Lucky Souls
Chapter 21: That Old Familiar Feeling
"This is wrong, you know it is. How can you justify you living a second longer? You killed people, good people, folks who ain't never done anyone any wrong and who didn't wish ill upon the worst of 'em." A furious tone was the first thing Konata heard when she awoke from her magically induced trance; she struggled to fixate her blurry eyes on the scene and geared into motion when the tension finally overcame her.
She switched to Patricia, corybantic and mumbling to herself like a madwoman, blade angled menacingly at Miyuki, who did nothing but frantically turn to her awakening friend for guidance.
"Patricia…" Konata whispered sleepily, tearing her blade out at turning it on her former ally. "Stop this, please; Miyuki is your friend you know she'd never do the things you accuse her of. Look, we need to find the others; this isn't the time to be at one another's throats. I love a good and dirty girl on girl fight as much as anyone, but this is just stupid and you know it." Konata's reasoning was sound as ignorant to the deeply personal situation as she was, murder was never the answer regardless of the reason, there had to be another way. Even if her morals were arguably flawed in a land of death and destruction, she held them dearly; to do what was right was her way of surviving, of coping with the boundless carnage all around her every waking day.
"You weren't there, Izumi-San." Patricia's anger was all but replaced with a soothing calmness, the blinding fury had passed and presenting it like a trial would be her only hope. "Miyuki killed those people, I saw her do it with my own eyes. We can't let her stay with us, she's dangerous, she knows those crusaders too, the ones that tried to kill us." Without hesitation Konata advanced on the fiery archer, forcefully pushing her backwards with the tip of her blade.
Konata wearily sighed at the hate filled sentiment. "She isn't the one bowing a blade at your throat, Patty-Chan, that's all your doing. We can talk this out like the adults we aren't, or we can sit here and kill each other and let Misakichi and Tsukasa die." The azure knight's words were blunt as usual, but held a heightened aura of maturity to them. Whenever words without sugar coating were required, Konata could easily be the one to announce them, but never in such a grave manner, concerning real issues and life and death problems.
Patty gave off the settling hint of contemplation, a breakthrough if anything, but whatever sense of urgency Konata's words may have planted in her muddied skull, it seemingly made no difference. She didn't go for Miyuki's throat like she might have guessed, instead she seized the moment of agitated silence to book it in the nearest direction she saw fit. Miyuki started after her but was quickly subdued to a halt by the bluenette, who watched as the archer vanished out of sight behind a mess of heaped temples.
"We don't have the time to humor her little chase game, she's tough and in no danger. But Misakichi and Tsukasa are, we need to go." While Konata tried to make her words sound as heartfelt as possible, they came across as undeniably cold. She knew pursuing the confused and frightened Patricia would only turn out ugly for everyone; she needed time to herself to reflect. She had survived six long years traveling the demented reaches of Boletaria, and now that her revenge scheme had presented itself, she knew her search for those that wronged her would need a proper ending.
"Hahaha, well, that was really the only foreseeable ending though, right? He just wasn't man enough for me I guess, and now unfortunately…he probably won't be man enough for any woman ever again." Kuroi's husky breath was laden with the stench of wine as the dense air of laughter and pity has stained the air.
What drew these two combatants clinging to very different ideals to succumb to the prospect of a friendship? Fortunately for the guard captain Yui, their intense battle over the fate of the magician Hiyori ended almost as soon as the bespectacled runaway disappeared, that was when their sense washed over them and abruptly ended the pointless duel. Kuroi was injured, tired, and ached intensely from days of listening to the perverted little Hiyori's childish words; she needed a break, mission or no.
What better way to ease her troubles than to crack open a crucially selective bottle of wine she had stumbled across, and share it with her new friend. The mage was gone, on her own she'd likely fall victim to the numerous dangers the land held, when the boisterous assassin thought about it, her job was in a way already completed.
"You cut off his…?" Yui nervously asked, her important rescue mission suddenly so repressed into the back of her mind she considered the passionate love affairs of a stranger to be more urgent.
"Yeah, his finances. Robbed him and his kin blind of everything that wasn't nailed down in the villa and pinned it on his excessive gambling addiction, did I tell you he was the playboy son of a local duke? You break my heart; I destroy your good name." Kuroi whined girlishly, knocking back another oily taste of the dusty wine with a saddened sniffle, she couldn't tell if the drink was making her so emotional or she truly felt this way, it was an odd feeling to be so vulnerable.
