Phantasm 1.1 – Saber, Crimson Beyond a Dream
Have you ever felt that one feeling? The one that appears whenever you meet someone and know that he or she is "special" in some sort of way? I'm not speaking about infatuation or anything here, I'm rather referring to these individuals that can draw your attention and fascination just by being there.
For example, Yukari: The very first moment I saw her, every single bit of my being froze. Her inhuman, angelic beauty; her purple irises, so deep that they resembled an endless abyss; and last, but not least, the transcendental aura that surrounded her, the proof that she was an existence beyond definition.
I couldn't get her out of my head after our meeting, It was an impossible task. The afterimage of her was so deeply burned into my mind that I couldn't cast her out of it anymore - just by being, she had left an enduring mark on my life.
Though, the Youkai of Boundaries wasn't the only one to have done so. She was one person on a list of many.
Speaking of which, that list had just grown larger.
The blonde girl that stood before me, she had captivated me at the very first sight.
What was she? Who was she? Why was she here?
What had happened to me? Where were we?
I wanted to ask all this to her as she sat there before me. Question after question piled up in my mind, each one struggling to be the first that I would utter.
I figured though that that some of these, I could answer myself.
The first thing I did was pretty natural, considering that I had just seen a blade stick out from my chest. I looked down to check on it, wondering if I still happened to be a bloody mess.
There was a mess alright, however not the type of mess that I had expected.
I expected stitches, bandages, or any other sign of first aid, but there was nothing as such. My clothes were stained with blood, yes, but the hole that should have been in my chest had totally disappeared; there wasn't a single scar left to testify of the event - behind my torn shirt, the skin was without a dent, utterly unscathed.
I was doubtful. I had to bring my hands to my chest to feel the reality of this vision.
My palm quickly began to register the rhythmic pulses coming from within - the final confirmation that my heart was still there - still working.
"I'm alive," I mumbled, most relieved.
But... did I survive?Why is my heart still beating when it got run through like a teriyaki brochette?
I had little time to enjoy the moment as these other questions began to nag me.
There was no way for a human being to have survived such a wound, even with emergency treatment. I understood that something was wrong, out of place.
I began having second thoughts and repeatedly pressed onto where my wound should've been, verifying that there wasn't some sort of trickery or whatsoever.
"I wouldn't touch your wound with so much carelessness, if I was you," the girl in crimson said.
She stood up, rising from the bed of flowers on which she had been sitting since she greeted me. She reached for my hand, her fingers wrapping themselves around it, soothing as a dove's feathers.
It felt really good, so soothing that before I even knew what was happening, she had already removed my hand off my heart.
The elegance with which she did all this was mesmerizing. Her motion was swift, yet, imbued with incredible gentleness; her movement was large, with an imperious feel- but in the same light, I thought that I could see some traces of modesty from it.
She was a living paradox. That could be seen even with her body. She possessed the height of a fourteen year old child, yet, her form was the one of a fully-grown woman, endowed with fine curves... she looked so mature for one so petite.
Out of all emotions, sadness was the one that gripped me as I watched her. There was something incredibly unfair that I wanted to protest about. It wasn't jealousy that I felt, nor was it reproval.
I wasn't judging her, merely picking up a sensation that had ensnared me the moment she touched me. It whispered to me that she'd had a burden imposed upon her at a very early age, a burden that she never, ever was ready for.
"It may look as your wound has completely healed, but there are things inside that I wasn't able to mend properly. I am after all, no healer by trade," the blonde girl said.
Her olive eyes stared deep into my own eyes for a moment.
"Are you still in shock? I suppose that after having narrowly escaped death, it would be natural to be. Still..."
The blonde girl turned around and took a few steps away from me. She was giving me some space to breathe. Well, to be fair, I had barely breathed at all - I was too busy holding my breath as I looked at her from so close.
"...I have a few questions for you, and I happen to have lost my way around here."
What should I say? I have to stop being flabbergasted!
I didn't know where I was, I didn't who this was, nor did I know what to do. At least, I had the luck of not forgetting who I actually was.
I shook my head and slapped my cheeks. I had to knock off my day-dreaming self - it was unacceptable for me to remain as passive as I was any further - I had to speak up, rather than remain still and stare at her like a dumbfounded mute.
"S-sorry for acting like that. It's just that so many things have happened, and I'm not really sure if I'm dreaming or not."
The girl in crimson hmphed, amused by what I had just told her.
"You are not the only soul to be pondering this."
