The Shattered Gates (Part 2)

I scream back into consciousness as a flash of light and a rush of heat slam me from either side. Coughing and gasping, I shoot up into a sitting position to see Gabi and Ryoka standing in front of me. The remains of the two snake heads lay on either side of me, and I continue to rasp for air.

“Yuki!” Gabi cries, “Are you alright?!”

“Pay attention!” Ryoka yells at me, and my ears ring. “You could have gotten yourself killed!”

I stare at him as the chimera behind him roars, and Reiko moves in to slash its incoming leg. She shrieks as the blade barely cuts through and she’s lifted into the air. “Reiko!” I scream. I struggle to get to my feet. I try to channel my resonite again, trying to feel the mana that I can access. I feel it beginning to swirl, but Gabi puts a hand on my shoulder and shakes her head.

I turn to her in shock before I feel a charged static in the air, and flinch as I hear Ryoka yell beside me. “Eternal Promise!” He yells, and he moves at a speed I can barely keep up with. In no time at all, he catches Reiko and sets her down before running just ahead of the sweeping chimera leg. He then flips backwards and perches himself on the leg before grabbing Reiko’s sword in his spare hand. With both blades equipped, trails of yellow light stream behind him as he races up the chimera’s leg and aims at a spot that was already split on the joint.

In one swift motion, he leaps into the air and twists in the air, slashing both blades at the leg. Two streams of gleaming light cut through the chimera’s skin like a saw through wood, and the chimera bellows as the arm severs in a gory shower of other-worldly blood.

“Reiko!” I yell, completely unconcerned about Ryoka. I hesitate, however, as I turn to see Eri still struggling to close the tear in the mini-gate. “Eri!”

“I’ll take over watching her,” Gabi says simply. “It should be easy now that we’ve marked all of the chimera’s weak points with cursed wounds.” She grins and gives me a thumbs up as the chimera’s leg hits the ground behind me with a notable rumble. “Thanks for pointing out the base of the tail, by the way!”

I shake my head and run towards Reiko, who seems dazed by what she had just gone through. Falling to my knees beside her, I pull her into my embrace. “Reiko!” I cry. I squeeze her shoulders as she sits up in a more comfortable position. “Are you alright?” I ask her.

“N-never better, heh,” Reiko says. “Not like I almost died or anything. That would look pretty cool on a gravestone, I think. Slain by rift chimera—“

“Don’t joke about that!” I yell at her, tears welling in my eyes, though I can’t help but crack a smile. “Of course you’re alright, if you can still make jokes like that. I thought you were going to die!”

“Same with you, Yukin,” Reiko says. I help her to her feet and she lets out a tired sigh. “Y’know, I’m something of a swords-woman myself, but I can’t keep up with those two.”

I blink as I watch Ryoka continue to slash at the chimera with base-level sword spells that I’d never heard before. We both watch as he continues to slash at the cursed wounds, and stare as even with those seemingly low level skills, the cuts he made ran deep and long. The chimera was angry, and yet Ryoka was still able to keep pace with it.

Reiko than gasps as she looks at something behind me, and I turn to see Gabi chanting something softly while her hands rest on Eri’s back. I move to call her, but I blink as I see a hazy mandala begin to sharpen beneath them, and the rift starts to glow even more prominent with Eri’s colour of resonite. Suddenly, her pale and sweaty complexion is replaced with a healthy pallor, her energy seems to have returned, and the rift starts to close in on itself even faster.

In exchange, though, Gabi, collapses to her knees on the ground behind Eri. She begins to shiver to an unknown chill, and Reiko and I run to her. She smiles at me as I pull her onto my shoulder and let her lean on me. “Gabi, what are you doing?” I ask incredulously. “Are you okay?”

“I was saving my energy… so we could seal the rift in one go after weakening the chimera,” Gabi says airily. “I don’t know how Eri channeled that much wild-mana through her resonite, but wild magic can be fatal.” She laughs once. “I only reinforced her vitality with my own for the time being, but unlike healing magic, tying your own mana to someone else’s resonite is three times as draining as casting any spell on yourself.”

I feel guilty now for doubting her. “That’s why you didn’t cast any sword spells,” I gasp.

