The path down the mountain trails a surprisingly well-maintained set of stone stairs. The moment the threshold of the temple gate is crossed, you can see the beginnings of recent hands-on care, some stones clearly newer than the ones next to them.
Small shrines mark distance at consistent intervals.
Each one is topped with a stone shelter for a torch, and a red ribbon that trails in the wind. Beyond that though, they're all different. Each is covered in carvings or sculpted into different shapes. Weathered figures, human, animal, and scenes. They feel nostalgic and familiar, even if you don't remember any of them. They're nice to look at. If you weren't having to keep up with the group, you'd want to stop and examine each of them on the way down.
Walking with the group is…. fine. It's fine. A little awkward though.
For one thing, it's less of a walk and more of a
trudge.
All three of them are starting to show the fatigue from whatever fighting they had with you (or "you" but nevermind that for now).
You noticed Miake's limp earlier, but he seems to keep forgetting about it, leading to further stumbles. Probably an extremely recent injury. The boiled leather plates around that knee look mangled. They have housing for metal reinforcements, but those have been ripped out. You can see what they should look like on the other knee.
Raye looks tired, but otherwise gives you nothing to work with. For some reason that doesn't surprise you. However, like Miake, some of the armor pieces she wears are conspicuously missing, and the fabric beneath is stained with long-dried blood.
Lena seems, if not fine, than at least energetic. The lack of any obvious injuries makes her the odd one out. From the way that both Miake and Raye keep looking back to check on her when they think she isn't looking, you would guess that there are less obvious injuries.
Some part of you brain is sluggishly running the numbers on if you could beat the three of them in a fight, even now. It isn't getting anywhere, every line of tactical thought smashing against the wreckage of your memories. If you don't even know what
you can do, how are you going to counter what they can do? Whatever that is. You wish you could just
stop worrying about it, but it keeps creeping in whenever you let your thoughts drift naturally; a survival instinct that won't turn off.
It is tiring. Very, very tiring.
And you really don't need that right now.
You don't
think this kind of walk would strain you normally, but you still feel like you've been pummeled into the ground and left out in the cold for a night. That's where you
started, and it isn't getting better. The dizziness from when you first woke up never quite went away, so much as you doggedly shoved it aside when you heard them outside. Now that you're walking, it's nipping at the edges of your focus relentlessly, singing a horrendous duet with the vice clamp headache.
You have to drop to the back of the group, even behind Lena's short stride, just to hide the way you periodically need to stop and regain your balance. Awful. You don't want them to see you like this.
You don't want anyone to see you like this, but especially not
them.
No one has said anything about it, and you manage to reset your expression from open relief when Ray calls a stop. The group has reached a flat area that marks a turn in the stairs down. You could set up camp here, it is big enough. Echoing that thought Lena pipes up, "Are we stopping here for the day, Raye?"
There's a faint undercurrent of tension in her voice that says they had
better be stopping here for the day or there will be consequences later. Perhaps because she's looking away or perhaps because she doesn't care (or doesn't show it), Raye shakes her head and blithely ignores the fuming Lena behind her.
"Nope. Need to get farther down first. We'll take a break though." Miake breathes a quiet sigh of relief. Lena wrings her hands and huffs, but bites off whatever retort she was going to make.
Your legs are screaming at you to sit down for awhile, and vision is still wobbling at the edges. You ignore both their protests to step a little closer to the edge of the mountain. Raye is staring at something below with an intense look (you think, it is very hard to tell with her), and you want to know what it is.
Aside from a flick of her gaze, she doesn't twitch as you step up alongside her. "Mm? Something up?"
You shake your head. "Nothing in particular. I was curious what you were looking at."
"The Stairs, down there." She gestures to what is presumably the town at the base of the mountain. The landscape below is a blurry wash of greens, browns, and blues. There's an especially large clump of brown where she points, dotted with twinkling lights. That must be where you're headed. "Looks like none of the stragglers from your army have attacked them, yet. Like Lena said, it's been untouched, but we cleared the area around it before we came up just in case. Don't know what the demons will do with their general gone."
There's a barb hidden in her musing, and you strive to ignore it. You don't want to think about whatever army of demons you were running around with right now. It can wait until after you've eaten something.
"I'm surprised you can make out those kinds of details at this distance." She gives you an odd look you can't decipher, then slowly nods. "Right, well," she says, "I have good eyes."
