Birth of a Legend

When Hana woke up, an intense feeling of dread washed over her, as she quickly recalled the events of last night.

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She didn't dare open her eyes. She didn't hear any breathing. She didn't feel any heartbeat. The air was cold.

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"Oh Aisha…" She whimpered, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. "It's so unfair… you should have been so happy…"

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She kissed the top of Aisha's head.

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Or at least, she would have, if Aisha was still there. Instead, Hana kissed nothing, realizing that there was no one in her arms.

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Her eyes snapped open. She was furious.

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"Have you seen a short fey girl?" Hana asked desperately, leaning towards the woman she was questioning.

"Eeek!" She shrieked. "DEMON!"

"Goddammit." She sighed. "I just want to- okay."

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The woman had taken off, screaming. Someone turned a corner, looking for the commotion, and Hana turned to them, attempting to ask them the same question.

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The boy paled. "Oh no no no. Not another one."

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Another one? What…?

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Hana wandered around the small town, asking people with varying success - some people got through an entire sentence before running away, others didn't even give her a chance to say anything.

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Hana thought of transforming, but even the thought made her feel weak and queasy. She had burned up too much mana flying.

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She wandered throughout the streets for a few more minutes, growing more and more tired by the minute. She was so hungry, and so horny, and she wanted to go back to bed…

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(Ugh. 'Leste is rubbing off on me… In more ways than one. Hee hee.)

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Hana was on the verge of giving up, when her breath was stolen away from her, seeing the most beautiful girl she had ever seen in her life. Amazing, flowing blonde hair, a creamy complexion, great figure, and… wait…

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She narrowed her eyes as she snuck up on the woman, noticing that the townspeople shied away from her, despite being so beautiful. Making her way close, she put a hand on the woman's shoulder, turning her around, and saw an equally beautiful face to match the body. At the sight of Hana, while the other townspeople were scared, and shrieked, the woman just looked surprised, jumping at Hana's ashy visage.

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"You're a succubus too." Hana sighed.

"N-no, I'm just an innocent little girl!" The woman said nervously.

"Humans don't talk like that!" Hana snapped. "And you're not little, you're huge!"

"..."

"..."

"Okay, okay, fine. But this is my turf, hoe!" The other woman snarled, the expression looking quite out of place on the summer maiden look. "You might be bigger than me, but don't think I'm going to let you-"

"I'm not here to take over your turf." Hana sighed, exasperated. "I just want to know if you've seen a little fey girl. Big ears. White scarf. Adorable."

"What?" The other succubus pursed her lips. "Trying to get into bed with her?"

"You've seen her."

"Stupid adventurers." The woman muttered. "Always leaving a girl unsatisfied."

"Where did she go!?" Hana demanded. "She's my… she's my friend!"

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The other succubus barked out a laugh. "A friend? Yeah right! Someone that cute, there's no way she's just a "friend." "

"Ughhh…" Hana put her hand on her forehead in frustration. "Just tell me where she went!"

"What do I get?" The other succubus pouted.

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"I'll… I'll have sex with you. Whatever you want. Kissing, hugging, handholding, if you want." Hana offered.

"Oooohh…" The other succubus giggled. "A freak. But you're not my type."

Hana rolled her eyes. "I can transform-"

"No, I don't go for other succubi anymore. Besides, there's no nourishment."

"...Then a threesome." Hana tried.

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The woman pointed a dainty finger into the distance.

"Good luck, she's fighting the necromancer. If she comes back in one piece, I'll be waiting!"

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Hana felt a sense of dread come over her as she approached what she assumed to be the necromancer's tower, a massive mound of a structure, looking to be a hastily-created fort in the middle of a graveyard.

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As if the eerie, misty atmosphere wasn't enough, though, Hana felt chills go up her spine at the hollow clanking, and padded footsteps of the corpses that roamed the grounds next to the tower, red, glowing eyes shining through the mist.

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She quickly looked away, trying to not vomit in her mouth. The corpses were in various states of decay, the flesh sickly and rotten. Some looked relatively whole, if not a bit pale. Most had parts of their skeletons showing, organs inside in full view, in similar states of rot. Some were literally just skeletons, maybe with a pit of flesh draped over an arm. Their movements looked unnatural, jerky, and they would fall over often, only to be picked up, as if they were puppets on strings.

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But the worst part was the smell, by far. Hana didn't think the other succubus would be up to having a threesome, if any amount of the ungodly stench lingered on her.

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But despite that, Hana braced herself, and prepared to fly into the tower. She took a single step forward, and instantly regret it as a couple hundred corpses jerked, turning to her, and firing off blasts of dark, corrupted magic, spewing out of their chests like sewage. Hana shrieked as she took a few blasts, crying in pain as her arms and legs were burned badly, stumbling backwards.