"Wow, you're cold Nanako-Chan. Sometimes I wish I could be more of a bad ass, but I was born with a heart of silver, or gold, no my armor is silver so that makes more sense." Yui sneered with a slurred chuckle, rubbing a heated stain from her glasses as she began to recall herself before her drunken delusion. "Long time ago I lost somebody very important to me, it was beyond my control but I still feel like it's my fault, you know? Ever since this then I've been making it up to myself by protecting people, it's why I became a guardswoman you know?" Yui's sentimentality cut her deeper than she thought; she brushed away the awkwardness her thoughts ushered with an unnerved chuckle. "Sorry, I must be more drunk than I thought, could've sworn I was supposed to be doing something right now…" The captain scratched her addled brain for some scrap of sobriety; her revelation came in the form of a legion of advancing skeletons that gradually surrounded the drunken warriors.
As articulately as she could manage, the inept assassin Kuroi stood sluggishly and brandished a set of shimmering knives inch by inch between her knuckles. Her blurry vision obscured the advancing dead around her, but even in her diminished stance she was aloof, she had to be efficient in any instance regardless of the state of her mind and body. An inhuman curl of her spine twirled the hit woman like a top, flinging the daggers everywhere and puncturing half of the shambling bones into pieces like pincushions.
"I'm drunk like a minor and I can still manage to hold my liquor and my own in battle, pretty impressive eh?" Kuroi's boasting was cut short with the slimy expunge of a splash of vomit, which she quickly wiped from her dripping lip and shrugged complacently, not even the deadliest warriors could be intimidating all the time.
"Who the heck are you kiddin', Sensei?" A rambunctious call sounded out as the duo of drunks were converged upon by the horde, cutting down as many as they could before they were interrupted by the arrival of an unusual looking tanned woman, twirling spear in hand as she cleared the surrounding area of the few remaining skeletons.
"Misao! You're alive! I thought for sure you would've been dead back when we parted ways a few days ago, how'd that whole Dragon God thing go?" Kuroi stumbled out as she struggled to maintain her balance, failing and collapsing onto the ground with an all but necessary giggle.
"Yeah, all sunshine and daisies in that department." Misao muttered as she turned to ensure Tsukasa was safely sitting on the sidelines, groping her injured leg and limping towards the others. "But I couldn't have run into you at a better time, we've got a problem." The slave uttered warningly, knowing that even in the assassin's drunken stupor she would pick up on the magnitude of the problem.
Usually for the two startling issues were far and few in between, and if they arose, it only involved one thing. A certain witch that guided their blades, and her morals, her problems, and the unwinding twine of her web coming undone, such a thing bode terribly for everybody involved.
"The Izumi kid?" Kuroi whispered as she leaned in, finally feeling the clarity of sobriety taking hold of her as she realized the dangers of the situation. Misao nodded firmly in response, anything regarding Konata Izumi was of the upmost importance to their mutual benefactor, and her status was to remain healthy and happy at all times or else.
Kuroi gingerly rubbed her aching eyes, taking another swig of the tasteless, half full bottle of wine at her feet before she eyed the mountains in the distance, the job never got easier it seemed, and the perks just got more diluted and bitter like the drink in her hand. Hubristically assuring herself about her profession, especially in such times, wasn't what she was paid to do.
If anything were to happen to Konata Izumi, it would come crashing down upon her. Her well lived reputation would be dissolved along with everything she had worked so hard for, and she had no intention of letting her dreams fall with the death of some kid. Controversies such as those held no place in her future, not while she drew the strength to hold a blade.
"I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to do it…I didn't really wanna die Tsukasa, please believe me. I was just so scared…scared of losing you, and myself, I was a coward." The dregling Kagami whispered under her heavy sobs as the last furls of her humanity were suffocated in her dying mind. Her saviors offered a worried glance to one another; Carrot was the first to rest a steady hand on the warrior's stained and heaving chest in sympathy.
"What is she talking about?" Carrot wondered, her question more in the vein of thinking out loud, but that didn't stop Hiyori from offering her ignorant two cents on the matter.
"No idea. Could be she's in shock, could be she sees us as somebody else right now. But if I had to stroke a guess, I'd say she thinks she's already dead. Let's aim to prove her wrong, alright?" Hiyori assured as she led her companions to the colossal crack in the wall created from the gluttonous demon's rampage, the caved in scenery led in to a series of tunnels circuiting throughout the catacombs underneath the temples, even deeper this time. "On another note, I had no idea this place was so big. I mean, what are all these underground tunnels for anyway? They're pretty well hidden, and to be honest something tells me fat boy back there was here before the fog set in. Whatever's down here, they meant to protect it well." The secrecy of it all was all but completely unknown to Hiyori, her ties to the mages, her people or no, were very thin. She had never considered herself to be a part of their guilds, their cities, practicing and fine tuning their special gifts to forever change their appearance in the eyes of mankind.
