Chapter 44 - L'eau's Game

Ra stumbled back as Ame pulled in front of me. Rumi held up his cane and prepared to shoot something through Ame’s skull. I knew this was going to happen.

I knew it.

And yet, for some reason, my body could still move.

The RME in my legs numbed all the pain nearby. I leapt towards Rumi as fast as I could, kicking his staff out of his hand and snapping it in half.

He stared daggers at me, furious.

I couldn’t possibly imagine why.

I unconsciously grinned at him. I was scared. I was terrified. And yet, a wave of confidence flew over me. That horrible feeling that I needed to die was gone, even though I caused the suffering of everybody. Even though everything there was my fault, and I could only think about how it wasn’t.

I was moving.

Just as he held his hand out to attack me, two swords shot through the sky, piercing his palm and shoulder respectively.

I pivoted behind myself. Aqlli and Dominic stood there, golden aura surrounding them both.

We had the upper hand. Ra wouldn’t sit idly by, though. No matter how hard we tried, without Aqlli, we couldn’t stop him.

But I didn’t care. We were already here. Not even death could halt this fight for a moment.

Inda dashed forward into Rumi. He wasn’t great at close range by the looks of it, so all she had to do was get back Aqlli’s sword.

She snatched it up and threw it right back to him.

If I was in that situation, would I do that? I wasn’t sure. I had no time to think about meaningless things.

Aqlli had his sword back, and could defend against Ra. We had to kill Rumi, but there was no clear way to do that. Our only key was Aqlli.

Marē was sleeping, and there was no way to get him to help us.

I saw Ra holding his hand out.

He was going to attack us.

Not a single person here besides Ame and Aqlli had a defense that could survive it.

We had to think.

No.

No thinking. No defense.

I yelled out to Aqlli.

“ATTACK!”

He scowled and nodded. I knew he hated taking orders from anybody, but he knew it was the best decision.

I had to join in.

Ame pulled out an ice sniper. Dominic held up his sword. Inda readied her legs with lightning. Kaya and Sy ran forward. Kaya held up her dagger and Sy created an accelerating tunnel of wind.

Rumi came from the side with a completely repaired staff and held it at us.

The ground was shaking.

From the side, another person ran forward. I couldn’t see who it was, but I heard Aqlli yelling with excitement.

“KAM!”

That was the name of his sister, the queen of Basila.

Then, a different person ran up to the battlefield on the opposing side. He was the current prime minister of Zibernetika. I had never seen him in person before. I ran my eyes across him to look for any potential danger.

He wore dark clothes with white hair. He didn’t have any weapons on him, but he had to use electricity magic because of his position. That was all I was able to find out.

At this moment, I saw one more person stand up. He didn’t join the fight, but he took off his coat. There was a bandage wrapped around his bicep.

It was Marē.

I had to focus.

Everybody was about to launch their attacks. The air was oscillating violently as I struggled to keep my eyes looking forward.

I had to time my launch.

3 seconds. That was all it would take.

3.

If these attacks were launched, at least one of us would die.

2.

I was scared. But I kept counting down anyway.

I had to brace myself.

1.

…

Step.

Step.

Step.

Huh?

I heard Marē speak.

“There she is. Took her long enough.”

Step.

The space around me completely distorted. All magic flowing through our internal world got frozen in place. All the kinetic energy within the strikes we were going to use disappeared.

Step.

I looked behind the enemies.

Step.

A woman whose hair was darker than the sky behind her stepped through the air as if it was a flight of stairs.

Step.

Every star in the sky stared down at us as if they were but an extension of her being.

Step.

She reached the floor. The woman who I saw standing in front of us was none other than the person I hated the most. More than any other person in this world.

It was L’eau.

She wore an astral black cloak that seemed to be as still as the stars. And under that was a black dress. She had black heels on that created a noise louder than my thoughts after every step.

