Floor 27 – Chapter 4 – Remembrance

Not for the first time, Jet found himself fighting a gigantic, monstrous creature that towered well over him, and quite possibly every living thing ever, whilst caught in a desperate fight for survival and to protect others, at a time of day when anyone in their right minds would be fast asleep.

For once though, this fight wasn't one of his own choosing, but rather one forced upon them by a deranged sociopath. All the destruction that now lay around them; the smell of blood in the air and the debris that had once been the homes of families… all of that could be placed squarely at the feet of one man:

Albion.

At first, he'd believed this was purely as a distraction for him to escape when Albion's plan to capture him had failed, but the more he thought about it, the more he doubted that. Albion could've quite easily fled when the scorpion attacked them, but he hadn't – instead, the man had stayed, hiding and taunting them from whatever shadows of the buildings remained standing. Perhaps Rain had been right, and in a straightforward 1v1 duel, he was quite easy to beat… but that wasn't the case when avoiding a 20-foot scorpion tail, rescuing people from the rubble and fighting him all happened to be the objectives to be achieved… simultaneously.

The other thing that Jet had realised was that the man held such a disdain for this place, and its residents – he'd noticed his venom towards Eydis but assumed that had been because she cut his arm off. Such an action did tend to colour a person's view of someone, in his experience…

But that didn't hold up against the people in the village; the people he taunted as they lay trapped under rubble, the people he gleefully danced with… as he threw them towards his pet, and the people who found daggers or needles in their chests as they tried to flee for their lives…

Whatever it was, Jet knew that both creatures had to be stopped…

"Revel in the chaos! Isn't it marvellous!" Albion shouted, as the scorpion's stinger demolished a nearby building and the people in it…

Except, unlike Albion, something felt… off about the scorpion. Almost like it wasn't doing this out of its own volition, that it was lashing out in anger for some unknown reason and the rasping noises it made, well, Jet would admit he was no specialist when it came to arachnids, but those noises didn't sound healthy…

"The hell kind of evolution produces something this big!" Philia shouted, barely evading a piece of rubble sent flying by the scorpion's pincer…

"It doesn't! It was a myth in the nomad tribes; a creature that emerged from the sands to devour villages out of favour with the Pontifex!" Eydis told them, despite the evidence to the contrary; the fact it was currently running amok in the village, and the fact it was now terrifying everyone equally!

"It feels very real to me, Eydis!" Rain called out.

"Eydis, reckon you can do that light trick again? The one you did in the cave?"

"Do you have a plan?"

"More an idea than a plan. That thing's got six eyes, right?"

"The biggest flashbang imaginable!" Philia called out.

"Flashbang?" Asked Koharu, Asuna, Kizmel and Eydis, almost in unison.

"It's like a-shit!" Jet began to explain, before a piece of thatched roof almost wiped him out. "Never mind, you'll see when we use it!"

"That'll blind it, but how do we kill it?" Philia asked.

"One bridge at a time, Ginge!"

"I rather think we will need a bridge to kill that thing…" Kizmel quipped, doing her best to dodge more flying debris. "Jet! Behind you!"

"Hah!" Albion lunged at him, catching him off guard and throwing his shield off to the side. "I am not as weak as I look!"

"You're as arrogant as it though!" Jet retorted, using his free hand to grab onto Albion's tunic. "Rule 1 of fighting… never let your opponent close the gap!" He slammed the pommel of Caeldfwlch into Albion's face, throwing the creep back again.

"Let us make this fair – no weapons, just our bodies."

"Are you asking for a fight, or…" Jet asked cautiously. The man did seem to be obsessed with him, after all…

"Is the Knight too unsure of his own abilities to fight me fairly?" Albion questioned. "I had heard rather impressive things about you, though it appears they were not true at all… a pity. I rather thought you would be a worthy adversary to me…"

"You really do like to hear yourself talk, don't you?"

"I find I make more sense than everyone else." Albion told him nonchalantly.

"I'm guessing you were badly bullied as a kid, weren't you?"

"Ye-That has no relevance!" Albion replied angrily. "Fight me like a man!"

