83. Never trust a witch with good intentions

My eyes looked down at the four young men lying unconscious in the bushes of the park. Three of them had been ganging up on the fourth, and after Natasha had helped me knock them out, I’d had no qualms in feeding on them. Now I was brimming with energy. Although no longer really hungry, I still drooled at the fourth. Under Natasha’s attentive eyes, I wiped my lips, scolding myself.

“Let’s head back,” Natasha suggested.

I nodded and followed her, feeling strangely light-hearted and alive.

“Oh, right! I have to buy some things. Is it okay if I stop by some shops on our way? ”

“…? I’m not in a hurry. Do as you want.”

“Thanks! And thanks for all you did tonight, grandma.”

“Well, I can’t let you kill humans while I’m around.”

“Right… But how did you knock them out?” I imitated her palm strike with admiration. “You did something like that, just like in the movies—”

“It’s a combination of a martial technique and a shock of necro-qi.”

“Wow! A shock of…! Necro-qi? What’s that?”

“Your deathforce released into your meridians from your necro-heart is also called necro-qi or qi.”

“Oh. Wait, what’s my necro-heart? Do I have a heart?!”

Ray had never told me! Natasha gave me a curious glance.

“Necro-heart is another word for necro-core.”

“Oh. Necro-heart,” I repeated and smiled. I quite liked the sound of it.

I stopped by a convenience store and bought a big bag of crab meat cans for Rainbows, then I spotted a shabby shop in an alley and bought gloves and a coverall. I shook my wallet, couldn’t find any more coins, and began fidgeting before the old owner. With a sigh, Natasha put a twenty Corns bill on the counter. I looked at her as if she was my savior, which she was in more than one way actually.

“Now I’m ready to go, grandma!”

She looked at me up and down.

“Well, given how friendly you are with humans, a diving suit would have been even a better choice.”

“Now that you mention it…”

“Next time, perhaps, huhuhu…”

I frowned one eye. Was she making fun of me?

When we reached the hill of Kim’s lighthouse, Natasha raised a foot and activated her power. Soon, we were climbing her invisible stairs. I could feel her hand in mine. My necro-qi was vibrating inside my core. It felt as if my whole body was being altered at a fast pace.

“I’m changing.”

I blurted it out without thinking. Natasha looked back at me, but it was too dark for me to see her face when she answered:

“Of course you are. You are evolving. Your soul and your core are slowly fusing.”

Although I already knew about the fusion, her words troubled me deeply. I had just realized one thing: what if my soul changed with the fusion? Would I stop being myself? How would I know if I did? Maybe seeing through my silence, Natasha added:

“You can’t stop the fusion once it’s started. All you can do is keep going this way. Certainly, the evolution of a Fury is kind of… chaotic, but once you’ve evolved, your core won’t change any more.”

“You mean, my soul will change…?”

Natasha stopped on a step and turned.

“Are you worried about your soul?”

“Of course I am.”

“About forgetting your past?”

“Well, naturally, who wouldn’t?”

To my surprise, her hand clutched mine. Moonlight glimmered in her eyes.

“So it’s true,” she said with a trembling tone, “you remember your past life.”

Only then did I realize where she was coming from. I was supposed to be but a cub—a somewhat precocious one, but all in all just an undead that shouldn’t have been too much concerned about its very young soul. I had made a blunder. I tried to break free from her grip, in vain. I grumbled:

“What do you mean, my past life?”

“Were you revived with your whole soul?” she replied. “Tell me the truth.”

Her last words came out as a necro-order. Though astonished, I resisted with almost no effort and glared at her. The hell was she doing? She let go of my hand with surprise, and for a moment, we stood in silence above the Turtle’s Neck. I remembered something Ray had said about necromancers giving orders to someone else’s familiar: it was considered a serious offense. Natasha Shatana Limpetra knew it. And yet, she had gotten carried away. That’s how rare it was to keep one’s soul through a revival.

I heard her sigh.

“Please forgive this old grandma for her lack of manners.”

Was she chalking it up to her age? I rolled my eyes.

“Sure. Your order didn’t do anything, anyway.”

