A golden glow illuminates the Forest of Magic. Following the source, one could spot two figures caught in its radiance.
Marisa, with an expression of shock on her face, seems to know what this glow indicates, and she can barely hold her excitement.
As the glow slowly begins to die down, all that's left is a gold bordered card with an illustration of an aureate hall. On the back of the card, it reads,
Last Word - Judgment Hall
"Woah! That glow, that's definitely a last word! Sans, do you have any idea how crazy rare that is- huh?"
Marisa shouts, exhilarated, but suddenly freezes as the person who she has yet to see without a grin, suddenly has a shadow cast over his face.
At this moment, Marisa recalls what exactly a last word is.
Spell cards are manifestations of your accomplishments or abilities. In others words, just one or two chapters of your life
Last words on the other hand, are much, much greater. They are closure, the concluding statement, the Last Word if you will. They are final page of your life up until now.
If spell cards are mere chapters, then Last Words could be considered entire volumes.
Because of this, you could tell a lot about a person based on what their last word does.
And judging by the look on Sans' face, it seems he isn't too fond of the implications this card brings.
"Well then... It seems you're not too happy with the result..."
"...I guess you could say that."
'Oof, his mood is worse than I thought.'
Marisa flinched at the tone of his voice, and thought that she should redirect this somehow, so she gave a suggestion.
"Well, you could always make another one! So let's try it, yeah?"
Sans looks up from the card, sighs deeply, and stuffs it in his pocket before sluggishly taking out a blank card.
"Same as last time, 'kay?"
Marisa encouraged sans, who looked more tired than before.
"Here we go."
Deciding to lock in one more time, sans pushes his mana into the card.
It didnt eat up nearly as much as the last word, and was nowhere near as bright, so sans was relatively relaxed. Not being as distracted as last time, he was finally able to appreciate the glow it gave off.
By the time it ended, a white card was in his hand. The illustrations was that of bones flying around in a whirlpool, and the name read,
Bone Sign - The Bone Zone
"Heh."
"How fitting."
Marisa looked over sans' shoulder and shook her head with exasperation.
The name of the card overlapped exactly with how Marisa saw sans.
However she couldn't shake off the feeling that there was something deeper to him. Perhaps something more tragic.
Marisa could understand, her life wasn't all sunshine and rainbows either. But this seemed different...
He looked so angry...
"...yo."
"AH!"
Sans was standing directly in front of the distracted Marisa.
"When did you get there!"
Sans merely raised an eyebrow.
"I was talking though?"
"O-oh, what were you saying again?"
"I was asking how we were supposed to know what the card does."
"Ohhhh, that's easy, you gotta fight."
Sans rubbed his face with apparent exhaustion. He wasn't physically tired thanks to his new body, but just the memories of that damn hall just about drained him.
"Of course that's what you have to do. In that case I guess I'll hold off until I have to use it."
In a classic maneuver, sans put it off for later, to which Marisa replied incredulously,
"What? No, why would you do that?"
"Eh?"
Marisa explained matter-of-factly.
"When you're in a fight, you gotta know what your spell cards do, or else they won't be as effective."
"Ehhh... That makes sense, I guess."
Sans reluctantly agreed with Marisa, who pulled out a broom from who knows where.
"So let's fight!"
Sans freezes, then slowly turned to Marisa with exasperation on his face.
"You serious?"
"Dead serious."
Marisa began to float on her broom to which sans merely looked up and sighed.
"I really don't want to."
"I'll go easy on you, promise!"
"Yeah, Im still not really up for it." Sans scratched his nape.
Marisa pouted. She seemed to be getting impatient.
"Geez sans, I haven't even known you for a month, and I can tell you're one of the laziest people I've ever met."
Sans flinched.
"Well what can I say? I'm just not a fighter." Sans threw out an excuse.
"Well, that's gonna have to change. If you're going outside the village as much as you do, you HAVE to fight."
Marisa gave an exasperated sigh before talking. "You have to be proactive about these things man, this is for your safety. I'm not gonna force you to move."
Sans flinched again
This time, memories from a time long forgotten came flashing back to him.
'SIGH, SERIOUSLY BROTHER, DO YOU NEVER MOVE UNLESS I FORCE YOU??'
Marisa's voice cuts through the memory.
"I may not know why you have such an aversion to acting-"
It's cause there was never a point. Everything would just be reset.
"But you can't just stay still forever."
But then again, resets weren't a thing here were they?
