Chapter 3: Death

Chapter 3

Death

She was stunned.

The feeling of a motion so swift and so deadly, a mere swipe of her hands, yet with the intent, no, the capability, the inevitability to pierce pure metal. This sensation was all she could think about, her mind couldn’t help but replay over and over again the short series of actions that just took place.

She was captivated.

But that feeling. That feeling seemed to move further from her. As if departing, cruelly. Wait, stop! Don’t go!

“Let it go.”

Suna, so enraptured by the allure of the forbidden insight, failed to fully register the voice she had just heard.

“Wha-, Huh!? Who’s there!”

“Let it go, Suna. Things beyond your knowledge only hurt you, you aren’t ready for it.”

“Who-, Who are you! Show yourself!”

The voice let out a chuckle.

“I’m Ei. Hopefully you do remember me?”

Ei? Suna unconsciously glanced over to the decapitated corpse, its head having rolled not far from its home. It was a gruesome sight. No matter how many times she saw corpses, they’d still raise within her deep unsettled feelings, feelings that made her want to throw up.

“Do-Don’t speak nonsense!”

“I’m not, Suna.”

“You don’t sound sound anything like him!”

“Haha, well, when you think to yourself, the voice in your head doesn’t sound like the one that comes out, does it?”

That patience. Suna started to calm down a bit.

“This, this is just so crazy. Are you really, still alive?”

“Hahaha, well, no. At least, my body is dead. However, the body plays a critical role along with the soul, so my energy regeneration… it’s not looking too good. I’m sorry, Ei. My ignorance put you in danger, and I was forced to resort to some drastic measures to deal with our foes. I’ll be quick, because the more I speak, the more my energy dwindles. This place is no longer safe, they know that these two Servants are dead. Luckily, no one should suspect a weak-looking girl like you to be responsible for the deaths of those people, but… should you come under their query, remember. Even your thoughts aren’t safe from the prying eyes of the truly strong. Even directing your thoughts at them from another World could bring you danger. So listen to me carefully.”

Suna gulped. She could not see him, or even hear him, but she sensed the gravity of his words.

“This event. The two figures from before. Thinking about them will kill you.”

He wasn’t lying. She understood, her very soul understood, not to even faintly approach those thoughts.

After a second of digesting Ei’s words, she soon found she couldn’t remember the people she had just saw, or what had happened to them. And strangely, she couldn’t look behind her. It was a strange feeling, as if she knew vaguely, deep down, what had just transpired, but her very being wouldn’t let her broach the topic. And when she tried to muster the will to pry into it, to turn her head, a sense of danger overcame her. She broke out into a cold sweat, all over her body, chills running down her spine.

“Good. Your survival instinct serves you well. I’m certain you have many questions, but I can’t answer most of them. My time speaking to you like this is limited. Listen closely. This world, Nadeer, is not suitable for my recovery. I’ll hitch a ride on you for now, but it will take most of my energy to simply not deteriorate. Just know that you aren’t yet ready to traverse a world boundary on your own. I can feel it, Suna. You’re deep urge to overcome these fatal, laughable odds of yours, to overcome your helplessness, when the World seems to conspire against you. So I’m betting on you, Suna. That you’ll find a way to do that. Follow your heart…”

Suna struggled to keep her emotions in check as Ei’s voice grew fainter and fainter in her mind. Guilt. Guilt. She hated owing anything to anyone. But much more than that, she hated the idea of being responsible for her benefactor’s downfall.

Despite the strong feelings within her, Suna did not remain actionless forever. She broke out into a run, without looking back. Information. I need information. And I need to get stronger.

Suna’s mind was very clear on what she needed to do. She would not just let Ei die. If there was a way to help him, anything, she was going to find it. But she knew, all too well, just how powerless she was to do that at the current moment.

I can’t dwindle. I don’t know how long Ei has. I must hurry!

“You have such a noble heart, don’t you?”

Once again, the quaint feeling of hearing a voice, yet at the same time hearing nothing. She was startled, but recognized its owner.

“Ei! You’re okay!”

“Not out loud, Suna. Yes, I’m not in any immediate danger.”

Suna felt relief. Thrust into a completely foreign land, with an insurmountable task before her, she really doubted whether she could manage on her own.

“Sorry, I just wanted to clarify a couple things. As I said, I’m not going to die soon, so long as I focus 0n maintaining my energy level. So don’t rush. Actually, rushing would likely just get you killed. You need to take your time. Just to give you some perspective, even if I sat dormant for ten of your lifetimes, I’d still be just as fine. So what you need to do now is focus on just living, alright? The largest growth always comes naturally. Trying to forcibly change or accelerate that part of you will just burn you out. So just take things one step at a time. Understand?”

