by DB King
I never should’ve accepted that liaison quest, he thought. The Elders knew he hated the very idea of even stepping foot in Moyatani and yet they chose him anyway, because he possessed the most versatile ability in their tribe—or, at least, that’s what they told him.
And Shinji hated it.
He hated every single moment he spent in this blasted land of savage brutes and sword-loving warriors, who lived only to fight and feast. Shinji didn’t want to fight, but everyone in this country seemed to leap at the chance. Sure, he’d killed before and would likely do so again, but he’d honestly prefer not to do that if he could avoid it.
And so, when the mostly naked ten-year-old drew a strange crimson blade, Shinji’s only response was to sigh.
“And?” Jin asked. “Would you like to hear about it?”
Shinji didn’t have a weapon. He never really needed one, even in the toughest of battles.
He raised both hands up and closed his eyes. Moyatani warriors would never attack an unarmed person whose eyes were not even open. This child—or this monster that was pretending to be a child—likely followed at least some of the known Moyatani virtues. It was risky, but Shinji faced enough bushi to know he wouldn’t be attacked.
“There is no need for violence, Murasaki Jin,” he said. “I only came here to talk and learn, and I will be off.”
Even at a glance, Shinji knew immediately how powerful this ‘child’ truly was. He’d toured the whole of the Imperial Academy and met everyone worth meeting. Among the students, only a few of them would even come close to this thing. And only one could be considered its equal in terms of raw power—a student, who was fifteen years older. And this is where the anomaly originates. How does a ten-year-old child possess such massive volumes of magic? he wondered. Even the senior students aren’t anywhere close to this magnitude of power.
He had to be careful. Shinji had no doubt he could take on this monster, while it hadn’t had a chance to fully explore the true depths of magic and thus become the titan it was meant to be. Though his magic was weaker than Jin’s, the versatility of his powers should allow him an easy victory if it ever came to it.
“I do not want for us to come to blows,” Shinji said.
Murasaki Jin was visibly on edge. If Shinji had to guess, the boy was likely agitated by the flaring of Shinji’s own magical energies, which were anathema to Jin’s own. The magic of the Varnu people did not originate from within. Instead, they gathered magic from the air, from the earth, from the water, from everywhere. Hence, their magic was always flaring around them, responding to their emotions and generally being a nuisance when dealing with Moyatani mages, who perceived such magical activity as an act of aggression. Unfortunately, Shinji did not have the time to explain the differences in their magical sources and simply maintained his arms in the fashion of surrender.
“Yes, my uncle has informed me of your intent to ask questions regarding the Wendigo,” Jin said. The boy’s grip over the handle of his blood-red sword seemed to tighten. Shinji had to deescalate the situation, otherwise everything would end in blood. After all, even if this Murasaki Jin was possessed of a monstrous strength, that didn’t mean he was inherently evil or destructive. Sure, he had the typical Moyatani penchant for violence, but that was a sin of his culture, not his own. Shinji wanted so desperately to give the child the benefit of the doubt and just forget about that dark and terrible titan in his vision.
Was Murasaki Jin truly a monster or was he just a child who just so happened to contain monstrous powers? Shinji had to know. His powers would definitely give him the answer to his question, but he had to get close enough to do anything. A handshake would suffice. For now, the most important thing was the de-escalation of tensions.
“I—” Shinji began, but Jin cut him off before he could continue talking.
“Just so you’re aware, I didn’t actually defeat or even scratch the Wendigo,” the boy explained. Murasaki Jin’s tone was neutral, conveying no aggression, but plenty of suspicion and curiosity.
For a moment, Shinji wondered why the ten-year-old’s tone and manner of speech reminded him so much of his grandfather, but he quickly discarded the thought. He detected no age-defying illusion or some strange flesh-altering magic at work. Murasaki Jin was not lying about his age and was most definitely just an abnormally powerful child and not an arch-mage in hiding.
