My Normal Life Now Has A Mission

Tama put her phone down. “The Nacht attack is around here. It’s now or never.”

Eleven at night. Sarine met Tama’s deathly seriousness with some of her own, hiding the trembling in her hands by tucking them behind her back. Tama balanced the sword in her hands, pensive. The train rumbled, near empty, closing in on their stop.

There’d be no easy replacement for Chiho. The magic she wielded had been a special talent, passed down in the Ohzora family. When Tama asked Aoi about it, she mentioned rituals, training, things no one had time for with the recent Nacht attacks. With no other recourse to banish them, Society Prime imprisoned raging Nachts, leaving their victims trapped in their dreams.

But that wouldn’t do. Things needed to change—and Tama thought, hoped she had the solution laying in her hands. The Powers of Prime graced the youngest Ohzora daughter with the gift to purge evil.

If the gift still lived on, in this weapon, then Tama would wield it.

No hesitation. No denial, not anymore.

The pair jumped off the train, and as soon as they made it out of the station, Sarine conjured a breeze and carried the pair faster than their legs would ever take them.

They reached a desolate neighborhood. Nowhere near Tama’s home. All the same, she held her sword at her side, pulled her hoodie off, a spider-shaped beast rampaging before her.

“I don’t see Pleasa,” Sarine said, floating in circles around Tama. “So…you know how to use that thing, right?”

Tama frowned.

Well…

“I know what Chiho would’ve wanted,” she said, and charged, Sarine yelling as she flew after the impulsive teenager.

She tried everything; the sword worked erratically before, but since Tama sealed her promise, it’d laid dormant. Tama hoped that maybe something like the training room incident might come to her again—a push against death, to either summon the power she needed or die trying.

And if she died… “Sarine, don’t you dare hold back either.”

“I’m not gonna use you!”

“Do it if it means we win! I don’t care—if you’re supposed to be my faerie, you’ll follow my orders.”

Sarine said nothing. Tama raised her blade, grit her teeth; hoped, an emotion manifest into a beam of light which pierced the Nacht in between the eyes. It screamed, flailed, and upon seeing Tama, let out a guttural cry.

A signal to its master? Maybe. But Tama carried on. Sarine kept to the girls’ side, controlling the wind to carry Tama out of danger while using fire to scare the Nacht off when its fangs drew too close.

Tama ran, stopping to charge the blade, blowing holes into the monster’s legs. It fell over, and as she sliced the neck, the head abandoned the body, growing legs and lunging for Tama. Sarine shouted—then, as she was told to, reached out to her in a much different way.

She sensed the life of Tama, and took it for her own—A breeze close to a hurricane’s strength threw Tama out of the way. Gasping, the girl crawled to her feet, positioning the blade and racking her brain for the words Chiho had said a million times before.

The Nacht turned to her. She had no escape now.

If someone asked Tama ages ago if she remembered anything about all her Nacht fights, she would’ve said nothing about the littlest details, only the blur of the battle. Chiho handled the hard part, so she didn’t need to keep track of the rest. She just needed to fight.

But now those words rung clear as day. They dug into every crevice of her mind, the words only Chiho knew to say.

Tama took a breath.

“In the name of all dreamers…”

Light pooled at the tip of her sword. A whisper graced her ears, unsaid hopes, fragmented and digested into dreams. “And of the Gods watching over us…”

Though if they cared, why didn’t they save her? Chiho, their Chosen—who might’ve not been a chosen at all. Still she carried their power. She should’ve been protected so that she could stand in Tama’s place and fight for all that mattered, just like she always wanted to do.

“Erase all nightmares.”

Sarine puffed her cheeks, throwing a barrier around Tama to protect her from the Nacht’s lunge, pincers clashing against it. Tama had been chosen by a faerie far more destined than she could ever be—all she could ever do was steal someone else’s fate.

Take it into her hands.

Reshape the world.

And do whatever it took to keep her only friend by her side. Sarine watched Tama, dropping the barrier right as— “And—and free their prayers!”

Tama’s world burned. The light enveloped the Nacht as she collapsed to the ground, Sarine at her side in seconds. The sword clattered against pavement as the monster dissolved, screaming, fighting every step of the way until the nightmares holding it together unraveled and flooded the deepened night.

“Are you okay!?” Sarine said, and Tama nodded.

“Trying to be,” she muttered. “You…you don’t need to hold back, you know.”

Sarine bit her lip. “I really don’t—want to—”

“It’s not using me if I’m letting you. We gotta do everything to stop Pleasa, and how else are we gonna manage that without beating her at her own game?”

“Huh. A willing sacrifice. Guess I should’ve expected that.”

Sarine threw up another barrier the moment the voice registered, Tama huddling close as she glared at the little light hovering where the Nacht had once been. Lavi regarded the pair with an empty look, before she put her hands up.

“I’m not here to fight,” she said. “I’m watching. You can’t catch me, anyways, so don’t bother. It’d be a disgrace.”

Tama gripped Chiho’s sword. “You’re not taking it.”

“I know. I’m not gonna try. But I’m gonna be really super nice, and warn you two about this. It’s like…the opposite of good and shiny, sparkly, you know? Trying to put up a fight when there’s an obvious solution to this. Why are humans always desperate for power?”

“And why are you so quick to judge all humans?” Sarine said. “Just ‘cause something terrible happened to you—it was one group. Don’t go playing the victim when you killed someone over your stupid grudge!”

Lavi sneered. “And I never said anything about myself. But bad things make more bad things happen, you know? Don’t get me wrong, either.

“I liked Chiho. She’s the exact kinda person who makes the world a better place. But Pleasa getting her hand on a Special Soul would let us do more than she could do in a lifetime. So…she had to go.”

Sarine screamed, throwing herself at Lavi. The other faerie darted out of the way, taking off at a speed neither had seen from Lavi before.

She disappeared. Tama and Sarine exchanged looks.

“There’s no way she doesn’t know now,” Tama said.

Sarine crossed her arms, bright red. “I know. Gods, the next time I see her face, it’s not gonna be attached to her body.”

“Save some for me too.”

“Don’t worry, you’ll be next in line. That piece of shit!”

“Yeah…” Tama began to walk towards the train station, tucking her sword away. “Let’s get over to Society Prime and kill the rest of those freaky monsters. Then, we’ll talk about Pleasa.”

“Right—I’m not waiting around and taking out Nachts anymore. If we’re gonna stop her, we need to make a plan and just…just get it done.”

Before anyone else got dragged down into their mess. No more innocent lives lost—no more suffering for the Ohzora family. If making up for their weakness meant taking down a dangerous terrorist with their own two hands, then it was the only option left.