Reason and Faith
Once: he dove down a spire so great, he forgot to even flash his own life before his eyes.
Down, and down, and down, and down he plunged. Thrashing in panic to deny the already determined.
The more he had stressed, the less he controlled.
The more he reached for a face, calling for help, the less of a chance he had to return home.
Splat!
That was that conclusion.
And now?
Maybe in a time; before biting the bullet so many others; I would have gloated with the rightful privileges someone set for incarnation in this fever dream world has by made up standards.
He dove once more.
Over the steeple and into the dunes. Outside the Tower and down to the grunts. Like a hive mind collective, shot with adrenaline, he and a deadman ran down the railing.
If the landing turned into blood, adding a stain over the dust, Subaru wouldn't feel crossed. One way or the other, the ridiculous would be out, and then it was back to the old. Maybe a dream from which he emerged like a ghost.
Swish!
Squelch.
Yet not even grains jumped to their touchdown. And the whip at his waist was strung over the beasts' brow.
Probably, I'd have been more than arrogant. Spoiled with what had to be a life tailor made to fit my delights. Typical light novel setup; heh, wouldn't say no. 'The world's your oyster', but I'd be the ocean!
I'm basically begging for an easy life there. And… alright, maybe not the height of my moments. And. That's exactly why I'd have turned up rotten.
Slash!
Crunch.
For all the thunder he weaved by lenting his body to a wraith, no gore sprayed over them. Subaru felt like a silent bystander to the performance. What he assumed to be the latest and future-istique idea of a virtual sensation - talk of the internet back home. Living through your eyes the life of something beyond you.
And who would blame me? Except everyone, duh! I know. I know and also feel it now. It's no surprise the hand I was dealt was a shit one. Either of the coin flips would have landed me in a long term hell. With power or without.
Definitely, I would have been as miserable as now. Just not for the same reasons…
"Try and follow my motions as you breathe in." Tingled at his senses the new voice of reason. Or as he considered it, the voice of his ally.
He was smooth. A storm in the fields through a body not his true one. He was the pilot and Subaru the aircraft.
But being given just the tiniest of mercies this time around?
Maybe settling with just mild arrogance is way better than anything else I could've seen myself becoming since the start.
"Follow? Follow what? Colour blurs?!" Coming to a stop in the track of his better conscience, Subaru lively exclaimed before feeling himself dragged like a puppet on strings for a theatrical performance.
With an impulsive jab and lent wrist, the beast whip that pointlessly hugged his waist before - instantly cracked open the skull of a monster. Down on its belly the brute flopped, with wafts of sand jutted around.
"It is less about distinguishing shapes." The recently acquainted wraith calmly ushered. "And more about positioning." All the while his impelled actions drove Subaru's novice body to fines a swath of horned bears with bludgeons for paws.
Swish!
Their ursine jaws lined with jagged teeth snapped over their snouts with a visceral snap. Folding over themselves like origami, they yanked ripped out their sockets to slam over the parched ground.
Pitter patter, was the dripping of their thick blood - a century's worth of rain to this cursed place would be dealt by their pulp.
With a hoarse choking from each herbal strapped bear, they fell on their back limp or scurried to die in the dunes.
"I would've said that was excessive." Said Subaru with an outstretched hand, seamlessly retrieving the end of his whip. "Or maybe way too brutal. …but I also doubt we would've gone out quickly if they mauled us."
"We only defended ourselves." Answered the wraith. Or rather thought to answer. For every word was as though internalised by a voice imagined. "And whoever lies inside the Tower." He wrapped in one flourish the whip around his fist. And there, again Subaru's eyes stared like parched with awe.
Stared the boy at his own hand, steeped in alabaster light for skin.
Neat holographic trick. Hah!? What am I thinking? This is so, so, much cooler!
"Right… Right!" Snapped Subaru from the euphoria. Relaxing from the tight feeling gripping his shoulders, the boy craned his neck upward and back. "We're setting off to their rescue. Just like that? No questions, no deals and ready to rumble. You… Will you really help me? Without a say or rule? Some made up test conditions to pass?"
A boy could dream. And Subaru couldn't call himself anything but a daydreaming loser. One that happened to be very young and over his head in these conditions.