Her gaze trailed off to the horizon. She began admiring the panorama that we had from atop this hill. The forests, the plains, the rivers, the valleys... all of Gensokyo's nature could be appreciated in a single, resplendent view.
The sea of flowers in which we were spread down to the base of the hills below. Once there, the multicolored nature began turning into various shades of greens. Pines, azaleas, and many other varieties of trees formed forests. As one would look farther, the mass of trees would begin to break, ceding their place either to small elevations, streams, or open plains.
This pattern continued all the way to the center of Gensokyo, where the environment became quite different.
Youkai Mountain stood in the middle of the land, its peak literally piercing the heavens above. Waterfalls sprouted all around its sides, sourced from the pristine, perennial white snows nestled around the summit. To the eyes of the unfamiliar, there were no more distinguishing features after this, since all the rest that was observable on the mountain was shrubbery. Using some familiar landmarks though, one could quickly point out where the Moriya Shrine and the Tengu village were located.
As one's gaze moved on to the east, they could see something a bit different: a valley snaked from south to north, stretching about five kilometers long. The Human Village happened to be on one of the slopes of the said valley, although it was impossible to see it from this angle. An attentive observer though, could at least guess at the presence of human life in that area, if they had an eye sharp enough to notice the rice-fields.
I ended up watching the scenery as well. Standing up, I gazed with her, as if we were both strangers that had just been dumped into an unknown land.
Why? I never knew before that such a place existed. Even though I had seen Gensokyo from the sky countless times before, flying above it, nothing ever had a characteristic, picturesque flair like this.
But..
I have seen this scene before, I began telling myself as I stood amidst the flowers.
I noticed the clustered fields of sunflowers, about a kilometer away from here. The Garden of the Sun was nearby, so it became obvious that I must had come here one a previous occasion, during the incident where ghosts began loitering about Gensokyo in masse.
I wondered. I wondered if the reason everything looked so different, the reason why everything, including Gensokyo, held an unnatural splendor at that instant, was this person standing in front of me.
Speak Reimu, speak! You're making a fool out of yourself!
I wanted to speak. I really wanted. Being a docile little girl wasn't reflective of my identity at all as the miko, or rather, as the shrine maiden of the Hakurei Shrine.
So I tried to speak. I even took a step forward.
But I blundered somewhere, perhaps due to overexerting my injured body. Whatever it was, it caused a strong pain inside my chest. It stung, not to the same degree as when I was stabbed, but still unpleasant.
I let out a small argh, slapping my hands onto my chest. My muscles contracted, and I immediately bent over forwards due to the pain.
"Be still, this will happen if you move too abruptly."
The girl in crimson had moved to my side and helped me support myself. Or was it to my front? I didn't know, since my eyes had squeezed themselves shut due to the pain. All that I felt was the touch of her hands as she held me up. She was strong, too strong. That little figure of hers, these small, delicate hands - she possessed far too much strength for such a form.
I was beginning to doubt the very reality of what I was seeing.
Am I still sleeping?
Is this really all a dream? A phantasm?
Will I wake up any time soon?
The pain receded, slowly. Still, I didn't open my eyes for a moment - I remained hunched forwards as well, not wanting to move.
I wanted to wish one more time that this had all been a dream and that I would wake up soon, though I knew deep inside that that was merely delusion.
Also, I wanted to rest.
But even in the privacy of my mind, no reprieve was granted.
In the darkness, I saw a red sparkle - millions of particles gathering together.
'Is this a vision?' I asked myself why, wondering why I was seeing things when my eyes were closed?
Then, I realized: no, it's just my spiritual sensitivity. You see, being a shrine maiden, I have a naturally heightened perception when it comes to seeing spiritual signatures. That's why, even with my eyes closed, I could "see" what was going on around me.
But this spiritual signature was ridiculous. While the size was about comparable to mine, being comparable to mine in itself was something highly abnormal. No other human I knew of wielded powers of that scale. Heck, even the youkai that I knew of barely matched what I had when it came to raw od, save for the most powerful ones, which at any rate, were on a completely different level altogether.
By the way, if you're wondering what od is, that's not normal's antonym being misspelled, or another fancy Japanese dish of mine. Rather, it's one of the many names for spiritual energy.
Returning to the situation at hand though, these millions of particles, shining with brilliant crimson light, wove together, forming a humanoid shape before me - the girl's figure. Strangely, even her clothes were leaking spiritual energy.
I felt the need to take another good look at that this person that had so many unusual traits, so I opened my eyes...
