Chapter 6 - Reconstruction

Ame’s body was strung across my arms, still breathing.

My mind was lost in itself, and yet it was being pulled towards a direction like a magnet.

I was human. Is that what gave it direction?

My mind was racing as answers and questions shot into my mind without the need for my creators to inject them.

My direction in life came in the form of a goal.

A goal to become me, right?

So if Ame died, what would happen to that? I couldn’t let him die.

I needed to save Ame.

I needed to save my goal.

He used me to get his goal and I’ll use him to get mine. So he couldn’t die. After finally gathering the resolve to end my apathy, I couldn’t let the man responsible give up.

I needed to save Ame. I needed to put in effort. If I didn’t he would die anyway. The fear of disappointment lingered in my mind, but my choices were limited.

I was partially human, and I had magic. That was all I needed, right?

I could become the part of Ame I idolized.

I could save Ame.

I went up to Ame, only to get immediately kicked in the stomach and sent back into a wall. The only thing that was stopping me from protecting Ame was the commander.

If he died, Ame lived.

Ame needed to live.

I needed to kill. So I would. Cold as I may have felt from it, I had to protect the warmth. I had to protect Ame.

“Oh my. This… this devotion. I’ve never seen it. I haven’t seen such warmth since the banquet… haah…”

The man stumbled over and fell onto his knees.

“You… are PERFECT! Such love, such proclivity, such… such COMFORT!”

He glared at me with a calm and pleading expression in his soul.

“Please… My sin. Hold the warmth. Hold the love. Hold it all. I must send it to you before it escapes you. You must die. You are welcome! I apologize!”

This… this was wrong. Everything in my mind told me this was wrong, and yet I had no proof it wasn’t. I had no proof of anything, for Ame was my proof.

“Your body is acting rather calm, despite your obvious burden. I see! Is that the purpose of this blue haired man? Is he-”

Tears continued flowing down my face and I couldn’t compose myself for any longer. I began kicking and yelling, for it was the only way I could throw out the empty feelings within my head. He had no right to talk about Ame.

A swinging fist flung towards my face as I could barely dodge it, with blood dripping off of my cheek. After dodging the attack, his stomach was left open before he could rearrange himself.

This was the only chance I would have to kill him.

I needed to try and use magic. The anxiety felt like it was going to kill me. But I needed to do it.

I could never find a place to draw my magic from. I searched my entire body, until I came across an opening. Inside my heart was a door.

Inside that door was a golden throne. It was my internal world.

I grasped the energy from that throne, and I pulled it through my arms. It reached my palm.

A bit of water began to pour out from my palm, and form a ball.

I needed more.

Drip

More.

Drip

More.

Drip

MORE! I NEEDED MORE!

Drip

“RAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

I pushed my internal world forward as hard as I could. At that moment, a golden liquid began to fill the ball. It wasn’t water. It wasn’t a lazy, slothful drop of water.

It was raw magical energy. Every element had to come from somewhere, and this was the source. It was lost to time due to its incredibly difficult usage, but if unstable, could be the most destructive type. This was what came out of my effort.

A small force gathered at my hand and pushed it back, as I watched all the air turn into a gust of wind, seemingly fleeing away. The raw magical energy looked like a ball and yet it had no solid form. Sloshing around, a second impact struck my hand as I launched the ball directly at the commander's stomach.

I was immediately blown back as my elbow almost bent backwards. My ears rang as I stared at the commander, smiling at me. His entire middle was missing as sharp winds flooded the area. With one step after another, he moved directly in front of my face.

“I… must… keep my warmth. As I die, my warmth will be added to the flames. My identity.. Hmmm. What will become of my love, dear child? What will become of myself? This is a sin, is it not?”

He turned his head to Ame.

“Oh… I… I see. I truly have done too much. But I will not apologize to you, Kozui’s son. You don’t deserve a single apology. Your feet will never be on the ground.”