And yet she had seen what they did, the terrible things magicians of every era were responsible for. For every young child brought up to treasure the arcane blood flowing in their veins, there was ten more that abused their gifts for self gain. Mages were known for mass murders across the ages, erecting tyrannical empires, euthanizing entire races of people and instilling as much fear into the populace as they could with their otherworldly powers. And of course, who could forget the world devouring demon the Old One, a hellish creature beset upon the world only because it had been released from its eternal prison by none other than mages.
Hiyori sympathized with her people, she truly did, but they were far beyond any redemption as a whole. They had done too much damage as a clan, across the ages smearing their good name with the blood of the innocent; they could never be fully forgiven for their atrocities of hate and destruction. And yet so many mages still blindly clung to the ideal that one day they would be accepted openly once more, not branded as criminals and sentenced to death merely upon sight. It did the young Hiyori no helpful service that she was an international criminal, and worse off, a mage, both aspects of her life would need to be made completely secret if she could manage it.
However she still maintained the awful habit of using her true identity, and openly practicing magic and sharing its secrets with complete strangers, such as this girl Carrot, and the dregling Kagami. She would be better off abandoning both of them; the idea had not just recently dawned upon her either. But she was a kind soul, far too amicable for even her own salted tastes; she wished she could be more assertive instead of laughably naïve.
Perhaps this is what separated her from the majority of her kind, she mused in a conflicted stance, how she wished to better herself based upon her mistakes. She was far more alike to her foolish brethren who sought redemption than she wished to admit, it showed upon her weary form each day, where she selflessly would set aside her goals in favor of helping a complete stranger. She groaned slightly at the sentiment, but she realized that she would more likely than not assist Carrot in saving this injured woman even if she hadn't tantalized her with the location of the exit down the mountainside.
Piece by piece, scrap by scrap, she would restore her shattered humanity, even if she had to assist every nameless soul in the world with every meaningless task they could ever deign to be important.
Her long awaited redemption would wait though, in favor of saving these poor girls from their untimely deliverance to the hells that awaited them if she were to abandon them. The curious group pressed further into the mysterious cavern, observing the man-made tunnels eminently, examining their spiraling shape and linking it in appearance to a burrowing rodent's work.
Hiyori stepped forward into the opening the circling tunnel presented, her glasses shimmering brightly under the intense aura the lake in front of her presented. Its colorless waters glowed a strange milky white, and seemed to be nothing more than mass amounts of secretion beget from the wandering slugs around the room, of which there were many.
The creatures were colossal by insect standards, measuring at least a meter long from head to tail, and possessed almost no defining characteristics other than their immense size. They were slug like in appearance and shape, covered in sickly enzymes and sporting a pair of lanky stalks with eyes. What set them apart besides their abnormal size however, was how they presented themselves, with a luminescent coating.
The torched meal worms hummed distractingly in the darkness, the only lanterns in the consuming blindness all around, slithering to and fro amongst the walls and coating it in their slime.
Stepping to the edge of the drop, Hiyori realized only now that it was at least fifty or sixty feet down, perhaps even more. The intense radiation from the ooze lake seemed to paint out the picture that it was so much closer, and at that moment she wished it was, because within the fluttering light wrought from the slugs, she saw a stone bridge crafted across the chasm without any rails or manageable space to make a safe crossing.
"You know…" Hiyori began grimly, positioning herself in front of the unnatural bridge with a nervous chuckle. "Falling to your death into a pit of demonic slime is probably the most humane end one could get in Boletaria, if we weren't in a hurry I wouldn't mind getting off this crazy ride we call life right here." The magician's amiable tone shifted darkly with her words, even the barely conscious Kagami was somewhat off put by the bleakness of what she spoke of.
"I'm sorry but…did you just make a joke about suicide? That was in poor taste." Carrot reprimanded, even if she couldn't exactly deny the awful truth, there certainly was a multitude of other extravagantly awful ways to go in Boletaria.
Hiyori breathed deeply through her flaring nostrils for a moment before smirking apologetically. "Oh, death's not so bad. No worries, no responsibility, no pain and sorrow…it's a peaceful instance, even if it's only for a fleeting moment." She explained emptily, glossing the doom from her expression with an unnerving chuckle.
Carrot approached her strangely distant companion cautiously, firmly holding a hand to the girls shoulder in case she did the unthinkable. "You speak of death as if you know it well. Hiyori-Chan, are you alright? If you're feeling uneasy we should rest." While the cleric's suggestion was beguiling rest wasn't a luxury they could afford, not while the grievously injured Kagami was in such a dire state.
Hiyori watched the swaying motion of the torch bugs in the darkness, hoping the pendulous rhythm would soothe her aching mind. Perhaps it was the ludicrous amounts of socializing she had been put through as of late that drew such faint feelings of dread within her. In all the years she had spent accidentally immortalizing herself as a terrorist, or locked away in some dank prison, she had forgotten what true human interaction was like.
