Chapter 9: 9. THE BRAVE DON’T RUN

SVAN CHORYTH 

Watching Yukina and Vixra go at it kept me in a constant state of flux as excitement and anxiety clashed in my head-space, with none taking complete control over it. My heart throbbed violently against my chest as I found myself having a difficult time breathing properly.

Their fight wasted no time in leaving its mark. It created a large area of damage to the forest vegetation, a large perimeter with no plant life existing within it; mostly burnt as upturned earth and rocks completed the display of destruction rendered on the area.

When Yukina was finally able to run her sword through Vixra’s belly, I thought,

“Now this fight is over.”

In all honesty, I was amazed at Vixra’s prowess, keeping Yukina constantly on her toes and giving her a hell of a hard time. I would have given her some accolades for a well-fought battle if I weren't her enemy.   

I wouldn’t say I was surprised when she took out Yukina’s sword from her belly and somehow made her injury disappear like it never even happened. I was lost and confused and the same time, not able to fully wrap my head over what she did. And in just a very short expanse of time, Yukina was utterly obliterated. 

As everything unfolded, I felt paralyzed, not even able to twitch a muscle and only my eyes appeared to be functional.

I heard Yukina cry out as she screamed the words, 

“Svan, run!” 

Those words echoed in my head over and over again. It was rare to see Yukina scared, but in a voice gripped with fear, Yukina requested that I should run away. Judging the situation, it was probably the best course of action for me. I had to run, desperate to run,  but I didn’t want to run away from danger. I had to save Yukina, and that meant running right towards it.

In the earlier stages of the fight, I didn’t attempt to join in. My presence in it would have been more of a nuisance than of help to Yukina, or so I thought. And I was without doubt that Yukina would win, but I was proven wrong. Vixra drew her sword to stab Yukina, almost like payback for running her through earlier on, but this time, her sword wasn’t pointed towards Yukina’s belly but towards her heart. She clearly wanted to end Yukina’s life.

That sight alone was enough to snap me back to my senses. The last thing I wanted to see with my eyes was to watch Yukina die.  I would be devastated, not just devastated; I would be thrown into a bottomless pit of despair.

I had to do something quickly, anything to get her out of that situation would be fine, but I was weak. I imagined myself going up against Vixra, but it would be nothing short of being suicidal. If she could go up against Yukina and come out on top, I would be a piece of cake for her to handle, but I had to try. I would rather die trying than helplessly watch Yukina die.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked myself, shocked.

In a blink of an eye, I was overwhelmed with fear. I wasn’t scared for myself but scared that I might not be able to do anything to save Yukina. Getting to her on time wasn’t supposed to pose any problems of sorts. But for some reasons unknown to me at the time, I couldn’t activate the grey domain.

“W-why, W-why? Why now?”

My voice was failing, barely able to hear myself. Found myself berating the grey domain like it was something animate and could actually listen to me.

“Why did you even manifest only to fail me when I needed you the most? Why are you so useless?”

My eyes were covered in tears, but crying wasn’t going to cut it. It wasn’t the grey domain, so blaming it just to make excuses for my good-for-nothing self was ridiculous. I was the useless one; I was, and had always been weak and couldn’t hate myself any more than I already did.

Tried once again to activate the grey domain. Maybe the fear and panic rendered me incapable of doing it earlier, so I shut my eyes tight, trying to refocus, searching for the slightest feeling of warmth from inside me, but it was all dark and cold.

Opening my eyes in frustration, I caught the sight of Crit as he dangled a medallion in my direction. Though I was unable to make out the details of the medallion, it directed some sort of red light in my direction. I was so busy cursing and hating on myself that I didn’t even notice what was happening right before me. The medallion had to be why I couldn’t activate the grey domain. 

Perplexed, I wondered how he knew I even had an ability because I was sure I never mentioned anything about it. And for him to have an effective counter against it, it only meant that he knew exactly what kind of ability I had.

“Who are these people?”

Shifting my focus from Crit to Yukina, she seemed to be having a little chat with Vixra. The timing couldn’t be better.

“You said it was me that you wanted. Well, here I am, why don’t you just take me and leave her alone,” I suggested, shouting at the top of my voice.

“She had her chance.”

Her response was short, simple, cold, and very scary as I felt the last shot I had at saving Yukina quickly slipping away from my reach. My legs moved on their own, and I was running even before I thought about it, a futile attempt, but there was nothing else I could do. My body jerked violently like I was struck by a lightning bolt which yanked me to the ground sending me rolling subsequently. Raising my face, I was surprised at how much distance I had seemingly covered, but it didn’t matter anymore.

I watched helplessly in horror, stretching my hand in their direction. Just as Vixra’s sword was about to run through Yukina’s body, a bright whitish-blue light appeared from nowhere, enveloping her. I could have sworn that it was Yukina’s doing, but she was a stillbringer and couldn’t possibly conjure any spells. Almost immediately as the light flashed, a large destructive explosion followed suit.

