Tsuki, after reading the letter left by Lotus, was left wandering the city aimlessly. This place was bound to be attacked in a short while, and thinking about Scylla’s attack upon the small enclave by the sea, whose scale was said to be minimal from sources like Lapis, made her ask what even was the point of her current life. She did try to get stronger by mastering her new fan and her usual glaive and dagger. Yet, her fan could never be powerful enough to blow a tsunami away; her dagger could never cut a mountain open due to its size; her glaive couldn’t corrupt what didn’t have a shape. The stories she heard about the event 25 years ago from those that survived made her shudder:
"The sky smiled at us one morning, red and black. Its bloody lips opened to sing us something. No one of us understood… Some did, but they quickly turned into something that wasn’t natural…"
"Ahh yeah, I remember it all very well. Was on those walls over there, even. Never had a nimble foot like my brother, but my eyes, them were my golden bough. ‘Least that’s what I thought before I lost them. Was like this keepsake was eating my skull whole! So, I pierced them with an arrow before they could pierce me."
"Yes. Yes. I was but a little twig back them, not even spouting leaves yet. See the bark on my body? Although I like to make jokes of it, I used to be like just like you. Well, I’m from down south, do you know about us, little one? No? Well, not that it matters, but we, down there, paint our bodies with images of our gods and legends. Those lowlifes changed me into the one drawn on me at birth. Seriously, why couldn’t mother draw something like Kuara - a god of thunder – instead of Archura – a random forest weirdo…"
"Hooo, you want to learn about the monsters that attacked us back then? Your name was Tsuki, right? Then, miss Tsuki, have you ever looked at something for a long long time to the point you know every single secret about it? For me, it was the stars. Each of them, stars of their own in the distant void. So far away in fact that no one should be able to reach them in a lifetime where they were given the power of a god. Well, exactly 25 years ago, those stars in the sky all changed position slightly… So, let me ask you this: who is more likely to have changed, a million stars or this planet itself?"
❀
The young girl found herself atop the large city’s walls, looking down at a group of workers digging trenches and improving the walls themselves. The work was surprisingly swift while under the supervision of familiar faces: the pyromaniac elf named Sir-Dor and his strange ghostly giant. They did seem to be doing well, and the improvements were substantial. The elf had fire in his eyes while the giant seemed to be wondering about something like someone thinking about what food to eat for dinner – which was troubling as the giant’s gaze was focused entirely upon a group of knights protecting the worker…as if it wanted to gulp them down.
But this wasn’t something that really impressed Tsuki. Even if the elf's architectural talent was peerless, she didn’t quite see its use when defending against the Wave of Change.
With her head about to pop with stress, she jumped down the wall, landing delicately with a cloud of petals, and headed inside the nearest wood. She ran and ran aimlessly while cursing life until she stumbled upon an amazing sight. With row after row like trained soldiers saluting their commander, large lemon trees fought hard against the winter's cold with leaves still green and healthy. The path she took to reach this odd grove was laid out with decaying leaves and disrobed branches. Unless those lemon trees just didn’t lose their leaves during the winter like any conifer, they were mighty suspicious.
She walked deeper into this strange phenomenon, not even able to determine if it was normal as no one talked about it. Was it simply an obvious known fact to the people in this world that didn’t need to be said, or was it just out of place… Tsuki had no clue but chose to stay on the side of caution by manifesting her dark glaive.
"SKRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
A piercing cry came from above, with a large condor like a shawl of darkness landing not far from the girl. From its flight, a singular feather landed close to Tsuki, which was as long as her full arm length. Luckily, the bird didn’t see her, as otherwise it might have gulped her down in one bite. As strange as it would seem, this event didn’t even come close to scaring her; it excited her instead. She had to get stronger, and she thought hunting this bird could be a way to improve outside of the stifling courtyard at the military school. What more was that she was finally alone. If the bird was too strong for her, her only option would be to improve on the moment. She could run, yes, but Tsuki felt she was currently obligated to grow stronger or die later.
❀
The condor’s cries, all piercing the air like a cold dagger into the girl’s heart, were getting closer with each passing minute of walking inside the warm plantation of lemon trees. Warm was the correct word, even in this early winter. The ground, which used to be evenly spread not long ago, was strewed with roots digging out of the ground in revolt against the dirt. Tsuki was thus forced to crouch beneath one of those dirty roots, but as soon as she crossed this small adversary, the ground below her feet was robbed, and she plummeted down.
The fall wasn’t long, not enough to wound her. Getting up quickly and letting her eyes jump left and right to find anyone who could have seen her misadventure to no avail, she dusted herself.
"I hope you didn’t hurt yourself, miss," suddenly an unknown voice said.
Tsuki jumped up, her heart nearly exploding in her chest. She brandished her glaive forward at no one.
"Over there!"
To her right this time. She slashed, only for her blade to get stuck inside a tree.