...do you know of these sudden sights that simply leave you frozen when you see them? These things so shocking that you'd need to bleach your brain to remove that maddening image that got imprinted on it?
I saw such a sight. I had actually seen it before, but had dismissed it as my eyesight simply being fuzzy from blood loss. I could not believe that anyone was so bold, that anyone could dress as such without showing even a single ounce of shame. Not even Yukari, the queen of flamboyant fashion, had clothing that risqué.
What clothing was it, you want to know?
A see-through dress, the girl had a see through-dress transparent to the point that she might as well have had nothing there – I could see all of her bare legs, from the top of her thighs to the knee. The rest below was at least covered by massive metallic greaves... but somehow, I felt that this made the matter even more aggravating. I tried hard not to look at the middle, but that glaring white underwear kept monopolizing my attention amidst that ocean of pink flesh. It was like one large spot of ink in the middle of a paper – one just couldn't ignore that.
She had planned this.
"Y-your panties are showing!" I exclaimed, straightening up and jumping away from her grip. That was close, excessively close for me. I had to get away from her, my self-esteem as a shrine maiden was at risk.
The girl sighed. She showed no sign of shock, simply taking my remark while remaining totally unfazed.
"I'm not showing them, I'm letting you see."
That answer hit me like a wooden club to the head, complete with the big whack sound.
I took a few further steps back, making sure that I wasn't anywhere near this dangerous person when I retorted back.
"What the hell are you talking about!? This is exhibitionism! Don't you have any kind of pride?!"
The girl opened her mouth to answer, but she did not speak. Her slightly angry expression that had just appeared did not last for long either. She faltered and nearly lost control of her balance, but luckily, she managed to steady herself in time to avoid a nasty tumble.
She pressed her hands against her temples. Her face contorted into a pained grimace.
"H-hey, are you alright?!" I asked.
I ran to her and hovered my hands around her shoulders, in case her state worsened and I had to hold her. She let out a disgruntled complaint, but it was in a weird language that I couldn't understand. The word sounded fairly close to something like maledictum.
"I won't argue with you. Know though that questioning your savior's tastes isn't really commendable, especially when she's been given a headache after trying so hard."
I remained silent. Her words were like a bucket of cold water poured over my head.
She's right.
The disappearance of my wound, I had taken it for granted. The one person responsible for curing me was this girl, so it was rather improper of me to spite her.
"I'm sorry. It's just that your tastes are kinda... special."
That was one of the greatest understatements I ever made in my life, but I was trying to be as polite as I could. What else could I have said? "Special" was the only word that came to my head.
The girl removed her hands from her temples and straightened herself.
"Enough of this anyway. I am Saber, a lost traveler, and I wonder if you'd happen to know where we are."
I had not considered it earlier, I was too busy thinking about other things, about all that had occurred as I awoke. But now was when it dawned on me that this girl was even weirder than a youkai. She didn't know where we were even though she'd had all the time to treat me and look around, that and she said that she was a traveler, even though there was only one human village in Gensokyo... was she an outsider? Could she be one of these many people that got accidentally transported across the border?
Also, that is a strange name...
"Well, Saber, this is the Garden of the Sun, or at least somewhere close to it" I answered.
Why did I not ask her if she was an outsider you wonder? Well, I wouldn't be answering her question, and besides, she could be an absent minded person that was lost - some people didn't exactly have the greatest of minds, I had met examples of these type of individuals.
Saber let out a hmmm while slightly tilting her head aside. She looked genuinely confused and genuinely clueless.
Wait. Outside. Border. Yukari.
I recalled the gaps that I saw as I was swallowed into darkness. No, that wasn't darkness – that was another gap of hers as well, a gap of Yukari's. That is why I woke up at a totally different place. Indeed, the Garden of the Sun was nowhere near the shrine. If that disagreeable trickster was behind all this... could it be that the Youkai of Boundaries was also responsible for Saber's arrival in Gensokyo?
No. That's thinking too far ahead. First, I should confirm my initial suspicions.
Saber appeared to be far away in her own world. She was thinking deeply, probably trying to figure out where on earth she had landed.
"Saber," I said, trying to get her attention back, "do you know what Gensokyo is?"
The girl in red shot me a puzzled stare. "Gen...so...kyo?" she repeated after me, syllable after syllable. "I'm afraid that I have no idea of what you're speaking of."
Well, well...
