The spirit of Freedom, Era.
Haven appeared before Tristan Parsifal with a distinct spider shaped scar on their abdomen and with no head while wearing ragged red captain's clothing, she hadn't always been this way.
What? Think that she was always this headless? Well not always.
Before she was headless, before she had the spider shaped scar on her chest even.
Era was a devout follower of the Goddess's sigh.
Established by the million feathered Roc in honor of the breath of the mother Goddess that turned the world round.
The Goddess's sigh had many followers with no set system to govern them, only following the doctrine of freedom.
Go against the wind, go with the wind, go around the wind, but always follow the wind.
- An excerpt from the chapter of the free wing that attracted many to follow the word of the Goddess's sigh.
These followers of the Goddess's sigh came in all sorts of shapes and sizes, usually only identifying themselves as free spirits with some of the more well known ones being variations of the title such as the Spirit of Freedom and the Unbound spirit.
This of course had a minor problem of promoting smugglers to act under the guise of the Goddess's sigh as they were able to go between borders without much hassle.
This stopped once the Goddess's sigh clarified a free spirit didn't need to worry about the eyes watching them.
In other words, they had to carry with them a pass that they had to stamp to be legally allowed in the country.
This caused a few other minor problems, but at the least nowadays smuggling was harder than before since the pass system was adopted by many countries.
And in fact, most of the time outside of smuggling, the free spirits usually were a merchants best friend as they usually brought with them several exotic goods from other places boosting the economy.
But besides that, because of the doctrine of the free wing which usually had many interpretations to it, it was incredibly improbable to see the same free spirit twice outside of their gathering places.
And even then, they usually left in a week or two save the winged spirits that managed the place.
And again, once a year passed, it was brand new winged spirit taking their place.
They were a rather lively religion that was more a collection of nomads than a whole religion which had led to a few disputes since they were literally everywhere.
And if not for the insignia of a million feathers proving the existence of their worshipped idol being real much like the rest of the esoteric religions that worshipped beings of dubious origin, they were an orthodox religion.
But there was a problem
To Era's knowledge, for some reason, the named Spirits of the Goddess's sigh were being killed off for some reason.
This didn't initially catch any attention since traveling everywhere their heart desired had its risks and it wasn't strange to see reports of named Spirits periodically dying.
So although they gave their regards for an old friends death and visited their grave every now and then, they continued with their lives.
The problem was that all the named spirits were dying.
From the Unbound spirit to the Freely floating to the Golden spirit all the way to Winged freeman, every single one of them started to die off.
That was when it caught their attention.
So in favor of finding out what was the cause of the death of numerous named spirits, all the remaining survivors made a pledge to gather at the Sky's edge.
Sadly however, just as Era was about to arrive at the Sky's edge on her treasured ship the Spiritfarer, she was attacked.
|And that's the last of what I can remember since I was beheaded by an unknown figure.|
|And even then, the bastard didn't let me dissipate peacefully to join the great wind of the Goddess, sealing my body with that damned sword you saw earlier|
"Wait, then why didn't you try to take it out?"
|I did that earlier, but it seemed to have manifested as the spider scar you had seen on my body so I just put it back since it looked weird to have a hole in my chest with no sword.|
"Ah"
|It was also because my body couldn't really keep it's form without the sword so I just stuck it there were you saw it.|
"Oh"
Trying very hard to not hit his head on the ceiling once again, Tristan slowly navigated the bowels of the ship looking for... something.
Era wasn't exactly clear on that part.
|I told you were looking for the Shard of freedom.|
"Just what exactly is that shard of freedom you're talking about and why do you want me to get it? Heck, isn't it possible that the guy who attacked you took the shard of freedom if it's this important?"
|It's hard to explain what the shard of freedom is exactly, but I'm positive that it hadn't been taken.|
"Are you sure? I've combed through the ship thoroughly now, and except for the place we're heading to now, we haven't seen it."
|Don't worry, it's still here.|
Looking unnecessarily confident, Tristan didn't know what to say.
Especially since it seemed that Era also had no idea where this so called shard of freedom was, especially since they were now heading to the brig.
|Watch your head.|
"Gah!"
Rubbing his forehead, Tristan slowly sank down and made sure to not disturb the angry crustaceans and opened the door.
It really didn't look like it, but these nasty little critters were able to pack quite a punch once they got a grip.
Thankfully this semi heart attack he got from every snap of the claw trained the speed of which he fired bullets from Lighthouse and Firefly.
The further usage of the two weapons also highlighted the positives and negatives that the both of them had.
