Nishimori, "It's so cloudy outside. Will it rain?"
Namikawa, "It won't."
"How can you tell?"
"The air pressure." I said. "It's been rising slowly. Should be clear by the time we eat."
"I see." She leaned out the window. "Sayu, looks like your dad's here."
A groan. "I'll stay here."
"I can't talk to him alone!"
"That's what the feast is for."
"But-"
"He'll want to check in with all his very important subordinates first. Kazunari, if he asks for me, say I'm busy performing critical lieutenant duties."
...
It happened during a raid.
Namikawa interrupted my conversation with the Commander and told us the northern guard tower had been attacked. He insisted he'd hold them off while we directed evacuation. When we got to the hospital, Namikawa told Nishimori to follow protocol, reassured her, and kissed her goodbye.
By the time we arrived, the Commander, Namikawa's father, was seated behind a long storage facility by the tower, gasping for breath. His subordinates frantically pressed bandages against his chest, a bloodied bolt in the snow next to him told us all we needed.
"Seer, the Commander was caught by a stray arrow as he glanced about the corner."
"Seems to be poisoned..."
"We sent for a medic but…"
Namikawa knelt by him, placing a hand on his chest.
"Corrosive and paralytic. Shot close to the heart and lungs… I'll stem the spread and regenerate the lost tissue, but…"
.
He died there.
Namikawa pulled me aside as the others mourned. A moat of blood soaked snow and bodies divided us and the tower.
"Namikawa…"
She shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "We have two options. Take out the snipers, or abandon the base. Your decision."
"We'll take them."
"Ok." She formed snow into a thin sheet of ice and turned it back and forth. "I'll agitate the snow for cover, we tunnel under, sound good?"
"Mn."
She closed her fist and broke the makeshift mirror.
She made a snowstorm twice as high as me and a hole three times as deep. We dove in. Halfway through, the earth seemed to bear down on us, the tunnel began to shake and close in. Namikawa cursed hard.
"Didn't think I'd meet my match in earth magic." She pulled me out of the collapsing tunnel. Fuzzy as the air currents were through the flurry, I noticed bolts flying at us and pushed us both down in time. We ran for the tower.
"They know where we are…" She murmured, blasting wind and neutralizing roots. "Is their seismic sense just that good, or…"
The door was locked. I kicked it in.
I fought off enemies in waves. Namikawa took out the other mages. She sealed every window as we ascended.
We hit the roof, not daring to peek up.
I pressed my hand against the stone as Namikawa did the same. Rope hung off the edges, facing away from where my allies stood. Some had rappeled down. Sharp air whistled across the tower's surface. It wasn't wind, the air was still when we entered the tower, and the wisps were concentrated in one spot. Namikawa took out her mirror while I scanned for heat and we came to the same conclusion.
Someone was floating there, waiting for us.
"Come out, false seer." He said. "I want an honest match."
I responded. "You haven't shown honor so far, why should we?"
"Then the deaths of your allies below are on your hands."
I hesitated, then drew my knife. Namikawa put a thin layer of stone over our skin, and we stepped out.
Currents of air wrapped around him, and for some reason his body temperature was unusually low. I couldn't get a good "look" at him no matter what I did.
He smiled. "I hear you killed that servant of mine."
"So you're the Monarch."
"That's right."
My blood chilled as he moved closer.
"Like I said. A fair fight. I keep my promises."
.
The Monarch did not need a dozen archers at his back to corner me. Even though he never touched the ground, he anticipated every stab and every counter of mine on his own. And me? I couldn't predict him at all. I strengthened my blade with fire, but his wind extinguished it on contact. I felt like I was fighting white noise.
I thought to Namikawa. 'On my mark.'
I guarded against the Monarch's strike and thrust our hands upwards. Namikawa shot earth at his hilt, skillfully knocking the blade out of his hand. But the Monarch didn't bat an eye. He coordinated air currents and a vacuum to return the knife to his hand and resumed his attack.
Namikawa launched every element under the sun at the Monarch. Water and ice dissipated to mist. Earth eroded to dust. Lightning was the only one he bothered evading, but he seemed to anticipate every attack before it even started.
I continued channeling fire into my knife. When it clashed with his, the heat passed into his blade and made it more "visible" to me. But I continued to fall back.
Was he even fighting seriously? He never once tried to kill me. Once he broke through the stone skin, every hit he landed cut deep, but never lethal. And despite my elementary attempts at body magic, the blood loss started to take its toll. The air currents around him dulled the heat map, but I swear he was smiling the entire time.
He knocked my knife away. I tried to mimic his technique, but he already blasted it off the tower. And when I reached for my second, his blade was there before I was.
"How-"
"I'm a true clairvoyant!"