The whole succession of events that were supposed to happen instantly, unfolded slowly before my eyes. A core of bright white blinding light, more brilliant than any orb I had ever seen, bearing the intensity of a million of them, encapsulating Yukina was the first to manifest. As the radius of the light expanded, its color gradually changed to bright yellow, dull yellow, and finally orange.

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“Boom!!!”

A loud noise erupted, and after hearing it, I couldn’t make out any discrete sound anymore. Every sound seemed muffled as though I heard residual echoes from a distant source, accompanied by a high-pitched ringing noise. 

I could see Vixra conjure some rocks to create a defensive shield for herself, but it was useless, completely obliterated to nothingness as the white light came in contact with them. Vixra’s expression was in complete disbelief. She never expected what was unraveling. She followed suit, and I watched as the light hungrily ate through her with an overwhelming speed before she completely vanished, no trace of her like she never even existed in the first place.

I felt like I was the next,

“Is this how I am going to die? Not even a trace of my existence would be left behind.”

My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I wasn’t ready to die, not just yet. Maybe I should have listened to Yukina when she told me to run. My foolish act of bravery was about to cost me my life. It became evident that I always made the wrong call. It felt like a specialty of mine, not getting things right.

Just when I resigned to my fate, I felt myself being sucked into a void. My body felt like it was being wrapped and drawn into something which I couldn’t tell. I was getting dizzier as the whole process continued. Everything got blurry. I faded gradually into the darkness until I felt wholly sucked out from where I was kneeling.

Everything that happened was still very vivid in my head. It was something I couldn't shake off; a feeling of being so close to and yet very far away from it all at once, and even thinking about it sent shivers down my spine.

“Ah, Yukina.” 

The thought of her popped into my head. I wondered what had happened to her after the explosion. I didn’t see her disappear like Vixra did, but after the light encapsulated her, I didn’t get to see her again. All I was left with was hope that she was alive and okay. 

I tried to recollect what had happened to me at the time of the blast. It was something I couldn’t possibly explain with words. I watched everything around me get completely destroyed, reduced to nothing but somehow, I wasn’t affected even though I was close to the blast epicenter. There wasn’t any shield providing any sort of cover for me. It felt like I was drawn into a pocket of space before finally being sucked away.

“Could it be as a result of the grey domain?” I asked myself.

It couldn’t possibly be.  Thanks to whatever Crit did to me, I couldn't activate it before the explosion, and even during the explosion, I was sure I didn't activate it. Being clueless about an event that happened to or around me was frustrating. That was one of the reasons I read a lot of books, pretty much to have an idea about events like that, but I was made to understand that there were a lot of things I had absolutely no idea about.

* * *

I tried opening my eyes, but it was met with a sharp pain that flashed across my face. The first attempt proved unsuccessful. I took in a deep breath and tried again, separating my eyelids through the searing pain. Though my vision was still hazy, I could see a set of blue eyes staring at me.

“Yukina, is that you? Thank goodness you are alive,” I muttered, mustering a smile.

“You are finally awake.”

The voice I heard wasn’t Yukina’s. I could tell what Yukina sounded like even if I was in a deep sleep, but the voice I heard sounded different. Maybe what happened to me messed up my senses, or so I thought. Even though my vision was still hazy, I knew for sure that I was looking at a set of blue eyes and the one person I knew who had those was Yukina.

“Why do you sound so different,” I asked her.

Oh, the explosion. It seemed like its effects hadn't completely worn off. There was no response to my question, and the awkward silence got me startled. I was suddenly jolted to a forced sense of clarity as I hastily got up. I just realized I was lying on a strange bed, covered in a blanket with a wet towel on my forehead. The towel fell off my head as I stood upright,

Still stunned, I asked the woman who was sitting at the bed where I was previously laid,

“Where am I? No, who are you?”  

She had a conflicting appearance, as I couldn’t correctly tell if she was a young or middle-aged woman. Maybe it was due to the poor lighting, a dim torch fire that burnt at one corner of the small rectangular room. There was nothing else to make out apart from the bed at the corner and a little table beside it, which held a bowl containing water.

The woman, whose appearance was typical to that of someone who lived in the countryside; a long grey garment with long sleeves and a loosely fit blue bodice, sat calmly and still. She opened her mouth to say something but seemed to have difficulty in doing it. 

I wouldn’t say I was scared of her. If she wanted to put me in harm’s way, she would have already done that while I was still passed out, but rather she seemed to have nurtured me back to strength. I was simply curious because I had no idea of my whereabouts.

She lifted her face to look at me, and while the room was poorly lit, I could easily make out her facial features. She looked familiar as I struggled to remember where I had seen her in the past, but it didn’t just click. Her blue eyes still confused me for Yukina, but she wasn’t. She had brown hair in contrast to Yukina’s blonde.

I gradually came to the realization that it wasn’t just her eyes. She genuinely had a striking resemblance with Yukina, but that was just part of the confusing familiarity because she looked like someone else I knew.

“Why don’t you loosen yourself a little and sit down, we have a lot of things to talk about,” she said, wearing a smile.

That smile, I had seen it a lot of times. It wasn’t supposed to be possible because it looked exactly like mine.

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