Memories… One was theirs… One was hers… One was…

A suffocating darkness surrounded her.

What had happened? she thought. Was this how it would feel like had she received the immortal’s darkness Elemental Magic?

Darkness was everywhere around her. Suffocating, strangling, stifling, smothering.

Struggle all she could, but there was only nothingness in that darkness. Nothing was there to see. Nothing was there to hear. Nothing was there to sense, smell, or taste.

Is this—death?

Knock. Knock. Knock. Sounds. She could hear sounds.

She opened her eyes and saw a familiar ceiling. The very first ceiling which she had woken up to. Immediately, she rose on her bed and assessed her surroundings. Dresser beside her bed, study desk opposite, and inside the room there was a large eclipse mirror which showed a girl with violet hair and amethyst pair of eyes.

‘It seems milady Freya is awake.’ Coming from the door was a maid wearing a black and white uniform. Her black hair reached the trolley she was pushing. ‘What tea would you like to start with if I may?’

Freya did not give an answer, but Laguna responded as if she had heard one.

Memories, Freya determined. She knew of this atmosphere before. Fog covered details which she could not remember, and the objects and Laguna were as if formed by mist.

What had happened? How did she end up here? Freya could remember being on the Stormpiercer and being forced to go through the skystorm. But after that she could not remember anything, as if the recollection was swallowed by the darkness.

‘Milady, here’s the tea.’ Laguna offered to her a cup of jasmine on a saucer.

‘… Thank you,’ Freya said. It felt weird playing along when she knew this was just a memory, but she couldn’t think of anything else to do.

As she reached for the cup with her left hand, though Laguna’s expression was covered by a fog, Freya could see that her eyes were observing the movement of her hand.

Freya glanced to the side to see the study desk. On it, the writing instruments: feather and ink, were placed on the right-hand side.

‘From the start you knew that I was not the real Freya,’ she said to Laguna after she reached for the cup. ‘My speech verified the fact further; and reaching the cup with my left-hand confirmed it.’ The original Freya, Ori for short, had been right-handed. Meanwhile, she, the soul who was pulled by Inconvenient Magic, had been left-handed. It was a fact that Freya had failed to notice upon first waking.

Laguna did not reply—could not reply. Not when this place was conjured by her memories.

Ridiculous. Freya let out a soft laugh, then drank the tea.

When the liquid entered her throat—Freya dropped the cup and it spilled on her—she could not grasp air with her breath. No matter how hard she tried, she could not inhale air, and she began suffocating.

This didn’t happen before.

The absence of air made her head dizzy, her lungs hurt, and her heart thumping with more rapidity every second’s passing. Losing her strength, she began leaning toward the left and fell to the ground, then wriggled helplessly for air. Darkness crept in the peripheral of her vision and she was losing her consciousness.

I’m not dying here.

With all her willpower, she forced herself to take a breath.

Instead, she coughed.

***

‘Cough! Cough!’

Freya coughed out water in rapid fits.

When her vision returned to her, she was once again back on the Stormpiercer. The ship shook vigorously, but Freya remained where she was at. She found that she had hooked her left arm to the base of the deck’s railing. Celeste was still tight in her grip.

She remembered now.

I had entered the skystorm.

The rain hit her with rapidity; each drop felt like little punches which she had to endure. The wind inside whirled with sharpness and was visible by the water that it carried.

Remembering that there had been an ongoing battle, Freya turned her head and immediately assessed her surroundings. Everyone, spear-wielders and Zenists alike, save for Drizzle who was still manning the helm, were all in the same state as hers. They had just barely survived from drowning and were in no condition to resume fighting.

Some of them had been lost to the sea. The number of bodies onboard had decreased, foes and allies alike.

Seeing a figure standing, a woman wearing a kimono, it seemed that the person whom Freya wanted gone the most was still onboard. The wound which she had inflicted on her left a scar, which would completely heal if the battle was to be prolonged.

Her pitch-black eyes stared at Freya with murderous intent.

Before Freya was able to think on how to deal with the immortal, a shadow loomed over the ship. Above, a large wave was falling on the ship, and it crashed down. Swallowing and submerging the ship into the water.

The strong current pressed on her, wanting to throw her away from the ship, but Freya had leaned her back on the railing and her left arm was still hooked on the base. The cold water sapped her warmth and strength away but letting go and allowing herself to get carried away was not an option.

When the current had stopped, Freya opened her eyes and became aware that once more she was inside a suffocating darkness. The darkness was not absolute, for Freya could see people holding on desperately on the ship. There was no battle to be found here under the water. Only survival.