You don't have anything to say to that, so you just let the silence sit.
It would be a moment that could be called companionable, if you were friends with these people. Instead, there's a painfully awkward void where Raye is clearly waiting for you to say something.
Realizing you won't, she walks away after a moment. You hear some murmured conversation with Miake that you can't convince yourself is worth listening in on with any effort. Something about birds and wings. It's easy to ignore that while you look down at the scenery below. Even if you can't see individual houses or anything, it makes for a pretty water color. You even fill a small thrill of excitement at getting to visit. You'll get to hopefully talk to people who aren't hung up on whoever you used to be, for one thing. It'll be nice to meet people who aren't giving you suspicious glares all the time. But you're also excited to explore! Your memories of what a village should look like are still mostly tattered and pockmarked, but you feel some warmth from them too. You think you'll enjoy it, as long as–
"Hey, are you alright?"
You fail to suppress a flinch, and shoot Lena an annoyed look. "I'm fine."
She puts her hands on her hips, glimmering green eyes squinting at you with a skeptical scowl. Then has to blow a lock of red hair off her face. Somehow this fails to make her less threatening. "I don't believe you."
"Excuse me?" You don't have to fake the affront in your voice, as it comes quite naturally to you. "I'm
fine, like I said."
She shakes her head. "We were certain we'd killed you. My spell definitely should have. There's no way that it didn't injure you pretty badly." You fold your arms, frowning.
"You're awful confident in your abilities."
Rather than back down or boil over, she gives you a cold glare. You take a step back before you can stop yourself. But Lena isn't done with you, saying, "Yes, I am. So stop lying to the medic, and tell me what's wrong. You don't
look fine."
Raye and Miake both look up from their chat, and you realize that the trip down the mountain is going to be halted
permanently until you explain yourself. You wish you remembered anything to curse for your misfortune. You wish that you weren't having this conversation.
You wish that the ground would stop spinning and getting closer–
—You didn't realize that Lena could hold you up with one arm. It doesn't seem to require her to exert herself very much, either. The expression she wears is one of resigned annoyance, and you suspect that you're not the only person she knows that tries to refuse medical treatment. Miake and Raye both look the type.
At least you have an excuse. You don't know these people after all.
Not that Lena cares one bit about that—she drags you bodily over to a rock and makes you sit down. You'd rather not, but you're still dizzy. Lena is muttering to herself. "Don't know why I thought you'd be any better than those two, you're all the same… idiots…"
Unfortunately, once you're off your feet you have no desire to stand up again. Lena is industriously searching through her pack in front of you, still muttering curses. You can see the blurry blobs of Raye and Miake start to wander over, eventually resolving into distinguishable features once they're next to you.
"Is she dying?" Raye asks, sounding for all the world like she's asking if it will rain tomorrow. The world continues to careen at odd angles and jittering rotation, so you can't really respond to that one. But you're still mad about it.
Lena just rolls her eyes. "
Obviously not, do you really need to ask. Aside from being pretty banged up by the fight, she's suffering mana exhaustion, and—" she looks up at you. Her eyes shine with an emerald glow, and you shiver as you feel something pierce through some ephemeral part of you. "—her spiritual link is still fluttering in a way that worries me. Forcibly breaking the bond between her and ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ obviously did some damage. The memory loss is just a symptom."
Lena holds out the sparkling blue potion that will apparently fix your mana exhaustion, but when you reach for it, she seizes your wrist with an iron grip. Emerald eyes meet yours (whatever color they are), nailing you to the spot.
"This will taste foul. Extremely foul. But if you spit it out,
I will kill you myself. Are we clear?"
You mutely nod. Her expression softens, much in the way that an iron club technically lacks sharp edges.
You are not put at ease, but you take the bottle. Lena is still staring, and you don't think she's going to let you out of her sight until she's made sure you drank it.
With no choice but to face the music, you pop the stopped off with your thumb, catching it with your other hand, and drink.
It is
beyond foul.
You feel like you'll throw up from the smell of it before the liquid even reaches your tongue, at which its so much worse. You think this is what drinking sewage would be like. The fact that the rest of your body starts to feel better while your tastebuds cry out for the release of death just makes the sensation all the more jarring. You have to clap a hand over your mouth to avoid retching.