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She fell backwards, and whimpered, noticing that they stopped looking at her as she did, returning to their aimless wandering.

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She spotted a trail of destroyed corpses, leading up to the steps of the fort. She could only pray…

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Meanwhile, Aisha gasped and panted as she ascended the stairs of the tower, ripping through reanimated corpses like wrapping paper. She had been running for over four hours straight at this point, and although the fatigue was starting to eat at her body, she continued to sprint up the stairs manically, on all fours like an animal.

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Her vision started to blur, and her heartrate began to quicken.

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"No!" She gasped out, smashing a skeleton against the wall. "Not yet! Not yet! Just- I'm so close! Please!"

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The shadow was practically on top of her at this point, almost blotting out her vision, but she ignored it the best she could - Despite the paralyzing fear that she felt, pure adrenaline and madness fueled her ascent, even as her lungs burned, stomach churned, and limbs ached.

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Aisha found her way to the top of the tower, and smashed through the door at the top, seeing a blurry figure gasp and turn to face her.

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She tried to swing her greatsword at the figure, but all she managed to do was topple over forwards, as blackness enveloped her…

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WHACK!

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"Ow!" Aisha moaned.

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"Oh, you're awake!" Someone said. "I didn't think that would work."

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Aisha tried to rub her eyes, or her head, but found that she couldn't move her arms, being stopped by some magical force-

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Oh. She was tied up.

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"You know, it's not everyday that someone breaks through the entire tower before I even see them." Her captor said, a middle-aged man with brown hair, shrouded in a long, heavy-looking cloak. "And then throws up on my floor and passes out."

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He motioned to a spot on the floor, where the stone flooring had melted away, the stench of acid wafting towards Aisha's nose. Aisha grimaced and turned her head away.

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"Now, I don't know what you eat, but… that's not natural. At least, I don't think. For fey."

"Who are you?" Aisha groaned.

"Well, miss adventurer, you should know that. I'm the 'necromancer.' "He said, making air quotes in an exaggerated manner. "My name is Marc."

"You don't think you're the necromancer?" Aisha asked, lolling her head to the side. "Why did you bind my neck?"

"Er, reasons." Marc muttered. "And they call me the necromancer, because they're afraid of me. It's a derogatory term. Like if I called you a dog."

"Okay…" Aisha said cautiously. "Then the zombies animated themselves?"

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Marc hung his head. "They're not zombies… They… aren't even supposed to exist."

"Wh-"

"Failed experiments." He muttered. "I didn't mean to make them."

"...They seem to walk around pretty undestroyed."

"Okay," Marc threw his hands up, exasperated. "I use them to protect myself. If I didn't have them, then they'd all have pitchforks and shovels, and MY body would be in one of those graves, pretty unanimated."

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He took one of many books from an organized shelf, opening it and turning to a page, dog eared.

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"That book says necromancy-"

"I KNOW IT SAYS NECROMANCY!" Marc shrieked. "I KNOW, OKAY!"

"..."

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Marc took a deep breath, releasing it in a frustrated fashion.

"Listen, okay." He said, turning to Aisha, revealing a… surprisingly normal face. "Those healers, in the capital, right? They can bring back people right from the brink of death!"

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Aisha nodded her head the best she could.

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"And those- those arcanists. They study, magic. Right? They try to… to break through… our, our current understanding of magic, and how it works, so that we can use it to help us."

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Aisha nodded again.

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"But when I try to save someone, who's gone slightly past that line- " He rambled. "Instead of being almost dead, they are dead- I study death, so that I can save and help people, and I'm labeled a freak, and kicked out of town!"

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Aisha… didn't know whether to nod or not, but she did anyways.

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"Do you see now?" He demanded. "I'm just trying to help people! Is that so wrong?"

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"It's unnatural." Aisha responded simply.

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"Tch." Marc scoffed. "Of course you would say that, damn dog. You don't think being able to grow back an entire arm is unnatural? You don't think… that being able to suck the blood back into your body is unnatural? Or being able to- to, I don't know, create fire?"

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"Those are things you're born with." Aisha said.

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Marc just exhaled upsetly and turned back to the book.

"The things I do, I also just do with the abilities I was born with. My brain, and my magic." He sighed. "People always say that it's unnatural, because, 'it doesn't feel right' or something. Where's the logic in that?"

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Aisha was silent, because… he was right, to a degree. But something in her gut, just…

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"Why are you actually doing all of this?" She asked.

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Marc stopped what he was doing, an uncomfortable silence falling over the room.

"... I don't know what you mean."

"If you wanted to help people, necromancy isn't really the first thing that jumps to mind."

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"You wouldn't get it." Marc muttered. "You're just a kid."

"Not just a kid." Aisha muttered back.

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He hesitated, before his eyes were drawn to the platinum adventuring plate in her pocket.

