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- Takarada Kito - 3:00 pm - Austrian Emergency Airport, Vienna, Austria -
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Personally speaking, I hate violence. It might sound hypocritical but I prefer diplomacy over war. Even when I have to kill other people, I want it to be as painless and as quick as possible. I don't like killing just for fun or for the sake of it. I do what I'm ordered to. And I want to be done with it.
Why am I saying this? Well…
“Why am I even here?” I ask. While my… ehem… VIP is currently brainwashing the entire airport.
So, the situation is this, I have to get a clearance to go back to Siam. I cannot get that via ELITE because my comm was down. So I need to get an emergency flight home. And the normal route would take too long. So… Natsuna just brainwashed everyone to allow us to depart. Honestly speaking, I'm in awe.
Anyway, we are on our way to our personal jet… relatively speaking of course, it isn't ours for real.
“How can you do all of this?” I'm just… in awe of everything.
“In what sense?” She asks. “How can you do all of this to all these people!? Or HOW can you do this?” She asks further. “The first one, because I don't care. The second one, because I have Amber at my side.” She then answered… Well, it's good that she answered.
I mean… I don't mind it. As much as I despise taking advantage of other people, this is so much better than killing. So I have no particular reason to hate it. But… this is a bit on the icky side.
The jet was probably like a billion euro… for comparison's sake, I could buy a fully furnished mansion with a huge garden in the front with that money. Good god, billionaire money is egregious sometimes.
Whatever, we need to get out fast. Private jet with a personal pilot… brainwash into our personal puppet for the time being… what a convenience yet haunting power.
As we stepped into our personal jet, we were sure this is a billion euro jet… why? It is filled to the brim with luxurious, egregious, ego rubbing nonsense! Like, why the fuck is that silverwares, SILVERWARES! Real SILVER use in silverwares! Like, what!? And all the silk, gold, royal cloth, old Persian rug, high class classic everything! WTF!?
Everything is shiny… everything is classy… everything is shitty.
Whatever, I don't care. I got what I need, I don't need to care about other things.
“The pilot should be able to fly us from here to Siam, probably around 12 hours.” Natsuna said. “Don't worry. I'll send these guys back and have them do their routine work. Everything will remain the same. Everything.” She said, coldly.
I want to ask something, but I can't really do much anyway. We only need to get back, shouldn't be too much. No need for anything else.
… but why is this bad feeling still here…
“Yuki, take a seat. You should rest.” Ivory said, now she has a very good looking shirt and skirt. Very nice. She looks gorgeous.
I take a seat, calm myself down, I drift into a dream land… I'm too tired for this shit…
—
After some time, I woke up. Natsuna is currently sleeping. She looks so calm and peaceful… but she also looks extremely sad… and mad…
Her face constantly showed disdain and dissatisfaction. It makes me wonder. Why…
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Ivory stills watching me, all the same. It looked like she understood my every thought.
“Of course.” She said, knowingly. “Your mind is linked to me. I'm part of you, the same way your hand is linked to your brain.” She said… Now I'm even more confused.
“Look, I can read your mind. That was it. Anything else, you don't need to know.” She said, frustrated. Why are you so easily frustrated? Anyway, that doesn’t answer much… I still have a lot of things I want to know.
“Do you really want to know? It might be better if you don’t know.” She said with a worried voice. Come on now, don’t just shift your emotion that quick!
But yeah… It might be better if I don’t know. And yet, I can’t shake this feeling. I can’t…
“So, what do you want to know?” She asks, putting herself closer to me.
“Why am I still alive? I’m pretty sure that that wound would kill me. How am I still alive?” I ask. Wanting to know how I can still be living.
She leaned back. Quiet for quite some time. As if she is contemplating on whether she wants to tell me or not. In the end, she sighs heavily.
“I made a contract with you. Temporarily one, not permanent one. And it is a one-sided contract. It grants me the ability to extend your life, by giving you my own lifeforce. Because My life is basically limitless, I can extend your life as long as the contract remains in place. It is magic, but not unlike science some people are trying to do.” She said it quite clearly. And with that, my world has changed forever.
“So… how to break the contract?” I asked, curious.
“If you truly wish to break the contract, your mana, your lifeforce, will reject my own mana that serves as a connecting thread between us. If you wish to break the contract, the contract will break immediately. I don’t recommend it right now though, you are immune to her brainwashing power because of my power as well as rejuvenation of your strength. The moment you decide to break the contract, you will be subjected to her brainwashing power and your own body will be weakened.” She said with a serious note. Yeah, I shouldn’t break my contract for now. Especially since… I don’t know if I can continue to trust Natsuna or not.
With that said, though, I still have a lot of things I want to ask. The main one is…
“What exactly is magic, right?” She read my mind and said it. Yeah, that’s correct. I want to know, what is magic?
“Well, to be fair, us magical entities don’t truly understand it either, even after thousands of years, it is still alluding to us.” She said, gloomily. “According to Lilith, it is a field, similar to things like magnetic field, electric field, gravity, and quantum field… but in all honesty, she is as clueless as you and I. I’m not gonna proclaim anything, because I know nothing about what magic is.”
Well, that’s a bummer. Whatever, magic is magic, let’s think about it that way.
“It’s nice that you can change your mind so quickly.” She smiles softly. I can only smile wryly. It has been far too long, with too many things changing all around me. It is… quite an ordeal… really.
First, my parent’s die in a car accident, leaving me to fend for my sister. Then I have to attend TAMs and was recruited into ELITE because I have no other source of income. I was sent on multiple fronts… either negotiating… and eliminating. I already forgot about the world I used to have back then. I need to always be flexible… it is demanded of me… otherwise…
A drop of tear falls from my eye, I wipe the rest. I can’t cry… not yet. I have to remain strong. I have to.
“I can understand why Alexis trusts you so much now.” She said in awe. I close my eyes, then look at Natsuna who is sleeping peacefully.
It should be like another 10 hours until we’re back in Siam. I hope things are still okay over there.
“You can rest a bit more, you know?” Ivory said, clearly wanting me to rest all the way through… but I slept in hospital for who knows how long, I was no longer sleepy, nor tired. So I don’t really want to sleep again.
“Then, how about playing some games? There should be some sort of games around here, right?” She asks… Well, she might be right. I begin to stand up to take a look around for some card game or some game console…
Then… I felt dread.
Again… It was like that time with a girl with a pistol…
I looked at the place where I thought someone was staring at me. There was a girl… near my age. Materialized right in front of my eyes.
“You really think… it would be that easy, huh.” She said, incredulously. “I won’t let you go back that easily though. You should know that, Yuki.” A chill run down my spine. Very few people call me Yuki… very few… yet intimate people in my past…
I look at her with dread filling my entire body. I shake with fear. Someone close to me… want me dead?
As I look at her, a realization dawn on me.
She is my best friend… she is my oldest friend… she is someone I… cannot imagine my live without until that… event… that arson…
The burnt mark, the orangish red hair, the vermillion eyes, the figure…
“I was left to burn… that day.” She said, somberly.
“I was left to rot… after.” She said, angrily.
“I was abandoned! By everyone!” She screamed… with desperation.
She was my first love… yet… on that day… I cannot do anything to save her…
“I’ll make sure… you felt my pain…” She smiles, twisted and contorted to the point I can no longer remember.
I’m sorry I’m so powerless back then… I’m sorry… Phoenix…