Life is as Inevitable as Death

“Mommy, when I grow up, I’m going to be a mage just like you and Dad! Just wait till then!”

She had grown up learning stories of the Great Paladin, the Grand Sorcerer, and even the Four Dragons. There was never a story her parents wouldn’t tell her even despite her condition. They never hated her or belittled her for the dreams she had despite what she thought of them.

Erlana Dagny was a noble girl, a royal child, and one who would always rise to her feet and smile in the face of hell and back. That was who she was, but…

“I’m sure you will, my darling little flower… I’m sure you will.”

But the look on her mother’s face never felt real. She didn’t know it then, but that was never because of her mother. It was never her mother who stared back at her with hopelessness in her eyes, trying to entertain a child. It was never her father who stood above her with a crass expression on his face whenever she mentioned any of the academies of magic. It had never been either of them.

The only person who had ever once told her that she couldn’t do it was the same face she saw each day when she looked in the mirror.

Erlana Dagny was the only person who truly stood in her way.

“What was I even thinking? Changing things and making people see that anybody can do anything? Was everything I did just useless?”

The young woman had left Fumihito hours ago and the anger and frustrations that had built up hadn’t vanished. Far from it, she had found more reasons to blame the world and everybody in it. Yes, she knew this wasn’t exactly the mindset of a savior, but she wasn’t much of one either even as she poured various potions across the ground, letting their essence flourish the soil and place basic boundaries.

But basic alchemy wouldn’t be enough.

Making various potions with various effects tended to vary and outside of the ones meant to help with basic ailments or even speed up a recovery, most of hers were meant for self-defense. They hardly ever made a dent in the magical community, loathe as she was to admit it, and they weren’t even special barring extremely specific brews. Those, however, were only ever useful to mages who could use magic.

Not for her though.

‘Fumihito…’

It was wrong of her to think so negatively of a person when he first manifested magic, but it was hard not to. She had worked her entire life struggling to make a single dent in the magical world. Nobody desired it more than her. Past lazy classmates, biased teachers, and parents who didn’t see the world through her eyes, she had thought that if anybody was deserving of a magical boon, then it’d have been her.

Selfish. Greedy. Cruel. Blind.

She knew she embodied all these traits because most of them weren’t true, but…

‘My whole life. Everything. I don’t even get a sliver of power and he arrives here from an entirely new world and just gets it? I just… It’s not fair.’

Fumihito wasn’t a bad person. She also knew it wasn’t exactly fair of her to be so cruel to someone who had arrived, even if she hid it all beneath a smile, but he had told her things she wouldn’t have ever believed. An entirely new world, a new perspective, and the fact that he didn’t once seem to judge or look at her as anybody, but another person felt nice for a change. It made things different.

He was different.

The moon was in the sky, the clouds were back, and they clouded over Tartarus, and the magical presence around the area was growing. She could see the faint shimmer of a barrier forming once again across the town, but she knew better. It wouldn’t be able to save them against the next bombardment of spirits that threw themselves forward.

This was a foolish endeavor, useless, and it wouldn’t make a dent in trying to save this town. Her nails dug away at the palm of her hands as crimson dripped down her clenched fists. It meant utterly nothing to the world if someone like her failed yet again at another task. Sanctified fields? She couldn’t even muster that much up besides a few dispelling charms and basic intrinsic barriers of the natural world.

All of which would crumble.

But it didn’t matter.

A rumbling shook the world once again and she was met with the bubbling of clumps of ethereal parts molding demonic figures once again. Corrupted spirits. Their bodies numbered the hundreds as they howled and barked, clawing at the ground and lumbering toward Tartarus with nothing but hunger in their eyes. Their desperation was lost to grief and their grief drowned beneath anger.

“...Turn around.”

Nothing.

They kept moving past her even as she clutched another flask in hand and popped the cork off. If they weren’t going to pay attention to her, then she’d get their attention in another way. A splash of burning hot liquid touched the ground before her just as a searing hot circle was made manifest beneath sigils of blood against the ground.

Her eyes narrowed before an explosion of brilliant colors erupted from the ground, spiraling into the sky like stars into the night before bombarding the spirits like a hailstorm. Brilliant explosions went off, nowhere near enough to blow a town up, but enough to trigger a reaction and do something.

Only when the smoke cleared, Erlana was met with the corrupted spirits marching forward still with only one lingering behind, staring at her. She clenched her bloodied fists and the empty flask in her hand and glared back…

Just for them to turn right around and march toward Tartarus like she didn’t exist.

