Time (3)

Nothing much went through my mind as I ran after her—nothing except thoughts of what she meant to me, and what I should say about the piece of cloth that was in my hands.

To be honest, I didn’t know where I was going. I didn’t have anything except a vague hunch as to where she could have been, but my body moved through instinct, and the only thing that mattered was the idea I would lose someone again.

She had always been pretty, hadn’t she? Sitting beneath the shade of an oak, way back when I was joking about everything and treating her like a caricature from an anime. Before I’d seen anyone else die here, before I could register the world was real—before I realised there was a mountain before me I needed to climb, and that media literacy had left me misguided as to what the journey of a “chosen one” should be like. Whenever she had the opportunity, she would always find time to sit beneath a tree and read pages from her cherished book—I assumed it was some sort of magical practice, or some way to keep her mind sharp—perhaps to remember the spells she needed to from her Codex in case something happened. But maybe my eyes saw things differently, just like Maelle’s cloak; the book was probably real, enough hints had been given to me that there were words in them, and she was using them to keep herself grounded while she was forced to journey with an unknown man. Just like how I might see someone’s favourite novel as an archaic tome, whilst others would see my pastimes as nothing more than strings of overdone tropes and unrealistic women—the point was that whatever this book was, it clearly gave her comfort.

And yet, she would lend me that precious book of hers to try and teach me magic.

After searching everywhere and anywhere, I saw her sitting at the base of that small tree—the one that magically survived Soren’s tempest. She sat on her knees, the look on her face strangely devoid of emotion—smiling, as if she were satisfied—but beneath that guise bubbled something more sinister, like she was forcing herself to feel a certain way lest the foundation of reality come crumbling down on her tiny shoulders. The way her gaze moved over the page gave an unquestionably, unfathomably genuine quality to everything.

Something warm enveloped me when I saw her eyes, the colour of her hair, her smile—even if it was hopelessly artificial. But I still didn’t know what to say.

Was it time for regret? To wish that I had tried to understand her more?

Was it time to rationalise? To reason that a five minute sprint wasn’t enough time to think?

Or maybe it was time for excuses—I did talk to her in the bath. I did open myself up to her last night. Maybe I had done enough, and I—everyone—was expecting too much of me. Maybe it was normal to regress, to move back and forth mentally, to understand that years of isolation and regret would not be fixed by a week of adventure; that this was not a book and I did not need to become a character people could dissect the literary value of.

But as she heard the sounds of my clumsy feet trampling around the clearing, all those extraneous thoughts went away. It was like the rest of the world disappeared, and the only things that existed were me, her, and the tree she sat under.

“Oh… you came.”

I couldn’t tell if she was happy or disappointed. It didn’t matter.

“Yeah.”

“Mhm,” she smiled, and she closed her book with a shut. “Is the meeting over? Are you going to join them?”

Her gaze slowly settled on the cape in my hands. Her eyes widened for a moment—then gradually, recognition—and with it the same unease that’d clouded our discussion earlier.

But I wasn’t about to make the same mistake as before.

I didn’t care about magic, nor prophecies, nor the mystery behind this world.

I cared about her.

Using something external to communicate what she meant to me—that would be cheating. Avoiding the topic because I was scared to look overeager—that would be running away.

“Soren gave this to me. I have no idea what it is, and frankly, I do not care.”

I threw the cape on the ground.

She blinked, as if conflicted between whether or not to feel shocked or offended. I’d like to think she settled on being touched.

“This cape—this Quantum Mage, Calice bullshit—I genuinely never gave a shit. It’s all meaningless. This is about you and me.”

“About… you and I?” she repeated.

“Yeah. Can I sit down too?”

Annabelle’s eyes crinkled.

“Of course.”

She patted the ground next to her. It was still slightly wet, having not totally dried out from the night before despite the bright sun—and it was indeed strange to be sitting so close to the spot where someone’s ashes were recently spread. But I wasn’t going to complain. If this was the spot that Annabelle chose, then this was the spot that I was going to be at as well.

I nestled my back against the tree. It clearly wasn’t big enough to support both of us, and some of my weight had to rest awkwardly suspended mid-air—but that wouldn’t stop me right now. I would say everything that was on my mind.

Would I start with telling her about how I childishly snapped at Maelle? About how she tried to slap Soren and failed miserably? About how she called me pathetic and read through my facade like a book? Or maybe last night? About the spell being a fluke? Questions about why I couldn’t cast?

No. I would start from the beginning.

“Annabelle. Remember when you told me you’d show me your Mark in a year?”

“...Um, yeah?”

“I’ve seen Maelle’s and Soren’s at this point. I’ve even seen my own—I think. It’s somewhere under the gauntlet. I’ll show you later if you’re curious. But I still haven’t seen yours, and at this point I’m morbidly obsessed with this one theory I came up with.”

