A month after the joyful return of Ran to Arashi, suddenly all the protection magic for the academy malfunctioned, and magic attacks rained on the academy. Students were running in every direction for protection as well as in attempts to escape, while faculty members were desperately trying to fix the protection mechanism.
I stayed put on the top floor of the library. Above me were the chancellor’s office and the security rooms, where lots of teaching staff were trying to reactivate spells, and below me were the offices of sword instructors. I was fairly safe. I heard explosions, shouting, yelling, running, and even a faint cry of a baby amidst all the chaos.
After an hour, things quieted down outside, and I waited slightly longer. I didn’t leave the library until I heard people talking at normal speed and reasonable volume.
I had to talk to a few people to understand what happened during the last two hours.
The elders tried to intercede the attacks, with varying degrees of success. Arashi was able to swing her sword from the ground and cut apart the floating matrix that generated the attacks, which were bolts of elemental energy.
Just when the elders were about to breathe a sigh of relief, shadow figures appeared. The elders went out to meet the enemy, but the opponents were not engaging in battle, and soon the elders were dispersed, trying to catch the invaders. Sensing that something is wrong, Arashi went to check on the alchemy workshop of Hide’o, and found the place empty, with blood everywhere, and her husband nowhere to be found. Arashi got a feeling of what the enemy might be after, and rushed to the nursery that had been set up by the academy for her daughter. She saw students and service staff fight to the death to protect her daughter, and she saw shadow figures, very skilled assassins, trying to kidnap the child. Arashi tried to kill the assassins, but she could not inflict damage on the shadow figures, whereas their sharp claws caused Arashi’s clothes to be drenched in blood.
Arashi did not want her child to end up being captured by the enemy. Holding Ran tightly to her chest, Arashi dashed for the west cliff, and she leapt off. Right at that moment, the protection spells were fixed, and the shadow figures vanished.
I ran down the mountain to the foot of the cliff. It was difficult terrain, and quite a few members of the academy were in the middle of a search.
I joined them, and eventually I saw the brooch I had given Arashi on the ground. I looked up, and saw Arashi, with Ran well protected by her arms and hands, caught up between tree branches, unconscious.
We carried Arashi back. I think Akishi was holding on to Ran for a moment longer.
The next morning, Akishi informed me that the academy had decided for me to take Ran out of Kageyama, and hide in far away mountains. They would not tell me where to hide, and I had to decide for myself, but the idea was that when viewed from Himeyama, Kageyama and my hideout should be in a completely different direction.
Turned out the attacks were initiated by Himeyama. The chancellor’s best guess after the facts had come in, was that Himeyama wanted to capture Arashi’s entire family, probably to conduct research into Ran’s special case, and maybe to harness the power of auras for their own gain.
Akishi should not take on the task as she was related to Ran, and being the chancellor’s assistant, people knew her likeness, so Himeyama’s intelligence network could easily trace Akishi. They chose me because I had been staying in the library for the past many years, and I was not as noticeable as a mere evening cleaning person.
I agreed, and a special basket was made for me to bring the baby with me. It looked like a regular picnic hamper, but had alchemy material and magic spells in the construction process. Baby would sleep comfortably during the journey as if time froze, and magic barriers would block out the transfer of sound and smell in and out of the basket. If someone were to examine the contents, they would even see a mirage of half eaten sandwiches.
I took some money, food, clothes, and some books -- forbidden titles at my request -- and left Kageyama. I traveled toward Himeyama in a slightly off direction and found a suitable quiet valley in a very mountainous region of the land a month later.
I was not told when to return, but when I heard news about ‘Kageyama Town’s First Annual Fireworks Festival’, that would be my cue to return.
Now as I am writing in my journal, I wonder why Himeyama did not just take control of me and bring Ran to them. Maybe they needed both Arashi and Ran. Maybe they thought if they used Ran as a hostage, Arashi would charge at Himeyama and fight to her death instead of turning herself in. Or maybe Himeyama just thought the whole plan was unnecessary and they just did not bother. I guess I would never know.
I opened the hamper after settling in, and found Ran perfectly asleep, as if the month-long traveling did not even exist. One month was the maximum limit they could make time freeze with alchemy, and I used that time allotment to the maximum.
