Polly

I quickly but silently make my way through the forest; to my right, I hear the sound of blades clashing ring through the air. I take a quick glance to the side but don't slow down.

Huh, I remember the guy that’s fighting, I think he asked me to practice with me a couple of times. We were about the same level in skill, but it's been a while since then, maybe things have changed…

I look away and continue running. Straining my ears at the two strangers approaching Torika's house.

I quickly forget about that fight as fast as I thought of it.

"Where are we supposed to be going?" A female voice, curious and playful.

"Like I said, we're going to visit an old friend of mine, you'll get your fighting soon enough." A male voice, an arrogant sounding one that would make you instantly dislike the other person.

"How strong is she?" The female voice asked.

"You've already asked this question twice." The male voice said irritated.

"That's not an answer." She said in a teasing voice.

"Oh go throw yourself down a hole."

"Ugh, I don't want to be underground ever again after traveling in that dark pit for a week. Why couldn't we have just travelled above ground?"

"Seventy percent chance of death? Are you crazy?"

"But it's guaranteed if your resolve is strong enough right?"

"And is it? You mindlessly wander around the city looking for fights all day; do you have any motivation to accomplish anything significant at all?"

I stop listening as the conversation devolves into bickering and then load my sling. I close one eye and concentrate, zeroing in through the various branches, trees and shadows, aiming straight into the side of the girl's head.

I whip my arm forward, propelling the sphere forward like a bullet, then without bothering to check the results I jump up into the tree, and fly forward as fast as I could.

After the girl dies, the guy should turn his head in this direction, after that I’ll jump from the tree and blindside him from above. I tuck my legs in and then explode like a spring, trying to take advantage of my surprise attack to the best of my ability.

"You know, I thought you'd be smarter than just to run headfirst into us like this."

The girl was still alive, she caught the ball between her fingers, and she was staring right at me, her eyes tracking my body as if she were watching me in slow motion. As I fly over their heads, I close my eyes for a fraction of a second to blink. I open them again.

...

Huh, I died. I open my eyes to the same tree I was sitting before the entire thing began. I look down as the ground begins to rumble.

Did that girl kill me? I know I had to have died if I traveled back like this, but I didn’t even register what did it.

"Polly, what is this!" Taiga shouts at me as they panic.

"If you want my opinion, I'm guessing it's that kid who's always sitting on the grass alone in the meadow. You know, the one that came in after you arrived?" I say, repeating the exact same lines as I did previously. No point in altering the future this early on yet.

I stretch my arms as the two launch into their respective fights.

Well, it looks like that isn't going to work. I hop off the tree once more and begin running, this time straight to Torika's house. I then rush through the door and see Torika hunched over at her desk, writing something completely unperturbed by the ruckus going on outside.

I come up to her and grab her hand. "I don't have time to explain, for some reason you're one of the targets, let's get out of here." I say calmly.

Torika looks up to me, looks at me for a second and then shakes her head.

"Look, one of the two people after you is extremely strong. Please, I like you and I don't want you to die." I say with a little more desperation this time.

Torika shakes her head again. She looks down and quickly scribbles something down on a piece of paper, she holds it up to my eyes.

Please leave, if I'm one of the targets, then siding with me will put a target on your head. I will make short work of them don't worry.

I close my eyes after reading that note. I don’t want her to die but… if this is her wish, then… it’s not my style to intrude too deeply on the paths other people take.

"Alright, I'll meet up with you later then." I finally say after some thinking. I then turn my back and open the door.

"Oi who are you and why are you here?" I look up to see the arrogant sounding man standing right in front of the entrance. Dang, they got here faster than they would have on my last life, did they start running midway or something?

"Hey! I asked you a-"

"Shut up, I'm trying to think." I interrupt the man mid-sentence.

The girl walking next to the man chuckles a little bit.

He glares at the girl for a split second, "You must really not care about whether you live or die huh?" He says before spitting at me.

I let it land on my forehead, then without bothering to wipe it off I simply walk away, pretending that he isn’t even there.

