faded nearly as soon as it left my palm. "It's the sylphstone. It seems to be affected by living souls. Useful little gem."
He didn't move, still staring at me and the pale girl I held, dripping with silvery water. The stuff pooled around my feet, and as I watched, slowly began join up into one big puddle that trickled its slow way back to the pool. The pool was quiet now, no trace of what lay beneath.
"It's the Well of Souls." He muttered, gesturing to a series of runes lying in the floor that we had missed, buried underneath years' worth of dirt and dust.
I smiled thinly. "You don't say."
Josh shook his head, tossing me my pack that had somehow floated to the surface of the pool in the melee of spirits. "And may I ask again, since you failed to notice my question last time." He continued on, not waiting for the imminent reply. "Who the HELL IS THAT?"
I didn't look at him, silver fluid dripping out of my hair to run down my face. It itched. "She's Saki. Saki Carun. She's Raul Carun's granddaughter, the one that fell ill with Jraisona Syndrome at an early age. She also happens to be my former best friend, and my dubbed sister."
Josh stood there, lost for words yet again. An expletive seemed to be necessary under the circumstances.
"...Aaaah... shit."
I ignored him. "Look, you know the Life spell?"
"...if I smile and don't
believe
soon I know I'll wake
from this dream
don't try to fix me, I'm not broken
hello
I am the light
living for you so you can hide
don't cry...
suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
hello
I'm still here
all that's left of yesterday..."
'Hello' - Evanescence
She came to slowly.
Blue eyes, clouded over with years of pain and sadness, not to mention guilt, stared me in the face. Chestnut tresses framed a face, pale in it's beauty.
The first thing Saki Carun did upon awakening was sit up and check the state of her twin daggers. She was now dry, the silver ichors from the Well of Souls having leached itself out of her to rejoin it's general contents.
The next thing Saki Carun did upon awakening was sit huddled up, arms around knees, and cry.
"...Damn you Chelle... damn... why do you have to be so damn noble..." She whimpered through sobs.
I still heard her, of course. I may not have been in my hyper-powered/sensitive other form granted by the Fujin Fang, but I could still hear coherently. It wasn't like Josh had gone off and fired his gun right next to my ear just for kicks.
Her being my best friend, how could I resist? She was lonely and in mental anguish. How that came about I had no idea, but, hey. You can't have everything. What I did was sneak up behind her and give her a hug.
She tensed up almost immediately, resenting the contact, but as she continued to cry I felt her relaxing into me, taking comfort in my embrace. I held her and we sat there, relishing in the physical feel of one against another...
Soon she stopped, but still I held her.
"...It's been a long time hasn't it, Chelle." She said, wiping a tear from her left cheek where it had fallen. "How many years...?"
I closed my eyes as she truly looked at me for the first time. "...I don't know. It seems forever."
Saki looked at me, deep blue eyes threatening to suffocate me. "It probably has been. Time has no meaning in...that place." She pointed at the pool, which lay a couple of meters away. The sylphstone that made up the walls of the room glowed brightly, as if it had never sensed a living soul before and it wanted to make up for lost time. "I'm... cursed, and I have been for years."
Now this was interesting. "Cursed?"
"Yes."
"How did that happen? ...I never heard from you again after you..." I couldn't bring myself to say the word 'suicide', and as a result trailed out halfway through a sentence. But Saki seemed to be unaffected.
She spoke dully. "I remember... my last moments. I could see myself falling, falling through space... falling forever... and then I hit water."
In my mind I did a quick mental sketch of Terra's Cliff. The ravine had a river below it... a fast moving river, filled with rapids and dangerous rocks... I went pale.
Saki looked down at the floor. "I couldn't remember anything after that. I was washed up on the shores of the ocean, a few miles or so north of here. The only sort of memory I have... is... of flying." Her eyes closed, and for the first time I saw a look of peacefulness and contentment pass her features. "It was like a dream."
I tilted her head, gently but forcefully, so she was looking at me. "I always seem to remember somebody there, someone always there, a sort of ...presence watching over me." Saki said, her eyes now open. To my surprise I felt like I could see some sort of dragon in her eyes, cast by some sort of shadow. But it was only a glimpse, and then it was gone. I was sure I had seen it. Otherwise I needed some serious medication.