"Ho, dear, that’s going to leave a mark."
As if acquiescing to this remark, Tsuki infected the struck tree with petals so that they grew like mushrooms on decaying bark.
"Ho Jesus! This tree did nothing wrong, miss. May you cease your folly and join me for a talk? Nooooo! This poor sapling had so much to see. CEASE THIS AT ONCE! Right. Right," the unknown voice seemed to shift into something mixed with profound meaning and magic: "[This I see, men that you are slaying]"
Then, all at once, every single tree and other vegetation melted into the ground in under a second. It was way too fast to be natural, but the girl didn’t care about any of that – a singular tree was left standing upright, and it spoke with a voice she was now familiar with.
"Ah! You must finally see me, right? Wait, that ought to have been too easy. Am I missing a few steps? Oh well."
"You’re a tree?" said Tsuki, confused as to how a tree was talking to her and not about the entire situation.
"A tree? Oh gracious no. Is that how you see me? Hahahaha I see. I see!!"
The voice was getting louder and louder, making Tsuki’s head spin left and right. Her vision, those scrawling lines, caused by what she understood to be Yuu’s curse, were twisting, twining, spinning, and branching.
"Let me get closer, ho dear child; I will solve your blindness. Yes, I will dispel your ---" The tree moved forward with its branches cracking, bending, growing, and hissing like snakes upon Medusa’s head. The words of the tree became more and more like brambles until all that was left was a ringing like someone tapping a spoon onto a metal cup.
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In an act of lamentation, the girl changed her weapon into a dagger to immediately slash at the air between the tree and her. She knew she was too far from it to land a strike, but her action was purely done in the hope of threatening this unknown being.
In a single swing, light was severed with a screeching sound, which felt like an assault on her five senses and not just one, such that pure darkness divided her vision in two. On the right was still the tree, but on the left was pitch darkness made from swirling lines like veins. It was in this darkness that she saw it—a man fashioned with a smiling mask. She could only see half of the man and half of the tree, as they were one and the same.
That one swing of her dagger made her so much better that she started swinging it around wildly until all that was left was pure darkness and a man with a mask whose left half was smiling and his right half was crying. This odd person simply looked at her tire herself out before shouting to the sky, "My ezer! Come! Tetelestai!"
"SKRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!"
His voice was followed by the similar bird’s cries she had followed before, and as Tsuki expected the condor to be just above her, she threw her dagger as strongly as she could. But what came across wasn’t made of flesh or feathers but indistinguishable words shining in a sort of holy light – the dagger was caught by a wild sentence and dissolved the measly weapon, forcing it to retract back to Tsuki’s wrist in its original form of a brown cloth.
The condor of holy words landed on the masked man's outstretched hand. "I tried diplomacy, words as the gift from God to us. Yet, child, you show but hostility toward me."
The man’s words did somewhat make sense, as she never really tried to talk with this being for a long time. It was her instincts that ordered her around. They were shouting to not engage the man in a battle of words. He was dangerous and knew things she should never come to know. But her instinct didn’t matter in the end as the masked individual lifted a golden chalice to the sky, which caused all the previous lemon trees to grow once more in the world of darkness. The leaves of such trees began to move unnaturally, as if slithering, until Tsuki saw that the green above was just long serpents clinging to naked branches. They, in the thousand, made their way to the golden fruits, which they bore their fangs at. The flesh and blood of those lemons spilled down to the ground in a cascade of scarlet.
While the foes Tsuki was expecting to attack the city were said to be a literal wave of change, something born from a mighty ocean that can create waves like tsunamis at will, what was in front of her – the masked man – was the change prior: a waterfall.
"All I had was love and words! Ill begotten combination. Show to me, child, your love. Let me prove that it is wrong, and I will teach you the truth of love!" The masked man screamed, both halves of his mask splitting open into a maw with teeth more numerous than stars and a depth as far reaching as the sun’s light.
In this dark and red world where madness and fragmented truth mixed, two abominations of Change fought…
֍
In the city, amidst a group of children, a cat standing on two paws kept screaming a certain name: Mafdet. The young child born from the heart of a golden giant was nowhere to be seen…
…
…
…
"Mafdet! Where in hell are you taking me?!"
"Apophis, you follow. Asking, no."
"What the hell did you just call me? Want me to slap your ass until you cry for that fur ball that’s your dad?!"
"No, stupid snake. Follow or perish."
"iii!!… How did that cat even educate you…"
❀
A storm of petals clashed against a waterfall of bright words. Wanting to push more, Tsuki manifested her new golden fan and flung it downward, low to the ground, such that it produced a slapping sound. Following it, a ball of ink formed around the girl. It expanded quickly to corrupt the holy words from the condor, but it managed to escape in time. The masked man unclenched his maw like a snake to consume the ink ball. As it got closer, Tsuki made her glaive, which she swung through the ink. It struck the snake-like mouth cleanly, just to bounce off it without leaving any mark. Tsuki remade her fan to spin around inside what became a tornado of fast blades and slow exploding fish. Once again, the snake ignored the attack, albeit that it was turned black by the liquid that quickly solidified. Its speed slowed down considerably, and Tsuki used this chance to try her dagger on the black scales. Only a small cut was made, yet it caused the ink to somewhat harmonize with the attack and create a thousand similar cuts.
