A man walks down the hallway. His cropped black hair and average stature are unremarkable, but the engraved knife in his hand, the silver catalyst around his neck, and the bandages wrapped around his eyes mark him as the Seer. He commands every limb with magic, yet takes confident strides, unperturbed by the pools of blood, falling rubble, and fire that surround him. His mages are taking the castle down, and his job is to kill its monarch.
The echo of his footsteps remain even after he stops. A grand set of doors stand before him, a noble shade of deep red, hewn from the largest trees in the world. He pushes them open and steps inside. An ostentatious room greets him. Lush carpet cushions his every step forward, delicate silk drapes canopy the throne, and the Monarch waits for him, slowly turning a knife on his armrest.
The sightless seer cannot perceive how flickering candlelight dances across the Monarch's golden hair, but through the reverberations of air and earth he understands the force needed to pierce his armor. Without the wind shielding him, the Monarch's every expression is clear for him to read.
He says to the Monarch. "I'm surprised you didn't try an ambush."
"Do not mock me."
The Seer smiles and flicks blood off his knife. "It's been years since our first fight, a decade, even? And I haven't had an opportunity since. I'd like a rematch."
The Monarch rises as tendrils of air currents circle his body. "Don't be mistaken. You are not fighting me, you are fighting inevitability."
The Seer sighs and raises his knife. "I remember when I spoke like that."
The Monarch stabs at him. The Seer blocks quickly, heat radiating off his blade, and his opponent leans in close.
"What do you know of butterflies, false seer?"
"I know they're pretty to look at."
The Monarch smirks. "I've always liked how that servant of mine addressed you." He pushes the Seer back and cuts his hand, smiling at the sight of the Seer's blood.
"Why do you continue to challenge me with that inferior ability?"
"Inferior?" The Seer blocks against his rapid stabs.
"I see the future at will, accessing it like I would a memory. You must satisfy preconditions."
"That's true, but-" A thrust got through and blood gushed from the Seer's forearm. "My Death Rewind teaches me things your future sight doesn't."
"What benefits do you gain that I don't?"
"Overcoming death repeatedly taught me more than just how to avoid it in that instant." The Seer hops back and his brows furrow for a moment. He speaks low. "It's the reason I'm alive now."
The Monarch advances, a flurry of sharp wind and metal.
"Regale me then. Tell me how you survived four bolts to the heart. What did it teach you?"
The Seer steps left and smiles briefly.
"I can't tell you."
"Why?"
"If I tell you now, your past self would know. You don't know everything."
The Monarch frowns, derisive. He evades back as the Seer takes the offensive.
"Monarch, do you understand the core of magic?"
"I leave pontificating to the scholars." He deflects the Seer's blade and retaliates. "I consumed every spell I'd ever need as soon as I had the resources to."
"That lack of curiosity will seal your fate." The Monarch attempts a counter, but the Seer reads the blood rushing through the Monarch and nullifies his move. "Because you don't understand how you arrived at your destination, you can't make full use of what you do have."
"I know the optimal path and walk it, what difference does it make to suffer more in getting there?"
"All the difference."
The Seer, channeling heavy magic through his arm, brings his knife down on the Monarch's wrist, knocking the blade from his hand. The Monarch scowls as tremors of force ring through his hand. He retrieves the blade with air instantaneously, but it's the fact he ever lost grip that gets under his skin.
"Shut the fuck up. How can you even move?"
The Seer shrugs. "Willpower."
"Don't bullshit me." The Monarch lunges forward and impales the Seer's chest, left side.
The Seer staggers back, pauses, and touches a hand to the spot. It begins to knit together.
The Monarch continues his assault. The Seer's blade clashes against his.
"Is that how you survived? Healing magic?"
"Something like that."
The Monarch curses under his breath and glares. "I should've been more thorough."
"But you don't understand why I lived."
The Monarch grits his teeth. "I made certain that your heart stopped."
"Yet here I am."
He advances. "And even if you survived, I ensured that poison would cripple you for life."
The Seer counters. "And yet I'm moving."
"How are you so difficult to kill!"
The Seer laughs. "You can thank my gift for that."
The ceiling begins to crumble. The Seer reinforces it with pillars of earth, but chunks of stone still fall to the ground and shatter. Soon, bits of rock bury themselves in the opulent rug and dust rides the air. The Monarch and the Seer cease exchanging words, opting for blood and steel as the once magnificent throne room falls apart around them.
.