Explaining wasn't my forte. If people were to ask me something like 'why does the sun go down', or 'why does the wind blow', I would simply tell them 'because it does'. I wouldn't go into details like how the Earth revolves around the Sun, and has a rotational axis on which it spins, or how the variationsin pressure and temperature causes air movement -
No. Just no.
Anyways, as you've noticed, I despise explaining.
That's why I, after I told Saber: "Gensokyo is a world that's cut off from the rest of the Earth. Think of it as a pocket dimension where elements of the past are kept relatively intact - we still have youkai, magic and all kinds of supernatural stuff running about. You probably got dumped in here by accident; things like that often happen to random people as they get spirited away to this place." ...I was already worn out. I hoped that she wouldn't ask me to elaborate further.
Note how much effort I put into making up an explanation that'd make as much sense as possible to a novice in esoteric terms. I was wishing that Saber would just go: Yes,but how do we get out of this place?
Imagine my face when I saw Saber's eyes sparkling with curiosity. With her being so short, I couldn't picture anything else in my head other than the image of a child that had just received a new year's gift... or maybe a puppy that had just been given food.
That girl was famished for more information.
"So, you're telling me that this is some sort of bounded field or reality marble that happens to have preserved the Age of Gods? You're telling me that phantasmal beasts and creatures that should have since long vanished from Gaia's surface, still populate this land?!"
She turned back to face the panorama that we had admired just moments ago. Saber then lifted her open hand towards the heavens, as if she was trying to grasp them in her palm.
"Fabulous! I knew that there was a meaning to me gaining a body of flesh and blood, a meaning to the prana-rich atmosphere that surrounds us! The gods must be smiling down on me!"
The wind blew, fluttering her dress elegantly. It was another sudden 180 degrees from her previous image. That image of Saber's, it kept changing: at one time, I thought that I was seeing but a mere child with an over-inflated ego, while at another, everything about this girl looked so dignified, so charismatic.
That was her paradoxical existence was at work, no doubt.
I wondered if that was it madness that I saw in her for a fleeting instant.
Saber swiveled onto the spot to face me.
"You, girl that looks like a shrine maiden, what is thy name?" the one in crimson asked, quite... passionately.
I was at first, rather unsettled that she knew that I was a shrine maiden, seeing that this issue had not been brought up beforehand. Then, I realized that I held a gohei in my hand, and that I was supposed to look like a shrine maiden anyway, due to my clothes.
I wanted to hit myself due to this stupidity, but I thankfully withheld from doing so. Such an act would make myself look even dumber.
"Reimu, Hakurei Reimu," I said, a bit taken aback by her sudden outburst of enthusiasm.
"That is a fine name. I shall call you Shrine Maiden Hakurei-"
"That's too long. Just call me Reimu." I said, quickly cutting her off. If she was going to address me as Shrine Maiden Hakurei every single time, something inside me was going to die, probably my sanity.
"Shrine Maiden Reimu-"
Not again.
"Reimu! Plain Reimu!"
What on earth is so hard about calling someone by their name only?
Saber annoyingly stared at me as if I was some sort of endangered animal. My hands were beginning to itch – I had been stabbed, nearly killed and somewhat brought back from the realm of the dead. It was natural for me to want to grab an ofuda and blow off some of my stress by blasting the closest person with said charm. A spellcard to the face wasn't really dangerous anyways - it'd just hurt a bit...a tiny, tiny bit.
Yeah, totally.
No Reimu, you will show the world that you're not a brute that resolves everything with violence.
My conscience had the better of me. I relaxed my hand and did not rummage through my sleeve to take hold of a "pacifier".
Saber sighed. "Fine then, Shrine Maiden-"
"Are you doing this on pur-"
"Hush! I haven't even finished my sentence yet. I cannot refer to you as Reimu alone, for I much value public etiquette. I shall instead call you shrine maiden."
… my head hurts. What's up with that kind of formality?
I did not bother arguing any further, I figured that it'd be pointless, so I let her call me whatever suited her best. Besides, if I did argue any further, I felt like I was going to lose my temper quickly. That wouldn't be good for my image, as a miko turning aggressive because of a naming convention wouldn't seem very... miko-like, again.
Then, there was also the fact that I had yet to fully recuperate – I'd have trouble fighting a spellcard duel efficiently in this state.
What am I speaking of? I bet she can't even use spellcards. She's an outsider after all.
"Alright, call me whatever you want. But what about you? You've introduced yourself as Saber, but what are you exactly?"
Saber eyed me with a glare that suggested suspicion. "What do you mean?"
