Chapter 23: 21 : Sharpened Claws of a Broken Girl

Tsuki’s eyes landed on the ground just a few meters, where her headless body was squirting fresh sprouts of blood. It tainted the clear watery surface by painting swirling flowers blooming from her dead body. Nay, it wasn’t even her own body, she was just its current pilot. It was Alice’s body, which convulsed there on the ground, broken.

“No! NO NO-NO-NO-NO! ALICE! AL—” Tsuki screamed her lungs out, which was cut short when the cold ax head of her opponent’s weapon plunged into her body, severing the girl’s clavicle, and stopping after breaking the 2nd lumbar vertebra (spine - lower back).

Yuu didn’t give this poor girl a chance, her eyes were glazed and empty, and her current body was nothing more than a puppet following the order of killing this girl repeatedly. Because she needed to focus on escaping from the snowy mountain, she simply didn’t know the extent of what was going on in this world of dreams.

Tsuki’s eyes lost their light, and a new body was formed once again out of thin air which her consciousness took control of. As she gained control of this new body, the last one was flung her way which she did her best to avoid. She was confident to have managed to dodge this large projectile, but an arm clipped her leg and caused her to fall face-first on the hard ground with only a centimeter of water to soften the impact, which did nothing of the sort.

The rustling of cloth scared the girl, Yuu was coming, her weapon sharp and ready to kill Tsuki again. Stumbling back up, she tried to run away, her legs weak and shaking from the pain of dying.

1, 2 steps: buckling her fear; 3, 4 steps: a dash was starting; 5, 6 steps: now running as fast as possible; 7…and then she couldn’t move any further, the hook of the red spirit’s weapon was in her guts; 8, 9 steps: she was pulled back, the spirit now biting at her neck and removing large chunks of flesh; 10…she was pushed to the ground with blood not able to reach her brain fully anymore. She simply was too slow to escape; once again, a new body was created that would meet a similar fate.

❀

 

Tsuki was unable to say for how long she fought. It was as if many days had passed as the pain of constantly being killed almost broke her mind. Even now, both her arms were missing, and she was being strangled to death. Her left foot was trying to push Yuu off of her while she used her right one to dig into her opponent’s wounded side in the hope of either messing up Yuu’s balance or aggravating her wound. Having most of her cloth already shredded with both her shoes missing, she was able to scrape some flesh with her foot’s nails to the point of feeling Yuu’s hard hipbone.

A heavy weight pushed on Tsuki’s mind, her eyes lost focus by starting to drift upward, and she was already making plans for when she would revive. Every time a new body was made, it would be exactly like how she fell asleep: clothed and armed. Also, the many dead bodies flowering on the reflective ground could all be used, as weapons being the most useful.

Tsuki sensed the exact moment her consciousness shifted to a new body and reflexively threw her hand-ax toward Yuu, but it melted as a sudden bloom of fire was created by this spirit. The young girl jumped with haste behind one of the many eternally sleeping corpses to shield herself from the burning blaze ready to consume her. Not fully able to cover herself, the intense heat caused her left arm, now engulfed in flame, to cook. The skin cracked and bubbles formed to then only pop painfully, but as the flame kept embracing her white skin, it slowly turned it into a blackened mess of charred meat. Now even the long hair she was proud of was mostly gone. Her fate wasn’t that bad compared to her shield which had a burned and crispy smell, similar to her uncovered left side.

The flames were still raging, not ready to extinguish, but the girl still moved away from her shield just before it was perforated by Yuu’s long gnarly spike of her halberd which was as long as Tsuki’s forearm. Luckily, it got stuck between the corpse’s ribs and Tsuki used this chance to thrust her spear toward Yuu’s chest after extending her range by following her trust with only her left arm. This had the effect of somewhat protecting her right side from the flame and she did her best to ignore the pain from her burning body, even feeling her left azure eye bursting from the heat.