"Mmhm, well, you're at least taking it better than
some people I've met." She says, rolling her eyes. Disbelieving, Miake's chimes in, "Lena are you still mad about that guy? It's been like… a month."
"I
am still mad, and I will continue being mad! The ingredients alone are expensive, and it's such a pain to actually prepare it on top of that! They're a valuable resource, not some kind of cheap wine!"
You could really go for some cheap wine right now, or really, anything at all to stop tasting this. However, you have no doubt Lena will actually kill you, so you have to endure. It's hard to believe
they were the ones scared of
you.
You try to stand up, but Lena immediately puts a hand on your shoulder and pushes you back down. "Nope, stay there. Give it a sec to do its job. You're just going to fall over again otherwise. Don't sulk."
"I'm not-–Grrhm…." You bite off the end of the sentence, knowing it won't help your case. Whatever. May as well make your peace with taking a rest for awhile, you wanted to get off your feet for a bit anyways. Even if it means putting up with Lena fussing over you. "Fine, fine, I'll stay put."
"Yes. You will." She doesn't have to say it like
that.
While you and Lena are more or less camped by the rock standing in for a chair, Miake and Raye continue making a perimeter of the clearing.
You let the chatter roll over you. It is… not the worst thing in the world, to just listen to the conversation flow. It doesn't feel like something you've done often.
"Huh. Raye, do you remember this spot when we were on our way up?" Miake sounds… not worried, exactly. Mildly concerned at worst.
"Mm. Yeah. Why?" Raye, in contrast sounds half-asleep yet with perfect enunciation. You could level a shelf with her monotone.
Miake shrugs. "Nothing, just that they all kinda look the same to me. Only thing that's different is the shrines. Kinda hard to tell how far down the mountain we are."
"Not much. We've got a lot of walking to do before we'll hit halfway. We're not stopping before then. Further than that, if Lena will let us." The woman in question rolls her eyes, long-suffering. You think that the tug of war between Raye's drive and Lena's consideration is one that both are used to.
"I think we're about a fourth of the way down, actually." Your mouth opens on its own, rattling off your best estimate before you have a chance to think about it.
You freeze up a little when all of them look over at you at the same time. "It feels like we are, anyways," you mumble.
Lena winces for some reason. Miake visibly thinks over getting involved, then decides to go stand conspicuously at the other side of the naturally-occurring rest stop. Raye is already walking over, an interrogative gleam in her golden eyes. "What makes you say that?"
"Uh…" You falter. You don't actually have an answer to that question. "I… don't know? I'm just sure we are."
Your eyes are drawn towards one of the waymarker shrines. Every single one is unique, you're sure of that. You must have walked this path a lot. Golden eyes trace your line of sight, Raye puts it together.
Good, because you really didn't want to explain yourself.
"I see. Fourth of the way, then. We're still not stopping for the day until we hit the half-way mark though. Are you– Lena, is she good to walk?" Rude, but you already agreed to defer to her, so…. No, you're still miffed about that, actually. Lena cuts in before you can pick a fight over it.
"She should be, yes. As long as she doesn't have to fight anything, though I could say the same thing about Miake's leg." She gives Raye a pointed look, lined with an exhaustion that she can't quite hide now that she's off her feet, and to your surprise her Leader actually looks a bit sheepish. You
did wonder why they were letting him walk on that.
"Lena… I'm just worried. There's still a bunch of stragglers running around. The village doesn't have any protection. And—" It's odd seeing her scramble to justify herself. Lena just sighs and shakes her head. "It's
fine Raye, I know you mean well. Just... keep it in mind, okay? There's—"
A distant keening. A laugh. A wail. The sound of birds and steel.
"—just a lot of ways it could cause him problems down the line… I think–"
"Something's coming."
It takes you a second to realize it was you who said that. Everyone freezes, and then…
… They can hear it too. Miake and Lena draw their weapons, while Raye looks around, hands out as if expecting to have to grab something. Your hands clutch the sheath and hilt of your sword, but do not draw it. Why? You're not sure. You simply
know. Your body remembers what your memory has lost—trying to think too much will just get in its way.
Lena and Raye both step back, letting Miake take up position in front of them, the formation purely reflexive. You know it is because Raye blinks and looks after at you when she realizes they haven't accounted for you. She opens her mouth to call you over.