I have known little about her since I was born. During my time in the hospital, I was injected with knowledge I could barely trust. She was my ‘girlfriend’. This was an obvious lie to get me to trust her. That much was confirmed by the way she acted. The second was a bit about her personality. She was kind. That was a lie. She was caring. Yet another lie.

But there was one truth that I felt during that. One truth that I couldn’t dispute.

She loved games.

She stared into my eyes, adding a value I didn’t want into my being.

And she spoke, her voice resounding throughout reality.

“Hello. It’s nice to see you all. Our audience is watching each and every one of you carefully, so act accordingly. Today is a special day. It marks the beginning of the end of this reality. Once they serve their purpose, the weak will be thrown out like trash. To select and to live. To do as we all please. That is why I am here. The preliminaries are over.”

She held her hand out as a massive stone tablet began to rise from the ground. It towered over everybody, inscripted with a message that shook me to my core.

Game one: King of the Hill. Maximum limit: 1 Month. Rules: Whoever makes it to the top of the hill first continues on. The two people with the highest time on top of the hill will also continue on. You are not allowed to bring your army with you, unless your leadership is shared by a group of people.

I looked up at her. I didn’t know what to do.

I was confused. I didn’t know anything.

She looked back at me.

“I know that you know nothing, Nell. But you will figure it all out soon. You need to figure it out.”

I fell down to my knees.

I kept reading the tablet.

Game two: ———————————

Penalty: The disqualified will have their most valued things cease to exist, along with their country.

H-huh?

My most valued thing? That wasn’t fair. That wasn’t fair at all. I needed to survive. I needed everybody to survive. I didn’t care about Jeti. I cared about Eternal Flame.

I looked near Marē and saw a massive earthy pillar rise from the ground. I looked up at the top, but I couldn’t see it. It pierced the clouds.

I could only assume that this was the hill that we needed to reach the top of.

L’eau spoke.

“Your timer starts now. Climb. Use any force you’d like. Weigh your options. Use your time. And take advantage of your heart.”

Every word in her speech had been planned ahead of time. I could tell by the words she used. Weighing, time and heart- it was the same as the mural that was in the trial.

I saw her eyes stagnate and look away as I thought this. I didn’t think she expected me to realize that. I didn’t care if she felt that way. I would finish this game and I would do everything in my power to cause her to suffer.

I yelled out to the rest of Eternal Flame, Aqlli, and his sister Kam.

“Climb! Don’t look down! We will be the first people-”

‘Marē Mizouka has successfully made it to the layer of the clouds. There are 7 competing teams left. 1. Eternal Flame, leading Jeti 2. Forskare Aqlli, leading Cittaglia 3. Kam Calore, leading Basila 4. Ra Namseong, leading Laptaan 5. Rumi Sulmojnë, leading Ujurak 6. Rukha Kashe, leading Baum 7. A-’

SPLAT!

Rumi shot an accelerating spike of rock directly at the prime minister of Zibernetika, as he slammed onto the floor.

‘There are 6 competitors left 1. Eternal Flam-’

Ra shouted out.

“WE KNOW!”

The message stopped coming through our heads. This was an issue.

I had to think. I didn’t want to play this game. But I was scared of the punishment. I needed to do it to survive. I could tell everybody thought the same.

Marē had already made it to the top somehow, so the only two teams that could survive were the two who had the most time at the top. The prime minister of Zibernetika had been picked off by Rumi already. If we went up the same way, we would die the same way. We had to find a different way.

If we waited for Rumi to climb up, we could pick him off the same way. But his range was better than ours. Ame may be able to hit him with an ice sniper, but that wouldn’t push him all the way down. We had to think. I had to think.

I looked over to Ra. Him and Rumi were allies, so it would be difficult to split them apart.

Aqlli walked over to me.

“We’ll wait for them to climb up. Ra is impatient, and Rumi is a pushover. Once Ra forces him to start climbing, we climb up as well. We’ll be on the other side of the pillar so he can’t shoot us, but we can both climb up. Once we arrive at the top, we can fight them face to face. We outnumber them due to the death of the prime minister.”