Of course, it wouldn't do to accidentally start seeing things during a live ammo exercise and then start firing randomly around the academy. It just wouldn't be safe.
...Screw safe. I was skipping class, I was talking with my former (and also formerly dead) best friend, and exploring forbidden ruins with a delinquent like Josh. Which part of that was safe?
Speaking of Josh... out of the corner of my eye I saw him idly brooding by himself. I had told him to leave us alone for some 'girl talk' as I had put it, and he had not been happy.
"...So, what were you saying?" I said to Saki, feigning attention.
She looked at me with an accusing glare that quickly melted into a smile. "You haven't changed a bit, Chelle."
More than you might think... I thought to myself. Hopefully Saki didn't remember me fighting her as a half-cat, half-human freak that threw around bolts of blue energy and could control the wind. "I like to think so." I lied.
Saki continued with her story, staring moodily into the floor once more. "I... I found my way here. I thought I was dead. In fact, I was. Nothing more than a lost spirit, alone in the world." Pain lanced through her voice, and I hugged her tighter. "I found this room, the Well of Souls. The spirits did not take kindly to another spirit entering their home. They dragged me into the well and left me."
"I have been there for what seems like eternity. Never eating, never sleeping, hoping for the day when I would find release, a final death, and peace for myself." Saki stared me in the face as she said this. "And you come here. For what? To save me? You don't even know I exist." Her voice was full of bitterness. "You should have stayed away. I would have killed you then, there in the Well of Souls... I'm a danger to you... I can't let myself hurt you any more."
I shook my head. "Saki... you're my best friend. Heck, you were like a sister to me. I care for you. I nearly killed myself when you did as I couldn't bear to think of life without you. And now you're back." I spoke with conviction, hoping to reach her in some way. "I can't let you go again. I want you as a friend, Saki, no matter how much it hurts."
She looked at me for a brief second before a new light flashed into her eyes. "...You want me as a friend?"
I laughed, although my own eyes felt hot around the edges. "Yes, Saki. In fact, I never stopped having you as a friend."
She hugged me back this time, facing me, tight, in a death grip. "Fight to the end." She said, muttering the first part of a childhood mantra we had kept all through growing up.
"Give nothing back." I whispered in reply. "Friends forever."
We were both silent for a while, just happy in each other's company. I had found my sister through a long path filled with trial and hardship, and there was no way in hell I was ever giving her up again.
Then Josh poked me in the shoulder. "Um... Chelle?"
"What?" I growled irritably as the moment was broken. Getting to my feet and helping Saki up, I checked my kodachi, which was in position, although I really didn't feel up to another fight. Saki's eyes shone with the will to survive once more and twin daggers appeared in her hands, her spinning them expertly. "Do you have a problem?"
...Then I heard it.
THUMP.
"Noises in the night?" Josh quipped, drawing his pistol and letting the slide of the gun lock on the first bullet already in the chamber. I shivered, although after the Well of Souls experience, I felt ready for anything.
THUMP.
Saki raised an eyebrow. "It's coming from that chest in the corner."
Josh shook his head. "You don't say." He gestured at the chest, which jumped up seemingly all by itself and dropped back on the floor again, creating the noise which we had all heard.
THUMP.
I scrabbled for the lump of fallen sylphstone, even though there was no need for light - heck, the walls were made out of the stuff. Light wasn't a necessity here.
THUMP.
Josh grinned. "Do you think I should ask it to come out with it's hands up?" I palmed my face at the awful pun, but appreciated it as a feeble attempt to lighten the tense atmosphere. Saki was on edge, one dagger cocked back in her right hand in the 'throw' position, the other in a low guard in her left.
THUMP.
The sylphstone flared brightly as I touched it, casting green shades of light all over the room. I blinked a little at the brightness. "On three." I muttered, loud enough so that the other two could hear. "One... two..."
It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. "...THREE!" Josh shot the rusted padlock off the chest and yanked the lid up...