The girl continues giggling after seeing me do this.

Of course—

I hear the shing of a blade being drawn from behind me. I instantly bring one of my seks up behind my back, and manage to intercept his blade with the flat of mine.

— I just wanted to pick a fight with the weaker of the two intruders. If that girl backs him up, then I guess I’ll just die and try something else.

I turn my head around, but the second I look back he's gone from my sight.

So you have the skills to back up your arrogance huh? I bring my blade behind my back once again, blocking a second consecutive blow, seemingly made in the same movement as the first attack. He predicts where I turn my head and follows my blindspot as I turn around, ensuring that he stays behind my back. I twist the flat of my sek violently, throwing his blade off balance and then kick at his feet. A spike at the bottom of my shoe unfolding at the same time.

"Shit! You got some tricks don't you?" The man narrowly avoids my bladed kick and jumps back. Glad you don’t know that I fight better at a distance, can’t be jumping back if you wanna beat me. A millisecond later, a ball hurtles from my sling flying straight between the man's eyes.

The man whips his head back, dodging the ball as it flies straight over his head. However, in the split second I force him to look up, I crouch down low and sprint for his legs, wrapping my sling around them like a piece of cloth. I then harshly jerk my arm throwing him into the ground.

I lift my sek ready to finish him off, but then am interrupted the whistle of a blade coming out of nowhere, flying straight towards my back. He likes to attack from behind huh? Following the sound, I reach out behind and block it with my Sek once again. However, this causes my concentration to waver for just a second, allowing the man to drive his foot right into my stomach.

The next thing I know he slams his fist into my face. Interestingly enough, the only thing I was thinking as this was happening was how much more this hurt compared to Taiga's beat down. My vision goes all white as my eyelids smash into my eyeball. An explosion of pain with every punch. The man rears his fist back for a third punch, ah man time for another restart.

However, he immediately lets go and jumps away, narrowly avoiding Torika’s grasp as she flies out of nowhere and lunges at him, palm open and outstretched, her hand was completely covered in wet blood.

"Whoa! Not going to let you touch me with that!" The man exclaims.

I lift myself off the ground gingerly, only to feel a soft hand on the back of my hair. The pain quickly dissipates after that.

"Huh, you didn't know how to use Sananku before." The man says.

Silence fills the air as Torika doesn't respond.

"Not feeling chatty today huh?" He says. Upon hearing that I feel my blood pressure rise just the tiniest bit.

"Hey... It's me you know? Why is nobody here saying anything?"

"Are you doing this on purpose?" I say with a slight annoyance in my tone.

"Doing what?" He tilts his head, no hint of mocking or sarcasm in his voice.

Wait, could it be that this guy really doesn't know?

Torika places her hand on my shoulder, then looks at the man and opens her mouth wide. Exposing the stump where her tongue should have been.

"Commander... What in the world happened to you after you disappeared?"

I glance at Torika from the corner of my eye, but look back. I guess it's none of this is any of my business.

"Hah? She's that person everybody keeps talking about?" The girl speaks up for the first time.

"I keep forgetting how new you are. Yes, she was the former commander of the red division."

Torika claps her hands together loudly, interrupting the two's conversation. She takes out her finger and begins to trace letters in midair. Enough. Why are you here Roko? She spells out.

"Why am I here huh?" The man named Roko looks at the air and smiles.

"I was originally here to politely ask you to come back, but now, I want to politely ask you to come back and kill that girl over there." He turns his head.

"Hey Yumie. You're always looking for a tough fight right? Help me out here a little."

Yumie scratches her head. "I don't know, I think it might be more fun to try to take on both of them at once."

The second she says that, I make the unanimous decision in my mind to use this opportunity to try to take him out. Looks like I got lucky on my second try. Avoiding a fight with the girl and being able to take on the guy two on one, very good. I slip a couple of heavy sling balls from my pouch.

The second I load my sling, Torika bursts forward at incredible speed, it looks like both of us are on the same wavelength.