“I… I…”

Nothing. Not even a glance. Like she wasn’t even worth it. It was almost heartbreaking how little she meant as a threat to the spirits of this world. Was she so low that not even the most corrupted of creatures would consider her something worth killing? Her hands were clenched and the flask in her hand shattered as fragments of glass dropped to the ground. She fell to her knees and gripped the bloodied grass with a huff.

This was useless. She was useless. Tartarus was doomed and she couldn’t do a thing about it.

Why was she so damn worthless?

Erlana’s eyes were blurry through the tears in her eyes and her body gripped the grass beneath her in anger. What was she expecting? At the end of the day, Erlana Dagny was nothing more than a…

SCREEEEE!

Her eyes widened at the sudden vengeful scream that exploded into the air followed by more. It sounded like a call to battle. Erlana’s attention was drawn right back to the front of Tartarus where the corrupted spirits were swiping at something running right through them. She could barely make out the figure as they weaved and dipped beneath strike after strike, their azure jaws clamping at nothing, their bodies thrown against one another in an attempt to capture whoever it was.

But who was…

“Make way, clear a path! Hey, you should show some proper respect to a former paladin like me. If you go and kill me again, I’ll just come back stronger than ever before! I think that’s the quote, right?”

There, right in front of the entirety of the corrupted spirits, was none other than Scrimgeour. She couldn’t believe he was standing there with nothing but a single wooden board in hand wielded like a club as the spirits drew their ire away from the town and right back toward him with their faces scrunched up in hatred.

What did he think he was doing?

The skeleton was back on the run and swiping his board at everything in sight. Every strike simply dispersed a part of a spirit’s body, but it didn’t truly damage them. It didn’t seem to be the point because she could see them turning away from Tartarus. Whatever Scrimgeour was doing, it was working. They mobbed and flooded the poor undead who kept running further away from the town, almost to where…

She was!?

“W-What’s going… Scrimgeour, wait and think about...”

A single blur stumbled right off to the side of the entire spiritual group. She could make them out in an instant. A large green cloak draped over their shoulders and a new set of clothes donned their body, but she would recognize that face anywhere. A face of struggle and fear as one single man rushed right past the group with a terrified expression on his face and headed straight for Scrimgeour!

Why was he out here? Didn’t he give up? Didn’t he want to go back home? So, why…

Why was Fumihito trying to risk his life now?

“Scrimgeour, you better make this work…”

He was terrified.

His heart was racing, his bones creaked, and his muscles were tearing themselves apart just pushing himself beyond what physical exertion he was used to. Everything about this plan was horrifying and it was so simple too. Erlana was probably somewhere safe right now or maybe she was trying to stop this problem herself, but he needed to focus on what he had to do first and foremost.

Eyes drifted to the side, the group of spirits were all converging on Scrimgeour as they hacked and snapped at his body whenever they got close. The undead didn’t have to worry about stamina and that was something he could be glad about, but that left the heavy lifting of this plan all on him.

Truth be told, the idea of running away didn’t sound so bad now, but…

‘This is my choice, nobody else’s. I’m not going to leave you all again.’

Fumihito hopped over a slab of stone and sprinted across the field with his eyes on Scrimgeour as the undead hopped and bounced across the area to get the spirits bundled up. He could see them tripping over one another and even merging into heavier versions of themselves whenever their bodies collided. The group was growing less and less, but the spirits were growing bigger with each failed attempt to grab Scrimgeour as the undead lobbed his wooden board behind him.

They knocked the stray piece aside with such strength that he had to dip below before a streak of light flashed through the air and slammed into the ground right behind him. A crater formed and the board had snapped as his breath grew desperate, trudging forward up the field toward the hill where Erlana’s tree was.

His eyes widened, however, when he spotted her figure sprinting toward him as well.

“E-Erlana!?”

He knew she said she was going to try and stop things, but he didn’t think she’d have been out here as well. She seemed just as surprised as he was as she came down the hill just as Scrimgeour made a pass, the spirits bundling together into an even larger monstrosity of screaming faces and limbs that clawed and tore at the earth.

“Fumihito, what are you doing out here? You should be out! Do you even know what you’re doing right now?”

She was angry, he could see it in her eyes, but she looked just as worried as well. Then again, he doubted she’d be angry enough at him to hope he got eaten or crushed by a giant mass of writhing spirits that were angry at the world. He grabbed her shoulders firmly and shook his head from side to side.

“I know you’re angry at me right now, you have every right to be, but I’m here to stop them. You need to get as far away as possible right now before they come back around. Scrimgeour’s going to lure them back and…,” he was cut off before Erlana pried herself away from his grip and glared.

“I’m n-not going to just run away from this. Fumihito, you don’t even know how your magic works, much less how to control it properly. If you try and tackle this, you’re going to die! You need to run away, go!”

