Immor(t)al Kill

Nir and Rain are about to fight Null.

Null focuses. He draws his sword. His aura has a weird choking feel to it.

“Nir, run to the other side!” - Rain yells.

Null swings his sword forcefully, while both of them evade to opposite sides.

“Run past him!” - She keeps giving orders.

They both run into the forest. Null is running in their general direction. They slowly get closer and closer to each other in order to discuss what to do while keeping moving forward as fast as possible.

-”You have a plan?” - Nir asks.

-”Not at all… I just thought we should buy ourselves some time”. - She says with a smile.

-”That brings back memories…” - He replies.

-”Do you have any ideas?”

“With hearts - we can break his armor, defend against him and even end all of this… But he has more hearts. Rain… We need you to stun him while his defenses are down”.

-”But how can we break his defenses?” - Rain asks.

-”Earlier you got hit… That’s because you defended with less hearts then he was attacking with. If we manage to strike him the same way - we win”.

-”But couldn’t he just use more hearts?”

-”He could, but that just means he would be wasting more than us. We can win that way eventually. We just can’t afford to get hit many times… Especially if it looks like he is about to sacrifice too many hearts”. - Nir replies.

-”Maybe we can try to hit him continuously. Don’t be afraid to use hearts, but try to focus on 1-heart-hits. According to Ranmei it’s over powered, right? Even if he can block with 1 heart each time, I think the damage would exceed that, since it’s added to something, for example - your sword”.

-”Oh! Because if somebody attacked me using a sword without sacrificing hearts - I would still need to sacrifice hearts to shield against it!”

-”Exactly!” - Rain replies. “At least, it sounds reasonable…”

-”Alright! Let’s try it!” - He says.

-”No dying! We don’t have an empress to summon us in the normal world!” - She jests.

Nir suddenly stops, and charges towards Null. He starts swinging rapidly, as Null’s armor deflects it.

“Use hearts!” - Rain yells. “Be careful not to break the sword!”

Null raises his sword, preparing to attack.

Nir uses a heart and makes one quick slash, damaging his armor. Null strikes with incredible force, only to miss, seeing Nir dodged to his left.

-”Thanks for the speed!” - He yells to rain.

Null notices Nir has an arrow in his back. He looks at Rain and yells: “Neii!!!”

Nir rushes with great speed he attained from Rain’s arrow. He keeps using hearts to hit rapidly, destroying Null’s armor slowly.

Null swings swiftly, managing to cut Nir’s shoulder slightly.

-”Healing arrow coming right up!” - Rain says as she aims at Nir and shoots him.

Nir’s shoulder is healed.

Nir keeps attacking rapidly, shattering his armor, then seeing Null is activating his shielding skill. As Nir hits, Null is losing hearts for blocking with the skill.

-”Nuou!!!” - He yells, swinging again, as Nir dodges. He tries swinging faster, but Nir keeps dodging with his enhanced speed. Then, Nir starts slowing down.

Null catches that and steps in to strike, managing to land a hit, which Nir blocks with the shield skill. His shielding breaks, and he is wounded from the deep cut.

-“Nir!”

-”It’s okay!” - He says as he falls back. “Can you heal this one manually?”

She shoots a stunning arrow at Null, hitting - but barely doing anything to him. She quickly heals Nir.

“He is being more wasteful than us, but I need to be more careful…” - Nir says.

As he is fully healed, Nir charges in again, using hearts and hitting rapidly. Rain quickly shoots another arrow to speed him up.

The arrow hits and as Null tries to get him again, Nir shifts his position - getting behind him. He swings, this time using 10 hearts per swing, seeing Null’s hearts quickly depleting, getting lower than three thousand hearts, and still losing more of them at great speed.

-”ENOUGH!” - Null yells as he charges 500 hearts into an attack aimed at Rain.

-”Rain!” - He yells, as he runs towards her and uses a hundred hearts to parry. Nir’s sword shatters as they both get knocked back, mostly unharmed. Nir pushes with his legs strongly into the ground, trying to break the force in which they were pushed - and then rushes back in.

He charges hearts and uses his fists to hit one of Null’s hands in the spot he is holding the sword, steps on his boot and with his other hand - punches through Null’s other hand, using Null’s own hands to connect the hit to his face.

He then charges a hundred hearts and punches him again, now straight in the face, as he grabs his sword from his hands, knocking him back this time.

Null draws a second sword.

“No way…” - Nir says.

-”IT IS ALL YOUR FAULT!” - Null yells, charging hundreds of hearts, jumping into a strike. Nir dodges, but as Null hits the ground - the damage is massive. He starts running after them.

-”Nir, keep running!”

They run as he jumps and swings again with a mighty force that breaks the terrain so much - that they fall despite not being in range.

“Keep running! He is wasting hearts. He’s desperate as he’s seeing his amount doesn’t change anything”.

They keep running until they reach a cliff. “We have been here before” - Rain says. They look back, seeing Null has 2,130 hearts.

Suddenly he sacrifices 30 of them - throwing his sword at Rain. Nir charges the same amount to parry it, only to see Null is running towards them, jumping as he grubs the sword from mid-air and slices Nir with a hundred hearts. Nir manages to block, but he sacrifices another hundred hearts for that, leaving him with 356 hearts.

Then, Null sacrifices his remaining 2,000 hearts. And grabs Nir with unstoppable force.

“Nir!” - Rain yells.