“… I saw that. For an undead who hasn’t even evolved, your resistance is pretty impressive. I wonder what kind of technique you used.”

Most likely, it was the same electronic technique used in the Vod group, since Kaspar was one of their members… Keeping that thought to myself, my lips curved in a hesitating smile.

“How about we get moving? It’s not that I have vertigo but, you know, we’re pretty high up…”

Amused, she took my hand again, and we kept going up and down the stairs, heading to Yuutow Island. In the darkness, I would have had a hard time determining which of the flying wings was that of the Wind House, but Natasha did not hesitate. She led me home, I landed in the garden, and bid her good night. After seeing her climb down the invisible stairs towards her own house and disappear in the night, I looked at the lights at the top of Yuutow Tower. Were some people trying to repair it this late at night? Not that they would succeed…

I turned away and went back to my own bedroom, satiated and in high spirits, having forgotten all my worries about my evolution. I close the door and folded my arms, pensive.

How should I spend the rest of the night? Iracheh Smith’s manual was in Ray’s room, but I didn’t want to wake him up, and I didn’t really feel like reading right now, anyway. In the quietness of my room, I started cleaning my violin, then a sudden thought about all the recent events woke my second stroke of inspiration tonight. I frantically searched for a sheet of paper in the dark, lit up a lamp, sat down at the desk, and wrote:

How is it so that I can feel your heart in mine?

My moon is shadow in your shining sun.

How can I write your sacred name online?

It’s flying high, it’s flying high, your life!

Is like a giant Crystal running wild.

Stolen novel; please report.

My pen kept running through the paper like that of an inspired poet, trying to write down all my feelings. My desires. My ambitions. The growing necro-bond was making me feel as small as an ant in front of a god. But I still wanted to follow that god as myself, as the scatterbrained friend and the misunderstood poet I was. Instead of bending to that blinding sun and closing my eyes, I wanted it to shine on the whole world. And I wanted to stay with it, with everyone, for as long as I could.

I don’t know how much time had passed when my hand wrote:

Ray, don’t forget I’m no longer alive,

that I am here to protect what is mine.

I want to give my master all my life,

to merge in one and tell him my desire.

I want—

My pen stopped. I blinked. What was I writing? My last verses sent shivers through my spine. Merge in one? Tell him my desire? What desire? That of killing him, perhaps?

“Holy Gods,” I muttered.

The sun was rising. Well, with some luck, Ray was still sleeping. Swallowing my embarrassment, I contemplated my writing and shook my head in disbelief. One, two, three, four sheets. I had never written so much in one night. Well, some verses were pretty good. I read out loud:

“‘My moon is shadow in your shining sun’, heh, that was a good one. Oh, and that one, ‘My happy death is the present that makes my heart fly’. Hahaha… What did I mean by that again?”

I was enjoying and rereading my verses as if I had discovered them after ten years, when suddenly the door flew open.

“Straw Head! Wake up! Oh, you’re already up. Good morning! I have a surprise! What are you doing? Writing—?”

“N-Nothing!” I cried out. Fearing Linah would want to read my inspirations, I panicked, balled them up, put them into my mouth, and gulped them down under the young witch’s astonished gaze.

“…!! Straw Head?!”

“My verses were awful.”

“That’s not the point! You didn’t have to eat it! Just burn it if you don’t want anyone to read it!”

“… Oh. Next time, I’ll do that.”

Linah snorted.

“Holy Witches. And why are you dressed like that?”

Lowering my eyes to the orange coverall I had bought, I smiled.

“You like it? I am quite satisfied with the color. And it has a black hood. I’ve brought some gloves, too. See? With that, I’ll be completely protected!”

“… Protected from ridicule?”

“Eeeh? No, no, you know, it’s for the… cactus allergy.”

I averted my eyes, feeling bad under her surprised and compassionate look.

“Is it that bad?”