Purifying conversations with euphemisms was something uncommon to her; she spoke her mind fully regardless of reaction. In her life long ago as a court magician to several very powerful individuals, Hiyori found that sugar coating things instead of saying them outright would often get her in trouble, apparently she inherited the old tendency as well.
"Eh, well." Hiyori began as she examined a safe means of crossing the chasm. "Wherever I go death is always close behind, let's just say that's given the two of us a lot of time to get to know one another." The unusually forlorn mage explained as she engulfed her hand in a searing flame to light the darkness, which did so albeit poorly.
Carrot decided regrettably that would have to be the abrupt ending of the discussion, regardless of her concern for the wily mage's mental health. Every passing moment Kagami's heinous injuries impacted her failing body more and more, she wouldn't last much longer given the circumstances. And since the nature of the girl's affairs was dangerous, haste was the key.
Hiyori tensely knelt to the stone bridge and waved her flaming hand in its direction, illuminating its presence from the dark and revealing their path. The mage went first as to guide their way, stumbling slightly underneath her bulky robe as it dragged behind her, making sure Carrot and the shielded Kagami were alright before she fixated her vision on the other side of the chasm.
The rustle of the insects buzzing carelessly around them only tore their concentration, but Hiyori kept the group's attention with a negligent wave of her torched palm. Her cadenced movements unfortunately attracted the curious legion of slugs, which sprouted strange feathered wings and feverishly began to circle around the magician's palm, hypnotized by its aura. Swatting the flame at them did nothing, they were drawn by its presence regardless of the dangers, they wished only to be ever closer to it.
Hiyori mumbled heatedly to herself before she feverishly waved her hand at the closest insect, infecting it with the parasitic flame within her grasp. The creature wailed painfully before it bumped into another of its brethren, which in turn caused a chain reaction amongst the monsters, lighting up the pitch black cavern in a matter of seconds due to the intense rumblings of fire.
"Oh crap." Hiyori whispered as one of the torch bugs collapsed onto the bridge behind them, crushing completely through the stone with its immense girth and sending the helpless insect tumbling into the abyss.
The fire that clung to the insect now lathered its flames upon the bridge, feeding upon the strangely flammable enzymes the slugs seemed to secrete and consuming the bridge wholly. Hiyori ushered for Carrot to remain close to her as they speedily closed the gap between themselves and the end of the bridge.
Without warning their plan of escape curved disastrously with the sudden arrival of another bulky bug, smashing its wormy hide upon the stone bridge and creating another lengthy gap. The flames now cornered them from both ends, slowly eating away at the remainder of the bridge and sealing their doom.
Hiyori looked for any means of escape, and noticed a diminutive protrusion jutting from the wall, which circled into a depression that led into the very earth, likely it was hidden hive of the slugs. She couldn't wait for Carrot's approval to make the leap however; instead the mage hurled a howling gust of wind in the girl's direction and accurately catapulted both her and the slumbering Kagami directly onto the sledge of land precisely.
And while she heard the cries of protest exploding from Carrot she paid them no heed, instead clapping her hands swiftly and sending surges of fire from them in ring-like shapes, hoping to destroy every aggressive, bloated slug in the area. The puss that fizzled from their melting bodies ravaged the surrounding air in a sticky clouded mess; only further adding concern to whether or not Hiyori would be able to join her companions on the ledge below alive and well.
Her death was all but confirmed when the crumbling bridge around her was suddenly consumed in flames from every side, her own offensive had been her downfall. Her path to Carrot and Kagami was blocked, and she was surrounded by blazing insects hell bent on causing chaos to mete out some menial revenge tactics.
While Hiyori's fear of death was nonexistent, she knew she couldn't die here and now, not while she had so many things left to accomplish. There was a way out of her predicament, this she knew, but doing so would potentially give away her true identity and possibly send her decade long plans into disarray. Carrot was a well enough woman, and could likely be trusted, but the simple fact that she may possess the information regarding Hiyori's identity was dangerous. There were many more lucrative ways certain individuals could extract information, without consent, without even capturing or torturing said person. Magic and the soul arts certainly were very dangerous tools in this way, the damage they had done to the world was irrevocable, and it would surely continue to ruin the lives of good people every day.
Her rambling decision was cut short by the inane pain she felt bending across her leg as the crackling flames set upon her, she had to make a decision and quickly. And while the idea of using such a distasteful means of escape yet again pained her dearly, and even more so because Carrot's insistent selflessness pushed her into this mess, she knew it was too late to just back out of the ordeal now.