"S–!""
"KAAAAAAAAAAAHHAHAAHAHA!!"
The rest of her sentence is drowned out by a horrific, roaring laugh. Two voices talking in perfect stereo, one mourning and the other exultant.
The cry echoes, bouncing back and forth down the mountain. But even over that din, you can hear the flap of hundreds of wings getting closer. It sends a chill down your spine, and you feel the scabbard creak under your tightening grip.
You've barely gotten control yourself when it careens around the corner of the mountain. A blur at first, but as it gets closer, details revolve.
The first thing you notice are the
masks. A weeping blue, and a joyous red. They seem to glow, standing out against the drab palette of the rest of the creatures form. Despite their depicted emotions, both seem to jeer at you, as though hurling insults from two feet in front of you instead of however many in the air above you.
Then you notice their
bodies. Two humanoid torsos, each covered in bleeding scars, lashed together back to back with endless black ribbons, blood soaking through the bandages. The mask in blue wears a silver stole over this, while the mask in red equips a gleaming golden breastplate. Where they should have legs, they instead of a shared mass of wings, a thousand mutilated swans flapping in drunken concert.
And lastly, you notice their
weapons. The laughing mask wields an enormous spear in one hand, and a heavy sword in the other. The spear is pristine ivory, while the sword is a shoddy, rusted steel. The weeping mask holds two wands, one of trailing flame and the other of oppressive ice.
▇he Tw▇-▇▇ced H▇▇▇or,
Pu▇▇le Perf▇▇▇ance
You can feel the battered book of your memories flip open, pages flying as you flip through it. A name, you need a
name. A name, how it fights, its weaknesses… You know these.
You
should know these, but the pages that aren't missing are soaked in ink, useless. Even the title on its spine is faded. Another tie in the string of failures for your mind.
One thing is clear though. You have no doubt in you mind that this creature will kill you. You're afraid. You don't want to die, you don't want to die–
"
Snap out of it!"
"!"
There's a mass of wild blue in the corner of your vision, and you jump. A spectral swan careens into the ground where you had been standing, and explodes in a blast of icy crystals.
You wouldn't have moved in time if Raye hadn't said something. You didn't even realize you had frozen up until then.
Unfortunately, the creature is now hovering between you and them. The red mask looms, laughing at you. You catch a brief glimpse of the fear and worry in Lena's face, before a light show of elemental magic obscures it.
You are (
like always) on your own.
"
KAHAHAHAAAKAAAHHAHAH!"
The first strike is a spear you can't evade, and your arms shake from the force of shoving it aside.
The creature almost bowls you over entirely when it suddenly lurches forward. The weight of the spear suddenly leaves, causing you to stumble as it moves back into a ready position.
The shadow of the falling sword is your only warning of impending death, and you throw yourself to the side. A shower of dirt and sundered earth rains down on the battlefield, and you have to throw an arm up to avoid getting blinded.
You don't have to look that the lovingly maintained stone path has been utterly destroyed. Despite the danger, it tugs at you enough to split your focus.
The momentary distraction is enough for the haft of the spear to catch you in the gut in a horizontal sweep that launches you back up the mountain path, landing painfully against the stairs you had just come down. You have to dodge to the side immediately as the brickwork next to you explodes from the force of the spear plunging into it.
Can't keep getting distracted. You have to live through the next couple of seconds.
Its sword drags across the ground, leading a cascading wave of sparks. The tip bursts free from the ground, concealing its path in the hail of earth caused by its emergence.
But it's the second time its used this diversion, and so it the blade meets empty air as you fade through the plume of dirt and earth, guarding your eyes for the exact span of time you need.
Now that you're past its initial guard, you have an opportunity to strike. Marshaling your concentration, you hold and you hand and will forth ▇▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇ ▇ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇!
▇ ▇ ▇▇▇▇ ▇▇▇ ▇ ▇ ▇▇▇?
Nothing… happens (
something important was lost).
You don't understand (
you might never recover it).
With another screech of metal violating the sundered ground, the flat of the blade slams into you as the Laughing Mask decides to, in the spirit of enterprise, simply attack everywhere you
could be even if it can't see you.
You hit the next set of stairs on your side and roll two more, then scramble to your feet and sloppily parry another thrust of the spear. Your arms complain at being so abused, and you politely inform them to shut up and keep working so you don't die.
