Chapter 3 - Sunset for a Seer

The scouts briefed everyone on the architecture of Sting's outpost--the entrances and exits, the blind spots, the high towers to watch out for.

While waiting for a few stragglers to wrap up their personal business, I took out my main knife and turned it over in my hand. After Namikawa's father, the Commander, welcomed us into the resistance, I engraved "Sting" and "Mesmer" by the blunt side, a testament to my drive to kill them. Dramatic, I know.

Namikawa sent me off before the mission. That day was mostly a blur, I don't remember exactly what she told me, but it was something along the lines of "come back alive, Future Eyes," said in her usual dry tone.

And then we left.

.

The field commanders and their subgroups split off. We agreed on a basic strategy beforehand and they were more experienced in commanding a group than I was. I headed straight for Sting.

I had no problem tearing through his underlings room after room, to no end. I kept one alive long enough to ask him where the master key was.

"Thanks." I said, and dropped his limp head. Blood gushed from his throat and soaked the rug beneath.

I killed whoever got in my way, took the key, then killed some more. I smiled as I headed to Sting's office. Adrenaline coursed through me. I felt happy. My boots clicked through the wide hardwood hallway. Non-combatants scrambled out of my way. Those foolish enough to engage me were quickly cut down. Nothing could stop me.

I reached his office. An ornate plaque carved with "Sting" hung on the door. I slotted in the key. This is the moment I'd been waiting for. Once I paid back the suffering here, Mesmer would be next.

I slammed the door open and braced for combat. But the room was eerily silent.

The tension didn't leave my body. I scanned the room. Piles of documents covered the floor and the large desk in the back. A single candle with about an inch of wax left stood unlit amidst the clutter. I carefully circled around and glanced behind the table.

Sting lied beneath, motionless.

"He's already dead?" I murmured to myself and scoffed. "Killed himself out of fear? I'm almost flattered." I kicked him over. A fine white powder filled the air, leaving behind a sweet, metallic odor. He'd overdosed.

"Are you fucking kidding me?" I knelt by him, grabbed him by the neck and shook him. "I was supposed to- How dare you."

I brought my knife down on him with both hands. His chest burst with phlegm and blood. It splattered onto me as I blindly stabbed him again and again.

When I tasted iron on my lips, the cloud in my mind settled. Sting was unrecognizable now, more a garland of shredded intestines atop a mound of bloodied flesh than a proper corpse.

I sighed, exasperated, and neatly wiped the blood off my knife. I took my other and struck out his name.

It was a hollow feeling. I pitied the person I'd send to clean this place. On my way out, I struck his name out on the plaque as well.

"Take aim."

A frigid terror ran through my body. That unmistakable voice, saccharine yet commanding absolute obedience.

"Fire."

I turned to see her smirking down at me from the second balcony overlooking the hall as a hail of arrows killed me.

Time stopped. Memories of helplessness threatened to flood my consciousness again, but I swallowed them down. Be angry, I told myself, and I felt the heat consume me. I grabbed all the arrows and pulled them out at once, memorizing their path. When time resumed, I dodged them all and charged at Mesmer with my knives drawn.

"I can see the future and my victory because they are the same, you will lie dead at my feet!"

She had the audacity to laugh. "Our little viceroy rewinds on death. Shoot to maim."

My blood ran cold. She knew my true ability? I hadn't told anyone, not even Namikawa.

"How did you-"

"The Monarch knows everything!"

Mesmer leapt down, slicing at me with two blades of ice. I jumped back as she hit the ground with a quiet thud. I advanced and stabbed repeatedly at her neck and torso. She calmly stepped back and deflected. I didn't let up.

A rush ran through me, anticipating when my blade would bite flesh. My next strike would land. Her hand would not make it. But she merely extended her ice blade to defend. The arrows continued to fall.

It took me a few deaths to clear the rage. With time stopped, I observed the balcony overlooking the hall. About a dozen archers hid in the shadows. I could not win this fight. I had to escape. With the anger gone, fear returned. My hands would tremble if I did not grip the hilt so tightly.

