The tea is quite good, which is odd as I'm normally not much for tea. Or coffee for that matter. Definitely a hot chocolate girl. Still, Sarah has always wanted to have a tea party but I'd never really gone for it, so it's the least I could do for her now. Besides, the tea is good.

The rest of my friends sit with us, their own cups either held or on the table in front of them. Ku, Pua, Cait, even Leimomi has joined us looking nervous and cute.

"So he starts giving this speech, about how I would never be allowed to succeed, and how the Light would always stand against me!" We're all laughing at Pua's story about how she ran into a young self taught mage, who had decided that she was a dark witch of some sort, and he was the one destined to defeat her, "So then he starts in on how his friends stood with, him even if they weren't there, and he carried their hopes and dreams with him, and so could not fail!"

I'm holding my sides gasping for air. I'm laughing so hard that I'm sure the only reason I haven't cracked a rib is because of my troll bones. I'm snapped out of my laughter by the sound of a wet cough.

I glance up and find blood dribbling out of the corners of Ku's mouth, bruises and lacerations cover him, but nobody else seems to notice. Pua keeps telling her story, and the others continue laughing and listening. Even Ku still has a smile on his face as he coughs up more blood trying to laugh.

"Pua!" I scream as I frantically try to stop some of the bleeding, but my hands keep passing through him as though he's a ghost.

"Ericka." Pua's calm voice pulls my attention away from her brother as he shudders once, then goes still. I look up at her tears running down my face, "Everything's fine." She smiles at me in a way that's normally comforting, but becomes horrifying as her flesh blackens and cracks exposing a deep red glow, and burns away, "Everything went just how you wanted them to." Her smile never wavers.

I lunge to try and put her out, even though I can't see the flames, but as with Ku my hands just pass through her.

"Pua?" My voice cracks as Pua dies, reduced to ashes with a smile on her face.

"What's wrong, Kitten?" Cait's voice sounds rough but still cheerful, and I'm afraid to look up. Afraid of what I'll see happening to her. For some reason I look anyway. Black veins crawl across her flesh, the rest of her skin having turned a pallid grey.

Something is poisoning her.

Iron, it has to be iron. I just have to get it out of her and she'll be fine.

She has to be fine...

I run to her side, patting her down to find whatever she's been stuck with. Again, to me she might as well have been made of air. She reaches up with a trembling hand giving me the bright smile she has when she's proud of me and pats my cheek, wiping away a few of my tears. "Don't cry, Kitten. It all went just like you wanted." She sounds so happy as her hand drops and she stills.

"I shouldn't have wasted my time on you." I jerk my head around to see Lei glaring at me. Blood runs down her arm from where it looks like something with large jaws and sharp teeth has taken a bite out of her. As I watch, another bite vanishes from her torso. I flinch but she just keeps glaring at me. "We could have been so good together, but you had plans."

"Lei..." I move to try and help her, somehow, but by now I'm not even surprised when I can't touch her. Sliding through her like one of us isn't even there.

"Don't call me that." She snaps at me as more bites are taken out of her, blood gushing from the wounds, "If I'd known this is how your plans would end I'd have avoided you like the plague you are." She hisses, then goes silent as the next bite crunches through her neck.

I scream, sobbing, looking down at my hands covered in blood. The only part of any of them I've been able to touch, "Why can't I help them?"

"Of course you can't help." As much as I try not to, I look up. Sarah sits just where she has the entire time, watching me, calmly drinking her tea. Except she looks older now. Creases line her face, and grey streaks her hair. She gets older and older as I watch, withering away.

"Of course you can't help." Sarah repeats, "You left, just like you planned, remember?"

###

I jerk upright in my bed, tears running down my face, covered in sweat and gasping for air.

It was a nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

I take a deep breath and let it out again shuddering.

Well I'm never sleeping again.

With more effort than it should take, I roll out of bed and drag myself to my feet. My body still hurts, though by now I'm certain that the pain has nothing to do with my body. So I force myself through my morning exercise routine, though I find it harder than it should I have, and not just from the lingering pain. As I reach the point of feeling the workout I find it harder to make myself continue on.

By the time I finish, which takes a good half an hour longer than it normally does, the sun still isn't up. I also still haven't shed the lingering effects of the nightmare. If everything works like I thought it would, once I'm gone I'll never see any of these people again. People that, in spite of myself, I've come to care about.

