The me who was gone would have known I was basically being attacked continuously because I simultaneously looked comfortable, yet too weak to be as comfortable as I was. Others perceptions had changed, both for worse and better. They did not sit in the center of the storm of insanity, but they rode both edges on extremes.
I could not rest at my center long, in moments there were many things that were undone and done, I'd always known I did not want to kill and that was enough. I'd remembered why, I knew it was wrong, but there had never been a situation I was forced to imagine it was right. That had never been put upon my plate to eat, to eat or starve, a life or death decision.
For I'd known I did not want to kill and why, I still did know something as specific yet general, that you should simply never kill even people when they're down. The act of putting them in their place was enough, no more or less, into places they could not harm you or moving oneself where you couldn't be harmed.
The trio together did not leave me such an option. The me that they faced knew he did not want to, but he nearly had to, even struck unconscious there was some method they used to get each other up he didn't recognize. They were using inefficient methods of forcible transference to rouse each other. All my memories were gone, my knowledge and other things remained, but not knowing was better here.
It would have been too much to see that it was everyone else who would be the cheat here, that they had plentiful potentials they had not earned, and that others who'd progressed in the time and place that was still possible like me had discovered 'shortcuts'. You know the type, those kind of cheats, the kind that come with burdens or even sacrifices.
It would have been much too much to discover later what I would, not with the perspective I had, this world was nothing at all like those I'd ever known. These people knew what war was about, this world had shortcuts, and once again the weakest was in his true natural environment again. I was too weak to ever be called lethal, not in any exemplary way imaginable. Just none.
But that didn't mean I'd never fought.
I'd easily dodged the first suckerpunch, the windup was way too obvious besides the disgusted and annoyed look that never lost focus on me as the most aggressive approached, but before I could try to create some distance I had to react to the others. The first was too surprised for a follow up.
Two swiped for my leg with a well aimed and powerful kick at my left knee, well aimed but it was not a true sweeping maneuver as much as an attack you utilize on the leg someone is favoring their weight down, and powerful but I was favoring my right leg. At least, he did try to strike inches below my actual knee, so he was a fool and not an idiot.
Kicking him with upwards force with my left leg where his right inner knee wanted to make contact didn't just break bones there, he wheeled over as if doing a cartwheel aerially instead of along the ground. Because his lower leg broke upwards at that position and was directed towards the centrifugal path his body took around, his broken foot acted as the brake he neatly landed on for a short moment.
Just a short one though because the force was still just enough for him to fall over with. Not even a second had passed from the time I impacted his body before he landed, it actually looked far more gentle than it was by far in reality, as without the time to protect his face many bones in it had tiny fractures. By the second of those seconds he screamed, deaf to it in one ear and bleeding from that one.
But by that same moment number one had followed up, this time the swing wasn't as wild and the windup had more momentum from behind it, though since it came from his left I had use of my dominant hand at an opportune moment for defending it. He was bigger by far, but he wasn't stronger, I could sense it.
As I'd wrapped my right arm around his left to steal his momentum, I'd really put most of my effort into getting his fist under my armpit and control of his elbow with my grip, already kicking off of the ground with the bottoms of my feet just after we came into contact.
With his left arm wound towards his back from the front in a nasty lock but his momentum pressing ino it still, the same forces he was trying to use against me were already tearing muscles and wrenching cartilage, but those were only the immediate forces of his at work against him.
The act lowered my center of gravity significantly, but while he instinctively lowered his left shoulder and raised his chin up slightly from the pain of the lock, I was still rearing my head back. By the time I started bringing my head down towards him, he was already seeing white, when I drove my head into the side of his neck he folded straight.
The third had sleighted me anyway, acting as if to engage or disengage, but this was just long enough for me to hear the first guy getting up. The second bigger man had just taken hands off his chest about the time I turned, and as I went to kick the first back down for that look in his eye that said he wasn't done yet, the third rushed towards me.
Since he was trying to stab me in the back, as I flipped I speared my right leg towards his face like I was punting back an annoyance, just enough to bruise a bit but not hard enough to do more than push him back a few inches and put me a foot closer to the first guy off balance. A bit awkward, sure, but I'd never done a wheel kick and in my mind it worked well with one foot.
The intention had been to bruise his whole face, but that would have taken the effort of both legs acting as a backwards drop kick, the use of one alone had left my center of mass too low to have the intended effect. Not to mention using my left leg for a counter force and balance threw off the power of it. It was all for the best, the other might have killed him.
As well it was lucky the kick made him throw his hands wide and out, before drawing them towards his eyes after, I hadn't just blinded him by kicking him centered across the nose but if he'd had any discipline with that knife my leg would me sliced or stabbed either.