*Splat* The spear connected with something. It was Tsuki’s first real hit but in the end, her spear had only pierced Yuu’s sole that she had used to block and divert the dangerous trust. This bloody spirit, in turn, smacked her foot to the ground which caused Tsuki to lose grip on the spear. With the flame dying out, Tsuki saw her opponent disarmed and jumped at her before she could do anything. It was the perfect moment for her to finally counter as Yuu’s stance was completely broken in that instant.

The two girls tumbled to the ground, Tsuki who was atop wanted to take out her magical dagger from the cloth around her left wrist, but her plan changed after seeing her black and crispy skin. Then she saw Yuu opening her mouth with a burning flame dancing inside and plunged her burned arm inside to block the deadly burning breath.

Tsuki realized she was in a bad situation since her opponent’s right arm, which was on Tsuki’s left side, was free to do anything and it did so by breaking one of the horns on her forehead and using it like a dagger. The girl’s plan was turned against her as the wooden horn was stabbed multiple times in her side. Luckily for her, her left arm was able to protect her vital neck and the flesh that was getting attacked was already dead from the heat, the horn not being long enough to do any real damage.

Both pairs of legs were wrestling the right to deal damage to their opponent but sensing it was a lost cause, Tsuki wrapped her legs around Yuu’s side and kept her body as low as possible. If Yuu was able to put a foot on Tsuki’s stomach, it would have been the end since she would have either been able to push or kill Tsuki outright.

As such, Tsuki only had her right hand available to land a deadly hit on her opponent and took the sword she bought to do just that. After unsheathing her blade with difficulty, she tried to push it into Yuu’s neck, but her arm was stopped by her opponent’s sparking tail which went above Tsuki’s back to then wrap around her wrist and pull back by shortening its length from its base. Her arm was about to bend in the wrong direction, bringing her immense pain, but in return as her only hope left, tried to bite at her opponent’s neck which forced Yuu to protect herself with her right hand.

Tsuki bit at this protective hand still holding the bloody horn which impaled her cheek and stopped her jaw from fully closing. She could feel the horn slowly pulling toward her lips in an attempt to bring her pain and unclenched her jaw biting on Yuu’s hand. It was a useless attempt as Tsuki was already drowning in pain and something like this only added to her desperation. As revenge, Tsuki put all her strength into her left arm, which had its hand stuck in Yuu’s mouth, in the hope of maybe crushing something. But this was also useless as Yuu’s long canines were too deep in Tsuki’s flesh and hooked her hand in place.

The girl was starting to feel tired; something was slowly spreading in her left arm. A dangerous poison was injected into her burned wrist from where the spirit was biting. If she had used her right hand to block the fire breath, the poison would have spread faster and already killed her. And at this, she understood that the breath attack she stopped was only a cruel bait. Every time Tsuki did something, it was countered by her opponent and the only real damage she did to her was to a foot and a hand while she was poisoned, had half her body burned, and was stabbed multiple times on her side.

What was she to do? This was her best attempt but was worth nothing. *tock* Her right arm was dislocated and as tears filled with pain, rage, and frustration rolled from her only remaining eye, she bit with all her might, breaking her teeth but also managing to crush the horn and hand of her opponent. She then forced Yuu’s head to the side by using her left arm like a lever and tried to bite the uncovered neck in front of her. She suddenly lost her vision as Yuu in an attempt to push Tsuki’s head had punctured her last eye which shined with an ardent green.

In the end, Tsuki failed to do anything else, and the poison gave her a cardiac arrest after some time. She was back to the start, a new body formed for her to suffer.

Sadly, this was her breaking point and she fell to the ground having abandoned all hope. She could hear Yuu getting up after having pushed the corpse above her. Then, the spirit walked, her damaged foot not perturbing her cadence, toward her weapon. *Crunck* She had to break the bone that her weapon was stuck inside and headed toward the broken Tsuki.