I took care of Ran, and bought a few goats for milk from a nearby town. I did not try to go to villages, which were nearer, as I worried that villagers would be alerted by a stranger in the region, and Himeyama could find my hideout as a result.
I made dolls for Ran with her small infant clothes as she grew up. Life was rather peaceful. I spent a lot of time reading as Ran played happily on the grass and on the moss. I think I got my breakthrough at getting ability in magic, but the price was great.
I could obtain magic by sacrificing my physical body. The more I sacrifice, the more chance of success. I could sacrifice my spirit for the magic to be powerful, and the more I sacrifice, the greater the strength. If I sacrifice my entire physical body and my entire spirit, I would be unstoppable and invincible for one certain attack, and would afterwards disappear from the world.
There was another catch: I needed to envision my own magic. I could not use any existing spells or matrices. My magic ability would only exist if I can imagine it into existence, something that this world had never seen.
Ran started learning to talk, and I tried to get her to tell me when she needed to go potty. Days passed in seemingly endless succession. I was happy.
Later that year, I went into town for my monthly shopping trip, and heard that the town by the foot of Kageyama was going to have a great fireworks festival. Regular craftsmen, alchemists, magicians were all invited to show their talents, and every town had posters advertising the event. Ran had turned two, and she would return to Arashi now.
We packed up and I tried to travel only during the night. Ran no longer fit in a hamper, besides I did not have another special hamper to use for my return trip. I had no talent in alchemy, and it would be impossible for me to correctly activate it for a return trip that would take place at an unknown time in the future.
After much difficulty, after people started going back to their own towns, talking excitedly about the fireworks they had seen, I managed to return to Kageyama.
I saw Arashi standing at the top of the mountain path. I waved to her, and she ran down the road. I was going to greet her, but she just took Ran out of my arms, gave me a letter, and dashed off, disappearing into the distance.
Quite confused, I stood there speechless for a short while, and eventually looked at the letter, and it was addressed to the chancellor.
I delivered the letter to the chancellor’s office and left. It was not until a week later that I found out about what had happened.
Arashi woke up from her coma about two months after the attack, and she immediately asked for the baby. To her great dismay, the school administration told her that the baby was being cared for in secrecy out of safety concerns, and she would not get a chance to see the baby until she recovered.
Arashi kept her anger inside and tried her best to regain her health. It was not until two years after the attack, that she could prove to the academy that she had regained all her strength. Arashi asked to be reunited with her daughter the very next minute after her demonstration of strength and ability, only to be told that the school did not have Ran’s location, either. They had to advertise a festival as a code for the baby to be brought back. Since then, Arashi had waited every day at the top of the path waiting for her separation from her child to end, and every evening she went back to her room fuming with rage and disappointment.
When the last day of the fireworks festival passed, Arashi wrote a letter condemning Kageyama for their inconsiderate plans and their self-righteousness, that she was not consulted before they finalized their plans. She was insulted by their “we did it for your own good” attitude, and she had severed all ties with the academy when the letter would be delivered to the chancellor. Arashi was no longer affiliated with Kageyama in any way.
An ultimatum arrived soon from Himeyama, demanding unconditional surrender. I guess after they heard about Arashi’s departure, they figured that Kageyama was already good as dead.
Everyone wrote to Arashi. Everyone put in little mementos from their days with her or included little stories of their memory of being with her. We all knew that Kageyama would be no more. We would put on a brave resistance that would not bring shame to the proud tradition of centuries, and we would die standing, as gallant warriors. Elders with their expertise in magic drew a matrix, and using Arashi’s belongings left in her room, they were able to get the matrix to transport the box of letters to where Arashi was.
I wrote a short note as well. I felt guilty since I was the one taking Ran away from Kageyama, and I spent almost two years with the cute baby girl when Arashi lived in agony. I apologized to Arashi for taking part in the rude offense against her, and I wished her a happy peaceful life with Ran.
Come to think of it, I did not hear anything about what happened to Hide’o. I still don’t know where he ended up.
The day of the attack came. Everyone fought bravely. However, the military strength of Himeyama was crushing down on Kageyama. The sheer multitude of soldiers in their troops was unbelievable.
I was in the library, with my last attempt at summoning magic. I really liked my days at Kageyama, and I was willing to die for it.
Our chancellor was the first in the formation, followed by the elders, then the instructors, and finally students and service staff. Some were fortunate to die in battle, but most of them were captured alive after being badly wounded.