Up and down, left and right, any sense of direction was lost there. All Freya could believe in was that the Stormpiercer would rise back up and eventually resurface again. The ship was her up.

Freya was finding difficulties in withholding her breath. It had perhaps been half a minute, but it felt like an eternity had passed.

How much longer?

She felt the deck of the Stormpiercer pressing her feet. The ship was about to head up and looking at the direction the ship was heading, Freya could see a light.

A flickering light.

***

A fire on a candle.

Freya could see a fire flickering, burning at the wick of a candle, which was held by—a small version of her. She was looking at the original Freya when she was young.

Ori sat on the chair at her study desk, holding a plate which contained a burning candle in front of her, looking at the darkness which had invaded her room. Someone was there, veiling him or herself inside the darkness. Freya could not see the person, but she could feel the presence.

‘You’re bound to destiny,’ young Ori said. ‘Just like I am.’

As the candle flickered, the flame got brighter and brighter, pushing away the darkness inside the room. There, opposite to Ori, Freya could see a younger version of Laguna who had used the darkness as a cover.

Ori’s memories?

The light continued becoming ever so brighter, until a flash of light blinded and enveloped Freya.

***

The Stormpiercer bathed itself under the sliver of light and had resurfaced.

Freya gasped for air as desperately as she could, filling her lungs with as much air as possible. Only in moments like this, did she understood fully that breathing was needed for a living, and each breath she took felt like a bliss.

This time around, the submersion hadn’t been as lengthy as before.

The immortal is still on the ship.

Because the immortal didn’t drown, it didn’t take long for her to recover from being under water. She had stood up with a kunai in her right hand, cladding the weapon with darkness Elemental Magic, and her murderous black eyes were still fixated on Freya.

Not good.

The immortal winded her arms slowly into a throwing motion. She had suffered missed throws before, and this time she intended to take her time to surely hit Freya.

She had to dodge the attack.

Move. Her legs weren’t listening to her. Move! No matter how much she willed it, she couldn’t move to dodge the oncoming kunai throw.

Death. Freya saw death.

Not the first time.

Freya unhooked her left arm from the railing. Even after her consciousness constantly slipping away from her inside this skystorm, she didn’t let go of her partner, Celeste. She held Celeste in front of her with both hands gripping tightly on the hilt of the sword.

Whether she liked it or not, if she couldn’t dodge, she had to block the kunai.

The immortal threw the kunai and it traversed straight toward Freya, darkness following along the thrown weapon. She had seen the fate of the victim who received that attack, and she had no intentions to receive the same fate.

In that moment, Vod stepped in between the kunai and Freya.

He swung a broken sword; and when the blade met the kunai, the darkness was dispelled and vanished. Leaving only the kunai which he easily deflected away without much effort.

Freya could hear the immortal cursing at Vod for being in her way.

After having deflected the kunai, Vod had spent the last of his remaining strength and crashed to the floor of the deck. On his leg, he had tied a rope connected to the ship.

The immortal searched for a kunai to throw, but she had run out. She had thrown a lot of kunais and Freya presumed that she had lost a few under the water.

‘Brace yourselves!’ came a shout from Drizzle. He was still at the helm of the ship, taking the role of a captain to its fullest. ‘This would be the longest, but it’ll be the last!’

He spun the steer and Freya could see that the Stormpiercer was heading toward a swallowing whirl. This was Drizzle’s plan to escape the skystorm: to submerge the ship willingly and to escape by challenging the skystorm itself. This was a battle between him and the storm, and he was aiming for the win.

Win this, Drizzle.

Freya prepared herself to submerge under the water, but it seemed that the immortal wasn’t giving her the peace of mind she needed, for she came rushing toward her. Her weapon, the kunai, was right there. It had been stabbed on Freya’s right upper arm, and she intended to reclaim it.

The Stormpiercer was about to dive into the whirlpool and Freya had to take a deep breath.

Along with the ship, she was once again submerged into the water.

The roar of the wind and the rapid pattering of the rain had disappeared, replaced by a drowning silence.

Freya felt a hand touching her wrist; and when she opened her eyes she could see into the immortal’s pitch-black eyes. Her other hand was on the grip of the kunai which had been stabbed on Freya’s upper arm.

Without hesitation, the immortal pulled the kunai from her. The jolt of pain made Freya release the air she had withheld.

I was wrong.

She had thought that there was no battle to be found under the water; but, looking at the immortal, she knew that she was mistaken.

Freya replied to the immortal’s crazed grin with a smile of her own.

Under the water, mortal against immortal…

It was a battle that found her.