"Alright then. You asked for it…" As Jet got his fists up into a ready stance, and Albion did the same, he watched as an object clobbered the sociopath in the face with a rather sickening crunch; probably the sound of something, be that his nose or skull, breaking…

He turned to face the person who threw the rock, half expecting it to be one of the girls, only to be very surprised by who in fact threw it…

Eydis' little sister, stood there on one crutch, defiantly and with a proud smile on her face.

"Eydis, your sister's kinda amazing!" He shouted back to the battlefield that had once been a village.

"Tell me something I don't know!" Eydis responded.

"She's just brained Albion with a rock at twenty paces." He told her bluntly.

"Atta girl!" Her big sister shouted back, a clear sense of pride in her voice. "Now get her out of there!"

"I can help! People are hurt, and-"

"No chance, Mary. If that thing comes near you…" Eydis, doing her best impression of his own big sister, tried her hardest to make sure her sister was as safe as possible, even if it cost others their lives…

"Sis, would you let people die to protect me?" Mary asked the one question that no sibling wants to be asked – what would you sacrifice to protect them? "I want to help, please let me!"

Eydis clearly hesitated, uncomfortable with either answer. "It's up to Jet."

"Eh?" He asked, taken aback by the answer. "Err, yeah, we could do with all the help we can get right now. Mary, try and help people in the rubble as best you can. I'll make sure Albion is out of the fight."

"Okay!"

There was something dark growing inside of him, he realised as he stood over his fallen opponent. Any sense of mirth had long since gone, and now, Albion was at his mercy…

He spared a glance back at the chaos of the village, at the destroyed huts, the dead villagers and the fires beginning to light the village up and considered something unthinkable to him – executing Albion.

It wasn't a slash that took his life in a fight, no, this would be murder, plain and simple. It wasn't a fight at all, the man was unconscious; he couldn't retaliate even if he'd wanted to…

After a few seconds of soul searching, he strung the man up in a such way that he wouldn't be able to escape any time soon, and shoved some rubble over him just to slow him down if he did. He'd live, but he certainly wasn't going anywhere.

"Albion's secure!" He shouted back to the group as he went to rejoin them. "Any luck with this thing?"

"It's almost like it's trying to… I dunno, hurt itself? It's thrashing about wildly with no concern for itself…"

"Then we take it out of its misery. Eydis, ready that light thingy you did in the cave, Rain, Sanya, Kizmel, Asuna, keep its pincers busy. Koharu, we're going to get on top of it, and stab its cephalothorax."

The girls looked blankly at him, before Rain spoke up. "Err, stab its where?"

"The head looking thing that has its brain and lungs. Should kill it dead." Jet explained.

"I would imagine it is rather difficult to kill something back to life, so yes." Kizmel deadpanned.

"Everyone ready?" He asked, readying his weapons.

"Err, Jet…" Koharu tapped him on the shoulder, as if to tell him he'd missed something – or someone – as a familiar voice came from behind them.

"Perhaps I don't know who I was in a previous life, other than Mito, but I know who I am now – I am an Integrity Knight, Mito Synthesis Six. My duty is to protect the people of the Human Empire, from the corrupt, those that seek to harm others… and whatever the hell that scorpion is."

"Well, glad to have you back onboard Mito. That stunt you pulled in the cave, blinding us… reckon you can do it again, but on the bloody big creepy crawly over there?"

"Release Recollection! Dance in Darkness!" She shouted, as Eydis cast whatever spell or skill it was; "Luminous Element" he vaguely remembered.

"Koharu, ready?"

"Ready!"

The pair dodged an attack from the stinger; the scorpion's six eyes blinded by the very bright lights in front of it as swords clashed with its pincers, as Eydis constantly renewed the light arrows, and as Mito used her scythe to reflect those lights like a mirror, and they were able to rush past its legs, clambering up them and onto its back.