That moment of reprieve from behind, and blank look from ahead of me, they were enough to let me get my balance in the moment it took the first to act. The third was behind me, and right behind him, but the first guy was charging while the second was closing without any intention towards what he thought was a defensive range.
It wasn't, and his charging friend made it all too easy to throw one towards three, the third guy knew what to make of this and sidestepped while the first slowed down his larger masses momentum.
By the time the third took a step, his outstep became his in, I'd dragged his encroaching left foot out the moment it seemed to be stepping for him but the truth was he'd made it clear by posture alone which foot he'd step with, and where was as obvious due to his stride patterns.
The knife in his right hand went out where his arm naturally would, as he instinctively fought to regain balance, and though he had the discipline to regain purchase of his knife he did not have enough to do that and keep his attention on me where his eyes were as much as he should.
If he had, he could've braced by lowering his center of gravity for what happened next by thrusting his hips backwards alone. Instead he sailed flat to the ground, stomped in the guts where it hurt most, too low to be the most effecient place for kicking someone if you were aiming to kick them back as far as possible. The sternum was that center.
You couldn't forget to center your foot across the sternum as a center, not use it and go high or low, lower was for pain and center was for distance but high up, that was more defended and ineffecient for anything but offending someone. Such a kick put you off balance more, risked more, it was a kick you used to show superiority.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
The first guy was quick to come towards his aid, but I knew he wasn't merely dragging him off in unofficial truce, when he ignored me to stand over the third guy and try something I stomped him square with all force in the side of the knee from his side. That was the first time I ever saw bones come out of the skin, and would be the last if I could help it.
I was sure I could, but that didn't mean I was going to help this guys wound, not without some sort of remuneration or apology. In the seconds after this I had thought this, paying full attention to my surroundings and not even close to off guard, yet all at once there was pressure in my side. It happened again and again, all over my left side, but I saw all that occurred and even caught sight of most of the aftermath of the first sensation.
A knife coming out of me, the second guy, his knee not looking nearly so bad now. There was pressure, a small amount of blood, but no pain. Even calling it a pinch was too much, it felt more like a slight cooling and moistening, the pinch of cold weathers still above freezing were more uncomfortable.
His fist was worst, but not by much.
"What's wrong with you three? Why are you so weak?"
"B-b-but you- you're just level one. How can we-we?-we be weak?"
"I don't know mister- that's why I've asked you. I've lost my memories just recently, but I know one thing, you should have a lot better of an idea why you are weak than I do."
"I'm not? I mean, I- we're not weak. You didn't move and we didn't expect..this. What potion even makes you nearly impervious to a weapon?"
"Potion? I don't know a lot about them, I'm afraid, maybe your weapon is just.. weak, too?"
The man looked at his dagger, calmly as he had been the whole time, then when he looked at me his eyes widened, his breathing picked up until he was nearly panting a moment, and after that he heaved comfort over himself and cleared his perception with a wipe at his eyes.
"Are you going to kill us?"
"If you make me I might have to, neither of us want that, maybe just stop attacking me and I'll do the same? I don't really mind, take your time, recover if you wish but it'll only be worse for you all next time. I've got your figures memorized here, now."
He gave me a very odd look, as I pointed to my heart, but then he looked around at his friends and gave a fleeting glimpse at his knee that he did not let linger. Then he licked at his dry lips, face regaining some color, and looked me in the eye.
"I can get them out of your way if you like. Should I?"
"Nonsense, first guy went out like a light from his knee literally bursting out, and third guy won't be waking for a few more moments but he'll want to catch his wind. Just hang around and watch after them second guy."
Was it the smile that did it? I don't know, maybe I could say if I had more memories to use as perspective, but something I said broke some part of him that he could not live with out. When he'd shouted a blood curdling scream, I nearly jumped out of my skin putting some feet between us with a hop and taking a low forwarda defensive posture, but the crazy fool stabbed himself in the heart.
For the first time, I took a good look around, and there were familiar faces in sight. Only one was the kind that could talk back with human speech.
"Julia. I've lost my memory, I know, but can you tell me what the fuck just happened?"
"Grub I've never seen you fight like that, before. That was amazing! What do you call the spirit that possessed you? Your feet are even better than your hands!" She studied her own shins as if noticing them for the first time.
"It was just a few kicks, nothing fancy, and if it looked that way it's just because you were looking at it from ahead instead of from behind. But uh, this dead fellow here, why did he just commit suicide in my face?"
"Oh that, you broke his pride, and he couldn't live without it. And what a killer finishing touch that was, you didn't top it off with a finishing move, you made himself off himself, himself! Tell me, though, what memories do you claim to have misplaced?"
"Not misplaced, lost, they're all gone. You, me and the mules, and a spider somewhere? Y'all are all I remember."