As the ravenous fire wrapped itself around her, Hiyori new she had to do everything she could to preserve it. A twirl of icy tendrils exploded from her body, encasing it within a block of solid ice as the bridge around her slowly succumbed to the insects destruction. However, in a time like this, staying true to oneself, in this case literally, wasn't an option.
Hiyori compared the feeling of losing one's soul to vomiting, the entire body heaves and convulses, the pulse quickens and the throat grows desert dry. She had done it so many times throughout the years and still hadn't gotten used to it, it was an out of body experience the likes of which she couldn't fathom, and still didn't fully understand despite the many years she researched the topic.
What she did know however, is how to go about separating the soul from the body, an art completely lost to the majority of mankind, and yet the creator of untold knowledge and power, including creatures like the Old One. Souls are powered by the life force of a being, living or dead; everything that lived required a soul, even non-sentient life forms like plants. A body could still live without a soul, but in a sense would be mindless like the husks that wandered Boletaria, constantly needing to feed upon the souls of others to maintain a biological balance and keep what little brain activity still functioning.
Hiyori could leave her body unattended for a time, but not long enough to allow it to degrade into a Dregling; she needed to be swift in returning to it once the tasks at hand were completed.
That old familiar feeling of nostalgia washed over her as she closed her eyes, feeling the frigid coffin around her slowly plummet into the endless chasm, hopefully she had made the ice tomb hard enough to not shatter instantly, but it was too late to be certain now. Her mind surged with a dull pain once, twice, and then that was it, she was gone.
"Hiyori-Chan!" Carrot called out in a frightened frustration as she watched the block of ice slicked in flames tumble into the darkness below, she was certain Hiyori was caught in the blast, nobody, not even an expert magician could survive those intense flames, let alone the daunting fall.
"Hey, don't sound so glum Carrot-Chan, I haven't gone very far." A seemingly disembodied voice whispered with a giggle from the blackness. It sounded close, almost as if the mage was right behind her, but upon twirling around Carrot saw that this wasn't the case, in fact she didn't appear to be anywhere.
"Hiyori-Chan…? W-Where are you?" Carrot squeakily asked, holding onto the injured Kagami for some measure of comfort, ignoring her groans of pain at the harsh contact.
"I'm here, with you." The hushed voice spoke once more, only offering more vague interpretations and unanswered questions.
Carrot reached to her slightly stinging forehead with her free hand, attempting to grasp the sense of the situation, somehow within the last few minutes she had accumulated a stunningly robust fever. And while she couldn't exactly put her finger on it, being a mage she was more in tune with the world of spirits and their doings, something definitely felt unnatural about her body at that moment.
"But you fell down into the chasm and…how did you get in me? This all sounds very strange but…I feel like I can sense you Hiyori-Chan." Carrot confusedly worked out, trying her best to make the foolish words somehow sound anything less than outlandish, but the irregularity of them did her conventional questioning no justice.
"Soul arts. This is the technique I'm going to try and use to save Kagami-Chan." The voice spoke through her, composing an aria of frightened yelps at the startling possession. When it happened, she had absolutely no control over her movements, it was as if she was a puppet. "I used the hidden soul arts to transfer my soul into your body for safe keeping, until I can retrieve my own now very out of reach shell." The explanation would have to suffice, Carrot knew very little about the soul arts, just that they were extremely dangerous to meddle in. The soul arts in particular were responsible for the coming end of days, the Old One, a criminal act perpetrated by the illustrious good King Allant. Carrot wondered if this mage Hiyori, mastered enough in the ways of the soul to exchange bodies, had any connection to the mastermind of Boletaria's downfall.
"Your body…?" Carrot questioned as she peaked down the blackened shaft, it was far too deep to see the bottom, the status of her ally's fresh corpse was ambiguous. "Are you sure it's alright?" A squeamish groan of doubt escaped from within Carrot's mind, followed by a nervous chuckling, even Hiyori couldn't be sure if her body would be in tact after such a harsh fall.
"We live in hope." Hiyori sighed, forcing Carrot to rub her head sheepishly with the split control she had over the woman's body. "I really didn't have much time to think this plan through, unfortunately…and I certainly didn't expect a setback of this magnitude." To further her despair, Hiyori realized a most unnerving aspect of her fragile companion at that moment. "Oh god, you can't fight can you? We're dead, you've killed us! Why didn't I listen to my mom and become a pastry chef!" The downtrodden mage wailed through Carrot's much lighter voice, adding an unappealing stiffness that in no way contrasted her usual very gentle tone.
"Now, don't panic!" Carrot assured fretfully, trying to find the bright side of the abysmally hopeless situation. "I mean, yes it's true we clerics have sworn an oath of pacifism, but I've done quite well surviving on my own in Boletaria up until this point…so, is all hope really lost?" Carrot asked to an already fully chagrined magician, who could only express her despair by clenching the cleric's fingers to the bridge of her nose forcefully.