Arrows whistled past my ears. My head was getting light. I wasn't moving as fast. My body wouldn't listen to me. I looked up for a brief moment and Mesmer took the offensive. She advanced, slicing again and again and again. Her blades changed length at will, a disorienting flurry of unpredictable blows. Cuts covered my body where arrows didn't.

I felt a desperation I didn't think I was capable of anymore. I glanced behind me. The door was so close, only a foot or two away. I stepped back. Mesmer smiled. I turned but my foot didn't move with me. She'd encased it in ice.

I fell and a sharp pain ran up my leg. Her cold blade severed every vein and artery in my neck and I died in a bloody spectacle.

My heart raced. I could feel the echo of it even in stopped time. My mind was in shambles. I was trapped. Trapped trapped trapped trapped trapped. Again. This was the same as before. I was at her mercy again.

Stop, get a hold of yourself. I forced myself to focus. I saw my blood sprayed on her pristine silver hair. I looked up. The archers hadn't fired. But why? Why hadn't they fired? Then I realized. Mesmer. She blocked their view. They couldn't well shoot their master could they?

There has to be a way out of this. But if there isn't, would I be trapped here forever? Forced to remain in stopped time, or else to die endlessly? No, there has to be something I can do. The door was so close. Once I got through, I'd step to the side. The archers couldn't hit me then.

I stared at my blood suspended in the air. Think. Think, even though that's Namikawa's field. I laughed soundlessly. If I didn't laugh I'd scream.

Right, Namikawa taught me the root of fire. Could I use it to break the ice? After that, if I dodged Mesmer, I'd be at the mercy of the archers. But if I don't, she... No, survive this first.

I closed my eyes. Everything was still, and every sensation was diluted. I focused on the heat. I felt it in the archers, in Mesmer, and in myself. But how do I manifest it? I cursed myself for not trying before. But the first mages learned to harness fire without spells or theory to guide them, maybe I could do the same.

I touched the ice on my feet and confirmed I couldn't break through with a knife. Even in this form, the cold of the ice touched my bones.

Then I understood. Heat naturally flows in and out of everything. When you touch a cool surface, the heat of your fingers leaves you. If I could magnify that sensation, could I make fire?

I pushed her blades back. My neck healed and time resumed. I didn't move, but channeled that feeling into my hands, drew the heat from my core into them. I died, but I persisted. The next time, a spark jumped between my fingers. I died again. Time resumed. I heard a crack and faint sizzle, like that of a match struck. A tiny flame danced on my index finger.

The next time I came back to life, heat burst forward from my hands and I melted all the ice within arms reach. She backed off, almost impressed, then shot ice daggers at me. I melted them too.

The door was so close.

Steam from where water met fire began to rise around me. I flicked on heat detection barely in time to dodge left as Mesmer cut through the steam. She replaced her blades with an ice glaive.

At every thrust of hers, I evaded and stepped closer to the door. She smiled briefly and swung in a wide arc. I jumped back, but a frigid wall knocked me into a daze. She blocked the exit! I winced as my ears rang and I looked up just to feel the glaive cut through both my eyes with a single stroke.

A clear blade slicing through the air, a violent burst of red, and Mesmer's haughty gaze were the last things I ever saw.

I know I died many times after, maybe even hundreds. Disoriented by the pain and sudden blindness, I hardly remember what happened. But somehow, fueled by all my chances to escape death, I blasted through the ice wall and escaped with my life.

Mesmer did not follow me through the door. She knew my allies outnumbered hers. I heard only the panicked voices of my comrades before I passed out.

...

3 days later, I woke up to darkness.

My entire body ached. I stretched my right hand, clenching and unclenching my fist. My fingers trailed over the thin cotton sheets and touched my face, feeling the gauze bandages wrapped around my eyes and the dried blood that flaked off at the ends.

...

The first time my ability activated, I thought I'd dreamt it up. When Namikawa and I broke out, we got tracked down and cornered, and without thinking, I threw myself in front of her. Bewildered, I pushed the blade away and evaded the thrust. We escaped in the end. For a long time, I didn't know if that was a delusion or not, a fever dream conjured by the mind of a desperate teenager. I was too afraid to test it. What if it had been a fluke and I killed myself trying to recreate a fantasy? But I didn't have to go out of my way to try. One day during a raid, I was killed. Time stopped, I could undo that killing blow and know to counter it the next time. I mastered its basic mechanics that day, chasing death to watch time stop at my whim.