Suna nodded.

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“Good. I’ll be sleeping now, but I’ll still feel what you’re going through. I won’t stick around to guide you every step, but listen to me. You don’t need that. Just follow where your footsteps take you. Goodbye, Suna. I’ll check on you when I rouse from slumber.”

Suna stood in place, amongst the trees, unsure of what to do. Just a couple minutes ago, she was psyching herself up, ready to throw herself at the fiercest beast, or steal from the tallest towers. But Ei woke up, specifically to tell her not to do that. So, what should she do? She pondered, but now, without the feeling of the world crashing down on her. She stepped forward, one step, at a time. She broke out into a jog, one step at a time. And she let her feet lead her.

Suna found surviving in the lush forest to be laughably easy. The animals showed little fear as she stalked and hunted them. Most often, a simple throw of her knife was enough to put to rest any creature that came upon her path. A couple times, she encountered large beasts, with thick fur or hide, slumbering in a cave, or stumbling through bushes. But they didn’t attempt to hide their presence, as if they hadn’t a care for their own self preservation. As if they were the apex predators of the land.

Even Yrma had much more dangerous animals when they were still around… Maybe it’s just this forest that’s so peaceful. I shouldn’t come to expect this low level of danger everywhere…

Cooking, sleeping, traversing, these things were all second nature to her. It felt, quite literally, like a walk in the park, a very stark contrast to the world she had suffered in not long ago. So, like this, she kept moving, for days… until she heard unusual sounds.

Talking? Someone’s here… At least two.

Suna immediately hid herself, her small figure easily obscured by a small bush. They’re still quite far away, I can’t make out what they’re saying… Suna crawled, carefully and adeptly, on all fours, making her way through the shrubbery.

“...its just th-...

…Not here…

…Ugh, this is so annoying! Why are th-...”

Suna could make out a voice, but she didn’t know if it was male or female, or if there was more than two speakers. There was a deeper voice she swore she faintly heard earlier, but she hadn’t heard it again. The voices she was hearing weren’t hushed, as if they didn’t mind if anyone overheard them. The disdain and annoyance in their voice was also apparent.

“... -ou feel that?

…”

She couldn’t make out what they were saying, so she tried to focus more intently on the voices, to not miss a single sound that escaped them.

“...eah-, over there…

…-eel it too, ri-...?”

The voices were getting closer. Then, as if realizing something all of a sudden, her body broke out into a cold sweat, a feeling of danger no less severe than when she was unable to turn her head.

“Somewhere over here?”

“I’m pretty sure it was… Unless I’m going crazy.”

“No, I don’t think you were imagining it.”

Two figures approached, small signs of their movement flashing between the dense tree lines. They pushed smaller branches and plants to the side, and cut the thicker ones in their way. They were making a beeline, for her.

Not good!

“Somewhere around here, right?”

One of the figures, dressed in a light blue shining armor that seemed vaguely familiar, yet she couldn’t quite put a finger on it, cut down all that was in their path with a long, curved, sharp looking sword that seemed to gleam despite the small amount of light filtering through the leaves. It sharpness was made very apparent by the way it seemed to cut through thick branches as if they were somehow made of butter this whole time.

A whole litany of emotions were coursing through Suna. Mainly fear, and anxiety. But they didn’t stop her from maintaining her calm, deep breath, or from closely monitoring the situation.

“I think we’re getting closer. It’s subtle, but it’s definitely around here.”

The armored figure looked all around, as if trying to peer through the densely packed leaves of the scattered about bushes, or trying to look past the tall overgrown roots that rose from the trees before they plunged into the ground. On more than one occasion, Suna felt it. That their gaze met hers. It was just a coincidence, right? Her heart started to beat faster. Soon, she realized just how drenched in sweat her clothes were. Her breathing accelerated as the armored figure soon started to approach closer to her rough location.

Closer. And closer.

Somehow, Suna’s sense of danger, which was already heightened, spiked.

“Aha! Here!”

In a flash, all too quick, the knight leapt forward and thrust their hand out towards the bush Suna was in.

“H-Huh? Huh. How strange. I could’ve sworn it was coming from here. Wherever you are, can you just come out already, mystery person? If you even exist…”

“Ugh, this is so annoying, why do we have to get stuck with such a boring task? I mean, it’s such a big forest, and they really expect us to search through the whole thing? Give me a break.”