Erlana couldn’t even believe the words he was spouting. After everything he had said to her in the morning, now was the time that he wanted to change things when they were at their worst. It twisted her insides to no end and if she could strike him, she’d have probably done so. At the same time, she wasn’t angry at him. Not truly, but…

She didn’t want him to die like this.

“...I know you’re angry at me. I can’t blame you for that, and I wouldn’t blame you for giving up either, but I made this mess. It’s time I own up to it, right? You deserve this magic more than I do, you always have, and I’m sorry I came into your life like this,” he could see Scrimgeour in the distance turning around, the undead getting knocked away briefly before one of their limbs came loose.

But the undead kept moving regardless of the loss of an arm.

“But let me fix this, please.”

She stared at him as Scrimgeour sprinted with another dodge, a heavy slam of the writhing mass of spirits echoing into the night as they wailed yet again. The sound nearly cracked her eardrums before she looked at the young man in front of her. Compared to the person who looked like he had lost all hope and blamed himself, she swore she could see someone else in his place right then and there.

For the first time, Erlana thought she saw someone else standing in Fumihito’s place.

But as soon as it came to her eyes, it vanished.

“...I’m not going to leave you this time then. You won’t be able to do this alone. I can’t do much but provide the bare minimum, but I’ll be here. Can you do it?”

Looking back around, he could see Scrimgeour closing the distance between them. Right behind the undead, he could see every spirit there. They had given up on numbers and formed a single mass. A large lump of tangled limbs and faces stretched across a bloated body that dragged itself across the earth. It was like looking at a giant that threatened to swallow him whole.

Erlana stepped forward and stood right beside him, a hand pressed into his back as she looked past him. The mass of corrupted spirits was closing in and Fumihito wanted to run away again. That urge was tearing at his common sense and reason, begging him to move and go. It told him that this wasn’t his fault. It was telling him that he could leave and let everybody in this town go away and become nothing but faceless memories.

And Erlana as well.

‘You can choose to give up and let things happen or you can change things.’

This magic was so foreign to him. He didn’t understand it at first. How it felt to try dragging things out and forcing them to listen, but maybe that wasn’t the route he was meant to tackle, was it? He remembered the inky blackness that consumed him like a great beast swallowing its prey. In that moment before, he had let himself be consumed by despair, and in that despair, he pushed away all those spirits begging for a semblance of hope.

A subtle pulse of purple spread across his chest and hands as Scrimgeour’s body closed the gap, rushing right past him just before a single heavy tangled limb slammed into the undead’s body. Bones and more went flying off as Scrimgeour screamed.

“It’s all on you, Fumihito!”

He remembered the look of those spirits before he pushed them away. They didn’t truly try to hurt him, not really. A part of him wondered what it was that made them so volatile and angry when in reality, the answer was so simple. The lumbering mass of undead flesh of ether charged right at him as they raised every single tangled limb into the air, their stretched expressions roaring as they descended upon Erlana and him like a tidal wave.

Erlana’s grip on his shoulders tightened and her face was mashed into the back of his cloak as a single pulse of energy rolled across his palm.

They looked so…

Sad.

In one single slam, their bodies barreled down upon Erlana and him like a collapsing mountain. A single spring of brilliant purple energy sprung to life as tendrils of purple snaked into the air, wrapping and binding around the creature in that single instance. Fumihito closed his eyes and let his mind drift once again into the dream.

When he next awoke, he stood in front of a writhing mass of black flesh that seemed to bubble and rise. It surrounded him at every angle. There was nothing in sight aside from the flesh that seemed to stretch out and shudder. Faces appeared at every end. The faces of men, women, and children roared at him. Their expressions warped from pained to angered right back into the same demonic visage he had seen when he pushed them back.

He was afraid.

Every bit of his heart was afraid.

“Abandoned!”

“Left to rot!”

“Forgotten!”

“Salvation’s grip no longer upon us!”

“Whispers ceased!”

“Malice touched!”

But he raised his hand regardless and looked them in the eyes before resting his palm against the writhing mass. A single pulse of his magic exploded once again, a calm and gentle wave of it rolling against the flesh. The walls shuddered and slowed beneath his touch as memories touched his mind.

Their memories. The sick in bed smiling at those that cradled them close. Children plucked against their parents’ chests, lovers held close, the elderly smiling upon the town, and many more. He could see each one flashing through his mind like a wave slamming against him. It didn’t seem to stop, his mind was bending beneath the strain, but he managed on wobbling legs and pressed brushed his hand across a single face.

A demonic face snarled at him.

He pressed his head to theirs and closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

It froze beneath those words.

