Chapter 8 - Eye of the Storm

I learned about the weather while I was asleep in the hospital. During a storm, in the perfect center, there is calm. It’s called the eye of the storm. I found it intriguing how the wind could move so carefully. I loved how it would swirl and I loved the calm in the center. But I no longer loved the wind, because the calm center was nowhere to be seen in front of me.

Sy, the man I was fighting stood there as wind scattered around me, for I was in the eye of his storm. But I couldn’t be calm. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t.

There was a blade of wind swirling in his hand. The same weapon that had previously stabbed Ame in the stomach.

I can’t let Ame die.

No.

I can’t.

I sat there, shivering and crying, unable to move as Sy looked at me confused.

I had no choice. I had to fight to save Ame. It wasn’t my fault.

He yelled out to me.

“Why are you crying?! I’m not gonna hurt you too bad, this is a friendly-”

After a little bit of training with Ame and the run-in with the commander, I knew how to use RME at least a little bit, so I had to use it. I used all my strength and dashed forward; RME built up in my hand as I threw my hand upwards through the harsh winds.

He cleanly avoided it by redirecting my hand with the wind.

Wasn’t he trying to kill me and Ame?

Why didn’t he attack me?

I wanted to know. If he wasn’t trying to kill me, then I had no reason to freak out.

I had entered Ame’s internal world by touching his forehead, so I’m sure I could do the same for him.

With every step forward, I walked through more and more of the wind that tried to keep me away. He glared at me; curious, scared and shocked.

I reached out my hand. The wind pushed it back as it started to glow a golden hue. I focused all the RME I could into my hand as the magic touching my hand turned back into regular, uncontrolled air. I ripped through the barrier of wind and curiously tapped his forehead with my finger.

…

The reality in front of me had crumbled and just as quickly came back as a pitch black room. A mirror, chained and locked with seven keyholes and a small bit of light sat in the middle as Sy stood in front of it, staring at the reflection.

The light everywhere else was off, but I could sense many items around me. Sy looked into the mirror as the mirror looked back. But the mirror didn’t have his reflection in it.

A girl, short with dark red hair stood in the mirror, smiling and proud as the man in front of it tried to replicate her facial expression. He failed and failed, and broke down. Crumbling into dust and getting put back together. He laid there, unchanged and himself. I was rather jealous and yet confused. Why was he trying to copy Kaya if he already had an identity? Did he have one? He had to. I didn’t know why I thought that, but I was sure he did.

I didn’t understand humans, nor did I understand him. But I felt the same empathy I did beforehand, despite his circumstances being unimaginable to me. And that was all that mattered.

…

The surroundings crumbled yet again as reality returned. Sy sat there, trying to regain his wits as if he just got smacked in the back of the head with a metal bat.

This was the only time his guard was gone.

I gathered up my confidence. Ame was first, Sy was second, and winning was third. Ame was safe, and I could win without harming Sy too much.

I grabbed the air within my fist and crushed it. Raw magical energy covered my fist as I shot it forward, into Sy’s stomach with all my power.

Panting, I stared at him on the floor.

Deep down, I knew I wasn’t able to defeat him. There were so many things he could do, and yet he only stuck to a blade of wind and a wall of air to redirect my punches. Even when my punches hit, they didn’t do enough damage to keep him down.

He brushed himself off, stood up and smiled. I didn’t understand him enough to see the truth behind it.

“You’re stronger than I thought. I’ll end it. If you block this, I’ll accept you. I’m not gonna have you dying against Justin Beckwith because I didn’t go all out.”

Sy stood there with his finger pointing at me. Wind grew on it, and grew more. It bursted into a massive ball of wind swirling around with a singular leaf caught in it. He took the ball, and crushed it into the size of a marble. The leaf got turned into dust, and the ball was practically invisible. He held the ball on the tip of his pointer finger and aimed it at me. His other hand swept forward as a rapid gust of wind rushed in front of me, brushing against my nose.

I stood a good distance away from him. I had one way and one way only to defeat him.

I needed to force a draw.

If I got hit by that, I wouldn’t be able to get back up. I was already exhausted.

If I tried blocking it, it would go right through the water magic or shatter any raw magical energy wall I made.

So I wouldn’t make a wall. Ame had previously told me I could use it as an explosion, and yet I had never found a way to make that happen. After I shot out the ball of water before, it exploded… kind of.

The raw magical energy had previously exploded on contact with elemental magic, so would that work again?

It was my only hope. I filled the air around me with raw magical energy at the exact moment I saw Sy begin to walk.

He stepped into the gust of wind, and got sucked in like a vacuum. Within less than a second, the distance between us had been crossed. He held out his hand, posture unchanged, ready to blast me at point blank range with his ball of wind.

