The Horrors of Forced Humility

So many sayings link complacency with failure. They are absolutely correct. I had gotten used to invincibility in my spirit form, needing only to protect my corporal body. There were types of magic that could hurt me, attacks that would target information itself.

But that wasn’t a big deal. My spirit form was just a clump of information, interacting with the world through magic. My missing parts could be recovered in an instant. Pestilence also healed at a similar pace, leaving only a tear in her suit. She noticed me staring and hurried to cover her exposed skin. I seriously questioned her priorities.

Anyway, looking at Pestilence wouldn’t tell me anything about the attacker, so I scanned the whole place. It didn’t take long to find the perpetrator. Hovering above us, peeking out from behind a pillar, was a man in pajamas with a jade bracelet around each wrist.

Pestilence saw him too. She pointed at the man, and a compressed air bullet shot from her index finger. It sped through the air, straight at the man, but burst with a pop once a purple light barrier appeared to block it. The person yawned, but not out of contempt. He was genuinely tired.

“Can you two die already? I need some sleep,” he said.

Even under the interference of two horsemen and the Hand of Glory, my quasi-omniscience could just about pick out his name. Yoshiyuki Arai. Age 47 and a janitor at this power plant. That tracked, since we were the filth he had to clean up.

The terms of his work contract were unknown. So was the identity of his real employer. I had my suspicions about who was behind this all, but the threat before us was more important.

“Check the servers,” Pestilence said.

She made a good point for once. I redirected my mental attention to the state of the servers. They generated magic by meshing meaningful information collected from the masses with instructions for what the magic should manifest. The magic was usually commanded to create electricity, but at the moment, most of the servers in the complex had been repurposed to empower the janitor here. At least, Pestilence’s gloves still worked and this pocket dimension was intact.

None of the staff or guards were alerted. To keep the energy output constant, a hidden storage substituted the servers in the meantime to feed the power grid.

“They can maintain this for thirty minutes,” I said. Still impressive, because the storage had to fill in for such a large volume of output.

“Longer than most men then.” Pestilence chuckled. Her joke wasn’t well-received. Arai formed a purple ball of energy the size of a volleyball, a violent storm contained within his palm. He threw it our way.

I floated away. Pestilence also leaped aside to dodge the sphere. The orb hit the floor and rebounded. And that wasn’t all. It split apart upon impact, multiplying itself.

More of those balls manifested in Arai’s hands, and he hurled them at us with no aim or strategy, hoping to overwhelm us with sheer quantity. Those projectiles would keep bouncing around until they hit us.

Pestilence used wind to launch herself at Arai, adopting a stance ready to tackle him, but she crashed into the light barrier that flickered into existence again. She had no time to dodge Arai’s next wave of attack. The projectile blew a hole in her chest, breaking her binder and exposing… the fruits of her moving fat to a specific spot on her body.

“Gah. I’m gonna be naked soon,” Pestilence exclaimed, sounding more excited than worried. She pulled herself away with a gush of wind, gaining more distance from Arai.

Normally, I would follow up with a quip, but this was one rare situation where humor wouldn’t help. I had to focus on evading the multiplying balls. Turning invisible didn’t work; the spheres damaged me all the same. The pain was more hollow than stimulating, like the emptiness of depression made physical.

My regeneration slowed as the collisions became more frequent. More of my spiritual body disintegrated. I couldn’t be sure how much was left, relying only on intuition to estimate. All I knew was that the situation was dire.

This was a fight meant for Pestilence. I shouldn’t have followed her inside at all. I couldn’t fight while my host body was so far away, and I'd rather not be a sandbag for the orbs to hit. I sprang towards the wall, better to leave this room quickly.

But the wall stopped me. I couldn't pass through it. I glanced at where we had come in. Nope. The entrance had been closed while I wasn’t paying attention.

I was stuck with the endless array of mines that kept copying and pasting themselves. I glanced at the Hand of Glory. If only Pestilence could snatch on it, then the tides would turn. Pestilence must have noticed my gaze, as she shot out an air pellet at the glass display.