“...Um.”

“It’s on your boobs, isn’t it?”

Just be open. Say the first thing that comes to mind—the actual first thing.

You’ve done this before. You used to be this way until something changed.

“Wh… what are you even— Primot!”

She thunked me on the shoulder. “You can’t say things like that so suddenly!”

“...Well, am I right?”

“No?!”

“Am I close?”

“Absolutely not! What kind of perverted guess is that?”

She squirmed away from me, pretend-covering her chest. I laughed at her reaction.

…When was the last time I laughed?

It must have been before I even started playing Quanta TCG.

“Well… if that’s the case, that’s genuinely disappointing. It was like… I don’t know, that time I found out you were blonde. Where’s your Mark actually, then?”

“...Not telling. And with that stupid guess of yours, I’m going to add even more time...”

“How long we talking?”

“Ask me when we’ve been friends for five years!”

“Surely that’s too long. Let’s do like… after I get you back to Highcrest?”

“...”

Words were stuck in Annabelle’s throat.

Normally, I would’ve stopped to ask if I had said anything weird. But I knew I hadn’t. Because this was what I felt, and exactly what I wanted to say. If something as pure as this could be wrong, then I didn’t want to be right.

It could’ve been embarrassing, it could’ve been “cringe”, it could’ve been interpreted as my overly masculine ideas of how courtship was supposed to be like exposing themselves—but I did not care.

“I’m sorry for everything. I should have started with that, honestly. But I didn’t want to scare you.”

“...Primot?”

“I have never admitted this, not even to myself in thoughts—but I might as well say it right now while the words are flowing. The only reason I want to become strong… the only reason I was able to cast that spell—was the idea that it would impress you.”

“...That’s a terrible reason,” she frowned. “I don’t think you mean that.”

“No, don’t get me wrong—it is a terrible reason. But I mean it. On that day you saved me, you promised me that you would help me find a reason to continue living. And I did find one. It’s definitely pathetic, and it would never pass under logical scrutiny—it might even be misguided, but I do not care. I have this one thing that I want to keep going on for. I found it after suffering for so long. Nobody should be allowed to take this away from me, not even myself. And maybe in the future I might find something else, something more ‘proper’—fulfill this prophecy that everyone believes, save the world from things I don’t know exist yet, figure out why there are rifts which suspiciously function like dungeons from a stock MMO—but for now, it’s all I have. And I will keep holding onto that reason for as long as you let me.”

“...”

“So yes—I lied in the bath. I said I needed to chase after Maelle to figure out what this was all about, to piece the puzzle together—but deep down, I already knew this was all about. Being reincarnated as a powerless idiot was the least of my worries. I was just afraid that if I stayed useless, then you would leave my side for good. So my question is, will you let me keep following you, even if I never fulfill anything for the rest of this life?”

Annabelle didn’t say anything.

My gauntlet hummed.

Orange.

But even though there was nothing except its buzz to punctuate the silence, everything was right. I felt it, I knew it. In this moment, nothing could possibly be wrong with the world—for there was only the spring breeze, the smell of dew-tipped grass, and an air of new beginnings.

I felt free.

Yui.

Something clawed at me from deep inside.

Mother.

Annabelle let her head rest on my shoulder.

“Thank you, Primot… That was really sweet. I’m… um… I’m nowhere close to being as eloquent as you, but… let me try and explain how I feel… if that’s okay with you? And I’ll answer your question after that.”

Aunt Sumire.

The gauntlet stopped.

Am… am I lying again?

But it can’t be… I truly feel this way about her. So why…?

“I’m sorry I keep running away from telling you this. The truth is… I…”

“Oh, I am so very pleased beyond words.”

An unknown voice cut in.

It ripped with distortion.

But not like Soren’s. If his was comparable to a machine, then this sounded more like a rusty knife amputating through bone.

I could hear it clearly—the sarcasm, the sardonic tone, the mockery. Or maybe it was nothing like that at all, and I simply projected my insecurities onto it. But the fact of the matter was that this was a voyeur, and whoever this perverse voice belonged to—I decided they were evil.

The sound of dull, metallic claps, like two pieces of chainmail hitting each other, reverberated from somewhere around us.

“Well done. That was very sincere. Romantic—even. In fact, I’m so moved, I’m deeply sorry that I have to interrupt the two of you.”

Is this guy serious right now?

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe this was just a very socially maladjusted person. Perhaps they weren't sarcastic after all, because scattered between each uttered phrase were the unmistakable sounds of somebody holding back tears.

Their voice teetered on the precipice of a cliff.

“I think I love you both.”