There was something that Jet found disgusting about the creature – that its exoskeleton was almost see-through, as if it was still… young? He thought back to his sister's ramblings on insects – sorry, arachnids, he corrected himself – the translucent appearance meant the shell hadn't solidified yet, so what on Earth, Aincrad or wherever the hell they were gave such a young creature, such a bloody big body! All of that though, was manifested in one way…

"It's a baby…" He realised. "It's lashing out because it literally doesn't know anything else!" Now he felt bad for the creature; it wasn't outright evil, just a child in serious pain. Maybe the square cube rule might have been more of an issue than he'd reckoned – whatever was going on with the creature, he could tell one thing… it was struggling to breathe.

Its own anatomy was struggling to cope with its size and was now failing rapidly. "Wait, maybe we could help it!"

"Ko, I think it's too far gone. Listen to it; that's not a war cry, that's it crying that it can't breathe… I'd like to fight nature here, but I don't think we can." With his eyes closed, and a silent apology for what he was about to do, alongside a promise to make this as quick and painless as he could, he plunged Caeldfwlch into the scorpion's cephalothorax.

With a single cry, the creature fell to the ground without so much as twitching, and the pair hopped off its corpse without a word exchanged in the pitch black.

"Is it dead?"

"Yeah." He said, without so much as a hint of joy in his voice, whilst the darkness around them subsided, leaving just the night sky lit up by the stars...

"We won then?" Eydis asked, looking at the shell of the creature now in front of them. "It looks… oddly peaceful now?"

"Its exoskeleton wasn't fully developed – it was just a baby." He told her, a degree of sadness in his voice. He wasn't the world's greatest fan of creepy crawlies anyway, but whatever had happened to this scorpion, it almost certainly wasn't natural, and if he had to guess, it had the word Albion written all over it.

"If that was the baby, I'd hate to see the adult…" Eydis laughed, though he could tell it was just as half-hearted as the joke.

"Everyone still here?" He asked, looking around.

"Sanya got swiped into a building, so Rain's just gone to dig her out." Philia explained. "Other than that, we're all still here. Just about. What do you mean, "it was just a baby" anyway?"

"My sister was obsessed with bugs when we were growing up – its shell's translucent, so that meant it was still developing. Given it's nearly transparent, I'd say it was very young too."

"So what was that wheezing it was making then?"

"Square-cube law – scale something up massively, and it's size increases by the square, its mass increases by the cube. Basically, it grew too big for its cardiovascular system to work properly…"

"That wheezing was it struggling to breathe then…" Philia grimaced at the thought. It wasn't a pleasant thought, to imagine any living thing being essentially crushed from the inside out, its own body failing to support its continued existence…

"Yup." Jet sighed, before he caught a glimpse of the scorpion beginning to shrink, its body disappearing under the sword once stuck into its cephalothorax... "Wait, look…"

"It's shrinking?"

"I'm going to go have a word with our prisoner. See if he'll reveal how he created a creature that broke the square-cube law…"

"Umm, I think I know how." Mary, having finished digging someone out spoke up. "There's several Sacred Arts that can make things grow a bit – like making crops grow bigger. If you used that on a living creature though…"

"You get a twenty-foot-tall scorpion." Koharu answered, handing Jet his sword back. "You forgot this."

"Thanks." He smiled at her, before turning around to face the village, and he grimaced. Rubble littered the area, groans and cries were punctuated by still crumbling buildings, and whilst the fires had mostly extinguished themselves, the wreckage they left behind hadn't disappeared…

All in all, it wasn't the picturesque little medieval village they'd seen in daylight – it more closely resembled a village after a tornado had ripped through it… "We're not gonna be done by daybreak, are we?"

/-/

As it turned out, they were not done by daybreak.

In fact, by daybreak, they were still pulling bits of huts away from the places they'd wound up.

Of the most baffling things, Philia had to confer to them that chickens were in fact flightless, given three of them had wound up on the tall branches of a nearby tree and seemed fine, clucking away as if they'd flown up there themselves, rather than having been thrown into the sky by the destruction of their pen…

Other than that, it seemed to be exactly what was expected: chaos.