He stabbed through both my palms, pinning my hands together, grinning wider and wider. Then he shoved me off the tower, taking my second dagger from the sheath. I barely grabbed the rope with what muscles in my hand still responded. He laughed and put the bladed end to the rope.
"If you fall you'll just break your legs. No death to reset on."
"You can see the future?"
"That's right." He sawed through half as I twisted and struggled, ducking under lightning from Namikawa. "And unlike your ability, I don't have to die repeatedly to find the right course. I can just do it!"
He severed the rope. As I fell, the Monarch turned and blasted air at Namikawa. She drew up earthen shields and deflected when she could, but she was on the retreat too, chased around the rooftop by this madman. She couldn't make it alone, and I couldn't either.
I summoned all the heat in my body and channeled it downwards into a spiral. The fire came, melting the snow at the foot of the tower and launching me up. I pulled the knife out with my teeth and cauterized the wounds shut. I landed on the roof, knife in hand, and ran towards them. Namikawa had her back against the wall frantically deflecting against the Monarch, already bleeding profusely from her arms. I felt the Monarch bring down his knife and desperately willed for Namikawa to evade.
To my surprise, she did. In excellent form.
'How did you send me that?'
Namikawa launched herself away from the Monarch and towards me.
'I… thought the technique at you?'
'How.'
The Monarch shot air at us as he closed the distance.
'I sent the motions as if I'd do them. The commands, the feelings in my limbs.'
Namikawa laughed. Not into the link, but out loud.
"I'm so stupid. I should've thought of it as nerve connections too."
"Is this a big deal?"
'This revolutionary. To send entire techniques instead of words. The mental link usually stimulates the auditory lobes, creating the illusion of sound in your mind with a slight distortion so it's distinguishable from reality, but to send instructions regarding multiple parts of the body requires-'
'Ok ok what's the point.'
'The point is I can share my library with you.'
Namikawa blasted the Monarch with earth, and in that moment, the sensations flowed into me and I copied her flawlessly. I understood. Earth was less intuitive than heat, but as one would push a stone with their hand, one can push a stone with their mind. By summoning up the force internally, I could move anything.
When we combined our strength, the Monarch dodged.
We cycled the elements at him, and when I experienced the physical sensations of each one I understood them intimately. Lightning? To command lightning was to understand charge. As static can accumulate in you and jump to metal, you forcibly gather charge to release on a larger scale. Water? Water was like blood. As blood streams from a wound, as blood pumps through your body, you direct water with the same flow. And air? Air was simplest of all, to understand air was to breathe.
The Monarch was on the defensive now, evading our attacks, keeping at a distance, deflecting or blocking when he couldn't get away.
Namikawa held out her hand to me, catalyst dangling from her wrist, and I took it in mine.
To command the world, you think of it as an extension of your body and your will. When Namikawa had told me that before, I couldn't grasp the execution, I could not imagine the sensation. But now that I felt it, I understood.
Together, we shattered the floor of the tower roof and crushed the Monarch in the rubble.
After a brief silence, the adrenaline settled down, the sweat and trembling worthy of what I've learned and done in such a short time dawned on me. We took a deep breath and grinned at each other.
"That's enough."
The Monarch blasted the tower to pieces with compressed air, leveling all the tents and shoddy buildings within eyesight. He shook a bit of sand out of his hair. Aside from some scrapes on his forearms that barely bled, he was unharmed.
Namikawa and I went flying. I crashed into a bunch of crates that broke my fall, but Namikawa slammed into another stone building a few feet away from me. She coughed up blood.
Then he shot bolts. I tried to shield us both with earth, but the Monarch preemptively sent a burst of wind to knock them down. Even with Namikawa's catalyst in hand, I wasn't strong enough.
The bolt got me in the right side of my chest. I pulled it out quickly, but still too late. The poison began to corrode my flesh.
It got hard to breathe.
"Well well well." The Monarch slowly walked towards us, occasionally dodging or blocking our projectiles. "Thought you got me? I told you." He crouched in front of me. "I can see the fucking future."
He picked up the bolt and stabbed my elbows and legs. I cried out as a burning ate away at my limbs. They were completely immobilized. My fingers didn't even twitch. He stepped on my head, relishing as he ground it into the snow.
Namikawa was shot in the chest too. I felt her share another sensation, how to combine body magic with water to restrict blood flow and with air to keep the lungs moving.
'You're a genius, you know that?'
'Thanks, I'm gonna try another genius move. Tunnel below us. Now.'
"Nuh uh uh." The Monarch lifted Namikawa by the neck as the earth lowered slightly. "You stay here. Try to escape and I'll gut him. Same goes for you."
'I can't die. You escape.' I told Namikawa.