Close. Too close. The armored hand had just barely missed her. Had she not moved right before the last second, she would have been caught. She did not want to find out what would happen if they caught her.

Suna listened to her heartbeat. It was loud. It was fast. But it wasn’t overwhelming. She had just been subject to a mountain of nerves, but right now, she was in a state of calm. She had never felt more serene before. She had stopped shaking. She just listened, calmly, to the conversation of the two armored figures. She didn’t risk looking at them, she didn’t even risk paying too much attention to them. So that was it. That’s how they caught onto my location… Suna remembered, far too late, how Ei had sensed her feelings in the past. Perhaps they share some of the same ability? So Suna just emptied her mind of her thoughts. She saw how turbulent her emotions had become, yet how they still ebbed and flowed. And she sat there, deathly still, just taking it all in.

As the voices of the knights, who didn’t refrain from expressing their impatience and annoyance at their task, began to drift, further and further away, Suna lay still, in the bush. Even as she could barely even make them out anymore, as all she could hear were the rustling of leaves, brushing each other in the wind, she continued to lay still. One hour. Two hours. At some point, Suna herself was beginning to wonder why she continued to lay there, motionless, in hiding. Her mind reasoned that the danger was long gone, that she should begin moving again, to get as far away from the two as possible. But when she began to muster the will to move, she just didn’t. She continued, laying there, still.

6 hours. 12 hours. She was losing track of time. The sun, which was on its way down when she encountered the knights, was now coming up again. How much longer was she going to stay here? Her body ached, and she struggled not to move. Each minute felt longer and longer, and the pain she felt grew. She desperately wanted to move, to stretch her limbs, just to regain feeling in them. But she didn’t. Part of her began to panic, but another part of her just calmly endured.

24 hours. 36… 48…

The sun made two whole cycles, and just as she was reaching her limit, she felt something.

As if the air itself was starting to turn against her. It grew heavy, hostile even. She struggled to combat the sheer feeling of despair she was encountering. She could have sworn that even the steadfast trees surrounding her were moaning, groaning in pain, trembling, shaking in fear. She was terrified. And she had no idea why.

And then it appeared. But she knew better than to look at it. Just like she had been doing, she remained completely motionless. All the accumulated pain felt like nothing in the face of this danger. She was glad to endure all of it, every last drop of it.

It didn’t seem to move around much. She struggled to even theorize what it could be doing. It just seemed to exist there. Then, she yelped. Agh! A pain struck her, but not just her. All the trees and plants around her, they seemed to also share in her pain, as if all were struck by some invisible force. This pain, it wasn’t physical, it was as if it targeted her very being… I’ve felt this kind of pain before! It wasn’t to this extent, however, and she struggled just to gasp for air.

No, she wasn’t gasping. She wasn’t groaning in pain, nor struggling to breathe. She was doing all those things in her mind. Her actual body lay completely still. Having realized this, she all of a sudden felt so disconnected from her physical self, from the whole world around her. What is this feeling? Agh, this pain… It continued, unrelentingly. It was trying to drown her, to smother her, suffocate her, and it was succeeding. She didn’t know how much more she could take, she was going mad with pain, pain that she had never felt before. It hurts! It hurts! Stop! Stop! But no matter how she pleaded, it kept coming, getting stronger with every second. No… more… Suna was blacking out, her consciousness experiencing gaps. She struggled to piece together what was happening, and how she had got there. But despite the turmoil within her, her body lay perfectly still.

After she had stopped trying to assess how much time was passing, at last, the pain subsided. The shrieks of the trees around her had all stopped, long ago. They were all dead. They didn’t seem like it visually, but she could feel it. Unlike them, she was still alive.

She lay there, breathing, in and out. The overwhelming presence she felt earlier was gone now. And at long last, after who knows how long, she was able to move her finger. A feeling of joy, of something lost but being returned at long last, filled her. She felt like she could jump and yell in pure happiness, but her body struggled to even move just its fingertips. She realized just how hungry she was, how dry her throat was, how miserable she seemed now. But she kept trying. A twitch here, a twitch there. Her fingertips, her foot, her wrist, bit by bit, she fought to regain control of her body, which was beset with painful aching. But soon, she moved her arm. She applied some force, and then all at once, as if freed from the paralysis of sleep, she moved, all at once.

She shot up, and looked around. The forest… it was dead. The chorus of the leaves, it was all gone. Pure, dead, silence.