Death of an Idea

I commanded the Feather Mantle to keep Raven’s body hovering next to the destroyed racks. Normally, I couldn’t move my anchor while in spirit form, so having the Feather Mantle was convenient for me.

It is finally over. With the AI gone, Pestilence shouldn’t be able to get close to Raven, not while I was guarding her as a spirit. To be safe, I scanned the building with quasi-omniscience. There wasn’t anything that could be used as a deadly weapon.

A squish sound alerted me, but it was too late. A light pink blob had already stuck Raven’s body to the wall; its glistening surface emphasized its stickiness. I turned towards the attacker, and saw Pestilence levitating towards me.

“But the servers were all gone!” I yelled. My quasi-omniscience counted the broken computers; the number matched what the building should have had.

I waved Cloudie to summon a strong current, blowing towards Pestilence. But the wind merely slowed her down; her advance didn’t halt. I lunged at her, blade drawn.

She halted and raised her arm at me. Flame swirled from her palm, expanding in a conic path. The fire clashed with Cloudie’s gale in a standoff. Sparks and drafts scattered.

My spirit could cruise past the inferno without issue, and I swung Cloudie at Pestilence’s neck. Clank. The blade couldn’t get past her neck. She had hardened her skin at the impact point. Normally, the manipulation of her body wouldn’t be able to block a literal blade.

But it did. Magic from somewhere must have aided her.

What if…

“The AI made your body into a mini-data center,” I said.

Whether it was silicon boards, cells, or anything else, any integrated information flow could create magic. When I noticed that the servers had been attacking Pestilence with radio waves of information, I didn’t think too deeply about what that meant.

In practice, it could mean that the AI had transferred information into Pestilence’s cells, and her cells generated magic to attack the body. Repurposing cells for data storage would have killed a normal person, but not her. And since she could control the cells in her body, she could even force the magic to serve her will.

This was the most plausible speculation I could muster. Still, my goal remained the same. I had to kill Pestilence.

The flame started to push back the wind, almost reaching Raven. Though she had the protection of the Fetus Jewel, there was still a limit to how much damage she could take. And this raging fire was intense enough to make my spirit sweat.

I zipped back to Raven, keeping my foot on Cloudie to keep the wind running, while my hands reached for the Tide Jewels to control the water. The scattered liquid clumped together again, rushing to the rescue. But once it hit the fire. It wasn’t the flame that got extinguished; the liquid lost to the heat, vaporizing into steam.

The wind carried the hot fumes past Pestilence, but she didn’t even close her eyes in response, taking the full blunt of the sizzling steam. Her skin blistered and healed in the same breath; her expression didn’t indicate any pain felt.

The inferno almost reached Raven, untroubled by the wind and the water. My last shot was the OP Spear. I shoved my elbow into where the Spear Gem was, hoping the ultimate weapon would pop up.

But there was nothing. Even amid the rising heat, I felt a chill building in my heart. Was the weapon inaccessible to spirits?

“I want to kill Pestilence!” After the declaration, I found that my mind wasn’t in agreement at all.

Oh, that is the issue.

An issue that could spell Raven’s doom. The flame touched Raven’s skin, scorching the edge of her clothes. I had to do something. I had to kill Pestilence. Why couldn’t I focus? I had the conviction, since I was able to use the Hama Yumi. But a single, inconsequential question just buzzed around my mind, splitting my focus. The whisper that asked… Why did Pestilence do all this?

The fire engulfed Raven’s arm, burning it to ash within seconds. The heat even grazed the side of her torso. I watched. I could only watch.

All because of this stupid question? No! No!

“Would Hideka want you to kill Raven?” I shouted with everything I had. A desperate plea that I had scrambled up, for a reason that I didn’t fully understand. Intuition, maybe. The flame faltered and was pushed back a few steps by the wind.

The cool air put out the fire on Raven, and her arm regenerated, even though her shirt and jeans remained mutilated. I glanced at Pestilence’s expression. It shifted a little; a frown so slight that she must not have noticed it herself.

The blazing cone stretched forward again. “Hideka. Ueshima Hideka,” I shouted it like a magic word. It didn’t work a second time.

Even as failure was imminent, a smirk forced its way onto my face, because I had found a new goal, a wish for the OP Spear to fulfill. I didn’t know what this wish would do to my spirit. It could tire me into slumber, which meant detaching from Raven’s body. But I still had to do this. Not just for me, not just for Raven, not just for the city…

I stretched out my arm.

Please listen to me.

Please.

The slightest speck of light. Electricity. And a long shadow materialized. The spear responded to my wish. The moment its form solidified, I threw it at Pestilence, using all the strength my spirit could muster.

The spear cut into the cone, snuffing out all the fire that it passed. As Pestilence’s eyebrows just started to shift in reaction, the spear already pierced her and carried her along to a wall. Just like in her fight with E.T., she was pinned in place again. No matter how much she struggled and waved her arms, she couldn’t free herself, and no traces of magic came to her aid.