At that moment, Tsuki wished she was more like her opponent. She was jealous of how Yuu could walk so confidently in this garden of blood, bone, and meat. There was an elegance in her attacks, barbaric in nature but trained and mastered to the point she moved like the wind. Even her long hair, almost dragging on the ground, which should be in the way was in truth accounted for in her every move.

Thinking about this spirit more made Tsuki laugh a bit as what she wore didn’t really fit. Light clothing fit for a warm environment with simple but enchanting patterns while also wearing a long and warm, red scarf with damaged ends. She also didn’t wear shoes and the only jewelry she wore was simple strips of fur with colorful beads tied around her ankles. Was she warm or was she cold? Tsuki didn’t know and found it funny.

Alas, her joy came to an end when this strange being stopped in front of her. Tsuki saw the scary halberd stab in the ground just by her head and her mind was filled with confusion. She tried to look up and even received help as Yuu pulled her up by the collar and forced her to eye level. Tsuki’s feet weren’t touching the ground, being just a head shorter than Yuu. Her blank eyes met with Yuu’s which had returned to their vibrant red.

“Oy!” Said Yuu with a scorn in her voice. “I just came back, and you’re already broken?! Are you for real?”

“…”

“Oyyyy? Is anyone home?”

“…”

Tsuki didn’t want to say anything. She was done with everything that was forced on her. Escaping the tower was a mistake, she should have been happy with her life as a slave. Her whole existence was a mistake for causing suffering to the one she loved. She was greedy and worthless. It was because she was so weak that everything happened. She should have—

“—OOOYYYYYY! BASTARD! Look at me when I’m talking!”

“?” Yuu’s scream somewhat brought back Tsuki who looked directly at those red eyes filled with anger. Tsuki, scared, looked downward and unconsciously grabbed Yuu’s scarf.

“!!” out of reflex, Yuu threw Tsuki away from her with more strength than she had displayed until now. “Ha…crap”

The girl flew in the air at a speed that made it hard to breathe and was caught by Yuu who suddenly appeared behind her before she could hit the ground which would have broken her neck. The spirit landed on her back, scraping it on the ground until they came to a stop, and she let go of the girl that was in her arm.

“Tsuki! Are you fine?!” Asked a panicked Yuu trying to inspect the girl.

“?” Tsuki was fine but didn’t understand why this girl was now worried about her. She looked up with a questioning gaze as if she hadn’t realized she was just thrown.

“Ha…Hum, well…I disabled the spell that was reviving you and I don’t know what would have happened if you died without it…”

“We’re on break?”

Her question made Yuu laugh a bit as she used her hand to caress the girl’s head. “No silly. You won. Unless you want me to keep go…” Yuu was about to tease Tsuki but stopped seeing her eyes filling with tears. She instead healed her missing arm, which caused her hair to whiten more, and hugged the girl hoping to warm her heart. “There there. It’s over. You did well. You did better than I expected.”

Tsuki cried a lot in the arms of this person who brought her so much pain not too long ago. She cried and allowed herself to be hugged as if she was a kid begging for her mother’s soothing touch.

❀

 

“I guess I should rework my puppets a bit…” said Yuu deep in thought while still petting the teary girl.

“Puppet?”

“That’s what you fought. I told them not to use magic since you would have died instantly.”

“…”

“It did cheat a bit with the fire...Well, it’s complicated.”

“Yuu…”

“Hey, don’t be mad at me. That dumb puppet found a loophole in my orders and used it. My body makes all the needed compounds, but I use magic to combine them, so I don’t accidentally blow myself up. This place is saturated with magic, hell, we are even made from magic or whatever in this world.”

“…You made that world. Right?”

“Nope. It was made from a random spell I found. I honestly don’t know how it works, but it works.”

“Yuu…”

“Don’t complain, I’m planning to have you learn magic in a bit and one of your lessons will be to understand this world and make it yours.”