"You're… a platinum adventurer." He said, sighing.

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"You know what it's like to love someone?" He asked desperately. "And then have them ripped away from you?"

"...More than you know."

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"You do, don't you?" He said, looking into Aisha's eyes, allowing her to see the anguished look in her eyes. "Wouldn't you… wouldn't you do anything, literally anything, to get them back?

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"...Yeah."

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"EXACTLY!" He exclaimed, leaning on the side of the table Aisha was bound on. "So what's wrong with what I'm doing!?"

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"...What if they don't want to come back?"

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Aisha sensed that she shouldn't have said that, as Marc's eyes darkened, and his expression twisted into a sneer as he turned away.

"Should have known you'd say that." He snarled. "Everyone says that. As if they think they know what she would say."

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"HOW WOULD YOU KNOW WHAT SHE WOULD WANT!?" He demanded angrily. "I KNEW HER WHEN SHE WAS ALIVE! AND YET, EVERYONE KEEPS TELLING ME SHE WOULDN'T HAVE WANTED THIS! FUCK-"

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Marc shook his head violently, before taking a breath, steadying his temper, returning to his work.

"Whatever." He muttered. "I shouldn't even be talking to you. You're just a test subject."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I'm going to plant a soul in you." He explained, taking a jar from a cabinet, filled with similar jars with swirling, tormented souls. "I'm going to rip yours out, and then I'm going to put it in this runed jar. Then I'm going to put this one in. I forget who this was…"

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Aisha decided not to risk angering the man further by pointing out all the jars. For a second, she felt panic - he was going to rip out her soul, and put a new one in her! That would surely kill her!

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But that was right.

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"You know," Marc said, a bit insanely. "The soul is a fickle thing. Really fickle. You put it into a body that it doesn't like, and it starts to fight back at you. It's kind of like - you know, how your own magic can't hurt you, but another person's mana burns you - The soul burns the skin - it separates the flesh from bone, and the body begins to rot - So does the brain - for a second, they come back fine, but then they just start screaming, and soon, they lose the ability to feel pain, and then they lose the ability to form coherent sentences, as their brain rots - I've always wanted to experiment on twins, but those are kind of rare."

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He paused, as if hearing himself for the first time.

"Oh, but you'll turn out fine, I'm sure."

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"I'm afraid you're going to have a corpse, no matter what you do." Aisha said sarcastically.

"Hm? Why's that?" Marc demanded, curious. "I've never worked on a Fey before."

"I'm dying." Aisha said in a low voice. "So whatever you do, I'm going to die after, anyways."

"Why?" He demanded. "What's wrong with you?"

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He walked over and stripped Aisha's armor and clothing off meticulously, until he pulled down her scarf, his eyebrows arching.

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"Mist poisoning." He muttered. "Wow. I've never seen it like that. It's not a problem though. It should come out with your soul."

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Aisha barked out a laugh, the second disappointment she got to leverage over the necromancer. "I don't have one."

"Don't have what?"

"A soul." Aisha said, with a hint of bitterness. "I was born without one."

"That's stupid. You're not going to get out of this "

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Aisha didn't respond, simply looking downcast, as the reality of her situation hit her. There wasn't anything she could do about the mist poisoning. She was going to die. She didn't really care where.

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Marc narrowed his eyes as he unbuttoned the bottom buttons of Aisha's shirt, revealing her cute little tummy. He took out a black brush, and began to draw intricate glyphs over her stomach. After he finished, Aisha's stomach looked like she had a tattoo, and he put an empty runed jar next to her.

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He unscrewed the jar, and Aisha saw the light ever so slightly bend towards it, as it sucked the mana out of the room like a vacuum, although the physical air was unaffected. Marc raised his hand, glowing eerily purple, and put it on Aisha's stomach, and-

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Nothing.

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Marc tried again.

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"..."

"..."

"Looks like you weren't lying." He muttered, before his eyes light up in excitement.

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"But that means… Oh man!… that means- I have a rare specimen! A soulless girl! You have all the organs necessary to hold a human soul, but no soul yourself! Oh, Ifrit, I have to find a better soul for you - ah, the demon soul! I'll use that one! I was saving it for a special test subject, oh, I can't wait to see what will happen! It might even cure you, who knows what will happen!"

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"Oh man, I'm so… I got an early birthday gift!" Marc rambled on, oblivious. "I REALLY, REALLY hope you don't turn out like the rest, I have so many tests I want to run, I feel like you're the breakthrough I need to get further into my research-"

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Aisha couldn't help but stare with apathetic eyes as Marc washed away the glyphs on Aisha's stomach, replacing them with new ones, just as intricate, but also clearly much different. His arms trembled in excitement at the joy of having a new toy to play with.

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He took out a new jar, this time, one with a purple cloud within - it screamed in torment, as it wisped violently against its walls, purple smoky tendrils grasping desperately for the lid.