Null is enraged, holding Nir with the strength of 2,000 hearts implemented in the very action, preparing to throw him at Rain so they fall off the cliff. He doesn’t even notice himself that it’s the same way he killed them before as his anger makes him act savagely.

Nir remembers being lifted like that by him. He imagines them being in the world they came from. He sees himself as if he was in that same position again - only now he’s strong enough to defend Rain like he wanted to.

-”Rain, he can’t defend against your arrows, even one should do it!”

Rain swiftly shoots a stunning arrow and hits him, making his grasp lighter for a moment.

Nir moves his hands in opposite directions, then kicks with his legs in opposite directions, charging 50 hearts in each limb, forcing his way out of his powerful grasp through a spin. He immediately combos to a slash, wounding Null.

-”Gah!” - Nir yells in pain, noticing his shoulders are broken completely from being grabbed with such enormous strength, feeling it only now.

-”Nir!”

He steps back towards Rain.

-”Focus on healing just one shoulder, I’ll manage to hold the sword with one hand! I’ll finish the job. We can’t drag him back to the empire nor can we leave him here stunned only to eventually run away… I’ll kill him”.

-”No”. - Rain replies. She puts her hand on an arrow in her quiver and says: “I’ll do it”.

Rain charges an arrow with 500 hearts.

“This time… I’ll protect you!”

She releases the arrow, causing Null to be hit with what looks like a yellow laserbeam. It keeps flying towards the sky and disappears. Any trees that were in range did not get damaged. Null, however, got vaporised on the spot.

Nir looks at the scene with shock and relief, as he’s half standing with one knee on the ground.

Rain helps him stand up straight.

-”Rain… You used almost all of your hearts…” - He says. “You only have 2 remaining”.

-”Yep. I thought I should keep one for me and one for you in case you run out of them”.

Nir smiles at her, as she smiles at him. She takes his hand and wraps it around her shoulder as gently as she can. They head back to the castle slowly, as their fight is over.

They manage to get back after 2 hours of walking.

As they enter the castle, they barely manage to see a few soldiers are being treated in the main hall, as they immediately fall down in absolute exhaustion. Nir is completely out.

Rain lifts her head, saying: “Medics please!”

A few hours pass.

Nir wakes up in the main hall, realizing he was sleeping on Rain’s lap.

“Nir!” - Rain yells with sheer happiness.

-”You did well”. - The empress says. “Go rest for the rest of the day. Don’t worry. The war is over.”

-”Yes, mam!” - They both reply, as Nir notices that Ranmei and all the elite soldiers are standing in the hall alive and well.

They start walking towards their room, then look at each other. They are thinking the same thing. They turn back and walk to the empress who is standing next to Ranmei. They grab her along with Ranmei and hug them in front of everyone.

The empress and Ranmei give in to the hug immediately.

The soldiers see this and smile, not saying a word.

Nir and Rain go to their room. As they enter, Rain stops and grabs the tip of his shirt, blushing and being embarrassed, closing the door with her other hand.

-“I only have 2 hearts left… Do you want to… Share hearts?” - She says without looking at him, then turns her gaze right into his eyes. He immediately kisses her, and she hugs him as they make their way to bed. That night, they went to sleep with 78 hearts each.

The next morning.

Rays of sunshine penetrate the room through the windows, waking Rain up, quickly followed by Nir as well.

“Good morning”. - She says smiling.

-”Good morning”. - He says back, quickly kissing her on the bridge between her nose and forehead.

They prepare to leave. Soon enough, they exit the room and go to the main hall. They see the empress sitting alone on her throne and decide to go and chat with her.

She stands up and walks to the window she usually gazes through from her seat.

-”You have no idea how glad I am that you’re here”. - She says, as Rain stands by her left side and Nir by her right. “I love the two of you as if you were my own children. I want you to know that. In fact, I always knew I was going to at least like you.

They say the gods didn’t wield powers meant for offense. They could give skills to others, share their powers… Some say they had very unique skills, maybe similar to yours… It’s really hard to tell as all of these are myths, after all.

But that’s not what I meant… About liking you… Your skills never intrigued me all that much. I knew how much I’m going to like you before I knew about your skills. It was already on the day we met… And because of a completely different reason.

When I first met you, you didn’t share a bed yet, right?”

Both of them blush aggressively.

”Yet, anyway…”- Says the empress, as she sees their hearts are in sync.

“It’s your hearts. You said you could see each other’s. Regardless of which version of the myth about the two gods you hear, it is always believed that from the very beginning, they were able to see each other’s hearts”.

A thousand years have passed.

The empire and the villages have long achieved peace.

The empress and Ranmei are long gone.

The society they live in started worshipping Nir and Rain as the two gods.

Elders with no relatives offer them their hearts of their own free will.

-”Rain. Is there anything you wanted to do and didn’t?”

-”There is. Just one thing. I wanted to be able to live with you in the other world as well”.

-”And when we had enough of being there?”

-”I’m sure we’ll be summoned here again”.

Nir and Rain walk towards the village they originally lived in after getting summoned by the empress. They are dressed normally so people know not to give them special attention. They go inside an old abandoned school building and enter the classroom with Null’s statue.

-”I wish he didn’t suffer”. - Says Rain.

-”Me too”. - Nir replies.

Rain stands by his left side and nir by his right. They hold their hands behind him, each of them putting another hand on his shoulders respectively.

They look at each other and smile, as they focus - making statues of themselves and going to the other world to be reborned.

-The End-