In memory

Akamori lounged in a chair outside his dorm at the spell warrior college. His pencil etching lines across the page of his sketching journal lightly. He’d only been working at it for a few hours, letting his mind disconnect and drift free of the stress and strains of the past few months. His life was almost unrecognizable from just a half year ago.

He’d been a Zero, still learning about magic principles and going through martial training with his father on concepts he was incapable of practicing. Now he was a spell soldier. Not just grunt either. He possessed a good deal of power and had some training to back it up.

We should be training instead of lounging! Thanaton hissed in his mind.

“It’s not lounging. It’s meditation. You told me a mind at peace was sharper than a mind submerged in anger.”

The sword thrummed reluctant acknowledgement. He continued etching lines on the paper and turned the book to help facilitate making easier lines with the flow of his hand. The act of sitting down and drawing had taken a lot of effort. He’d programmed a lot of new mental habits in the past few months.

To sit down and draw and review his thoughts as he did so instead of going through physical training felt alien to him now. Would his past self even recognize him now? Would his parents? He wondered idly if his father would be proud of him.

Smoke billowed out of his shadow and formed his other half, Frank. He gave Frank a small wave as the voidspawn retreated to the shadows at Akamori’s right. “Hey Frank.”

Frank said nothing back, simply nodding at him. At the silence, Akamori paused drawing and glanced up. It wasn’t often the voidspawn would visit the light plane physically. He canted his head curiously. “What’s on your mind?”

“Your unease. It is… palpable. You fear what you’re becoming and whether that is changing who you were. Allow me to put your mind at ease.”

“Okay?”

“You are changing. You’re evolving beyond what you used to be. While you may still keep elements of what you used to be, you are no longer the same entity. So while at the surface, you may still resemble what you were, you are not the same internally.”

“You’re saying I should just get over it and embrace it?”

“In a far shorter summation. Yes.”

Akamori pursed his lips, reflecting on that. It made sense. His growth resulted from his trauma and tribulations. Ominek burned his village to the ground. Expecting to be the same person he was before was a fool’s errand. Clinging to that lost sense of self was just resisting what they had forced him to become. He wouldn’t betray himself like that. If he had to become a monster to save the sector, then what was one more soul added to the fire?

He’d survived and persevered. He’d gained the strength and skills he needed to not just stop his enemy, but to put a good number of them below the ground. That had to count for something. More than that, he’d done it all to protect others, as his father always wanted of him. Not for petty contrivances like revenge.

“You’re right, Frank. Thanks. The extra perspective is an advantage I rarely enjoy.”

Frank nodded curtly. “I haven’t had someone to speak to in quite some time. It’s taken some getting used to, but I find it leaves me feeling… good.”

“What was it like before me?”

Frank shrugged, the gesture quick and awkward. “Xanofex carved me off of a greater whole of an immense being and left behind in the void to fend for myself.”

“Fend yourself off from what?”

“The voidspawn. The Umbral plane is their natural domain. Absent of all light, heat, and magic. It is pure entropy.”

“How did it get like that?”

Frank shook his head. Black and red eyes shifted up from the floor to meet Akamori’s. “I do not know. Xanofex left me there long after it had become cold and dark. The children of darkness are all hungry predators.”

Akamori rubbed his arms to fight off a chill. “Well, that explains why I felt like a field mouse staring down a Manka Cats throat.”

Frank nodded, leaning against a wall out of the sun. A ragged black cloak billowed about him, the edges evaporating into smoke. His skin texture had aggressive ridges and spikes occasionally protruding through the cloak. He was not the person one would consider casually tangling with.

“Now that you have completed both of the ArchPriest’s prophecies, and saved Eryn from the destruction that claimed your own home, what will you do now?”

He sighed, finishing his sketch. Looking back at it, he smiled. It was a reasonably passable portrait of Frank. Brooding and dark, but done in a manner that made him look sharp. Like a book or vid cover.

He turned it around and showed Frank. “Thoughts?”

Frank leaned forward, his black and red eyes narrowed to study the image before leaning back and nodding his quiet approval. “It’s not expert quality, but you possess talent.”

“Tough crowd. What would you know about art? You’ve been killing tentacle monsters in the dark for eons.”

“That wasn’t always so. And I took some time to peruse the library in this world here. Though I must confess to feeling some regret at not having gotten to the library of the fate weaver.”

Akamori waved dismissively. “Eh. That place was dusty and old.”

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“Akamori, you haven’t answered my question.”

He will train, as he should do now! Thanaton pouted.

They both gave Than an amused look. “I don’t know. I was thinking I might go have a drink. Celebrate the dead.”

“Celebrate the dead?”

“Yeah, you know. Reminisce about all the good times you had. Why they left a mark on your life and memory.”

“This is normal?”

He stood up, taking the sketchbook and pencil inside. He unbelted Thanaton from his belt and slid the long blade into a void portal he hadn’t used in a long time. “Sorry bud, not sure they’d allow me to drink while armed.”

