ch 13: recall

The book slammed open, its pages flipping at a speed that defied physics. A vortex of pure magical energy surged from the spine, the dormant contract with Saya had finally flickered to life.

Sulva readied a curse as his eyes locked onto the potential threat the book could pose. The cult had come to Kala under the belief that powerful artifacts once belonging to the Butterfly Mage might still be present.

Rias aside, Sulva was fully prepared to counter whichever artifact attempted to resist his control.
But contrary to his assumptions, it wasn’t the book he needed to worry about. Just at the edge of his peripheral vision, the young girl whose stomach had been half-eaten now glowed with a vibrant blue hue.
It wasn’t the hue emitted when someone tried to cast ice or water magic. Water magic carried the deep color of the sea, while ice shone a bright blue. This was neither.

This was something more primal, more raw, something far more arcane in nature. But simply watching events unfold would be a fool’s decision.

“Onzei!”

Sulva fired a barrage of curses: one to crush the heart, one to burst the cranium, and one to seize her magical gears. He had neutralized Hana’s magical capabilities with a single strike earlier, so he had no reason to doubt the logic of his magic now.

But the curses never landed. The vortex around Saya simply dissolved the spells into nothing before they could even touch her skin.

Every crevice of Saya’s body twitched, snapping back into a predetermined order. The organs that had been spilled upon the pavement began to move, reversing their trajectory and sliding back into her torso as if the world were being rewound.

It was as if the very concept of her injury was being deleted from the record of reality. Rapidly weaving skin knit itself together over her internals, sealing the wounds and anchoring her soul back into its physical vessel with a terrifying permanence.

All the while, Sulva, Hana, and Rias were frozen at the sight of the girl’s eyes.

Not a single one of them spoke. Even the air between them felt thinner, heavier, like something unseen was pressing down on their lungs.

Stacking atop one another, white, crystal-like pupils formed around her blue irises. If eyes were windows to the soul, the thing looking out from this resurrected shell had abandoned its humanity a long time ago. Her glare carried a chill that rivaled the Frostlands.“Onzei! Onzei! Onzei!”

Sulva’s surgical precision was now a thing of the past. He fired relentlessly, shooting a panicked spray of magic hoping to find a single crack in her barrier.

In response to his teammate’s actions, Rias also lunged forward, but his limbs were shredded by the mere pressure of the vortex.

There was no counter-attack of lightning from the curse that Sulva had placed on him earlier, confirming that what greeted them did not belong to the elements.

But the most surprised among them all was Veronica, who watched in awe as the girl she had bullied seemingly defied destiny and rose from the dead.

A piece of information the imperial daughter knew for a fact, was that Saya possessed no Birthmark at all. She had long despised the young mage for not taking action despite her unique deficiency. Now, a paradox burned through her mind: How is she casting magic?

Birthmarks were the essential translators, the biological hardware required to process mana. A genius like Rias could mix colors, while a specialist like Hana could deepen a single hue, pushing an element beyond its typical limits.

But the entity standing before them defied the very laws of the world. Her actions and existence defied all the lessons and lectures that she had attended during her three years at the academy.

The vortex came to a rapid halt as the quiet night returned. Standing in the basking moonlight, atop the ruins of a once-prestigious academy, was a machine of war wearing the skin of the girl once named Saya Idlansil.

For this one night, Oktavia had taken over, determined to save the latest version of herself.

“Recall.”

Oktavia blurred. It appeared less like a sprint, and more as if she simply transitioned from one point in space to another with a velocity that mocked the concept of distance. It was a speed the human brain wasn't wired to process.

Sulva, who prided himself on being able to predict and even counter the trajectory of a Sword Saint, found himself paralyzed. His eyes saw her, but his nerves refused to transmit the reality of the contact.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

She had one minute, just sixty seconds, before her existence came to an end. As a bug in the Manastream that shouldn’t exist, even that short span was an unusually generous gift.

Oktavia channeled the power that served as the energy of the world to enhance her physical abilities. In the state she was in now, she wouldn’t be able to activate her more advanced spells, so for the moment, she had to resort to more primitive arcane magic.

Veronica’s assumptions weren’t wrong. Elemental magic could not be cast without a Birthmark, but arcane magic followed completely different rules.