The clock can no longer be turned back, what happens now is cemented in time and space.
And yet he can't break free from the feeling of nihility. The idea that nothing matters has stuck with him from the underground.
That needs to change.
If he wants to honor his friends, and keep his promise to himself, he must ACT.
'This is for my sake too huh. Hah... Alright.'
"...Yeah, I guess you have a point."
"See? It's better to act sooner rather than later."
Marisa nodded sagely on her broom.
"Just go easy on me would ya?" Sans tiredly requested.
"I said I would, didn't I?"
"I know, but for some reason, I feel the need to say it again with you."
Marisa gasps, as if offended.
"Just how careless do you think I am!?"
Sans just grins.
"You little... Fine, then let's get started!"
The two briefly stare off before simultaneously shouting,
""Danmaku!""
------------------------------------
A warm sensation envelopes sans, as though being dunked in a warm bath.
Flexing his fingers, he focuses his attention towards the witch in front of him. Focusing his magic towards his eye, sans checked his opponent out of habit.
_________________________
Marisa Kirisame, Ordinary Magician
* LV: 6
* ATK: 56
* DEF: 20
* HP: 25
* "It ain't magic if it ain't flashy. Danmaku's all about firepower."
____________________________
Sans' eyes bulge at Marisas atk stat, but has no time to lament.
The magician lifts her hand in sans' direction, before firing off a spray of slow moving stars.
Moving his body, he easily avoids the stars moving in his direction.
Seeing this, Marisa hums. " Seems like that's too easy huh... Alright, let's turn up the ante!"
"Nah, let's just keep it like this-"
She doesn't even spare a second for sans' joke before things get intense.
Sans is immediately faced with a wall of multicolored rainbow stars.
Quickly leaping out of the way, sans feels cold sweat running down his back, didn't she say she would go easy?
However Marisa wasn't done yet. Flying around to sans' back, a magic circle appears in her hand and a dozen red and blue stars fly from her hands.
Feeling the heat of said stars behind him, sans turns around and immediately leans backwards to let a bullet whizz pass his head.
Though, with no time to breath, sans sluggishly moves backwards out of the attacks path.
"Aren't you gonna attack?"
Marisa taunts sans while laying on her broom.
"You haven't done anything but dodge y'know."
Sans also realizes this. This isn't the underground, there are no turns.
So focusing his magic, 5 bone bullets appear above sans and shoot off with relative speed.
Seeing this Marisa quickly assumes proper posture and steers away from the attacks.
"Now we're talking!"
Marisa gets excited and summons another magic circle. Out of it comes more stars that are bigger in size. Although they are slow moving, theres dozens of them.
Once more flexing his body, sans calmly walks towards the wall of bullets, and once he's within a couple meters of one, he puts his new body to the test.
Dashing forward, he moves his head to the side, barely missing a star, and turns his body sideways to slip between two more.
Zigzagging through the bullets at an astonishing rate, ducking and rolling under stars, sans feels a slight sense of exhilaration. If it were his old body, he would be exhausted after rolling for the 5th time, that's why he usually abused short range teleportation.
Leaning to the left, then the right. Dashing under and jumping over. Marisa was watching sans with the feeling of watching a dance. There was plenty of wasted movement, as though he was new at this, and yet he hadn't been hit once. Sans was progressing through her attacks with a clumsy and almost desperate gait, but Marisa was slightly impressed.
As far as she knew, this was his first rodeo.
As sans broke through her bombardment, he got a clear shot and gladly took it.
No longer able to see her target, Marisa sensed a magic attack behind her. Quickly canceling her spell, she attempted to conjure a shield, but was a beat too late. The projectile dinked her right in the stomach, and she almost fell off her broom.
"Kgh...! N-nice shot, but you'll have to try harder than that!"
Marisa flew forward towards sans and, to his surprise, dismounted her broom and came at sans with a running swing.
In a panic, he summoned a bone and blocked her swing. The two items made a crack sound, and sans felt a numbing sensation in his hand. Looking down, sans was shocked to see the bone broken in half. He had no time to think however, as Marisa followed up with a swing to his stomache. Leaping backwards, he narrowly avoided a gut check.
'The hell is that broom made of?'
"And what the heck is up with that? I thought this was Danmaku?"
Marisa smiled and stated, "This counts, y'know? So long as it doesn't devolve into a melee brawl, a little crossing of weapons or exchange of blows is still following the rules. Within limits of course."