For every cut on the Seer's skin, he reins in his blood, keeping as much of it in his body as possible. Each movement is instinctively choreographed through magic, everything, each muscle and tendon working in unison to strike the Monarch, the slightest twist of his feet and the subtle balancing of his legs to maintain stance, the force exerted by his entire body as he leaps forward. It's paralysis overcome and overwritten through magic.
He foresees the Monarch's attacks through blood, an intimate reading of every fiber tensing and stretching to move his body, an understanding trained through relearning how to move his own body. Unlike the vibrations through earth or the currents through air, the Monarch cannot obscure his blood.
The Seer is stronger than he ever was before. A mastery over his body and the magic behind it allows him to surpass the limitations of flesh.
The Monarch practiced body magic with the same mindset as he did air. He looked to the future and grasped the end result, a healing method or technique to strengthen a blow, bypassing the cultivation and quickly accumulating all the tools he'd need. While he understood how to achieve a specific result, his disregard for earning it warped his perspective. While his body and combat prowess grew stronger, his mind remained stagnant, having had all the answers from the beginning. He never changed. His gift cursed him with a clear understanding of what it meant to fight against clear inevitability, a future that is known yet cannot be avoided, a deep set and oppressive feeling of true powerlessness that floods every moment of his existence, reminding him that all his efforts amount to nothing in the end.
He knows, and always knew, that in this battle the Seer is simply stronger than him, that the Seer will kill him. There is nowhere left for him to run, and the only choice left to make is to give in or fight. Though in truth, it never was a decision. The outcome was determined from the start, he would fight to his last breath.
.
"Could you continue fighting in the face of certain defeat?" The Monarch asks.
"I am." The Seer's voice wavers. "A dear friend of mine once taught me that ultimately, you will outlive us. Syndicates cover the continent, the entire world over, and I will die before I defeat even a fraction of them."
"...How?"
The Seer chuckles to himself. "I've tried to explain. Let me ask this, could you?"
"If the outcome is set, there's no purpose in futile resistance."
"Do you really believe that?"
He hesitates. "Yes."
.
He aims for the Seer's throat. The Seer severs the Monarch's hand, cutting through his bracer and flesh in one stroke and burning it shut. The Monarch's knife clatters against the marble tile. He yells in pain as the Seer pins his other arm to the ground.
They both breathe hard. Now that they are still, their heart rate levels out.
"If you knew the outcome from the start, why did you fight so hard against me?"
The Monarch stares up at the Seer's bandages. He's seen this vision time and time again, the last thing he'd ever see before death takes him.
Despite the terror built up from years knowing this would be his fate, despite the pain wracking his entire body and every flinch the scent of his charred tissue evokes, all the Monarch can feel is a deep, existential exhaustion saturating his entire body. It slowly pulls at him. Physically, it feels like small hands taking pieces of his body and carrying them away. Mentally, it feels like his consciousness losing its grip, his awareness sinking into resignation and nonexistence.
"Because I refuse to succumb to death without a struggle."
"Then you understand what I've been trying to say."
The Monarch's eyes widen. For a moment, he walks the logical path to where he stands. 'Ah, so that's what his words meant,' a thought built on years of consideration with no comprehension. But then the Seer taps the back of his neck, severing the brain stem from his spinal cord.
The Monarch dies in an instant. His body goes limp as the autonomic processes halt, and his mind fades like flotsam sucked into a torrent.
It is over.
...
The Seer stands and wraps his wounds in bandages, tying the ones on his arms and hands with his teeth. The wound on his chest heals into a scar.
"Nishimori will be mad that I used rapid regeneration…" He mutters to himself. "But I don't want to be stuck in the hospital for weeks again."
.
The Seer channels magic through his limbs once more and pushes the doors open. His allies greet and embrace him outside. They bring each other victory. A few lead him to a crumbling balcony, which an earth mage reinforces as he steps onto. He grips the railing and addresses his comrades.
"We have slain the Monarch and crushed his syndicate." Cheers resound from his people, and they raise their weapons into the air, elated and relieved that this battle is over.
"However, they are not the last. So long as there are people like them, we will continue fighting, and there will always be people like them."
He pauses, everyone holds their breath. The only sound is of crackling fire, the remnants of flame still eating up the last bits of fabric on the walls and floor.
"Yes, it is true, our work is never ending. But do not despair for the long path ahead of us, we fight for a better world so that it may be enjoyed. Come hardships or respite, whatever tomorrow brings, tonight, we celebrate our victory!"
A wave of cheers washes over the crowd anew, gathering power as they chant in unison.
"We fight, we feast, we face tomorrow!"
"We fight, we feast, we face tomorrow!"
"We fight, we feast, we face tomorrow!"