-Kared-

[An Alten word meaning ‘flesh,’

or in some cases, ‘life,’ commonly used

in healing magic.]

As Jarou and I approached the Necromancer, they were very clearly angry at the switch in opponents. It seemed to me that they understood the implications of them leaving and switching out with younger Hunters.

Now that I had a better view of the man, I could see he was wielding a long staff, adorned with elaborate engravings and gilding, with a large crystalline orb nestled at the top, the wood of body covering over it like tree branches. When he cast spells, the crystal seemed to glow. In his off hand, he had a dagger with a straight, narrow blade, and a handguard that formed forks around the blade.

Truth be told, as much as I would have liked to have a proper strategy going into this fight, I think I speak for both Jarou and I when I say, I had no idea what I was doing, nor what to expect from this fight. From the start, based on the weapons my opponent used, I knew this fight would be vastly different from what I’ve come to expect.

The Necromancer’s green eyes were shielded by disheveled brown hair as he watched Jarou and I took up our fighting stances, and he readied himself for combat.

I thought to take the first charge, but Jarou beat me to it, launching himself forward with a powerful burst of sentem. He had chosen to brandish his scythe for this battle, and he spun through the air in a similar fashion to how I had seen Kared and Oroske do earlier. He took a swing at our target, aiming for his side. Just before making contact, however, the Necromancer created another barrier, similar to the one used to deflect our seniors’ attacks earlier, but much smaller.

I saw this as an opening for me to rush in, coming in and slashing diagonally from his right and up. Despite his offhand being on the opposite side, he was able to quickly maneuver the dagger and trapped my sword between its blade and handguard.

While I struggled to free my sword, my eyes met his. They seemed to be filled with immense sadness, but an equal, if not greater, intense anger. “Why did you have to come here,” he shouted, “Why can’t you just let me see them again?!” At that exact moment, I had no idea what he was talking about, though it would dawn on me soon enough that he was talking about the people he was trying to revive.

Jarou used his dialogue with me as an opening, disengaging from the barrier the target created. He spun, using the momentum to move behind the target, then swung heavily at the Necromancer’s head. The Necromancer narrowly dodged, ducking his head to the side, watching as the blade glided quickly above him.

I used the distraction to finally free my blade, and went to strike. Unfortunately, the Necromancer was faster than me, and attacked with his staff, hitting me in the side with a loud cracking sound. As I staggered from the hit, he unleashed a powerful blast of fyrun, in addition to a massive flash of light that blinded me for a moment. He must have done something to protect himself from the light, as while I couldn’t see, he continued to barrage me with attacks, which I attempted and failed to guard against. Once my vision returned to me, unclouded, I was able to block his attack. I caught the wood part of the staff, and I put my own weapon back into my Demon Sheath, freeing my hand which I used to catch his wrist, narrowly escaping the cutting edge of his dagger. Covered in bruises, shallow cuts, and burns, my breathing was heavy as I shouted Jarou’s name.

During the time that I was being attacked, we had moved quite a ways from the center, and Jarou had been charging up a powerful magical attack. He had his hands placed on the ground, aether pooling up so much you could almost see it. “Jarou’tur’ari!” He shouted heartily, echoing loudly in the large atrium. A large pillar of stone burst out from the ground near his hands, speeding towards the Necromancer, rumbling and cracking loudly as various parts of it broke off to the sides, making it almost look like a large, stone pinecone.

The Necromancer eyed the pillar nervously, trying to break his weapons free. After realizing I wouldn’t let my grip off so easily, he kicked me full force in the gut. I was determined not to let go, swallowing down the bile the kick forced up. He kicked me again, and a third time, which finally loosened my hold on his wrist, freeing his dagger hand. He quickly shot his dagger over and stabbed my arm that was holding his staff. I let out a blood curdling scream from the pain and shock, and let go of his staff, allowing me to inspect the wound.