“I can’t even imagine what that must have been like. To lose so many people that you loved because of the world’s luck. I know what it’s like to lose people. I lost someone close to me because of a sickness too.”

His mother’s faceless visage once again crossed his mind. A face lost to him because of his inability to accept reality. For so long, he spent his days like a child rejecting the world. It was time for him to grow up and it started here. He brushed a hand against the wall of shuddering souls.

Just a twitch and they could rend him to pieces or sink him to despair.

“I thought I did the right thing pushing it all away, but I didn’t. All I did was make the pain worse for me and those around me. Some part of me thought forgetting was easier, and it was, but it wasn’t the right choice. Neither is trying to force your way back in.”

They all quaked at the mention of their people. He simply dragged his head back and stared at their faces. It wasn’t anger that met him. It was just pain. Nothing but pain at the thought of never being able to see the people they loved again.

“Despite what I thought, death is something nobody can beat. Not you and especially not me. This isn’t right and you know it. I pushed you all to this and I’m so sorry for that leaving you all, but I can make this right.”

He stepped back and spread his arms around. Numerous faces looked down at him from above as they silently judged him. Could he try and force them? Maybe, but it didn’t seem like he would have to. Because they never did want this. Not at all. They only wanted one thing.

“...See them…”

“...Help us…”

“...One more time?”

The voice of a child graced his ears. He turned around and looked right behind him. A small shape plopped right at his feet, their face marked by black sludge and an inky blackness that wrapped around them. Despite the horrifying look, he saw nothing but pain and fear in their eyes.

He bent down to his knee and planted his hands atop the boy’s shoulders.

“I think one more time would be just fine. One last time, if you’re all willing.”

The walls around him shuddered and what inky black flesh remained was slowly vanishing. His hand was raised and pressed against the endless mass of spirits. A single thought of peace crossed his mind before another simple pulse exploded from his body. Compared to the wild and untamed mass before, this seemed different.

It seemed calmer.

Bodies were beginning to peel themselves apart, ethereal clumps formed small bodies, and their frames began to ignite like a burning star. His eyes never once blinked beneath the brightness that illuminated his vision before their bright frames soared above and into the skies. He reached out just once and watched the body of the child slowly rise to the air, their eyes on him as a small smile graced their lips.

Their limbs vanished, their body growing smaller and smaller until nothing but a small, brilliant spark was left behind. It seemed to bob around in excitement before it left his sight.

As soon as they left, he could hear trickling water once again.

When he turned around, he was met with an endless ocean instead of a river. He stood amongst it all as bodies continued to swim amongst the masses, reaching out silently before a single brush of his hand was made. Their frames sunk beneath the waters and their troubled expressions became calm. He smiled softly at the sight before he felt it yet again.

“Have you figured out the answer yet?”

He looked at the mysterious figure to his side. Their head was pulled down and he could see the skeleton from before. Brilliant diamond-like eyes embedded into a single worn skull that looked ready to crumble. A wooden oar was in their hand as they gently stirred the waters beneath them, the world around them swirling in colors.

“...I’m still not sure, but I don’t think I’m meant to hurt anybody. I think… I think I’m here to help them.”

“...Good answer. Aren't you curious about why you ended up with your magic?”

That was true, he was curious. At the end of the day, it was a mystery with only one answer, but…

“...I am, but why not her?”

The skeleton seemingly smiled.

“Because giving away magic never solves a problem. Much like how pruning away lives is never so simple, much less easy. Humans are like fireworks. They fret over their lives so easily when they don’t realize just how special they are. I’ll live on for eons, much like a candle that burns through the night, but you?"

He looked amused at him.

“You humans will make every day count until you explode and make more of an impact than I ever could. A short life made meaningful beneath all the actions you take. Death doesn’t have to be scary. Death can be calm, kind, and eventually… It can let you drift. She would never have found happiness in death.”

So, that meant…

“You messed the ritual up?”

“...Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”

“Was I a mistake or picked on purpose?”

A twinkle sparkled in those diamond-like eyes.

“Even something beautiful can spawn from a mistake, hm? Part of it was random, but one look at your life showed me that you would be more than suitable. I'd love to chat more, it's rare I get to do this, but work never ends for me. You’ll have to return to the living, but I hope you enjoy this world for what it brings, Fumihito Hanada.”

The skeleton turned around and promptly walked away amongst the ocean of souls. He looked at their back, ready to ask a single question, but he wasn’t so sure about it anymore. Regardless, he took the plunge.

“...Can you tell me your name?”

The skeleton paused for the last time before a chuckle escaped their jaws.

“You already know it by now, Fumihito. You’ve always known it…”

And the dream ended yet again.