Arguing pointlessly in the darkness wasn't getting them any closer to saving Kagami however, so she gave Carrot a little push to keep moving, still attempting to profess her childish displeasure at her current situation."Yeah, we're dead, but…I've never denied giving something the old college try, eh? Not that I've ever been to college, but I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to making dreams reality. Impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit." Hiyori's mentor-like philosophy sparked a strangely sentimental memory buried deep in Carrot's mind, it had been so long since she had heard the phrase, and yet it resonated within as if she held the principal dear to her heart.
"What did you say?" Carrot asked in a near whisper, instantly kindling Hiyori's budding interest at her strange behavior upon hearing the axiom.
"Uh…" Hiyori only offered a series of mumbles before she cleared her throat, believing clarity to be the issue of the miscommunication. She spoke the words once more, and this time Carrot knew for sure she had heard them before. It had been some time, so much had happened since her sheltered and from a certain point of view, prosperous life, she could scarcely resemble more pointed details like her friends faces, much less the idioms and knowledge she had passed onto her.
Carrot recalled a time when these words passed through her, spoken from another, much older and wiser individual than she. Up until this point, she had completely forgotten those worriless days, a sky not shrouded in a darkened haze, a smile she didn't have to force from uneasiness or callow optimism.
"This is impossible! I don't want to be a cleric anymore." The cleric-in-training, a young and still very naïve Carrot squealed, throwing her practice dummy she had been treating across the room in a tantrum and rubbing away the flowing tears that slid painfully down her puffy cheeks.
Her guide and mentor looked down upon her student with a sigh, brushing the glaring orange hair from the child's eyes and gingerly cupping the girl's face in her large hands, shaking it disappointedly. The child's father explained his daughter was a very reserved child, almost motherly in her ways despite her age, but with such kindness came a startling anger problem, something the girl asserted only to those she cared deeply for.
"Oh come on, you're giving up so easily? Your father asked me personally to take time out of my day to teach you the ways of regenerative magic, I've given you the tools, the proper etiquette, the manner in which you cast the spells...come on kid, I've all but done your test for you, you need to believe in yourself more!" The instructor's pep talk didn't exactly invigorate the young cleric's will to dive back into her training however; in fact it only added heat to her confused anger.
The dejected Carrot stood and wiped a splurge of snot from her leaking face on her silken sleeves, sullying the exquisite garment and topping off her defiance by jutting out her tongue angrily and kicking a nearby tome, effectively destroying the expensive book of arts by sending it into a slosh of nearby mud. She followed it, slowly making her way out of the vineyard of her home and returning to its massive doors, signaling for a butler to unhinge the opening for her to allow entry.
Her guardian stood complacent for a moment before she ushered the girl's attention with a whistle, twiddling the stitched doll, Carrot's favorite, that she had disowned in her hands. Carrot quickly ran to retrieve the precious item and turned back to her house angrily, hiding her blossoming face with a grumble as her teacher chuckled at her behavior.
"You know, impossible is just a word people use to make themselves feel better when they quit." She warned, hoping to incite a breakthrough in the child's mind and change her hasty decision to give up so easily on her training.
Carrot contemplated the words for a moment before she blew a raspberry in her teacher's direction, running to the crimson doors of her home and holding her head to the door before entering.
"That's a stupid thing to say! You're stupid!" She screeched before slamming the colossal doors behind her, leaving the teacher to clean up her mess and conceive a better direction in her student's training that would get her more excited about it.
Carrot fumed as she scaled the impressive staircase of her foyer, harshly examining the blue-blooded architecture, hand-crafted bronze and marbled stairs, artist renderings of family members ravaging the walls with their regal faces and only souring the child's mood. She hated the life of a noble, for the simple fact that everybody that lived outside the walls of their secluded villa seemed to hate her, and anybody that associated themselves with her for one reason or another.
Her mother had passed long ago from a strange illness, and her father was far too busy with work to ever give her even the simplest of affections, and so her life was spent under the guidance of teachers that chose her life for her, butlers that catered to her exclusively and wished only to serve her every whim, and subjects that despised her just because she shared her family's name.
She couldn't bathe herself, clothe herself, sometimes she wondered if she was secretly watched when she slept, it wouldn't be a surprise to her in the slightest. She even had her profession chosen at birth despite her protests, her father insisted it would give her the education and know-how to survive amiably in the real world, and allow her to make an easy life for herself should something ever become of him, which he always seemed paranoid about.