I still had not succeeded in summoning magic, and was taken prisoner when Himeyama’s forces conducted a thorough search of the campus.
Then the Five appeared. Yukari pronounced that due to our failure to properly surrender, we were to be rightfully disciplined. Ryō’s eyes were glowing.
One by one, members of Kageyama were tortured to death at the hands of Ryō, who had taken along all her newly designed devices for this “leisure outing” of hers. We were all made to watch. Those who tried to look away from the unbearable sight were brought close to the scene, had their head forcibly held up, and their eyes fixed with spells so they could not close their eyelids.
Being the only one without previous injuries, Ryō saved me for the last, and she asked around for a wager to be made on how long I would be kept alive while being ‘played’ with.
I had all my nails pulled, all my bones broken into tiny pieces, one at a time, while Midori used her magic to keep me from losing consciousness. I think Ryō was just about to light my feet on fire when I saw Arashi appear; I guess she decided to come after all.
Suddenly, I felt that I could move again, and that might be a hallucination. However, I knew that for some reason, I would immediately succeed if I summoned magic by sacrificing my body.
I imagined a great sword of light and shadows, and chanted Lumen Hilare in my head. My body turned into tiny particles of light, and that light was like a cloud, without form. My spirit was freed from the torture device, and my consciousness resided with my spirit.
I imagined my left hand with thumb, index, and middle finger gathered into a single point, as a symbol of the divine trinity, and my right hand was held over it, forming the Chi-Rho hand gesture of the orthodox saints. And a singular sphere of light appeared between where I imagined my hands to be. The magic had successfully taken shape.
I imagined seeing this sphere becoming a ray of light, then I imagined swinging this ray to dot the sky with lights, and finally I imagined the ray and the dots all becoming swords of light and shadows.
I was successful in every step.
I offered my spirit as the price, and commanded the swords to rain on the Himeyama forces. It worked. Every single one of them was dead, including the Five.
I saw a hollow sphere that Ryō had that was hanging off her belt. It was made of golden thread and silver lace, and probably also rose gold feathers. It had something in it. It was dangling right in front of me as I was being tortured.
Anyhow, when swords of light and shadows pierced Ryō, one of the swords destroyed that decoration, and I had a sharp pain in my spirit being, as if some part of me had been annihilated. I guess she somehow took a fragment of my being and imprisoned it there, and now a part of me was gone forever.
After Himeyama forces were wiped out, I started to disappear, starting from the feet of my spirit body. I saw Arashi taking out a little doll, which looked familiar. I guess it was one of the dolls I made for Ran. Arashi tried to channel my consciousness into the doll. I thought she was successful, as then I was ‘looking’ at her through the eyes of the doll.
But then, I heard her say that it had failed. Somehow my soul was not complete, and she could not preserve my soul in the doll. So I guess Ryō somehow took a fragment of soul and trapped it in that hollow sphere, which had just been destroyed.
I saw Arashi slicing open time and space, and she sent me into it, and told me to live in a different world, where an incomplete soul can exist. And she wished me peace and happiness.
As I am writing this, I wonder why Arashi came for me. Maybe taking care of Ran as a single mother was very hard, and she thought of the two years that I had raised Ran by myself, without any support, and had to avoid raising suspicion from anyone.
Maybe she had the little doll with her so that she could give it to me, or maybe to bury it with my body. I really don’t know. Maybe she remembered the days when we watched clouds and sunsets on the west cliff, where she leapt off, or maybe she had read my apology and came to give the little doll to tell me that I was forgiven.
I guess I would never find out.
I finally woke up from the dream, and it was about an hour past midnight. I think I lived a total of fifteen years in that dream. It felt a bit surreal that it had only been three or four hours in real life. I was a bit shaken, distressed, and bewildered. I think I spent some time lying awake speechless before I fell asleep again.
As I am writing in my journal right now, I guess, well, who knows.
Maybe a portion of my soul is actually missing. I am never fully “there”. A portion of my consciousness has always been disengaged -- lost somewhere in outer space, as people would say.
Even in bed, I was never able to be fully present in the moment. I asked my spouse to try BD** stuff on me, in a desperate attempt, hoping to get me to be in the moment with the help of pain, but it had never worked.
So maybe that’s just because my soul is incomplete. Well, that explanation is as good as any.