"Pardon me? Y'all? Who are they?"
Was she being silly? No. "You all. It means you all, y'all are all I remember. I know things that I knew, but I can't remember anything specific that I didn't know before, and that tells me that I'm missing quite some time there. Where are we, and when?"
"In the city, and it's wednesday. Oh this is terrible, here I was thinking you had remembered things from the past and you have, but you're telling me you remembered one past but forgot another? That's incredible and all but also terrible. You remembered your history, but forgot all the history we share!"
"Yes I have, can you fill me in quickly though, because my instincts and intuitions are all over the place, you're the only chance I have to figure out what I'm missing. I had a wife Kate, and a party of six others besides her, they're probably looking for me."
"I don't know Grub- you've a wife? I mean you've never spoken much at all, really hardly ever, never about any history. It makes sense though as to why you never.. well women have made attempts at you let's just say. It's because you were married? You just struck me as too strong and silent to have met the right woman."
I only gave her a deep gaze for a moment before she flinched. "Relax." I said, hesitant, annoyed and not sure she should do that. "How long, how far have we been together?" I asked her, only a little sternly, which for me meant my voice was still plenty friendly.
"I never touched you! If that's what you're driving at you can just forget it!"
"HOW LONG?" I didn't change my tone or volume at all, I only added the depth of the emotional intensity I felt to my voice, emotions that were stirring only slowly. All of them had been unused for so long, I knew by the immense confusion I felt percieving them, yet I knew these feelings so tamed them.
Mostly.
"Twelve?"
"Days? Please say days."
"...Okay. Days?"
All the confused looks and blinking were enough to clear that easily spoken lie up, if she didn't look at me directly in the eye with doubt I'd have believed her by every other account. Something wasn't right.
"Why can you lie, exactly pray-tell?"
"OH! You taught me, that was for my protection. I've only had to do that a few times, just for that sake, but it's not something we can elaborate here." She was loud at first, then got much quieter, throwing her suppressed voice my way and not changing much else of herself as we stood there. "It's been twelve centuries Grub."
POP-POW. I turned to the sound on an unfamiliar instinct, lowering myself again, and calming because Julia did not react. She explained what I was seeing, for me, giving me plenty of the perspective she was starting to sense I was lacking. It was a kid with a small object, and the sound repeated itself the same as before, when he tucked the small gun under the waking third guys chin.
POW-POW. The small caliber sound had far more bass apparent in the first shot, all those after seemed to have higher pitches, but the truth was that our ears changed equilibrium to adjust to the potential for damage from encroaching sounds. There was only a slight ringing from our distance, at least for myself, it was probably the same for Julia.
"They're just hungry. Don't worry."
"They're gonna eat him? They? I just see one."
"They are people, probably the kid and their family or siblings or whoever else, and no he's just gonna loot him. Who would eat someone? People are disgusting, you don't eat anything that's a predatory omnivore or carnivore for a reason, you should know that." She said this scoldingly, face serious and mad.
Relief.
"You only eat people if you're desperate, you big dummy." Her eyes actually lightened when she said it, because she wasn't joking at all, just making light of something profane to my mind. Even the boy had turned to look at me with a similar face and manner as her, shaking his head.
"Ohmygod." I whimpered it low and altogether like one word. "Please don't say what I think you are implying." "Don't worry, we never ate any organs even in the hardest times, just flesh. We never touched blood, bone, or brain. It was all healthy." She said with a smile, the boy across from us smiled at her, then looked both ways down the empty and straight street before darting off.
The worst part was feeling the urge and having the sense to want to vomit, but not doing it, no that was a mistake if I'd had to eat people to survive. "Why didn't I use mana to make food for us?" I asked soft but seriously. She gave me a 'You can do that?' face, and I still didn't throw up but everything in my stomach seemed to spoil and churn.
I couldn't throw up or even pass gas, neither feeling caused the associated physiological connection to the proper psychological stimulus. My body wasn't connecting with the feelings the way a deeper part of me knew it should, yet, to say I was numb in any way was false. I felt everything more, the way a more shallow part of me knew I should feel.
I'd have to relearn what a light body was, amongst other things. Twelve centuries, I'd lived that long in a state without consciousness, and some part of my unconscious was there beneath me trying to make itself realized. It was there confirming what Julia said, accepting it because it had done these things, unable to deny the truth it knew or ever remove it as a lie.
Some part of me still very well looking for something good, only, there wasn't going to be much of that here and I had no sense to tell me that. Unknowns are unknowable, our mind doesn't approach them effortlessly or meaninglessly, but that vague intuition things were off were already becoming like the last functioning pieces of a badly broken compass.
Or a badly broken heart.