Lately in her ancient homeland, the country had been plagued by an awful war. Aggressive nations were always looking to take the riches the land gave, her father's vast power and wealth among them. He constantly feared he would meet his end before he was able to complete his very secretive research, the contents and purpose of which were vague to his most trusted officials, and even his own daughter.
This didn't stop the needy Carrot from attempting to dissuade her father from his reclusive nature, or to attempt any interaction with him no matter how small and meaningless. Whenever she found herself in a rut she ventured to find her father skulking around her monstrously sized estate, asking guardsmen who probably didn't know their own shoe size, tax officials who hadn't seen him in weeks, and cooks who were ordered to send the meals directly to his study as to not disturb him. The butlers as always however, trailed their young master around the lonesome halls to keep her out of trouble, to stay her from dangerous areas and off-limits sections of her home, which she would always raise a brow at, she never understood why certain places of her own house would be inappropriate for her to tread within.
Giving the foolish servants the slip was always easy when you were so small though, hiding behind a chair or under a table would usually cut the dead weight from her search. And even unbeknownst to them, the girl knew of a place where only her father went, a secretive space of consideration and reflection, where even he, the ruler of an entire nation, would likely be scolded by his underlings for venturing to.
Carrot climbed her way to the highest reaches of her home, ducking past guards and slithering under velvet carpets as if it were a game, singling out the barred door that led to her family castle's roof top, a pathway constructed only for the purpose of maintenance, who would think to look for their ruler in such an odd place?
Apparently not a soul, because upon climbing the overbearing steps to the slippery slant of the tiled roofs, Carrot's father came into view curled into a solemn ball, gazing at the last drops of sunlight that graced the cloudless skies before him.
"Hey dad!" She called out excitedly, balancing herself as she tread across the dangerous slope and plopping down next to her sleepy father, who seemed to shake himself from a deep trance as the child approached.
"Ah…good evening, my child. Shouldn't you be training with the court mages?" He asked sternly, trying to mask the anger in his voice but doing a rather poor job of doing so.
"Yeah, but it's so hard! They try to tell me all this stupid stuff about souls, and life energies and I don't understand a word of it. I'd rather just play like all the other kids; do I really have to do this daddy? I don't very much fun being a cleric." His daughter complained naively, almost causing her father to bring out the discussion about responsibility, but he found himself too enraptured by the child's dismal frown, he couldn't deny his precious daughter in a time of strife.
"I know it may seem difficult, but in time you will understand it's what's best for you. Before your mother passed I ensured her I would raise you to be a strong, kind woman, and the clerical arts will not only teach you to respect such qualities, but ensure you live a life you can be proud of." He began lovingly, cradling an arm around the grumbling child as he gazed out into the darkening sky. "I…won't be around forever, you know." His words caused a stir in the young Carrot, and he sensed her despair and reacted with a soothing rub to the child's no doubt aching back from all the harsh training she had recently undergone.
Carrot sat in silence for a moment before she reciprocated the embrace, burying her face into her father's body and simply reveling in the fact that he was there, within her arms, not losing himself more and more to whatever research had taken control of his life. She didn't want to bring up anything regarding her father's studies though; he was engrossed within them enough without being reminded of them during his down time.
"The instructors keep calling me Carrot! You know, like what mom used to call me when I helped her pick carrots from the garden? She always grabbed my hair, said I looked like a great big carrot. Could you order them to stop, daddy? It's so childish!" Even the child was a bit taken back by her somewhat snobbish attitude, but her father only laughed heartily at the revelation, stroking his daughter's light auburn hair and reminiscing just how like her mother she really was, strikingly kind and yet had a temper greater than even the mightiest of beasts.
"I do recall that now that you mention it, but I believe Carrot suits you, my daughter, in fact just looking at you makes me hungry!" He mock-growled at the sentiment, pretending to push his daughter to the roof aggressively and nibble at her fingers. She hollered and screamed, spouting insults and fighting the urge to laugh, but she gave in eventually. Regardless of how embarrassing the moment was, she relished its silliness, she would take even a bothersome moment such as this with her father, after all, it was always a mystery to her when she might lay eyes upon him again.
The play-fighting ceased over time, and soon the father and his young daughter lay silently taking in the coming darkness, the expansive skyline over the mountain tops littered with stars, a mirror reflection to the boundless fields of flowers far below that plagued the kingdom with their beauty.
Carrot cooed as her eyes fell upon a rather particular star, bright and bluish in appearance, consuming the others around it with its gleaming radiance. Her father soon took notice after a moment of fidgeting from his daughter and he sighed in awe of its beauty.
"The northern star, my child, a guide to those who have lost their way." He explained, his face scrunching curiously when his daughter seemed to disagree with a shaking head.