One thing Jet had realised was that none of the villagers had any idea what to do in an emergency, and more ridiculously, that the entire village relied on Eydis to guard them. A single woman, guarding the entire village… that had been one of the most stupid things he'd ever heard.

Of course trouble had found them! Most warehouses didn't hire just one guard, they hired multiple, for the same reason, that being that one person cannot guard a large area effectively! That had been the first time he'd ever seen Kizmel genuinely shocked, as she learned that.

Then there was how the village chief was currently treating her…

"We don't expect trouble to come around!" The old man screamed at Eydis, who seemed deflated. Understandably so, her home was currently in ruins essentially, but this was just unnecessary…

"That was your first failing." Kizmel, having decided she had rather had enough of this ritualistic shaming of Eydis, spoke up. "Your second was not having any kind of communication, whilst your third is as a person."

"And what qualifies you to speak, outsider."

"My name is Kizmel, I am a Pagoda Knight of the Kingdom of Lyusula, with the experience of around three decades experience. I fought on the frontlines of the Elf War, and helped to stop that war alongside the people who stand here now. I have trained warriors of the Queen's Guard, alongside those of many brigades of knights…" Kizmel stated, a tone of authority he'd never heard her use before… "Tell me what experience you have, sir." He could almost feel the sarcasm in the word "sir" there…

The village chief paused, clearly trying to think of a way to save face after being put in his place quite so publicly. "Then-then why didn't you help us!"

"We did. If it hadn't been for us, that scorpion would've obliterated the village, no doubt." Asuna pointed out.

"I would hardly say we escaped unharmed, would you?"

"You won't escape this one unharmed in a minute…" He grumbled under his breath. This wasn't even insanity – this was just utter cowardice on this man's part. He had not bothered to prepare any kind of defences for the village - not even a set of walls, really, for a village known to attract creatures and that relied on one woman for defence – and now he was trying to blame Eydis and themselves for his own failings…

The man was a bloody good politician, he'd give him that much.

"Excuse me, I didn't quite hear that one." The man replied smugly, as if baiting him into clocking the man…

"Jet, don't. He's not worth it." Koharu must have noticed his fists tensing, because she had placed her hand on his.

"Nor are you, bastard child. Certainly not what we pay you…"

"You don't pay me!" Eydis responded angrily. "You just keep me here because you know you would all die if I left!"

"And what do you call the medicine we give that weak girl of yours…" The man smarmed, and he noticed Eydis tense up significantly. That was why she hadn't left, clearly – not just wanting to travel the world, but to get away from here…

"You would play politics with the health of a child; you really are despicable." Sanya told him, and for once, he agreed wholeheartedly with her.

"Judge me all you like-"

"Oh trust me, we are. You're a bastard, and a callous one at that." Jet pointed out, interrupting him. "You don't give two shits about the people you look after, just yourself, because you've not shown concern for anyone else here. You just hid in a cellar and waited for us to dig your scrawny arse out when the building above it got destroyed. At least everyone else dug in to try and help…"

"How dare you accuse me of-"

"What, accuse you of the truth?" He was really in no mood to deal with weasels like this. "Accuse you of letting people die because you were either too arrogant, or too lazy to do your job? Quite frankly, if the people here wanted to hang you from a scaffold, I'd be the first person to hand them the rope. You deserve it…"

"Jet…" There was a genuine concern to Eydis' voice, as if she knew he was about to snap.

"I would listen to the bastard child, if I were you… boy."

"I don't think you understand just how dangerous of a situation you're in right now." He told him, his voice quiet. "You are standing on the edge of a precipice that you can't see, and any move you make could be the one that kills you… but sure, you keep walking towards it." He hadn't noticed, but his natural accent had started to slip back through as he talked.

"Is that meant to be a threat?"

"No. It's a promise." He stated bluntly as he turned around. "Because I have faced down gods and monsters, and do you know what happened to all of them? They died. We killed them. So do the first smart thing you will ever have done… and shut the hell up!" He snapped around and marched back towards the now very frightened elder.

"Y-yes." The chief whimpered.

He snapped back. "What did I just tell you to do?"