Saki and I both gave out small screams as a small furry white blur burst out of the chest like a living bomb on Speed and clamped onto Josh's face. Josh, the dummy he is, still had the gun's safety catch off. I ducked as Josh stumbled around blindly and the gun he held went off, a bullet slamming itself deep into the sylphstone behind me.
"GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!" Josh wailed in terror, his yells of fright (and pain?) dwarfing even the echoes of the gunshot.
I saw Saki disarm Josh via a quick twist of his arm and fling the gun away. She then proceeded to try and pull the ...uh... thing off his face. I say 'thing' because I had no idea what the thing was. And I say 'try' because Saki couldn't get the quivering ball of fur off Josh's face.
Josh passed out around this time and lay on the floor, in complete and total shock. Thankfully.
I joined Saki in trying to yank the little animal off Josh's face. I was glad that Josh was unconscious, as if he wasn't, he would probably be cursing very badly right now. Either that or screaming bloody murder.
I gave an especially hard tug, and the animal's claws dug gashes into Josh's face.
...Make that screaming bloody murder with both hands on his face trying to coax the thing off his face with dog biscuits.
Finally we managed to get it loose. It scrabbled desperately for whatever foothold it could get, however, with the end result being Josh having dozens of tiny scratches on his face, some deeper than others.
Thank GODS ABOVE he was unconscious.
I held the little animal up by the scruff of the neck and inspected it at eye level. "What are you...?"
It had a small horn on it's forehead. It looked a lot like a little white dog with rabbit ears and a rat's tail. It also looked half-starved. Big, beady eyes looked at me imploringly.
It was actually quite cute.
The fur ball was also wearing what appeared to be... rags?
I very nearly dropped the thing when it spoke. In comprehensible human language, no less. "Get away from me, haku!" It was also in a squeaky little voice that sounded like a kindergartener that had been sucking all the helium out of his balloons since he was a year old.
Somehow, a description I remembered from my childhood fit this thing. Saki beat me to it, however. "You're... a niero!"
It started idly chewing on it's tail. It was horribly distracting. "Well, duh, haku."
"But... you're not real!" I blurted out. "You're what my grandma used to tell me about in fairy tales!" Saki nodded, she too remembered the stories about the Realms of Chance. Of might and magic, of worlds beyond our own.
The niero paused for a second to consider this. I had a feeling he was faking it.
"...Wel'..." He said in heavily accented Basic. "...Y're crazy, haku." He said this with such seriousness that Saki burst out laughing. "I'm real, see, an' so are all th' laga, th' tarksa, an' the lousy nekos."
Well well well. Did that... um... niero just mention lagas, tarksas, and nekos?
I remember my grandma telling me about all three, the laga being dragon-warriors that have incredible power and elemental abilities, the tarksa, griffons, wisest of all the land, and the aforementioned 'lousy' nekos - cat people with tails and keen senses, as well as an innate gift for causing mischief and trouble.
Of course, there were also the nieroes, little animal-folk that were gifted with a high magical affinity, and also a high knowledge of metallurgy that was greater than anything us humans had come up with.
There is also a minor detail - these things DON'T EXIST. They are nothing more than a fairy tale concocted to surprise and entertain two young girls and keep them in bed for some amount of time after the lights had been turned out.
But in front of my very eyes stood a niero.
"Um, Saki... I think I know what this niero is on about." My eyes flashing the 'play along' symbol at her and hoping she understood, I continued. "So if you exist... uh..."
"Rad." He (it?) supplied. "Looks like ye ain't so crazy after all, haku."
I breathed deeply. I was talking to a NIERO! "Okay, Rad, if you exist... then all these laga and tarksa and stuff... they exist too?"
Rad nodded cheerfully. "Yup, haku."
Employing Smooth Talking Tactic #253 I hoped my negotiation skills were good enough. "Well, do you know where they are?" Nonononononono... he wasn't going to take it, that was waaaay too lame...
"Sure do, haku. Not sure 'bout th' 'xact location, but they live in sep'rate tuwns." My eyes nearly bugged out of my head. Maybe Josh had a point to all the talking and dodging he did. It would also explain why he got such a high mark on his exam last month without actually knowing a single thing that was on the paper.