Firefly was a gun that primarily used Ignis mana threads to form bullets and the resulting bullets usually boiled the surrounding area in a self contained steam explosion.
This had the downside of causing harm to himself as well since the heated water didn't discriminate unlike a certain group back on earth that had three K's in their name.
Lighthouse on the other hand usually used Illuminae mana threads to form laser beams instead of bullets.
This came at a higher cost, but if he wanted to be precise then Lighthouse was the way to go.
Especially now since the room in front of him was locked up in a rusted over chain that seemed to have seen several decades pass by as coral had already merged it to the wooden door.
Hell, at this point, the rust and coral had covered the door entirely making it much more durable than the rest of the already durable ship.
Pressing the trigger on lighthouse in a fashion akin to a laser cutter, Mana flowed through his body to form a rod shape that quickly converted itself into illuminae that quickly cut through the rusted steel.
A pure white ray leaving the barrel of Lighthouse and landing on the rusted door, it quickly started to melt at the portions where the laser met it.
And from that point on it was just a manner of applying his engineering knowledge.
'Slow and steady.'
Trying his best to stay in the water that continued to swirl around him every so often, Tristan slowly moved his hand to create a sizeable enough hole that could fit his body.
And once he did, he raised his legs in preparation of kicking down the door like all those action movies.
*Bang
A muffled thud rang out in the ship as Tristan kicked down the cut out door, letting the thick plate of rusted metal collide against the wooden floor, exposing the innards.
And once it did, he poked his head inside and widened his eyes as he stared at the one thing standing in the middle of the room.
That's right, Standing.
'!'
|Damian!?!?!|
And it seemed that Era knew who exactly that figure was as they stood in the middle of the prison like a statue.
|What happened!? Why are you in the prison!? Answer me First mate!|
Questions came tumbling out of Era's mouth as she bounced above Tristan's head, moving closer to the unmoving statue.
"Captain...?" A hoarse voice leaked out of the statue's mouth as a pair of purple eyes slowly opened.
And as the statue did so, Tristan watched with wide eyes as an abrupt transformation occurred before his very eyes.
Purple speckles of light periodically lighting up on their skin, it exposed black coal like skin that seemed to have been scorched in the fires of hell.
Fingers crackling and snapping as they tried to grasp at something but failing abruptly, purple pupils with a black sclera snapped towards Tristan's face while ignoring Era's own blue body bouncing about in front of their eyes.
Their body seemed to tremble as their pupils dilated and opened chaotically, exposing a black mist that swiftly spread from their mouth like poison.
Head snapping to and fro, Damian who looked nothing like a human anymore stared at Tristan as a distorted voice left their throat.
"CaAPtaIn gET aWaYYy fRRuUmmM HeEeEEEEreE"
|Damian! What happened to you first mate!? Tell me!| Era shouted loudly in Damian's ears, causing them to snap their head 90 degrees to the source of the noise/
"CaPtAINNNNNN!?"
Damian twisted around menacingly as their limbs spun around chaotically and bent in ways that a normal human body shouldn't have been able to as their skin rippled like water.
Purple speckles that had been initially only sparse now appeared in more numerously as a hoarse scream tore out of their throat.
"GeEETTtTTT AwwwaAAAYyyYY!!!"
Swiping at the source of the noise, chaos reigned in Damian's eyes as more and more changes occurred before Tristan's very eyes.
Contorting their body, Damian crouched down as a purple glow suffused their skin with a menacing glow, several shapes appearing on the coal like skin.
'Wait isn't that the mana organs!?'
Gem on their hand glowing blue for a brief moment, it quickly turned a corrupted purplish color as the gem quickly split into two triangles that appeared on both of his hands.
Hands that seemed to grow longer and turn into sharp claws.
Trinity on their back cracking and splitting apart, it turned into a stream of purple threads that rapidly crawled all over Damian's body like a group of parasites.
And finally, the star that rested on their shoulder.
Briefly appearing like a seven pointed star, two of its points suddenly disappeared, transitioning from a seven pointed heptagram to a five pointed pentagram.
One that blazed with a dark purplish glow that suffused the rest of their body in a blazing black light as a terrifying scream left their throat.
|No... Damian...| A soft cry left the blue orb that was called Era as they stared in horror at the horrid transformation that was occurring right before their eyes.
And once the transformation stopped, Damian's... no that thing's head snapped towards them at an impossible angle as they whispered menacingly with the last strands of their sanity.
{Run}
It's head split apart to release a skull splitting scream as elongated arms arcs towards Tristan's head.
+++
It ain't always about winning, sometimes it's just making sure they lose.
Tree