I took for granted the ability to cheat death. Is there any greater arrogance than that?

...

The cloth door fluttered, and careful footsteps followed. I turned towards the sound.

"...How do you feel?" Namikawa asked.

"Fine. Will my eyes recover?"

She didn't respond at first. Probably shook her head, then remembered.

"Nishimori said it's unlikely."

"Oh."

She sat by me. She felt guilty, I think, and she didn't know how to express it to me.

I wracked my brain looking for a way to alleviate those feelings. It wasn't her fault, I fucked up on my own. The silence weighed on us both, so I started talking.

"Whenever I die, I rewind a few seconds, and when time resumes, I know how to avoid it. I can't actually see into the future." I heard her shift, but I couldn't imagine her expression. "When you first called me that dumbass nickname, and when the others started calling me 'Seer,' I didn't really know why I leaned into it. I think that, on some level, I wanted it. To know the future? I'd be unstoppable." I sighed. "It just made me overconfident."

"I did learn something though." I held up my hand and conjured a small flame. "Figured it out mid battle. Though in the future, I'd like to learn magic under better circumstances."

She chuckled. "Is my instruction any better?"

"Slightly." I closed my fist and extinguished the flame. "One more thing…"

I recalled that heat detection spell. I felt the heat of my limbs, the warmth up to my toes and fingertips, then I expanded that awareness to outside of my body.

"I was thinking, are there other spells like heat detection? If I stack them, maybe I could compensate for lacking sight."

She paused, then said. "Clever." She sounded genuinely a little impressed. Moreso because someone inexperienced in magic came up with it, I doubt I'm the first. "How detailed is your heat map?"

I had a decent outline of Namikawa, I could even make out her facial expression pretty clearly, but the furniture and walls were a mystery.

I looked around. Well, that's not a good way of describing it. I moved my head because that's what I was used to, but it was unnecessary. Changing the focus of where I detected heat was like changing what I thought about, but with a more spatial component, maybe more akin to picking out a sound to listen to through a mass of noise.

"Fuzzy. I need practice still."

Namikawa smirked, then crossed her arms behind her head and leaned back. "A shame you don't have an archmage, renowned scholar of every element, to teach you."

"Yeah, a real shame." We both snickered.

"Prepare for round two. I'll be back with some magic paper." She said, and vanished out the door.

.

Between writing mana formulas with astonishing speed and force feeding me utility spells from every element, Namikawa filled the air with magic theory.

"Learned magic is broadly categorized into elemental and corporeal. There are many elemental schools, and scholars are constantly arguing about what spell counts as what element, how many distinct schools there are, if they should be merged conceptually because they're just different expressions of the same root. Whatever, nobody fucking cares, all elemental magic is the same. It's just extending your sense of self into material and acting through them. Spells and formulae are just suggestions for how to do it."

I consumed spells for detecting air pressure and wind. They were mostly flavorless, faintly tasting of clean fabric, but felt like dandelion fuzz.

"Corporeal magic governs the mind and body, degrading or enhancing oneself or others. Unlike elemental spells, you develop these through cultivating your mind and body, understanding your personal medium, then generalizing the application. Since I'm not a spellsword or doctor, I only know the basics of body magic. Maybe you could get some use out of it. As for mind magic, I've done my fair share of research and honestly, I don't think it exists. Its effects could just as easily be explained by the placebo effect. By convincing yourself a ritual calms your fear, you calm your fear yourself. Even the mental link is just body magic, a complex stimulation of neurons. I'm not alone in this, in case you're wondering if I'm out of line. Of the scholars I've spoken to, about a third-"

I asked if my ability was either of those.

"No." She handed me a set of spells on seismic vibrations. "Researchers are still bickering about what to call magic like your Death Rewind ability, I personally like the term gift. Short and simple. Elemental and corporeal magics can be learned and passed on. You can write spells. You can teach techniques. But gifts can't be trained. They also seem to be randomly acquired. There's not enough research to say if they're unique or not yet. Most scholars agree that magic that can't be explained by elemental or corporeal schools do exist, though some conservative types are still skeptical about caster-only gifts existing. Ah, that's gifts that only the caster is aware of, like yours. Outside of academia, gifts are still considered a fantasy."