“Well…”

It was getting harder and harder to lie to her. Damn. It would be so much easier if she knew. But, for her to know, first I had to tell her. Logically. And if I did, then… how would she respond? I mean, how would I have reacted if, three months ago, she had come to me and told me, “Hey, Straw Head, actually, I’m a zombie, please let’s stay friends forever”? Or more like, “Hey, Straw Head, you know, I was thinking about confessing my love to you, then the Cheetahs fell apart, and I died, and I was revived into an undead, and now there are many things I can’t do, like, I can’t sense anything with my hands, and if I kissed you, all I’d feel would be your distasteful lifeforce. Will you love me anyway? “Of course I will, Lil Witch!”” I covered my eyes. Forget the theatrical tone, why was I turning everything upside-down?!

“Straw Head? Straw Head! Are you feeling unwell? Is it the allergy?! Those damn cactuses, I’ll uproot them all! ”

Her sincere worry went to my heart… She was so sincere that she was already walking out of the room to put her words into practice. I rushed after her.

“Lil Witch, don’t! I’m fine! I’m fine, you hear? Forget the cactuses.”

“Really? Then don’t make me worry needlessly! For crying out loud…” She breathed out sharply. “Anyway, come down. I have a surprise for you.”

A surprise? Then, I noticed that, over her loose white t-shirt and her black, tight pants, she was wearing an apron. I understood why when she explained as we walked down the stairs:

“It seems that Styzz and Noah ate the rest of the Shanghai pie during the night—those two are hopeless gluttons—and since you couldn’t even taste it, I thought: what if I make a cake? And so, I did.”

She turned to me with a grin as we reached the bottom of the stairs, and she pointed at the table.

“Ta-da!”

Linah had… cooked for me? My necro-core leaped, and my gaze lingered on her beaming face before turning toward the cake. It was oddly greenish and molded into a pot whose handles were…

“Well, yeah,” Linah grumbled, “the handles were made of plastic. I noticed it afterwards.”

Please, notice it before you burn it all.

“Anyway, now, we’ll be able to use this pot, too, for the oven.”

I coughed, stifling a laugh, and sat at the table, inspecting the cake. Putting my gloves on not to burn myself, I shook the pot upside-down to get the cake out, but it didn’t move an inch.

“Hold it tight,” Linah said impatiently. She climbed on the table, clenched her fist, and punched the bottom of the pot. She hit it so hard that the pot slipped from my hands and crashed loudly on the table. The cake, inside, was still well attached. Avoiding Linah’s eyes, I decided to take it seriously and cut a portion with a serrated knife. It came out as green as the crust and hard as stale bread.

At this point, I reached my limit and burst out laughing. To my stupefaction, Linah’s lips pouted, and her eyes filled with tears.

“I messed up, didn’t I?”

Her voice broke, and my necro-core with it. The next thing I knew, I was holding the piece of cake and putting it into my mouth. Linah gaped at me, with a mix of hope and guilt in her eyes. Alarmed by the noise, the others were coming out of their bedrooms. Noah turned up his nose.

“What happened in here? It stinks of burned plastic.”

I grabbed the pot with the cake rooted in it.

“The cake’s all mine!”

“You a kid?” Noah snorted.

“Wait!” Linah protested. “Straw Head, seriously, what if it’s inedible?”

I swallowed down what was in my mouth.

“It’s clearly inedible,” Noah said, looking over my shoulder. “And it’s clearly not a cake.”

I glared at him and climbed up the stairs saying:

“I’ll cherish your first witches’ concoction for the rest of my life.” Which could be shorter than expected if the cake had some ingredients that were deadly for undeads. As that thought crossed my mind, I turned and smiled at her a bit more emotionally than intended. “Thanks, Lil Witch.”

“…!”

While Linah turned livid, Lei chuckled, and Noah rolled his eyes, saying:

“Don’t thank someone who has just poisoned you, stupidstar.”

“I-I haven’t!” Linah gasped weakly.

“He is paler than usual,” Nina remarked. Was I?

They all stared at me as if they expected me to collapse at any moment. In the end, Linah cracked.

“It’s not fair! I just wanted to make a cake. I didn’t put any poison in it! You guys have to believe me! I didn’t! Give me that, Straw Head! Seriously, give it back!”

She was now pulling at the pot. I protested:

“But I want it!”