The Necromancer quickly spun around with the staff, and said with an intense fury, “Fyr’tur!” Several consecutive blasts met Jarou’s stone pillar just before it struck him, and chunks of stone went flying in every direction, before dissipating back into aether. He wasted no time, and roundhouse kicked me in the head as I was staring in shock at the knife in my arm, knocking me to the ground and the edge of consciousness.

I could only watch from this point on. I felt someone start dragging my body away as the Necromancer approached Jarou. Sound was muffled in my ears, but I could see pretty well. Kared sat me up against a bookshelf, and inspected my arm. After a moment, she yanked out the dagger, and began using magic to close the wound, my flesh seemingly stretching over the hole, weaving in on itself to shut it. Luckily my senses were pretty dull, so I barely felt it. I didn’t know at the time, but apparently the magic she was using shared her name, and meant flesh, and was commonly a healing focused aspect.

After she’d patched me up, my focus wandered over to Jarou’s fight. He had earned a few cuts and bruises himself. The Necromancer, having lost his dagger to my arm, had summoned a blade made of light in its place. Jarou was defending himself well, but even in my hazy-minded state I could see he was panicked, barely holding his own. The Necromancer’s strength and magical ability was impressive if nothing else, pushing Jarou back and not allowing him an opening. All of Jarou’s attempts to attack with magic were deftly blocked, either by fyrun-based counterattacks, or that barrier the Necromancer used previously. Every pillar of stone, every blast of fyrun, sentem, selr, and so on. All of them blocked, seemingly with ease. Jarou even tried hitting with multiple attacks at once a few times, and still they were deflected.

After a while, strange white circles began appearing around the room, some at the Necromancer’s feet, some at his hands, and even a few at his head level, and a couple even higher than that. All of them appeared after he walked past that spot. They were reminiscent of the large circle that he was standing in before we began our battle, with triangles and squares in the middle, lined with intricate designs. It became apparent that the Necromancer was planning something, and was being deliberate in the direction he pushed Jarou.

After several of these circles had appeared, he forced Jarou into the center of all of them. Then, all at once, magic activated from them, shooting white hot beams of light into Jarou, piercing his body in several places. As Jarou’s eyes clouded over from shock, and he fell to his knees, the Necromancer spoke. “You’re Clan’s a bunch of hypocrites… What's wrong with me wanting to see my family again?!” He then delivered a powerful kick to Jarou’s chest, knocking him to the ground and a fair distance away. “I’ll finish you off later,” he said, anger flowing through every word, “But first I need to eliminate the rest.”

By this point, my vision had become more unclouded, but in trade off I was feeling the pain from my wounds once again.

Kared had been standing next to me, watching as the battle unfolded, when suddenly, a massive burst of energy flowed from her. I blearily looked up at her, and she had a powerful, crimson aura surrounding her. “You may not want to watch this, Kuro,” she warned as she walked towards the Necromancer.

“Kared, wai-” Oroske started in an attempt to stop her, before realizing it was futile.

“I will not stand by any longer,” Kared snapped at Oroske, “It’s become clear to me this scum is much stronger than we expected.” I got the impression she wanted to say something else, but held her tongue.

“What, you think one of you is enough to beat me? After you struggled so much with two earlier?” The Necromancer barked, seeing that only Kared approached.

“You’ve hurt my family, and insulted me,” Kared spat, “I was going to give you a clean, painless death. But now, I’ve decided that your last sight should be what true power looks like. And feels like, to boot.” She finished with a sinister sounding laugh.

The aura surrounding her pulsed with energy. Another one of those circles, this time crimson, appeared underneath the Necromancer, and red vines wrapped around his body, holding him in place. I was seeing her right side profile, and her eyes glowed lavender, in contrast to their usual deep purple. Several of those circles appeared around her, starting at her feet and working up to her head, but rather than having simple triangles and squares, they contained octagrams, and intense, complex designs.