"Shit!" Roko blocks my ball with the flat of his sword, but the impact of it was enough to rattle him for a couple seconds. In that time Torika closes the distance and swipes at him like how a wolf or animal with claws would.

"YUMIE I SWEAR TO GOD I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU!" Roko's defense begins crumbling; I close the distance as well and draw both of my seks.

Roko desperately tries to defend against both of us at once. Roko intercepts my sek with his sword then twists it, intercepting my second sek with the bottom of his hilt.

Torika was also swinging at him; however, every motion was wild and careless, as if she didn't care about being counterattacked; inviting him to try and hit her. Torika swipes at him; he immediately lets go of his sword and jumps away. I whip my sling forward once again, sending another ball towards his head. He jerks his body away, but the ball still ends up smashing into his shoulder.

It's best not to be predictable and shoot my sling every single time an opponent tries to create distance as that could make me susceptible to fake-outs, but for some reason he seems to be less worried about me and more worried about avoiding Torika entirely. So far, he's only tried to dodge Torika, when he parried all my attacks. Torika’s swings don’t even seem to be particularly fast or strong, but he was avoiding them like the devil for some reason.

Roko's sword wobbles and suddenly jets away from the ground, I barely miss the timing to react and stomp on it resulting in the sword returning to Roko's grasp. He then turns around and runs off, Torika manages to react and follow him in the exact same step he took off on. He swivels around and then whips his sword around, desperately trying to shake Torika off of him.

Torika reaches out, her hand directly in the path of the sword.

She clamps her fingers down, stopping the sword mid-flight, slightly cutting into her palm, a dash of blood leaks down her arm. Almost immediately after, the sword shatters into dozens of tiny sharp pieces, some of them embedding into Roko's skin. Torika then extends her arm out even further and grabs Roko right by the face, the blood on her palm painting him red. His eyes widen in genuine fear.

"Uh oh, best not to let this go any further." I hear a voice from behind. The air next to me wavers as a flash of wind flies past me, not even giving me enough time to turn around. Torika's wrist then suddenly separates from her arm, and Roko manages to break free. He begins to claw at his face, desperately trying to wipe the blood off of it. The girl named Yumie holds a long thin sword straight to Torika's throat.

"Sorry to interrupt! But it would be a headache back home for me if this idiot died. So could you do me a little favor and not activate the blood you just rubbed on him? If you do kill him, I won't be angry! Oh no! But you and that girl over there will die. Neither of you are targets anyways, so we don't need to bring it that far."

Wait what? Torika isn't even a target?

"What are we even doing this for then?" I growl.

"Hey calm down! Nobody here is supposed to die anyways; this was all for fun. Don't be too angry." Yumie says with a smile.

Torika stares at her severed hand, she bends down and picks it up from the ground, carefully brushing off any dirt that got inside. She then rips her sleeve and carefully sets the hand back, wrapping it back together with the cloth from her sleeve.

Yumie stares at her wordlessly as this happens, not moving the sword away from her throat the entire time.

Torika's hand still dangles uselessly despite the bandage, which was slowly getting soaked in blood.

Then she nods her head.

"Good good, now let me get this guy out of your way before he instigates something again." Yumie picks up Roko by the waist before sprinting out of our sight.

I let out a small exhale, then hurry over to Torika.

"Is your hand okay?" A pretty stupid question to ask in hindsight, but I just said it in the moment.

It's fine. It can be reattached; I just need to keep it bound together tightly for 2-3 months. Torika traces through the air.

“Is that so…” I stared at the stormy sky raging outside the barrier.

“You know, I have a feeling that this place isn’t going to last much longer. Do you want to get out of here?” I ask Torika.

Sure, just give me a second to gather some of my more important notes. She writes. She then hurries back into her shack. While she does this, I take off my shoes and then slash the bottom of my feet. Blood splashes onto the ground, anchoring me to the floor.

I stretch my arm high into the sky, feeling the air brush against the surface of my fingertips.

The wind is beginning to pick up.