Within the body of a living being, the soul, the Birthmark, and the magical gears all worked in tandem to create a functional spell.

The soul siphoned mana from a constant source of energy that flowed through the world, called the Manastream. Upon siphoning it, the soul then sent that energy through a living creature’s magical gears.

The gears served as a transfer system, and once the mana was delivered to the Birthmark, it would be translated into a form of magic humans could understand, taking the form of the world’s known elements.

But Saya lacked the translator, thus skipping the process entirely. Whatever energy she siphoned from the Manastream was hers to use in its complete, raw form.
The reason the world was deprived of arcane knowledge was not because it was rare or unreachable, but because those who achieved the ability to cast such magic never lived long enough to tell the tale.
Without a Birthmark to buffer the power, a human body would burn to ash the moment an arcane spell was executed.

This version of Oktavia currently occupying the body, however, had a lifetime of experience and practice. Countless years of practice meant that she could accurately analyze her current experience level, and output the appropriate amount.

Raw energy flooded her fist, glowing with that vibrant, alien blue. The punch connected with Sulva’s chest, the kinetic discharge sounding like a thunderclap as it hurled the once elegant gentleman across the city skyline.

As he spun hopelessly through the vast night sky, Oktavia followed up before her opponent could regain his composure. Mimicking the mechanics of Hana’s own movement technique, she detonated energy in the soles of her feet, propelling herself through the air after her target.

Typically, casting so much arcane magic would wear out her body and even risk tearing apart her own cells and veins. Even Oktavia recalled the last time she cast a spell that burned the very blood in her body, when she connected herself to the Tree of Life.

But an opponent like Sulva was nothing more than child’s play. Her arm maintained a constant glow as she drove her fist into the man’s chest, hammering him downward and sending him crashing violently into the city’s stone pavement.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Fifty seconds remained.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a silver blur leaping across Kala’s rooftops. Her vision narrowed, focusing and zooming in on what she assumed to be the Sword Saint.

Her assumption was immediately confirmed. Hana carried both Albo and Veronica, one slung over each shoulder. But with Hana retreating from the scene, there was little chance her second opponent would simply run with their tail between their legs.

No. A glutton like Rias Sol would crave the flesh of an arcane mage. A normal beast would know when they are overpowered, but Rias in his current state lacked even the most basic mental capabilities.

Oktavia quickly assessed her situation. Still hovering in the air after striking Sulva, she scanned her surroundings. If he were approaching from below, she would have already caught a glimpse of the mud-man. If he planned to strike head-on, Hana would have reacted accordingly, especially since she had just escaped through the same window he would have attacked from.

Only one option remained. Only one direction the carnivore could come from.

“Above.”

Blocking the gleaming full moon was Rias, now three times his former size. At this scale, calling him a giant wouldn’t have been an exaggeration. He sought to return the blow dealt to Sulva, his massive fists descending like falling boulders.

Oktavia knew that even if the hit landed, it would mean nothing to her reinforced frame. Yet, to allow such a base creature the satisfaction of a strike would be a betrayal of her own dignity.

The mud-man balled his fists for a hammer-blow. In a contest of pure mass, even her arcane force might struggle to pierce his shifting, liquid layers. From his height, any outcome seemed to end with Oktavia pinned to the dirt.

But there were factors the mud-man had failed to account for. The eyes she possessed, her Soul Sight, weren’t merely cosmetic. Whenever her unique vision was active, magical gears, the soul, and the Birthmark shone as brightly as the moon.

To maintain his mud-like form, Rias had to constantly merge earth and water magic. That unstable fusion left him in a perpetual state of flux, which meant there was bound to be an inconsistency somewhere in his movements.

“Behind his elbow, near the armpit.”

As Rias slammed down, Oktavia channeled a focused burst of arcane energy at her feet, shifting her weight just enough to clear the impact. As he missed, she seized the blade-like ridges of his arm, scaling his massive frame with a ferocious, animalistic speed.

Immediately, the mud-man was met with the same fear that had taken out his comrade moments earlier. Her reaction time and raw power were enough to snap Rias out of his temporary berserker state.

Her hand flattened into a blade-like gesture. With one emotionless motion, she sliced through the weakness. It was easier than a hot knife through butter as the mud simply gave way, the magical cohesion of his limb dissolving instantly.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Fifty-five seconds remained.