Linah glowered at me. I grimaced and confessed:

“I want to take a picture of it. As a souvenir.”

I heard stifled laughs in the hall. Linah’s eyes grew even more murderous as tears welled up in them again. She stole the pot from me through sheer brute force, ran outside through the courtyard, and threw it all over the railing of the flying Wind House, as far as she could. It turned out it went quite far.

We had followed her outside under the morning sun, and I knew Lei and Noah were dying to comment something, but the look she gave us silenced them. I cleared my throat.

“It’s the thought that counts, Lil Witch.”

Linah swallowed and snuffled. I insisted:

“I won’t forget—”

“Please do!” She breathed in and out and added shyly: “But thanks, Straw Head, for tasting it anywa—”

A sudden explosion below drowned her words. Startled, we all hurried to the edge to have a look, except Lei, who stared at her sister with curiosity.

“What kind of exploding cake was that, dear sister?”

“Hah?! Wh-What are you implying? That wasn’t the cake! Cakes do not explode!”

“Why was it green, anyway?” Noah replied.

“The hell if I know!”

“Now that’s worrying,” Nina said to herself, thoughtful.

“Aya-aya.” Lei’s eyes gleamed with amusement. “Now that I remember, didn’t your grandma bar you from the kitchen when you were four?”

“That has nothing to do with—! Really! I just forgot my hand in the oven once, that’s all!”

Holy Crystals, now I was worried that she might try to make a cake again. No, more importantly…

I looked below, towards the area where the pot with the cake had fallen. I saw people hurrying across the gardens of the academy. A column of smoke was rising.

My necro-heart froze. Right now, all I could think was: What the hell did I just eat?!

I turned to Linah in dismay as the others were all watching the incident.

“I d-d-don’t understand,” she stuttered. “Why?”

That was what I wanted to ask her.

In the end, several instructors came to the Wind House to investigate, Linah confessed, and we learned that some rare species of plants in the garden had reacted with the cake and had been completely obliterated. The old Claire Li tried hard to get the recipe from the Lil Witch, but all her attempts were unfruitful. Maybe because Noah and Lei were openly laughing, we were all punished and told to help Linah repair the garden. And while the instructors talked and gave admonitions, I kept shaking inwardly, scared to death, waiting for the moment when I would explode.

No one seemed to remember that I had eaten a piece of that cake.

No one seemed to worry about me.

How depressing. In the end, we were all alone in this world.

Then I heard Ray’s voice through our necro-bond:

‘Your body’s fine: I don’t know exactly what happened, but you’re not going to explode.’

His words were like a warm, summer rain. I turned to see him walk out of the house, his sleepy eyes still barely open. I grinned, and before I could even think, I called out in relief:

“Master!”

All eyes turned to me. Glancing at the surprised faces of the instructors, I stood rooted to the spot. Crap. Why did I say that?! For a second, Ray’s eyes flashed with fear. Then we heard another:

“Oh, master! Good morning!”

It was Lei Sunclaw. The martial artist had just saved the day for us, making everyone think that Ray was a bossy captain that wanted his subordinates to call him master… Which was false! I growled inwardly with conflicted emotions, then I saw Noah open his mouth, surely about to ruin everything, and I elbowed him. The Champ frowned at me, then something clicked in his mind, and he exclaimed:

“Wait! Stupidstar! You… Haven’t you eaten some of the cake?!”

Followed a terrible situation where the instructors wanted to send me to a hospital to extract the destructive cake. I flatly refused and repeated endlessly that I was fine, all that under Linah’s horrified gaze. To think I had made her promise to give me her first amulet once she became a witch… I sighed inwardly. Being around those people was a lot of fun most of the time, but honestly… I wanted to live a long life. And I knew firsthand how easy it was to die.

Tense, I patted Linah’s pink hair and said:

“Nice try, Lil Witch.”

As she gaped at me, wondering what I meant, I added with a twitching smile:

“Don’t worry. I’m going to put a lock on the kitchen door. I’ll make all the cakes you want. SO STAY OUT OF THE KITCHEN, OKAY? OKAY?”

Noah chuckled.

“He’s snapped.”