Again it advances, and again you're forced back, backpedalling up the stairs as fast as you can.
It's hard not to wonder, 'why haven't those guys caught it yet? Shouldn't they be doing something'?
That question has been on you mind since the battle started.
You get your answer very abruptly.
In the space it had vacated to chase you, barely an instant after it had moved, a spectral tree emerges from the ground and explodes into golden flechettes. They scatter across the mountainside, a few of them even hitting their intended target. The creature lets out a whimper of pain as the light corrodes and blackens its form where it lands….
… but not enough. Not nearly enough.
It's still moving at full speed. The sword is coming next—
It's odd though. Clearly this foe isn't beyond them, so why aren't they winning? Why did that attack
miss?
—
Dodge the sword and parry the spear. An easy rhythm. A grueling marathon—
You think of Lena's exhaustion, having already brought down a demon earlier that day. Miake's leg, a limp he doesn't remember to adjust for. Raye's injured shoulder, she dual wields, doesn't she? And all of you have been walking…
—
Duck the pincer attack. Ride the force of the spear to escape the sword. Land on your feet.
Because you fought them back then, none of them are at their best (
nor are you). And because you can't even stand your ground now, they can't corner it. It can chase after you and retreat from them in the same motion. It can, in fact, do this all day.
Fear sinks cold hooks into you (
but when aren't you afraid?).
Suddenly, the task in front of you is much more daunting. It isn't enough to survive its onslaught, you have to
hold your ground.
As if to drive home the enormity of the task at hand, the laughing mask reels back its sword, and makes a diagonal slice at you, the enormous blade quite literally as big as you. The vacuum is leaves behind as you duck makes you stumble, and the creature advances with its spear.
Again you are forced back. Again it chases. And again, the only people who could help you are unable to do so because of your weakness. Because all the parts of you that could do something in this situation have been seemingly cored out of you, leaving nothing but hurt feelings and the ability to hold a sword.
Steel meets wood. You slam the pommel of your sword into the tip of the spear, knocking it against the ground and stomping it down with your foot.
It holds it in place long enough for you to deflect the next swing of the sword into the ground next to you, instead of through your torso. The spear rips free of the earth, but you'd already removed your foot and given ground.
And again, it advances.
A scattershot of golden-green beams split the skies, but they're met with birds of frost, intercepting them. You can hear Raye and Miake yelling, catch hints of their blades, but the constant pillars of fire making approaching a dangerous prospect.
In better circumstances, you'd sure they'd have ways around this. They wouldn't have beaten you if this was enough to stop them on a good day.
But this isn't a good day for any of you (
if you do nothing, it will be your last).
You're terrified. You have not memories of battle to call on, and your reflexes could misfire at any moment, leaving you standing there baffled and helpless at a critical moment. The best thing to do would be to run and hide, but this thing won't let you. It's shown how willing it is to chase you all the way back up to the shrine, in fact.
Maybe if you hurt it enough, though, it will leave you alone (
because that always works).
There's a pattern of preferences to its attacks. It always strikes first with the spear first if it can. The sword is dragged through the environment, to send showers of broken earth up and conceal the path of its sweep. Otherwise it prefers showy, overhead chops.
Perhaps it could stray from these preferences, to catch you off guard. But why would it? As far is it knows, it is winning quite handily.
You want to at least die having proved it wrong.
First, you must bait the sword. Parry the spear, and wait for it to commit to another chop. When the blade falls, be not afraid, and shed it like water. Stomp the blade into the earth as you did with the spear. The sword is heavier, and its embedment was aided by the creature's own strength. Leap straight back.
And when it tries to skewer you as it has done every single time thus far, you
act.
A small flare of pain comes from your side as the spear grazes you, but it doesn't hit the mark. The two of you joust past each other, and it doesn't have time to pull back it back. So it attempts to swing the other, but first it must dislodge it. With its strength, that is barely a delay at all. Barely a hinderance on the strength and speed of its attack.
But it is enough.
Your leap clears the sweep of its sword, and for a brief moment you hang in there air. You're right in front of the laughing mask, close enough to look into its eyes.
Eyes of bloodshed, of violence, of a thousand petty slights and cruelties carried out by people who have forgotten how to see strangers as anything other than scenery.
