Hear me!
Countless bodies lay strewn upon the path
accursed sea brought to heel
Gods, demons and Kings defied.
All my work.
Venerable treasures sacrificed
great powers mastered.
My magic, might and skill
all peerless, yet...
Why is there yet more Path to tread?
...Ashem?... Anyone?
Lost Prayers.
-Arraba, The First Pilgrim.
A train runs slowly along a track. Sunlight shines through the windows illuminating a girl, who has a glowing ring with a cross running through it over her head, in a deplorable condition. A bullet hole mars her otherwise pristine white uniform, blood running down from the wound, sullying it further. Despite her injuries her gaze remains fixed on the cabin door, awaiting a very special person to show themselves. Tired eyes shut momentarily before blearily opening again.
Waiting.…
...
...
Waiting still.
It's taking longer than she anticipated. She breathes shallowly, where is he?…
A hollow laugh echoes throughout the train cabin. Of course. With everything that has happened, her luck must be in the dirt. What a miserable state of affairs. She may just succumb before she ever discloses the situation to him. Before she even gets toseehim.…Her mind filled with cynicism. Mind filled with regrets. She can't even be given this final reprieve.
'Why?' She thinks. 'How had this all gone so wrong? Ho-'
The hiss of a flame is audible from outside of the train cabin before the door into the train cabin bursts open by a figure being sent flying through it. The girl's eyes shoot wide open at the sound, but she doesn't even catch a glimpse of the figure before they crash into the door on the other side of the cabin, causing the door to buckle and groan from the intense force, the figure bounces off the door and onto the floor in a heap. A metal stick with three pale violet orbs attached to it via rings flies away from him and clatters on the floor multiple times before finding itself at the feet of the girl with a strange ringing noise.
A groan escapes from the figure as they struggle to peel themselves from the ground with trembling hands, a horrid cracking noise echos throughout the train cabin as their back gives out and they collapse to the floor. They spasm and twitch on the floor for a few moments before muttering incoherent words, just barely hanging on to consciousness
"Naqwe… ah…" They breathe with great difficulty. "Na.. Naqui Al Ashem." They pray.
A pale blue light comes to life at the center of the figure's back before washing over the rest of his body, the figure ceasing movement as they pray once again.
"Naqui Al Ashem."
The same pale blue light washes over his body. He gets his arms underneath him and smoothly lifts himself up and to his feet.
The girl looks at the scene in complete bafflement.
Everything about what has happened in the last fifteen seconds is quite literally the last thing she expected to happen. Her injuries and pre-planned monologue are faint in her mind now, she looks down at the stick that landed at her feet. It's a long brown metal stick with a hole cut out at the top. A ring runs through the hole with another ring at the end of that one. The second ring has three large pale purple orbs at the end of it. They're slightly smaller than a basketball and glow a dim purple light.
It's… not like anything she's ever seen before. The speed which the train is moving at causes the stick to shift slightly which moves the orbs. They hit each other and a hollow ringing sound echoed from it. It's bizarre to say the least.
A hand grips the shaft of the stick, lifting it. The girl follows the movement and sees the person standing over her with his eyebrow raised in a questioning manner.
"You don't have a method to heal yourself? You look like you'd succumb from that wound given enough time." He clicks his tongue before sighing. "Look, I can try something, but I can't guarantee it'll work." He closes his eyes before crouching and placing his hand on the wound.
"…sure… go for it." The girl doesn't have the energy to rebuff him.
"Naqui Al Ashem." he prays once more.
The same pale blue light comes to life at the connection between his hand and her wound, yet it doesn't spread beyond it. The wound loses the dull throb of pain that it had and instead, it feels as though there's no wound at all.
Of course, it's not that simple. The wound quits bleeding but it's still there.
"Unfortunate. Ashem's magic loses much of its effectiveness on a non-believer" He states as he brings his hand back to his side.
"Ashem's… magic?" She questions.
"Yes. I personally don't have a method of healing, but my first God does. It's far more effective on me and other believers."
"…" She takes a few seconds to think about that.
The utter bombshell.
Magic? Just straight-up magic? Occultism is something that the girl is somewhat familiar with and several tenets of it do have a basis in 'magic' but… not anything as overt as this. These things required rituals and other such preparations. Often their effects are more ''energy and vibes' based. Things that don't have a physical effect but rather a psychological one.
He just muttered some words and her wound was healed. What?
"…you alright? That should keep you from dying but I understand if you aren't feeling good. I need to curry more favor to use that prayer again so that's all the healing you're getting. At least for right now."
"Yeah. Um… who.. are you? I was expecting someone else." She says.