Murasaki… where have I heard that family name before? Shinji didn’t fancy himself to be up to date with all the happenings in the continent, but he’d definitely heard that family name mentioned several years ago in the Imperial Court, when he first arrived in the capital of Moyatani for the liaison quest. One of the messengers might’ve declared something and the name was mentioned, but—try as he might—Shinji just couldn’t remember.
Jin continued. “I wouldn’t even call it an actual fight, really. Think of a toddler, who’s picked a fight with a fully armed and fully armored warrior—that’s exactly what happened. I wailed at the Wendigo with everything I had until I’d exhausted nearly all of my magical energies and it just stood there and ate everything without taking any damage.”
Shinji nodded. This was making a lot more sense than what the townsfolk had told him. According to them, Jin had heroically defeated the Wendigo after an epic battle that leveled an entire section of the forest, leaving nothing but the burnt out husks of redwood trees and ashes. He’d then returned victorious, the Wendigo forever vanquished.
He leaned forward, but maintained a respectful distance as Jin’s grip over his blade was yet to loosen. Shinji stayed back and kept his arms up. He couldn’t, however, control the very unsubtle flaring of his magical energies. It was probably the only drawback to Varnu magic. Every single person with even the slightest hint of magical talent could immediately spot them, even the untrained. “So, how come Hirata is still standing if you weren’t able to defeat the Wendigo?”
Jin shrugged. “Something else came and did my work for me. I don’t know what it was or what it wanted, but it blasted the Wendigo away and the overgrown ghoul never came back afterward. However, I am certain it’s still skulking around somewhere, just out of sight and out of human attention.”
Shinji nodded. Now, the story made complete sense. While definitely rare and mostly undocumented, it wasn’t entirely outside the realm of possibility for two very powerful Magical Beasts to fight each other for their own reasons. However, the only thing that could stand up to a mythical-class deviant-type was another one of the same likeness, which meant Murasaki Jin had been in the presence of two of those things having a feud, which either made him the luckiest or unluckiest mage to ever exist as most mages could go about their whole lives and never even encounter a single deviant-type. And Murasaki Jin just happened to be in the middle of some possible territorial dispute between two incredibly powerful creatures.
“So, I guess that explains the anomaly,” Shinji remarked. Two incredibly powerful deviants in one area with this monstrously talented child in the middle of them was bound to create a locus of unfathomable energies that even the old coots in the Imperial Academy would be capable of detecting. However, what they’d felt was likely just the fallout of a rather spectacular battle of some kind. “You’re a very unlucky person, Murasaki Jin.”
Shinji smiled and raised an arm toward the boy. It was a gesture that was meant for adults and nobles, but something about the child made him seem much older than what his age would have dictated. With a slow and shallow nod, Jin extended his own arm forward and grasped tightly at Shinji’s forearm.
Yeah, he’s probably just very unlucky… Shinji noted the tiredness and the weariness that seemed to weigh heavily in Murasaki Jin’s eyes. Looking closer, Shinji noted how the boy’s distant look seemed out of place for someone of his age, whose faces were usually full of life and joy and mirth, even the other student mages of the same age group as Jin were still possessed of their innocence and joviality. Murasaki Jin, however, just seemed like a weary soul, stuck
in the muck of his own existence, doomed to walk upon the world for eternity.
And then something flashed in Shinji’s mind’s eye, and the world shifted around him.
Lord Arima’s manor disappeared and all around him was suddenly a sea of endless black rocks and crags. The sky was gray and rained ashes upon the blackened earth. The soil was barren and powdery. Great gusts of steam and plumes of smoke belched out of great furrows, where fiery hot magma flowed. Shinji eyed his surroundings and immediately realized a single, glaring fact: this place wasn’t anywhere in Moyatani. There were no active volcanoes or volcanic regions anywhere in the country.