But, with a simple tap on his forehead, the fight was already over. Nobody needed to get hurt.

The God of Time had previously told me that I could bring other people with me into an internal world. There never seemed to be a use to this, unless I wanted to ask them a question about it. But there was a use this time. An escape from a dangerous environment by going into the enemy's internal world. I could speak to them or fight them without any harm coming to other people.

I stood there as he watched himself inside his internal world stare at the mirror.

He seemed on edge, so I had to choose my words carefully.

“The battle is over.”

He sharply turned his head to me.

“How so? I still have my magic. I can kill you right here.”

I may not have understood him, but the look on his face contradicted his words.

But I had a terrorist group to join. I couldn’t waste time in a fight that could be spent talking to everybody.

“I filled the air with raw magical energy before you came to me. It’ll explode on contact with any elemental magic. I can’t beat you. This is the best I can do.”

He looked shocked for a second, before his expression turned into a satisfied one.

“You really are strong, Nell. I can see why Ame recruited you.”

…

The internal world collapsed as the magic he had in reality faded away. I sucked the RME back into my hand as Sy yelled out.

“It’s over!”

Ame smiled proudly at me as Dominic and Kaya looked on in shock.

Kaya dashed over to Sy and worryingly asked a question.

“Are you okay? Who won?”

I smiled after hearing the clear order of her priorities.

Sy just grinned and nodded.

Dominic soon walked over to me, and asked me a question with an unreadable emotion. He was quite different from Kaya in that regard.

“Why did you both keep passing out? Is that an effect of that raw magical energy Ame told me about?”

“I entered his internal world.”

He looked puzzled but curious.

“Internal world?”

“Everybody has one. Since it's hard to understand people without it, it’s really useful. I just tap your forehead and see what's inside your mind. It can also be influenced by your magical affinity.”

I held my finger out and tried to tap his forehead, but my wrist was swiftly stopped in place.

“Nope. Not happening.”

I pouted a little before he let go of my hand, smiled at me and walked over to Sy.

Before I could breathe again, Ame rushed over and dragged me into the run-down building.

Ame and I stood in front of everybody as they awkwardly stared at us from the couch, unable to know what to say to me.

Thankfully, Ame spoke up first.

“Dominic Karna. Kaya Koinu. Sy… Uh… I still don’t know your last name.”

Dominic and Kaya looked on with concentrated expressions while Sy grinned wryly.

“Please welcome Nell Moren as a member of our team.”

His face was more serious than usual.

“Please.”

He looked to Dominic first, as if to ask his thoughts.

“I… to be honest, I don’t like the fact that you are endangering kids by recruiting them. But he showed he’s capable. I’ll go to hell and back for him starting today, just as I do for the rest of these kids.”

Kaya and Sy didn’t seem like kids to me, but I’m sure he had a good reason to think this. He had a reminiscent yet confident look on his face during this declaration.

Ame turned his head to Kaya.

“Sure. Why the hell not. It’s not like we’re fighting demons. He can get strong enough to fight the commanders!”

Her face was unreadable, and yet it didn’t look negative. It was another emotion I couldn’t recognize.

Ame looked slightly puzzled at Kaya, but turned to Sy.

Sy closed his eyes as if he was stopping this moment in time. A second later, he opened his eyes. His demeanor looked eerily similar to mine. He nodded with an emotion on his face that I didn’t recognize.

I believed it was apathy at first glance, but in truth I couldn’t tell.

Ame excitedly spoke up yet again.

“We leave for Fort Beckwith tomorrow morning, October 2nd. The trip will take 3 days. Get whatever you need ready. I’ll make space in the car for the worm.”

The worm I had recently brought with me was now attached to Ame, unsurprisingly.

But, I was leaving tomorrow. I had all this time to prepare so I wasn’t nervous, but the thought of going away for three days did concern me a little. I didn’t even know exactly where we were going.

Ame turned to me after everybody already spread throughout the two extra rooms and the storage room.

“You can sleep here. I prepared a bed for you.”

Ame threw a polished wooden slab, a couple pillows, a sheet and a blanket on the floor.

I wouldn’t necessarily call that prepared, but I was thankful anyways.

Ame smiled at me, waved, and went to the storage room in the corner to get materials prepared for tomorrow.

I laid down on the wood with a sheet under me, a blanket on top of me, a pillow under my head, a pillow between my legs and a pillow on the floor.

The worm crawled beside me, curled into a ball, and went to sleep. I never truly had seen a familiar ceiling in my life, but, for some reason, I felt this would become the most familiar ceiling I would ever come to know.