“Really!! Magic?!” Said Tsuki, stars shining brightly in her eyes.

“OY brat! Calm down! Not now. Your body’s too weak and…Haaaa, whatever. Ok, do you want to know how casting spells and such work?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!—”

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“Alright, but first, you need to give me back my scarf.” Yuu pointed to the scarf Tsuki was hugging and then to her own neck filled with large scar tissues. “I get restless without it.”

“Hmm, here. How’d you get those?”

“When I was a kid about your age, I paid people for protection…Funny story but one of them decapitated me!”

“…Magic spell. How?” Tsuki ignored this explanation, not interested in this girl’s wounds but solely focused on magic.

“Right, right. The first step to using magic is sacrificing something to produce a result outside of your body’s mechanical capability. It’s a strange way of saying it but every spell does that. An extreme example is sacrificing a leg to create heat. After that, you learn how to lower the sacrificing cost. Then, use your imagination and have fun with magic, I guess. There are like a million ways to get to the same result with magic, so do whatever you like.”

“Did you sacrifice legs to learn magic?”

“No? Why would I?”

“Then why give that example?!”

“Because it’s the first body part that people usually lose when learning magic…It happens so often that I feel like it’s genetically programmed in humans' ADN to sacrifice a leg. It's kind of funny, to be honest. If you do wish to sacrifice yours to learn magic, just warn me in advance and I’ll give you some healing talismans.” For Yuu, a spirit born able to use magic, she didn’t really know what normal people had to do to learn magic. It was as if she was trying to explain how people pumped blood in their bodies: this not being something people can really control but still do.

“…”

“What?”

“Nothing…”

“Ok, I do have people in mind that are better than me at teaching the basis of magic. You just need to understand that when starting, it’s easy to sacrifice things you care about. Someone I considered my brother died thinking that using his heart to cast a spell would make it stronger. It did not…So, use your brain before using magic, well not literally, and stay in control. If you ever need to sacrifice part of your body, use your fat, excrement, sweat, oil, hair, memories, dead skin...Do you understand?”

“Yeah, scary.” Tsuki was a bit scared about the possible implications of casting spells, but this still wasn’t able to extinguish her dreams.

“Yep. Happy you got that.”

“Right! How did I win?” Said Tsuki wanting to change the subject for a moment.

“Your left hand, I couldn’t breathe!” responded Yuu after pushing Tsuki’s head to her chest thinking that this little girl might still be affected by her training. “Are you mad at me for today’s training?”

“…”

“I can sense your anger, you know?”

“Creep.”

“Listen…I’m not training you to be a shiny knight in armor. You do that on your own. I found something quite dangerous when rescuing some villagers. I predict a lot of people will die…at best, the bodies will number in the millions, but if things turn sour, no one on this planet will survive.”

“…”

“Something so strong that you will compare your strength with it as if the difference was heaven and earth will try to kill you one day. It will have the strength to kill you a million times before you can land a hit on it. If it has claws, it will rend your flesh; if it has teeth, it will maim you; if it uses a sword, it will shop your every limb; if it has any muscle, it will crush you to a paste…I’m not teaching you how to fight, I’m sharpening the claws of a cornered beast. Even if you lose a limb, what does it change if you can live another day?”

“Reward!” Tsuki, like a kid being punished by their parents, wanted to change the subject to something she cared about.

“Huh?” It caught Yuu off guard, and she became disheartened by her failed attempt to create a little beast with this girl.

“You said I did well and then said something dangerous might kill me. Give me something then.”

“…Greedy brat!”

“Please?”

“…Bah, Fine! What do you want, I’ll see what I can do.”

“MAGIC! Forbidden spell. I want a good teacher that can teach me dark forbidden spells!” Tsuki, in the end, was still just a kid who fantasized about magic and becoming a cool sorceress like Kanga one day.

“Really? Can’t you be less edgy or something? Are you sure about that?” Responded Yuu, a bit tired of this strange girl's antics.