Disoriented and distracted, the two entered a state of freefall. They had roughly five seconds before they hit the ground, which was plenty of time for Oktavia to execute her death sentence on the cultist.

She locked onto the thread of his soul flowing from his Birthmark, the literal umbilical cord of his existence. Rias, driven by the animalistic instinct to survive, felt her stare like a physical weight pressing against his heart.

Humans had an innate ability to feel when they were being watched. It wasn’t magic, but just an old survival instinct, a warning bell for approaching danger and death. Rias’ senses had been screaming since the moment they began to fall.

He didn’t know what the mage intended to do to his Birthmark, but any hesitation would mean a swift, merciless end. There was no time to beg. No time to fight back.

All he could do was watch and regret not devouring the girl back in Hector’s office.

Oktavia readied her fingers to pinch the thread and unravel his life. But as she prepared the final blow, a surge of curses meant to explode internal organs erupted from the ground below.

She twisted mid-air, dodging the shrieking projectiles with sheer reflex alone. The intervention bought Rias a few more seconds of life as they both crashed into the earth in a cloud of dust and debris.

The machine-like mage emerged from the haze instantly, barely reacting to the sting of her impact.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Forty seconds remained.

Her Soul Sight tracked Sulva’s position through the smoke, giving her insight on his movements even without perceiving his physical body. If he insisted on casting curses to explode organs, then she would offer him a reciprocal lesson in anatomy. She lunged, her hand reaching for his heart.

To Sulva, nothing about the situation had changed. There was little time to react, and he hadn’t been given enough to prepare a counterattack. If speed were the solution, he could fire countless curses, hoping one might hit.

But if she still wielded that invisible vortex to ward off his attacks, he would have to rely on raw power instead. A dilemma he couldn’t afford to test, as Oktavia’s hand drew ever closer.

To Sulva, time had slowed to a crawl. A shadow of death loomed over him, tall and cold. He cursed himself for saving Rias, had he simply fled while the girl was occupied, he might have seen the sun rise.

Oktavia’s hand finally reached his chest. She channeled the magical energy within her, to finish off her opponent once and for all. It was poetic justice for all the lives that had been taken this night, and nights before.

Unlike the Saya that was currently recovering in her mind, this version of her was far more ruthless and merciless.

In her own loop, she had eliminated all those that stood in her path efficiently and with no remorse. With this being her last time materializing into this world, she wanted to make the goal of her newest self of protecting the Eighth as easy as possible.

Just before she could finish her opponent off, the same curse that had hit the Sword Saint hissed through the air.
A sonic boom exploded from where the projectile was fired. Unlike Hana, the young mage possessed the capabilities of perceiving the attack.

It was an arrow imbued with magical energy, fired from a mountain nearly thirty miles away.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Thirty-five seconds remained.

Arcane energy surged from her body, disintegrating the arrow instantly.

Sulva fell backward, still struggling to catch his breath after seeing his life flash before his eyes. Oktavia remained perfectly still as a voice called out to her.

“Ahh~”

A disappointed sigh echoed through the empty, evacuated city. Oktavia turned her head just enough to stay alert, in case another arrow came her way. The voice behind her was a completely different person from the one who had fired the first arrow.

She had considered the possibility of more cultists appearing, but hadn’t expected it to be true.

“You there, Missy. Can I ask you to stop hurting my friends?”

The voice was soft as silk, slow as honey, almost as if she were savoring the taste of each word. It came from her chest, deep and resonant, more like a physical embrace than a sound.

Atop a lamp post sat a tall woman in a long, flat white dress that accentuated her figure. A black veil draped over her head, reaching her ankles and obscuring the front of her face.

Even so, the fabric couldn’t conceal the crimson-red eyes glaring from beneath it.

Her hair matched the veil in length, cascading down as she sat with her legs crossed.

Oktavia remained stoic, her expression unchanging. She glared at the woman without emotion, channeling arcane energy into her body.

“Lucia Lulla.”

Lucia smiled, leaning forward with interest.

“I’m delighted to hear you know who I am.”

Oktavia’s gaze shifted to the mountains.

“Mavis Millwood.”