I picked up Cloudie and rushed towards her, fighting through the fatigue inflicted by the spear. She locked her eyes on me, a sudden smile on her face. “Yes, do it! Kill me! Kill me like you did last time! Because that’s what you do! That’s your nature!”

I got within striking distance. Pestilence closed her eyes; more serene than she should have been, more accepting than she should have been.

A splat followed by a clank. The latter was the sound of Cloudie dropping onto the floor.

“Eh?” Pestilence’s eyes snapped open, while her jaws hung, maybe even swaying a little. She touched her cheek, where her wound had already healed. A wound that had been a swollen bump from a slap.

I slapped her face again. And again. She tried to grab onto my wrist, probably having forgotten that I was in spirit form. Eventually, she settled on guarding her cheeks with her hands.

That should be enough. I stopped my assault. “Are you awake yet?” I asked.

“What? You were the one hitting me!” She shouted.

“I thought you liked being punished.” I chuckled.

She didn’t find my joke funny; her only reaction was to avoid my gaze. Her side profile looked like that of a pretentious poet observing a sunset.

“Just kill me. I lost,” she whispered. But I didn’t want that anymore; that wasn’t what I had wished the spear to help me achieve.

“I’m sorry about Hideka.”

“What’s there to be sorry about? I killed her myself. Save your apologies for her family.”

Then why are her eyes brimming with tears? She could control every aspect of her body, but failed to stop a few insignificant droplets from exiting her eyes.

“I don’t know why you killed her. But I think that you truly saw her as a friend.”

She gritted her teeth with a clatter, exerting a force that might crack her molars. “A friend? What? Dede-chan, remember. These people, even Su-chan, will DIE. And that is the natural order. The basement of this building is supposed to grant eternal life, but those so-called immortal people will also die one day. Nature always wins.”

“And what is this nature?”

“What do you mean, what’s nature? The sky. The forest. Earth!” She gestured wildly, as if that could distract me from her flawed logic.

“Then, this data center is the furthest away from natural.”

“So what? Humans still can’t beat nature.”

“Humans changed the ecosystem.”

“But they can’t change death! You should know this yourself! Why are you arguing with me?! Just kill me already!”

“We can extend lives.”

“It won’t matter! They will die! Why do you care about something so weak, so fragile?”

“You cared about Hideka.”

“Stop saying her name!” She screeched.

I stared at her while trying to recall the time I had shared with her, searching for details I might have missed. “You probably cared about tea-making too.”

“I don’t.” But her expression sang a different tune. She was biting her lip, perhaps to prevent any more words from escaping.

I bent my torso, giving her a deep bow. “So, I’m sorry for mocking you. I didn’t realize how seriously you take tea-making.”

“But… but…”

“And for this…” I reached into Pestilence’s pocket, where a bump was jutting out. It was a plain acorn.

“Give it back!” Pestilence grabbed my wrist, but her hand just went straight through. Still, I returned the object to her hand. She slipped it back into her pocket. The swiftness gave the impression that she was hiding her most precious treasure.

Why did she care so much about a nut? When did she start learning about tea-making? What had she done in the years when we were scattered across different countries? Questions that I had no answers to. Questions that quasi-omniscience couldn’t illuminate for me. Questions that could only be addressed by Pestilence.

All these thoughts wrung a deep sigh from me. “I just realized… I actually don’t know anything about you. I’m sorry. But… I want to learn about you.”

Pestilence stared at the floor. “It doesn’t matter. Just kill me. Just let me die… I… don’t want to continue this cycle anymore.”

This masochist. How stubborn can she be? But, I think I get it. Sometimes, I also wondered if what I did mattered in the long run. Whether the few lives that I have saved would be enough in the face of the thousands more that were lost every hour.

I didn’t have a good comeback. If she truly got tired of the world, nothing I say could convince her otherwise. However, there was something I could do.

The spear was in the way, so I dispelled it, releasing Pestilence from the pin. Her freedom was short-lived because I wrapped my arms around her. A hug that she surely needed.

“What?” Pestilence widened her eyes. She didn’t move an inch, as if her muscles had forgotten how to.

I chuckled and patted her head. “You are such a bad girl.”

“What? I’ll kill Su-chan. I will,” she said with a shaky voice.

“Please don’t.”

“What?”

“I’m putting my trust in you. Please don’t kill Raven, or anyone else.”

“Are you an idiot?”

“No. This is just the best strategy to stop you from killing.” After she died and reincarnated, she might resume her crusade. I had to keep her here. I had to change her mind. That said, this was also what I wanted to do.

“Is it? I’ll kill Su-chan.”

“Please don’t.”

“I’m saying I’ll kill her! Why won’t you kill me!”

“Because I don’t want to see you go yet.” Maybe we would fade away one day. Our memories were already disintegrating. But at the moment, I didn’t want Pestilence to wipe herself out with magic.

“Why… I… I… I miss him… I… miss Elis… I miss Hideka… Why did I kill her? Why did I let her die? Why?!” Her knees couldn’t hold her weight anymore, and she collapsed onto the floor, while still in my arms, sobbing.

This might have been the first time I had ever seen her cry.