With all events considered, he wasn't exactly harsh to think so. Not when everything so far had been set straight as impossible. From sentient floors with challenge run rules; to conjured ghosts working as bouncers; to time limits before the world implodes.
On top of all adding an army of monsters led by psychopathic triplets.
"Our aims align." Stepping out of his frame was the most recent element flipping this nightmare life. They separated like an optic illusion. And so casually Subaru felt offended at how expected he was to keep up the pace. "And even if they had not…" Nearly human in appearance, minus the betraying spectral flair of deceased phantasms, the vision Subaru followed felt almost alive. With a grunt and head nudge, the wraith looked at the Tower. "I'm not heartless."
"Ah!" Dully nodded Subaru, thoughtlessly latching the whip at his belt. "And I trust that because…?" He hesitated. Nearly stumbling on himself, the boy did a one eighty 'admiring' the proof of a power trip he was drugged by. For what felt once being on the dishing end.
"– not because I don't appreciate everything so far!" He quickly lunged to grip the ghost's arm, trying and failing to shake it as thanks. "Uh! I mean, it's already above and beyond my help now, and I appreciate it deeply! …but?"
But.
Here it is, Subaru. The time you screw up all the good done for you because you've got trust issues. But WHO wouldn't?!
I mean – I mean IT! Just look at everything! How am I supposed to go and take it all? It doesn't make enough sense to me! And this might as well be another shit ploy to toy with me.
Subaru took a step back, and hardly seeked the deadman's eyes before him. Not so much out of fear in the presence of a ghost. He was sure he wasn't too different to a degree, but more so –
Why should I take or trust anything? Waking up in this place was the last good thing I ever did. And that's on account of just waking up for the sake of waking up! In rest? It's all been down from there so far. Dying and resetting… magic, monsters and sword fantasies. Normally the godsent I prayed for when I was already screwing up my life home. And now it's the punishment for it.
"Yet?" Without a shadow of offence, or an inkling of any other emotion, his wellmet 'comrade in fate' kindly coaxed him to speak his mind.
Yet, 'how can I trust you'?
Of course, I'm not that much of an idiot this time around to say it outright… Even if all I want to ask anyone is just that, starting today.
Subaru closed an eye and faced away, peeking like a flustered child back at the patient spectre. His weak aura bordered another heaven with reality. An impressionable oil painting; A jaw dropping comic book page; A fitting fantasy.
In short, a 'too-good-to-be-true' package. One too familiar for a change in this desolation to not scare the boy.
It's been one hell then the next, and you popping up out of the blue just to Disney-up my odds seems too convenient. As if I wouldn't want my own personal Heracles to clean this mess! You've gotta be wrong in the head to think otherwise! I'd be totally on board! Yet it's just…
"Yet, why would you do it?"
Ah! What a coward!
Boo! Hwuooo! Off the stage, limpdick!
Cesar, thumbs down! Sick the lions out!
Just kidding, just kidding. … a little.
I really could have said it better. Or could have insinuated the meaning better. Maybe straight up admitted to being afraid to trust a totally new stranger. A dead one too. At double that – one that seemingly gets me and my context at large. Finally ignoring unfair backlash from shadow devils. And all those things summed up = to no bueno! Nah-ah! It spells trouble and I'm so out of my league that it stopped being funny after the last stairway fall.
But loathe as I am to admit too… I wouldn't mind knowing who he is either…
"Why?" Something like a sad smile tugged at his wizened lips and withered cheeks. As with one ghostly arm, the fragment of a man uncertainly gripped his chin in thought. "It's true. How should I even answer?" Perhaps uneasy, for what seemed a first, the phantasm squinted away from the boy, ashamed. "Is there a point now after seeing her free? Besides crawling on all fours to beg forgiveness?" The hand squeezing his chin harshly rubbed over his lips, pulling at himself with doubt, wrinkling his sorry smile. "Is it wrong to expect a second chance this late?"
Unfair.
Subaru's heartstrings pinched at command. Like an adult hearing the magic word form a child too young to grow a conscience, asking for help - so too did his resolve shake at that.
Unfair!
How could you ask me that? Me! Isn't it like a form of extortion?! Ehh, no. No… I know what he means. One way, at least. And maybe that's why it's hard on him too. Would I understand him? Or, should I be the only one to get the gist? Decisions like these aren't what I'd have signed up for if I knew I'd be shifted to this nefarious isekai scam. What don't you get, World?! I'm NOT a moral guy!