I was a bit hesitant to further elaborate my point, but I brushed the hesitance aside, thinking that Saber looked like that simply because naturally, a question like that would make most people uncomfortable. I admit that even I myself would feel pretty offended if someone were to ask me a question like: are you human?
"You don't look like a Youkai, but you don't look human either. I'm just curious to know what you are exactly, since it's my first time seeing a being like you."
Saber paused and reflected onto my words for a brief moment.
"You are very perceptive, as expected of someone that deals with deities and spirits," she said, nodding to herself in approval.
"Why, thank you."
I waited for her to continue, but Saber didn't say anything. Rather, she kept pondering about something only the gods knew about.
"Hello there?" I asked, walking up to her and waving my gohei in front of her eyes. They were closed as she was thinking though, so in the end, that was a somewhat useless move.
As I was trying to figure out what I should do to get her to speak, it came to me that maybe she was just being insecure about revealing her origins. It could be that she was some sort of half-youkai, half-human; people that belonged to that species had all sorts of physiology after all; half-ghosts, half-phantoms, half-beasts, the list went on.
"It's okay, you don't have to-"
"Servant. I am a Servant," the girl in crimson declared suddenly, her eyes shooting wide open.
The common usage for the word servant is when people refer to individuals who are under a master, and to whom the latter's will is absolute. That's what I thought that Saber meant when she spoke to me, that she was someone like Sakuya.
That's why I also believed that she had just avoided my question, that she really didn't want to tell me what species she really belonged to.
So I just let it slip.
"You want to go home, right? Back to your master, to where you came from before you got dropped in here," I asked.
"What is the reason of you inquiring this matter?" she said, sounding somewhat mistrusting.
She suddenly got quite worked up when I mentioned her master... I began wondering if she wasn't wandering nearby the border simply because she had run away from him or her.
"I am from the Hakurei Lineage, those that descend from it inherit the job as caretaker of the border," I told her factually.
"Border? You mean the edges of the bounded field that separate this place from the outside?"
"If you want to put it that way, yes..." Why does she use terms as weird as those? "...that's why it's my job to ferry back anyone that came from the opposite side of the barrier, well, if they don't end up wanting to stay here that is. Do you?"
"Nay. I need to make haste and return to my Master's side," Saber said, her facial expression hinting worry.
I wondered if she feared punishment... but thinking more on the matter, I realized how very weird it was for her to be a servant. Saber didn't look like someone that would serve at all. Rather, she resembled the type of people who typically enjoyed the luxury of having servants. There was her imperious air, her magnetism, her way of speech and her masculine tone: these were most befitting for a master's personality.
That's like some Remilia v.2... so by logic, would her master look like Sakuya? The mental image of the Maid and the Vampire switching roles is just...
I shook my head. It wasn't time to be dreaming about such things.
"Alright then, follow me Saber, the shrine's this way," I told the girl in crimson, signaling her to follow me.
"You're aware that you're going to have take it back, are you? Those that tried to kill you settled down there."
"What do you-"
Hang on, how did she know? I hadn't even mentioned my incident at the shrine to her!
I immediately turned around. "Who told you about what happened to the shrine?!" I asked menacingly, pointing my gohei at her. It was perhaps a bit over the top when I look back at it, but anyway - what she had just mentioned was definitely eyebrow-raising.
Saber didn't even blink an eye at my actions. She just smiled that same smile she gave me when I first saw her as I woke up.
"Do not mistake me for your enemy. I was told of the tragic fate that befell on you, all by the one that brought you here. That person is also the one that requested me to heal you."
"...someone else that brought me-" I began repeating, only to stop in midway.
I realized that I shouldn't even have repeated after her. I already knew who brought me here, I had figured that out moments ago.
Yukari. It could only have been Yukari.
"What did she tell you?"
I had to know what the old hag was scheming again.
"That all the answers I sought were within you."
Saber's stare as she uttered these words... it was so deep that I felt a shiver run down my spine as I saw it.
But I steeled myself and didn't show any of what I felt inside. I decided that this girl here had seen enough of the weak and shaken Hakurei Miko. I was going to revert back to the usual Hakurei Miko that everyone knew – the one that didn't stand idiocy, the one that wouldn't hesitate to riddle your sorry butt with exorcism needles.
I was going to find out what gag Yukari was playing, and I was also going to give a very painful lesson to the one that dared stab me from behind. I wasn't going to kill him, since killing something that can permanently die was against my ethics, but I was going to make damn sure that he remembered the pain.
"If you want to go back, I suppose that you should come with me. Note though that I'll have to clear these idiots that have occupied the shrine first, before being able to send you back" I said.