I nodded. Aqlli was one of the people I trusted the most to make plans. He and Ame were the two smartest people I knew.

Aqlli relayed the plan to everybody else. Soon, the Kam person walked over to me. She towered over me in both height and build.

She was taller than Ame, standing at 195 centimeters- or 6’4 if you were from Jeti. Her muscles were incomparable to anybody else I had seen, other than Justin Beckwith. She had a black tank top and black jeans with a black and silver belt.

Her long black hair swayed in the same direction as her mace as she spoke.

“Looking forward to working with you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“L-L-Likewise.”

I was about to speak to Ame when Aqlli held his hand up to my mouth and pointed.

Ra and Rumi were arguing about something. Moments later, Ra began to climb up the pillar. Rumi soon followed.

Aqlli was right. This was our chance. We sprinted to the other side of the pillar and began to climb.

We were so focused that we didn’t speak for a bit, until Ame turned to Sy.

“Can’t you float? Why are you climbing?”

Sy’s eyes widened.

“I forgot I could do that! Kaya, can’t you use your wings to fly too?”

Kaya looked a bit nervous.

“Eh…? I can ask the Princess of Hell, but I don’t know if she’ll let me use it. I don’t know the conditions.”

“Do it!”

She closed her eyes for a moment, until blood poured out of her back and wings came out. She was using the Vatro transformation.

Her eyes sparkled in excitement and pain as she flapped her wings and flew.

She waved to us.

“Bye! I’m going up and getting us a head start on the time!”

Dominic yelled out to her and Sy as they left.

“Be careful!”

I was glad that they were going to get us some extra time. The two groups with the most time would pass to the next game, so this would help a lot.

Ame could use wind magic too, though. Inda seemed to have the same confusion as me.

“Ame! Can’t you fly too?!”

Ame pouted.

“God forbid I want to climb with everybody.”

It was okay. He didn’t need to fly up. I was fine with him climbing normally.

Inda rolled her eyes and kept climbing.

Two more notifications popped into my head.

Rukha Kashe has reached the top. His timer has begun. Eternal Flame has reached the top. Their timer has begun.

Rukha? That was… the leader of Baum. I was pretty sure. Kaya was using her Vatro transformation, so one king wouldn’t have been that big of an issue.

I was focused on planning and climbing at the same time, so I wasn’t that aware of my surroundings.

BANG!

A spike of rock shot at Dominic’s elbow.

His grip on the pillar loosened.

And he began to fall.

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At the top of the pillar-

Standing on a seemingly infinite layer of pink clouds and orange sky, Marē stood in front of L’eau.

He was staring at her in silence until she spoke up.

“What? What could you possibly want?”

Marē smiled.

“Am I not allowed to observe you? Not after all you had done? Look at this bandage on my arm. This is your fault.”

He had worn a bandage on his arm for many, many years. He had forgotten why he originally put it on, but he kept it on for one reason. Because it made L’eau feel guilty.

L’eau scoffed at him.

“I didn’t hurt you one bit. That bandage is covering nothing. Please be serious for one second.”

He unwrapped the bandage as it fell to the floor, revealing nothing but unharmed skin.

“It was there. It didn’t heal. My arm isn’t the only damage you’ve done to me. I know my purpose. I know I need to be sorry. But I still want to make you feel bad~!”

L’eau held her palm to her forehead.

“All my citizens are hypocrites, it seems.”

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Nell’s Notebook: Page 18

I don’t feel tired. This is rather rare. I feel like I need to do something other than writing in my notebook.

Why should I do that?

Because I need fulfillment.

Why do I need fulfillment?

So I can be happy.

Why do I need to be happy?

So I can enjoy surviving.

Why do I need to enjoy surviving?

So I want to survive.

Why do I need to want to survive?

So I can survive.

Why do I need to survive?

So… I can survive.

Why do I need to survive?

I will do as I am told.

I will do what you say.

And I will survive.

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