None of the girl's actions mattered in the end as the snake-like head slammed into her heavily, sending her flying with a few broken ribs. Landing on the ground like a chiffon doll, Tsuki had no choice but to use Alambusha’s petals to heal herself. Her surroundings turned bright in an instant, forcing her to dissipate into her own petals to avoid the condor swooping at her.
"Sister," said the masked man suddenly. "All we wanted was to talk with you! We invited you to have a trade with us. In this garden, a talk to save reality. Will you keep on your assault like a beast or act as the hero you should be like!?"
Tsuki’s vision was wrought like a wet cloth, such that most of the darkness was drained. What she was seeing was back to the half-tree and the half-masked man. It wasn’t something she intended. It was her opponent’s words that produced this change. Again, she slashed her dagger around to return the world to pitch black, but was welcomed by a sight that froze her mind…
֍
Hoomaikai had been running inside a strange lemon tree forest where all the fruits were festering with bugs. What worried her wasn’t the trees still growing healthy leaves or the millions of insects that were a rare sight everywhere else in the world, but the strength and determination of the small child pulling her, as she should only be around a month or so old. Mafdet simply squashed the carpet of insects like they didn’t matter to her while still being able to pull someone about five times her size. Hoomaikai was even scared of the kid, as her eyes turned dark like two endless abysses when she first threatened her. The child was more like a demon playing with a young, innocent body!
As Hoomaikai was starting to deliberate on attacking Mafdet, the two of them reached an odd clearing with in its center a large structure of windchimes surrounded by a bed of scarlet flowers of all kinds. At this sight, the intelligent Hoomaikai quickly understood why Mafdet took her there. With a quick stride, the sorceress went to a small, discreet flower with burns caused by exposure to sunlight. She plucked the flower – roots and all – and asked Mafdet, "Won’t you show me the way out also? I’ll be sure to buy you anything you want~"
"Aren’t you worried she’ll be different?" asked the puzzled kid.
"Never bring it up with her, and I’ll give you candy whenever you want, demon child that knows too much. But no, I’m not worried. Something that does not change can still be a change."
"Apophis, I don’t understand…"
"Seriously, where does that name even come from? Let’s just go. We've got a lot to explain to one another."
"Mafdet doesn’t respond to snakes!"
"…Brat, you…"
❀
The clash between Tsuki and the strange man continued until she was desperate enough to try and call out to any one of her summons. "Sinorous," she exclaimed while trying to rip her right arm from its socket. "!!!!!" It was so painful. Then, as the limb flopped on the ground, Sinorous, the hound whose whole existence went against every conventional physics theorem, didn’t appear. Shocked, she tried with Halambusha, the maws on her legs, the owl, and even The Morrigan, but none listened to her call.
Still, panic didn’t manage to overwhelm her. Instead, it made the instinctual screams she was hearing from the beginning more fragrant. Maybe she simply had to listen to this feeling and follow the absurd command it was demanding.
"Listen to us this time! We can save everything with your help. Don’t let everything be for naught!" said the man amidst tears.
Tsuki understood that something was out of place with what he said – as if a puzzle existed under her feet all her life that she now only realized existed. She had never seen this man in all her life, yet he spoke as if knowing her… Her instinct was screaming louder than ever, and she listened.
She jumped back, not to avoid an attack – quite the opposite – to get her chest pierced by the condor's strong beak. It screamed, while tearing her open, as a blinding light was produced from somewhere unknown until all that remained was a pure sheet of white. The only thing to do to escape from a nightmare was to wake up. She focused as hard as she could upon her eyes – even if she thought they were already opened due to seeing a pure white world. Slowly but surely, she woke up atop a large duvet bed in a room clocked in darkness. The walls and furniture were all unfamiliar, and as she looked around, something by her side moved slightly: the little sorceress, who, after coming back late at night from the lemon forest, slept while holding a certain flower…
She whispered to herself, "Next time you disguise as Her, I'll slaughter you..." The man's dignified smile was still messing with her mind after the fact.
◉
Hiding inside a ravine north of the city Tsuki was now in, a masked man woke up from a trance. He lifted a fist high to the sky so that a thousand abominations under his command would listen to him: "Negotiations have failed! There’s only one path left for us! War! Tonight, we march! Repeat after me! Death to Eternity!"
""""""DEATH TO ETERNITY!!!!!!!"""""""
"Death to traitors!"
""""""DEATH TO TRAITORS!!!!!!!!!!"""""""
The forces of the Wave of Change were finally launching their attack…