But it was futile. A dazzling barrier, similar to the one protecting Arai, popped out to block the shot. Pestilence swooped around with the help of the wind, trying to navigate the field of energy balls that was as dazzling and deadly as a bloom of jellyfish. Her maneuver couldn’t keep her suit from getting slowly ripped apart from wound after wound; her body might regenerate, but not the fabric. And the scent of blood kept dispersing.

She was fearless because she could reincarnate even if she were to die here. I should also be fine. As long as the information about deaths was passed around, I could reincarnate over and over. But it wasn't certain. I had never died while in my spirit form.

Would I survive? Would I really… die this time?

I lost count of how many times I was hit and how quickly I recovered after. The present scene became less and less important for me. My attention drifted elsewhere, to the deaths that were marching along across the world.

A flood in Kenya, an earthquake in Colombia, a gang conflict in Mexico. At the last minute, these three events killed another two hundred, their victim clear in my mind. My quasi-omniscience made sure to supplement these glimmers with the facts, whispering to me the names of each terminated soul.

I couldn’t do anything. Not here. Not there. Not in the past. Not in the present. An ant against a river. What could I even do but stay still? Seized with a sense of vertigo.

A disturbance in the atmosphere dragged me back to reality. Pestilence sat on the ground. A spinning spike levitated above her palm, directed towards Arai, sucking in nearby air. The spheres continued to break apart her body. She seemed to have gotten used to it. Even if her limbs fell off, she would quickly reattach them anyway she could so they could regenerate. No clothes were left on her, unless you counted the intact gloves. Those were probably on the exemption list of what the energy couldn’t damage.

Arai’s eyelids were flickering, always seconds from dozing off to sleep. He probably didn’t even register that Pestilence was a woman. But he was lucid enough to prepare his barrier, ready to take this ultimate attack.

At the last moment, Pestilence’s spike changed direction. Her real target wasn’t Arai.

It was the display.

With a whoosh, the projectile of compressed air tore through the energy balls in its way, dragging Pestilence along with it. A barrier blinked into existence to intercept, but it shattered upon impact.

The makeshift missile didn’t slow down. It smashed the display, freeing the Hand of Glory. Then, since its job was done, the spike splintered, returning the gas it borrowed to the surroundings.

Pestilence snatched the Hand before Arai could react, and a tiny flame lit up at the tip of the withered index finger.

The orbs and Arai stopped. Their motion suspended. Arai technically got the sleep he wanted because his thoughts also halted. This was the power of the Hand of Glory. It would give pause to many things that the light of its flame reached, including the consciousness that witnessed it. The wielder is excluded from the effect, of course, and also information-scrambling entities like magical artifacts and horsemen.

Still, I averted my eyes from the flame. Looking at it tickled my brain, as if a pair of hands pressed on my skull.

“Pervert, are you finally ashamed of peeping at my body?” Pestilence commented on my avoidance. I sighed, turning my gaze back to her.

What I saw sent a chill down my spine. Pestilence closed in on Arai, an air bullet building above her index finger. She aimed the projectile at Arai’s forehead.

“Stop!” I yelled. Spirits don’t have hearts, but I felt mine beating regardless.

With the effect of the Hand of Glory, the barrier might not appear. He might die. Another death. A drop in the bucket. But the sound when the soul hits the bottom of the abyss would still be grating.

If only my host body were in range, then I could tackle Pestilence. I could take the Hand of Glory from her. I could do so much. But that wasn’t the case. I could only watch. I could only know about the murder.

Pestilence stopped.

She turned to me. The lethal pellet above her finger disintegrated. “As you wish, mistress.”

And everything returned to normal. I scrambled to smile. Good girls must be rewarded. Is there a saying for this?

It didn’t matter. Because the discordant opera of deaths that I was forced to watch had receded into the background. I had once again prevented a death.