"These rules are a little lax huh." Sans muttered
"Well, Reimu made them after all." Marisa responded with amusement and fondness.
'what do you mean by that?'
Before sans had the chance to think on the implications of that sentence, Marisa dashed towards him once more, broom in hand.
Stepping backwards, sans let the swing whizz by him and summoned another bone. Taking a swing at the magicians wide open side, he struck true. But instead of the feeling of flesh registering, he felt like he hit glass. Moving revealed a shattered defensive circle where he struck.
It had been bait.
Swiftly leaping away, Marisa's broom had come down on where sans' head would have been with an intimidating *WHAP*.
"Nice dodge." Marisa complimented.
Sweat dropping, sans saw an opportunity, and pulled out the cause for this spar.
With a white card in hand, sans called out it's name, while trying not to laugh.
"Bone Sign - The Bone Zone!"
Immediately, Marisa perked up and focused on what sans' attack would do.
Only to be disappointed by a single spinning bone which wasn't even aimed at her.
When she looked over to the attacker, he merely smiled and shrugged his shoulders.
Just before she stated her disappointment, her sharply honed senses started sending off emergency signals.
Swiftly ducking while clutching her hat, two bones suddenly flew over her head. As though the one from before had multiplied, which, now that the attacks were in front of her, she could see that was exactly the case.
The bones flew for a bit before coming to a stop, and splitting into two. They then resumed motion, blasting towards Marisa in a curved trajectory.
With there not being too many, she easily slipped through, however she didn't let her guard down, if all the bullets split too many times, it would quickly become trouble.
And as she predicted, four became eight. And eight turned into sixteen, and sixteen into thirty-two.
It quickly became a problem as Marisa started to become overwhelmed, thankfully, it seemed to stop there. However, the pattern had changed, it went from just a simple curved trajectory, into a whirlpool of spinning bones.
If dodging wasn't problematic enough, the pattern was simply dizzying, Marisa was having issues keeping her vision straight.
However, she was by no means subdued.
"Well then, color me surprised! To think a beginner could pull one over on me! But I'm afraid, we'll have to wrap things up here."
Marisa reached into her waist pouch and pulled out a blue colored card.
"You've shown me your spell card, I think it's only courteous I show one of mine. Not that I'm much for formalities."
With a practiced grace, she raised her card into the air, and invoked it's name.
"Magic Sign - Stardust Reverie!"
The card shone brightly before exploding into massive multicolored stars that scorched and destroyed all attacks in its way.
The whirlpool was dispered and sans' attacks burned away without a trace. And when the smoke cleared, sans was sitting on the ground, seemingly taking it easy.
Marisa took a minute to catch her breath before walking over and sitting with him.
"That was quite the special attack."
Sans was impressed, he had never seen something quite as colorful as that.
"Though you seem a little knackered, understandably so."
"I'm just tired because it's been a while since I used my own mana, which admittedly, isn't much. I usually use my mini-hakkero these days."
"Oh? Why didn't you use it?"
"It's just a spar man, no need to go all out."
Sans agreed with this sentiment, he was holding back too.
Sighing, sans looked up sentimentally. Normally he would be extremely adverse to fighting, as not only did he think it was pointless, but he was also extremely fragile.
His HP, also known as Hope Points, had been as low as 1 for as long as he could remember.
After all, who could look forward to a future that would just be reset.
If he didn't have papyrus to hold on to, he would've turned to dust ages ago. However, sans now has a future to look forward to.
He made a vow after all. To live well, and live long. It's what papyrus would have wanted.
As a result of newfound purpose and hope, his status changed in kind.
_________________________________
Sans the Judge
*LV: 10
*ATK: 40
*DEF: 12
*HP: 10 (+5) (NEW)
*Look how far he's come...!*
_________________________________
Sans tried to ignore the status sounding like a proud parent, but the laugh was hard to fight off.
It was true, he had come a far way, and the enjoyment of seeing the cursed HP stat go up after so long was immense.
He finally felt like he was progressing towards something, like he wasn't staying still. He felt like actions mattered.
And that filled him with DETERMINATION.
_____________
/ FILE SAVED /
-------------------
However, he knew deep inside that there was darkness yet to be touched, but sans thought that that was something he needed time before facing.
Breaking out of reminiscence, sans got up and dusted his shorts off.
"Welp, that was definitely enlightening. I gotta thank ya Marisa." He said while helping her up.
