Like staring into the sun, the brightness of the flash was too intense for me to focus on it directly.
Shima willingly helped me absorb the attack, but what I felt wasn't... terrible.
I didn't feel any pain, absolutely none. I felt a ton of pressure and felt like I was floating soon after.
Something I didn't anticipate was what the afterlife was like.
The people from my past, would I see them here? How long did it take for me to be reincarnated into this world? How long was I dead for? Could I see my parents here?
Could I see the person I vaguely remembered? Where was she? Where am I?
This is what the ocean felt like. A calm breeze blew through my hair and revealed the world to me. I used to have some of my hair covering my left eye, but I never realized how beautiful the world was when I swept that hair to the side.
I never realized how lucky I was, after dying once, to experience it again. The sky is so beautiful...
But that dream would soon come to an end.
Like small worms crawling up my body, I felt dread, sorrow, and indescribable pain start to take over my entire body. It was like being stuck with needles the size of knives all over.
I opened my eyes and left the dream world I was so content with dying in to face a large, bright orange bullet hit me in my arm. The [Bullet] skill I was so accustomed to before was being shot into my body and there wasn't anything I could do about it.
Shima, my companion from a long time ago, had been absorbing it the best she could. Her gelatinous body was morphing around the strike, but even when she did that, she couldn't hold out forever.
I feel like I woke up when I saw her struggling.
There were a lot of things I considered, there were a lot of things that I missed, and there were a lot of things I am still missing.
Ever since my life began here, I've been stuck imagining what I can do better, but even now, my judgment was clouded. I was endangering Shima's life.
She used to be my companion, but now I couldn't see her as anything but a tool. She was necessary for my progress in this world to mean something. The same with Daria. She died so I could become stronger, and I never looked into it.
Because I never cared about other people's feelings.
Why was Zeus shooting at me? Why am I taking this? Why am I forcing Shima to take the brunt of this attack? I want to know it all. I'm a greedy idiot who won't stop at anything to learn everything.
But was that okay? How long could I do this and be happy with myself?
Time felt like it was moving as slow as possible as I thought a million things to myself, but one thing bounced back to the front of my head more often than any other subject.
How can I survive this?
I planted my foot into the ground and held the base of Shima's body, now turned into a large shield, up at the beam.
Screaming in pain, my body began to give out. None of my surroundings were destroyed, but it felt like my very bones were snapping in half under the weight of this attack. I held it, for as long as possible, before my knee started to give out.
"[OMNIPOTENCE!]"
The short phrase I heard shooting out as a skill changed everything. I no longer felt pain, my strength was boundless, and I had even more time to think about everything.
And I even remembered Destiny's name, as the girl who was the most important person to me in my past life.
Something about the skill that was just used, which came from a person I couldn't put my finger on, changed everything. I felt... unstoppable.
My foot planted itself into the ground again and I stood bravely against the large [Bullet] skill aimed right for my head.
[An Entity Wants To Synchronize With You...]
My interface shot open as I stared at the skill-text in my eyes slowly reverberated with Shima's coloring.
Morphing from her classic green color, Shima shifted into a quick orange and underneath layers of slime... my left arm returned?!
I held up Shima like she was a shield toward the skill and held my ground, even letting out a scream as I braced for the attack and felt my muscles ripping under the pressure.
I'm not sure what happened after I screamed, but my face felt like it had clay on it and began to crack under the pressure. Mana started to flow directly from my heart, all the way up to my neck, and even blinded me in my left eye. Mana was filling me?!
[Mana - 700000/4500]
What the hell?!
The amount of mana being absorbed into my body was going to kill me!
Do I need to use it?! My limit breaker?! Could it even be applied here?!
Just as the thought crossed my mind, the attack completely stopped and I was left holding Shima to the sky for no reason at all.
Her orange color never faded and she wrapped around my left arm again, dispersing her shield shape.
I fell to my knees and clutched my chest tightly. My heart rate was irregular, my vision was fading to black in my left eye, and I couldn't focus on anything.
"ANIMA!" I heard from the voices behind me.
"Holy shit, you blocked it! It worked!" Ken shouted out toward me. It was still weird hearing him talk loudly.
"Anima, take a second and breathe, what happened right there?! Hey, what happened to your eye?!" Ipa asked, moving my head toward his.
I shut my left eye, as looking Ipa in the eyes caused a surge of pain to shoot through my head. It's like I could see right through him.
"It's mana burn. I recognize that from anywhere. Hey, Anima, Shima didn't absorb all of that mana, did she?!" Soul asked. She forced my eye open and I screamed out in pain again. How could they all be so calm?!
"Woah... Anima..." Soul muttered, lifting up my shirt to reveal Shima's gelatinous substance on my stomach.
"Huh...? What...? Why is it there?" I asked her.
"Potect you!" A small voice shouted out.
"Huh? Who's talking like a baby? Can you not pronounce your R's?" I turned to Ruby, but she looked at me with confused eyes as tears poured down her face.
"What..." I lifted my left arm and a small, yet distinguishable face, poked out of it. I could see lines that were meant to be eyes, and a mouth designed to be a smile. Was this... Shima?!
"Hey, Shima, you can understand us?! You can talk?!" I shouted out to her, and the expression on her simple face changed into a sweet smile.
"Wow! Say something else!" I said in surprise.
"Sumthing else!" She said. It was like listening to a baby learn how to talk!
"Hey, are we just going to gloss over that attack you just ate? Shima, Anima, that was amazing! Shima probably saved your ass! Are you okay?" Tama asked me.
"Anima... you're never doing that again!" Ruby shouted out to me, wiping tears from her eyes.