"No! That's my lucky star! Back when mom was still alive she said that wishing upon stars always makes dreams come true, and so I chose the brightest star in the sky to quadruple my chances!" Carrot childishly explained, awaiting a response from her father before he gave in and accepted her answer, looking into his daughter's deep eyes as he did so.
"And? What did you wish for upon your lucky star, my child?" Her father asked at first at the level of a child's imagination, not taking it entirely seriously until the jubilation of the situation died down, and his daughter's sneer melted into a detached grimace.
"I wished that…you'd stop being so busy, that your dumb research would be done and you could spend time with me and mom again. But then mom died…and you got even busier, I don't think my wish came true." The child's voice cracked and faded with her words, and it was then her father truly began to listen, to notice the pain hidden behind the young eyes, a sorrow he had never seen before in the sunshine that peaked through his cloudy world, his one and only daughter.
"My child I…" He began painfully, not even knowing where to begin after such a comment; it wasn't as if his daughter's words were untrue. He had been cruel, neglectful, and overbearingly cold in the last few passing years since his life collapsed into a downward spiral of constant crisis. The death of his one and only true love his dearest wife, burdening wars that destroyed his resources and consumed his time, and of course, his incredibly important research. While he knew it wouldn't be easy on his daughter, he thought that after time she would come to terms with her new life, it seemed this was not the case, even now she wished only to be by his side in his time of sorrow, to be his shoulder to lean and to cry on when his fatigue got the better of him.
He waited a moment before responding, biting his wrinkly lip and caressing his daughter's face as he placed a tender kiss upon her sweaty forehead.
"My precious child, I regret deeply what I am about to say…but I cannot promise you the two of us will always be together, and I further extend apology when I say my research does take up the majority of my time…but know that it is very important, and I do it only for you. I cannot even begin to say how sorry I am for what I have put you through, but do know this." Her father started, lifting the girl upon his lap and cradling her within his arms, squeezing upon the soft flesh as if she too, would suddenly vanish like his late wife. "I love you more than even I can fathom, and I promise you your wish has not gone to waste. I will try harder, I will spend every waking moment of my time not dedicated to my research holding you in my embrace, placing a smile upon your beautiful face, playing and eating your favorite foods and…oh my child, please forgive me." The father ended his promise with a crushing hug, shielding his daughter from his wet eyes in shame, not wishing for her to see him in such a weakened state.
"D-Dad, cut it out." Carrot protested as she attempted to push her father from her form, only to surrender to its warmth willingly once she knew there was no escaping him at that moment.
"Ayano, my sweetest rose, you keep your dream dear to you, do you hear me? I swear upon your lucky star I will create a world where you can live peacefully, where the two of us can be happy." While the man's wish was vague, that wasn't the part that offset the mood for the child, it was her name, it was almost odd to hear it at that moment. Only her father called her by her true name, most of the servants didn't even have the decency to try and remember it, despite the young lord being their master.
"I hope you do dad, I'd really like that. Do you think…do you think mom would have liked the world you're going to create for us?" Ayano questioned hopefully, beaming when her father returned her guarded grin with one of his own.
"I know she would."
The memories faded from Carrot's mind as she hid her face behind the lime glow of her magically imbued palms, using their hum as her only means of traversing the blackness all around her. Hiyori had continued talking regardless of the mutual interaction, trying to keep Carrot calm and assure her they would not only find help for Kagami, but the exit down the mountainside, which she wasn't exactly sure why anybody sans Hiyori would be ecstatic about.
Carrot pushed herself out of the tight spaced hive and into a more open area, noticing it to be a buried portion of one of the shadowed lands many temples, crushed beneath the weight of an untimely rockslide. Within the mangled stone she noticed another passage, deciding it was her chosen route as the only alternative was a deadly drop down the mountain slopes.
Carrot stopped when a ghoulish sound permeated from the blackened hole, nervously holding her hands together in prayer before she converged upon the caved in door.
"Aha ha ha…uh…you first." Hiyori joked shamelessly from within, begetting a rolling of the eyes from Carrot as she heaved Kagami higher onto her back for leverage before she pushed past the barrier of stone.
"This is going to be dreadful."
Author's Note: Holy crap forgive me for not updating for two weeks, totally not intentional. My dad got me into The Walking Dead and we marathoned that shit together, pretty swag show. Besides that Diablo III came out, and I picked up the Jak and Daxter HD collection, those have taken away my time too. Oddly enough it wasn't at all a lack of inspiration or will to write, as both of those are as strong as ever, I just needed a little break I guess. Thanks for the oddly enough, still pretty high hits and such even though I wasn't updating, new people are flocking to my story every day, just wish more would review. Nitpicking though, keep making me smile you guys, or make me cry, whatever, I'll still love you and still keep updating this crappy story. I've no intention of abandoning it, no worries.