"Jet!" Before he could do any more damage or make any more threats, Koharu dragged him off to one side. He'd never really seen her angry like this before, and if he was scary when angry, then she was the equivalent of facing an army single handed… utterly terrifying! "What the hell are you doing!?"

"After all he's done? Christ, Ko, he's been keeping Eydis and Mary hostage for years, why shouldn't I read him the riot act!" He gesticulated angrily. After everything the bastard had done, letting Albion loose again,

"Because what you're doing isn't that." She told him bluntly. "That is you trying to show you have power over him, and that isn't you. I know you're angry, I am too, we all are, but… that isn't you, I know it isn't."

He thought through every possible reaction in his mind, before something emerged in his mind. He'd always wondered where the line was, that line in the sand that told him he was going too far, and right now, the elder wasn't the only one approaching the precipice… he was too. In a bid to calm down, he closed his eyes, trying to mute out everything around him and focus on that image of himself – the noble knight, a mad traveller running across the world, fighting the good fight, stopping tyranny wherever he found it, bringing people together… "You're right. Of course you are."

Despite how sarcastic those words sounded to him, he meant them, and she grabbed hold of his hand tightly. "Let me deal with him. Go and help the villagers please." She offered him a smile, and in return, he nodded.

/-/

As Jet walked over to help a merchant to retrieve what was left of his wares from the charred rubble that had been his hut, Koharu headed back to the unpleasant task that was dealing with the village elder.

"My apologies for that." She took a more diplomatic stance, despite agreeing with Jet that the man deserved to be "read the riot act" as he put it. Shouting at people sometimes worked in getting what they wanted, but more often than not, just talking to people was as easy of a way to get what they needed.

"As you should be. That leader of yours is nothing more than a glorified thug." Koharu bit her tongue, trying not to snap back at him. He had done the exact thing to Jet, jab and jibe at him, and find a weakness in his façade. Get them to snap at him, so he didn't look unreasonable or incompetent, and so he could lay the blame squarely on them…

She hated that the first person that reminded her of was her own father, but she hid that thought well. "I wouldn't phrase it like that. Tensions are high, and-"

"Tensions bought about by you."

"I would watch your words if I were you. Koharu may be willing to ignore your venom, but I am more than happy to make you eat those words…"

"Sanya…" Koharu said, the implication present in her words evidently working in dissuading her friend.

Sanya rolled her eyes and headed off, clearly angry, but not willing to keep on arguing. "I will go assist Jet, I know."

"At this rate, you might actually be doing the job we ask of you, rather than this pointless argument over misplaced blame…"

"Misplaced blame?" Eydis asked, a dark undertone in her voice. "You may feel the blame is misplaced on you, but I assure you the villagers don't."

"Oh, are those fighting words, bastard child?"

"Stop calling her that! She has a name!"

"Oh, I am so sorry… how about leech, or cockroach instead?"

"No, I am fed up with this. You act as if you care for the people here, as if their safety is a priority, right? Let's see how they handle finding out all that stuff about you, shall we? That whilst we fought for our lives, and to keep them as safe as possible, you hid and ordered us to dig you out!"

Murmurings came from the small gatherings of people, now clearly discontent at what was being said. Those murmurings gave way to a bigger gathering of people, and the murmuring became shouting.

Shouting became screaming, and the screaming mob became a baying mob instead…

As the snivelling weasel hid behind them, and the crowd swarmed them in front, Koharu thought to herself about what to do.

"Protect me then! Do your job, stupid children!"

"What part of our job is to protect you? Mine is to protect the village, and the best way to do that, I think is to hand you over to them."

"They'll kill me!"

"Like you tried to kill us? By taking all of our money in taxes, by subjecting us to humiliation for the most minor of things? By leaving our defence to one person?"

"Quiet down out there!" Jet, having appeared from behind, took over with a confidence she recognised… "Much better. Now, he may be a snivelling weasel of a man, more a tunnelling animal than a man, really…"

She watched the man glare at him, though he remained silent. "But, if you want to prove yourselves better than he ever was, give him a fair trial. Let him defend himself, and be judged by a jury of his peers, like civilised people, aye?"