"No problem, buddy. Plus, I really like the spell card system, so it's a great feeling teaching it to someone else!" Marisa beamed.
"Heh, that's nice to hear. Say, is there anything else I should know about?"
Marisa hummed before speaking. "There is one thing. The spell card system is designed for fair play y'see, mandated too. Unless you wanna get bopped and exorcised by the Hakurei shrine maiden, you oughta play by her rules. I dunno how, but she finds out real fast if someone cheats in a duel."
'I see. And her face seemed a little contorted, surely she isn't speaking from experience...?'
"No way right...?"
"Huh?"
"Nothin."
Turning around to look at the area where the spar took place, there were only slight burns and gashes, despite how chaotic it seemed.
'ah, it seems she was holding back quite a bit, with how many projectiles she fired, I was a little concerned the Forest would be burned down.'
"By the way, should we clean this up?"
Marisa looked over and scratched her head.
"Erm, well, we probably should but... It'll be fine right?"
"Right? I thought so too."
"Nature will take care of itself."
"That's what I'm saying."
As they both nodded to each other, it was then that they realized they were a little more alike then they originally thought.
In that they both hated cleaning.
.....
....
...
..
.
Having parted ways with marisa, sans found himself back on the road to the village. Normally, he could just take a short cut, but he wanted to reflect on the things he learned today.
This new system was a lot to take in, but he was rather happy about it. Not to mention, the spell cards. He felt glad he wouldn't have to make them himself, but he was also nervous about what they would make.
If the Last Word was anything to go by.
He didn't want his spell cards to reveal too much about himself, but feared it was inevitable.
Tired and drained, sans cut off the thought there, and just barely noticed something.
A red mist was lingering around his feet. It barely reached up to his ankles, but sans had a bad feeling.
Deciding to hurry back to the village, he uses a short cut. Upon arrival, he is greeted with the sight of two troubled guards.
"Hey guys, whats with the long faces?"
As the guards look towards him, sans notices that one of them is not the usual guard.
"Oh, sans, it's you. When did you leave town?"
Sans flinched, and said "uh... I used a short cut..? Anyway, that doesn't matter. Wheres your buddy?"
Sans questioned where the location of the other guard was.
"Right, him..." The first guard looked to the ground with a nervous expression. Seeing his face, the new guy spoke up.
"Shiki-san has fallen ill." He said.
"He's sick? Is it serious?" Sans asked with a modicum of concern. He had grown fond of the black haired guardsman.
Guard one, who sans cared slightly less about due to his stricter nature, finally spoke up. "Very serious. He fell to a fever upon returning to his post, and had been bedridden since."
To his credit, guard one, sans thought his name was Sano, seemed very worried about his friend. But something was off about this.
"When did it get so bad? I saw him two days ago, and he seemed fine?" He greeted sans with enthusiasm when he was off duty.
"Today." New guy said.
'Now I KNOW somethings up.' sans' eyes narrowed greatly.
"That doesn't seem right, how could someone get so sick in less than 24 hours?"
"We have no idea. We tried to question him when he woke up, but all we got was something about red mist outside the village before he passed out again."
Sans' head started pounding at the implications this had. Red mist? Like the mist he saw earlier? The mist that was rather close to the village?
"This is just speculation, but i remember that his daughters birthday was coming soon. He might've went out to get her a gift."
Sano added his two cents, but that confused sans more.
"A birthday gift? From where?"
"If not from within the village, then from Rinnosuke, owner of Kourindo."
Kourindo? Wasn't that near Marisa's place?
The situation was looking worse and worse, and Sans began to get worried.
"I see... Well thanks for the information."
New guy answered, "you're welcome mister. And if I were you, I'd avoid going into this side of the forest, it seems dangerous things are happening."
"Thanks for the warning pal. The names sans by the way." Sans held out his hand.
"Nice to meet you sans, my name is Syno." He greeting with a small smile.
'three S names. Do the guards hire anyone with an S in their name? Maybe I have a chance after all.'
The two shook hands, and parted ways. Sans made his way into an alley and shortcut-ed his way into his inn room.
As the memories of the day passed through his mind, he thought back to the red mist. The implication is that Shiki fell ill upon contact with it. And if that's the case, this might not be any old mist.
The hope is that it's just spores from a mushroom, but spores can only go so far before they spread too thin and dissipate.
And sans saw it all the way over where Marisa lived.
It's likely that this mist is more magical in nature.
And that fills him with great concern.