She couldn’t see her adversary directly, but the faint glow of a single soul in the distance, combined with the fact that she knew only one cultist capable of shooting from such a range, gave her all the answers she needed.

“How interesting that you know so much about us.” Lucia commented.

In her previous loop, she hadn’t interacted with these two new opponents, as she had fled with Hana. She deduced that her sudden surge in power had alerted the remaining cultists, who were lurking and observing from a distance.

It wasn’t an unusual course of action. If she were planning a heist on a city that had once housed a great mage, she would also prepare as many contingencies as possible.

“I hate to waste anyone else’s time,” Lucia said, clapping to draw Oktavia’s attention. “We’ll be taking our leave for now. I hope to see you again soon. After all, not everyone can beat our best in just a few minutes.”

Oktavia’s magical gears ignited once more. She folded her legs, leaning forward to launch herself toward the cultist on the lamp post, but before she could react, a sweet melody rang in her ears.

Rain, rain, go away
Come again
Another day.

There was no sound, no explosion, and no indication that a spell had been cast. And yet, Oktavia found herself on the other side of the city, isolated and alone, with no struggle, no battle at all.

“Third Magic,” she muttered to herself, as if confirming a lingering suspicion, before returning her focus to the task at hand.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Twenty-five seconds remained.

She dashed at full speed, leaping into the air and using the city’s rooftops as vantage points to return to her previous position. There was no hint of exhaustion; every step, every motion, was executed with pinpoint precision and calculation.

By the time she reached the crater left by her battle against Rias and Sulva, the cultists had vanished, leaving behind no trace.

Deactivating her Soul Sight, Oktavia felt her consciousness slowly waver. As the magical energy in her body subsided, the tension eased, and she sensed herself slowly dissolving into the night.

Before she could collapse, the sound of heavy metal landing behind her announced Hana, weapons drawn. It was wise for the Sword Saint to remain cautious, even toward the girl she believed to be Saya. She was an unknown, a variable that even the world’s greatest blademaster could not fully comprehend.

Just because they shared a common enemy didn’t mean they were allies.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The sound replayed in her mind, a constant, relentless loop. The mage was surprised she had lasted as long as she did. All her movement had been spontaneous, so she expected her timings to be much worse.

But with the conflict subsiding, she had little reason to remain tethered.

Limited on time, Oktavia turned to Hana.

“The me you’ll meet after tonight will have no memories.”

Her voice remained emotionless and dull, like she was reading off of a script with disinterest.

“She’ll find small fragments, but don’t expect her to perform like I did tonight.”

Hana stared at her, confused, her expression changing ever so slightly into confusion. “The you I’ll meet after tonight?”

Oktavia nodded as a jolt of magical energy surged through her. Her gears flickered between vibrant blue arcane light and a warning crimson red. She collapsed to the ground, sweat pouring from every crevice of her body.

Hana rushed to Oktavia’s side. The mage’s skin was hotter than any human should endure, as if she were being burned from the inside out. And yet, she did not flinch nor struggle.

Her breathing grew jagged, but no screams or groans escaped her. As the light slowly returned to her eyes, the calculation-driven mage vanished. Bright blue motes of light phased from her chest, the last remnants of her past being snuffed out of existence.

“Is Albo safe?”

Hana nodded.

Oktavia smiled as her vision began to fade. “I’m glad… I got to see him one more time.”

As the mage lost consciousness, the blue motes of light flew out of her temple, merging itself with the world, and becoming one with the Manastream itself.

She still carried regrets over how her previous life had ended, but with this final act of service, she was satisfied enough to greet death.

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

The sound of the clock slowly receded into the back of her mind, fading like a fleeting memory.

She left the world with hope and optimism, trusting that the newest version of herself would succeed where she once could not. Oktavia relinquished the body back to Saya, to its rightful owner.

Despite being unconscious, Hana felt no urge to rush her back for medical attention. Saya had simply fallen into a deep slumber, her chest rising and falling rhythmically with each breath.

The realization that the madness had ended eased her shoulders, and she let out a long sigh. She gazed at the unwavering moon, its light gleaming down upon them.

She had feared she might have failed yet another person when her stomach had been bitten away, but all seemed to have settled peacefully.

A relieved smile tugged at her lips as she whispered, “Thank goodness.”