These Children are so very remarkable.
Watch them as they trip and fall,
Only to get back up and learn.
And if you look away from them for but a moment,
They'd be grown before you know it.
The King piece was balanced precarious on its edge, only prevented from tipping over completely by the finger that held it in place.
After a moment of contemplation, the chess piece was set back down to its proper place. But a moment later it was pulled back onto its edge. On and on this went, the king piece set down only to be tilted back again, balanced on its edge.
Tsubaki paused in the middle of her work to observe her King's unusual behavior as she stood over the chess set and played with the King piece.
There was no else but her in the Council room to witness the scene but her. The others have been sent home to rest and recover from their ordeal. Only Sona and her had been uninjured enough to work today.
"Kaichou?" she cautiously ask, slowly approaching her King. "Are you alright?"
Sona ignore her, focusing on the King piece that she kept tilting and setting down. Tsubaki was about to asked her again but she was interrupted.
"Tsubaki." Sona called out to her as she finally set the piece flat on the board and let it go, though her eyes never looked away from it even as she spoke. "Put the chess set away."
"Pardon?"
"Just pack it up and store it away someplace. I'm not going to need it anymore." She leaned over the board and brought her hand next to the King piece, her index finger held back by her thump.
"Sometimes when we grow up we need to put away our old toys. We need to let go of them and move on if we wish to continue growing." She then flicked the tip of the King, knocking it down on its side. "And I refuse to stop growing."
She rose up to her full height before turning to face her Queen. She pushed her frames up her nose before he spoke, "Put it away Tsubaki. I'm not going to restrict myself any longer." She turned and walked away, intend on finishing the rest of her work. "It seems like I've out grown this game."
So be sure to keep both eyes on them…
…and watch them grow.
...
At first it was little things…
So small that he barely noticed them, thought nothing of them.
…didn't realize she was dying.
Then one by one, things kept failing.
She would drop things, trip more often and sometimes run into doors.
Then one day her legs simply refused to work.
And through it all she would smile. Cheer him own as if he was the one dying and not her.
A pale and thin hand rose up to cup his check, feebly wiping away the tears that fell down them with her thump.
"Hey, Oni-chan, don't cry…there's no need to cry….because….because it was fun….So much fun."
She was laid over his lap while he had his arms wrapped firmly around her, refusing to let go as they were seated in the magic circle her mother crafted so long ago. It was the only thing that could lessen her pain.
In the darkness of the shed the smile she sent up to his tear stricken face was dazzling, even as it she looked up at him with unseeing eyes.
"I love you…thank you… and…bye-bye." Then she was gone, her hand falling to the ground.
The boy yelled out, begging the girl in his arms to wake up, pleading with her not to die. But it was too late, the girl was gone. He could feel the beat of her heart stopping beneath his hands.
But despite knowing that she was gone, that there existed no hope, no magic that could bring her back, he refused to let her go.
Even as the warmth continued to drain her once living body, replaced with the coldness unique to the dead alone, his grip on her never less lessened. He prayed, he begged, he pleaded but no miracle ensued. The girl in his arms did not wake up.
It was then, as he looked around for something, anything that could save her that he caught sight of the circle beneath them. And a flame of desperate hope began to burn once again in his heart.
Once, in another place and time, a dying boy was saved here. Though he had no hope, no chance of survivable, not with the inhuman warrior behind him, he was still saved by a Knight unlike any other.
It was here that miracle a was born.
It was here that miracle of their meeting happened.
And it will be here that another miracle will occur.
Staring down at the circle, he offered it everything he had. His body, his life, anything and everything he owned, he was willing to pay it, just to bring someone that could save her.
Nothing happened.
No matter how much he yelled or what he offered the magic remained stubbornly silent. An hour had passed as he continued to try and still the circled remind dull, lifeless as the girl in his arms and all the while her body continued to grow colder until she felt like ice to his touch.
And still he refused to let go.
He continued to scream out until his voice broke form all his yelling and then he continued to whisper instead, in near silent pleading.
It was during the end to one of his beseeching episodes that an idea came to him. One born from desperation rather than any form of reason or logic.
In this world, all Magecraft will suffer from interference. The rules that govern the universe will make it so, because of it many spell that may have been possible become impossible.
So to escape that interference, all he needed was to enter a different world.
I AM THE BONE OF MY SWORD
The shed around him disappeared. Replaced with a world of endless swords and steel. A world were the Dawn will never come nor the sun ever set. A world trapped in perpetual twilight.
He tightened his arms around the girl, as both of them remained in the boundary of the magic circle that he brought along with them to the heart of his soul.