"My name is Aksu. If you want a title then I am Aksu the Ill Prophet and acolyte of Ashem, or you can just refer to me as the Pilgrim, it depends on who you ask." He's rambling. "Uh… you can just call me Aksu. You don't look the vizier type, I doubt you'd call me by either of my titles." He stares at her expectantly.
It's only now, from this close and without any crazy revelations, that she notices his… odd look.
His eyes are what catches her attention first. His stare is piercing, brooking little argument, but the two bright sparks of color in either eye prevent her from feeling the pressure.
The iris in both eyes are hazel but the right eye has a 4 pronged cyan star floating around in the sclera whilst his left eye has a fuzzy purple dot seemingly stuck in the iris. Both seem like they would impair vision.
He looks rather young, yet scars and small burn marks litter the brown skin that his clothes don't cover. His face is the outlier there with it being mostly free of damage. He has a sharp jawline and unkempt, short black hair.
The thought of him being rugged and handsome even goes through her mind. It's ultimately a personal preference. Though his body is quite muscular but still lean, perhaps the body of someone who doesn't focus on muscles but is simply very physically active.
He wears a brown sleeveless robe and a brown skirt? That's not even the most bizarre part because the robes and the skirt are made of feathers. Really, really big feathers. It's too big to be any known species.
The oddities continue with the presence of an armguard on his right hand, the hand that holds most of the weight of the stick. It is made of purple scales of an unknown material and glows the same pale purple glow that the orbs at the end of the stick do. Lastly, he has a violet cap on his head that covers most of his short black hair and basic brown sandals.
All in all, an affront to any sense of fashion that has been cultivated over the past century, maybe more than just one century.
This… Aksu. He is ancient and it isn't some sort of cosplay thing. The scars, visible calluses on his hands, odd stick, literal magic and probably the most telling part about him. No halo. Also, that they're a man but, it's the magic and the lack of a halo that sells it for the girl here.
"Aksu. I-" She pauses. Her pre-planned monologue to the Sensei doesn't work in this context anymore. She'll have to improvise here, it's not like any of the past problems have suddenly fixed themselves now that he's here, but she still needs help. She'll just vet this person to see if they can do what she's going to ask of them.
Aksu walks back to a train seat facing the girl. He sits down and props his stick against his shoulder, the pale purple orbs hanging off the stick constantly shifting from the train's speed and making quiet ringing noises.
"There is a city called Kivotos. I was responsible for managing a great deal of its activities and.." Her lip quivers. She gestures down to her uniform. "I failed. The decisions, and the consequences that came, it was all my fault." She states.
Eyebrow furrowed, Aksu seems baffled for a few seconds before a realization hits him, this isn't Achra. This is a different world. There is civilization here and there are cities as well. He's just meeting with a queen of one of their cities, Kivotos, although from how she's speaking and her general look, he thinks she's probably going to ask for his help.
"Forgive me for being bold, but I must ask for your help. You were not who I was expecting but Kivotos needs a Sensei, a teacher to guide them, anyone to help us escape from this twisted fate."
She sounds genuine to Aksu.
'Yet another apocalypse. All my burden to bear, of course, hopefully, this time I'll get to return instead of being stranded… actually.' Aksu stops his thinking to ask a question.
"There's a tower I have to climb in order to save everyone, isn't there." He mutters.
She's confused at his response and Aksu quickly realizes that he said that out loud.
"Sorry, it's just that I've already done something similar to this before." He takes a moment to compose himself. "Of course, I'll help save your city. The past month of my life was spent doing that exact thing but for a different population, I can do that again, especially because of how much I've grown over just that short duration of time."
She's ready to keep talking but Aksu needs a pressing question to be answered first.
"Just tell me who's responsible for the disaster that's befallen your city, and I'll kill them. I traveled the full length of an island and faced down a God the last time. The enemy or distance isn't a problem for me." He asks with no irony or sense of pride. Just like asking for some food at a restaurant. Casual.
"..." The girl looks disturbed at the statement.
He idly looks down at his arms, silently admiring his physique, he intones a quiet prayer.
'Of course.' The girl thinks.'It couldn't be all great.'
The magic and the apparent battle experience he had, were all things that made her mildly confident Aksu could be a Sensei, but of course, he had to be all too willing to kill.
Murder. The act of taking a life is a foreign subject even to the girl let alone the rest of Kivotos. Having a murderer roaming in a position of power is…. Well, honestly it sounds like the powers that be are really punishing her for messing everything up. What a piece of work she's been assigned here.