I had a brief thought that maybe I was just imagining it. It was too stereotypically creepy to be real. Except that Annabelle must have heard it too, because her expression progressively stiffened the longer and longer this exchange went on. She clipped her Codex to her waist, then conjured her staff into her hands as she got up—and I did my best to follow suit, holding my gauntlet in a vaguely confrontational position as I got up from the floor.

“Who are you? Reveal yourself,” Annabelle said.

“Say less.”

Suddenly, he appeared in front of us, emerging like a brush rising from a sea of ink.

“Sin Card: Tobira.”

He, she, it—to be honest, I did not know. But my intuition screamed at me that this was a man, and it screamed at me with a million parallel universes worth of deja vu.

It felt like… for some reason, I was supposed to know who this was.

“Kenshi, the Fifth Circle. I am—a False God.”

The way he spoke was wrong. The cadence of his words were wrong. It was a practised line, like he had read it a million times from a script—but his delivery as if it was the punchline to a joke only he understood made my skin crawl.

The only thing that made sense about him was his mask. It was perfectly molded to fit his face, gilded, its expression forever immortalised in the cast of a wide smile—an Oni. The eyes that sat behind that mask burned with something feverish, something unnerving—and it made sense why he might try to hide such an expression.

But looking at the rest of him was a study in contradictions. The brief glimpses of his body I saw as he applauded were unnervingly gaunt and pale, even though the expensive oriental armour that he wore wouldn’t have looked out of place on someone of Soren’s calibre. And unlike his face, he seemed to put no effort in hiding the desolate state of his body, with disgustingly white pockets of flesh poking through and assaulting your sense of wellbeing whenever he moved.

His gauntlet twitched ever so slightly, counting the rhythm of something no one else could understand.

Samurai…?

Black hair?

…Gauntlet?

Annabelle pointed her staff at him. It glowed menacingly.

The clarity at which I perceived Annabelle’s intent versus this man was not lost on me: I hadn’t lost any semblance of anything. I wasn’t hallucinating, and my emotions were completely in check—this man was just that. Entirely wrong, like the universe had blinked and he slipped through the cracks.

“What do you want?” Annabelle asked.

“Forgive my rudeness,” he said. “Genuinely.” As if to prove his point, he bowed. “Say, have either of you seen a woman with purple hair around these parts recently? Tanned skin, has a rune knife for a Codex, a bit of a loudmouth… oh, and nice, big breasts, like I’m talking—huge. Seen anyone like that? She’s my disciple, actually. I’m worried about her. She should respond to Boobies or Jezebelle.”

“...No,” Annabelle said. “Move along.”

The eyes behind the mask squinted at me.

“Then how about you, my good sir? Wow… you’re awfully shiny. You might have almost as much quanta as me.”

He squinted even harder.

“No, the same amount. Exactly the same. Wow! I think I know who you might be!”

He took a step forwards—and instantly, an emerald magical circle appeared to my left. But before it could amount to anything, before Annabelle could yell at him to stop—it instantaneously fizzled into a cloud of dust.

Pink sparks of energy crackled in the air.

“Wh… what just happened?” Annabelle asked.

The man re-adjusted his neck.

Null Error
2 Entropy Quanta
Spell
Burst Speed

Counter target non-Entropy spell.

I gripped my gauntlet tighter.

We need to get out of here.

“Listen, you daft bitch—I am talking to your man. Please do not interrupt. Next time, I will fucking end you, do you understand?”

I stepped in front of her before she could reply.

“F-forgive her, eh? She’s just being a woman. You know, how they talk out of turn and all that. Don’t get too mad.”

I’m sorry, Anna. I don’t mean what I’m saying right now.

“Kenshi” definitely smiled behind the mask.

“What a wise thing to do in the face of danger—throwing your girlfriend’s dignity under the bus. I think you and I could become friends. What is your name, my good sir?”

I thought about his question carefully.

“Darren,” I said, making up a random English name. “Darren of Havenmead.”

The man frowned. I did not understand how a mask could be this expressive. Then he peered at the blue cape that I had haphazardly tossed onto the floor. “So, it’s giving Templar vibes.”

As he spoke, I awkwardly held my off-hand behind my back. At times like these I wish I’d come up with some sort of way to communicate with Annabelle properly instead of idiotically focusing on her arsenal of cards—I mean, what was the point of memorising her entire spell kit if I couldn’t even give her the instruction to start casting? I guess I couldn’t blame myself too much since this was a unique situation, but well… the best I could do now was just make gestures behind my back and hope she understood it.

After all, if she didn’t, I was sure this cultist would kill us.

I held up three fingers, then pointed towards the direction of camp.

3 Quanta creature. Send it and pray Soren sees us. This man is insane.

I had no idea if she would understand what I meant, but this was the best I could do.

“No sir, I’m not a Templar.”

“Please, just Kenshi will do. My dear Primot God.”

“Okay, Ken—”