He gathered his breath for one last attempt, one last desperate gamble before he exhausts himself. His final chance.
He raised his face to the sky and yelled out with a voice hoarse from screaming.
"I don't care whose listening, whether you're a God, Angel or even the Devil himself. For her sake, you can have it all, everything I have I offer you. Any price, any debt I'll gladly pay it.
To save her, I'll do anything, give you anything. So please someone. Anyone. Save her. I don't care whether if you take my body, my life or even-" He took one final deep breath and with all the power he had in him, he yelled out.
My soul!
Just please, please save my sister!
Beneath them, the circle flicked. Too quick and feeble for even him to sense, but it was there. The azure light it burned with was a meagre thing, too dim and gone too fast for him to notice. Fading away not even a heartbeat later.
But it was enough.
More than enough.
For a miracle had happened.
It was someplace far away, literally worlds apart. And yet somehow, someone heard his prayer.
She twitched, freezing in mid-step before turning around and looking over shoulder. Raven hair framed violet eyes that looked up into the distance sky, looking for something that's not there.
"Is someone calling me?"
And that was how a Demon Lord, and her New Hero met.
...
"For the last time Asia," I pinched the bridge of my nose as I spoke, feeling the arrival of the now familiar headache, "the answer is no. You can't take it home with us, now put it back wherever you found it."
"But Shirou!" She pleaded, "I can't send her back. Can't you see how scared and lonely she is?"
I turned to look at the reptile in question, "No." I replied as eyes that shone with more malevolence and hatred than anything I had seen before gazed unblinkingly back into mine. "I can't."
"Oh come on, Shirou. She was trying to follow me home." She tightens her grip on the monstrosity, wrapping her arms around its neck and rubbed her cheek against its own. "The poor little thing has been in the forest all alone for so long, I can't send her back there. I just can't. What if she gets hurt? Didn't you hear what Zatouji said? That forest is not safe, what if she runs into something dangerous?"
"Asia," I pointed at that monstrosity that she's holding, "that is the danger."
The light of the moon reflected off its scales, causing it to gleam like emeralds in the darkness of the clearing. It towered over the trees of the ancient forest, its head easily clearing the even the highest among them as it stared down at me with cruel yellow eyes that held a cunning and predatory intelligence in them. All nine pairs of them.
For all its size it moved in complete silence, slithering along the ground with all the noise of a whisper. Vile green venom dripped from its razor sharp fangs, longer than I am tall, falling to the ground where it splashed upon the earth before it sizzled and hissed as it dissolved through the grass and ate into the very dirt.
As I looked up at Asia, from where she sat upon one of the nine heads of the Hydra while wrapping her arms around the neck of another, I could not help but wonder if the equivalent of this world's Alaya hated me.
If it was responsible for all the crap I kept going through then it must utterly loath me. Then again I had no one else to blame but myself, I should have realized something like this would happen when things started to go so well.
After the Fallen attack, or as Kokabiel's Fall as it was sometimes being called among other things, Sona and Gremory had begun to double up on their training. They've been pushing themselves rather harshly actually. Not that I could blame them. After what they've been through their reaction is completely understandable, so I decided to sit back and watch how things will work out for the time being but I may have to step in soon if they go too far.
Consequently, the two Heirs no longer seemed to have any free time to do anything else other than train, unwilling to spare anytime for anything else. I've actually been called in to help fulfill some of their contracts because they didn't want to stop training.
That is the reason we were even here. Neither of the two wanted to waste time searching for familiars despite booking an appointment with a Familiar Master months ago, not when only a single member of either of their Peerage lacked a familiar, prioritizing their training over everything else.
So instead of letting their appointment go to waste, something that even High-Class Devils would have to book months in advance for, they offered it to me and I accepted. It seemed like such a good idea at the time too, seeing as I was lacking a familiar myself.
That was the reason why Asia, Xenovia and myself ended up in the middle of a forest with a Familiar Master named Zatouji looking for beasts to contract with. Ramiel, the leader of my little group of Fallen-Ninjas, and the rest of his group didn't need to tag along as they had already found familiars of their own.
And that was how what had started off as a beautiful day ended up with me standing face to face with an abomination. It was death, devastation given form. With venom so deadly that even the strongest of Devils feared it, combined with a body that is said to be immortal, it was a true nightmare come to life.
A species that has killed its own master more time than any other creature, the nine-headed Hydra was one of the handful of beasts to fall into the category of Evil Familiars in Underworld.
It was also giving me a large puppy eyed stare as Asia continued to plead with me to let her keep it. Or at it least it tried to. Somehow a pair of yellow slitted eyes in a serpent's face staring wide-eyed at me doesn't exactly give me the same warm and fuzzy feeling that it would coming from a puppy.