'We're not arguing this. Collapse the ground under him.'
Before either of us could dig more than an inch the Monarch slammed Namikawa against the building.
"I fucking told you. I can see the future. Whatever tricks you try, whatever underhanded shit you try to pull! I know it already!"
Namikawa spat blood in his face. "You're calling us underhanded? You rely on poison."
He stabbed her with another bolt and she cursed in pain. Frigid snow seeped into my skin.
"Since your friend's vocal cords are all paralyzed, I'll have to rely on you for entertainment."
"I won't give you the satisfaction."
"Oh you will."
The Monarch walked over and held her over me. He pulled out the poisoned tipped bolt and slowly tore it through her arm. Blood dripped onto my face.
'Namikawa I'm serious. Tell me how I can help you escape.'
'Don't be stupid. I'm going to die here. We both will, at this rate. The most we can do is buy time for the others.'
'You can regenerate right? Just do that-'
'The poison outpaces it. Don't let up, even if he doesn't flinch, no matter how hopeless it is.'
'But-'
'And if you make it, tell Hitomi I love her.'
'...I will.'
.
If I could understand the world as an extension of my body, then I could understand my body as part of the world. Like a shoddy puppeteer, I willed my limbs to move. Not as part of my body, since the poison ate away at my muscles and paralyzed my nerves, but as individual pieces of the world composed of different elements.
Shaking, jerking, unsteady, I got to my feet. I hardened a blade of ice in my hand and lunged at the Monarch. I cut his cheek and for a moment, he was stunned.
Then I heard footsteps in the snow. The voices of my allies. They'd come back.
This broke the Monarch out of his trance. "It seems our time together is coming to an end. Congratulations false seer, you are not fated to die today, but that doesn't mean I won't make you suffer."
He kicked me down, then loaded a fresh poison tipped bolt into his crossbow, held it a few inches over Namikawa's throat, and shot her.
"And as for you." He knelt on me and loaded three bolts. "I look forward to how you'll face me with that corroded body of yours. Enjoy watching her die."
He shot me in the heart. All three punctured it in different locations. Time stopped, and I was offered some respite from the burning in my limbs.
Three shots, point blank, through the heart. I couldn't survive this. There was no room or time to dodge, not enough distance for air magic. And even if I got out alive, I couldn't save Namikawa. Was this it? Would this be my purgatory?
I tried what I knew wouldn't work. I revived and tried to blast the bolts away. I barely summoned a gasp of air before I died again. Next I tried to raise an earthen shield, what I raised looked small next to an anthill. Each time, I heard Namikawa die next to me.
I tried to move, but of course my body didn't respond. Then I tried with magic, forcing my body to obey, I barely twitched before I died again. I slammed my head against the wall, trying these again and again and again, blindly repeating the motions. And eventually, I gave up.
I spent a long while in stopped time, staring at our waning body heat, imagining how our blood looked against the snow. Maybe after a certain time, if I waited long enough, I would die for real.
This was the end. This was my afterlife. I would be trapped here with Namikawa. And she wouldn't even be able to tell me off.
A chill ran through me.
No matter how hopeless it is…
I pulled the bolts out of my chest again. Maybe I couldn't move myself out of the way, but I could move my heart out of the way.
I died countless times trying to get it right. Each time, Namikawa would die next to me. But eventually I got it right, squeezing my heart to accommodate those bolts. In a way, I felt sad to leave her behind.
The Monarch hesitated. "One more for good measure."
He shot me once more and I pulled my heart down to evade it. I tore a vessel. He pressed a hand to my chest, and I forced my heart to stop.
A long moment passed. He carefully backed away, still eyeing me, then vanished.
.
I tried to maintain what Namikawa showed me. Keep as much blood as possible in my body, air in and out of lungs to simulate breathing, restrict the blood where I'd been shot to prevent the spread of poison.
I heard our allies searching for us, the boots crunching on snow got louder and louder. But it was far too late.
Her catalyst felt cold in my hand.
...
I woke up in the hospital. Nishimori moved around, shuffled papers, picked up and set down tools. A familiar, solemn song drifted through the air.
Mindlessly, I tried to move my fingers. They didn't respond, so I forced them to move through magic. They jerked unnaturally. Any burning had subsided, though I still felt the sting of every wound.
Nishimori noticed I was awake, but neither of us could find words to say. She turned away, wiping away tears as quickly as they spilled over.
Sunlight wafted in through the window, the drapes caught warm breeze and danced. I've never been so unhappy for such a clear day.
...
It took me over a month to recover and even longer to relearn how to walk. With a good number of my muscles and nerves corroded beyond short-term repair, it was all magic now.
When I visited her grave, someone had left her a plate of fish.