Within his final moments, his eyes were mixed with contempt and fear. But it ended quickly. And he stopped watching me.

“You’ll be okay.”

I felt the need to say this, despite it being a lie. I despised him, and yet I didn’t want to hurt him any more. I was shivering and I couldn’t tell why. His eyes were still calm, even during death.

He truly was insane, and yet I felt bad.

He hurt Ame… I couldn’t feel bad. But there was something that caused sadness within me.

He… he was human too. He didn’t know what would happen to him after he died. He didn’t know what would happen to his identity. I didn’t either. Whatever the value placed on a human life had just been stolen by me. But I wasn’t disappointed.

But I had no time to be sad. I couldn’t tell if I even wanted to reflect. I needed to save Ame, and there is only one way I knew how to.

The technique that brought us together. The technique that was in the book I was interested in when he offered to train me.

Reconstruction.

Every time I spoke to him, I felt inadequate. I wasn’t human enough. I was too slothful. I wasn’t the Nell I thought he wanted me to be. But isn’t thinking about that a part of humanity itself? My anxiety wasn’t my sin, my sloth was. It wasn’t my fault, and yet it was still my responsibility.

I wanted to rebuild Ame. I wanted to rebuild myself.

I wanted to rebuild the warmth.

Because he gave me the blueprint.

I stood in front of Ame as the blood from the commander flowed to my shoes. I put my hands on his stomach as his breathing slowed.

“Reconstruction.”

The golden raw magical energy actively flooded Ame’s stomach as the ripped flesh began stitching itself together after the energy helped it grow. RME dropped and turned into blood that started flowing throughout his body. The energy worked with more effort than I have seen before. More effort than the almost perfect human, Ame, had achieved so far.

His eyes slowly opened, and before long he sat up and stared at me, completely shocked.

Before he could say anything, a tear ran down my face as I spoke the words I wanted to say most to him. The words that he used to make me feel like I had a purpose that I actually wanted.

“Good morning.”

Ame, still unable to process anything, moved his head from me to the dead commander. Tears continued running down my face, rubbing in the achievement of my first ever goal. And yet there was sadness in the tears. Not only sadness for the human life I took mixed with the guilt of throwing away its value, but a unique despair that sprung from a question instead.

Did I earn this? I didn’t necessarily work hard for the magic. I was simply born with it.

I had a direction and yet I felt it wasn’t mine. But the disappointment was gone.

And the effort was there along with its effects. He was right in front of me, after all. I fell unconscious as I reveled in the fact that I made something matter.

With my very own eyes.

______________________________________________________________________________

After waking up, a piece of paper that somebody stole from the floor nearby was placed on my chest. I noticed that it was seemingly written with charcoal as I began to read it.

"Hey Nell.

You did a good job.

I think I did too ^_^.

I tried to carry you back but couldn’t. I was too lazy I guess, lol.

Meet me at the mountain (if you wake up) :3

Commander #1 is next! You got this!

-Ame Nishimura"

Lazy, huh.

A grin unconsciously formed on my face. An active grin.

Without dragging my feet behind me, I stood up and began to walk towards the mountain and person I had previously ran from. I couldn’t be anxious to put in effort any more. Effort caused Ame to live, and effort is what I would live by.

One step after the other, I eventually made it to the mountain. I was hungry, but I didn’t have time to stop at Ame’s house for food.

I walked up the mountain and saw Ame sitting there, books all around him stacked neatly, croissant in hand. He handed it to me, so I bit into it and sat down with him as we spoke at the same time, with Ame speaking up a second before me.

“...We sti-”

“-We still ha-”

I immediately realized I had interrupted him.

Ame was embarrassed but he laughed it off.

I laughed it off.

Ame spoke up while laughing, and the mood shifted from tense to light hearted.

“We still haven't finished the training for tonight, have we?”

I smiled and nodded my head.

“Yeah. You’re right. I’m ready.”

“You’re gonna get strong enough to help me?”