Well, one of its heads was giving me the puppy eyed look. The other six were glaring down at me imperiously as if daring me to deny Asia's wish. The eighth had its eyes closed while it hissed in contentment as Asia scratched the scales above its right eye, and the last head was chasing a terrified Zatouji in some kind of sadist game as the poor Familiar Master ran in circles around me, yelling in terror all the while.
How did getting something as simple as getting familiars for both my Peerage and myself go so wrong so fast? Releasing my nose I raised a hand and pointed at the monstrosity she was holding onto. "Now go put it back where you found it."
"But Shirou, I already named her!" She called down to me from her perch, still refusing to let go of the serpent. "I can't let Miss Peanut Wigglebutt go back now."
"For the last time Asia, I said no- Wait! What!?" I mentally backtracked as my mind caught up to what I heard. "Asia," I spoke the words slowly, making sure that there is no way she could misunderstand, "did you name the nine-headed monstrosity, a beast so frightening that it's mere sight can make entire armies turn around and run in fear, Miss Peanut Wigglebutt?"
"Yes." She confirmed as she continue to scratch its scales, "Doesn't it suit her?"
I felt my jaw unhinged as I gaped up at her while my mind conjured mental images of the consequences of such a name. Of how grown men will fear the name peanut and will whisper it only in dark corners in the dead of night, never too loud for fear of summoning it. Of how soldiers would yell 'Run its Peanut Wigglebutt' causing entire armies to turn and flee.
What can possibly be more embarrassing than reporting to your superior officer that you ran away from an enemy named Miss Peanut Wigglebutt? To be killed by one, my mind supplied the answer along with a mental image of a gravestone with the epitaph 'Here lies Damion. Soldier, Warrior and Hero of unmatched courage and prowess. Struck down before his time by the wicked Wigglebutt.'
No. Just no. There is no way I could allow her to name it that. The consequences was too dire. I had put a stop to this evil before it was too late. I looked up at Asia and locked eyes with her to convey the seriousness of the situation, and once I was sure she understood the significance about what I was about to say, I opened my mouth to deny her.
"Yes." The word came out of my lips without me willing it to. I tried to resist, I honestly tried but it was no use. It was as if Serafall reached across from the very planes of existence itself and possessed me, forcing my mouth to spill out the words and my head to nod in agreement, "Yes Miss Peanut Wigglebutt is a wonderful name and it suits her perfectly."
"It's settled then." Asia beamed at me before turning to look directly into the eye of the monstrosity, "From now on your name will be Miss Peanut Wigglebutt."
And thus a great evil was committed this day.
I took a moment to send a prayer for the countless of broken pride that name will no doubt cause.
"Asia," and even to my ears my voice sounded resigned. I already knew that anything I said will end in vain and that Asia, as usual, will inevitably get what she wants, but damn it it I had to at least try. "Why can't you get a more reasonable familiar like Xenovia?"
I pointed to the other side of the clearing where Xenovia was patting the neck of her Pegasus.
"Come, oh most worthy steed." She declared as she sat up from her spot on the back of the Pegasus. Its white coat shimmered like silver and its blue mane was the exact same shade as her hair. "From this day forth we shall ride into battle together and our enemies shall learn fear." She drew her sword and pointed it straight ahead. "Now charge! High-ho Silver away!"
Then in a blur of movement she was gone, soaring up to the skies in a streak of blue and white.
"On second thought." I turned back to Asia, fighting the urge to slump in defeat as I did so. "Fine you can keep the monstrosity, but-"
"Thank you Shirou!" She interrupted me.
"But," I repeated, "Only if you burn that shirt."
"Deal!" She readily agreed.
Well, at least that take cares of one of my problems. For on her white shirt was the caption 'People Die When They Are Killed – Emiya Shirou'.
Once! I swear I said it once, and no one ever let me forget it. This is why I know I suck at giving speeches. I gave a bad one once and it still haunts me even in an entirely different dimension.
At the moment I wanted to do nothing more but go home and sleep. Unfortunately I still had to find a familiar of my own before we could leave.
"No! Bad Miss Peanut Wigglebutt." I looked up to find Asia scolding one of the Hydra's heads. It was trying to look inconspicuous but was failing badly, what with the man-sized bulge in its throat and the muffled screams that could still be heard. "Devils are not food! Now spit poor old Zatouji out right this instant."
You know what? Forget the damn familiar, let's go home before something else happens.
...
Hey guys I really need you to throw some power Stones ;)
...
if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
p atreon.com/Aerle