An older man, probably in his mid-40s, with greying brown hair, stepped forward. "Young man, you have seen of the carnage he bought forth. Why defend him?"

"Because he was a coward, but he didn't bring this carnage on you. Nor did Eydis. The only person to blame is the one who released that scorpion, and he has decided to do a runner, despite having had a building dropped on him. I'm not saying he isn't to blame for the other stuff, but that isn't for me to decide. That's why I'm asking you to give him a fair trial. Do that, and we'll hand him over. Can you promise me that?"

"I… think we can do that, yes."

"Good, then he's your problem." Jet smiled before he turned around to face the girls. "I think we should be getting going now though. I think Seven and Silica will be going mad with worry by now…"

"Jet!" Eydis threw him to the side, as a blade passed by her partner's side. Though the blade had passed him harmlessly, the same couldn't be said for Eydis, who, rather than an angry red gash that they would've had, now had a massive slash to her chest, bleeding profusely and uncontrollably…

"Hmm, I must admit that was not as therapeutic as I had hoped. No screaming for mercy, just… self-sacrifice." Albion, looking worse for wear, stood there clutching at a bloodied blade with a disappointed scowl on his face.

"Should've killed you when I had the chance." Jet snarled.

"Yes, you should have." Albion answered, as if to taunt him. "Now, her blood is on your hands, Knight of the Wind, just one of so many who've given so much to protect you. Your parents, your sister, sweet Gabriella… she died in agony too, you know? After all, who knows what black market NerveGears modified by foolhardy idiots would do?" The group looked horrified at that; at what Albion knew about Jet, stuff that he hadn't exactly told anyone but them…

"How do you know me?"

"Oh, believe me, we know all about you all. Your every move, every dark secret you hold against your soul… we can see it, and we laugh in the darkness." Albion mocked, giving his best supervillain monologue. "Still, I suppose this should wait for another day, should it not? Teleport: Rigour Mortis!"

Koharu watched on as Jet attempted to grab at Albion, but failed and almost fell into the mud for his troubles…

Turning her attention back to Eydis, Koharu rushed to try and patch her up. Even giving her a Healing Potion did nothing of note, a sign that Jet's theory might have been right.. "Guys, she's…"

"Hold on, we'll…"

"Don't bother, I'll just be a liability now…" Eydis smiled. "I guess I win though, huh?"

"Win what?" He asked, clearly confused by the random statement.

"That game of trauma. I think dying beats everything else…" Eydis coughed as she tried to laugh. "I'm glad I met you all though, and… please look after Mary for me, eh? Give her a good life, better than I could give her…"

"Don't say that! You'll be with us, won't she?" Rain did her best to hold the compress in place, but the fact that Eydis was slowly drifting out of consciousness told her it wasn't doing much to help keep her alive anymore…

"Rain, I'm sorry, but…"

"I'm gonna miss those adventures, you know? Seeing the world, all the dangers out there…" Eydis mumbled, as her eyes closed for the last time, and she felt her pulse fade away once they did.

"She's gone." Koharu confirmed, trying her hardest to keep the tears down, and from what she could see of Jet, he was in just as bad of a state. "I can't feel a pulse anymore."

"Albion…"

"Jet, that wasn't your fault." Koharu placed her hand on her partner's face. "We'll get him, but for now, we need to focus on the present, right?"

"Yeah." Without thinking, she watched as her partner took off his coat and leant down, using the coat to provide a small amount of respect to Eydis, in lieu of a blanket.

"Travellers, we owe you for saving our village, so please let us take care of her. She was one of our own, after all, and… she did her duty, even if it was thankless…" The group all looked over to the chief, who was now tied up between bits of rubble, to prevent him making any more trouble…

"Indeed, I promise you she didn't die in vain. If Albion dares to show his face again, he will not have to answer to the Axiom Church, but rather myself… and he will not survive that encounter, I will guarantee you that much." Mito told them, a tone of anger in her voice that she'd never really heard from the reaper.

"There is a lot to be rebuilt here, and you could do with help?"