This vision is a lot more solid than usual, Shinji noted idly as he began walking around, literally walking circles around the spot he’d landed in. The ground felt solid and real, though it felt muted somewhat, as though he was feeling only the ghosts of the land itself. Whatever the case, this was probably the first vision he’d experienced where he could physically interact with the thing around him. He couldn’t even move in all the other visions. He was just the spectator, watching everything unfold—past, present, and future.
Shinji knelt down and ran his fingers across the ground, feeling every single one of the pebbles and stones and sand. It was all solid. “This is… interesting.”
And so, having nothing to do, Shinji began walking in a single direction. Magical senses didn’t work here and neither did his future vision. Then again, he was already in a vision of sorts and so it made sense that none of his powers were functioning here. It actually felt sort of liberating to not see the future of every little thing he touched with his hands. Though, Shinji would have preferred to walk around in a place where trees and grasses grew aplenty, and snow fell from the sky in place of ashes. “What are you trying to show me?”
Shinji’s power came from the sky, from one of the spirits of sight—fore, hind, and current. All of them worked in conjunction with his powers to bring about these visions. Though they never responded, Shinji often found it calming to speak to the spirits as though they were there, watching him as they watched over his people in the far north of Moyatani. “What is this place? Why are you showing me this place?”
The spirits, as per the usual, didn’t bother giving him an answer. And so, Shinji continued walking.
There was nothing especially notable about the place, save for the fact that there was clear volcanic activity despite the lack of an actual volcano. The great cracks and furrows upon the earth and the strange shapes around them seemed to indicate some kind of massive fight between two incredibly powerful entities that leveled the landscape itself. If he had to guess, this was very likely the result of a battle between two mythical-class deviant-type Magical Beasts—it was the only plausible explanation. Mages, even the ones who had specialized in destruction magic, couldn’t possibly alter the landscape this much. Then again, a war between groups of mages might do just that…
He saw a large hill in the distance, surrounded by bubbling lava and flanked by massive crags. Shinji approached the hill and climbed atop it. When he reached the top, the Varnu’s jaw dropped.
A great structure of some kind, taller and grander than anything he’d ever seen before, loomed in the distance. Its walls were made of black stone, and its towers stretched far beyond the clouds. And yet a singular spire at the center of the structure seemed to reach even further, piercing the heavens themselves. It definitely wasn’t of Moyatani design. The architecture was a thousand times more advanced than anything the Engineer’s Guild could possibly concoct.
“By the ancestral spirits, where am I?” What sort of power could even build such a structure? There had to be some kind of magic involved in order to create something of that magnitude, otherwise the rocks would just crush themselves with all the excess weight. Unfortunately, Shinji simply couldn’t use his powers and neither could he feel anything other than the strange muteness that accompanied all his visions.
“I guess the spirits want me to go there?” After all, it was the most obvious structure in the whole place. Every other direction was the same, endless blackened lands, filled with boiling magma and great furrows. Shinji walked toward the terrifyingly large structure.
Was it a castle? It could probably be called that. And yet the castles he’d seen all over Moyatani were each hardly larger than a single one of the many towers that comprised the overall structure. In fact, the whole thing was probably large enough for the whole capital to fit in rather comfortably. It had to be built with magic. There was no way something that huge could stand on its own. The structure defied natural law.
Shinji continued until he reached the castle. When he did, he quickly noted how the front half of it was mostly melted. The ruined structures showed signs of having once been reduced to slag, but were now mostly just blackened slabs of rocks.
Whatever happened here might have begun from the inside of the castle. After all, the spirits couldn’t possibly have brought him here just to see the outside of it. There had to be something of note within. And so Shinji followed the trail of half-melted debris. A great furrow led him directly into the base of the castle, where his eyes finally laid upon the first of many mysteries.
There were people here, but they seemed to be frozen in time. They wore strange clothes and had foreign features, even their hair colors were bizarre, ranging from gold to red and brown. Shinji had never seen such people before. They were panicking. Their faces showed much fear and confusion. Where are all the guards? Shinji wondered. If the castle was attacked by something, there should have been some kind of armed response.