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Marc unscrewed the lid, and the ghostly wailing grew even clearer. It wasn't a particularly loud sound, but it sent shivers down Aisha's spine, the pure anger, torment, and despair the soul felt, expressed in a sound similar to a hume language, but… not.

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Marc took a liquid from a shelf, purple and bubbling angrily, and was about to drip a drop onto the completed glyph, but stopped himself right before he did.

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"Ah. Can't get ahead of yourself, Marc." He muttered to himself. "You have to make sure everything's… ready, before you do that. Remember the last time?"

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He set the jar aside, shaking his head as he took out a different stone. One that Aisha recognized.

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"...What are you doing?" She whispered, slightly fearfully, as she watched Marc put his hand on the stone.

"Well, it's a slave contract." He explained. "I gotta control my experiments somehow. Or else they just kind of wander off. Or attack me."

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He put his hand on Aisha's neck, but he hissed in pain as the stone burned bright red, flames bursting out. Mistress's flames. Aisha's eyes widened.

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"Damn… You already have an active contract? Could have told me that. Ouch."

"W-what are you going to do?" Aisha whispered, her fists clenching in her restraints. "With my contract?"

"Well, can't have two masters at once." Marc sighed. "I'm going to remove the one you've got right now."

"No!" Aisha yelled. "No, you can't do that!"

"You don't get to make the demands here." Marc said, eyes furrowing as he approached Aisha menacingly, right hand glowing with white energy.

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"STOP!" Aisha shrieked. "YOU CAN'T TOUCH THAT! YOU CAN'T TOUCH THAT! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"What's wrong with you? You were so cooperative until now. Ooooohhh… your master… did something happen to them? Well, sorry kid, but your time's probably going to come to an end soon anyways-"

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"DON'T TOUCH ME!" Aisha screamed, as she ripped through the leather restraints on her arms and legs, the feat of pure strength shocking Marc as Aisha shoved him into a cabinet head-first, knocking the necromancer out, and spilling broken jars all over the ground. The sound of freed, grateful souls echoed throughout the room, but Aisha didn't hear any of it, pure rage blinding and deafening her.

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"THAT CONTRACT IS MISTRESS'S!" She shrieked in rage, fists pummeling the unconscious necromancer, blows raining down on his head. "YOU DON'T GET TO TOUCH IT! IT'S MINE! IT'S- IT'S-"

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The rage left Aisha's eyes abruptly as she felt blood on her knuckles, and she realized… that she had killed the man.

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"Whatever." She muttered, about to leave, before she stopped herself in her tracks. Her eyes slowly drifting towards the necromancer's desk.

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(It might cure you.) He had said.

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Aisha stared at the vial of liquid on his desk, and then, at the finished glyph on her stomach.

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But also… he had never had a successful experiment. The corpses littering the bottom of the tower were proof of that.

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If she went through with this, she would definitely become like those shambling zombies, right? Destroyed. Not even a body to leave. Just a small little skeleton.

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But even still… if there was a single chance of living… Marc was right, she was special. She had never had a soul inside of her before. There was a chance her body wouldn't reject it.

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Aisha's arms trembled as she took the vial from the desk, staring at the bubbling liquid within, and then the writhing soul within the runed jar. It was strange. The jar's lid was open, but the soul didn't seem to be able to escape - or rather, it didn't seem to be trying. While usually it thrashed in its jar - all of them did - this time, it was… docile. Swaying slightly, as if inviting Aisha… to take it into her. In her time of reflection, Aisha didn't notice that the soul inside had changed color and turned larger.

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(...It's not like… mistress will ever see my body. Either I die for sure… Or… I take a chance.)

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Aisha laid down on the table, gripping the flask in her hand, almost tightly enough to shatter it. She was about to pour the vial on herself, but all of a sudden, she found that she couldn't move her arms, trembling as a chill fell through the room. Aisha could see ice start to sublimate on the vial, and whatever light that there was, streaming from outside the windows, or inside the room, went dark.

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Aisha trembled as she turned her head slowly, where she saw the shadow. This time, two glowing, red eyes stared at her, unblinking, inhuman.

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Chills went down her spine as a dark, terrifying voice spoke, barely a whisper, but Aisha heard every word.

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"Don't do it." It said, freezing Aisha in fear, every word hissing out slowly. "You are about to make a dangerous enemy."

"W-what are you?" Aisha shrieked fearfully.

"..."

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Aisha could barely move, the cold, and pure fear she felt sapping her strength. But she had just enough control for a single movement. She would defy the shadow - defy the reaper. Damn the consequences, her love for mistress would get her through anything!

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As the glyphs on Aisha's stomach burned bright purple, bright lines radiating throughout Aisha's body, her screams could be heard for miles.