Gabi smiles weakly. “It might surprise you, but magic comes with a price.” I grunt as she stumbles and goes limp for a second. “Sorry. We could have finished this battle before it even began.”

“Well, Ryoka’s finishing it now,” Reiko says, and we all turn to see Ryoka slicing into the same hole Gabi had made with her flame spear. Upon doing so, he pulled the two swords apart, and the lower half of the other leg was severed, making the chimera shriek in pain. He proceeded to cut down its last leg, disabling it, and coming to a rolling stop in front of its head.

“Eri!” Gabi cries. I let her stand on her own, and she sways. “Are you done?”

“Almost!” Eri yells. “I’m sorry! It’s like a puzzle I’m figuring out for the first time! It’s—“

The rest of her words are cut off when I watch one last ethereal band materialize and snap into place, completely sealing the rift. A burst of energy slams into us as the rift heals over, and all that’s left is the glowing bands of stitches, and a faint line where the rift used to be. I yell as Eri collapses to her knees.

Gabi winces in pain as she turns the other way. “Now, Ryoka!”

Ryoka nods and steps up to the chimera, and kneels. Curiously, he seems to say some sort of prayer before laying Reiko’s sword aside and holding his own out in front of him. His mana charges, and his sword begins to glow as he uses it to channel the magic. Finally, he slides a foot back and yells, “Righteous Judgment!”

In one quick movement, Ryoka stabs his sword forward, slides forward and pivots towards us, then pulls his sword upward and over in an arc until it faced us. The chimera goes silent, and I soon understand why as it’s head slides off. Closing his eyes, Ryoka relaxes, flicks his katana, and slides it back into his sheath. I blink as, just like that, the fight is over.

“Woah,” I hear Reiko say beside me. She leans her head towards me and asks, “Do you think I’ll be able to learn something like that too?”

I shrug, but Gabi smiles at her. “Sure you can,” Gabi says, “And I’ll help you with that.”

Ryoka walks up to us and nods. “Yeah, I’m not capable at all of being a teacher, but I can show you my techniques. I just won’t be able to help you through them.”

“Eri, are you alright?” I ask, walking over to her. Everyone else follows, and I help Eri up. She smiles gratefully at me.

I watch Ryoka walk up to the pike and stare up at the scarred rift that’s still floating in the air. He nods and says “I knew you could do it.” She blushes as he turns to Gabi and frowns. “But this is really bad.”

Gabi’s colour is already returning, but she still looks like she could use a breather. “It is,” she says as she turns to look at the dead chimera. “If the other mini-gates are shattered like this, we have a really bad thing coming for us.”

“Shattered?” I ask.

Eri nods. “It wasn’t so much a tear as a piece of glass someone took a hammer to. It felt like I was playing with hot fire trying to organize the pieces back together.”

“And these were on the same frequency as the Choral Gate,” Gabi explains, and I widen my eyes.

“But that means, if the gates are broken here, the main gate is just as broken as these mini-gates,” I finish for Gabi. “That’s really bad.”

“Like I said,” Eri says, “Whoever thought this was a good idea is an idiot.”

“But that means that the other two mini-gates are in just as much danger,” Reiko points out. “How are we going to heal the rifts if we only have Eri?”

Everyone blinks as the reality of the situation hits. “We won’t be able to split up,” Ryoka says. “As capable as I am, it’s not my cup of tea to take on a dimensional threat solo.”

“I could do it,” Gabi says, “But I’m worried about more coming through when you defeat the shattered gate guardian.” She frowns. “As it stands, I don’t think this can even be considered the boss.”

I stare at her incredulously. “That wasn’t the boss?!”

This time, I see Eri shake her head, and I’m dumbstruck. “I felt something too, you know,” she said. “It’s presence was massive, and I only felt it right before I closed the breach.” She shivers, holding herself. “I don’t think we can waste time anymore. We need to get to the other gates.”

“We need people to stay here and watch this gate,” Ryoka says. “Do you still have agents nearby?”

With a nod, Gabi pulls out a silver mirror and says a name. “Wait,” I say, “Don’t you communicate using crystals?”