“Hmmm!”

“I see. Well then, I guess I also need to be the one to teach you higher spell casting…”

“NO!” Screamed Tsuki completely against Yuu showing her magic.

“Huh? Is something wrong with me?”

“I want a good teacher. Not a dumb berserker like you.”

“Tsuki…” This seemed to have hurt Yuu’s ego as her voice became sullen and hesitant. “Ya know…I’m almost the strongest mage in existence. I think there are like six beings who are stronger than me. Well, I can’t even compare to them; I can have someone teach you the basics and I can show you the more advanced concepts. I do use some messed up methods to be this strong which without, I’d be nothing, so when it comes to forbidden stuff—”

“—You’re lying!”

“I’m literally not allowed to lie!”

“THEN SAVE ALICE! If you’re so strong, why can’t you just do that?!”

Yuu was shocked by this request. She didn’t lie when saying she was strong and the fact that she was here doing pretty much nothing with this claim was a good reason for Tsuki to not believe her. “Some weirdos sealed me. I now need to use puppets to do things. The real Yuu you are talking to right now is somewhere unknown, stuck in a jail specifically made for me…” The spirit followed with a long pause; her eyes were distant until she came back with a laugh. “Ha! Someone just tried to inject me with some anesthetic…He’s a new hire? Ha right, that boy. I think the other jailers are bullying…Ho hey Tsuki, if you have any tips other than killing people to make them less annoying, share them with me and I’ll reward you if they work. They used to be all so cute and all. Now they’re just boring! I hate them!”

“Ho, you’re like a demon lord!” said Tsuki thinking it was all a joke.

“…”

“Yuu?”

“…I’m not a demon lord but.” Said the spirit with downcast eyes. This statement hurt her more than she expected. “…I’m not a good person. I’m in jail for a reason, right? So, you are right to not trust me. I’m too weak to do anything bad and I don’t want to hurt other people for now at least.”

“If I unseal you, can you save Alice?” *meow*

Yuu reflected on this question for some time, scratching her long red hair. “I guess? It could be a way to save your girl.” *meow*

“Then I pro— *meow!* —mise I’ll un… Uh? Did I just wake up?”

Just now, Tsuki had woken up and escaped from the world of dreams after something had clawed her cheek. She brushed her hand over the painful part and a few drops of blood smeared her palm, but nothing serious. Be it close or far, the cause for those claw marks couldn’t be found.

The sun wasn’t ready to show its face, but the moon was slowly leaving the sky. From her estimation, it was about three in the morning. The music box by Tsuki’s side was still playing its melody, albeit with less energy. This sound mixed with the cold nightly wind calmed her down from what she now classified as a nightmare.

With a trembling hand, Tsuki closed the lid of the music box. She wanted to listen to the sea and maybe see the early sailor leaving for work before also leaving this village for good. But the whispering waves were silent. The girl wondered about this and looked down from her cliff to observe the sea, but it had left the gulf. The place where many ships moved like dancing leaves was now filled with sand and corals.

The sound of howling wolves, almost ethereal in nature, woke her up from her confusion, and there she realized that all this missing water was bound to come back with a raging hunger for those who weren’t far enough.

She instantly picked up her things, blankets, and cat plushy, and headed back to the beach, believing that the wolfs she heard would attack her if she directly escaped into the wood. The drunkards sleeping on the sand followed by the many boats now stranded came into her view. She didn’t even bother to warn those priests but when she was about to put a foot at the border between the sand and the paved stone, a painful screech mixed with hounds barking came from the sea. All the windows in the village shattered waking everyone in a panic. Tsuki was pushed to the ground and as she looked at the gulf’s mouth, she could see strange creatures slowly moving toward the village. In the waning moon, their dark, and crude weapons glisten with murderous intent.

Tsuki didn’t give them another second and began to run toward the entrance of the village…A long path separating her from her goal was set in front of her.

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