Life and Death

A roar accompanied by a shower of blood echoed over the lake. The snake-dragon thrashed in pain, shaking its large head and nearly crushing me in the process. I hurriedly distanced myself.

“Master One!” it yelled. In its thrashing it somehow dislodged Saga’s sword, which splashed into the water. “Is it possible? Am I going to die against such a worm? Or is it actually…!”

And then it fell silent. The head fell straight into the water, causing a small wave, as well as for the entire lake’s surface to progressively get dyed red.

It was possible that it wasn’t dead yet, but I yelled to Kai, “Make sure it’s dead!” and rushed to Saga.

The girl actually had her eyes open. Mouth too, with clenched teeth full of blood. There was so much red that I could barely even see her skin or clothes.

“How am I supposed to—” I heard Kai’s complaint in the background, but rushed to Saga.

It might already be too late.

It was possible she was going to die anyway. There was also the fact her weapon fell into the lake and would probably prove difficult to retrieve, but that was secondary.

I had to at least try.

I couldn’t exactly call Saga my friend or anything… she was always cold and unapproachable, constantly disparaging and mocking me, but somehow I’ve managed to not only invite her to my house, but even dragged her into another world.

She seemed to be flourishing here, but if she died just because she saved me… that’d leave a bad taste in my mouth.

“C’mon, magic, work with me!” I shouted while thrusting my hand forward with faint light emanating from it.

I immediately felt energy drain from me.

It… it should be fine. I actually hadn’t used too many spells in this fight. So my stamina or MP or whatever it was should still be enough to do this.

I nearly blacked out right there and then, but gritted my teeth and somehow held out.

It wasn’t even possible to see if she was actually getting healed or not due to all the blood, but I believed.

Someone like Saga wouldn’t die here.

I wasn’t going to let her die without finding out what her deal was! And who knows? Maybe she’d be so grateful for me saving her life that she’d finally open up to me, and from there the sky’s the limit!

Just like when she tried joking about my nickname.

She seemed to grow more and more interested in us after travelling together.

“You’re going to live!” I shouted, pouring down every last bit of energy I possessed until I had no more.

Darkness swallowed me whole.

I woke up wondering if I was dead—then immediately dismissed it. The pain and the fatigue that immediately assaulted me had to mean I was alive.

Either that, or this was hell.

Opening my eyes, however, revealed that I really was alive as expected. Although I wasn’t sure about the heavily bandaged, bloody girl lying right next to me.

“S-Saga!” I blurted, rising to a sitting position. I nearly blacked out again, doing that.

“Hey, relax,” came a voice from nearby. “Here, eat this fruit. I’d offer you some water, but the entire lake’s contaminated and I assume you don’t want to drink monster blood.”

I glanced at the smiling Kai and then at the aforementioned lake. I now noticed both me and Saga were lying on the grass next to it. Just like Kai said, the lake became a sea of blood. A large green shape was poking from the water, unmoving.

“Can’t believe that thing’s really dead. That… that was impressive, man,” he said, scratching his head. “Can’t believe it worked.”

“And… and Saga?” I asked, peeking at her fearfully.

Kai paused. “She’s alive, I think. You probably saved her life, but I don’t know that she’s out of danger yet.” His smile was strained. I only now noticed he was covered in a lot of blood, too, and that it probably wasn’t his own.

I looked at Saga again. Her pretty face distorted in pain remained untouched and her hair was loose. Almost all of her body beneath it was wrapped by crude bandages that might have consisted most of our supply. They were completely soaked in blood so they’d probably require a replacement at some point.

And there was something else I realized.

“Wait a minute… did you strip her?!”

“Wha… that’s what bothers you?” asked Kai, genuinely shocked with his eyebrows raised. “Well… I did, but I had no ulterior motives or anything. It wasn’t a pretty sight, trust me.”

Unbelievable. This man just went and did something that sometimes appeared in my dreams so casually.

Seeing my gaze, Kai sighed. “You’re the worst, C.”

“Oh, shut up. I saved us all.”

“I suppose that’s true,” he conceded. “Now, lie back down again and eat. No more excitement allowed for the patient. I think we’ll be camping here tonight. If not for the blood and our old pal Squeaky, it would’ve been quite a nice sight.”

…At least he had enough energy to joke like that.

The rest of the day passed quietly. No animal, predator or otherwise, came to bother us at all. Possibly no animal came to this area due to Squeaky’s presence.

What about One himself, though? Hopefully we weren’t going to get attacked at night.

I was worried about that, but also so tired that I fell asleep easily. When I woke up next, still in the middle of the night, there was a small fire near us. Kai was sitting next to it and tending to it when he noticed me stirring.

“Hey,” said Kai in a whisper. “How’re you feeling?”

My many wounds still hurt, but other than that I was… better. Not perfect, but better.

“Eh. I’ll live.”

“Mind taking watch? At least for a few hours? I’m dead tired,” he said somewhat sheepishly.

“Oh. Um, I guess I can.”

“Great.”

Kai curled on the spot and, judging from his breathing, nearly immediately fell asleep. He’d been the least affected by the fight, but clearly it took its toll on him as well.

I glanced to the side. Saga was still unconscious, her face grimacing, but she was still breathing. I briefly considered casting some more healing, but preferred preserving my energy for now.

Also, I noted from the illumination by the bonfire that her bandages looked cleaner than before.

…He changed her again!

I sent an irate glare at his sleeping form. Hopefully he would have a nightmare.

As I moved my gaze to watch over Saga, however, she suddenly stirred. She didn’t seem to wake up, but her body gave a little convulsion, and her mouth moved.

It was such a quiet area, unlike the rest of the forest, that I could clearly hear even her soft mutters.

“No…” she breathed. “I don’t want to go there… it’s so dark…”

I stared at her. Was she having a nightmare?

“I promise I won’t… I… I’ll be perfect… the perfect…”

At that point her words trailed off into incoherent mumbling, and her body stopped moving again.

I stared at her for quite a while after that. To the extent Kai would have called me a perv and Saga herself might have stabbed me. She gave no further words. And throughout this whole time, I just kept wondering.

Who was Saga, really?