The eyes of something (
someone) who would start a war for the pettiest of reasons, and persist to the bitter end (
gorged on shame to fuel a cold, cold hatred).
You bring down your sword.
A jagged line splits the surface of the mask, digging a trench of pulp and wood-chips. Silver-red trickles down behind it, droplets of blood hitting the dirt at the same time as your feet.
The creature stops dead in the air, and
screams.
It's neck and arms thrash wildly, a flailing spearpoint drawing a fresh line of red up your arm where you failed to get back.
All at once it freezes, head ponderously craning down to home in on you. For the first time, you detect something other than jubilance and mockery in the red mask: rage.
Its evening gown of wings all flap open, and then closed in a great swooping lunge, far faster than it had moved before. If it could do this the whole time then why did it—?!
"GEEEET BACK HERE!"
Ghostly chains wrap around the creature and yank it back just before it can strike. A floating sigil of a familiar golden-green hue reels it in like a fishing rod. Both heads turn to face its captor, leaving you no longer the target of its ire. You gulp air down your burning throat.
Is that it? Can you stop? Can you run? A part of you begs it. You're… terrified, even if you managed that somehow. Like you said to Miake. It's not like you owe them anything. They're not your friends. If you run off and leave them to their fate, well. You're their former enemy. Why would they expect camaraderie from you? (
are they wrong to have expectations?)
They must be. The person you were was their bane, and the person you are now is nothing but a burden. You did your part just now, didn't you? They can handle things from here, so you have to help them, right? It'd be better to look out for yourself. That's all you have left. You're not someone who can afford to be selfless (
is that who you are?)
It could be… It doesn't matter how strong you were before. Right now you can't do anything. (
you don't want to leave them)
But why! You don't owe them anything! (
they remember you. that matters.) They remember someone who's dead! An empty husk, long dead. You're just some nobody now! (
are you?) Yes! You are! Why is that even a question?!
(
you're holding her sword) You…
(
let's say that you are…)
(...
is the first choice you make as yourself…)
(...going to be abandoning people who trusted you?)
"...Dammit."
The creature has twisted around to face its red mask towards them, while the blue one begins weaving its wands through the air. Something tells you it's trying to free itself from whatever Lena did to chain it down before Miake and Raye can pile on. You should make sure it fails.
It still isn't looking at you. It doesn't see that you've started running.
You jump. The mask doesn't have eyes, but you can feel it suddenly notice you again. It holds a hand in front of its face, trying to avoid getting marred like its red counterpart.
But that's not where you're aiming.
The blade falls, and bites
deep into the thing's shoulder. The arm holding the fire wand goes slack, twitching uselessly. The functioning limb slams its heavy knuckle into your shoulder, sending you flying back the way you came.
You hit the ground, bounce, and somehow manage to roll to your feet. Ten points! Go you! Everything hurts.
But did that actually achieve anything…?
"
KREEEEAAAAAAAEAAAHAAAAA!"
The creature wails… or laughs… and waves its injured arm around in a show of pain. Then, with the wand of frost held in its pinkie, it
"W-What…?"
rips its injured arm off its shoulder.
You watch, stunned, as it crams the limb down the mouth hole of the weeping mask, making an awful gagging, sputtering noise. It eats its own arm whole, even the wand. The stump continues to bleed, though not as much as it probably should be.
"W-Why did you…?"
The answer comes quick, and you wish it hadn't. Its remaining arm bulges, blue skin fractured with red veins, and
extends with a grotesque
crack-crack-crack. An awful groan heralds two new joints added to what is more like a tail at this point. The wand in its hand changes too, swelling to the size of a club.
With a jerky sweep, the weeping mask let's loose a new flock of icy birds.
They climb up for air, and then, dive. Cold burns your skin as you throw yourself aside. Tiny fragments of ice scattershot against you, drawing a thatch-work of shallow cuts across your arms and legs.
You don't realize quite fast enough that it's done this to force you back so it can advance on them. It had pegged you as the weak link immediately, why did it suddenly change its mind?!
Two underhand swings from the red mask come out in an instant, aimed at Miake and Raye. They both block successfully, but the force launches them
up, away from Lena. They go over the side of the mountain, down past where you can't see.
You can see a trail of glimmering green sparks from Miake's legs, to no effect; whatever he was trying to do, he didn't do it fast enough.