Her lips began moving with immense speed, and an unintelligible string of commands poured from her. The circles began spinning slowly around her, and one by one as they reached her front, a small orb of red light shot out towards the Necromancer. Each one began to transform his body.

The first one snapped his left arm, bending his forearm 90 degrees, and he let out a blood curdling scream. The second did the same for his right lower leg, dropping his body suddenly to the floor. Each of the first eight snapped various bones in this fashion, until his limbs were all bent in ways they never should be. By that point, the pain must have been so much that he couldn’t even scream, as the only noise coming from him were sobs as he writhed on the floor in misery.

Then, each one contorted his body in another way. Stretching limbs, bloating his body. At some point his cries became muffled, and I could only assume flesh had been pulled over his mouth. By the time the last of the circles had disappeared, he was an unrecognizable mound of distorted flesh, even tearing in a few places to expose organs and muscles, blood getting everywhere.

Kared then summoned her large, crimson red scythe, stuck the end in the ground with the cutting edge facing the pile of miserable flesh, and disappeared in a flash of red lightning.

The mound split, blood and innards spilling out, before fading into a black dust.

As the mound disintegrated, Kared became visible once again. Her aura had dissipated, and she spun the scythe around, ending with it slung over her shoulder. She then turned around and began walking towards where Jarou lay unconscious, and began to inspect his wounds.

Oroske came over to me, and offered to take me to the middle of the room, which I accepted. He helped me wrap my still very sensitive, and very in-pain harm around his neck, and lifted me up by my legs, giving me a piggy-back ride. We stopped by Kared and Jarou first.

“How is he?” Oroske asked.

“He’ll live, thankfully,” Kared said with a sigh of relief, “Though, I can only administer so much treatment myself. Despite my lineage, I’m not very good with vaia. He’ll have to refrain from strenuous activities until we can get the Clan healers to look at him.”

I could see his shirt and cloak were stained red from his blood, and riddled with holes, but beyond those holes, his flesh was freshly closed. Almost looked like there never were any holes there in the first place.

After verifying Jarou’s safety, Oroske took me to the actual center of the room. “All that’s left is collecting the blackened aether,” he muttered as he set me down, but not before making sure I’m okay to stand. I stumbled a little from the pain, but did my best to retain my composure.

All over the floor, and floating in the air was the Necromancer’s black dust. Oroske pulled out a small jar from his cloak and began his explanation. “I’m sure you’re already familiar with soul blackening. This is the aftermath of having a blackened soul, and having Return to Dust used on you. Usually the dust dissipates back into aether, but when it’s black like this, it sticks around, and can cause issues. And so, we collect it, and bring it back to the Clan. I’ll make sure you can see for yourself when we get back, but Danfis has a way of dealing with it.

“And to collect it, all you need is to pour aether into one of these special jars,” He finished, handing me the jar, instructing me to open it.

Upon closer inspection, I saw the lid, bottom, and sides had similar circles to the ones I had seen earlier subtly engraved in the glass. These ones had a pentagon as their main shape. I did as he instructed, and had the aether flow into the glass. Suddenly, all the dust in the air stopped moving, before being vacuumed into the jar. Then the dust on the floor formed a mini-tornado that made it all funnel into the container. Once all of it was in, Oroske urged me to close it quickly. Screwing the lid back into place, the circle on it glowed. “Try opening it now,” Oroske said with a laugh. When I did, I found it was sealed tight, much tighter than what I had done. I couldn’t even get it to budge.

“Alright, well done, Kuro,” Nadred said as he re-entered the room. I hadn’t even noticed he left, but apparently he had gone to ensure the rest of the building was Restless-free. “Is Jarou alright, Kared?” She simply nodded. “Thank goodness,” he sighed, “Shall we get out of here?”

We all agreed, and with Jarou on Kared’s back, and I on Oroske’s, we left the old library. I’m not sure what happened between then and us arriving back in our hotel, as I fell asleep, my body finally allowing me to rest after our long battle. And when I woke back up, I was sat down on the couch in the hotel room.