“I’m going to do whatever it takes.”

“Then I can’t slack off either. I’ll always be standing there, right in front of you.”

I nodded my head, but felt slightly off about his statement.

In front of me?

I didn’t know how to feel about that. It was comforting and yet a tiny creeping sense of inadequacy went up my spine.

But I had to focus on training. I would have to try my best. However, with so much on my mind, it would be rigorous.

I picked up the book Ame had, and tried to replicate the technique within it. Since I still didn’t have the best control over RME, I decided to only use it when I needed to. I would start off with just a normal water ball. The water grew into a ball, as the same man I saw trapped in the glass before stared back at me. It seemed Mirror could travel from the glass box to water as well. He looked slightly distorted, however. Ame came up to me, seemingly critical of what I was doing.

“Looking at your reflection?”

It seemed he went by many names. Reflection or Mirror, it was all the same. But he said “your”. Something was off.

“Reflection?”

Ame smiled seemingly relieved and as if he was trying not to laugh at the same time when I asked.

“Yes Nell, your reflection. The light kind of like… bounces off the water and shows what you look like.”

This… was me? I was mirror? Or rather, the ‘mirror’ was showing what I was? It showed me what I looked like… did that really matter to determine who I was? According to Ame, it must have. People saw me as that, right?

I stared into the water and at my reflection. Each little bit of light shining and rippling off, as if they were watching me. It was me. I was one step closer to becoming “me”. The warmth of this moment overpowered the cold and nothingness I felt during my eternity in the heart.

This was a step towards the second part of identity.

I turned over to Ame as he stared at me as if he was disappointed. Me or himself, I couldn’t tell. But I didn’t want him to feel like that. I flung the ball of water at him and smiled.

“Stop being sad.”

“Not very convincing when you just threw water at me, is it?”

“You throw balls of water at random people, don't you?”

He looked down, as if trying to throw my comment as far away from him as he could, as if he had a protective layer against any criticism. I wanted to know what was going on in his head. Why was he defending himself so badly? It pained me to know there was something that could hurt him. I wanted to know everything. I wanted to help. I wanted to think I could help.

I walked up to Ame, who was slightly soaked with the ball of water I threw. He smiled softly at me. At least, I thought it was soft. It was a rather weak smile.

“What's up?

I ignored his question.

With one step after the other, I was in front of him. I held my hand out and touched his forehead. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know it all and use it all. I wanted to become and I wanted to know. I wanted to see inside his internal world.

…

The land around me shifted as ruined buildings rose from the ground. I couldn’t see a single bit of life scurrying around the rubble. Heavy rain erupted from the sky as the air polluted. Freezing wind rushed harder as I held onto my coat.

To my left was an abandoned building. The entire structure had been obliterated and the roof was nowhere to be seen. I stepped over a bit of rubble and towards what I could only assume used to be a bedroom.

Attached to the bedroom, there was a clogged sink. A toothbrush floated in the pool of water inside. Above the sink sat a cracked mirror. Next to the semi-bathroom area, there was the only door in the entire area. There were walls encasing that room.

And from under the door, there was a pool of blood. I stared at it.

I moved my hand to the door handle.

I twisted the door handle.

“Don’t look at that.”

Ame grabbed my arm with dead eyes. I turned back to him in shock.

I walked out of the rubble and into the center of his internal world. Directly in the middle, there was a box of water. It was similar to Ame’s attack, but not the same. This box was transparent. I could observe its contents.

Inside the box was a child that looked exactly like Ame. I felt as if I knew this child from somewhere.

Ame yelled something at me, but my ears filtered it out. I wanted to know who this was. I wanted to know. I wanted to know. I wanted to kn-

A flash of electricity shot at my body from the sky as I touched the barrier between me and the child. My entire body went stiff as I saw the child turn towards me in fear.

…

The world collapsed as I laid on the grass of the mountain, in front of the man who just sent me out.