Lena dives forward before the red mask can refocus on her, rolling under the mass of wings and coming to a stumbling stand directly in front of the weeping mask. The entire creature tips to the side and spins like a wagon wheel, bringing around both weapons in an overhead slam towards the hapless mage.
You dart forward and grab Lena's arm, hauling her out of arm's way. The whirling slash of the red mask's weapons freeze at the apex of their backswing, and then reverse to take a second flurry at you. You finish shoving Lena behind you fast enough to get both hands on your weapon when you block, but all that does is let the force of the blow smash you into Lena and knock you both away in a heap.
"Oof!" The air is knocked out of you as you land. "
Move!" shouts Lena, before planting a boot against your back. The two of you go rolling away from each other as the sword splits the earth where you'd been.
Where are Miake and Raye? How far did they get flung? However far is how long you'll have to hold out. You can't afford to spend time looking. (
there's never enough time)
You spring to your feet, already bringing up your weapon in preparation for the incoming attack. But it isn't aimed at you.
The shadow of the blade hangs over Lena. She will die if it falls on her.
It won't though.
Because to everyone's surprise, especially your own, you've dashed across the arena to shove her out of the way, stealing her predicament for yourself.
How odd. She isn't you're friend, was your enemy, is only temporarily your ally, and was perhaps your healer for all of a few minutes (
sophistry). But you've decided she can't die before you do. Which is about to happen.
You should at least try not to die though, so you bring up your scabbard to block a sword already falling too fast to avoid.
But when the sword hits, it stops dead.
You stop it dead. The weight of the blade is as light as a feather.
Huh?
And why are you… glowing? "What…?"
A shout from behind you, Lena's voice, oddly triumphant. "I've got you covered! Keep going!"
"
KRAAAAAAAAAEAAAAEAAH!" The creature struggles to swing its spear into you, but can't pull it free from where it's chained to a floating golden-green glyph, different from the previous one. When had she set that up?!
"R-right!" Your voice wobbles with a buoying emotion you're scared to name. The creature whips back its sword to make another swing, but this one you meet with confidence. Lena has your back. You can do this.
A burst of golden-green flashes as your pommel slams into aberrant steel, knock it aside. Three steps forward, and draw.
The glowing blade cleaves through two of its fluttering wings and up across its chest, a cascade of arboreal explosions lighting up the path you traced. Its pained screams are deafening, but give you a grim satisfaction despite your bleeding eardrums.
"Look out!" You trust the warning and
move.
The spear pulls free of the buckling chains a shower of dissolving magic, and slams into the ground where you stood. You're expecting the sword to come next, but it's chained at the apex of its swing, exactly where you had deflected it. It clicks. As long as you can deliver her magic to its target, she can keep it off balance.
(
The two of you can win this!)
As if in defiance of your newfound hope, the single, multi-jointed arm of the weeping mask flops over the shoulder of its brother, and makes a lazy twirl of the wand. It had only summoned a few at a time before, but not anymore. Bolstered by its act of self-cannibalization, it conducts into being a cyclonic flock of gulls. It is more than a little worrisome. Can you even dodge that, much less block it? You call, suddenly uncertain. "Uh, Lena…?"
A root network of magic sprouts from the ground around your feet, winding its way up to the tip of your blade. Flowers of viridian brass blossom, coating you like an abandoned forest manor.
"Just swing! I'll handle it!" (
it's no lie)
Right. Lena hasn't let you down yet. You trust she won't now, despite yourself. You raise the blade high above your head, and bring it down with an executioner's finality.
A hurricane of petals screams free from your blade, meeting the winter flock head on.
You backpedal to stand next to Lena as shards of ice and ghostly plant matter scythe across the battlefield.
"Woohoo! Good work." You startle a little to feel the pat on your shoulder, cycling through a number of emotions that you're sure were rarities even back when you had your memories. You manage to acknowledge it with a shaky mumble, "T-thanks…"
Lena's smug delight is burning against your back, hotter than the Sun. It doesn't stop when your legs give out a moment later, collapsing to your knees. She doesn't seem surprised–she had mentioned something about how you shouldn't be fighting, hadn't she? On the cusp of victory, you're willing to admit she was probably right. There's a yawning emptiness in you. It's disconcerting, but… even that can't blunt the feeling of victory. That last hit had to kill the thing, right?