Maybe I can do something though?

With that lingering thought I head over to my desk and pull my Script Dictionary to me to start designing a new Script. Maybe I'd be able to keep some hope of seeing someone from here again after all.

###

An hour later Pua finds me on the couch in her living room staring blankly at her big screen TV as I idly press the channel change button over and over again. I'd managed to work on my new Script for maybe fifteen minutes before I found I just couldn't any more. It was like when the task grew difficult my mind just... shut down.

After staring at the Dictionary and a blank sheet of paper for another fifteen minutes, I gave up and came down stairs. Unsurprisingly in spite of Pua having what seems like every channel known to man, there's still nothing on. Not that it stops me from looking, I seem capable of at least that much of a task.

"Couldn't sleep?" Pua asks gently sitting on the far side of the couch from me. She's wearing sleep shorts and a tank top, her legs curled under her as she leaned back against the arm rest.

I shake my head, "Nightmares."

"You want to talk about it?"

I pause for a long moment, "I've recently realized that outside of training I don't have much of a life. Or much of a personality." Which of course has nothing to do with my nightmares. I think Pua realizes that as well, but she doesn't call me on it. Which is nice of her.

"So what are you doing about it?" My Kahuna asks mildly.

"I started learning how to surf yesterday?" I offer fighting to keep a blush off my face. Given the way she narrows her eyes at me I don't think I pull it off. I cough once, and keep going before she can start digging into that. The last thing I want to do is set Pua off on Lei and what I'd realized before I went to sleep the night before. I swear my social life is some sort of pet project for her. I don't want to know what she'll do if she thinks she has the opportunity to set me up on a date, "I started thinking about what I used to enjoy doing, from my last life." I stop changing the channel and stare at the screen. There's something on but whatever it is doesn't register, "I remember reading, though nothing specifically sticks out. I remember watching TV..." I refocus on the screen, it's an infomercial, "but aside from the one about this place I can't remember much of any shows I might have watched." Pua says nothing, just watching me, "I don't know what I like any more." I refocus on my companion, "I don't suppose you have a recommendation...?"

I trail off as I get a look at Pua. There's a manic light in her eyes and her grin has become slightly insane, "Oh... I might have one or two..."

In the end I don't leave that couch for the rest of the day. We end up binge watching something that Pua sold to me as a Magical Girl anime. And it is, it even starts off looking like any other Magical Girl show I've ever heard of. Has all the necessary parts, mysterious animal companion handing out powers and wishes, monster of the week, it's cute.

Then it takes a turn towards existential horror on the order of 'Soylent Green is people'.

When I figure this out Pua laughs at me and I beat her with a pillow, then we get on with watching.

The show is good. Though I'm not sure exactly how it's supposed to help me sleep at night.

###

I do manage the night without nightmares. I force myself through my morning routine again and head down stairs.

Ku is waiting for me with a look of determination on his face that makes me want to turn around and go back to bed before it's too late. Unfortunately as good as my senses have become Ku is somehow still more aware of what's going on around him.

"Ericka," He calls just as I'm about to start slowly backing out of the room, "come in here and eat. You're going to need it."

With a groan of resigned suffering, I comply with the order and start in on breakfast. After getting a good start I glance up at where Ku is still waiting for me, "So what are we doing today that necessitates forced nutrition?"

"I spoke to Pua, and she says that there's nothing wrong with your body. Furthermore, that there's nothing you could do physically that will make your condition worse."

"Condition?" I think I know what he's talking about but it's always better to not take chances.

"Your soreness." So, about what I figured, "Given that we're going to start training again this morning. So as soon as you're done eating we'll get out there."

Well damn.

Twenty minutes later I've finished eating, rinsed off my plate, changed into training gear, and at that point, run out of things to stall with. So with obvious reluctance I jog my way out to the field where we practice.

We start out with drills, which are fun and mindless. They get us moving and warmed up. Then a new technique is demonstrated and we drill that a few times, then we get to sparing.

Which is when things go wrong.

I feel pressured the moment we start in a way I haven't experienced before. My blocks all seemed to come at the last moment, and my dodges are always frantic. I can see opportunities to attack, but they would require me to move a lot faster than I have been up until then. I just can't make myself go for them, which is something I've never had a problem with before.