The sword thrummed its discontent. He felt bad stuffing it back into the small void pocket, but he wasn’t immune to societal expectations of decorum. He looked at his wardrobe and frowned. It was disappointingly barren. He scratched his head as Frank strode in, curious about what he was up to. Frank’s gaze swept over the pair of Federation duty uniforms and the solo dress uniform Morwen had gifted him. There was also a very ragged blue robe inside.

“You lack for variety in outer garments.”

“Yeah well. When you’re fighting a pitched war for survival, it doesn’t really allow for much time to shop.”

“Perhaps you should make time.”

Akamori hung his head and sighed at the tediousness of the idea. “Fine. But later. This will have to do for now.” He said, zipping his duty uniform jacket back up and ensuring he looked half presentable. He glanced at his hair and moved to leave, but stopped, turning back. His roots had gone dark. His hair had grown a little longer. Also of note, he was missing the smaller scars he’d accumulated from careless play as a kid. He rubbed at the corner of his eye where a small scar should have been from striking the corner of a box as a toddler when he fell.

“Huh. It’s gone.”

“What’s gone?”

“There was a scar here? And a few in other places there aren’t anymore.”

As the pair stepped outside, Frank’s body burst into a cloud of darkness and retreated to his shadow again. “Your body is becoming more steeped in magic. Already you’ve crossed the threshold of mortality into the lower ranks of being a demi-god. Surely you’ve noticed. The way your stamina seems to have an endless supply. The way your AP seems bottomless. Your body is becoming less a thing of meat, and more a construct of raw magic.”

“I feel different, but then I don’t?”

“A result of the change. Physically, your body is improving itself. Working outwards in. Things like scars, blemishes, birthmarks and more. Visual issues and more would have corrected themselves had you suffered them.”

“Sounds like one of those old Terran vids where someone gets super powers and he’s all muscular, handsome, and perfect. But I already was, so it kinda feels like a waste.”

Frank hissed an annoyed sigh. “I doubt the validity of our pact.”

“Oh? How come?”

“Because I couldn’t have been so unwise to link myself to someone so foolish.”

“Sure ya could! I mean, you wound up with me.”

“Please stop reminding me.”

Akamori linked up with the others at the agreed upon tavern. A small homely place build into the side of a massive elder red wood’s trunk. The gold sap lager was the beer of choice, and the whole squad was having some. Everyone toasted to a fallen Zero or comrade they’d spent some time with in the past. On Akamori’s turn, he toasted his village and parents.

His heart didn’t hurt like it had when the wound was fresh. Time had given him some distance from the pain, and life had seen that he was sufficiently distracted. Even the fate weaver had granted him the once in a lifetime boon of seeing his family one last time to say his goodbyes. Still, he wanted to hold them strong in his memory. Afraid that if he let go of them? No one would remember the village.

Barkies Bar was a curious oddity in that it supported the underground arena. Unsanctioned cage fights between anyone and everyone who wanted to climb into the ring. Akamori had seen it while he was sober on entering and decided he wouldn’t partake. Fun as it would be to test himself against absolute unknown opponents. He was here for the dead.

That position eroded as heavily as his sobriety did, however. His drunken reverie for the dead ended when a glass flew across the room and shattered next to him against the countertop. He sighed like a put upon father who had to go discipline an unruly child. The squad all paused, watching uncertainly what he’d do. What he did was fall off his stool into a heap on the ground rather ungracefully.

They all exchanged looks like they wanted to laugh but felt it might not be appropriate to. Akamori gusted back up to his feet in a burst of air that shot to the ceiling of the bar. He then swayed from side to side as he advanced on the ring. A large burly elf with pectoral muscles as large as Akamori’s head each. The man was tall, bald, and had a blond mustache. He glanced down at Akamori with a sneer.

Akamori sized him up as best a man could, whose brain was sloshing around in his head like a brain boat in a beer river. The big man leaned forward, and Akamori could smell the guy. He smelled like a fresh cut summer lawn. This only annoyed Akamori more. Why was everyone here so obnoxiously perfect?

“Can I help you, little man?” The big elf said with a sneer.

“Shure!” Akamori slurred. “You can help me find the shtain of a man I was going to shmash.”

The big man leaned back, grinning broadly at the drunkard who’d taken his bait. “HOW ABOUT IT FOLKS? ANY BETS ON THE CHALLENGER?” He leaned back to Akamori, grinning. “What’s your name, lad?”

“Ak-Aka-Akamori.” He said between hiccups.

“HOW ABOUT IT? DOES ANYONE THINK THIS DRUNK FOOL CAN BEAT ME? HE SURE WANTS TO.” The big burly elf shouted. The crowd raucously cheered. Yasiin and Sala moved to go put a stop to it, but Amara stopped them.

“He would be more upset you stopped him later on. Just let it play out. It’s the only way he’ll learn.”

The two exchanged uncertain looks but defaulted to Amara’s judgement, since she knew Akamori best. She was more curious about the wild and unpredictable aura that was whipping around him. This wasn’t the Akamori she was used to it. It was like watching raw power flicker without a regulator in place. She blinked her maetrayopts off. There was nothing to show anything out of the normal. To all eyes and senses, he was just a drunk fool.

“What is happening to you?” She leaned back, curious.

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