"This village has survived before, and we will continue to survive. Our people will rebuild stronger than before, but perhaps we should give our memory to our fallen though, and the woman who died to defend it… Eydisville, perhaps?"

The sharp intake of breath from everyone gathered was telling of their thoughts on that one. "Maybe not. How about Remembrance instead?" Jet answered.

"The village of Remembrance. Yes, I feel that will do rather nicely!" The middle-aged man answered and left them to go and see to several of the wounded people behind them.

From out of the way, Mary, who'd been helping with patching up some of the villagers and probably caught behind the mob when they'd began to advance on them, rushed forward, only to be met with a sight that she wouldn't have wished on her worst enemy.

Her sister – the closest thing Mary had to a parent, and her last living relative – now covered by Jet's coat, a sign of what had happened to her.

Before any of them could stop the younger girl, she had rushed over to her sister's side and sat beside her, almost completely silent save for a strained cry of anguish.

Without anything being said, she watched as Jet sat next to her. Usually, he was bombastic and extroverted in the way he spoke, even when trying to be solemn, but not this time. She'd seen him guilty before, both rightly so and out of misplaced sense of guilt, but this might have been the first time she'd seen him be genuinely struggling to speak. "Mary, I'm sorry. If I had been a bit more on the ball, then…"

"I just want to see her, just one last time." The younger girl answered, with tears in her eyes.

"You do not, trust me. That is not an image you will ever be able to get rid of, and every time you think about her, you will see that. We did not have the honour to know her for long, but I think I can say that she would want you to remember her smiling and laughing, not as she is now." Kizmel explained, and Koharu held a hand on Mary's other shoulder.

Fighting back tears himself, he had accepted that have to decide what would happen with Mary, and just through glances, they had come to an unspoken agreement – that it was her choice as to what happened now. Whatever she decided, was what they did. "You've got a choice though, and I know it isn't what she wanted, but… you can stay here, and we'll come visit from time to time, or you can come with us. We won't pressure you, and I'll tell you exactly what I told Eydis – it's not going to be safe; it's not going to be quiet, and it won't always be fun."

"Eydis always wanted to leave here, to see the world, and I was always stopping her. I always wanted her to be safe. So I want to come with you. Live up to her wishes."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"Well then, if anyone has anything to say…" No one spoke up. "Nope, I think we should be going though. We'll just be in their way if we stay, I think." Koharu could tell from the way Jet was talking that even he wasn't sure on this one, but it was the least they could do, they all knew that much, to honour a friend's dying wishes…

/-/

Eydis was having a rather strange day, she'd decided.

It had all started when she had died, which was something of a surprise to her when she woke up in the middle of a forest somewhere, no gaping wound where she'd been fatally injured, and no one around… just trees, trees and yet more trees.

Oh, and a giant bear that was on fire.

If this was the afterlife, she'd was glad she wasn't religious! This was extremely disappointing!

"Miss, get behind me!" Eydis looked over to see a young woman, probably a little bit older than Mary, but not by much, almost certainly less than a year in it, wielding a scythe that looked far too big for her. The girl's white hair and darker skin almost reminded her of someone from the Dark Territory, and the purple armour was definitely more akin to a Dark Knight, but the young woman went without a helmet, and had a strange affliction of the eyes – her pupils were red and blue…

"You sure you can handle this, it's a bit on the… bigger side." That was an understatement, she thought. The burning bear was probably twice their combined weight, and you know, it was on fire!

"This is my first trial, and mother prepared me well!" The girl readied her scythe for battle. "The God of Calamity smiles not, for their victory is certain. On the path before them lies glory; behind them the fallen are piled. Neither sword nor spear shall pierce this victorious flesh, for the name of the ever-victorious is Dorothy Isaiah-Elisheva-Edmondson!" The girl recited some kind of war cry, or prayer as she charged into battle…

"If you say so…" Eydis replied hesitantly, reaching for her sword, just in case she needed to step in. A sword that wasn't there anymore. "Ah."

This day was just going to keep getting more interesting, wasn't it?