Granted normally I get punished for taking those chances. with a dull sword upside the head or planted in my ribs. Still I took my shots, nobody ever won with pure defense after all. Now though... pattern recognition tells me that trying for those shots will only end in pain, and that they won't succeed anyway, so what's the point?

I twist my hips to put up a block that even I can't call anything but half hearted. The feint I just fell for let Ku plant his sword in my ribs almost without opposition. Come to think of it even when I don't take false openings all I get is pain.

At least it doesn't last long as my troll healing takes care of bruises in moments.

Frustrated, mostly with myself and the way I've been half assing things, I throw caution to the winds and take a shot, trying to capitalize on Ku's recovery from hitting me in the ribs. There's a flash of motion and then I'm on the ground with my skull ringing staring up at the clear blue sky.

Ku's face interposes itself into my view with a frown, "What the hell was that?"

The only answer I can give him is to close my eyes and groan. I don't know what to tell him, I don't even know what's going on in that fight. I can't focus, too busy trying to figure out what's so off with me.

"Right." Ku says with a sigh, "Let's stop there for the day, I think you've had enough, and I need to talk to Pua about something." He helps me haul myself to my feet and we head back towards the Kahuna's house.

A short walk delivers us to the door and I follow Ku inside. He immediately goes looking for his sister. Finding her quickly coming out of the kitchen to see what we're doing. To compound my feeling of failure I don't even require a shower, I hadn't worked hard enough to sweat. So I just drag myself to the closest comfortable seat I can find.

I flop down onto the couch and throw an arm over my face. Through cracked eyes I watch Ku start to say something only to be interrupted by his sister. Moments later they're having a rather intense conversation in what I think is German, while taking frequent furtive glances in my direction.

Clearly they're talking about me.

Just as clearly they don't want to actually tell me anything about what they're saying about me. Which is more than a little frustrating and annoying. After several long minutes Ku looks concerned and heads back in my direction, "Pua's convinced me that pushing training right now won't do you much good. So we'll leave it be for the time being."

He looks very worried, as though he expects me to self immolate or explode or something. When I don't he just nods awkwardly and shuffles off. That was kind of amusing, I'd never seen Ku shuffle before. It's sort of what I imagine he looks like after he's been scolded by his mother when he was little.

I stand with a groan and wander my way out of the house, I don't particularly want to stick around and be subject to their worried looks. It isn't even noon yet, the sun still climbing in the sky. Still, I can already hear the sounds of the village going about its business. Lei is probably down at the beach, already looking after the kids and trying to infect them with her love of surfing. I'm not really in the mood though, too distracted by what has already happened. So instead I just wander thinking about what went wrong that morning.

It isn't that my skills have faded, or that I've somehow lost knowledge or practice. I don't think that I'm less intelligent than I had been. Somehow I just had a harder time doing things.

Even if I could see how to do them.

At some point while I had been lost in my own thoughts I stopped walking. I find myself standing next to the fishpond looking at Vivain's forge. I feel a strange kind of melancholy staring into the shade of the interior. I can see the forge fire, glowing a pale straw color. I can see and hear Vivain working the metal of my artifacts, the ringing of her hammer filling the air.

In between me and her is a long table mostly empty, there's a breastplate sitting out on it though. Made of a metal that shines an off white, it's plain and unadorned and the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Unable to help myself I'm drawn to the protective sheet of metal, my hand rises almost of its own accord towards the breastplate.

Vivan appears from nowhere slapping my hand away from the armor piece.

"Not yet." She tells me sternly, "You'll not touch anything until I'm done and have given them to you." She glares at me and I nod hurriedly. The last thing I want is to accidentally find myself in breach of contract with a fae. If touching them early would violate some term or clause I'd missed in the deal we struck, I'd leave it all the hell alone.

No matter how much I want to just touch it, even once.

Vivain, after examining me intently for a long moment, nods, satisfied by something. "You can come in then. Just sit on your hands."

I'm not inclined to argue, and follow her into her workspace. Strangely the ache that has been with me since the beginning of this, fades slightly inside of the forge. I follow the fae smith's advice though and find an out of the way workbench that doesn't seem to be in use, and sit on it.

And very firmly sit on my hands at the same time.