"Haah." Exhaling with thirst, Subaru hung and rolled his shoulders. Gulping in his many doubts, he approached who could be his kindred.
But 'neither am I heartless' was it?
Yeah, I imagine that little slip up about 'her' says as much for the self interest part of you. Seems to fit with the whole ghost motif of unfinished business. Ah! Probably shouldn't think like that. Alright, alright, I get it. 'Not heartless'!
The boy looked up at the spirit.
The wraith hung on the silence, expecting his reply.
Where would that [Natsuki Subaru] be if he wasn't gullible enough to bring that party of guys to this Tower? On one hand I wouldn't want to know. And on the other hand, I would've said differently. But, maybe this can be MY chance as Natsuki Subaru. It's not like anyone could understand my message with this curse situation before. Now someone does a little. And I ain't vain enough to blink and ignore this guy's probably had it way worse than me. That's some EXP I can't overlook.
What Subaru could only call a hero from his stories back home, old and modern, happened to seek his acceptance. Today, he was being asked for trust, no! Not that. He was being requested faith.
A sentiment he often chased in this Spire from hell for what felt like days.
And gazing at this sad chap, It made him wonder what it would feel like if it went on for years. The sight before him wasn't any consolation.
"And" Subaru began lightly. His words echoing a whisper than a stouthearted resolution. "That is because you are…?" Tried the boy to naunce his willingness. Now waiting for a name.
It was likely a mirage. Followed soon by a paracusia. Subaru had to imagine it, he reasoned. He had to. Because it didn't make sense for spirits to snort back at his tough and hard thought decisions. He finally put thought into a deal before accepting, and he was close to begging for letting any earned embarrassment slide this time.
"Hah!" The wraith lightly gripped his chin, not in worry now, but in surprise. "That?" His eyes closed, shielding the shred of life beyond life. "I guess it's better to hear it than just read about it." His stride echoed with the compound steps he travelled in life, but to Subaru they sounded like a muffled trek through snow. "First impressions always matter." A faded appeal shun through the visage long forgotten. In life, Subaru imagined him a rugged and aweing man.
Just someone who's help he wasn't against receiving.
Who he was:
Just met a handful of minutes ago and their first impulsive decision was the unspoken agreement to jump in the thick of it. Literally.
Barrel down the hoards of witch beasts outside the Spire's gates. Just to buy the precious time some poor souls inside needed like a breath of air. And now fumbling before storming further in to help with the bishop cleanup.
Running that through their reason now felt embarrassing. The answer was always easy.
"That is because, unlike pages of past fates to only glance at: this time we share a page, made by the author of our world's demise." The wraith puffed himself up with a breath as one does relishing events from a revisited picture album.
Subaru felt himself pulled in by the old fashioned charisma. A tug at play this time he couldn't deny participating.
The boy's hand warily moved up. His arm lifted in a trembling attempt at a handshake. He could be regretting this. He was already fearing the decision itself. Nothing made sense. And there was no home in sight. Japan felt far, far, beyond oceans and continents. He suddenly missed the boring physicis and customary morality of his world.
Yet he had to push through and act tough if he ever wanted to live out the nightmare.
"Toska Astrea!"
With confidence announced the wraith. Firmly answering Subaru's fearful leap of faith.
With a responding clap, Toska gripped the boy's wavering hand. And settled his doubtful reach to him with calm.
"..." Stunned, Natsuki lingered.
Perhaps, he wasn't as conceited as he thought the second he received a boon in the world from zero. The gesture was genuinely touching. And it had to be. The boy could not feel a thing from the man's illusionary grip.
"Natsuki Subaru!" He answered with a boast and smile.
"Hmm~ How odd a name. I can't make heads or tails of which I should use to address." Toska quipped with a twinkle in his drowsy eyes and an easy smile, too human to feel deathly cold. "Yet either works to holler when pulling your team outside Augria!"
The boy's eyes dilated and sparked with enthusiasm again before the harrowing burdens tainted his first time expectations. He might come to reconsider himself. But that was neither here nor there now.
It all started on the right foot with this deal. One he felt confident about. For once, things felt like a fantasy.
One he looked forward to exploring.