Kichi struggled to regain her feet even though she had failed to do so just a moment before. However, somehow, through exhaustion, she straightened her knee to stand wobbly. A slight breeze could knock her over, but that didn't stop her from tightening her grip on her pure sword and lifting it several inches from the floor. The steel scraped across the black marble and trailed sparks.
Akisane had tried to kill her, or kidnap her, or whatever his intentions were, but she would still help him against this supernatural foe.
“Henry,” William said, “how would you like to die? Fast or slow?”
Akisane laughed. “I don't think you'll find it nearly as easy as you imagine. Don’t you know whose sword I have?”
William looked puzzled, and she didn't blame him because what Akisane said made no sense. What little difference would the steel in his hand make in the fight? Whatever it was, it didn’t hold a candle to the magnificent sword that Whitebeard had carried. At least, she didn’t think so.
Kichi searched for some last pocket of energy, which she found in the twelve rings about her. Grasping the magic, she flew forward with her sword and came up with a new attack on the fly. A spiral of energy wrapped the blade and would have cut through any ordinary steel. She had no idea how she knew, but it was true. However, her will to become the most chivalrous knight ended in vain when William flicked her attack away like she was nothing. She truly realized how useless she was against her enemies.
The staff shot out, knocked the pure sword away, and then struck into Kichi’s side. It bore a hole right through the ribs. Blood erupted from her body, and someone started screaming. Not someone—she was screaming. This wasn’t a vision of herself dying as if through the amulet, she was experiencing it. The staff had destroyed her spine, and she would die. She looked down at her broken body and blood pouring out and saw vines creeping up and tangling around her.
Whitebeard's voice reverberated in her mind. Crann save you.
But she was dead, she knew, and there was no way to avoid it. She felt those vertical rings spinning backward that Hosa spoke of spinning. They seemed to speed up faster and faster into a whistle beyond hearing.
The world tumbled away into nebulous clouds and stars, streaking into bars, blackness, and immense structures rotated past. Whitebeard's voice was distant and she couldn't make out any of his words. All of her concerns vanished for some time while she melted into everything.
Suddenly, she found herself in a room of plush furniture. Light flooded from the ceiling, from circles of glass. This was a strange afterlife where everything seemed amazingly crafted. Legs crossed, she sat against a couch in front of a glowing rectangle. And she saw a knight, the realm, magic all playing out in front of her, and some form of game shared with her sibling. Yes, this was a game. Had she fallen asleep?
They were sitting on a rug with squiggly gray lines. The other person was her brother, Nish, a dark-haired youth with thick glasses. Both of them had something in their hands that controlled the game.
Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.
Nish died and pointed. “You have to have at least seven rings to summon Shining Armor. Just use the first ring and let the others come in.”
She stuck her tongue and and did it, but a glank appeared.
He half-reached for her controller as if she couldn’t play. “Dip your sword in the spirit realm.”
Then, rudely, their mom unplugged the game. The screen darkened, and the game was lost. Before they could protest, they saw how frantic she was.
Nish sighed, stood, and pressed a button, and a nicely dressed man and woman appeared.
Images flashed and flickered from city to city, and each flattened and erupted blooms of fire. “Another city has been destroyed. World leaders plead to cease firing before it’s too late.”
A burst of light scorched the window, and their mother screamed as it branded her skin and glass exploded. The apartment began to rumble and shake. Grasped by fear, Kichi peeked through the gaping maw where the window had been and saw a wall of death.
I'm going to die. I wish I were a knight in our game. She dropped the controller a moment before the world was wiped clean.
Soon, she was looking at the stars again whirling past and found herself somehow disembodied and broken. It wasn't her anymore. She was two halves that eventually came together in a burning doorway, and she stumbled out unscathed and ran into a strange world. A chicken and pig ran, cut her off, and she whirled around to see the remnants of a smoldering hut. She touched herself to double-check that she was alive.
I was born into a game. It's all just a game and nothing more.
She looked around at all the tiled roofs and horse-drawn carts and cocked her head. “I want to be the most chivalrous knight,” she said. She stepped barefoot into the smoldering hut and pulled free a gleaming blade.
She remembered all that, stood in the tangle of vines, and realized she had all her dozen rings full before William in the grand hall.
The vines retreated and brushed the floor, and Whitebeard spoke silently. Uncountable universes with uncountable more folded within each, and it happens that there was a game in your previous life much like this reality. I hope that this is more real to you than that world lost to corruption and barren of magic because this is all that matters now.
He had a point, though it didn’t matter. This is what Kichi wanted. She took the innermost ring of power and drained it into her hands. Always before her abilities skimmed it from the outside. The void caused the larger rings to flood inward, and she took the energy and spun it into a suit of ethereal armor. She put ten rings into the protection, which didn’t leave much to spare. Blue flames raced along her limbs and torso. She dipped her sword into the spirit world, and it vanished a second before reappearing, dripping with liquid light.
Masahide stared at her in amazment. He’d lost the Dream Sword and now had his pure sword drawn beside Akisane. Would the three of them fight together against this necromancer?
Kichi
Level: 12
Focus: Prescience
Secondary focus: Lava+3, Tandem Dream Sword, Fire Sword, Spirit Dipping
Weapons: pure sword - 5% pure
Items: Near Field Amulet (Prescience+2, focus)