There were children here, he noted idly. None of them appeared to be aware of what was happening.
Shinji turned and saw a flight of stairs. He followed its steps upward and walked for a whole minute until he reached a room, where the floor appeared to be mostly melted. There was a figure there—a woman. She was definitely a powerful warrior of some kind. Her armor was thick and covered in searing hot flames that burned everything around her. She was tall too, much taller than the tallest Moyatani he’d ever seen.
And yet a huge gash ran down her left shoulder all the way down her right hip. Her entrails looked just about ready to fall out of her. Shinji knelt down. Who is this woman?
Most of her face was covered in the same crimson armor that belched out crimson flames. The only thing he could see was her eyes. They were gold, twin orbs that shined like the sun.
He reached out to touch her. But when the tips of his fingers reached her armor, she moved. The woman released a searing hot raspy breath that melted more of the floor. She looked at him with weary eyes.
Shinji leapt backward, eyes wide. “What? This isn’t possible! Who are you?”
“Yav… Yavira…” She clutched at her wounds, but she was losing too much blood. Shinji was no doctor, but even he knew that she was going to die no matter what happened. Her wounds were simply too great. “I am… the Burning Queen. What has happened to the Mage-Emperor?”
Chapter 12
The foreigner’s eyes went blank for the briefest of moments. His irises disappeared, replaced by murky jade pools. Magic flooded out of his body in droves. And yet the energies were calm and cool, quite unlike the magic Jin had felt in himself or in others. It was foreign and different—unique. Then again, the foreigner did not possess any Moyatani features. It must have followed that his magic was also fundamentally different. Is this what the Wendigo was talking about when it said I was yet to even breach the surface of understanding the depths of magic in this new world? he wondered.
How did the foreigner’s magic work? What made it fundamentally different? The man didn’t seem to possess any sort of tattoo on his body, though he did wear thick clothes and any tattoos might have just been concealed. But surely Jin would have sensed their presence. And yet why did his magic feel different? Why did it feel peaceful and free? The aura that emanated from the man almost reminded Jin of a gentle breeze from a lush and wild region, where the anim
als roamed free and the trees grew tall and strong. The magic that flooded out of the foreigner was wild and untamed, and yet it wasn’t aggressive or violent. It just was.
The whole thing took less than a hundredth of a second, and the foreigner’s eyes returned to their previous hue. And then the man’s face twisted as though a thousand different thoughts had just been hammered into his head at once. Jin’s grip over Agito’s handle loosened as the foreigner took a single step back and promptly fell on his bottom, eyes wide open.
“Are you… alright?” Jin asked, genuinely curious.
Whatever happened to the foreign mage was definitely magic-related. The fact that the man’s aura had greatly fluctuated in such a small amount of time was a testament to that. Were his powers at work here? The foreign mage saw something that shook him to his core. His face was eerily similar to the faces of teenage warriors who’d just had their first taste of battle and were seriously reassessing their capabilities. Jin raised an eyebrow and took a single step forward toward the downed mage, whose eyes seemed to be looking into an entirely different world.
But then the foreigner blinked and shook his head—before screaming like a frightened chicken and leaping up to his feet. His eyes bulged red with thin veins, and his breath quickened. The foreign mage’s chest visibly expanded and contracted underneath his thick clothes, and large beads of sweat rolled down from his forehead, despite the cold winds that flew into the manor. The man raised a shaky hand and pointed an accusing finger at Jin. “What the hell are you?!”
Jin raised an eyebrow and pointed at himself with his free hand. “I’m… a…” He paused and thought a little deeper. “Huh, that’s a surprisingly difficult question to answer. Can you give me a week to think it over? I mean, what are we—really?”
“Shut up!” The foreign mage shook his head and screamed, “Who was that woman?! She was bleeding and dying on the floor! Everywhere I saw only blackened rocks and smoldering ruins! What was that place?!”