Saber stroked her chin while appearing rather excited. "I could use some combat to prevent my skills from dulling. I shall help you in your endeavor."
"Whatever, just make sure that you don't get hit when I blast the fool that dared to attack me while I was sleeping!"
I pumped my fist into the air, adrenaline rushing through my veins as I began to consider the various ways available to blow that guy up. I could Fantasy Seal him until he saw so many colors that his vision turned monochrome, I could go slowly wear him down with Demon Sealing Needles... or maybe just the plain old fashioned Hakurei Amulet rain.
I didn't have the time to ponder further though.
My chest once again began complaining, pain clawing away at my heart and lung. I was forced to hunch forwards again like an old granny.
"Ouch..."
Obviously, this ungainly scene amused Saber. She chucked, all before telling me, "don't get over enthusiastic, you might get yourself killed."
I decided to ignore her and not respond, since replying back wouldn't help with calming down the pain at all. Having a painful chest while walking towards the shrine, which was quite a distance from here, was also something I did not want to happen.
Why walking, when you can fly Reimu? That would be what you'd ask, right?
Simple, because while she never told me, I was pretty certain that Saber couldn't fly, seeing that she was an outsider.
Then, the residents of the Scarlet Mansion were able to fly, while still having originated from the outside world, so perhaps that I was wrong there.
I asked the question to Saber, the question that would usually make sense only in Gensokyo.
"Saber, can you fly?"
I've been gifted with the ability to fly for a very long time. The memories of my childhood are very blurred to me, but I am certain that I could already fly at a very early age.
That flight wasn't your generic flight either. While Marisa flies by using magic and Sanae flies by using her powers to create "miracles", I could just fly by thinking of it. There is no spiritual force expanded, not a single effort is needed – I just fly by wanting to fly.
I once asked the one probably responsible for this current ordeal, "why am I like that?"
While I never felt at ease whenever near her due to her scheming nature, the Youkai of Boundaries was still like some surrogate mother of mine, so I turned towards her when it came to things I didn't know. She had always been there, always watching over me and teaching me things that I did not know about.
When I asked her question, she told me that: "it is due to yourOrigin, which is 'flying'."
"What is an origin?" I obviously inquired.
"The affinity of your existence. The fundamental part of what you are," Yukari answered.
I did not know what to make of this at that time.
"Fly?" Saber asked incredulously, "you mean to ask if I can use a levitation spell to move freely about?"
Gods. My head is hurting again... can't she speak using more simple terms?!
"Yes," I said, unable to stop myself from evincing a slight bit of annoyance with a badly concealed grimace.
Saber shook her head with a bit of dejection. It didn't look though that the dejection was because she saw my annoyed expression. Rather, she seemed so engrossed into her reflection that I myself had to have faded away into the background, from what I gathered.
"I am no magus, such means are not available to me," Saber said.
… so we're going to have to walk?
I was already feeling heavy when I thought of the kilometers that we'd have to travel across before even reaching the Human Village, the latter being on the way to the shrine.
However, Saber hadn't finished talking.
"I do have a suitable alternative though - I can loosen the integrity of the prana holding my physical body together. That will allow me to move around freely, like a spirit."
… I'm somewhat becoming used to it, but the jargon this girl is migraine inducing.
While I still had to struggle not to wince from the inside, the knowledge that Saber had some way to keep up with me at least made the day a better one. There would be no three hour voyage back to the Hakurei Shrine.
"Alright, I'll be going. You follow closely behind." I told her, while beginning to float away.
Saber gazed at me as I began rising upwards. I guessed that it must had been the first time for her seeing someone flying like that.
"I am a little envious of you, shrine maiden," she said, an odd expression drawn on her face. I couldn't make out if she was proud, happy or a little bit sad. It was really strange.
There was little time for me to figure out what she was thinking though, as shortly after she uttered these words, something beautiful followed.
Saber's body began to fade away, dissolving into thousand of crimson particles.
Crimson tears. This view I had basically resembled thousands of crimson tears being shed.
"Lead us to your lost sanctuary," Saber's now disembodied voice told me.
The sun shone brightly above us, and the surrounding scenery was of an untold beauty - this resembled so much the cliché background setting that would appear when heroes were about to begin their journey, heading off to live an adventure of untold greatness.
That perception was rather off though. Instead of some adventure, this actually happened to be the beginning of one of the greatest, most traumatizing farces ever to exist.
Phantasm 1.1 - END