I smiled, hardly daring to believe it had worked. "Uh... okay, do you have a map or anything to point them out?"
"Ah ate my map, haku."
"Oh, okay, do you have any paper on you or anything?"
"...Ah ate that too, haku."
I face-palmed and pulled the Academy Guidebook from my pack. Sure enough, there was a map of the whole of Koneale, and the unexplored continent that lay beyond. "Thanks for all this." I said to the niero. "I'll promise to keep everything a secret, because I've been wanting to know if these fairy tales existed ever since I was a little kid. Isn't that right, Saki?" I grinned like a madwoman.
"Sure, I've been wanting to know since I was little and before I was dead." Saki said dryly. "But I've got a question, Rad."
"Ask away, haku." The niero was eyeing my pack hungrily. Was he hoping for some food or something?
Saki sheathed both her daggers. "Why were you in that trunk?"
"Ah was a'frightened cuz' a monster was chasin meh, haku. Ah ran inta this room an found ah could fit inta th' chest. So ah fit meself there an' shut meself in, an' what'ya get? A stucked lil' niero. So ah was stuck in there a few weeks cuz ah was so weak. Ah had to eat all o' me food, includin' me sack and some o' me clothes, haku!"
Trying not to burst out laughing at this tiny creature speaking in something that vaguely resembled an Irish version of Basic, I nodded. "No need for that now. I dealt with the monster in the other room."
"I'm sorry that this happened to you." Saki said, a soft spot for animals showing through. She did shoot me a look that said 'Monster? Tell me later,' though. "Say, do you want to join us?"
I felt bad for the poor thing. Personally, I would starve to death if I was stuck in that tiny chest myself with no space to move for a few days!
"Ah would like ta, but ah can't, haku. I need ta go see my family. They'll be w'rried sick! And fer gettin' me out o' that 'orrible chest ah give ya this, haku." He handed me a small gold pendant shaped like a tear that glistened in the green light projected from the walls of sylphstone.
I focused both eyes on it. "What is it?"
"An Angel Pendant." He said with no small amount of pride. "Took me a long time ta fin' this. It revives unconsciousness 'n battle! It's a one-use-only, haku. Well, ah oughta' get goin'. See ya both... ahh..."
Noticing the similar deja-vu name problem, I supplied the answer. "I'm Chelle, and she's Saki." I pointed at my friend, who was looking at the pendant with intense interest.
The niero 'haku'ed' cutely. "Okay, Chell' an' Saki, haku!" With a wave of his paw, he was off, jogging to the door. I called after him.
"Hey, Rad, where do you live?" I didn't expect an answer from the starved animal, but I did get one.
"Oh, ah live in a forest south of Rahazia."
Oh, thank you very much. That was REAL helpful, as neither Saki or I had any idea to where Rahazia was. "Where is that again?"
The niero looked sorta annoyed. "Haku! It's a place far away from Koneale, haku! It's on the Phoenix continent!"
Sensing his impatience Saki yelled after his retreating back. "Okay! We'll come find you soon!" We both waved at him as he disappeared from view.
I looked at Saki. I looked at the pendant.
Both our hands clutched for it at the same time. "It's mine!" I said indignantly.
"Fight you for it." Saki said. "Rock paper scissors?
I grinned. That was the Saki I knew. "One, two, three... tie!"
Another tie.
And yet another tie.
And another.
Are we having fun yet?
Oh, guess what the next result was. A tie, yep.
And another ti- HEY! Saki beat me. Hmmph. That's what I get for not paying attention. And speaking of attention...
Josh got up. "What did I miss?"
Saki and I both stared bug eyed at Josh's face. When he didn't get an instant reply he paused. "Is something wrong?"
I snickered wildly. Saki wasn't even bothering to hide her mirth, doing a full-out belly laugh. "Go to the pool and take a look at yourself." A few seconds paused as Josh drew over the side of the Well of Souls, peering into the reflective surface and seeing himself.
Let us kindly draw the curtain of charity on that scene...
"AAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH! MY FACE!"
Oh, and cut audio, too.