Earth spells tasted like rich, savory mushrooms, but with the dirt still on the stems. My mouth felt dry afterwards. I asked how she learned all this.

She paused and smiled, every word coming from her sardonic to the core. "She wanted me knowledgeable. The library had a lot of great books. I didn't get to learn much about gifts though, both because of its novelty in magic research and because its unpredictability grants it limited combat use, at least compared to learned magics. Better to spend that effort honing destructive spells to incinerate hundreds of enemies than delving into the theory behind magic you can't learn at will."

.

Namikawa told me it was evening and stopped. I sighed in relief, the last gauntlet of water spells left me with brain freeze.

"Kazunari."

"Mn?"

"Do you intend to continue?"

She spoke almost apprehensively, very level and considered. She didn't mean learning magic did she.

"Of course."

"Behind Sting was Mesmer, behind Mesmer is the Monarch, and the Monarch has an entire syndicate behind him. Are you afraid?"

"...I am. But I know I'll win. Even without true future sight."

Her face remained dispassionate as she contemplated my response. Then she smiled, sincere in one moment and sarcastic in the next. Namikawa was back.

"Nishimori will help you with physical therapy starting tomorrow." She said. "Get well soon and practice your spells. I'll cover for you until then."

...

Namikawa couldn't remove her own crest for a long time.

"I'll leave all the magic programming out of it, but if you think of the slave spell as a tapestry, when you think of what motivates you, the core thread is easy to find, and that helps me unravel the rest of it."

"So you can't undo yours because you're unmotivated?"

"The crudeness of my deactivation spell doesn't help, but yes."

"Then get motivated!"

"It's not that easy."

I knew that, and I sighed. "How did you develop this spell if you're supposedly unmotivated?"

"Intellectual curiosity." I raised my eyebrows at her. "The scale is different though. The core thread is more of… a drive to live. You have your revenge, I'm just trying not to die. Make sense?"

"Barely. Isn't trying to survive a strong motivation?"

"Yes, but survival is avoiding death, not pursuing life. It's different."

"How?"

She groaned, and we went in circles for a while longer.

.

We broke out half a day after Mesmer left on a trip. A kind old man slipped us the key he copied during a lifetime of imprisonment.

"It's too late for me, but promise me you'll free the young ones one day."

"We'll free everyone."

But before we even saw the syndicate border, the catchers cornered us in a cave. Namikawa's combat magic was still sealed, and I couldn't fight them all off. I died once. My memories are hazy from then on, the blood loss and the terror of being dragged back got to me, but something in Namikawa clicked. She spoke to herself in magic terminology, and I felt heat emanate from her in the rhythm of a beating heart.

Next thing I know, the ground opened up beneath our pursuers. She pulled me off the cliffside and fashioned a raft from ice on our way down. We hit the ocean with a splash.

Her hands trembled but she quietly laughed to herself. Her seal was black. "It's good to be free."

"What will you do now?" I barely managed.

"First, we find my dad. We have a promise to fulfill."

...

Once I recovered, we planned the inevitable raid on Mesmer's base. Namikawa stood by me the entire time.

The morning of the raid, after the briefing adjourned, we were alone in the war tent. She changed into armor as I did.

"Are you fighting too?"

She nodded.

"Out of guilt?"

Hesitation. "No."

I turned and looked at her, force of habit. "I'm glad you're coming along, but you don't owe me this."

"I kind of do. You're giving everything you have. Hito- er, Nishimori is devoting herself to the cause. Even my father..." She picked up her catalyst, wrapping the excess silver link chain around her wrist. "Everyone in the hospital, and the morgue too. I guess you're all rubbing off on me."

"What, our sense of justice?"

"Don't talk to me about justice, you revenge boy." We both snickered. "In a sense, yeah. Try as I might to avoid conflict, I can't rest if you're all fighting."

I ran a thumb over the engraving on my blade, Mesmer. Once she's dead, I'll be free.

We arrived at dawn.