Vivain turns back to her work, the regular beat of her hammer is almost soothing. The silence fills the space like darkness in a deep cave, the sound of her hammer ringing out like a single flash of light. Those brief moments cutting through the quiet make the silence surrounding them feel all the more oppressive.

Eventually I can't take being quiet with my own thoughts spinning around in my head any longer, "Why do you want Excalibur back?"

It's a dumb question, but one that's been bothering me since she named her price. Vivain acts like the sword was stolen from her, but she gave it away, right?

There's the feeling of a pause in Vivain even though her hammer never falters in its rhythm, "Because the Excalibur is mine." She answers easily.

I frown at this simple yet entirely uninformative answer, "But didn't you give it away? Wouldn't that make it... well not yours anymore?"

Vivain snorts, "It was only a loan."

"What?" It slips out before I can stop myself and I get a rather impressive glare from the smith for my trouble. I shrug slightly embarrassed, "It's not what the stories say."

Vivain continues to glare at me for a long moment before turning back to her work with a sigh, "During one of the wars Arthur fought," I start to ask a question, only to be cut off before I can really get the question properly formed, with the answer and another glare, "I never really paid attention to the specifics." She growls then turns back to her work, "Humans fight wars constantly, keeping track of them is a waste of time. As I was saying during one of the wars that Arthur fought he found something that Caliburn, as powerful as it is, could not fight. Unsurprising really. I forged Caliburn to primarily identify who would be the best ruler for a country. Anything else it does is more of a side effect." I blink.

Was Caliburn even a thing in High School DxD? I don't remember anything about it, but it could easily be in some part of the series that I never saw... And isn't Caliburn just a step along the way of the corruption of the sword's name? It starts out as Caledfwlch or something like that, right?

Then Caliburn.

Then Excalibur.

Vivain glances over her shoulder at me as though daring me to say something. I, wisely in my opinion, elected to keep my confusion and questions to myself.

"So Merlin came to me to ask for something more battle worthy. After some back and forth and payment from the wizard, I agreed to give Arthur Excalibur on the condition that it would be returned to me upon Arthur's death. When Arthur fell at Camlin he ordered one of his knights to throw the sword back into the lake. The knight... Gawain I think, took the sword, but being devout Christian he apparently decided that the church deserved my sword more than I did, no matter what promises had been made. So he lied to his king while Arthur lay dying, saying he'd done as ordered." Vivain pauses then and sighs, gazing into the distance with a winsome little smile, "I'd like to think that Arthur would have seen through his knight's lies, and forced him to do as was promised." She sighs again, her head dropping, "Arthur died before he could though, and Gawain took Excalibur to the church."

Vivain turns back to her forge with a sort of forced determination that to me says that she's done talking. So I quietly take my leave, with one last longing gaze at the breastplate that still sits out. I force myself to keep going though. I've been given plenty to think about.

###

That night at dinner I eat slowly, thinking hard about many things. What's wrong with me, because I'm becoming increasingly certain that something is. My new Script that I can think about just fine, as long as I don't try to put pencil to paper. About...

"A girl came by looking for you today, Ericka." Thea comments to me.

Horror seizes my tattered soul as I look up at Thea, and then with mounting dread turned to look at Pua. The Kahuna has a brilliant smile on her face as she locks eyes with me, and I find myself unable to look away.

"Oh, who was it?" Pua asks innocently, which I know damned well is a lie, without ever looking away from me.

"Leimomi, I think her name was." Thea says, focusing on her plate, having no idea what she's doing to me, "She looks after the village kids sometimes, teaches surfing I think."

"Oh. Does she?" Pua's smile has turned down right evil, "Is she cute?"

Thea ponders for a moment, "I'd say so. Sporty I think is the best word to describe her."

I groan softly. I'm doomed.

Doomed I say.

"Ericka," Here it comes, "you should ask her out. Since you're taking something of a break right now."

"I'm not sure I..."

"If you don't ask that girl out," Pua tells me seriously, "I will do it for you."

Normally I'd have told her to go fuck herself, for trying to dictate what I should do with my nonexistent love life. I just don't have the energy to fight against the force of nature that is Pua though. Especially not while she's arranging something that she thinks is good for me. Just thinking about it leaves me so tired that I can't even work up the energy to be mad about it.

So apparently I have to figure out how to ask a girl out.

I think I'd rather fight some monster that could kill me with a casual swat again.