“Voice crystals transmit just that: voice, and only short messages, at that, or else the crystal itself might shatter. It registers our own resonite when we use it, which is why it’s so secure, and why I use it more than mirrors.” She frowns at her mirror. “Mirrors, on the other hand, can transmit both what we see and what we hear. Anyone with a mirror close by can listen in, which makes it difficult for private long-distance conversations, but it’s something that I’m counting on right now.”

“Wow, everyone’s mean for not responding,” Reiko says, and Gabi growls.

Shaking the mirror in her hand, Gabi scowls. “Infernal artifact! I’ll manually transmit to all possible mirrors within the Illusion!” She sweeps a finger from the top of the mirror and sweeps it around the rim and back to the top, before dragging it to the center and spreading all of her fingers out to the edges. The mirror then begins to glow with an outline of red, and she begins to speak at it.

“All agents and royal retainers, on standby!” Gabi flips the mirror and points out the chimeric corpse and the pike in the ground. “We have secured the first of the three piked locations! Be wary, for there are dimensional monsters that wish to cause you harm and to expand the breaches these piked gates have caused! Approach with caution, and watch out for each other—“

The surface of the mirror shimmers, and I watch as a disheveled face takes the screen. “Governor!” the demon cries, “We have already engaged the dimensional creatures, along with Rogue faction!”

Gabi stiffens as her grip on the mirror tightens. “The Rogues have made their appearance?”

“Yes, ma’am!” The demon looks away for a moment and I see the flash of a sword as they try to fend for themselves. “We are currently holding out at the northwest rift, but we need help!”

“You’re on broadcast,” Gabi shouts, “All agents, report to the northwest breach! We’ll head off the other piked location in case more have decided to invade the human realm!”

The demon hastily salutes. “Understood, ma’am!”

“Stay alive, captain!” Gabi yells. “I don’t want any unnecessary casualties!”

“We’ll do our best, Governor. We have a a whole team—“

The demon’s voice abruptly ends, and the mirror glows a red hot. Steam hisses from Gabi’s hand, but she barely grimaces and she pockets the artifact. “So we’re not going to where they are?” I ask, and she shakes her head.

“We don’t know if the other rift has earned into a breach. If we head for the east mini-gate, we can split our forces, because right now, I know my battalions have it covered. They’re capable together.” She pulls out a smaller version of the map she had set up in the office building and frowns. “But if we don’t hurry, we might get overrun ourselves.”

“Let’s get moving then!” I cry. “We don’t want to have to face more than one of those things at a time!” I point at the chimera, and we all nod.

“Okay, east it is!” Eri yells.

“What are we waiting for?” Ryoka tosses Eri onto his back. She shrieks in surprise before the both of them kick off some dust and begin to run. Reiko claps cheerfully and runs after them, picking up her sword as she passed by it. I stare as they turn the corner and disappear.

“Well?” Gabi asks. “What’s the hold up?”

“I’m scared,” I admit easily, shifting on my feet. “I almost died.”

With a sigh, Gabi looks to me apologetically. “I… well, I can’t say anything to that, other than that it’s a part of going into battle.” She motions for me to start walking with her, and I do. “I can’t say that you knew the risks, because I didn’t think anything like this would happen, but now you know some of the things we prepare for as defenders of our realms.”

“Like Ryoka, right?” I ask. “He’s on a different level than us.”

Gabi nods. “Ryoka is skilled. He’s been trained well by Maki, your principal.” Looking forward, she continues. “She’s old blood. Her family’s been known for generations. And she was a vanguard when he betrayed us.” Shaking her head, she finishes by saying, “I think Maki’s even responsible for recovering his body. I wasn’t there when the Realm War resolved, but I know her name was one of those we brokered an agreement with.”

She stops and looks at me. “I don’t trust humans very easily, Yuki. You know that. But you remind me so much of Ayumi. You’re kind. And that’s the greatest thing anyone could ask for.”

I blink at her honest assessment of me, and I shake my head. “No, I’m very selfish. I just want to live a normal life, but all these things keep happening to me, and I would rather that they didn’t.” I sigh. “But I would never have met my friends, or you, or even Ryoka, if my life weren’t as crazy as it was.”

“Well,” Gabi nods, “It’s going to get even crazier. Let’s go!” She starts to run.

I nod, and chase after her as fast as I can. “Right!”