The whole 'facing down a god' part can wait for later. She doesn't even know how to approach that subject; she'll just stick to the more problematic part.
"Aksu… I didn't say anything about…" She takes a deep breath. "I didn't tell you to kill anything. I need you to save Kivotos, that does not mean you have to kill anything. What... I need you to teach. I need you to be a Sensei for Kivotos. A teacher." She's pleading by the end of the sentence. "Not a killer. Fighting is something you will eventually have to do but… Just don't kill anyone, yeah?"
She hopes. That's all she can really do now, just hope, that she isn't leaving Kivotos with another calamity in the near future.
"...a pacifist? I can't guarantee you anything without having seen this city or its inhabitants myself." He stops talking to crack his knuckles, thoughts of combat against violet distortions and swirling monstrosities racing through his mind. "Why though? I can try but I'm already doing you a service, I just want a reason."
It is asking a lot of him.
'A Pilgrim, not killing? Forsaking his Glory? What prattle. Even the humblest Pilgrim's kill.' He thinks.
"...what?" Nothing more comes out of her lips for seconds. "Because it'd be really hard? I… oh what am I even saying? How has it come to this?" She mutters.
She takes a deep breath before glaring at Aksu.
"You'd have to try to kill anyone in Kivotos. You can incapacitate people with ease if you're strong enough, but killing? You'd have to break this." She points to the ring above her head. "And I guarantee that nobody would be okay with that. We don't kill here, when you incapacitate someone, just leave them on the ground." She pauses to let him digest everything that she has just said.
"If you break someone's halo, understand this." She leans closer to him. "Everyone has a weapon on them. Everyone."
She enunciates every syllable strongly.
"A common enemy would do wonders for those who just can't resist destroying. Nowhere would be safe."
...
...
A few seconds pass without either one saying anything.…."That's fair." He concedes. "That 'halo' though... Mind if I inspect it for myself? Since it's so special." He gets up from his seat and walks close to her. "Figure it's some type of innate racial ability. Just want to see…"
"If it gets you to agree." She's quite tired of arguing in favor of not killing people. What the hell type of place did he come from where it's fine to talk about something like that so trivially?
He leaves his stick propped against his train seat as he brings both hands above the girl's halo. It is a glowing blue circle with a cross running through it. The divine spirits of the Star Path had something very similar, except for them it was a glowing yellow circle that encompassed their body, for this girl it appeared above her head. Maybe it offers the same Protection?
"I'm just going to poke you with the tip of my flail, okay? I need to test something here." He asks.
She nods and he gets his flail, grabbing the orbs in his hand to make sure they don't touch the girl, before simply poking her with almost no force in the shoulder. To his surprise, the halo doesn't break in any way, it just stays glowing, he pulls his flail back and says.
"It's not Protection? Huh. Anything else you could tell me about it?"
"They offer protection from harm and regeneration from any wounds that we might get and they enhance physical strength. They might be more to them than that but it's really hard to get any research done on them. The important part to you is that once someone is unconscious the halo will disappear temporarily." She holds one finger up. "That's the one thing you have to remember during combat, once their halo is gone, leave them be. It's that simple, understand?"
"Okay. I can abide by that. How many people have these halos then?"
"Almost everyone in Kivotos."
"That makes it easy then."
She visibly relaxes once those words are said. Finally, now she can get to the parts that aren't focused on combat.
"I won't spend too much time on the rest of what being Sensei entails. There's a good chance you won't remember any of this conversation anyways and we don't have all da-" A change in the air interrupts her.
She looks around before grimacing.
"Remember with every action, every word, and every display of power that you are in a position of power, okay? We don't have much more time." She tries to say as much as possible before it ends. "Just listen, don't say anything. You're a teacher. People will look up to you as an example, maybe they'll even emulate you, just set a good precedent, yeah?" She snaps her fingers a couple of times to try to jog her mind to think of anything before she sets Aksu upon Kivotos.
The closer the end comes, the worse she's feeling about this, there's so many unanswered questions about this guy but... She's got no other option. All she can do is hope.
"Important events will happen very soon, many of them bad just, I don't know, trust your gut? No.. I hardly even know what'd you do in…"
The robes and skirts collective weight flake off of Aksu's body as if they were never there. The flail's encumbrance goes next as Aksu feels the way he did before getting on this train. Teleportation.
"...how am I going to tell Rinny about any of this? I have to warn her or at least tel-" Is the last thing Aksu hears before he goes.
No more stops, to Kivotos he goes, the Pilgrim of the Eighth embarks on his last great journey.…Kivotos isn't ready for anything that's about to happen. Achra will make its influence known here.