The Weight of a Broken Bond

Glaring at the shimmering white ceiling above, Nertu tried his hardest to avoid death, but the wires were too strong for him to break. Slowly carving into his body and squeezing him so forcefully he could feel his bones on the verge of cracking. Peering around for a last hope, his eyes caught to the reflection of the walls surrounding him; or as he realized, the lack there of.

A door instantly appeared from nowhere, as fast as Nertu could even blink. “No, Daku,” he cried out, but it was pointless. Just as fast as it appeared, it shot open, with Daku now standing mere inches from him.

Rip!

Like an old picture, the space between the commissioner and Nertu tore into two, cutting the wires and freeing Nertu from a grisly demise.

Daku quickly casted another script, identifying the frame around the commissioner and inverting it while he moved to attack. His wire was now as clear as day to Daku’s eyes as it headed straight for her, but the speed at which it thrusted her way still posed a problem. Glancing at the reflection on the wall, she snapped her finger, and with it everything flipped.

Cut!

The commissioner’s upper torso dropped to the floor, with the lower half buckling at the knees before collapsing over. He had become victim to his own attack.

It had been merely a minute since she’d made her presence, and just as swiftly did the fight come to a crushing end. With the commissioner now dead, his flames dissipated.

“What did I tell you about revealing your skills to people?” Daku scolded.

“I would’ve come up with something,” Nertu complained, but Daku argued about his arrogance. “The commissioner clearly figured out you needed to mark your destination to shift to it. Flame scripts use the same method, if you’d paid attention when I taught you things then maybe you would’ve known that you little brat!”

Nertu, still feeling the pain tear through his body, swept his eyes across the aftermath of his battle. “So, he marked this entire room before I showed up?”

Daku shook her head in defeat, “Why would he not be prepared? Your shift script is unique, but people will figure it out.”

“But I could’ve marked anything. I could’ve marked a bunch of things!”

“He made a guess, one that almost killed you. If it wasn’t for the reinforcements on your clothes, his flames and that wire would’ve tore through you.”

Nertu fell back onto the ground, his arms and legs fanned out in forfeit. “How did you do that by the way, big sis?” he asked, with even he himself finding Daku’s script puzzling. “The thing where you switched.”

Daku sat on the floor beside him. Despite everything, she seemed to lacked any sense of urgency, almost as if she was avoiding it all.

“I can flip anything within a frame,” she explained, but I can only identify a frame around what I can see. So, to flip myself, I would have to be a part of that frame.” She then pointed to the reflection within the walls of the room, “Once I was able to see both myself and the commissioner in one frame, it was easy.”

“But how did you flip yourself without flipping the wire as well?” Nertu questioned further.

“I can be specific with what I effect, so long as I can visibly separate it from the rest. That’s why I inverted the lighting of the frame.”

As she spoke her breathing suddenly grew labored, with her soon collapsing to the ground. Nertu immediately jumped up and dashed to her side. “Using the tsukou-door right after the looking eye script was bound to be hard on your heart, big sis.”

He then helped Daku to her feet, watching her expression grow weighted.

“He’s made his demand, Nertu,” she stated, “Our clan will never be viewed any different than it always is.”

“We shouldn’t go against him,” warned Nertu, “we likely won’t survive in the end.”

Daku contemplated, turning to Nertu with conflict in her eyes. “I know, Nertu… I know…”

That pain he had sensed in his sister wrapped around him like the clench of a snake. As he stood with his mission before him, having chosen to pit himself against Zida, Nertu contemplated just what it was he was fighting for.

“You think I didn’t realize why she snuck you onto the carriage?” Zida scowled, looking Nertu in the eye with a boiling rage.

With Sina having stopped the bleeding, Toyo slowly managed to bring herself to a fragile calm. The harrowing scene she would turn to, however, only furthered the pain building within her heart.

Zida’s eyes traced Nertu’s injuries, making clear that he’d been in battle before arriving. But before Zida could use it to his advantage, the timely swipe of his blade narrowly spared him from being caught within a frame script. Quickly, he slashed again, snapping Nertu’s incoming spear in half. Unfortunately, it did nothing to halt Nertu’s script, as he still shifted to the broken half, barely inches away from Zida, forcing him to evade.

“Capture.”

As her voice passed through his ears, Zida found himself stuck in place, unable to escape the frame he was now locked within.

Fully presenting herself with her face as cold as ice, Daku walked tepidly towards Toyo and Sina, her hand held steady in a view finder position. “If I launch my frame break from this distance, it will likely kill both of you.”

Zida fought with every muscle in his body, using his sheer willpower to try and force his way out of the captured frame.

“If you somehow free yourself, I’ll have to attack you,” Nertu warned, but Zida continued his relentless fight.

“Why am I not surprised?” Sina decried, “Staring down the face of death through your hands… why am I not surprised? I wonder how many people have seen this before me.”

Daku was undeterred, Sina’s words failing to shake her. “You’ve walked this earth for a long time, Sina. Still, you reject reality with every breath you take. I don’t have the luxury of that.”

“What I see in this world and what you see are far, far apart,” Sina maligned, accepting her fate if it meant standing to protect what she knew was right.

“Then try feeling for once instead of looking,” Toyo interjected. “You could have killed us a long time ago. So why are you struggling now?”

She’s a murderer, Toyo. Their entire clan is,” Sina roared, anger coursing through her veins. But Toyo refused to let her chance at reaching Daku go. She wanted to believe that the person she’d spent the past few days with was more than just a weapon to be used willingly.

“There’s a difference between someone telling you what you are, and you knowing what you are,” she said, her eyes at ease.

With a deep sigh, Daku paused, her eyes narrowing as she let her emotions engulf her mind. “I suggest you move quickly,” she surprisingly warned, “I’m not sure what he’s capable of.”

Nertu was taken aback by Daku’s forfeit, his face begging for her to explain. He knew she was aware what abandoning their duties would mean but feared that Daku had, for some reason, grown exhausted with the world. Daku met Nertu’s gaze, his concern wavering through his eyes. “Your decision is your own,” she offered, leaving her brother to choose his own path.

She then called forth the tsukou-door, biding her brother a silent farewell as it constructed around her. Nertu refused to let his sister face the world alone, however, as he dashed towards her with all his might, jumping in at the last moment as the door shuttered, whisking them away.

Toyo sighed a breath of relief, having yet to fully comprehend how close she was to grazing the lips of death’s kiss. She was unsure of where she’d gotten the courage to challenge staring down her own demise, but nonetheless she was alive because of it.

Zida, having been freed from his captivity, felt a bitter pang grip his chest. Although he never saw Daku and Nertu as much more than another resource of the empire, he now understood that had he been forced to kill them, perhaps he wouldn’t remain unbothered after all.