"… oh." Her voice is flat. Please no. No no no–
You look up.
High the sky, an azure eagle spreads its wings. You can't make it out well at this distance, but it feels more
complete that the others. No mere passing phantasm, this is a weapon, fully-forged. Waves of power that escape the bounds of its frame wash across the battlefield down below. The temperature is dropping.
When had the creature made that? Maybe during the cover of all the explosions. Or perhaps on the spot, with the force of desperation. You hadn't been looking, too focused on your own exhaustion.
It doesn't really matter. It's here now.
Both masks radiate a deadly seriousness that's off-putting to see on a creature of chaotic whimsy. It isn't attacking either, the Laughing Mask braced to defend its fellow's casting. With the last hit you and Lena got on it still burning into its flesh, that may be all it can do.
That may be all it
needs to do. "Uh, Lena? Plan?"
You don't know at what point you decided to let Lena do all the tactical thinking, but it was probably when she stopped you from getting squished. That had been nice of her. You try to keep a small flame of hope alive that she can repeat that miracle.
"Um…" She does not sound confident. "...I don't think I have enough left in the tank to blast that before it hits us."
The chill that runs down you spine is not because of the cold. Lena is still staring up at the bird. Despite it being daytime, it has plunged the battlefield into a gloomy twilight. You're waiting for her to come up with a plan. Or for Miake and Raye to get back but it practically knocked them
off the mountain so you don't fancy their chances. You've been trying not to think about it, but there's a chance that they simply fell to their deaths, and you and Lena have been stalling for reinforcements that don't exist.
"Yeah, maybe!" Lena belatedly replies. Both of you laugh nervously, failing to keep your minds off your imminent deaths. She looks over at you. "Hey, um… Your name. Do you want to know what it was?"
You blink. "What? My name?
Now?" You're not even upset, just baffled by the timing. Lena shakes her head. "It's important to have a name before you die."
Twilight has plunged into darkness. A bank of snowstorm clouds have gathered. Distantly, you wonder if they can see it from the village you were trying to get to. It will end, soon.
You give Lena a nod. She looks relieved. Had this been wearing on her?
"You name is–"
It is a sound like precision. Like Winter. Like the edge of a blade.
"
Something shifts in your mind. It clicks into place. A tremor runs through your fingertips, pressed hard against your scabbard.
"… Give my sword whatever you have left. I think I can do it."
You hope. You pray. Something in your heart struggles to emerge. The static noise shrieks in your thoughts. You blindly claw for a revelation that slips through your hands. (
you're cut off from yourself at both ends.
but it's still there.)
Lena doesn't even hesitate. "Can do." The last spell she weaves leaves her breathless, but she sounds… like she believes you (
you will owe her for this). She sits down on the ground behind you. You can hear her prop her chin in her hand to watch. Either you pull this off or the two of you die. Both of you know that. She did her part.
Now you have to do yours.
Your mind is murky darkness, but that's as it should be. It gives the light meaning. Clarity and obscurity. The true damage is the absence of either, but you're not as broken as you thought. There's still enough of you for this. Just barely enough.
The eagle dives.
Your left hand curls around the hilt of your sword. Your right hand grips the scabbard as your only lifeline. You see the world as two halves, and speak:
"Draw: Half Moon."
The world turns dark–
The world under your feet, and all the people in it are shadows. Lies. Anything of substance has the potential to lie. To lie is to have substance. To have substance is to lie. So you cannot trust the world. The open sky is light. A hanging void, a wound that encompasses. It lacks substance, and so it cannot lie. It cannot lie, so it cannot be alive. The sky will never help you. Between the world that obscures and the sky the exposes, is The Enemy. You must kill it. Because you are standing on the world, you may tell it a lie about where you are really standing. Because it is flying in the sky, it must tell you the truth. Because it must tell the truth, it cannot deny the way you have hurt it. Because you can lie, you can never be hurt. Thus, your killing field is the boundary between the world and the sky. Now you must find a tool, for you cannot expose your hand to the sky lest you be revealed. In your hands is a thing that is neither sky nor world. In your hands is Your Sword. With this, you will kill.
–and the sky turns bright.
The two halves of the winter bird hit the ground. A moment later, so do you.
